This it is and nothing more

Two months left of the wildly successful self-imposed-sock-club and this month is a sock that (rather ironically) I’ve been meaning to knit for a while. 

Ages ago I designed Lenore for the Rockin’ Sock Club (out of the aptly named colourway "Lenore") and I knit them then to check my pattern and sort it out, but those were sent off with the pattern submission and I was left sadly Lenore-less. Months later, because I was a sock club member, I got the kit in the mail, but for reasons I’m trying to figure out, I put it away unknit.  (While my track record with the self-imposed-sock-club is awesome, to say that my performance with actual sock clubs is spotty at best would be too kind.)

Now, a good chunk of time later, I was putting together this year’s kits, and there it was.  I thought it was a bummer that I didn’t own a pair of socks that I’d designed and loved, and so the kit was resurrected and went into the queue.  I guess absence makes the heart grow fonder, because I love them entirely and can’t imagine what consigned them to the abyss in the first place. The pattern is quick and easy, but has awesome results, if I dare say so myself.  (The pattern also has a child’s size on it and as soon as I started knitting them again I remembered that the urge to knit petal pink Little Lenore’s for the closest wee gal had been overwhelming at the time. I think I’m over it.)

When I designed these socks, Tina’s Raven Clan colourways were brand new, and me being a great big Poe fan from way back, I couldn’t help but think instantly of the poem The Raven, and these socks were inspired by the lost  Lenore in it.  It’s what she would have worn, I feel sure of it.   Knitting them today I’m remembering how perfect they felt, and how much I love this pattern, and how much I thought I nailed it, and just how really great they are- and I’m getting to visit with all those good feelings that I had.  I think they’re just so pretty, and I’m so glad they’re back.  

Still begs the question of why I shoved it in the back of the linen closet when it arrived, but sometimes knitting’s just like that.  I’m forever trying to figure out why this got abandoned or why that sunk to the bottom of the queue. Sometimes it’s because it’s boring or I don’t really like it, but that’s not the case with these.  I just totally forgot that I loved them somehow.  My money’s on distraction. I bet some other yarn waggled its little label at me and I got all confused.

What sends something you like to the back of the closet?

188 thoughts on “This it is and nothing more

  1. I am enchanted with the Raven colourway. Those socks suit it perfectly! And what beautiful needles you have to knit them on 🙂

  2. I sometimes wonder at that too? I have a beautiful angora sweater inches away from completion. The last time I touched it was 1987…I think pregnancy got in the way then! Now its too small.

  3. I know what you mean. I had a sweater on the needles last year, and I was knitting it when my grandmother was sick, and when she was in the hospital, and when she was in hospice, and finally when she died. It was my mindless knitting while I was with her, and I thought I really liked it too, but for as soon as she passed away I put the (almost completed) sweater in a bag and shoved it on my shelf and there it’s been ever since. It got tangled up in a bunch of emotions, I guess. I see it every once in awhile and think about finishing it, and maybe someday I will. But not yet.
    Love the socks.

  4. You’re the Yarn Harlot. Of course you succumbed to a yarn waggling its little label at you.

  5. Usually, something newer and sparklier. Like – a big box of yarn arrived from a friend, and I immediately cast on two projects with two skeins of yarn from that box. Never mind the fact that I already have a bunch of other things on the needles, this is New Yarn and just sucked me in.

  6. I’m suspicious.
    You’re leaving yourself wide open to a chorus of cutting remarks about the gansey. I will abstain, on the grounds that you might be working on it in secret, just waiting for the right moment to swat me in the face with a sleeve or something.

  7. My guess is the recency effect…you loved it but something else came along and that became your new love and then something else, and something else and poor Lenore got shoved to the back.

  8. So much yarn, and two small children (oh and two cats that like to eat yarn and my not liking to knit with wet yarn)
    But I still manage to find time for knitting!

  9. I have found that I go in waves depending entirely on how many needles I have left to start a project with. When I can’t find the tip (I have two interchangeable sets) I need or even close, then I know it is time to start finishing things up. Or…I just slip that project onto waist yarn and repurpose the needles. It can go either way.:)

  10. The queue, of course. There was something (most likely gift knitting) that had to be done first, and by the time you finished that, something else had come along, and soon poor Lenore had languished, unrequited…..

  11. Right now, Christmas knitting is pushing my “I LOVE YOU SO MUCH” yarns to the back of the closet.
    Reading your blog has also had that effect. The only thing that kept me from hitting the Blue Moon Fiber page halfway through your post is that my bank account is nearly empty.

  12. I’m sure it’s a result of your brilliant sub-conscious intuition telling you to stash away said project for a future time of great need when it would be appreciated even more than if you had knit it right away. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all.

  13. Pretty NEW things send things I love very much to the bottom of the pile/back of the cupboard. I am trying to finish what I start now though and am getting better.
    Those socks are looking gorgeous so far.

  14. Ah, but you designed Lenore. You are the Great and Powerful Yarn Harlot! You harlotted there already, and needed to spread the lurve. Therefore, you selflessly denied the urge to re-Harlot Lenore and went on to other projects that had not yet had The Harlot Experience!
    Whereas I am forgetful. Things end up not being knit on because I hide them someplace safe and then cannot locate them to save my life. Or because cashmere waggles itself at me. Can’t resist cashmere. Or alpaca…. actually I may have a Fibre Problem. Needing therapy. Lots of Yarn Therapy.

  15. My guess is that you were under a time crunch on another project. Perhaps there was a book deadline, or you were dashing off to the airport for a speaking tour, or maybe planning a conference? There might have been home repairs or renovations going on, or even a family birthday to celebrate. So with great discipline, you put this project aside in a safe place where it’s been patiently waiting for the right time. And here it is!
    Katrina

  16. A snag in the project is what usually does it, coupled with foreseeing a lack of some non-interruptable time (can you tell I have children?), sometimes as little as 20 minutes would see me ovecoming ‘the camillius hump, the hump that is black and blue'(sic), and heap on that, my best time being ‘morning time’ and my not ‘awarding myself’ the time and space to overcome it, thinking that only after dinner and the work is done (haha) that I allow myself the time to indulge myself.
    I do have a number of Unfinished Projects (much to my children’s dismay), casting my eyes around I can see/think of five (yes 5)immediate projects that I am hoping the moths are not getting into. Not sent to the ‘back of the closet’, I live in clutter, and it is all around me – also space is at a premium in this house and the 10 yr old’s bed is smack against the ‘closet’ and getting to it is difficult, doesn’t help that she sometimes sleeps.
    However this week I let myself watch a YouTube video on a new heel technique and I have since been flying with a sock that previously had some work done on it about five months ago – and I supposedly like knitting socks for their portability and ease of knitting – only three difficult bits, the beginning, the heel and the end; the other bits can just be ‘knitting a plain spiral’ – I thwart myself.

