Totally Tubular

Mom called me at work yesterday to tell me that Alex had bypassed the safety latch on the bread door in her kitchen.  Swell.  Shouldn't really surprise me much, he is very mechanical.  Not to mention, my parents like to tell the stories how I managed to get around all the safety setups they had used when I was little.  Now I have to make sure the baby gate gets closed between the hallway to the bedrooms and the kitchen before I go to bed.  I appreciate all the suggestions on using a gate in their doorway.  I'd been doing that during weeknights since they started escaping.  I stopped putting it up when they turned to sitting at the gate and crying/whining/calling for me from it.  Since they are headed for my bed anyway (I should count myself lucky that they aren't going elsewhere and wrecking havoc), I might as well leave it down.  They go to sleep in their beds nicely every night.  I'll content myself with that and welcome the cuddly warm things in the morning while it lasts.  Thanks to a touch of congestion and a dose of Benadryl last night, my first visitor didn't arrive until 5:30AM.  Very late for him.  The other didn't show until it was time to get out of bed anyway.

I got home, turned on the TV and was greated by the news.  Yippee.  I was getting tired of seeing snow/no-sound or trying to watch broadcast on a 5" B&W {shudder}.  Must have been a general cable outage.  I'm glad its back.  I got to watch I Love Toys on VH1.  I totally enjoyed their I Love the 70's and 80's programs.  The Toys is just as much fun.  I have my buddy ReplayTV set to record the final episode tonight as I believe the season finale for Battlestar Galactica is tonight.

I seriously doubt y'all come and read to see what I watched last night, if anything.  You want the knitting right?  I've got some for you!  I finished the knitting on Klaralund last night. We have two sets of fraternally striped twins here.  I love the colors and how they worked up.  I'm hoping to get the pieces sewed together tonight or at the latest tomorrow.  It all moves rather fast when you focus on it.

Speaking of focus, I'm going to make a concerted effort to buckle down and Wipe Out my WIP list.  Sounds like a good name for a KAL doesn't it?  I'll host if anyone is interested.  Want to reduce your WIP list, get those projects under control?  Button anyone?  I'm seeing a wave, a surfboard and some yarn in there someplace.  Anyone?  Anyone?  Wipe Out Wednesdays where everyone's progress is posted?  Personally I want to get back to having 3 maybe 4 projects on the go at any one time.  One sock project (they barely count but they do take up the needles), One Sweater and one Shawl/Lace.  Add in maybe a hat / mittens / small kid thing.  I'd love to have some company in taming the WIP monster. 

In that vein, I've pulled out the Diamond Fantasy Shawl and have gone back to work on it.  I'm just shy of halfway through the last repeat.  Woot!  I had to take a break from this shawl as the kids got to my box where I've kept the pattern.  Back when I started the thing, I wrote each row of the chart out in notation on index cards.  I've kept those cards in a clear plastic closable box, putting the done row at the back of the box and keeping the rows yet to do at the front.  Well one day while I was making dinner, I found the short people playing with index cards.  You got it.  They found the pattern box and had taken all the cards out, messed around with them and totally futzed with my order.  Then came the Olympics so I was so thoroughly distracted that I didn't get the actual pattern out and figure where I was.  Fortunately it was only one of two rows and a quick consult with the chart solved it for me.  Whew.  I put it in my bag last night and it was my commuting knitting this morning.  Thankfully I only need the pattern card for the very beginning and ending of the right side row so it isn't necessarily a couch only knit. 

In the cleanup, I put the Nachaq "On Hold".  With 60F weather today (was I really bitching about snow just last week??), I don't think a warm lacy head-wrap is going to get much more usage this winter.  It might get another shot as some of the other projects drop off, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that.  On Hold is much like HIATUS for a TV program.  They very rarely return from that state. 

I'm torn over what to do with Birch.  It really has been sitting untouched since July(ish).  I did work a row or two on it about a month ago, but that was it.  I like the whole working towards the tip action, each repeat getting shorter.  But it really is sitting and doing nothing.  And I have Birchington I need to finish as well as the STS.  We won't even begin to go into the number of projects (lace and otherwise) that are clamoring in my head! 

The theory is that if I focus on one or two (or three) I can actually finish them faster and move on to the next.  Good theory.  I just don't want to resent a project because it is standing between me and what I really want to be doing.  I had that happen two years ago when I was working the Icelandic Shawl.  It was my first big post-children, back to work knitting.  As it was something I had so looked forward to working on, I really wanted to finish it and wouldn't let myself work on anything else until I had done so.  I seriously came to resent the thing, leaving it in my purse unworked for days on end, not knitting at all!  I finally cast on for a sock and before I got halfway down the cuff, I was back at the shawl and pushed on to finish it.  I don't want to torture myself that way so if I can keep the project count under 4ish, with proper project planning (make sure at least one is train/lunch friendly), I can do it. 

So if anyone wants to join me in a WIP WIPE OUT, drop me a comment or an email at crazyfiberlady AT gmail DOT com.

Have a great weekend!

Craft on!

 

Edited to clarify:

WIP Wipe Out isn't a complete wipe out of the wips.  I'm the last one on the planet to advocate finishing (or tossing) all active wips.  It is more of a resolution to attack one's dusty arsed pile of once loved projects and either finishing them or putting them to their final rest.  At the very least, it is a goal to tame the beast created by raging cases of startitis.  There's no prohibition against casting on something new, as long as you're finishing things and the WIP beast isn't growing.

Comments

[Carole]

I love the idea of WIP Wipe Out. I can't join you because well, I don't have any WIPs to Wipe Out. I pretty much finish what I started before I start anything else. 3-4 projects at a time, that's my hard and fast rule. But I do love this idea and I know I'll enjoy seeing you guys play this out!

[Claudia]

I think I might join - but does the Wipe Out mean that we can't start anything else....? :-)

[--Deb]

Hmm, at the moment I have exactly two WIPs, so I don't think I really qualify for Wipe Out Wednesday . . . good idea, though!

And, really, let's not talk about that Icelandic shawl, shall we? Bad memories of Copper Zephyr and having to frog the entire thing just before Rhinebeck last October...

You've got clever little monkeys, don't you!!

[mamacate]

Well, I've kind of been getting rid of WIPs for the last few months, doing way more finishing than casting on (for a change!), but I just don't think I'll be happy focusing. I don't know. I guess I'm coming to terms with being a process knitter.

I finished the knitting on my klaralund last week and have not started seaming. Sigh. I am making progress with Eleanor's sweater, though.

Maybe I'll join, but mostly just because I want to reduce the WIP list, not because I want to eliminate it. I'll have to think on that.

[margene]

I have only one long time WIP. I'm trying to decide if I really want to knit it now. I have so many more things I WANT to knit.

[Donna K]

I'm terrible at finishing KAL's....I would hate to bomb this one too, but what the heck, I have several items that need to be wiped out of the time out corner, including some spinning. Need to spin those fibers before heading out to Fleece Fair in less than a month.

[Nancy J]

*sigh* and i broke down and cast on a sock in STR last night because i just couldn't stand working on any of my other projects while gazing at the Pebble Beach colorway (beige,brown,turquoise). i was being very bad because i had promised myself i was going to finish one of the projects first. *sigh*

[Katy]

Count me in. I have WAY too many WIP's at the moment. There's an almost finished kid sweater; Eris; the Sunrise Circle Jacket; the beginnings of a shawl; a Sophie bag; and those are just the ones I've seen recently.
Eek!