twistedloops

I’ll be honest, there isn’t much progress to post for March so I’m not going to go through the list of goals. I’ve been absent from the blog because I spent more of the month away from home than I did at home. I had planned to be away for a few days for a vacation, which was a nice break. A few days later a family emergency occurred and kept me away for much longer than I’d planned.

That being said, there was no spinning in March and I didn’t finish a single knitted item. Essentially, the entire month of March after the Ravelympics was dedicated to the baby blanket I’ve been designing. The good news is that I should finish it this weekend and be able to move on to some other knitting.

This is my February wrap-up of my progress on my ten for 10 goals.

1. Knit a large square/rectangle shawl (like one from from Heirloom Knitting or Knitted Lace of Estonia)
2. Knit a sweater for me
   No progress on either of these items.
3. Knit a pair of colorwork socks
   I’ve been knitting and posting about my self-designed colorwork socks that I started for the Ravelympics.  So far, I’ve managed to knit one sock, and I’ve got one to go.
4. Clean and prep the baby alpaca (cria) fleece I purchased
5. Spin the above mentioned fleece
   No progress on either of these items in February.
6. Spin at least an hour per week to improve my overall spinning technique and consistency
   As was the case last month, I wasn’t able to dedicate an hour a week to my spinning.  I blame trying to knit for the Ravelympics for the lack of time.  I did, however, spend 6 to 8 hours spinning four ounces of fiber from Wolf Creek Wools.
7. Reduce the overall stash.
   I didn’t actually finish any knitting projects in February, so the amount of yarn that left my stash is zero.  On top of that, I added a bunch of Knitpicks Swish DK in order to work on a project.  Granted, I cast on with the yarn right away, but I did overestimate the amount I needed by about 4 balls (7 oz/200 grams).  This will result in adding to the stash, not reducing.
8. Design and release at least 2 patterns
   I’m definitely on track for this one.  I will be releasing the colorwork socks (they need a good name).  I’m also working on a baby blanket pattern (which also needs a good name).  There’s already interest in this one by an outside party.  No details until I’m sure of what the outcome will be.
9. Post more regularly to this blog
   I only managed three posts in February, not the frequency I was hoping for.  I know March will be better.  This is already the third post, and it’s only the 10th of the month.
10. Attend my local knitting or spinning groups more often (which shouldn’t be hard – I hardly went at all in 2009)
    I made it to knitting twice in February.  I’m ok with that. 

Overall, I feel that I made fairly good progress in January and have some fairly high hopes for what I can accomplish in February.

Since Kelly asked, I’ll wrap up my Ravelypics project.  I did not win a Ravelympics gold. I didn’t even manage to finish one of the socks that I was designing and knitting.

I’ve had several setbacks along the way. I thought that I had the design mostly complete before the event started, but the truth is that I only had the main pattern and heel charted. I hadn’t planned the sizing for the calf; I hadn’t swatched the ribbing. I spent the first weekend just finalizing these details.

Once that was worked out, I was able to just knit down the leg with some minor tweaking to the calf sizing. There were a few setbacks, like the time I realize I had jumped ahead about 20 rows in the chart and didn’t notice until I had knit a significant portion. All that work was ripped out and re-knit.

Then, I got stuck at the heel. I spent an entire week knitting, ripping, and re-knitting the heel, and it just didn’t look right to me. The key finally came to me while I was drying my hair one morning – a smaller needle. Since the heel is primarily one color worked back and forth instead of two colors in the round, it made sense. Once I had that revelation, the heel worked for me as I had originally intended and I was able to work my way down the foot.

The failure to advance plan hit me again when I got to the toe. I thought I’d be able to work through it as I went, and that did not work. I need to sit down, plan the toe and knit it. That is my plan for today.

I haven’t given myself a deadline on finishing the pattern. I thought it would be fun to enter them into the Socks Revived Contest (Ravelry group).  In order to do that, the pattern has to be available by April 19th.  While that is a month away, there’s quite a bit more work to do. I need to finish charting the other sizes. I’d like to have the pattern test knit. I’d really like to finish the second sock. There’s a lot of work to finish this, and this pattern isn’t my priority right now. I’ve got a project with a deadline this month. We’ll have to see what I can do in such a short time.

You may want to check out the links to the Socks Revived contest even if you’re only a sock knitter.  It holds the promise of a bunch of new sock patterns.

