I am in a weird in-between state right now because I have nothing actively on the needles (well, maybe a few hibernating projects hidden around the house, but basically the only thing I have to do at the moment is weave in ends, sew together, and block a little ascot thing I’ve been working on for about a month. A month!)
I have this sort of mental startitis that’s keeping me from actually starting anything–just daydreaming about “wow! I should make that!” and instead of actually getting the needles and casting on, I sit there clicking on links and adding things to my queue until I realize I feel kind of sick from staring at the computer for so long, or have something else to do, and nothing gets done.
I think part of this might be related to my printer being in our poorly insulated sunroom/office, where the temperature is currently hovering around 40 degrees… inside our house, with all the windows shrinkwrapped with insulating plastic… so printing things out is a bit like taking a Polar Plunge. Deep breath, run into the other room and shut the door, try desperately to remember which of my USB ports is mapped to which of the five copies of my printer in the Print menu before I get frostbite.
Anyway, so, yeah, I don’t have much to share in terms of WIPs or FOs but here are a few of the things I’ve been eyeing:
- This Ginkgo shoulderette shawl, which is free, mostly stockinette, and so gorgeous! It looks like it might be a nice one to give the Brooklyn Tweed treatment, i.e. knit it up in some Aran-weight yarn to make it gigantic and cozy while keeping the yardage low.
- From the newest Knitcircus:
- Blue Lupine mitts, although probably about half this pattern-lust is because the Shelter yarn looks so tweedy and pretty. I don’t wear fingerless mitts very often.
- Victoria, though mainly because I thought the accompanying article about armholes was really fascinating and I want to put it into practice and find out all about my own armholes and shoulder width and all that. (As an aside, I sort of can’t believe I have written thousands and thousands of words about things like fascinating armhole sizing techniques and new ways to graft and seam; I’m afraid I’m turning into this Hark! A Vagrant comic, “The Sweater Issue,” as every magazine in my house right now is basically some variation on Yarn News or Figs ‘n’ Things. If you asked me ten or twenty years ago where I hoped I’d be at 7:30 PM on Saturday, February 5, 2011, I’m pretty sure my response would not have been “in cold-ass Madison, Wisconsin, eating Goldfish crackers and writing a blog post about a vest I might knit to find out about how big my armholes should be.” Maybe “judging a cat show after a hard day’s work as the world’s first fashion model astronaut President” or “dazzling the intellectual glitterati with my beauty, wit, and huge piles of riches in a palace in Rome,” at ten and twenty, respectively.)
- And this is not a knitting pattern, but Bezzie’s hazelnut macarons look crazy delicious and I do have a big bag of hazelnuts figuratively burning a hole in my kitchen cabinet.
- From the latest Knitty:
- Constantine, although I think a cape made of seed stitch might kill me from boredom, and while it looks cute on the model, I don’t like the sound of “the addition of a belt creates the illusion of sleeves and a waist.” 1) because I don’t want to also have to knit a belt, and 2) I really don’t want my sleeves or waist to be “illusory,” I have enough troubles with fashion and figure-flattery as it is.
- Gweneira–creamy, snowy, cabley goodness. Susanna IC is really getting a lot of mileage out of this variations-on-a-crescent-shaped shawl thing, but I fall hard for whatever it is every time. (Why fix it if it ain’t broke?)
- Joanie, because I’m a sucker for reversible cables, even if I think Joan Holloway wouldn’t be caught dead wearing this, at least not unless it was about five sizes smaller. Maybe I’m wrong and I just haven’t yet made it to the season of Mad Men where she starts wearing big wool sweaters with a “loose, slouchy fit” and no waist shaping?
- Chrysanthemums, which I would like to wear with exactly the same color scheme, outfit, and pensive look as shown in the photo. Gray on white just kills me; these look so good!
- a project in the new KP Chroma worsted weight yarn–looks and feels a lot like a feltable version of Crystal Palace Mochi Plus, more than a Noro yarn, as it’s much softer, finer, and more evenly spun than most Noro yarns. Self-striping from Knit Picks! I can’t even tell you how excited I am about this, and the price is right: $9 for 198 yards, with coordinating solids.
- Damask, I can’t remember if I posted this before, but this is a gorgeous, gorgeous shawl.
- This sweater whose name is way too long. Not a ton going on, but it seems very wearable.
- And last but not least, I have a couple of ideas for some amigurumi. Possibly involving a cloaca! I know that sounds super appealing! More on this exciting teaser later if this pans out.
Which of the above will be actually worth the Polar Plunge and wind up being printed out and cast on? Only time will tell.
OK, maybe next time I post I’ll actually have something I made that I can show you.
In the meantime, please enjoy these videos of a baby monkey riding a piglet (note: the guy who made this video was the lead singer of Nerf Herder, who wrote the Buffy theme song!), ice skating chimpanzees, and Pavarotti and Lou Reed singing a song about heroin together. ”Baby Monkey (Riding Backwards on a Pig)” is my new favorite song. ”Perfect Day Feat. The Weird and Inappropriate Vocal Stylings of Luciano Pavarotti,” maybe not so much.
