New challenges

52 Pair Plunge III - I must have been suffering from temporary insanity when I signed up for it. I did well for the first month or two, and then pfffft. I've only completed 18 pair (and have two pair on the needles). So that means 34 more pair in a little over 11 weeks. Hah! Not happening.

I like knitting socks, but I also like knitting other things, too. So of course I signed up for another challenge. This one is more reasonable, though. I joined the 10 Shawls in 2010 challenge/group on Ravelry. The goal is to knit/crochet 8 shawls that use at least 250 meters of yarn and 2 that use at least 500 meters. I've already completed two of the smaller shawls, so I'm doing well so far.

My two shawls are Swallowtail, by Evelyn Clark (Ravelry pattern link) (my Ravelry project page)



I made it with KnitPicks Shimmer yarn in the Deep Woods colorway, and used beads instead of doing nupps. I had purchased the yarn for this shawl a couple of years ago, but hadn't gotten around to actually knitting it. This challenge was just the nudge I needed.



My second shawl is Traveling Woman, by Liz Abinante (Ravelry pattern link) (my Ravelry project page)



I used Blue Moon Fiber Arts Silkie Socks that Rock yarn in the Walking on the Wild Tide colorway. The yarn was such a pleasure to knit with, I was almost sorry to finish the shawl.
I've had this yarn since 2007, so it was about time I used it too.




Another knitting related challenge for this year is to knit/crochet 5 kilometers of yarn from stash. Stash is any yarn I purchased prior to 2010. I'm doing this as part of the 5K Stash Down group on Ravelry. I'll be keeping track of stash used on an excel spreadsheet, but I've also added a Knitmeter to my sidebar to track all my yarn usage. I'm doing well so far. I may actually reach 10K this year.

The other challenge I'm signing up for has nothing to do with knitting. It deals with one of my other favorite activities, reading. You can read about it on Kristin's blog here. Since audiobooks also count, I'm setting my goal at 52 books. That's slightly over one book a week between now and the end of the year.

Audiobooks and books under 50 pages count as half a book; books over 50 pages count as one book regardless of the number of pages. Our public library system now has downloadable audiobooks available, so I can "read" while knitting.

I've never kept track of how many books I've read before, so it'll be interesting to see how many I do read.