Goals for 2009

Happy New Year to everyone! I am hoping that 2009 turns out to be an easier year than 2008 was. Of course it's already off to a better start since we're almost three whole days into the new year and no disasters have occurred yet (knocking on wood until my knuckles are sore!).

While reading a few other blogs that I follow I noticed one post containing photos of all the items the poster had knitted in the year just past. Needless to say, I functioned nowhere near that level of efficiency last year. In fact the vast majority of things I knitted were out the door and gone before I even thought to photograph them and blog about them. My goal for this year is to at least mention every project that I work on during the year and to post more frequently.

Right now I'm knitting a small Christmas tree skirt. We have a small fiber optic Christmas tree that's about two feet tall which sits on the corner of the piano (in addition to the regular tree in front of the living room window). When we were setting it up I decided to spiff it up a bit, and dug a tree skirt out of my craft show box to put around the little tree. While it is very pretty it is of course much too large for the little tree. So after all the commotion of Christmas stockings and other craziness was finished, I decided that this would be a good time to knit a tree skirt that was made for that specific tree. I started working on it yesterday morning, and I've frogged one section about five times now. Finally I realized that I needed to make more sections and therefore more increases per row so that it would be more flat as opposed to conical (did I mention that I'm knitting by the seat of my pants as opposed to following a pattern?). Once I adjusted the number of sections it has gone very well and I just need to keep knitting for a while to make it bigger.

Next projects on the knitting list (not necessarily in this order):

1. finish up the two prayer shawls I started before the Christmas rush - one for a local friend who lost her son unexpectedly this fall and one for a five-year-old who has recently been treated for cancer;
2. an out-of-season Christmas stocking - I've had the pattern idea floating around in my head ever since I finished up the last set of stockings right before Christmas but really didn't want to tackle yet another stocking right away;
3. a fairisle hat with earflaps for a dear friend of mine - yet another patternless project. E sent me a photo from a catalog and asked me to make a hat like it for her. She didn't want to buy the one from the catalog because a) it had a little bit of green in it and she hates green; and b) she would rather give her money to me than this impersonal company;
4. several pairs of socks for myself (actually I hope to knit at least one item every month this year that I get to KEEP!), my beloved spouse, and other fortunate family members;
   
5. a couple of felted bags to sell on my Etsy website, along with a purse organizer that I've been designing in my head for a couple of months now;
6. at least a couple more snowball hats to get the pattern transcribed for sale on my Etsy site; and
7. the ever-present cotton dishcloths that I work on when I need a totally mindless knitting project.
   

I'd guess that this list ought to keep me busy for at least most of January. If not, there are at least another half-dozen projects waiting in the wings when I get these finished up. If I totally run out of ideas I also have a fair amount of WIPs and UFOs that I can tackle as well.