Rediscovering the Joys of Knitting

I'm happy to say that my hand is feeling a lot better, now that I am wearing the thumb brace consistently. I take the brace off to eat and to knit, but I intend to continue wearing it at work for quite a while. It has actually been kind of fun to rediscover knitting. I've really been enjoying the feel of the needles and the rhythm of making stitches one after another.

Here is the scarf I finished on Sunday, with the ends finally woven in. It still looks more blue in the picture than it does in real life, but at least you can see the stitch pattern. It came out to be 48" long, which is a little shorter than I usually like. But I didn't want to use only part of the second skein. Now I have to decide what to do with that second skein. I'm contemplating a pair of fingerless gloves to match the scarf.

I've also made a couple of preemie hats. I have a third one OTN already. These just knit up so fast. I'm going to try and finish this skein of yarn and see how many hats I can get out of 372 yards.

I'm having so much fun knitting that now I am fighting creeping startitis. I really want to start a larger knitting project. I'm itching to knit some lace, although my intention was to finish the crocheted lace shawl first before I started knitting a lace shawl. Or a sweater that would use up some stash. However, reality intrudes into these thoughts, and I remember that school is out next week and summer reading (and my season of exhaustion) begins the week after that. So I think I will try to concentrate on charity work this summer. I already have some items ready for Warm Up Winchester, but I want to make more. And I really need to get going on hat/mitten/scarf sets for the crochet guild's Salvation Army donation this fall. I only have one set made so far. As my hand continues to feel better, I would also like to start a pair of socks for me, and maybe finally conquer my gauge issues with fingering weight yarn. So there you have it - my summer 2008 goals!