Jessimuhka Knits

I've been thinking about what kind of knitting goals I want to make for the new year, what kind of knitter I am, and how to get away from things that are supposed to be fun causing me stress. The conclusion is I have too many WIPs and it stresses me out. The solution?

2007 will be the year I make a conclusive call on each of my projects. January 1st (or thereabout) I will post a list of all my WIPs. Any project that doesn't get worked on for the entire year will be ripped out on Dec 31st. Because really, if I haven't worked on it for more than a year, it's not getting finished, and my gauge probably would have changed even if I wanted to pick it back up.

This doesn't mean I have to finish every project that is currently in progress. That would just be setting myself up for failure. And I know that the loophole is to knit a stitch or two on everything the last week of December next year (and I withhold the right to do this on a project or two I can't bear to rip out), but the point really is for me to step back and take a second look at what I've decided to knit. If I'm never going to work on something again, then I should rip it out and reclaim the yarn to make something new and fabulous.

While I've just planned this as something to do for myself, if anyone wants to play along, I'd be interested to hear your take on it.

Now that you've read my ramblings, here's a treat. Now that my finals are over, I've been working on Eunny's Anemoi Mittens. The yarn is J&S Shetland Jumper weight in Acorn and Rust. The Acorn was the rest of the partial ball left from the Endpaper Mitts (that got me to the mitten tip) plus a second ball from the stash. I used about 3/4 of a ball of the Rust for this first one, so I figure I'll probably have half the second ball of Rust in the end. J&S really is the never ending yarn for me.

Back of the Right Hand.

Right Palm

Inside of mitten.

I knit them inside out, like Rebekkah does colorwork on DPNs, and it helped my stranding quite a bit. I have a tendency to over compensate my stranding and leave too long of floats, which can make things look wonky even after blocking. I decided against weaving the floats, as the Shetland wool is sticky enough that after a blocking I'm not worried about catching my fingers in the floats. If I used a smoother yarn, I probably would have trapped any floats longer than 5 stitches.

I've cast on for the second mitten, and it will be coming with me on the train to Fresno tomorrow. I'm visiting my family the 21st through the 26th, so posting will probably resume when I get back. I will have my laptop and Internet there though, so maybe a picture or two will show up.