Year SEVEN: Self-Imposed Year of Projects - Update #51

This week. Next week. NEW YEAR! 

Wow. How did that happen again? I feel like I just started this year and here we are, almost at the end of the year. ::sigh:: Let's get going :) 


FOs (Finished Objects)
1. Adare: started 30 December 2017; finished 5 January 2018
2. Luck o' the Irish Cowl: started 31 December 2017; finished 14 January 2018
3. Rasta Scarf: started 19 January 2018; finished 10 February 2018
4. Rastarmulke (v2): started 10 February 2018; finished 10 February 2018
5. Gamer Bag: started 28 September 2017; frogged 16 February 2018
6. Oh, She Is a Bad Nut: started 11 August 2016; frogged 16 February 2018
7. Garter Stitch Baby Blanket: started 6 July 2017; finished 3 April 2018
8. Pattern submission: started 19 March 2018; finished 3 April 2018
9. Tiny Narwhal: started 5 April 2018; finished 6 April 2018
10. Tiny Narwhal: started 5 April 2018; finished 6 April 2018
11. Hat for Little Man: started 19 April 2018; finished 27 May 2018
12. River's Edge Fiber Arts Falkland Merino (wheel): started 19 May 2018; finished 2 June 2018
13. Smooth Operator Socks: started 13 October 2016; finished 12 June 2018
14. MaryAnn Wool (wheel): started 9 July 2018; finished 12 July 2018
15. Malabrigo Nube (wheel): started 12 July 2018; finished 20 July 2018
16. Paradiddle Prototype: started 19 October 2017; finished 31 July 2018
17. Frankensocks: started 1 March 2018; finished 2 August 2018
18: Cup Cozy: started 22 September 2018; finished 22 September 2018
19. Sockhead: started 11 September 2018; finished 2 November 2018
20. Violet Waffles: started 15 November 2018; finished 16 November 2018
21. Violet Waffles: started 16 November 2018; finished 28 November 2018
22. Safari Duo - Ella the Elephant: started 11 July 2018; finished 12 December 2018
23. Random Hat: started 28 November 2018; finished 19 December 2018

Tis true, tis true! I finished a project this week! It even posted in my last FO Friday post of the year. So, I'm not going to rehash it. If you want to see it, you can click on the linky above or go look at the FO Friday post. It goes back to the Paradiddle Prototype socks (#16). 


WIPs (Works-in-Progress) These are carried over from the last Year of Projects....or longer.
1. Wink: started 5 January 2015
2. Stomping Grounds Collection: started 26 February 2017
3. Hat Design: started 20 March 2017
4. Unnamed Hat Design (based on that project): started 14 August 2017
5. Shetland Neck Wool (support spindle): started 8 September 2017
6. Returning: started 14 January 2018
7. Faerie Mountain Fibers Crazy Batt (EEW Mini Spinner): started 13 April 2018
8. Granny Square Blanket (1): started 28 April 2018
9. Clapotis: started 29 June 2018
10. University of Wisconsin Ski Hat: started 11 July 2018
11. Abracadabra Socks: started 7 August 2018
12. Age of Brass & Steam Shawl: started 10 August 2018
13. Purl & Loop Weaving Project: started 28 August 2018
14. Campfire Socks: started 17 October 2018
15. Herbivore: started 15 November 2018
16. Ewetopia Stripey Socks: started 15 November 2018
17. Sockhead for Little Man: started 29 November 2018

My WIP list is back down to a respectable 17 WIPs. That's doable, right? Aside from the random hat, I worked a few rounds on the Sockhead Hat, finished up the cuff for the first of the Ewetopia Stripey Socks, and worked on the granny squares. It wasn't anything terribly exciting. 


