Finishing Things is Hard Y'all

Last day of June- the sweater is still not done.  I added two rows to the neck and opted to 3 needle bind off the thing.  The ends on the seems are all woven in- I just need to sew in the neck and sew in the buttons... which have arrived.  I will get there people- I SWEAR.

Also arriving with the buttons was some yarn I ordered.  (oops)  I just can't resist the self striping yarn, especially from Knitpicks.  I also threw in some interesting white for a pair of socks I've been planning to knit, for, like, EVER.  Those will hopefully be on the needles soon.

The Kai Mai socks were moving along quite fabulously....

.... until I hit a snag.  No, not an error or something that I have to spend time fixing.  I was at the MiL's the other day and looking through her copy of "60 Quick Baby Knits" and was inspired.  I dropped everything I was working on and cast on this project.  

It's going to be a damn cute sheep hat- knit with the leftovers from Parker's blanket.  I can't explain what came over me, I was absolutely compelled to knit it.  I dropped everything, including my Hexi Thursday plans and knit this hat.  I made good progress too- in fact I've finished knitting all of the parts and woven in the respective ends but I just can't bring myself to spend the time seaming everything in.

WHY DO I HATE FINISHING THINGS!?  I'm so close.  Again.  And just can't get over the "finished hump".  What I really need is something who hates knitting the items but LOVES sewing things together.  We'd make a great team.  Hoping to get some finished things on this blog soon- but it is nice to feel like I have some freedom to pick up and knit these fun distractions.

For those of you taking in the Stampede next week you can see some of my knitting projects in person.  Both Baby Dots and the Nebula socks (back in the good old days when I finished things !!) are trying for a ribbon in the Western Showcase.  Wish me luck!

Sexy Hexi Thursdays

Those of you who get tired of "Ravelry bandwagons" (wherein it seems like everyone is making a certain project on Ravelry)  may want to look away because Mother in Law and I have embarked on a project.  Yes- we're making Hexipuffs for the Beekeeper's quilt with our leftover sock yarns.

We've agreed on a few modifications to the pattern; we will not be stuffing our little hexigons because while the "puff" is cute, it's maybe not super practical for storage.  We also went down a few needle sizes to get a more "firm" fabric.  We're going to need approximately 9 bajillion of these for our project- so there is no completion timeline... in fact 3 years from now I may still be knitting Hexi's.  BUT- in order to at least make some weekly progress I have designated Thursdays as "Sexy Hexi" day- and I will only knit with my leftover sock yarns.  Not to worry I have a lot of leftovers (and it's been fun to go back and revisit sock yarns that I enjoyed knitting) and quite frankly some full skeins of sock yarn that I may donate to the cause.

And one little leftover ball seems to produce quite a few little sections!  Leftover sock yarn from the Maelstrom socks.  This is only from one sock!  Seven Hexi's.... I will be getting a tonne out of my leftovers!

Lest you worry that this blog will become all "hexi" all the time, I am making some headway on other projects too.  Remember when I said I would seam the sweater?  I DID!  (OMG!) I downloaded the great Knitting Help app which helped me clean up my seams.

(Ooo so..... um.... seamy!)

The seam isn't entirely invisible, but it's neat and I suppose that's all I can ask for.

(I clearly missed my calling as a hand model... haha)

All that remains is grafting (*hiss*) the neck and seaming that together and the buttons... which are still in transit.  Grafting and I aren't especially friendly fellows... so I'm again, feeling a little gun shy on the project but I'm hoping to fortify myself with some courage and get this puppy done!  Nothing says START OF SUMMER quite like finishing a giant alpaca/wool sweater.  Haha.

And the Kai Mei socks are plugging along quite lovely.  This is one of those socks that will most certainly benefit from a little blocking- so use your imagination that these look pretty good!

Okay- need to get back to my Hexi's... until next week!

Distracted Chicken

So yup- still no sweater progress as far as seams go... BUT- I have viewed a few videos online and feel like I could make another attempt at seaming.  Who knows... maybe even AFTER this blog post I might be motivated?

It's just easy to be afraid of seaming and the sweater when I'm excited about completing a few things and beginning others.  (Hence the title- distracted chicken.)

Those easy-peasy ribbed socks are off the needles!

