So what are you doing craftwise, anyway?

Good question.

It was to be The Year of Lace. I have a metric ton of laceweight yarn. I have a set of knitpicks Harmony needles that are pointy and slightly grippy and have a little hole where I can attach a life line. I have many, many lace projects marked in several books.

Then, I made the mistake of starting my year of lace early with a project that was very simple. It was simple. It still is simple. However, it requires a knitted on border.

Knitted-on borders can bite my butt. They are tedious and boring. I started one night and haven't picked it up since. I would rather lose a toe nail to an angrily slammed door than continue with the knitted on border.

So, what then? All my lace projects for the year have knitted on borders. My aversion to starting any more lace projects has been so strong that I haven't been doing much knitting or crochet at all lately.

Last year I did all I could to knit from stash, which was great, but my stash has only dwindled slightly because people have given me more yarn. So I still have tons of wool that has gone unused. (Yeah, ok, fine, I bought some, too, but not nearly as much as in past years.)

And then yesterday, I picked up my copy of Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac. And, it hit me. This year will be the Year of Elizabeth. The book contains many projects, and most of them are challenging in their own way. Several sweaters, socks, mittens, hats, baby things, heck, even tights if you can believe it. And, the best part is that ALL of the projects call for yarn that I can pull from my stash. There are a few projects in the book that I would neither wear nor expect anyone around me to wear (Srsly, wool tights in AZ?) but would make excellent donations to LDS Humanitarian Services or Afghans for Afghans. A lot of my wool that is hanging around in the stash doing nothing has been earmarked for charity knitting anyway. So, hopefully I can kill three birds with one stone: further deplete the stash, continue with my charity knitting, and pick up some really solid skills from Ms. EZ.

I am starting late, so it's going to be a bit of a push to get caught up. This month, the project was an Aran sweater, knit in the round, steeked for the arms, with an option of steeking it to make a cardigan. I've decided to forgo the cardigan option and am making it up with some old Patons Ballybrae I got from my mother's stash a long time ago. It's a very sturdy wool, suitable for outer layers. It's tweedy with a purple base and pink and white bits in it, so it's not particularly 'of the now' colorwise, but it should to very well for an Afghan winter.

I hit a stumbling block yesterday when I couldn't find my lovely Harmony needles anywhere, but I got cast on with some old circs I had lying around. And I began to knit. And I messed up in the count somehow and tore it all out and re-cast on. I wish I was exagerating when I say that I repeated this process 6 times yesterday before finally giving up past midnight and going to bed. The Year of Elizabeth had a rather dismal start.

This morning I got myself up and going. I even found my needles. They were in a Webs bag hanging on our bedroom door that has been there for so long that I'd stopped seeing it anymore. When we got back from the park, I cast on again and began to knit the first round. This time, though, as I cast on, I put a stitch marker between each of the 4 pattern repeats and Voila, I made it through the first round with no problems. I am on my way!

It's not the most conducive project for knit club or even watching TV, though I think once I have the pattern down better, I'll be able to do the latter. So, tonight at knit club, I plan to cast on for the baby blanket project for February and I'll have both on the needles to work on as the situation permits.

Incidentally, the projects for February are a baby sweater, footy-pants, and bonnety-hat thing, a baby pad (like a small blanket) and a large baby blanket/shawl. So, I'll still be getting some lace in through the year. There are quite a bit of projects, though... Later in the year it drops off a bit and I'm hoping to get caught up to schedule at that point, but for now I just don't want to get farther than the month behind I already am.