Sunday, October 26, 2008

Yarn - not Yawn.


I actually managed to finish the second sock. Yay! The leg is the pattern from
Twilight socks with a crocheted cast off. The yarn, while really, really warm shed short brown fuzz the entire time. (New Zealand Possum) Fuzz which matted up and snarled the yarn while in the ball. Matted up and snarled if you had to rip. Matted up and sticks to your hands when you wash the socks. I may post my other colourway on Ravelry for trade. Although...warm socks, may prove to be worth it eventually.


Last secular New Year on Ravelry there was a flurry of group forming - Stash knit down, sock stash, this a month, that a month, resolve resolve resolve. I actually did pretty well, except the sock a month, looks as though that will be only 6 pairs. I guess that's A sock a month, but the goal was pairs.

This year I'm forgoing outside challenges and sticking with social/technique groups.
I wrote out a knitting project philosophy that works with my lifestyle. I plan to let this be my knitting compass for the year.

The flash card version of it is: Simple socks for portable knitting and complex end of sofa projects for home/stressed to the max times.

This allows me to use sock yarn I own, gives me rosary knitting, and sets it up so that my large projects (which I wouldn't carry around anyway) will feed a different part of my creative needs. I haven't decided what this means for TAOs 2009 sweater. I find that complex socks languish because they aren't portable, and I don't want to work on them at home. If I have to read a chart I want a shawl or fair isle at the end, not socks. (Just my personal opinion, you do not have to agree.)

I also set up a yarn Menu, rather than a yarn Diet. I earmarked some limited edition yarn that is set to come out, a sweaters worth each of a yarn for TAO and myself, and enough for 4 other projects. Big, small, whatever. This will encourage stash diving and still leave cheat days.

I also bought the You need a budget software (love it, love it, love it) and filled yarn in there right next to TAOs hobbies. Knitting books come out of credit card points for Amazon.

As I was getting ready to post this I noticed that one of my favourite
Authors died. Sad, but really...what a full life he lived. And when you get to the bottom line, isn't that what it's all about?

3 comments:

ChelleC said...

Sounds like you are getting focused on your knitting projects. That must be a good feeling, I am always so scattered, but I need to be able to change knitting directions or it feels too much like WORK. Ughh.

She Knits Socks said...

I'm curious about your rotary knitting. Do you knit rosaries or do you pray the rosary while knitting?

(I had wondered about that possum sock yarn. Thanks for telling us.)

Jennifer said...

I like your knitting/yarn organization ideas. Sounds like something one could stick to.