I’ve been knitting these for what feels like forever (I logically know it’s not but it’s been a slog). I’m halfway through the foot so I’ve not made much progress and I’m not enjoying it.
I hurt my hand, thumb, wrist months ago and it’s impacted my knitting. I stopped for a little but could not stay away. So I reduced the amount of knitting and would only do 1 row at a time. It was fine but I’m going to have to revisit my knitting to do list… I’ve completed the top 5 or so items and I’m down to the vague bottom three.
Here’s my current Knitting WIP to do list:
finish burying the ends of the last fingerless mitten – Done 9/2025
Take a picture of my GardenGate sweater. Done 10/2025
finish repairing the sock that Willow chewed up – Done 9/2025
Add heels to 2 sock tubes- DONE 9/2025
3 kitted sock projects in whatever order I feel like knitting them in
St. Mungo’s – started now 9/2025
go through the 2 bins of yarn projects. From memory, the yarn is set aside but some may have a pattern name with it, but most probably do not. I doubt any of them have actual patterns with the project unless I bought the project kit as it was.
LONG TERM: go through my stash. give away what I no longer want to knit and re-stash what I want to keep
Socks are no longer my go to knit project that brings me joy and really I don’t like knitting patterned socks anymore. I love how they look and I love wearing them but I don’t like to have a pattern for socks. I’d rather knit ‘vanilla’ socks which is just straight knitting. and I like to use up leftover yarn for this as I get so satisfied when I’ve made a pair of socks and used up the remaining ball of yarn to make it.
I also want to finish To do item #5 but not as my only knit project.
So I’ll be working on item #6 and #7. But they are not really a to do but a vague goal or yarn mission. So I need to go through and figure it out
Knitting WIP #5 is technically to do the 3 mystery sock projects I kitted up years ago. Years ago, I would buy beautiful single skeins of yarn. Mainly to support the yarn dyers that I was watching on YouTube. Most of the yarn was beautiful and to use those single skeins I learned to knit socks. That was around 2016-2020 and I started with Knitting Expat’s sock a month challenges. She would sell these bundles and every other month for a year we would get a new sock pattern. Then I bought Curious Handmade’s sock pattern bundles and I also bought Knitting Gnome’s sock pattern bundles. St. Mungos’ came from Knitting Gnome. Anyway as with every craft I do, I have to have lists and tricks to get myself going. If I finish a project with nothing next to do, I easily get stuck unable to move on to something else. And how I tricked myself into continuing on with my annual sock knitting goals was to kit up sock projects. Around November of each year, I would choose the 12 sock yarns I wanted to knit. I would lay them out with different project bags. Then I would go through the sock patterns I had accumulated over the years and decide which yarn I’d like to knit the pattern with. Then I’d put the yarn and that pattern into the bag, attach a number to it and put them all into a basket to be picked through later. And as each sock got finished, I would have my kids, hubby, or my phone pick a random number and that would be the next sock to knit. It was great. But as my hand knit sock collection grew and my desire to do different kinds of knitting grew, my sock knitting dwindled down until I forgot about it. Currently I only knit socks while travelling. They are great travel projects and I love to make “vanilla” socks (basically knitting with no pattern) toe up. In addition to being great travel projects, this method is a great way to use up left over skeins. The two sock tubes I recently added afterthought heels to were made this way.
And now, with this Great Move, I have 3 kitted up sock projects left from that time. And I randomly grabbed one to start. It happens to be St. Mungo’s by Knitting Gnome Crafts using my all time favorite yarn, Voolenvine.
I do not know if Knitting Gnome is still designing but at the time she made several sock patterns in the Harry Potter theme and I bought a sock pattern bundle of some sort. I remember her socks were more pointed than I like so I have to remember to not follow the pattern for the toe.