  17. A) Something I like better or
    B) Something I can knit faster (I think B is the most likely of the two)

  18. What sends something I love to the back of the closet? Usually time – or lack of. Well, that and startitis.
    Enjoy your Lenores! I have knitted a pair for myself and I agree with everything you said about them. They are a nice knit and I love the final product and find myself wearing them often!

  19. For me? Usually it seemed like a good idea at the time of purchase, then I put it down for a bit. When I come back to it, I think, “Hmmm…maybe later,” because I already have four projects on the needles. Then I sling it into the Rubbermaid (TM) Bin of Yarn Quasi-Abyss with the rest of the baggies of projects I wanted to knit. When I pull it out months (years) later, I think, “Wow! I need to knit this now!” I also think I’m exceptionally clever for having bought it for future knitting fun, but we won’t go there…

  20. Also, I misread your title, thought it said “This is IT and nothing more” so, naturally I thought it meant the end of the blog. I almost had a heart attack.

  21. I also love all the raven colors. I was a member of the rsc at the time your pattern came out and my lenores are sadly getting very worn out. You may just inspire me to knit another pair!!

  22. Most things get relegated to the pile when I have a deadline for something (sometimes knit, often reading or some other non-knit activity), and I then spend all of my time on the non-knit activity. When I’m done, I have completely forgotten about the project and I don’t finish.
    That doesn’t rightfully explain the project only missing a sleeve or the project I finally finished where all I had left was to kitchener the toes!

  23. When I saw the title of this blog post, all I could think of was…”Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'” 😉

  24. I’m with Morwynn up there – gift knitting gets in my way. Am currently working on convincing myself that it’s too late to knit a 70th b’day present for my dad, whose birthday is in a week and who lives 1500 miles away. (I just wish I thought he’d like that Margaret Stove book as much as I would.)

  25. Usually a gift deadline is what gets me sidetracked from my personal passions; also similar label-waggling seductions. Beeyoutiful socks you’ve got there!

  26. Yarn gets to the back of the closet due to fear..the fear that the pattern I pick won’t do it justice, or I will pick the wrong colour or run out. I have a beautiful skein of bfl/cashmere and am afraid that I will pick the wrong thing. At this rate I will wear it out patting it.

  27. Ah, my Lenore knit was pushed to the back of the closet also. Not because I didn’t love the pattern/yarn, but because I spend an inordinate amount of time knitting for others. Must stop that.

  28. I dearly loved the Lenore colorway and your pattern. I knit mine up and wear them proudly. They are the only Rockin’ Sock Club combo I have ever knit up, so thank you for your great pattern. I think, besides your beautiful girls, your Lenore pattern is one of your best creations.

  29. I don’t have a back of the closet. I have a small yarn museum. When I love a yarn because it was gifted, or it’s rare or I just can’t choose between eleven different projects that are perfect for it then it goes into the Yarn Museum.
    Yarn Museum yarns get petted often.

  30. Poe rocks. I live within walking distance of his last residence in the Bronx. They’re restoring his home and have recently completed work on the outside of a big visitor’s center for it. Pretty awesome.
    Lenore. 🙂

  31. Out of sight, out of mind. I put stuff by so my life will be less stressful (clutter makes me break out in hives), but then I don’t remember I ever had it. I can’t win.

  32. Colorwork sends projects to the back of the closet – intarsia or even the lovely Fair Isle stuff. It’s not that hard, but they usually are procrastinated for years. The other factor is prettier things coming in later. Your posts on 1) the toe-up sock and short-row heel tutorials; 2) Brooklyn Tweed’s Noro 2-row scarves; and 3) mittens that linked to the Anemoi mittens. Each one of those pushed everything else to the back of the queue for 2 months or more while I went crazy on the gorgeousness.

  33. I love this sock too. When might the pattern be available to us peons?
    For me a new pattern in my brain or a new color I just made blinds me to anything previous, including 10 minutes before, and away I go.

  34. I love Lenore! I made them once from the Lenore yarn and again in a different yarn.
    In case anybody is thinking they look difficult, they’re about 20 or 25 rounds of lace to make the petals, and it’s not difficult – then it’s just 1 pattern round/1 plain knit round for the rest of the sock. Super easy to memorize!

  35. I love the sock and the colors.
    For me, I don’t really have a lot of time to knit in the first place. Other than that, its usually something prettier wags it’s tail at me or life in general sucks up my time.

  36. As much as I’d like to list all the “legitimate” reasons a project gets shoved to the back, I’m afraid it’s really just that I’m afflicted with a rockin’ good case of knitter’s ADD. As a good friend put it, when it comes to new projects I’m kind of like a crow: oooooh, sparkly! And off I go. (This dreaded condition is also why I’ll never admit out loud to anyone the actual number of projects I have on needles at any given time.)

  37. Well, back in my pre-Zimmerman days, having to sew a project together. Have a sweater completely knit from yarn I got in France, three parallel unplied yarns of different colors.
    I was in France in 1970.

  38. Regardless of how much I love something, I always love that next big yarn even more,and once something goes to the bottom of the knitting tote, it is almost impossible to get it back in the rotation.

  39. (You warned Tina you were doing this, right? She’s not going to be gobsmacked by a kabillion orders for that pattern out of a clear blue … oh, it’s Portland … out of a low, gray, nurturing sky?)

  40. Lenore(the pattern and the STR colourway) was my Rhinebeck purchase last year.And then, of course, Christmas knitting took over,then the Knitting Olympics came along,then work got busy,then….well you get it.I’ve got it in front of me now but again it’s Christmas knitting time…*sigh* Maybe for my birthday in January…

  41. things get pushed to the back of my closet almost exclusively because something else is shiny at me – and then the slightly less shiney gets enveloped in a whirlwind “OMG the parents-in-law are visiting” or some other equally valid catastrophe!

