Category Archives: Knitting New Year

How did that Knitting New Year work out?

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Well, it’s April 2, my birthday, and the day I said I’d have all my WIPs done. None of them are done, but one is much more on its way to being an actual knitted object!

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My Euroflax linen shopping bag has gained a few more tiers of squares since it was last seen on the blog (a shameful almost 12 months ago). I stopped working on it soon after that photo (about 8 squares after, to be precise), and only picked it up again this March. It is such a satisfying knit, I don’t know why I put it down! The most stitches you ever have on your needles is 29; and each square is fast to knit, giving you the feeling you’ve accomplished something!

As you can see, my Revolutionary Stitch Markers are doing a great job of holding the live stitch each square is left with. The pink one on the bottom of the bag signifies square #1 (there’s also one on square #5) which helps me figure out where I am if I get lost.

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I was expecting to have most of March off, but I lucked in to a job that was just supposed to be for a week, and ended up being stretched out to almost 3 weeks. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing – I just didn’t get as much knitting done as I thought I would this month. That’s why I’m not too mad at myself for not meeting my goal.

The bag just needs that triangle (the top 6 pale squares) put on the other side as well, then the handle knit. I think the handle might take a long time, but it’ll be great to be done.

Knitting Olympics

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Well, I did and I didn’t do what I came to do at this Knitting Olympics.

I was glued to the TV for every possible minute of the games. Sunday I had to work, and thank goodness for overtime! If the hockey had ended when it was supposed to, it would have been during the show. Because of overtime, it ended about 3 minutes after curtain call. As soon as the actors got offstage, they asked about the game, and as soon as I said ‘overtime’, we were all running down to the green room. (There usually isn’t a TV that gets outside channels in the green room, but one was dragged in just for these two weeks!).

I didn’t finish P’s thrummed mittens. I started, ripped out because I wasn’t following the pattern, restarted, and spent the whole time I was knitting wondering if they’d fit, if they’d work, if he even wanted mittens. Then my thrums were too fat, which made Magic Loop hard, so I had to find DPNs…. I put them down, and concentrated on my Fiddlehead Mittens.

Finished Fiddleheads

I finished those! Linings and all!

Finished Fiddleheads

I even did some re-knitting on these. The first lining I completed felt lumpy in the mitten no matter what I did. I started the decreases for the tip about 4 rows earlier on mitten #2, and that felt much better, so I ripped and re-knit the top of mitten #1.

Knitting New Year

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I’ve been thinking more about my Knitting New Year idea, and I think I may forge on with it. The guidelines I’d set for myself would be to have finished all my current Works in Progress by my birthday, April 2nd. I don’t think this is an unreasonable goal, considering I have most of March off from work, and the work I’m doing from now until then is fairly knit-friendly.

If I meet my current knitting goals, the thrummed mittens will be done by February 28th, and the Fiddleheads by March 7th (although I think I’ll be done before then).

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Ideally, I’d finish both by February 28th.

That leaves me with the following projects to finish (or frog) by April 2:

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These socks just need a lot of ends weaving in – I could do that in a day.

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This modular linen shopping bag. I don’t want to frog this! For some reason I stopped working on it, then lost it. I found it again recently, tucked away in the storage room. I’ve stolen the needle from it for the thrummed mittens, but that doesn’t matter because mittens must be done first!

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These socks will the challenge. They’re knee socks, and I’ve got one knit down to the ankle. Problem is, they’re a titch tight. I think I will soak and block what I’ve got so far, to see if that will loosen up the knitting. If it does, I continue to knit and have a wearable pair of socks. If it doesn’t, then I have to make the hard decision. I may also submit these to the Stampede knitting showase, if I do, do I need (or want) them to fit me?

And those are actually all the projects I have on the needles right now. The issue is that while I want the projects done and out of my knitting bags, there are other things I want to knit! My first Unique Sheep Lord of the Strings sock club kit arrived last week, and I joined the Evenstar Shawl knitalong. It is very hard not to jump in to those projects right now.

Maybe if I’m disciplined, I can finish the above projects (Fiddleheads, P’s mitts, Toe Socks, bag, green socks) I’ll have time before my birthday to cast on a new project. That will be completely allowed in the rules, because this challenge is to make me finish those things that have been hanging around.

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