Hitting the Wall

Guys I just hit the perverbial wall.  It couldn't have happened at a worse time.

You know, "THE WALL", right?  The wall is where you wake up one morning and you're like "ugh- I cannot do this anymore".  I'm just done with everything I'm working on and I don't want to knit anything it if means knitting on those items again.  The problem with THE WALL is that I don't even want to start something new- I just want to stop. all. of. it.  I don't want to knit ANYTHING.  (*gasps* *clutches pearls in horror*)

The circular blanket is off the needles.  Tah DAH.

(Oh hai!  I need blocking!)

There were some tense moments, I won't lie.  I ordered a 3rd "safety skein" just to be on the safe side and just as I was casting off- I did need to knit into that 3rd ball.  It was so close- I just barely had to use anything from that 3rd ball- but I did.

(You can see how close I came- so few stitches left to cast off- and yet I had to nip into that ball!)

I'm so glad I wove in the ends when I did because the minute this came off the needles- THE WALL slammed me in the face.  All that needs to be done is blocking.  And I just can't bring myself to do it.  It doesn't help that the baby this was intended for turned out to be a boy, and all of sudden I'm second guessing this as the right gift.  I worry it might be too feminine.  I had always intended this as an heirloom type of project, but suddenly I have cold feet about giving it to the little boy.  I still have the Welsh Blanket and I'm thinking about giving that to him instead.

Part of me wonders if I am secretly hanging on to this blanket because I want to put it in the Stampede.  Part of me wonders if I'm making up excuses to not gift it to save it for that.  The other part of me DOES wonder if it's too feminine and to go with something else.  THE WALL is clouding all of my judgement.  So, instead of making ANY decisions and moving forward I haven't done anything with it.  The damn WALL is a real killer guys.

THE WALL is also killing me on the mystery Stampede project.  I procured better, squishier yarn and cast on again- I knit about 25 rows and ripped it out and went down a needle size.  Rinse, lather, repeat.  I have just restarted this project again (3rd time!), on even smaller needles and already I've hit an issue today.  After doing everything I could think of to NOT knit, I finally sat down to knit only to get about 6 rows in and realize I'd made a mistake.

(Do yah see it?!)

Immediately THE WALL was like "put it away- go do something else... [EXPLETIVE] [EXPLETIVE] [EXPLETIVE] knitting is such a crappy frustrating hobby just WALK AWAY FROM IT ALL."  I literally forced myself to rip out to the error and at AT LEAST knit back to where I had started that day.  It's not much- but at least I can sit down and plow forward whenever the mood strikes... IF it strikes at all.

The thing is- I don't want to do it.  I don't want to work on this.  I'm not sure if I've just over-thought this to death and beat the dead horse 6 feet into the ground and now I'm just tired of the whole thing or what- but my enthusiasm is gone.  Stupid Wall.

As I've mentioned this couldn't have happened at a worse time.  My goal was to have everything COMPLETED and entered by June 1.  The absolute latest I have is until June 19 to enter and June 25th is the take in day.  And for whatever STUPID REASON I tell myself there's plenty of time to stall.  THERE IS NOT PLENTY OF TIME TO STALL.  I repeat- I NEED TO GET MY BUTT IN GEAR.

Someone come over and get my butt in gear?

Maybe it's that it is finally, after the worst, longest, [EXPLETIVE] [EXPLETIVE] winter ever- the weather is finally nice.  Who wants to stay inside and knit when they can go to the park or go pick dandelions?

(Kids really DO make you stop and sniff the flowers... even if they're weeds)

Who has TIME to knit when you have a million years of yard work to do!?

(Isn't my yard pretty right now!?  The blossoms are so lovely, even if they're making it impossible for me to breathe from all the scent they give off.)

I don't know what to tell ya.  I haven't just hit THE WALL, I've smacked myself so hard up against it I'm worried I'm embedded in!  I will eventually find myself wandering back into the knitting again.  I'm not worried that this is a permanent affliction, I'm just worried that I won't get away from THE WALL in time and all my hard work won't be done in time for Stampede- and that would be a shame.  I mean for goodness sakes- I opted to BLOG tonight instead of knit.  (That's when you really know I'm procrastinating.)