  42. I have no idea if you’ll remember this, but I saw and chatted with you at the Detroit Public Library author discussion. (I was the knitter with her own personal paparazzo). I had been working on a gorgeous cream color sweater.
    It’s still not finished. During my Rhinebeck drive (12 hrs there and back from Michigan) I finished the back, and one of the side inserts. I finally finished the other insert two weeks after we got back. I’m now working on the second sleeve.
    Its a gorgeous sweater. But why I have I waited so long? No freaking clue. This sweater has been two years in the making.

  43. Getting stuck at a stage, mostly. Or anything that takes me more than ten minutes a row. Oh, and losing the pattern. Or boredom. Or thinking it doesn’t suit me. I did do a UFO roundup list on my blog the other day. To my shame many of the UFOs listed also featured on the 2008 list.

  44. Maybe you just got a little too deep into the “sorrow for the lost Lenore” thing for a while? Or perhaps re-knitting them right away would have been an anti-climax after the triumph of perfecting the pattern.
    This is also a good time of year for that colorway, which has the lovely somberness of a November rain. Setting it aside any other time of year makes perfect sense. Obviously, at some level you knew what you were doing when you chose it for this month.

  45. Hmmmm, why? Three years in Rockin’ Sock Club and probably knit less than a third of that beautiful yarn. One reason was that with my big feet, I couldn’t knit a pair of socks with one skein. I always intended to knit the new one right away, but had other socks to finish up first, then some other bright and shiny new project “flashed” me and off I went.
    But you have inspired me. Tide Pooling was one of my favorites, so must start those next (when I finish up the 6 pair languishing in my WIPs). And I did love Lenore. So those go in the queue, or perhaps they are in the queue already.

  46. What sends things to the back of my closet is that what seemed like a lot of fun during the first few rows, sometimes seems way less fun when I’m slogging through the middle. My sheep yoke sweater is hanging right behind my knitting chair, three-quarters done, while I knit a fair isle snowflake scarf for my daughter.I’ve never tried fair isle before and it’s so much fun. My husband even designed a gizmo that lets me untangle the yarn. Then last night I was looking on Ravelry and I saw a lace scarf with a beaded edge. I want to try that too. I have given myself a stern talking to. This fickle behaviour must stop. I really do want to wear that sweater!

  47. Schoolwork! In a second. I weigh the benefits of enjoying myself with my relaxing hobby over the benefits of getting something off my mile-long list of assignments done, and the assignment will win every time.

  48. I shop faster than I knit. And I’m easily wooed away from projects for almost any reason one could dream up (color, too complicated, not complex enough, too big to lug around, because I told myself I have to work on it…)

  49. Happens to me all the time – see something new, yarn or pattern, HAVE to have it. Buy it. Then somehow the urgent need to make it just goes away. I have the yarn, the pattern; there’s always time – someday – to do something with it.
    And there’s this other new yarn, smiling at me…

  50. There’s so much lovely yarn and many to die for patterns –it’s so easy to get distracted. Never should yourself. You’ve found each other, that’s all that matters.
    Happy knitting

  51. I tend to set aside things that are complicated, when I’m busy or under stress, to do things that are easy. F’rinstance, last year I set aside my first pair of colorwork socks for months, in order to make some giant garter stitch blankets.
    Sometimes, I like to challenge myself, but mostly I like my knitting on the mindless side. I tell people that I have a nervous twitch that results in new clothes.

  52. My UFOs generally occur because I run into a minor problem, set it aside until I have time to fix it, and then wander off into the weeds.
    I’m trying to be better about fixing the problems as soon as they occur (because it’s easier to fix a problem when it’s on a project in active memory than one that’s sat stagnant for several months) and that seems to be resulting in de-Uing my FOs.

  53. I was working on Peaks Island Hood for a while and even got past the hood part. Then I got sad and thought some mitts in pink handspun would be great. So I started knitting and then the second one came out better than the first so now I’m fixing them and then my BFF said her hands were cold and I said, OH HAY WHAT COLOR DO YOU LIKE BEST? and that’s where I am now.

  54. ADD, plain and simple. (I honestly have ADD, not joking here!) I can’t stick with just one project, I often have many going at once. Sometimes I get bored with a project, even if I really like it, and it gets pushed out of the way to make room for something new and exciting.
    I’m also much more of a process knitter than a product knitter, so if I’m not enjoying it or if I’m doing a lot of, say, socks, I’m more likely to pick up an insane lace project and let a sock or two go by the wayside.

  55. It’s always funny to me when you write a blog post and all the sudden, I think you’re even more great – and how it’s just funny that we don’t actually know each other in real life (you may not even know me from a moth in the wool!), and yet we have so much in common (perhaps it’s just a weird knitter thing?!). On top of it all, you go and write a pattern for an Edgar Allen Poe poem an I don’t even know about it and I’m a huge Poe fan – I was kind of an awkward teenager – he’s been my favorite poet since I was 12.
    Anyway, thanks, now I’ve got to go ahead and figure out how to fit ANOTHER project into my life.
    Enjoy your RE-creation!
    ps – I apologize for grammar and mispunctuation (yes, it’s a word).

  56. I second the ADD comment by Kristen – I’m also afflicted 🙂
    Sewing things together makes me shove a project to the wayside. Love how the end product should look, hate sewing it together to get to that point.
    Love the sock pattern & the yarn!

  57. Failure-to-read is amost always the reason a project gets sentenced to the dunce chair. I refuse to send myself to sit in the corner, so the scarf/sweater/shawl/handfreakingpuppet gets detention instead.

  58. Mine get to the back of the closet after buying some yarn bought in the spring and now it’s Oct. or Nov. and I don’t feel like woking with linen or some such. Same thing happens in reverse with what I call winter yarn. ALL because I don’t start it right away. Come the spring and oh oh they have all new glorious yarns out again . There is just no way I can keep up to it except stop going to the lys.LOL As if that is going to happen.

  59. You did nail this pattern. I fell so hard for it I ordered it as soon as it was available.

  60. Usually a deadline for a gift – and once finished, I’m off on another yarn & pattern and the interrupted one is abandoned. Lose the flow and it’s hard to get the love back for the project!
    Those socks look wonderful – I’m glad you’re giving them another chance.

