Big Things in 2018?

I'm nearing the finish line with my fabulous Yarn Quest 2017 "Heroes of Yarnia" scarf. I was keeping up with the MKAL but then something went awry with my knitting brain and I set it aside, and then I jumped back to my design ideas, and now I'm back at the double knitting.

One of the reasons I'm back on the double knitting bandwagon is Ravelry's newish (it came out a few weeks ago) challenge feature. Have you checked it out? There's a tab in your projects and you can set it to however many projects you want and you can adjust it anytime. The cool thing is it pulls your queued projects and WIPs that have deadlines entered for this year so you can see your plans in one spot. That's new too, being able to add deadlines to WIPs or projects that you don't have queued. And it's not just items in your plan that count in your finished tally, anything finished with a finished date in 2018 counts.

So this handy tool has lead to me cleaning up the old WIPs list and setting real goals for my projects. I hibernated a couple things that I'm tempted to frog, but would probably regret doing so. I gave HoY a deadline of Feb 1; more than year since I cast-on. I want to wear it! And I need to stop procrastinating about it. I can happily say I'm 36 charted rows away from finishing :) That feels good.

My reason for the Feb 1 deadline is twofold: A) I want it done and I'm darn close, and B) the Ravellenic Games are just around the corner!

Yes, it's that time and an even numbered year! Ravellenics time! And I've set myself two tasks. The first is to frog, Aerial Unwind ;) , my Find Your Fade shawl. Love the pattern, love the wool (Sock it to Me Dankai) but together they're not doing anything for me. I know there are better pattern fits for the yarn so I'm reclaiming it! Power to the Frog Pond!

And seeing as how I haven't done anything overly insane lately, (and yes, I'm including the whole ebook idea; hang on I have an update on that too!) I went looking for a pattern I bought ages ago. Like 1999-2001. Seriously, ages ago. It was for an Irish dance dress to fit an 18 inch doll. It was in the style of that time too; no drop waist, flouncy skirt for this one. Gorgeous single panel front on the skirt with full skirt behind, an embroidered/Swiss darned border around the edge and cuffs. Very similar to what I'd wear when we got our dresses done when I was dancing with ICoR. So I googled. I went through all 173 pages of knitted doll clothes in the Ravelry database. The pattern and website are nowhere to be found. And seeing as how I'd stayed up all night (it was around 4:30am at this point), I decided I'd design one and use it as my Ravellenics major project. I even have some sparkly yarn just right for the task (Bernat Satin Sparkle, btw; really nice to work with and it's acrylic so sold at Walmart and other easily accesible places). I've even swatched* a few types of pleats to get the shape I want. (*swatching is considered training, as long as you don't cast-on the actual project). As a brief aside, if you're in need of an excellent video tutorial on box pleats, I highly recommend this one from Purls Soho.

I'm going off what I recall the other pattern looking like and what my ICoR dress was shaped like. And I have had a couple requests, so if all goes well the pattern will be made available through Knit-Dance-Repeat Designs on Ravelry. Another appropriate design for my little endeavor :)

Ok, speaking of my little endeavor and goals and planning and all that good and sometimes not so fun stuff! The ebook of designs based on the seven basic solo dances in Irish dance (aka "All the Jigs and Reels") is progressing. I have set myself a goal of having the final 4 prototypes done by June 1st. Then it's tech editing everything and some testknitting and hopefully it'll be released in time for some late summer/early fall knitting time so there are warm woolies ready before the cold hits again. That's the plan at this point in time. And everything is going really well with all the designs except one. No shocker it's a hardshoe dance giving me trouble but it's the treble jig not the reel, unlike dance class! Ha!

The collection consists of a cowl, a tam, mittens (bonus fingerless mitts with this too), a cloak (options for 1 or 2 colors and hood or collar), a toque, and a scarf. All the designs involve cables; the cloak can be done with intarsia (2 color version), the toque has short-rows in the ribbing, and the scarf incorporates double knitting. I just need to find what the treble jig wants to be represented as. At this point, it may be legwarmers. Does anyone besides dancers wear them anymore? The pondering continues as I forge through the swath of knitting that is the body of the cloak. It makes a nice blanket on the lap on these cooler days (-9°C, feels like -17°C with the wind here today) and that with a cuppa tea and my feline supervisors makes it quite cozy :)


Well, dear readers, that's all my news!

TTFN!

General Chitchat; Spring Cleaning

I composed a tweet the other day that I couldn't send due to my phone still not being fixed yet. It read "Peace= a mug of Read My Lips tea from @DAVIDSTEA + a beautiful shawl pattern by @RomiDesigns being knit in pretty yarn from @KnitPicks + 3 sleeping cats + sunshine" It really summed up my quiet morning: tea, knitting, cats and sunshine.

