Getting my ducks in a row

After the brightness of yesterday it's back to the grey sweater but I have a cunning plan to liven things up. When doing bottom-up sweater knitting I follow the timeless advice of Elizabeth Zimmerman and start a sleeve (or two) to have as a travel knitting project. That way you don't find yourself in the unenviable position of triumphantly finishing the body only to realise that you have two sleeves to slog through before being able to make more progress.

To help my eyes - this grey is really pretty dark - I am marking the sleeve increases with these fun dinosaur bulb pins. It just helps to be able to see where my last increase was and let's face it, they brighten up the grey too.

I have the house to myself for a precious hour this morning so it's eyes down and powering on through to the armhole for this sleeve - wish me luck.

Rainbows really do knit faster

There are times when you cast off a project so pretty and so happiness inducing that you just want to wave it triumphantly as you parade through the streets. If knitters were in charge this would be totally acceptable social behaviour by the way. Here in out semi rural market town it might well raise some (well plucked) eyebrows so I am parading it here instead.

This shawl started life as a sock yarn blank from The Wool Kitchen and to be truthful I really didn't enjoy the process of knitting with the kinky yarn straight from the blank. I am reliably informed that at a tighter sock tension this is less of an issue but for me, with a garter stitch shawl at a looser gauge I wasn't happy with the fabric. But a quick reskein and took care of that and it was well worth the extra time for the hours of simple knitting pleasure this yarn gave me.

And judging by the time it took me to knit this version of my Fuss Free Festival Shawl I can scientifically confirm that it is indeed true. Rainbow yarn knits up significantly faster than regular yarn. Something about racing to get to the next colour, particularly when you can see it keeping out enticingly from the handwound ball.

So there we have it. A pretty, one skein shawl which knits up at the speed of light. All we need are unicorns and we are pretty much covered. 

Any colour you like.... as long as it's grey

My husband is eminently knitworthy. He appreciates my knitting and is suitably careful with any knitted items that I care to knit for him. A recent tally of my current projects though revealed 3 items destined for him, all of which have stalled at various points. And after careful consideration I think I have pinned down the cause.

They are all grey!

Now, don't get me wrong. I love grey as much as the next person. In fact probably a little more than the average person but there is a limit. Especially when knitting something which is so much larger than I would usually knit for myself. DH is a tall, broad chap who likes his sweaters roomy. A 51" chest sweater in DK yarn is a heck of a lot of knitting whichever way you look at it. Add in the fact that it is plain grey stocking stitch with no pattern or means of entertainment and it's easy to see why I am easily distracted by other projects. 

The challenge is to prevent his WIPs from sinking to the bottom of the pile and by working on them, even a little bit, to prevent stagnation.

My current cunning plan is to keep the giant grey sweater in the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter. That way I can pick it up and plug away at it whilst attending to the usual domestic stuff of cooking and homework. The time when I would normally pick up my phone for a bit of mindless surfing I will now be adding a few more stitches to it. 

Nothing against the pattern itself of course. It is Rift by Jared Flood and it's a great pattern with a hint of ribbing detail at the sides and shoulders. It will be a great sweater tonwear - eventually.

Don't know what to work on? Top tips for overcoming knitters paralysis

We've all been there. A mountain of WIPs beckons but nothing appeals to you. Nothing is saying ' work on me'. Some projects are in time out. Some require a decision and can't be progressed until you've bitten the bullet. And let's face it, some are just plain boring and the initial excitement of a shiny new project has worn off.

In this situation my classic response is to reach for Ravelry or mooch around in my stash and cast on for something shiny and new.

Yesterday though I am proud to report that instead of doing this I sought advice from some clever knitters in the Everyday Knitter Facebook group and they came up with some cracking suggestions for overcoming knitters paralysis. Some of them are offered here along with a few of my own suggestions.

1. Claire and Gem suggested picking the WIP closest to completion and getting it finished - going for the quick win. With several socks just needing afterthought heels that seemed like a pretty good suggestion to me.

2. Viv suggested picking the oldest WIP and doing something - anything - on it. My oldest project is a very large and very grey sweater for DH. Although I love him to bits I do not love the knitting of this sweater.

3. Go for a scattergun approach and work on each WIP in turn for half an hour. This can be quite useful to allow yourself time to get reacquainted with each project and can help you to overcome any obstacles - or to realise why you set it aside in the first place. 

4. Reach into the project pile and have a knitters lucky dip. Promise yourself that you will work for an hour on whatever you pull out. I was quite safe with this one as sheer weight meant I could identify DHs sweater by touch and therefore I could cunningly avoid it.

I decided on a combination of picking an old project (sweater) and a project near completion (1 afterthought heel completed) and I'm pleased to report that progress has been made. The challenge for today is to repeat the plan - and mostly not to get distracted by the 10 skeins of DK I want to make into a sweater for myself.

Lesson learned

I fully intended to blog every day during our holiday. I really did. But then a funny thing happened. A thing that doesn't happen to me very often. A thing called relaxation. And it was proper relaxation, the kind where you have no idea what day of the week it is, never mind the date. The kind when you struggle to remember what you do for your day job and where you left the spare key for the cat sitter.

As a result daily blogging went out of the window. Also it didn't help that I remembered my laptop but forgot the charger. I did write in my journal most days which I love to do when I have the time but I have to confess that I did miss my daily blogging.

Anyway, here we are. Back home and ready to get back into our routine. Even though part of my mind (and a good part of my heart) is 250 miles north. Many bags need to be unpacked and I need to make contact with my stash again, having had separation anxiety from it. Some knitting occurred during all that holidaying and relaxing I'm pleased to report and now I feel the urge to dust off all my WIPs and make plans to get them finished. Spring startitis is all very well but I want to see some completed projects now. And also, I've run out of 4mm needles.

And breathe...

And breathe.. .

There's something very soothing and very special about visiting the same place at the same time of year, each year. Every year we rent the same cottage in this little corner of the Lake District and it is such a special place.

The amount of knitting that gets done though can be variable and is heavily dependent on the weather. Fine, sunny days see us out on the fells as a family whilst wet and windy days are for cosy cottage hunkering down. Fortunately for me springtime is a very variable time of year here. We have been in the cottage with 5 feet of snow outside and we've been here with the boys skinny dipping in rivers.

This week is the usual mix of sunshine and showers with a good dose of knitting predicted too and I can't wait.