Seventh Year of Projects - Week 27

Happy New Year everyone!!  I hope everyone had a nice 2017 and I wish everyone all the best for a wonderful 2018!!

I have a list of things to tackle in the new year!  I plan to finish up some things that should have been completed in 2017, but did not quite make it off the needles.

My list:
1) Block my Advent Scarf - the knitting is complete but the blocking needs doing

2) Finish my Advent Cowl

3) Finish my 2017 Temperature Scarf - I am complete to the end of December 13th...
4) Finish my December BAMKAL squares and assemble the afghan
5) Finish my December BAMCAL squares and assemble the afghan

I am hoping to get all of this crossed off the list by the end of January!

While travelling over the holidays I also cast on a pair of vanilla socks using some of my own hand dyed yarn. I am loving how it is knitting up!  I plan on getting back to those soon as well!

Happy New Year everyone!!  May 2018 be your best year yet!

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 22

Today is Week 22 of the Seventh Year of Projects, NaBloPoMo Day 26, and Day 11 of my self imposed WIP-it Down Week!  This is the last day of my self imposed WIP-it Down week since I am back to work tomorrow morning and I had left this day to be a free day to choose whatever I wanted to work on.  I think I will work on my Coffee Cantata Socks today in hopes that I can finish them off!  That would be wonderful!  I have only one foot to finish and this is done!  Cross your fingers that you see a finished object tomorrow!

I also need to catch up on a few days worth of rows on my Temperature Scarf.  I neglected it for the past few days.  I need to do 6 days worth of rows (so a total of 12 rounds at 80 stitches per round).  I'll get that done first and then spend the rest of the day on my socks.

Yesterday I managed to get a fair bit of work done on my Find Your Fade Shawl.  I figured out where I left off and managed to add a goodly amount to it.  I finished off the garter section of the third color and it is ready for the lace section of that color next.  Here is what it looks like now:

This week coming up I am not sure what my crafting plans are.  My Thanksgiving break is over and it is back to work so that will cut into my crafting time.  I am hoping to get a few things off my WIP list.  I think I will focus on getting a few things off the needles this up coming week.  I will finish my Coffee Cantata socks if I don't finish them today and then I will move onto my Mystery Socks.  Those are also getting closer to completion.  The main reason I want to get a few finishes this week is because I have been drawn into three new projects which each begin on December 1st.  Two are mystery Advent scarves - both will release clues over the Advent season - one daily and the other every second day - and the third project is another mystery sock pattern.  That one will release clues four times over the month of December.  All three of these projects should be completed by the end of December.   

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 21

Today is Week 21 of the Seventh Year of Projects, NaBloPoMo Day 19, and Day 4 of my self imposed WIP-it Down Week!

I had a good day yesterday and was successful in tucking in ALL the loose tails on my Temperature scarf!  It took most of the day (off and on) but I am happy to be completely caught up on that.  Now I need to try to keep up with the tails for the next six or so weeks until the end of the year!

The remains of the tails!

Today I plan to spend some quality time with my Sock Yarn Scrap-Ghan.  This poor blankie has been in progress for a long time now (I actually cast it on in July 2014!) and has not seen any love or attention is recent months.  It is time to shake the dust off it and see how many squares I can add!  I currently have 95 squares made - long way to go to finish this blankie - even if I make it a lap-ghan size (which I think I may do).  It currently measures 30 inches by 32 1/2 inches.  Each square is roughly 2 1/4 inches.

WIP-it Down Week Thanksgiving 2017 - Day 3

Today is NaBloPoMo Day 18 and Day 3 of my self imposed WIP-it Down Week.

Yesterday I spent all my crafting time on my Coffee Cantata Socks and I got a goodly amount done!  I now have a HO (half finished object).  One sock is complete and the second is ready for the foot to be knit.  It turned out I only needed to do rounds 34 though 54 and that gave me enough length for my foot.  My row gauge is wonky on these socks!  They are big and I am not really 100% happy with them.  I think it might be partly my yarn choice and partly a gauge issue.  They are too long in the leg and I can't pull them up my fat leg.  They are too loose in the heel as well, but the foot is a good length...  I suspect I will fold down the leg and wear them around the house.  Oh well, they are almost done now and I will be so happy to see the end of them!  Here is what they look like now:

On the schedule for today is to catch up on tucking in many, many tails on my Temperature scarf.  I also need to catch up on a couple days (4 days actually) worth of rows.  I have not tucked in tails since late June - OYE!  I don't actually think this will take a huge amount of time but we shall see though.  If I finish the tails with time to spare I think I will go back to my Coffee Cantata socks since those are getting closer to completion!

Here is a picture of all the tails waiting to be taken care of:

Holy Smokes - there are a LOT of tails to tuck in!!