This afternoon, I'm knitting on my "Ardrum" in the lovely merino/silk blend I chose ages ago and enjoying a nice mug of tea (Toasted Walnut this time; I had some Apple Custard earlier). The cats are doing their cat things.

I finished the "Alcyone" I was working on, plus a little bag I started back in 2012. I'm not sure why I set it aside when all I had left on it was the handles. Oh well, it's done now; a charming little bag called "Leafy Knot Clutch" (Veronik Avery; book "24/7 Knitting"). I'm down to 2 WIPs: my "Ardrum" and the bag I'm designing. Which is odd for me, but I've really finished up a lot of things so far this year. 14 FOs since January; I'm pretty sure that's a record for me! There might be 1 or 2 more that I can move from "hibernating" status to active WIPs but I'm really getting things caught up. I guess spending my days sitting on my butt can be useful ;)

Friday (June 10) was the one year mark since "The Big Fall". In that time, I've progressed from excruciating pain and fear of what might be wrong with me to quiet acceptance that pain reminds me not to overdo things and my balance is bad and I need to use a cane especially out of the house. I'm still trying to get into physio but the new idiot system is more frustrating than the waiting was! But it is what it is and I can't change it. I'm trying to walk 5 days a week, even if it's just to the Post Office and back (roughly 1 kilometer, round trip). I take my pills, do what I can around the house. And I knit. And compose blogposts on paper that I can type up when I go to the library next ;)

I've been doing that a lot lately; blogging on paper. Some may find their way here, others won't. I have a feeling I'll hang onto them either way. They're good for a laugh if nothing else!

I plan on revamping my page of "Patterns Mentioned in this Blog" soon. Direct links for the web-based ones, like those published on Knitty.com, for sure. The Ravelry downloads, I think I'll just leave as they are. Same with those from books and magazines. I need to clean up the blogs and other links too. Freshen things up now that Spring appears to be approaching my lovely Rock in the sea.

So, be on the lookout for some minor tweaks to this blog and let me know if there's anything you'd like to see here. As always, you can check out more details of my knitting projects on Ravelry; find me there as knit-dance-repeat ;)

TTFN

It's Wednesday...

That seemed like a good reason to post. Am home after my trip to Town, Monday, for the MRI. Results should be at my dr a week to 10 days after the scan; roughly mid-November.

It was a decent trip in and I liked doing a bit of exploring on my own, even with my waddling with a cane. I noticed I was getting tired quickly though. Thank goodness there's benches around Town. I managed to (finally) get to COCO, which was a lovely treat yesterday morning :) And I stopped at the David's Tea in the Av mall for a cup of chocolate macaroon while I waited for the taxi to come back home. All in all, a decent trip but it sure was nice to sleep in my own bed last night with the furries around me.

On the knitting side, I'm up to row 13 on the edging of my Carson. This is a row I've decided to add beads on so taking a bit of time to get it done. Brought it with me to Town to work on at the the hostel but I found it difficult to concentrate as my back wasn't happy. Most recent pic:

What I did work on in the taxi is a new little something off the top of my head that I'm tentatively calling "Hap-Hazard". No beads so it was much more travel friendly than Carson is at this point. I put a sneak peek on Instagram, so here it is for you too:

I treated myself to a New York Fries poutine when I got to Town on Monday.

So, that's all the news that's fit to print at this point!

TTFN

They say bad luck comes in 3s...

Oh dear. Where to start? As someone (Lewis Carroll?) once wrote, start and at the beginning and when you come to the end, stop. So here goes.

The 12th of January saw melting in the morning on my way to work. By lunchtime it was freezing rain and light snow was falling by the time I got off at 2. My first mistake was thinking it was fine to walk home. The second was taking the little cut through by the Bare Mountain trail. I fell. And once again landed on my left hand. Only this time I felt a pop. I took off my mitten to reveal the already bruising and swelling hand. Uh oh. I picked myself off, texted Roomie I was on my way back up the hill to go to the Emergency and slowly made my way back up passed work. Long story short, I cracked a bone in my hand and spent 11days in a splint/half cast and a further 4 weeks in a full cast. There was also soft tissue damage, again. Have to wear a tensor bandage around it if I'm at work still. Cast has been off 12 days today.

As if January wasn't sucking enough, there was heavy rains on the 25th. And with the ground frozen guess where the water decided to go? The joys of a basement apartment :( We got about 2" of water, which wasn't as bad as some but still bad enough. And I was at work when it happened. With a two-day-old full cast on my dominant hand. Oy. Long story short on this: we wound up moving to a lovely semi detached in a much more central location (15-20mins to work instead of an hour- hour+10).

