synestheticknits

hey peeps. sorry for the radio silence. it's been a rough couple of months, shall we say? moving on. i've started knitting again. i had some purple 2-ply handspun waiting to be a sweater for some time, so i got started on a little something inspired by the lovely owls pullover. my yarn was of a thinner gauge, so much math has been going on (ugh). the body went as planned, but after finishing the first sleeve discovered that the fit was just.. off. slightly too-fitted cuff, slightly too-loose upper arm. frogging and math (more math!) are not amongst my favorite parts of knitting, but here we are. it'll be a while yet before this thing is done. it's okay, seems like it's going to be winter forever in new england.

if you wrote me off, i'd understand it 'cause I've been on some other planet

i'm starting to think i'm the only knitter out there in internet-land who doesn't love knitting socks. i mean, i like sock-knitting.. but it's not a love. but i keep wanting more, somehow, like i just want to have knit them and be done. i think it may be partly (or mostly) to do with the fact that i don't really like doing the same thing twice. recipes, paintings, day jobs apparently... so i do tend to prefer fraternal socks. and yet, here i am with twenty-two sock patterns on my ravelry queue. some, since 2007. i need to get a grip on reality. why must the call of self-striping sock yarns be so strong? i've been thinking of this lately because of these . i found some lovely coffee-colored yarn on etsy to make a little something for my lovely coffee-fiend boyfriend. i had intended to start & finish them in a couple weeks before his birthday this spring. that didn't happen. fine, i thought. plenty of time for a christmas gift. ri...

so much to be done. every year (every. single. year.) i say that i will start gift knitting in july. this has never happened. this year, at least, i have about half a sock going for the boyfriend (but really this is only because i was trying for his birthday earlier in the year..). though now i am feeling drawn in to all these november knit-a-longs going on. could i do it all?? there's wovember of course, where you knit with nothing but 100% wool for the entire month. this sounds excellent, but i tend to use blends and machine-washable fibers when making stuff for other people. aww. and then there's naknitswemo , in which, much like nanowrimo, you must knit a 50,000 stitch sweater within the month of november. this i could do! i have some handspun intended for a sweater, and a pattern lined up for it. however... there's also the indie design gift-a-long , which would be great gift knitting encouragement. but can i do that and knit a sweater at the same time...

hello october! my favorite month. (: so at long last i have started the skoodlet . i'm a big fan of leethal 's stuff - fun thinky knitting! i've only had this yarn balled up and ready to go for skoodlet since the summer. erm, of 2011. anyway. after a few false starts, it zoomed along until i realized that, tragically, i had underestimated the amount of yarn i would need. daaaaamn. good thing i waited two years to cast on so there's no way i'll be able to find some from a matching dyelot, right?? sigh. i actually only have part of the scarf bit left to go, so a single skein should do it. i found someone destashing some on ravelry, so i sent out a message to her today.. fingers crossed!

the dreaded time of year.. the end of summer. bah. we did okay though... june: 1. outdoor concert at waterplace park in providence. 2. at the beach in matunuck, ri. 3. sunset. july: 4. the columbus theatre on broadway in providence. 5. the newport folk festival. august: 6. the zipper, at the washington county fair. 7. cape cod seashells. 8. gondola rides during waterfire. 9. the end. im memory: an end of summer treasury. i'll get over it soon enough.

so what i wanted was to knit with some handspun. i also wanted one of those scarf-type things that you wear around your neck like a cowl, and can pull up over your head like a hood. this did not end up to be one of those things. just means there's more knitting to do, is all. never a bad thing. but i got to knit some handspun, and really, this is something that one just needs to do that every so often. there's something that feels more real and dirty about it, you know? in the best possible way. lumps and fluffs and lanolin, a bit of hay every so often. real life, real yarn. i had a particular skein picked out. a big reason for it being that it has been in my stash for so so so long. embarrassingly long. years. i was never quite sure how to do it justice. now was the time. after much swatching, i found that the best stitch pattern for this would be.. garter. just garter stitch. on big needles, for some nice drape. but it wouldn't really look, or stret...