What's on tap for 2016?

This year will involve major life changes so who knows how the crafting will go. Still, I will set some goals for the year.

1. I would like to complete 24 new projects this year. I will probably make a lot of hats but I don't want to set a specific number of hats.  
2. The only yarn that comes into the stash will be worsted or bulky as that I what I use the most. Also, I am only allowed to add 12 skeins of yarn to the stash. I hope that I don't add that many but I want to give myself a little wiggle room because I will be attending the SSK vendor market. 
3. I need to finish or frog all 10 WIPs that were on the needles at the beginning of 2016. Let's be honest, once a project goes in to timeout, it's basically dead to me. The projects are: 

• Baby Alpaca GAP-tastic Cowl cast on in August 2015
• Purple & Gray Striped Scarf cast on in August 2015
• Brewster's Multnomah Shawl cast on in July 2015
• Cascade Textured Cowl cast on in February 2015
• Felted Tweed Duotone Cowl cast on in November 2014
• Sausalito Smoky Cables-and-Lace Hat cast on in July 2014
• The Grind Mitten cast on in January 2014
• NW T9 Dissertation Project cast on in October 2013
• Savory Bay of Fundy cast on in August 2012
   

Did I meet 2015's goals?

In a word, no. However, I exceeded my expectations on the travel goal and came close on the knitting goals so I am fairly pleased.

1. Instead of visiting two new states this year, I visited five: Minnesota, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi. I planned on visiting Minnesota and North Carolina but when I looked at a map, I realized the spot I was going to in North Carolina was really close to the borders of South Carolina and Georgia so I made sure to plan excursions to those states while I was on vacation. I ended up taking a work trip that allowed me to travel through Mississippi so that state was an unexpected get at the end of the year.
2. I was a little short on my new projects goal: 21 projects instead of 24 and 10 hats instead of 12.
3. I didn't knowingly purchase any new fingering weight yarn but in the gift bag for ZK2015 there was a skein of fingering weight yarn so technically, I purchased it.
4. I frogged four of the WIPs that I had at the start of 2015 and I finished one WIP so I did meet that goal. I could have done better as I know there are some of the other projects that I will probably never finish so I should have just frogged them. Still 5 out of the 11 being gone is what I was shooting for.

Overall, it was not too poor of a showing for 2015.

Let's be reasonable

Okay, I just said that I wasn't going to make any goals for this year but after having been bombarded by the really excellent goals that I have seen today on the various social media platforms that I visit, I am succumbing to peer pressure and making a few goals.

1. Visit at least two states that I haven't been to so I can get closer to having visited all 50. I will get one new state when I attend the Zombie Knitpocalypse in June so one more should be attainable.
2. Knit at least twenty-four new projects (WIPs don't count), twelve of which should be hats. According to Ravelry, I completed twenty-two projects in 2014 so this will be an improvement. Two projects a month is completely reasonable.
3. No more fingering weight yarn should be added to the stash. If I need something for a specific project that I am casting on right away, that is fine. I have sixty-seven skeins of fingering weight yarn in the stash and I primarily knit hats and cowls out of worsted or bulky yarn. In fact, the only fingering weight projects that were started and finished in 2014 were hats that I made with the yarn tripled so it was knit at a bulky gauge.
4. Finish or frog at least five of the eleven WIPs that I have at the start of the year. The WIPs are: The Big Black & Grey (shawl), Felted Tweed Duotone (cowl), Cranberry INSULATE! (hat), Sausalito Cables and Lace (hat), T-Rex (dishcloth), The Grind (mittens), NW T9 Dissertation (afghan), Jade Twisted Rib (hat), SSK TGV (shawl), Savory Bay of Fundy (shawl), and Mira's Tern (cowl).

Year in Review

Wow, I really fell off the blogging wagon. Here is the knitting stuff that you missed.

