Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Inspired by yarn

First, about Ivy. I finished it at 12:30am on Sunday, wore it to knitting on Sunday and I'm wearing it today, too. It still needs a final wash and block before I model it for photos, but I am VERY happy with it and enjoyed showing it off to my fellow knitters. I plan to keep wearing it until the weather gets too warm.

With Ivy finished, that only leaves me with three projects on the needles. The Melon scarf, which is kind of hibernating, but also kind of a long term "back-up" project. I don't always have time to plan and start a new project when I have a streak of finishitis, so the scarf ensures that I always have something that is easy to grab and could keep me busy on a long trip for work or for pleasure. I don't have specific plans for the scarf and the body is easy enough that I don't have to refer to the chart. I'm honestly mostly interested in it to do the lace edging and to have the finished project, the middle doesn't really sustain my attention. So I think it will be on the needles for a while unless I find a real push to work on it.

The second thing on the needles is the Reading in Bed shrug. I'm about 2/3rds of the way done based on the blocking I did this weekend and it is going pretty fast. I have the 8 row repeat memorized (even rows are purled across) and it is easy to toss in my bag. My motivation for finishing is that I think it would be nice to have for cool evenings this summer, but I don't have a particular deadline.

The third thing is a toddler sweater that will be a gift. It's going well and quickly. The body is done except for weaving in ends and I started the first sleeve on the bus this morning. A week of bus knitting should finish it off.

Since two of my three projects have a limited number of hours left on them and I foresee a good amount of knitting time this weekend, my goal last night was to plan and start a couple of new projects. I'm going to need at least 5 baby gifts this year and I'd love to start another big project for me and maybe something new for Heather for the fall. So after Heather went to bed I started browsing my books with baby and toddler patterns.

I found zero inspiration.

Sure, I saw projects that I want to make at some point. But nothing that I *need* to make right now. There are things in my ravelry queue, but nothing calling to me over anything else.

I think part of it is my stash. I know that there is yarn in there that I really want to use. And I know that I have enough that I don't *need* to buy any more right now. So I think a better strategy for my current state of mind is to "toss the stash" and find the yarn that is calling to me right now. And then I can swatch and find the pattern that works for the yarn I want to use. I could even bring a bunch of different skeins with me this weekend plus my Harmony options needles and spend the weekend swatching. Maybe. Then again, maybe not. My brain falls asleep just thinking about that idea. :-)

I guess if I can't figure out what else to make by the time I finish my WIPs, then I will just start making bibs and baby washcloths until inspiration hits!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Just wanted to say that Ivy was beautiful and very flattering on you! It was much appreciated on this end!
*Your* work is inspiring!

Anna said...

If you want to look through my Ravelry queue, I put in some things that would use up odds and ends or use yarns other than for their obvious purposes. There's a baby bonnet made of sock yarn, for example.