Monthly Wrap-Ups – The Knitting Doctor

June Goals!

Let’s get back to this, shall we? For awhile I was doing a beginning of the month post with goals for the month, and how I did on the prior month’s goals. Here we go.

First up is the 2012 Great Office Cleanup. Unfortunately I didn’t get any “before” photos, but trust me, it was a freaking disaster. Here are the “after” pictures.

I got rid of a ton of books. I had a million bags of CDs sitting around, I finally got them all uploaded to iTunes, and got rid of the originals. Let’s just say that our local library is very happy. They have a biannual sale of donated books/media that benefits the library, and that’s where all my surplus went. I had two desks in my office, the one you see up there, along with an ancient roll top oak desk that I’ve had since I started practice in 1985; I bought it used for my medical office. I found someone willing to give it a good home, and off it went. My goal was to get everything off the floor, so I kept dredging out until I got there. I’ve always snickered a bit at the “fung shui” people, but it really is easier to get something accomplished when your workspace isn’t a disaster.

Knitting? Same projects. Here’s one of them. I didn’t show a very good photo of it last time.

That’s reasonably accurate for the color. Here’s a photo of the stitch detail on the sides. Click to embiggen.

The main body stitch pattern is plain stockinette, but there is a two row garter stitch detail every so often, just enough to keep this from being totally boring. This is my Mr. Greenjeans Corduroy sweater, in case you’ve forgotten.

I was a bit worried about the sizing, so yesterday I put the whole thing on a bigger circular and measured it against another sweater that mostly fits (my not-quite-a-cobblestone). You can just see it peaking out in the photos. The not-quite-a-cobblestone is just a tiny bit roomy on me, so this one should be perfect. The fabric this is making is quite stretchy, and I don’t want a big baggy sweater.

So, goals for June:

Finish the body of Mr. Greenjeans.

Finish the socks on the needles (Primary Ink Tinseltoes).

Finish the blasted hood of that Faery thing.

Read more. (I wasted an inordinate amount of time in May reading that hopelessly muddled up mess of books called Fifty Shades. I need to read something more intelligent to get the bad words out of my head.)

I’m off. We have tickets to the symphony tonight, and I need to get a few things accomplished first!

Happy New Year!

Ok, Ok. I’m starting out the new year already behind. Terrific! We did have our blackeyed peas on January 1st, so I’m quite confident that this will be a great year. If you forgot about them, I think you get a bit of a grace period. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. We did modify that recipe this year. I’ve decided that I’m just not that big a fan of a ham hock in beans or peas. It just gets too greasy in general. However, I love pancetta. Instead of using the ham hock or shank, dice up a handful of pancetta, have the deli slice it thicker for this than regular bacon. Saute it until crisp, then drain the fat, then add to your peas. Yum. It’s probably healthier than boiling a whole pig leg in your supposedly healthy pot of legumes.

How did I do with my December goals? Here they are:

Continue to write.

Finish the grey mittens, my hands are cold.

Get a grip on the True Blood Faery sweater sleeve problem. I need to mostly MacGyver the whole thing, so I might need some whiskey. I may not finish it, but I am going to figure out what to do with it.

And how did I do? I finished the mittens, and also a pair for John. Win! I did sort out the True Blood Faery sleeve. In case you’ve forgotten, this sweater pattern was never finished in the larger set of sizes. However the armscye on the size I’m making is the same measurement as the one on the size smaller, which was finished by the designer. I started out knitting, decided it was going to be wrong wrong wrong. Fortunately I set it aside to let my brain stop exploding before I ripped the whole thing out.

I ran the numbers through my Sweater Wizard software. And surprisingly, it’s not far off. I dragged out a couple of sweaters that fit me and have decided that the sleeve as written is going to work. So I’ve been knitting onward. Here it is.

As for the writing, after I finished Nano, I haven’t done much, but I have been writing a bit here and there. December always feels like riding on a bullet train to me. The whole month just has too many things going on to really slow down and enjoy any of them. Oh well.

So what are the January goals? I have a pair of socks on the needles that I’d like to finish. Here they are.

So:

Finish those socks.

Keep working on the sleeves. I don’t think I can finish both in January, but I’d certainly like to get one done and make good progress on the second.

Blog more.

Read more. I keep track of my books on Goodreads, and read 20 books in 2011. That doesn’t sound like a lot until I translate into a page count. I tend to read huge books, and my 2011 page count was 9992. My goal is 25 books in 2012.

Write a bit.

Spin a bit.

