This is me.  Really… it’s painful… painfully half finished projects and nothing but the desire to start another one.

The Garter Yoke Cardigan. Still. The sleeve is finished, but there are no buttons. I forgot the buttons I picked out of our family button jar at my mom’s, and then forgot them again yesterday, which means that I will be visiting Button Button tomorrow or the next day.

The Spring Mittens. I don’t know what’s going on with these. I really wanted to knit them then I got to this point, and stopped. Just… stopped. I think I am afraid they are going to be huge.

Stripish Baktus. I have a lot of yarn. A LOT. So I decided that something must be done with this funny moth eaten lace weight that I bought. Yes. I bought lace  weight that had… holes everywhere. No bugs came in the package, just a lot of small balls to wind up. What I won’t do for a good deal. By the way, I am addicted to stripes right now.

The beginnings of TKGA’s Basics course. I have had it since last fall. It has been niggling from the shelf by my desk for months, especially since christmas. I decided that I would have to get the first section sent away before I go to my apprenticeship with Susun Weed. 15 days and counting.

This does not take into account the shawl I have half warped on the loom, and a toque I have burried at the bottom of my knitting basket.  Rediculous.  Really.  So what about that cute hoody vest?

Blogger: Ya, I…

Blog: Ya nothing.  There is a certain expectation here.  Some people are process knitters.  They tune in to see your pictures, or tune in to learn how to do certain knitting techniques.  Others… they knit for the finished object, and they come here, hoping to be inspired by your finished objects.

Blogger: But the arm warmers!  I…

Blog: The ARM WARMERS?  You call that a finished object? You used scrap yarn to make them.  You didn’t even take any good pictures.  That’s like saying a dish cloth is a finished object.

Blogger: Woa… don’t you think that’s being a bit harsh on wash cloth knitters?

Blog: We’re talking about you here.

Blogger (speaking from the pelvic floor now): No.  I don’t think we are.  I don’t think we’re talking about blog readers either.  In fact, your comments felt pretty critical and uninspiring.

Blogger grabs blog by the face, pulls at his cables a little…

Blog (struggling): Hey!  Watch what you’re…

SNAP! Blog’s mask rips in two to reveal none other than…

Blogger: I thought you sounded an awful lot like my ego.  Git.

Ego exits stage left  with tail between legs.

As I was saying.  This week, I began my first colour work mittens.  My first stranded colour work ever! I’m working from the pattern Andalus Mittens by Heather Desserud.  For yarn I’m using Blue Moon Fiber Arts: Socks that Rock lightweight colourways Pond Scum (green) and Juniper (purple).

I feel like they are a little big (which might leave some room for a liner?) which is my own fault because I didn’t get gauge, but the needles fault for me not having small enough dpns… do they make .5mm? Thankfully they are not so big that one would have to rip them back.  I did rip back a little bit… and man, ripping back colourwork is not that fun!

I got to the thumb hole last night and am getting pretty comfortable with diligently following a pattern while knitting with two hands.  (Video to come?)

And in case you are wondering about the sweater… I finished the first sleeve   And I am now almost done the second one.  I have decided to rip the body back and keep going with the stockinette until my hips.  Having the garter stitch start at my waist looks a little frumpy, if a stick bug can look frumpy.

OOOOooh… and for inspiration, I’ve been watching The Nest Cam. A beautiful hummingbird nesting in California.

I had to eat my breakfast first, as I mentioned, because the camera battery was dead and I had to go and find the charger anyway.  Once I got away from the internet, I realized just how hungry I was… especially when I started to do the hunger dance when I couldn’t put my hand on the battery charger immediately.  Finally, I got into the kitchen, found my oatmeal snotty because I had left in on the burner, even though the burner was off.  Damnit. I hate snotty oatmeal.  Then, to top it all off, the roasted pecans had attached to one of them… this.

That’s right, not one, but TWO little pieces of shell.  Snotty oatmeal with pecan shells.  My favourite. (For the proper perfect oatmeal recipe, I direct you to our sadly neglected family blog….)

Getting back to our sheep, I finished my arm warmers yesterday night. (Did you know that in French this is an actual way of saying ‘getting back on topic’? Retournons a nos moutons. Ya. Such a cool language.)

The darning in took two episodes of Ghost Whisperer.  Speaking of which, I realized that an important detail that I often forget to reveal is what I am watching or listening to when I knit a particular garment. I almost always remember the circumstances in which I knit when I fondle finished objects so, I try and pick literature that inspires the garment. Not to mention that the ultimate cozy is listening to an audiobook drinking tea and knitting at the same time – its a total orgasm of my senses.  For example, the shawl I knit for Sarah’s Wedding… I mostly knit while listening to Jane Eyre, and a Jane Austin novel.  The abandoned Milkweed, I was listening to The Secret Life of Bees for the second time.  I finished the book, but not the shawl.

To inspire the Noro Striped Arm Warmers, aside from the aforementioned show, I listened to the first few stories in Runaway by Alice Munro (you can only listen to so many short stories before you begin to think like a short story, which can be tragic.) There is something about striped arm warmers that screamed rebellion and independence to me – two beautiful themes in Runaway.

I also found myself so engrossed in the story line for the 4th season that I didn’t want to go to bed and thus continued right onto my sweater sleeve.

Proof that with the right circumstances we can overcome any form of knitters block!

I’m not an overly speedy knitter.  I think maybe I just spent way more time knitting  yesterday than I spent doing anything else. (Can you tell it’s raining and dark here?  The light in that photo is completely unnatural.  Yuck.)

You see… I have the house to myself this weekend.  That means that I don’t really  make food that doesn’t start with stir and end with fry.  I only clean up when I need to use a dish (I make sure I keep using the same dishes over and over again).  I watch old episodes of Ghost Whisperer and other than that I’m pretty much just knitting, sewing, weaving.  Honestly, if I could find my darning needle, I probably wouldn’t even be posting right now, but I can’t, so I am.  I am also avoiding other things, like any sort of physical exertion or discipline. And trying not to notice that when I talk… nobody is here to listen.  Le sigh.

Yup.  Just me and my arm warmers. Now… where is that darn darning needle?

I don’t know if I dislike the twisted up ball of a sweater hanging off my needles while knitting a sleeve, or seeming more.  I have been knitting away, but it seems to go so slowly… knitting, knitting, knitting, untwist.

So, I started a pair of wrist warmers.

I’ve never knit a pair of wrist warmers.

But the socks… as I was knitting them, and sticking them on my hands as I do… begged to be wrist warmers.  Luckily there is yarn left over.

Voila, le debut… wrist warmers kind of fly off the needles.  No untwisting… just knitting.

Maybe I won’t need sleeves on my sweater if I have these fabulous wrist warmers… or maybe that is crossing the ‘number of hand knit garments to be worn at the same time’ limit.  The other day I wore three and no one commented… and if the colours compliment each other…