2009, in review

Let's have a brief review of 2009 - since Thursday, honestly, I probably won't be in any condition to make a coherent post.

Finished objects:

First pair of Eesti Trail Socks for my father...


Who knows how many pairs of baby booties...


Baby headband with changeable flowers...


Dishcloths out the wazoo...


Embossed Leaves Socks for my niece...


Socks for me - but of course no pictures. And my Sonnet!!! How could I forget...

Failures? Well... Not calculating gauge correctly on Sonnet and running out of yarn not once but TWICE.

Successes: Knitting my very first sweater. Knitting lots and lots of socks. Learning to knit around a puppy!

Learned: how to do colorwork. How to correctly calculate gauge.... maybe! The kindness of Ravelers and fellow knitters. The importance of giving of myself when I have enough to give, so that I might be empty and open to receiving when it is another's time to give.

Looking forward to 2010!
My goals related to projects for others... finishing my father's second pair of Eesti socks. Completing my brother's Eesti socks. He's picked excellent colors and I'm excited to beginthem. A pair of booties for each my brother and his wife. Stranded colorwork Christmas stockings for Bradley and Carlina. Socks for my mother. Socks for my brother-in-law, if he's interested.
Goals related to my own self... to finish my Branching Out. Knit more socks for myself! Move the buttons in a bit on my Sonnet so that I can wear it.
The skills I want to learn... more stranded colorwork. How to do mitered squares so I can join the blankie club!
Skills NOT to learn: how to spin. Getting into the whole world of yarn creation is WAY OVER MY HEAD. And dyeing yarn. I love picking other people's color creations; trying to create my own? HAHAHAHHAHA. That would REALLY open the door to madness!!!

Well, that's it for now. 2009 was an awful wretched year. AWFUL. Too many people died; too many people moved away; too much loss and too much grief. Twenty-ten had better be an amazing year... I'm going to be doing my part to make it so.

FOs

It is with great pleasure that I announce the completion of my father's first pair of socks! These socks are my first attempt at colorwork other than simple stripes. The socks are GIANT - they come up to my father's knees - and very very warm. Alpaca does that! I have already cast on for his second pair; these will be brown and cream. Here are two crappy iPhone pix:
Those are the completed ones... it's hard to see the colorwork, I know, but it's there. I'll get a better picture soon, I promise.


Also transitioning from WIP to FO this week is a big presentation at work. The firm is hosting a CPE (continuing professional education) for our clients, and some of us employees are lucky enough to get to present. I am one of them. Can you HEAR the excitement???!!! Cause it is SO NOT THERE!!! I think the CPE is a great value for our clients but I am not exactly thrilled to be one of the presenters. Well, one way or another, it'll be over on Wednesday.

Oh crap, the puppy is trying to be Superdog again, so I have to run... Hope everyone had a good weekend and has a very good week.

Technology

It's a wonderful thing and an awful thing all at the same time. Some time ago, I signed up for the MobileMe service from Apple. For a while now, I've used the Google sync service to get my calendar from work onto my phone and saved my contacts into Outlook here at home. Well... MobileMe is over the air, immediate, and not dependent on one of my personal computers. Getting it set up was pretty easy, except for the part where my contacts were duplicated and triplicated! I also realized that my music was stored all over the place: on my external hard drive in two different places and one place on my laptop!

Trying to untangle the mess only made it worse - no surprise, right? I think I finally have it sorted. iTunes is running in the background, adding all my music BACK to my library. I had to reupdate all of my applications, but I haven't lost any of my music (crossing my fingers). For a couple of days, I thought all of my U2 music was gone, and I was ready to punch something, hard. BUT! I found it.

Technology and knitting go hand-in-hand as well. I don't like reading from charts; it's hard for me to keep up with the correct row, and going back and forth from knitting to chart to count gives me a headache. Being a numbers nerd, I have a tendency to use Excel to convert a chart to text-based instructions. I've read on Ravelry that there are some sites out on the web that convert charts to text. Being able to get in touch with other knitters around the country when I ran out of yarn for my Sonnet would have been impossible if I wasn't online. Drooling over the beautiful sock yarns today in KnitPick's e-mail wouldn't have happened! I love how so many knitters embrace technology to make it easier to indulge our interests.

ArtFire

Tonight marks my first sale on my ArtFire shop!! My friend J.I. commissioned a pair of baby booties in green and white for a friend/relative's baby (can't remember right now which she said). I tried to find matching green buttons but was not able to find the right shade of green. Here are a couple of pictures for your viewing pleasure.
I hope the recipients like them! I am sure they will...

The puppy is being a holy terror. Saturday, he nipped my upper arm, on the back where it's sensitive and delicate, and I have a nice bluey-purple bruise there. He got the outer edge of my right hand tonight; that will be fun tomorrow when I'm typing and writing all day at work.

This past Saturday, I ran in the OUC Half-Marathon and 5k. I have been training for the half-marathon for a couple of months, but the longest run I'd managed had been 8.7 miles. My knees ache and hurt a lot when I run, but I had hoped that lifting weights in addition to the running would help. Wellllll... it didn't. By mile 9, I was dying. Of course, mile 9 is where the hills started - bricked hills, at that. Did I mention that it was cold (relatively speaking) and raining? Yeah, it was. About 60 degrees (hey, I did say relatively speaking) and misting, at a minimum. EWWWWW. Not fun. Bradley brought Jack and they were waiting for me at the finish line - that was one of the best things I've ever seen :D For now, I'm done with running. I'm taking a break this week from exercising (other than chasing around the steeenkeeeng dog) and am allowing myself to have 'bad' foods if I want.

OK. I think that's all I have to say--- oh wait, regarding the socks for my dad: I'm working on shaping the gusset on the second sock. I am quietly and unobtrusively enforcing Papa-Puppy time so that they can bond and I can get some knitting time ;-)

Next week I should have the pictures of my dad's finished socks. I can't wait to show them off!

BRAAAAAIIIINNNNNNNNSSSSSSSSSS

.... I do not has them. A puppy has eaten them!!!



He's gone from a tiny little lapful to a total lapful. His name is Captain Jack and he is a total boob pirate.


Oh wait, did I say that out loud??


Definitely not a dog person. Definitely not a kid person. My temper is too hot, and it's just ... I'm not ready for the 24/7/365 commitment.

And I hate the time suck away from my knitting!

I knit three washcloths for my mother for Christmas and packaged them up with some wonderful Burt's Bees soaps and hand salve. I made a neato flowered shirt for my oldest niece, based on a Martha Stewart wedding pattern...
She's a minor, so I've hidden her pretty young face from all the internet creeps! I made hair ties for the two younger nieces in pretty purples ----

WHOA something else I'm not used to is the MALODOROUS STENCH that emits from this dog's rump!!! I think I am going to VOMIT. ARGH!!!! He's worse than Bradley!

Anyways. So, all the knitting for Christmas gifts is done; now I can get back to knitting on my daddio's socks. I've finished the second sock's star chart, so now I get to zip through the rest of the sock. YAY!