OMGLSGWTFBBQ Lists:

Children's Items
1. Mittens for Stormageddon
2. Oliver for Stormageddon (worsted weight - Stunning String Studio from Stitches West 2018)
3. Lancelot for Little Man (worsted weight - green Plymouth Encore)
4. Dandy Sir Cephalopod (worsted weight - Red Creek blue, maybe)

Items for ME (selfish knitting FTW!)
1. Brickless (worsted - Miss Babs Yowza in "Celebration") *
2. Honey Badger (fingering - BMFA STR L - one of the ones from Carrie)
3. Park Slope (fingering - Mountain Fibers Crazyfoot)
4. Maya's Shawl (bulky - Plucky Silk Merino Aran)
5. Companion Mitts (fingering - BMFA STR orange from Carrie) *
6. Forest Cardi (worsted - Baah Shasta in "London Blue" and the Neighborhood Fiber Co. in "Charles Centre")
7. Flax (worsted - Cascade 220 in "Royal Blue" or Misti Alpaca Harry Potter color)
8. Jag in Garter Stitch (fingering - KP Palette grey and Artfibers Carezza)
9. Reichenbach (fingering - AVFKW Slick or BMFA STR-M in "Vintage")
10. Moab (fingering - Wollmeise in "Lavender")
11. Pumpkin Pie (DK - Kangaroo Dyer orange)
12. Anne's Sweater (sport - Artfibers something)
13. Moyen Age (fingering - Vice special order either grey or green)

Random Things
1. Pop Blanket (worsted - may need to order some yarn for this)
2. University of Wisconsin Christmas Stocking kit
3. University of Wisconsin Button Beanie kit
4. Xandu Snowflake Cowl (fingering - two contrasting colors)

Designs
1. Susan's Hat *started* - need new prototype & write pattern
2. Little Man's Baby Blanket *started* - write pattern
3. Paradiddle Socks  *started* - need prototype & write pattern
4. Pacific Waves Hat *started* - need another prototype & write pattern
5. Fall in San Francisco *started* - need another prototype & write pattern
6. Stormageddon's Baby Blanket - need prototype & write pattern
7. Cabled pullover (grey look-alike sweater - Old Navy hooded sweater with cable) - need sketch,
grading, swatch, prototype, & write pattern
8. Christmas stocking for Little Man - need charts, prototype, & write pattern (maybe)
9. Christmas stocking for Stormageddon - need charts, prototype, & write pattern (maybe)
10. Christmas stocking for Husband - need charts, prototype, & write pattern (maybe)
11. Stomping Grounds collection *started* - need everything: charts, prototypes, swatches, etc.

Spinning
1. AVFKW Merino Silk
2.  Abstract Fiber Merino Tencel
3. Allons-Y Fiber Arts 18.5 Micron Merino
4. Allons-Y Fiber Arts Merino, Trilobal Nylon, Silk
5. Alpaca (from Lambtown 2014)
6. Ambrosia & Bliss Rambouillet Top
7. Anne's Fiber Expressions
8. Ashland Bay Fiber Merino Top
9. BMFA Handpainted Roving
10. Bramble Wool Farm Shetland Wool

Dyeing
1. Sock Blanks (10) from Vice Yarns

Other Fibery Endeavors
1. Stitch markers
2. Vintage patterns into Rav database
3. Inventory of books & loose patterns (update)
4. Inventory of PDF patterns (update)
5. Update yarn inventory (make sure it's up-to-date)/destash
6. Inventory project bags (Erin Lane, I'm looking at you!)



This was the last week of school before the winter break. I was still flying solo with the boys. Little Man was wired because OMG BREEEEEEAAAAAAAK! Stormageddon was all out of sorts because his routine was upended. We're all okay, though. We survived this last week. I think we all deserve a break of some sort.

Last Sunday started out quite lazy, actually. We were all hanging around in our jammies, I had no plans to do anything other than read and knit and hang out with the boys...but I had this nagging feeling that I was forgetting something. I wasn't wrong and I remembered what it was several hours before the event....I had scheduled an auction meeting for that night. 

Our day started out like this (for all of us)....

It ended like this. The auction meeting was held at one of the pizza places near us, and because I'm flying solo, both boys were there with me. I let them have the iPads so we could maybe have a proper meeting. They were fine, for the most part. Stormageddon kept trying to get into the game room by feigning his need to go potty...it didn't work. 

Monday, I braved the post office. Stormageddon and I were in line for 20 minutes or so. He was just not having it. 

