Free Up the Needles

So far, the "project in every direction" spaz out is under control...but barely. The bear, and her dress and shoes and last minute bonnet are finished. My worry over the reception of a hand-knitted doll was not only silly, but completely unfounded. It was a hit. It was a BIG hit. It was raved over, and ooh-ed and ahh-ed over. It was named after me, and passed around, and predicted to be the doll their little girl carries around for years to come. It was received exactly as I was hoping it would be, and it was very fulfilling.

As for Lady (now Amanda)-Bear's clothing construction: The dress didn't take up as much yarn as I feared it would, the skirt was most of it, and other than a few pattern flaws (there are far more of those in that book than I expected) that I side stepped with minimal inconvenience, it knit up just fine. It was my favorite part of the project. It knit up quickly, easily, but not boring. It got progressively more lovely as it came closer to completion. The shoes on the other hand. The shoe pattern I was planning on using did not translate well to the bulkier yarn I was using. On top of it, the crochet instructions in this book are even more lacking than the knitting instructions (although there was only the one knitting instruction mistake I found). There's something about crochet that has always confused me just a little. When you slip into the first stitch of the last round and chain one, does that count as a stitch (if not specified) or not, or when counting your total stitches, do you count the stitch that your loop is coming out of currently as the last stitch, or do you slip into the beginning of the round and count THAT stitch, created by previous loop, as the last stitch? I can fudge my way through these things but it's taken me years to catch up little by little, one small mystery solved at a time, and it seemed like whoever wrote the crochet instructions in this book was confused in much the same manner. But, it could just be me. Crochet works better for me as my free-form medium. And, speaking of; lastly, the bonnet. Which I started and finished the night before the shower. It didn't turn out EXACTLY as I hoped, but much closer than I thought it would. I just free formed, trying it on the doll as I went. Everything turned out just right even though as I was finishing each stage I thought it was a stretch.

Now that the deadline is finished, the big question is: What equally fulfilling project will I embark upon now? I just found out that I'm having a girl, so I should knit something for her right? Something NOT pink for goodness sakes, since everyone else is supplying the pink even against my wishes. But then I have that sweater, that has been so close to completion for so long, that I dug out of my still packed bags the other day, which I knit oversized enough that I can probably wear it while pregnant. And then I have this intense urge to knit some very delicate and perfect lace, only digging out the thinnest yarn I've ever purchased once again just wields the same results: I'm all thumbs with something that delicate. I'm concentrating so hard on not dropping a stitch, because there's no way I could pick up stitches that small, that I can't follow a complicated lace pattern. The i-cord hat I started the i-cord for is easy to work on while on the phone or watching a show I actually want to watch, but then so is the legwarmer that I should really just finish, even if I can't ever imagine wanting to show my legs again, especially with something that makes them even more bulky than they already are. And then there's the mesh bag that I like the idea of, but as I'm knitting it I just want it to be finished. And I already had to frog practically the whole thing once because it was big enough to crawl into by the time I started on the straps, but I really want to make the same mesh bag with multiple different techniques, just to juxtapose them.

My mother wants me to start on another bear for my little girl, so of course I suppose that's what I must do next, if she deems it so. And I suppose that would be fun, but probably burn me out on them. Only now I really want to make a bear out of the variegated yarn I almost used for Lady/Amanda-Bear. But maybe my soon-to-be Ella will want her bear to match soon-to-be Maya's Lady/Amanda-Bear.

I've been alternating between all of them, five minutes on one, a couple hours on another. Right now I'm going to make meatballs and mashed potatoes with this great gravy from Ikea, and work on the last half of the sweater sleeve while I wait for it to cook. Hopefully it will be fulfilling, because I really need to feel fulfilled right now. Knitting myself a sweater when there are so many other people to knit for seems a bit selfish, but I need to free up the needles...yeah, that's it.