What’s Up 2016?

Monkeys & Legos

Ah, hello Day 2 of the New Year! Or are you no longer new now that you are 2 days old? No matter.  I am still feeling the brand new optimism that comes from the arrival of a new year.

Lists and plans are still a thing of the future today.  I’ve got time and I will get down to business when I’m good and ready.  Today I am working on my first project of the new year and cooking my Mom a batch of my Dad’s spaghetti sauce.  It feels auspicious that I am doing both these things on the second day of the year.

The holidays always remind me of my Dad.  We would wait for all our favorite Christmas specials to come on TV after dinner. Hurry! Charlie Brown Christmas is starting! Now it’s all on demand, but back then we had to make sure we were planted in front of the TV on the proper channel or we’d miss out.  There was something special about not being able to pause or rewind our favorite specials.  You had to be present both physically and emotionally.  I kind of miss those days.  But mostly, I miss my Dad.  He passed away in 2009 and sometimes I almost forget he won’t answer the phone when I call or give me a whiskery kiss and tell me not to take any “wooden nickels.” But I keep him alive making his spaghetti sauce.  He taught me his “recipe” many years ago and I almost never cook it, choosing the speedy cheater method I’ve developed over years of college and young professional life rather than the low and slow day long approach his recipe requires.  A couple years ago I didn’t know what to give my Mom for Mother’s Day, so I decided to dig out my handwritten recipe from the cooking lesson Dad gave me so many years ago, and I made her a batch.  My Mom, notoriously hard to please with gifts, practically shed a tear.  You’d think I’d delivered the moon and stars. Today, I’m giving that gift again.  But really, it’s a gift for both of us. We both get to start the year with my Dad.

As for the socks, they’re auspicious too. I knit a pair of Cookie A’s Monkey socks a couple years ago and really enjoyed both the process and the result.  My plan (as yet fully unrevealed) for 2016 is to knit a lot of socks.  That’s all I’m really committing to you see: a lot. No specific number, no limiting myself to only socks this year….. why stress? But more on that later.  Anyway, back to the Monkey thing.  The pattern I cast on for is a version of the Monkey socks, but toe-up and purl-less.  It’s called Los Monos Locos and has been in my queue since April 2011 (!). Though I loved the Monkey pattern and really want a pair for myself, I thought it would be more fun to work on my queue at the same time I work on my sock problem er, goals.  So I cast on and guess what I discovered while surreptitiously slurping photos for my Ravelry project page?  The Chinese Astrology Year of the Monkey begins in February.

How’s that for auspicious?

Begin Again

2014 began with a bang. 

Well, a shriek really.  Knittymunchkin climbed in bed with us around 5:15 AM this morning & proceeded to squirm around for a good half hour before telling me that he was thirsty & demanding I go get his water bottle from his room upstairs.  When I said, “Go get it yourself”, or perhaps something a little less polite or intelligible, he proceeded to shout at the top of his lungs thereby effectively ushering in 2014 just a little too early for all of us.

But I did allow myself the pleasure of casting on my first project of the year while indulging in some bad parenting & letting Knittymunchkin watch a movie as we waited for the sun to rise.  This will be a pair of Rye socks by tincanknits for Knittymunchkin made from stash yarn. For the offspring of a knitter, he is woefully light in the hand knit department.  And, it’s kinda cold here.

This year I’m participating in a “14 in 2014” challenge with the Ewe La La Swap Group on Ravelry. I’ll be attempting to complete 14 projects from stash and/or my Ravelry queue before the end of 2014.  As a side deal I’ll be attempting to complete 14 UFO’s alongside my 14 projects from stash/queue.  Because, yes Virginia, there IS a languishing UFO stash of at least 14 items (gasp!) lingering in my household at this very moment, thumbing their fibery unfinished noses at me.  Does that really surprise any of you who have been reading my nonsense for any length of time?

Anyway, there’s a lot I want to accomplish this year.  It’s too much to explain here (and probably too boring) but I will hopefully be checking in here a little more frequently with progress on whatever challenge I’m wrestling with at the moment.  I didn’t make any resolutions (I usually don’t). But, after all, it’s only the first day of the new year.  I’ve got to pace myself if I want to make it to the home stretch.

Here’s to a Happy New Year for each & every one of you!  I wish you nothing but the best!!

*************

P.S.  It’s been a while since I’ve posted here & I’ve noticed some good & bad WordPress changes.  The bad being that there are now occasional ads here after my posts.  Sorry about that.  I can’t do anything about it except cough up $30 to get the ad free upgrade. Which, when your salary is zero, just isn’t going to happen.  But just so you know, it wasn’t my idea to slap those ads up there. Thanks for your patience!

