Mikknit

Welcome to 2008, eh? I figured I’d poke my head back in here and shock the heck out of a few people.

I’ve been knitting, but the kids haven’t been allowing me much time to blog. Also, the natural light is severely lacking right now and I’ve not gotten a lot of good pictures. There are a few, though.

Christmas knitting:

I knit some socks for Chris, which he loves. Online Supersocke 6-ply, which I got from my Knitters Coffee Swap 2 partner. Nice to knit, but a touch splitty. Feels great all knit up, though!

Some mittens for my sister, from the Selbustrikk book. She loves these, apparently they’re just the perfect size for her hands. I was worried about that, since they were snug on everyone I had try them.

Back of the hand

Palms. Ah, snow - nature’s light box.

A hat for my brother-in-law, who has been asking for a hat for a couple years now. I knit him one from my handspun, but it was misplaced/lost when they moved into their house. This time, he got commercial yarn - Lamb’s Pride. The pattern is the Marsan Watchcap, I added a few stitches to it since the larger size was snug on me, and my head is smaller than BIL’s.

A little pointy, but it fits well regardless.

I’m knitting the edging on my Leaf Lace Shawl right now, hopefully for good. I’ve run out of the natural brown alpaca and I can’t get more - the farm doesn’t seem to be around anymore, sadly. But I’ve got a skein of yarn from the same place in natural cream, and I’m giving it a go. We’ll see, but if it looks like refried ass then I’ll rip out the last pattern repeat and that’ll give me enough of the brown for the edging.

I’ll hopefully have some knitting time tomorrow and the rest of the week, since the kids have chicken pox and we aren’t going anywhere. I’ve got friends coming over tomorrow, one of them may be able to give me an unbiased opinion on this. Chris is sort of “eh” on it, as am I, but I like it more as I get more of the edging on.

Resolutions

Since everyone else is doing it, I’ll post some resolutions too. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions for my life in general, as I try to make improvements as needed rather than saving them up to start all on one day. But since I’m coming back in here after a long hiatus, I might as well throw a few in here that relate to knitting and blogging, right?

1. More blogging. I’d like to shoot for a couple times a week, hopefully that’ll be doable.

2. Knit from stash. I am in no danger of running out of projects - there are a few sweaters’ worth of yarn here, lots of sock yarn, lots of laceweight yarn. I’ve got lots of options. I’m interested in seeing how far I can take this, and how well I can restrain myself, given the yarn shop less than two blocks from my house.

3. Spin more. That wool isn’t turning itself into yarn, and that spinning wheel is crying out for attention.

4. Buy more locally-produced yarns and wool, if buying anything. Aside from the obvious environmental and economic benefits of this, I find I really appreciate the yarns I’ve used from small operations. I will be buying something from far away, some Beaverslide yarn, but that’s been in the works for ages. Otherwise, I’m trying to keep it close to home.

5. More adventurousness. I knit those stranded mittens and loved it, though it’d have been more fun on larger needles (they were knit on 2.0mm needles). I’ve got a stranded hat for my mom on the queue, and there’ll be more lace once I finish this shawl. I think I’ve got a gansey on the list for Chris, too. New things are good.

I think that’ll do it, don’t you? See you in a few days, hopefully with a finished shawl to share.

Happy New Year!