custom fit | First Light Handcrafts

So…I was bored the other day and started meandering about in WordPress. A blog post caught my eye…a post by The Mad Knitter called “Knitting Bucket List”. Considering how many things I see and ooh and aah over, I wondered if I really had a knitting bucket list and if I didn’t…perhaps I should. Sadly, while Ravelry has favourites and a queue, it doesn’t really have a spot for that, but I digress.

I think a bucket list should be “stretch” goals. I mean, sure, my queue has lots of things I’d like to knit. That’s what my queue is for. For me, a bucket list would contain patterns that I love that would contain something I deem to be a real challenge for whatever reason.

So I started thinking…what would I put on my knitting bucket list? The very first thing that sprang to mind? The socks that made me become a sock knitter three years ago, and that I still have not got the courage to start: Kate Atherley‘s My Vampire Boyfriend. I fell in love with these the moment that I saw them, all pretty and red and heart-y and cable-y. They are basically Rayna in a sock. Yet…each time I contemplate casting them on, I freeze and cast on something simple instead.

How awesome are these?? (Photo by Sarah Fay from Knitty.com)

On the shawl side of things…I’d have to go with Lucy Hague’s Taliesin. My friend Jocelyne linked to it on a Ravelry board that she and I moderate together and I literally gasped out loud. Now this one, I actually have the pattern for. Shireen decided she was going to knit it and sent it to me as a gift with the three word message, “Misery loves company”, a reflection on how hard it was going to be, not the finished item, of course.

Just look at all that Celtic knotwork! (Photo courtesy of lucyhague.co.uk)

Also on the shawl front is Cheryl Oberle’s Irish Diamond Shawl. I fell in love with this one as my friend Caryn made one years ago and wore it to work with great frequency for a long time. It’s so pretty but SO huge. I expect I’d buy a commercial yarn just so that I didn’t have to worry about obtaining five or six matching skeins of indie dyed yarn to make up the prescribed 2200 yards of yarn. I can’t imagine having to alternate skeins on this pattern.

The last thing on my bucket list? A sweater for me. This is another area in which I have no excuse. I have a code that was a gift from my friend Jenn for a Custom Fit sweater by Amy Herzog, a set of Custom Fit measurements just waiting to be entered into the software and not one but two sweater quantities of yarn. For some reason, I balk at the thought of casting it on. I think I have lived for so long with the fear of spending all that time knitting something that won’t fit, that I can’t bring myself to believe those who say that the Custom Fit software makes all of those fears null and void. I am a knitting wuss…there, I said it. Someday, I’ll get brave enough to start. Today is not that day. Tomorrow is not looking good, either!

So…what’s on your knitting bucket list?

So on New Year’s Eve, I took a quick look at what I did in 2013, and mentioned there were some things I’d like to do in 2014. I cannot say I actually set goals, because they were all pretty darned vague, and I would like to have something to work towards.

“I am planning to start spinning again in January and am considering saving up for a Woolee Winder to make my spinning that much easier”. I will spin 5 times a week for the year; I am never going to get any good at this if I do it in constant fits and starts. If I do keep to this, and I think it will improve my spinning, I will get a Woolee Winder in the spring.

“I have nine WIPs and four projects in “hibernation”, so I do need to get back at some of those.” I will cut that number in half by January 1st, 2015 and have no more than 7 WIPS/hibernating projects at that time, whether I finish the ones I have on needles or frog them.

“I am also planning to knit from stash a bit more. I added quite a bit towards the end of the year, factoring in several yarn-y gifts, and I have some great plans for some of those skeins.” For every two skeins I move into “All Used Up”, I can add one more to stash. (This will be by far my most challenging goal, to be certain, as I am completely given to fits of “ooh shiny”!)

“My last goal of the year…to at least start, if not complete, my first sweater. I have two sweater quantities, a coupon for Custom Fit (kindly given to me by my friend, Jenn) and measurements taken for me by Kim. All I need to do now is do some new swatches and I’ll be ready to go.” This goal was nice and specific.

And there was one I forgot. My dear friend Val has sent me three separate stashes of light fingering weight handspun over the past year…all gorgeous and all deserving of being knit into something awesome. I have queued two of them and I will knit at least one of these projects this year.

So, goals for 2014…there they are. I am not going to set goals of how many yards to knit or pounds of fibre to spin, mostly because I don’t want either of those activities to become a chore, and I fear that for me, goals that specific might make them so.

Let’s see how far I get with these 🙂