Knitting Goals, 2009 Edition

Kathleen-
I got so wrapped up in actually seeing you in December, I actually thought I'd blogged when I hadn't!

I thought I better put my goals up in writing, in an attempt to create pressure on myself.

Goal #1: Knit up some of the stash. I'm not taking a "no new yarn" pledge or anything, but I'd like to use up at least a sweater's worth of my stash (as well as some of the other yarn!). This leads nicely to...

Goal #2: Knit another sweater in committee. I've got yarn in the stash for, and am considering, a bunch of different sweaters...I'll do a little preview in my next post.

Goal #3 Finish up some languishing projects. I've got some stuff that's been on the needles for far too long. To that end, I recently picked up my Rogue again (that's a Ravelry link), and am making good progress. The body is done, one sleeve is done, and I'm working on sleeve #2:
I'd also like to finish up the vest I gave my mom (on the needles!) for Christmas. And then I have a couple of shawls and scarves on the needles I'd like to finish, as well as a couple of pairs of socks. I did have to start a new pair so I'd have some mindless knitting for concerts and movies and other dark places:That's J.Knits sock yarn I bought in Texas this year. But I worked yesterday on my Lighthouse Gansey socks (Rav Link) that have been long stalled, in an attempt to get my patterned socks up to speed!

And then there's some other long-term projects, some of which must remain secret for now.

It was lovely to see you in December, and I can't wait to see you in June in MN!

Knitting and Storage....

Kathleen-
Nice job on the baby blanket, I'm impressed at your speed!

In knitting news, I spent 2 hours (cause I'm dense) grafting, ripping out, and regrafting the top of the hood of my Rogue. That means that all I have left are sleeves and the attached i-cord on the front.

The color is completely inaccurate in this photo, but you can at least sort of see the cables (the flash was a necessity).

I also swatched for my Central Park Hoodie at Knit Night last night....I'm loving the way that the Dream in Color Classy is knitting up, and the color is great (that's Dream in Color Blue Lagoon, the same that I used for Grandpa's socks).
The big excitement in the past few weeks was that I reorganized my stash and desk space. We went to Ikea and I bought one of the Expedit bookshelves, assembled it, and turned it on its side. Then in the As-Is section, I found a conveniently the same height, already assembled kitchen cabinet piece. Put one on each side, put desktop handmade by my Dad on top, and I have a lovely desk for when I work at home, as well as tons of (very decorative) storage space for yarn and knitting books.

The whole thing looks like this (pardon the flash and generally dark picture distorting the view).


The bookcase full of yarn and fiber looks like this:
And closeup of each end of the bookcase (note that these overlap by one set of cubes in the middle)

I love it! Lots of inspiration, and a nice space to work to boot! I think I'm going to get some more low baskets just for containment purposes, but otherwise, it turned out even better than I thought!

NaBloPoMo

Kathleen-
So years ago, when I was first reading blogs, I started hearing about this thing called NaNoWriMo, (National Novel Writing Month) where participants try to write a 50,000 word novel in the course of a month (in this case, November). I don't know where I started reading about it, but I know that Rachael of Yarn-A-Go-Go has done it.

It turns out that bloggers are on the bandwagon with NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where they pledge to blog, every single day, for a month. So I'm going to try it. No promises that I'll make it - after all, this month includes another business trip and the chaos that is Thanksgiving - but I'm going to try.

So today is my first post for NaBloPoMo. And I don't have a heck of a lot to report. We're gearing up for another crazy day at work tomorrow, so that's occupying most of my brain.

Knitting? Imagine yesterday's picture of the sock toe with a few more stitches added on. I'm done with the contrast toe and ready to start knitting the pattern...but that happened at 10:30 last night, and I decided that attempting to start the pattern at that point was a terrible idea.

I've been contemplating last year, and how we tried to end the year with empty needles. Though I make no such promise this year, I'm hoping to finish a few projects by New Years.

1. Socks for Grandpa (Christmas gift!)
2. Rogue. I love this, and want to be able to wear it as a cuddly sweater in January!
3. Henry. My neck is cold, and I can't wait to wear this to warm up.
   

Other than that, I'm not going to worry about some of my longer term projects that are still on the needles.

So that's post number 1, only 29 to go!

Super Secret Projects

Kathleen-
Like you, but apparently unlike the rest of knit-blog land, I was not at Rhinebeck this weekend....but I was wishing we were there enjoying the sheepy goodness.

Instead, I worked, hung out with lots of people who were in town for a wedding, and spent lots of time playing with fiber.

• Inspired by all the SOAR posts, I managed to get quite a bit of spinning done.
  
• Inspired by the crisp weather, I knit a bunch on both fronts of Rogue before discovering a potential problem. You see, Rogue is perfectly symmetrical...but the cables on either side of the neck are not mirrored...they twist in the same direction. So I'm deciding how much this bugs me, and thinking about re-charting the cables. My thought is to re-chart only the neck sides, but not the cables at the top of the hood. Just so that when the hood is back, the cables that fall on either side of my neck are mirror images of each other.
  
• Inspired by upcoming holiday deadlines, I worked on some super secret projects.
  
• Inspired by my chilly neck, I knit more on Henry.

Despite all of this, I have a total of 0 pictures. I know, bad blogger! But until today, our day after day of rainy weather got in the way of any decent photos. Hopefully tonight! In a last ditch effort to stretch my Oregon pictures as far as they can go, here's a lovely Hippo:



Mike and I are off to AZ on Thursday for a combination business trip/friend's wedding, and I'll be taking knitting...but also a ton of work!

No New Yarn?

