The Holidays Are Here Again

and not everyone is happy about that.



But, there are upshots.



Starbuck has mixed feelings about the holidays. On the one hand, the humans have provided him with a toy tree. On the other hand, they keep trying to put that stupid hat on him.



I am zipping through my holiday knitting, which is good because I forgot that some of it needs to be ready to be shipped to North Dakota BEFORE Dec. 25th. I'm still playing the priority game (first knitting those gifts which will be given first), which has worked well in the past. We regularly exchange gifts three times a year (and this time it will be four), so there's a fair amount of wiggle room given that some projects must be finished by the 25th, some by the 26th, and some not until the 31st. I also cut down the list a bit this year, so even though everyone is getting something handmade, they are not all getting knits. Another help was the Bazaar Bizarre. Like a bad blogger I went and forgot my camera, but the new venue at Fort Mason was awesome (way less crowded). I ended up going on both days, and the husbeast and I picked our tree out from the Guardsmen Tree Lot on the next pier over. We loved getting our tree there and will certainly go back there next year. I probably spent more money than I should have, but I loved seeing some familiar faces.

Lastly, I wanted to say how happy it makes me to see all the Ravelers who have added the Sluggish Mushroom mittens to their favorites. It was a little heart-stopping to wake up the day after I posted the pattern and find so many hearts! You can now buy the pattern directly off the blog in the right-hand sidebar, in case you're a knitter who is not on Ravelry. Thanks everyone!

Year in Review

Thanks to the data-gathering power of Ravelry, the overpowering urge to reflect as the calendar turns over, and the unclouded nature of hindsight, I am better able this year than any other to ruminate on the previous year. Some thoughts, a bit scattered:

1. Knitting

I started and finished 37 projects in 2009, and worked on but did not finish the ever-present blanket. That comes out to an average of one project every 10 days! Granted, one of those projects was a holdover from 2008 (the blasted gloves), and another one I started in 2009 but had no hope of finishing (the wedding shawl). 21 of those projects were made with handspun yarn, and 7 were made with yarn that I also purchased in 2009. I think I was much more productive this year. Sadly, there was a distinct dearth of socks (only 2 pairs, compared with 6 in 2008).

1a. Gift Knitting

In 2008, I knit 2 gifts for Christmas. This year, I knit 17. This is astonishing to me, and I even knew I was knitting a lot of gifts. Some took longer than others. Some projects became obvious as soon as I saw the fiber or yarn, and for others I agonized over finding a good match of pattern to color, weight, and texture. I began the first gift of 2009 on March 22nd, and finished the last one on December 30th. Here's some of the gift FOs:

Mom's Fingerless Gloves


Dad's Lab Mousie and Petri Dish with growth




Mom-in-Law's Hat


Aunt-in-Law's Cowl


Brother's Hat


There was lots more gift knitting, but this was the home stretch, made from the yarn I grouped together in this post. Knitting all those gifts was very rewarding to my self-esteem and checkbook, but I don't know that I could have done it without the large amounts of free time I had this fall.

2. Spinning

I dug through my stash on Ravelry and last year's blog posts, and compiled a list of all the skeins I spun this year. While doing this, I realized that I really ought to label or tag my spinning stash with the date I spun it. It'll be helpful the next time I get bitten by the contemplative bug, and will also serve as a good way to guilt myself into knitting handspun that has been marinating in the stash for a very long time.

I spun 46 individual skeins of yarn, for a whopping total of about 10,900 yards. For those of you keeping track, that's a little over 6 miles (almost 10km!) of yarn spun. The big-ticket items were easily my gray fleece yarn and two laceweight projects, each with over 1,000 yards. This, again, is shocking to me. I attribute very little of my productivity to myself, but entirely to my lovely spinning wheel and the fabulous colors that arrive at my door each month from Kristine and Adrian.

3. Designing

This year I officially entered the world of knitting design (by the way, you still have a few days left to nab the Snow Chains Mittens for free!). I've said all I need to say on the designing process for now, but I'm excited for the coming year. Creativity on this level doesn't come to me often, but I'm glad it did this time.

4. Stashing

Ravelry data-mining gives me 55 new stash entries for 2009, 2 of which got gifted, 11 of which got used up in projects, and 38 of which are handspun. That includes the new fleece. Again, I see the effects of two fiber clubs here (which account for 24 of those new stash entries), along with a significant amount of knitting from older stash.

In review, I would say that the economy's pressure is obvious in my activity this past year. I am spinning more, stashing less, and knitting more from my stash. I've been incredibly lucky that I can get a lot of crafting activity through spinning. I can easily imagine that if I weren't spinning, I'd have actually made a serious dent in my stash this year by knitting with that free time instead. I would say that my proudest moment from 2009 was finishing my handwashed, handcarded, handspun, and handknit Halcyon sweater. That was an epic goal, but broadened my skills immeasurably. I can't wait to see what happens in 2010. Maybe I'll finally finish the mitered squares!

Teasers

So I finished round one of the gift knitting.



Stitches have been cast off, ends woven in, finished pieces blocked (mostly).



Round one includes everything being given on or before the 25th, while round two includes gifts that are not being given until after the 30th. So I still have a week to finish a few more small items.



