2013 First Quarter Recap

Every once in a while it's good to pause and take stock and that's what this post is about. I made a list of fiber-related goals for 2013 to keep me on track and I figured once a quarter I'll assess what I've accomplished.

Design Goals:
If we're being honest, my designing took a bit of a back seat as I started my new job, moved to RI, and was generally just settling into new routines. Not much on my list has been accomplished yet, but I'm ready to start getting into it again. I've held back a bit lately because I entered into The Fiber Factor competition and was waiting to see if I'd be chosen or not, since that would've taken up the next 6 months of my design time! I didn't get into the competition but I am in the 'meet the applicants' video for a few seconds in case you're curious to hear what I sound like when I'm feeling awkward and rushed before leaving for a road trip (at 4:43 min). Onto the goals:

• publish a Malabrigo Quickie--DONE!
• publish a design with Cephalopod Yarns (in progress)
• publish a design with KnitPicks
• publish in an online or print magazine
• finish and publish 4 more socks for my How I Met Your Mother series (2 in progress)
• design a shawl 
• finish mitten design

I have the yarn for KnitPicks already and have my eye on a couple of submissions so I think I can make some more progress soon. I'm also planning on jumping back into my Lilypad Socks design, especially now that it's spring. They're actually nearly done I've just sort of, um, misplaced them during the move and need a bit of time to concentrate on the last fiddly bits (once I find them again).

Knitting Goals:

• finish 50 projects this year (17 complete so far)
• finish (or frog) all of my ancient WIPs
• finish 13 SG/VG/CY projects in 2013 (4 complete so far)
• finish my First Garment vest (in progress)
• work on my (long neglected) sock yarn opus
• knit a pair of toe-up socks
• knit a pair of colorwork socks 
• knit a pair of socks from handspun yarn

I've made excellent progress towards finishing 50 projects this year, with 17 already done since January, beginning with the Official Zig-A-Zig project. Most of them were small but they still count! I've also gotten a decent start on finishing 13 SG/VG/CY project in 2013 (3 of which can be old WIPs) of which I've completed 4 new projects so far. I have, however, made dismal progress on finishing or frogging my ancient WIPs, seeing as I've been knitting only new stuff. I'm remedying that right now by resurrecting my Beautiful Briny Sea shawl:

SG and CY Bugga, colorways Box Jellyfish and Blue-Ringed Octopus

I stalled out on the ribbing at the bottom of the shawl because I got off by a stitch with all of the M1 increases that were going on, but I've tinked back and am ready to tackle the last few inches. Plus, I should really finish this shawl while the sneakers that match it are still wearable!

Spinning Goals:

• spin a truly worsted-style skein using combed prep and short forward draw
  
• spin a truly woolen-style skein using carded prep and long draw--DONE!
• spin a skein of 3-ply sock yarn
• spin a skein of laceweight 2-ply on my spindle (in progress)

After I spin the lovely gradient kit that I recently purchased, I will start on the worsted-style skein using this gorgeous Gotland fiber:

from Two Sisters Stringworks

So that's the plan! Overall, I'm happy with the progress I've made but do very much need to address the hibernating WIPs situation. Twenty-eight is far too many. Did you make a list of goals for 2013? How are you faring?

Knit-stalgia

Like so many wonderful knit bloggers and other type A personalities out there, I'm feeling the need to recap my year and think about some creative goals for 2013. And since I'm a scientist at heart, I'm doing this the best way I know how: through the mighty Excel spreadsheet.

Figure 1. This figure displays the number of finished objects (blue) completed in 2012, 2011, and 2010 as well as the works in progress (pink) still on the needles: current WIPs were begun or worked on in 2012 while ancient WIPs were begun in 2011 or earlier. Total numbers of projects in each category as well as data labels for 2012 FOs and current WIPs were added.

From this graph, we can see that 2012 was slightly more productive than past years (44 FOs vs. 41) with hats being the standout category for FOs (n=18). I finished more cowls and miscellaneous items (bracelets, cuffs, dishclothes) than in previous years, as well as my first pair of completed mittens. I finished fewer mitts, shawls, and scarves than the past couple of years, which was an interesting trend and rather unexpected trend.

