Knitting blahs

I seem to be going through a time when none of my knitting excites me. I have all of these projects started, but I just sort of look at them with a ho-hum feeling. It's really too bad, because I know I have some lovely projects going. I think the problem is that none of them feel very challenging. This is mostly because most of the knitting I do these days is at Stitch 'n Bitch and I have a hard time concentrating on challenging projects when I'm there. So I have all of these projects that, while pretty, are fairly boring to knit. With five or more projects on the needles, I really don't want to start anything else, but I need to jump start my knitting. Maybe if I bought a nice patterning sock yarn, that would help. Hmmmm....

A couple photos

I finally uploaded the photos from my digital camera to my computer.

The bag-exchange bag:



J's fingerless mitts:



I have one mitt done, I just need to secure the ends. I have yet to start the second one (really should do that right away or I might suffer second mitt syndrome).

Long time, no post

Between getting ready for Christmas and a conference and then actually going to the conference, and Iowa for Christmas, there hasn't been much time for blogging. I have gotten a bit of knitting done, though:

Finished: Socks for my sister for Christmas. Made out of Lorna's Laces in Shepherd Sport, colorway seascape (or something to that effect). Regretfully, I didn't take a picture of them. Despite being really quick to knit, I was still Kitchner stitching the toes in the car on the way to Iowa (that was quite a sight--me sitting with Stitch 'n Bitch on my lap [which have the best K stitch instructions in the world], trying to graft the toes, and deciding that I had to lengthen one sock to make them match size-wise). Sis loved them, so I feel good about it. She pronounced them soft and warm. Which is how all socks should be, really.

Finished: Bag for the Windy City bag exchange. It was made out of LionBrand Landscapes and I felted it at my mother's (because it costs $2 a load to use the washer in my building and I wasn't going to pay lots of money to felt a bag). It was my first felting experience and I think it went pretty well. I think I should've left the handles in longer because they ended up being obscenely long, but when I gave it to the person in the exchange, she loved it and said that she loves bags with long handles so I guess it was okay. I have pictures, but I have to upload them at home and I'm at work right now. I got my bag and it's a cute little purse/handbag. I think I want to put a handle on it. I think the knitter didn't put a handle on it because she ran out of the Fizz yarn (which is my fault because I supplied the yarn). She knit the purple Cascade 220 and Fizz held together. There's plenty of the Cascade left, so I'm going to buy more Fizz and finsih it. I'm of two minds about participating in an exchange again. Even though we had 10 months to do it, it was inevitable that I wouldn't start it until right before it was due and that was incredibly stressful. However, the actual exchange part was a lot of fun and like a knitter's Christmas. This is the first time anyone has actually handknit something for me. Okay, my mom made a couple of sweaters for me when I was very little, but this is the first time someone made me something when I actually had the sense to appreciate it. And that was incredible! They probably won't exchange the yarn until Feb. so I have some time to think about it.

Started: Fingerless mitts for my husband made out of the same yarn (because I had quite a bit left over). I have one mitt almost done. I would've had it all the way done if I had remembered that stockinette stitch fabric rolls up and I would therefore have to do some kind of edging at top part of the mitts. I did garter stitch at the top of the thumb and it worked fine, but it didn't match the cuff which was k1, p1, ribbing, so I decided that I'm going to redo the thumb. Meanwhile, I ripped out two or three rows off the top of the mitts and will do about 3 rows of k1p1 ribbing to match the cuff. Unfortunately, I had an odd number of stitches (from picking some up around the thumb to make the join prettier), so I had to p2tog at the end of the first round. Oh well. Now, I need to write all of this down so I can remember to do it for the second mitt....

Started: Socks for me in Shepherd Sport (a different colorway). The yarn on this skein is much lighter than the seascape ones. It might be due to the dyes, or it might be because I bought it on sale as a second.... No worries, though, I think they will be fine all the same. But I had to put them aside while I worked on hubby's mitts because his poor little hands were cold at work and I had to use the same needles the socks were on for the mitts (well, had to is a bit strong; I liked the way my sister's socks turned out so I wanted to use the same size needle and that's the only one I have in that size).

For Christmas, I got a Vogue Knitting, Scarves (between that and Scarf Style, I could make a scarf for everyone I know), and a Knitting Journal which was really cute from my brother-in-law and his wife. Lots of other things, too, but nothing knitting related.

Sorry there are no pix--I'll try to do better in the future.