100 squares

I just finished my 100th square. While awesome, I'm 17 squares behind for January (and 14 squares behind overall). I'm sure I'll catch up though and still finish the blanket this year.

# of squares to go: 620
% complete: 13.9%

I also finished a Mairi Tam last weekend. I love the pattern, but I think I blocked it incorrectly or something. I tried on Muriel's tam (she gave me the leftover yarn to make mine). When I wore hers, it looked awesome on me. Mine doesn't. Maybe I blocked it too strongly? It seems much loser than Muriel's tam. I guess I can reblock it.
Here it is blocking on the plate:

And on my head:

I never wove in the ends because I wasn't sure if I would end up frogging it and using bigger needles. It's sitting on my nightstand while I figure out what to do with it.

First FO of 2012

I didn't blog last week because I was busy visiting my friend Gnome in Texas and didn't have much progress on the blanket anyway. However, I finished my stripey socks last Thursday, so I have the first FO of the year!

I freaking love these socks. I think this is the first time I've completed 2 at a time socks (I could have sworn that I started a pair 2AAT before, but I must have frogged them or something). This is definitely the first time that I've done afterthought heels. I love how the socks are identical. I had to weigh the yarn and split the ball into 2 separate balls. The socks were on the needles together except for the toes and the heel. I increased the toes to 29 sts per needle; however, this became a problem when I got to the ribbing. I wanted to do 2x2 ribbing, but was short by 2 sts. After asking for help on Plurk, Wendy had the awesome suggestion of increasing 2 sts when I started the ribbing, so I did. I wish I would have thought of that lol. I have almost half of a skein of yarn left over, so I might make some fingerless gloves or something.
Pattern: I used Wendy's Toe-Up Slipstitch Heel pattern to know what number of sts to increase to, but I used The Knitgirllls afterthought-heel tutorial for the heels.
Yarn: String Theory Continuum in Coronal Mass Ejection
Needles: (2) US2 circs
Rav Project Page

A few months ago, I inquired about a destash for trade only on Rav. The seller agreed to put me as first dibs if she ever decided to sell rather than trade, and she made that decision last week. So now I have my second skein of String Theory Continuum, this time in Dark Matter. I like it.

My husband and I are trying to make a concerted effort to pay off our credit card debt this year, so I am on a fairly strict yarn budget from now on. Dreaming about having a house where I can just let the dogs out of the back door to pee without having to go with them is helping me stay motivated. In the meantime, I'm going to need minis for the blanket, so I imagine that's going to take up a fair chunk of the budget. Luckily, minis are fairly cheap and I can get 2-3 squares from each one.

The blanket is growing, albeit slowly. I'm slightly behind schedule now; since today is the 15th I should have finished 30 squares this month. I've done 25. So I'm not too far behind yet.

It would appear that I cannot take a photo in this apartment without either a dog or a dog toy getting into the pic. Before very long, I'm going to have to clear out the entire living room just to photograph the blanket.
# of squares done: 80 (640 to go)
% complete: 11%

Even-numbered years are always better

I am so glad that 2011 is over. I have a thing for even numbers, so I think 2012 will be better just because it's an even year. 2011 had a few bright spots, but overall I think it sucked and I'm ready for a new year.  Here's a few reasons why 2012 will be better:

• For starters, I was married on Feb 29, 2008, so I finally get to have my "first" anniversary.
• Secondly, I am so excited for the Red/TFK/Nine Lashes concert in Tulsa on March 11 that I can hardly stand it.
• My 10 yr HS reunion is this year. I'm not so sure that's a good thing, but hey. I'm gainfully employed, practice regular hygiene, don't have to worry about multiple baby daddies, and I'm sober. I've also never been arrested. That's more than several from my class of 24 people can say.
• It's an Olympic Year. Helllllooooo, Ravelympics and Team Sprout (the 2012 ravelympics group hasn't been made yet, so I linked the 2010 group)

I didn't quite meet my 2011 FO goal (22 in 2011). I came fairly close with 18 FOs though.  My 2012 goal is 24 FOs and to finish the sock yarn blanket. I'll also need to figure out something for a Ravelympics goal (beyond heading a team and keeping my sanity lol). I didn't meet my 2011 reading goal of 88 books either, although I came dangerously close to getting halfway there (I finished 42). If it weren't for the 3 months that I didn't knit or read anything, I would have certainly surpassed the knitting goal and could have met the reading goal. I think my reading goal for 2012 will be 60. I know I can do 48, so I'll make my goal 60 for a challenge and hope I make it. I made badges:

I started some fantastic stripey socks this week. I've always heard that vanilla socks made out of self-striping yarn are addictive, and it's true. I decided to challenge myself just a little bit and do my first afterthought heels as well as doing 2 at a time on 2 circs. So far, so good. The socks are approximately 2 stitches off from each other, color-wise.

I used Wendyknits' toe-up slipstitch heel pattern just to know how much to increase to (58 sts), but I'm using the Knitgirllls' afterthought heel tutorial. I'm using (2) ~24" US2 circulars. The yarn is String Theory Continuum in Coronal Mass Ejection. Here's the link to my ravelry project page.

And finally, blanket Sunday. All of the ends that can be are woven in. So far, I am slightly ahead of schedule. I started it on Dec 5, so I needed to make 52 squares in Dec in order to finish within a year. I've finished 55 squares as of 11pm CST last night.

I couldn't get Jake and Sadie to stay out of the picture, so I resorted to making funny squawking sounds so that they'd at least look cute for me.

# of squares done: 55
% complete: 7.6%