Progress

On the knitting front, at least.

Warm and Fuzzy (Summer Solstice) is blocking! I finished it last night around midnight and left it soaking in a warm bath overnight.

As I expected (and planned for), the alpaca grew like crazy in length when it hit water. The yarn also softened up nicely and became delightfully drapey.

The end result is a wrap-like sweater that falls below the hip on me--and looks much better on me than on Bertha.

The design is fun to knit, with almost no finishing. I did add a few details that weren't in the original, like these purl stripes on the cuffs, hem, and collar.

It's almost dry now, and I did a little test try-on. It fits perfectly! I'll be taking it to work with me tomorrow, but I'll try to get modeled shots next weekend.

Now, back to that BSJ.

Wipped

I'm generally a pretty monogamous knitter. I don't like to have a lot of WIPs going at once, because I find it distracting. A sweater, maybe a bigger project, like an afghan, maybe a sock--that's about all I can handle at one time.

Which makes it tough to explain what's happening around here lately.

I have had less time for knitting the past few months, since I started working full time away from home. You would think that would cause me to cast on fewer projects than usual. Oddly, the opposite seems to be true.

This is what's been going on:

This is Red Ruffles. I've blogged about it before (you can use the search box if you're interested--I'm not). It's been around for a while, and it went on hiatus after I discovered I had totally screwed up the right front. Eventually I got around to ripping and reknitting that front, sewed it on, and knitted the first sleeve. Which I then decided looked waaaaay too wide. So now the whole mess is sitting in the WIP basket waiting for me to accept that I'm going to have to rip and reknit that sleeve.

This is...something green. I know I blogged about it, and there has to be a pattern around here somewhere, but I don't have the energy to dig it up and figure out what's supposed to be happening with it.

This is the World's Easiest Lace scarf, which I blogged about here. As you can see, nothing has happened on it since that post.

This is my very first BSJ, knitted from some brilliant purple and pink Mountain Colors Bearfoot, my favorite sock yarn. It is for the same childhood friend who received Icarus as a bridal shower gift. She is due in May, so at least I have a while longer to procrastinate on this one.

And then there's this. This is Summer Solstice by Heidi Kirrmaier. Mine is a winter version made from 100% alpaca. And before you point out that I live in San Diego and don't need a 100% alpaca sweater, you need to come spend a day where I work. I don't know what's wrong with the ventilation system in that place, but I swear I saw icicles hanging from the vents on Friday. I don't like sitting at my desk wearing my suit jacket, although it's preferable to having my nose dripping all day. So I thought I'd make a basic grey sweater to keep in my office for when the temperature drops below freezing.

The construction on this is very interesting. I eventually gave up on trying to comprehend it and just followed the pattern. It seems to be turning out right.

There's an awful lot of plain stockinette, but that's not generally a negative for me. If I'm getting a little tired of it, well, I'm almost done. The best part is, the sleeves are knitted first, so when I'm done with the body, I'm really done! Oh. Except for the collar, which also runs down both fronts. Yeah. That could take a while longer.

Somewhere around here there is also a camisole waiting for straps, some black cashmere that wants to be a turtleneck, and half a lonely sock, hoping for a little attention, but I think you get the idea.

I'm not sure what's going on, but if you don't hear from me for a while, send help. I may be buried under the ever-growing pile of WIPs.