An Anniversary, and a Contest!

It just occurred to me that my one year blog anniversary is coming up soon. I had to go look to be sure, but my first post was on Jan. 15, 2007. I can't believe I've been posting that long, to be honest. And I haven't posted that often. I mean, 40 posts? Heh. So, it's a good thing I've sort of promised myself to post more often. I won't be joining the Blog365 group, because there's just no way I could find enough time or content to do that, but I will try posting at least once a week.

So, in honor of my 1st anniversary, and in the interests of reducing my stash some way, I've decided to have a contest, with yarny goodness as a prize. I have 5 skeins of Araucania's Atacama Alpaca yarn, in a turqoise/blue/black/brown colorway (514) that, while I love, I will probably never knit up, so it's going to go to a good home. It's 110 yards/50g, and knits at 18 sts to 4 inches on 7s. Enough for a vest, maybe? I'll take a picture of it as soon as I buy new batteries for my camera, tomorrow or Monday, and post it then. In the meantime, to enter, simply leave me a comment between now and midnight on the15th, telling me what your favorite knit has been, and why. I'll put all the names into a hat (well, something) and draw the winner on the 17th. Easy, right? And it really is beautiful yarn. For some reason, Blogger won't let me start a new line (enter doesn't seem to work), so maybe it's time to end this post. I can read the writing on the keyboard LOL

No Progress to Report

One other aspiration I would like to pursue in 2008 is to post more regularly, and to (finally) post pictures of my WIPs and FOs. Of course, I'd have to actually have those to post pictures of them, right? And right now, I don't. I still haven't decided on what I want to knit now. I've cast on and frogged several yarns and patterns, but none of them have been IT, so I'm still searching.

I go back to work on Monday, and my Master's classes begin the same day. I didn't have access to those until today, so I printed out the syllabi today, and began the reading required. I only have about half the books required, since my order hasn't arrived yet from the college bookstore. (My Amazon order for the other half got here in two days. Yay, Amazon!). This program is supposed to be for working teachers, but the way they assign the reading and the assignments, you'd never know it. I know it's valuable, and I am learning something from it, but keeping up with it all is an extreme challenge. I'm taking 7 units per quarter, 2 classes, because I don't want to spend years doing this, but I may have to reconsider, if the pace doesn't let up a bit.

I'm about this -------- much closer to knitting a sock. I have the yarn (more than one choice, even) and the needles (well, if I don't have to use 1s or 0s, I do), so all I lack is sufficient motivation to cast on. I think I'm just in yet another funk. Nothing seems to be what I want to knit, not just socks. And I think I even feel a bit of pressure, knowing that my free time is about to take a nose dive again, beginning Monday, and not letting up until the end of March (and then only for a week or so, given that conferences and report cards happen right after my Master's classes end.)

A bright spot for me, though, has been my winning two (yes, two!) contests on other blogs. Well, I won one, Sharon's "Name My Dummy" contest, and on the other, I came closest but was over by 1, so Sandra decided to reward me, too! I can't wait to get my goodies, and I promise I'll post pictures of both of them as I get them. Promise! (Even if the light around here sucks, especially right now, given the deluge (rain) we're having).

I'm also considering joining a swap that another Elannite mentioned. I read about it on Grace's blog, and it sounds doable. It also means I would have to blog regularly, since that's a requirement for it. Maybe that's a good idea? I'll have to decide soon, but I'm leaning that way. It would be my first swap, if I get accepted. Any thoughts?

What to Knit

I literally have no idea what I want to knit. I know I do want to knit, but not what I want to knit. I haven't gotten the yarns I ordered from Webs, yet (I know, I know, I just ordered it last week), so I can't start the girl's dress. I haven't found a pattern I like for my Lang Venezia, either. So, I have the entire world of my stash to consider, and I think I'm on overload. My stash has way too many possibilities in it for me. I can't decide if I want to do something challenging, or something simple and quick to knit.

My new classes for my Master's start the same day I go back to work teaching, which is next Monday. Once that happens, I won't have much free time, between lesson planning, grading papers, reading course materials, writing the assignments, etc. Oh, and PTA work, since I'm still the president of that. What little free time I will have has to be divided between reading (not professional books) and knitting.

So, perhaps something quick, now, before I lose most of my knitting time. If I can find a pattern I like. In yarn I like (and have). Or maybe I'll just pick a yarn I like, pick up my BW, and make a pair of (modified) rectangles using a new lace stitch or cable pattern. Just seam up the sides, do a quick neckline of some kind, and voila, something to wear over a plain blouse. Something that will keep me a bit warmer in my almost Arctic classroom. Decisions, decisions.

New Year Resolutions?

There's been lots of talk around the blogosphere about resolutions. For them, and against them. I can see both sides to resolutions, but I think I come down on the side of making them. Not as hard-and-fast rules, but as guidelines for where I want to go in the next year.

I do spend some time in the week between Christmas and New Year's thinking about the past year, and how I want the next year to develop. I think about the things I've accomplished, the things that I fell short on, the things that turned out to be not something I really cared about, but thought I had.

Sometime before midnight, Dec. 31st, I set down a list of things I'd like to work on for the next year, and save it in a file I've called "Aspirations". (and I save a copy of that file on a CD, because I don't want to lose the accumulation of years I have in that file!) It's interesting to go back and look at previous year's aspirations, to see trends, to remember successes and failures. It makes me laugh, and sometimes go "Hmmmm", which is good for my soul, right?

My aspirations cover all facets of my life, of course. I don't separate them into categories, because I believe everything we do affects everything we are. I know some people can neatly separate the different parts of themselves into compartments in their mind, but I can't do that, and I don't think I even want to. Life doesn't come in neat little packages, clearly labeled. It flows onto you like a wave, sometimes buoying you up, other times overwhelming you. Occasionally, it tries to drag you back out to sea with itself, and sometimes that's a good thing. Growth is change, and change is messy, and not always pleasant.

One of my "aspirations" for the coming year is to finally knit a pair of socks. I owe it to myself (and my cold feet!) to master this knitting feat (heh). My mother always claimed she couldn't knit, but she knit argyle socks all the time. I can knit, but I can't knit a pair of plain socks for the life of me. I intend to change that, this new year. I have never used DPNs, and I rarely use circulars ( collars and such, usually), so I have no preference for which to use for socks. I just know that this year, I will make a pair of socks. Maybe more than one, but at least one pair.

I also want to knit more, in the coming year. This past year I knit very little, and I missed it. And, of course, knitting more will mean a decrease in my stash, which would be a good thing, too. And while I'm knitting more, I want to actually finish more things, all the way through seaming them together, and weaving in the ends. I can't count the number of items I have finished knitting that are sitting around in bags and baskets, waiting for me to sew them up, weave in the ends, and wear. It's ridiculous.

Another thing I want to do more of this coming year is sew. My fabric stash isn't much smaller than my yarn stash, and I want to decrease the amount of space all that fabric takes up. Plus, I'm not really a fan of much Ready-to-Wear, given that I'm a petite woman (not just small, but petite, with shorter arms, different proportions, etc.) and sewing allows me to make those adjustments in the beginning, not pay for alterations after the fact. (I like to sew, but I hate alterations and would rather pay someone to do them.)

Probably the most important aspiration I have this year is to get organized. This is, no surprise, a repeating aspiration for me. I have massive collections of books, yarn, fabric, patterns, pattern books, and magazines. My collections take up space in every room in my apartment, and the disorganization of all of them is making me a little crazy. It also causes me to buy things I already have, which isn't smart or financially wise. So, while I made some small progress on getting organized last year, this year I need to really dig in and become organized, not just work on it.

There are other aspirations, of course, but those are ones I don't think I'll post online for the world to see (although based on the number of comments I get, I really shouldn't worry about that!).

I don't know that I'll post again before the new year, so to everyone, I'll wish you a Happy New Year, and hope that it brings you love and laughter and many happy surprises!

A Change in plans for my Lang Venezia

Well, I just don't like the fabric my Venezia creates when using the 7s or 8s that are recommended. It's much better on 6s, but I'm thinking it will be best on 5s. I'll swatch tomorrow, just to be sure. I don't have any patterns for vests that use 5s or 6s. For that matter, I have very few patterns for anything that use needle sizes below 7s or 8s. I'm not a tiny needles person, although I have knit with them (I have needles down to size 1, for that matter, even though I can't remember what I knit using them). Guess this means I'll be doing a pattern search through my rather extensive stack of knit magazines.

The Venezia is a dream to knit, however. It's 50% mohair, but it behaves like it was silk, instead. Just glides off the needles. (Frogging the swatch wasn't as easy, however, but considering the mohair, much easier than it could have been.)

Tomorrow will be a day spent dreaming. I'll haul out the pattern books, and encounter all those sweater patterns I marked as "someday"s, and wonder what in my stash would work for them. I'll encounter patterns that didn't impress me back when I bought the magazine or pattern book, but suddenly catch my eye now, and wonder what in my stash will work for them now. I'll start going through my stash to answer those questions, and find things I didn't know I had. And return to the pattern books and mags to see if there's a pattern there to work with that fabulous yarn I just found.

