Day 17: Round up

So, I've been doing this for seventeen days, and I thought I'd step back and see what I think of it, and (if you're interested in telling me) what you're thinking of it.

First, thank you guys for leaving comments!  I've responded to the ones where I know your email address, but I can't, alas, respond when I don't.  (As before, if you are interested in that kind of conversational comment style, you can tell me your email address at knittinglinguistATgmailDOTcom, replacing the AT and the DOT as appropriate, of course.)  A few quick responses:

- Laine - a hairku!!  dude, thank you for that! my whole family and I thought that was awesome :)
- greenmtngirl - thank you for the kind words on the intent/impact post, I'm glad it seemed useful; I'd love to know more about your nonprofit
- Elizabeth, Jean Marie, TK, Portia, Allison, Willow, and Polly - thank you all for saying hi and encouraging the magpie theme; and especially, thank you for sticking with the vagaries of this particular blog, I'm really glad you're here.

Second, it's an interesting experience to have made this commitment to write something every day.  I wake up full of ideas, and my day only gives me more.  But I often find that, as with so many other things, my day gets away from me, and a few times I've hit the end of the day and found myself almost doing what I usually do with things like this (physical therapy exercises, I'm looking at you): thinking, ah well, I'll do better tomorrow.  In this case, though, the commitment to put something up here is an additional motivator.  I don't know if that motivation will fail at some point - it will be interesting to see how it goes over time.   (An unintended consequence of thinking about posts I could write is that what I refer to in my meditation practice as "narrator mind" is strengthened.  This is a phenomenon to observe; I'm sure I'll write about it at some point.)

Third, it's also interesting to see what themes come up for me most often.  I'm working on developing useful labels/categories/metadata.  It seems to me that there are posts and ideas that fall together in my mind, and if I can find the right label, it will help to collect them - and maybe even help me to see themes and connections that I didn't notice at the outset, but that arise as this project continues.  This is a sort of interesting unintended consequence, to begin to refine my understanding of my own lenses and areas of attention.  These labels seem to fall at different levels, too (I'm not sure that's a clear way to put it...).  So, for example, one is interconnection, which is rather philosophical, not to say metaphysical.  Another is a sort of observation of how my mind works (like the swimming laps one), and another is curiosity/fact-finding (soon you will all know more than you wanted about which strokes burn more calories, for example).  Those are much more concrete than the interconnection thing.  And, of course, there's the Venn diagram of themes; social justice and interconnection appear together, and mindfulness overlaps with both of those.  Only seventeen posts in, it's hard to tell what might happen, but, as I said, it's an intriguing (to me) outcome of this project.  Who knew metadata would become its own theme?

So I guess all of this is to say that, reflecting on the last few weeks, I see some of the shape of what I might learn from doing this, and also the shape of the challenges the project will offer me.  (I think I should keep rereading that post I wrote on swimming laps, because when I think about how many more days there are left to go, it's intimidating and tempting to let myself off the hook by quitting now; when I think about tomorrow's post, or one more week of posts, it's less overwhelming.)  The semester approaches; that will be a significant challenge for me.  Another is whether and to what degree I want to take risks with my writing here.  I posted a few narrative/descriptive type pieces in the period of my off-again on-again writing; it felt risky, but also like something I'd like to challenge myself to do more often.  So that, too, will be interesting to observe - what do I end up "using" this for?

In any case, here I am.  It's a beautiful day, and the sun is shining where I am.  I hope each of you has at least a bit of brightness in your day, too.

The Plan

I'm not a big one for resolutions in the new year, at not least resolutions per se.  And I'm also not a huge fan of resolutions with regard to my knitting or spinning.  I think part of this has to do with the fact that my work life is so planned out (for example, at this point I have a fairly detailed plan for my work and research stretching through to June 2013; if I make it that long and get everything done, when it's supposed to get done, I will have shuffled many of my overcommitments off of my plate, and should have some breathing space to figure out the next plan - we'll see) that it's really nice not to have my knitting/spinning life too planned out.  (Note that I am not counting here the spinning classes that are coming up at my LYS, for which I am already - you guessed it - planning.)

Nevertheless, I have lately been sitting in the fiber room (aka the den), noticing wistfully and with sidelong glances the skeins and balls of yarn (we won't speak yet of the bumps and braids of fiber) which I bought with a specific project in mind (heck, I even bought the pattern) which somehow fell by the wayside as other, momentarily shinier, projects caught my eye.  The thing is, though, I bought that yarn and those patterns because I really, really liked them - and I still do.  Therefore, and after talking to Sallee about her plans for the next year (it would appear that I'm not the only one with this issue), it seems that the thing to do is to put all of that yarn together with the proper patterns and to bust a move on these projects.  It's a KAL of sorts, although I don't know that we're sure what to call it - you are most welcome to play along.

