Shawl-itis

Unfinished projects tend to wait on the edge of my consciousness, poking at my awareness. I enthusiastically jump into starting something and then just as enthusiastically move onto something else. It's annoying, and guilt-inducing.

Today I'm feeling guilty about the shawls that I have started. To list a few:

The faroese shawl for my friend's birthday for June, 2007 - about half-done.

Mystic Lights - about half done.

Spiral Shawl - I love spirals, have 'redesigned' this shawl to make it bigger and rectangle, and am only on the second spiral.

Icelandic Shawl - this was very popular, and Knitting Daily actually reprinted the pattern for the KAL group. I like the shawl, but it is 2/3's done.










Large Rectangular Shawl from "Victorian Lace Today" - another favorite, not a difficult knit, but I've only done a couple on inches.










To justify myself, somewhat, knitting for others, especially for gifts and for display items for Fabric Place, jumped to the front of my queue and displaced these projects. But I am also ADD when it comes to knitting. I start thinking about a project or a technique and I MUST start it.

That means there are similar posts to come on other UFOs.

In Quest of "Finished!"

I am a serial knitter. I bounce from one project to the next. They all need to be finished, but they're not...yet.

There's the baby blanket for a niece, who's due in August - knit on the diagonal in five colors using Berroco Touche - a soft cotton/modal mix;

the kimono jacket from "Knit Kimonos" that I'm knitting in Sugar 'n Cream white cotton because I could get 1400 yds for $10;

the second sock of a pattern I test knit (Deaton Sock - check it out on Ravelry);

the second mitten of a mitten pattern I also test knit (Bubbles, also on Ravelry);

the pinwheel sweater in Lara cotton for my niece in New Mexico;

and the purse that I started as a Christmas present for her mother...

just to name a few.

Knitting Again (sung to the tune of "Drinking again...)

Well, you can't keep an addict away from her drug of choice, so I've started knitting again, but trying for a little less intensity...

So what was my first finished project? The third sock in the Sock Knitters Pentathlon 2008 on Ravelry - Rattlesnake Creek Socks:

There's nothing like a few cables to make you pay attention to what you're doing. Unfortunately, while I was paying attention to the knitting, I didn't read the instructions thoroughly, until I started the second sock. It was then that I discovered that there were supposed to be 1-1/2 pattern repeats on the cuff, not one - like I had done. I only thought about frogging the first sock for a nano-second, then I knew I had to come up with something else: Cut off the ribbing, pick back the stitches and knit the required repeat and ribbing.

So after the second sock was done, that's just what I did, and it worked beautifully, only took about 2 hours, and then I was done. I'd read about using this technique for adding length or making changes, but this was the first time I'd actually used it. It was a bit fiddly picking out the stitches back to the start of the cabling, and picking up the stitches was also a trial (partly because my eyesight isn't what it used to be, these were very small stitches, and I was tired.

Nothing like success to jump start your enthusiasm.