I knit a lot of hats and a few cowls and one random pair of slippers for a Nerd Wars challenge. Nerd Wars doesn't exist any more so I am now just knitting whatever makes me happy. I have quiet a few works in progress that will hopefully be finished sometime in 2015 but who knows.

I have no knitting goals for 2015. I have made knitting goals in the past and haven't stuck with them so I am just going to play it by ear in the coming year.

Nerd Wars Tournament Ten, Round Two

I managed to finish three projects for this round of Nerd Wars. I think that my knitting would be more productive if I could figure out how to incorporate projects into Nerd Wars instead of using Nerd Wars to select projects. I currently read the Nerd Wars challenge prompts and then select projects based on the prompt. I sometimes have other projects that I want or need to make but I have a hard time making my brain find ways for those projects to answer a Nerd Wars challenge. I think that I am going to try harder to make those project fit which should make juggling my knitting projects a little easier and should give my brain a bit of a workout. I think it is good to find different ways to give your brain a challenge, even if it is something small like making your project work with a Nerd Wars challenge prompt.

Without further ado, here are the badges that I earned for round two and the projects that I knit.

Discovery
The challenge was to craft something inspired by the rocks that are studied by geologists. I knit a red hat inspired by rubies.  It is the Giving Comfort hat by Alicia Landi. It is a well-written pattern for a simple, bulky weight hat with a little bit of texture. I can see making a lot of these hats in my future for charity knitting. I used Malabrigo Mecha which is a lovely superwash bulky single that I purchased from my local yarn shop.


Encyclopedia


Please pardon the quality of the pictures. They were taken on a not so great camera and are a little blurry.

Leveling Up My Knitting Skills

I just love it when I learn a new knitting skill! Well, I don't know that it is actually a knitting skill so much as it is a yarn skill but since I use it in my knitting, I'm just calling it a knitting skill. I stumbled across this technique in the Haka pattern by Lee Meredith (you may know her as leethalknits) when she suggested using worsted weight yarn held triple to get a super bulky weight yarn. Now, I don't know about you but the thought of holding three strands together from three different balls of yarn was enough to give me hives. I sometimes get tangled up in one strand of yarn, let alone three! However, she mentioned a technique that allowed you to use one strand of yarn to get three strands held together and she linked to a video tutorial. Just one strand? I knew I had to give it a shot.

The video tutorial was created by Alex Tinsley, another fabulous designer, who can be found at her website, dull roar. The tutorial is genius! I am finally going to be able to use up the lace weight that I have in my stash along with all of the fingering weight. I don't mind knitting with fingering weight but I have so many single skeins of it that it will take me forever to knit through it all. Also, let's be honest, sometimes I get bored partway through a fingering weight project so it just gets shoved into a project bag and thrown in a corner, never to be seen again. Triple-stranded fingering weight will allow me to zip through a project without getting bored and now I will be able to use fingering weight for charity knitting since most of the places that I donate hats to prefer that they be made out of worsted or bulky weight yarns. Here is the video that has changed my knitting life.


It was a little fiddly when I first got started but if you are a spinner, it will probably come very easily to you since it is similar to chain plying. (At least that is what Lee Meredith said in her pattern. I don't spin so I neither confirm nor deny the accuracy of her statement.) Initially, I would chain up some yarn and leave it in a pile on the desk while I was knitting. I am sure no one is surprised to hear that led straight to tangle city. Then I started wrapping the chained yarn around the outside of the yarn cake and unwinding a little bit at a time to avoid tangles. Other than being annoyed at the interruptions to unwind the yarn, that method was working well until the yarn cake started to collapse. It was a center pull cake and I was pulling from the center so when it started to collapse, I worried about yarn tangles. This wouldn't have been a problem if I had worked from the outside of the cake but that's not how I roll. Inspiration struck in the form of a juice glass. I just wound the chained yarn around an upside down juice glass: no tangles, no collapsing the yarn cake, and no stopping to unwind the chained yarn as it just slipped nicely off the top of the glass as I knit. Here is a picture of my setup.