There you go. I’m not doing the 2012 resolution thing publicly, except for the books, but I do want to get some of the ancient projects done and off the needles. We’ll see how that goes. I will try to keep up with the monthly goals. That seems to keep me on track at least a bit!

November Wrap Up

And December Goals, of course!

Here was November’s one big goal:

And here’s how I did:

Yee Hah! I wrote a 50,000 word novel in just under 30 days. I actually finished a little early, on Monday. It’s not ready for prime time by a long shot, so don’t even think of asking to read it. I am sort of jazzed up about writing again, so I might continue to work on it. Right at the moment, I’m ready to drown all my characters in the Atlantic Ocean. For those of you who have always wanted to write a novel, I would highly encourage you to try this next year. It’s loads of fun, and at the end of the month you end up with a rudimentary first draft.

I also managed to get myself to work every day that I was supposed to, I showered and slept, and I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner of gargantuan proportions for 11 people. For those of you on the edge of your seat about the gluten free gravy and how that worked out; I ended up using brown rice flour to make a roux for the gravy base. I made both varieties of gravy base the night before, and the brown rice version needed to be re-thickened with cornstarch, but otherwise it worked just fine.

Very little knitting or spinning took place, though I’m almost finished with that first mitten from the previous post.

So, December Goals:

Continue to write.

Finish the grey mittens, my hands are cold.

That’s it. It’s December, the month of endless holiday nonsense and very long to-do lists. I’m not over-extending here. I’m off to dance around with my winner’s certificate a bit.

Not Crabby!

I figured that I better get off my butt and put up a new post, since my crabbiness really has gone completely away. I hope to God I never get sick with anything serious, or everyone that knows me is going to suffer. I’m pretty sure I had a mild case of the flu a few weeks ago. I did get my influenza vaccine, but it had only been a week before, so I think I was only mildly affected, but still got it. It’s all gone, I finished the socks, and I’m happy happy happy. Not crabby crabby crabby.

So just to do this properly, let’s make this an October wrap up, shall we? If I wait much longer, it will be sort of a moot point. And I do have some November goals to post.

Here’s what I listed as goals for October.

Finish the red socks.

Finish at least one sleeve of the True Blood Faery Sweater. See photo below.

I’m spinning up some lovely merino/tencel stuff. I have it about half done and want to finish it.

Finished Project:

Project: Socks! The pattern is the usual, the one over in the right side bar. It’s the same one I always do. You’d think I’d have learned to do it right, and faster, by now.

Yarn: Lisa Souza sock yarn, color Little Devil. This is some very nice stuff. I was going to go buy some more, then was reminded that I have yarn in the stash for 196 more pairs of socks, not including the new ones I started after I finished these.

Needles: Ivore, 2.25 mm

Started: February of this year.

Finished: last week

For: Me

What I learned: Try on those socks before you finish off the toes.

OK, November goals. This is simple, I really only have one goal. That is if you don’t count making Thanksgiving dinner for 11 people while working 6 out of the 7 days of that week. I love challenges. At least it won’t be like the year (hopefully) that we had about 12 people for turkey day, and the oven door fell off in the middle of cooking. I’m not kidding about that. I have a relatively new oven, so while I won’t rule out other minor disasters, it should be a good day.

Back to my one goal. Here it is.

Yup. I’m participating in the Nano insanity again this year. It’s a little unnerving, I actually sort of have a plot this year. Who knows what kind of trouble that might get me into. Generally I just go by the seat of my pants, which can lead to some very weird scenes. It’s 50,000 words or bust by the end of the month. So far I’m on schedule, at 9000 words so far.

That’s it, my only goal is to finish a 50,000 word novel. Anything else, including knitting, spinning, and reading, will be gravy.

Here’s one more photo for you. When I turned away from the computer just now, here is what I saw.

Lots of napping going on around here. Not me, I’m back to my writing. If you have any favorite words for me to put in the novel, leave them in the comments. I might need them.

September Wrap Up

Well, I survived my week back at work after a lovely vacation. The first day back was a little dicey, since the jet lag was still kicking my butt, but getting back in the routine of work and home helped. I’m pretty sure that staying busy and having something to do helps, rather than just sitting in my jammies thinking about how tired I am. I think that’s why I didn’t have much trouble when we got to the UK; our friends in Manchester had planned a very busy two days for us while we were with them, and our brains got on local time pretty quickly. More on that later. Let’s get the fiber stuff out of the way first, shall we?

First, what were those September goals?

Finish the baby thing.

Finish those red socks.

Read books.

Enjoy the vacation.

And how did I do? I didn’t finish the red socks, but came close. Here they are as of today.

I just realized that it probably would have been helpful to take that photo on a different color background. Oh well.

