Knitting & Planning

Here’s the follow up to my birthday post where I share my knitting thoughts and plans.

Future Plans & Thoughts About My Knitting

• For my 40th, I decided to treat myself to a big purchase…of yarn.
• Since January I’ve kept every knitted project I’ve finished in a plastic tub on my dresser so I can see the accumulation of progress. And I really liked it. It was motivating. However, I realized if I were to do this through the end of the year, I couldn’t give some of the things as Christmas gifts. So, I made the executive decision that my knitting-project-year will run October 15th to October 15th from here on out.
• One of my already decided goals for 2022 was to knit more socks that weren’t just vanilla. Those are good for something to work on while reading or watching things, but not so good for developing my skills. To prepare for this goal I had purchased three books: 52 Weeks of Socks, The Sock Drawer, and The Second Drawer Down.
• While I have quite a large yarn stash, I do not have a large stash of single color or tonal yarns. Most of what I have is variegated or self-striping.

Birthday Yarn Purchases

Queue the yarn purchasing. I reached out to the people important to me who tend to be the people I talk, chat, and text with every day. My friends and family were given a choice between Knit Pick’s Hawthorne, Stroll, and Felici (I know this one is self striping, but for some personalities this was going to be a better fit). I also picked some myself and I ended up with enough yarn for 17 socks, two packages of sunstruck DPNs (I break them enough that sometimes I need a restock), and two cable needles.

This is what I purchased:

• Fennel Stroll Tonal
• Guppy Stroll Tonal
• Alameda Hawthorne Multi
• Eliot Hawthorne Multi
• Mt Scott Hawthorne Multi
• Hood River Hawthorne Tonal
• Game Over Felici
• Conifer Hawthorne Kettle
• Rockaway Hawthorne Tonal
• Newport Hawthorne Tonal
• Pansy Stroll Tonal
• Forest Heather Stroll
• Everglade Heather Stroll
• Jack Rabbit Heather Stroll
• Grizzly Heather Stroll
• Berry Smoothie Hawthorne Speckle
• Delphinium Hawthorne Kettle

That should be enough to keep me busy for awhile!

Finished Projects

These are my finished projects from January 1, 2021 to October 15, 2021:

These aren’t photographed in order of finishing, just how I pulled them out of the box. These are the descriptions left to right:

• Vanilla socks – Knitty and Color Absinthe & Aubergine
• Vanilla socks – Expressions Fiber Arts Ripples
• Vanilla socks – Knit Picks Felici Aquarium
• Vanilla socks – Miss Babs Lipstick (This is the third pair of socks I knit with this yarn, the other two I had frogged. I decided if these didn’t work out I was rehoming the yarn.)
• I don’t remember what pattern this was – Knit Picks Stroll Tonal Kindling
• Dad’s vanilla socks (longer with a larger stitch diameter) – Kroy Socks Slate Jacquard
• Fingerless mitts of my own design – unknown yarn, it came in a sock yarn swap I did
• Fingerless mitts of my own design – unknown yarn, it came from a thrift store and I lost the tag
• Christmas stockings – Knit Picks Palette (These still need blocked and the icord added but I’m calling them done, the longest stocking is around 2 feet long. They are just for decoration, not to be filled.)

I’d say that’s pretty good for ten and a half months. Waylen also wanted to make an appearance.

Unfinished Projects

These are the projects I did not have finished by October 15:

• Striped scarf similar to the one Newt Scamander wears in the Fantastic Beasts movie series. The yarn is Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Tweed. This is close to done, I just don’t pick it up very often.
• Vanilla socks from a mystery yarn from Knit Picks. These might get frogged and the yarn over-dyed. I just don’t like the color. I think the white stands out too much.
• Vanilla socks from Hobby Lobby’s new “hand dyed” line in the Coral Carrot color. I like the color but I don’t like the yarn, I might frog these too, I used my normal stitch count and they are tight, and I don’t think they’ll relax enough to be comfortable after washing. While knitting the yarn split a lot. I don’t know if I’ll make something else or rehome the yarn.
• Socks of my own design and the yarn is Mineville Wool Project in the Narnia colorway. These are actually done now except for weaving in the ends. I worked on them over my birthday vacation.
• Vanilla socks in a Knit Picks Hawthorne colorway. These aren’t too far, they tend to be the project I throw in a bag if I don’t have anything else to work on mindlessly.
• Fingerless mitts. This was a mystery/mistake colorway from Potions Yarns called Brass Goggles. The pattern is a modified sock pattern from a book.
• Fingerless mitts – I can’t find the pattern right now, but when I do I’ll update the name. The yarn is Studio Donegal Darnie.
• Hermione’s Everyday Socks out of a Knit Crate yarn. These are done except for finishing a toe.

The Narnia socks and the green socks I’ll probably consider done pre-October 15 as they were so close to being done anyway.

If I end up getting some nice socks made this year I might enter some in the county fair. They don’t really have a big knitting presence and they would need to be entered in the “miscellaneous” category. If the state fair opens up they have actual sock categories.

To act on my knitting plans I’ve already cast on a new sock from The Sock Drawer. I really do intend to finish some of the others though!