Numbers

So, this Whisper Wrap situation? Oh. My. God.

Casting on 481 stitches was not the most enjoyable experience of my life. I think I counted them about 10 times, despite the fact that I put stitch markers every 50 stitches. I knew that the stockinette would probably drive me crazy, as would the laceweight yarn and every row appearing to be making no progress, but dude. Seriously. I promise I've been working on this regularly, and this is as far as I've gotten.

I did the math on the wrap--the pattern is 186 rows long. That's 89,466 stitches. Even worse, I timed myself and found out each row takes at least 20 minutes (depending on my level of distraction/the surprising number of mistakes I've made knitting a mostly stockinette item). That means that, conservatively, it would take me 62 hours to knit this thing. I'm going to go ahead and round that up to an even 70.

Looking at this makes me sad, but I want the finished wrap so much! I know I'm going to get through it, but I'm not going to be as faithful to it as I had originally planned to be. I can't. I would just go absolutely stir crazy, and I love my boyfriend way too much to let him see me like that.

In that vein, I'm casting on for a new sweater! I got 4 balls of Knit Picks Stroll Sock Yarn in Dogwood Heather a couple of weeks ago to make myself a new Grace (the yarn was basically a refund, so I'm not chastising myself for adding to the stash). I loved my original cardigan so much and am just never that happy when I wear the felted "cropped" version, so I'm going to be boring and knit the exact same sweater for a second time. Coincidentally, Jane Richmond put a call out for test knitters yesterday to test some revised yoke instructions. It seemed like a good sign to me, so I signed up and cast on tonight. I'm blocking the fact that this is, again, a mostly stockinette item out of my head because of my current cast on excitement.

WIPW: My First Pattern and Too Many WIPs

It's been quiet on the blog front since the Ravellenic Games, but for good reason!

Remember how I said that I totally had time to fit in a pair of socks before the Closing Ceremonies? I lied.

I DID, however, manage to knit a 2nd sock and draft my first pattern! I submitted a sock proposal to Knit Picks IDP and it was accepted, so I'm currently waiting on yarn support. The draft is with a technical editor, and once it's been test knitted (for which I already have volunteers, which BLOWS MY MIND) I will send the finished pattern back to Knit Picks for them to review and hopefully approve. I've set up a Ravelry shop, so the pattern will be available whether Knit Picks accepts it or not. I'm excited to finally get a pattern out, and expect that there will be many more to come.

I've also not been too great at the "not casting on 80 projects at once" thing. I don't count my Beekeeper's Quilt as a real WIP, but it's always looming there in the back of my head. I counted the other day and found out I'm almost halfway to my goal, so at least that's something.

I also started a Smitten Garland to use up DK scraps, except that then I found a little bag of Lion Brand Bonbons at Michael's and so I bought that specifically to make this garland. Whatever. Look how pretty!

Each bonbon was enough for about a mitten and a half, so I have 3 more striped mittens to go before I can sign off on this project. I've also made a few mittens out of leftover Wollmeise DK to use as gift tags (look at me being all proactive on the gift-giving!), but I don't count those as part of this project.

I have 3 skeins of Knit Picks Shimmer Lace in Silver that was originally purchased for a Featherweight Cardigan before I realized that laceweight garments are Serious Business. It's been languishing in my stash for about a year and half so I've decided to turn it into a Whisper Wrap. This is also Semi-Serious Business and involves miles and miles of stockinette. It might not be the most exciting thing to knit, but I know I'll love the finished wrap and use it all the time.

My final WIP is a pair of Kalajoki using the Wollmeise Twin left over from the gloves I knit during the Ravellenics. I've loved this pattern since I made a pair for B's mom and figured that the blue color was perfect for river-inspired socks. I thought that the 82 oz of yarn I had left would be plenty, but after finishing the first sock I (because I'm an idiot and didn't weight the yarn as I went along) found out that I used 42 oz for one sock. Hmm...unless I can somehow bend the physics of knitting to my will, I may have to shorten the foot of these socks and gift them, too. 

