Wednesday, December 27, 2006

I Survived Christmas

We had another wonderful Christmas. Even though my nephews (10 1/2 yo twins) no longer believe, they were still so excited that it made it fun for all of us. I am always so worn out by Christmas night that I am thinking about crying. Of course, if I had finished the knitted Christmas hats before midnight on Christmas Eve (I had gotten up at 5:30AM to try to get them finished), I might not have been so exhausted. But, like many of us, I pretend like I have all the time in the world to get these things done!!!!

I knit the "Long Winter's Nap" caps from Knit Picks. They turned out beautiful, BUT the pattern is a mess. I had to redo the line math to get the twisting cables to work. If you do it they way the pattern says there are long untwisted stretches. Their errata page does not include all the corrections. I have e-mailed them what a mess the pattern is, so hopefully they will improve their errata page. Ok, I will get off my soap-box. But they are really pretty hats, for Santa hat's, I may knit me one before next year. Now that I have the pattern worked out.

I managed to make it through Christmas without gaining any weight. They is great. I didn't loss anymore, but I can live with no gain. After the first I have to get back to the exercise program. Not only am I not lossing weight, but I am not making any progress on my running program. Right now it is still a walking program!!!!

There are 4 more days before the "Fiber Diet" starts. Wendy from Wendy Knits started this on her blog (http://wendyknits.net/). You get to set your own rules. I am going to take part. I am hoping that all of y'all (yes, I am from the South) will help keep me honest. My rules are:
1) No yarn, spinning fiber or fabric purchases. There are 3 exceptions: a) if it is for a gift and b) if I have the MAJORITY of the fabric or yarn to make a project and just need to SUPPLIMENT what I have. (this one will take a lot of policing). c) if I take a class that has a kit, I may buy the kit.
2) This includes sock yarn!!!! No sock yarn purchases!!!
3) I plan on at least 9 months. If I am doing well. I may go for the full year.

Being an ex quilt shop, knit shop owner, I know that they hate people who do this. BUT, if me not buying, puts them out of business, they didn't have enough business anyway. I will buy things I NEED, but there will be NO WANT PURCHASES!!!!!

Now that the holidays are over, I hope to learn to do pictures and lists the blogs I read and such. I will have more time to read up on these things. If anyone knows of good websites to learn these things, please send me a comment.

I have started crocheting the October Coat in a beautiful Turquoise. It is made with Prairie Silk from Brown Sheep. I love they way it feels. It is 10% silk, so softer than wool. So far it is going well. I am a fairly new crocheter, so hopefully the smoothly will continue.

Chat soon!!
Susan

6 comments:

Holly said...

I'm joining up, too-just need to figure out my spin on the rules. We'll keep each other accountable!

Tammy said...

I love your blog name, Susan of All Trades. That's great!!

I did the Summer of Stash this last year and it wasn't as hard as I thought. I can now go into a yarn shop to look and not buy. Though the day my grandma died, I went in and dropped $$$. I haven't done that since, and it's been almost two months.

I learned as I tried doing stuff on my blog. I never found a good tutorial at all. I asked a few questions here and there and was able to make it work. If you can email me, I'll share what I learned.

Bridget said...

Susan, I'm so glad you have a blog now!

I signed myself up (in my mind of course) for the Knit From Your Stash 2007 as well. I'm basically following the rules that Wendy and her friend are using, though if I get a chance to go to MD Sheep & Wool, I'll make an exception ... and hopefully, won't make any before then!

Good luck!

Michelle said...

I'll be trying to knit from my stash, too. Not because I want to stop buying yarn and fabric, but because we're going to be paying to have a new well dug next week.

This is going to be hard!

Thistle Cove Farm said...

Hi Susan,

How about a fiber travel holiday at the end of your knit from stash period?

There are a lot of great fiber trips; look at Fiber Femmes to find some of them.

http://www.fiberfemmes.com/travel.htm

Stellasmydog said...

Go Susan! More power to you. All this stash talk has inspired me to venture into the basement and see what lurks in all those stash boxes. Wish me luck!
Elise