Sheep On My Stuff

I don't know if I'm still on track for my goal of stash yarn-to-new yarn and new project-to-old project ratios. Certainly not after today.

Yarn used: Microspun by Lion Brand in Silver Grey (now discontinued), Royal Blue, and Lily White. Crochet hook used: G (4.25mm).

The black sheep is Trisia (of New Zealand, courtesy the Russ Berrie Co.!), named for my mage in World of Warcraft. I don't have a sheep named after one of my Draenei, because I have only two -- Teuthida, who is one of my two main characters (and a shaman), and Ovilya, who is a hunter... and L19. And Draenei are so... tentacle-y. They just don't seem like sheep to me.

Anyway, in WoW, Draenei can ride on giant elephant-like creatures called elekks. Teu's elekk has blue accents -- armor plating, really -- on all four legs, head, sides, and back. I'll be posting a screenshot for comparison when I'm done -- and while it may look like I'm done, trust me, I'm not even close!

This project was primarily started to use up the grey Microspun I had remaining (about a ball and a half, and I used about 3/4 of a ball on this -- the grey bits are almost if not completely done). I then realized I had the perfect blue to match Teu's elekk's barding, and thought, "Ooh! I could make it an elekk and not just an elephant!"

...which meant I needed white yarn. Doh. (Put this in both the "stash project" and "new yarn project" piles.)

Anyway, you can't see it in this picture, but he is missing two legs -- they're crocheted, just not attached. He's also missing tusks, a hat-piece, and a saddle. I may or may not add the horns (yes, they have horns as well as tusks) and I doubt I'll get very elaborate with the back and shoulder barding, but we'll see. Tusks, hat, and backpiece, and I'll be happy. I am very pleased with the leg stripes.

It turns out I actually started crocheting before I started knitting, but I seldom do it anymore. But once in a while I see a really cute crochet pattern and must try it out. If you're interested, this one is from the Lion Brand website. You need to register, but once you've done so, you can find the pattern here.

Yarn used: The now-discontinued Merino Light in maroon (#8 on the color card). Needles used: 10 point freaking 5 -- 6.5mm. This feels crazy huge after all the socks.

This next project doesn't look like much in the picture, but that's okay -- it doesn't look like much yet at all! It's a Bog Jacket, from the book pictured. The idea is you take a "square" of fabric and make strategic cuts to make a jacket, but in knitting you can do it without all the messy cutting, and with invisible seams. I started this before, actually, but on size 7 needles. I took a good hard look at the project and decided that the fabric was much too stiff. It's looser now and has much more give to it, plus the yarn is going further, obviously, which is a bonus -- because this is stash yarn (yay) and I've only got 15 (very small put-ups) balls of it. However, I do think I'll make it.

The sheep pictured is named Beautiful Sheep. She's one of the oldest ones in my flock, from Bloomington, Indiana. She's actually made by Gund, as are many of my fine sheep.

Done! Done! Finished! Done!

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Yarn used: Microspun by Lion Brand, Silver Grey. Needles: 4.5mm.

Now I just have to figure out how to get it where it needs to go. Mail? In-person delivery?

I have a little under two balls (or a little over a ball and a half) of Microspun left. I'm thinking little hats.

First, the part of a scarf:

Yarn used: Lion Brand Wool in Blue and Orange. Needles: 4mm.

This sheep hails from the mall. She comes from a baby store, and is actually the third of her family to join the flock. There's another one who looks just like her but happens to be twice her size, and there's the original, who has been in the flock just over a year, and is holiday-themed. She has earmuffs (though, strangely, they are not on her ears) and a nice red-and-white scarf. I may need to knit scarves for the other sheep sometime soon.

The pattern... well, it's being improvised, and it's double knitting, which is new to me. I'm not sure how it's going, but at least I haven't ripped it out yet.

Yarn used: Essential in Shale Multi, KnitPicks. Needles: 2.5mm.

I cannot for the life of me remember where this sheep came from, which makes me think it was probably a present from my parents. :) I just keep looking at this picture and going "AWWWW!" So. Cute.

I wish I had even the faintest clue what I was doing with the socks. So far I got nothin'. I'm sure I'll figure it out once I'm done with the ribbing section.