Pattern: Sock Recipe, A Good Plain Sock by Stephanie Pearl McPhee (I adapted this pattern for a ribbed calf and foot- but all instructions were essentially the same.)
Yarn: ONline Super Socke in Cotton Beach Color colorway 941.  (The last of my super self-striping deal of the very first Boxing day yarn deals!)
Needles: 2.25 mm  (Did you see what I did there?!  I used the Millimeter size, I'm growing as a person/Canadian!)
Thoughts: I love a simple sock.  I really do.  I also love self striping yarn because it does all the work for you and there's a certain joy in watching the stripes occur as they should every time.  The one thing I do, because I'm pretty anal retentive about even stripes, is that after turning the heel, I cut the yarn and join when the leg left off when I pick up the stitches on the foot.  I hate when the flow gets all messed up from the heel, so I like to stay pretty close to the pattern that was on the leg.

I'm also pretty happy that once again, the stripes line up pretty spectacularly.

I also finished a teeny tiny baby hat that I started last summer with some left over Knitpicks felici.



Pattern: Easy Peasy Newborn Sock Hat by Keri McKiernan
Yarn: Knitpicks Felici leftover in the Rainbow colorway
Needles: 3 mm (I DID IT AGAIN... OMG!)
Thoughts: This was a great way to use up a couple of leftovers.  I see a few sock yarn newborn hats in my future!

Spurred on by my success over completing items that needed completing, (and in the spirit of ignoring the sweater), I also cast on something I have been dying to knit.  The Kai-Mei sock by the infamous Cookie A in none other than Wollmeise.  I'm sorry, I just couldn't help myself!  (Also- an aside here but I don't want to be one of those people who horde the Wollmeise but never knit with it.  If I'm going to BUY the yarn, I better knit with it.  I have never understood why people buy BOATLOADS of Wollmeise, snapping it up from other knitters who just want one skein and then proudly display their enormous Wollmeise stash but never have an actual project they knit with it.  If you're going to BUY IT... USE IT.  <---- I will get off my soapbox now*.)

And so here we are, me feeling pretty conflicted.  Knit the sock with the fun pattern and delicious yarn or slog through the scary seaming?  I think you know what's going to happen here...

* I recognize that this yarn sat in my stash for a long time before it got used... so I own up that I'm one of those people... but I'm going for personal growth and STASH DOWN here.

I'm a Coward

So we've hit the preverbial "snag" in the seaming process of the Fireside sweater.  I was actually pretty pleased how nicely the sleeves set in to the sweater and was patting myself on the back quite profusely for leaving the stitches live to do the shoulder in 3 needle bind off because it looks so smartly done.  The sweater was moving along as it was supposed to.

Then it came time to begin seaming up the sides when the "snag" hit.  You see, I've only ever seamed up sweaters that have been knit in stocking stitch.  I have never seamed up sweaters done in reverse stocking stitch.  "Okay", I thought to myself, "this is just an opportunity to learn something new".  Except I'm really REALLY awful at learning new things... especially if there's no one there to show me.  I pulled out the Vogue Knitting book and looked at the picture and said "self you can do this".

Clearly I lied to this "self" person.  Quelle Horror!  This seam looks horrific.  (What also kills me is that I kept going despite seeing very early on that this was a DISASTER and needed to be pulled out.)

Instead of researching various videos that show me how to do this- I do what I tend to do when a particular item confounds me- I ignore it.  Or, I let it "marinate".  And so the sweater has been languishing in this "marinating" state while I pretend that I'm not kind of intimidated by seaming up reverse stocking stitch (and WHY IN THE HECK DIDN'T I JUST KNIT THIS IN ONE PIECE UNTIL THE SLEEVES!?) and I'm not sure when I'm going to have guts to try it.

The only minor upside here is that I'm happily in denial knitting on the simple ribbed sock and those will be done soon.

I'm not quite sure where to go from here.  It seems utterly stupid to get this far on a project and then cop out.  This sweater has been knit by 500 people on Ravelry and they have all managed to figure this out.  Why am I letting a little intimidation stop me?

It doesn't help that I'm also distracted by other socks- seeing as it is June and I had planned on allowing myself to begin "THE SUMMER OF SOCK KNITTING".  I've got the pattern and the yarn ready to dive into the next project- but I won't ENJOY it knowing that I have this sweater so close to finish waiting for me to, pardon the phrase, "grow a pair".

So- I need a glass of wine and knitting guru to guide me through this.  Know any guru's who have tackled this particular "Mount Everest" and if they have laid out a plainly written, with many photos and or videos to guide the exceptionally cowardice on this particular subject?