04 February 2008

Mission Possible 2008

I very rarely buy yarn without a specific project in mind. Except for sock yarn – I don’t usually have a pattern picked out when I buy sock yarn, but I know that it will be used for socks. So imagine my excitement when I discovered the Mission Possible 2008 group on Ravelry! It’s a brilliant concept really: Go through your stash, WiPs, and UFOs and pick 12 projects that you must commit to finishing by 31 December 2008, or the yarn must be donated (to where, I don’t know, but I’m not worrying about that yet). Going through my stash made me really think about why I bought certain yarns in the first place. And I’m so excited to have the motivation to make the things that I intended to make when I made the purchases.

1) Lite Lopi: I bought this to make my dad an argyle vest. The intention was for the back to be a solid color and the front to have the argyle pattern. That was before I discovered that I hate intarsia. So I changed my mind and instead I want to make him a stranded colorwork vest. I will use only 2 colors, but the pattern will cover the whole front and back, pattern as yet to be determined. Of course, I have already knitted the back in the solid color, so I will have to frog that before I start. This will be my first foray into steeking, so I’m excited to get it started.

2) 3 colors of Cascade 220: This is for an afghan for my parents’ 40th anniversary, which was last October. Yeah. Didn’t happen. I started the Celtic Knot Afghan only to decide ¾ into the first panel that I didn’t like it. Instead, I am going to make the Flying Geese blanket from Mason Dixon Knitting. Since this is worked in blocks, it will be pretty easy to take this project along to knitting group or wherever else. The colors I have chosen are a dark turquoise, a lighter turquoise, and dark burgundy.

3) Louet Gems: Pictured here, these are for Endpaper Mitts. I am determined to have these to wear next winter (since I can’t see starting or finishing them before spring).

4) Claudia Hand Painted Fingering: I bought 2 coordinating skeins of this to make the Chevron Scarf. This is another one that I want to have finished by next winter (I’ll be so warm in December! Not so much now.)

5) Cascade 220 Quattro: I fell in love with the Five Alarm Bag from TinkkniT the first time I saw it. It’s big, and cabled, and felted. I’m not too thrilled with the handles pictured in the pattern, but that’s a minor detail that I can change. I have visions of making this with a cool fabric liner that has a divider so that my everyday purse-y stuff goes on one side and my knitting can go on the other. I really like the red in the pattern picture, but I didn’t want to make it look exactly like that (I like mixin’ it up, dontcha know?). Instead, I bought some Quattro that is red and pink (oooooo, creative). I’m curious to see if the pink even shows when it’s felted.

6) Lamb’s Pride Worsted: This is for Candy, which I am working on now and hope to have finished in the next couple of weeks. I think I will set myself a deadline of 17 February. That’s Shane’s birthday and we’ll be gathering at my parents’ house to watch the Daytona 500. I’d rather take something small to work on then instead of a sweater that is quickly becoming too big to carry around.

7) Rowan Felted Tweed: During the Yarn Barn annual sale, I bought 2 skeins of this to start the Tangled Yoke Cardigan. The stuff is too expensive, even on sale, for me to get an entire sweater’s worth at one time. I really wanted to do this in a pea or lime green, but Sis said it made me look sallow, so I chose a dark purple. Damn. I really liked the green.

8) Kidsilk Haze: During the 2006 Yarn Barn sale I bought 2 skeins of a color that I think is called Hurricane. It’s a deep midnight blue, almost black. As I was searching for a pattern that used only 2 skeins of this stuff, I found the Kiri Shawl. It uses 3, so I bought another skein at last year’s sale so I could make it. It looks like fairly easy lace. I’m excited to use this yarn. I’ve never used Kidsilk Haze before.

9) Switzer Land Farms alpaca: Several years ago, I bought enough of this yarn at the Estes Park Alpaca Market to make a sweater for myself. That’s before I realized that making a whole sweater for my large body with fingering weight yarn would take an age, and that alpaca is uberwarm and a whole sweater would be too hot even for the winters in Kansas. It’s been sitting in my stash ever since then without a purpose. Until I saw the Henry scarf pattern. This yarn and that pattern are going to go great together. It will be for my dad. This scarf will not even come close to making a dent in my stash of this yarn, but it’s a start.

10) Knit Picks Shadow: Knit Picks was having a discontinued color sale so I ordered 2 skeins of the Shadow laceweight in a pumpkin color. After doing some searching for just the right pattern, I realized that I would have more options if I had at least 1200 yds, so I ordered one more skein. I think this will become the Bee Fields Triangle Shawl from Knit Spot.

11) Bernat Satin concentric circles afghan kit: In 2005 (!) I ordered this kit from Mary Maxim. I love this afghan. I love the concentric circles, worked from the inside out with evenly spaced increases. The colors are the perfect complement to my living room décor. Working this thing? Torture. It started off okay. But after a while I realized that each round is bigger than the previous one (duh), and instead of plugging along, I would work for hours and only have a ½ inch of stockinette to show for it. Not to mention that the bigger it gets, the more unruly it is to maneuver. I abandoned it sometime in the summer of ’05. It’s been buried in a basket in the living room ever since. I think it’s off to the frog pond. I’m hoping that I can straighten out the kinks in this acrylic yarn, though I’m not holding my breath, and I’ll look for another, less frustrating afghan pattern to use with this yarn.

12) Patons SWS in Natural Earth: Michael’s was having a sale so I just had to have this yarn. I love the combination of the dusty pink, lime green, and tan. I bought enough to make myself a Lady Eleanor. Yay entrelac!

So there you have it - all of the projects I am determined to finish over the next 11 months. Of course there will be other projects that pop up, but I will do my best to keep these 12 in the back of mind to finish before 31 December.

2 Comments:

Blogger Lauren said...

Finish or donate? That is hard core. I don't have a big stash, but I might do a smaller version of this!

8:40 AM  
Blogger Rebel said...

Dude! That's a pretty ambitious list. Good luck!

2:22 PM  

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