Back in Kindergarten

To help motivate myself to actually reach some of these goals I've set for myself - snacking less, running/walking more, blah blah blah... I picked up a few sheets of stickers from the Art Supply store.

 

It started out with just simple daily goals like not eating after supper, limiting myself to 1 glass of wine, writing for the blog, but once I decided I needed to get running again, it expanded to an 8 week program to prepare for a 10K race.  Then as I was working on stage 4 of Tour de Sock, I broke the sock down into what I thought were about 1 hour chunks and gave myself a sticker each time I finished a chunk.

 

Nice visual indication of progress and achievement.  The little stickers glitter down on me while I'm slogging away at work.

Knitalong Summer

This summer I'm participating in 3 knitalongs.  One of them - Tour de Sock - is stretching my knitting talents to the max.  For stage 1, my goal was to try and finish in the top 25 - and I made it - I came in 12th out of 250 and finished in about 19 hours + sleeping time.

If you look carefully, you'll see there's some beads on the back of one of the socks - size 8/0 beads no less.  The ones that require a teeny weeny crochet hook to get them on the yarn.

So for stage 2, I tried again to get finished within 36 hours.  This time I came in 11th out of about 180 and again finished in about 19 hours + sleeping time, but it was full of travelling twisted stitches in a pattern you had to look at every row, so it almost did me in.

So for sock 3 I decided to take it easy and just try to finish within the week.  But then I saw the pattern and decided to go for it...  This time it was the intarsia and weaving in the ends that drove me crazy, but other than that I enjoyed knitting these socks and this time I finished 7th.

We'll see what my game plan is for stage 4 that starts on Sunday.  This pair of socks has 500 size 8/0 beads and I'm planning on using a dark color, so it could be a nightmare.

 

In the pleasure knitting category, we have my Camp Loopy, project 1.  The objective is to knit yarn that you've never knit with, so I chose Sweet Georgia yarn and it's gorgeous and a dream to knit with.  I'm using my regular plan sock pattern (thank goodness) and have just added some butterflies to the leg.  One sock down and just the foot left to go on the other one before Sunday.

 

My other knitalong is a Mystery Shawl with the Fiber Gallery in Seattle.  When I was there in June, I picked up the first installment of the pattern and some beautiful hazel knits entice yarn, in a colorway appropriately called Pacific Northwest.  Here's the shawl with the first 2 installments of the pattern.

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Summer of socks

I have 6 little parcels of yarn patiently waiting for their turn to take part in the Tour de Sock.  First up is some sparkly Dream in Color Starry.  I was going to go with these silver beads, but they're a little too long to fit nicely on the stitches, so I switched to regular seed beads that are transparent .

 

They don't show up as well but they're a heck of a lot easier to get on the stitch.  I think this is the first time in my life I've done a swatch for a sock, but all the chatter on ravelry about getting guage was making me nervous so I did it.  I'm going to have to go down to a 2.0 mm from my usual 2.25 mm to get 8.5 sts/inch. 

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Also waiting in the wings is this beautiful sweetgeorgia yarn in honey fig. This is going to be my first Camp Loopy project and it will be socks as well. I'm going with just a standard sock pattern for this one, because I have a feeling the Tour de Sock pattern is going to be a killer, but I'm going to incorporate a butterfly pattern and hope that'll show off the yarn nicely

Infinity cowl or cat bed?

The 9th project I completed as part of the 50 project project started life as a kit I bought at a knitting retreat in Carmel, California, about a million years ago.  I took my daughter Taylor along with me for a girl's weekend and we had a fabulous time.  I think she was about 12 years old at the time.  It was at an old spa/hotel near the beach, so I spent some time in knitting classes, we went for massages, had some nice meals and went to the beach.  She put up with us old ladies talking about knitting and she actually spent a little time doing some herself.

That was in the days when novelty yarns were really coming into their own - people were churning out fun fur scarves like nobody's business.  Wal-Mart's shelves were full of the Lion Brand's version, and even the high class yarn companies got into the game.

 

Even at the time I bought this kit I knew I would never make the shawl pattern that was included, but this yarn was just so much softer than any of the other nylon/polyester stuff I'd felt before, and it also came with 4 balls of Muensch Touch Me, which I was very enamored with, after buying Sally Melville's Knitting Experience book 2 - The Purl Stitch, where she made a cardigan with Touch Me and felted it to a magnificent veloury shininess.  The kit came home with me and languished in the closet until I included it in my 50 project list and it's number came up.

 

I cast on 180 stitches in the round and started knitting.  I had 6 balls of Prism Yarns Fern (the fuzzy stuff) and 2 balls each of green and maroon Touch Me.  I worked garter stitch in Fern until the ball ran out, then I switched to Touch Me and worked in stocking stitch.  I thought it was getting to wide after 3 balls of Fern and 2 balls of Touch Me, so I cast off and called it done.

That's wrapped around twice - it is very cozy and I might just wear it in Winnipeg, in the winter.  But I've only used half the yarn, so I'm thinking I might make a very soft, very expensive cat bed.  Possibly knitting a strand of Fern held together with a strand of Touch Me and felting it. 

The 50 Project Project

I have a massive project underway which may easily take me to retirement.  It's the 50 project project.  Here's my progress so far:

 

You'll see that I'm ahead of the game, but there's a long way to go. 

 

I started with 50 kits that I gathered from my closet - kits that I'd put together with yarn and a pattern, intending to get to them eventually.  Now I'm working my way through and making an adventure of it.  I've given myself about 1000 days (20 days/project).  The way it works is, I can work on 2 projects at a time and once I've finished a project, I draw another number out of my little baggie of numbers and can start on that project.

 

 

So far I've finished 8 projects, not all winners, but closet space is opening up!  I will post pictures of finished projects in future blog entries, but I expect a slow down over the summer as I compete in Tour de Sock and participate in Camp Loopy.

 

An unofficial rule of the 50 project project is that I should only be working on items from the 50 project list, but I'm giving myself some leeway to work on other stuff as long as I don't get too far behind on the target.  And I think it's a little unrealistic for me to go without buying ANY yarn for the next couple of years!