Space Invaders scarf progress

Some progress pics of the Space Invaders scarf:






I've since gotten even further... the middle of the scarf is just two-row tall alternating stripes, and I'm maybe 20% of the way through the stripes. It's awful work - knit, switch yarns to front, purl, switch yarns to back, knit, switch yarns to front, purl... and every two rows I have to remember to switch colours entirely. That is, if I've been knitting black and purling green, I have to knit green and purl black.
AUGH.
Knitting the chart is far easier than this... and also keeps my interest better.

Two WIPs down

Knocked out two WIPs I had on the knitting needles this week. My Mom had a hysterectomy and was in the hospital for three nights, so I took knitting to work on while sitting in the room with her. The first night, I finished my armwarmers:




After that, I realized I should probably work on the knitting project I have FOR my mom... which is a 2x2 ribbed scarf that I started two winters ago, pretty much right after I learned to knit. Er, whoops. Well, she has it now! Before this next winter, even!



Mom's scarf was on my 10's, which I have now moved back to my Pinky Scarf... an ink pen was previously holding the stitches for that scarf.
I also got my magnetic knitting chart holder in today, so I can work more on the Space Invaders scarf! I was starting to get confused following the pattern (I hate crossing out or highlighting lines on a pattern, because I sometimes screw up and have to rip back or unknit rows and the highlighting messes me up) so this will hopefully help a lot.

More Knitting

I am now the proud owner of... CABLE NEEDLES. Hurray! Cables! Cabled scarf first, maybe, then cabled arm warmers/leg warmers come next. Also... maybe going to finally get some use out of those darn DPNs, or just learn magic loop for my circs.
I sat outside in the 80-some degree weather knitting on an arm warmer. I'm such a nerd.

I want to knit more, but I find myself wanting something a little more challenging to keep my attention. I did the illusion scarves pretty quick because I LOVED working the pattern, so I stayed interested and knitted longer each time I took the needles up. The worst part of that skull illusion scarf was the striping in the middle... boooo-ring! It was PAINFUL to knit through that after working a chart, and knowing I'd be getting back to a chart again as soon as I was done with the stripes.

I guess I need to learn intarsia... kinda intimidating! But I have a few cute charts I'd like to work into some scarves. Hopefully I won't get started, then forget how to do intarsia and be totally unable to remember it, thus leaving my scarf at approximately 30% complete like the poor Space Invaders scarf. ;P

Armwarmers

It might seem odd for a Midwestern girl to knit up armwarmers in the middle of July... but let me explain.
I work in radio. We have a lot of computers and equipment, and almost all of it is running ALL the time. To keep the computers cool, and to compensate for the heat they put off in the studios, the air conditioning is cranked up superhigh in the summer, and in the winter, the heat is kept down very low. As a result, it pretty much doesn't matter what time of year it is... inside the station it is FREEZING COLD.
You can, however, always take a little trip into a studio and warm up. The studios are pretty much always warm warm warm. I don't need anything for when I'm inside the studio... but when I'm outside the studio, it's so cold!! I've been running around with my big frumpy sweatshirt on, trying to keep warm that way (it's not really working.)

So... that is why, in the middle of July in the Midwest, I am knitting armwarmers.

So here you have some, using the Jiffy Armwarmers pattern!









It was knitting up a lovely little pattern when I started, but when I got about halfway it got "off" and isn't quite such a lovely little pattern anymore. Regardless, I grabbed this yarn because it's the same as what I used for my first calorimetry and I thought it would be nice if they matched... well, they do match, so whatever!
(These are not my work armwarmers, either... I'll need a neutral colour for those.)

Dear Space Invaders Scarf

Frustration sets in (again) with the Space Invaders scarf. I knit a bit on it, and then put it away some time last year - I was working rows on it while watching Boy Meets World on Disney at 1am, and when they quit airing BMW at 1am I quit knitting on it. So it sat for a while, a little unloved. I took it on vacation with me in July, and one night in the hotel room I took it out and worked a row of the chart. I looked at it, and thought "I have no clue if I did that right. I don't think I did. Man, I'm tired - far too tired to use my brain power to do this double-knitting thing." So I put it away and left it there. I should have pulled it out again the next day, as I had a fellow knitter with me on that vacation and I'm sure she could have saw what I screwed up, fixed it, and then taught me how to double-knit again... but alas, I did not.

So some time after I got home, I pulled it out to "fix." Well, I for sure had knit it incorrectly while on vacation, so I unknit two rows to get back to where I was... and started to forge ahead.
"Wait," I thought, and looked at my needles. "wait... this is NOT right."
I tried again. And again. And again. I couldn't get it to look right, but I couldn't figure out what I was doing. Frustrated, I put the SI scarf down, cast on thirty stitches of red, and knit three rows in garter stitch just to make sure I hadn't actually forgotten how to knit... no, no, I still remembered how to do it. God, it hadn't been THAT long... a few months, admittedly, but not THAT long! I tried again with the SI scarf... and failed.
"Forget it," I thought, "I don't have time to screw around with this right now." I put it away again... and left it.

A few months later I got it back out. I tried again. And again, and again, and again, and I STILL could not get it. "ARRRGH! I'm going to just LEAVE the damn thing until July, and then I'll get my knitting friends to help me with it when I see them on vacation again!" I resolved, and put it away.

Now, I have pulled it out again. I checked my Stitch & Bitch, watched a few videos from Knitting Help... and tried again.
No, it still looked wrong, but at least this time I'm pretty sure I knitted and purled correctly. I looked at Stitch & Bitch again. What was wrong? I looked at the section on twisted stitches. "Ah-HA," I thought. In unknitting the darn thing, I bet I twisted some stitches. Sure enough, I plowed through the scarf and found several twisted stitches, and untwisted them.
Now the stitches are sitting properly on the needles. I checked the last successfully knitted row of my chart to make sure I still accurately had purls and knits in the right places... everything looks good.
Okay... time to try this again.

...and I did it wrong again.



Dear Space Invaders scarf:
I hope you appreciate all the aggravation and difficulty I am going through to finish you.
Love, Beanie.
PS: I hate you.