Recycling

Recycling Resolutions that is. I'm pretty sure that last year about this time I resolved to knit more and blog more frequently about it. That went well....

In my defense I offer two excuses. 1) I started a second part time job that eats up a lot of my time that I was already using for other stuff. Which means blogging time and knitting time got cut into. 2) Lots of what I was working on after the beginning of September was a secret of one kind or another. Some of it still is until the gifts are finished and given.

But here's some of what I finished since last I posted:

I finished a pair of mitts for my daughter but can't post about them yet. Don't have any good photos for one thing. And they are still a secret.

I finished a pair of mitts for a friend. Also still a secret.

I finished a pair of mitts for me. Not a secret! They are my Princess Bride mitts because they are knit from Indigodragonfly MCN Worsted in "My Name Is Indigo Montoya" and "Have Fun Storming The Castle". And I loved knitting them. The pattern, Chimera, was cool and well written and the yarn felt wonderful to knit with and feels wonderful on as well. Here they are:


I designed and knit a shrug for my daughter but I haven't gotten a good photo of it yet so have nothing to show for it right now. I plan to write it up as a free pattern soon. So I will get some modeled shots soon I hope.

I also made a little shawl for her American Girl doll using the class pattern from Anne Hanson's Lace Knitting class that I took at Spring Fling in 2009. And that I managed to get a modeled shot of. But probably only because the doll couldn't run away on her own.

I almost finished a Dwarven Battle Bonnet for my hubby but it needs a tweak or two and then I need to get a good modeled shot of it. I will try to post that one soon too.

I am a good part of the way through the first sock of a pair for my mom. These are mostly the Pear Blossom Socks from the Loopy Ewe sock club last year. Except that I did all the twisted knits as regular knits instead so that there'd be more room in the sock since my mom has diabetes. This shot doesn't show much but at least it's a photo of my knitting so I am posting it anyway.

So, I'm not dead yet. And I think I will start with a plan to blog each week and see how that goes. Since I have this plan to knit every day maybe I will have enough to post about each week.

So much time so little knitting

I've been busy with other life aspects lately and just haven't had time to do much knitting. Hence the lack of posting. I have decided I am nicer when I have been able to knit though so from now on, I plan to make finding time to knit more of a priority.

Another problem I had was too many projects all scattered about. So this long weekend I finally got myself sorted out. I had an epiphany and realized that I needed a framework for my organizational theme or I'd never get anywhere. Now I have one. It's baseball. Which if you know me, and know how much I find baseball on tv to be yawn city, will amuse you no end. But it works.

I have several categories:

At Bat: the projects I am currently working on - currently I have 11 projects in this category and 7 days in the week I think I can see an issue already...

On The Deck: the projects I would like to be working on right now but I have got to set some limits - currently 13 projects are in this category

In The Hole: projects that I do want to get too soon and for which I have all the yarn and pattern ready to go - currently there are 20 projects in here (although that's not counting all the sock kits and shawl kits I own and all the yarns I have that I wish I were knitting or, to be more honest, wish I had already knit and had available to wear)

Benched: projects I started but for which I feel not the love any more, or at least not right now - currently there are a mere 4 items here

Disabled List: projects that have something wrong with them that needs fixing, whether it is that I screwed something up or the yarn pooled when it should have striped or the dog ate my needles with my project on them - currently there are 5 items in this category and some of them will be staying there for a while I am afraid

Yes, that means that I currently have more projects stacked up than there are weeks in the year and that's not counting all the sock clubs and shawl clubs and other clubs I have been in since I discovered such things existed less than a handful of years ago.

In any case, on my right sidebar all my At Bat projects will show up since I am committed to keeping my Ravelry projects up to date in that category anyway. So anyone who'd like to help me get things done, should feel free to nag me if they don't notice movement on the progress bars.

In an attempt to get things done as much as possible, I have assigned each project a day of the week on which I am going to work on it. Today is the day for the Ophelia Shawl from the Shakespeare in Lace club from Wooly Wonka Fibers (my Ravelry project is labeled as "David Tennant Can Make Me Do Anything" because I watched his Hamlet and it finally made me appreciate the play which made me decide to cast on sooner rather than later) that I am KALing with a buddy and I have been sorting out where I went wrong with it because I was damn near done with the first row (which is working on a cast on that was 626 stitches long so even that took a while) when I discovered I had made an error. I had already had to rip everything completely back once since I first started this shawl about the same day as I did my last post to the blog.

Sad that I am still only 626 stitches in isn't it. That's less than 7 stitches knit a day since then. Though, since I had to reknit the whole thing once and almost half of the first row a second time I sort of got more knitting time in. Plus I worked on other things of course. Still way too little output. Anyway, I have now finished the first row and it is all correct. And my shawl is just bristling with stitch markers. One after every 2 repeats of the pattern on the long sides so that I can catch mistakes faster from now on. Now I get to do a plain knit row. Thank goodness. I have also decided that this pattern absolutely should have a life line put in on every rest row. I don't ever want to have to tink back that many stitches again.

Well, I'm off to get some more knitting done on Ophelia now. Next time I hope to have enough progress on it that it will be worth a photo and I will talk a bit about the construction of this one which is unique.

Ooops I did it again

Good grief! Four months! I wish I had a good excuse but unfortunately I got nothing but lazy to defend myself with. And that's not much of a defense.

