Finishing and Grids

Lately I have had an affliction of the needles. I have too many projects on them. (I do have new needles since my last knitting post) But I have so many things going on, I can't stand to go to my projects page on Ravelry and see them all. So I want to FINISH things. So first, I finished up my first pair of toe up socks, which have only been waiting for me to have the right needles for them. 

I initially "finished" the socks a little short because I was worried about having enough yarn. I had plenty of yarn, and I decided to use more up by adding two inches to each sock. I ended up knitting four extra inches, and I still only stopped because I couldn't stand the things any more. 

That's me, doing my best impression of a foot form.

I've also had a bug to knit a sweater for a long time. Just like with socks, I have heard a lot of talk about how hard sweaters are. So just like with socks, I decided to knit a baby sweater first. Fortunately my cousins are producing babies as fast as I can knit for them, so there's always an excuse. I had a pattern picked out for a long time, but when I looked closer it wasn't any fun. So I found a cute little Australian pattern. 

Turns out it doesn't require any strange construction, and I think it took me about one week to knit, and that was at a slow pace:

As soon as I slap on some buttons, that puppy is done. I will knit a monster to accompany her to her new home, and live with the new baby's big sister.

I am also knitting three things for my good friend Sarah, who is working on her doctoral thesis in England, trying to avoid the Olympic tourists. (I'm telling you Sarah, just find yourself a nice Olympic athlete and he'll make up for all of that :-P)

Every blog and podcast I watch has some complaint at some point about people who want knitters to knit them things on demand. I actually don't have a problem with this, but I have a rule. If you want me to knit you something, you buy the yarn. I do this to keep down cost for myself, but mostly ensure satisfaction for the eventual recipient. She will be wearing these things, often next to her skin. She should get to touch and choose what she wants to wear. Also, it gives non-knitters a sense of just how much is out there.

I took Sarah to my favorite yarn store, The Yarnery in St. Paul, and told her I would help minimally, but she should pick anything she wanted. After much squeezing and exclaiming, she chose some Dream in Color Everlasting Sock, and some Rowan Fine Lace (the softest thing on God's green earth), and soon after hopped on a plane back to England.

I introduced Sarah to Ravelry, let her pick out her patterns, and put them in my queue. The hat was my choice to knit first, since lace is scary. Sarah chose Aira, which is a hat pattern written by an eleven year old. I have officially done nothing with my life. It is almost done, minus some finishing:

It doesn't help my envy that it is a lovely pattern, and was so easy to knit it seemed to fly off my needles in about three days. Right now it looks like a lumpy mess, I promise it looks better in person.

Next I picked up the Rowan lace, and then I massaged it, and then I rubbed it on my face, and then I finally tackled the fingerless glove pattern. This designer needs to have a chat with the eleven year old about how to write a pattern. Geesh. 

I knit with her size needles, and got two inches in before I realized that what I was knitting might be small enough to fit on the hand of an NBA basketball player. It hung off my wrist with about two inches of empty space. Sarah told me she had large hands, but I don't think they're THAT big. I think I would have noticed. So I restarted on smaller needles. Then I restarted on smaller needles and fewer stitches. Finally, with size 00 needles, it worked. For the uninitiated, I'm basically knitting with pick-up sticks. 

The result is making up for the initial heartache:

I'm really much further along, but I'm waiting until I finish the first mitten to take another picture.

Incidentally there's still this:

And this:

To finish at some point.