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I have two small resolutions for the New Year. Simply, I want to choose projects that will challenge me as a knitter and I want to be more adventurous in my yarn color choices.
How to accomplish this? Knit lots of socks. I’ll start off with Knitting on the Road by Nancy Bush and try Conwy, Denmark and New England (and Whitby because I love cables).
Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year!
My sister said she sent a gift via post. I completely forgot about it and was surprised when I got home from work last night to find a box waiting for me wrapped in red paper. She and her husband sent me Last-Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson and photographs by Anna Williams. She wrote a note on the inside, something I love people do when they give books as gifts. Thanks for the thoughtful gift guys!
New Year’s Eve is fast approaching and before I make any knitting resolutions I really want to finish a couple of projects. Or at least finish Trellis, the cute baby cardigan I started in early December. I started the sleeves last night and I think finishing in the next few days is a realistic goal.
I’m working on a blog roll for this web site. Until it’s up, here are a few I read that have 12/28 posts:
Little Purl of the Orient
Grumperina
Boogaj
Happy Reading!
Here are the choices my sister and her husband picked out for the socks I plan to knit for them. The reds are hers, the blues his. I think they got a kick out of the scene. Yarn stacked floor to ceiling, women knitting and talking at a big round table in the middle of the room. They picked out their colors and then my sister wound each hank into a center-pull ball. I wasn’t expecting to go to the yarn store with them (no, really, not planned) so I still have to figure out what pattern to use for each pair.
On the knitted gift front I think everyone liked his/her gifts. The theme this year was cables. (Cabled scarves, cabled hats.) Most of the projects can be found in previous posts. (Last year I found myself scrambling to finish and didn’t get them off until January. I didn’t make the same mistake this year and started in October!)
Merry Christmas Eve! Jaywalker(s) pattern by Grumperina. I wanted these to be a Christmas gift, but as you can see, it’s Christmas Eve and I’ve only gotten this far. I think they'll have to be New Year's Eve party socks.
The yarn is Koigu’s PPPM. I love how they refer to this yarn as painterly. Do you think your knitting is art or craft?
I said, “Blogs were invented for knitting!”
DH laughed. I remember years ago him showing me a couple of blogs he read. Reading about what other people thought was interesting and clicking on links to those interesting things. I didn’t get it and thought it was madness!
So I was telling him the other day that I have to work on the Categories section of my blog and he was like, you mean tags?
Huh?
del.icio.us.
Cool.
Grumperina posted on 12/20 about who knows about your blog. I think my Grandmother would have loved to read my blog. She was pretty tech savvy. Sent email and e-cards. Her email address had “quiltlady” in it. Over Thanksgiving my parents brought me some of her knitting patterns. I was thrilled, happy and sad as I looked over each pattern book. She did try to teach me to knit when I was about eight years old, but I didn’t pick it up until after she passed. This folder (that’s her hand writing on the folder, always super cursive) mainly contains patterns for socks, mittens and afghans.
Last night I decided to look through my stash. I was surprised to find that it's pretty bare. Lots of yarn remnants and a few balls of yarns in colors that reveal I must have been crazy when purchased. (A few balls of gray. The very definition is “lacking cheer”! & Black, a knitters nightmare.) Here are two yarns from my stash that have been there all year.
1. This big ball of Jazz by Artful Yarns (50% alpaca, 50% wool).
2. Seventeen (!) balls of Karabella Aurora Bulky in color 16.
Here’s the right front of Trellis. (See the little button hole in the right corner.) The orange is a reminder that I need to get some Vitamin C (or maybe it's a knitting still life).
Last night I put in a couple of good hours on Trellis. Here’s the back and left front completed. I think I’ll be able to get more done tonight as well. I have no errands to run, no cleaning to do, no pressing obligations (except for some holiday knitting that I keep on putting off!). I’ve got only one thing on my mind and that’s to work on Trellis.
Purl of the Day: Reading NonaKnits about a great idea by PurlyWhites. Definitely check it out.
Check out this knit Santa by Torsades.
Sun Salutations are traditionally performed in the early hours of the morning, but most days I do a set of 5 in the evening prior to knitting and then sleeping. The specific inhale and exhale for each movement is refreshing and calming. I was excited to see in the December 2005 issue of Yoga Journal a picture of Cyndi Lee, founder of OM Yoga, knitting! She says, “Knitting is definitely a practice in being mindful.”
This pattern has great texture and the cables really pop with the light colored yarn. (I'm sure you can see a few mistakes I made in the beginning, having to do with the left twist.)
Check out the news at Needles On Fire.
The first snowfall of the season.
I’m marking the occasion by starting Trellis. The yarn, despite its cotton content, looks a lot like the periwinkle sky today.
Yarn-Rowan All Seasons Cotton in Ravish
Pattern-Knitty.com-Trellis by Britta Stolfus Rueschhoff
The new Interweave Knits Winter 2005 arrived today. Favorite pattern: Kate Gilbert's Pearl Buck Swing Jacket.