happy new year!
To my fellow knitters and muggles alike: a Happy New Year to you all! Whether or not you make resolutions, I wish you hope and cheer in the coming months. I myself am not a huge fan of resolutions. More often than not, I either can't stick to them, or I just forget about them. Still, I've made a few. And since nasty, gray, wet weather is preventing decent photos and therefore a blog post of all my end-of-year knitting (perhaps I can get to that this weekend...), I'll share my modest resolutions with you:
1. This is entirely unrelated to knitting, but it's my big resolution: run more and quit griping about the weather. My husband and I have recently invested in some high-tech running gear, so now I have no excuse for taking four months off in the winter. It used to be that I thought the only running gear worth spending any money on was the shoes, but lately both of us have discovered the benefits of moisture-wicking-insulated-recycled polyester shirts and silk underwear. A few weeks ago, Stuart bought himself some yaktrax for running on the snow-packed streets, which fit my shoes well enough to borrow. And for Christmas, I asked for and received insulated running tights. I've also got silk long johns and plenty of hand knit hats, mittens and socks, so I'm all set. (Except for running in the rain, which I absolutely hate. As it happens, we're having freakishly warm, wet weather up here, which feels entirely un-winter-like. All the snow is melting. It's unnatural!) Wouldn't you know, you CAN go running when it's below freezing outside? Even in the single digits (I have yet to run when it's below zero)?
Now, then. On to the knitting resolutions:
2. Knit something with steeks. I consider myself a fairly advanced knitter, but I have yet to execute this technique. I think it's time. I've even got a couple projects in the mental queue (and yarn aplenty to give it a try), so there's no reason not to take the plunge.
3. Write up some patterns WITH CHARTS to publish/republish on the blog. I hate line-by-line instructions, and yet the few patterns I've put up on Mad Knitting have not included charts. This is because I don't charge for patterns and didn't know how to do charts, and I didn't want to bother. Well, now I want to bother. So for my birthday (2 days ago), I asked for some charting software and my kind and attentive husband got me just that, so I plan to make use of it. I want to rewrite every pattern with cables that I've put up here, plus finally write up the hat and mittens set I made for Anya several months ago and publish them here, still for free since I don't really know how to write for different sizes.
So there you have it: my modest resolutions for the new year! Notice how I didn't resolve to knit only from my stash, or not buy any new yarn? I'm always resolving to do that and failing, so I'm saving myself the grief this time around.
What about you?
1. This is entirely unrelated to knitting, but it's my big resolution: run more and quit griping about the weather. My husband and I have recently invested in some high-tech running gear, so now I have no excuse for taking four months off in the winter. It used to be that I thought the only running gear worth spending any money on was the shoes, but lately both of us have discovered the benefits of moisture-wicking-insulated-recycled polyester shirts and silk underwear. A few weeks ago, Stuart bought himself some yaktrax for running on the snow-packed streets, which fit my shoes well enough to borrow. And for Christmas, I asked for and received insulated running tights. I've also got silk long johns and plenty of hand knit hats, mittens and socks, so I'm all set. (Except for running in the rain, which I absolutely hate. As it happens, we're having freakishly warm, wet weather up here, which feels entirely un-winter-like. All the snow is melting. It's unnatural!) Wouldn't you know, you CAN go running when it's below freezing outside? Even in the single digits (I have yet to run when it's below zero)?
Now, then. On to the knitting resolutions:
2. Knit something with steeks. I consider myself a fairly advanced knitter, but I have yet to execute this technique. I think it's time. I've even got a couple projects in the mental queue (and yarn aplenty to give it a try), so there's no reason not to take the plunge.
3. Write up some patterns WITH CHARTS to publish/republish on the blog. I hate line-by-line instructions, and yet the few patterns I've put up on Mad Knitting have not included charts. This is because I don't charge for patterns and didn't know how to do charts, and I didn't want to bother. Well, now I want to bother. So for my birthday (2 days ago), I asked for some charting software and my kind and attentive husband got me just that, so I plan to make use of it. I want to rewrite every pattern with cables that I've put up here, plus finally write up the hat and mittens set I made for Anya several months ago and publish them here, still for free since I don't really know how to write for different sizes.
So there you have it: my modest resolutions for the new year! Notice how I didn't resolve to knit only from my stash, or not buy any new yarn? I'm always resolving to do that and failing, so I'm saving myself the grief this time around.
What about you?
Comments
My main "knitting resolution" is to not buy any more yarn, because holy crap my stash is out of control. I've said I'd do this before and failed, though, so this time around I've told my husband about my plans, and we've set up our Mint account to track our spending so it'll be very obvious if I break my own rules :)
I'm also hoping to focus on doing more self-publishing, but we'll see. I'd love to hear more about your chart-making software - right now I just use OpenOffice and a knitting font which works ok, I guess, but I've always been curious about making "real" charts.