Still working on the obligatory scarf, still enjoying it. It’s very different, though, isn’t it? Amazing.

Pics sooner or later.

Generally I try to reserve Sundays for doing “fun” projects, but today I find myself within reasonable distance of finishing something that’s been hanging around here a damned long time now, so the goofing off will have to wait. Nothing at all could feel better than actually finishing something big, so I’m running with it.

Yay!

Ever have a project that just kicks your ass?

This would be one of mine. The hardiest, in fact, having been started, as near as I can figure, early in 1999. It might have been earlier. I know I remember working on it in my apartment out by Fresno State, which I moved into in January of that year. In resurrecting it I’ve run across a bit of cat hair, which suggests that I actively worked on it while still at my parents’ house, which would put it anywhere between 1996 and 1998. It was started, though, after the “train ‘ghan” I mostly made while running back and forth from Fresno to Vallejo on Amtrak in service of a bad relationship. Those trips stopped in April or May, I think, of 1997 so it dates to after that, because that ‘ghan wasn’t quite done at that point.

In any case, it’s somewhere between 8 and 10 years old, and about half done.

Incidentally, this is the one time that I’ve had anybody comment assuming that the yarn I was buying wasn’t for me; one of the ladies at Wal-Mart remarked on how sweet I was to buy yarn for my grandmother. I don’t think she believed me when I told her it was for me, but no matter. I’m the one it’s been following around for the last ten years.

(Note the mad MS Paint skillz. *snicker*)

So I got, oh…maybe half done with making all of these little four-round granny squares and I got bored, right? So I started putting them together. Only problem is that way back when I had no clue what I was doing. As far as I can tell from looking at it, I added a cluster at the join every time I went around a set of joined squares, so the pieces of the thing I’d put together wound up hopelessly distorted. It’s been sitting like that for years. I’m pretty sure I haven’t let it out of the box since I left for Pensacola in late 2000.

I suppose I feel compelled to finish the thing just because I’ve moved it so many times.

Unfortunately, though, that means that I’ve got a lot of frogging to do, because all of those sections that I joined, then tortured? Have to come apart now.

*bangs head on wall*

It’s great for my ego, though. It really is. Because it’s a fabulous demonstration of just how much I’ve grown with this in the last little while. And how cool is that?

That’s Peaches & Creme in Licorice, because I really am that cotton obsessed.

After finishing this little square, I immediately launched into the obligatory garter stitch scarf, since I’d been planning to start one of some sort for my three-year-old anyway, and she’ll love it no matter how uneven it is. I’ll need at least that length to get my tension nice and consistent. Might be longer. I’m finding that bit much more difficult than I do with crochet…but then, I’ve been crocheting over 20 years now, so I don’t doubt it was a challenge when I started, too.

I’m terribly impressed with how soft this little swatch is.

I’m a bit smitten for sure. More to come…

I have this sudden, desperate yearning to knit socks.

I don’t understand it, either.

I’m going bicraftual.

Hey, if Emma can learn to crochet (and so quickly and well that I keep clicking over there to see what she’s done now), I can learn to knit, right? *ducks under thrown tomato* OK, I think knitting is way more difficult, but I’ve decided to decide I think that just because I’m relatively unfamiliar with it (and I’ll stop torturing this sentence now, so no need to call the UN).

In other words, it’s time to get out of my own way and just learn the thing, or at least the rudiments. Time will tell if it will become a love affair or not.

I got all excited about doing this because I was poking around on Ravelry the other day and found a link to this and my reaction was, “hey, I could do that!” instead of hiding under the desk cowering in fear, so that’s another good indicator that it’s time.

Also–and this is going to sound monstrously artsy–I keep picturing a freeform piece I’m working on with a garter stitch section in it and I can’t convince myself to crochet the thing instead. So I *have* to figure it out or it will forever look wrong to me, and if it turns out like I’m starting to think it will, that would be tragic.

Now if I could just get a few minutes to actually work on, well, *anything* I’d be all set. LOL.

In no particular order other than the one in which I remembered them while writing this:

Number 1 ought to be blogging more than once a week! LOL. I’d like to find and fix up a new theme for the thing, too. I’ve not got much of a theme-y attention span, I’m afraid.

Number 2 relates to being positive about the chances of getting a table at a small craft fair I’ve applied for, and having plenty of stuff done to cover that event. And of course, if that *doesn’t* work out, well then I’ve got plenty for Etsy.

3 is sprucing up the Etsy shop.

4 is finishing the design on a holiday item I’ve been contemplating and have about half worked out.

5 is writing the pattern for that one when it’s done, because it’s the sort of thing I could really have used as a beginner.

6 is a post I’ve been meaning to write about how important all of the impossibly detailed beginner stuff is, because beginners need patterns too.

7 is some free patterns for this site, since I really do believe that having access to patterns that the experienced might not think even need writing *is* important for beginners. I think stating clearly exactly how to do something that seems very simple can be dead useful for both parties involved.

8 is the freeform project I’ve made a few bits and pieces for, and the one I have in mind.

9 is the Monster…a post on that is coming soon.

10 is commenting where I have something to say. I never seem to have time to actually leave a freaking comment when I first see something. Hell, I suppose I’m lucky I manage to *read* anything at all with the kids helping me.

11 is updating Ravelry. How sad is it that I can’t come up with the money to get a beta tee? I’d love one of those shirts. *sigh*

12 is updating the blogroll.

13 is catching up with this.

14 is taking a pic of my giant granny and posting an update at the Granny-Along.

15 is…um…I’m sure there’s something else. There’s always something else.

Life is good.