Let's start with an analogy, because everybody loves analogies (at least Uncle Stashley himself does, and it is, after all, my blog!)
Picture if you will: dinnertime, in the average family home (here in Vancouver, that means a 3 million dollar single family home, but so long as it has a kitchen, the analogy will hold). You start to prepare dinner, perhaps a Beef Stroganoff. You've set the water to boil, the noodles are ready, you're searing the beef ... and you get a strange, unexpected yen for chicken instead. So the seared beef goes in a tupperware container, you pour the water down the sink, set the noodles aside, and broil your chicken. In the midst of frying some mushrooms, you realise what you really want is a croquembouche, that stunning dessert, a conical tower of profiteroles. So you make the choux pastry, and the cream filling, but before you can bake the little rolls you decide on a wonderful Lobster Bisque.
And so it goes, all year, and every so often you actually complete a gravy, or a sandwich, but in fact most of the time, even though you're cooking every day, and certainly restocking the pantry, you rarely end up with a finished meal.
Analogy over, and I think you get my drift: I've started project after project (and in some ways the real life shame is worse, because (all caps intended) I GENERALLY BUY NEW NEEDLES FOR EACH PROJECT (that would be like buying extra cookware for each dish!), but rarely end up with finished projects when the day is done, despite feeling like I'm knitting (or crocheting) pretty much constantly.
I blame my ambition ... if I only took on projects that required an hour or two to complete, goshdarnit, I'd probably complete them--two hours isn't quite enough time for a task to lose my attention. But no, I'm working on the Persian Dreams Blanket (estimated completion time, given my rate of progress through it: 2 years), and the Sophie's Universe whatever-it-is (I'm going to add extra and use it as a bedspread, estimated completion time given the extraness: 2 years). If only I'd decided to specialize in toques (American friends, those would be "beanies"), what a wonderful sense of satisfaction-in-completion I would have earned, once or twice a week if not more.
Most days I try to work on at least four projects at once: the blanket, the bedspread, a Fair Isle sweater, and whatever easy-knit-in-public item I've got going, so it's unsurprising that long-term commitments that would ordinarily take half a year are taking four times as long. I guess when it comes down to it I'm willing to trade completion for variety (supposedly the spice of life, some say). So I might still binge-watch TV from time to time, but I won't binge knit!
That said, I finished a pillow and mounted my Iris on it:
I tried to make the cushion "fancy" by including two stripes of purls on either side of the Iris. Turns out my gauge is looser when purling (I knew that, but I didn't know it, you know) so when stretched over a white cushion form the cushion really shows under the purl stripes. So I am hiding the stripes behind other cushions, and lesson learned.
I also finished a toque/beanie, using one of my Spinnacle Fiber Arts skeins from Fibrations last week:
Hats are so easy! I have 'em memorized now. Cast on the right amount of stitches (I use a German Twisted Cast on, it's stretchy), do ribbing for 6 inches (so I can fold it over), then either keep ribbing or switch to stockinette, knit until you like the length, then decrease every 8th stitch, knit a round, decrease every 7th stitch, knit a round, etc., until you're tired of it all and just weave the remaining stitches together with a tapestry needle, done!
This isn't knitting-related, but we upgraded our living room art, and I have to show it off, it's so swellegant. My father had purchased some original illustrations from a children's book, and we ended up the lucky recipients since they don't fit my Mom's design scheme:
The book is The Fool and the Dancing Bear by Pamela Stearns, but the illustrations are by Ann Strugnell, and they're lovely. I'm so happy!
Off the Needles
The cushion cover with the Iris attached
The tocque/beanie (made from the "kelp" colourway)
On The Needles
(I'm biting the bullet and only listing the projects that I'm actively working on, and hiding the UFOs (unfinished objects) until they come back into my life)
Sophie's Universe crochet project (Part 10: Round 78)
GGN Norwegian Ski Sweater (still adding the steek stiches while knitting from eventual armhole to neck, I'm about 80% done with the final chart of the torso piece--but there are still arms to be knit!)
Persian Dreams Blanket (row 30 of the fourth hexagon--lots of progress here this week)
The second Double-Knit Vice Versa Scarf, about 3/4 of the way through