Wrapping and Ribbing

The Ribbed Shrug from Interweave Knits Summer '05 is finally finished. I finished it last Saturday, and would have posted sooner except for the seasonal business. Instead of going out on Monday, we decided to do the whole decorating, wrapping, and shipping of gift boxes thing. I know there are a couple weeks yet, but the old man is going to be working overtime next week and we figured we'd better get on the ball or it would never get done. Now I have sent all the gift packages out, to the tune of $40.00 in shipping costs(ouch!), and can relax a bit and finish decorating.

I was a bit frustrated because it took me so long to finish this piece. I think a lot of the time was spent fighting with the cheap circular needle, which kept twisting up on me. Anyways, it's done and I'm happy with the results.

All I need to finish for my Christmas giving is the Isis Wrap from the same issue of IK. I thought about taking some pictures, but it should be done soon and I'll get one of the girls to model it then and get some decent shots, I hope. The Wrap got off to a very rocky start. I ended up completely frogging the first piece (the back) FIVE times. The problem was that this knitter kept having brain cramps and for some reason kept ignoring the first knit stitch in the pattern repeat of Row 3 and putting it at the end of the pattern repeat. I still can't figure out how I kept doing this. I mean, I do know how to read English and knitting patterns. And I couldn't figure out why my work wasn't looking like the picture in the magazine. Finally, after the fifth frogging, I had the "DUH" moment and it was absolutely amazing how well the pattern looked once I started doing it right. Since then I have taken no chances with screwing up the pattern; for each piece I have written out a "row guide" telling me which row of the pattern I am on and when I need to increase or decrease. I also figured out how many stitches I should have on the needles after each row, and am counting them after each row. It is much easier to fix a mistake right away than several rows after the fact. So now the second front piece is almost finished and then all I have is the making up. I am making it in Cascade 220 Superwash on size US 8 needles.

It has been slow going on this piece, too, because I can only work on it when I am reasonable awake and alert. Sometimes that doesn't happen. I have a job that I work at 40 hours a week and frequently more. This blog is not going to talk about my job, except to say that it can be mind-numbingly boring at times, and at other times it can be exhaustingly stressful, both mentally and physically. Fortunately the stressful isn't very often. But I come home from work on these days quite tired and in need of some "mindless" knitting to center myself and relax. Thus I will probably only have one or two complex projects going at any given time, but several that take very little concentration. So after a long day (ten hours, maybe more), I have plenty to pick up that is relaxing when all I want to do is regroup and chill.

I'm glad this is my last bit of Christmas knitting. I can't imagine having another half dozen or so projects to do, even if they are small. And I need to go finish decorating the tree.