Glancing Back, Moving Ahead

Since the weather was so uncooperative last week, I never really got a chance to show off these:

Scarborough Fair Socks by Melanie Gibbons

Yarn: Knitivity Down Home Art Yarns sock in Italian Ice - Grape

Size 2.25 DPN

Or these:

Finished 10:35pm Dec, 31 2010

Tropical Stripe Socks

Pattern: Basic sock (Top Down) with a 2, 1, 1, 1 stripe sequence

Yarn: Noro Kuryeon Sock in colors S180 (MC) and S149 (CC)

Size 2.25 DPN

I decided halfway through the Scarborough Fair socks that I needed a simpler pattern for carrying around because although the pattern on Scarborough Fair is not difficult to memorize, the stitches are fiddly and I need to have the chart out more often than not to stay on track so it wasn’t very good for public knitting.  The first socks I knit in Jan 2010 were the Noro Stripey socks that I love, so I decided that the last pair for 2010 should also be Noro Stripeys and keeping in my experimental mode with stripes I changed up the stripe sequence just enough to keep them interesting.  I finished the Scarborough Fair socks on the 27th and even though I only had a portion of one leg done on the Stripey socks, I decided I would kick it into high gear so these would actually be finished in 2010.  I made it with hours to spare and I love the way these socks turned out.  (I also have enough yarn leftover for another pair sometime this year.)  In case anyone is wondering, I did futz with the yarn a wee bit to get the color sequences to match.  I didn’t have to try too terribly hard due to a happy little coincidence; the (inevitable) knot 

I think I was going to write a post about this, but it got OBE

in that skein of Noro (S180) was almost perfectly placed to divide it into two cakes of almost equal weight with not too much pulling out to get to the same starting point in the color sequence. The brown was harder to judge and so I did end up with different starting points.  They are not a perfect match, but that's okay. Heck, I think I would be both too hard on my self and too hard on the yarn if I expected a perfect match using any Noro yarn.

So those are the final two projects that I completed in 2010.  

Oh, and speaking of happy little coincidences, I was pleasantly surprised by this the other day:

1500 Yards of Golden Sunrise in Dura Lace

Ray, of Knitivity, had a little drawing back in December  for customers who ordered yarn during a certain week.  I needed to order a skein to match one I already had for an upcoming project and didn’t really think about the timing of my order in regards to the drawing.  I hadn’t been very active on line in December and subsequently missed the note on his website that I was the winner of the drawing, so imagine my surprise when I got this skein of yarn in the mail!  I do order quite a bit from him because I really like Ray’s yarn. I would highly recommend it if you’ve ever thought about adopting an indy-dyer to support.   

Moving on to 2011; I set up a few personal challenges for myself (rather than actual goals). 

I am continuing in the Sock A Month Knit-a-long and have set up another year’s worth of personal sock club bags to keep me knitting from stash and patterns I have accumulated.  I started my first installment on Monday and am pretty happy with the mix of yarn and pattern so far, but afraid the yardage could be a bit short, though.  If I can get by with making shorter cuffs I will, but if I end up needing to switch yarn, I’ll do that because I really do like the pattern so far.  The pattern is Journey Cable Socks which I bought some time ago and never got around to knitting.  The yarn is Rabbit Ridge Designs, one of the yarns I brought back from my trip to Alaska in 2009.  (See a trend here?)  Here’s a peek at what it looks like so far:

I'm actually quite a bit farther now

I am going to try to knit four shawl patterns (one a quarter?) that I’ve had in my queue forever.  I haven’t matched yarn for all 4 yet, and I’m cheating a little by counting the Annis that I started last month as one of the four.  There’s still not much progress there by the way, but I can show this:

I'll be happy when I get past the nupps

I’ve got sweater quantity in my stash for at least two sweaters.  Patterns not determined on both yet.

I have a couple patterns I love that I’d like to do up for my Granddaughter (not that I need an excuse to knit for her).

I would like to get on with it and actually complete my Level I of the Master Knitter’s course.  (Still working on that motivation).

I’d also like to do a little more charity knitting again and maybe a little more designing this year. 