The yarn is still my favorite hand dyer Voolenvine and I’m thrilled to be knitting with her lusciousness. It’s “Feyre” in her Wolke yarn. Obviously the dyer was really into A Court Of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) hence the name of the yarn. And Wolke base is 80/10/10 Superwash Merino, Cashmere, Nylon (or commonly known as MCN). It’s the cashmere that makes this yarn so luscious and one of my favorite yarns to knit with.
Voolenvine sells out quickly and I used to set an alarm for whenever her shop was re-stocked. I’d have to be online and ready with what I wanted. I’d have to refresh my screen so that as soon as the items I’d want were available I would put it in my cart and buy what I could. In those days her stuff would sell out in 15 minutes. She would put out a newsletter a day or two before with everything scheduled to be in the shop so I would have my list ready and I was generally looking for anything Wolke. My pocketbook would be happy on those days when there weren’t any Wolke listed.
Here’s my current Knitting WIP to do list:
finish burying the ends of the last fingerless mitten – Done 9/2025
Take a picture of my GardenGate sweater. It’s not finished until this is done.
finish repairing the sock that Willow chewed up – Done 9/2025
Add heels to 2 sock tubes- DONE 9/2025
3 kitted sock projects in whatever order I feel like knitting them in
St. Mungo’s – started now 9/2025
go through the 2 bins of yarn projects. From memory, the yarn is set aside but some may have a pattern name with it, but most probably do not. I doubt any of them have actual patterns with the project unless I bought the project kit as it was.
LONG TERM: go through my stash. give away what I no longer want to knit and re-stash what I want to keep
I’m starting one of the three mystery socks from #5 but I’ll need to write up a new list soon.
And this long term WIP can finally be put in the done pile. Heels were done and then I wove in the ends. Here’s my current Knitting WIP to do list:
finish burying the ends of the last fingerless mitten – Done 9/2025
Take a picture of my GardenGate sweater. It’s not finished until this is done.
finish repairing the sock that Willow chewed up – Done 9/2025
Add heels to 2 sock tubes- 9/2025
3 kitted sock projects in whatever order I feel like knitting them in
go through the 2 bins of yarn projects. From memory, the yarn is set aside but some may have a pattern name with it, but most probably do not. I doubt any of them have actual patterns with the project unless I bought the project kit as it was.
LONG TERM: go through my stash. give away what I no longer want to knit and re-stash what I want to keep
I’m starting one of the three mystery socks from #5 but I’ll need to write up a new list.
The heels are done but I still need to bury my ends.. Here’s my current Knitting WIP to do list:
finish burying the ends of the last fingerless mitten – Done 9/2025
Take a picture of my GardenGate sweater. It’s not finished until this is done.
finish repairing the sock that Willow chewed up – Done 09/20/2025
Add heels to 2 sock tubes- in progress
3 kitted sock projects in whatever order I feel like knitting them in
go through the 2 bins of yarn projects. From memory, the yarn is set aside but some may have a pattern name with it, but most probably do not. I doubt any of them have actual patterns with the project unless I bought the project kit as it was.
LONG TERM: go through my stash. give away what I no longer want to knit and re-stash what I want to keep
Now that my fingerless mitts are done, here’s where I am on my Knitting WIP list.
finish burying the ends of the last fingerless mitten – Done 9/2025
Take a picture of my GardenGate sweater. It’s not finished until this is done.
finish repairing the sock that Willow chewed up
Add heels to 2 sock tubes
3 kitted sock projects in whatever order I feel like knitting them in
go through the 2 bins of yarn projects. From memory, the yarn is set aside but some may have a pattern name with it, but most probably do not. I doubt any of them have actual patterns with the project unless I bought the project kit as it was.
go through my stash. give away what I no longer want to knit and re-stash what I want to keep.
Now that my fingerless mitts are almost done, it’s time to go over what my next knitting steps are. With the Great Move, I have a single pile – 2 bins high – and with a bunch of project bags on top. My short term goal is to knit from this bin and my long term goal is to knit from stash. I want to use what I have and not buy any new stuff. I have great yarn and I want to play with what I’ve got.
