The Bog of Lost Scholars

Finally took a picture of the child’s shirt, in two fabrics, worn by the adorable little model. (Note the contrasting Pop Tubz (TM), with which the boy is playing Stick.)

It’s finally occurred to me that reading about other people’s crafts isn’t as interesting when you can’t see the projects. So herewith the illustrated craft update!

From left to right, starting on the back row:

• No progress on Ruby.
• No progress on the Just Nan sampler.
• Minimal progress on the harbor needlepoint. (It’s hard to see on that last where the worked vs. unworked areas are; the completed parts are the dark blue, grayish medium blue, and solid white sections in the top right corner, and the dark triangle on the building roof.)
• The crane needlepoint, however, is coming along nicely. I’m definitely past the halfway point.
• I’ve done a few stitches on the pentacle, but not much; mainly the faint blue bits on the lower left. (I’m delighted that this pattern uses DMC 995, my very favorite DMC color.)
• The sweater is growing slowly. You can’t see the nifty patterns too well in this picture, but trust me, they’re nifty. I’m halfway through the second repeat of the front cables.
• A tiny bit of progress on the Flanders map. (What you see visible is about a fourth of the working area — the thing is huge.
• Shirts — the pockets are ready to sew on, but I’ve only done one so far; the childfree time hasn’t coincided with a good sewing time. (Confession: I’d planned to work on these shirts a couple weeks ago, when my ex was taking the boy for the afternoon. Then he forgot to look at the clock, and showed up an hour and a half later than he’d said he would. So I got the spite out of my system by purposely ignoring the shirts and working on some other project! Hey, it’s healthier than other forms of anger processing….)
• No progress on the cat quilt. Still debating whether I want to do the appliqued hearts or not, and still need to cut out the lattice strips.
• No progress, of course, on the sunflowers. (All that’s done there is a very little triangle of blue, and a yellow border along either side.) I probably won’t start seriously working on it again until I’ve finished the crane, since I need the lap frame for it. (In theory I can take one project off the lap frame and put on another; in practice, I’m too lazy to switch them out, and the crane has enough momentum now that I don’t want to stop.)

In the queue to start sometime:

• a bib for Evil Minion Zurl, my future nephew/niece
• a shirt from the funky batik print that I’ve had around forever
• the tiny owl cross-stitch piece
• and the other 20 kits sitting in the box
• an Old West-inspired jacket and culottes
• the blouse, shirt-jacket, and skirt that I’d planned to make for last summer
• the metallic plaid jumper

One advantage knitting has over, say, cross-stitch, is that it’s doable in the dark. (Crochet is theoretically possible too, but I’m not a good enough crocheter to do more than your basic granny square without good lighting.)

I’m checking out the rows on my cable sweater that I did while watching RotK for the third time, and overall you can’t tell that I wasn’t looking at what I was doing. There’s one split stitch that I’d probably have caught with light, and one cable that I made backwards (oops! but I occasionally do that even with good lighting), but otherwise? Looks fine!