A Knitting Assessment

I am leaving for Virginia tomorrow and have spent the day packing up all the knitting projects I'll need to last through Christmas. My mom has had a small stroke and I don't know how long I will be there. I've spent the last week making the final decision on my Christmas knitting and then gathering everything I need. (And then some!) I will also be turning in my charity knitting to From the Heart in Richmond. Going through this process is very revealing. The first thing I noticed was that I have enough needles for myself and 3 more very active knitters! Why do I have so many needles?

Reason #1 I got some needles on eBay and they contained the needles I wanted and a whole lot more! It was like Christmas when they came. I was looking for some very small but long double point needles and at the time, they were very hard to find. What I bought was some knitter's stash of needles and tools. It was so exciting when the package finally arrived. Along with the needles were all sorts of tools from the UK which we don't have here. That was about 15 years ago and a few months ago I finally figured out what one of the last tools was for...a knitting machine.

Reason #2 I have been working on UFOs for the last 3-5 years. As each project is finished, I collect the stitch markers, the needles and the stitch holders. I had NO idea how many needles and such that I had tied up in UFOs! It's very gratifying, but what am I to do with all these needles? I gave some of them to a young knitter in my group, but she is moving to Seattle in a few days and won't be settled for a while. I need to sit down on the floor and take inventory and then cull, cull, cull.  When that is done, I need to find another new knitter and and make her very happy!!

I've been going through my projects on Ravelry to see what I am going to knit for Christmas presents.  I have a fairly large stash and I have been working through it..  Here's what I've done.  First, I brought down about 16 plastic see through storage bins...about the size two shoe boxes, and put them along the wall that I face when I am on the computer.  Next, I pulled up my queue in Ravelry and started deciding what I already had yarn for.  I couldn't believe how much easier it was to do it that way.  Usually, I either see a pattern and then go upstairs to find some yarn.  Of course, that usually means I will get distracted and spend hours up there and finally come down stairs having forgotten why I went up there.

After I paired the yarn with the pattern, I put them in a bag to start to swatch.  Decisions, decisions.  After going back and forth a few times, I finally decided to get the yarn first and see what other people in Ravelry had made from it.  That was a whole lot easier.  I settled for some patterns that would work on my yarn and then started swatching.  When I got what I liked, I made up a project in my notebook (on Ravelry) and put them first in a bag, and then back in the plastic boxes so I could see what I had lined up.  This was much better.

About 10 days ago, my mother had a small stroke.  I have the idea that I will need to go to Virginia and be with her.  My two sisters are in VA and have been taking turns being with her, but I am the only one free enough to go up there and stay.  She has made a remarkable recovery, but she isn't ready to be on her own.
I was just there for several months and I enjoy just sitting and knitting with her.  She has handed down a love of knitting to three generations and I feel very blessed.

I have been working on lots of charity projects this year and also trying to get some of my Christmas presents done ahead of time.  I knit like the Dickens during the Olympics and I had a lot to turn into the Ravellenic Games:

My fingers were about worn to nubbins, but I had a great feeling of satisfaction.

My granddaughter has a new blog. It's called Smile Its Harry Potter.

I am so behind on this blog. I'll need to look back in my journal and fill in the posts I am missing. I am doing so well with my knitting and am very pleased. This is mainly due to the Ravelry group HPKCHC or Harry Potter Knit & Crochet House Cup. Each month we have pseudo Hogwarts Classes with homework we have to turn in. At the beginning of the month, I list the things I want to accomplish and then I look at the "classes" and see what projects fit. When turning projects in, we have to write some kind of story explaining why the project we chose fits the prompt. Sometimes you have to get creative in your story to fit the project you want to do, but I love creative writing and it is so much fun. Here's an example

Since joining this group, I have learned how to do a number of things I never would have gotten around to. As I read the posts of others in the group and see their pictures, I am encouraged to try things like dyeing yarn that I never have done before. Some of the prompts are to try a technique you are afraid to do. Well, I certainly was afraid to dye my sock block. I was afraid I would make a mess of it, but friends in the group encouraged me and noted that if I didn't like the way the yarn turned out for my particular project, I could make charity hats and know that some homeless person would love the yarn that was a little more purple than I wished.