Really, that’s quite a lot to have on my plate, but hey, that’s why they are challenges rather than goals… no pressure, just an organized way to keep my knitting going in a productive direction… and to try to use up yarn I already have.  

So I hope you'll drop by from time to time to see how I'm doing on my 2011 challenges.  

Happy Knitting,

Stand and Wind

Yeah! Another payoff of getting the office done and all my knitting stuff together in one place is that I don’t have to use the winder on the coffee table (which meant getting down on my knees) anymore. I can use the sewing table so I can stand up while I wind a ball of yarn now! This makes me exceptionally happy.

See:

Yarn being wound is Fleece Artist Basic Merino Socks in Blackberry (prize yarn from Jodi's contest). I think I’ll finally try the Jaywalker pattern using this yarn, but will switch patterns if the striping doesn’t come out right. If I don’t get bogged down working on these this pair will be the first socks I do for the Sock-a-Month 5 Knit Along (SAM 5) that is the follow on to SAM4. I really enjoy having the KAL as motivation to get socks knit… especially since I really have a lot of sock yarn (hee, hee). Just one drawer full....... (I didn’t say “too much,” just “a lot”) I don’t really think there could be such a thing as “too much;” do you?

Anyway, getting back to my original train of thought: Since tackling this office redo; I realized that I have a terrible tendency to under- or over-estimate the size of a project. ‘Little’ projects turn out to be major undertakings and big projects take far less time than I had anticipated. I always get the feeling that there is this giant grey cloud hanging over my head when I have a project I need to start. Sometimes it works that way with knitting too. It has been that way with this office redo. It was on the to do list for so very long that the more I thought about it, the bigger that cloud got and the less motivation I felt to get started. Also, not doing that project led to me not doing other things (large and small) that needed to be done as well. (Like using this yarn to knit with because it needed winding) That is a terrible cycle to get caught up in. So, the good news is that I feel like I’m near the end of my projects around the house. Today, I reorganized the books on the shelves that were moved into the family room and have a few more odds and ends to finish up there. Next I have Christmas Decorations to take down (yes, I’ve been distracted); and some paperwork to organize (those blasted Army records). Just being able to see a light at the end of the tunnel is an enormous motivator. Think of all the knitting and reading I’ll be able to get done once everything is finished!

I think I’ll go do a little happy dance now….

The Time Has Come….

...to finally organize the office.

Today is a get’r done (started) day! I decided I could not put off getting the office organized much longer. It is in a constant state of disarray and I can’t live with it anymore. I’ve been avoiding it too long. So today I am taking the first step. Getting the book shelves moved to the family room. This has been sort of a back and forth decision. In order to move the shelves, all the books have to come off. I have a LOT of books. If all the books come off, not all of them go back on. Purging is a must. It’s just such a hard thing to do. Thus the procrastination! I love books. I love all my books, but alas, know I have some that I really won’t read again. So today, I dug in. Here’s the stack of books that will be going bye-bye. Hopefully they can find better homes with people interested in the subject matter. Whew! That was hard to do, but much better now that it is done. Next up, relocating the book cases; this means disassembly. (And reassembly) Once the books are moved, the next step will be taking a really good look at how we want the room to function. I’ve had several ideas, but the one most dominant is that we both want to be able to use the room practically and have at least two work surfaces. There must be one area for the computer and another for all other tasks. For me this is a place to play with ideas for knitting projects and to organize my knitting projects. For DH, it’s just a place to spread out when he needs to do any written type work. The upside of getting the office done means I get to relocate my stash and knitting related stuff upstairs so I can clean up the mess surrounding my favorite (knitting) chair in the living room. (With my arthritis, it gets hard to go up and down the stairs too often). But this means another consideration for organizing the office. We need to make a decision on moving the giant cabinet (currently housing my yarn and supplies) upstairs. If we don't, there still needs to be adequate storage to hold my knitting stuff (about 13 bins of STASH)

so it looks neat and orderly – I definitely don’t want to go from one type of clutter to another. Of course the best part, is once the decisions are made and the design created, I get to go out to the container store to buy what I need.... yipee! (Elfa Sale, yeah!)

So, there is still much more to do today and since Saucey has claimed the chair by the computer and I can't get it done while I'm playing around with the blog, I'll end here. More updates as events unfold!