In a funk

Dear Blog,

I apologize for abandoning you the way I have. It's been not one, not two, but three months since my last post! How could that be? Where did the time go? Please know that even though I haven't been giving you the attention you deserve, I do think about you often. Daily even. I'll read, hear or see something that I want to share with you. But then I don't. The only thing I can attribute such behaviour to is that I feel like I've been in a funk lately. You know the kind, where you're going through the motions but your heart not into any of it? Well, it's time to take some steps to snap myself out of it. And I promise to do better.

You probably won't believe me, but I have been knitting. I just haven't been very excited about any of it. My most recent FO is the Karys top, which I made for my friend Bella's 5th birthday. It looks adorable on her. But then, everything does. She's too cute.



Project: Karys
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cotton dk, color 13038 (hot pink)
Needles: KnitPicks Options US 5
Start Date: July 14, 2009
Finish Date: August 1, 2009

Mods: Since I used a different yarn, I had trouble getting gauge, so I did a little math and made some adjustments to get as close to the size I wanted as possible. I was getting 5 stitches per inch, instead of 5.5, so I cast on 76 stitches instead of 84. When it came to the width of the garment, I followed the instructions for the smaller size. For length, I followed the pattern.

Finished pattern size:
15 1/4” across the bottom
12” across the mid-section
5 1/2” across the top, shoulder to shoulder
17” long

My finished size:
16” across the bottom
10 3/4” across the mid-section
8 3/4” across the top, shoulder to shoulder
17 1/4” long

The size isn't exactly like the pattern suggests, but it fits! So I'm not bothered by it. The one thing that does bother me is the sleeve situation. I didn't count how many stitches I had picked up on the first sleeve. I thought there couldn't be that big of a difference. Wrong! I picked up a lot more for the second sleeve, resulting in a more ruffled version than its counterpart. sigh Lesson learned. Count how many stitches you pick up so that you have two matching sleeves!

Here's another picture, since my model shots of Bella were washed out by light.



I also made a pair of soakers for a friend who is using cloth diapers on her baby. Alas, they were too small, so I'm reknitting them in a bigger size. Here's a pic of the first version.


In an effort to get my blogging mojo back, I'm going to experiment. Back in May, Clara Parkes posted on her blog everyday. I remember thinking that this is what I need to do in order to make blogging more of a habit. So I'm going to do it. From now until September 30th, I will blog everyday to make up for the lack of attention that I've given you. There, I said it. (yikes) Of course, I don't knit fast enough for it to be all about knitting. But I will try to include as much knitting related content as I can.


So. Until tomorrow....

Edited to add a title to this post. See. I'm rusty.