  61. I tend to abandon projects, if not forever, at least for a while, if I run into a problem, or make a serious mistake. I have a cabled hat sitting there waiting for me to be less disgusted with myself for goofing up, and a purse for a friend, that proved I obviously cannot count to twelve. I know I’ll get back to the purse soonish, but the hat, I’m not so sure about. I think about it a lot though!

  62. What sends something I love to the closet? Well for me it would be the fact that even though I love it. In essence I need a break from said object of love before I knit too many (of said object) and get burned out. This is only one reason (among the many) that I have to explain this.
    I love the sock!! Are you planning to make another self impossed sock club for next year? I really enjoy looking at your socks as you make them (not to forget looking at the finished project as well) 😀
    Wish you luck on finishing the sock, much love to you and yours!

  63. Hey, I have a wee gal! Well, actually she’s almost 11 and her shoe size is rapidly approaching mine. But I bet she’d still love a pair of petal-pink lacy socks. 🙂 Lenore is lovely!

  64. Will you sell this pattern? It is really beautiful.
    I never made fancy socks before, but want to try with this pattern. Rita

  65. Maybe because you’d already knit them? Like second-pair-of-socks syndrome….
    My chest of unfinished objects is full of first socks and sweaters missing one sleeve. Oh and baby things that the darn 4th graders would no longer fit into…. And the projects are almost always set aside because something new and interesting caught my eye.

  66. i am knitting a scarf for a friend i LOVE out of yarn i LOVE in a lace pattern i LOVE but for some reason i can’t seem to make any progress. it’s been creeping along a few inches every few months and then gets put to the back of the queue again. i remain befuddled.

  67. I send the ‘something’ to the back of the closet because I get tired of him. But by the time I let him out, I like my husband a great deal more…

  68. I hope you’re going to do a self imposed sock club again next year.. this has been fun. I’ve enjoyed knitting socks virtually through the blog. 😉

  69. Well, it was fate that your socks HAD to be pushed to the back of the closet to become the “lost Lenore” 😀
    I was such a nerd in highschool, that I memorized “The Raven” in its entirety. Now, I can only recite the first 5 stanzas before getting mixed up with the seraphim, prophets, and the night’s Plutonian shore. I still think it is a work of utter brilliance, though.
    Anyway, my projects get banished when 1. It is a 2nd of anything (which is why I now knit 2 socks on 2 circs) or 2. when it comes time to sew up. But if a project ends up in my Ravelry que, because I love it, I will knit it (eventually).

  70. I blame Ravelry. I’ll happily be working on a project, then take a break to surf Ravelry, then fave eight more things, then go start five of them, then wonder why I have so many UFOs.

  71. I think someone else mentioned this earlier….I always love what I’m working on, until some ‘cute young thing’ distracts me. I am forever falling in love all over again. By the way, I love your self imposed sock club idea, but I think some of us might need a reminder of how one begins?

  72. I still have my “Lenore” yarn –unknit! My name is Lenore and I absosutely love the pattern and yarn. My 50th birthday is this weekend, so my gift to myself should be getting this kit out and knit.

  73. I can’t even pin down why I put a project in the time-out chair. Usually because I screwed up and don’t want to face my own stupidity. Sometimes it’s because I end up not liking the construction. Sock monkeys are easier to make if you just knit them as socks first.

  74. I shove things to the back of the closet if 1. I think they are the wrong size and can’t bring myself to frog or 2. I think I may just run out of yarn and don’t want to find out or 3. if there is a problem I must fix that requires work I don’t have the time or the inclination to fix. This means my closet is pretty darn full… *shoves closet door closed*

  75. I don’t go to the back of the closet unless I hear something moving there.
    As far as what halts a project, well, somehow I lose my objective view of my body type when it comes to knitting, or maybe it’s just that I can’t tell how or where a given yarn and pattern is going to cling instead of drape. When it’s obvious that we’ve started down the wrong path together, I gently disentangle myself from the relationship and shove the knitting into a dark and airless place.

  76. When I forget about something I really liked it’s because I got really busy, stopped knitting, forgot about it and picked up something else when I had the time to knit again.
    I recently found a scarf I really liked knitting and a boring pair of gloves I’d started. I remember why I ditched the boring gloves, but don’t know what happened with the scarf. It’ll make a nice Christmas gift for a friend.

  77. I really enjoyed knitting up my kit earlier this year. I don’t know WHY I let it sit around either. It was a great pattern to knit, the colors are amazing, and now they’re one of my favorite pairs of socks to wear! Oh well. As least they’re getting knit now, right? 🙂

  78. For me, it’s usually the lure of some other project that’s also something I really like and is different. (I have two pairs of plain stockinette socks going right now. I work on one, bright shades of my favorite colors to wear, and think “this is the most wonderful yarn ever!” And then I see the other one, muted shades like a Monet painting, and think “this is the most wonderful yarn ever!” And later I see the first one again — “this is the most wonderful yarn ever!” Meanwhile, other sock yarns in my stash are sitting on the shelf saying “hey! we’re gorgeous too!”….)

  79. My Grandmother, may her memory be a blessing, used to read Poe to her children and grandchildren as bedtime stories!
    Lenore is beautiful. But I fear, after all these years of lace weight, that knitting on socks would feel like knitting with broomsticks and rope!

  80. I have yarn/sock envy. I can always make socks for other people, but have yet to make myself a pair.. I keep saying I will… ooh, look! New yarn…..

  81. Uh Oh. I think I must be with yarn and projects like like Liz Taylor was with husbands. Or maybe like Ado Annie in ‘Oklahoma’ – I cain’t say no…to that new yarn/pattern…funny you should mentch about Lenore – they are next up after I finish one of these other projects…I am thrilled to know that they have such good vibes about them.

  82. I agree with all of the above! Too much yarn, no time, distractions, other priorities – you name it. But I have this sock pattrn. I have yarn for them. I have them all baggied up and in the basket ready to go. . . . . . may by February.
    ~~~~~~~SIGH~~~~~~~~

  83. Usually, it’s either that I really need to knit stockinette (because my whole life is completely overwhelming) or, more often, because of Shiny Object Distraction Syndrome. I’m sure you can guess what that means in the context of knitting and yarn. (In fact, I’m off to BMFA as soon as I hit “post”. A Shiny Object awaits!)

