My human sweatshop of knitting is doing a moderately good job at meeting my daily quotas. Yes, you heard right I have given myself daily goals to finishing my Sankaku Shawl. I am the sole person in this sweatshop trying to finish my  WIP. The project is beautiful, but it is a beast a.k.a a whole lot of knitting. While, it has become easily memorizable project it takes me 1 hour when not being social  and put to two hours if I am engrossed in a TV show.

So I was surprised the other day when I looked at the project and realized that I was churning out more rows than I had projected (My daily goal is to get 1 row down, with a stretch goal of 2 rows….) This weekend I was able to churn out 3 rows each day and the last couple of days I have been getting about 2 to 2.5 rows under my belt.

I really don’t know what is going on but I can actually visualize this being knit up in less than 10 days. That’s just nuts, if you ask me and I am the one who is knitting it. I am hoping that by the end of the first week of September that I will have a finished object to post. This morning I got to mark that the project is 75% complete and it felt like a victory. I don’t know why but working on this project is like a hike. It seems long and uphill for the first part, but when you turn around and head down the mountain you wonder why you were complaining about the steepness and are surprised about how short you hiked.  I done have any delusions about this being a short project, but one thing is for certain, it is going to be so weird to think of knitting something else since I have been working on it for so long. It is a weird thing to explain and maybe this doesn’t happen to other people but there is

Note to self: Do not mention to your significant husband that you may amor may not be impacted by the Canadian Postal strike…

Conversations of this nature lead to “You have shipments that are scheduled to arrive? How much is coming?” and “What did you order?” all questions that lead me mumbling ” Fiber”… which leads to a ” you have a lot of fiber”

To be fair he knows about the spinning wheel….. just not the Plucky Knitter order ( I forgot about), Viola order, and the order form Loop London ( In my defense they were having a sale).

I guess it hasn’t helped that I have received some destashed yarn or 32 ounces oc spinning fiber in the last week. DOH!

One this is for sure I will be stalking the mailbox for sure….

So I didn’t just come off my yarn diet, I obliterated it. This month has been full of ups and downs but these are the things that I just can’t seem to get enough of:

1. Podcasts: I have been binging on  the “Hey Sister” podcast. The two sisters are just the cutest and most enthusiastic  knitters I have seen for awhile. Listening to the two of them you feel that you are sitting in their living room having a knit night. I also have been listing to “Junkyard” her podcast it down to earth and I find a sense of comfort in listening Kemper talk about her last projects, yarn and new finds.
2. Viola: Emily is a freaking genius with her sense of color. She had a well known Kickstarter campaign to raise money for her new studio. She had an update and I went pretty nuts. It reminds me of the early days when the Plucky Knitter updates sold out quick. Emily’s yarns can be found here when they are in stock Viola
3. HelloYarn Fiber: If your a spinner do I need to say more? Adrian’s finer are coveted and go very quickly.
4. Jensen TINA II: Audrey sent me a new picture of my wheel. It will ship later this week, and all I can say is that I am in love

5. 

Why is it that the projects that you want to go quickly never do? I  have roughly 39 days to finish the Sankaku shawl and I am getting antsy. I know it seems like a long time but splitting time between work, parenting, spinning, and just stuff like sleep and eating, its not.

I have set a goal of working a row a day, which is going to be a stretch. My calculations is that at that pace I would be 5 rows short by the time I need to finish this wrap/shawl. Like others I am my own worst critic. I have notice I can achieve many of my knitting goals, but I think this one is safely in the column of “TBD”.

I have been plugging away on my Sankaku and I really think a snail moves at a faster pace than this think is knitting up. I have reached a conclusion that although I am using the called for yarn, I will likely run out for the making this as I just finished with my 1st skein of yarn. I know that sounds weird but this is supposed to be a three skein project so I figured I would have a good reality check after working my way through the 1st skein, it is smaller than I anticipated. I also  checked out some of the other’s project pages and they seem to be averaging another 75-100 yards of yarn.  Which means it is time for a game of “yarn chicken,” every knitter’s favorite game.

To be honest, it’s going to be a really slog. I have made gains in improving my speed after memorizing the pattern ( it is not difficult a pattern) but I am averaging an hour per row… I am going to see if I can get it down by the end of September. It sounds really far away, but at the rate this is going I think it will be close.

IN OTHER NEWS……. My wheel is  scheduled to be finished relatively soon. I can’t believe it In the next couple of weeks, I will have my first spinning wheel. SQUEEE!!!!

Oh yeah and I might have bought some yarn”DOH!”

So much has been going on lately, so I expect that this post is going to be  very jumbled and ADHD in its organization. I loved working on holiday themed  July and I definitely have a nice little stash of holiday decor that I did not have before. I didn’t get the chance to finish my diorama, due to a hectic work schedule but I am thinking of picking it up later this year. In the meantime I think I need to finishing up so WIPS. I don’t really have a theme for August, although  I am thinking I might need to use DEVO’s one hit wonder and call August the month of “WIP it” somehow my amount of WIPs has grown. If I am going to be honest and make this ugly I have 6 WIPS:

1. Funky Grandpa
2. The green cashmere sweater
3. Sankaku
4. Hyoutan
5. The holiday themed diorama
6. Hexi Love Actually

I didn’t think I had any deadline knitting until I thought about the Sankaku shawl wrap I started earlier this year for the Plucky fashion show. I am not even 1/3 through the project, but it goes pretty slow. I am going to try to make this my “goto” project for August so that  I have a finished object to wear in early October, this project just screams #thisoughttotakeawhile.

Well…….. here goes nothing!