Where Angels Fear To Treadle...: I like this Finished Object thingy

Well, my mum talked to my auntie today and she got the shawl (whew! I don't trust the Post Office) and better yet, apparently she really liked the shawl. I tell you, there's nothing like giving a hand-knit to someone who knits. They really know how to make you want to immediately knit them something else. Only if I knit something else for Auntie (I was thinking a pair of sport weight socks for wearing about the house?) next I'm pretty sure I'll get into trouble. Because now my mum has joined the chorus of "when are you knitting me a pair of socks?" Which cracks me up because less than a month ago she still couldn't figure out why you'd knit socks when you could buy them. Only Hubby wants his and DD wants hers and... So I need to figure out my next sock project soon. And also how to keep up with the finishing of stalled projects.

I figured out two more contributing factors to the finishitis I have been enjoying recently. One was that I was upgrading my computer's OS so of course I had to back everything up first. And then do the upgrade. So no way to get online and lots of time sitting around waiting which equaled lots of time sitting around knitting. No wonder you programmers get a lot done while you wait for compiles and so on.

And then too, the dog broke my ball winder. So I couldn't "just swatch this yarn to see". Since I couldn't wind it into a ball/cake. I realized my leaving the ball winder and swift up all the time contributed to the overflow of projects on the needles at one time. I think I need to cut that number down a bit. I'm thinking this means that I can't leave the ball winder set up. Both to keep the dog from killing it again and because it might make it just enough harder to wiffle waffle about what I want to do that I won't end up with 80 bazillion wips.

I still have 5 on the needles (not just swatches, actual WIPS/UFOs) not counting Cluaranach which will undoubtedly get started tomorrow if not today. Plus another 5 that I have yarn and pattern ready to start any moment (again, not counting Cluaranach) and another 3 or 4 that I have queued up mentally but in a more general sense. IE "Socks for DH" not "Socks in this yarn and this pattern for DH". I gotta figure out how to get more knitting time while still managing to keep up with what other folks are blogging and you know, general life stuff like work and feeding the family and personal hygiene and whatnot.

I do have another FO for today's post though. The issues of lack of ball winders and computer upgrades meaning no time online continued long enough for that.

Probably the last FO for a while: The Fetching mitts from Knitty. Started last winter (January, or maybe December) they got stalled when it warmed up and I didn't need them anymore.
Now that it's cooler again I decided to finish them up too. I have a terrible problem that way. I can't even buy ready to wear when they want you to. So I doubt I'll ever manage to knit myself a winter sweater to wear the same winter for example. It'll be started in November and if I'm lucky finished before the following November. But never started in August and finished two months later so I can wear it that year. Well, maybe I can change.

In the meantime, back to the FO. I had a lot of trouble getting a good picture of the mitts. This one shows the pattern best out of the modeled shots:

except the actual color is darker

But this one (taken by an obliging DH) proves I have two:

and shows the color better

Pattern: Fetching from Knitty Summer 2006
Yarn: Elann Peruvian Pure Alpaca in color 795 (Juniper iirc). I was able to get the pair of mitts out of one skein (just barely).
Mods: Knitting the first mitt I goofed and only did 4 rows of ribbing between the two cables. I thought about ripping back but decided that I liked it like that and that I would actually want a longer cuff since I tend to find sleeves run a bit short on me. So I repeated the 4 rib rows plus a cable row one more time and called it an on purpose modification. Then when I had cast off the first one and put it on I discovered the mitt didn't reach to my fingers so I did an additional 4 rib rows and a second cable row at the finger end as well.

This will likely be the last FO for a while because I have almost completed the upgrade path for my laptop's OS (still need to update a printer driver apparently) and so am online again. And then too, I got my brand new ball winder yesterday in the mail. And today I wound up the first skein of yarn for my Cluaranach Wrap which I'm probably going to cave in to the siren call of and cast on for tonight.