My 2012 finished socks (n=6) were about average (n=5 in 2011, n=8 in 2010), but considering that last year I vowed to make 2012 my Year of Socks, that's pretty sad. Halfway through the year I got quite distracted, I haven't finished a pair since June! I have, however, somehow accumulated 12 pairs of sock WIPs on the needles! TWELVE PAIRS!! If I keep going at this rate, soon I'll have more current sock WIPs than FOs of all time.

Although my year of socks idea totally backfired, I did get make a good start on designing, publishing 7 patterns (3 free, 4 paid) which are hosted on Ravelry, Craftsy, and Patternfish.

Top L to R: Beribboned Hat, Giving Comfort, Huacaya. Bottom L to R: Beribboned Wrists, Fiasco, Ribby Holiday Socks, and Syrinx Shells.

I am ever so thankful to everyone who supported my endeavors this year. Whether you purchased a pattern, provided feedback, modeled for photos, test knitted, donated some finished knits to charity, blogged about my pattern, provided yarn support, featured my pattern at a show, or just plain cheered me on here on the blog, I appreciated every bit of it, so thank you! I've enjoyed seeing my ideas come to life on other people's needles and am looking forward to seeing what design opportunities come up in 2013.

One very big accomplishment of 2012 was learning how to spin. I went from my first spindle to my first wheel in 11 months and I am completely in love with the process. Even though I have not produced a ton of handspun, I've learned a lot by experimenting and reading up on differnt sheep breeds in my ongoing Spinner's Study. And now that I have the wheel I feel like my focused spinning time will increase and hopefully a bunch of gorgeous, finished skeins will magically appear.

Since I've realized that I suck at sticking to specific goal lists (like finish 13 of anything in 2013) I'm going to keep my 2013 goals fairly broad:

Design goals:

• publish a Malabrigo Quickie (in progress)
• publish a design with Cephalopod Yarns (in progress)
• publish a design with The Verdant Gryphon
• publish a design with KnitPicks
• publish in an online or print magazine
• finish and publish 4 more socks for my How I Met Your Mother series (2 in progress)
• design a shawl

Non-Design Knitting goals:

• finish (or frog) all of my ancient WIPs (started in 2010-2011)
• knit a pair of socks from handspun yarn
• finish my First Garment vest (in progress)
• knit a real sweater for me
• work on my (long neglected) sock yarn blanket

Spinning goals:

• spin a truly worsted-style skein using short forward draw
• spin a truly woolen-style skein using long draw
• spin a skein of 3-ply sock yarn
• spin a skein of laceweight 2-ply on my spindle

That's a pretty do-able list, I think. And of course, the overall goal is to knit down my beautiful, embarrassingly large stash. While I did not go entirely cold sheep this year, I did significantly cut down my 2012 yarn purchases from 2011 and I hope to continue in that vein. I have too many pretty skeins squirreled away not to use them and with all the spinning, I'll just keep adding more!

I'm sure that's enough Type A babble for today. As usual, that took much longer than I expected and was a diverting way to procrastinate away some time better spent on something else! (Old habits die hard...) Once again, thanks so much to everyone who reads this blog and helps me fuel my various obsessions, it wouldn't be the same without you! Have a great year, everyone.

Shiny New Plans

I have some shiny new yarn to show you! These skeins were purchased using my Afghans for Afghans discount:

CY Traveller, colorway San Francisco Bay

and these were from a destash that I just couldn't resist:

SG (now VG) Codex, colorway Lioness of Brittany

I've been waiting forever to get my hands on some of that colorway because it it the perfect silvery grey. I've also (finally) obtained some beads so I can (finally) get started on the cowl my lovely readers voted for sometime soon:

CY Nautilace, colorway Triggerfish

If there's anything I love nearly as much as knitting and yarn, it's making lists-- especially if those lists pertain to knitting and yarn! Inspired by Evelyn over at the Project: Stash blog, I am joining in with the Come Blog-a-Long group on Ravelry for the Year of Projects, which starts now and goes until June 30th, 2013. The idea is that you make a list of everything you'd like to accomplish this year knitting-wise and blog about your progress weekly. You could vow to knit every pattern in a book (I'd like to do that someday) or just make your own list. It seems like a great way to narrow down my goals, keep me accountable, and find new inspiring blogs to read.

