Self-Imposed Year of Projects: Update #19

Happy Sunday, my dear loving minions readers.

I'm headed into my 19th week of my Self-Imposed Year of Projects. I think everyone else is somewhere in the mid-40s in terms of numbers of weeks but I started six months later than everyone else. So there.

Anyway, onward to the updates (and there are some updates!).

FINISHED OBJECTS
1. Claudia: started January 3, 2012; finished January 10, 2012
2. Mama's Simple Skyp Socks: started May 22, 2011; finished January 9, 2012
3. Little Man's Cobblestone Baby Blanket: started July 2010; finished February 2, 2012
4. Dalek Dishcloth: started February 6, 2012; finished February 8, 2012
5. Baby Traveling Vines Socks: started September 18, 2010; finished February 17, 2012
6. Snail Hat: started February 18, 2012; finished February 19, 2012
7. Lothlorien Hat: started January 25, 2012; finished March 5, 2012
8. Habitat Hat: started April 10, 2012; finished May 8, 2012

Did you notice?

There it is, in all it's blocking glory. My Habitat Hat. For my review about the pattern and yarn, see my FO Friday post.

I'm almost back on track for my 12 Hats in 2012 challenge. I just need to start a new hat for May.....

WORKS-IN-PROGRESS
1. Little Man's Giraffe: started May 11, 2011
2. Icarus Shawl: Started March 15, 2010
3. Honey Badger Don't Give a Shit Socks: started January 23, 2012
4. Pine Forest Baby Blanket: started February 21, 2012
5. Hermione's Everyday Socks: started March 6, 2012
6. Sweet Girl's Hippo: started May 10, 2012

There isn't much going on with these, other than finishing the hat shown above. I'm on the "other side" of the pink with the blanket (translation: I'm back to green again) but I haven't worked on it much. I've got maybe five repeats in the last third. So...that means I have in the neighborhood of thirteen repeats plus the border. That's not too bad. I've also been avoiding trying on the Honey Badger socks like the plague...I don't want them to not fit and I'm going to be sad if I have to rip those out, too. Hermione's Everyday Socks have made it to the gusset decreases (well, of the first one). I'm doing a Double Gusset Heel instead of regular gussets. I threw a lifeline in before I started it in case it doesn't work out as well as I would like. If it doesn't work, perhaps a Gusset Heel is in order........or maybe just regular gussets. We'll see how it all goes. I wound up starting Sweet Girl's Hippo late Thursday night...and I'm just working through it little by little.

Anyway.......


PLANNED HATS
1. Hermione Hearts Ron
2. Ogre Babies!
3. NIN Hat
4. Brandon Ribbed Beanie
5. Godric's Hollow Hat
6. Raglan Hat
7. Bergen Street Tuque
8. Nolan
9. Simple Baby Cap #1
10. Candy Cane
11. Little Pumpkin

I'm trying to decide which hat I want to make next and I'm thinking of either the Simple Baby Cap #1 or Little Pumpkin. If I make Little Pumpkin, I should probably make two (one for Sweet Girl and one for her baby sister - to whom the aforementioned blanket will belong). I want something that's going to go more quickly than the Habitat Hat did because I'm a little behind...so smaller and not so fiddly is good. And the hats should go to Maryland with the rest of the box.

OTHER PLANNED PROJECTS
1. Freeport Vest
2. My Little Slug
3. Shaun (as in Shaun the Sheep)
4. Curly Snake
5. Penelope the Empathetic Monster
6. A new version of my Vanilla Socks, perhaps in a worsted weight...

I'm also trying to decide on a project for Ravelympics 2012. Or projects. I'm on TEAM TARDIS (yes, I'm a Doctor Who nerd, get over it). Part of me thinks I should just stick to something on the above lists but I'd like to tie Doctor Who in somehow. I'm thinking of adding Bigger on the Inside and then finding appropriate yarn, just for Ravelympics. I probably have something in my stash....maybe. I'll have to check. Or I could just order some yarn in the "right" color.

Any ideas?

Oh, totals....I almost forgot...

FOs: 8 projects
WIPs: 6 projects
Planned: 17 projects...maybe 18 projects....
TOTAL: 31 projects...maybe 32 projects...