  84. BMFA Raven Clan colors are a stroke of genius — absolutely unique. I knit a hat for my son out of Corbie last Christmas; recently found out that crows are of the genus Corbus — so THAT’S where the name came from.

  85. Me: That’s really pretty.
    Hubby: What?
    Me: The sock.
    Hubby (looking at computer screen): Damn! It’s a cathedral of a sock.

  86. Usually the things that get shoved to the back of the closet are things I’m making for myself and I need to work on something for someone else. Either that or I saw something really shiny and got distracted 😉

  87. You’re knitting something for yourself. That’s so wonderful. And you know how much you’ll love it. Wonderful, too.
    I think things are in the back of the closet because we all have a bit of the harlot, can’t love too many yarns, and patterns, and combinations!

  88. Sometimes it’s because I like a project too much! If I have big looming deadline on something else, I’ll hide a new exciting project away so it can’t tempt me. Perhaps that’s why you tucked it away at the time? That, or the fact that you’d just knit yourself one. (I’m half way through the second version of a particularly exciting blanket, and it’s getting … less exciting. This is why I hid the new two-end knitting mittens away. *wistful sigh*

  89. Socks are gorgeous! I’m tempted to add them to my queue (as if I don’t have enough there already).
    This year I took a deep breath and inventoried my stash: all the yarns, noted if they were kitted with needles/buttons/etc., noted if they were WIPs (I don’t admit to UFOs, only WIPs in long timeouts). After exposing my list to knitting friends (and enduring excessive ridicule), I decided to try to figure out why they were unfinished. Here is my list:
    1) Like many of you, I shop faster than I knit, and drop projects mid-row when the weather/season changes.
    2) I like to wear knits of fine gauge. I don’t like to spend three months on a single sweater.
    3) I run into a technical problem that stumps me and needs to bounce around in my subconscious for awhile. Sometimes a year or more.
    4) The designer made an error (it does happen), won’t respond to requests for clarification (I’m polite). and I don’t have the patience to figure out the fix. There is one particular designer who often does this (decreases that make the garment have a negative stitch count is a common problem for her), and unfortunately I have at least 3 of her designs in WIP status. grumble, grumble, grumble…
    5) It looks like I’ll run short of yarn. Often, this makes me knit faster (yarn only gets used up at a set pace, no matter how fast you knit, right?), but sometimes it means a project sits until I find a solution.
    6) I’m going to have to do some major ripping (size is wrong, fabric looks wrong, etc.). I hate destroying the evidence of my labor.
    7) I also like the look of linen stitch in a cardigan. See number 2 above.
    8) Recipient changes size before project is completed and no other obvious wearer exists. Usually happens with kid stuff, but happened for me and hubby when we did a serious diet 2 years back. Either number 5 or 6 applies.
    9) I am distracted easily by the hot project of the moment. Sometimes it is a new purchase, sometimes it is an immediate gift need, sometimes it is inspiration from a blog or magazine (e.g., why THAT is what I could do with that wonderful yarn I bought at Stitches three years ago!).

  90. I put a sweater away with the most gorgeous cables because a baby blanket suddenly took priority. Then for some reason I cannot remember, I forgot about it. I am so ready to start!

  91. What sends something I love to the ‘back of the closet’ or in my case, into one of two HUGE works in progress baskets, is the lure of something new that I want to start NOW. There’s always a new magazine full of goodies, a new blog posting that has a pattern I fall in love with, a new yarn at the local yarn shop, a new class to take there, so I can be with friends. New… new… new… and suddenly the old ‘new’ thing is set aside, to be finished ‘soon’. It’s an ongoing situation or some might say, problem, but sort of a delightful one, because I really do love them all. I’ve decided that after the holidays I will pick one unfinished project from the basket each month to FINISH! There are more than a year’s worth in there, but it sounds like a lovely idea, doesn’t it?

  92. Most likely the silly feeling of guilt knitters get when they have too many WIPs.. or having to finish Christmas knitting.. or birthday knitting.. or that new shawl pattern that just came out..
    I sometimes feel like a dog who sees a squirrel.. attention totally diverted.

  93. What sends something I love to the back of the closet?
    To quote a comic I love:
    Little girl: “‘Sponserbileries.”
    Little boy: “What’s ‘sponserbileries?”
    Little girl: “It means you don’t get to have any more fun for the rest of your life.”
    ;o)

  94. What sends something I really, really like to the back of the closet? I usually really, really like something because it is intricate — like the beaded “Fleur de Lis” Koigu lace sweater in Knitter’s magazine in 2006 (?). But “intricate” requires fair-sized pieces of relaxed and uninterrupted time. I started the sweater about two months before Xmas 2008, and set it aside in December at 20% complete because I simply didn’t have adequate uninterrupted spare time to finish it for my Mom before Xmas. It stayed in the closet until last summer, when I picked it up and worked on it during the only reliably uninterrupted time I have: my husband’s weekly session with his exercise therapist. I finished it in time for Xmas 2009, in doses of 90 minutes a week starting in June. Completely unlike the usual socks or shawl stuffed into my purse, it’s the intricate things that I love, but often have to put down for long periods because I have so little time by myself..

  95. Unless it’s a gift I need to get done by a certain date, my stash sort of has a planned progression – well, maybe it’s a vague progression. So, when I get something new to knit, it may not be something I will knit right now.
    I’m just now working on my Lenore socks. One is done and I’m 2/3 down the second cuff. It’s my take-along knitting.

  96. I always save the best till last – good feeling, just to know it is always there waiting.
    I dislike Poe with a passion – long ago I banished all forms of horror and violence from anything I choose to read or watch.It was that short story about the black cat which did it!

  97. Usually, things stuck in the back of the wardrobe are challenging stuff (lace, fair isle) which need time and focus, if I am busy (and I often am) I like mindless stocking stitch.
    Ah Mr Poe…have you read “The Pale Blue Eye”, a novel set at Westpoint when a Mr Edgar Allan was a cadet there? Serious fun for Poe buffs, wonderful atmosphere.

  98. I love, love, love these socks. They were the first “pretty” pair of socks that I made. And, I recently decided that after the Christmas knitting is finished, I need to make another pair. The first pair is lonely and needs friends.

