Thank Goodness For Babies

I have been very good and working away on my Advent project, I did not finish it within a week as I had hoped at the beginning of the year but I have nearly finished Day 24. So finish it at the weekend?

I did not want to start a New Year’s Project because I knew once I started something else, the temptation to leave 2019’s Advent until 2020 would have been high. Plus I wanted the continuum of opening up the colours.

But…..someone had a baby. Not a surprise and I had already made something – the blue cardigan show at the end of this post. But he was born a little early and it’s cold here right now. So I decided he needed a hat. I chose a pattern I had knit before – Magic Hat – because I wanted to make a size he could wear now but still get use out of. One of the things that I like about Ravelry, is that on a pattern page they show what yarns you have in your stash that other people have used to knit the project. I used this feature so that I could use left over yarn and came up with a yarn I had used in 2015 - Ewe Ewe Yarns Wooly Worsted. I cast on the premie size but knit the length for the newborn size and used all the yarn. A win for my stash.

Starting The Year Off Right

Three off us meet every week to knit and chat. For various reasons we could not get together in December so it was fun to finally meet up this week. Catch up with our projects – Advent anyone? And exchange gifts.

And I received some lovely yarny goodness.

Firstly some beautiful fiber. I have been very conscious about not building up a fiber stash but I had hoped to purchase at Stitches SoCal. Alas this was not to be, there were no booths just selling fiber (last year there were at least two) and there was very little fiber on show at other booths. So I was very excited to receive this.

I also received a skein of a beautiful dark pink yarn. It is 20% bamboo and the sheen from that really shows in the photos.

Although, already, yarn in is greater than yarn out, I am not complaining when it is such lovely yarn.

So What’s The Plan

You do have a plan, don’t you?

I just made the mistake at looking at my post a year ago. In it I said "But I do not want my WIPs to build up like they did last year." Obviously I didn’t get the memo on that one.

Yes I do have a plan - knit what I want, when I want, using yarn from stash.

OK, it is a little more defined than that; my plan is to knit the yarn I bought in the yarn store closing sale. The amount I bought is less than the amount I knit in a year so it is achievable except, I want to knit the cardigan for which I purchased the kit and, I want to finish my WIPs, of which I have too many.
Is this doable? In theory, yes; in practice, we will see. The total amount of yarn for all these ideas is more than I have knit in a year in the past few years. I do know that I do not want loads of WIPs like last year but I would also like to knit for charity this year.

I am starting the year with 9 WIPs (one of which I started in 2018), this is way too many so I am not going to have a new year cast on. I have been working away on my Advent yarn and it should be finished within a week if I don’t work on anything else. After that I can intersperse old projects with new cast ons.

On the sewing front, my plan is to finish projects – finished is better than perfect, then use fabric purchased for specific projects before buying any more. I think I will feel a lot happier when I achieve those two goals.