Tomorrow morning I will show you a progress picture to show you what I accomplished during the day.

NaBloPoMo 2017 Day 10

Here we are one third of the way through the month!

I made some great progress on my Mystery Socks yesterday.  The first leg is complete and I have half of the first (of three) repeats done on the second leg.  I hope to finish the second leg today!

I also am keeping up with my temperature scarf!  I'll post a progress picture of that tomorrow.

I had some artsy fun yesterday too!

It was a good day ♥

Today I have a meeting at work then plan to go to Hobby Lobby and Michaels to snoop around.  Then off to Walmart and the Dollar Tree.  And I have a package with some fluid gel medium (basically glue for mixed media art) that I need to pick up at UPS.  They said they tried to deliver yesterday but I was home all day so I call BS!  Once I am back home I plan to work on my Mystery socks, block my Mystery Shawl (didn't get that done yesterday...), and watch some podcasts!  Sounds like another good day!

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 17

Hello everyone!  Back for another weekly update!  17 weeks in a row!!!  I am happy that I am keeping up with this!  I had a productive week - especially compared to last week (when we had company and had fun with them instead of crafting much).

I kept caught up with my Temperature Scarf.  This thing is going to be a monster once we get to the end of the year!  My progress since the last picture is from the orange marker forward.

I finished clue number 2 on the Mystery Shawl and got a start on Clue number 3!  This picture shows Clue Number 2.  I am really enjoying this knit although each clue is taking longer as the width of the shawl is growing!

I spent some time on John's Vanilla Socks and am happily cruising down the second foot now.

I also spent some time working on my BAMKAL and BAMCAL squares.  I finished both of the October BAMKAL squares and all my BAMCAL squares!!  I am impressed with myself at finishing all of the October squares in October!

October Main BAMKAL square:

October Alternate BAMKAL square:

October Main 12 Inch BAMCAL Square:

October 12 Inch Filler BAMCAL Square:

October 6 Inch BAMCAL Squares (made four of them):

For the next week I plan to continue working on my Mystery Shawl - the final clue comes out on Friday.  I also plan to keep up with my temperature scarf and hope to finish at least one of my two Socktober socks!

My page of current projects for this YOP can be found here.

To read other blogs taking part in YOP - Year 7 (or to join up yourself - it is never too late!) check out the Ravelry group over here.

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 16

Back for another Year of Projects update!

This week we had company in from back home (Canada) and I spent more time visiting than knitting but that is fine since I did get a little bit done.

I mostly kept up with my Temperature scarf - this shows my progress (from the orange markers forward is what I did this past two weeks).  I am behind three days.

The second clue in the mystery shawl was released on Friday and I had a bit of time to work on that on Saturday but only a few rows - I'll post an update picture next week.

I also spent some time working on my Vanilla socks.  I didn't post a picture last week, but this shows my progress over the past two weeks (from the green marker forward).  I am about half way through the gusset decreasing.

I should get more done next week while after our company has gone back home (we had such a nice visit and saw all sorts of fun things!)

My page of current projects for this YOP can be found here.

To read other blogs taking part in YOP - Year 7 (or to join up yourself - it is never too late!) check out the Ravelry group over here.

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 15

Week 15!  I am amazed I am keeping up with this so well!!  I have had another good week.

I kept pace with my Temperature Scarf and am now over 75% complete with that!  I am happy to see the yellows and greens showing up (instead of the reds for the hotter temperatures!)

I joined up with a group on Ravelry for Socktober with the goal of completing our single socks to make pairs.  I have three pair I plan to work on this month and will be happy if I finish two of them!  This week I did work on the two pair and made some progress on each.

Thanks to everyone who encouraged me not to frog these pink cabled socks - I am finally making some progress on them!!  Heel flaps and turns are complete and one set of gusset decreasing is about one third done.

I didn't get a picture taken of the second one but I did get from have one sock complete and the second part way along the leg to the point where I am working on the gusset decreases.  I'll aim for some more pictures next week!

On Friday the first clue in a mystery shawl I joined was released so I had to cast that on!  I had dyed the yarn for this earlier in the week and have finished the first clue.

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 13

Another week of progress to report although it was a busy week at school and I did not get time to craft as much as I would have liked (it looks like a lot but the crochet squares go fairy quickly!!)

I kept at it with my Temperature Scarf and am now all caught up!  This past week's progress is from the two orange markers forward.

And I kept working on my BAMCAL squares.  My original plan was to do all the squares in blues, white, and black combinations, but I am running low on most of the blues I had in stash.  So now the plan is to use the squares made in the first six months to make one afghan all in the original color scheme and for the remaining six months of the year I will use all sorts of random colors I have in my stash to make a second afghan.  July is already done in the original colors, but the rest will be mixed now with whatever I have in my stash.

