Visible Progress

I've been known to say that there is a black hole in every knitting project. You know what I mean -- that point where you feel like you've been knitting a ton but haven't actually made any forward progress. That's a bit how I've felt with my WIPs, but it seems that I've done enough knitting on them to finally escape the black hole.

For one thing, I finished the socks:

This is the sample for the toe-up version of my Non-Euclidian pattern, and it did turn out rather nicely, if I do say so myself. For one thing, I managed to get the stripes to match almost perfectly (perfect matching is probably impossible, given that humans are involved in both dyeing and knitting the yarn). But the heel also turned out well and fits as I'd hoped, so I'm very pleased. The pattern is already with my tech editor and should be back to me and ready for testing soon.

My handspun Boxy sweater is also suddenly enormous:

I put half the stitches on another needle when I reached the specified length and tried it on (though I use that term loosely -- it's so big that it was really more a matter of stepping into it and holding it roughly at underarm level), and at that point I determined that I could definitely add several inches more in length. I'm now at about 19 inches, so I need to decide if I want to go to 20 or just start the front and back now. I love that in natural light you can see the colors actually changing; I've mostly been knitting this at night, when it looks solidly dark. At the top you can see the next colors to come in the fade. The four skeins you see where actually knit all as one giant 8 oz. skein, but I realized that in order for my front and back to match, I'd actually need to divide each segment in two, so I split apart the sections when I was winding the skein. I'm kind of astounded at how much I've gotten done, and when I look at the pattern, there's really not that much left to do in the grand scheme of things.

I'll be working on this sweater a lot next week when I go on a little road trip. I don't think I've mentioned it here yet, but I'm going to the TNNA Summer NeedleArts Trade Show in Cleveland next week with Lisa of Fibernymph Dye Works. She's a member and had an extra ticket (her husband has gone in the past but decided to pass this year) that she offered to me. It's my first time attending this show, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm signed up for a couple of classes and hope to meet some folks I've only interacted with online in the past. Most of all, it'll be fun to have several days away with a friend who totally understands why I want to spend most of the trip knitting!