Saturday, May 3, 2014

Stress knits: All the knits!

Bandit claims that he can always tell when I'm stressed or sad because I start knitting so much more. Though I've been skeptical of this claim in the past (what are you talking about? I always enjoy knitting a lot!) I'm starting to think he may have a point. This is, if all goes well, my last semester of grad school. Various pressures are mounting: complete this CS class successfully (I have developed an indelible hatred of C++), take care of graduation paperwork, get my thesis in order, start sending out job applications. It might not be such a coincidence that I've been turning to the comforts of wool and silk and alpaca. It's probably not a coincidence that I've cast on so many new projects that I'm running out of project bags. (It's definitely not a coincidence that I've spent hours on Etsy looking at beautiful new project bags.)

To be fair... one of these projects shouldn't count against me, as it's a commission of sorts. I've already chronicled the Vostok shawl that I knitted for a charity auction last year; this year I auctioned my custom shawl-knitting services again, so I've got two more shawls on the horizon. The first is Celestarium, an awe-inspiring pattern that recreates the constellations of the night sky in the Northern Hemisphere. This shawl has been lurking in the want-to-knit-but-would-probably-not-wear list in the back of my mind, and apparently the recipient (also a knitter) has wanted one for quite a while but doesn't want to knit it herself, so it's really the perfect convergence of fortune.

I'll be casting this on relatively soon, maybe even tonight. The yarn that the recipient picked out is laceweight in the Aegean colorway, from Black Sheep Dyeworks.

Also in the category of oh-this-doesn't-count is the Ink cardigan that I've recently pulled out of the WIP pile. I'm not sure why I set it down in the first place - it's a pleasure to knit, the depth and richness of color in the MadTosh Tosh Merino Light never fails to delight, and I'm actually quite looking forward to having a long fall cardigan.

I'm knitting it in stockinette rather than the reversed stockinette that the pattern calls for, and trying to make sure that both the overall body length and sleeve length are long enough on me. I'll probably have to go back and add extra cuffs to the sleeves.

Skirting somewhat closer to the borders of not-counting is the Hanami stole that I'm knitting for Bandit's sister. Her birthday is in a little over a month! Of course I had to cast on right now... with the luscious merino/silk Skaska Lace that we bought at the fiber festival last year... right?

I'm almost through the interminable basketweave section. It looks lovely, I have to admit, but the pattern is so involved and un-memorizable that I'll be rather glad to be done with it.

Finally, falling solidly into I-have-no-excuse territory, are the two Kessa Tay Anlin patterns that I just fell in love with on first sight, Lapis and Yuuret (Roots). Lapis is an elegant sleeveless top, and Yuuret is a cute fall cardigan.

At least I can claim that Yuuret is something of a stashbuster, as I've been looking for something to do with the two skeins of Malabrigo worsted that was a birthday gift two years ago. Let's ignore the part where I'll have to buy two more skeins in order to finish it.

I'm normally a tiny-needles kind of knitter, what with all the lace shawls and the socks failures at socks. I rarely have occasion to bust out any needles larger than a size 5. But I have to admit, working with thick, soft aran-weight yarn on size 8s has its charms. For one thing, the knitting goes so quickly! These two pictures were taken only a few days apart.

Lapis, on the other hand, I have no excuses for. I bought six skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca Silk from a Rav destash specifically for this.

This picture is deceptive in two ways. First, I can't seem to get the color right - it's a deep rich teal tending more towards green than blue. (I've spent some time trying to digitally color correct it, and mostly failed.) Second, it's not actually knit this far. I'm about to rip a good part of it out in order to reknit the back in a larger size, for lo, I have made my offerings to the swatching god and received nothing but lies in return.

So, yeah. As you can see, I'm clearly only culpable for casting on two, maybe three new projects. That isn't unreasonable, right? Totally not a sign of stress? Back me up here.

15 comments:

  1. It is completely reasonable. I will back you up.;)
    If a case of startitis was a sign of stress for me, I would need some serious help.
    Beautiful projects on the needles!

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    1. Thank you! I often get struck with startitis, but it might well be the case that the desire for distraction is linked to both startitis and stress. So there might be an occasional correlation for me.

      I wonder why we never (or at least, rarely) develop acute finishitis...?

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  2. Ah, no shame in s̶t̶r̶e̶s̶s̶-knitting! Knitting is healing and it looks like you’re in a place to welcome anything that’s good on your mind. :] 1000% reasonable.
    I’m in love with those gorgeous variegated blues you have here in the works. I haven’t delved yet into the world of shawl-knitting but Celestarium looks like one hell of a satisfying project to complete, I’m sure your client will be super happy with it!
    That cardigan looks fantastic so far. I think you made a good call with reversing the reverse-stockinette. ..and the colors /swoons

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    1. The colors, I know! The yarn for Celestarium is a little busier than what I usually knit with, but I'm finding it really exciting to watch the colors change as I knit. And I fell in love with the MadTosh on first sight. I knew I had to use it for Ink. The colorway is named Mare, and I have yet to really capture the brilliance of the sapphire and copper glints under the dark overlay.

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  3. HA! "...offerings to the swatching god and received nothing but lies in return". I very nearly had coffee coming out my nose when I read that! Too funny (though I completely understand the frustration that comes with such lies).
    Honestly, I don't see any problems here. A WIP is clearly exempt, especially this one because it is almost finished and will be lovely. I agree with the decision to switch out reverse stockinette and can't wait to see the finished product. Birthday knitting is also exempt because you don't get to control that timeline. As for the others, well, it's only three and I think that is showing considerable restraint.

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    1. The swatching god hates me! I must have sinned against it at some point in the past. Possibly by only making offerings of an inch or two in height, which were then unraveled off the needle.

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  4. Oh, good luck to you, Kaiya. It does sound like a stressful time. I am sure you're going to do fine. Stress-knitting is a very good idea and all of your WIP's are beautiful! I can't wait to see what you do with those beads.

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    1. Thank you! Even if knitting IS correlated with stress, I think that it's the natural coping mechanism for stress rather than a cause. Surrounding myself with and creating things of beauty allows me to balance my perception of the world and start appreciating the other nice things in life.

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  5. Celestarium and Lapis are two I have on my "someday" list, too. If Celestarium was just a blanket, then bam. I'd do it.

    At least knitting is productive, right? So, it's not really procrastinating or anything, no way.

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    1. Knit Celestarium with thicker yarn and larger needles, and you'll have a large circular blanket! You should do it and we can have a knitalong.

      *flips through nineteen-page pattern*

      For like the next three years.

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    2. That's a huge commitment. Yeeeeeeeeah. I'll just admire from afar, thanks.

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  6. Oh yeah, bleeped is alexis? I don't know how comments work.

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    1. Whatever name you have in your Blogger profile will show up as your commenter name. You can change it if you want. Or I can remember that it's you.

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  7. It's not stress, just creative expression!

    Says the girl who began blogging and designing during the writing of her master's thesis...

    (All your projects are lovely, especially that Lapis!)

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    1. Thank you! And there is something about a master's degree that drives one to crafting and blogging, isn't there? It seems to have worked out quite well in your case!

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