Monthly Archives: October 2016

October 2016: Wrap-Up

Yardage Totals 2016:
 January: 728yds
February: 1,062yds
March: 1,042yds
April: 706yds
May: 1,922yds
June: 411yds
July: 869yds
August: 924yds
September: 947yds
October: 1,427yds
November:
December:
2016 Totals: 10,038yds or 5.70 miles

 

It seems impossible that October is already done, kittens. I swear it only just started. But here we are: the evening of the final day of October…and time for me to write out this month’s yardage tally post. It doesn’t include *quite* everything I worked on. There’s a small amount of blanket yardage missing from that number and the yardage knit into a toe cap, but those amounts will roll into November’s number. (I’m not a stickler for those things as long as it’s accurate in the long term. A little yardage in the wrong month never hurt anyone. It’s for The Greater Good. Or something.)

All of this yardage was knit fairly monogamously. I finished a shawl, then concentrated on some slippers, and lastly focused on a long term WIP I want to get finished in the first week of November. It feels good to be getting things off the needles–and having the opportunity to cast on a couple shiny new projects. And I feel that’s the way November will go: I will finish up the blanket, cast on a new, squishy garter shawl in all of my Spinzilla handspun from this year, work on and finish my current pair of socks, cast on some Giftmas ones (my goodness, we all NEED Christmas this year, don’t we?!), and try to start working on a couple of gifts for my children this year. It seems like a lot, so I’m sure I will not get to it all. But you never know.

You may have noticed, but I easily exceeded my 2016 knitting yardage goal of 5 miles or 8,800 yards! I feel really confident setting the bar for 2017 a bit higher (maybe 10,000 yds for the year…dare I reach for 12,000yds?) since this system seems to have helped me focus on getting knitting done. I believe this is the most I have knit in at least 3 years. It’s nice to have so many hobbies, but they can make it difficult to get much done. It’s so much easier to stash than it is to knit. I’m hoping with another year’s focus on knitting and trying to keep buying at a minimum will get my stash more to the size that I would like and make it manageable…but that really is a topic for a future-but-not-so-far-off blog post.

How was your October? Was it full of crafty goodness, knitting or otherwise? Did you spin for Spinzilla? What are your plans for November, if you’re the type to plan ahead?028043052blanket

Show Notes: Episode 169

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♥ Please come join us in the Ravelry group!
♥ The podcast is now on YouTube, if you prefer to watch there. Please remember to give my videos a thumbs up and do the same for other podcasts you enjoy!
♥ If you like speckle-y sock yarn, you might want to check out my Etsy shop:lambytoesshop.etsy.com.

Show Notes: “First Snow”

♥ Fall into Shawls is still on-going!
♥ Are you interested in a mini-swap? The Yarn Hoarder Podcast is hosting me as dyer for one. There are plenty of spaces if you’re interested!

FOs:
♥ Saturn’s Rings by verybusymonkey
♥ Cadeautje by Ysolda Teague

WiPs:
♥ Moderne Log Cabin blanket by Mason Dixon Knitting
♥ O7 of O8 socks in Regia 4-ply and Trailing Clouds

Stitcher’s Corner:
♥ Nasty Woman by WeeLittleStitches
♥ 3-d printed hoop from Stars and Sunshine on Etsy

Piggery:
♥ Mason Dixon Knitting book
♥ Berroco Vintage to finish up blanket from Jimmy Bean’s Wool
♥ stitch markers and pin from SucreSucreMiniatures

Episode 169: First Snow

 

Hi, kittens: today’s episode is a bit on the shorter side, with life’s being bananas and all lately. Thank you for spending some of your time catching up with me today! Today’s episode has a couple of FOs, some WIPs, a new project I plan to cast on before we next talk, some cross stitch, and some fun goodies! Show notes can be found on the blog at SewKnitpicky.net, and please consider joining the Knot A Podcast Ravelry group!

Blog: http://www.SewKnitpicky.net
Ravelry Group: http://www.ravelry.com/groups/knot-a-podcast
Shop: http://www.lambytoesshop.etsy.com

Music provided by bensound.com

Show Notes: Episode 168

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This video doesn’t exist

♥ Please come join us in the Ravelry group!
♥ The podcast is now on YouTube, if you prefer to watch there. Please remember to give my videos a thumbs up and do the same for other podcasts you enjoy!
♥ If you like speckle-y sock yarn, you might want to check out my Etsy shop:lambytoesshop.etsy.com.

Show Notes: “A Monster of a Week”

Spinzilla:
♥ I wrote a more in-depth account of my Spinzilla 2016 over on the blog, if you want to go check out that post with the pictures.
♥ I plan to make a Sowerby shawl out of the Hello Yarn I spun up, and socks for my husband out of the Gnomespun/Hello Yarn combo spin. I will be knitting along on the shawl with Laura!
♥ The results for the event come out on Monday. Once I see how I did in comparison, I plan to make my goals for next year. I will likely be a Rogue Spinner again. 😉

WiPs:
♥ Saturn’s Rings by verybusymonkey – the project that I just keep sloggin’ along on to get it finished. Someday, I hope. 😛
♥ I pulled out the long-languishing Moderne Log Cabin Blanket I’ve been working on for almost 3 years for my daughter. After recording, I finished the current block and realized it does need to be another strip wider and longer. BOO. Yarn has been ordered to try and finish it up this month. I need some big stash out numbers for Q4!

Stash Enhancement:
♥ September 2016 Hello Yarn fiber club shipment: this may be my final month since my stash is huge.

