Yarnie Resolutions

To Make:

• Knit 50 skeins
• Knit 20 shawls
• Crochet 5 shawls
• Knit 5 sweaters
• Publish 2 shawl designs
• Spin 5 skeins
• Finish following projects:

1. Casablanca sweater
2. Carson shawl
3. Mulieta shawl
4. Herringbone skirt
5. Green & rust socks from T3 dissertation
6. Moonlight sonata 

To Organize:

• Find a new way to organize yarn by color, weight, and yardage (cannot do until moved in March)
• Create a better way to match library patterns to stash
• Blog at least once a week about current WIPs and FOs
• Always add new yarn to stash, link to projects, weigh to accurately determine remaining yardage - separate storage for leftover bits
• Always document the size of needles used for a project
• Use consistent tags for favorites, library, queue and projects

To do list...

Is growing. Rapidly. Okay let's sort this out:

Before Oct 1

• Finish Myrtle stole ( approx. 150 more rows + blocking) This seems doable if I only work on this for the next two days. 
• Wind Raspberry yarn, knit and block swatch for Sotherton sweater
• Carson shawl...maybe. Doubtful, but it's always there.

Between Oct 1 and Oct 28 (i.e. Nerd Wars time)

• Sunrise Fiber Co. winter accessory KAL - Shadowfax boots
• Dalek Hat(s)
• Mia R tests
• Sotherton Sweater

Crap, I forgot about the Muleata test (again). I should be able to finish that in a couple days in early October. Sigh.

List will grow after Oct 1, once I find out what the Nerd Wars challenges are and how I'm going to answer them.

Decisions, decisions...

Okay, I bought enough yarn for a sweater, had the pattern all picked out, then I got on Ravelry. I was just gonna check, you know? Make sure what I picked was the best choice...

Four hours later, I'd whittled my 30 pattern list down to 3 options for my dissertation in the upcoming Nerd Wars tournament. Seriously, I made a friggin spreadsheet for the patterns including columns such as pattern cost, what size I would make, yardage, mods, construction, needle size, gauge...it was pretty intense.

First, the yarn:

Eight skeins = 1200 yards. Apparently that was a little short for the intricately cabled sweaters I was drawn to; I had to eliminate a number because of insufficient yardage. Unless I wanted to make a sweater for my incredibly skinny, gorgeous sister, but as much as I love her, I'm not using Malabrio on her, mkay?

Okay, now for the contenders. I bought the yarn originally because I wanted to make this sweater (and because Craftsy was having a blowout sale and I really just spend way too much money on yarn when I don't need to):

In case you haven't noticed a trend yet, I'm really into cables for this project. Fall just equals cables to me. What can I say.

Contender number two:

This bad boy is the most expensive pattern of the bunch, and the least clear on the yardage. But, as this picture shows, I would modify the neck so it wasn't so turtlenecky like the original pattern. Also, I could do the sleeves last, two at a time, so I wouldn't run out of yarn. A thought.

And the final option:

I don't know how this would look in my raspberry, but I love the cable, it's a relatively cheap pattern, and it appears to give me more of a cushion regarding my yarn requirements.

So obviously I'm super torn right now. I want to start swatching so I can put together my dissertation proposal; plus I just want to play with my Malabrigo. Hopefully finding out which team I'm on tomorrow will help me decide!

Knit to self....

Knit more sweaters. I love my shawls, but I just saw this blog post on the Twist Collective Blog about jettshin, a knitter who makes incredibly gorgeous sweaters. I'm feeling inspired; maybe I'll un-relegate my sweater attempt from UFO status just in time for cooler weather. Plus I have a few pullovers and cardigans in my queue, and I just bought an ebook in Interweave Knits' sale yesterday about top-down sweater construction. Okay, now I'm sounding very ambitious, but perhaps a sweater pattern is in my future...hmmmm...

Anyway, as far as things I'm actually working on at the moment - my Shallow Waters is just about finished (ten or so rows to go) and the second clue for the Myrtle Mystery KAL has come out. I've finished the first chart repeat on that but still have quite a ways to go. No worries, however, I've had to place that at the bottom of my priorities because I have another test shawl that's kind of been languishing on the sidelines and I need to crank that out.