  99. I was in the sock club and knit my Lenore’s up right away. After a month or so, one of the poor dears became lost. You reminded me the new skein I ordered is sitting in my closet waiting to be wound up. I will have to get to that as soon as I get home. (Which might mean bad things for my poor shawl, that is finally to the edging part after a year on the needles). I can’t commit to one project at a time.

  100. Dear Lamanaria,
    I wish I could say that I didn’t see this coming, but this sort of behavior is actually pretty typical of Stephanie. All hope it not lost, she still loves you, but you may not be the focus of all her attention for a while. Good luck!

  101. It is usually the ribbing that sends a project into the back of the closet. I get tired of it sometimes. 🙂
    I also have the Lenore pattern and yarn from the RSC that year. You’ve inspired me to unearth both and start them this weekend.

  102. Hmm … My 14 year old DD would soo pick petal pink or fuschia pink or any pink over the raven. And we have the same shoe size …. maybe I could sneak in a pair of socks for me that won’t end up in her sock pile … As long as I don’t pick a raven with red/pink/purple tones LOL.

  103. Nice socks!
    My reasons for “back of the closet” syndrome are
    1. easier to buy more than sit down and do (time-wise anyway)
    2. fear of goofing up and ruining it or having to start over
    3. can’t decide which project to start
    4. boredom with working on the same project
    5. lose track of where I left off if I have too many projects started at once
    6. lack of skills slows progress while I look up and practice a new technique.
    These aren’t just knitting issues, they also apply to sewing, crochet, needlework and a multitude of other projects.

  104. I put away projects I want to knit because I am waiting for the perfect grey day with an empty four + hours to sit in my rocking chair and focus on the project and nothing else as I slowly transition from coffee to tea to wine.
    Life keeps thwarting my plans so I keep churning through projects I like a lot while the ones I think I’ll love are piling up in the closet.
    I do it with books too!

  105. What sends things to the back of the closet? Deadlines for other projects, like gifts, mostly. Also, I’ve been spinning more than knitting at home, and home knitting projects are too big to commute with, so they sit, waiting patiently until I’m ready to curl up on the sofa with them.

  106. Things go to the back of the closet when I’m not sure how to proceed. Or if they just need sewing up, something I hate. I once had a pair of toe-up socks in the closet for a year and all they needed was a little ribbing on the top. Why? I don’t know.

  107. Presbytera, would you please warn me prior to writing your answers? A snort and Diet Coke spewing in an office area not a good thing.
    I would love to blame my beloved yarn projects on teens or work or something, but I think my aging brain simply forgets it’s there. And then when going through my stash I find it and it’s like Chrismtas!

  108. Projects get put down for many reasons: Oops, I ran out of yarn and need to buy more. Shoot, I need to pick up an item(buttons, zipper, handles, etc) and just never get around to it. Lose interest, these projects often get ripped out and I find something else to do with the yarn. One project I did finish this year is going to get ripped out and re-done because it isn’t quite long enough for me to wear(at least I have enough yarn for it). Right now I only have 2 projects in the livingroom, one needs more yarn, the other is a Christmas gift for my sister. Her sweater will get finished soon.

  109. What sends something I love to the back of the closet? Simple. A fit of pique. A lvoers spat. An unwise stitch annoyance during a unstable hormone moment.
    It’s not reasonable, I know, but then neither am I.

  110. That’s so funny! I just pulled Lenore out of the stash to knit a couple of weeks ago! They’re really great!! I get more admiring comments from people in grocery stores than any other socks I’ve knit while standing in line. Well done! 🙂

  111. I just finished a feather and fan shawl I spent 3 years on. Ran out of yarn, ran out of interest, finally finished it. I just also finished some fingerless mitts for my friend, and need to finish the last little bits of a sock for my Mum (was supposed to be a cowl last Christmas. Oops).
    I like digging-up mostly finished items, as I get some “instant gratification” (well, knit-style. Still not so instant). I also try not to plague myself about finishing something on time or in order, as it’s my knitting and it’s about having fun. 🙂
    Love the socks though!!

  112. Anticipation. I actually acquire something new and think that savoring it, anticipating how great it will be to make X out of it, will motivate me to finish 5 other UFOs that I need to get done…so I put new, exciting thing away or leave it out as a motivator. Sadly, by the time I get to that long lost yarn hidden in plain sight, the anticipation is sort of dissipated (like a gas?) and I can’t get excited again in quite the same way. I think this might be like some sort of delayed anticipation theory thing that motivates academic overachievers in the category of education literature. Don’t know if I buy the theory, but it sure does happen when it comes to my yarn acquisition!!

  113. The change of seasons is the biggest thing that sends my projects to the back of the line. I don’t want to trudge through a summer top in late August when winter is right around the corner, or finish mittens in the spring. Knitting should be season appropriate for me. Plus, I’m fickle, and I always have a couple projects going, so some just get….forgotten/derailed. But eventually, I go back. Except maybe the cr@ppy blue socks that have been in time out for over a year.

  114. Too many projects or the fun new project.
    Such as your Lenore socks. I love this RAven series but I could never decide on which color to buy. I think you may have helped me decide!

  115. Lovely yarns/projects get shoved to the bottom of my to do pile when I dream a new project with new yarn that I just have to make now! You know, those brief flings or, in my case serial romances since it’s sometimes months or years before I get back to the to do pile.

  116. Because, “some other ‘lil yarn wiggled it’s ‘lil label at me,”to quote Stephanie, and I fail to have a steadfast heart.
    Reckon?

  117. My stuff gets in the back of the closet because I am enchanted by the new project I just can’t wait to start.
    I wore my Lenores knit from Cascade handpaint sock to work today. Love, love, love them!

  118. Q: What sends something you like to the back of the closet?
    A: Not sure, but my gut tells me it is the same “whatever it is” that sends one sock to goodness knows where after you wash a pair.

  119. I’m most likely to send stuff I love to the back of the closet because it’s for ME and I have gift knitting that MUST be done. So my stuff gets put off until after the gifts are knit, and then… well. New yarn is all sparkly, and the beloved stuff in the back of the closet stays in the back of the closet.

  120. sometimes I meet a project that jumps the queue like the whisper cardigan. I realize there are more queue jumpers than the other kind of project in my life!

