Finally Updating...

just not quite yet. I have all kinds of projects I need to update both on here and Ravelry. I haven't uploaded pictures of knitting for almost two months, and have finished quite a few things in that two month time period. 29 off the top of my head (Only 12 different patterns though (one with 5 variations), and three of the 12 I've knit before!); I'm probably forgetting one or two. Or will be finishing another one or two before I finish updating.

Before I jump into the yes, I blew my 50 projects goal out of the water posts (mostly, I'm counting the first few days of '10 as still '09 because I was on vacation!), I'm going to set some goals for 2010. This year, I'm going for quality rather than quantity. I want to finish four pairs of socks, three huge projects, two felting projects, and a couple of languishing projects before August, because they are all gifts for people in the States, and since I'll be going then, it would be easiest to bring it all with me and give it to the recipients there. In addition to that, all yarn that was brought to Japan above laceweight needs to be used up. Or at least, it needs to be down to leftover scraps. My yarn closet is currently overfull (due to recent shopping expeditions!) and needs to be emptied. I've used up nearly 10 skeins of my 22 Patons Classic Merino so far, and I have another couple of felted clogs to make, a work vest to finish, then maybe another work vest and/or cardigan, so I am not worried about using all that up. I have plans for a good chunk of the laceweight, but I don't know if I'll get to it all this year (lacweight is time consuming!) and would rather get the larger skeins into my wardrobe instead of in my yarn closet.

I think I know what everyone will be getting for Christmas this next year, and plan to purchase yarn and knit their items accordingly, and early. I've knit four pairs of Fiber Trends Clogs for this Christmas, am finishing two up for Lee and myself, and think that these will be the main gift for those who had not gotten them this year. That will be my main large needle project for the year, and if I always have one on the needles, I can get them done in time for Christmas definitely. I think I'll finally be able to make Pocket Creatures for my sisters if I can get some Patons Classic while in the States. I haven't been able to find a good substitute here, and could order some Cascade, but I like the feel of Patons better. So, another goal, is to have what I'm knitting for everyone decided before August and to have it all finished by the end of November.

I'm also joining the 10 Shawls in 2010 group and Ravelympics. For the shawls, 8 of them can be under 500 yards, which is perfect for one skein fingering weight shawlette/scarves that I've been considering making out of my gorgeous handpainted sock yarns. The other two, well, I'll cross that bridge when I get there. I'm not 100% positive what I'll do for those, since my plans for larger laceweight projects involve a scarf and a dress (Butterfly), not shawls, and the one shawl I will be definitely making over 500 yards is already started, so doesn't count. I love having my sock blockers show off my completed socks; I'm thinking of making some kind of shawl-hanging bar to show off these small-ish triangular one-skein shawls I'm planning to make. I suppose I could just put it on blocking wires, then just hang those up on the wall somewhere, or just pin it up. Something to consider...I'm not sure if I'll have one or two of those shawls be my Ravelympics project(s), if I should use that time to try to bust out some pre-Japan WIPs, or if that should be my major attack on one of the three large projects that need to be finished for my trip to the States. I have about a month to decide, I'll figure that out later.

Non-yarn-wise, I need to photograph more WIPs and FOs and blog about them (no point in taking a bunch of WIP pictures if I don't show them off 'till the item is done!) and just blog a bit more. Some months were good, some sucked. December, I'm looking at you. I have gotten pretty good about photographing things when I've finished, though I forgot to photograph three of the 29 most recent FOs, but should show off progress more. I think in conjunction with Ravelympics, my goal will be to post updates of how far I've gotten every day that I knit, even if it's just a quick snapshot of something that doesn't look any different than the day before. Maybe that will get me in the spirit of photographing things more often. Like the vest I'm working on right now, which is already split for the two fronts and the back. I should have taken pictures of it already.

Anyway, projects that are currently up: Finishing my second Lady Sunshine, an excellent glove pattern from Laris, Basil, a work vest for Lee that's about halfway finished, and knitting up some Fiber Trends Clogs for Lee and I along with photographing anything I still have around that hasn't been photographed!

Yarn!

