It’s my birthday and I’ll blog if I want to…
Just got home from a fantastic dinner with BadgerDan at our favorite local restaurant (& a stopover at the Chapters bookstore).
My birthday gift?
It’s a Samsung S2 Digital Audio Player, aka “The Pebble”. Now if we can just fool the software into thinking that I’m running Windows instead of Linux, I’m all set.
As for what I’ve been up to these last couple of weeks – hooboy.
Where do I start?
How about some FOs?
My February Lady Sweater is done:
and it fits like a dream:
It’s knit out of “the good stuff” – 2 balls of Noro Kureyon (col. 150) and 5 balls of Queensland Collection Kathmandu Aran Tweed (col. 120). The buttons are mother of pearl, natural side out. I think this is the nicest sweater I’ve made to date.
Hot off the needles today is my Hemlock Ring Blanket:
The result of much late night lace knitting, ripping out and redoing on larger needles – OMG soooooo worth it though.
Some small stuff:
The first pair of the promised “oodles of baby socks” to an online friend of mine who found out over the Christmas holidays that the IV was successful and is finally pregnant with her first child. YAY!!!! (Elaine – expect socks – lots of ‘em!)
There are definitely more where those came from!
And on the 8th day…
…she blogged.
My personal mission this year will be to knit/crochet only from stash and get it down to the point where I can upload it to Ravelry.
I make the following exceptions for Stash Enhancement:
1. Thriftstore yarn.
2. Discounted oddballs @ 40% off or more.
3. The occasional ball of happy dishcloth cotton.
4. One or two splurges (aka sock yarn) on Worldwide Knit in Public Day.
5. Any yarn won in a contest/draw.
I think this is a feasible, realistic plan that I can follow.
In keeping with this plan, I hit the ground running (or crocheting) this year:
The January Squares for the 2009 Sampler Afghan are the first FO out of the gate:
Followed closely by a completed Lopi Vintage Vertical Stripe Afghan! Yep. Done.
What had been taking me *forever* to complete ended up taking 4 days (I had to give my hands a day or two of rest in between sessions) to complete. And holy smokes – what a stashbuster!
The Lopi stash which once looked like this:
is (after setting aside what I need for my Hemlock Ring Blanket) now down to just this:
Not a bad start I think.
Speaking of the Hemlock Ring…
I’ve managed to make it to the first Feather & Fan repeat:
My Seaweed Socks are done too!
First Pair of the year. (And super comfy too, I might add.)
I have signed on for the 2009 Monthly Dishcloth KAL Challenge over on Yahoo! rather than doing the Weekly one this year. This means only 2 cloths a month and those are done 10 rows at a time with my morning coffee. Infinitely more manageable and those not to my taste can be given away as gifts.
January Cloth #1 – Ice Skate Dishcloth
Completely by chance, I stumbled upon Clue one of the Sock Knitters Anonymous Ravelry Group’s January Sockdown! Challenge. They have the occasional Mystery Sock KAL and this month’s KAL is a beaded lace sock designed by Sheryl Giles (aka Emm1e) who also did the Zombie Socks for last year’s Sock Madness 2.
What can I say? Mystery? Beads? Lace? SOCKS? Potential Prizes? Umm…yeahhhhh…
I’m soooo loving these socks! Already halfway through with Clue 2 (which was released today). Gorgeous.
The socks beckon…must go knit now…
And see if Maverick will let Mommy put the blanket away…
