Year End Thoughts and Plans for 2007

I got to be a better knitter this year, certainly a bit faster and better at purling and following charts. Knitting Kiri, my first lace shawl, was a success, and a real boost to my knitting confidence. So was the Oat Couture Rockport Vest I made for DH, who wears it several times a month. I made a shrug for myself from one of the Elann designs, in Elann's lovely Connemara cotton. I got far more comfortable with cables 'designing' and making three gift scarves, which you can find in my earlier posts. I started this blog and find that I like doing it, especially for the journal it gives me of knitting projects. The notebook I try to keep goes unused for weeks sometimes, though it is a great help when I'm planning something.

The stash grew by a somewhat-embarrassing amount this year, and the yarns on sale in the last few weeks have added {ahem} a large bump to that. I cleared out a lot of the acrylic yarns I bought for charity items in 2003 and 2004, when most of my work was crocheted and primarily for charity. I'm much happier knitting with nicer yarns, even the nicer acrylic and acrylic blends than the yucky Red Heart that was making charity projects less and less pleasant. And the ladies in my seniors' group snapped up my offerings, since the yarn was new and in more than single-skein quantities, and they made lovely things for the groups we support and for our boutique. I have also sworn off knitting with anything boucle or fluffy, from Homespun to Baby Clouds to anything even remotely chenille-like. Why knit with yarn I hate?

I frogged a lot of UFOs from 2005, but I'm ending the year with 11 unfinished projects started in 2006. Since fall, it seems like whenever I think I've cleared "need to knit" projects and can concentrate on finishing my Highland Triangle Shawl or my Lacevember Dayflower Shawl or even my Something Red sweater, another project intervenes. This week I've knitted a baby vest nearly twice, what with revamping the pattern to account for the difference between blockable wool and good baby acrylics. And yesterday I knitted nearly 2 feet of a scarf for the Red Scarf Project, though at the end of the night I only had about 5 inches, since one pattern didn't work at either of two gauges, and the second pattern, which is working, was too narrow at first. Projects like this, which don't show the flaws of the design or pattern until I'm 5-6 inches into them, or that are for whatever reasons plagued with plain knitting mistakes, have been annoyingly frequent the last few months.

In adding up my finished knitting for 2006, it doesn't come to as many projects as I thought. I made 1 shawl, 6 scarves, 6 washcloths and 20 hats for charity. For myself and for gifts, I made 1 lace shawl, 3 garments, 11 scarves, 4 hats, 2 pairs of mitts, and 9 blanket squares. I have 11 UFOs from projects started and not yet finished this year.

So, my 2007 Knitting Resolutions

1) Spend more time actually knitting and less time blogging and posting to forums about knitting. Try to be more focused and concentrate on my knitting rather than dithering about.

2) Knit from all the gorgeous yarns in my stash instead of continuing to buy yarn and not knit it into the projects I had in mind for it. This isn't a full-blown version of Wendy's Knit from the Stash plan, just a general plan I hope to follow. The one exception I plan is my LYS's No Football Super Bowl event, when Stephanie has a sale on everything, though there's really only one yarn I want to get.

3) Finish the UFOs, before, after or in between the new projects, but finish them!

4) Organize all the loose patterns into notebooks (again!) and inventory the yarns I've added to the stash. Put the yarn and needle inventory onto the computer. And an idea I got from DH - copy the contents pages of my knitting magazines and mark the projects I want to make; then file these in with the patterns.

I'll leave out listing the usual Resolutions to exercise, lose weight, take better care of myself, etc. I am starting that, however, with a January 2 appointment for a much-deferred physical.


Midnight and Shadow (right) have reminded me that I forgot to send you their holiday greetings, here sent from their favorite holiday spot under the tree, where they know they look especially elegant against the dark red velveteen.


To all my knitting friends, I thank you for your friendship, your morale support, your posts and comments, and all the other things you bring to my life. You do so much for others, with gifts and charity knitting and monetary contributions to those who need your help. Be safe, be warm and be as happy as you can. And tonight or tomorrow or when you can, whether you have already done so or not, listen to the Toast for a New Year; I hope it will provide thoughts, comfort, inspiration and resolve for you as it does for me.