Additionally, this is as good an excuse as any to really tackle my WIPs and SIPs and master my knitting-related-guilt. How I'm supposed to finish all of those projects while casting on for new ones and coming up with designs, I'm not quite sure yet, but I'm sure as hell going to give it a whirl! With no further ado, here is my list (with each project/pattern linked to its Ravelry page if it currently exists):


Works-In-Progess (0/10)
Beautiful Briny Sea   (shawl)
Color Affection  (shawl)
Fall Shaelyn  (shawl)
Figgy Dog Days  (shawl)
Magnificent Mittens  (mittens)
Mawata Mittens  (mittens)
Project Limulus  (shawl)
Quicksilver  (stole)
Snowy Sunset  (shawl)
Zuzu's Petals  (cowl)


Socks-In-Progress (0/5)
Lunacy!
Maia
Froot Loops
Silk Lace Lenores
Sweet Tarts

(I am feeling some deep shame over the number of my WIPs. Deep, deep shame. However, I have fewer SIPs than I thought! Yay, me!)


New Non-Sock Projects (0/15)
Chrysanthemum frutescens hat
Giving Comfort hat
Harmony shawl 
Honey cowl 
Magrathea shawl
Marigold shawl
Regina hat
Thundercloud cowl 
a shawl using Mithril
something using Zaftig
things for tiny humans
undecided other things (4 or so)


New Sock Projects (0/10)
Afshari socks 
Fences socks
Linaria bipartita socks 
Monkey socks
Ribby Holiday Socks
Fiasco socks for me this time
undetermined colorwork socks
undetermined other socks (3)


Of My Own Design (0/10)
Marshall's socks  (started)
Lilly's socks  (started)
Robin's socks
Barney's socks
Shawl
Cowl for Twist Collective
Print magazine submission
Knit Picks IDP submission
Malabrigo Quickie - Rasta
Malabrigo Quickie - Rios, Arroyo, or Twist


I changed the ticker on the top of my blog so that it tracks my YoP projects instead of finished socks. However (lest you think I'm cheating), I made sure that the projects I wanted to finish this year contained more than enough socks to meet my original goal of 20 pairs for 2012. I just need to make sure I finish 15 more of them by January (ah-haha, whose crazy idea was this again?)! And for those keeping track at home, the above comes to a total of 50 projects. I suspect I can make it, since in both 2010 and 2011 I finished 41 projects,  though as the charts show many of those were holiday gift hats so they flew by pretty quickly. We'll just have to wait and see!

Finally, anything lingering on the needles but not on this list IS GETTING FROGGED. Man, that feels good. :-D Who else is playing along?

Reassessment

Siiiigh... these goal lists... why do I even make them?

Because I'm Type A and love lists, even when they just highlight my lack of accomplishments. I prefer to think of them as motivation for reaching higher standards... yeah. That's it.

May June Sock Goals:

• Maia socks (80% 85% done)
• Gone Fishin' socks (DONE!)
• Lunacy! socks (1% 25% done)
• New Sock Design (0% 10% done)

As for my To-Do-Before-Going-Back-On-The-Boat-List, things didn't fare much better. I did manage to rewrite and update my Beribboned Wrists pattern, finish and publish my Fiasco sock pattern, work out (most of) the design for the next sock in my How I Met Your Mother series, and design/knit up most of the secret project I'd like to submit to Knit Picks. However, I'm not sure if I'll be able to finish that and submit it by the 14th, that depends a lot on how long my boat days are this week. As for the rest of the list (job/apartment hunting and planning camping trips)-- epic fail. For now, anyway.