 I’d like to do a wrap-up each month here on the blog on my progress on my ten for 10 goals.

1. Knit a large square/rectangle shawl (like one from from Heirloom Knitting or Knitted Lace of Estonia)
   No progress on this one. This is still the one that worries me most for 2010.
    
2.  Knit a sweater for me
   I’ve been thinking about this one, and I’m leaning towards the Asymmetrical Cardigan from Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan. I thought about challenging myself and knitting this sweater for the Ravelympics, but I’m now leaning towards one of the designer events.
    
3. Knit a pair of colorwork socks
   See the super secret swatching project listed “On my Needles” and the reference above to the designer Ravelypics event? That’s all I’m saying for now.
    
4. Clean and prep the baby alpaca (cria) fleece I purchased (which will be much easier since I got combs and hand cards for Christmas)
5. Spin the above mentioned fleece
   I spent some time this past weekend testing out my new hand combs and cards. I think I need more practice with them before I tackle the fleece. I made a mess out of the commerical top that I tried to card, and I’m not sure it’s even spinnable anymore. Definitely not what I want to do with the lovely fleece.
    
6. Spin at least an hour per week to improve my overall spinning technique and consistency
   I didn’t spin an hour a week in January, but I did spin about 8 hours total in the month. I’d like to work towards spinning a little each week rather than in burst once or twice a month.
    
7. Reduce the overall stash -I must knit/destash more than I purchase (by weight, since I want to include the fiber and yarn)
   This one isn’t going so well. I’ve got another 8 ounces of roving coming to me that I ordered in January. All I used up in January was about 3 ounces of yarn for my Citron (which just finished blocking).
    
8. Design and release at least 2 patterns
   This is well underway and should easily be met this year. More details to come!
    
9. Post more regularly to this blog
   I managed to get in five posts in January. I’d still like to post more, but it’s a definite improvement over most of 2009.
    
10. Attend my local knitting or spinning groups more often (which shouldn’t be hard – I hardly went at all in 2009)
    I only made it once in January, but it’s a start. I am planning on attending tonight.

Overall, I feel that I made fairly good progress in January and have some fairly high hopes for what I can accomplish in February.

Happy New Year!

Over in the Stash and Burn Groupies Ravelry Group, CherryMakes started a thread about the idea of a Ten for 10 project.  This isn’t the knit 10 of an item in the year kind of project that seems to be all over Ravelry.  Instead, this was the idea that we could each set 10 goals for improving our own knitting, spinning or crochet skills in 2010.  She posted details about her idea over on her blog in early December.  I’ve been on board with the idea, but it took me a while to come up with my list.

I’ll admit, I took some liberties with my goals.  For me, this wasn’t just about improving my skills or technique.  I also wanted to improve my overall knitting and spinning experience.  For me, the experience includes my interactions with other knitters and spinners.  That social and community aspect is something that was lacking for me in 2009.  I rarely posted to this blog.  I pretty much stopped going to the local knitting and spinning groups this summer.   I wasn’t even all that involved over in Ravelry.

I put my list of goals in the order of knitting, spinning, and then other (includes design, stash and community/social goals).  I didn’t try to put them in any sort of priority order.  My Ten for 10 are:

1. Knit a large square/rectangle shawl (like one from from Heirloom Knitting or Knitted Lace of Estonia)
2. Knit a sweater for me
3. Knit a pair of colorwork socks
4. Clean and prep the baby alpaca (cria) fleece I purchased (which will be much easier since I got combs and hand cards for Christmas)
5. Spin the above mentioned fleece
6. Spin at least an hour per week to improve my overall spinning technique and consistency
7. Reduce the overall stash -I must knit/destash more than I purchase (by weight, since I want to include the fiber and yarn)
8. Design and release at least 2 patterns
9. Post more regularly to this blog
10. Attend my local knitting or spinning groups more often (which shouldn’t be hard – I hardly went at all in 2009)

I want to use the blog to check in on this list once a month so I can keep track of how I’m doing.  I don’t know if I’ll achieve the entire list, but I’m going to try (I can already see myself skipping the large shawl…).

I think I’m going to spend some time today inventorying the stash that isn’t in Ravelry (mostly fiber) so I can have a good sense of a true starting weight for #7.

Does anyone else have any goals for 2010?  I’d love to hear about them.  Leave me a comment or come join us over on Ravelry.