Now With Pictures!

What a year.

What a dizzying, wonderful, overwhelming, and now-over year.

I find that it's useful for me to perform a small inventory of the things I've managed to accomplish in the year, once I can see the end of it.

And this year has been fairly eventful: I quit a job with a fairly toxic environment; got lucky and immediately started a job with a new company; moved into an awesome, spacious apartment with Tim and our cat; found out that our cat was actually sort of depressed in our last apartment; got serious about weight lifting and improving my diet; belly danced at more than a few shows; started bettering myself as a person; fell off the weight lifting bandwagon (temporarily); discovered I really like horror movies; and knit. A lot of knitting was done this year.

All told, this year I have finished 30 projects this year. I have two WIPs currently: one is a looong term project that I've been working on since '11, I believe, and the other is the scarf I'm actively working on. I also have two projects that may or not be frogged in the near future so I am not counting them.

Among other small accomplishments, I managed to knit much of these projects from stash. Remarkably, my stash didn't really grow much this year-- I bought yarn, but it was most-generally with a purpose in mind which was almost immediately used. I think in 2014 I might seriously look at destashing some of the pretty yarn that I've acquired either through gifts or faulty judgment that I just can't think of any good outlet for.

But onto highlights of the things I've managed to finish this year:

Green and Grey

This is the scarf I wear most often of all of them I've ever made. It's not a nice slipstitch ridge down the middle  and each green section is actually knit in ribbing, meaning I can pull the scarf end through any of them. It's very useful and warm. Not to mention, it's alpaca so it's very cozy. 

Graduated

I don't often make sweaters. Ironically, though I wear a cardigan almost every day, I don't typically wear those sweaters that I've made for myself. I quite like this design despite the fact that it falls down my slight shoulders. Regrettably, I also made the buttonholes a little uneven so all 13 silly red and brown buttons aren't spaced nicely along the front. Still, it's nice to look at.

Mitey

I am ridiculously proud of this one. Tim was playing this charming game called Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch and I was completely enchanted by this character. As the game is basically a Miyazaki-based Pokemon game, of course I have a favorite and Mitey is it. I think I did a pretty good job. I still need to make his sword and shield... but minor details. I made this pattern up as I went along using reference pictures and taking cues from Rebecca Danger's Book of Monsters. I used her for her shaping, mostly, though I adjusted as necessary.

Neon Lights

This was definitely an oddball project for me. Let it be known that I love shawls-- they are my most-often knit accessory. Still, this one was a little strange. The color selection, though I like it, is a little... jarring. The yellow-green is a highlighter-shade. Also, as ever, I made the top edge a little too tight and, thus, had to block it aggressively to make it behave. I wear it, though, so I guess I must not dislike it too much.

Aerodactyl

Of course I named this after a Pokemon (are you noticing a theme?). I shamelessly use the color selections of another Raveler because I liked them so very much. I'd had quite enough of short rows by the time I finished this project. I find that is is a little difficult to wear, though-- the shape of the shawl is awkward on my sloped shoulders. It is very pretty, though.

Milk Jam

So I am moderately obsessed with this FO. It's so pretty and intricate and knitting it, while tedious, was very rewarding. I respond very well to charts, it turns out. I messed up a few of the cable crosses and thus repeated my mistake a 'design element'. You all know how it goes.

Hue & Shade Shift

This is, without a doubt, the most-liked project I'v ever knit. It's a significant departure from the pattern I based it from, but all the earmarks are there. I rather like this shawl. I like the absurd colors that make me feel like a ladybug when I wear it-- I like how people can't figure out how the heck I made it. 

Unbound

This is a project that I knew I wanted to knit the moment I saw it. The green, the cables, it's perfect. It definitely took some time and cabling on the backside sort of messed with my head, but it was worth it. Thoroughly.

Overdue Stocking

And here is the stocking I finished at 2:30 am Christmas Eve. I manged to get it done by the skin of my teeth, despite the fact that it was unblocked at the time it was filled, Tim was nevertheless pleased to receive it on Christmas morning. 

And here are some more pictures of several more of the projects I finished this year. Just for fun.

Wishing everyone a safe and excellent New Year's Eve, and a remarkable New Year.

Merry & Bright

May everyone's holidays be just as you wish them to be, be it quiet and peaceful, or boisterous and otherwise. 

I myself had a rather calm holiday. My parents visited two weeks prior so the frenetic energy associated with out-of-town visitors was not something I had to contend with during Christmas itself. I have a very large extended family with whom, as a child, I spent most major holidays. But, since getting older and the passing-on of my grandparents, I haven't see much of my numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins. In a way, it's a relief but, likewise, there's nothing that reminds you it's Christmas quite like coordinated (non-ironically) hideous sweaters and watching your family's matriarch get familiar with a bottle of Chambord. 

I am blessed with a little family unit of my own now which, at present, consists of my dear boyfriend, our ostensibly nameless cat, and several (named) houseplants. They are all sources of immense joy to me (well, mostly the cat and boyfriend; the plants are nice, though).

I stayed up until the wee hours of Christmas morning finishing Tim's stocking so I could fill it full of the assorted candies and such I'd gotten for him, all the while watching every Christmas special Netflix had to offer. 