Edited to remove excessive whine:
I'm getting a bit tired of this research boat, not going to lie. I think I've officially outgrown my capacity to be a research assistant. I need to be in charge, need to use the ol' noggin more rigorously. This puts me in a tough spot, though, because for most of the in-charge jobs you need a PhD, and for a PhD you need time and a willingness to be 1) broke and 2) all-consumed by your work for the next 5-6 years, and those are tough pills to swallow. All that said, I know I'm lucky to even have a job in this economy, plus this is the last round of sampling, so after the next few weeks it will just be 7 hour office days for the rest of the summer. The office days are pretty boring, but at least they're half as long.

Just keep swimming,amIright?

P.S. I added different pages to my blog in the tabs above. Now you can see my designs, my spinning in progress, my socks in progress, my other works in progress, and my finished socks on their own pages. Yay for procrastination through digital organization!

May Socks

How did we get to May 9th already without discussing sock plans?!

May Sock Goals:

• Maia socks (80% done)
• Gone Fishin' socks (75% done)
• Lunacy! socks (1% done)
• new sock design?

Appropriately, the first pair I'm aiming to finish this month was the May shipment of the 2011 BMFA Rockin' Sock Club:

STR Lightweight, colorway Maia (which means May)

The pattern is Transition Point by Star Athena. It's a more complicated sock than I've been knitting recently, I have to keep referring to the charts, which is why these have been on the needles for a full year! I usually like my sock patterns to be easy to memorize, but I couldn't resist this one. There are twisted stitches and cables that travel all over the sock and seed stitch gives it a neat textural look. I think seed stitch (that bumpy looking part, for those who don't know) tends to be underutilized, especially in sock patterns. I like the look! The best part of these socks is that they're nearly done! That's the second one of the pair. :)

The next up for finishing are my Gone Fishin' socks:

STR Mediumweight, colorway On Blueberry Hill

This my own (free!) pattern, Ribby Holiday Socks, modified for sport-weight yarn. I will be updating the pattern to include this new sizing information. I'm learning a lot as I go with this whole designing thing, hopefully the patterns will keep improving with experience! I'll be on the boat for the rest of the week so I should be able to bang these out fairly quickly, as this is the second of the pair, as well.

Finally, I made a teensy tiny start to my Lunacy! socks:

STR Lightweight, colorway Lunasea

Not sure if I'll finish them this month but they're still on my radar. This is the Dusty Corners pattern by Linda Welch that I'm knitting for a KAL (knit-along) in the Socks that Rawk!! group on Ravelry. Come join us, if you're so inclined. It remains to be seen whether this pattern will be good boat/travel knitting or not. It involves some lacework and little 1-over-2 cables every other round for the whole sock... definitely need to cable without a cable needle on this one, or it would take forever!

Hmmm... that's an awful lot of STR on the needles! Clearly, it's my favorite yarn for socks. I love the colors, the feel of the wool, the twist, the weight, the drape, the stitch definition... and they hold up fairly well. I've had to mend a few socks but I don't mind that so much. It's worth it to me for a pleasurable knitting experience and result. What's your favorite sock yarn?  Why?

Rainbows

The Yarn Harlot has been blogging about her rainbow yarn lately, which got me thinking about my own rainbow-in-progress:

This is Bugga fiber from Cephalopod Yarns, and they do rainbows very well. This single is looking more-or-less like a circus, so I have no idea how it's going to look once I ply it, but as long as I somehow avoid the clown barf phenomenon I'll be pretty happy.

In other knitting news... I have very little other knitting news. :( I have been crossing things off my to-do list like a boss and unfortunately that means that knitting time has been slim. I'm steadily plugging away at the Fiasco's socks, just finished the heel of the second one, and I barely started a new pair for a KAL in the Socks that Rawk group on Ravelry. This quarter we are knitting Dusty Corners, a 2010 club pattern that I'm excited to be getting around to. Linda Welch is the same designer of the Making Mischeif socks (South Fork Socks pattern) I finished last month in February (gosh, time is flying). Here's the yarn I'll be using for it:

STR Lightweight, colorway Lunasea

I first stashed it back in April 2010, so it's another early skein I'm looking forward to using! I've named these the "Lunacy" socks because it's crazily optimistic of me to be casting on more projects right now... So, here are my sock goals for April:

• Finish the Fiasco's socks (75% done)
• Finish the Lunacy socks (.0001% done)
• Finish an old SIP, Froot Loops (65% done)

Based on my recent track record, that's probably more than enough. Sads! I want to be able to make more socks but there just isn't time. Can I borrow some of yours?

