So, the Hue Shift Afghan has only a few more rows left to knit (and alllllll of those ends) and it will be done. I could have finished the knitting by now, but a few things have it off to the side. We've had some unseasonably warm weather not well suited for having a big ol' blanket on my lap. It will be back and forth with the temperatures, so the project will have its opportunities for finishing the knitting, and I have a backlog of episodes of Days of Our Lives to watch for weaving in all those ends. It's going to freeze again this week, so who knows?
Anyway, with the upcoming completion of this project, I've started looking for the next one. Now, before you mention my Bridgewater, I'll thank you to know that Rock Island refuses to either require less yardage or to magic a particular skein of handspun to have sufficient yardage to knit it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
So, I kept up my search for what I was going to knit, mostly flipping through my library. There's only so long I can just look through patterns. I either cast on, or I set it all aside and do something else. Eventually, the itch of the needles got me, and it was time to wind the yarn.
Side note, with all of the bouts of warmer weather, I have done a bit of work out in the yard. In and amongst the new green is plenty of brown, and hidden amongst that I found the poison-est of ivies--poison ivy. I just didn't know it at the time, and it took a few days before the rash revealed itself, and suddenly I had quite a few patches of it. Did you know that you can get calamine in a spray formulation? I didn't but I do now, and it is mighty fine. So, yeah, it wasn't just the needles that have been itching, but I am doing much better now and mostly healed.
Anyway, I settled on knitting something from Hunter Hammersen's Curls, a book I've never knit from and which is already discontinued. I decided it was a good choice for maximizing my handspun. Then I narrowed it down to a few patterns within the book and started swatching. I changed needle size and tried a different chart, and I still wasn't sure. My enthusiasm was starting to wane.
Suddenly I was saved by the arrival of a new pattern, and the new yarn I ordered in anticipation of said pattern had arrived the day before. I think I'll just knit these for a while. It's probably some of the best use of my time for now.
