New Year's Knitting Resolutions

Here are my knitting resolutions for the new year:

1. Make 6 pair of socks.
2. Make matching spring ponchos for my girls (pattern suggestions welcome!)
3. Learn to cable in the first half of 2008.
4. Learn to do either intarsia or fair isle, sometime in the second half of 2008.
5. Knit at least one item for charity.
6. Learn to use dpns, at least do one project with them.
7. Knit 5 times a week (would love to knit every day but I think that's impossible).
   

Things I do NOT want to do in 2008:

1. Make anything without a pattern (I LOVE following patterns!)
2. Design my own pattern (I am not that talented.)
3. Do a lace project (will probably be a 2009 goal).
   
4. Spin or dye my own yarn (Although so many knitters seem to love this, I have NO interest in these things! Maybe someday I'll look back at this post and laugh, but for now it's not for me.)

I may think of more, but that's it for now. I also want to crochet some, maybe some thread coasters to give away here on my blog for fun. :-) I want to get back into sewing more too. There are NOT enough hours in the day!

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I finished the heel flap on my second sock! I have not been bit by Second Sock Syndrome. I guess I want to finish this so I can make a pair of socks with regular sock yarn. I want to use something much more colorful next time. I really like this Knit Picks yarn and I like the color too, but I am itching to knit with something brighter.

For the purse I am making I am using Cascade 220 Plum Heather which is also a muted darker color similar to my sock yarn. I picked up the stitches along the sides and bottom this afternoon, not sure if I did it right, but I'm going to move on to knitting the sides and see what happens. I know felting hides some mistakes so I'm hoping that is the case for my first felted project. :-)

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For Christmas I got 2 knitting related items - Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's book Yarn Harlot, the Secret Life of a Knitter, and a knitting pattern a day calendar. The calendar offers a free online second calender so I chose the Stitch and B---- calendar. Two for one, yea! I also got some money from my dad which I plan to use at my LYS to buy sock yarn. When am I going to do that you ask? Well...........my husband is giving me a day out by myself for my Christmas present. Hopefully next week one day will be the day. I plan to visit my 2 LYS's, go to the library, Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, and who knows what else. I can't wait!

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Happy New Year!!!

DONE!

I finished my sock on Sunday night! I think it turned out pretty good. It's not perfect but it fits. Well it could be a little narrower and a little shorter and still fit. It's so thick, being made with worsted weight yarn, and it's just a little roomy. But they will be nice wearing in the house while watching TV on a cold winter night (and we have plenty of those here in Wisconsin!)

After I finished I immediately cast on for the second sock and am about halfway done with the leg. When I get to the heel I'm going to put it aside for a bit and work on the felted purse I started. I have the bottom done on that and am ready to pick up stitches along the sides.

TA DA!!!!!! .........................

Merry Christmas!

PODCASTS!!!

I LOVE knitting podcasts!!! I am so addicted, it's crazy. I have listed all the ones I listen to on my sidebar. I tried out many many more than that but they didn't make the cut. :-) There are two VERY popular podcasts that I do.not.like! Get ready to gasp, they are Cast On and Lime & Violet. I listened to about 10 episodes each and did not like either one.

My absolute favorites are The Knitting Cook, Stash & Burn, Socks in the City, She-Knits, Yarn Thing, Knit Picks, Knit Spirit, Sticks and String, Pointy Sticks, and Damknit. (She swears an awful lot in that last podcast but I really like her style.) I also really like It's a Purl, Man which took about 5 or 6 episodes to grow on me. Some of the podcasts I have listed haven't done a new episode in a long time so I'm not sure if they're done or not. I know Unwound is finished after 12 episodes which is a huge bummer since I just recently found that one and I love it. I've listened to half so far. Socks in the City is a hoot!

I tried to start at the very first episode of each podcast if possible. Some of them didn't start with #1 in iTunes. Then I went through and listened to each subsequent episode until I caught up. I'm still not caught up on some of them.

If you haven't listened to a knitting podcast yet, give it a try! But beware, it's addicting. :-)

Socks....or boots? :-)

Sorry I haven't updated lately! I decided to forge ahead and do some "fearless knitting", and try to pick up the gusset stitches on my own and guess what...........

.............it worked! I'm almost done with the foot! I've been working on my sock just about every day (I'm a slow knitter). I think the sock looks a little bit like a boot. :-) Since it's in worsted weight, it's pretty thick. It seems to fit so far though.

Here's a picture taken a few days ago before I started the foot....

Success!

I think! :-) I frogged back to the end of the leg rounds again and redid everything. I got some input regarding that weird section of stitches that I was confused about - I just redid it according to the instructions, disregarding my confusion about it, and this time it doesn't look so strange.

Last time my heel turn was not centered - this time it is and I figured out why! Last time I was looking at the wrong number for the heel flap and I did 26 rows instead of 24. DUH.

So now I am to the point of picking up the stitches at the heel flap. I'm not sure if I want to just give it a try on my own or wait until the next Knit Night. I will probably give it a whirl since I'm not sure if I can make it to this Tuesday's get together and there won't be another one until after Christmas.

I'll try to get a pic up later - gotta run as it's almost time for the Packer game!

GO PACK!

Thanks!

Thanks for your sock encouragement. :-) I wish it was just picking up the stitches at the gusset that was the only problem though. If it was, yes, I could just have someone show me how and hopefully I would get it (!) and move on with the sock. But there are several other wonky things before even getting to that. I don't even know how to explain it! There's a weird section of stitches at the base of the heel that aren't in the picture in the book; somehow it looks like there are more rows on one side of the heel flap than the other which I don't get if I was working back and forth, how that could happen; and then there are some extra stitches to the side of the heel turn that I don't think are supposed to be there. Also with those rows being off, I have no idea if I have the right number of rows in the heel flap or not. See it's just a mess! :-)

I hope to make it to tomorrow night's Knit Night and get a little help, at least figure out what went wrong and maybe I can try to fix it at home. Meanwhile I have a good start on my felted bag, am about 1/3 done with the dishcloth, and I FINISHED Lindsey's scarf. It's quite basic and could really use some fringe or something but it ain't happening! It's DONE and I never want to look at it again (except on my daughter). LOL It's nothing special and has a few little holes and mistakes, but it really was a good project for me just to get the hang of knitting and purling. It really did help me master purling, I even *like* to purl now.

I will try to get a picture of the scarf up in the next few days.