Pools & Packages

Show off!  R. Darling practicing his rolls in the pool

 

Yesterday R. Darling and I went to the pool for some kayak practice.  I can’t say that I was keen on the whole thing (being wet and strapped into a kayak isn’t really conducive to getting in some knitting time) but I went along.  Recently I’ve started to panic a little when having to wet exit the kayak, and R. Darling thought that practicing comfort in the water might help with the anxiety.  So yesterday I spent an awful lot of time like this:

 

 

This is actually R. Darling in his boat, but you get the idea.  And apparently the inside of my right ear is a cozy little spot because this morning I woke up at 4:30 AM with my ear throbbing and I’m afraid some nasty little water gremlin must have crawled inside and is now having a sweet little pajama-jammy-jam inside my ear canal.  The nurse at the doctor’s office thinks that I might have some excess sinus pressure in there that is not equalizing properly, but I know better.  Let’s just hope the water gremlin does his little “walk of shame” out of my ear pretty soon and things can go back to normal.   Much as I love sitting on my ass all day, as per R. Darling’s orders, I’m not real fond of a throbbing inner ear.  Kinda sucks the fun right out of everything.

But here’s something that always cheers me up:  a package!!  I received my SITM sock swap package last Wednesday and it was filled with all kinds of fantastic things!  Hooray!!  Thank you so much AJ for such a wonderful package and such pretty pink socks!  AJ was the hostess of the SITM swap and I’m not sure how I ended up with the hostess as my secret pal, but it has really been fun corresponding with her during the last couple months.  Thanks for a great swap AJ!  And here’s the goods…..

 

This is what I saw when I opened the box.  A handmade knitting needle cozy in the perfect colors!  So cool!

 

Underneath, some beautiful Koigu!  Mmmmm…… Koiguuuuu.  Never tried it, but sooooo excited to!

 

She also sent a drop spindle, a book on spinning and a bunch of pretty green roving.  I’ve been curious about spinning but just didn’t know where to start, so this will be really fun to get to try!  Can’t wait!

 

And last but not least, a few pics of my new fantastic pink socks that fit perfectly!  Thanks so much for everything AJ!  You’ve been an awesome pal :)

 

Well At Least There’s This

Some of you may remember that little secrety sumpin’ sumpin’ I was working on for a while.  The Something Exciting which will now be better known as “Petal“.  I have to admit, it was a bit of a surprise to find it all complete and ready for purchase when I was browsing Ravelry this afternoon.  My heart sank just a little.  Like when you find out a week after the fact that your boyfriend went out to dinner with a girl-that’s-a-friend (who you think might be more-than-a-friend) and somehow neglected to share that information until you asked a bunch of snoopy questions and pried it out of him. 

I guess I had a lot of expectations about the process that I didn’t realize I was holding on to.  Some altruistic sense of wanting to help another knitter, albeit someone who doesn’t need my help, and being on the cusp of something new and exciting.  Maybe even a little asterisk in the bottom right hand corner that says something like, “Test knitters using Berocco Nostalgia found that yardage needed to complete this project was in fact doubled.”  In the end, I wasn’t helpful at all and the worst part about it is, I now am the proud owner of my very first Fuggle (non-magic knit) as a result.  Oy.  I haven’t even bothered to take a photo of it yet so pictures may not ever be forthcoming.  Just take a look at Stefanie’s if you’re curious because it looks positively lovely on her!  Sorry, I know you were excited to finally see it.  Maybe, if I don’t frog it in the near future I’ll take one for posterity and share it with you so you can enjoy my very first Fuggle as much as I have (not).

Lest you think I am badmouthing the designer or her process, I feel compelled to assert that I don’t have any negative feelings whatsoever towards her or how everything worked out.  It was my own damn fault for having such high expectations for whatever it was that I thought I was doing and I just can’t explain why I feel so melancholy about the whole thing.  I’m really happy for her that she got the pattern completed and it appears that she had a whole community college class test knit it for her, so I’m sure that was extremely helpful.  And I wish her tons of success with both the pattern and her book that will be coming out in the future!  Hooray for Glampyre!  Thanks for letting me test knit for you even though I suck!

But at least there’s this~

Twinkle Toes in STR Midsummer Night for SITM Pal #2

I finally finished my second pair of socks for my second pal for the Sock It To Me Sock Swap.  These will get blocked tonight and then hopefully I’ll be able to mail them out over the weekend.  Then it’s time for some serious Christmas knitting.  Stay off the Naughty List kids or you may find a Fuggle in your stocking!