Murphy's Law and Other Constants

So the good news is that I finally finished the gloves I've been working on. Huzzah. I'm ashamed to admit that these took me the second-longest of all the projects I have ever knitted.

To give you some sort of perspective on how ridiculous I think this is, here is the only project that exceeds these gloves in time taken:

Matyev's Bedjacket

Yeah. That's all-over stranded colorwork worked in the round then steeked... not to mention hours and hours worth of duplicate stitch in several colors. I'm actually a little bit bitter about the time this (admittedly beautiful) project took... mostly because my shoulders are sloped enough that this falls right off of me when I attempt to wear it. 

At any rate, I don't do well with projects taking so long. I'm much more accustomed to knocking out two or three projects per month-- that's a rate I can definitely get behind. 

Things as they are, however, I'm lucky if I'm able to knit during my lunch break at work and perhaps for a few minutes in the evening. Seems I've finally made the horrid transition into Normal Adult Life and, thus, have much less time for all the things I'd rather be doing. 

I don't believe I've outright mentioned it in a post, but I have several other past times very much apart from knitting. Shocking, I know. The things that take the most time are, inexplicably, not craft related: I belly dance and I lift weights. Stating that so plainly makes it seem a little paradoxical but it's true. I have a couple dance classes a week (and the occasional performance), as well as lifting heavy at the gym a few times a week. Throw that in the mix with cooking and trying to make sure the house isn't a complete disaster, suddenly I have a lot less time to devote to knitting.

I shall have to work on that.

So here are the long belated gloves:

And they're lovely and so incredibly warm. I knit them at a much tighter gauge than suggested to make up for my very short fingers... it made the actual knitting less than pleasant (lace-tipped needles + cables knit through the back loop + tighter than usual gauge = ouch) but the result is quite nice.

Of course, though, the day I finished them, it was too warm to wear them-- but I've come to accept this about my life and accomplishments. Nevertheless, it has cooled back down again and now there is ample opportunity to wear weird split-fingered glove/mitten hybrids.

Just after I finished these, I quickly cast on for a hat for Tim. He asked so nicely for a hat that wasn't too long and that he could wear casually around the house and office. I was happy to oblige him and pawed through a veritable mountain of leftover mostals and came up with a coordinating pair of Cascade 220 balls in some shade of brown and Pumpkin Spice Heather (courtesy of the Doctor Who scarf I finished for him recently). I blithely started knitting Stephen West's Botanic hat. It's a lovely, simple pattern that I have made previously. 

And then I became very aware of the fact that the darker brown yarn was running out awfully quickly... I started to get that familiar sinking feeling that accompanies poor planning.

But disaster was averted in the end: I ended up having a whole 5 inches of yarn left over. That's practically a mile. Made it with yarn to spare! Take that, Murphy's Law! Haha!

Feeling perhaps overly confident and maybe just a little swollen with pride, I cast on yet another project! 

This time it was Alchemy Yarn's Scribble Me Timbers cowl. I'd picked up some (non-Alchermy) yarn of a novelty sort recently on credit... I was feeling untouchable and not even weirdly scratchy-textured yarn could defeat me.

And this is the result: 

I promptly gave this away upon completion and, of course, didn't get a FO picture

You will notice that this looks rather nothing like the sample.

I find myself recalling earlier during the weekend when I noticed I'd made a mistake while casting on Tim's Botanic hat. I sat back with a huge sigh, flicking my work away in disgust. Tim looked over and asked me what was wrong. I moaned: "Why don't I ever read instructions?" Without skipping a beat, he supplied: "Hubris?"

Touché, Tim.

Touché, Murphy's Law.