There you have it. Update #19 of my Self-Imposed Year of Projects :)

FO Friday

Yes, I'm a pathological liar.



I actually finished something! It's about time, too. I was starting to think that I'd never finish anything and that all my WIPs were forever going to remain WIPs and that my plans were just never going to come to fruition (who knows, that could still happen).

Anyway, I have a lovely finished object for your viewing pleasure :)

On Monday night...well, Tuesday morning, actually........whatever. Anyway, I finished my Habitat Hat!

Look! It's a hat and it's blocking!

Pattern: Habitat by Jared Flood
Timeframe: started April 10, 2012; finished May 8, 2012
Yarn: Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in Nest
Needles: US #7 16" circular, US #8 16" circular, US #7 DPNs (I couldn't find my #8s)
Size: Small size in stitches but I did the larger size in charts (which makes sense if you have the pattern)
Modifications: Just what I said in the "size" section. I CO the # of stitches for the small size but I followed the directions for the larger size. The result was that I got a hat that covered my ears but wasn't so wide that it would blow off during Wisconsin winters.


I'm glad to have this hat finished. Not because it's cold or anything but because I've been in a major knitting slump where projects just seem to go on and on forever and nothing ever seems to get finished. Prior to finishing this hat on Tuesday, I hadn't finished a project since March 5, 2012. It was getting old and I wanted to knit less and less as a result.

The pattern was incredibly fiddly. I love how cables turn out and it's not that I mind doing them...but I'm terrible with chart reading and I had to keep checking the stitch key to make sure I didn't cross my cables the wrong way (I may have done a couple incorrectly here and there). I'm also a chicken about doing cables without cable needles. I'm not good at fixing mistakes so if one of those stitches decided to travel downwards, I would have frogged the whole thing and started over. However, I do love how this hat came out and it might be one that I make again.

The yarn, on the other hand, was very.......rustic. I don't know how else to explain it. It has the feel of handspun but the evenness that is commercially produced yarn. I kept finding little bits of debris in the yarn that had to be picked out (looked like hay, mostly). I wasn't sure about it, either. Shelter is kind of difficult to find around here and I won the skein at our last Knitters' Guild meeting of 2011 (Jared Flood was one of our speakers last year). With the modifications, I wasn't sure if I was going to have enough yarn. The pattern called for 120 yards of worsted weight. Shelter comes in skeins of 140 yards. As I started getting closer and closer to the top, I started having a minor panic attack because that yarn was running very low, very quickly and I was knitting faster and faster. When it was all said and done, I wound up having maybe 5 yards left...maybe. Talk about cutting it close. I do love how it turned out after blocking, by the way...

But, now that it's finished....well, I'm debating between trying to finish up the WIPs that I've had or if I want to start something new. Part of me wants to start something new immediately and part of me thinks I should spend some time finishing up at least one more WIP before I go starting something new. I'm kind of torn. The next closest-to-being-finished item is either my Pine Forest Baby Blanket or Little Man's Giraffe. Admittedly, the giraffe will probably take less time but it's more fiddly than the blanket. I have to make all the little "parts" and then sew them onto the toy. The big parts of the giraffe are done (head, body, and legs). All I have left to do are make the spots, tail, horns, and hair and attach all of them as well as the ears, which are finished, and then embroider the face. It honestly isn't hard...just fiddly. But, the blanket is on a schedule. I need that finished, washed, blocked, photographed, wrapped, and shipped off to Maryland before July 1st (so it has time to get there before the baby comes on July 9th - yes, she's having a scheduled c-section). So.........I think I should probably do the blanket first. Then there's my version of Hermione's Everyday Socks that I have going. I'm currently on the heel of the first sock. For some reason, my mind equates one sock with a finished object, even though the whole project is not actually finished. I keep wanting to work on those instead of either the blanket or the giraffe...

And then there's deciding what to make next. I'm thinking I should get a start on Sweet Girl's Hippo (I have all the yarn wound and ready to go; I even know where the pattern is located)...but there are so many tempting patterns in my Self-Imposed Year of Projects. Husband has also been kind of harping on me about the Hippo. Sweet Girl picked it out last summer and I haven't done it yet.......I should really probably do that.

