Finishitis vs. Startitis

There's been some talk lately on blogs and in person with knitters who identify themselves as having "startitis" or "finishitis." My goals last year centered more on finishing items, but I've had a bit of startitis lately. Luckily, it has mainly been fed by small projects. During the run-up to Christmas, I could start a new sweater every other day, but not start a new one until I'd finished the first one -- my miniature sweaters (aka "knitting candy"). I've moved from there to slightly bigger projects: hats and mittens. There, too, I'm able to finish one before I start another (pretty much -- Ill admit to having a new pair of Fiddlehead Mittens on the needles).

Well, I'm taking the urge to finish a bit farther at the moment, and hope that inclination continues. I've had a sweater almost completely done, but in pieces, in my bag of things that need to be blocked and since my blocking board was out yesterday, I decided to block those pieces with the intention to seam the sweater together this coming weekend. Once seamed, I'll need to knit the button bands on, but they are only about 12" long, so that shouldn't prevent me from finishing the sweater. Here are the first three pieces on the blocking board (sleeves and collar are next):


Last night's TV knitting (we watched the Steve Martin/Carl Reiner film "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid) got me about half-way through the lining of the first Fiddlehead Mitten:

It snowed fat, lazy snowflakes all day yesterday and so there is a lovely white covering over all the dirty snow this morning AND the sun is shining. Sounds like I better enjoy it today as another "big storm" is on its way for Wednesday (I think this will be the 4th Wednesday when we've either had a storm or at least a threatened storm). I only wish I got snow days!

Good Progress

Friday night was an alone with my cats evening as DH had basketball games at the high school. I concentrated on finishing up the thumbs on the Fiddlehead mitten. Then I stayed up late reading "Alice I Have Been."

Saturday was an errand-running day which we began with a nice breakfast with my parents. I think eating breakfast out is my favorite meal to eat in a restaurant. From there we went to LL Bean in Freeport, and managed to find 6 shirts for DH on sale and one for me. On the way home we did a few other errands but got home in time for me to pay a visit to my LYS for more mitten yarn and start a new pair last night. Then I stayed up late reading "Alice I Have Been."

Then, I got up early this morning to finish reading "Alice I Have Been." Thank goodness I finished it, so I can get more sleep this week!

The insides of my Fiddlehead Mittens, before hiding the ends.

The Saroyan Scarf soaking before being blocked.

The scarf and mittens on my blocking board -- the scarf was a bit longer than my blocking board which is why the board is on the floor instead of on the twin bed. It didn't need to be pinned, so it was easy to block.

The results! The leaves look great.

And the mitten looks great. Now to knit the liner.

I'll have TV knitting to report tomorrow after our Sunday evening TV time :)

No Pictures, But Some Knitting

I left my camera at work yesterday because I hadn't yet had a chance to download the photos from the Dessert event on Wednesday night, so I don't have any knitting photos this morning. But, I did get some knitting done last night.

After yoga, I had a bite to eat and then decided I'd be most comfortable if I slipped into bed to read and knit. I got a book weight from Levinger for Christmas --
and decided to try knitting and reading at the same time. I'm reading 'Alice I Have Been,' a historical fiction based on the relationship between the little girl, Alice, who inspired the book 'Alice in Wonderland' and Lewis Carroll which I had started the night before. I chose to work on the Saroyan scarf because 2/3 of each row is knitting I can do without looking at my work -- I just had to turn to the chart each time I got to the leaf part of the row. The book weight worked great! I read about 100 pages and finished the middle part of the scarf before going to sleep. Now I will start the decrease section which is just 6 leaves/repeats long and will be able to block it and see if the leaves pop the way I hope they will. I also hope the soaking and blocking will soften the hand of the yarn a bit. I'm going to try to finish it tonight, along with another chunk of this compelling book.

Weird Clock

You, my one or two readers, may have noticed, as I just did, the crazy times listed as when I posted my blog notes -- I think this morning's was something like 3:56 a.m.! I am NOT posting blogs at 3 or 4 in the morning. Usually I post while eating breakfast between 6:45 and 7:45, in case you were worrying about my getting enough sleep.

