Sunday, March 14, 2010

Appetite for Destruction

Man, has it really been almost a month since I posted?

After the February whirlwind, I caught the worst cold I've had since December of 2001. In fact, the cold of 2010 may have been worse than the cold of 2001, and after hitting hard the last week of February, I'm just getting back into my regular routine (and still have a little bit of a cough).

The cold hit during the Olympics, and prevented me from finishing any WIPs or new projects. My initial plans were not overly ambitious--finish the Black Diamond cardigan (I started a few rows into the raglan decreases), start & finish the Komi Hat, and rip out a bunch of projects I haven't worked on in ages.

The Black Diamond is really, really close to being done now, but at the end of the Olympics I still had some work in pattern to do and it was more energy than I had. There's been zero work on the hat. I always think that if I am stuck home sick, I should be able to get a lot of knitting done, but I couldn't even pull something plain out to work on--I was too busy napping in between violent coughing fits. I've put the Komi hat in time-out for now (I don't love it, and now it's spring so no pressing need to finish it), and I'll most likely finish the Black Diamond after returning from my annual trip to Spring Training, which starts on Wednesday. I had hoped to finish it this weekend, but had a LOT of other things to get done since I've been neglecting all but the essentials for the past three weeks.

The Ravelympics weren't a total loss, however--I did summon the strength to rip out SIX works-in-progress that I was unlikely to ever finish. Here's the proof:

Mystery Socks

Mystery Socks, Started January 2008.

Kiila

Kiila Greens, started May 2009

Purple Grafitti Cables\

Purple Graffiti Cables, started April 2009

Leyburn

Leyburn, started January 2009

Sockgate Socks

Sockgate Socks, Started July 2009

Blue Hawaiian

Blue Hawaiian, started July 2009

All that ripping earned me a medal, which is good, and now there are six fewer projects I have to worry about finishing, which is even better. I think that the main thing I've learned by ripping these out is that I don't love toe-up socks when it comes time to figure out the heel. For the Blue Hawaiian and the Sockgate socks, I didn't like how the heels interrupted the pattern. For the Leyburn socks, I tried to make some heel adjustments and it just didn't work. For wonky fits or stripes, top down is probably the best way for me to go!

3 comments:

~RaenWa~ said...

I swear this is something going around I got sick the second week of the Olympics with some crud that had me laid up for at least a week & a half now I have the cough of Death that won't leave lol.

At least you were able to get something you wanted to get done during the Olympics I hope your cough goes away soon.

Knitting in the Rain said...

Ha! Those Mystery Socks were one of the few that I actually finished last year. They're not my favs, but somehow I felt compelled to finish them at that time. Bummer about the Leyburns though... those have been on my list for a while, but I have similar issues with toe-up socks. Might need to bump those down...

Sigurborg Johannsdottir said...

Beautiful colors