The slow return of the mojo

I think my mojo is coming back. I think not allowing myself to fully stop knitting helped. I finished a sock, knit a flap and turned a heel, cast on a new project, knit a couple of rows on another wip and even bought a pattern book. How's that for mojo?
 So, FO first? I finished the first of the vanilla socks made with Knit One, Crochet Two ty-dy Sock Dots (in cream). I finished the foot of the sock while I was reading The Great Beanie Baby Bubble by Zac Bissonette.    
                                              Kindles are great for reading while knitting.

 I was still low on mojo at the time, but it was slowly coming back. It also helped that the 5yr old is going through a phase where all he wants to do his ride his bike up and down the lane, it is incredibly boring standing there watching him bike for an hour to an hour and a half  so I've started bringing my camp chair, knitting and kindle to the lane to amuse myself with while he zooms around.
                                           Finished sock on Knitpicks sock blockers.

Next, sock numero dos was cast on. mojo building, but as it's the travel sock, and there hasn't been much travel, there hasn't been much progress. I bring it with me when I go to pick up B after school, and usually get a row or three done while waiting for him. Sometimes I take off my flip flops.

When the round 'n round blahdy blah of stockinette got to be too much to bear, I would switch over to the pixie dust sock.  I don't wear socks when it gets warm (and judging by these pics, I barely wear shoes ha!)  but I will knit them all summer (summer of socks II)  I really love this yarn (Cascade Heritage sock yarn in Blood Orange <3), its a bloody joy to knit after the Knit One Crochet Too sock yarn which is super splitty and just like, unplies itself randomly. I will say though, when I tried the finished sock, it was pretty damn comfy on.
                                            Knitting the flap; garter edged eye of partridge                                      

                       

I had some inner debate about whether or not continue the patterning on the instep or not. I think it looks so abrupt when a patterned leg just ends and the instep is plain. But, knitting a pattern on the instep means I have to pay attention. meh.
In the end, I committed to patterning the instep. My reasoning being that it'll look way cuter in shoes.

I knit a couple of rows on my Sinnesfrid  (to refresh the memories)

I'm knitting it in Malabrigo Rios (<3 <3 <3) in Glazed Carrot-which I loved when I bought it but now I'm somewhat less enamored. I wish I had gotten Azul Profundo, Teal Feather or Paris Night. I've just started the waist shaping. I had forgotten how wonderfully fast it is working on size 9 needles! But, I'm a little out of practice on purling with all the knitting in the round and garter stitch knitting I've been doing as of late. I'm not going to hardcore work on this, as it will be too warm to wear it until fall anyway, so I figure a little bit of work on it here and there will ensure I have a cozy vest for the fall.  And if I finish it and love it? Maybe a shopping trip to Mouline will be in order, for some of that Teal Feather :)

With the mojo increasing, came the CAST.ON.ALL.THE.THINGS feelings.  I was so disappointed in how it looked being knit up into Wingspan and I really wanted to use my Blue Moon Fibre Arts Socks That Rock, so, on Wednesday, when Angie and I went to La Maison Tricotee, I cast on the Be Simple Variations. scarf/shawl thingy.

I've been knitting on it at a fairly steady pace and i'm really enjoying it. I love the BMFA yarn and I love love love the colour so much, and I'm really happy to be using it for a project that I think will do it justice. I love the eyelets-such a simple, and classy detail.

I think I'll get a lot of wear out of this. There haven't been many days that I've gone without wearing one of my hitchhikers, I've turned into an all-weather scarf/shawlette thingy wearer. So why not have a bunch in different colours? Especially as I mostly dress in neutrals-scarflettes are a nice way to add interest.
I also cast on the Be Simple thingy using the Zauberball that was frogged.

I knit a couple of repeats of the pattern, but I can't knit the same project at the same time, but I've got it bagged and on a spare cord for when I decide to get back to it.


