Finishing

I love the feeling of finishing projects! I am not sure whether it's the fact that I now get to wear (or give away) whatever it is or the feeling of accomplishment that I get from crossing off one more item on my To Do list or just my pleasure at looking at something I made. Maybe all of the above. I know that people try to classify knitters as process or project knitters. I think I am both. Or neither. I love casting on, I love the excitement of a new project, I enjoy the knitting process (except for knitting seed stitch. LOL), and I am so excited when I finish something that I must say that I enjoy everything about knitting.

I wove in the ends on my Tuscany shawl last night and it will be blocking in a little while. I finished and wove in the ends on my second Twisted Flower sock, and since I don't block socks, those are ready to wear. [big grin] I wove in the ends of a cute baby hat I've been working on forever (I just kept forgetting about it - it wasn't really that hard to knit) and now it's ready to be blocked. It really is cute, if I must say so myself. I also completed and wove in the ends on the first of a pair of garter stitch gloves. So, 3.5 projects completed in the last few days, with one more sock (the first of a pair) only about 1 inch of ribbing from being completed. That is such a good feeling. How long do you think it will take me to cast on something else?

Current knitting projects include
1) 2 socks on 2 circs in Trekking Natura. I am trying this technique for the first time and don't think I will do it again soon. I make mistakes. There's no getting around that. With this technique, every time I make a mistake, there's twice as much knitting to undo. Not the system for me, I am afraid, though I like the idea of the socks being identical since you make them at the same time. (I frequently take a generic sock pattern, insert a stitch patttern from a stitch dictionary and make my own socks instead of following a pattern, and I am not good at writing down what I do. I have a lot of fraternal socks)
2) Work socks for my son. He's in construction and frequently cold in the winter. Last winter he made the discovery that wool socks are warmer than 2 pairs of cotton/acrylic socks and did I know that? Really! So, he's getting several pairs of wool socks for his birthday (this week) and Christmas.
3) A red, white and blue cotton baby balnket. This is a project chosen to use up some yarn I purchased for another project that did not work out. It is not for any one in particular so there's no rush, and I work on it when I need something simple to work on in the dark (a long drive) or while watching an absorbing TV show.
4) About 2 years ago I started the Great American Aran Afghan, made 8 squares or so and got stuck on one. I haven't picked it up since, and I really need to get back to it.
5) Open and solid diamond lace scarf from Victorian Knitting, using KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud. I put this aside when I started the Mystery Shawl 3, but since I have decided to frog that, I will pick this up again. I love the patterns in that book and will knit many of them.
6) Side to side garter stitch gloves - the first is complete and I cast on for the second last night. The construction of these is intriguing. Starting at the thumb, you knit one flat surface (the palm) of the glove, go around the pinky finger and knit the other surface (back of the hand), grafting the fingers together at the sides. I am using KnitPicks Telemark.

I did some spinning yesterday - I have two of the 3 singles spun for the 3 ply yarn I want to try. I hope to get the third single spun today and possibly do the plying as well, but it's football day (Go Raven! Go Broncos!) and I can't spin and watch TV well. Knitting goes better with football as long as I choose a project that I don't have to look at often. Like the socks or the baby blanket.

My friend Karen is going to lend me her digital camera, so photos of these and subsequent projects should be coming a lot sooner than I thought. Thank you, Karen.