So it’s that time of the year again…this is pretty much a semi-annual event.  My knitting mojo has gone missing and while I am still doing some knitting, I am not taking a lot of joy in it at the moment.

So on the weekend, I broke out the Crock-Pot and the dyes, and I dyed up some Superwash Wook roving and some Tussah silk in purples and blues.

I think I know just what I am going to do with them but a bit more on that later.

And last night, my Lendrum finally made a re-appearance in my life.  Since it had been three months, it took a little bit of finagling (amazing the little detail you forget when it’s been that long) but by the time the evening was done I had very little of the batt I was playing with left.

I had started this batt as an attempt at “long-draw drafting for woolen spun” yarn, but it really did not work out.  My spinning-teacher-turned-friend, Leslie, surmised that it was the fibre prep, and that I should try that technique with another batt somewhere down the road.  I purchased Jacey Bogg’s Craftsy class on drafting, so it’s pretty much guaranteed that I will be trying it again.  I have several beautiful Inglenook Fibers batts…the handiwork of the ultra-talented Mother Macrina, but they are all so stunning, I can’t bear the thoughts of “ruining” them with bad drafting.

In addition to all of this, I have other fibre treats on order and I am hoping to have them by the weekend.  So, I may not be knitting, but I am not letting that keep my fibre-y creativity down.

That being said…if you find my knitting mojo, please do send it home.  I miss it.

If you have been reading for a while, you know that I never link to random blog posts, unless they have something to do with me personally.  I much prefer to write my own stuff, and talk about things personal to me…my life, knitting, spinning, cooking, and so on.

Today, I make an exception, because this post was personal to me.  We are all guilty of this to some extent, I am sure.  I have been known to keep the good wine, the good yarn, the good fibre for “special” times/occasions/patterns/projects, like somehow I don’t yet deserve them.  But this author makes such a great argument!

Enjoy!

Burn The Candles

My first FO of 2015 is early…mostly because they are plain stockinette socks in self striping yarn.  I always find self striping yarn seems to knit itself; I guess that’s because it’s easy to talk yourself into “just one more stripe” and it never gets boring.

I cast these on the week before Christmas because I was feeling blue and not at all in the holiday spirit, and I wanted something cheerful.  This yarn is definitely that.  Extremely bright and colourful, it was just the cure for what ailed me.  As an aside, this is my first Turtlepurl yarn and I quite liked the base…not at all splitty, easy to work with and produced very nice socks.

My friend Christina had just completed a pair of striped socks using a pattern with an afterthought heel, and I was convinced to try it myself when my quasi-OCD self fell in love with the unbroken stripe pattern.  I have to admit now, though, that I remain unconvinced.

I followed a tutorial that Christina recommended and I even did a search and found another that advertized heels with no holes.  Yet, where I picked up the stitches to fill in the gap, I got fairly substantial holes.  I had tonnes of yarn so I “sewed up” the open spaces, but still.  Either I made a mistake (which I am absolutely willing to admit that I might have!) or the tutorial was off.

I will give it another try before tossing out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak.  but if I encounter the same difficulty on a second pair, I will likely go back to my standard sock pattern and not worry about the stripe pattern being just a touch off.

Socks (with gratuitious Kayleigh Dog in the background!)

Pattern: There really wasn’t one…cast on 56 stitches and knit three stripes worth of stripes.  Then stockinette until heel placement per tutorial.   Knit to toe…do toe to 14 stitches on each needle (my first three toes are all the same length so pointy toes don’t work for me at all) and Kitchener.  Go back and pick up stitches for heel.  Knit one full stripe, then decrease like a toe until 8 stitches on each needle and Kitchener.

Yarn: Turtlepurl Striped Turtle Toes in “Polly Wanna Cracker?”

Who Was It Made For?  Me

Were There Changes Made To The Pattern?  No pattern used

Did I Learn Anything New?  Yep!  Afterthought heel.

Anything Else?  Not that I recall.

Would I Make Another?:  I will try this method one more time.

This year, I made one resolution… To quit making New Year’s resolutions!

Every year I make these resolutions, I very rarely actually keep them, and then am riddled with guilt because I have not kept them. I have learned over time that life gets in the way sometimes, and that making resolutions because you think you should have them is not the same as making them because there are things you really want or even need to accomplish.

For the past two years, for example, I have resolved to knit only from stash for a while. You can guess how well that has gone!

Would I like to knit from stash more? Absolutely! I have a massive collection of stunning yarns, and it’s sad to see them languishing.

Would I like to read more? Definitely! Again I have a collection of great books that I have not read, but guilting myself into reading them is going to take the joy out of it for me.

Setting numbers of skeins and quantities of pages isn’t going to make my life any better. In 2015, I will try to be more creative, and live my life in a way that makes me happy, doing things that bring me joy. Full stop.

Did you make New Year’s resolutions this year? Why or why not?