Saturday, June 23, 2007

Stuck

Welcome to the blog of the mad knitter! Yes, I've finally succumbed to the overwhelming drive to blog my knitting exploits...I fought this urge for quite some time, but I've now given up, surrendered myself to the universe and allowed my inner blogger some air time...she'd better behave or play time is over!


First up, my never ending frog-socks project. I hadn't *planned* on knitting frog socks. In fact, I had this lovely Knitty tank all lined up for myself to be completed by summer (I can kiss *that* goodbye now). But my hard-to-please son asked so very nicely, and I grabbed the chance to make something for him that he might actually want to wear, unlike the other sweaters/scarves/basically-everything-I've-knit-him since the age of three. So, without further ado, here they are:






Now, can you see the never-ending part? Here, look a little closer:



Aside from the fact that one frog has a smile and one doesn't (and why is the green showing through the blue? That has never happened to me before!), can you see the difference in width between, say, the top 1/4 of both socks? If you can't, it's my photographic/modeling abilities at fault because the difference in size is *quite* noticeable in real life. Apparently I was *so* worried about the cotton I used for the yellow stripe in the ribbing being tight around the leg that I overcompensated on the first sock and cast on too loosely, which seemed to carry all the way down through the frog section. I have some plans to fix this, but this means that I can't do the happy dance when I finish the second sock because I will be knitting what feels like a *third* frog sock after that! Well, not really, and it's only knitting (re-knitting?) the top section, but I *so* want to be done with this project, and it's not happening anytime soon!


And yes, I know the frog looks a bit like a bat, but I couldn't find any frog charts so I made this up all by myself, and considering I had absolutely *no* idea what I was doing I'm pretty darned proud of my bat-winged frogs.


And both will be smiling by the end of all this. As will I. As will, we can only hope, my son.

Anyway, this is what I long to be working on:




I know, it doesn't look like much now, but it will be stunning, I hope! It's Isabella from Knitty.com (http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEspring07/PATTisabella.html) That bottom part gets hemmed and makes this gorgeous picot edging all around the bottom of the tank. I cast on for it while I was waiting to get to the store for the frog socks' green yarn, and I do regret that the wait wasn't longer! I'm not a simultaneous-project knitter, so I seem to be stuck with those socks until they are done. I still have some shred of hope that I can whip up this tank before the weather gets cool again, but knowing how fast I knit, I suspect this may be wishful thinking.