A Brand New Year

Meditating over my New year´s knitting resolutions 2011 I wonder if it makes any sense to make any this year. I don´t take them seriously at all. But it is nice to see that I did accomplish something: I did knit a big lace shawl (hee hee, not just one I dare say), I did knit a pair of socks (three of them!) and I did knit 5 kilometers of yarn (twice as much actually). I didn´t buy and read the book and I didn´t knit anything for charity. 2011 was a year of selfish knitting.

It is also amusing to see that some of the resolutions were way too bold. Knit a fair isle sweater? Seriously? I finally tried to knit fair isle on Christmas day and I was utterly intimidated. I guess I shouldn´t have started with 2 mm needles and fingering weight yarn. It seems that stripes are the only colorwork suitable for me.

As for stripes I wasn´t idle these past four weeks. I choosed to process my skeins of Drops Delight and Fabel. Fair isle didn´t work, I couldn´t decide on any shawl pattern that would be optimal for this yarn combination (I spent whole day swatching and frogging and swatching and frogging all over again) and I finally settled on turning the yarn into fingerless mittens and socks.


(I took this picture two weeks ago. I already finished two pairs of mittens and one sock. I hope to finish the second sock before January is over.)

Okay so let´s shift "learn fair isle kniting" to year 2012 and we have a resolution No.1.

Resolution No.2) Finish at least one project a month.
I usually finish 2-3 projects each month but this year I will probably have much less time for hobbies. New job, more work, more duties.

No.3) Release at least two patterns.
I´d like to write down a pattern for the buttony hat and for a lace shawl. The shawl will be a simple leafy and flowery triangular thing. I haven´t finished it yet. And I didn´t make proper notes while making it so I believe I will have to knit it at least one more time and debug the concept.


No.3) Mustn´t let my stash take over our small appartment.
Seriously. I used to keep all my yarn in one (huge) bag. Slowly but surely the balls and skeins and scraps and needles have infiltrated nearly every shelf and drawer. My stash is growing bigger and bigger which, I believe, is a good reason for putting myself on a yarn diet for some time. Let´s say... I allow myself to buy one skein of yarn for every two skeins I use up (the skeins must be of the same weight of course).

No.4) Force myself to knit more socks.
People love them so they make perfect gifts.

No.5) Improve myself in dyeing
And use up all the dyes I got/bought for Christmas.

No.6) Figure out some project that would get me rid of the fingering weight yarn scraps.
In my wildest dreams I´m using these scraps to make the Beekeeper´s quilt. But no... that is way too insane.