This Post was Going to be about Charity Work...

...but that topic will have to wait just a little bit longer, because I am still having a love affair with shawls. I have managed to start another 3 shawls, for a total of 5 shawl WIPs. I keep seeing shawl patterns on Ravelry that I can't get out of my head. Once I find an appropriate yarn in my stash, I can't stop myself from starting the project. After the finishing marathon last year, I knew I was in for a serious bout of startitis, so I'm just going with it and enjoying myself!

First up, I started the South Bay shawlette from Lion Brand Yarn. (Sorry, the link requires free registration, if you aren't already registered with LB.)
I'm using 3 skeins of Filatura di Crosa Gioiello, which I originally bought on sale up at Webs for another Doris Chan moebius shawl. After making 2 moebius shawls, however, I am perfectly happy to use this yarn for a completely different pattern.

The I started the Tea Wrap, also from LB.
I am using 1 skein of Brooks Farm Duet, a dk weight yarn, that I bought at Rhinebeck a couple of years ago. Even though the picture doesn't do it justice, the colors of this yarn are just delightful.

And then, I started Saroyan. (Sorry, this pattern is available as a free Ravelry download only.)
I'm using 2 skeins of Misti Alpaca Hand Paint Worsted. The yarn is beautiful to touch and to look at. The pattern is one of 3 patterns that were inspired by the TV show Bones. Since that is one of my favorite TV shows, this pattern just seemed like a natural for me to make.

Believe it or not, even though January is ending soon, I still have hopes of finishing at least one of these shawls by the end of the month.

2010-The Year of the Shawl

Oh, goodness. I managed to miss December, the holidays, the end of 2009 and the start of 2010! I don't know, life just feels so much more hectic than it used to. And I spend entirely too much time on Ravelry! I hope everyone had a happy and healthy holiday season and is having a terrific new year.

I finished 2009 with 5 WIPs left on my list. They are all currently on hold, because I may try to finish them during the Winter Olympics. I continued to frog some projects and finish others. If I ever get my act together and get some scarfs blocked, I might just have some FO pictures to share eventually.

In the meantime, I joined the Ravelry group 10 Shawls in 2010, and I am having a great time working on my first 2 shawls for the challenge. The first one is Doris Chan's Guadalupe Shawl.
I am using 3 colors of Caron Simply Soft to get them out of the stash. It's fun, now that I am adding color to the edge. Here's another picture that shows the colors a little bit better.

This past weekend, I also started a knitted shawl.
It's the Weaver's Wool Mini Shawl. I'm using some Sirdar Denim Tweed DK yarn that has been in stash for years. The yarn is an acrylic, cotton and wool blend that is knitting up fairly soft. The tweed makes me think of chocolate chip ice cream, so I am thinking of this as my Chocolate Chip Shawl. I am definitely going to need a longer circular needle soon, as this is growing quite quickly.

Not Sure Where November Went!

I'm not at all sure what happened to November. It turned into a very busy month, at work and at home. I seemed to spend a lot of it rather tired. And I didn't accomplish nearly as much as I wanted to on my WIPs.

Having said that, however, I did manage to bring the WIP list down to single digits. I frogged 3 scarves which I decided I just didn't like. I finished another scarf, which I will photograph once I block it. Right now, it is a little small, so I am hopeful that blocking will make it wearable.

My biggest triumph this month happened last Saturday morning when I finally felted the Lucy Bag. I finished knitting the bag at the end of January, 2008, and it has sat in the craft room sinced then. Here's what it looked like before felting:

I'll admit that I was a little nervous about the felting process. But I told myself that Saturday was the day, and if I ruined the bag, then all I had wasted was some yarn and some time. After all of 15 minutes in the washing machine, I had a perfectly felted bag:
This turned out so well that I now feel like a procrastinating idiot. But I am very pleased with the bag, and I think it is going to become my every day purse.

So, 21 WIPs down, and 9 more to go!

Starting November Right

So, Saturday was my birthday, and I decided to spend most of the day doing what I wanted to do. And what I wanted to do was finish my 2009 ripple afghan. I didn't quite finish weaving all the ends in until Sunday morning, but I still felt comfortable considering this an October finish.
It used 950.5 yards of Caron Simply Soft from stash. It makes my 5th finished afghan in October, and the 5th afghan made from my SS stash over the past 2 years. And I still have SS stash left, which tells me that I had accumulated way too much Simply Soft along the way! Hopefully, before the end of the year, I will have time to re-inventory the SS stash, so that I have a better handle on what's left. Oh yes, I used the "Soft Waves" pattern from Jan Eaton's 200 Ripple Stitches book again for this afghan. I do love the pattern, but I think that's the last ripple for a while. (Although I probably say that every year!) The afghan is approximately 40" wide by 48" long, so it is a nice lapghan size. And since the temperature is in the 30s this morning here in CT, I will probably be using it very soon!

So I am starting November with 14 WIPs to work on. I need to finish 7 each month to be done by the end of the year. That means that I need to average one FO every 4-5 days to reach this goal. I have no idea if this is doable, but I am willing to try. In fact, my next FO might be very close to being finished. I need to do some measuring when I get home tonight, and then I will have a better idea.

Down to 15!

Well, I have no FOs to show from this weekend. We were very busy around the house instead. I was determined to get some housework done, since next Saturday is my birthday and I am not doing housework on my birthday! We also got the house ready for winter - air conditioners out, storm windows down, patio furniture put away. And on top of that, I got my hands on the new Dan Brown book, The Lost Symbol, last week, so I had reading to do as well.

I have continued to work on whittling down the WIP pile, however. Thanks to the help of one of the ladies in crochet guild, I found a Girl Scout troop willing to take 3 bags of afghan squares off my hands. I'm not entirely sure how many afghans the squares will make, but for the purposes of my WIP list, I was counting them as 3 projects. Then, yesterday, I pulled out a preemie blanket that I was knitting, and I decided that I just didn't like it. The stitch pattern, rows of garter stitch alternating with rows of stockinette, wasn't reversible, and that really bothered me. So I frogged it. I have another idea for a knitted preemie blanket, so maybe next year I will try again. And that brought me down to 15 WIPs! Even though I know I still have work ahead of me, I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I also seem to be enjoying working on the remaining WIPs more, knowing that so many old projects have been dealt with.

Finally, it occurred to me that I never posted a picture of this year's ripple afghan, so here it is.
Working on the ripple afghan is like eating comfort food. It is just soul satisfying and perfect for those times when I am a little tired or distracted by TV (like yesterday afternoon, when I got completely caught up in "Stephen King's Rose Red" on the syfy channel, even though I had seen it when it first aired years ago).

Number Eleven!

It seems like all of my projects reach a point where they are so close to being done that I just can't stop working on them until they are finished. This scarf reached that point on Monday evening, and last night I sat down and finished it up.
I used 2 skeins of Cotton Fine from the Brown Sheep Company. The yarn has been in my stash for years because I didn't know what to do with it. I used the bushy stitch (2 dc, ch 2, 1 sc), which made for a nice built-in edging all around the scarf. The scarf measures almost 5" wide by 70" long, and took 377 yards out of the stash.

Unfortunately, most of my other projects are not this close to being done. I'm going to continue to try and focus on one or two projects until they are finished, and work on some of the thornier issues on the weekends. Actually, for all the work I have done this month, I am still so concerned about what I have left to do that I sat down Sunday night and rewrote my list of WIPs again. I sorted the list into 2 columns - hard and easy. I was pleased to find that I only have 6 projects on the "hard" list, and one of those is felting my Lucy bag, which isn't going to be hard so much as a little fussy. So I keep telling myself that I am in good shape, and most of the time I actually believe it!

And Then There Were 10

I had set several goals for myself this weekend. I had to finish reading The Perfect Storm and prep for the book discussion that I am leading this evening and again next Wednesday morning. I was barely 100 pages in when I hunkered down on Saturday to finish the book. It turned out to be a riveting read, so I had no problem finishing the book by dinnertime Saturday.

I also decided that I wanted to finish the afghan I have been working on this weekend. That seemed like an ambitious goal, but I decided to try anyway. And here is the result:
I finished the afghan last evening. I am pleased to say that this afghan took 3 skeins of yarn and 1,177 yards of yarn out of the stash. I used the Rectangular Granny Afghan pattern, and I am very pleased with the result. I like that the edging almost, but not quite, ruffles. So that makes #10 out of 30 WIPs dealt with this month.

This and That

First, it occurred to me after I posted yesterday that 21-5=16, not 15. So I need to finish or get rid of 6 projects by the end of the month to be halfway to my goal. It's still doable, unlike math, which is apparently not my strong suit.

Second, I am happy to report that all this finishing gave me enough space in the craft room that I was able to spend Monday morning up there cleaning and straightening up. I put a lot of yarn away, and it was nice to find that there was room in the storage bins for it. I guess the stash down efforts are paying off, at least a little bit. It is also nice to have floor space and breathing room where the yarn lives.

I gathered all the WIPs in one place, and this chair is now the center of my crafting life for the next 2 and a half months.
This is where I spend most of my time at home, watching TV and working on projects.

I also gathered up all the projects where I have yarn and patterns matched up, but I haven't actually started yet, and here they are, ready and waiting for me upstairs in the craft room.
The black Lion Brand bag is chock full of small projects, mostly scarves and shawls. The other bags are sweaters waiting to be made. You can also see some of the stash yarn behind the bags. (Unfortunately, there's more yarn in other parts of the room.)

So, as you can see, I have my work cut out for me. I have also decided that I would like to work through my stash by the time I retire, which will hopefully happen in about 10 years. To accomplish this, I will need to continue to buy yarn sparingly, and I will need to use up about 10 miles of yarn a year. But I think I will be happier in retirement without the overwhelming stash, just buying yarn for particular projects.

#6-9 of 30 WIPs

Yes, I am down 9 WIPs on my list of 30! Two more are finished and two more are frogged. First, the FOs.
I finished the Watermelon Afghan last Friday. It took 4 evenings of work last week, but I am very pleased with the final product. It is approximately 40" X 60". It seems like it is a little long for the width, but it is nice and warm and colorful. Actually, I am so pleased with it that I am going to keep it. I can't bear to part with it!

And then on Sunday, I sat down and crocheted more squares together to make this lapghan.
My mom had made the 20 squares years ago. (Even she isn't sure when she had made them.) I had more than enough of the white yarn to put the squares together. So I took it over to her yesterday, and she was thrilled to see it finally finished. It now has a home at the foot of her bed, and she says she will be able to use it on cold winter nights. That definitely makes the time spent finishing these projects worthwhile!

I have frogged the Rocky Road Shrug that I started in September of 2007. I had to frog back anyway to finish the shrug properly, and I decided that I just didn't want to make this shrug right now. I may try again in the future. I also frogged some and got rid of the bulk of an afghan that I had started back in the 1990s. It was not going to work out, and it had gotten dirty over the years, which is why I didn't bother to frog the whole thing. (That, and it was mohair type yarn that was horrible to try to frog anyway.)

So the good news is that it isn't even halfway through October and I am down 9 projects. The bad news is that I have added almost 19 skeins of yarn to my stash that I didn't bother to count originally, since I was sure I would finish the projects. But at least I haven't spent any money on this stash enhancement.

Now, if I can finish another 5 projects (one way or another) by the end of October, I will be halfway to my goal, with another 2 months to finish everything up. I might just have everything finished by New Year's!

Afghan of Many Colors or...

...#5 of 30 WIPs. Let me give some back story here. About 2 years ago, some of you might remember I hosted Summer of Squares. I was also in a group called Fiber Freaks (no longer online except for a group on Ravelry). Some of the members of Fiber Freaks made 12" afghan squares and sent them to me, and I was supposed to sew then into an afghan. Somehow, that never happened until this past weekend.
It took some wrestling, but I finally managed to get all the squares put together. We all used Caron Simply Soft and either knitted or crocheted the squares. However, gauge varied square to square, as did the interpretation of 12". So putting the squares together was a bit of a challenge, so say the least. I ended up edging all of the squares in off white first, so that the seams wouldn't look so noticeable. However, I used up 289 yards of yarn putting it together, so that was a nice surprise.

Our original idea was to donate the blanket to Blankets for the Gulf, but I'm not sure they are still accepting blankets. The blanket ended up 36" by 48", so I think it would be a nice size for a child. So I am going to donate it to Project Linus. I have a few more to give them, so I will try to make a donation later this month.

And I am not resting on my laurels by any means. I am already working on WIP #6 - the Watermelon Afghan. (I didn't realize until I just looked up the URL that this one has been hanging around since 2007, too!)

This Won't Continue...

...but I have another FO for today. I finished up the scarf I was making using 2 skeins of LB Wool Ease and size 15 needles.
I had yarn left, but I decided that 40" was long enough. The scarf is really thick, so it isn't comfortable to wrap around the neck several times. At 40", it covers the chest, so it will keep someone warm. This will be donated eventually, I'm just not sure where right now.

I actually finished it before dinner yesterday. So that left me free to mess with another old project last night. Unfortunately, it didn't go as well as the teddy bear. I pulled out some squares I had made back in the 1990s for 2 baby afghans. (I think the babies these afghans were originally intended for are almost teenagers by now!) After messing around with the squares for a while, I came to a difficult conclusion. I don't have enough yarn to finish the project properly. I was using Red Heart Sport, which I don't think is available any more. And it is some nasty, hard yarn. I just don't have the heart to try to find a way to finish this project, so I am going to trash it. It's not easy for me to say that, but I know that I have other projects from the same era that I will finish, so I don't feel too bad.

And the good news is that I am now starting October with 26 projects instead of 30. That makes me feel much better!

Coming Clean, and a Teddy Bear

I might have been a tad disingenuous over the last couple of weeks when I was listing my WIPs. I've been rethinking what I need to finish thanks to a new challenge over on the Stash Knitdown group on Ravelry. During October, November, and December, our challenge is to finish our WIPs, in order to start 2010 with a clean slate. As it turns out, that is going to be quite a challenge for me. I sat down on Saturday and wrote yet another brutally honest list of WIPs/UFOs to be finished. I came up with a list of 30 items. I really don't know how this keeps happening. However, I am game to try to meet the challenge.

So, even though it is not yet October, I have started in on the list. Here's what I accomplished last night.
I have been thinking back, and I'm pretty sure I knitted this little guy in 2003. And he has sat around, waiting to be sewn and stuffed, ever since because I couldn't figure out how to embroider the face. After looking at the pattern again (the Bear Pair Teddy Bear), at the finished bears on Ravelry, and at this Morehouse Farm pattern, I decided to not embroider the face at all. That freed me to finally finish this project. He is 9.5" tall, and I used Caron Simply Soft for the body, and some leftover Simply Soft Tweed for the scarf. The scarf is just 20" of I-cord. I probably could have stuffed his bottom half a bit more, but I wasn't sure how it would go sewing the final seam. All in all, though, I am quite pleased with him, and I got to cross one item off my list already. Only 29 more to go!

I'm Still Trying...

...to get my thoughts together about Elizabeth Zimmermann and the green sweater. Reading the story of the sweater and the designer's efforts to recreate it make me want to get much more serious about my knitting. That's a nice, if vague, long term goal, so I have been trying to decide how I want to go about pursuing it.

And it occurred to me that getting better acquainted with EZ and her patterns might be a good way to start. I was looking through her book Knitting Around, and I became quite taken with the Moebius Vest. So I cast on on Sunday.
This is the back of the vest, and it is going to be a large garter stitch square until I get to the point where I separate the front and back panels. It is hard to explain the exact construction, but I will try to take pictures when I get to the point of seaming the sweater to show how it goes together. I am using 4 skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca, an alpaca/wool blend, that I had originally bought to make a shawl. I think a vest will be a more practical garment, however.

Elizabeth Zimmermann

I don't have time to write the post I wanted to this morning, but I am going to post a couple of links anyway. I will finish my thoughts next week when I have time. I have been thinking about Elizabeth Zimmermann a lot lately, in part because of a post on Brooklyn Tweed about photographing an original EZ sweater. The story of how this sweater came to light is here. It's an inspiring story that has me thinking a lot about how to become the knitter I want to be. Have a great weekend!

The Endless Hit Parade of Scarves...

...isn't as endless I had originally thought! I just looked at my Ravelry project page, and I was surprised to find that I "only" have 14 WIPs on there. (Ok, it's still too many, but not as bad as I would have thought.) 3 haven't really been started yet. I just had matched yarn and pattern, so I listed them so that I wouldn't forget. And I am working on 2 scarves that I haven't listed there yet. So I only have 4 scarves to blog about today.

I started 2 of the scarves in August. The first pattern is called Gabriel's Wings. I'm calling it "Getting Ready for Autumn".
I'm using 2 skeins of Louet Gems, handpainted by Cherry Tree Hill. I bought 8 skeins of this yarn, in various colorways, on a great sale at the Knit and Crochet Show. It's fingering weight, so the scarf is growing slowly, but I love the colors and this pattern. It's hard to see in the picture, but the pattern is alternating sections of garter and stockinette stitch, with eyelet rows in between the sections.

The second scarf I started in August is crocheted. I've had this Cotton Fine yarn, a cotton/wool blend, in my stash for years, and I've never known what to do with it. I want to get it out of the stash, and the last time I looked at it I thought, why not crochet a scarf with it?
I decided to use the bushy stitch, which is 2 dc, 2 ch and 1 sc in the ch2 space of the previous row. I love how it is working up. It is creating its own border around the edge of the scarf. The original chain edge will be the middle of the scarf, so that both ends of the scarf match. It's just taking time to work up over 400 yards of fingering weight yarn.

This month, I have cast on 2 more scarves. One is an easy, garter stitch scarf that is my current mindless knitting.
I am holding 2 strands of LB Wool Ease together and I am using size 15 needles. So it is growing quickly and will hopefully get 4 skeins of yarn out of the stash.

And finally, so small that it doesn't even lay flat yet, is a Feather and Fan Scarf. (Sorry, another Ravelry link.)
I am using 2 more skeins of the Louet Gems from the Knit and Crochet Show. The colors are even more saturated in real life. I really need to spend more time with this scarf. I have been wanting a Feather and Fan scarf for some time now, so I really want to see this one grow.

I think I have enough projects going to keep me busy for a while!

Socks Squared

Before I get to the endless parade of scarf WIPs I am working on, I have to talk about my new favorite project. During my yarn buying binge in August, I managed to buy 6 new skeins of sock yarn. So I told myself that if I was going to continue to stash sock yarn, then it was time to become a more dedicated sock knitter. And at the beginning of September, I found a perfect Ravelry KAL to help me out with that goal.

The group is called "Socks Squared". (I'm not sure why, but there you are.) We are going to be choosing 1 or 2 patterns a month to work on. The September patterns are Primavera socks and Pawprints socks (Ravelry link). It was a tough choice, but I settled on Primavera for my first pair. I pulled out 2 skeins of Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett self-striping yarn that I had bought at Webs a few years ago and cast on before I left for vacation.
Unfortunately, I didn't have as much time as I had hoped while we were traveling to work on the sock, so I am still on the second pattern repeat. But the pattern is fairly easy, so if I settle down and actually work on the sock, it should be finished this month.

My Only Summer FO

Before I get to my one summer FO, though, I just want to thank Dee and Taph for their comments yesterday. It feels good to be back here, but I'm sorry to tell Dee that I'm not sure when I will get back to crochet guild events. The truth is that this year, my mom and my in-laws need my dh and me more and more. I'm glad to say that there hasn't been a medical crisis, but they are all getting older and they rely on us more than they used to. At this point, I am lucky if I get 1 entire weekend a month at home. (I always make sure that I get at least 1 day of each weekend at home to get the laundry done, but with 2 days on the weekend, I could get even more done.) So I'm just not as free as I used to be to attend fun events.

So, in my last July post, I mentioned starting 4 scarves as my traveling projects for the summer. Well, out of that group, I ended up frogging 2 of the scarves. One is still OTN, and one actually got finished.

I used 2 skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca Melange, a sport weight alpaca yarn, and the Yarn Harlot's One Row Handspun Scarf pattern. The yarn was just yummy to use, and the pattern is the perfect combination of easy yet interesting. So the scarf knitted up relatively quickly.

The scarf that is still OTN currently looks like this:
I am using 2 skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca Alpaca & Silk blend, a DK weight yarn that I bought up in New Hampshire several years ago. I had considered this to be precious yarn (I guess because of the silk), but I decided it was time to knit it up. I originally intended to make a triangular scarf with the yarn, but now I think that a more textured stitch pattern works better with the solid color. This one will get more love eventually, but right now I seem to have a bad case of startitis. More about that tomorrow!

Summer is Over...

...or at least waning fast, and it's time for me to get back to blogging. I've got lots going on to talk about, so hopefully I won't disappear again for an extended period of time.

But first, let me recap summer. It was busy, busy, busy! Work still hasn't calmed down completely, but it is slowly getting back to normal. I have taken 3 trips in 3 months, so I am ready to stay home for a long while. In July, we took a long weekend in central New York state to attend a family reunion with my dh's family. In August, I went to the Knit and Crochet Show with friends from my crochet guild. We had a blast, sightseeing at Niagara Falls, walking around Buffalo, and attending classes. Others have blogged extensively about the conference, so I won't go into great detail. (If you are interested, check out Nancy, Dee, Jen and Margaret's blogs for day by day accounts.) And last week, the dh and I spent 4 days in Newport, RI on our yearly vacation. That was a lot of fun, too, but it was incredibly windy, so we didn't get to spend as much time on the beach as we would have liked.

And there was some yarn acquisition. Actually, there was a lot of yarn acquisition in August. There was so much yarn acquisition that I don't have the heart to photograph it, even though it is mostly still in a large bag in the craft room. I managed to add just about 8 miles of yarn to my stash, wiping out about 3/4ths of my stash busting efforts of the last year and a half. So there is also now a serious yarn diet going on. For the first time, I have joined the "Going Cold Sheep" thread over on the Stash Knitdown group on Ravelry. Not only have I signed up for Cold Sheep, I have accepted a challenge to use up or give away 100 skeins of yarn before I buy yarn again. There is no time limit on the challenge (thank goodness), and my reward for completing this challenge is going to be enough Fleece Artist yarn to make a Tilted Duster. It was one of the few temptations I was able to say no to in August, so I am making it my long term goal.

Tomorrow, my one FO of the summer.

Quick Note

I just wanted to make a quick post to thank everyone for your well wishes. My back and foot are feeling better, although they will feel even better when summer is over and I'm not on my feet constantly. Work has been crazy, as expected, and I am feeling tired this morning, which is not good on a Monday morning. But we are more than half way through the summer reading program at this point, so I think I will survive. It helps that I have 2 vacations coming up to look forward to.

My crafting has been unfocused this month, to say the least. I have finished Eva's Shawl, but I haven't woven in the ends or blocked it yet, so no pictures. I have also been spending a lot of time on Ravelry, finding and printing out scarf patterns. Scarves are always my travel project of choice, and I have managed to start 4 new ones over the past 2 weekends. That gives me six projects total, so that should keep me busy on my travels over the next few months. I will post pictures once the scarves are long enough to be photogenic. Other than that, though, I probably won't be posting much until school goes back in, which in these parts is August 25th.

July Goals

The news about my July goals is that I have decided not to set any goals for July. My left foot has been bothering me the past month. It has been swollen frequently, and the top of the foot has been tingly off and on. I injured the foot 9 years ago, and I was concerned that I had reinjured it (although I didn't remember doing anything to it.) So I went to the orthopedic doctor yesterday afternoon and got the good news that there is nothing wrong with my foot. (Since I had been having visions of my foot in a cast all summer, this was indeed good news.) However, he feels that my back is a problem. I have possibly slipped a disc. There is definitely inflammation and a pinched nerve, which is making my foot tingle. So I am now taking Alleve twice a day, which is a treatment I can live with. While I am relieved to know that I'm not crazy and that there is something wrong, I am also still tired and not feeling quite like myself. The 3-day weekend coming up should help me to get rested out, however. (Nice of the 4th of July to fall on a Saturday this year!)

So, as far as my projects go, I have decided that I am just going to work on what I feel like day to day. I would like to finish Eva's shawl for the conference in August, but if it doesn't happen, that's ok. I am also contemplating making squares for another afghan. But if I do, then I am telling myself that I have to spend some time in the fall and winter sewing afghan squares together to straighten up the craft room. This does put the 52 Projects in 52 Weeks challenge in jeopardy, but at this point, I'm really not sure I could keep up the pace, so that's ok too. Stash reduction will continue, and that's what's important.

Happy Fourth of July to all of you who celebrate! Have a great and relaxing holiday weekend.