Yarn used: Lion Brand Microspun in Silver Grey. Needles: 4.5mm.

This sheep plays music, much like Twinkle Sheep, but I can't remember what song. I know it's not "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." It might be "Mary Had A Little Lamb." (A not-very-surprising number of musical sheep play that one.

So this project has a bit more story than most. A friend of mine recently had a baby -- two months early! While in the midst of reading about her adventures as the brand-new mom of a preemie, I got a knitting newsletter whose charity of the month happens to be a knitting program for premature babies. I'm not knitting for that specific charity -- it's in Iowa and I was hoping for something more local -- but I did a bit of research and found that the local chapter of the March of Dimes collects blankets and other knitted items for preemies, and that Microspun is one of the preferred fibers, as it's very soft and machine-washable.

I have issues with acrylic yarn. It hurts my hands to work with it, and I'm not fond of it. However, like most knitters, I cut my teeth on it, and so I still have some left in my stash here and there. I happen to have just enough of this to make a nice blanket (and, honestly, might have enough left over to make some tiny preemie caps), and I'm very happy to be able to get it out of my stash. (At some point, I may break down and collect all my leftover acrylic and take it to Goodwill, where knitters who are looking for a bargain and don't mind acrylic will hopefully find it and take it home.)

At any rate, the pattern is a very simple k10/p10 (repeat for a total of 160 stitches), 14 rows per square. I eyeballed the height, but that should be about right -- they may be just a little long. I plan to do a couple of rows of single crochet around the edge when I'm done with the knitting; it curls just a teeny tiny bit, since the squares are stockinette, and that should even it out some.

Musical Sheep is in fact sitting on a crocheted project of mine. I can take a picture if anyone's interested in an ancient crocheted blanket. It is really very cool-looking. :)

There are still three projects hiding around my house that I haven't gotten onto the blog, so if I don't make significant progress on my current WIPs by Tuesday, that's what you'll be seeing. >_> With any luck, I'll finish up the blanket, at least, and maybe pick up another one of my languishing WIPs.

Scarves are a constant last-minute Christmas gift. They're fast, they're easy, I can crank out one in an afternoon. This year, I'd actually been knitting scarves to use up the last of my Wool-Ease since the summer. I thought this was a brilliant plan -- I'd be done before Christmas hit!

I think I sent out only one of my pre-made scarves. Oh well.

So here are the scarves I finished in the last month or so:

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Yarn used, from first to last: Patons Soy Wool in "Natural Earth", 3 skeins (primarily because I wanted to match colors seamlessly), size 4mm needles.  Schaefer Yarns' "Little Lola" in Georgia O'Keefe, 1 skein, size 4mm needles.  Lion Brand Wool-Ease Sprinkes, Green Heather, 5mm needles.  Cascade 220 Quattro, 2 skeins (with lots of leftovers), size 4mm needles.  Cascade 220 Superwash, 1 skein, 5mm needles.  Patons Classic Merino in Forest, 1 skein, 4mm needles.

Lest you think these are all the scarves I'm working on, I also have one "traveling" knitting project on needles and one garter stitch scarf I'm doing as a meditation/knitting project.  Oh, and I finished another scarf, whose picture has not made it into this colleection.

The stitch patterns: Farrow rib, 2x2 rib, garter, 2x2 rib with pompoms, broken rib, 2x2 rib. The traveling project is triple rib.

The sheep who are being so kind as to model my projects are, from first to last: ÜnterSchëpenfloppen, a Steiff sheep from Las Vegas; Twinkle Sheep, who has a wind-up music box in her back; Agnes, from the Auckland International Airport; Sweetest Softest Lambie, from Bath and Body Works in the Redmond Town Center; Lavender Sheep, an aromatherapy sheep with a warmable pouch in her tummy, from the Discovery Channel Store in Bellevue, WA (before it closed); and Woolo, who hails from somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. All of these are cherished parts of my sheep collection. :)

Scarves are awesome for travel knitting. A pair of needles, a ball of yarn, and I'm off to the races. I can crank out one in an afternoon (the finished one not shown here is one of those), and they often don't require a lot of attention. A 2x2 rib scarf is a perfect thing to take to the movies; the last of those scarves was knit almost entirely during "I Am Legend". (No, I don't need light to knit by for a project like that.)

