It Is Finished

Friday afternoon, around 2:00, I went to the post office to drop off the thing I'd spent most of 2012 working on.

Well, the one knitted thing. I suppose you could say my body has spent most of 2012 working on this baby.

But in all seriousness, that scarf that I've been working on forever is finally done, and out of my apartment. Out of my life. FINALLY!

I wish I could show you pictures of the final product, but really, this was one of those things where I was so glad to be done with it that I just didn't care anymore. When my friend gets it, if he takes pictures, I'll share them here.

My original plan after I finished the scarf was to sew, sew, sew on Christmas presents to get ahead on them before the baby arrived, but guess what? My sewing machine is being a jerk. Of course. I might just fabric glue, fusible web, and hand stitch my way through some of them until I can get a new sewing machine ... maybe one of those fancy ones with lots of stitching options....

Whoops! I started day-dreaming and drooling over a new machine. Gross.

I do wonder if I can convince Mark that I need one as a push present though.

Laborious Knitting

I'm spending my Labor Day trying to knock out some more rows on the Doctor Who scarf. (I guess I don't really understand the purpose of Labor Day....)

For some perspective, I made little graphic of the scarf. The true colors at the top shows how much I've knitted, and the faded colors at the bottom show how much is left to go. Honestly, it was reassuring to see more than half of the scarf done. Suddenly, 376 rows doesn't look quite so intimidating.

I mean, it's still a little intimidating. But slightly less so.

My main goal for this month is to get this scarf absolutely finished - meaning not just the knitting part, but also the weaving in of ends and attaching fringe as well. I hope to be taking this scarf to the post office on September 30th. That way, I can spend all of October focusing on baby knits. I'm ashamed to say that I've knit nothing for my little boy yet, and I'd really like to have something done for him when he arrives.

You might be looking at this and wondering why it looks so crazy long, maybe longer than one you saw on another blog. That's because this is the scarf used in seasons 16 and 17. It's a compilation of two previous scarves, and is pretty monstrous. I have no idea how long it is actually supposed to be. One website said 15 feet, another said 26, and I naturally did not want to be working on 26 feet of scarf so I'm going with 15. Although now that I look at it, it probably is supposed to be closer to 26....

Some changes were made to my pattern because I'm starting to run low on the off-white color. I really don't want to buy another skein just to knit a few rows, particularly since I'm trying to pare down on my crafty supplies before we move again next summer. I'm trying to keep the stripe widths as proportional as possible, but I can tell that the chunks on one side of the scarf are quite a bit smaller than they are on the other. Hopefully the guy I'm knitting this for won't notice.... Or if he does, hopefully he won't care.

Oh, by the way, my nifty little graphic on the side was shrunk down slightly so it wouldn't take up a lot of space. If you want to see the clearer, full size one (which also has no fading on it) then just click here. Want to use that graphic for yourself? That's fine by me. Just leave a link here in the comments or on the Flickr page. I just like seeing what other people make.

Crafting Ennui

I'm not one of those people who can keep up lots of projects. Essentially, my personality makes me  obsess on ONE THING and it is THE BEST THING EVER I WILL LOVE IT ALWAYS and everything else just sits on the side. After a (week, few weeks, month) then my love for it starts to die down and is replaced with another obsession. It's actually the main reason why I've talked for years about starting an Etsy store and still haven't started one ... I knit four things for it and hit the  "blah, knitting" wall.

Actually, a large part of that wall is my on-again-off-again project, the 15-foot-long scarf of DOOM Doctor Who scarf. Do you realize how much garter stitch is in 15 feet? Too much. Here, this is about what it'll look like it when I'm done:

The 4th Doctor and his crazy scarf.
via

Really, I've made pretty good progress. I started it in February, and even after taking off a few weeks here and there, I have about 5 or so feet left. But whenever I go to work on it, I end up putting it down in favor of doing something - anything! - else. I hate the yarn I'm using now. I hate the color scheme (it looks like the 70s barfed a rainbow.) I hate the mindlessness of garter stitch, and how tight my stitches are getting.

So what did I do at the beginning of summer to get my mind off of it? I started working on Christmas presents. I'm not going to go into detail about them because some of my friends read this blog, and all of my friends are getting pretty much the same thing, but it involves sewing, some embroidery and applique, a little paint, and one will even involve lights. (Don't worry, it'll make sense in a few months when I write a post on them.)

Of course, the sheer task of sewing up approximately 20 (spoilers) in addition to the gifts I was going to make for my family is, well, overwhelming to say the least. And when I get overwhelmed, I shut down.

What needs to happen is that I need to finish something, whether it be completing one of the Christmas presents that I've already started or finish knitting the monstrous scarf. I think that, once something is finished, I will get back my energy and find the motivation to finish more projects. So for right now, I'm going to shut down my computer, pick up my needles, and knit the heck out of that scarf. Wish me luck!

When you feel no motivation to work on a project, what helps you get working on it again?