My Life in Stitches: Back to Blogging and KALs

(c) Dami Hunter

I didn't make new year's goals or resolutions this year. Why? Because I've done such a stellar job of keeping them (insert sarcasm). What I have do is noticed things that were missing from my life in 2018. The list was sadly too long, but two things were prominent on the list: blogging and Hubby KALs. Although both were a regular fixture in my life, I've fallen off significantly.

So I remedy both problems in one post. Announcing my first Hubby KAL: Salt Point (click here)!

Color 1: Neighborhood Fiber Co.
Truxton Circle

And to be honest, I miss doing KAL with the Hubby. Nothing strengthens a marriage like crafting with your spouse. It gets expensive sometimes, but it's nice to have another thing we can talk about. It's also nice that he gets me when it comes to knitting...mostly.

My husband has been on a cowl kick of late. Interesting since we have yet to see weather cold enough for him to wear a cowl. When I proposed a KAL, he suggested a cowl. Why not. I love cowls. Then came the fun part: selecting a pattern. This is always a challenge because our tastes are so different.

I mean, we are so different. He knits continental. I knit English. He loves to knit with laceweight and I would rather not. He lives for a complicated pattern with a chart and this girl just wants to have fun and save her eyesight. After several hours falling down the Ravelry hole, I found a pattern that we could both agree to and the stash dive began.

Opalessence Fiber Studio Gradient Merino SW
Plum/Royal/Aub

This pattern looks harder than it actually is. We've never done mosaic knitting before so it is nice to try something new. Here is a link for those who want to join us, Mosaic Knitting. And nice to get two skeins of fingering out of my stash. I started on New Years's Eve and hubby cast on a few days later. He's still going to finish before me, and I'm okay with that.

Here's to a new year and a new KAL.

What do you have on your needles/hook? Share in the comments.

My Life in Stitches: New Year's Knitting Resolutions

In my last My Life in Stitches post, I gave an overview of my knitting projects. As I went through my Ravelry page to write that post, I had a couple of revelations. One, I make a LOT of scarves and not many garments. Two, I noticed that I consistently learned new techniques last year. That’s one of the things I love about knitting. There is always something new to learn.

New techniques make up the bulk of my New Years knitting resolutions. This year, I want to learn to:

• Continental Knitting. I know how to do a continental knit stitch, but continental purling baffles me. I want to do at least one whole project in continental. Maybe I’ll actually finish my Color Affliction…I mean Affection in continental.
• Knit Fair Isle. I’m thinking that this isn’t as hard as I think it will be.
• Intarsia knitting. This truly frightens me, but I’ll have to put on my big girl panties and do it.
• A new cast ons. I know cable, provisional, crocheted provisional, long tail, and knitted cast on. I’ve toyed with Alternate cast on, but I haven’t mastered it yet. I also tried a lace cast on, but I didn’t think I was doing it right. I want to learn a German and a tubular cast on and master the lace cast on.
• Master seaming. I normally run screaming from patterns that require seaming, but that disqualified so many nice sweaters.

As far as projects, I would like to:

• Make more garments. Once I get the hang of seaming, I should be able to add more sweaters to my queue.
• More socks. Socks are the perfect travel project, but I’ve only made a few pairs. Hope to change that this year.
• Design more patterns. I’ve designed a cowl (stay tuned for when it will be available on Ravelry), but I want to do more.

And what list of knitting resolutions would be complete without some vow about stash control. I would love to say that I want to keep my stash from growing, but I don't want to make promises I can't keep. Besides, who knows what lovely yarn I'll come across this year that wants to be mine. We'll see how that goes.

What are your knitting resolutions this year? Share below and we’ll keep each other accountable.