Distractions

You know that point in a project where you feel like you're never going to finish? That's how I feel about Catkin right now. It's gorgeous, really gorgeous. The yarn just glows - something that Madelinetosh seems to manage better than any other yarn provider out there right now.

But I finished chart B the other night and now I'm stuck. It's not that chart C looks particularly difficult, it's just that there are a few new stitches I'm going to have to memorize and I'll need to pay attention during the set-up row. So I probably should do the first row of the chart all at once and I just don't have the energy (or time) for that right now.

The textures in this little shawl are just so interesting (and really perfect in the Tosh merino light) that I'm pretty motivated to find some time this week when I can sit down with an audiobook and get through the first row or two. Mr. Tinks and Frogs is doing NaNoWriMo again this year so I should sell this to him as "writing time."

My seat-of-the-pants hap blanket project has been a good companion these past few weeks. I'm still working on the garter stitch center square, which means I have plenty of mindless knitting. I'm working the square on the bias - increasing one stitch at the beginning of each row until the triangle looks big enough. In this case, "big enough" will be whatever size I have when I run out of yarn in the first skein. Then I'll decrease one stitch at the beginning of each row until I'm back to a single stitch. The next step is to pick up stitches around the edges and work a border in the round. I'm using the guidelines for proportions set out in the book "Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls" but otherwise making this one up as I go.

I bet I'd make more progress on these two projects if I didn't keep getting distracted by other "quick" projects for Tadpole. Like this one.

It's getting cold here and Tadpole needed a pair of mitts. I figured it would be easy enough to whip up a quick pair and secure them with a crochet chain. It only took me four tries to get a size that I thought looked appropriate. They'll fit this week but she'll definitely need bigger ones soon. And I'm having fantasies of whipping up a little pair in stranded colorwork. That'll be quick, right? No more than 2 hours tops?

I finished up another aviatrix hat for her three weeks ago and finally put buttons on it last week. Maybe by the time I get pictures of it she'll have grown into it a bit more. It's enormous on her right now but perhaps that means it'll make it through the winter.

I was going to tell you about all of the really nifty yarns and patterns that I keep drooling over instead of working on my current WIPs (Loft, anyone?). But I've got work stuff I need to do this weekend so that will have to wait until later. Instead, I'll just leave you with my latest exception to the stash diet:

Stripe Study just got bumped up in the queue.