the UFO post

To distract you from the masses of UFOs to follow, look! Something shiny finished!

My sister is due with her little girl soon (end of November/beginning of December) so I wanted to have something ready to welcome her. I was prepared to show you this as a UFO but it somehow got finished Tuesday evening. Not sure how that happened. I guess it is possible to finish something...

Pattern: Topdown Easy Baby Cardigan from Knitting Pure and Simple (FREE!!)
Yarn: Stash Bernat Satin (acrylic stash reduction!!)
Modifications: yarn substitution and I added a row of stranded hearts to the hood and body to make it more "girly".

Look, something else finished!

I always see spinners putting pennies in with their yarn. I don't want to assume that a Canadian penny will be obvious to anyone so I have coinage from 4 countries. If you want to guess which countries, there could be a prize in it for the first person to guess correctly (in order) which countries/currency/denominations I have there. (prize to be determined...)(probably yarn)(surprised?)

This is 4oz of Merino I dyed using Wiltons dyes. I actually ended up overdyeing the roving with some royal blue Rit dye because the initial outcome was very cotton-candy looking. It's a bit lighter and less mauve-y in reality. I have still have 12oz of this roving to spin! I dyed it with the plan to try to spin enough to make a sweater (for ME!!). I don't know the WPI but the yardage is (you might want to sit down. I know i did) 533 yards. So, if I am able to get even close to that gauge/yardage for the rest of it... um... definately enough for a sweater!

This is the most even that I have spun so far and the least overspun (does that make sense?). Something seems to have "clicked" between my hands and feet and brain and spinning this merino seemed to just flow.

I had to use EVERY ounce of my self control to not cast on for something with this last night. Must. Knit. Christmas. UFOs.

Okay, enough stalling. UFO time. In point form. With little pictures. In order of the length of time they have been on the needles.

1. Not Christmas knitting, but a UFO I want to knit:

The back of a shawl collared cardigan I'm pulling together from several patterns and my stitch book. I have no idea when I started this one but it's been a while.

2. My sister-in-law's "siwash-style" sweater/jacket:

I'm rationalizing the slow pace of this knit with the fact that she is pregnant and won't be able to close it until after the baby comes in February. This way, she'll have a nice new jacket to wear when she is post-baby. Right?

I don't know why this thing is taking me so long. Other than it is HARD to knit. Not difficult. Just hard. Like I need to be lifting weights to build arm strength hard.

3. A toque to be gifted from some Corriedale I dyed and spun (eee!!!)

I like how it's knitting up, but I'm toying with the idea of making something more substantial with it. I have about 450yards. Suggestions? (It's not super-even but somewhere between a sport and a dk/light worsted)

4. 3 inches of the bottom of a sweater for me. Again, not Christmas knitting but it is winter so I should be working on it.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... I just lost you didn't I? Boring, huh? If it helps, it's the Shawl Collared pullover from Vogue knitting from a couple of years ago (or last year?). I'm working it in the round because stocking stitch for 5 miles is bad enough if I have to purl back every other row, right?

5. The collar and 2 inches of body of a sweater for my friend Julie.

Just minutes before I took this picture (on the weekend) I realized I had irreversably messed up the lace bit on the body of this top-down raglan. So it will be frogged and possibly I will use different yarn because I wasn't fully sold on it. Or, maybe I'll tink back and fix it. Or...

(this, my friends, is why nothing is getting finished.)

6. Back piece of a cardigan for my friend's daughter. I'm using Knitty's Reid as a starting point but I changed the lace.

This is a pretty quick knit but I got distracted (as I tend to do) and haven't worked on it since Saturday.

7. I was distracted by this:

Knitty's Danica knit with Patons SWS yarn. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....
Not sure yet who this is for. I have a couple of giftees in mind and will shuffle things around as I go. Once I caught on to what I was doing this is going pretty quickly. (This knit was inspired by Eunny Jang's post here)

If only I could knit at work (instead of, you know, working) I could get some of this done! I have yarn and an idea ready for a gift for my friend Cobi (shh) and, (you might want to sit down again) I actually swatched for it last night! (I know!) I am hoping to see my brother, sister-in-law and their boys this weekend so I bumped the Christmas knitting in order to sneak in a couple of baby-sized-toques. (no pics at the moment).

I'm sure I could knit at my desk. No one would notice.