Doing the Ravelympics left me with the desire to finish up some of the bigger projects I had going. I didn’t realize how focused  & determined that desire was but I’ve been working steadily on Evangeline with one exception.

One of my Ravelympics projects that I had to give up on was the Sweater Bag and part of my frustration was that was that the ‘plain’ knitting part was all rev st st which meant 50 purl stitches every row (half the row).

But after working on the Evangeline for a while, I realized that every wrong side row was near 200+ purl stitches and I was doing just fine. I decided to set it down and do a little on the Sweater Bag to see if it was still a big frustration.

I ended up not being able to put it down til the body was finished. I even kept going and worked on the strap til the skein ran out.  However the strap left me with a new set of annoyances as it was only 18 stitches done in the round but it still felt like it took forever to make any progress.

I went back to the Evangeline at that point and with a minor exception, have dedicated all my knitting hours for the past couple of weeks to it. Knitted everyday too except the last couple which is why I feel weird right now because I haven’t had my “fix” in a few days.

I’m up to the armhole shaping area on the front now and the piece looks really big but seems to fit right when held against the body. I think it may come out longer than originally planned cause I think my row gauge was off but that’s ok with me. I like long shirts anyways.

There’s so many things I want to cast on that my head wants to explode just thinking about it. But I really do need to soon finish the Purple Cat Pillow for Rachel as I was told tonight that she’s near ready to pop! Ideally I’d devote myself to doing a matching baby blanket in the same yarn as I got enough for that purpose to start with.

And then perhaps I’ll break my beading cherry and make my “Deathly Odessa” which will be a hat made with skull beads that I’ve had for 4 years.

The minor exception to the Evangeline btw is starting a Hostile Bunni on Wednesday which was the day after the official month long Bunnis VillageAlong  for Village  Hopelessly Overcommitted on Ravelry ended.  I did the body up to the last couple rounds, embroidered a face on it, then did the ears. Still need to sew on the ears, stuff the body and then finish the last couple rounds, finish off and weave in the ends to be complete. Angela also had the cool idea to add eyebrows to make him look more hostile. She also said that he looked a little like Winnie The Pooh. In the dark light, the orange looked red from across the room.

I’ve been too lazy to try to take pictures of the current WIPs of the sweater bag or tunic but I did manage to snap a photo of the Bunni to be so here you go!

Hostile Bunni... not quite finished

I’m noticing that there’s a lot of tension in my hands and arms and I feel like I’m fighting still to get the stitches moving along the cable. I’m going to try swapping down again to a shorter length.

But I’m officially throwing in the towel on trying to complete it in time because it just clicked in my brain that the closing time in Beijing means sunday MORNING my time.

Sure enough… 9am for me. That’s 8 hours left! And I’m supposed to be asleep! Time to dig out all the almost finished WIPs and finish them.

Looks like the biggest “start to finish” project I’ll have done is a simple Tudora.

Oh well, the whole thing has been a fun exercise and got me moving into doing more things.

Just feel bad that I didn’t really do any of the fingerless glove projects when my participation in the Ravelympics started out of the Fingerless Gloves Fanatics group on Ravelry.

Oops just remembered the Moon Beads cowl. Such a shame that I didn’t finish that one.

But then again I have to remember that I lost a whole weekend to the camping trip and some of my week nights too (and that new toy, the Ball winder!)

I think I’m going to enjoy not feeling any kind of rush for a deadline. It was always supposed to be something as a fun challenge for myself and it worked because it got me finishing several things and trying something very new to me (the cowl).

BTW I didn’t make it to the Post Office until closing so no complaints registered but I was mollified when the guy from yesterday knocked on my door and handed me the package in question.

I really really love the “Iron Maiden” that Jen did for her limited edition Medival Torture line. I think it’s a real shame that this is one of a kind that will not be repeated because the greys and blacks and red go so well together and in a way that you don’t normally see!

Maybe tomorrow after the closing bell has chimed, I’ll give myself permission to sit down and start charting out the pattern for the original design that Jen’s recent colors inspired in my head (hint: La Belle et Le Bête)

So difficult because there’s so many ideas I want to try out as well as existing patterns I want to do. And there’s my Louhi! Really need to write about that one.

Started round 1 of the Sweater Bag (first round after the 12 rows of ribbing) and am currently about to start round 17. Definitely not knitting very fast.

Half of the 100 stitches are involved in cable work which isn’t too bad once I get a feel for how the cables are running. Then I don’t have to keep looking it up to see which way to twist the stitches.

However the problem is that the “plain knitting” on what will be the interior of the bag is done in purl. Purl is much slower for me than knitting.

I’m knitting this on Denises and at first I was using too long of a length but even with one that’s 3-4 inches shorter, still feel like I’m struggling to get the yarn around the cable.

A little more than another hundred rows to go. At least the strap should be quick and easy.

In other news, frakkity frak frak!! The Hollywood post office continues to shock me with just how badly organized and committed to their job they are. I’ve never had much trouble with any post office in the past but this one? They’ve lost 4 of my 6 packages mailed on a single day. Disappeared into the ether. They piss and moan and then get nasty with attitude when I try to get them to scan the paper that registers packages as being received by the post office. And they didn’t even know what it was! Hello… this has been around for some time now, do you have no training at this place?

