Happy New Year, And A Scarf

Happy New Year to all!  I hope everyone had a wonderful (and safe) New Year's Eve.  Paul and I stayed in and rang in the new year quietly, just us, Moxie, Spock and Gutter.  We were invited to my parents house for movies and snacks, but the cold I have isn't letting me out of its grip just yet and to add insult to injury I managed to pick up a stomach bug somehow.  Still, we made the best of it and enjoyed cuddling on the couch in our nice warm house.  It was 23 degrees last night, frigid for this area!

2010 was a really rough year for our family.  I'm looking at 2011 with hope that it will be a better year.  As I've said before, I don't do new years resolutions, but I do have some goals I'd like to work towards.

• Participate in NaNoWriMo again this year.  I'd wanted to try my hand at NaNoWriMo for a couple of years, but after procrastinating several times (until it was too late!) I finally jumped in with both feet in 2010.  Though a little bit nerve wracking, it was a lot of fun, and I'm really looking forward to doing it again this year.  Unlike last year, where I joined four days in to the month, with no outline for a story and no idea where it was going, this year I plan to prepare myself.  Though it was fun to fly by the seat of my pants and allow my story to unfold as I was writing it, I hit a lot of walls trying to progress my story.  This time around I really want to have an outline and not only win by hitting my 50,000 words, but actually finish my story.  And, you know, have a title and all that good stuff.
• I have a few knitting goals.  2010 was a very uninspired year.  I just didn't seem to find anything that thrilled me to knit.  I mainly worked on things to keep my hands busy, and nothing really amazing - most of my projects were simple things that I could mindlessly knit while reading or watching tv.  I'd like to work on some more detailed projects this year - lace, stranded knitting, maybe some bead work.  I'd like to challenge myself to pay attention to the piece I'm working on instead of staring at a screen.  Charts will be involved.
• Again, on the knitting front: I'd like to do some charity knitting.  I've already cast on a baby hat.  I'm hoping to get a nice little pile of hats to donate to NICU locally, if at all possible.  If they won't accept them I'll look in to shipping them somewhere they will be accepted and used.  I like all the patterns from Carissa Knits.  While I want to do some more detailed work, I still want projects that I can work on while I'm reading or watching tv, so these would be good.  I also want to make more blankets for the Snuggles Project.  Moxie and Spock are both rescue puppies and I remember feeling so sad while walking through the enclosures that none of the dogs had anything soft and warm to lie down on.  I made a few last year, but I'd like to make more this year.
• I definitely want to continue blogging and journaling.  I finished a journal shortly after midnight this morning, just in time to start a fresh one for the new year!  I'd been writing in it since mid-October and I was pretty happy that I'd kept up with it regularly enough to finish writing in it after only a few months.  The blogging is self-explanatory.  I've felt much more driven to continue working on and finish the projects I've been starting.

That's just a few of my goals for the year.  There's plenty more, but I haven't been to bed yet and I'm feeling forgetful.

A month or so ago I started working on Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's One Row Handspun Scarf.  It's a nice, simple pattern and I think it looks really pretty in variegated yarn.  I finished it up and washed and blocked it, then forgot all about it!  I went in our back bedroom to grab an extra blanket yesterday and there it was, hanging there just waiting for me to remember it!

My phone's camera didn't do a very good job of capturing the colors - they're much more purply/violet/aqua in real life.  I used (the dreaded!) Red Heart Super Saver in Ocean on size 8 needles.  It went pretty quickly and I really liked how it turned out.  I do have a couple of things I'm not entirely satisfied with though.  One, it's scratchy.  I know that over time, with washes in hot water and a hot dryer, it will soften up.  I can live with that.  Two, I used a partial skein of yarn and just knit until I ran out.  Unfortunately, it's not really long enough to my liking.  I'd say it's around 50 inches long or so.  I like long scarves that can be doubled without being too short and I've found that a scarf as tall as I am is a great length for me.  It's all good though.  It was an enjoyable project and next time I make a scarf I'll be sure to use a full skein, or at least buy a second if necessary!

 

Again, the colors are washed out.  Boo :(  Of course, it didn't help that it was pretty overcast when I photographed the scarf yesterday.  Anyway, I'd give the pattern a 5 out of 5, and my work a 4 out of 5, mainly because of my yarn choice and the length.  Still, not unhappy with it.

In other knitting news, I'm slowly (ever so slowly!) plugging away on my mother in law's second sock.  I'm working the decreases on the gusset right now, so if I stop messing around with all the other stuff I'd rather be doing, and actually work on it for more than a minute at a time, I could be finished with it in less than a day.  Matter of fact, I think I'll pull it out and work on it when I finish this post.

Happy New Year to everyone in this big 'ol world!  I hope it's a happy and prosperous one for each and every one of you.