I travel-knit when I'm out to eat, when I'm at the movies, when I'm over at a friend's house, when I'm on a long car ride, on the bus, or any other time I know I'm going to need to fill more than a few minutes. The only trouble with using scarves for this is that it tends to leave me with a lot of new projects, which sort of goes against my New Year's goal. Still, I've been keeping that goal, having finished four projects, thrown out one WIP I was never going to finish, and started only... counting the travel knitting, right?... five. I'm at parity!

Giving myself permission to toss WIPs I'll never finish is really handy. I'm hoping to do more of that in the upcoming weeks. Who knows -- it might clear out enough of my stash closet to get the yarn currently living on the craft room sofa into the closet itself. Maybe. >_> <_<

A friend of mine in WoW saw the original Hedgehog the Grey and offered to do a craft exchange with me. E makes little bags, and so I now have a new bag to keep my knitting accessories in!

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Knitting bag for me!

Look at all the sheep. :) The sheep next to the bag is Ovistine, who is named for one of my most-often-played WoW characters. Then there are the sheep on the bags, and finally there's the sheep in the bag -- a measuring tape! Pull her tail and you get a measuring tape; squeeze her tummy and it retracts. Somehow I have only two of these sheep, but they are of course my favorite measuring tapes.

Here's the hedgehog I knitted, in various stages of completion:

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Yarn used: Cascade 220 for the dark brown, Wool of the Andes in Chestnut for the paws, and Lion Brand Fun Fur for the "spines".

As you can see, felting shrinks a project a good deal (and here we have a good argument for using the same sheep throughout the photography process!). The pen sheep... I have no idea where she came from, but it's not the only pen/sheep combination I have. This one lives in the study, in a pencil cup, near other desk sheep. :)

Next up: Holiday (and later) scarves!

Two finished pairs of socks this time!

First up, there's the Regia 4-ply mouline socks in brown. (You may remember them from the post on WIPs or this post on socks.) They're finally done! Here are a couple of pictures...

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Yarn used: Regia 4-ply mouline in brown. Needle size: 2.5mm.

Modeled here by a mom and two lambs, and then that small Ty sheep, who bleats that there should be some continuity in pictures of sheep and projects; I'll try to take pictures of projects with the same sheep throughout all the parts of their creation.

Then there's the pair of brown socks that I found 1/4 of the way done in a drawer, oops that I just finished. These are for me, and took a surprisingly short amount of time once I got them out of the drawer.

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Yarn used: Essential by KnitPicks, in Cocoa. Needle size: 2mm.

Modeled here by a Russ Berrie sheep I call Woola; she's part of a family whose tags all proclaim them "Woolo", but seems much more a ewe than a ram, and anyway we have several Woolos. It's good to be individual, even in a flock. :)

Now, as for goals for the new year:

I've decided I want to start working up some of the stash. I have a very nice room in my house devoted to stash yarn, and a lot of nice little boxes to keep yarn in. Yarn should, therefore, not be taking over the rest of the house. (A lofty goal that I bet few of us, craft room or no, can actually achieve.) In the interests of working with the stash (and after all, I love the yarn, or why else would I have it?), this year I plan to:

• work two stash projects for every one new-yarn project

• work or throw out one in-progress project for every two new projects I start

This gets sort of complicated when I have an in-progress project that needs another ball of yarn (that's new yarn, but it's a WIP! But...), but I'll figure out how to work it as I go.

The two projects above are languishing WIPs, which means I could start up to four new projects under my own rules. ^_^ But I have so many WIPs hanging around -- and I finally seem to have the desire to finish them -- that I'm just going to hold onto those "new project" vouchers until I can't resist anymore. :)

I also have a non-knitting-related goal for the year: a fitness goal! This year I'd like to get into shape and run my first organized 5k. In fact, I'd like to run a lot more than one. :) For every organized 5k I run this year, someone's getting a sheep. I'll be donating a sheep to a family via Heifer International every time I finish an organized 5k.

How am I doing so far? Well, I'm working through the Couch to 5k running plan. I'm halfway through week 4, although I've actually gotten as far as week 7 in the past. I'm really motivated this time around, and I look forward to tracking my progress. I'll be updating the fitness goal page as I go, so check there for updates. :)