Casting Off

OFF MY NEEDLES:

I finished my first pair of socks this year, and had my first Ooops! moment at the same time. These socks were Cast On on January first for The Great Hufflepuff Sock Fest. I finished knitting them on January eighteenth, wove in my ends, tried them on, and this is what I got:



That was a first for me - never had a heel come out with that much excess fabric before. So I ripped back both heels about an inch and did decreases as if it was a hat crown. For one sock I kitchenered the remaining stitches closed. For the other sock I drew the yarn through the remaining stitches and cinched it closed. I prefer the look of the latter closure (top sock in the picture).

Here are the finished and fixed socks, knit on 2.25mm needles in the Monsieur X colorway of Biscotti & Cie's Felix base sock yarn.








Brought To Me By: Crafting accomplished with the following audio/video accompaniment:    
  Audiobooks: Soulless by Gail Carriger;                      
  DVDs etc:   Rizzoli & Isles; Inspector Alleyn Mysteries; Endeavor; Moonlight;            
Pod/VideoCasts:  The Knit Girllls; Round the Twist;  The Knitmore Girls (almost caught up);                    
 

And We're Off....

To a good start for the new year. New projects were started, old ones finished, and decisions made for direction a new year of crafting will go.

ON MY NEEDLES:

January first was the start of a month long sock knit-along in Hufflepuff House in the Hogwarts at Ravelry group (yes, I'm a Hufflepuff and proud of it!). There are no prizes for participating in The Great Hufflepuff Sock Fest, just Badges and a feeling of accomplishment, both of which I love.

I cast on two pair of socks. The first pair is a cuff down afterthought/forethought heel sock in Biscotti & Cie's self striping Felix base yarn in the Monsieur X colorway. I've the first sock (minus the heel) done and am almost halfway through the leg of the second sock since this picture was taken.



The second pair was cast on, frogged and re-cast on. It will be toe-up socks with Fleegle's no flap heel (a first time for me) pattern, and will incorporate the Hermione sock stitch pattern on leg and instep. The yarn is Panda Cotton, a holiday gift from a friend.




2014 GOALS:

This year I will be concentrating on charity knitting and finishing UFOs/WIPs, and also pattern writing. I will also try not to buy anymore yarn until the fourth quarter (and then only as gifts for others). Ideally, I'd like to go an entire year without any stash enhancement, yarn or fiber. For spinning, I will try to spin through as much of my fleece and fiber stash as possible, with an eye towards selling some of it (either handspun yarn or hand processed fiber). An adventure for sure.

I have lots of UFOs/WIPs on my needles that don't seem to be getting anywhere. So the plan is to concentrate on one a month (more than one if they're small like hats or socks). So far, January is a hat and a pair of socks; February will be the Hexipuff Baby Blanket; March, the Charlotte Bronte shawl. The schedule will be reevaluated every quarter as projects get added to or removed from the UFO/WIP list.

The two charities I will concentrate on are first Socks For Soldiers and then Bundles of Joy. Both have been sorely neglected over the last couple of years.


OFF MY NEEDLES:

My first Finished Object of the year is the other Holiday Stocking. I guess technically it's a Re-Finished Object since I frogged the original finished stocking back to the heel beginning and redid the heel and toe. I'm still not entirely satisfied with the toe but it looks a lot better than it did, and frankly, I'm sick of it.

How Did I Do

2013 is over so let's see how we did goal-wise:

I finished:
7 out of 13 pr socks 53%
2 out of 13 pr of mittens 15%
3 out of 13 hats 23%
1 shawl out of no set amount of shawls
0 sweaters out of no set amount of sweaters
104 Hexipuffs out of 156 (13/month) goal. 66%


Knit and crocheted approximately 7,500 yards out of 13,000 goal. Spun about 15,000 yards out of 17,000 goal. So overall, I reduced my stash (including destashing yarn and fiber) by a total of 4,221 grams out of 18,144 grams goal, or about 9 out of 40 pounds.

In other words, not so good. In fact, pretty sad performance. Guess I should go easy on the lofty goals for 2014.

December 2013 FOs

OFF MY NEEDLES:

December was a productive month as far as Finished Objects goes.

The Surprise Mittens were knit using the Deathflake Mittens pattern by Sissel KB in red and blue Vuorelma Satakiele, a deep stash yarn.




The Wild Blueberry Socks are plain stockinette toe-up socks with Cat Bordhi's padded Sweet Tomato heels knit in Louet Gems Cherry Tree Hill's Wild Blueberry colorway.




The Newport or Newtown Socks (not sure which - label lost) were knit in Lisa Souza Sock! and are vanilla cuff-down socks with a Sweet Tomato heel.




Two Holiday Stockings were made using a combination of recently purchased and vintage stash yarn and modified versions of the "A NEW Family Portrait - A Collection of Three Christmas Stockings" pattern by Dorene Delaney Giordano. Well, kinda made. The second stocking was just a big purple and white tube sock because I didn't have enough time to put the heel in. But it was usable. I took both stockings back after Christmas to finish/fix. This is the second stocking with the heel added in.



I wasn't happy with how the first stocking's heel and foot were done, so I've ripped that back to the beginning of the heel and am reknitting. I'm down to the toe decreases and should be finished soon.

Also finished some more squares for WarmUp America, bringing my completed square count to fourteen to date.