Since I’ve been knitting these freaking socks for months, I’ll forgive you if you’ve forgotten the details. This is Lisa Souza Sock! yarn, in the color Little Devil. I’m having a devil of a time convincing my husband that these are really for me. For some reason, the man that likes every color, as long as it’s blue, loves these. We’ll see. I do love him, after all, so I might at least share them.

How about those non-knitting goals? Enjoy the vacation?? Check. Read books? Check. I decided to re-read Pride & Prejudice after we visited the estate where this version was filmed, and as usual enjoyed reading it very much. The other book I’m reading is the second in George R.R. Martin’s Ice & Fire series. It’s over a thousand pages, and I’m somewhere in the 800 page region at the moment. I also read several guide books while away, and part of a book of Scotland history.

Now, about that baby blanket. It is finished. Here it is:

Project Details:

Yarn: Cotton Ease, the vintage colors, in Electric Eye Searing Baby Blue, edging in white.

Pattern: Tweed Baby Blanket, by Jared Flood. This is the third of these I’ve made. Of course the original was in tasteful lovely wool, I used eye searing acrylic cotton, which has the distinct advantage of being machine washable.

For: The latest addition to my extended family, a grandnephew named Jace. Here’s his photo:

Yes, he is adorable. He deserves a baby blanket, don’t you think? I’m thinking he’s still young enough to use it, even if he was born in June.

Needles: 5mm circulars.

Started: Oh good grief. Too long ago. Sometime back in May, according to Ravelry.

Finished: about 10 days ago, in Scotland.

Modifications: I used eye searing cotton acrylic instead of heirloom quality wool. I also made it bigger, by one full repeat of the feather and fan edging.

What I Learned: I am sick to death of garter stitch. This pattern starts out swimmingly, with just a few stitches on the needles. You knit that big center square as a diamond, and for about twenty rows it looks like you are making terrific progress, then it just gets bigger, and bigger, and more bigger. Then, Hooray! You start decreasing, but it’s still all garter stitch till you get to the edging part. I have no plans to knit another one of these anytime in the near future.

I did learn something of a knitting nature. The final edge is an I-cord bind off, and it calls for a double point needle one size larger than the main needle you use. Of course, I didn’t have one with me, and do you think I could find a yarn shop to buy a needle? I just charged ahead and finished it with the 5mm size. The edge would scallop much more nicely if done with the larger needle, but this just needed to get done, and I’m not doing it over. It’s fine as is.

OK, October goals:

Finish the red socks.

Finish at least one sleeve of the True Blood Faery Sweater. See photo below.

I’m spinning up some lovely merino/tencel stuff. I have it about half done and want to finish it.

Summer Wrap-Up

Or, A Very Big Post

Now that summer is officially over, let’s get back to the monthly wrap-up posts, shall we? This summer was a bit of a bust as far as knitting goes. I got lots of other non-fibery projects done though, and enjoyed a lovely summer with family and friends, so I count it as a success all the way around! Here’s the summary:

I did no knitting at all on the True Blood Faery sweater. The current status is that I have the main body done and blocked, and I’ve started on a sleeve.

I knit about an inch on the current sock in progress. It just seemed to want to stay in hibernation.

I am nearly done with that Electric Blue High School Graduation Baby Mystery Project. I’m on the edging, about 6 rows to go, but those rows currently are at 592 stitches, and getting bigger every time around.

I spun up several skeins of yarn.

I started doing natural dyeing. Here’s the latest:

These were dyed with chopped dried madder root. The top yarn is handspun Romney, from a sheep named Rainbow, that was a gift from Dorothy* last year. I spun it up into a two ply right after she gave it to me, and it went into the stash. I was looking for something else to toss into the dye pot and found this, it was spun undyed. The roving is BFL, about 4 ounces. The color is pretty accurate, at least on my monitor.

After I pulled those out of the dye pot, I decided that there might be some color left, so tossed in the skein of rhubarb-mordanted Perendale wool that was in the August CSA box, along with 4 ounces of a BFL-Silk blend. Here’s how it came out.

That’s also pretty accurate, it’s a pale peach color. I haven’t quite decided if I like it or not, but I can always over-dye it next time I have the right color dye pot going.

Project Details:

Fiber: Two skeins of Romney wool, handspun by yours truly, 4 ounces of BFL roving, one skein of local California wool, and 4 ounces of BFL-silk roving

Mordant: The peach wool was mordanted by Birdsong from the CSA with rhubarb. I did the rest with an alum/cream of tartar mordant. I used about a 10% alum mordant solution

Dye: Chopped madder root. There was about 230 grams of the madder, I would definitely use more if you wanted to dye this much fiber and have it all come out red.

