Tuesday 8 December 2015

Musing on Old Stuff

I was looking over my knitting yesterday and did a completely winging it calculation of how many metres was knit this year.  Only about 13,000, way, way down from previous years.  But, when I think about everything else I did this year, I am ok with it.  I knew that I knit a lot of small projects this year, and I re-knit projects more than I ever have before.  More surprising to me is the state of my WIP's bins.  I knew that I finished a lot of longtime projects this year.  It felt right to work on them but when I sat down to look at the list, well.  Surprise!

There are only 4 old projects left in my WIP's list.  I have enough WIP's for my comfort, but only 4 are from the life before, and two of those are my current constant and semi constant knitting as we speak.  

The ones I am working on are the Still Light Tunic in that wonderful green Drops Alpaca , which is about 70 % done and the Bridgewater in Classic Elite Silky Alpaca Lace in that soft gray I lusted over (and still do), which is my plain knitting the last while.  I am still on the garter stitch centre but I am decreasing now, so it won't be much longer till it is border time.  

The only other old things, begun before are these.  


A Moderne Log Cabin from Mason Dixon Knitting's first book for Son 2.  The yarn is Comfort and Comfort Chunky.  I couldn't find enough of the orange in the Comfort Chunky locally, but found the Comfort on a trip to Crafty Lady in Lacombe, and decided to go with that.  I actually knit a few stitches on this a week or so ago while I was trying to avoid knitting on the blob, but I put it down.  One monster at a time.

And this, begun in January 2012.  

My long, long abandoned Deep in the Forest mittens.  My project is named for the colours of the yarn, Bittersweet and Mist, and now that I have experience wearing a project made with KnitPicks Palette, I am really looking forward to these.  I don't show it on the project page as farther along than the lovely braided edge, but my notes mention it being farther along.  It came to my new house tucked under things found as I was moving.  The doilies under it in the photo are a bunch that were stuffed on top of it.  

And this.

I did say, that I had a feeling there was more of the cotton from my basket-o-topia around.

I love how the mittens are working out.  They might not fit me in the end, but that is fine with me.  I have several family members who could wear such pretty things now and a possibility exists that I may also knit only one of the mittens.  If you work up such a complex design as this, but didn't enjoy it, there is no point in doing a second.  Time is too short to knit what you don't enjoy.   I am enjoying this so far. It bodes well.
Everything else on my WIP's list was started in 2015.  Two of those, the blob and my Ripstick are almost finished.  One side of the button band needs redoing on Ripstisck and possibly a neckband.  It also needs sleeves but they are half done in knitting the body so not much knitting to do on it.  There is only a half a sleeve on the blob to do, and deep winter is approaching. Need is going to come no matter what I do.   Tickles My Fancy needs blocking and then I want to measure mom before I move ahead on it.  I have a feeling it is too small right now.  It just looks wrong but till I have her in front of me, it is so hard to say.  My Own Twisted has to be ripped back to the underarms.  I don't like the way the increases look in the yarn. It was a less than great increase choice on my part.  Adrifting Again is barely begun and the sweater choice may be different before the yarn is knit up.  And the Sock Parade.  Every year has a sock parade so far, and now that I am doing more than just plain socks, I might simply list them individually from here on in.  

Such an odd year in so many ways.  I am closing off the old things and that is ok.  It took a long time for me to be able to say it was ok, but my need to finish these long ago knitting projects seems to be guiding my life.  Towards something.  I don't know towards what but then, really, when do we ever know that. 

Years ago, I purchased a sign that I now have above my windows in my study. I think I have spoken of it before. 








I might not know where I am going but I know that I will be wasting my time wisely along the way.  

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