Since I wanted to test this technique on fingering weight yarn, I just knit a basic hat following the Giving Comfort hat pattern by Alicia Landi. I omitted the purl bumps in the body of the hat so I could focus on learning this new technique. The yarn that I was using as a test yarn was some leftover self-striping fingering weight yarn and it turns out, this technique is great for self-striping because you can preserve the striping sequence when would not happen if you held three different strands together! Look how great the finished product is:

Nerd Wars Tournament 10, Round One

I was a bit of a fail for this round of Nerd Wars. I only completed one project but I did manage to make sure that it was also fit in with the team unity for the round. I was very busy with work and I just wasn't feeling like knitting during February. Below are the badges that I earned during round one.

My amazing team captain always whips up awesome badges but I think the badges for this round are my favorite.

Discovery
The challenge was to craft something that resembles a real, non-extinct, living organism, be it plant, animal, fungus, or bacterium. I knit a maple leaf dishcloth in Hobby Lobby's I Love This Cotton. That yarn is so soft! I'm guessing the dishcloth won't hold up for very long but I will enjoy the softness & squishiness while it lasts. I tied the color of the dishcloth to a shirt that Stacey wears in the pilot episode of "Gavin & Stacey." I also tied the color and the fact that it was a leaf to the woods that the runners are taking bathroom breaks in during the Marathon for Incontinence that was part of Monty Python's Silly Olympics (the sketch that we used for Team Unity).

If you haven't seen it, here is the Silly Olympics sketch.

Bonus Knitting Time

The best part about traveling is the extra time that I have to knit. I don't have any distractions (I'm looking at you, internet.) so I get a fair bit of knitting done. I am knitting on a Monster Cowl out of yarn from Another Crafty Girl. If you haven't tried her worsted yarn, you should. It is a dream to work with.

Nerd Warriors for the Win!!!

You guys, this just happened:

Also, I got my official badge for Dwarfing the Nebula in T9 Round 3:

If you are interested in Nerd Wars, it is team sign up time and Team Most Amused would love to have you. If Britcoms aren't your cup of team, there are a bunch of teams and you are sure to find something to tickle your fancy. Here is the thread of the teams that are hoping to participate in Tournament 10.

Nerd Wars T9 R3 Recap

I had a very successful third round for Nerd Wars. I completed projects for every category which in Nerd Wars parlance means that I dwarfed the nebula. This is the first time in the three tournaments of Nerd Wars that I participated in that I managed to answer all of the challenges. One of the captains of Team Most Amused likes to recognize team members when they dwarf the nebula by making a humorous, quasi badge for them. Here is mine:

During this round, the team was a little less social but I think it is just the nature of the timing. December is a pretty busy month for most people with lots of family obligations and travel so there is just less time for knitting and internet shenanigans. We still ended up with 100% participation although we were one person short of having 100% participation for team unity this month. Our team unity for this round was to tie your project to Monty Python and, to extend the unity, our badges were all Monty Python related.

 

Giving Geeks:
This round of Giving Geeks was an end of the year special and you could answer the any of the challenges that had been done throughout the year. I went with the "donation inspired by weather" challenge and made a donation to the American Red Cross. I opted for this donation as the midwest had just been hit by several devastating tornadoes & the Philippines had just been hit by Typhoon Haiyan. My Britcom tie-in was the episode of The Vicar of Dibley when the vicar installs a plain window instead of a stained glass window in the church and donates the money she raised for a new stained glass window to earthquake relief.

Encyclopedia & Team Unity Project
The challenge for this round was to craft something inspired by some aspect of the European Medieval period. I took my inspiration from the Black Death, the largest pandemic in history, and crafted a black Thorpe hat. I crocheted the trim in red because I wanted to use the Black Knight from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail as my team tie-in and unity project. The Black Knight has a red symbol on his armor and he spouts quite a bit of blood over the course of his scene. I have a special fondness for that movie because I watched it several times with my Dad and brother when I was little. We still use it as a pop culture touch-point.

