Step 2 for Coping with 116 Days Left

Having scared you all yesterday with the Christmas count down I would like to show you what I do when I realize how close it is.

I make a shopping list. This list will include everyone, wool people and unworthy ones, and I will pick one non knit item for everyone and one knitted item for those I deem worthy.

I also budget out how much each person gets out of the budget. It’s normally around $30 per person and this is to include yarn and non knitted item, or just something nice for the unworthy ones.

Then I rank the worthy people for how much they deserve knitted items and why (the why is where I guilt trip myself into knitting them something really nice).

Here is my ranking this year:

Mom – 2 Christmases ago she only got one silk glove and I’ve yet to finish the other. She’ll be getting the other glove and something else

Grandma Jane – Grandma Sue and Grandma P have both gotten challenging blankets in the past year. Her turn

Grandma Sue – She’s an artist and I have a soft spot for her for this reason, she’ll get something with nice fiber and in a challenging pattern, like a cowl with alpaca and silk yarn

Grandma P – Last year I killed myself over her Giant’s blanket, this year she gets either a scarf or socks

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is the line where the knit gifts can either be skipped, replaced with something nice, or they would understand if it is late. I will not kill myself for these people (usually because I did it last year for them)

Ben’s Folks – Last year I set a standard by giving them a lace throw, but this year I might opt for getting them each something small but nice.

Ben – He’s my honey (therefore his gift can also be late if need be) so he gets socks and something cool (like last years meat smoker/bbq)

Dad – Last year he got a sweater vest and he has a 52” chest, I feel that should count for 2 Christmases but he still might get socks in Slytherin colors

Anna, Courtney and Stina – Though I love them, they’d feel bad if I killed myself over something for them, I’m thinking something small for this reason or I’ll take them out to sushi and we’ll enjoy each other's company as we did last year.

Aunt Bobby – Though she is cool, I rarely see her


As you can see I have the worthy people listed and ranked. Now I will go in search of patterns for them and make a table that looks like this:

I used my store's pricing, my favorite patterns, and listed the people to the right. Feel free to list people twice so you have options!

Spinning and 117 Days

Sunday was certainly for Spinning.

I spend the morning quickly cleaning up and started the laundry with the idea Ben would be home from his guy trip early, but since he was not home till after 1pm I used the time to watch Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog and spin up some alpaca, blue face Lancaster and Angelina I’d blended on Friday night.

I’m nearly done spinning my 4oz batt

I wanted something that looked like fire and I think I got it. WIN! Sadly I can’t say what it is destined to become because it’s for a Christmas gift for someone I know reads this. But what I can say is that it’s currently a light fingerling weight and I plan on using some plain red silk thread to ply it with.

Also, no one sent me any pictures of WIPs! So we’ll call this week a wash and extend the deadline till the 4th. Send them in and win a prize, or just post a comment and link of the pattern. It’s all about the works in progress!

Lastly with all these thoughts of the dye day coming up and that I’m spinning for Christmas I thought I’d give you all an inside look on how I hand my Christmas knitting!

I learned from my mother that you should spread Christmas shopping through out the year so that you don’t blow your budget at the last minute or forget anyone. For this reason I’ve always been picking up a gift here and there while shopping and I keep a box of knitted items that are not for me.

We all have those knits that go slightly array. Like you thought the color was great, but after you knit a hat out of it you realize its not for you, or the mittens you’ve been painstakingly knitting are too big or too small (I always try to block out the small ones or felt the big ones, sometimes it works). Then there are those things that you want to knit but have no purpose for them. I habitually go on baby knit sprees because baby stuff goes so quickly and sometimes a project is taking so long I need something with instant gratification. I know some people who don’t wear shawls but love to knit them, same with wash clothes. Things like this all go into the box. If it hits me that it should be for a certain person, it gets a tag tied to it with the person’s name.

Then around this time of year I go look in the boxes. I take a carefully thought out list of recipients and they are divided into two categories:

Wool/Knit People – These are the few that deserve knits:

My aunt, who married into the family (blood does not give you an up into this category), because she loves the sample lace scarves, cabled bags and because she rocks

My mom, she buys me wool and yet is allergic to it, but she will go into any yarn store with me and is one of my favorite people in the world.

