I’m slowly coming out of the knitting slump and getting back to my needles. I finished another hat, the mate to a set of fingerless gloves (a major WIP that needed a time-out), and I am ready to begin the decrease on a hat to match the gloves.
My hope is to finish the hat by the end of this month so I can pop it in the mail to my daughter. It should’ve been finished already so she could take the set with her when she moved back to Ohio. We won’t talk about how long it took to finish the gloves; if you feel like you must know, feel free to ask my daughter. She will happily tell you that I’m the biggest procrastiknitter ever.
The yarn is the lovely purple I got from Yarnbox some time ago. Remember, how I had to rinse and rinse the purple so many times to get the extra color out? For the longest time, I wasn’t sure I’d find the right project for the yarn but the daughter liked the idea of mixing the natural white with the purple so we did the same for the hat. She has requested a pom-pom for the top so I’ll use up what’s left of the natural white on the pom-pom.
Now that the daughter and her yarn eating dog are back in our home state, I can confidently leave my WIPs out instead of under lock and key. Lawd, I love that dog but she was going to cost me an arm and a leg in yarn (I stopped keeping track of how much she ate after losing another set of cable needles and a Christmas gift for my son’s girlfriend last year). That dog is lucky; lucky she’s cute and lucky she never needed a trip to the vet to extract all the yarn she ate.
Knitting Reset
There are a couple of WIPs that I am going to rip out. One is a gorgeous shawl that I was so excited to make but then I made a big mistake somewhere. It needs a reset; badly. I am physically pained to rip this one out because of how far I’d made it in the project. However, I can’t track the mistake back and keep the stitch count correct (how I found the mistake, to begin with), so off the needles it must go.
The rest of WIPs are various other projects that I thought I was gung-ho about but looking back, not so much. Instead, I’m going to re-channel my knitting energy into projects I know I can finish before the end of the year.
So Close and Yet So Many Rows to Go
One of those projects is a scarf I’ve been knitting slowly over the course of a year (okay, two years). With any luck, I’ll be able to gift it to whoever wants it this year.
The scarf is my take on the one Lorelai from Gilmore Girls, wore in season 7, episode 11 “Santa’s Secret Stuff” and also in the following episode. My version is at least as long as the one in the episode. I overthought the length when I was planning the scarf so I have enough yarn left over to make a hat, a cowl, or a set of gloves if I wanted. From the photos I found online, the middle color looked to be coral. However, now that I’ve rewatched the episode on a better screen it definitely looks orange (don’t ask me how I got coral/pink from orange) so my representation definitely isn’t exact.
I thought it only fitting that I named it “Muffin Bottom Pie” as a reference to the pie Sookie makes from the muffin tops she gives Lorelai when she bribes her to watch the kids so Sookie and her hubby can go on their skiing trip. I think I’d like to try muffin bottom pie – if one exists, but maybe as a cake? We’ll talk more about that another time.
The scarf is knitting lengthwise in a simple 3×3 rib pattern and each color section is roughly two inches wide. I really am looking forward to getting it off the needles and blocking it. Once it’s blocked it’s going to relax and the yarn will stretch even more. With that in mind, I’m not really sure if I’ll make the tassles that are at the bottom of the original scarf. You might need to help me decide; tassles or no tassles?
Of course, I have some other projects on the needles, ones that don’t have a timeframe for completion so they just go with me wherever I go; easy projects to keep me busy at the library or in the pick-up lines at school while I listen to podcasts or audiobooks.
I’ve decided to not really do any Christmas knitting outside of the hat I’m working on now and two others that have been promised to people. What are you knitting or what are you close to finishing up before Christmas?
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