We all know sock yarn isn't stash. Neither is laceweight, for the most part. Therefore, this is my entire stash:


And this is not stash:


As Lee says, don't make the yarn angry. It will get even. Apparently, it multiplies, and ate the couch. See:


That right there is all of my fibery goodness, all of the roving and yarn of all flavors (except the bag o' scraps) that are not currently used in projects. Maybe I do have too much...I mean, I have, according to my Ravelry stash page (which only counts what I have here in Japan, not the bit of stash I left home) 24.5 miles, yes, MILES of yarn. That is not in a project - if we count the yarn in my WIP basket, that's another mile or two, I'm sure. There's at least 550 oz, nearly 1.5 miles, in sock yarn alone, and then I have a sweater's worth of sport weight and a half mile in Alpaca Cloud for one stole and a whole bunch of crappy fingering weight but not sock yarn that is still fighting me, and...I think that's it. So at least three miles of in progress stuff. In addition to the stash in the closet and on the bookshelf waiting for its turn. Wow, that is a lot.

OCD

I has it.

Sorry to all my Ravelry friends, I shall be consuming your Friends pages for the next, oh, seven pages. I went through and photographed all my yarn this weekend.

Not my projects, just the yarn. Projects will be later. I swear.

I haven't looked at my Friends pages in awhile. So of course, I had to go back through to the point where I last saw things. I have 48 tabs of projects to look at open.

Oh jeez.

I also have a couchful of yarn to finish organizing. It's all photographed and uploaded to Flickr, now it needs to be input to Ravelry, sorted by project (as in, what projects will I be most likely to do soonest) and put back into the closet and onto the bookshelf.

All those yarn pictures will be popping up on your Friends page shortly.

In short, I apologize for all the annoying pictures you'll be getting from me, but it will be making my life easier and more organized, so it's worth it.

Right?

Too Much Yarn

I own too much yarn. Not huge rooms full of yarn, not more than I could ever knit, and not piles of yarn without a project to go with it, but more than I should have. Since I know I won't be staying here for too many more years and I keep buying new yarn for new projects, I am going to give myself some yarn-related goals for 2010. For 2009, my goal was to finish at least as many projects as I had in 2008, preferably above 50. Yes, I realize this is nearly a finished object per week and with less than two months to go I am still about 1/4 of the way from the finish line, but it should be doable. I've had some projects that have taken me less than a week; in fact, a few have taken less than a day. More than 50 projects is just insane, and in this coming year I'd rather focus on quality, projects for me, and using up the yarn I already own.

I have yarn for at least two sweater vests, possibly more. They would be very useful right now, and would take up oh, 1000-ish yards of WW yarn I have hanging around. Yarn that I brought to Japan, and that I really, really should not be bringing back to the States! By the 1st of January, after much after my current round of test knitting and gift knitting is over, I will catalog all of my yarn. I started to awhile ago, and then just got bogged down by the number of odds and ends I had. I also wound these odds and ends using my trusty niddy noddy and counted the number of yards I had of each, making nice little mini-skeins and sprinkling them in among the bookshelf skeins (which just keep growing...). I'll be photographing and counting all of my stash to add to Ravelry and listing the projects for all the yarn that has a desired project.

Next, I'll be going through that yarn and working on the desired project for each. I have a steeked Norwegian cardigan for my mom that I've been working on for awhile now. That one needs to be finished by August so I can take it with me to the States and give it to my mom. That one will be a good one to finish because not only will it be using up yarn I brought all the way from the States with me, but also not adding to the collection of things that will be brought home. I hope to replace the contents of my sock drawer with all handmade socks by the time I leave here as well, so knitting up all the sock yarn I have will not only be decreasing my stash but also allowing me to toss old socks and not get more dollar store socks. I have 20 skeins of Patons Classic Merino for a King sized blanket. That will prove highly useful while we're here as well, and I should use it for its intended purpose before I get too antsy and use it for something else!

Part of the reason I keep buying yarn is because the yarn I have is either not appropriate or is being kept for a different project, so of course I can't use it! Therefore, I really should figure out what has a project, what is up for grabs, and what I should try to get rid of. I have bunches of mohair, mostly recycled, that I find to be horribly itchy. I should get rid of it or find a nice scarf pattern for gifts.