I've also been a bad girl, ordering yarn I can ill afford, but it was Lantern Moon, and it was on sale, and it was a gorgeous red color...what's a girl to do?

Seriously, how was I supposed to resist? Damn you, Craftsy, and your wonderful deals!

I've set it up with Grouchy Geisha by Marisa Hernandez (maidenbklyn), whose designs I've long admired but never knit. Currently there are six other patterns ahead of it in the queue, so there's no telling whether I'll decide to reapportion the yarn for another project between now and then. But as of now, that's the plan :)

And who knows, maybe a sweater will jump ahead in the queue, preventing my need to either return to Kentucky to get some fall clothes out of storage, or buying new sweaters here in St. Louis. Though a return to KY would also mean I could grab some more yarn out of storage...much to think about here chillins. And on that note, I bid you good day.

Recent Finished Objects - 9 year old Kate is like sooooo totally happy

I knit a lot, so when I don't post, it's probably because I'm being a complete internet slackhead. Meaning, I'm spending way too much time on Ravelry and Pinterest and not nearly enough time actually writing things. So let's fix that shall we?

I've been really shawl crazy lately, but I've also kind of started branching out into other lines of knitting. Right now it's about 94 degrees at 9 pm here in Lexington, KY, so I thought it would be a good idea to make a sweater. Well, I may have it finished by December. We'll see.

It's made with this yarn that I found on yardsellr.com (I try all kinds of different strange ways to save money on yarn), of which I bought a ton thinking I'd make it into a sweater. It's always nice when things work out the way you planned. So anyway, it's not commercial yarn, so I added it to my Rav Stash as unknown Peruvian Wool. It's a raspberry kind of color, and it's more or less worsted weight, but get this, it's singles! I had no idea til I pulled it out of its plastic wrap and started swatching. Lots of people hate singles because they cannot by definition be "balanced" and make your knitting tilt slightly. I'm not too stressed about this though, because I am not a fashion designer and I like my hand knits to look like I hand knit them. Call me crazy.

The yarn is actually very nice for a sweater. Singles tend to be kind of puffy, and the wool is very soft. So it's making quite the nice winter wear. I'm using some linen Nashua Handknits Summer Garden to do two-row stripes every so often just to give it a little visual interest. My red hair doesn't always go well with pinky-purple colors, so I'm trying to mix it up a bit and cross my fingers that I don't look like bubblegum on fire.

So I've given you all this information about this sweater, and I don't have any pictures yet. It's a raglan top-down construction (pattern linky!) that I'm kind of modifying, but I haven't gotten very far yet. Here's why.

SHAWLS!! I've finished so many shawls lately. I take crappy pictures. My friend Kaytee is the photographer, not I, and many of these pictures are in-progress blocking photos. So please, don't judge me. Okay, disclosure finished.

First up - this is the Geometria test knit shawlette for ZaraZ:

Then I made another Pembroke Wrap. I like how quickly the bulky yarn knits up, and it'll make a nice winter fireside shawl.

Finally, I finished the Skywalker Shawl by Laura Nelkin. It went very quickly for me because I did it in conjunction with her class on the Craftsy website. I bought a couple of these classes months back, and I finally sat down and decided to go through one. I really ended up liking the pattern for the Skywalker Shawl (which looks so respectable when done in a solid or semi-solid color), and I was pleasantly surprised that the yarn I chose didn't compete too terribly much with the pattern. This yarn, by the way, is EPIC. I can't imagine a single soul in the world who would actually want to wear this monstrosity, but I love it nonetheless. I call it, Lisa Frank: Jedi Master.

I just got it off the needles and blocking today. Here's a close up of the nausea-inducing glory that is this shawl:

It is awesome.

Now for something non-shawltastic and awesome in a completely different way: I made shoes! Hellz yeah I did. They're just for me though, so paws off.

Cha-freakin-pow. They're crocheted out of hemp. The pattern is Strappy Sandals from the summer 2012 issue of Interweave Crochet. I love my Interweave subscriptions, yes I do :)

So there you have it folks. I actually do have some update-worthy FOs, if I ever get off Ravelry long enough to tell you about them. And on that bombshell, it's time to say goodnight!