Summer Spirals and Project Talk

Last week I managed to finish a project that’s been lingering since June! Not the best picture of these socks, but it’s the only one I have of them finished. I took this picture with my iPhone right after I finished them, then forgot to get a decent picture before I gave them away. Oops! A better photo of the pattern and color are below so you can see what they really look like.

Summer Spirals

Pattern: Summer Spirals by Ina Isobe (My Ravelry project page.)
Started: June 3, 2011
Completed: September 22, 2011
Yarn: Unknown yarn, gifted to my friend Karen, knit up into socks by me for her boyfriend’s mom
Needle: US 1 (2.25mm) Knit Picks circular
Notes: These took me so long because of Camp Loopy. I think if I hadn’t done Camp Loopy, I probably would have had these done back in June! Not sure what the yarn actually was made up of since I didn’t bother with a burn test, but it wasn’t too bad to work with and the socks knit up fairly fast when I actually worked on them. I did modify the pattern to have one extra purl stitch in each purl section. Took a while to get the right stitch count for a good fit.

Summer Spirals – In Progress

I don’t think I mentioned it previously, but I wasn’t entirely happy with how the sleeves ended up on Eadon. The bothered me, even after living with it for a few days. Ultimately I decided I didn’t like the cast off I used after cutting a chunk of the sleeve off and that the sleeves needed a little more length. If you look at the sleeves of Eadon in the first picture here, you can see they’re a bit flared. It made them loose and bothered me when I wore it. To fix it, since it’s knit in 3 by 2 rib, I had to knit a small piece and graft it. This was no small task because it would be my first time grafting ribbing together. After some fiddling, I did figure out how to do it, though. After bringing it to knit group, all agreed you can’t tell where it was grafted. I can a little on the first sleeve I did, but the second one isn’t noticeable to me. I’m quite happy with the results and can now truly say I’m happy with how this sweater has turned out!

After finishing up the socks and fixing Eadon, I tired to be good and finish things on the needles first. Sadly, almost everything I had going required a chart that isn’t easily memorized, which made them not portable projects or I just wasn’t feeling like working on it. As much as I really love some of the designs that require lengthy charts, it’s difficult for me to work on those projects away from home and I spend a huge chunk of my knitting time away from home! The Seneca sweater just wasn’t holding my interest, the Grove mittens have a large chart that make them not portable, and High Seas shawl is charted on right and wrong side rows (too much for my poor brain at the moment). I look at Seneca and High Seas as longer term projects and I’m sure I’ll get around to finishing Grove.

I did try to focus on finishing up the Dawn Gnot sock before I started something new. Something about the cables in the pattern are bothersome to my wrists. I can only knit a few rows at a time, plus I can’t seem to memorize the chart, so they aren’t a good project for me right now. I may frog them and start a different pattern from the series (Crafty Detour CSI: Most Wanted – Ravelry link) with the yarn. Still undecided, though.

Are there ever times that you just can’t focus or work on whatever projects you have going? Do you start new projects, frog the ones you have, or just keep going? I tend to be a mix of all three depending on the projects I have going. I did end up casting on for some new things. I’ll share them in my next post later this week!