Current Completeion...10%

I have been knitting like mad. I've clocked in at about 7 hours so far and have finished just over 4 inches. I keep thinking to myself, "Why did my last sweater take me so damn long to finish? This seems so easy!" I have come up with two answers. The first is that my first sweater (the ugly, adult elephant-sized Microspun disaster) was huge! It started with several hundred cast on stitches and ended with an equally sucky number of bind off stitches. The second reason I could think of is that it wasn't fitted, therefore had very few decreases and many, many increases. I am much happier with the look and feel of this sweater already.
Right now I'm just working on the skirt of the sweater (this one is bottom-up as opposed to the first sweater which was top-down) so I am working many rounds even at a time, so I have lots of time to think. I love this yarn very much because it is incredibly soft and warm (not bastardly hot like you would believe wool to be) and stitches up beautifully. Also, the um, "variegation" in the yarn is turning out way prettier than I could have ever hoped for. It is subtle and beautiful and I can't wait to wear this masterpiece. I think that if I could come up with a name for my new "colorway," it would have to be Obviously Subtle. It fits the yarn to a perfect match.
When someone learns to knit, my favorite advice to give them is to go to a yarn store and buy something they absolutely love. Whether they buy some ridiculously expensive silk just to tuck away and touch when they are feeling blue, or if they buy something sturdy and practical to make a scarf for themselves out of, I can't emphasize enough how important it is to work with a yarn you just love touching. I think that could have been another problem with my Microspun fiasco. The yarn is soft and slippery and shiny. I like to touch it, only my cuticles are dry and cracked in some places. My nails sometimes get a little rough at work. The yarn is great to touch, only if you have any imperfections on you hands, they will catch on the super thin fibers. It makes the yarn somewhat difficult to handle when it's December and your hands are chapped from the cold air. This yarn is wool, and although soft, is much hardier than Microspun, and I enjoy that. I couldn't have chosen a better yarn for this project, and it was such a steal! This whole sweater is only costing me $30 to make! $20 for the yarn, $4 for the dye, and $6 for the shipping! I will definitely be buying from KnitPicks again. They were great and I had an amazing delivery time. I thought I would have to wait 5-14 days, and in the end, I ended up waiting just 3!
This dying my own yarn option has opened up a world of doors to me. I want to start again immediately but I need to get rent paid before I can start ordering more yarn. I think I want to save a bit back so that I can order over $50 and get free shipping. I ordered 500g for $20, so I was thinking about looking at my other options. I could buy silk, superwash, alpaca...All sorts of different fibers and try out this Kool-Aid dye method and make lots of yarn to sell or knit or give away to people I like. I'm pretty excited.
I should be working. I was waiting for Ross to get on ICQ, but he hasn't yet. Maybe I'll just log some time for fixing my excel surveys. That sounds like a plan.
Or...
I could knit!