This should keep me busy for a while.

My Hello Yarn fiber stash on my king size bed: if those pacthwork kits were laid out, I would not be able to contain it all in a single layer on the bed.

♥ A birthday package from my sweet friend, Kate, arrived! It contained lovely things like Nomadic Yarns, Hedgehog Fibres, a fun and funky llama cloth, and Franklin Habit’s new coloring book!

Lamby Shop Talk:
♥ Rebel Girl is back in the shop!

rebelgirlmpm

Spinzilla 2016: Final Results

Spinzilla has come and gone yet again, kittens. This was my second year participating, and I did pretty well, if I may say so myself. I made one goal: double what I did in 2015, my first year participating. I came pretty darn close!

In 2015, I spun ~13.6 ounces of fiber, for just over 1,800 yards after plying credit.

This year….

017 025 037 044 061 068 075
I spun 22.4 ounces of fiber, for a total of 3,822 yards after plying credits were taken into account. 2.17 miles of spun wool, baby! The results of who spun the most and ranking order will not be announced until Monday, and I doubt I spun quite enough to make the list (I believe it tracks the top 20 or 25 spinners for both the team and rogue categories), but I’m still excited to see who spun what during the week. Who knows? Maybe I will get lucky and win a prize for my participating. The $10 entry fee was well-worth the motivation to get so much stash spun up in such a short amount of time, so I feel like a winner regardless of outcome.

Here they are before their bath: so much squishy goodness!

Here they are before their bath: so much squishy goodness!

Last year, in Episode 133 of the podcast, I made a list of some things I could do differently in the future to improve my productivity and buy myself some more spinning time.  The only one I really implemented this year was to have my main spin ready to go in advance, and when I started the second one, I had it all layed out and prepped in a short period of time. It allowed me to not think about the order of little nests as I spun them. But there wasn’t anything else I could have done that I did do, and several obstacles arose which ate up time and kept me out of the house and unable to spin for hours of the day. So. I definitely found more time this year, but I still could have dedicated much more to the event if I had chosen to.  I definitely plan to participate in 2017’s Spinzilla competition, likely still as a Rogue Spinner. (I prefer to not have anyone rely on me for results: I’m a lone wolf of sorts. Ha.) Depending on this year’s results, I think I’m going to gun for a spot on the list of top Rogue Spinners next year. If it’s obtainable and doesn’t involve never sleeping again.

Did you play along with Spinzilla this year? Were you on a team or did you spin Rogue? How did you do? Are you happy with your spinning you accomplished?

Stashdown 2016: Q3

My progress as of 01 October, 2016. So red.

My progress as of 01 October, 2016. So red.

 

I had high hopes for Quarter 3 Stashdown efforts, but sometimes we do not get what we want, and we have a low-production 3 months paired with a bit of buying. And we can’t get out from under it, because we stall out on our projects and finish nothing for almost a month. Happens to us all at some point, right?

So.

I’m up about 10 skeins of sock yarn and 6 braids of fiber since June. Really, what more can I say about that?

I’ve spent the rest of today (after tallying this up) deciding where I want to go from here. I realized that my Stashdown goals up until this point have been pretty vague and not very helpful–“spin out 30 oz of fiber”, “no buy in ____”, etc. along those lines. I had things I wanted to do, but no end numbers I wanted to land on. I also realized my much more specific productivity goals for knitting seem to be helping keep me on track this year and focusing on trying to make those numbers. So in Q4, I’m trying something a little different and reframing my quarterly goals: I have specific numbers in mind that I want to meet or beat on 31 December before I decide what I want to do for 2017–and believe you me, I have some big plans now that I have my window for when we’re moving. (I will, of course, tell you all more about that later.)

Between now and 31 December, 2016, I want to do two things: one, I want to reduce an excess of 16oz out of my current fiber stash of ~557.3oz/34.8lbs (meaning get down to at least 541oz), and two, I want to reduce my yarn stash by at least 1,000yds or ~2.5 skeins of sock yarn.  If I do not buy much of anything, or keep much of any yarn I dye, and if I keep knitting and spinning, this should be easy enough. These are not aggressive goals. But they’re a step in the right direction.

September 2016: Wrap-Up

Yardage Totals 2016:
 January: 728yds
February: 1,062yds
March: 1,042yds
April: 706yds
May: 1,922yds
June: 411yds
July: 869yds
August: 924yds
September: 947yds
October:
November:
December:
2016 Totals: 8,611yds or 4.89 miles

 

WOW, kittens! I am under 200 yards from meeting my 2016 goal of 8,800yds/5.0 miles of yarn knit! I’m pretty excited about that; it’s been a couple of years since I knit this much.

September started off beastly hot, and our autumn has been about 3 weeks behind schedule. We’re still fairly warm, but quickly starting to cool into more appropriate weather for this time of year. And you know what cooler weather means: sweater knitting and wanting to work under warm woolies every evening! Thanks to the modern glory which is central air conditioning, I was able to keep the temperature in my home livable and my knitting mojo going strong. I didn’t knit every day in September, but I knit enough to match and *very slightly* exceed August’s tally. I finished very little, but I did work on my slow-going sweater project, a new shawl to stashbust some laceweight silkpaca yarn, and I’m gearing up to knit some quick yardage gobbling projects that will then be gifted and out of the house.

What about you? Were you able to work through September’s abnormally sticky weather and get some knitting and crocheting done? Did you focus elsewhere? What do you have planned for the next month? The rest of 2016?

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