Stubborn

I had an... interesting night last night. It was something like a battle of wills between me and the Lily-of-the Valley Smoke ring.
I thought it was time to be finished. I'm dead sick of skinny yarn and little needles. I've been itching to get at my size 9's and some Ultra Alpaca. The smoke ring almost thwarted me. But I kicked its butt.
I got to the end of the last lace pattern repeat and realized I had enough yarn for maybe six more rounds. I had twelve to go. I really have noone but myself to blame for this. I tend to knit with a very loose tension anyway, and with all the bobbles in the lace pattern I was knitting even looser (I don't think that's really a word) than usual. And the pattern does warn that if your tension is remarkably different from the gauge given, you might need more yarn. Unfortunately it didn't occur to me to check my gauge. It's lace, I never check gauge with lace.
I pretended that maybe (just maybe) I would be able to eke out the last twelve rounds if I knit tighter than I had been (even though it requires adding half again the number of stitches). So I knit four rounds into the edging before I gave up.
I am too much of a wuss to just pull out the needles and frog away, so I spent about four hours tinking back through the four rounds of edging and the last pattern repeat. I could have smacked myself for not putting a lifeline in before the last pattern repeat the way I had been planning to, because even that far back, I saw this coming. I did however find that I could tink back four rounds at a time. All you do is pick up the stitch a few rows back instead of just on the previous row. Though this does mean that you are working with up to four strands of yarn that are getting progressively longer, but that you can't wind into a ball because they are still attached to the knitting. I came dangerously close to just having a huge pile of yarn vomit, but it worked out in the end.
I had lost hope that I would finish last night. I had been planning to go to sleep at a reasonable hour because I have been so sleep deprived, and it was near 11:00. But I thought, "Why don't I just get started on the edging? I can finish tomorrow if I have to." So I popped in another movie (my fourth of the day) and got to it.
I was done casting off around 1:30AM. I was so pissed with the freakin' thing that I couldn't stand the thought of not being able to start the Second Green Sweater right away that I just kept going.
The really depressing thing is, I don't particularly like the finished object. I like the yarn, the lace pattern, it looks pretty on the dummy head on the pattern, but I'm just not feeling the love for this thing right now. Maybe it will look better if I re-do the bind off so it isn't quite so loose and I block it.
But I was so grouchy about the freakin' thing that I cast on a gauge swatch for my sweater. And stayed up 'till 2:30.

Must. Be. Strong.

I am going to knit the Sienna Cardigan designed by Ann E. Smith. But I am not allowed until I finish my other projects. My Clover Field scarf just needs to be grafted together and blocked. But it's still done even if it isn't blocked right? I have just under two pattern repeats and the edging of the Lily of the Valley Smoke Ring left to knit. I need to finish. I have five hanks of Ultra Alpaca sitting next to my desk. I want to use my spiffy new swift and ballwinder and start right now!
But I can't. Or I'll never finish my other two projects and they will hand over my head until they are done.
Must. Be. Strong.

Relaxing

I can finally start to relax. All the papers that I need to turn in have been turned in. I just washed all of my dishes. I still kinda need to clean my room.
My problem now is that I'm not very excited about anything I'm knitting. In all three of my projects I'm at the point where I'm just repeating the same thing over and over again until whatever it is gets long enough. I absolutely refuse to start another project until I have finished at least two of these. Unless I need to start my brother's Christmas present.
I just hate feeling like I'm not getting anywhere with any of these, and the fact that there are three of them just makes it less likely that I'll move very quickly along with any of them. I like finishing things, but it's hard to get myself to sit down for any prolonged period of time to knit when the prospect of what I am knitting is so boring. Luckily my hatred of unfinished objects, my minimal stash, and financial situation (i.e. poor and cheap) all combine to keep me from casting on anything else else.
We'll have to see what happens when I am completely out of school for the semester.

Snow!

The first snow of the season is falling! And it's sticking much better than the newsmen predicted.
I haven't had much knitting time, I have a math paper to write, but the end is near! In less than two weeks I'll be at home and knitting my fingers off.
But for now, my math paper is calling...

FAIL!

I think I've failed so far in my blogging experience. I have been so wrapped up in schoolwork (and the minor mental breakdowns that come along with it this time of year) that I have completely neglected my blog.
I finished the Syrian Shoulder Shawl, and my tea cozy. I'm stretching myself too far with a lace scarf, a smoke ring, and a cabled scarf for my grandmother. I can't remember every having so many projects going at once. I think it kind of reflects my current inward state. I'm all over the place. Hopefully I'll get back here more often.

Never enough time

I'm very frustrated now that I'm back at school. Over the summer, even with my internship, I was putting in a solid two hours of knitting a day. Now, I'm lucky if I sit down for a half hour. The only times I get much done at all is when I go to our Stitch 'n' Bitch on Wednesdays.
I'm sometimes overcome with the desire to blow off all my homework and my classes and just knit for a few days straight, but I'm really too much of a goody two shoes for that.
In the past week gotten the edging around the second corner on the Syrian Shoulder Shawl. I'm looking forward to finishing this, I want to start a new lace project, but I'm not allowed until I finish this one. I have to be very bossy with myself when it comes to starting new projects. If I just started projects as the ideas came to me, I'd be bankrupt and frustrated because I'd never finish a thing. But I'm just about to round the third corner, so the end is in sight.
Soon my dear friend Kristina will be taking pictures of my knitting. I am very pleased about this because I need pictures for my projects on Ravelry (which by the way is so insanely cool I just can't stand it), and not only does Kristina have a real camera, she's also a really bitchin' amateur photographer!

It's finally happened...

It's finally happened. After reading so many great blogs by other knitters out there, and just never being able to talk about my knitting enough, I'm starting my own wee blog. I used to have a personal blog that I wrote in very frequently, but I grew up and my desire to air all of my personal problems on the internet waned.
But now I want to talk about knitting.
I have two projects on the needles now, the Syrian Shoulder Shawl from Victorian Lace Today and a tea-cozy that I'm making up as I go along.
I'm actually very excited about my little tea-cozy. I've only ever knitted from patterns before, so I'm all jazzed that I'm actually making something up right out of my own head. I've been wanting to knit a tea-cozy because I drink tea like it is my job as long as the ambient temperature is below 75, and I like my tea burning hot. I've seen patterns for other tea-cozies, but none of them really caught my fancy. Then once day in class I had a neat idea, so I've been fooling around with it since.
There will be more to come, but for now, it's Friday, so I'm off to do some leisure knitting.