Kathleen-
Remarkably enough, I spent a week in Oregon (a place with, by all accounts, great yarn stores) and didn't manage to visit a single one. At the very end of my trip, I tried to squeeze in a visit to one, but arrived just a minute after it closed. Probably good for my budget, even if I didn't get to fondle any pretty yarn.

For spending a week away, I didn't really accomplish that much knitting. I made some progress on Henry (but no new pics), and on the plane on the way back I finished the back of Rogue and worked some on both fronts. I'm almost done with the fronts section, but that leaves the hood and sleeves to still be completed. However, after a week of cool and rainy weather there, and then coming back to cool and rainy weather here, I'm inspired to finish Rogue and be able to cuddle up in it!

Incidentally, I have freakishly long arms to go with your unusually short ones. The reason I wear 3/4 sleeves so much on store bought sweaters? They actually look like the right length on me. Store bought sweaters with theoretically full length sleeves ALWAYS look like bracelet length or shorter on me: sometimes a cute look, but not all the time. Thus, I added 2 inches to the length of my sleeves for Eris, and I'll be adding at least an inch to Rogue's sleeves as well.

We have another crazy week at work this week, so I'll sign off with a few last pictures from the Oregon Zoo:

Packing

Kathleen-
I'm prepping for a business trip to Oregon (I'll be there for a full week), and I'm running into the classic knitter's dilemma: What knitting do I bring with me?

In my carry on, I'm bringing Henry (so soft!), which I am exactly 1/7 done with, according to the pattern. Note to self: scarves knitted lengthwise eliminate the needing to turn the knitting every minute problem, but those rows are LONG. I also never measured for gauge, and I'm thinking I may eliminate a repeat, because I don't want Henry to be too wide to wear comfortably. I'll probably also toss my SIP in the carry on, just in case.

In my checked bag, I think I'm going to take Rogue (languishing due to the return of warm weather here), in the hopes of getting lots done there. So is that enough knitting for 8 days, including two long travel days? Is it too much? I truly have no idea, though I do hear there are some great yarn shops in the Portland area....

And at what point does the yarn start to compete with the clothes for the trip? I'm taking the camera, so there should be knitting pics as well as pretty Oregon pics over the next week.

Hard Act to Follow

Kathleen-
That last post is a hard act to follow....that's my excuse for a quiet week on the blogging front.

The truth is, I have been knitting (and even wearing handknit socks!) It was cold enough at the end of last week that I wore wool socks to work on Friday. The cold also killed my tomato plants.

This week's excitement centers around shoe-buying and new clothes buying for my upcoming business trips. Today Zappos (love the free overnight shipping) delivered these:


And these:


Both of which I'm thrilled to say fit and will be hitting the road with me in October.

In knitting news, I'm knitting an adorable Baby Surprise Jacket for E & H (she's due in just a couple of weeks) out of the pink and purple Artyarns Supermerino you bought for me back in the day. It's VERY pink/purple and girly. I'm also trucking along on Rogue. The back armhole decreases are done, so now I'm knitting up the back to the shoulders. With half the stitches, this is flying along!

Are you down to one job? I finally sent your little package off today, so hopefully you'll get it this week.

5:39 AM

Kathleen-
Last night at knit night I didn't knit a stitch. Instead I talked, looked at books and magazines, and generally enabled those around me. I did buy a book (Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Workshop), because I'm going to knit a couple of Baby Surprise Jackets. One for E&H, and another for B&K. There was no knitting because I had no knitting with me except a sock that I'm not currently inspired about. And that came about because of running late and traffic and car crashes (not me, thankfully, but this becomes a theme).

The weather turned very sharply cooler this week. Last week at knit night it was 90 and muggy. This week, it was downright chilly! Which keeps me in the mood for having large pieces of knitting in my lap, and I'm speeding along on Rogue. This pattern is so spectacularly well written, I'm happily following along. And though the Skye Tweed is not a super soft yarn in the skein, but it feels so much softer knitted up.

Monday night I bound off for the underarms, so now I'm knitting up the back (which is pretty simple). This is going to be a fabulously snuggly sweater. A good thing, given how icy cold my new (basement) office was today.

Oh, and the title of the post? That would be the time that a car crash woke us up this morning. (see? a theme). Luckily, no one was hurt, but there's nothing to start your adrenaline shooting through the roof like the sound of cars colliding at high speed right outside your bedroom window. It was so loud that even Mike woke up. And there was no more meaningful sleep after that shot of adrenaline.

P.S. 300 posts! Go us!

Vacation Recap Part 3: Mountains, Borders, Knitting

Kathleen-
So the reason to go to Banff and Jasper is to see mountains, right? So we went to Banff:
And to Jasper:
We saw mountains:
Reflected in lakes:

Looming over rivers:
We saw mountains with cool light on them:
We camped in the shadows of them:

We watched interpretive programs about the mountain ecosystem:

And of course, through all this I knit. I started Rogue in the Classic Elite Skye Tweed in purple as we started across North Dakota, and knit through Montana, across Alberta, and through the parks. I knit in the car, in tents, at our picnic tables, etc.

Which soon became my saving grace. On our way back into the U.S. we were stuck in lines at the border for 3 hours. So I knit. And knit. In the driver's seat. Note that the car is off...we weren't going anywhere.
The view in front of us:
The view to the side of us for a while. Three trailers of bull elk (which made it into the U.S. a lot quicker than we did!
Halfway through the wait, this is where I was:
Why yes, that is the steering wheel in the background. I kept knitting the whole trip. By the time I got on the plane back, I'd knit the Kangeroo pocket together with the body, and knit an inch further up. So far, so good!