The classes give me a reason to start a particular project start and end date.  I have to completely finish the project in order to take the picture, so I can't have four pairs of socks waiting for the toes to be grafted or sweaters with no buttons.  I have an appreciative audience for my projects, so it encourages me to add special details that I might not add, especially for charity.  I get some Christmas presents done in the summer instead of beginning in November.

Well, I could go on and on, but I will leave it at this and try to upload some pictures to my blog to chart my progress.

Three Hats

Well, these aren't the most beautiful hats I have made by a long stretch, but I am told by the homeless shelters that this is exactly what they need. Men and boys don't seem to be enthused by the same things knitters are.

This group of hats is remarkable in one respect. I had two skeins of yarn and I managed to have only a 10 inch piece of yarn left over!!

Sock Stash

I am having a love/hate relationship with my socks. I love knitting them. They are so easy to grab and stick in a purse for those unoccupied moments. I love watching the striped patterns develop and I love not having to work from a pattern. So why the "hate?" I am making a sincere resolution to knit from my stash and socks just don't deplete the stash fast enough. I can work on a pair for weeks and when I am finished, I have only made the tiniest dent in my yarn bins.

Still, I have 3 pair on the needles and I will keep at them until they are all done. Even if they don't take off much from the stash pile, they are counted on my "Christmas Gift" tally, so I see the progress on my little counters on this blog and see my Christmas bin fill up.

It is so easy for me to get the cart before the horse. I knit because it calms and refreshes me. The creative process is soothing and when I am finished, I have a feeling that I have somehow given back to the universe. How can a pair of socks give to the universe...isn't that a little pretentious? Not really, at least not to me. Doing something creative feels like giving something back...being a part of creating instead of destroying. We are plunked down on this earth as babies and immediately we start the using process. As babies we take take take...food, clothing, heat, love. We slurp it right up and give little back except what is destined for the landfill. At first, we aren't even very good at giving love, although we are adept at getting it. Scientists are always talking about our footprint and I feel like the creative work we do should help to balance what we take.

So, even though the socks don't use up much stash, they fill my need to create and, hopefully, the recipient of the socks will feel some of the creative energy and love that went in to making them. Socks are very satisfying and that is what knitting is all about anyway.

Happy New Year!!!

Boy am I behind on this blog! I wasn't able to do it in Virginia this summer and since I was there 4 months, I really got behind on everything. My internet is so limited there and I only do the necessary things...like play games. Well, that isn't all, I don't even get them done without help.

So, I am going to try to catch up with some pictures and statistics and start a new list of goals for this year. Even if don't get all of them done, I find I do better with a list than without one :>)

To tell the truth, I got a LOT of knitting done. I look back and can see that I more than met my goals and while I didn't get all the things on my list done, I did a lot of things, mostly charity, that were not on the list. I turned in 40+ items to my sister's knitting guild and emptied 2 1/2 storage bins of stash. If I have another year like the last, I will have made significant progress on making my sewing room more livable.

I should say that it is still a big task. I moved from a great big house to an nice converted garage and I have less than 1/5 of the space I started with and very little attic space. Of course, my daughter and family live in the original house that is only about 10 feet away, so I still have some things in the old attic, but my goal this year is to get all the yarn down and at least go through it and plan projects.

This is complicated by the fact that I am a quilter and my sewing room is full of fabric stash also, but that is also getting whittled away.

Knitting Rules!: The Yarn Harlot's Bag of Knitting Tricks

Knitting Rules!: The Yarn Harlot's Bag of Knitting Tricks by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

While there are some patterns in this book...and patterns I have already used, the book is more about the social aspects of knitting. The book is hilarious. Anyone who has knitted any length of time knows of or has been in the situations Stephanie talks about in such an amusing way. I think even a non knitter might even enjoy her writing.

The book also serves a practical purpose. There are instructions for various stitches and projects as well as list of things to do or not do. All are informative and enjoyable.



