Knitting..?

Hrm.. yeah. I do that, don't I? Not that you'd really know it much lately. I've been in a slump. I think it's on the tail end and on it's way out, but I've still been decidedly uninspired to do much with any fiber lately. Worrisome, no?

I tried last week to pull myself out of the slump by starting another pair of socks. You can never have too many pairs of handknit socks and people have been raving about what nice socks Cascade Fixation makes, so I got a couple skeins in a sort of light sage green and cast on for some simple lace socks. And got through the cuff of the first one and decided I just didn't like it. I'm not sure if it's the pattern - which seems.. pre-stretched? - or the yarn - which while elastic seems not to pull in as much as I want. So I'll be frogging those and looking for a new inspiring sock pattern to try later (maybe the Milanese Lace in the new Magknits..?)

Then, one of the last evenings when Jack was busy working on papers, I sat myself down in my craft room, popped in an old favorite CD or two, and picked up the yellow ribbed tank I started oh-so-long-ago in Noro Lily. I really would like to finish this one - I think it will be lovely to wear, especially with summer coming up - but I'm having difficulty with how the ends look.

And here we get into what I'm convinced many knitters will consider sacrilege. I tend not to leave ends to weave in. Rather, I leave a couple inch tail, knit with both strands for six to eight stitches, leave another couple inch tail and then go on until I come to that spot in the next round and then I slip the tails (separately, when I come to them) over the working yarn one stitch over. I do this in the same direction (so I end up moving the tail diagonally) for a bit and then switch to go the other direction. Every now and then I give the tail a little tug to make sure it's not pooching out the working side. This leaves me with no tails to weave in at the end and with most projects is not a problem.

But with Lily, it is. (I'd show you a picture but the batteries in my camera appear to have given up the ghost and the charged ones are out in the car.) It's.. messy, for lack of a better word. Working in the tails seems to be pulling the stitches all around, and even if I try to tug the fabric back into 'true', it looks wonky. I think it's the ribbing that makes it skew, but I'm not sure. And the yarn is slippery, so I'm worried that without really anchoring the tails, it's going to fall apart after just a few outings.

So I'm trying to decide if I need to rip out the tank and start over and figure out a different way to deal with the ends (though I'm really not convinced that weaving them in at the end is going to result in any difference).

*sigh* So that's two knitting mostly-failures. Not a good track record for trying to get out of a slump.

Rogue to the rescue..? We'll see. When we last left our intrepid hoody, I had just realized that I messed up the shoulder on one side and would have to rip it back to fix it. Well, last night was Rogue Monday, and since mamacate, who gave me the pattern and recently started her own Rogue (and might I add, is farther along in it than I am?), I decided it was time to deal with that shoulder. And it was easy. And then I started on the hood. And while I have to admit that I'm changing the way some of the cable cross (I prefer mirrored symmetry), and I'm missing half the chart for the left side because my printer refuses to print it, it's going okay. I only got about a dozen rows done, but there were no disasters and I don't think I have to rip it out or anything. (Again, there'd be pictures, but the battery thing..)

So there's hope. I think.

By the by.. two weeks until Chicago..? Have we settled on a day/time/location for our first knitters SIG meeting?

And did I mention that I got one of the 50 Summer Data Policy Institute Fellowships? If you're curious to know what I'll be working on, drop a note and I can go into detail, but for now, suffice it to say it has to do with trying to establish national success measure benchmarks for transfer students similar to graduation and retention rates (which are cohort-based, and therefore lose students entirely once they transfer). I'm pretty excited to get to work on something with some meat, but I have to admit the lukewarm reception of the news by my boss was a bit of a downer, so I haven't really felt like it was much to crow about. :/