When You Actually Knit

I'm not sure if I've mentioned that I've switched back to working full time. It's been good, except that I miss my mid-morning naps (do you think anyone would notice if I napped under my desk?), and my knitting time.

With less time to knit, it feels like I've been working on the same 3 projects forever.

1. Clapotis (for those keeping track at home, this is Clapotis #4, although it's been maybe 5 years since #3)



The yarn is a light (laceweight? light fingering? who knows!), single ply handspun--a mix of seasilk and wool, as I recall. It's the first yarn I ever left as a single, and seems balanced enough for a piece with a tendency to bias anyway. (I have 2 sweaters knit in the round from commercial yarn, and I'm convinced they bias. No one notices but me--I've asked, and let me point out that non-knitters think "Do you see the lines in my sweater? No, not that, that's lace. And that's garter stitch. The vertical lines. Here. All over. See? Do you think they twist? Well, do you think it looks different if I pull it like this?" is a very strange conversation--but it drives me crazy.) I waffled about leaving it as a single, because I didn't spin it meaning to make a single, but I'm glad I did, because I love the stripes!

2. A pink cotton cardigan (imagine a pink cotton rectangle in stockinette stitch, slightly squished by a circular needle). It's basically this sweater, but I think I'm going to add a tiny bit of sleeve, and possibly make the shirred sections a little narrower. There's something a little droopy about some of the versions of the sweaters on Ravelry, and I think it's the result of a tall yoke.

3. A lap blanket for Schaefer Yarns, using 4 different yarn bases in related colorways. After some waffling, it's going to be garter stitch wedges, knit together as you go, in different directions. You'd think it would go quickly--size 10 needles, correspondingly thick yarn--or at least feel like it was moving ahead (I get to change yarns pretty frequently), but because I expected it to feel quick, but haven't really been working on it, it feels slow.

I also have a lurking baby blanket, which I'm making with three friends, but I've decided not to count it, since having more than 3 projects makes me antsy. At the same time, I've been wondering whether the importance of having sock in progress might trump the antsiness of more than 3 projects, but given how little progress I'm already making, I suspect it wouldn't.

I brought the shawl and cardigan to Lake Placid this weekend for my triathlon club's annual training camp (in which people do as much or as little of the LP Ironman course as they want to, over the course of a weekend) and made all kinds of progress in between workouts and on the drive back. Amazing how knitting progresses when you actually knit!