Since my last knitting post I buried the ends for one mitt and the other mitt is just waiting for its turn. I know it sounds weird – like just finish burying the ends of the other mitt and be done with it. Well, that’s not how my brain works. I either spend 15 minutes on the project or I do a step and burying ends of one mitt is a step so I completed that step and moved on. Today, I felt like organizing the bag that contained this project and got things ready so that as soon as the last mitt is buried and done, I can put that project bag away and be ready for the next one. It so happens that I didn’t clean out my project bag for the Garden Gate sweater I recently finished. I know I haven’t taken a picture of it yet or posted a finished project but that will come. I promise. Anyway, I went through that bag and cleaned it out. All the tools and paraphernalia went into my new knitting tools section in my craft cabinet. I don’t know if it will stay there but it has a place right now and that’s where I’ll put them until I have the need/urge to put them somewhere else. The remaining yarn got a tag attached to it and they were all placed back in my yarn bins.
The next thing I had an urge to do was go through all my knitting projects that are in the bins. I know there are probably more still out in the living room waiting for me to find. But I’m almost done with my fingerless mitts and I’ll need a new project in 2 days. So I went through what I had already piled up. Or tried to. There are 2 full bins and there were several bags I had put on top of the bins as the bins were full. I went through the loose bags first and was about to go through the bins when I noticed that there was a stitching project bag leaning and kind of on top of the top bins. I knew if I pulled that top bin out, the stitchy project and whatever was leaning next to that would topple over. I decided to leave those alone. In the meantime, here’s what I found on top of the bins. there were 3 kitted up sock projects from years ago when I prepped sock projects for the year and then each month randomly selected a project to work on. I also had 2 project bags with almost finished socks (Pairs of them). One bag had one pair of socks and if I remember correctly, I had finished the pair when Willow, my dog, chewed up the cuff of one of them. So I was in the process of fixing that cuff when it got set aside. The second bag has two pairs of sock tubes with toes and cuffs. Both of them needed heels. So here’s my current Knitting WIP list as I feel right now.
finish burying the ends of the last fingerless mitten
Take a picture of my GardenGate sweater. It’s not finished until this is done.
finish repairing the sock that Willow chewed up
Add heels to 2 sock tubes
3 kitted sock projects in whatever order I feel like knitting them in
go through the 2 bins of yarn projects. From memory, the yarn is set aside but some may have a pattern name with it, but most probably do not. I doubt any of them have actual patterns with the project unless I bought the project kit as it was.
go through my stash. give away what I no longer want to knit and re-stash what I want to keep.
Doing these kinds of lists make me feel really good, like I have a direction or road map as to where I’m going. I hardly ever actually follow these all the way through but I generally get through the first few items listed before I forget about this list or have the urge to do something else. Like start something completely new.
I am on a finishing kick for knitting right now so I’m trying to ride with it while that feeling is with me.
Something to note, we have a new LYS in town. It’s located in the same plaza as our old LYS which is odd but okay. I’m trying to make it out there once a week for knit night like we used to do at our old LYS. But I always feel weird going into a shop and not buying anything so there’s that mental anguish I have to work through: to buy or not to buy…
Top 3 piecing quilts – Dancing with the Stars, Grassy Creek, Scrappy Stars Around the Corner
Hand work – Simple days, Raining Cats and Dogs
Knitting – morning socks, Weasley Sweater (front)
Cross Stitching – just do a bit on my weekly project every day (whatever tiny decisions selects)
To Be Quilted – Finish the orange quilt (finish quilting, add the label, do the binding, take a nice picture and post about it) – DONE
How I did last week –
Cross Stitch – I stitched on Gamer twice last week.
Knitting – do 10 more rows on my Weasley Sweater and do the heels on my morning socks. – I did my 10 rows on the Weasley sweater and I finished the second heel on my morning socks.
