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).

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

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

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

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!

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.

I wound up the yarns by hand, putting the skeins over the back of a chair backstage, and started knitting. The kit even suggests the best way to swatch for a mitten is to just start knitting!

This was 3 days of work! They were 12-hour days, but I definitely don’t knit the whole time at work, just when I’m hurry-up-and-waiting.

I got up to colour #4, just a few rows of dark purple. These will be lined mittens, so I’ll end up basically making 4 mittens, but they will be super warm! And hopefully slightly less like oven mitts than my thrummed mittens are.