I don't have teaser photos of everything, since a few items got wrapped before I remembered to take a picture. This year I took the Handmade Challenge, and although I do not expect all my friends and family to make or buy handmade gifts for me, I did manage to make all the gifts I gave this year with one exception. The exception is still getting something handmade, just not by me. In all honesty, going completely handmade this year is the only way I have been able to afford to get a gift for everyone on my list unless I decided to shop at the dollar store.

I wanted to say thank you to everyone for the kind comments on my mitten pattern and for all the favoriting going on at Ravelry. It's nice to have a gentle entry into the world of designing, and just reminds me what a fabulous community I have found in knitters and crafters.

Another money-saving measure I put into use this year was driving home for the holidays instead of flying, which has disadvantages and advantages. In exchange for a longer time commitment you don't have to worry about bringing knitting needles through security or overpacking the yarn. After dinner tonight with my family, as a little reward to myself for finishing all the gifts, I'm going to astound them all with the spinning wheel.

9 days?!?

How in the world did it get to be that close so quickly? Thankfully, I am very nearly finished with the pre-Christmas gifts (just one more to go). That one needs to be finished before the 22nd, when I will be in close proximity to its recipient, but I also have an 8-hour car drive that I'm hoping will be enough time to power through the end of the project. I admit, I am not knitting as fast as I could be. My new toy is a bit distracting.



These are NOT helping me finish my gift knitting on time. But they do produce my favorite form of fiber: hand-combed top. Unlike hand cards, which give you light, fluffy packages of wool with the individual fibers going in random directions, combs give you light, fluffy packages of wool with the individual fibers all aligned in one direction. They also get out all the little short fibers and neps that would give you lumpily-spun yarn and pill in your knitted object. Cards give you fiber that's awesomely prepared for woolen spinning, while combs give you fiber that's awesomely prepared for worsted spinning



I won't be giving up my handcards any time soon, but the combs are easily my favorite. My default spinning method is worsted or semi-worsted, so a combed prep is ideal.



Here you can see one comb loaded with washed polwarth locks, while I pull combed locks off the other comb. That process looks kinda like this:



The tool between me and the comb is a diz, which is basically a curved piece of wood with holes in it. There are three different size holes, so you can have different thicknesses of top. You pull the fiber through the hole to get the fiber in top form, which is wound into little nests. I spent two lovely afternoons combing this week, one doing the polwarth locks from Verb and the other using the dark grey locks left over from my first fleece. I now have a brown paper grocery bag filled with happy little clouds of white, silver, dark grey, and chocolate brown. They're calling to me, waiting for me to finish the gift knitting.

On top of all this I'm also getting ready for another big announcement, hopefully before the holiday but definitely not until after final exams are over. Stay tuned!

24 days left...

Thanksgiving was very nice, and quite relaxed. I made green bean casserole:



there was an abundance of gravy (so much that we used a french press as a pitcher):



and the ground was covered in crunchy leaves.



After a few days to digest, I emerged from the turkey coma ready to plan for the gift-giving season. As I said in the last post, I simply can't afford to purchase presents for everyone this year (thank you state education budget), so it's stash diving for me. Instead of freaking out about the prospect of so much knitting I am trying to embrace my craftiness (isn't this the hobby I love?), choose projects wisely (the fair isle ear flap hat in fingering-weight yarn might be too involved), and stay on task (except when baking). My list is 16 people long, and thanks to a rash of small-item knitting in August and September, I have half that list taken care of already. Nevertheless, I still have at least 6 items to knit between now and Christmas (yes there are a few people who are not getting knits this year), so I am putting the beaded project on hold and I cleared the socks off my needles.



This is my fourth pair of jaywalkers, and I still say this is one of the best patterns for making socks out of variegated yarn. I went out of my way to make the legs on this pair a little loose by going up a needle size, so they won't be too constricting during a long day. They're soaking now, while I get the gift list yarn together. It was difficult being away from the stash while planning my holiday knitting over the weekend, so I did a pretty thorough sweep this morning. Here's the stuff that will shortly be made into gifts:



I was pleasantly surprised at the color harmony in all these skeins! Incidentally, all the yarn there is either sporting its natural color, or is naturally dyed (thanks, Kristine!). I will try to keep up with pictures of knitted items, but they will only be teasers until after the recipients open their gifts, since quite a few of them read the blog regularly. (Who am I kidding? I will be lucky to finish knitting everything in time, forget about pictures...) Note to family members: bonus points if you can guess which skein of yarn is intended for your gift!

It was so easy to get caught up in the plan-a-thon while digging through the stash, but I did find a few skeins of yarn that would make nice small gifts, fabulous ornaments, or decoration for presents. But I'm not allowed to knit any of this until the official gift list is done.



A couple of these skeins have just enough yarn to make a pair of Fetchings. According to Ravelry, I am apparently the last 13,110th knitter on Earth to think about knitting this pattern. The required yardage seems too good to be true! My strategy to keep myself from knitting this stuff is to hide it all in a bag in the closet, while the official gift list yarn sits out in plain view, in a lovely pile in the living room.

What about all of you: are you knitting gifts this year? How much? Care to share any strategies for maintaining your sanity?

P.S. While composing this post, 3 more people on Ravelry have cast on Fetchings. Wow.