Project Planning and Ravellenics

By the end of February I need to have the following projects done:

One cowl out of qiviut for Carina - pattern found. I'm going to do Zuzu's Petals by Carina Spencer (yes, I enjoyed the same name thing) Since I spent the $5 for the pattern, I may have to knit another one for me or someone as a gift.

One pair of socks for Carina out of her Zitron Unisono I shared. So need to find a sport weight sock pattern that will look good with self-striping yarn. Bless Ravelry! Doing an advanced pattern search there gives me three pages of patterns to look through to find one or two that will work. Then after looking realized that I'll have to request a book from the library so I can scan the pattern. I like that! It also caused me to find a pair of stranded knee high stockings I want to try. So I'll need to buy another pattern!

Need both of those to be done by February 15th when I'll see Carina/Katera at Carnevale. Doable.

Also due by February 15th - one quilt of undetermined size. I know that I want to use this block. Because Sara used to be a dealer in Vegas and both she and Mike play a lot of card games. I've used this block before and its fun to sew up. I need to dig through my stash and find the ones that I have in the colors they both like. Thankfully, they have colors they each like that will work well together. So depending on how much fabric I have, and how quickly the blocks go together, will depend on how big it gets. My initial aim is to have something that will be at least a couch quilt to snuggle up on there. Would love to be able to put something together that would work on a bed. I'll need to buy the batting and possibly the backing. So budget dependent there.

Due by February 27th, one pair of socks for Dawn-Marie. She specifically asked for these socks. I hadn't planned on learning entrelac, but she's changed that idea. ;-) I have some Noro Silk Garden in my stash in blues-greens that hopefully she'll like. Not sure about the entrelac on the bottom of the foot though. I'll have to see how the comments are on how it wears.

So those are all the things I have to get done for others in February and this last week of January.

February 7th marks the Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics in Sochi. Ravellenics will be happening during that timeframe also. So I need to scope out my competing projects. I think that I can safely include Dawn-Marie's socks in somewhere. That will help. Possibly one of Carina's projects. Ravellenics for any of you new to the concept is knitting/spininng/weaving/crocheting a project or projects while the Olympics are occurring. I have had fun 'competing' for the last few years. Even suffered shoulder injury while knitting a shawl one year. ;-)

I need something for ME to do though. My mother was on a cruise and stopped in Estonia a couple years ago and picked me up some skeins of yarn. Looks like I didn't share on the blog about it! So she bought three skeins of yarn from Kalliver in Tallinn, Estonia. The yarn is the Aade Long Artistic, it's the lavender in the far right of row 1 of the multi-color. The 'Lila', third from the right in the bottom row of the solids. I found the "Thistle" or in Norwegian, Tistel (scroll down to find the pattern download) by seeing what projects other people have done with these yarns.

The Thistle shawl should probably be the main focus of the Ravellenics. It's going to be a big project! I'd also like to have it done in time for the Rose City Yarn Crawl. I know I've been telling Michele I didn't have a use for shawls right now and why I'm not doing the Mystery Knit Along for the event. Then I got a phone call from mom saying she was going to fly up to visit specifically to see the yarn crawl and us for a couple days on March 1st, so deadline for it to be done for sure. Since she's asked several times if I've done anything with this yarn, it was also a birthday gift. I thought I should go ahead and get it done.

The cool factor with the Thistle shawl besides the stranding is that its done in the round and you steek it open. I haven't done any steeking yet, so another new knitting thing to learn/try out. I do like to try out something new each year, so I'll have two things in one month!

The shawl will fit in the main event - Short-Track Shawls. The socks would also fit in the main event - Sock Hockey. Then I can tag them into Entrelac Slalom for the socks, Nordic Colorwork Combined for the shawl and both will fit in the Stash Skeleton (because the yarns for both projects have been in my stash for longer than 6 months.)

I might get wild and enter the Flying Camel Spin event with some handspun yarn. I have some pretty fibers that could be spun up. I think though with the month being February, spinning up some Alexandra Crafts Black Rose BFL I got back in October with a Pearl Fiber Arts store credit from my destash in September.

This should keep me plenty busy in February! February 1st is a Baronial Town Hall and Customary Meeting. There's a fleece sale/spin-in on February 8th as well as Founding Revels for Stromgard. Baroness Jill was asking if we would be there. That's sometimes code for 'you should go to the event' because they want to make sure you get an award. February 15th is Carnevale and Mike and Sara's wedding. The wedding had the date first, but we aren't going there. I need to be at Carnevale as the barony's Minister of Arts and Science to do the A&S Championship. Ravellenics February 7-23. Rose City Yarn Crawl starts on February 27th. That's four days of fun!