View all my reviews

How am I doing?

I have been knitting like crazy! I finished David's scarf in 2 days because they were leaving for New York and it was snowy there. I don’t think I have ever knitted anything that fast…even on Christmas Eve. Since we are in Florida, I thought I had a long time before he’d get into any cold weather.

I finally finished the bulky loopy yarn prayer shawls and the tam and scarf set. I did NOT like that yarn. It was a mill end and it kept getting tangled and the tiny individual threads snagged. Once knit, it looks pretty good, but it is not easy to work with. If I can find my camera, I will post pictures. I used it to take the picture of David’s scarf and since it was about 2:30 am when I took it, I can’t remember where I put the camera. I was more than a little sleepy by then.

I'm doing very well on my hats with several on the needles right now. Some are mindless and quick to take to my meetings and others have to be done when I am alone. The chemo hats are great to take along, so I am trying to keep one on the needles all the time. The only problem is that I want to knit everything with my size 6 Lantern Moon circular needles. I love them, but they are so expensive and I hate to get another pair of the same size.

I am also knitting squares for a charity blanket our group is giving away to the St. Gerard’s Campus in St. Augustine and blankets for another charity one of our group members is involved with. I’ll probably knit the squares all year long since they are so easy to carry and work up so fast. Then there is the sampler scarf and hat I am designing to teach my two friends how to knit. That will become either a gift or a charity project. I’m making it with Red Heart Fiesta and I really like it. I have a lot of inexpensive yarn left over from years of knitting kids sweaters, so I am trying to use it up.

That’s another thing I am doing pretty well with…using my stash. I have tons of yarn and now that my house is so much smaller, I have to do something to save space. I am trying to use the largest yarn first so I can reduce my stash quickest. Unfortunately, my cousin sent me some instructions for knitting Mary Hoyer doll clothes to sell on ebay, but they use very fine yarn. I love knitting things like that, but it isn’t helping make much space. About the only yarn I buy is what I need to go with something I already have and I am trying to keep that at a minimum.

So, how am I doing so far? I’d say pretty good. If I can keep this up all year, there should be a lot more space around here and a lot of warm bodies

2012 UFOs and projects

Here's my list for 2011. I am not sure I can get it all done, but at least I have listed a group from which to select.

UFOs:
Blue baby afghan - Leisure Arts #3049, Our Best Knit Collection
Ann Norling Vest
Cranberry sweater
Green Doll outfit
Blue Doll coat
Crimson Cutie - 3
Green Fair Isle - I frogged this so it is technically not a UFO
Pastel Toddler Sweater
Eli's Aran
Alina's Aran - frog
Border Options Sweater
Red Ruffles Sweater


Projects:
Purple Boa - Addie - finished
Hat for Julie - finished
Boa for Trish - finished
David's Scarf - The Dudester Scarf - finished
Hats for T.E. and Evan
Fair Isle felted bowl
Prayer Shawls (2) - finished
Fair Isle for Addie, Victoria and Eli
Felted tote bag
Triple Moebius bowl
Moebius bowls
8 Stash Baskets - 1 finished
Crochet laundry basket - almost finished
Grand Plan Top-Down Capelets - Jan (not sure about this)
Star Wars hat and sweater for Charles
Aran Cardigan for me
Hooded Pullover - Leisure Arts #3049, Our Best Knit Collection
Qiviut cowl
6 headbands
Grey scarf
Grey hat
DNA hat and scarf - Lee
5 Aran hats
8 Fair Isle hats
6 Fun fur hats
30 Earflap hats
12 Cancer hats
Felted purses - moebius - Christmas gifts
iPod cozies
12 coffee cozies - 7 finished
6 felted bowls - 1 finished
3 Tea cozies - 1 for Jan
Scrap yarn shawl
Scarf and tam - finished
6 Charity afghans
Doll Clothes - 12 outfits

I did it!

I set a goal of knitting 23 hats and finishing 23 UFOs for Christmas and I made it! I'll be grinning for a week over this! Of course, I have added more hats now. I had my granddaughter try on a hat for my grandniece and it looked so cute on her and she loved it, so she now has that one and I am making another for my other granddaughter and I still have the one for my grandniece to do. I should get them done by Tuesday. I am going to post a photo on Ravelry on as soon as I can download them. The hat looks like a Russian hat with some Plymouth Jelli Beenz yarn at the top and Flutter Fiber eyelash yarn for the main part of the hat. I did these in purple, but I am going to try some other colors. They are so cute!

I also knit another earflap hat and have a request for another. I might have to be a lot more careful in choosing the people I get to try on these hats...so many of them end up with my sample! Not really:) It's nice to know that they love the hats and want them for themselves. That's music to a knitter's ear. This Christmas I ended up making 3 more earflap hats and 3 more Russian hats along with another scarf as requests.

Now I am going to have to make up some more goals, but I think I am going to just let these counters stay for a while to remind me of how good it feels to achieve my goal:)

Time for New Year's Resolutions

I know that a lot of people think these resolutions are a bit hokey, but I like them. It at least gives life (and knitting) a focus and even if I don't keep all of them, I at least get some done.

1. This year I will conquer two-handed stranded knitting. I have been working on it off and on and I really want to concentrate on it this year. I know how to knit from both hands and to strand on the knit side, but the purl side eludes me...well, I know how to let go of the needle and twist the threads, but I want a motion like on the knit side that will be smooth and a part of the rhythm of knitting. I also have to master the jog-less joining of my rounds. I just hate seeing the pattern spoiled at the end of each round.

I am also still having trouble making my floats long enough. Even though I think I am spreading my knitting enough to get the correct tension, I still come up with places where the pattern is just a little tight.

To do this, I plan to make lots of charity hats with Fair Isle patterns in them. I am too much of a perfectionist to keep from frustrating myself on gifts for the special people on my list. I won't turn in hats with glaring errors in them, but I think a homeless person will get a hat with a Fair Isle pattern and think how nice it is that someone made them a hat with a pattern in it instead of just making plane old serviceable hats. I doubt they will notice that the design might be a little bit tight in places. Actually, I started on this learning project last year and have made quite a few, but this year I really want to concentrate on putting it all together.

2. I am going to do more designing from scratch. For years I have adjusted my patterns changing length, collars, trim, hems etc., but this year I want to design from scratch using a person's measurements. I already have two Aran sweaters on the needles and have knit the fronts up to the armholes. Over the Christmas holidays I hope to get at least one of them graphed out.

3. I am still working on my UFOs and plan to bring them to Virginia when I go up in the summer again. That worked so well this past year and I have really gotten a lot done. I actually ended up making some up for Christmas presents which cut down on the amount of Christmas knitting I had.

4. I am making some serious headway with my stash. I have found some great things to do with some of my yarn. One member of my knitting group members wants to make afghans to give to each of the special needs kids that come to camp in the summer. I found a whole bin of granny squares already made and a bunch of odds and ends collected to make more. That should get rid of 2 bins right there.

I sorted out some more yarn and linked them to some projects in Ravelry. As I do this, I am going to set aside yarn I think I'll never use and either sell it on eBay or take it to "From the Heart" in Richmond for them to use. Yesterday, my sister and mother and I took a whole bin worth of knitted items to them for donation. I'll try to make up a bin to take with me in the summer also. I have also joined some stash-busting groups on Ravelry to help spur me on.

5. I am going to try to make some more of my Christmas presents throughout the year using the techniques I'm working on. I did a number of projects this summer and it turns out that I really needed them when my dad went into the hospital in November. Ravelry is a super help for this because I can link the pattern and the yarn together when I enter my stash in their database. I've found that getting a stack of books and magazines and just going through them to pick out patterns for gifts is not very efficient. I get terribly distracted and end up frittering away my time on interesting projects of my own.

6. Last! As I reclaim my needles and stitch holders from my UFOs I plan to enter them in the Ravelry database also and evaluate my collection. Extra needles I'll give to the new knitters in my knitting group and take the rest to "From the Heart." As added incentive to give away my extra needles, I am going to gradually switch to some more of my favorite Lantern Moon needles. They have really spoiled me!