Anyone have any thoughts about that?





The news on Husband's job front is this: we won't know anything until probably next Friday (May 18, 2012). They have interviewed two more candidates this week (and maybe into early next week) and then they need to decide. Husband did talk to the recruiter on Wednesday afternoon and they said that he could fit in very well, he's a little short on knowledge of software development and some terminology, and that he's very humble about his abilities. The recruiter told him that many of the people they interview from the Midwest wind up having this superiority complex when they get hired. They didn't see that with Husband. This is a good thing. The recruiter went on to say that everyone he's talked to about Husband has said they should hire him. So.....keep the job mojo coming!

Another week of waiting on pins and needles. *sigh*

Here are some recent photos of Little Man....he's had another haircut, too.

Ima grab the phone, Mama!

I run around with a drum on my head. Running around with drums on your head is cool.

Handspun mohair? Ima wear it like a scarf.

I do like my hat, Mama.....just not all the time when you want me to!

For more FO Friday fun, visit Tami's Blog :)

FO Friday......wait, it's not an FO....

It's Friday and that means it's FO Friday.......but I don't have anything to show you (except, perhaps, photos of Little Man but I think I'm caught up on those, too).

So, what am I here to talk about?

This is my one and only skein of Shelter by Brooklyn Tweed. I won it last May at the last Knitters' Guild meeting of the year. I was highly stoked about this because I knew I had a couple patterns in my queue for which this would be perfect.

So, fast forward to January when I'm making out my first Self-Imposed Year of Projects post...I had several hats listed. I knew one of them would be for this yarn. By the time I got to my third week of my Self-Imposed Year of Projects update, I had decided that I was going to make Habitat with this yarn. It was rather fitting as Habitat was designed by Jared Flood, founder of Brooklyn Tweed...and the hat was made using one skein of Shelter.

Anyway, I knew where the yarn was located and I knew I'd get around to it eventually.

"Eventually" turned out to be this past Wednesday. I went to wind the yarn, having just had it out a week prior...and it was gone! Seriously! I had just had that yarn in my hands not even a week prior to that. I suspected that either Husband or I had moved it when he took a sitting stool out of my wreck of an office round about St. Patrick's Day. It was "holding" two skeins of Shalimar Breathless for Sweet Girl's Hippo that I had wound. I was going to wind the Shelter that same day but I think Little Man woke up from his nap before I got around to it. So.....the yarn was placed with the other two on the stool. Husband took the stool out of the office or some strange reason. Said yarns were placed in a nearby box (also filled with yarn). When I was cleaning in my office later that week, I moved the two skeins of Shalimar into the bedroom with Itty-Bitty Toys.....and I put the Shelter somewhere else.

Turns out I wasn't as dumb as I thought I was...I put the yarn back where my stash page said it was located. I found it in there yesterday when I looked in the bag on a total whim.

Since then, it has been wound on my Nostepinne...which I'm not sure if I like or not. I definitely like the proper cake my mechanical ball winder makes but there's a certain........something about using the Nostepinne to wind my yarn. For one thing, it didn't get as stretched out as it does when I put it on the ball winder (but I'm usually pretty careful to not stretch my yarn too much anyway)......but I think I'm going to have to knit with said yarn on the Nostepinne, just so the cake doesn't completely fall apart in my hands.

But, back to the pattern...my skein of Shelter's colorway was "Nest" and resembles the color of a birds' nest (duh). This is rather perfect because it's a good neutral color. Anyway, I was perusing the pattern today (before I printed it) and it turns out that the example shown was done in the same colorway. So, the good news is that I should have enough to finish this hat (the pattern calls for 120 yards and a skein of Shelter is 140 yards)...the bad news is that I don't know if I have the needles.

::sigh::

If it's not one thing, it's another.........so, now I'm off to find out if I have the required US #7 and US #8 16" circulars...I have the required US #8 DPNs.

In the meantime, I think I'm making either an addition or a change to my Self-Imposed Year of Projects list (I haven't decided which way I want to go yet) but I'll talk about that on Sunday :)