Discovery
For this round, we had to try something new. It was a pretty broad mandate and there is a lot that I haven't tried when it comes to knitting. I decided that I would try double knitting as my "something new." Although it was a little fiddly it is definitely a technique that I would use again. I went with a very basic potholder for my project so that I didn't have to worry too much about mistakes. I mean, an ugly potholder is still completely functional, right? I tied this project to the Britcom Mulberry as the titular character arrives in a long, brown coat.

 

Nerdology
The challenge was to craft something inspired by a pun. I found a hippopotamus pun about weight loss so I knit a hippo dishcloth. The pattern that I used suggested knitting with a size 6 needle instead of the size 8 that is often called for with dishcloths as the tighter gauge helps the pattern stand out. I tied the color of the dishcloth to an outfit that a character is wearing in the sketch show Little Britain.

Flexible Schedule
For the flexible schedule category you can submit two projects that you finished during the round, as long as you did at least two hours worth of crafting on the project during the round. If you completed an unfinished object, you need to provide a before and after picture to show how much work you completed. I finished a dishcloth that I had started for a previous tournament and I also knit a pair of slippers. I tied the color of the slippers to the opening credit colors of the Britcom Good Neighbors.

Merry Christmas

First real snow of the season

I snapped some photos on Friday night while it was snowing. The photos were taken when we had about five inches of snow and it was still coming down. It was gorgeous, fluffy snow that was perfect for making snowballs. Unfortunately, no one at work wanted to have a snowball fight.

Team Most Amused First Place T9 R1

You can't see me but I am doing a little happy dance at my computer. Team Most Amused was in first place at the end of Round One of this, the Ninth Tournament of Nerd Wars. I'm sure that we won't end up in first place at the end of the tournament because other teams seem to focus on getting dissertation points which don't factor in until rounds two and three. That being said, I am pretty proud of my team. Moving on the my summary of round two...

First up, another picture collage of all the badges I earned from Team Most Amused.

Giving Geeks
Our prompt for this round was to "show the smallest among us that you care." To fulfill the challenge, I made a monetary donation to Crisis Nursery, a wonderful organization that provides respite care for children birth to age 6 when the family is in the midst of a crisis. In addition to respite care, the Crisis Nursery also provides parenting classes, support groups, postpartum depression services, play groups, and referrals to other community service providers to help the family to get through whatever crisis they are facing. Did I mention that the Crisis Nursery is staffed 24hours a day, all year long? They are never closed because they are aware that a crisis can happen at any time. If you have some spare money and are looking for a great place to donate it, I would recommend Crisis Nursery. Don't live if the area? See if your community has a similar organization and support it.

Discovery
For this round we had to craft a project in the colors of carotenoids and anthocyanins, the chemicals that are revealed during fall when the leaves change colors. I knit a brown Haka (a hat by Lee Meredith) and tied it to the brown outfit that Mrs. Doyle wears on the show Father Ted. The hat is a super quick knit and I will probably make more in the future for charity knitting. This hat is headed to the charity Wool-Aid as it is made of a bulky wool yarn and it has ear flaps for extra warmth.

Nerdology & Team Unity
The prompt for this round was to raise your nerd flag high and craft something inspired by another teams nerdery.  I knit a Nibbler dishcloth inspired by the cartoon Futurama. I am really sad that it is being cancelled. This project was also my team unity project. Our team unity for this round was a cross team unity so we had to craft something that was inspired by Team Space Alliance and they crafted something inspired by Team Most Amused. Futurama is one of the shows covered in their scope. I didn't know it at the time but Futurama is also covered by Team Shady cells so I got to be an honorary member of their team for this round. What does that mean? Another badge for my collection.

I hope that you are having fun with your knitting!