February Was Not For Finishing

Things I failed to do in February:

--Finish my publication draft. I'll probably get an earful about that on Monday. Boo.
--Finish any of my mittens. To my mind, the end of February means the end of winter, and I wanted to finish at least one pair of the two I have going for wearing this winter. I don't think I even knit on any mittens in February, so finishing any would've been especially impressive.
--Finish 3 out of 4 pairs of my February sock goals. Triple boo.

Ever onwards, here is my revised list of February March Sock Goals:

• finish Cotty socks (70% done) -- on the heel of the second sock
• finish Secret New Design socks (40% done) -- on the foot of the first sock
• finish a very very old SIP, my Froot Loops socks (65% done)
• finish another SIP, my appopriately green-for-March Harvest Dew socks (55% done)

Here's hoping March is a better month for sock knitting than February was. I think my Fiasco will go crazy if it isn't, he's to be the recipient of the Secret New Design socks and he's been eagerly awaiting them for weeks now. Poor guy. You know what else February was not good for?

Woopsie No. Two

Sticking to my no-new-yarn-resolution! BUT, again, these two skeins of SG Zaftig in Burying Beetle (which I've been waiting to snag for forever) were purchased with money from yarn that I destashed. In a way, they're ok because I didn't spend new money on them, just made a three-way trade: I sent yarn to someone who sent me money, which I then sent to someone else who sent me yarn. See? It all works out. I've got a design kicking around in my mind for these. I'm thinking a nice big infinity cowl. Love.

Man, February just flew by. I need more time to knit. How do I make that happen, exactly?

Fibery Goodness

Whenever I think the words "fibery goodness" I still imagine them in reference to some sort of breakfast cereal. However, that's not the kind of fibery goodness I am referring to, this is:

Yum, yum, yum.

On the left and in the middle are fiber from Schafenfreude Fibers and they are absolutely scrumptious. The blue on on the left is a braid of 100% Polwarth wool, which I haven't tried yet. In the middle is an 80/20 Merino wool and Tussah silk top, which is basically heaven in my hands. Seriously. It's amazing. I think I'm in love with silk. Even the Fiasco touched it and went "ooOoOoOOOoOoOOoooh" so you know it's good. On the right is a full batt of the sample from Inglenook Fibers that came with my learn-to-spin kit that I already started playing with. My plan is to spin up the Imperial Orchid batt into a single and the Merino/Silk into a single and then ply them together. It is going to be amazing!!! Simmer down, Alicia, simmer down.

While I was waiting for that fiber to arrive, I got to work on the 100% Coopworth wool from Hidden Valley Farm &Woolen Mill that came with my learn-to-spin kit:

Much less thick-and-thin, yay!

My singles are much more consistent than they had been before, which is encouraging. I'm still just parking and drafting, not spinning freely, but the Coopworth is drafting much more smoothly and is all around more pleasant to use than the Knitpicks stuff I started with. I'm going to split this batch in half and practice plying with it before I attempt it on the pretty pink-and-silk skein I want to make. Yay spinning!

In knitting news, my Making Mischief socks (aptly named, right?) are taking a break because they were naughty, and I've been making some progress on my mawata mittnes. The goal is to finish those things before winter is over! Yes, it's come down to that. As for sock goals, I think I'll be using February as a catch-up-on-SIPs month entirely, no new socks for me at the moment.

