The December & 2013 Wrap up

2013 was a good crafting year for me.  I love working with yarn and fiber.

I grew in my skills as a crafter and a teacher.  I can only hope to continue my growth, and the growth was most evident in the area of my spinning.  I felt good enough about my yarn to make a sweater!  I felt good enough about it to GIFT it!  I felt good enough about my skills to spin on purpose, for a gift, AT THE LAST MINUTE.  This is what I ended up with:

You know you wish that this yarn was for our.  I would say this is a 4 ply worsted/aran weight yarn.  So PRETTY, 50% BFL, 25% Merino, 25% Silk.

I got to give some great knitted gifts this year.  A cowl with Packer colors to my Sig Other's grandma.  She loved it.

And a bunch of those Seamless Salomas.  I have a couple at home for myself, and I just couldn't stop making them.  I sent a few off to AZ for kids to skate on the hardwood floors (since ice skating isn't really an option right?) and a few for my grandparents with puffy paint on the bottom for anti slipping purposes!  And a couple for small toes since I wanted to see what the sizing was like, I started out with the smallest size.

Forgive the blur, she's only 3, standing still is hard. The slippers are a couple of my pink colorways of sock yarns held together.  They are what I would call "princess puke pink."  Yup.  So PINK, with purples and greens and POW!

I hope your holiday crafting was successful.  Gifts were given, loved and will be worn out.

Did you make any crafting resolutions this year?  I did.  Here are mine - put some of yours in the comments.
1.  Never purl with Lion Brand Homespun again.  I have yarn for another blanket.  (I did finish my homespun blanket at 1:05 AM on New Years day)  I will work the next one in garter stitch (knit every row).
2.  Watch the craftsy classes I signed up for.  I have 2 that I haven't watched yet.  A knitting class on knitting with beads and a sewing class on tote bags.  I don't use my sewing machine often.  I probably could use a craftsy class on ironing skills.
3.  Spin 4 pounds of fiber before Yarn School in April.  This assumes that I'm able to register and go to Yarn School.  I have time off booked and can likely register on time, but you never know.  Yarn School was advertised in Ply Magazine, so demand could go up, and Spring session usually fills up fast.  I'm excited either way.
4.  Finish the blankets on my needles.  This includes the giant needle blanket and the Building Blocks squares blanket, not the Hexapuff blanket.  Hexapuffs are a long term project, I am not in a hurry.  The other blankets can be done.

And those are my 2014 crafting goals.  Really attainable, and there are only 4 of them.  4 is the right number.

But you might ask, what were my 2013 crafting goals, and did I do a good job on them?  I have to look for them.

I set only a few goals, one to finish decorating my new home.  Mostly done.  But that keeps shifting as we paint different areas of the home.  I'm pleased with what we have done right now.  A couple more things to go on the walls, but yay!  I had set a goal to finish the TKGA Master Knitter Program level 1, and I did not.  I don't have the motivation to finish knitting the swatches.  Does this make me a bad knitter, no.  It makes me a project knitter.  I want my knitting to lead to a finished object I can wear or gift.  This isn't what this knitting leads to.  I don't know that I will finish it.  Last goal was to spin every week.  I don't think I spun every week, but I have spun every month for at least 4 days a month.  Averaging it out, yes, I spun every week :)

I don't think you've had enough pictures this post - here's a bonus picture of how cold it is here.  Wear all your knit wear at once.