Clearly he was not amused. I couldn't have him hold my hand for that entire time (and it would have been a fight to do so anyway) so he was flitting about, not running around or causing trouble, but he was playing as much as he could in the confined space with all the people around. He still wasn't thrilled when I made him move forward. 

He kind of got over it. Kind of. 

With Husband out of town, both boys have been sleeping with me. I put Stormageddon in his room but he usually wakes up and climbs into bed with me. Little Man...I haven't even bothered putting him in his bed. 

I found him and Puppy cuddled up together on Tuesday morning. He was out cold. Puppy just took his role as pillow without complaint. 

On Wednesday, our friend and I (okay, it was totally him) replaced the headlight bulbs on my car. I love and hate my car sometimes. It's overly pissy about certain things (like a misfiring cylinder) and the other day, my "check left low beam" notification came across the dash. Yuuuup. The headlight was out. I suppose that's fine for an eight year old car that's never had it replaced. So, our friend swung up to the auto shop and got the light(s) I needed, came down to the house, and replaced both of them (because if you're going to replace one, you should probably replace both, right?). Soooo, that was lovely. 

Little Man asked me bring out his kinetic sand. He hasn't asked for this in quite awhile but he wanted to play with it. So, out it came.

Puppy......what can I say about our Puppy other than he's kind of special? He's learned the German word for "surrender"....which is what he's doing. Yeah. To be fair, he'll do just about anything our friend wants because he just loves him. 

Thursday....Thursday started out as a fairly normal day, except acquiring a pile of yarn that I wasn't expecting. One of my mom friends is also a knitter and decided she couldn't cast on with something so thin (La Mia Cottony, a DK cotton - these were mini skeins so they're half the weight and yardage of the one linked)....so she handed it off to me. I now have 20 19 mini skeins in various colors (I think there's supposed to be 20 but I counted and there are only 19 in the bag - no big deal...free yarn!). I have a feeling it's going to become a pile of dishcloths or a blanket of some sort. I'm kind of leaning toward a blanket but we'll see how things go. Aside from unexpected yarn acquisition, Little Man had Thursday Morning Gathering because it was the last day before break (it's normally on Friday mornings). He performed with his class for two songs, which was adorable. After that, I took Stormageddon to speech therapy. The rest of the day was fairly mundane, really. 

At Little Man's school, the kids have been playing marbles (yes, the old game) and Little Man made it to the last round in  his class. He beat everyone in his class except for two people (who had also beaten everyone else except for the other two) so they had a couple games on Thursday. Little Man wound up losing to both of them but I'm so proud of him. When he told me about it on Wednesday, I pulled out the jar of marbles that had belonged to my mother and that she played with as a child (she was born in 1947). He was so excited. He actually sat with me and showed me how to play (kind of). He was still bummed that he lost both games but he beat everyone else! 

Friday was the official "First Day of Break." The boys slept in, which was a miracle of it's own. We honestly didn't do much. In fact, we didn't get out of our jammies. Well, Little Man did eventually but that's because I asked him to play outside and he didn't want to get his jammies dirty. I finished wrapping presents and did some cleaning. That was about it. Nothing terribly exciting. 

Yesterday was another lazyish day. Don't misunderstand me....we did a bunch of stuff but it was in spurts. I mowed the lawn and raked leaves. We took a friend to the airport. We baked cookies. I did laundry. You know, usual weekendy-type things. 

Please ignore my (clean) laundry in the background....I needed to put it away. I will have more later today. ::sigh:: 

The only other exciting thing:

This is my niece (my half-brother's daughter). She turned 2 in November and for her birthday/Christmas, I made her the elephant noted above. It arrived and it has not left her side. It went all over the house with her. It slept with her. It rode the horse with her. I think it's safe to say she likes it :) Luckily, I have extra yarn if/when I need to repair it.... 



And that brings us to today. Sunday. Husband will be home later tonight, probably exhausted, but home, which is important. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. And the week is just going to be....well, I have plans to be lazy. Because why not?!

I hope you've had a lovely week and weekend :) Next week's post will be photo-heavy as it's my Year of Projects Wrap Party....just a warning :)