A Little Yarn On The Side

As many of you know, I lead the "Cold Sheeping" thread in my stashdown group on Ravelry--I think by default of being "she with the least amount of willpower."  ANYWAY, it was MY bright idea to issue monthly challenges this year, and the challenge for May is to finish 5 knitted projects by the end of the month.  Oh my.  Meet May project number 1: Mr. Flurry sans eyes.  I do intend to give him eyes, but getting to the black yarn requires moving a few things, and after a little strawberry-inspired insanity on Tuesday I have honestly been trying to rest my arm--you know, like a normal person would.  BUT I'm counting Mr. Flurry as done.  (And the strawberry-vanilla jam, while not as good as the strawberry-balsamic vinegar one, is still fabulous & the English muffin bread goes with it nicely) The Monkey Socks and I have worked out our differences: I must say--it works rather well to explain to a misbehaving project what it could really mean to be ba...

Tonight I decided to finally cast on the Monkey Socks for the May Project of the Month.  Since I am NOT using the stretchy yarn and they are not toe-up socks, I decided not to use my traditional cable cast on as it doesn't have very much stretch and tends to make sock bands that cut off circulation.  I decided to use the long-tail cast on. Which, it turns out, I had forgotten. Now, I don't particularly like the long-tail cast on.  EITHER I run out of "tail" with just 5 or 6 stitches left to cast on OR I end up with a humongous tail which generally turns out to be the exact amount of yarn I'll ultimately be short to finish the project.  But, I have been knitting for over 30 years and have used the long-tail cast on quite often--often enough that it's embarrassing to find a stick & string in my hand and be unsure what to do with either one.  I actually had to look it up!!!!!! I have had a lot of ups & downs with projects, but I think it's fa...

My crafting has received a very big boost recently:  1) the weather is cold & rainy and yard work is pretty miserable, and 2) I'm supposed to be resting my arm and not doing yard work in the first place.  So....meet FINISHED project number 33: 34: and 35: which I promise has advanced to actual "finished bag" stage but somehow managed to miss the picture stage.  Theo thinks I'm cheating here but I swear it's really & truly done.  In fact, project 36 is about half finished: which is going to be a wall hanging for the guest room.  The shiny red will be a frame of sorts, and it actually matches the guest room bedding really well Last week Joann Fabrics had a 50% clearance fabric sale, so I shamelessly stocked up on home decorating fabrics, as I had recently thought of some ideas for wall hangings & bags and other stuff.  So, that pledge to buy no fabric for the rest of the year?  Yup, totally blown away.  Still, I have now used up ...

Projects finished: 2 Yards of fabric used up today: 1/2 Projects of the month cast on: 1 Celebratory white chocolate martinis drunk before dinner:  1 Motor skills still remaining to figure out how to upload pictures onto blog:  0

Today is the first of the month, so it's time for a Project of the Month bag.  This month we have...... socks! Specifically, Monkey sock s.  I'm hoping the pattern helps cope with the stretchiness of the yarn.  It's 7% elastic, which in the sock world means that sock & foot are likely to part company after a few hours of wear.  Apparently no one else had better luck with this yarn as it has now been discontinued, but I think there are still 4 more skeins of the stuff in my stash after this.  If this sock pattern doesn't  help, I'll use the remaining skeins for baby hats, since even if the hats are just as obnoxious as the socks, babies aren't going to complain--or at least not to me. My little sidekick was a bit sulky when I first came back from my trip, but since he forgave me, we've been inseparable.  Yesterday we cut out more mittens and while 10 finished mittens maybe isn't that impressive, we have quite a stack now cut out Now a SMART pe...

Okay--there was a fabric "incident" a few days ago.  Actually, two separate fabric "incidents."  The good news is, I'm already using one of the new fabric acquisitions.  The bad news is, I don't think using up a whopping 1/4 yard of fabric really impacts the significantly more than 1/4 yards of fabric I purchased.  BUT I DIDN'T BUY MORE YARN!!!  That's something at least. On the positive note, what I actually used up in April amounts to: Yards of yarn used:  1289 skeins of yarn used: 4 yards of fabric used:  5 (I'm not ready to discuss fabric additions) So, the stash totals for the year so far are: Yards of yarn used:  4663.5 skeins of yarn used:  29.75 yards of fabric used:  21.155 Projects finished so far this year:  32

The 4th month is ending and to be PERFECTLY on track to finish 100 projects, I needed to have completed 33.33333333 projects.  With all my WIPs, I think I might have the 0.33333333 part covered, and just finished redoing the 6 inches of ribbing on the striped top giving me 32 finished projects.  (picture tomorrow) Ha!  I am close!!!!   Which for me is almost as good as actually BEING on schedule--and maybe better, because if I was actually ON schedule the shock might have been too much for me.  As it is, I am really pleased.  Even with my crazy decisions lately (working on a quilt, doing a mitten garland that is going to require a LOT of little mittens, working on ANYTHING smaller than size 8 needles), I could actually finish 100 projects this year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And if I do, doesn't it just make you wonder what sort of craziness I'll come up with for 2011????????