Happy New Year!

It's time to sum up the year in knitting.

In 2010, I took part in Natural Stitches' "Expand Your Fiber Comfort Zone" and worked on these new skills: I knit a toe-up sock using Cat Bordhi's Personal Footprints method.I successfully made a picot edging on a sock. In addition, I've learned, under Yvonne's watchful eye, how to block my own lace shawls. I also feel much more confident in reading my own knitting and correcting my own mistakes, particularly when it comes to lace. Finally, I took a Beginning Wheel Spinning class with Nora, which I would recommend to any knitter. Even if I never become adept at spinning, I have a much better understanding of how yarn is constructed.

I finished the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics and completed the 10 Shawls in 2010 Challenge. I came in second place in the employee Double Threat category of Summer of Socks and Lace at the store. Overall, I completed SIXTY projects!

• Eighteen shawls
• Seven hats
• Sixteen pairs of socks and booties
• Two pairs of felted slippers
• Two scarves
• Nine children's garments 

Whew! I have some resolutions about how I'd like to structure my 2011 knitting, but we'll see how things go with a newborn and a preschooler heading off to kindergarten!

Happy New Year!

Jesus Take the Wheel

Spinning is hard, y'all.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of taking Nora's Intro to Wheel Spinning class at the shop. Nora really went the extra mile for me, fixing up my mother's wheel back into a usable condition. I ended up taking the class on a shop wheel, and after several false starts, I ended up with 25 yards of this:

Nora, and then later, Steven, said it was really good for the first try. I don't know. It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to practicing more.

Singing My Leg Song

Last fall I cast on for my first ever toe-up sock, the Discovery Sock from Cat Bordhi's Personal Footprints for Insouciant Sock Knitters. The method is intriguing: in a nutshell, to make a sock for yourself, you make a cardboard tracing of your foot. The measurements and stitch counts you record on that foot serve as your pattern after after for that particular yarn and needle size. Essentially, you knit a tube for your foot and cut into the ankle line to create an "afterthought leg."

I cast on my toe stitches and increased to the number that fit over my toenails comfortably.

Then I tried on the sock as I knit and increased sole stitches whenever the sock felt tight. When I got to the ankle bone -- or the leg line as Cat Bordhi calls it -- I threaded two lifelines in and started on the heel decreases.

Then OMG, with moral support from Yvonne, we put the lifeline stitches back on the circular needles and cut and unraveled the stitches in between, leaving an opening for the leg.

It fits!

This is what happens when you don't cast on like a crazed weasel

Projects actually get finished. Note my use of the passive voice, like I have no control over the matter. But seriously, I have been hauling out some long-forgotten projects and getting them done and out of the way.

Thuja-eque Socks, in KnitPicks Risata.

• Start Date: May 2008
• Reason project was cast aside in disdain: Let's face it, the pattern is boring. I started them on KnitPicks Harmony circulars, which I just don't like anymore because they're too slow. They're Man Socks, so the foot is mind-numbingly long. 
• Solution: Switch to Addi Circulars to speed up the project, despite risk of changing gauge. 

Hedera Socks, in Socks that Rock Mediumweight, Rauen colorway

• Start Date: September 2008
• Reason project was cast aside: Lace pattern in black yarn. Uncharted lace pattern in black yarn (for some reason, I can't do lace without a chart. I just can't make my mind work that way). Thicker mediumweight Socks that Rock on size 1 needles; these socks could walk away on their own. 
• Solution: Just get on with it, already.

In other news, I am almost finished with the yoke on my Tappanzee Cardigan, which I hope to wear to Maryland Sheep and Wool this year. I have also applied the "just get on with it" approach to my Baby Moderne blanket, done in Dream in Color Smooshy. I finished two of the larger blocks and started the intarsia -- a completely new technique for me, so I am still Expanding My Comfort Zone. I will finish it. I will.

When I started this "Spring Cleaning" project, I had eleven WIPs on my Ravelry projects page. I now have eight!

Ulmus

Technical difficulties -- meaning my camera and my laptop both basically chose the same time to give up the ghost -- have made me a bad blogger. But it's about time I recorded my Knitting Olympics Project. I wasn't going to do the Ravelympics: too complicated, too many rules, too many teams, etc. But when The Yarn Harlot posted that she was going back to the original Knitting Olympics, I was in, along with my teammates at Natural Stitches. 

The Knitting Olympics ask you to challenge yourself, trusting that you know what you can accomplish in 17 days. For this goal, I challenged myself to "get on with it already." I've loved Kirsten Kapur's Ulmus from the minute the pattern was released. I fantasized about what two colors of Malabrigo Sock I'd choose for my own Ulmus. I bought the pattern. I looked longingly at the other Ulmuses (Ulmii?) on Ravelry. But I could never bring myself to start. The Knitting Olympics seemed like the perfect kick in the pants.

I chose Malabrigo Sock in my all-time favorite Malabrigo colorway, Stonechat, and paired it with Turner, a green that goes from acid to muddy and back again.

