Still Knitting...

I finished my second Noro Striped Scarf last week. I'm putting it away for safe-keeping in order to give it as a gift in the future. If you are a person to whom I might consider giving a gift to at some point, and you like this scarf, let me know...by the way, the colors are much prettier in person. Though James admires my Noro scarves very much, he thinks the colors are 'too girly.' I have agreed to make him one using 'manly' colors at some point.

I also started some Monkey socks that will be a gift for a friend. It is truly amazing how much more quickly knitting goes when using bigger needles and fewer stitches. Those socks for my mom took FOREVER but these monkey socks are FAST! After a knitting and family-filled weekend at my parents' house, I am almost finished with sock #1. It has some weird pooling going on, but I think it looks kinda neat, myself. I hope the recipient likes it, too, seeing as how these socks will not fit any other person that I know. I intend for these to be a birthday present in 3 months, so I'm not really rushing them. Mostly I want to finish them so I can start some socks for myself without breaking my one sock rule. My one sock rule means I am only allowed to work on one sock at a time, and I must finish a pair before starting a new sock. I didn't create this rule....it just kinda imposes itself on me, and my willpower cannot allow me to break it.

I have a problem. I finished my Cabaret Raglan sweater over a week ago. I mean REALLY finished--down to the the sewing and weaving-in of ends--but I still haven't washed and blocked it. I have no idea why I've been putting it off for so long (except maybe that I hate hand-washing clothes and really fear that I will ruin all of my knitting work), but that has caused me to put off blogging about it until it's finished blocking. It now occurs to me that it might be a while before I block it, so I might as well blog about it a little.

While it is a good deal larger than a sweater I would normally wear, I will still wear it in this state, so I'm not going to try any desperate means (steeking, frogging) to get a better fit. It seems that I have a higher ill-fit tolerance for items that I make for myself. That's probably because of the insane amount of time/money spent on a too big handmade sweater when compared to a cheap, slightly too long store-bought sweater. I do plan to attempt some minor shrinking techniques after blocking it, so we'll see how that goes.