December Goals

Now that we’ve entered the month of December, I want to get back to setting some goals for myself. I’m still trying to be gentle on myself. Even though it’s December, I have no Christmas knitting goals this year, which is a relief.

I think I can get a few finished objects this month. That’s because there’s been a lot of casting on for projects, which means something must come off the needles, right?

1. First goal is to finish the second Snow on Cedars Mitt. I finished the first one and the second has languished while I’d been focusing on Ariann. I think this project is definitely doable for the remainder of December.

2. I really would like to finish the second of my January One Monkeys too. I love this colorway and the yarn is so soft and squishy, it’s just wonderful to work on. Again, it was dropped during November and now it’s time to pick it back up again. Just the second sock to go and I think it’s doable too. I made the first sock with the Monkey pattern on the cuff and made the foot plain. Part of it was that I didn’t want to knit the pattern anymore, I was sorta unsure how well the patterned foot fits in with shoes. Secondly, since I have this love/want more/can’t control myself feeling with STR, I decided that I need to see how it looks knit up before buying more than my current two pair’s worth of socks. I was pretty pleased with how it pooled, so I would probably be ok with trying this yarn again.

3. Another venture in the sock world is a pair of socks for Mary Kay. This is part of the “I knit her a pair of socks, and then I get some of her beauteous yarn to knit myself another pair.” One might think that I still have to knit myself a pair of socks, but I look at it as another opportunity to knit with her fabulously dyed yarn. I love it and I’d be knitting socks anyway. In all honesty, I’d knit her a pair of socks, regardless of free yarn, so there you go. I’m starting to feel that I don’t mind knitting socks for a friend who would love and appreciate them, b/c I’m not overloaded with socks, but I really have lots. I counted in my sock drawer the other day and there are at least 16 pairs of handknit socks and I have enough yarn in my stash for 30 more pairs.

4. The last goal for this month, isn’t to finish a project, but to cast on and find a suitable pattern for this yarn. My sister called me last Friday to ask me if I would knit her another scarf. Of course, I have no qualms knitting her a new scarf. She lost the scarf I knit her about 5-6 years ago and I’m happy that she loved the last one so much that she wanted another one. The first scarf I knit for her was out of Avanti, a fingering or sport merino yarn that had a bit of grey mixed in with it and I combined it with another thin black yarn knit in double moss stitch. Well, my sister has requested another black scarf. Other than the fact that she wants another scarf, why does she hate me? Black yarn, so hard on the eyes, but oh well.

I’ve chosen some black Cascade 220. Thrilling huh? I’m going to search through Ravelry for some scarf patterns. If anyone has some suggestions for texture or stitch patterns in black yarn, I’m open. Because I’m using black yarn, I think some patterns would not show up as well, such as cables and I’m not sure if lace would show up well either. One thing I won’t be doing is more moss stitch. I’m not a fan of it and won’t do another whole scarf in it again.

Transitions

It’s pretty hard for me to post without a picture. It feels a bit worse to post a recycled photo, but really Ariann is really all I’ve been working on. It is coming along slowly, but it ever boring to knit right now, with the super-long rows. I keep thinking that with all these decreases, it will get shorter eventually, it just doesn’t seem to be happening yet.

I’m really a bit bored with the sweater, but I know I will love the outcome, so I continue to slog on. Plus, I’ve also got Ribby Pulli (scoopneck version) on the needles and if I keep switching to knit on it, I will soon be at the point where I will have to cast on for sleeves. If I finish both sleeves, then I will be joining more stitches to the yoke and knitting and slogging through an unbearable amount of stitches again. Gee, does this sound familiar at all?

What I’m really looking to sink my teeth into next is the Gathered Pullover from the latest Interweave Knits. It also starts as knitted in the round, bottom-up and then split at the armholes. I really want to make this. The pattern calls for sport/dk weight yarn to be knit at a larger gauge for drape and fluidity. I know this is supposed to work, but really the sportweight yarn I have, I swatched up to size 8s and still didn’t have the right gauge, but the “openness” of the fabric was a bit too much for my liking. I’m just having a hard time believing this would work for the sweater and not be too open. I dunno. I’m thinking of just using a worsted yarn that would knit to this gauge and calling it good. Perhaps I would lack fluidity or drape, but I think I’d be ok with it as it.

The other issue with this sweater is minimal, but the sweater has rolled edges, which I don’t love. Those sweaters tend to roll up too much for my liking (gee, picky much, it seems). I can’t decide on an edging, seed stitch, ribbing, but it just dawned on me to preserve the style of the sweater that I like so much, to hem it instead. Hmm, there must really be something to writing things out, eh?

The job is going well, btw. Thanks to everyone for their well wishes. I’m really happy to receive them and will try to thank people personally in email. I just have access to my home email when I’ve left work and with the transition to a new job and work environment, I’m pretty tired when I get home.

You may have noticed that I didn’t put up a November goals post. There are a couple of reasons for it, some of it was because I felt I was too ambitious last month and part of it was because I knew starting a new job and didn’t know how that transition would affect my knitting projects. The first couple of nights, I was too mentally drained to even knit. But slowly I started picking up the needles and a few rounds here and there have happened.

I did finish the first Monkey socks. Haven’t cast on for the second sock, but plan on doing so shortly. I also cast on for a different sock (stockinette) in some of Mary Kay’s fabulous yarn. This is actually a pair of socks for her. The deal is I knit her a pair and then she gives me enough hand-dyed sock yarn for a pair of my own. Lovely deal, eh?

Well, that’s enough blathering from me for one post. Next up, a fabulous concept of Paying It Forward. Soon, I’ll be paying it forward to a couple few of my blog readers.