Be A Better Human Being This Year!

A new year means another guilt-tripped effort to become A Better Human Being, whatever that means to you.  Last year I didn't bother setting resolutions, knowing  I would simply gleefully break them all as I forgot about them.  Then Resolutions Monthly turned up in my life, and I've been accomplishing goals since May (with a break in November for Life to interfere).  For 2014, I'll be continuing on with Resolutions Monthly, but setting some bigger, year-long goals as well in the hope that I can incorporate them into my monthly lists as well.

Octuple Rainbow: Reminiscing

Disclaimer:  I've been reading Yarn Harlot the past several days, so this might sound a bit like her!

I can't believe we made it this far.

It seems like only a few short weeks ago you began as a little plan, an idea sprouting in my head while your sister was still growing in my hands.  Silly now to think that I originally wanted you to look like this, isn't it?

(While I'm thinking about it, Double Rainbow, I'm ever so sorry I've never gotten around to finishing you properly.  I promise I'll get back to you.)

You were never a patient one, and while you resided only in my head you kicked and prodded, urging me on while I swatched, compared colors, sketched out ideas, wondered what you would look like in the end.  Wasn't it only a few weeks ago that the plan was finalized, this picture completed?

Knitting Theory

Knitting is simultaneously the simplest and the most complicated thing in my life.

It's only one motion.  Pull a loop through another loop.  (This requires yarn, but not needles.)  Held in your lap with your hands over his, a toddler can do it.  Sitting beside you, a six-year-old can do it herself with enough practice.  A sixteen-year-old can learn it in five minutes.  Right-handed people can teach it to left-handed people without trying to accommodate their different strengths.  It's just a single motion.

But it's such a rich subject.

• You can go into how to tension the yarn: English, Continental, Portuguese, probably others I've never heard of.  
• You can talk about the orientation of the stitches: Western, Eastern, and Combined; leading and receding legs, front and back loops.  
• You can explore different types of knitting: colorwork, cables, lace; in the round or back and forth.  
• You can talk about the needles: straight, circular, and double-pointed.
• You can go into the yarn: weight, texture, fiber content, twist (you can get so far into this subject you end up in spinning theory).  
• You can learn about changing shapes: increases and decreases of all types.  
• You can research expert tricks: reading your knitting, dropping stitches to repair errors, lifelines, frogging and picking up live stitches.

This isn't even all of it.  There's so much more, and this is just what I could come up with off the top of my head.  The best thing about this list?

December Resolutions: Happy Birthday!

Yes indeed, yesterday was my birthday! I am now nineteen years old. (Now three-fourths of you thinks I'm really young and the last fourth thinks I'm really old!) I have also survived my first semester as a college student and signed on for another one. Aren't I so smart.

I've also volunteered to start and captain a team for Ravellenic Games 2014, and hopefully I'll be doing another post on that later.  Preparation for the Olympic Games in February starts in December for us yarnworkers, believe it or not!

Astonishingly, things have actually gotten done in these last two weeks. An entire list of things. Not the whole list, unfortunately, but a list. Curious? Then take a look!