A Little Yarn On The Side

I have no idea why this matters so much to me, but if I am ever to knit 20,000 yards in one year, this is it.  I am so close, but in order to get there I still have to have one of my best yardage months, which I explain in order to somewhat justify this: It's the Running of the Fun Fur!!!!!!!!!!!  One of the Christmas parties I will be attending is a Secret Santa gift exchange involving things we already own.  Personally, I'd probably just wrap up the Fun Fur as a gift at this point, but I am trying to encourage my friends to knit--not provide them with justifiable reason to run screaming from the room.  So, scarf it is.  Would two be overkill? Of course, being me, what I really wanted to make were ornaments, but the pattern doesn't state yardage used, and my original thought was to keep making these until I used up the skein, which was only 100 yards.  But after making this yesterday, the skein wasn't looking depleted enough for this to seem like...

So yesterday, I was thrilled to use up the first ball of yarn on the new yellow sweater, but it just seemed really WIDE.  "Impossible!" I kept telling myself.  I had checked gauge very, VERY carefully because I've been on pain pills all weekend and was being very careful to double-check anything I was doing.  The TOTAL circumference of the sweater for a medium should be 41 inches.  Maybe a little bigger than I'd like, but doable.  So I measured.  MY sweater would end up 45 inches around.  ??????? Just on a whim, I decided to check the pattern.  The required gauge was 25 stitches to 4.5 inches in the chevron pattern stitch.  Fine, that's what I had.  Then the pattern calls for 127 stitches cast on.  Now I'm on drugs, but I have a calculator.  By my figures: 127 stitches divided by 25 stitches is 5.08. If you multiply that by the 4.5 inch gauge, that makes each piece 22.86 inches , for a sweater circumference of anyone ge...

It's December 1, and in November I used up: 9.4 skeins of yarn 1,594.8 yards of yarn absolutely no fabric whatsoever (gotta work on that part) It felt like a lot more yarn than that, but the obsession with the Alice Starmore sweater in fingering yarn might have something to do with that.  I may never be this close to 20,000 yards in a year again, so with even more than my usual maniacal yarny fever, I need to knit just under 2,000 yards of yarn this month.  Amid all the Christmas parties and other festivities.  Hm......... Meet the new (hopefully) yarn-eating project: which is a free pattern from Lion Brand yarns.  I'm using size 7 needles to get gauge, and the skeins are only 110 yards each, so I'm hoping this will be super motivating.  And anyone thinking this yarn looks slightly familiar, it's part of the "oh-my-gosh-what-if-I-use-up-my-entire-stash" purchase made in 2007   before starting my first year of Cold-Sheeping.  I just lo...

Gaidig raised an interesting point yesterday--bigger needles don't always mean faster knitting.  Actually, I don't often knit with anything bigger than size 8s because the big needles feel uncomfortable.  Of course, there are still faster options than this: which is the project that got all the attention yesterday.  Does anyone think size 1 needles are the fastest knitting option?  I was actually planning on tackling some sweater WIPs because I have THREE sweaters really close to being finished--two of which I can even locate.  But, Monday I lifted some weights, walked in the pool for an hour, assembled the monster tree: had a turkey-rematch, vacuumed the stairs, and did lots of physical therapy exercises.  As you might have guessed, Tuesday was a bit painful, but my back did pretty well--or well enough for me to think another hour of walking in the pool yesterday would be a good idea.  So, whether or not the socks are fast or slow knitting, they...

So, no new "things" from my personal account this year, but I am allowing activities.  Last spring a friend invited me to meet her Great Discussions group.  I had never heard of the Great Discussions program, but it's this wonderful program put on by the Foreign Policy Association.  They send out books and a DVD, and the group meets once a week for 8 weeks (I think) and you read a chapter in the book, watch the DVD, then discuss that topic.  I got to join them last year for the last one, which was on global energy policy.  For a topic I had honestly never thought about, it was fascinating.  I just got the email about this year's group, and while I will need to buy my own booklet, I'm counting that more as an "activity fee" than a "thing."  Extra points for it being a totally nerdy activity, too.  :)

I am now just over 1000 yards away from tying my best yardage year ever , and 2000 yards away from that 20,000 mark that I've been chasing for years.  I see a lot of BIG needles in my future next month.........