  121. FYI, I should note that I adore this pattern. So much so that I wound up knitting it twice in succession (a feat I know you do rather frequently, but I generally move on after one pair of socks). The original pair knit from the Sock Club went to a friend for Christmas; the second pair, knit from Thraven, were for me, and are one of my favorite pairs of socks.
    Thanks for the pattern! 🙂

  122. What sends my projects to the back of the closet? Weather. Usually cold weather, I do live in the Yukon.

  123. I’ve got a single finished Rivendell sock like that right now, the pair put aside so that I could finish something that needed to be done right then. Maybe the pair cooled off in the interim or something. However, the idea that I could complete a pair of anything by only knitting one sock sounds appealing right now…

  124. So glad you finally got around to Lenore. She was one of the few RSC socks that I dropped everything else to start, and she is still my daughter’s favorite of all her handknit socks! Thanks for reminding me of her — it’s time to start another pair!

  125. Once upon a midnight, sitting, I was nearly finished knitting,
    Lovely socks whose pattern I was winging, of my skill so sure,
    While I thought my cables clever, suddenly the worst thing ever,
    In my knitting life to happen made me throw them on the floor:
    Working toe to cuff, of ribbing I had two rows more:
    Miscrossed cable on round four.

  126. dear blog writer 🙂 I just wanted to let you know (since i forced my mom to change my fb password so my gpa wouldn’t end up in the toilet) i have been scanning old december (my fav. month) entries for the last half hour. I found one particularly amusing = i laughed incessantly till i cried. my roommate thinks i’m crazy. Thank you
    for entry:
    how to goes. dec 6th 07. about the syrup stain on your brown pants.
    you made my day 🙂

  127. Twisted thinking: sometimes, I put projects on the shelf because, even tho’ it’s going well, it’s also going slowly. And I hate the fact that I don’t have enough time to knit – and therefore I put the whole shebang away. Is it time to see a therapist?

  128. Usually I abandon a project when another project has a deadline fast approaching (Hello, Christmas gifts! I see you sneaking up on me!) Just recently, though, I abandoned a light cardi I love because I was cold while I was knitting it and decided a bulky, warm, beautiful sweater would be a better project. I know that I won’t finish this new sweater fast enough to help me while I’m knitting (impossible!), but I had the perfect pattern and beautiful yarn and decided I had to switch.

  129. I knitted my Lenores when I got them.
    Then last year in the big move home, I lost them.
    So I knitted another pair (in Fleece Maiden yarn, as I call it). Then I found my lost Lenores, so I have two pairs! Hooray!
    I abandon a project when it gets either too tedious or it goes badly wrong and goes into the time out bin (aka the bin of forgotten projects).

  130. Usually it gets sent back when the project is too taxing for the mind-state that I’m in at the time. That’s usually it…or it’s so special, that I want to save it for a real special time when I can savor the stitches better.

  131. There are lots of reasons a knit gets stuffed into a grocery bag and banished to the basement. My question is – how the heck do I resurrect the ones that I do still love? They flit through my mind rather frequently but there are many knits that never, ever make it back up over the stairs.

  132. A host of things – time, season, interests, the weather, who knows? My queue is shuffled and culled on a somewhat regular basis. However, if I really like something, it will withstand queue culling – and then I know I am meant to make it. Eventually. 🙂
    Cheers!

  133. These were early in my sock-knitting career; I got past the tops and was well on my way down the leg when I realized I had forgotten to knit every other round! No wonder it didn’t look like the picture LOL. I frogged and rewound the skein so I could do it correctly and they are making their way to the top of my queue!

  134. I have put projects on hold, out of yarn I love working with and a pattern that is what I expect…because I was too stressed to enjoy what I was working on. My sock/glove projects are usually for un-stressing and it’s the knitting not the yarn that keeps me sane. I prefer to work on the luxury yarns when I can just enjoy the yarn.

  135. Homework. Of the sort that gets turned into professors. And then home work, of the cooking dinner/doing laundry/unscrewing the inscrutable variety. And then work-work. And then the darned sexy socks which are always winking at me. I have two pairs of socks on the needles right now…I knit both socks at the same time…and probably by next weekend I will have two more, since they are for the holidays.
    Sleep is somewhere low on that list.

  136. Oh, the Lenore pattern-so exquisitely symmetrical-so like the symmetry of the Pretty Thing Cowl. Nothing thrills my little heart like symmetry-it just makes so much sense. I bought the pattern and knit 2 pair using the Thraven colourway. I then knit 2 more pair using a Lorna’s Laces colourway called Satsuma(pink and yellow)and a paler version called Winona. It is the perfect sock pattern. I want to cast on another pair because I just received my first set of Signature dpns , 6″, 2.25 mm., stiletto tips, glorious green. Be still my heart!

  137. Babies! I will drop anything to gift a new baby with a knitted blessing. Thanks Alison for the book idea. I also loved the Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl- especially good as an audio tape for knitting.

  138. I just wanted to say – having seen your twitter comments on feminism – that those encounters while disconcerting are also unfortunately common. As someone from a long line of feminists it results in quite a few “wait – what are you talking about, do you realise…” discussions which, happily, are often effective. It is a really positive inspiring pleasure to read your blog though. As someone from the next generation down who is still developing a sense of how and who I want to be in the world the generous, discerning view on the world is a great wayfinder to have. Thank you!

  139. Until it has aged properly in the stash, this project or hey! that one with beloved, most favorite yarn EVER simply obscures itself in favor of something else whose time has come. Ok, maybe that or the fact that working outside the home full time reduces my hobby knitting time to practically nearly nothing, geeze. Although it does keep the Stash monster fed with new pretties.

  140. I have much stash, many half-finished projs, but NONE that pretty, or with such a pretty name. A friend who died tragically at 30 was named Lenore, and it’s also the name of a great friends DARLING little 3-year-old girl (though hers is Lenore Suzette — about as cute a name as little-girl socks in that pattern.)

  141. This is totally off-topic but I am PERISHING to know whether or not you have turned on your furnace!!!

  142. Quoth the raven, “Nevermore!”
    Found a dead blackbird by the Catholic church in town and put it in my freezer to stuff and mount all because of this poem.
    Poe is dangerous.

