Year of Projects Update #4

Missed a week in posting my update here.  I have had a fairly productive couple weeks.  I am getting closer to completing my vanilla socks - another inch or so to knit and I am ready to begin the toe decreasing!

My exciting news - I have finished designing my very first pair of socks!!  I have one sock completely knit and have the pattern all written up.  I am planning to post it over on Ravelry to have it tested for accuracy. Once the test knitting is done I will post the pattern on my Ravelry design page!  UPDATE!!  Here is a link to the test page on Ravelry!!

I have made no progress on the mystery socks and I have not touched my lace scarf...

Year of Projects Update #3

Oops! I am late in posting my update! 

I have spent most of the past week and change working on a pair of mystery socks (yes I added to my list already...)  I have knit to the end of clue #2 now and clue #3 will be released tomorrow.  I expect to have these done by the end of the month (or early September).  Here is a link to my project page on Ravelry.

In other news I have decided to try my hand at designing.  I have been mulling this over for a long time and am starting to plan out some ideas in my spare time.  I hope to have a pattern written up soon and have it ready for testing.  I am thinking about scarves, stoles, cowls, and of course socks!  I shall keep you posted!

Year of Projects Update #2

Two weeks and two finishes!!  I don't expect this trend to continue though!  Over the past week I managed to finish my Zip socks.  I was very happy to get those all done!

Other things I did this week included going over a few of my really old WIPs and mulling over what to do with them.  I will be adding them to my WIP list for this Year of Projects challenge soon.  This will be a topic for another day's blog post.  I also went through ALL my yarn and made sure all was listed in my Ravelry stash page.  This way I will know what I have and in what tub it lives.  I did a blog post showing off my stash!  Finally I managed to do up some more of the little squares for my scrap afghan.  I now have 72 squares completed (22 more from last week).  Soon I will have to decide if I want to make this into several baby blankets or into one large bedspread.

Here is a picture of my finished Zip socks.  You can see more pictures in my Friday blog post.

and a picture of how many scrap squares are now made (72 squares now):

and I made a little bit of progress on my Vanilla Socks:

Flash my Stash (August 2013 version)

So for the past little while I have been trying to organize things and sort through all my stuff.  Several months ago I had organized my yarn into several tubs and thought that now would be a good time to revisit my stash to see if it can be whittled down some or at least organized enough so that I can find what I want when I want it.  I had it mostly organized but somehow managed to not fully label everything, so that when I sent the hubby up to the attic to retrieve a tub of yarn for me I often had to have him send a couple tubs down before the "right" one made it!  So now it is time to check things over once more and to label everything (again).  What I have done is made sure each and every skein is inventoried on my Ravelry stash page and numbered in relation to what tub it is in.  I had the first three tubs labeled but the last three were not labeled when I did this exercise several months ago.  Hmmm, why did I not label the last few??  Anywho, now it has been completed!!  Below are pictures of the contents of each tub.  I have plenty of yarn and should challenge myself to use up what I already have and not buy more!! 

Tub One Part One

Tub One Part Two

Tub Two Part One

Tub Two Part Two

Tub Three

Tub Four (currently being used on my Scrap Afghan)

Clear Tub Part One

Clear Tub Part Two

Tub of Sock Yarn :)

FO Friday (August 2nd 2013)

WOW a finish two Fridays in a row!!  Don't hold your breath on this trend continuing!  But here's hoping that I do have some more finishes to report.

Anyway, on to my finish!  I signed up for Sock Madness this spring and amazed myself with how far I managed to get!  I was knocked out in Round 5 with Zip.  I put it aside for a while to work on other things (particularly Tour de Sock and vacation time) and got back to it recently.  These socks were a bit of a challenge for me.  Adding zippers in while knitting was a bit tricky and awkward for me, but I must admit to loving the finished project!  The socks are quite nice and once the zipper was in the rest of the sock was a nice easy knit.  The finishing touches took a bit more time than usual (to tuck in some extra ends and to attach the button).  I also decided to use a bright zipper - why would I go to the trouble of knitting a zipper into my socks if they are not visible??! Am I right?

Here is a link to my Ravelry project page.

Outside of the leg

Inside of the leg

My usual picture of completed socks

Close up of the zipper

Close up of the inside of the leg

I am pleased to have these all done! To see more finished works please head on over to Tami's Amis.

Pet Snuggles

Over many months I have made numerous pet snuggles to donate to the Humane Society.  There is a group over on Ravelry that is making these little blankets.  I had made up something like 18 or 20 a few years ago and donated them once.  I have been working through my left over acrylics and have made a bunch more (30 to be exact).  I just need to pack them up and make the time to go and drop them off!

The "pattern" I use is simple:

Using two strands together and a 6mm hook.
Chain 45, dc in 4th chain, dc all the way across, ch 2 (or 3 - 2 works better for me) turn…
22 rows to makes this about 15 inches square.

Here is an example of what they look like

These are four I made this past month or so

Here is a stack of 30 that I need to package up and take to the Humane Society!