My dad, he tends to shift in and out of this category because of his 52” chest, he funds my mom’s wool purchases for me and we love doing geeky things like Harry Potter opening nights. He’s a little hard to knit for but if its green and black and not obviously HP, it’s a win

Ben, he also goes in and out of this category for not wearing his knits enough, he helps with wooly problems like making me skeiners (they make yarn go from cone to skein) and he’s my honey. I normally knit him socks and if we were not dating he would most likely not get hand knit items.

Anna, she understands the wool.

People Unworthy – They for one reason or another don’t get hand knits:

My uncle, though married to the aforementioned aunt, he does not really get how much time or effort goes into knits and has mentioned that I can get socks cheaper and easier at the store. Though this might have been a joke, I don’t take to teasing well.

My other aunt, though a knitter herself, my giving her and others hand knits was taken as an insult. She’s competitive and her plain knit scarf was slightly outdone by my gift of a Swollowtail shawl to my grandmother.

Ben’s brother, because all he wants me to knit are things like willy warmers.

I use the plain knit hats, fingerless mittens and wash clothes for stocking stuffers, and if I have extras I add them to my donation box for St Anthony’s in San Francisco.

Every year St Anthony’s does a knit drive for hats, scarves and mittens, then they donate them to the homeless living in the city. I’ve got to say that it is cold and windy in the city and any extra knits helps.

This planning stage is step 1. It might look like I have few to knit for but here is the entire list of people I knit for:

Mom

Dad

Aunt Bobby

Grandma Sue 

Grandma Jane 

Grandma P

Ben’s Folks 

Ben

Anna

Courtney 

Stina

This list scares me, so to scare you I'd like to take a moment to remind you that there are 117 days till Christmas. :)

I'm all alone

Tonight is the first time since before Christmas I'm alone in the house and its going to last more then an hour or two!

Ben is usually home when I am, and the roommate sometimes leaves for the weekend but there are times Ben leaves and the roommate gets home at the same time. Does not help we all work at the same place and there was this short time period when I would leave for work at 8am and Ben would be on his lunch break at the same time.

But this weekend all that changes!

Ben and the roommate are going camping!

It started out as Ben and I going camping, but after some of his friends expressed interest in going I bowed out and suggested a guy trip.

While I miss my honey I have already cleaned the house, I'm sitting in the middle of the couch, ordered pizza with tons of vegetables on it, and I have plans to play with fiber.

You see on Tuesday night Penny dropped off over a pound of some really fun stuff I'd ordered through her. Its angelina. You can spin it with other fibers, or use it with heat to apply it to fabrics.

I plan on spending tonight eating pizza, watching whatever I want on TV and playing with my drumcarder while blending different color fibers and this sparkly stuff, then spin it tomorrow!

Can't wait to share pictures tomorrow!

WIP It Good

This week's preorder winner is Kallieen! She is the lucky winner of 3 skeins of sock yarn and a copy of Fitted Knits: 25 Designs for the Fashionable Knitter! She will now be able to join in the KAL in October when I and a few friends will be knitting the Airy Wrap Around Lace Sweater.

I highly recommend ordering your yarn now through the preorder, that way you can have your own colorway and join in, as there might be a contest/giveaway in October!

To answer a few questions, when you preorder your yarn your name will be entered in every week's giveaway from your order date till the last giveaway. Free shipping on orders of $100 means free shipping to anywhere, not just in the US.

So take a look at your Christmas list and think about what yarns you need and how you can get a jump start on it!

This week's giveaway prize for preorder prize will be another kit and the free giveaway will receive stitch markers!

This week's free giveaway ties into the WIP War! I want you all to share what your working on and email me a picture of it to radbitdyer AT gmail.com! I'll post the pictures of some of the WIPs on the Sunday blog and if you include a blog name I'll share it as well!

Lets get those projects finished!

Declaring War

Recently I've noticed a small issue whenever I start planning a project, I don't have the needles to do it.