This is a pretty ambitious list, and I doubt I can do everything, but at least I have a plan!

Dad's passing

Sadly, my dad passed away November 29th. He went in the hospital on the 22nd and I left from Florida to go to Virginia on the 25th. We brought him home on the 29th to hospice care and he died 4 hours later. He wanted so badly to go home and I am glad we were able to get him there.

He was a remarkable man; raised on a depression poor farm in Mississippi, he managed to go into the CCC's and the Army where he learned to operate the radio. That led him to Washington, DC where he got a job with the FBI. He did a
lot of work on himself to make that jump from farm to FBI including taking ballroom dance lessons. He lost the Mississippi drawl, but he never lost his love for his birthplace and his family. We moved many times with the FBI, but every summer we loaded up the car and went "home." Of course, we had to go "home" to Mom's family in Wisconsin, so we were usually gone the entire month of August.

While he was in the hospital, I stayed with him overnights. I knitted Christmas presents and talked to him, even sang some of the old songs we sang in the car and later with his guitar playing friends. There were so many wonderful memories. He could do anything he put his mind to and he always told us we could do the same. He'd say, "Of course you can do it; you're my child." He meant it too. We were not allowed to say, "I can't." After he retired from the FBI, he built a house in Callao, VA and a boathouse for his beloved "Wis-Mis." It is hard to imagine looking at a piece of land and deciding you were going to build a 2-story house all by yourself, with no training... and with only a little help from friends and family, but he did and he did an amazing job.

The grandkids all grew up there crabbing off the pier and playing in the sand. They often brought their friends with them to spend the weekend; it was that kind of home. There are just so many wonderful memories and I am so grateful to have such a remarkable, wise, loving and giving father. He lived to be 90 and he left an enormous footprint for all of us to follow.

Knitting hats and UFOs

I have been knitting up a storm and really cranking out the hats. I've found an earflap hat that I love. I've made 7 of them from Wool-ease with several variations. I'll try to get some photos up soon. It seems like I can't get either of my counters to the end. I keep adding hats to my hat counter and finding new UFOs to add to that counter also. I found a ripple afghan in the attic that I am turning into a Christmas present. I always liked it, but I made it for a friend and before I could get it finished, they moved and had a completely different color scheme. The new recipient has just bought a new house with lots of space to fill up, so this is perfect...a gift I love for people I love.

The earflap hats are going well and they have a lot of space to do colorwork on them, so I just keep adding recipiants that I think will like them. I figure I have about 4 more of the earflap kind and a couple of Aran type that I have been wanting to make for ages. I'm making a hat and boa out of some eyelash yarn for my 4 year old grandneice, and I am hoping I get used to using that yarn. So far, it hasn't been all that great, but my sister assures me that it gets easier. For the little grandnephews, I want to make these balaclavas. Then I have a vest to make (It's half done), 3 crochet bags (1 finished today), some ipod carriers...one looks like a hoodie and is so cute! There's a Star Wars hat and sweater that isn't even started and 2 children's Arans and 1 Gansey half done. I think I am going to have to learn to knit while I sleep! Thank goodness some of these are UFOs and are already well on their way. Pictures will be posted and a new list made.

New Knitters

Monday at Kofe Haus, I taught two young people how to knit. That makes 4 this month. These 2, one male one female, are recent college graduates who can't find jobs, so are going on to graduate school. Like many, they would like to earn a little money before starting grad school, but since they can't, they are trying to make good use of their time.

It is so rewarding to me to introduce people to this wonderful ancient craft. I can't help but think of all the rewards knitting holds for them. I picture them going into yarn stores and feeling the rich texture of the yarns, picking out projects, knitting for others and knitting for charity, which just happens to be why one of these young people wants to learn. I also think of the wonderful stress releaser knitting is and how it can see them through a world of troubles. Now there is a Harvard study that says what we knitters have always known.