So... Let's see if I can cover what happened in the meantime: I did do Sock Madness again this year. I made it into the 5th round this time but wasn't one of the first 4 in my group to finish so I didn't make it on from there. So I have the following socks that I actually finished:

L to R
Round 1: Simple Sideways Socks in Lisa Souza Hard Twist Petite in Blue Flame (almost fit me)

Round 2: Cool Beans in Wollmeise 100% Merino Sock in Natural and Cherry Tree Hill Merino Sock in Java (a little bit big but I might wear them as house socks)




L to R

Round 3: GAMs in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Douglas Fir (too big - so to mom when lengthened)
Round 4: Emma (knee highs - nearly endless 2x2 ribbing) in Bellamoden Fingering in Nori (they fall down unfortunately)


And these socks were the ones that did me in:

Round 5: Roma in Numma Numma The Usual in House Red

I wasn't thrilled with the yarn choice I made when knitted up in this pattern so I think I might have slowed down a bit because of that. I've set it aside to think about for a while but I will probably rip these all the way back and use a different yarn for this pattern and a different pattern for this yarn.


In between rounds of Sock Madness I worked on various odd projects. I finally finished the pair of Firefly socks knit in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the Firefly colorway for a friend who is also a Firefly fan:

I think I might have finished something else since February too. But I am not sure what. And maybe I should save something so I don't wait 4 months to post again. Only didn't I try that last time and it didn't work so good? I also started a couple of projects but they aren't too far along so I think I'll wait until they look a bit more impressive before showing them off. And again, I will try to be more regular about posting.

So not in training....

... but I'm going for knitting olympics anyway. I have a couple of Ravelympics projects brewing in my mind, and one Knitting Olympics project for the Yarn Harlot's original version and I will not be at all surprised if I don't finish any of them. But... I am going to try, so for the next just over an hour I am going to be desperately trying to find everything I need in order to do my olympic knitting feats. And then for the next 16 days I will be trying like a crazy person to get it all knitted.

Good practice for Sock Madness I guess.

Since I have no photos and I promised some last time (and I will keep forgetting to blog - silly muggins) I thought some of the no longer really recently finished items from the holiday knitting might suffice. So here they are:

I made a hat for my Mum.

my apologies for the blurry photo - mum wouldn't pose

Who promptly lost it. So I have started another... Which I foolishly started already but after the 11th of January so can't count it for Ravelympics - lol. Which means it will probably be set aside for a while unless Mum whines.

I have been working on a mini version of Anne Hanson's Casino shawl and have made it to the top edging but I think that too will end up having to wait it out. Since I don't think I can finish it in the hour and a half I have left before the Ravelympics start. Though I think I might try...

Here it is before I made it to the top edging.


Oh, and I finally finished those gift Lothloriens. Now I have to make a pair for me. But not yet....

Knitters really are good people

To help the victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti, Kim McBrien Designs is donating 75% of her proceeds from pattern sales to Doctors without Borders for their Haiti relief effort. You can buy her awesome patterns here on Ravelry. I believe you can do that even without being a Ravelry member but I haven't tried to test that theory.

I bought both her cowl patterns and I am going to also go and make a donation directly. I hope you will do the same (donate either way, directly or through Kim McBrien Designs or both to get two chances). If you do, post a comment on this post telling me you did and I will have the random number generator pick someone to get a yarny prize for being so good.

And I do have knitting to show but I will save that for the next post since I still need to weave in ends.

This is ridiculous, you know.

For several weeks now I have on a day here or there popped up my blog and had every intention of writing a post. And then not done it. I don't know if it is that horrible pain in the patootie called "perfectionism" or just plain laziness or what. But its never gonna stop if I don't just blog something.

It's not like I haven't anything to blog either, I did in fact make more than one holiday gift this year. Although so far I am not doing so well on the post holiday knitting that is due.

Still, I did accomplish knitting in 2009 even in the last few weeks (actually quite a bit in the last few weeks and hardly any for weeks and weeks before then so maybe the break in the blog was just in the wrong place?

For the FoUI (my hubby the Fount of Useless Information - trivia? he has gobs of it) I made two pairs of socks this winter.

His Mars Tickle Attacks! socks knit in the Mars colorway (that and ticklish feet and his love of puns should explain the name of the socks) of Fiber Fiend's Superwash Merino Sock Yarn. This was a really nice yarn to work with. It makes a nice cushy sock.

I also knit him some socks in his alma mater's colors (Go Cal Bears!) in a stripe pattern I have done once before. But man, 40 ends to weave in by the time I was done! Not doing that again. If I ever decide to do this sock again, I will have to remember to weave in the ends as I go.

My daughter wanted somewhat more complicated things this year so I only got one thing made for her by the end of 2009. She is obsessed with penguins at the moment (and actually that has lasted a full year plus - interesting) so asked for a knitted penguin. I was stalling saying I had to order yarn because I didn't have the correct weight in a penguiny color and she made the mistake of saying I could use any color. I asked "even a wild variegate?" and she said yes. So she got this:

But she seems to love it so it's all good. Except I had so much yarn left I could make her a pair of socks. So now I have that on my "to knit" list for this month.

You know what else is ridiculous? We're 8 days into January and I haven't knit a stitch this year yet. Not a good way to get knitting done for Valentine's day. So I need to get back to knittin'!

Catching Up or at least not falling too much further behind

I finished one of the gift knitting items! Are you excited? I sure am. And I think the FoUI is too because he has successfully bemoaned the cold as he bicycles to work so he's getting them early. Which sort of leaves me short a present. But I think I will print out a photo and wrap that up rather than trying to add yet another item to my already scary list.

But look! A FO!



And now I am off for four days of probably not much knitting time at all. So no doubt will be considerably further behind by the next time I can post. Still, I have one present! Yay!