Make Nine

So I was reading in the forums on Ravelry, and I came across the Make Nine Challenge. Apparently I miss a lot by not being on Instagram: I have an account, but never use it at all. Anyway, the Make Nine Challenge helps bring focus to your life, set gentle goals, center yourself. People can set their goals on specific things they want to knit, or they can include things that they want to learn,  goals that they want to achieve ... goals can really be anything. Putting it in writing is a way of focusing your mind.

I thought it would be fun to try and come up with nine things in the world of creating that I wanted to do in a year, so I have made a list. I give it until January 30, 2020 to see if I do them all, some of them, or none of them. Some goals are very broad and general, and some are terribly specific.

 

Beth's Make Nine Challenge

1. Finish the Turquoise Zebra Blanket. It has developed a life of its own, like a child that goes on and on living with its parents, eating their food, never leaving. It is time for it to vacate the premises. I live for the day when I can say, "The Turquoise Zebra has left the building."
2. Make at least one small thing each month (like socks, hats, mittens, small shawls). √ √ √ √ √
3. Make three big things this year (like sweaters, big shawls). I have sweaters knashing their skeins in project bags, ready to be knit. The Turquoise Zebra, while HUGE, does not count because a) it has been ongoing now for two years, and b) it is almost completed. √
4. Make one thing that is hard for me to knit. It might be because of the difficulty of the pattern, or the unusual technique, or the size and weight of it (sorry, that is the Turquoise Zebra talking).
5. Become accomplished at knitting brioche. So far I knit a hat, flat, that was in one of Elizabeth Zimmerman's books, back in the 1980's, and another hat knit in the round in December of 2018 that I gave to my brother, despite the huge amount of errors in it. I need to get better at knitting brioche, try cables in it, try two colors in it. It looks so pretty.
6. Design two patterns and put them on my blog.
7. Knit the Selbu Modern hat, which has been in my Ravelry queue for ten years (March 26, 2009). That is before I had my stroke!
8. Knit Saxony Socks by Lisa Lloyd which have also been in my queue for ten years (December 10, 2009). And I even have the yarn for them.
9. Crochet a garment. I used to crochet Aran sweaters back in the eighties. I've crocheted a few blankets, hats and one sweater in my projects since I have been on Ravelry, so I thought I should beef up my crochet skills.

Mak moar knittdd mouses!

(Sorry. Pogo got on the keyboard again. Sigh. ::shakes my head::)

Abayomi

Remember this?

That's Abayomi, designed by Donna Yacino for Berroco. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it, and I reeeeeally wanted to knit it.

I ordered the yarn for it quite a while ago, like in the spring last year, but I never got around to starting it because other things kept popping up, things I wanted to get done first. It was going to be gorgeous in Swans Island Washable Wool sport weight in the color Edgecomb Grey.

Then I found NaKniSweMo (National Knitting A Sweater In A Month), a group on Ravelry. It is like NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) but for knitting sweaters instead of writing novels. I thought hmmmmmm, this might be the ticket. At least I will finally start Abayomi, and either I will knit it all in a month, or I'll get a good start on it! So I signed up.

I think the same day that I signed up, I also made plans with Lynne to go to Cape Cod. I hurriedly checked the pattern to see if the sleeves would be easy -- they were, all stockinette. Phew. And I had a few days before I left to get started on the back.

I won't lie, this sweater was hard to knit, but it mostly was that the lace panel which was the dominant feature was knitted lace, not lace knitting. Lace knitting is what you normally find in a pattern, a row of lace yarn overs combined with decreases, and a row that is purled back, or knitted back if it is garter stitch lace. Abayomi is knitted lace, featuring a lace panel that has no "easy" row of purling back; every row is patterned, so you have to be able to think backwards. Every knit two together becomes purl two together; every slip, slip knit two together becomes slip, slip purl two through the back loops.

Thinking backwards is hard to do with only half a brain.

However, after I got used to it, it went along easily. When I say it was hard to knit, please don't say, "Oh, well, then I won't knit it!" You can do it. If I can learn how to knit this, you can. Besides it is well worth the effort! It really is a lovely design, and while there was a certain amount of a learning curve, it got easier to knit as you went along. The pattern was very easy to read, the numbers for size small were correct, and the chart was easy to read.

I started on November 1, 2018 ...

Abayomi has begun! (November 1)

Sixteen inches of the back! (November 3)

I shortened the overall length of the back and the fronts by 5.5" inches (24.5" instead of 30") because I was using superwash yarn, and I estimated that it would grow about an inch per foot from blocking, which in the end was about right.

Back Completed! (November 13)

We drove to Cape Cod and back and I knit on the sleeves in the car, and in the hotel I knit on the left front. Except when we were having a cocktail*.

Cocktails are more for stockinette sleeves than a heavily-patterned-requiring-thinking-ability of the left front.

When I got home I got the sleeves finished. (November 15)

Finished the left front! (November 25)

Then I lost my knitting mojo. I got a lot of Abayomi done in November, and that was a good thing. Then there was the madness of Christmas, but I kept plugging on throughout. The pattern got really easy by this point, as I had managed to memorize quite a bit of it. I only had the right front to knit and to sew it together and it would be done! Sewing it together would be really easy; there was little shaping, the pieces fit together beautifully, and even the "tricky bit" of joining the left and right front together with a three needle bind off was really easy to do.

Finished January 12. I think it came out well! I hope Lindsey loves it.

 

*Cocktail: 1.5 ounces limoncello; 1 ounce vodka; a splash of seltzer water; a slice of lemon, and ice

New Year, New Beginnings

Hellooooooooo everybody! 

I haven't posted much, but I have been here. Here are a few pictures of my knitting:

A Farmall tractor sweater for a young gentleman (my own pattern)

A sunny yellow (my picture sucks) Bandwidth Tunic for a little girl

The Nerodia cardigan for a wee boy ... 

... complete with snakes!

And the Heart's Queen Coat for the clever young girl ...

... with hearts and a hood :)

 

I went to Cape Cod in early November and went to A Great Yarn in Chatham. It's a wonderful shop! One of the yarns I got there was Knitwhits Freia Handpaints Freia Semi-Solid Shawl Ball Merino Fingering in the color Hard Candy. I decided to knit the Birch Bark Canoe shawl out of it.

Very bright!

What am I knitting now? Hmmmmm ...

The Turquoise Zebra blanket is going slowly, about one garter ridge a day (that is 2 rows for you muggles):

Sorry I don't have a new picture. I only knit on it after supper for about an hour and it is way too big to be photographed. I like to cuddle under it though!

I have a scrap sock yarn shawlette almost finished:

I am trying to use up all my scraps this year; it is a goal I have. Wish me luck. I have enough scraps to do another shawlette after this one too. The pattern is Linus.

I got this yarn at A Great Yarn too, and I am making socks for Lynne out of it. I got the seahorse mug in Cape Cod too!

We have a scary snowstorm coming (well, I'm not scared, I'm from Maine) and we are well stocked up for all contingencies:

Stay warm knitters!