Sheep On My Stuff

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. :)

Well, the ankle socks from last time turned out... badly. Badly enough I only knit one sock and then gave up. So poor Douglas doesn't get to model a finished object as well as the socks in progress. She protested (bleating at me as I tossed out the failed sock, and then bleating louder and more indignantly as I revived a newly-found pair of socks), and so I have brought her back to model a pair of red socks in progress:

Yarn used: Essential by KnitPicks, in Burgundy. Needle size: 2.5mm.

Douglas bleats that she's happy to be back, and promises to convince me to model the socks in a slightly more interesting fashion when I have them finished.

It's a pretty standard pattern -- 2x2 rib down the leg for four inches, then one of those heel flaps where you do s1 k1 across and p across the next row. Ribbing continues on the top of the foot. Toe is kitchenered.

I actually found this pair of socks in a closet, with about 2" done on the second sock. I was immediately overcome with the need to finish the second sock, so despite the fact that I have two other pairs of socks in progress -- not to mention a shawl, dammit -- this one got bumped to the top of the queue.

Two other pairs of socks in progress: one of them has been resurrected from the knitting queue, where it's been langushing a while. It's a simple pair of socks, this one for SheepLad. Made of a brown "mouline" yarn from Regia, it's an attempt at recreating his favorite pair ever of handknit socks.

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

Small Ty Sheep returns (from the post on Current WIPs, which are not so current anymore), bleating insistently that she didn't get a finished project picture, either, and therefore deserves another shot at the spotlight. Since I like to keep my flock happy, I went ahead and posed her with SheepLad's socks-to-be. (Sock-to-be?) We'll check in with her again when I've made some more progress on the socks.

After a few projects with 2mm sock needles, 2.5mm feels huge. And to think I used to work exclusively on 3mm Inox dpns. :) My last pair of socks -- no picture yet -- is another pair of ankle socks in a white/black ragg yarn from Regia. I think that one's on 2mm needles, but I'll need to check again when I'm taking pictures.