Now as a knitter that has been given an interchangeable circular needle set, bought sock needle sets, inherited needles from family members, and received more then a couple sets from friends, I seem to have no needles to work with.

I'm not completely out of needles, but there are things I'm out of, like needle connectors for my interchangeable circulars, the few pairs of fixed circulars I have are in use, and my favorite sock needle size (1.5 US btw) are all claimed by socks. But as I browsed new projects I realized I have a problem and this lead to something crazy that the yarn harlot has also done.

I gathered all my WIP and was not happy with what I found.

This lovely Bird's Nest Smoke Ring cowl still has the cable in it but I took the needles off. It is also the same pattern that Caren used with my yarn but then I remembered why I stopped working on it...

Do you see how many yarn overs there are? I kept dropping them and forgetting them, then my plan to use all my stitch markers to remind me to look for a yarn over failed. But I cannot bring myself to frog it because its 1/3rd done and I had planned on it being a Christmas gift last year but ended up getting my grandma Jane something else. This year I think I'm in a good place because I can make it for her and I'm already ahead.

I also have my grandma Sue's blanket still on the needles and I just need to finish one chart and cast off: Its a little scary. I currently have 640 live stitches on the edge and there is a border that I work as I cast off. Guess how many stitches I have to knit to cast this sucker off.

Really guess. Now triple that guess, hell double it now, and take a look at the picture of it ready to cast off and take a breath before readying the caption:

The cast off is 8,107 stitches.

8,107!!! That is going to take forever and its done on 2 DPNs, but I need those freaking needles!

Then there are these plain socks that just need a toe and after thought heels:

These are also socks for myself

Here is Ben's birthday socks that I started in January that I loved:

All of these hold something special for me and they're holding my needles hostage!

So I've declared war against them! I'm only allowed to cast on a new project if I finish 2 projects. I just finished this shawl and after I finish the above blanket I'm casting on a plain knit shawl for myself. Kinda rinsing your mouth out with water while wine tasting.

Bluewings Shawlette with 1 skein of my hand dye

Gauge lied as my swatch matched but it turned out much larger then
planned and I stopped before the last 2 repeats of the second chart.

Think of everything you could get done if you joined the war!

A Riddle...

Well congrats to you who answered the riddle correctly! The answer was Lord Voldemort.

His name is Tom Riddle, but he is known as "he who can't be named", he also grew up in Wool's Orphanage.

The winner this week is number 14 Kate!

Kate, please message me to let me know your Ravelry username because you have won a $10 gift certificate to my shop and a copy of Luna's Moonlight Socks!

Thanks everyone for posting your guesses and check back in on Wednesday for the next free giveaway and don't forget to preorder your yarn so that you can be entered for 3 skeins of fingerling weight wool yarn and a copy of Fitted Knits: 25 Designs for the Fashionable Knitter so you can join in on the  Airy Wrap Around Lace Sweater KAL in October!

Riddle me this....

Today's blog will be really short as I have a stomach flu.

Sadly there were no preorders this week, but I did sell a skein of yarn and some roving, getting me $40 closer to my goal of $1,000!


Last night was knit night and I only dropped in for a short time but Meghan and I discussed buying a bunch of yarn with the next order for the Airy Wrap Around Lace Sweater, which you can make with 3 skeins of either of the sock yarns I have in my shop or 1-2 skeins of the lace!

Which brings me to this week's preorder prize! The winner of this week's preorder giveaway will win a copy of Fitted Knits: 25 Designs for the Fashionable Knitter and 3 skeins of custom dyed Merino sock yarn!

This week's free giveaway riddle is:

I am a riddle who shall not be named, I grew up in wool but was not warm till I went to school.

Who am I?

This weeks prize will be a sock pattern that is related to the answer and a $10 gift certificate to my shop!

So start commenting with your guess and get on over to the shop to preorder your yarn!!!

Good luck!

PS. Yes, I will ship prizes internationally for free and if you win the preorder prize I'll ship the prize and order together for free.

EDIT: just so you all know your answer does not have to be right to win. You just have to try!