14 January, 2008

Twelve Mile Quest

On Friday night my Little Brother called and announced that he was coming to visit for the weekend, which turned out to be wicked good fun. We played World of Warcraft (Little Brother brought his new computer) pretty much the whole time, but I managed to finish his Charade socks and send them home with him. Of course I also forgot to take a picture because I am a Bad Blogger.

I also did this:
Singles with Wine (ahh hah hah...)
Wine brings things together
Closeup
That's the Copperpot Woolies Dye4U that I won in her Birthday Bash awhile ago. In the spirit of Finishalongapalooza '08, I completed the first sleeve of the Boatneck Sweater from Debbie Bliss as well. Only one sleeve and the blocking/seaming to go!

And last night I jumped in to the Frog Pond with both feet. I ripped Charade Sock #1 (The One That Didn't Fit Right), my Cookie A German Stocking and my dad's My So-Called Scarf. I also re-skeined the Blue Fir lace weight left over from the Victorian Shawl and the lovely sage Cherry Tree Hill I got from my awesome Hogwart's Swap 2 partner.

The skeins are all patiently awaiting a soak and their turn on the drying rack to return them to a useable state. When I'll get to use them is another matter entirely.

It's strange to have no socks on my needles. They've been my take-along project for awhile now, and suddenly I don't really have any. The shawls aren't so great for taking along with me to work since I tend to make it about 45 seconds before Bella needs a glass of water/help with a homework problem/me to shoo her dad out of the room so she can concentrate on homework. Perhaps I'll start my mother's Clessidra stockings. Or maybe the mini socks from Cat Bordhi's New Pathways book. Hmmm, decisions, decisions!

Lastly, I've decided to embark upon a quest to reduce the proportion of yarn/fiber I buy to how much I use. In the last few months, I've amassed an actual stash of fiber that, considering how long I've been spinning (2 weeks), rivals my yarn stash (1 year). In the last week I've picked up five pounds of roving. Yes, you read that right. Five POUNDS. OMG. There is a picture-heavy post in my future.

The Quest:
12 miles of yarn knitted or roving spun in the next 9 months. That's 21,120 yards of yarn or the equivalent of 48 pairs of socks (eep!).
My Start Date: Jan 6, 2008 (backdated from 1/14/08, see below)
My Finish Date: Sept 6, 2008

Rules:
1. Buying yarn/roving comes at a 2:1 ratio. Wanna buy 4oz of roving? Spin 8 first.
2. Mileage must be actual. If a pair of socks takes only 400 yards in a 460 yard skein, only the 400 yards count. Leftover yardage will be calculated by weight.
3. Items On The Needles/Bobbin count as of My Start Date
4. Only finished handspun counts (not singles)
5. Supplies such as extra bobbins/needles do not count, but pattern books do. Use the library.

I'm going to work backwards from Jan 6 so that I can count starting with the Grape Jelly roving and include the Charade socks - it's always nice to have a bit of a boost at the beginning. As Mario said, Here we go!

2 comments:

  1. I just noticed the 12mile counter at the top of your blog and came over here to check out the rules.

    Wow!! That sound like a great idea (though I'm a little scared to go see how much yardage I actually own... kind of makes me glad the lace weight didn't have as much yardage as I thought...) Maybe I'll work out some schema whereby I knit up yarn and can then buy fiber...

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  2. What a wonderful idea.

    Essentially a mile a month.

    I have no clue how much is in the stash (and I have stash in two countries) but using it at a 2:1 ratio - or better sounds like a winner.

    Mind if I reference your post?

    Most stash reductions are kind of nebulous, I am a numbers kind of person.

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