I am THIS close to finishing this sweater. It has taken me about 5 times recasting in the beginning because I couldn’t get the stitch count right, knitting it tent-sized and fully frogging a fair amount, taking my time swatching, finishing the body and then reknitting the bottom hem because it wasn’t to my liking, and now..

..I’ve run out of yarn. Only about 3/4 of a sleeve left to go. I was so sure I’d have this thing done by now. I already saw the yarn shortage coming last weekend so I swiftly ordered some extra yarn. And now a week later it still hasn’t arrived. Visions of lost parcels in the mail and then this specific colourway going out of stock are haunting me.

I’m too afraid to start anything new, afraid to loose my interest in this never ending project now that I can see the finish line. I did knit a few hexipuffs while waiting, which is good for my hexipuff goal (I completely forgot what my specific goal was but I’m sure it involved knitting hexipuffs).

The wait has also given me the chance to finish reading a book! I didn’t like it very much but still, I finished a book! Maybe my reading mojo will finally come back. The book I finished was called ‘Sneeuwwitje moet sterven’ (original title: Schneewittchen muss sterben) by German crime author Nele Neuhaus. I didn’t find the characters particularly believable, nor the story very interesting, and if there’s one thing that annoys me to bits it’s murder mysteries that take too long to solve because the detectives seem sort of stupid. Anyway, no harm done. I started reading A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki and so far it seems right up my alley.

I’ve also found some time to dive into my garden. I’m not much of a gardener (read: I’m not a gardener at all), and if I’d have to describe my gardening style I’d call it ‘hack and slash’. Still, the garden seems in a reasonable state, which is good as I’m hosting a Eurovision party next weekend (oh the gloriousness that is Eurovision!!!! Are you as excited as I am?!). And I also found a little garden friend, isn’t he the cutest?

Hip hip, hurrah! My blog turned 1 years old last week 🙂

And what a fun year it has been, although I realise how awfully quiet I’ve been this last month. Luckily I’ve been busy with good things, like being very productive at work. Last week I submitted my first ever scientific paper, to a proper scientific journal (fingers double crossed it will get accepted). Although it doesn’t decrease my workload, it does give me some sense of calm, making me feel as if I’m on track in my phd. I’ve been super busy setting up my new experiment, which is a major pain in the butt. So my knitting has been therapeutic, slow, and monogamous (the three things that make for boring blogging).

Albeit slow, my Sperry raglan sweater really IS growing. And in the proper size this time (I think..). I’m almost done with the body so hopefully next weekend I’ll be busy knitting the sleeves. Unless I try it on and figure out once again the size is off. NO! This will not happen. I swatched a billion swatches, I tried it on after separating the sleeves, this thing WILL fit me.

If all those rows of stockinette could speak, they would probably reveal how many episodes of Bob’s Burgers I’ve been watching while knitting this (hint: a lot).

I’ve also managed to squeeze in a few hexipuffs. Even though math isn’t exactly my strong point, I figured that if at one point in my life I aim to have 400 puffs, I would never reach that goal if I’d keep up my average of 0 puffs per month. The current puffcount stands at 24,5, so I think I should aim to at least try to knit 5 puffs a month or so. Let’s not calculate how long it then still takes me to reach 400, ignorance is bliss after all.

Anywho, I wish I’d had more progress to show on my blogiversary, but this’ll have to do. I did finish my lovely teal cable project I blogged about recently, but it really deserves its very own FO post. I do want to thank all the fantastic knitterfolk (and non-knitter folk) I got to know through this blog, you lot are fabulous 🙂

 

I’m in the zone. The house is filled with the sound of the clickety-clack of my needles. And it’s lovely.

I did about a million gauge swatches for my sweater that doesn’t fit and I think I finally found the needle size that works for me. So very optimistically the sweater has been cast on again. I’m not quite as far as the point where I left off my previous version, but by happily stitching along I will get there.

I’m still going to sewing classes, and although I don’t feel like my skills are drastically improving, the machine is already so much less intimidating. I’m very pleased with how the apron turned out, but my teacher helped me a lot, and without her it wouldn’t even look the least bit like an apron. I think for my next step I’m going to try and make some simple skirts and let some interesting prints do all the talking (it’s perfectly acceptable for a 26-year old to wear a skirt with foxes on it right??).

And then there’s this project.. It’s such a joy. I won’t give away too much about it just yet, but somehow the combination of pretty cables, perfect yarn, pretty needles and fun stitch markers make this so relaxing. I don’t even want to finish it, because I’ll be sad if I can’t work on it anymore. Have you ever felt this way about a project?