How about a few FOs, kittens?

I've been taken down with the Cold Plague of DOOM part 3™ and feeling pretty wore down, but I wanted to post up a few FO pictures and keep up with blogging. (Seriously, I've been ill since Giftmas or the day after with no breaks in between. Just as I'm recovering from one cold another moves right on in. The first was awful, the second really mild, and now this third one is pretty cruddy again. I'll eventually be healthy again someday...right?) In 2012 I'd like to get back to a couple of posts a week plus my end of the month and quarter posts. I'd also like to get better about being on top of current FOs rather than blogging them 6+ months later. Health and luck permitting, I should be able to do this.

*knocks on wood*

Anywho, let's move into Fall 2011 and what all I worked on at the time....

Halloween was fun again this year. The Girl re-used her Hello Kitty hat with a new dress and tights and was perfectly happy with that as her costume. The Boy had a more specific request: he wanted to be Raccoon Mario for Halloween. Honestly, it would have been more cost effective to just buy a cheap, poorly made costume, but I was having none of it. So I went through the trouble and cost of finding overalls for a non-toddler boy--this is absurdly difficult and rather pricey, FYI, kittens--then I had to find a plain red long sleeve shirt, again, not the easiest thing to do...amazingly Walmart and Target do not carry these things for the over-5T boy. The hat I found from an Ebay store and that was the easiest piece to source. The Mario 'stache is just some cheap black felt I had lying around and I free form cut it and stuck in on with scotch tape. Classy. Then, I bought some Knit Picks Swish bulky in brown and black and went to work knitting the raccoon components. It's difficult to see the ears since the hat is a bit too large, and I didn't think to place anything in them to make them stand up.









But look at that tail! Too cute. The Boy was so excited that during his school costume parade he kept hopping and leaping. He really got into it. I'm sure his teacher didn't like me too much that day.

After that, I finally went to work on a mini monkey for The Husband, who was rather insistent that he needed one.

This resulted in M-800. While trying to pick out the color for the eyes, we both decided that we liked one of each; it made the monkey look like The Terminator and thus, the name. This guy was a pretty straight forward and drama free knit; but I did run out of yarn for the tail and half of a leg. Thankfully, Jill was able to help me out and sent me a few grams so I could finish. The Husband seems pretty pleased with his monkey, and we even gave the little guy a job this year....










He kept watch over us from our Giftmas tree.

That almost wraps up 2012's FOs, kittens! It should hopefully be only one more post and I'm mostly up-to-date. I hope you're all feeling better than I am today. ♥

What is this?

O hai thar, WIP-it Wednesday! It's been a while since I've seen you.









I've been working on quite a few things this month, but a couple are a test knit so I'm keeping those fairly under wraps at the moment. Before starting on my next installment for that project, I decided to cast on some socks for myself and try to bang them out pretty quickly. I had no desire to finish the rainbow socks yet (this is why I knit 2-at-a-time whenever possible), so I cast on with this insanely pink Bugga I've had marinating in my stash for 11 months. Can you believe I bought a sweater quantity's worth of it?! I'm not sure what I was thinking, so now I'm looking for ways to use it all. I think I may gothify one skein along with some other yarn I have sitting in stash that would improve with some black stripes. I just need to find the motivation to reskein it for dyeing.

Not much to show off, but I am actually knitting, kittens. It's been awhile. :)

Crafting Intentions: 2012

So, I never got around to blogging about intentions/resolutions at New Year's, did I, kittens? The truth is, I haven't put as much thought into them this year since I was so side tracked and ill last year, but the ones I made for 2011 were pretty good. I'm still working around some of those health issues, but in general, I'm feeling much better and having more good days than bad ones now. I'm not sure I want to make too many goals, just in case I have a relapse or life decides to mess with my crafting in some other way. (Car accidents, I'm looking at you. Stay. Away.)

In 2012 I'd like to:

♥ Knit 6 pairs of socks

♥ Attempt IntSweMoDo again, though realistically, I'll probably finish 4-6 sweaters, not 12.

♥ Finish The Boy's knit blanket, it's still stagnated at 1/3 of the way done.

♥ Finish quilting my bed quilt; it's sitting at 40% quilted.

♥ Save any yarn purchasing for Rhinebeck. (zOMG, you guys, I haven't even blogged about how I'm moving later this year [AGAIN] and where yet. That's for another post.)

♥ Continue my efforts to fit my yarn all back into my under-bed tote. I'm pretty close minus my son's blanket yarn. Two sweater quantities would definitely do it.

How about you, kittens? Have you made any 2012 crafting resolutions or are you pretty relaxed about that sort of thing?

December 2011: Wrap-Up

Here it is, kittens. The last yardage tally for 2011. These are some of the only posts I managed to keep up this year.

Yardage Totals 2011

January: 1071 yds

February: 762 yds

March: 1189 yds
April: 1083 yds

May: 849 yds

June: 487 yds

July: 222 yds

August: 687 yds
September: 405 yds

October: 436yds

November: 216yds

December: 813 yds

Year to date: 8,220 yds or 4.67 miles

All-in-all, not a bad way to end things. See you all next year! ;D

2011 Stash Down: Final Post

Well, kittens. There's definitely no more yarn to be out these next two days, and there's no yarn coming in. May as well wrap the year up, eh?

