New Year, New Knitting

One thing I try to avoid with this blog is apologizing for not blogging.  But after such a long lapse, I want to make an exception:  Yikes that was a long time without blogging.
Late fall seems to be a difficult time of year for me.  I haven't figured it out yet, but at least now I've noticed the pattern.

2012 Recap and 2013 Goals:
I met my washcloth goals for the year - one each month plus one more each quarter, total of 16.  November's was late, but other than that I did well, and I had enough for all my gifting needs.  I will renew this goal for 2013.

There were only four Christmas stockings to make this year, all done on time.  Two of them were a for-pay job.   So far I know of four needed in 2013.  My stocking goal is to do one per quarter.

In the second half of 2012 I was quite into the Harry Potter Knitting & Crochet House Cup group on Ravelry.  It was lots of fun, but somehow seemed to sap my blogging mojo and then my knitting mojo (although it may have simply been whatever-it-was in November that sapped most of that).  I completely missed the sign-ups for winter term (January through March), so I'm sitting out a semester and will see if I want to re-join starting in May.  I don't seem to have the mental energy to categorize my knitting so I can do all I want to in that game.

My main Christmas knitting projects were hats for one of the nieces-and-nephews groups:

(Swirled Ski Caps from the book Knitting for Peace.  Fun and appreciated, but a bit down to the wire, and my homemade cardboard pom-pom maker is now completely worn out)

and a hot water bottle cozy for my mom.

I'm pretty proud of this one.  I used a basic cozy pattern and a snowflake chart pattern and adapted them to fit both each other and the water bottle I bought.

Also coming up in 2013:
I know many people expecting babies in the first part of this year.  So many that I have had to write a list to keep track of them all. So there will be lots of baby-sweater knitting in my immediate future.

I will be going to Rhinebeck!  In October I'll be having a knitting weekend away!  A group of us have rented a house for the weekend of the New York Sheep & Wool Festival.  My goal is to finish the sweater I started for myself on New Year's 2010 in time to wear it to Rhinebeck.

Other big projects include at least three baby blankets for late 2013/early 2014, so I better get an early start on those.

One final note to close out 2012:  My brother knows how to shop for a knitter.  He gave me "socks; some assembly required" (yarn, pattern book, and needles), yarn for socks for him, a yarn bowl (!), another set of needles, a yarn travel book, and a "Keep Calm and Carry Yarn" tote bag.

I'm looking forward to a new year of knitting, and of sharing it with this blog!

Fall, Football, and Knitting

I love this time of year. The leaves are starting to change, the new school year has all its promise, we're getting some beautiful weather and I get to start thinking about getting my sweaters out of the closet. We're getting close to baseball playoffs and the football season has started.
I've always been a big baseball fan, but before I became a knitter I was not a football fan and didn't even really understand the game very well. In 2004, I had just started knitting in earnest that summer and was really enjoying knitting while watching baseball games on TV. I knit Christmas stockings throughout the playoffs, but then the Red Sox swept the World Series and I was suddenly all out of baseball for five months. I needed more knitting-friendly TV, and thought perhaps football would be just the thing. 2004 was Ben Roethlisberger's rookie year in the NFL. Ben and I went to college together - by which I mean we were in the same school at the same time. So I decided to become a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers right about when Big Ben got the job of starting quarterback.
Football has really grown on me, and now I enjoy the game itself, and not just as background entertainment for my knitting time. This confuses both my dad and my husband to no end. Neither of them like football at all, and would feel their lives no less rich if no such game existed. Neither of them particularly like baseball either. I thought for a while this summer that I wouldn't get to watch football this season. The switch to digital TV has not gone smoothly in my town and I'm really not pleased with the situation. But recently we borrowed a better antenna from a friend, and we're getting quite a few channels again, and I've had football on TV each week so far.
This is the first year I've had this blog and a Ravelry account, and so far football season is being really good to both. These past several Saturdays and Sundays I've really caught up on my Ravelry updates, have sorted out my pictures and have started catching up here on the blog. As the season continues I plan to finish my two current projects (guitar strap and Secret Project), knit a couple of Christmas stockings for the new nieces, knit lots and lots of washcloths, start more socks, and hopefully work on the nieces' blankets and get started on a layette set for my cousin's baby-on-the-way.