Three scary numbers

I spent last weekend going over my finances from the previous year in preparation of tax season, and I found three numbers that shook me to the core.  Here they are:

26.10
2500.00
7x

The first number is the amount of interest I earned on my savings account in the past year.  The second number is the amount of credit card interest I paid over the course of the year.  The third number indicates my savings to debt ratio.  That's right, folks.  For every $1000 I owe to my credit card, I have $7,000 in the bank, yet I paid 100 times more in interest than I earned from having money in savings.  Does anyone else find this completely outrageous?

Now before you pass judgement wondering what kind of feeble-minded individual carries a balance when they have a savings account that exceeds the card balance, let me explain.  I travel a lot for work.  I incur the charges on my card, then get reimbursed.  This means at any given time I have a balance, but it is paid off fully as soon as a reimbursement comes in (every two weeks if I do my expense reports regularly).  The problem is overlapping trips, and, I just learned thanks to those jaw-dropping numbers, my interest rate had erroneously been set outrageously high!  So shame on me for not catching it, and double shame for not finding a way to stop the oozing money.  I think I am a little ill...

TGIF

That stands for Thank Goodness It's February!

I don't know about you, but for me January is the longest month, followed closely by March.  In New England, where winters truly are "wicked" and we are currently buried in snow that I am guessing won't melt until sometime this July, I need to mark time to help see me through.  And trips to warm places don't hurt.

So hurrah February!  Here are my upcoming Feb. highlights:

--2 business trips to CA.  This is a double hurrah as it means warm weather plus lots of airplane knitting time.

--1 business trip to the midwest, where I will get to visit my best friend for a weekend since I will only be an hour away from her.

--1 business trip to NYC, right smack in the middle of Times Square.

I guess I should also summarize my January:

3.5 1-gse consumed (that is my shorthand, for 100-gram skein equivalents, the units in which I measure my stash :)

Completed 1 baby sweater, size 18mos (2 skeins)

Completed my Dumbledore socks (1 skein)

Halfway finished with my Carla cashmere scarf, (1 50-g skein completed, 1 to go)

I also completed four weeks of yeast-free eating, which is no small feat.  Let's hope I can keep up the healthy eating through all the February travel.

I heart Canada

I have been visiting Canada all week for work.  I travel quite a bit in my line of work, and as I passed through US customs, the officer noted the many Canadian stamps in my passport. Travel always affords me extra time for my knitting.  There are many opportune times--waiting to board, sitting in your seat while boarding finishes, taxing on the runway, the time between take-off and when approved electronic devices are allowed--for getting in a few extra rows, and these tend to be my most productive knitting times.  If not for work trips, I would not complete nearly so many socks.

I always enjoy my visits north of the US, so in honor of my finally getting my act together and completing some January projects, largely due to a cancelled flight and , here is a list of the top 10 reasons I {heart} Canada:

10.  The people are super-nice
9.  If you don't have a chance to change money, they accept US dollars without charging a commission
8.  The Canadian Rockies
7.  The airplane is never delayed for weather.  Canadian pilots can fly safely through any storm under any conditions with just a little de-icing. Seriously.
6.  Canadians love their knitware. Gorgeous sweaters, scarves, and hats are everywhere, even in the summer.
5.  I always leave with upon unique finds when scouting local yarn stores.  Quiviuk anyone? 
4.  Tim Horton's on every corner. 
3.  Poutine and Steak Frites (Go Montreal!)
2.  Everything is "super".  My fave?  Air Canada's "super-elite" class

And the top reason I love Canada?

1.  The cold weather and beautiful scenery inspire me to knit!

On the road again

So here we are, starting the fourth week in January, and I have yet to complete a project.  If I am to have any chance of completing my goal this month, I am going to have to get a little bit creative.  So here is my first solution: a project on larger needles using 2 skeins at once.

I started this top-down raglan baby pullover during Sunday's playoff game on size 6 needles, holding together 2 strands of Trekking XXL that have been sitting in my stash for a while.  The color is a mauve-y purple with slight variegation that looks like subtle white and gray stripes.  Fewer stitches plus two skeins consumed at once--I think this is my best idea in a while.

Part two of my catch-up plan will be a pair of toe-up socks in one of my two skeins of Opal Harry Potter series yarn.  This is the "Dumbledore" colorway.

Part three of my catch-up plan will involve the mango-and purple colored STR.  This will be a close one...

January Blahs

Here we are in the third full week of January, and I have yet to complete a 2011 project.  Life has been very difficult as of late.  I suffered a huge setback in my career a few months back, and I am afraid I am still not handling it well.  I keep thinking the cloud over my head will lift, but it has not yet and now I am afraid that my anger and grief are causing me to sabotage my career even further.

Add to this that all of New England is frozen and I have been on a totally yeast-free diet for the past two weeks, and I seem to have lost the will to knit!

In truth, I did finish the back and one sleeve of a sweater I started in Oct 2008 (I am SO embarrassed to admit that it has been sitting that long).  The second sleeve will probably only take an evening or two, but I have not picked that up for a week either. Even if I did, it would not count towards my sock yarn goal.

What is a knitter with a horribly huge stash to do?  I need a serious infusion of inspiration and motivation.  So how do you reignite your passion for work and for craft?