As you can maybe guess, January was *not* my favorite month.  And enter February. Not too bad until the cast came off. Because of soft tissue damage taking longer to heal, I have a tensor wrapped around that hand/wrist at work. And two days after the cast came off I was hurrying to fill an order for several hot chocolates (mini rant: why do people come through drive thru and order huge orders?? Seriously, up to 4 drinks, fine. But 12? 15? And then complain that service is slow? You try doing your order, buddy. Let's see if you can fill it in under 2mins. Bet it would take you 10! Sorry, readers. end rant). Here's an interesting thing about hot chocolate: it's hot. And when it splashes back on a bandaged hand, it burns. And continues burning until the bandage can be pulled off and hand plunged under cold water. And an ice bath *will* prevent further damage but nasty blisters do form. Guess who gets hot chocolate burn scars down her thumb? Oy very.

2015 hasn't been too kind so far, but we're settling in and making the new place a home. The cats love the big windows and running up and down stairs (it's two stories plus full basement). I decided yesterday I was going to use the wool wash on two projects that got soaked in the flood and maybe work on one. I had tried to dry them in the damp apartment but not much luck so had put them back in their respective project bags (also soaked) and put both into a plastic bag *with* my bottle of Eucalan. And yesterday I made a discovery: that plastic bag never made it here :( It must've gotten shifted in all the confusion and wound up on the garbage pile :( So my lovely Carson shawl is no more :(

Even worse, the bag I was using for it was the bag I knit in 1999 to carry my softshoes, notebook and pen when I first started taking Irish dance. My lovely pale blue cabled bag that Ita (my first dance teacher, who passed from cancer in 2004) thought was such a clever thing and never failed to show people.

Ok, 2015, enough bad things. Can we now get on with the good stuff? Maybe a lottery win? Hint hint lol

End of 2014 roundup

So, to start off, I wrote a post back in Oct, using the app, that apparently never published :( *sigh* Have I ever explained that technology doesn't like me very much?

Anywho, I was checking Ravelry this morning, trying to decide what WIP(s) to work on when I figured I should check this year's FO total. Can I have a drumroll, please? ;)

7!! Admittedly, they're all small things, but I completed 7 projects in 2014 :) Which means I passed my knitting goal :) Lovely feeling that.

My other goals didn't fair so well. I seemed to have been sick more often than not this year (just over a 4 day bout of flu) so my dance practice goal was never in the running. And my weight loss has been slim to none, although everyone says I look smaller. The common assumption is I've gained muscle. Whatever's going on, I'm still hovering around that last 20lbs I wanted to lose.

Now, as all good end of year posts do, I must look towards 2015 is the New Year and muse about what I can accomplish.

On the knitting side: I don't think 5 projects of a little more substance is out of line. Especially if I get some of these WIPs out of the way ;) Daydreams in Lace jacket, I'm looking at you. You too, Carson shawl.

Dance and weight loss: I'm lumping these two together because I firmly believe they are key to one another. Roomies and I have a budget and plan in place to be living in Town before September. And that will mean Síle back in a dance studio working her tootsies off :) And that combined with walking around the pretty city, I think, is going to help me get the weight under control :) Also, I'm much happier when I dance and that inspires me to be creative in my knitting and other things too. It's all good :)

So, that's my basic hopes for 2015 :) I want to wish everyone a great New Year and may all your projects turn out as planned ;)

TTFN

Oh Mys

Soooo...

Yeah, I guess I'm just not very good at this whole blog thing. But I do have pics to share! And one is even an FO; we don't see too many of those around here lately. Remember, project details are all in my notebook on Ravelry username knit-dance-repeat

Let's start with said FO: Sweet Little Cats Paw v2.0 :) Got this done in May happily :) photo 1 is the front and photo 2 the back. I'm quite pleased

I have picked up Wingspan (Ravelry; designer's name eludes me) recently and done a bit more (photo 3). The constant garter st gets to me after a bit though.

Which is why I have Day Dreams in Lace otn :) (Knitter's magazine; Brooke Nico) Here's a close-up of the yoke (photo 4) and an in progress shot (photo 5). Am almost to the repeating section of chart C :)

Of course finishing SLCPv2.0 meant I *had* to cast on something new. I chose Tempting (knitty.com; again designer name is eluding me). And like the Wingspan, it is in a constant pattern throughout (in this case ribbing) which nearly puts me to sleep if I do it too long. *sigh* But I do have progress to show (photo 6). AND I bought ribbons to swap out according to my mood (photo 7). Ribbon is good incentive I think ;)

So that's the WIP line-up here in Newfoundland. Hope you enjoyed the tour ;)

TTFN