Jan Plan Ends With a Bang

Colby's January term, called Jan Plan, officially ends today. Essentially, we all cram a semester's worth of learning and events into four weeks, with just a brief pause before launching the spring semester. This year, I worked with the college physician and a physician from one of the local hospitals to create a Jan Plan course that connected 14 students with 16 physicians for 80-hour observational shadowing experiences in local clinics and hospitals -- everything from ER to psychiatry to family medicine (and lots more). Students also had to work on a project that would be helpful to the physician. Last night, the students had a chance to present what their project involved with 3-minute "sharings" at a Dessert Reception that included many of the physicians along with some others from Colby. Overall, the program was a great success, and one that we now hope to offer every January. I slept really well last night.

Yesterday's other success was getting to my 5% goal at Weight Watchers. 5% more to go and I'll meet my goal. I've recently been particularly grateful for the weight I've lost -- it made room for the long underwear I've been wearing all week to work! And, I really do feel healthier. It does feel like a slow process, though -- my leader joshes me about how I tend to lose only about .2 or .4 pounds each week, but as long as I keep going in the right direction, I'm happy.

The only knitting I got done yesterday was one leaf repeat on the Saroyan scarf while at my lunch meeting -- but I did knit!

Car Woes

Car challenges continue. It turned out that we needed a new starter in the car that had died, but the service dept. at the dealer has been so busy with cold-related complaints that they didn't complete the work by the end of the day yesterday. Luckily, they loaned us a car (with heated seats!) so we were able to take the van to the other dealer for service we had scheduled last week. So, I haven't written any checks yet, but it ain't goin' to be cheap! However, I place a huge value on reliable transportation and we don't have any car payments, so I guess it will be OK.

My batteries died in my camera, and I don't have time to go looking for some this morning (I suppose I could be doing that instead of writing this, but then I wouldn't have a reason to use the camera... hmm... there's a philosophical question in there, I'll bet). I did get almost all the way through the green stripe last night, so made a bit of progress on the mittens.

Tonight is a big event night -- the reception to finish out the Pre-Med Academy Jan Plan. I don't know if I'll get any time to knit tonight, though I may need a bit of yarn time to help settle down after what I'm sure will be an energized evening!

Color Fun

Yesterday was COLD. So cold that one of our cars wouldn't start in the morning, causing a quick regrouping and ferrying of DH to work (he goes earlier than I do). It still wouldn't start in the evening, even though it had "warmed up" so we tried to jumpstart it with no response. I was beginning to despair when I remembered that we have a AAA membership! I placed the call, had a very nice conversation with the representative who first checked to see if we were OK, and then Kenny from Arbo's showed up about an hour later. We bundled up, anticipating having to follow it to the dealer's (where, luckily, I had called to inquire about replacing a headlight and had made plans to bring it in today anyway), but Kenny very nicely offered to put the key in the drop for us so we could stay home and warm. It was a much easier process than we anticipated. Our trusty 13-year old Toyota Sienna is still running, though. But it is due to go in for some work tomorrow, so we're juggling vehicles this week.

I managed to get some knitting time after dinner and got through the second color stripe on the Fiddlehead Mittens. I don't want to wait and knit on these over the weekend as I'm a bit afraid my gauge won't match and I'll end up with different sized mittens. Hopefully I can finish the thumb gusset and next color stripe tonight.

I'm already imagining other color combinations and feel a mitten-jag coming on. My next pair will be similar to these, except I'll use the dark purple as a stripe color and yellow as the contrast color for the swirls. Then, I want to make a pair with various blue stripes and yellow swirls -- college colors for one son. And, the other son's favorite colors -- black, green, red, and yellow -- would make another interesting pair. Purples with white swirls would be great to have to wear to hockey games the next time the high school is in the playoffs (those are the only high school hockey games I go to). Who knows if I'll ever get them all made, but I love to dream!