Once I figured out how to count to three, the garter and slip-stitch body went fairly quickly.

The lace portion flew! I cast-off on Saturday, one day before the torch went out. Yvonne kindly blocked it for me, and here's a picture of the lace detail.

Here's my medal!

I'm rather amazed at how quickly the project came together. Perhaps these monogamous knitters are on to something? When you don't flit from project to project, you actually...finish. Go figure!

Snow Day!

You'd think snow days would be great for knitting, but I found myself so excited about the snow that I found it hard to settle down to knitting. We, unlike many others in the region, we fortunate that we had heat, power, and water. We had plenty to eat and nowhere to be (although the symphony, I have to say, took a shamefully long time to decide to cancel last night's concert). We had a Wii, good books, and Netflix. The worst thing that happened was that we lost our local HD channels, and that was remedied with a quick brush off of the dish once the snow stopped.

Once I did settle down, I worked on this, The Textured Shawl Recipe, in my new drug, Malabrigo Silky Merino. I find that two skeins can really take the edge off any craving to buy new yarn.

Here's another two-skein project using Malabrigo Silky Merino, Saroyan, by Liz Abinante:

And here's another one of Liz's free and most excellently-written patterns (seriously, I have paid for patterns that aren't anywhere near the quality of these free ones), the Traveling Woman Shawl. This one is knit in Dream in Color Smooshy in Gothic Rose; the deep, almost black red of the colorway is impossible to capture on film. Since my Shetland Triangle and Multnomah were WIPS on January 1, this is my first office entry for 10 Shawls in 2010.

Shetland Triangle

Although these weren't on my original list of things to do to Expand My Fiber Comfort Zone in 2010, I think completing a lace shawl and blocking it myself certainly count as developing new skills. This is the Shetland Triangle I cast on for the Once in a Blue Moon Cast On in Socks that Rock Mediumweight, colorway Winter Solstice.

Unblocked:

On the blocking wires:

Finished!

New Skillz

The theme at the shop this year is Expand Your Fiber Comfort Zone, but I'd like to think I did a little of that in 2009. Here are some projects that employed skills or techniques that were new to me in some way:

On Ysolda Teague's Hap Blanket (knit in Cascade Eco Wool, a truly wonderful yarn), I used a Russian Bind-Off. The pattern orginally calls for a purl-wise bind-off. On David's advice, I knit a row, then bound off with the Russian Bind-Off, which created a loose, flexible, yet sturdy edge.This blanket is now proudly on display at my brother and sister-in-law's house.

The Yarn Harlot's Pretty Thing  -- mine is knit in Pagewood Farms Alyeska, a luscious cashmere blend -- taught me how to do a sewn bind-off. It's easy-peasy and creates a neat, flexible edge.

Finally, Jared Flood's Habitat, here knit in Malabrigo Worsted, challenged my ability to do cables. This was the first time I'd done a cable beyond a simple right or left cross. I learned to color-code my charts (The Preschooler was dismayed that I used his crayons, but that's another story) to keep all the crossings straight. While cables still slow down my knitting considerably, the color codes keep me from continually having to peer at the symbols and painstakingly figure out what to do next each and every time.

2009 in Review

This year, I knitted (I mean, I finished) 56 things! 56!

Here's a breakdown

• 2 scarves (one Peaks Island Hood!)
• 2 cowls
• 15 hats
• 1 pair of baby booties
• 15 pairs of socks (hey, I won the employee division of the Summer of Socks and Lace!)
• 1 blanket
• 7 baby or child sweaters
• 4 dishcloths (2 ended up as blankies for The Preschooler's baby dolls)
  
• 3 sweaters FOR ME
• 1 felted bag
• 1 pair of mittens

And so the question becomes, how did I do with the Year of Selfish Knitting? In 2008, I knit only two things for myself. Just two! In 2009, most of the items listed above were for me, most noteably 14 of the 15 pairs of socks, all the shawls, and 3 sweaters.

So what are my goals for 2010? It's hard to plan for an entire year; looking back on 2009, the sweaters I outlined at the beginning of the year clearly did not go the way I intended, for example. In my case, to be brutally honest, a rapid and unexpected weight gain derailed a lot of my garment intentions. I also got bitten by the new trend in small shawls and wraps that hit in 2009. Who knows what trends will evolve this year? However, I just finished an article for the shop newsletter about resolutions for the year, and a common theme emerged: Expand Your Fiber Comfort Zone. And so, I'd like to do the following:

• Learn new colorwork techniques and make at least one pair of colorwork mittens (you know, instead of just clicking "Buy It Now" on the Ravelry sidebar and having good intentions about them).
• Complete one pair of toe-up socks, perhaps my Discovery Sock from Cat Bordhi's Personal Footprints. 
• Learn once and for all to do a picot hem on a sock or a knitted hem on a sweater without turning to a coworker for help (Hi Yvonne! Hi Melissa!). 

Happy New Year!