Mid-Summer Update

Whoosh! I failed in June to post a single post and I'm posting at the tail-end of July. Just pretend that if I had posted in June it would have been a rather boring post. To be honest, not much in the stitching category has happened. Most of the activity with the knitting has been in the frustration or the dreaming areas. The items that I am working on are going slowly, or are actually retreating from being done. I've been stuck in a cycle of indecision with all my projects: is this the right yarn?, is this the right size?, is this enough yarn?, should I change needles?, should I rip it all out and start over?

As for WIPs, here's the status update:

Best Friend Cardigan:

This is mostly an at-home knit since I'm not thrilled to lug another bag with me every morning and evening from the T to the commuter rail to the office (I already have my lunch bag, work bag and sometimes ballet bag). All that is left to do are the sleeves, the neck, the buttons and the seaming. Progress on this sweater is slow due to the dread of moving on to new parts of the pattern. Having to recalculate the rows and stitches plus just trying to figure out not what the pattern says but what it wants to say deters me.

Hanami:

I was making lots of headway on this during my commute but found out about halfway through the second repeat of the basketweave pattern that I had made a mistake somewhere in the pattern. This has me picking my way slowly through the rows to figure out where my error is. Lace may not be the best project for drowsy commutes.

Sizzle:

Cast on the small size, made it through most of the back when I realized that I had only purchased enough yarn for the x-small. I put the project on hold until I decided what to do. My options were as follows: 1. call WEBS and purchase another skein and continue knitting the small, 2. knit the back in the small size and the front in the x-small size, 3. rip out the back and start over. Normally, I'd rip out the back and just start over. My issue with this is that the yarn I've chosen to knit with, Elle Rae Bamboo Silk, is the lintiest yarn. While I'm knitting, little tufts of lint shed from the yarn and float around in the air, glue themselves to my clothing and tickle my nose. If I frog it, I can only image the lint that will be produced. I was also very excited about the quick progress that I had made. I had knit the majority of the back during my commute in one day. I finally decided to go with the last option. I used my new ball winder to frog it and start over. Now the back is on stitch holders waiting for me to get going on the front. I figured with the drapey-ness of the silk/bamboo yarn the smaller size might be good to counter the vertical stretch.

Lace Ribbon Scarf:

Cast on last weekend after attempting to use No. 3 needles. Figured that No. 3's were too small and went out and purchased No. 5's to use. I've so far knit about half of an inch. I also panicked that I would not have enough yarn to make this as wide and as long as I wished so I called WEBS and had them send me another skein.