Kntting Nerdy

So I am still participating in Nerd Wars on Ravelry. I was initially planning on sitting out this round as I wasn't feeling inspired but I found different team to play on and I feel renewed and excited again. I was previously playing on Team Cancelled which is a great team focusing on television shows that were cancelled after three or fewer seasons. What drew me to that team initially? My love for amazing shows like Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, The Unusuals, Life, and Veronica Mars. However, deadline knitting has never been my forte and I was starting to get irritated by the rules and deadlines.

What could possibly have staved off a big "you're not the boss of me" fit and kept my nose to the knitting grindstone? Team Most Amused, a Nerd Wars team devoted to British television comedies! I grew up watching Britcom Saturday night on the local PBS affiliate and I have many fond memories of my whole family watching Are You Being Served (also on PBS).  I enjoy the classic Britcoms. And by classic, I mean stuff I think of as quintessentially Britcom-y: Are You Being Served, Keeping Up Appearances, Mulberry, As Time Goes By, The IT Crowd, Good Neighbors, and Waiting for God. I also really enjoy Coupling (we should never speak of the American remake) although I think of it as a British comedy and not a Britcom (my brain sees them as distinctly different).

I completed challenges in three of the five challenge categories and one of those projects was also a team unity project.

Giving Geeks:
For this challenge we were supposed to express our humanity by combating fear through a donation of time, money or items. I answered the challenge by making a donation to the local foodbank to combat the fear of going hungry. With this challenge, there were so many worthy causes that could qualify but since we were in the midst of the federal government shutdown and I knew several people that were having to make do without a paycheck, I opted to give to the foodbank. Although the federal government wasn't paying employees, their employees still had to pay bills and feed their families.

Encyclopedia:
For this challenge we were supposed to craft something inspired by a trip to the zoo. I was looking for a quick project so I went with a bear washcloth. I knew that I would need to tie it to one of the television shows covered by the team scope so I went with a pattern that looked more like a teddy bear so I could tie it to Mr. Bean and his teddy bear.

 

Discovery:
For this challenge we had to craft something inspired by an atmospheric phenomenon. I went with a rainbow as my inspiration item because I had some rainbow-colored self-striping yarn in my stash. I went with another quick project, a Kindle cozy. I tied it to all of the colors in the animated opening title sequence for The IT Crowd. This project also served as my Team Unity project because it used two of our team colors (red, white & blue representing the Union Jack flag).

Do any of you participate in Nerd Wars? If so, what team are you on?

Family Time

Sunday we got together to celebrate my sister-in-law's birthday. We went out to eat and, although we had a good time, we had to cut it a little short so my brother could go home and rest. He had an impacted wisdom tooth cut out on Friday and he was still is enough pain that he was on prescription pain killers. Needless to say, he was pretty tired.

After dinner, I swung by my mom's & dad's house to spend some more time with them. My dad showed me the garden which is doing fairly well and the orchard which is doing amazingly well this year. Last year we had a late frost that killed all the blooms so we had no fruit but the trees seem to be making up for it this year. I'm already drooling over all the apple pies, apple crisp and applesauce that will be made this fall.

One last family note, my dad showed me the item he picked up at the family reunion: a war bond that one of the old maid aunts and her bachelor brother bought on Valentine's Day 1944. It was so interesting be see that little intersection of family history, American history and world history.

Change is hard

In the past week, two co-workers have moved on to greener pastures. One is moving back to her hometown and starting a new job while the other is retiring. I've worked with N.K. since I started as an intern with the department in 1997 and with H.C. since she started with the department in 2000. It is hard to wrap my head around the fact that I won't be seeing them all of the time. We did send these women off in grand style. We had a going away party for H.C. at a local bar & a retirement luncheon at work for N.K. to celebrate the time that we had with them.

Local Foods Eat-Along

The lovely JoAnna of the Knit Spin Farm podcast is hosting a local foods eat-along in her group on Ravelry. I thought I would get in the mood with some strawberries served over vanilla yogurt and some light reading.

Happy Fourth of July

I was fortunate enough to spend the day with my family. We had awesome food & then went to see the fireworks display that Bement put on.