Here is what I finished this past week:

My August Main 12 inch BAMCAL square:

My August Alternate 12 inch BAMCAL square:

My four August 6 inch BAMCAL squares:

My September Main 12 inch BAMCAL square (I think the brown is too dark here...):

My September Alternate 12 inch BAMCAL square:

My September 6 inch BAMCAL square was just not coming out right.  In order to keep it close to 6 inches I needed to go down to a 4mm hook - with worsted weight yarn it was killing my hands and was still coming out too large...  So I gave up on that idea and went up to my usual 5mm hook and I will turn this into another 12 inch square.  I am part way through it now and am much happier with the process and I think it will look great as a larger square!  Here is where I am at now (it will be complete later this morning).

Once I have this last September square complete I can cast on my Selbu mittens (the first design in a Selbu Mitten Club!!  We shall see how much I get done on that by next Sunday!  I'm not sure which color combination I will use for the first pair, but my choices are here:

My page of current projects for this YOP can be found here.

To read other blogs taking part in YOP - Year 7 (or to join up yourself - it is never too late!) check out the Ravelry group over here.

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 12

I have spent the past week playing catch-up and trying my darnedest not to cast on anything new (aside from the monthly squares that I was behind on!).  I think I accomplished a lot!!

This week I managed to finish my September Main BAMKAL square:

and my July Main 12 inch BAMCAL square:

and my July Alternate 12 inch square:

and my four July 6 inch squares:

I also spent some time pinning out and steam blocking (since I used an acrylic yarn I had in my stash for this afghan) ALL of my BAMKAL squares.  I also need to take decent pictures of them all and get that updated on my Ravelry project pages.  I plan to do that later today.  I bought some cream colored yarn that I plan to use as a border on each square - I will crochet these borders on and then I can start sewing them all together.  Now that they are blocked I can see that there are a few that are a bit small - the border will work nicely to even out the sizing!

First dozen pinned out - until I ran out of pins!

And the rest of them!

And last but not least I am getting closer to being caught up with my Temperature Scarf.  I made it to the end of September 3rd.  This past week's progress is from the two plastic orange stitch markers on each side!  The first single metal marker shows when July ended and the second single metal marker shows where August ended.  I should be completely caught up for next week's update!

Before next week I want to be caught up on all my BAMCAL squares and my Temperature scarf so that I can justify casting on a pair of Selbu mittens from the club I signed up for last month (I am behind there too - there is the original pattern plus the September pattern to knit before the October and November patterns are released!)  Hopefully I can cast on a pair of those next week!!  YAY!!

My page of current projects for this YOP can be found here.

To read other blogs taking part in YOP - Year 7 (or to join up yourself - it is never too late!) check out the Ravelry group over here.

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 11

Another weekly update here!  My Tour-de-Sock Stage 6 socks have kicked my tail and done me in!  These have been the most difficult, challenging socks I have (tried to) knit!  They involved stranded knitting with three colors together (and four once you get to the heel flap - I didn't get that far...)!  And use the Jacquard laddering method to catch the floats.  I enjoyed learning the Jacquard method, but the three colors really slowed me down!  I have resigned myself to the fact that I will not finish these socks!  I got the cuff completed and got part way through the first charts beyond the cuff (but did not take a picture).  I am afraid that these have been frogged.  I may revisit them at a later time - we shall see, but for now they are frogged and gone.  Here is what the cuff looked like:

I had made myself a personal challenge to complete all six stages during the allotted time, and even though I failed at that I can say this year is my personal best in all of the Tours I have participated in.  I finished four pair during the allotted time frame and finished the fifth pair within a few days of the cut off for that stage.  I am happy to have five new pretty pair of socks!!  And I learned several new knitting techniques.  Who knows - maybe next year I will complete all six pair!  If not, at least I plan to try again!!  Here are my five completed Tour-de-Sock socks!

So since I threw in the towel on Thursday afternoon (the pattern was released on Sunday morning - yeah - four and a half days of knitting (not all day each day, but many hours) and all I had to show was a cuff and a little bit more - seriously like eight rounds more) I "had" to work on something else!  So I picked up some other knitting to fill the time!  I worked on my September BAMKAL alternate square and got that one finished.

Then I cast on the September BAMKAL Main square and made some progress.

I also spent some time working on my Temperature Scarf (which has been neglected for some time).  I last did my two rows on June 29th...  Now I am up to ...  I plan to work on this for a bit more and hope to get completely caught up again!  This is why I did not choose to make a temperature blanket!!  Two rounds in a scarf a day is a doable catch up but I would never have kept up with a blanket!!  My recent progress is from the two orange markers: