New Year

So in my last post, I talked a lot about what I had done, but I'd like to talk now about what I hope to accomplish, in terms of knitting at least.

I have started several projects that I want to keep working on and finish. I don't have too many WiPs partly because I got ruthless and frogged several things that I just didn't like. The main WiP is my Pretty as a Peacock Shawl aka BB is a Moron! It's the most wonderful, modern, awesome lace I've ever seen, so I started it as my first lace project. (Like it says, moron!) I actually started another, much shorter, much easier lace project since and will likely be done really soon, probably within a couple of days!

I also have the Great American Aran Afghan on the go, for which I've finished one square to date. I enjoyed almost all the square, with the exception of the top and bottom borders, because of the fact that no matter what I did, I couldn't figure out how to repeat the placement of my increases to do the decreases, even though I was doing exactly what I'd written down, only in reverse. I still don't understand that!

At the very top of my queue for projects not yet on the needles, is a cabled sweater for myself. I ordered myself the yarn already, unfortunately it's back-ordered at the distributor (perhaps even the manufacturer), so I'm unsure as to when I'll get the yarn. I'm really looking forward to it though, because I love the pattern complex, without being overcrowded, and it changes enough for it not to become boring and repetitive. I believe the back is just pure stockinette, so that may end up being the death of me, but the front is too beautiful!

I have lots of smaller projects in mind, some of which I've already got the yarn for, such as Ysolda Teague's beautiful Gretel.

As far as more general things, such as skills, I'd like to knit tighter, since I end up using sock needles for everything up to aran weight, and 3.75 needles for super bulky weight! Yikes!

I'd like to learn how to graft, to steek, to more successfully increase, and to pick up stitches without making it look so ugly.

I'd like to finish a pair of socks. Hell, I'd love to finish a sock period! I've never gotten past knitting the heel flap, thanks to the fact that they were too damned tight, and I couldn't get them over my heel!

I'd like to knit more from the stash, and not buy so many useless amounts of yarn, that are only good for fingerless mitts, and such. I'm getting bored of them!

I'd like to knit up some random hats and such from my acrylic stash to give to charity.

In non-knitting terms, I'd like to get healthy. I'd like Mimi to stop peeing on the floor. I'd like to get a decent job. I'd like to become a size small, or even medium. Hell, I'd settle for a LARGE!!! Okay, so not a single one of these things is likely to happen this year, but a girl can hope, can't she?

A year in Knitting

With just under 48 hours left in the year, and the last hour spent on ravelry, I've been thinking about my knitting throughout the year.'

Up until this year, knitting was definitely an on and off thing, and I had never produced anything more than a scarf. I could only knit stockinette, and, although I'd tried, I couldn't honestly knit in the round. I knew the theory, and could even do it in practice, but not well, and usually I'd end up accidentally working in the wrong direction, giving me unintentional short rows!

Then in late February I found this really cute pattern on Ravelry, that involve only knitting a little square, and then stitching it up into a bunny. I finished it really quickly, and was really pleased with how well it came out.

Buoyed by this success, and by my Ravelry surfing, I decided to try cabling, just like I'd been dreaming of doing since nearly the start of my knitting days!!! It was so remarkably easy, and it was even more fun! I worked on the Irish hiking scarf for 4 balls of yarn, but by then I was bored, and it was nowhere near long enough, so I put it away for a while (and eventually frogged it for the yarn).

I got super busy with work and such for a while, so my knitting came to a halt for much of the late spring, early summer. Then for my birthday I convinced my mother to take me yarn shopping, where we bought the most wonderful sock yarns, which restarted my knitting again.

I learned how to magic loop and restarted a sock, and kept tinkering on that for the summer, but never much, because I'd get bored and distracted and put it down again.

Then finally in September I started and finished in no time at all Fetching. Buoyed yet again by the success of that, I started another project, the Great American Aran Afghan.

I shortly after attended my first ever knit-nite, and have been going to nearly every one in town ever since.

Somewhere in the last few months, I have learned so many more skills, and made some more projects! I now know how to do lace, and am nearly finished my first project. I got good enough at having a feel for knitting to be able to make mittens completely without a pattern. I realize I can now "read" my knitting, although I've been able to do that all year, but I couldn't for the previous 9.

I am really proud of what I've managed to accomplish this year, at least in terms of my knitting, and am confident that this coming year will only make me more of a knitter!