Doldrums

Julie Frick said it all for me today.

I've had a nasty cold, I'm stressed out of my gourd about deadlines but not really getting good work done, and as for knitting, I'm swamped in WIPs. I've also got a huge email inbox (in several accounts, actually) crying out for attention.

Blah.

So I thought I'd use the 10 minutes of sunshine we had in our apartment today to take some de-familiarizing ultra-closeups of my WIPs. Such pictures of yarn always cheer me up, plus it's a good way to make me face the WIPs and...maybe do something about them. Or not. Anyway, here they are:




Both quasi-widdershins are up past the ankle, and this one is on the ribbing. I'm just knitting till I run out of yarn.




This is just the start of moccasin socks in KP peruvian wool worsted, as a sort of swatch for the Dutch fisherman's sweater I eventually want to make for Hubbster. So far, even when I twist all the knit sts (which is a pain in the arse), the pattern doesn't seem to stand out well. It's better when stretched out on my leg, but a sweater won't be stretched out. On the other hand, the motifs will be on a much larger scale on a sweater. I dunno. Verdict still out.




Was powerless to stop myself from starting a scarf from my new book (Victorian Lace Today). I love this "melon stitch." I love this book! Mainly because of all the rectangular-oriented patterns, but I also love the connection to our Victorian forebears, and the way the book is laid out and photographed.




I know it looks like the Great Wall of China, but actually it's one half of the collar steeks for the KP Palette Sampler cardigan. Curved steeks. Bring me some smelling salts! I'm not sure I'm up to this!




Red Scarf 1, which you've seen before: Handspun from Krista alternated with machine-washable nylon faux-suede. I like the way the textures play off each other.




Red Scarf 2, out of a Russian boucle yarn, in plain garter. The yarn is too busy for any other stitch, but I'm making it very wide and very long, so it should be ultra-cuddly. The wool blend yarn is soft and very unisex, I think. The only advantage of knitting such scarves is that you can do it in the dark. My progress to date was made in GA, while watching Eragon, Apocalypto, and Curse of the Golden Flower (NB: one of these movies was fantastic IMNSHO, and the other two pretty awful. Can guess which was good?)




The boucle is nifty on super-closeup, isn't it?




A quasi Irish Hiking Scarf (I made it up on vague memory of that general type of scarf, while in GA). The yarn is a strand of red Wool-ease with a strand of a Russian brand of wool/angora/acrylic in a darker, more burgundy-red. I'm going to try to stretch it with blocking to make the pattern stand out better. It's deliciously soft, though, I guess because of the angora.




Doesn't the extreme close-up give it a weird kind of internal-organ-like medical aspect?

I apologize for the total lack of links; I'm just too lethargic and stressed out for that right now. Everything I would have linked to here has been linked to in a not-too-distant previous post, so if you want to find what I'm referring to, see below.

Say, I have an idea for another way for us to amuse ourselves and provide blog content on those days when one's knitting just another sock, or black stockinette, or something similarly un-blog-worthy. How about, in addition to Friday Eye Candy or Saturday Sky, choosing a day to photograph a handknit in such a way as to make it look like something it isn't (like the great wall of China, or an internal organ?) Are there any days of the week free? I'm not exactly up on this kind of thing. How about Defamiliarization Dienstag, or something? Or, okay, I'm sure someone else could come up with a better name for it.