2012 Challenges

This year I've joined in with four challenges.

The first two are on a forum of which I've been a member for eight years (I'm also a Moderator/Staff on that one).

The first one is a reading challenge which we also ran last year.  The idea is to declare how many books you are aiming to read during the course of the year.  In 2011 I said I'd aim for 17, as I get most of my fiction books from the library so thought that as the library lending period is 3 weeks, 17 would mean one book per lending period, with a week in hand.  In the event, I read 25 books with an average of 340 pages per book.  This year, I'm aiming for 20 books and have already read 4, although one of those was Franklin Habit's "It Itches" book of knitting-related cartoons and essays, which was a very quick read.

The second challenge is a photography one.  Photography isn't my strong point and I've had my camera for six years, so it isn't at the forefront of technology, but I thought this looked like fun.  We compiled a list of 50 words and the idea is to take a photograph related to each of those words.  Some are fairly concrete, such as 'bus', 'boat', etc, but some are more abstract such as 'inside', 'irritating', 'red'.  I've only taken one photo so far - some red berries clustered on a tree that I saw when I was walking the dog.

The other two challenges are knitting-related on the Phoenix Knitting forum. 

Challenge One is the same as one we had last year.  Finish at least one item each month and show a photo.  The FO doesn't have to be started and finished in the same month, but the idea is to get on with WIPs, some of which may have been lurking in the work basket or box for a while.  My January offering was the green Malabrigo socks which I'd had on the needles since last August or September, but kept passing over to knit or crochet other things.

Challenge Two is a stash-busting one.  Each time we finish an item, we count the metres of yarn used and add to a running total for the month/year.  In addition to that, any new yarn that we buy has to be debited against the yarn used, so if I use 350 metres of  yarn in FOs in a month and don't buy any new yarn, I'm +350 metres stash-wise.  However, after succumbing to the lure of Kemps last week and then having to order an extra skein of Mirasol Miski for a cowl I'm knitting, I'm currently -2821 metres.  Oops!

Someone on Phoenix also posted that Lidl will have yarn in next week and I've had a look and there's some cotton/acrylic mix that would probably  be useful for dish/washcloths.  However, I've decided that I'm not going to make a special trip to buy some (my nearest Lidl is 10 miles away), but if they've still got some the next time I'm shopping there, I might get a bag, or might not.  I'm not going to beat myself up about it and I went through my stash this morning and, if I'm totally honest, I've got more yarn than I thought I had and I know that what I went through this morning (re-winding half-balls that had gone loose and floppy etc) isn't all of it.

Better get knitting!

Until next time, take care and happy crafting :)