I like making New Year’s resolutions. I like making all sorts of lists, goals, etc throughout the year, and New Year’s just formalizes that process. I — believe it or not — tend to be fairly anal (I can picture Dave and my friend Mel snorting coffee through their noses at this point).
However, although I am fabulous at getting goals on paper, I’m not so good at remembering to keep up with them (though I do take a great deal of pleasure in crossing things off lists (or deleting them as the case may be in this digital age). So an additional goal this year is to formally re-visit my goals at least on a monthly basis to keep myself on task. Ideally, then, on or about the first of the month I’ll blog about my progress for the previous month and plans for the new month.
January Knitting GoalsThis is easy — finish Veste Everest and Dave’s Malabrigo Irish Moss scarf.
I cast on for both of these at the end of December 2007.
The yarn for Dave’s scarf was an impulse buy at my new LYS, Twist, when I took Rosemary there for her Christmas shopping spree — two lovely squishy soft skeins of Malabrigo in solid chestnut, a most manly color. This post goes into more details about my choice of pattern, which is from the Irish Moss pullover from Aran Knitting by Alice Starmore.
I purchased the yarn for Veste Everest online through eBay. It’s handspun Icelandic badgerface lamb’s wool, ostensibly 2 ply worsted weight (more on that later), in a pretty creamy grey color. Both the soft undercoat and some of the outer hair was apparently spun together, which, though it should be (and is) a sturdy yarn, makes me glad that I will be wearing something between this and my skin.
Unfortunately the spinner didn’t really keep to the same weight/ grist of yarn while spinning this, and there’s a lot of variation, sometimes in the same skein, in yarn thickness. I had to size up on my needles to accommodate the thickest yarn. I think the final vest will be pretty, but very rugged in appearance as opposed to refined. However, between this and some fleeces I’ve purchased, the importance of buying some things in person, as opposed to online, has been hammered home.
Other modifications I’ve made to the pattern include knitting it in the round, planning for an additional repeat of the cable pattern to add on a couple inches in length (the original is a cropped vest), and planning to start the neck shaping quite a bit lower (in the original the neck shaping is started a couple rows after the armhole shaping).
The Good Deed
Heifer International is one of my favorite charities, and I made a donation for Cara’s Spin Out fundraiser….and I won one of the raffles!
Thanks again to Cara for organizing this — she raised a ton of money for Heifer.
Here are the goodies: a sample of Azul crafter’s hand balm, a skein of superwash wool/nylon in Raspberry Lime Rickey from The Woolen Rabbit, 2 skeins of superwash merino from Capistrano Fiber Arts, a set of 10 notecards from The Yarn Museum, and an adorable Lone Star State of Mind tote with matching needle holder from Actual Size Creations.