Send mojo.  Send calming vibes.  Send a DAMN WRECKING BALL!  Just get me away from this wall!!!

Charitable Interlude

As I mentioned last post, I was waiting for more yarn to show up and I was able to keep myself busy while I waited.

I knit 2 more hats out of the big ball.  More twins!

This brings the total to 10 hats, not bad so far.  I'm still guessing 18 hats, so I guess we'll see how I do.

I also had a charity blanket show up, so I knit the final 6 inch section.  The theme was Blue Suede Shoes:

These charity blankets are a great way to stash down my acrylic stash.  Guys I'm really, really close to having all the acrylic gone!  I'm not sure what I'm going to do to work down my sport weight+ wool stash.  I seem to be going through a double moss stitch phase, because I knit this section in double moss too.

The additional balls of yarn that showed up early this week too, and so I've dived back into the circular blanket.  That baby was due yesterday, so I need to buckle down and knit like crazy to get this off the needles.  It's really hard to show you progress on this- so just trust me.  Progress is being made.

I've also reworked the cuff in the new yarn I procured for the mystery mittens so I'm well on my way to getting progress on that too.  Hopefully there will be a few spare moments this weekend to sneak in a few rows on that too.

Happy long weekend everyone!

Busy Work

As I mentioned here last time, I ran out of yarn for my current project I'm working on.  After I placed the order for the yarn I decided while I wait for it to show up, I was going to get a bunch of things done.

First of all I knit to the very last stitch I could get out of the remaining yarn on the blanket AND wove in all existing ends.  Hopefully when this yarn shows up soon I can just jump back into this project and finish up quickly.  Having a lion's share of ends already woven in is a big help.  I thought I'd take a picture of both sides of this round project that really doesn't show itself off... I can't wait to finish this one up!

With the blanket out of the way I moved on to the next item that's been eating at me to get finished up- I finally did all the finishing and sewing on my little boy bunny and finished the project.  Brace yourselves for unbelievable cuteness.

Pattern: Boy Bunny with Piebald Patch by Little Cotton Rabbits (Julie Williams)
Yarn: Various leftovers in my stash- all sport weight
Needles: US 2 & 2 1/2
Notes: This is literally, LITERALLY the best written pattern I've ever worked with.  The writer was extremely detailed and really broke down the steps beautifully.  Should the opportunity arise, I will ABSOLUTELY knit with more of her patterns- they were a pleasure to work with!

   

The little cotton tail on this rabbit is so adorable I die a little bit from the cuteness every time I look at it!

With the bunny out of the way I decided that my Maui Sock needed to get just get the toe done on it so I could move on to sock #2.  And while I was at it, I wove in all the ends on that one too.  Viola- one sock.

And then, deciding it would be good to get another hat in the finished pile, I also knit up another one.  (Stitch pattern is double moss.)

I snapped a pic of the giant ball of yarn.  This will be hat #8.  Remember I guessed that I could get 18 hats out of this giant ball?  I'm wondering if there's even more than that in there!  What do you think?

Geez, you're saying to yourself, you really did do a bunch of stuff, but I thought you were going to work on your mitten.  I was.  I mean I did.  I got here... (I figured I can spoil you on the pattern this much here.)

... and realized that the yarn is just too fine for the mitten.  I need to go out and buy a different kind of yarn in red and white, hopefully something that has a thicker loft so that the bright red doesn't show through on the white parts.  And so- off to the yarn shop I go sometime this week to do that.

I have actually knit the entire cuff (which I can't show you because... mystery), and am pleased with how the pattern will look once I get going.  In the mean time, until the other yarn shows up and I can get myself to a yarn shop to pick out more stuff, I'm going to keep being very productive in cleaning up a few of my loose ends over here, doing a bunch of things to keep busy until I can get that big circular blanket out of the way!

And- I saved the best news for last... we also had this happen today:

BYE BYE ANNOYING CAST!  Parker is still limping and it will take him a bit to get his full strength back up, but OMG can I tell you how much I missed that other little leg!?  It's been a very good week here!