  143. Dear Steph,
    I was wondering what size of lenore are you making for yourself? Sock and yarn look beautiful 😀

  144. lack of time
    I’m so tired these days – working full time & running 3 busy actors around – the needles get picked up a couple times a week at most

  145. For me, my UFOs come into being because my knitting is always tied to other activities in my life, and when the activity ends (such as Little League baseball), the project gets dropped. I think that if I were to take better notes about what I was doing, so that picking up the project again wouldn’t take so much detective work, I would be less reluctant to take it with me when the next knitting opportunity/spectator sport season arrives. Instead, I just start fresh with a new project. I really need to have projects that fit neatly into a season. It’s a little like trying to have all the side dishes just ready and not overcooked when the Thanksgiving turkey is ready to serve.
    The other UFO factor is the discipline of “only out of the stash”. My stash is filled with sampling indulgence. In other words, purchases of small amounts just because I liked it so much, and I had no particular plan for it. Now years have passed, and I need a project in a hurry (see above), and I pick a pattern that calls for more yarn than I’ve got, which I don’t see coming until well into the project. I forge ahead tentatively, worrying about dye lot availability, etc. only to have the “knitting opportunity” come to an end, the project gets stashed and as we know, opportunities to get more of the yarn continue to dwindle further, unabated, sealing the fate of the UFO. I have considered,but so far never tried resurrecting a project, unravelling a certain distance and alternating in a close sub yarn to make up the difference. (a la EZ in Knitting Without Tears)
    Anybody else in the same boat?
    Love the raven colo(u)rway. Dying to see the rest of Lenore.

  146. AH! can I still get the Lenore kit somewhere? it’s seriously gorgeous. that portion of a sock is making me not think about the freaking THUMB on a pair of mittens that I have left to do before they’re done. that’s how I know these socks and I are meant to be

  147. I get distracted by the newest and shiniest, frustrated by what’s not working, or forget about something because it is stashed away. This reminds me, I loved my Lenore socks and keep meaning to make another pair. Great pattern!

  148. It’s always deadlines, for me, when a good project gets put aside. Those pesky birthdays and holidays and baby births.
    Then knit-it-for-the-love-of-it project gets (literally) lost….hopefully to be unearthed in some archaeological cleaning expedition of the near future.

  149. I can get very enthusiastic about a project, then get distracted by an even more attractive project, so then the former gets put in the craft closet, and since it’s not in front of my face anymore, I forget all about it… until I have to muck around in the craft closet. Then I pull it out and exclaim over it. (I will have to live a very long time in order to finish everything I want to knit.) I did try leaving everything out in bins so I could see & remember, but that was annoying to everyone…

  150. Usually, it’s “I’m not quite good enough to knit that (fiber/weight/difficult pattern, etc) yet” Which is silly.
    But sometimes the person for whom the knitting was intended pissed me off and I have to learn to love them again before I will knit for them again.

  151. Yes, Peg, yes! Sometime they (she) piss(es) me off before I even start knitting, so what’s in the closet is a Ziplock bag with yarn and pattern only.
    Snarl.

  152. It seems that you are tempting fate by naming socks for the ‘lost Lenore’…I fear that socks by that name might be tragically prone to being devoured by the laundrysockmonster, nevermore to be seen. 🙁

  153. What a beautiful beginning to your sock…..where can I find a kit or pattern to make these socks…I am new to your blog !!

  154. I think it’s great that these went to the back of the closet. Because when you designed it, I didn’t know who you were and BMF was some mythical company that was sold out (or nearly so( by the 3rd day of Stitches West when i got there. So yeah, it’s cool. Because these socks rock and now I know about them.
    Oh, and I just finished the Earl Grey socks. Arsed up every cable. Because, when I saw your picture, I thought it was bubbles and I kept thinking they were bubbles so when I couldn’t do the whole needle thing, I just KTBL but then, on the second sock, when I finally realized you were trying to teach us some cable thing w/o a cable needle and I thought about cables… well, I realized that by KTBL, I’d reversed EVERY CABLE. In the entire sock. But I was on the second sock. And I’m trying to get them done for Christmas in secret for my partner. And I’m a slow knitter. So I just kept KTBL. And I tried to do what you said, just to try it again, but I still can’t do it. But the socks are done. And awesome (IMHO) and after Christmas I’ll blog about it because it’s a pretty cool pattern. Thank you. 🙂

  155. For 1 – mistakes that I don’t want to fix. I’ll finish the garment and then never wear it because I was too lazy to fix one mistake.
    Or secondly alot of sewing up afterwards, like a sweater…the last one was all knitted up and I stopped when it hit me about how much seam I had to stitch up. 9 months later I finally got up the courage to tackle it and guess what…I don’t like how it fits so I don’t wear it. Which is also why I stop knitting on a sweater…fear of it not fitting right. Just because you can follow a pattern doesn’t mean it will look the way you want it when you get it on. Yanno?
    Out of all the sweaters/shrugs that I’ve made me only about 2 get worn reguarily. poop. I don’t know how to change that.

  156. I have that pattern, and yarn. Waiting.
    I think I have project ADD. Case in point, I’ve started 4 shawls in the past week.

  157. Quoth the raven, “NEVERMORE!”
    My problem is that I can only do stockinette with a headache, so the complicated projects languish in the interim.

  158. Hi Stephanie, I have been admiring the Raven line.
    Can you share what needles you are using here? What do you like about them?

  159. That colorway was without a doubt our best seller this year. It’s really a beautiful combination of colors, but why so popular. Just curious…

  160. Time. Time, time time. I get it because I loved it (or it’s RSC and I know I’ll love making *something* with it). But I already have my regular “WiP List” filled — generally 1 pair socks, 1 sweater/large project, sometimes 1 “other thing” — and that’s how it winds up in my equivalent of the linen closet. I guarantee I will outlive my yarn stash for this very reason.

  161. The feeling that I haven’t accomplished enough to be able to knit nice things for myself. heh.
    (*psst!* May I respectfully interject on behalf of a pet peeve? “Begging the question” means to argue in circles, but often gets used as “bring forth the question,” etc. It’s kinda like when people use the word “disinterested,” which is actually a compliment meaning that someone does not have ulterior motives. Whether or not they have interior motives begs the question…wtf? I’m kind of joking but also kind of insane. Have to do my duty honoring the English degree, you know.)
    Cheers!
    Daisy

Comments are closed.