I have been sitting and staring at the same skein of yarn--already wound--for three weeks now.  It is a lovely skein of STR with colors that variegate from mango to purple.  You can see a pic (recycled from an old post) below.



It is the pretty one on the bottom right.  The other two have actually been knit up and gifted already.

  I fell in love with this at first sight, but I am at a loss for what to do with it.  Let me explain; while I love the brilliant colorways of STR, I have issues with how they knit up.  While the fabric is fabulous beyond compare, the brilliant colors seem to compete with all but the most simple stitch patterns.  Thus, despite many, many swatches, nearly all my multi-colored STR gets knit into basic 2x2 rib or straight stockinette socks. 

But this skein just does not want to be a 2x2 basic rib sock.  This skein needs to be something special.  I need to create something beautiful with it, if for no other reason than to get me through 2 more weeks of yeast-free eating, and the fact that I feel like a failure in my career and my personal life right now.  Did I mention that yeast-free eating involves giving up not only all breads and carbs, but also dairy, vinegar, mayonaise, and (gasp!) diet coke?  I did cheat slightly tonight when my room service salad came with a creamy dressing rather than the oil and lemon juice I ordered.  I am overcome with guilt, and this does not help the feelings of failure.  So I really need to make a fabulous sock this week!

Next post: how to rekindle inspiration.  This gives me something to research over the next few days.  Happy knitting in 2011, everyone!

Project recap

Here we are at the end of the year already.  I cannot believe have much time has flown, for better or worse, this year. I have been jumping from project to project so much lately, I am starting to lose track of where I am in this crazy scheme.  I have been trying to find some sort of counter widget I could install on the sidebar to track the number of projects completed/remaining, but so far, no luck.  Until I find a suitable tool, I will have to rely on doing a project recap from time to time.

Now, I started this insane project the week of Oct 22.  This means 10 weeks have elapsed since I started off on this insane project, and if I were completely on schedule, I would have 10 projects completed. 

To recap, here is a list of my completed projects since Oct 22:

1. Boy socks/little boy socks (2 pair completed from same skein)
2. Garter yoke baby cardi
3. Mossy socks
4. Socks for the Boy's dad
5. Abi and Emi socks (2 pair completed from same skein)
6. Fabel cable gloves and socks
7. Rick socks
8. Sunna diamond lace scarf
9. Laurel hat

Add to this one sock yarn give-away so far, and that would bring me to 10.  Not bad, actually :)

Not sure whether to count this as nine or ten down, but a little over 40 to go.  Happy knitting in the new year!

A flurry of Christmas knitting

Merry Christmas, everyone.  The past week for me has been a flurry of finishing last minute projects and getting ready for the holidays on top of a busy work week.

I took a brief break from sock yarn to make a hat for my good friend Tilly.  She had seen a picture of a hat in one of my pattern books and fell in love with it, so I had to make one for her for Christmas.  Like me, Tilly loves all things purple.  When I found some sumptuous yarn in a cashmere, merino, and silk blend in the perfect shade of purple, I knew I had to use it for Tilly's hat.

So here it is, the "Laurel" hat from Jared Flood's "Made in Brooklyn" made from Sublime cashmere/merino/silk, completed in just under 3 days.  The top photo is during blocking, and the bottom photo was taken just before wrapping and is more representative of the true yarn color. 

I bought three skeins to reach the yardage the pattern called for, and only used 1.5 skeins.  I am debating whether or not to make another since it turned out so well and was an easy knit.  It was also a nice break to work with needles larger than a 2!

My next Christmas project was a scarf for my dear friend Nate, who also happens to be Tilly's mother-in-law.  I had been looking for some time for a pattern that would do justice to my new skein of Sunna, which I acquired at Rhinebeck this year, in the beautiful Cape Cod colorway.  Since Nate is partial to the Cape, and appreciates good cashmere on the level that I do, it seemed a perfect fit.  I chose a diamond lace pattern from the Spring St. Denis magazine by Kat Coyle.  I love Kat's patterns, and this one was a fun knit--pattern interesting enough to avoid boredom, but easily memorized so I did not have to cart the chart around with me.  I ran out of yarn short of the 32 repeats suggested by the pattern, but it still blocked out to just over 6 feet.

Here is the detail of the diamond pattern during blocking. The colors are pretty true, but the depth of the colors is not coming through well.  Nate wore it all day Christmas day, so I think she liked it.  Good thing, because I really wanted to keep it for myself.

My final last-minute Christmas knit was a pair of socks for Tilly's 3-year-old son.  Started these Christmas eve and finished them Christmas day.  No photo, since I left them there for him, and the yarn was the leftover Lang Jawoll from the boy's socks I made last month.  Nice and simple 2x2 ribbed socks with a short-row heel.

So my December totals so far are: six projects, but only three skeins of sock yarn from the stash consumed.  I will decide whether or not to count the hat against my project total since it was DK and not sock weight, and a new yarn purchase and not from stash. 

In the meantime, I am trying to decide on my next project.  Contenders are: a second diamond lace scarf for me from one of my skeins of Bugga!, a pair of socks from the skein of STR in an orange/purple colorway (trust me, it is prettier than it sounds!) that I wound last month, or a pair of socks for my niece Taylor from my second skein of Fortissima Mexiko.