It was pleasing, sitting back in exhaustion as I finished the last of far too many duplicate stitches (why did I think it was ever a good idea to leave that much embellishment?), looking over at Tim who could barely manage to keep his head up-- all because he didn't want to go to bed without me. 

Christmas day was lovely. I managed to scrape together the funds and forethought to get Tim a nice present that he thoroughly didn't expect. It was also nice to get it out of my closet where it had been hidding since before Thanksgiving.

I myself was the pleased-as-punch recipient of a gorgeous full set of ChiaoGoo interchangeable lace knitting needles. I have only played with two sizes of needles as of yet-- but they're, so far, entirely great. I also received some cute stuffed Pokemon because Pokemon are the ultimate expression of affection in our household. 

Even our cat (miraculously) liked his new toys. He didn't even disdain them a little!

I made a massive (vegan) lasagne for dinner and we had some of our good friend over for some clay-related crafts and the viewing of the Doctor Who Christmas special. I even got into the spirit of the occasion by casting on this little ditty:

Ten points to Slytherin to anyone who knows what this project is/will be.

All and all, it was a lovely day. Tim and I even managed a nap during the day with our fat, orange cat greedily hogging the blankets between us. It was perfect.

I only hope everyone was so lucky. 

Now, onto a prosperous New Year. 

Holiday Knitting (And Other Perils)

As a maker of things (and, especially, as a knitter) the holidays hold a special kind of foreboding and panic.

For anyone who has decided to make gifts for their loved ones and relations, the feeling of high-strung anxiety is nothing new. Whether these feelings manifest as the 2:00 am realization that 'holy God, I don't have enough yarn for this' or in looking down at the thoroughly crooked stitch you've just sewn and wondering, tears in your eyes, if anyone will notice; the sensation of holiday-related gift angst is a universal one for anyone who has ever undertaken the project.

Now, if one has one's wits about them, gift-giving can be planned for and scheduled far in advance. But many of us know that this rarely comes to pass. It seems that, for me, approximately every other year I am capable of doing my Christmas knitting in summer, starting in July.

There is, however, something disheartening about making something so lovely and festive and then having to hold onto it for months, squirreled away at the bottom of a cedar chest or tucked into some closet. This year was one of those years that left me with a kind of malaise symptomatic of too much planning and follow-through. Yes, this year I finished my gift knitting by October. Granted, I have a small list of people to which I give handknit gifts for reasons of deemed 'knitworthiness' as well as simple economy. Even with my aforementioned dull-as-paste day job, my funds are not unlimited. Nevertheless, I am left with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction.

I have tried to assuage the doldrums that have set in this December. You see, I'm knitting a stocking for my boyfriend in an absolute riot of colors with Doctor Who, Lovecraft, and other nerdy motifs all represented. I simply can't abide another year of my dearest lacking in as basic an amenity as a handknit stocking. It's actually somewhat disgraceful that I've allowed it to go on for as long as I have. Plus, it's a good way to use up the almost embarrassing amount of mostals I have at the bottom of my stash.

Looking back, I probably shouldn't have opted for so much duplicate stitch...

So I'm left thinking if I would feel, perhaps, more in the frenetic spirit of Christmas if I'd waited until the last minute to make those gifts I deigned to give. Last year saw me making three exceptionally large projects on commission that were all completed by Thanksgiving, necessitating a rabid, hurried dash to the finish for all of the hand-made gifts I'd assigned to myself. Oh, and Christmas cards were sent, too. I am nothing if not an over-achiever.

This year, has been a struggle to inject myself with quite enough tinsel-shiny cheer to jolt the realization that it's a week until Christmas. Yes, the tree is decorated, gifts have been wrapped-- a few gifts have even been given! Despite this, it all seems yet still more artificial than my plastic, pre-lit tree.

I can't believe I'm actually committing this to anywhere but the hazy space of my mind but next year I think I'll try much harder not to be so damnably organized. Last minute gifts, despite all the cursing the skies are just so much more satisfying.

Of all the things I am, I am this.

I do a great many things. Apart from the predictable and often forgettable gainful employment that demands so much of my life, I find myself, thankfully, still able to carve out enough time and disposable income to pursue what actually interests me.

So I sew costumes, I belly dance, I cook with some degree of skill, I craft when the spirit takes me. But I would not call myself a dancer, or a seamstress, or a cook. I am not those things, though I often perform their trappings.

It's a curious sort of disconnect between noun and verb. Whether this distance comes from doubting my own abilities upon silent, internal inspection or whether the nomenclature strikes me as somehow too incongruent with those other things that I am, I do not know.

And for all of the dancing and crafting and cooking, there is still yet one verb that defies this convention and encroaches upon the world of nouns instead. It is only fitting, however, that it is that which occupies the majority of my free hours that has come to define me.

I am a knitter.

As gauche a word as it is, it is still the only label I am comfortable assigning to myself upon those things that I do. I am self taught from endless watching and re-watching of videos on the subject (wait, how do I start Kitchener's stitch again..?); from fumbling with needles and string; from cursing and frogging; and from the dubious application of the phrase 'design feature' when I'm too emotionally invested in the stitches to do much of the aforementioned frogging.

A knitter. A knitting knitter who knits.

And I don't believe that for any of the dancing or cooking or oyster diving or glass blowing or underwater basket weaving that anything will ever get in the way of this singular, firmly affixed label: I am Kori of Castbout Knits and I'm a knitter.