Psych! (As It Turns Out)

Really, I thought I'd exhausted all local variations on longish oval beads, but I found some more, slightly different in proportion, which I had to try out.

I think they worked rather well, and even though primary red is not among my favourite colours, it's all they had in this shape, and I rather like the result.

The ovals are slightly shorter (but not enough to have to adjust the seed bead counts, which makes me think I should adjust for the longer ovals), and slightly fatter, which means only that if you're determined to peer into the interior of the pendant, the windows are a little smaller.

I've also been knitting.

Actually, that's pretty redundant, because I've always been knitting, every week, just about every day, for about, oh, forever or so. Which would logically mean that there's always more knitted stuff, or at the very least (more usually) that there's always some progress on knitted stuff, although in truth that progress is sometimes negative progress rather than the more usual positive progress, and almost more to the point, I rarely photograph it.

I rip out if something's not working, which is exactly what I did with this yarn before I had this:

I had started on a mitred square thingy which really wasn't looking all that nice. Sort of bitty, messy, not well put together somehow. I'd made significant progress on it, having used up one entire skein and dug deep into the next, but it was doomed to meh, so I ripped out and started something else entirely.

Even though I tend to prefer variegated yarn that does the dappled sunlight through leaves thing, resulting in an impressionistic, almost pointillistic melange of colours, in spite of myself I'm really liking the stripes here.

In case you're wondering, it's loosely based on (unless I change my mind later) this (Ravelry link). Different yarn/gauge, a different front centre panel pattern, and other minor changes.

The only downside? Two handspun projects (both wool thus not need-to-wear-now) which are slightly stalled have become less interesting, since I can't just pick them up and start knitting - both need a little thought and planning which has considerably less appeal than knitting something NOW.

And this is why people start new projects when they have perfectly good projects in progress: it's the lure of instant gratification.

The thing is, I really enjoy all stages of knitting projects, from conception to planning to execution to wearing, but I guess I'm weak for the needles.

Besides, it'll still be weather-appropriate when I finish if I don't get distracted by another project.