Learning Another Language

So, I've decided to remedy a gap in my knowledge of fiber arts and to learn how to crochet. I bought some lovely green crochet cotton and a hook and The Crochet Answer Book and have begun to make a simple single crochet dishcloth. It's going well so far. I can see that there are a lot more possibilities to crochet than I had ever imagined, and it may even be a more versatile, anarchic craft than knitting (which will always remain my first love). I am open for suggestions for other good beginner's projects before I dive in to making afghans!

In other news, the top-down henley is going very well and quickly. I have about 4.5" left to go on the body and then I'll do the neckline and the sleeves. I am also already thinking about the next sweater project; I would like to do the Jack's Aran Pullover from Men in Knits, but convert it to top-down if possible... any suggestions about that?

More Social Web Stuff

I just have signed up for Twitter and can be followed @ wanderingpup on there as well!

New Stuff

Well, a belated update... Christmas vacation has been fine so far, and I have been especially productive on the knitting front, if not so much on the writing.

After I finished the garter rib sweater, I wanted to do a small project and so I taught myself the brioche stitch from EZ's Knitting Without Tears. It's incredibly quick and fun once you get the hang of it, and I love the fabric it produces. So I used that to whip up several watchcaps for presents and for personal use. Later, I discovered this website, which sparked my imagination even more with ideas of what to do with this stitch.

I have also been working on two sweaters: one Wonderful Wallaby hoodie in orange, for a friend, and another Lopi-style seamless yoke in fall colors for me. They are both proceeding apace. I expect that the Lopi will probably be done by the second week of the new year and the Wallaby hopefully by the end of January.

After I finish those, I have another sweater project lined up -- a Celtic Aran, but I haven't yet worked out the design or calculations for that one.

While working on the sleeves for the Lopi, I had a little bit of a brainstorm for a way to do mittens and gloves, two at a time, seamlessly. I haven't seen the method that I am thinking of described anywhere in the literature, so I want to research a little bit to see if this is really original or not. I also want to do a test knit to verify that the method will work, but it seems like it should.

My other knitting resolutions for the new year? To clear out some UFO's lurking in my project area... in particular there are two hats that I need to finish, and a pair of socks. Plus, I want to start exploring Cat Bordhi's books. In non-knitting but still fiber-related resolutions, I really want to learn to weave, both on the traditional loom as well as card/tablet weaving. I think that non-fiber resolutions should probably go into a separate post...

I guess that that's probably enough for now, so I will sign off and wish everyone a very Happy 2009!

Mail2Blogger Test

This is a test of the mail to blogger gateway service, so I can easily
post updates while we are away. I mainly want to make sure that the
formatting works alright, without spurious line breaks and such.

I know that the blog has not been very active lately, and for this I
apologize. The last couple of weeks have been very busy. I did
successfully finish NaNoWriMo '08 though!

NaNoWriMo update #2

I have broken the 5000 word mark, so I am more than 10% of the way thru this crazy project!

NaNoWriMo update

So far so good with the writing. I am at 2128 words after about 24 hours and have a good idea of what writing I want to do tomorrow. I am trying to build up a cushion for later in the month. The widgets over in the sidebar have been kind of sketchy, because the main site is working under quite a load at the moment. That's why they don't always reflect the most up-to-date word count.

Bring On The Craziness!

NaNoWriMo 2008 has officially begun! I am at 403 words so far; 49,597 to go!