Happy New Year!

I have no resolutions to share with you.  Not because I don't want to share, but because I'm not making them...

I have a few things I'd LIKE to do, but I think making resulotions is just a bad idea, personally, I mean, I'm just bad with absolutes one way or the other.  I need a little wiggle room in my life when I'm trying to change habits.

I'm going to continue to try for the 2 for 1 stash reduction (use or sell twice what I buy), this year it ended up around 1.5:1, but that is extremely better than I was doing before.  I have no idea what my ratio was before, but I can gaurantee I was bringing in WAY more yarn that I was sending out.

I will go through my stash AGAIN and see what I can sell.  I'm not selling anything at bargain basement price, but at about 10% less than what I paid for it, that way I'm not throwing away my money.  It isn't going out the door like a fire sale, but I've had pretty good success with people buying things here & there.  You can see what I currently have listed here. 

I've been keeping a spreadsheet of what I knit and what I've purchased and I can see a definite trend in my purchases.  There were a few trips (like the yarn crawl to NYC) that I bought without really thinking because something was SHINY, and I haven't knit up any of it.  Then there is the time I ordered from WEBS to get the yarn for Scott's sweater...and I had to buy enough yarn to get the discount.  

Basically, I can see a difference between my impulse purchases and buying yarn that I legitimately wanted to make something out of immediately.  I think if I focus on curbing that this year I can cut down even more on my purchases.

Another thing I want to do is MORE FAIR ISLE!  And along those lines, I asked for the Palette sampler from Knit Picks from my darling hubby, and he actually got it for me!

It is this great big box of yarn and I would like to dive right in and swim in it!  SO PRETTY.

Also, along those lines, my mother and I are going to a Norwegian, Fair Isle and Fareo knitting retreat in April , how fun is THAT??  I'm super excited.  I'm honestly not sure I want to do any of the projects they have listed, I may bring my own instead, but I am hoping I can learn oodles while I'm there and really work on my technique.

Along the lines of stash busting, my mother gave me this handspun for Christmas last year (from Coldbrook Farm in my little hometown, they keep a spinning flock of Rambouillet) and I couldn't figure out how to best use it.

I FINALLY settled on a pattern this past week and it quickly knit up into this.

It's a lovely shoulder shawl, I love the red accent along the bottom.  The pattern is Comfy Shawl, from Miriam Felton's Twist and Knit, patterns designed for handspun and/or yarn that you may not have QUITE enough of.

You can see the grading of the color in the flash picture below.

I am making good progress with the quilting, I don't seem to have the same sorts of issues with that as I do with the knitting.  It's different in so many ways, and for all of those reasons it's much easier to work a project linearly.  Decide what to make, pick out fabric, cut the fabric, sew it all together, quilt it, bind it - voila - quilt!

I have a quilt in the 'sew it all together' phase right now.

It is all different shades of blue from fat quarters and scraps.  I always think these are a good idea when I start and then end up flummuxed when trying to put the blocks together because there's no "right" way to do it.  You have to do it so there is some pattern through it, but when it's all one color it is much more difficult.

One thing I do is take a pic in black & white before I sew it all together to make sure everything looks right.  Here is how this one looks in black & white.

I'm always amazed by that; how color values just jump out at you in greyscale. 

That's it for now, I have one scarf/shawlette waiting for a photographer and my Swirl jacket is so close to being done I can almost taste it, so I'll be back soon!

Comments

[Jocelyn]

So many great projects! I love that handspun scarf, and your upcoming retreat sounds fabulous - I can't wait to hear all about it when it happens!