Monday, January 11, 2016

Plans for 2016


January begs for some time management and serious planning. My resolutions never take me further than two weeks (it is almost two weeks already!) into the New Year, but still, they are so fun to make and it is so fun to plan various things, that I cannot help myself, but am setting some kind of goals. 

I was poking around Ravelry trying to find interesting KALs or CALs and I found this (Ravelry link) year long KAL, where you pack 12 skeins of sock yarn into different bags (preferably into something you cannot see through) and each month you pick randomly one bag and make something out of that skein during the month. The group is called "My personal Sock Yarn Club 2016" and hopefully I can stay focused and am able to knit those 12 socks. I have my KAL sorted out but would like to have some kind of goals in crochet too. If you know any interesting crochet-alongs, please tell me in the comments.
My personal sock club twist is that into some bags I added odds and ends from previous socks. Also I hope to knit according to my own plans, am not going to follow any patterns and most socks will probably end up using my plain vanilla recipe (which at the moment seems to be one with longer cuffs). I packed my yarns into the bags, made 16 bags altogether, did not have any plan in mind; noticed in the end that there were 16. I am afraid that I might remember contents of some of the bags (the ones I am not so keen to use or the ones I love...), so am asking someone else to pick me the bag each month. I had my daughter pick me this yesterday.
There were two skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock (in my stash for maybe close to 10 years) and one cake of pure Merino (Cherry Tree Hill Yarn, Supersock??). This is a lot of green and green is one of the colors that I find sometimes hard to work with, and here are two shades that I find very difficult. I am not sure that it was a good idea to combine the two and I have been thinking of something else to mix with these all the time I have been knitting this. I have not been able to come up with a good idea (some lilac? pink? light grey?) and I suppose, out of that color frustration, I had to play with the heel...
I added few purl rows there... and again, not sure, if it was a good choice. This brings me to one other twist to my personal sock club. I am giving myself a permission to use these socks more a less like swatches and the socks don't need to be identical, but they can be.

All the yarns I picked were these smooth fingering or dk weights with some nylon in them but since I would love to make more stranded knitting this year, I was thinking about the nylon factor in yarns and came across this article. It was published in Wovember and I think I need to broaden my sock yarn collection, or need to think more creatively about sock yarns in the coming months.
At the moment I have three pairs of socks on the needles; the other two being:
these red striped ones, the second one started and the ribbing almost done... (Regia Nuance Color and Austerman Solid) and 
these fascinating Squircles by General Hogbuffer (Ravelry link) out of Regia Pairfect.

This is one of my goals for the coming year. I am thinking of other ones too, but I have not made up my mind yet.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments and for welcoming the new little family member. His name will most likely be Väinö, although I need to see him in person to be absolutely sure about this. Earlier I always thought that our new kitten would be called Topi, but the moment I saw this little face, I knew he could not be called Topi and somehow this little sweet face looked more like Väinö to me. "Affectionate, loyal, funny, active..." I just love those adjectives associated with the Burmese... and "You may have a philosopher cat on your hands", sounds just so ... heartwarming. Thank you xx.

Hope you have a good week. Ours up here is going to be cold, it is -24 °C today and it will stay this way for most of the week. I am going to be pottering around the house, keeping the fires going, making occasional short walks outside and knitting.
I have this card (link to the shop) on my fridge door... It says, "May your Monday be short and coffee strong!" In case some of you need this encouragement today.

Wool with you
Lene

8 comments:

  1. Your little cat is delicious. Can hardly wait to see him in your home - I'm sure that you will have to put the yarn under cover! Thank you for this good post about socks. I think that I have 12 project bags and at least that many sock skeins, so I will be following your lead. You are a very fast knitter tho, so I'm sure that I'll have to work hard to keep up. I'm happy for this inspiration! Thank you-
    best,
    jody

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  2. Anonymous02:50

    Love the motto for Monday!
    Yes that knit-up-your-stash idea is excellent. Most of us can likely go shopping in our own stash bins.
    Thanks for the photos! Stay warm,
    LisaRR

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  3. Jeannie03:08

    Love that new baby!! I can't wait until he comes home to you!!!

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  4. sandra03:26

    Sophie's Universe is my favourite CAL ever! I couldn't even follow a pattern when I started & the finished blanket is amazing (even if I do say so who shouldn't. lol)

    CAL link: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sophies-universe-cal

    My Sophie link (because I can't help showing off!): http://www.ravelry.com/projects/SandraAtStamp/sophies-universe-cal

    Your knitting is all sooo beautiful! I wish I had the attention span to knit more socks. lol

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  5. If you lived in Seattle, Washington USA those green and blue socks would be valuable. They are the colors of our US Football team the Seahawks. Everyone wants clothing in those colors. We are very crazy for our football team!

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  6. Anonymous16:14

    I just finished reading your Monday post. My Monday was very long and there didn't seem to be anything strong enough to kick it in the pants...just had to muddle through. Now it's Tuesday and a much better day. I am facing a clean-out, tidy-up where my yarn and projects are concerned as well. I have a few lingering projects to tackle that will free me up soon. I like making a paper list of what yarns I have, the weight and the yardage. I find this most helpful. It causes me to wade through my reasonable sized stash and get re-acquainted with some forgotten treasures. Then I can make plans. Your sock plan is a great one and I've wondered about doing it with larger amounts of yarn...sweater amounts. I thought I'd have a family member bag them up and what I picked would clearly eliminate any decision making about what yarn to use next, just like your sock yarn projects. Of course, I may have to spend a bit of time pattern hunting after that. At least some time would be saved initially! Love your posts, thank you!

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  7. Your socks ......amazing. Your kitten....so sweet. You have fun ahead of you!!

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  8. Congratulations on your new kitten. My Burmese was a great joy who lived to be over 20 years old. They are very special cats, very smart, affection and loving. I know you will be very happy with him.

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