Too Many UFOs

Unfinished Objects, that is.

Since my stroke, I have had between one and three UFOs (also known as WIPs -- Works In Progress) at a time, and that was fine. Just fine. Before the stroke, 43 WIPs were common, and I hardly ever finished any of them; but since my stroke, I have had more time, and I was able to finish all my WIPs, unless I fell out of love with them and unraveled them.

But lately, I have gotten back into my bad habit ways. I have eight UFOs, yikes!

I have a brown sweater:

And a blue sweater:

And a green sweater:

And a shawl:

Two rows a day til next February! Woohoo! This is the only project that I have that I can't work on, because it is an Estonian Lace KAL hosted by Pattern Duchess, and I am all caught up on clues.

And I have a scarf project and a sock project that I have already put away and didn't get a picture of them.

Actually, I also have a spinning project that I put aside because I needed to find more bobbins, and I never got back to it. It's been about two years. I really should ply some stuff off the bobbins I have and finish it.

Really, all the UFO's will just have to wait, because I just got a super secret assignment to knit which I love, but can't tell you about right now (sorry). I'll share pictures when I can. But I really, really love it!

Also, I signed up for Knit Camp hosted by Marie Green, best decision I have ever made. So much fun! So many knitters! It's great! Registration is closed right now, but it will reopen in October -- I will remind you. It costs $9.95 a month, but the cost is more than worth it. Just the monthly pattern alone is worth $9.95. And Marie's patterns are awesome. I got four patterns right away just for joining Knit Camp!

I already started one of them:

This is the Ellery hat pattern from Marie. Marie assured me that single skein projects don't count toward the pile of UFOs or WIPs, which I was grateful for; according to that rule, I only have 5 UFOs! Woohoo! I am using Swans Island Sterling Collection Fingering in the color Citrine. I love it.

My days will consist of two rows (five days a week) of the shawl, about an hour of the Ellery hat, and the rest of my knitting time on the super secret knitting. I'll do the shawl in the morning and the Knit Camp knitting in the evening, because s'mores. Lovely drinkable s'mores around the virtual campfire:

Recipe Diaries S'Mores Cocktail -- yummmm!!

Have fun knitting!

New Knitting Website

In case anyone is looking for another knitting website, Our Unraveled has started up, having 3000 members in just under a month. I just joined, so I will be finding out what it has to offer as I use it.

This YouTube post from Woolf & Sheep seemed to sum up what I feel in a reasoned, well-stated way:

https://youtu.be/ulmg3UUHjYs

I love that her dog is named Whitman.

Happy knitting everyone! Just enjoy fiber arts.

My Last Duchess*

I started a knitalong today, not Marie Greene's 4 Day Knitalong which I have decided to eschew this year for various reasons, but an Estonian lace shawl knitalong by Mari-Liis Hirv who is Estonian. I love the internet! Mari-Liis is known as the Pattern Duchess, and her designs are beautiful. The lace shawl we will be working on this year is the Birthday Lace Shawl (pictures are on her web site), and it will take a while. Mari-Liis is giving us two rows per day of the pattern, Monday through Friday ... which I can do! Two rows! I can do it! That is my kind of knitalong.

We started on June 24th, but I didn't get my yarn until day before yesterday. You can start now, if you would like to join me at swearing at the nupps; it's a free pattern, found on Facebook or on her website. We are on Day 8 which is only 16 rows, easy to catch up on.

You can do the shawl using a bead or a purl stitch or a plain knit stitch if you want, but I wanted to make myself use nupps if I could. This pattern has a lot of nupps. Before my stroke, I learned how to knit nupps, but I found them annoyingly hard to make and wrote them off, much the same as I had written off intarsia and brioche. Now that I had my stroke and have loads of time on my hands, I'll try to perfect them if I can. .

What are nupps, you ask? They are truly horrible instruments of torture in my opinion, but they look so pretty when they are done well! They look like little puffs of softness, like little clouds. IF you can do them right. My nupps so far look like little squished up balls of mud, but some -- well, one -- of them came out pretty good.

Pitiful.

 

Slightly less pitiful.

Nupps are fairly easy to make: just knit and do a yarn over in the same stitch until you have 7 stitches, and on the next row (which is purled) you just purl all 7 of the stitches together. It sounds so simple. BUT. There is no way in hell to get the needle into the front of those 7 #@&$%*&#@ stitches so that you can frigging purl them!    

Mari-Liis has a video of how to do the nupps, and it is very good. You should be able to do nupps easily.

The problem is, I had a stroke. My right hand fingers don't work well yet, and I am doing as much as I can to make them work. They will work eventually, probably just before my death due to the nupps. Anyway. I'll get my thumb to do the nupps, and maybe get my finger working at the same time too some day, and the nupps will be defeated!

I'm using KnitPicks Shadow Lace Weight yarn, which is 100% merino, 2 ply, in the color Blossom Heather. It is a bit darker than I wanted, but it's ok. It also is a bit hairy, but that might be fine too, since hairy yarn stays put if the needle becomes pulled out of the stitches, which may have already happened once or twice. 

Knit happy! Happy Fourth of July!

*My Last Duchess is a little bit creepy poem by Robert Browning, but I love it. This may be my last Duchess shawl if the nupps kill me!