So enough excuses and an update instead.
I FINISHED THE GLOVES!!!!
I don't have a photo of them finished yet (it has been below stupid cold here lately and I haven't have the patience to get Husband to model them in the car. I just want to be out of the car and somewhere warm) but Husband has been enjoying them. He told me that I had to finish it before I started my next project so that really motivated me to get them done. That and I was really tired of them.
So what did I cast on next? A pattern test for a sweater but not just any design. This sweater was inspired from the Ensign sweater that Wesley Crusher wears often in the Star Trek: Next Generation series. It's been available for streaming on Netflix and I had only watched a handful of episodes here and there. People would make references and I would smile and nod as though I knew who they were talking about. (Most of the smiling and nodding had to do with the character Q because I didn't want to have gasps of disappointment that I didn't know who they were talking about.) On a whim I decided to start watching the series from the start. After only an episode or two, Husband joined in. When I went looking through the free pattern tests forum to see if there was anything I really wanted/needed to knit, I saw the sweater and knew I had to do it. It would mean buying yarn most likely as I tend to have a lot of single skeins and it would be making a sweater which has intimidated me greatly.
After a yarn shopping trip with Husband (he was having to wear the sweater after all and he did agree to the trip!) at Lakeside Yarn (I'd won a gift certificate there last year at the Yarn Shop Hop) and digging through my stash, I was able to make a swatch and start the sweater.
It's been going really well and quite quickly. Amazing what knitting on medium size yarn on larger needles is like! Husband has even noted how much faster the sweater is compared to his gloves. It's also easier to be using someone else's pattern and not adjusting everything as you go! Even though it's straight knitting (once I get through the shoulder increases) for most of it, I'm really liking that it's a relatively mindless project. And seeing as how I'm currently updating about once a month, it may even be finished by the time I write again.
Of course, it does mean that my Girl on Fire socks have been put temporarily on hold until I needed to change colours and was out somewhere and then I would work on them. While I had hoped to get them done before the first Cookie A package arrived this year, it seems that it just wasn't meant to be. At least I'm not getting paid or graded on my knitting timeliness!
