Progress

I finished the Cropped Duster! I really wanted to get some wear out of this before the cold weather completely disappears, so I was glad to be done. More pictures and details are in the Gallery if you are interested.



In other good news, I was able to get the Fifi pattern! I contacted Kristeen through Ravelry and I was able to buy the pattern from her online. Hooray! Now that I have the pdf, I'll be swatching for it in the next day or two. I've also been swatching that Blue Skys Alpacas Dyed Cotton for the Mirabella cardigan, and I think it will work! So all in all, things are looking good.

Celebrations, Part 3: Love

My husband is a great guy in many ways, but since this is a knitting blog, I'm just going to concentrate on the knitting stuff:

1. He (mostly) turns a blind eye to my yarn stash
   
2. He knows the difference between knitting and purling
   
3. He wrote a little program for me on my Mac that quickly calculates gauge conversions and increases/decreases
   
4. He watches the kids for me weekly so I can go to a Sit 'n Knit
   
5. He often says things like, "Why don't you take a break and go knit?"
   
6. And most recently, he got me this
   
   while shopping at Gander Mountain for one of those multifunctional gizmo tool things. I thought that it was so sweet that he'd think of me and my knitting even in the midst of all the testosterone products and the creepy taxidermy. What is it? It's a light that you wear on your head. He got it so that I can comfortably knit at night when we have long car trips. Isn't that sweet? I confess that I did cringe at the camo pattern, but he quipped, "And see? It'll be inconspicuous because it's camouflaged!" Ha, ha, ha! Yup, he's a keeper!

So Happy Valentine's Day if you are celebrating with a special someone. And if not, well, we can all celebrate our shared love of knitting, right? Speaking of which, let me show you some progress pics of the Cropped Duster. All I need to do is to make some ribbing for the bottom edge, and then seam the second sleeve and set it in.


I love it, except that the bottom edge flares out, as you can see


I'm going to compensate for that by reblocking and by being judicious about how I pick up stitches for the bottom ribbing. There's a chance I might be able to finish this this weekend, but we'll see.

Celebrations, Part 2: Happy New Year!

Yeah, I know that that other New Year is long gone. But I was busy and sick at the time, and there wasn't much time for reflection. So I'm going to take advantage of the Lunar New Year on Feb 7 to do the typical new year reassessments. We are celebrating in style, and look, I even decorated the tree...



I had a great mentor a few years ago who was a big believer in finding the right balance in your life by being honest about what your values were and then aligning your goals and decisions to reflect that. This keeps you from feeling pulled in too many directions--so that you don't feel overwhelmed and guilty about all the things you think you should be doing, or not doing, and so that you can confidently say "yes" only to the things that matter, and "no" to everything else. This philosophy has worked well for me, and I try to step back from time to time and ask myself whether I need to make any adjustments. I don't know that I've really purposely applied the practice to knitting, but I figured I'd try setting up some decisions for the next 6 months. That carries me through the summer, and if I like this process, I'll keep going with it.

Value: Joy
Goal: To really enjoy all the new projects I start (and to let them go if I don't)
Decision: There are only so many hours in a day, and only so many of them can be spent knitting! So even though there are oodles of cute designs out there, I have to accept that I can't possible knit each one. To keep things in perspective, I am using my Ravelry queue/favs/comments in a different way than I think most people do. If I see someone's project or pattern that is appealing and that I appreciate, I leave a comment. I only put things as a "fav" if I could see myself knitting them or drawing inspiration from them in a significant way. The queue is reserved for things that I have the materials for and it's only a matter of time before I cast on. I used to keep a queue on Kaboodle, but it got huge. I know it's a matter of semantics, but listing all those things on the queue is adding to the long list of things that I'm frantically trying to knit through, knowing I'd never succeed. On the other hand, it feels better to me to have a very short queue but a long list of "favs," which are delightful, pre-selected sources of inspiration.

Value: Creativity
Goal: To create a unique knitted item
Decision: I will either "wing" another design or else heavily modify an existing pattern to make something that is just my own.

Value: Tenacity
Goal: To make progress on my languishing UFO's, the Ruffled Jacket and Pam
Decision: It's probably not realistic to commit to finishing these, especially since they are both pretty warm, and I know they'll get distasteful to me as the weather itself gets warmer. However, I will spend an hour a week on either the Ruffled Cardigan or Pam. I want to at least get the gears turning on those again.

Value: Competence
Goal: To be a more skilled knitter
Decision: When I first started knitting, I selected projects that would teach me something new. That was easy to do when you start out knowing nothing, but I haven't pushed myself in the same way lately. For the next six months, I'd like to work on my finishing techniques. I'm going to scope out a good book, tutorial, or class, and apply what I learn to my projects.

Value: Aspirations
Goal: To knit an aspirational item
Decision: I will pick one pattern that I really love but that I would ordinarily think would take up too much time. I'll focus on ultimately having the lovely item and I won't let myself be turned off by the prospect of not having an FO for awhile. One candidate project is the Auburn Camp Shirt at 31 sts and 41 rows = 4" in wide seeded rib.

Value: Generosity
Goal: To knit at least one gift item even though Christmas is way, way, way off
Decision: I think I'll knit one of Craftyalien's incredibly cute critters for my cousin, who loves that stuff!

I think that covers it. Now, because red is supposed to be a lucky color for the new year, let me share with you my latest project:


This is a cropped version of the ubiquitous Tilted Duster. I'm following eyeloveit's clever mods to create a look-alike of this fabulous cropped cardi.