Here are the ones that were the most obvious:

(and by obvious, I mean: sitting right there in plain sight, or immediately available in my stash); and one more that I forgot when I was putting those together:

A little tour, then, is in order.   First, the ones whose yarn/pattern match I am most absolutely sure about (as in, I'm not rethinking my original plans).  That pile of blue right up there (and I should say that the colors on none of these is quite right, but I'm busting a move here, and I'm not stopping for anything), is some Rowan denim that I bought on sale in Sacramento over Thanksgiving (taking that sale as a sign that it is finally time) to knit the Indigo Ripples Skirt, which I have been wanting to knit ever since I saw it in IK in (sigh) 2007.  I'm hoping this is enough yarn... (if anyone has some Rowan denim in the dark blue (80), dyelot 225 that they're dying to get rid of, you know where to find me)

Next up: that single blue skein there is a skein of Sanguine Gryphon Bugga that I managed to score ages ago (colorway Blue Metalmark) that I've been hoarding, saving it for "good".  That's silly.  So I'm knitting a pair of the Kimono socks (my very favorite) out of it - I know I'll wear those a ton, as this denimy color goes with just about everything I wear.  The skein at 12:00 there (which is really a lovely fuscia, not at all the orangey it appears in this picture) is a skein of Baah! Luscious Lace (merino/silk) that has been destined since I saw it to become a Citron shawl (you can see the pattern right there), and so it shall.  And the two skeins of Hazel Knits artisan sock below (colorways, Rick's Cognac and Splish Splash; the blue one is closer to robin's egg blue, but the other one is pretty close) were purchased at Sock Summit this past summer with the express goal of becoming Catkin.  I'm thinking the amber as the main color and blue as the contrast - any opinions?

Next up:

The hank and ball up there on the top are the remains of the Briar Rose Seapearl (my very favorite yarn) that I used to knit my first Wine Dark Sea sweater.  That sweater, for various reasons having to do with the great mismatch between my image of myself and my actual self, is too big.  I have long been meaning to knit it again, and maybe to even write up the pattern as I do so.  I am hoping that the approximately 900 yards that I have there will be enough (it should be).  Below that is a cake of BMFA Socks that Rock lightweight in Schwarzwald, from this last year's sock club.  It's destined to be socks for Rick (using the club pattern that came with).  And the two skeins to the right of that are Alpaca with a Twist Fino (alpaca/silk) meant to become a pair of Oh Deer! for me. (Seriously, best mittens ever; they totally make me happy - so serious and elegant on top, so goofy on the bottom.) 

Finally:

These are the ones I'm a little less sure about.  The skein of sock yarn at the top is definitely destined to become a pair of socks for my dad before his birthday next fall; I just don't know what pattern yet.  (The yarn is Holiday Yarn Flock Sock in the Cafe au lait colorway.)  The little skein next to the Pretty Thing pattern is a skein of Plymouth Earth ecco cashmere; I bought it with Pretty Thing in mind, but there's more yardage there than I really need for the pattern (and I don't want to waste cashmere!), and I'm worrying/dithering about the utility of a neckwarmer in my world, so we'll see.  The cake of yarn next to the Drifted Pearls pattern is a ball of Briar Rose cashmere; my dither there arises from my fear that I might not have enough yardage for the pattern and my feeling that perhaps this yarn should be for Rick - the colors would look great on him.  So the pattern may have a rethink.  And finally, there are three skeins of Hazel Knits Entice (merino/cashmere/nylon) that I also bought at Sock Summit this year, specifically to make a sweater for myself.  I'm pretty sure that it will be a pullover Leaving (such a lovely pattern), but I'm still dithering over the pullover/cardigan question, and reserve the right to fall in love with another sweater prior to the cast on.

So there it is.  I also have some projects OTN that I want to finish, and a few that I will probably make the decision to abandon and rip this year, but that's another story.  I will also probably do the same kind of thing I've done here for my spinning fiber - I have purchased quite a bit of it with specific projects/plans/spinning experiments in mind, and it's time to organize that and queue it up.  And I can think of two or three more projects' worth of yarn (that is, yarn I purchased with something very specific in mind) that I'll probably dig out of stash fairly soon to organize like this.  How about it?  Am I the only one out there with planned but unexecuted projects lurking about, rattling their chains in my stash?  Projects which still appeal, only eclipsed by some shiny distraction, projects which deserve their day in the sun?  How about you?