The Year that was

2011 certainly was not my best year ever, there were family issues, my own health issues, more family issues, kids needing minor surgery, knitting that went awry or got abandoned when my hands would not cooperate with me...all in all it is one year that I am glad to say is over, done and gone!

But, there were things that worked out during the year.  My professional life seemed to work out pretty good, even if it got a bit hairy in the middle when our staffing went south in a big way.  Friends had babies that were all born healthy and happy, ten fingers and ten toes each. TDQ (The Drama Queen) moved onto her second year of high school and made honor roll, TFB (The First Brother) discovered that math really isn't so hard and has exceeded my meager abilities at algebra, TOB (The Other Brother) attempted to learn how to knit socks, and even though it didn't go particularly well he keeps going back to it.

Scrolling through my Ravelry notebook I completed 33 knitted projects, not a record by any stretch, but most of them were "bigguns".  There are three adult bed blankets, one not on Ravelry yet, several baby blankets both as part of my baby blankets through time project and for gifting, 8 adult sized sweaters, a giant shawl and more.  I may have felt like my knitting life fell off the wagon, but I seem to have got a few things done.

The last two projects of 2011 got finished up yesterday, right at the end of the year.

Monster Man Socks

They used just about every scrap of two balls of Kroy Sock Yarn in Denim with some left over cream for the afterthought heels and toes.  This will never be my favorite heel technique but was certainly useful for these socks where I wanted to give him as much sock as I could.  No pattern to speak of, just cast on 72 stitches with size 1(US) needles and knit a few rows of ribbing followed by many rows of knit every round!  He says he likes them, and I hope he does, this is the man that sent me an entire set of Signature Arts circular needles when I was feeling in a particularly dark place.

TDQ's Hoodie was finished just before 10:30 on New Years Eve, well I am calling it finished even though it still needs to have a zipper installed!



Like her mismatched socks?  She does that intentionally!
This time around the stripes were in groups of three stripes of three rows each, with larger swatches of light grey in between.  To keep things moderately interesting all the shaping was worked on the wrong side of the knitting (so purl row decreases and increases) and it has extra big pockets for putting things in. Again I dipped into Lion Brand Wool Ease yarn (its washable, cheap when bought online and I needed an awful lot of it to knit three kids sweaters!) on size 7 (US) needles.

I still might knit another hoodie, this one for myself maybe in the light grey and dark grey or maybe with single stripes of all the kids colors, but for today...

Clue One of a mystery sock from SKA on Ravelry.  Three guesses who they will be for?

Now to wait until the next clue comes out next week. In the meantime, I should answer my own question for earlier.....On and off my needles this year?  More baby blankets through time, I had to raid that stash for a quick baby shower present, maybe even start my Christmas 2012 knitting a little earlier and get one thing done a month so that mad panic the last few weeks is not quite so mad?!? Mostly though, I think that my knitting plan is going to be, find a pattern I like and knit it.

Happy New Year, here's hoping this one is healthier, more productive and more enjoyable than any that has come before.

~M