Part of the reason for the strong urge to CAST.ON.ALL.THE.THINGS is the new Amy Herzog book Knit Wear Love. IT IS AWESOME! I'm totally into so many of the variations of the patterns.
I want to knit almost everything! It actually would be easier, and less time consuming for me to list the patterns that I don't want to knit-basically all the Avant Garde stuff and the sporty hoody. And that's not even to say I dislike them, I just don't think I could pull off the Avant Garde look.
How wonderful is it that each pattern has 3 different yarn weights for serious customization?! Next week I'm going to devote a few hours to picking my first project from the book. Then, I'll stash dive and see if I need to buy anything. I know I have a sweater's worth of Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in brown, but it's so itchy, i'm not sure I want to knit a sweater I won't wear. I should see if someone on one of the boards is in need of some wota... ooh, I have some Miss Babs Yowza I haven't used yet...that could work for the vintage bolero...so much to think about!

No mojo

I have no knitting mojo *sad face*.
I have no finished objects, no started objects.
No desire to cast on anything new.
There's been so little knitting that I have no pictures to share.

There was a stitch n bitch this week at the lovely T's. More bitching than stitching, but I did get some knitting done on my "travel" sock. I had knit the flap and turned the heel before I lost all the mojo-so while at SnB I did the gusset decreases so I would have something to work on if I needed to go somewhere by bus or metro. Other than that though, the only knitting related things I've done this past week was winding two hanks of sock yarn (biscotte & cie Felix self-striping in Leaky Cauldron and Scotland colourways, so gorgeous!) for A, and ripping out my Wingspan.
That's right, I completely frogged Wingspan again.
I'm not re-knitting it.
A finished hers and brought it to T's, and I tried it on. It's...well...it's  weird. I had no idea how to style it to make it look good. It felt like a collar without a sweater. It wasn't scarfy enough for me, too shawlette-y for me. Maybe if I was a wee, delicate slip of a thing, I could make it work. But I'm not wee. Nor delicate.  And,  I realized that I would never wear it.  Despite enjoying the actual knitting (before my mojo *poofed* into thin air) I have enough knitted items that I do not wear, and I don't particularly want to add to that pile.
I wound up my zauberball and bagged it, and now I don't know what to do. No idea what to knit. Nothing sounds interesting. Nothing makes me want to cast on ALL THE THINGS RIGHT NOW!!! I barely even want to knit on my damn travel sock-and that's just habit now, as soon as I get on public transportation I'm knitting and barely aware that I'm doing so.

I want my mojo back.
*sad face*

WIP rip

 

Yesterday I went to La Maison Tricotee with the lovely A. We went, not to buy yarn, but to sit and share a pot of tea, chat and knit. She was working on socks. I was working on my Wingspan. I was just starting the third triangle and I really wasn't feeling it.

The yarn is beautiful, the pattern is lovely, but they just don't work together. I had seen A's wingspan at our stitch & bitch last Sunday and I couldn't get it out of my mind-she was knitting hers with zauberball and it was just so stunning. Sunday night, I spent way too long looking at the wingspan project page on Ravelry, checking out the yarns people used. Invariably, my favourite Wingspans were always the ones that were made with Zauberball. The long colour changes really work with the pattern.

So A and I are sitting there discussing this issue, and I'm not sure who suggested it first, but we ended up finishing our tea and heading over to Mouline.
I came home with this:

Frogged (rip-it rip-it) this:

And started knitting this:

Much better!

*The Zauberball I'm using is Starke 6 and the colour is called Cafe Flair.

Finished Object Face

The tunes today are: A mix of the few Tom Petty songs I like (breakdown, refugee, stop draggin my heart around) the two Jethro Tull songs I like (locomotive breath, aqualung)  A couple of Fleetwood Mac songs and a bunch of covers put together by AV CLUB  (Gwar covering "carry on my wayward song is great, Sharon Van Ettan and Shearwater do a wonderful version of  Stop Dragging my Heart Around. Dresden Dolls covering Neutral Milk Hotel is uh-,azing and Nada Surf's version of Bizarre Love Triangle is my favouritest ever)

FO TIME!
Awww yeah, check it-finished watermelon socks!

