The UFOs are coming alive!

No, I'm not talking about the latest UFO scare in New York. I'm talking about all the unfinished objects in my knitting queue that have suddenly reared their heads and demanded to be worked on.

Just today, while I was rebelling against the idea of starting a large project I'll need to finish before the Daytona Hallogreen this weekend, I pulled an old knitted, felted pumpkin project out of the UFO pile, thinking I could motivate myself into a larger project if I finished something small — like one or two of the little wedge-type sections that are going to be the pumpkin's body.

(The pattern, by the way, is Jordana Paige's pumpkin pattern from Knitty.)


This color of orange is not the orange you're looking for. Move along.
But then I realized the pumpkin sections were all done. All that was left to knit were the stem and the vine. Well, sheesh. I knocked those out in well under an hour. Ta-da!


Trust this orange more than the other. I remembered to switch the camera settings for this photo. Good orange. Good.
Now I just need to weave in the tails, sew the thing together, felt it, and stuff it. Maybe it'll even show up at the Hallogreen this weekend, so that I can justify having worked on it this week instead of making product. ;)

I also recently excavated an old knitted vest I tore through when I was originally knitting it, except that I got stuck on picking up and knitting the ribbing. See, I started knitting it back when I was first learning, and I had virtually no experience with pick-up-and-knit, and I'd decided I was going to do the main body of the vest in a completely different weight of yarn than the pattern called for. We did all the math so I could knit the body, and that came out fine, but then when I got to the ribbing, I had no clue how to pick up the right number of stitches to make sure the ribbing — which I was doing in the original weight of yarn that the pattern called for — came out right.

The other day I was staring at the remarkably cluttered craft room, in which said UFO vest was sitting underneath my spinning chair, and I realized I could just arbitrarily pick up stitches along the armholes and neckline however I wanted, and knit the ribbing, and if I didn't like the result, I could rip it out and redo it. Duhhh.

This tactic worked, and the vest is now sitting and waiting for the ends to be woven in. No pictures yet ... but send knitwear-photographing vibes, and maybe I'll take some soon.

Summer reflections, and the one-stripe bag lives!

It's almost the end of the summer. How was yours? Mine was full of far more trial and tribulation than I'd hoped for (of course, who hopes for trouble? ;)), with golden moments fewer than I'd wish (but that's frequently true, too, isn't it?) ... and yet I still haven't fallen off the Craft or Bust wagon, which is a pretty darn notable achievement. Crafting despite crazy times and negative experiences isn't something I've been able to accomplish in recent years — until this year. So yay. That's my big positive accomplishment for the summer.

There's a smaller positive thing happening here at the end of the season, too. Summer's end is apparently inspiring me to dig out old UFOs (Unfinished Objects, in case anybody's going "What?") and work on them. One of them is the "one-stripe bag" I started last November — and hey, picking it up again before its anniversary is an accomplishment, too! ;)

Here it is on the loom, with various blue stripes of warp and sparkly silver and white crochet cotton as weft:


One of the things that took me forever was weaving the warp ends back into the fabric, which I did because I didn't want fringe, and at the time when I started this, I was still afraid of zigzag-stitching my handwovens.


Weaving in all those ends by hand got pretty tedious, but it does make a nice, clean, sturdy finished edge.
Even after I finished weaving in the ends, I was vaguely afraid to trim them off — as if the handwoven fabric would suddenly unravel if I did. (I know, it won't ... but the first time doing a thing is often a time of uncertainty. ;)) I wasn't entirely sure how I wanted to to sew the stripe together to magically turn it into a bag shape, either; the proportion between the handle and the bag depends on how you arrange the strip. (It sort of "spirals," with the two ends of the strip becoming the sides of the bag, and the center of the strip becoming the front and back of the bag and the shoulder strap.)

But with the Florida Fiber-In looming on the horizon, I kept thinking thoughts of bringing a handmade bag to show off. And so I got off my butt and just loosely whipstitched the thing together, telling myself, "I can always take out the stitching if I don't like the way it turns out!" So here's the result.


It looks a bit better on a person than on a door handle, but you get the idea. It's a little smaller than I wanted it to be, in my head, but that's okay, too. It's a good size for a casual walk — it'd fit a book, a small notebook, and maybe a small knitting project, which ain't bad.

More UFOs coming to a blog near you soon, maybe. And then maybe, in the newness of the new season, I'll feel inspired to start some new projects. :D

More UFObusting

I've re-picked up Branching Out, and have done two lace pattern repeats so far. Woo. I really am going crazy on the UFObusting lately. ;) It's just as well, since I have a couple of Uberlate Swaps that need to go out in the next month, that being my Personal Challenge on 43things.com. UFObusting is in the same spirit as finally finishing and sending those swaps, and hey, some of my UFOs are for Uberlate Swaps. ;D

Knitknitknitknitknitknitknitknitknitknitknitknit...

Taking out those UFOs

I finished the Jamaica bag from One Skein Wonders last night, unless you count that the cast-on tail is still dangling inside, which I'm not, since technically the bag is usable and you can't see that part unless you turn the bag inside-out to examine it. (As in the Costumers' Mantra of Olde: No One Can See It But Me; No One Cares But Me.) Brian and I discovered that the bag makes a curiously cute hat on both of us, though it looks rather Cat In the Hat-ish if presented as a hat not on someone's head. I may be forced to make a hat for him based on this pattern, though, just because it was so entertaining. No photos, though, and I'm not sure I'll manage to take any of anything today, since the camera batteries are currently whinging their last, and I'm not entirely sure what I did with the charger. I suspect it's in a duffel bag at Brian's, or elsewhere Not Here. Oops. ;D

I also like the circular spiral stitch enough that I was thinking of possibly making a sweater out of it, with maybe two stripes of color across the breastesses area, and then a lighter color for the main body and sleeves, so that you can see just the texture of the pattern stitch. Dunno. It would also make a good knit hat pattern in general, so I may do a hat based on it and send that out to Caps for a Cure.

And I finally figured out what on earth was wrong with the Moonlight Mohair capelet from knit.1 of something like two years ago: for one thing, I wasn't knitting to gauge, and even though it's a capelet and gauge isn't really crucial, it should still at least be gaugey enough to more than cover the tops of my shoulders; and for another thing, I was trying to actually follow the directions to make the "picot" rib thingie, which is a bad idea if the instructions are crap, which they are. ;) (Gosh, I feel like I'm trying to follow the instructions that come with sewing patterns again! ;)) With my since-acquired knitting experience, I figured out what the directions meant to say, but didn't, and tried it that way, and voila! even at too tight a gauge, I no longer feel like I'm going to break a knitting needle attempting to get faux suede yarn to stretch enough to fit two needles inside a stitch made ten rows ago. So now I just have to unravel the entire thing and start over, and once I do that, it should go fairly quickly. ;)

Next up on the list of UFOs to take out will be Brian's socks. I've been working on them on and off for the past week and a half or so, but I'm at a point where I need to pay enough attention to pick up stitches, which is why they aren't done already. And then after that there shall be new projectage, of summer tops, charity socks, and more charity caps. Oh, and a shawl and fingerless gloves.

I also just finished Funky Purl McBigBottom, and I'm crossing my fingers for the camera to stay alive long enough for me to take a photo, because I reeeaaallly want to take a picture and package this up and send it on its way today, so it isn't late. I mean, what's an April Fool's Fun swap package if it doesn't get there reasonably around April first? ;)