What I Learned: As the dye pot exhausts, the color changes. Duh. Madder is treated a little differently than the fennel. For one thing, it doesn’t stink like the fennel, I did this in the house without any problems. From what I read, if you cook the madder too hot or too rapidly, it will turn more orangey than red.

Here’s another summer thing. I bought a new spindle! This is sort of an early birthday present for myself. I’ve been looking at Golding spindles for a long time, and finally saw one that had my name stamped all over it.

Do you want a close up of the top? Of course you do!

Pretty, eh? The Scottish thistle is in honor of our next big adventure. We leave for Scotland** next week for a couple of weeks. I can’t wait! When I saw this up for sale on the Golding website, I knew it had to be for me.

OK, a quick list of September fiber goals and I’m out of here, or I’ll be late for church. I’m not getting very ambitious since I’ll be gone much of the time.

Finish the baby thing.

Finish those red socks.

Read books.

Enjoy the vacation.

That’s it. I’ll try to do one more post before we go, since we had a very special visitor last week that I’d like to tell you about!

*The wool was the gift, not the sheep.

**As usual, for you stalkers thinking you can steal my yarn while we’re gone, we have a house-sitter. She brings her llamas to guard the wool, so don’t even think about it.

March Wrap-Up

It’s a new month, which only means one thing. A Wrap-Up! No joke!

So how did I do? Here were my March goals:

I’m getting back to that True Blood Faery sweater. My goal is to get at least half of the cabled bodice done in March.

I am going to finish that lilac fiber, and ply it too. So there.

I now have two pairs of socks on the needles, so I need to finish one of them. The brown Sanguine Gryphon socks need to be done. I have one sock done and the cuff of the second done.

I have some fiber from Spunky Eclectic on the wheel that I’d like to finish, but that might be a bit ambitious since there’s a pound of it.

The Church of Bluegrass Finale, and February Wrap-Up

Or,

It’s Still Raining, It Must Be March

The last day of Wintergrass was Sunday, and it was a good grand finale. After some fast-food Thai for brunch we staked out our territory for the last few concerts. My favorite of the afternoon was Laurie Lewis, though we didn’t get one good photo of her. The Blind Boys of Alabama wrapped up the weekend with some fine gospel music, though it most definitely was a stretch from bluegrass.

And the car packed to head home.

It really was difficult to pick a weekend favorite. There was a lot of good bluegrass, and a lot of very good eclectic music to hear. The Bellevue Hyatt gets my vote for best bluegrass festival venue ever. And no, I don’t have tickets yet for next year, though I certainly will do so soon.

Now for the February wrap-up. What were those goals again??

Finish that damn Big Pink Albatross.

Finish plying the blue stuff.

Finish spinning the lilac stuff.

Continue the blogging effort.

And how did I do?

Well, the Big Pink is done. I can’t show photos, since it will go out in the mail today, if it ever finishes drying. After all of my complaining, I really like how it turned out. Even John, who was quite skeptical about a shocking pink cotton-acrylic baby thing, in the end admitted it looks pretty cute. So next time there will be finished photos. Here is a teaser or two.

If you have to weave in a million ends, you might as well do it with a nice needle. Here’s another shot.

That’s a sterling silver needle from Celtic Swan. It is simply gorgeous, and my favorite sewing needle.

How about the rest of that list? I did finish plying the blue fiber. I didn’t finish spinning the lilac merino silk stuff, but I took the spindle with me to Wintergrass and made a huge dent in it in between shows. If you think the muggles stare at people knitting in public, you should see them when I haul out the spindle. I don’t have very much of it left to do, though I spindled so much over the weekend that my hand hurts a little.

How about the blogging? 8 posts in February, not as good as January, but still good by my standards. I also finished two books and half of a third. I finished the “Girl” series (you know the one, the hornet’s nest, etc), finishing the third in the series. I am glad I finished them, but they’re not my favorite books in the world. The second finished book was Gone With The Wind, which is well over 1000 pages, so that definitely counts as an accomplishment.

And what about goals for March?

I’m getting back to that True Blood Faery sweater. My goal is to get at least half of the cabled bodice done in March.

I am going to finish that lilac fiber, and ply it too. So there.

I now have two pairs of socks on the needles, so I need to finish one of them. The brown Sanguine Gryphon socks need to be done. I have one sock done and the cuff of the second done.

I have some fiber from Spunky Eclectic on the wheel that I’d like to finish, but that might be a bit ambitious since there’s a pound of it.