I have also been fighting the urge to knit with some of my beloved Felici stash, but then Jane Richmond went ahead and started a KAL for her new LINDEN Mittens pattern. Sooooo looks like I'll be starting that as well. I have a few days to finish up the smitten garland, though, so at least I'll only have 1 mitten WIP at a time.

Make sure to check out this week's WIP Wednesday posts over at Tami's Amis, Frontier Dreams, Made by ME, and Yarn Along to get some moral support that having 18 unfinished projects is totally normal!

FO: Looking Glass Clapotis

My Looking Glass Clapotis is done, making it my first FO of 2014!

Blocking made a huge difference here. I didn't block my first Clapotis, so it's still sort of a weird parallelogram that bunches up on itself. It's a scarf, so it doesn't bother me, but I wanted this one to look nice since it's a wrap and also a present. For whom, I'm not sure, but it'll be living in my gift basket for now. Blocking didn't change the width much, but it added about 7 inches to the length. 145 grams of Knit Picks Imagination Hand Painted Sock Yarn gave me a wrap that is 18" by 56". 

Poorly modeled self-taken picture, but this gives you an idea of the size.

My odd-length red Chuck has been begging me to fix it so I can finally wear it, so adding another diamond repeat to the body and lengthening the arms will be my next project. I've been trying to figure out projects for the Ravellenics as well, but given the recent events surrounding the Games I'm not sure whether I'll be participating (I'm firmly on Team Rainbow). I guess I'll wait until closer to time to see how things pan out.

WIP: Looking Glass Clapotis

I'm actually making progress on my Clapotis! The fingering weight yarn on size 4s makes it feel like I'm making no progress, but I just joined the third and final skein of yarn and am about 15 grams away from beginning the decrease section. In other exciting news, I hit this milestone while I was actually home during daylight hours, so I managed to get a picture that showed the colors pretty accurately.

The yarn is Knit Picks Imagination Handpainted Sock Yarn in Looking Glass. The color isn't nearly as bright blue as it appears on the website, but it has great depth and I really like it.

So, it's been a minute...

I know, I know. I move all the way to sunny San Diego and get distracted by real life and forget to post on my blog. I'm determined to keep up with it this time, so here are some life updates:

1) B and I have moved in together. We have a pretty nice one bedroom that's really far from work, but it has an amazing ocean view.

2) I've decided not to become a CPA because I don't want to stay in public accounting long. This decision is new, but it made an immediate improvement on my mental state and I feel good about it.

3) I may have a yarn problem.

A major reason for going full-force on the blogging thing is my major goal for 2014: Operation Stashdown. Spurred by my recent decision to cohabitate with my boyfriend and said boyfriend's discovery of jut how large my yarn stash really is, I have decided to only knit from stash for the next year. I took a picture of my stash about 6 weeks ago when it looked like this:

Since then, I have knitted the 2 skeins of Wollmeise DK in Vamp into this lovely Chuck (pattern by Andi Satterlund of Untangling Knots):

 I love love love the pattern, although I made a mistake at the beginning of the center motif--it should have an extra twist. I lengthened the body by 1 repeat and am not really loving the length, so I'm planning to rip back and add a fourth diamond as well as make the sleeves full-length. As it is, this sweater used 700 yards of Wollmeise DK. I have over 300 yards left from my 2nd skein (love those oversized skeins), so I should have plenty to work with.

My current project is a Clapotis from the 3 skeins of Knit Picks Imagination Hand Painted Sock Yarn in Looking Glass. It's about 40% done and really much to look at at the moment:

Finally, I gave in and purchased some yarn from Knit Picks right before New Year's with a gift card my dad gave me for Christmas. I'm only knitting from stash for the next year and I didn't have any sweater quantities in the stash, so that's my excuse...for buying 2 sweater quantities. And 2 skeins of Felici. But seriously, no more! To keep me on the straight and narrow, my 2014 goals are as follows:

1) Find patterns for all stash yarns (Finished!)

2) Knit at least 12 queue projects.

3) Start building up stash of gifts through #2.

4) Start working on hexipuffs again for my Beekeeper’s Quilt. I have 100+ little balls of fingering weight rolling about in my stash for this project.

5) Knit at least as much as I did in 2013 (let’s call it 7,500 yards).

Let's see what happens.