Project Update

Haha! Here is a post I wrote a month ago and then for some reason never published...I was probably planning on including pictures or something. Here it is, more for archiving purposes than anything else. The projects I talk about are all finished at this point!

So, what do you do when you are obsessed with a large lace project for three weeks straight, and then you finish it? You look around frantically for the next project to lose yourself in, of course. Finishing a big project that you love is kind of like finishing a novel that you love. It's hard to cope without having that project or book to turn to in your free time, and you don't think any other project or book could possibly be as engrossing as the one you just finished. In fact, you kind of go through the stages of grief once it's gone:

Denial: My project is still over there by the couch, waiting for me to pick it up. I can't be finished with it because it has been part of my life for so long!

Anger: How can I be done with that project?!? It was so large and challenging--it was supposed to last me forever! I hate all other projects!

Bargaining: I will trade all of my old Ultra Alpaca for another evening of working on that project. Just let me not be done and I'll knit for charity for the rest of the year!

Depression: If I can't knit on that project, I don't want to knit anything ever again. Life is so unfair, and it's not worth looking at other yarns if I can't have the one I want.

Acceptance: Well, if I have to be done with that project, I'm going to make my next project that much better/bigger/complicated/fun!

So that was the plan. But instead of better/bigger/complicated/fun, I opted for the hidden enjoyment of a stash-down project. See, I have five skeins of Ultra Alpaca in the Ocean Mix colorway, which is a very pretty, deep blue/green color that is absolutely wrong for me. I do not look good in blue/green, no matter how pretty I might think it is. I spent a couple of evenings online, trying to find something to make with it and I finally, grudgingly (because I didn't even want to knit with the yarn) settled on Harper, from Pop Knits. And guess what happened? I fell totally in love with the yarn and the project! I think it is super pretty, and I can't wait to finish it and throw it on over a black t-shirt and jeans. Score one for stash-down!

But that's not all! My progress on Harper was stalled by my continued fascination with lace knitting. I actually volunteered to test knit someone's shawl pattern! I told her I could have it done in two weeks, and that was over a week ago. I'm halfway through Chart 5 of 6, so I'm nearing the end, but it's a faroese shawl knit from the neck down, so each row gets longer and longer as I go. Right now, a row takes about 15 minutes to complete, but I can see that getting up to about 20 minutes pretty soon. Still, it's a very pretty pattern and I'm quite happy with it. I haven't asked the designer's permission, so I'm not going to post photos, but I'm sure I will be able to when it's done.

Finally, I received a knitting request from my 18 year old brother who is a theater and dance major in college. I don't think I need to tell you how excited I am to be knitting knee-high legwarmers for a 6'3" boy in the Fruit Punch colorway. Needless to say, progress is rather slow right now.