March Madness

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This month's theme is "March Madness". This was such fun last year, and I've been looking forward to it this year. The intent is to stitch (or knit) on a different project every day of the month (or at least every day you stitch or knit during the month). Since we made these themes up, those rules aren't rigid; for instance, you could make it almost a rehash of Guilt-Free January and "do whatever you want". I interpret March Madness this way: I can work on something I've already worked on during the month, as long as that same day, I work on something else I haven't worked on yet. In short, every day I must work on something I haven't worked on yet this month.

Here's how it's going so far:

March 1: Stitched on My Christmas Pear (no pics...it's kind of a boring stitch right now; endless gold.) This is my travel project, so I'm likely to work on it some more during the month. Also, I knit on the Pomatamus socks. Again, no pics; I just barely managed to start the pattern section, so most of it was boring p1 k1tbl ribbing.

March 2: Nothing. Nada. This was Sunday, and after church we went with Michael's parents to The World of Coke (his mother declared the opening film "the dumbest thing I've ever seen"), then out to dinner. When we got home, I was too tired to think of lifting any kind of needle.

March 3: Monday night, "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" finale. I managed to get through half of the rounds of my third (!) medallion for the Medallion Capelet. Of course, that's probably 1/3 or less of the stitches, since you're increasing every round. Here's a pic of the first medallion (unblocked...I'm hoping the lace pattern will "pop" more once it's blocked). I kind of wish I'd used a darker color, although I do dearly love this color. I'm now beginning to wonder what I'll wear under it, though! I'm hoping to finish it this month, just in time for it to be too warm to wear it. =)


After I finished the first medallion, I told myself I'd just do "just one block" on the Herringbone Block Shawl before I started the second medallion. Just for reference's sake, here's what it looked like at that point:

So I added another block. But remember how I said I loved the way the Noro colors were happening? I had three different colorways to play with. Also, I started using the rosewood Lantern Moon needles I bought in Highlands. Oh, my, they are so lovely to use. So smooth. It's like knitting with butter. Or, at least, it's what knitting with butter would be like if butter wasn't all greasy and melty and completely incapable of holding its shape and was actually, you know, lovely hard, smooth, dark wood. So here's the "one more block" I did:

Yeah. I managed to finally restrain myself once deciding which color to use next took too much cognitive effort. One change I am making to the pattern: It calls for you to only knit whole blocks, and then at the end, add garter stitch strips to the entire length. The sounded painful to me, so I decided to do the fill-in half blocks you see there. I like the way they're turning out. Hopefully once it's done, I won't miss the stability that the garter sides would add.

March 4: Easter Fairy. A good project to take to stitch group, as it's relatively mindless, and you need those brain cells for talking. =) I am reconciling myself to the fact that this is in no way going to be done before Easter. I'll most likely set it aside after Easter, because I don't want it hanging around finished for months before I can in good conscience display it again. I'm still going to work on it this month, but I'll try for the actual finish next year.

Doncha love the scissors?? They were my birthday present to myself when I ordered the materials for the ornament exchange (pre-excluded from the stash diet, of course, and scissors don't count. I've been told sock yarn doesn't count, either, but that's part of why my stash is in the state it's in. =)

March 5: Lady Scarlett's Secret Garden box. I figured since I got a dispensation for Barnabee's Bride, I ought to finish its predecessor. =) I actually squeaked this in on the last day of Guilt-Free January. But, you know, I'm so slow that I didn't get much done. And on that note, I also started my first ornament for this year's exchange (the Britty Kitty one from JCS 2007). I'll work on this one another day this month. Behold, the stunningly miniscule amount of stitching!

Last night, I started Astrid. I thought I'd be able to make good progress on one of the large circles during AI and Lost. Well, the commercials during Lost, anyway. I cast on...or at least, I started to. Rats, didn't leave a long enough tail. Cast on 84 stitches again. Rats, the "just pull tight" join does NOT work well with Magic Loop. Knitterly denial let me go three rounds until this became apparent. Cast on again. Somewhere, I forgot a yo. Frak! OK, I can pick it up; no worries. Wait, now I have an extra stitch. OK, p2tog and keep going. Wait, I should not be k2tog that yo! I should be k in it! Double frak!! Here's the net result of my night of knitting:

*sigh* I think I'm going to need to do a little on this today so I can feel good about myself. And yes, the yarn is just about as close in color to the KP cables as a wool/plastic pair could get. I totally did not know that when I bought it. By the way, the Harmony Wood needles? Why haven't you bought them yet?? If I said things like that, I would say they are "teh awes0me". But I don't, so I won't.

JiffNotes
March Madness is not about basketball, it's about juggling....