…And I continue my crafty plan for 2018 for knitting… I’m off at my quilt guild’s workshop today but I scheduled this yesterday to get my Crafty Plan posts up before it gets too late in the new year…

If you missed the start, see my first post about my quilty plans. This is the second, and the third continues with cross stitching.

1. SOCKS!
   1. Box of Sox 2018 with Voolenvine – I want to make my 12 pairs for the year.  I was able to do it for 2017 and if I make a pair a month, I can easily do it.  I just need to keep on track and make a pair a month.
   2. Knitting Expat’s sock clubs – I’m part of 2 right now and this feeds into my Box of Sox 2018.  This club will take up 8 pairs for the year.
   3. Knotty Gnome magical maladies pattern – I purchased these in 2017, I think there are 4 or 5 patterns and I’ve started on 2 of them.  These will make up the other 4 pairs.
   4. I also want to do more Mercury socks, a Christmas sock, Hermione’s Every day sock, the blueberry waffle socks.
2. Hats!
   1. I want to make a bunch of hats to giveaway.  These are easy to make with chunkier yarn.  I plan to make 4 for the year.  I can probably make more but this isn’t high on my list and I do not want to put too much on my plate. Hahaha…
   2. I’ve got a few hat patterns in my queue so we’ll try those in addition to the fornicating deer hat.  I don’t have a hunter in my life but I find that hat hilarious and I think I can find someone in my family who would appreciate the humor.
3. Mittens!
   1. I want to do Skeindeer Knits Mitten patterns.  She has a set that she put out last year and I didn’t have the desire to do it while she was doing it.  Living in Southern California, there’s not been a need for mittens but these mittens are beautiful and would make wonderful gifts.  I love how they look and I’m inspired by them.  She also has broaden my world to Norwegian or Scandinavian knitting and patterns.  They’re beautiful and I want to try my hand at it.  I can’t commit to a sweater but a mitten is doable.
4. Sweaters!
   1. I’m currently making a Weasley sweater for my daughter and I’ll be done with that shortly.  I’ve got the front and the back done and I need to put them together and knit the sleeves.  When that’s done, I’ll put something on the needles for me.  I work on this project during my Thursday knit nights.
5. Cowls, shawls, etc.
   1. I casted on a cowl, a shawl and a poncho while I was on break during the holidays.  I found since returning back to work I haven’t had the time to work on these.  I do not want them to go by the wayside so I have to figure out when I’m going to work on them and put them in a rotation.  It’s only been a few days since I recovered from an illness so I’ll figure something out eventually.

My daily crafting projects consist of my Knitting Expat sock of the month, then my Christmas 2017 sock that I’m almost done with.  When that is done, my second project will be another sock.  I haven’t had a lot of time to do more than that.  To do 5 rounds on my sock it takes about 45 minutes.  I’m not a very fast knitter and I think I’ll be working on speed this year.  Each round is about 8 minutes.  While I was on vacation I really liked having socks at various stages and I’m debating on whether I want to continue that.  I find that the ribbing is the part where I can take it with me on the go wherever I’m at.  The problem is that it’s only 20 rounds and I get through the ribbing pretty quickly.  I don’t like the feeling of having a lot of projects on the needles.  Normally I like to have one sock, one hat, one sweater, and possibly one cowl or poncho or shawl.  It was fine while I was on vacation because I could work on each project every day and see progress.  But now, I just do not have the time.  So I need to figure something out.  Right now, the Resfeber sock (Knitting Expat’s sock for January) and my Christmas sock is it.  Then I’ll figure out what I want to work on when my Christmas sock is done.

~Happy Knitting!

~Happy Crafting!

~Melanie