Managed to finish them earlier than I thought, I think it was a day or two after my last post? I've already worn them twice heh. I luff them. Except for two things, I should have made the leg longer (because these are so cute) and I could have made the foot a touch longer, like just one or two more rounds before the decreases. I totally made the Finished Object emoticon face after finishing these socks.
Damn you Biscotte & Cie for making absolutely irresistible stripey sock yarns. I cannot knit nearly fast enough to satisfy my desire to wear all the striped socks!

It took me until the end of the week to finish my Noro Silk Garden Sock HitchHiker, mostly because I wasn't picking it up. It was not a knit-heavy week last week. I just couldn't be arsed to finish it. Finally forced myself, and instead of doing one more point (from the 38 I was at last week) I went up to 40 points before I bound off.

It's big! But I love the colours and of course the weather had been too fabulous to wear it (26c yesterday!) as it's slightly heavier than the hitchhiker made from SweetGeorgia Tough Love sock. It was the perfect thing this morning though, as it was a bit chilly.

 As you can see, I'm pleased with it.

Somewhere in between finishing the watermelon socks and the hitchhiker, I cast on another pair of socks-just a plain old vanilla sock .  (in the waiting room of a local clinic)

I'm using some stashed (of course) yarn called Knit One Crochet Too Ty-Dy Sock dots. It's supposed to look like polka dots when knitted up. (knitting in yet another clinic)

I'm not seeing polka dots.  It reminds me of Funfetti cake (do not click this link while hungry, you've been warned)-but in neutrals. So while I am somewhat disappointed that there is no real polka dot happening, I still like the sock.  I suppose the only real way to do polka dots would be intarsia?
I will never have real polka dots on knitted socks unless someone knits them for me. I am NOT interested in doing intarsia on socks. Fuck that noise. The only colour work on my socks will be from self striping/self-patterning yarn.
Anywhooo, it's about time to knit the heel flap, so I'll have to cast on the second sock as soon as possible so I can have portable, mindless knitting with me the next time I'm on public transportation.

I did not knit on my Pixie Dust sock. Not even once. *shrugs*
It'll happen.
Eventually.

But I did cast on Wingspan! I'm using some Blue Moon Fibre Arts Socks That Rock in Deep Unrelenting Grey that I picked up at La Maison Tricotee.
It is a deeper and more unrelenting a grey than this picture shows.

Gorgeous stuff.
I love the construction of this shawl/shawlette/scarf thingy. It's neat! I like the short rows, and it's almost completely mindless. (note: I said almost-I have forgotten to slip a stitch, knitting it instead, three or four times ha!) While I adore this colour, A is making hers using some Zauberball (not sure if it's crazy zauberball  or just regular zauberball) and I think this pattern looks better with a stripey, colourful yarn.

I started the second triangle yesterday morning, and haven't worked on it since, but I would like to be on the third triangle by the end of the week. Maybe I'll work on it this afternoon, chill out on the deck and enjoy the sunshine and some homemade ice tea.

As for purchaseables, Etsy has struck again. What happened was this: I was actually looking for reviews of a particular sock yarn (and I can't even remember which sock yarn haha) and it led me to this website that was advertising the Sock Ruler. Except they were all sold out. So cruel!  Google leads to Etsy. Purchased. This all happened in under 10 minutes. I was in a fugue state. I barely remember clicking "add to cart".  A week later, a green envelope arrived. With little wee gifties!

I love little wee gifties! In case you can't tell from the picture, there is a lavender sachet (I do love me some lavender) and it smells fantastically fresh. Plus some locking stitch markers and a small sample of superwash Blue Faced Leister/Nylon sock yarn in a really pretty colourway called "Spruce Forest". Thank you Friends in Fiber!

I'm really stoked about this tool, measuring the foot is one of those things I struggle with-do I stretch out the sock a little? did I stretch out the first sock? Are they going to be a quarter of an inch off because I used a different measuring tape (this has happened to me before) It's not just a nifty gadget, it's going to be vry useful!

And yes, that is my abandoned Cabarat sock. And yes, that could be my portable knitting-but it's not going to be, it's already been shoved back into a project back and hidden away. I don't even feel bad. To show how un-bad I feel, I'm going to go grab pretty yarn (wingspan) and go knit in the sunshine!