2011 Stashdown Q1:

Yardage In: 15,254

Yardage Out: 1,737

Net Stash Change: +13,517

Ratio (yds out/in): .114

2011 Stashdown Q2:

Yardage In: 880

Yardage Out: 4,286

Net Stash Change: -3,406

Ratio (yds out/in): 4.87

2011 Stashdown Q3:

Yardage In: 1,975

Yardage Out: 2,125

Net Stash Change: -150

Ratio (yds out/in): 1.08

2011 Stashdown Q4:

Yardage In: 1,728

Yardage Out: 2,388

Net Stash Change: -660

Ratio (yds out/in): 1.38

2011 totals:

Yardage In: 19,837

Yardage Out: 10,536

Net Stash Change: +9,3011

Ratio (yds out/in): .531

So yes, my stash did increase in size. (The vast majority of it yarn for a blanket I haven't finished yet, but have knit 1/3 of the way through...I can't wait to see that number as stash out next year.) But despite the large amount of yardage in Q1, I did really well every other quarter...even though really low productivity tried to thwart my efforts. And considering all of that, the ratio is not bad at all.

As we're always telling newer members in the Stashdown group, this is a process. It doesn't work overnight and it takes time to change habits. I've been pretty pleased to see the changes in my purchasing habits since starting Stashdown in 2010. Let's compare some numbers. (The first number is my 2010 yardage in while the second is my 2011 yardage in.)

Q1: 6,681 vs. 15,254 (There's that blanket yardage. :P )

Q2: 7,014 vs. 880

Q3: 7,591 vs. 1,975

Q4: 19,553 vs. 1,728

I'm really happy with where I am purchasing wise, but 2011 was a bad year for productivity. I'm hoping 2012 will change that and I'll be seriously in the green. I should finally reach my original goal of fitting all of my stash into that under-bed tote! Some people may find the fact that it's taken over 2 years to reach this goal a bit depressing, but I'm OK with it. All of the changes I've made to my behavior will allow me to maintain a perfect-for-me sized stash in the future.

How about you, kittens? Was 2011 good to you and your goals?

I promised FOs, right?

Well kittens, I'm going to try and post some up even if I have little to say about them. (That's the problem with not blogging right away; you forget everything.) I've spent a lot of this year knitting toys and small items...which are not my favorite thing to knit. And yet, it seems to be just about all I've managed to get done this year besides a pair of socks. 2011 has been a rather awful year for crafting. :P









This trio was finished in early July and finally went off to live with Laurie's family in early October. I am a huge flake; it's just how I am. I always bite off more than I can chew and then get bogged down in wanting to do things perfectly which causes me to get nothing done at times. I'm glad they're finally in their new home. :)

I've posted the Angry Birds pattern before, and last I heard, the woman who wrote the patterns was contacted by the game company to cease and desist selling them. It's a shame.

The stegosaurus is a pattern from here (Ravel it). I wish I could remember more about it. I decided to use inexpensive felt for the scales instead of knitting them. I took inspiration from this project and plan to copy it for myself some day.

The owl pattern is a bit special to me since my friend Rachel designed it for her own daughter. Rachel is a friend I made back at our last duty station, and I wish we could have had a bit more time to play together. She does not have a blog, but she does have an Etsy shop if you're looking for cute embellished hats, and you can find the owl pattern on Ravelry. It's very well-written and easy to understand; she did a great job with it. Did I mention it's free to boot? You can use any weight yarn you want to achieve the size owl you desire. If you have anyone to knit a baby gift for, or children on your list for the winter holidays, I highly recommend this one.

This little guy is another present, this time for a friend of The Boy. He was invited to his first ever birthday party in September, and I wanted to send him with something unique to give to his friend. (She loved it, btw.) So in a very short time (4 days), I whipped this up to send with him. I was literally finishing it about the time the party was supposed to start, so I never did get a decent picture of it. (This one came from my camera phone.)

Susan is very inspirational to me, and I got the idea for a mini Jerry after seeing her adorable one. (Seriously, check out her entire Ravelry project page; she does some amazing work.) I used leftovers from my first rainbow stripey sock and a little Knit Picks palette and that was it. Little monkeys are kind of futzy, but oh so cute.

I think that's enough for now. I'll try to post again shortly with some more FOs. I'm hoping 2012 will be a better year in general, and I'll get back to posting more regularly. I hope 2011 has been treating all of you kittens well!

November 2011 Wrap-up

Yardage Totals 2011

January: 1071 yds

February: 762 yds

March: 1189 yds
April: 1083 yds

May: 849 yds

June: 487 yds

July: 222 yds

August: 687 yds
September: 405 yds

October: 436yds

November: 216yds

Year to date: 7,407 yds or 4.21 miles

Kittens, those of you on social networking sites with me already know that November was an awful month for our household. On Veteran's Day, we were in a fairly serious car wreck, and while I did not have to be hospitalized for my injuries, I've been spending most of my time recovering. I hit my tailbone pretty good and sitting down for any length of time was just not an option for awhile. We're all OK and the other driver is too, but it really should be no surprise that I wasn't able to be as productive as I wanted. This also means I haven't been able to edit some photos of recent FOs, and I hope to have those coming in the next month. (I'm just glad that I didn't attempt to do the November blog-a-day challenge this year!)

I hope all of you have been doing well and are gearing up for a merry holiday season. ♥