She said "Focus"

When I first started knitting as an adult (I learned as a teenager then dropped it for several years), I was on a bunch of knitting mailing lists. People on these mailing lists would always talk about how hard they found it to finish things or how many things they were working on at once. I thought to myself "Foolish people. Why don't you just limit yourself to one project at a time? If you don't let yourself start a new project until the last seam is sewn, you'll have to finish things. How can you not know that?" And for a time, I was very, very good about only working on one project at a time, and I finished what I started (the Paisley Intarsia is in a separate category and not to be lumped in with ordinary, everyday projects). Then I discovered lace knitting, and found that there were lots of times it was inconvenient to work on, especially as the rows got longer. So I changed my rule about one project at a time to one mindless project and one complicated project. This, too, worked for a time.

I'm not sure how it happened, but at some point, somehow, I now have something like 15 projects on needles somewhere in my house. As you all know (as if anyone but Chris is reading this yet), I am currently working on one cabled baby sweater and one simple baby sweater, and I want to get yet another baby sweater (gift) done by the 9th of September (today's the 17th of August, people -- time is very short). So today I went to the yarn store and bought yarn and needles to make my first socks. I am trying to resist, but suspect that before the night is through I may have wound the gorgeous hand-dyed alpaca



into a ball and at least cast on a swatch. And really, if I'm going to cast on a swatch, I might as well just cast on the toes (I have no idea if I have enough yarn for socks -- though the yarn store lady seemed to think I did and I like to believe she would know -- so toe up seems like the prudent way to go here. Though I did fall in love with these...no, no -- first pair of socks is probably not the time to try reversing the pattern, especially since that would be my first Entrelac, too. Yes, I do live under a knitting rock.) and work a few rows of both yarns, right?

Despite my infidelity, I am making progress on both the Sam sweater and the Wild Baby sweater. I've got through the first pattern repeat on the Sam (it takes three per side) -- the next row I'll be cabling (yes, I'm sure. Shut up, you.). The fix



(this was supposed to be a closeup of the fix. Apparently, my camera's not into closeups. I've tried every focus setting I can find. If you have any ideas, feel free to send them along.)

doesn't look perfect, but I think no one else will notice so I'm letting it go. I've finished the back of the Wild Baby sweater (there, see, I'm typing this before it's actually finished so I'll make myself finish it so I can take this picture



for the blog). I did get the yarn for the Other baby sweater...



maybe I should just do a quick swatch...

There's a baby mixed in with all my knitting. How'd that happen? Seriously, we decided we weren't taking enough pictures of the poppet lately, so I'm combining my picture-taking.

posted by Laura Y. @ 2:51 PM