Friday Knitting Blog (08/26/2011)

Now this is interesting with the pictures.

Up first is the current sock. This is it's project page on Ravelry (viewable by the public) with the yarn and pattern, etc. It's the Kai-Mei from Sock Innovation by Cookie A. The leg is 6-1/2 inches of 3x3 rib. It's going slowly.

This is the swatch for my Honeybee cardigan. The link is also a publicly viewable Ravelry page.

This is an extreme closeup of the current state of the sweater. That's 6 rows of 2x2 rib over 262 stitches. Each row takes just under an eternity.

A little further out to show that it's not yet long enough or heavy enough to take the kink out of the circular needle that it's being knit on. I managed to knit 3 rows of ribbing before work this morning, thus doubling the size of the ribbing. It was very exciting. 

So the inevitable thing that happens to my knitting when I work on more than 1 project at once is 2 things. First, progress seriously slows down. It doesnt' quite come to a dead stop, but it's pretty close. Second, I have a hard time making up my mind about which project to work on, and because I'm someone who can become paralyzed and overwhelmed with choices, especially if they're equally desirable to me, I end up choosing to sit in front of the computer and read knitting blogs all evening or I sit in front of the TV and watch crap. 

I did make a decision about how to decide though. The sock is now the living room evening in front of the TV project, and the sweater is my knitting in the bedroom project. The lace pattern on the cardigan is all over, not just a couple of panels, and as such, it's not particularly TV-friendly knitting for me, so it's definitely preferable to work on in here where the distractions have the advantage of being quieter (no TV in the bedroom). 

I'm finding it difficult to set concrete goals for these. I'd like to get past the heel and start the interesting part of the sock, because if you look at the pattern, you see that the foot is where all the action is. That translates to about 3 more inches of ribbing, heel flap, and turning the heel. All very doable if I'm not too distracted.  On the sweater, I'd like to finish the ribbing (about 1-1/4 inches left to go) and knock out a couple of pattern repeats for the honeybee lace. Again, very doable if I'm not too distracted. Unfortunately, even though it arrived late, Western Washington summer has arrived in all it's glory, and it's pretty distracting. 

I compare summer in Western Washington to knowing that George Clooney is coming to your birthday party. You spend all kinds of time waiting for him; he shows up late and then he leaves way before your're ready. However, the time when he's there is simply so very wonderful that the lateness of his arrival and the speed of his departure hardly matter. Yeah, that's what summer is like in Western Washington.