February Sock Goals:

• finish Making Mischief socks (85% done)
• finish Cotty socks (30% done)
• finish not-so-secret-and-not-for-Valentine's-day-because-I-ran-out-of-time socks (10% done)
• finish a very very old SIP, my Froot Loops socks (65% done)

I'd say that's probably enough for now...

The Sock Situation

Alright, photographic evidence of my socks-in-progress delinquency:

SIPs of shame

There had been more, many more, but I frogged a few that I knew I would never finish. These are the 7 pairs that I will finish in 2012, in addition to the 17 new pairs I would like to knit from start to finish this year. It sounds like a lot, but I know I can be a speedy knitter when I focus, and since I'll be unemployed shortly, I anticipate an increase in my standard amount of free time.

These socks all stalled due to a few reasons: a fussy pattern and lack of time (top left pair and top right pairs), a dislike of the needles (top middle, bottom green, and bottom right), or a dislike of either the yarn base or yarn color (bottom left, bottom pink, and bottom right). However, I will overcome these silly little obstacles, because all of the knitting pictured above could've been 4 finished pairs by this point!

I added a sock ticker to the top of the blog to keep me honest. The one pair I finished are the ribby holiday socks I discussed yesterday, but I can't show them to you because I left half the pair in my office desk. They were great work-knitting socks because they were mostly plain. My next work-knitting pair will be the Cotty socks I discussed earlier. I decided to change my January sock knitting goals back to what they were originally (my goals, my rules!) which are as follows:

1. finish X-mas Rocks socks (DONE!)
2. finish South Fork socks (60% done)
3. start Blathnat socks start (and finish?) Cotty socks
4. start secret Valentine's Day socks

I would love to both start and finish my Cotty socks in the remaining 2 weeks of the month, but that might be delusional. We'll see, sock hope springs eternal!

2012 -- Socks, socks, socks

Good riddance, 2011. You will not be missed. Yes, I got engaged and finished my master's during you, but you were also when my family started this steep downhill descent that bottomed out a couple of weeks ago and I am not sorry to see you go. 2012, be warned, if things don't start turning around soon, we will be having words.

 Now that dire warnings have been issued, let's get back to knitting --specifically: socks. 2012 is going to be the Year of Socks for me. There are plenty of other things I want to knit, though, so I decided that to keep things manageable I will be focusing on finishing one sock WIP and one newly cast-on pair each month. If I can squeeze more in, great, but my Fiasco likes to joke that if you don't aim too high you can't fail that often, and even though this philosophy goes against my very nature, for once I'm going to give it a shot.

December's sock goals were to finish my mom's Christmas gift socks and some holiday socks for me. My mom's socks got finished, but alas, the holiday socks did not. Since that was a 2011 goal I'm going to say that I'm not behind for 2012 yet, with the caveat that I better get my act together. (Let's not talk about how I'm still knitting Christmas gifts, ok?)

So! My January WIP goal is to finish my ribbed holiday socks:

STR Lightweight, colorway X-Mas Rocks

And my New Sock goal for January is to (finally!) make a pair of Cotty socks designed by Irishgirlieknits:

(photo from pattern page)

using one of the first skeins of STR that I ever bought for myself, back in April 2010:

STR Mediumweight, colorway Scottish Highlands

I'm excited to get started and I wish you all the best in the new year!

Anticipation

I can't believe how fast November is going and how soon Thanksgiving is approaching! It is one of my favorite holidays, I love getting together with my family and kicking off the winter season, but I am facing it with some trepidation this year. I'm working on a final draft of my master's thesis and trying to get the data and everything pulled together to give to my professor before the break and it has gotten quite down-to-the-wire. My mom would say that I do my best work under this kind of pressure and while that might be true, I still hate it. I haven't slept well in weeks and I spend 95% of my time in front of this computer. It's getting old, to say the least. Plus, it's super difficult to work all the time when pretty things like this keep arriving in the mail:

 

That is Bugga in Colorado Hairstreak 2.0. I love how the colorway names are based on the insect and invertebrate species that inspire the colors. Here's what a Colorado Hairstreak looks like, in case you were wondering:

Beautiful, and I think they got it spot on! What's also neat is this skein is a commemorative colorway created for the moving of one of my favorite wish-it-were-really-local yarn stores, The Loopy Ewe, from St. Louis to Colorado. The shop is wonderful, they ship super quickly and carry great yarn lines. I specifically requested a skein that had less of the brown and more of the blue/purple and the Loopy elves really came through! It's perfect. I think it is destined to become a Magrathea Shawl:

Picture from pattern page, by Maltina on Ravelry

I've had that shawl queued forever. Not only is it an interesting shape and full of garter stitch goodness (which I love), it's named after a planet in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, one of my favorite authors of all time. Clearly, I must knit it ASAP.

Except I have other things to finish first. Like the Sunset Shawl I started a few weeks ago that got stalled because I worked on it during a road trip and got off by a stitch for several of the edging repeats and needed time to concentrate in order to frog back successfully (which I loathe):

 

It's further along than the picture shows here, but you get the idea-- that cabled edging is repeated around the entire semi-circle of the shawl body. It's a very pretty pattern with interesting construction and since I'm knitting it in Malabrigo Twist, it is of course ridiculously soft. And then there's the cowl design I started and the hat I want to knit to match my favorite holiday shawl and this and that and this and that, etc.

Things I'm anticipating:

• finishing this thesis draft
• traveling to see family
• finishing Sunset Shawl
• starting/finishing/wearing matching hat
• starting Magrathea shawl
• FINISHING MY MASTER'S AND HAVING TIME TO KNIT (Siiiigh... Jan. 5th is still so far away.)

What about you, dear readers, what are you all waiting for?

P.S. It would be awesome if some experienced bloggers could fill me in on blog etiquette. I've found that I keep wishing this was more like Ravelry where I could reply to individual comments on the page and have the commenter see or be notified about my reply, but I don't think that happens. How do you handle replies? Do you e-mail your reply to the commenter? Does this get to be too much e-mail? Please help a newbie out if you can, it would be much appreciated! :)

Greetings!

Hello, world!

Welcome to the very first post on my brand new blog. I've been writing in an online journal (LiveJournal) for years, but I felt it was about time to gather my knitterly thoughts and record them all in a more accessible place. This way the Muggles don't have to listen to me go on and on and on about yarn while the Knitters don't have to weed through me whining about my thesis or gushing about how cute my cat is (ok, she'll probably show up from time to time) to get to the stuff they're more interested in. Plus, it helps me rationalize spending even more time thinking and talking about knitting. Win-win-win!

Since I'm in a let's-make-a-list kind of mood, here are the things that I'm hoping to accomplish with this blog:

• discuss my current unhealthy obsession relationship with yarn
• explore some of my projects in detail and what I learned from them
• rave about my favorite books, designers, yarn dyers, bloggers
• catalog some of my favorite techniques
• make friends! bloggy knitting friends!
• document what I hope will become a successful attempt at designing knitwear patterns myself
• hopefully get feedback on designs, techniques, tips and tricks, great yarns to try, books to buy, etc. from the lovely and generous hive mind of knitters out there

 So-- goals, check! Means to accomplish goals, check! Now just to make it happen. And what better time to start all this than when in the thick of writing my master's thesis, right? Gotta do what it takes to stay sane, I say. I'm pretty excited.

A little knitting background: a very good friend of mine (Rachie!) taught me to knit in '06 and I knit some simple things while I was laid up after knee surgery. Then I stopped for a year or so and picked it up again in earnest in 2009 when I began graduate school. I am now at the tail end of my master's program and over these last few years knitting has gone from something I could sort of do to something I must do all the time!!! I went from spending my fun money on clothes and books and DVDs to just buying yarn, yarn, and more yarn. I'm not a very fast knitter nor have I yet tackled something as practical and impressive as a sweater, but I am a great lover of knitted socks and shawls and I have many blogs and books to thank for their introductions to these joys, so I'm hoping I can pay it forward and convert brainwash inspire a neo-knitter or two, myself. Thanks for reading, and I hope you join me for the ride!