Happy 2009!

It's going to be a good year, I can feel it!

I like to set goals at the beginning of the year just to have guidance. Sometimes when things around me get complicated I can go back and take a look at my intentions and decide if it's still the way I want to go or not. This year, I started with three goals in mind. The only one that went unheeded was #2 the Modular Knitting.

My 2008 Goals were:

1. Learn how to make a sweater without a pattern using my own measurements and swatches. My LYS did in fact offer a class and I made a beautiful sweater made out of Alpaca.
2. Learn Modular Knitting. Although I didn't get to try this last year, I'm just going to carry over this goal to 2009 and try again because it is something that looks very cool and will be a new technique that I haven't tried before.
   
3. Seek out other spinners in hopes of finding somebody that I can watch and learn from. This was a successful goal due to a group of spinners from the OC that were willing to trek down to Common Threads the third Friday of the month to spin with the few of us that are local. Thank you Lori and group for giving me somebody to spin with once a month!
   

Those were my three main goals I had set for myself, although not all of my knitting accomplishments.

My knitting accomplishments for the year 2008 include:

• 24 completed knitting projects
• 3 sweaters
• 8 pairs of Adult socks
• 3 pairs of kids socks
• 1 shawl
• 6 Hats
• 2 Bags/purses
• 1 Toy
  
• Made 5 skeins of handspun
  
• Assembled 4 blankets for charity
  
• Completed and submitted 2 pairs of socks for the Think Outside the Sox contest. This was part of the reason I didn't achieve all three of my goals. It was by far the most challenging project I've ever undertaken. Knitting is one level, but when you try to write out something and explain it, it takes on a different level. To be able to communicate what you want to say in writing is an art, and not one that comes easily to me. I'll be at Stitches West in Santa Clara when they announce the winners and can already feel the anticipation. It's going to be crazy!

The sock contest was also the reason I didn't have time to complete all of my kits from the 2008 Rockin Sock Club. I was thinking that having 3 of the 6 kits leftover was good enough reason to wait for the 2010 sock club membership, but you can see from this post what happened with that. At the end of January I'll get the first shipment. Woohoo! The three I didn't get to knit last year will just hold me over between shipments.

My goal for 2009 is to learn about sweater construction. I'll probably start by knitting a sweater from Wendy Bernard's book Custom Knits. It has detailed instructions about working from the top down and I have some ideas on how I would like things to look. Then I'll just see what other patterns are out there that have the look that I like and go from there.

Happy 2009! It's already a great year!