Soon, expect a post with piles of yarn and some levels of organization, as well as a massive update to my Ravelry stash.

Chicken Wings Party

Thanks to our wonderful friends, we have an abundance of wing and barbecue sauces. Because it's not really all that convenient or cost effective to fry up a bunch of wings for dinner for just the two of us, we had a bunch of people over and a multitude of wings and french fries to fry up. Since the fries had frost on them, Lee had his lovely protective gear on to minimize blinding from spitting oil:


Mmm, I love a man in safety glasses! We went all Martha Stewart and put the melba toast and carrots for blue cheese dipping in our bread pans (because all the bowls were being used in the wings process) and had biscuits and garbage bread. We also offered a salad and ice cream sundaes for dessert, with homemade caramel and whipped cream. Lee scoffs at my dessert making attempts, but the caramel finally worked after burning only two batches of sugar.



Lee had a nice assembly line for his frying going on, drying raw chicken in the sink, pot of cornstarch to coat the chicken before dunking them into the oil:


We had about 15 people, so it was a good sized party. It was nice to be able to have a little taste of home, even if it wasn't quite the same.

What have I been doing?

1. Chicken Wing party - post as soon as I remember to do stuff with the pictures.

2. Local sight-seeing and recovering from said party (not like, hungover or anything, just house cleaning and all). Last weekend was pretty much supposed to be the last weekend before the miserable, wet, cold winter season, so we walked about and took pictures (which will be on Flickr probably tonight).

3. Swearing to myself I will go to bed early tonight.

4. Not going to bed early any night.

5. Being tired and lazy because I have not been getting quite enough sleep.

6. Knitting on a couple of projects I can't blog about as of yet.

7. Not sewing on the remaining button so I can give the baby gifts away after photographing and blogging them.

8. Making some progress, but not enough, on the projects I can blog about. Actually, I really should show off my Blooming glove again, now that it's all done minus the weaving in of ends. Must get on that.

9. Studying Japanese.

10. Watching Dan Brown movies. Rather disappointed in Angels and Demons, really impressed by how they showed the cognitive processes with DaVinci Code.

11. Not blogging. Not even logging onto blogger. Reading other peoples' blogs though.

Skills: +10 in formatting

Sometimes my image hosting site (Ripway) likes to cut off my access to images. Things like the progress bars over in the sidebar. I log in to see what the problem is, and get this message:

Our system has detected that downloads from your account over the last 24 hours has exceeded your daily download limit. Public downloads of your files are temporarily unavailable.") As soon as your downloads for a 24 hour period drops below your daily limit, public access to your files will be restored.

Use the chart to the right to see when heavy downloads occurred, and how much was used.

I also have this information about my usage, just a couple of lines above the temporary account locking notice:

Data Transfer
In the last 24 hours you have used 4.95 MB of data transfer, out of 150.00 MB.

So I should have 145.05 MB of data transfer remaining for this 24 hour time period. That is not exceeding my limit. I was always annoyed to see the little "pg" on my progress bars when the images went away, so recently decided to change them to status updates on each project. Cute little things, like "Finished!", "Needs blocking", "Slowly but surely", "Soon" and things like that. Well, I realized that that made for very wonky formatting. Why, I was never sure. The last time I saw it I didn't have time to sit and fix it, but this time, by gosh, I was going to do something about it!

I realized that all of the ones that said "Finished!" were okay. Others, not so much. The words would cut off and continue vertically down the screen, obscuring the names of other projects and cute progress bar messages. Not good. Two projects, one at 90%, and one at 98%, had the same phrase, which was fine for the 98% bar but cut off in the 90% bar. Of course, this didn't clue me in.

What did clue me in was the fact that the one that had only 35% progress cut off at about the 35% mark. A-ha! The alternate text for the image only shows up underneath where the image would be! So, something that is finished can handle any phrase up to 100 pixels long. I changed all of the phrases to something that can fit (OTN can fit any project at least 35%, UFO needs 40%) and removed alternate text from all the projects too small to be able to handle any. Awesome.

I also went through and closed the website formatting for some of those titles. This way all of the alternate texts are black instead of blue or grey. Check out the sidebar, I'm sure it'll still be image-less for the next few hours, and see how lovely it is now!