Goodbye 2013, Hello 2014

Happy New Years Eve everyone.

2013 has been a good year.  I spent a lot of time with friends and family this year and did a fair amount of knitting (and a small amount of crocheting).

For knitting I made:

- 5 pairs of socks
-3 pairs of mitts
-11 hats (I must have given most of these away because I am still wearing the same 2 hats + a new one)
-1 kerchief (shawl to the non knitters)
-1 Tee shirt with another one 80% done
-finished 1 cardigan
-1 sampler blanket sewn
-1 cowl
-4 pairs of duffers
-1 Chevron baby blanket
-1 pair of cabled boot cuffs
-several knit and crochet ornaments
-several yarn bombs

In 2014 I have made a commitment to complete 14 projects out of stash yarn.  I am not restricting myself to a yarn diet or requiring myself to only work on those 14 items.

I've already got a list of projects that need to be finished asap (mostly Christmas leftovers and one shawl project for a friend).

And on the needles I have a Tee shirt to finish, a pair of leg warmers (because yes the 1980's have returned), two pairs of socks, one hat, and one headband.  Plus I've promised myself a new sweater (California style-light) to wear for stitches at the end of February.

For the non knitters out there, Stitches West, is a knitting convention of sorts.  Classes and a market place plus lots of friends hanging out together and knitting or crocheting together.  Mike has deemed me the new head nerd in our house.  He claims that he has never attended a gaming convention, so once I've been to the knitting convention, I am officially a bigger nerd than he is.

Enjoy the last few hours of 2013.  I'll see you on the flip side.

Post Christmas Decorations

Happy Holidays everyone.  I took last week off (basically everything).  I came down with some sort of illness that laid me flat.  The type where you sleep 12 hours, wake up for a couple of hours and then take a 5 hour nap.  For a week.  I'm better now.

I didn't do 90% of my usual Christmas routine.  No Christmas cookies, no present buying and wrapping, and no Christmas knitting.  I did my Christmas decorating early in December and finished a couple of swaps.  I put together a few presents and the rest I decided could wait.  Sometimes you have to take care of yourself first and let everything else go.  And you know what?  The world survived.  Friends are ok with waiting for presents, family understood and clients survived without talking to me for a week.

We had a lovely dinner Christmas Eve with friends (except for Mike's allergic reaction to some cats) and spent part of Christmas day with friends enjoying dinner and games.  And some sock knitting.

Before I take down Christmas I will leave you with one slightly blurry photo of our tree:

We have one day left until the new year.  Tomorrow I will share with you my 2013 wrap up and plans for 2014.

5 Days + Socks

We have 5 whole knitting days left until Christmas.  No need to panic.  Do as I do and send a picture of the pattern, give the WIP and get it back to finish or just smile and pretend its not 5 days before Christmas and that person whose gift is not ready just wasn't good enough this year to rate a present, but will get a really really early 2014 Christmas present next year, sometime in January.  The dog didn't eat my knitting, my boss ate all my knitting time.

I have a new pair of socks.  Almost.  A single row and a Kitchener stitch away from a new pair of socks.  These babies worked up very quickly.  I love them.  I love the colors.  I will be wearing them with whatever I feel like on any given day because these colors are not actually in my wardrobe...yet.

Check these beauties out:

I'll post a final finished new pair of socks when I get the ends woven in and can do an actual ta da!

I may have purchased 5 more skeins of this yarn in different colors.  I admit nothing.  And I am not, if I did indeed buy 5 more skeins of this yarn, keeping all of it.  Maybe just half.  halfish?

What's on the Needles Wednesday

I've been on a sock kick lately.  All I have been working on is socks.  I am inspired by the Operation Sock Drawer thread on the knitmoregirls podcast group on Ravelry.  Take a look at the thread.  People are posting pictures of their hand knit socks both in drawers and out.  Some are posting pictures of sock yarn that will one day be hand knit socks.

I am currently working on a pair of vanilla socks out of sortierung 104.

I love watching as each new stripe is revealed.  

I'm still working on the stripped Tee-although very sparingly.  My goal is to have it completed by the end of the year.

There has been a little progress since last time:

And wanting to have a new hat-I worked this up last week.  The yarn is from Uruguay and I bought it in Oklahoma.  

I am in LOVE with the colors:

Not pictured are the three other pairs of socks cast on in various stages as part of my sock tutorials.

Psychedelic Sock Journey

I received this yarn in a swap:

I decided to name these the psychedelic socks due to the black and white stripped sections because they reminded me of a fuzzy black and white TV losing its signal.

They came together fairly quickly (I made them my train knitting last week and over the Thanksgiving weekend when I had a minute to spare).

I made it to the heel turn early last week.

I had one minor incident while knitting these magic loop.  I grabbed the wrong end of the cord and pulled a needle out of both socks.  Why that worked when I typically have to hold them in a couple of spots and gently convince the needle to come to the proper spot I have no idea.  But it whooshed out of there like melted butter over toast.  No panic.  Well mild panic.  Only because I was on the train at the time and we hit a spot where we were swaying and bumping along.  It was not easy but I did pick up all of the stitches and I only twisted two, didn't drop any.  My lucky day.

I finished the knitting Sunday and Kitchenered one toe.  Monday night I closed the second toe with the Kitchener stitch and wove in the ends.

These socks fit great.

I love how the toes came out.  Absolutely perfect.  They may be the first perfect toes I've done.  Usually I have one toe with one side that is wonky.  I don't typically fix them because once they are on my feet no one can tell and they don't bug.  If they bugged me I would fix them.  

On to the next socks.  Houdini's this time.  Can't wait.