They’ve told us that our bldg is located on an “open route” which means it’s passed along to whoever is free to do it that day. Problem is that some of these carriers are fucking lazy as hell. They won’t check the outgoing mailbox next to the mailboxes. I bought a clip and put it on the box so we could at least clip the mail to the OUTSIDE of the box so they couldn’t miss it. Twice in the past two weeks, I’ve seen mail in the clip in the morning before they’ve come and seen it still there afterwards when the mail had been delivered.

But boy they bitch and bitch about us getting the mailboxes fixed. They’re all fired up about doing THAT right.

Another time I happened to walk out and the carrier had a package too big to put in the box. I saw him trying to use the “call box” which according to the tenant (and former bldg mgr) who has lived here for 18 years… has NEVER BEEN hooked up. I told him “that doesn’t work, it doesn’t go to any of us, you have to go knock on the door”.

I then watched him pull out a form, fill it out, open the boxes back up and drop it in and then get in his truck and drive away. Lazy son of a bitch couldn’t be bothered to go to the door of a 8 unit bldg and knock!

A week or so ago, I had to go to the post office which was also the same day the carrier didn’t pick up the mail. I took it with me and asked to speak to the supervisor and entered a complaint about the shoddy service we get. And of course it happens again this past Wednesday.

And now today, I’m given another reason to go back and register another complaint. I’ve a package that was not delivered last week. Usually the carriers leave it at the door but at least one person who does the route refuses to do so and writes out orange slips instead and sticks it in the door (not the mailbox! which means the wind can blow it away). I know that they don’t leave packages if they think it’s not secure but nothing ever gets taken here and packages are left all the time without a problem. The inconsistency bothers me big time.

Anyways so I get a 2nd orange slip and remember that I can request redelivery. I did it Wednesday night to be delivered today when I would be at home. Carrier gets here and I go out and…. he has no package for me.

Who wasn’t surprised at this? Who actually expected it to be the case? I doubt anyone’s got the time to notice or care that the person requesting the redelivery was the same person who took the time to file a complaint but gee…. awfully coincidental.

Oh well, I’ll go in tomorrow with a print out of the redelivery request (I took a screenshot of the page for proof) and file another complaint and get my gorram package.

Sad really because until this sorry outfit, I’d never had any real problems with the post office and had good feelings about them even with long waits in lines and etc.

Oh, why this rant is in the Ravelympics diary is that it contains the indie dyed yarn from Squibstitcher’s Fresh From the Cauldron line that is intended for an original design of fingerless gloves that I’ve got queued as a Ravelympics Designer Discus project. But at this rate, I don’t even have the design charted yet nor have I seen the yarn in person and figured out if I’ve got the right colors (can’t always be sure that the color as I see it on the screen will match in person – as what happened with the yarn from the Sweater Bag).

Oh well, it was a pie in the sky thing anyways. Maybe I’ll put it as one of my Fantasy Knits instead which I have to finish doing this weekend.

But I did cast on and get the k2/p2 ribbing done for 12 rows as required for the bottom of the Sweater Bag! I’m excited even though I’m not as thrilled at the color of this yarn as I’d like to be. The rest of my impulse Ebay buys were better than this so all in all I didn’t do badly at all!

I’m still excited about the skein of 100% silk in a beautiful blue color that I want to make in a Tudora for Aunt Ann. I could probably cast on and finish it if I devoted one of the weekend days to it. After all I did the other one in about 5 hours of knitting on the first Saturday from cast on to cast off.

Another thing I’m excited about is that I think I’ve figured out what to do with my stash of Lion Brand Chenille. I’ve got a lot of black and a lot of the multi color “print” colorways which are named for cities. London & Paris which are both very purply & blue and then Amsterdam which has both but leans more towards teal for an deep ocean kind of tone. I knew I wanted to make a blanket with it but was having trouble deciding on a pattern. Was thinking something that would evoke the ocean but hadn’t seen a good pattern or had any inspirational visions of a pattern I could design myself.

But then I was crusing the Afghan event thread in the Ravelympics group and saw people talking about the Cathedral Rose Throw. PERFECT!! I have a lot more Amsterdam than London & Paris but can use the latter two for the smaller accents. Some finished ones: one gal did two, picture of the original FO, a version in browns & reds, and I’m sure you can find more via google as I did.

Really need to come up with a good method for keeping track of what projects that I’ve got planned where I’ve got the yarn and pattern (and needles) ready for casting on. Instead of it all being cattywumpus over my apt and brain and I end up forgetting the plans and wind up wondering what was I going to do with this yarn?

This picture made me fall in love with the pattern though the knitter of this bag told me that her yarn didn’t hold up well to use (pilled and turned ratty looking).

Pattern requires bulky yarn and I don’t have much. I’m not sure how the multi-colored part will work out but the yarn is smooth enough that there should still be good enough stitch definition to resist being drowned out by the color changes. Also the yarn is predominately an intense maroon with splashes of other colors.

It wasn’t til I took the photo of the swatch the next day that I realized that one of the other colors was a dk green. There’s a surprising range of color in the yarn so should make for an interesting bag!

Not sure if I’m going to keep it for myself or give it away as a present to someone else. We’ll see.

Oh I also knitted some more on the square for “Dark Doe”.