Thank God I actually have a few errands to run, or I would spend the entire day running back and forth between my stash of patterns and my stash of yarn, and get nothing concrete done.

And, just to prove that my good intentions about knitting from my stash were just so much smoke, I dropped in on Webs today, and ordered 22 balls of yarn to add to my stash. Half of them, at least, are for that darling little girl's dress I mentioned, that my niece will love. In a purple she'll love. In a washable wool that her mother will love.

The other half are Laines du Nord Cash silk, just because. Webs is having its year-end sale, after all. I mean, cashmere and silk, for $3.99 a ball? I just had to, you know?

A Book Review (a yarn book!)

I just finished reading The Knitter's Book of Yarn, by Clara Parkes. What a joy it was to read. I learned things about yarn I didn't even know I wanted to know, but am passionately glad I do now know them. She writes in an engaging way about the stuff yarn is made of, the effects of plying, dying, twist, and special effects. She includes patterns that are designed to show off the qualities of the yarn she's just discussed. She talks about washing handknits, and felting (on purpose). She provides guidelines for telling how a yarn will perform, before you buy 20 skeins of it for entirely the wrong project. For once, I feel as if I truly understand why a particular yarn will tell me what it wants to be, and why some yarns just don't speak to me at all. I heartily recommend this book. It makes for great reading! (This book was a Christmas present to myself, one I'm really glad I got.)

In other news, I haven't knit a single stitch in days. I did come across a beautiful girls' dress that caused me to eye my stash a bit (I have a niece who would love it if I knit it for her), and I'm still pondering what to do with my Lang Venezia in that lovely royal blue. I'm almost sure it wants to be a vest, but I'm still waiting to hear if it wants to be a cabled pullover type, or a patterned, button-up type. I don't go back to work or school until Jan. 7th, so hopefully, we'll have made up our mind by then.

I did receive some new yarn from my favorite online yarn source, Elann. I picked up some Austermann Inka, in a sort of faded mulberry color. This is an alpaca blend, and it's incredibly soft. It came, with 11 balls of Inka, with a pattern I quite like, and may even make out of the intended yarn (not a common occurrence for me). Or not. I never know.

I frightened myself while I was eying my stash, looking for a yarn for that girl's dress. I have wayyyyy too much yarn. Seriously too much. I may even have to commit to knitting from my stash for a while or so (or move to a bigger place). A long while, even. Years. (If I retired today, and lived another 30 years, I honestly don't think I'd *have* to buy another skein of yarn, and would be able to knit every day.) Of course, having to buy yarn, and wanting to buy yarn are completely divorced feelings. Is there a Yarn Junkies Anonymous out there somewhere?

Merry Christmas!

I know I've been a very bad blogger, but life has been so much more hectic this year than ever before. Finally, today, my Master's program class is over, and my work has ended for 2007, so now all I have left to do is wrap presents, buy a couple of presents I still haven't found, and wrap presents. I got my nephew a telescope for Christmas, and I don't know what I was thinking (that maybe it would need assembly?), but it arrived in this huge box, and when I opened it, there was this HUGE package inside. Maybe I should have read the telescope's dimensions, eh? At any rate, I still need to find wrapping paper for it, since none of the rolls of the stuff I have are enough to cover the box. Maybe they don't make wrapping paper big enough for it? Ah, well. The paper won't last long, anyway, so if it's a bit patchwork, who will care?

My sister in law wanted crochet hooks. She has lost the bundle of hooks she had (she has a daughter, 8, who loves to play with them), so I got her a set of eight with ergonomic handles ~ I don't crochet much, but after holding these, I'm going to have to buy myself a set of them! Then I went looking for a case to put them in, something bright that would be hard to lose, and couldn't find anything. Oh, I could find cases, but all of them came filled with cheap crochet hooks, the slots weren't big enough, and they weren't very bright. I finally settled for a needle case in black and fuschia, which is rather bigger than I planned, but that should just make it harder to lose, right? I also found a neat crochet booklet on Ebay, which I snapped up for her. Oh, and the latest Kinsey Milhone mystery (I got her addicted to these). She's an OR nurse, and works two jobs, so her gifts are all about leisure time, which she doesn't have enough of.

I still need to find something for my former teaching partner. She's rather hard to buy for, and I just haven't found anything that says "Betty" yet. But I still have two days, right? Piece of cake! (heh)

I hope this holiday season brings you joy and laughter, love and hope, and all the good things you'd wish for yourself and your loved ones.