Maybe this won't happen for them, but it's a start. Most of us who have knitted for any length of time bless the person, or people, who taught us to knit. We recognize the importance it has in our lives. We know of the enjoyment of knitting with friends and relatives, of knitting when our hearts are broken and knitting at night waiting for a loved one to come home. We enjoy the felowship we have with other knitters and love the variety of people we knit with. We love making something special for someone we love and making something special for a person we will never know. When we see trouble and tragedy in the world and want to help we know that there is some organization that will help us reach out to others with our knitting...or we can start one. I know that we could go to Walmart and buy hats, mittens or blankets for the homeless, but it says so much more when the gift is from the hands and heart of someone who cares and took the time to invest in a stranger. We could purchase soft hats for people in chemotherapy, but how much better it is to send a soft hat in beautiful yarn or an intricate pattern.

And if these kids get wrapped up in grad school and jobs and they put aside their knitting, they can be like so many who learned once and only need a few minutes lessons to pick it back up and let knitting work its magic in their lives.

Kofe Haus Meeting

There were 3 of us at the Kofe Haus meet-up this morning and as different as we are, we found lots of things in common. We have a retired teacher and librarian, an archeaologist waiting to get into grad school and a writer and mother of two; two female, one male. I think that is what I like about knitting meetings. They bring together such a wide variety of people who start out only having a love of knitting in common, but we grow by interacting.

I also love the "knitting in public" movement. People stop by and chat about knitting and I am amazed at the people who say that they always wanted to learn. Some say they'll do it when they retire and others take up the hobby because they need an island of calm in the midst of a chaotic life. My mom says that she thinks better with her knitting needles and I find that to be true for myself also. Knitting calms me and grounds me. How often do you see and adult just sit down in a chair and think? We always need to be doing something and so often the thing that we are doing takes up too much of our attention to really think. Not so with knitting. I can sit in a chair and just knit and as I do, bits and pieces of my life seem to sort themselves out.

Christmas Knitting

I can't believe it is almost November! I have hardly begun my Christmas knitting. Fortunately, there are a few things on my UFOs that are presents, so I am already halfway there for some gifts. I live in Florida and it is hard to think about Christmas when it is still near 90 degrees. There isn't that sense of urgency you get when you feel the frost in the morning and see the leaves turn beautiful colors. My poor air conditioner ran all week.

I tallied up my Christmas knitting and I have a lot to go. I'm making Aran and Fair Isle hats this year with scarves or mittens to go with them for my extended family. I have a number of Arans I want to do next year and I thought I would just make swatch hats using the various patterns. It's a lot of work for a hat, so this makes it do double duty.

I also got another "ticker" and updated my UFO ticker for the holidays. They seem to help motivate me. I found 2 more UFOs that are perfect for Christmas presents, so I changed my UFO ticker to 22.

I'd like to make some of those beautiful Scandinavian mittens this Christmas, but I should have started them this summer. Who could think of mittens when was almost 100 degrees and we hadn't rain in over a month? As usual, I will be still knitting Christmas Eve.

My additional UFOs are:

9. - Lovely red Aran size 4 - sew together
10 - White novelty yarn vest -finish fronts

More Organizing and Charity projects

I am making some inroads into my stash. Here are some more charity projects that I finished this month. The burgundy and green chemo hats are so easy to make so I always have a hat on the needles. The green hat and scarf set was made from some yarn I never thought I would be able to use here in Florida, but I think some homeless person will like it. I made two of those hats in one evening.




Some things take on a life of their own. Now that I have started to organize my stash and projects, I find now that I need to set up a place to take photos AND I see that my camera is old and leaves a lot to be desired. I never realized how yellow the light is in my apartment until I started taking these photographs. I got out my Ott light, but then I didn't have a good place to lay out my stash and projects. Nothing is ever simple. I never thought about all that goes into getting organized.

One More Finished

My nephew's caveing socks are finished. I think I have perfected this pattern. This hunting season will be the final test. When I went to do the kitchener stitch, I cut the yarn to short and had to go back 2 rows and add a new piece(: I added the piece in on the top of the foot and I hope he can't feel it. I could have kicked myself. I just wasn't paying attention.