Gardening – watered the plans every other day or so
Quilting:
orange quilt top – get label and binding ready – done. I just kept going and finished the quilt. 🙂
simple days, continue to embroider the 3rd block of the January clue. – I’m back in love with this project. Another one of my guild mates is working on this and I love what she’s doing. It’s inspiring me to move forward on it.
Dancing with the stars – continue piecing more of Block A – I finished piecing all of Block A! So I set this aside while I worked on Grassy Creek
Pull Out Grassy creek and start clue 5 – which meant I was able to pull this out, figure out where I was on Clue 5 and keep going. I’ll need to cut more fabric on the small 9 patches to get this part of the clue finished. => I have cut some more fabric and will start piecing again.
This Week:
Cross Stitch – this week: Ariadne
Simple Days – I have two zoom sessions with the cool quilty people on Tuesday and Wednesday so I plan to do a little on both days.
Grassy Creek – Get the itty bitty 9-patches done. I will need to cut more fabric and I’m fussy cutting scraps so it takes much longer than strip piecing but it thrills me to no end to use up as much scraps as possible.
I have 7 -9 patches done so quite a few more to go. I’m doing these the long hard way to use the most of my itty bitty scraps. I plan to keep working on this for now and will not move on to dancing with the stars until this is done.
Dancing with the stars – figure out how many of Block B I need and start working on it. => haven’t done this yet.
I know I posted this picture yesterday. I think I can post another picture. 🙂
Short List – May goals
Top 3 piecing quilts – Dancing with the Stars, Grassy Creek, Scrappy Stars Around the Corner
Hand work – Simple days, Raining Cats and Dogs
Knitting – morning socks, Weasley Sweater (front)
Cross Stitching – just do a bit on my weekly project every day (whatever tiny decisions selects)
To Be Quilted – Finish the orange quilt (finish quilting, add the label, do the binding, take a nice picture and post about it)
How I did last week –
Cross Stitch – I stitched on the dragonfly 3 times last week.
Knitting – do 10 more rows on my Weasley Sweater and do the heels on my morning socks. – I did my 10 rows on the Weasley sweater and I finished 1 heel on my morning socks. I’m about a third of the way through the second heel. I was able to knit on my socks 4 times and on my Weasley Sweater.
Gardening – I did finish planting the seedlings I had. I also went to Sego Nursery and bought more cosmos, marigolds, rosemary, orange balm and lemongrass.
Quilting:
orange quilt top – get label and binding ready – done. I just kept going and finished the quilt. 🙂
simple days, continue to embroider the 3rd block of the January clue. – I fell out of love on this project. I worked on it a bit during my minigroup meeting but I used that time to work on the orange quilt top.
Dancing with the stars – continue piecing more of Block A – I finished piecing all of Block A! So I set this aside while I worked on Grassy Creek
Pull Out Grassy creek and start clue 5 – which meant I was able to pull this out, figure out where I was on Clue 5 and keep going. I’ll need to cut more fabric on the small 9 patches to get this part of the clue finished.
All in all, even though I worked a lot, I still go a lot of my crafting goals done. part of it is being super focused about what I want to get done this week and making sure I’ve got a list of things to do before each crafty session. Even if I only get 1 strand stitched on the cross stitch, that’s okay. I may not get done with it fast but I’m a process crafter so that’s 1 strand stitched.
This Week:
Cross Stitch – this week I get to work on Gamer again. It’s been months since I pulled her out and I’m not done with that second row. I’m almost done but I think I can get it finished this week assuming I stitch every day.
Simple Days – I only have one zoom session with the cool quilty people on Sunday so I plan to do a little bit on sunday.
Grassy Creek – Get the itty bitty 9-patches done. I will need to cut more fabric and I’m fussy cutting scraps so it takes much longer than strip piecing but it thrills me to no end to use up as much scraps as possible.
Dancing with the stars – figure out how many of Block B I need and start working on it.
