January Success!

First things first, allow me to show you January's socks.

These were knit from Periwinkle Sheep Wink in the Pale Orchid colorway.  These were completed on January 23rd, and I reached my shawl goal on the 24th.  That gave me a solid week to work on the sweater.

I chose to cast on Armande in some Tosh Vintage that has been lingering in the stash.  The colorway is Clematis, and this is the third sweater I've had in mind for this yarn.  Both of the other sweaters were things I loved the look of, but when I read the pattern I decided I didn't like them enough.  Since this is my "dessert knitting" for a while, I wanted something that would be an easy win.  So far so good!

I have already cast on February's socks in Hazel Knits Artisan Sock.  The colorway is of course Hometeam Football!  It is an older skein, so the colors are more "vintage", but I will be knitting on this sock while cheering for our Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl on Sunday.  Go Hawks!

On Goals And Geekery

Holy spreadsheet, batman!  I had no idea how much my oranizational brain would take over my list of goals and turn them into an actual plan.  It turns out that well defined goals and attainable deadlines make me happy.  After my last post I started to geek out with figuring out exactly how much sock knitting was required each day to end up with a finished pair each month.  Once I tackled that I consulted my friend google to figure out the circular shawl math.  It turns out that there are very smart knitters who have already done this, and it didn't take long to find a calculator that gave me percentage complete by round information.  Starting with how much I had already done, I divided the remaining amount by 12 months, and figured out exactly what round I have to get to by the end of each month to meet my goal by the end of the year.  Brilliant!

Now I know exactly what I need to accomplish for socks and shawl, and at this point I'm treating the sweater as dessert knitting.  Once I get through the socks and shawl requirements I can go to town on the sweater until the 1st of the next month.  January and February are already ahead of plan on the socks as I already had a pair in progress for each of us.  The only thing I need to really avoid is being lured away from my plan by something shiny and new.  Perhaps if I actually finish the current sweater in good time I can add something else into the dessert slot.  So far, though, I'm really excited about the current plan.  I hope that excitement continues all the way through the year and I have many finished things to show for my effort!

Another New Year

I seriously thought about skipping making any knitting goals this year.  I haven't done a great job with meeting those goals in the past, so I thought if I'm just going to knit whatever I want anyway, that might as well be my goal.  Then I took stock of the sock situation.  My sock drawer is full of socks, but many of those pairs are too thin to wear or are on the verge of sprouting holes.  The hubby's sock drawer is in a little better shape, but the clock is ticking there as well.  So here it is.

Knitting goals 2014:

• Knit a pair of socks each month. Odd months will be hubby socks, even months will be mine.  I know I have plenty of yarn in the stash for this, I may go lay it all out right now.
• Finish a sweater.  There are options here both in the already started and the I really want to start this list.  Again, the yarn is ready to go, I just need to commit to one and make it happen.
• Finish the Balmoral Shawl.  It is a large lace project, but the most complicated part is done, so steady progress should get it done.

That's it.  Totally doable.  I hope that writing this out here will help give my year some focus.  We will see.