Something about the New Year always makes me start digging through my stuff, wondering what should travel into the next 365 days with me. This weekend I took a long look at my stash and planned projects and current projects and made a few decisions. I'm de-stashing again. The first of the things up for trade/sale can be found here. There will be a few more things that go up this week if I can't find local homes for them.

I also did some cleanup on my blog. All of my links have moved here (you can get to them by clicking on the "LINKS" rollover in my header bar as well. Nothing has really changed, I just moved them to a new page. I was finding it too hard to control all of them easily in my Movable Type template, so I decided to move them into their own space.

The blog cleanup also got me thinking about my projects. I ditched the pair of socks I was going to make for John out of Mission Falls 1824 wool -- he wore a hole through the bottom of one of the socks in his first pair, so I don't think it's tough enough stuff to stand up to John and our carpet. Not to worry though. I found some more durable stuff while out shopping in Wheaton with Julie this weekend. And I've got a bunch of Mountain Colors Bearfoot. John's feet will not be forgotten.

Of course, it's almost impossible for me to dig through my stash without thinking about getting something else started. Since I finished up the bottom edging and the collar of Mom's Holographic cardi, I decided it was okay if I started something new (there are no pics yet as I have not sewn on the button or sewn in all the ends).

I thought about returning to my Bullseye pullover, but decided that I would let it linger a little longer in the closet when I remembered I had some Colinette Giotto just waiting to become something wonderful.

And after this Christmas, I do have a reason to make myself something wonderful. My absolutely fabulous husband surprised me with a night at the opera and dinner at my favorite French restaurant, Les Nomades. When I was in grad school, some friends and I used to have season tickets to the Lyric Opera (no, we didn't make that much, we just took advantage of some well priced seats in the nosebleed section of the opera house). I never really thought I would enjoy the opera, but something about it really moved me. Lately I'd been mentioning wanting to see one again. Lucky me to have a guy who listens when I don't think he is.

Anyway... just because I can't resist showing off Giotto, here's the swatches I made for Siena. I ended up going up from a size 11 needle to a size 13 needle to get gauge (the big swatch is the correct one). It's impossible to tell from the picture, but the gauge really makes a difference. Not only in finished garment size, but also in terms of how the Giotto shows itself off. The larger gauge lets a lot more of the shine through while the smaller guage makes for a much duller fabric.

The Difference a Needle Size Makes

Obviously, when you're knitting on tree trunks, it doesn't take very long to see progress. That ruffle at the bottom is cast on to US size 17 (12 mm) needles. I never thought I would see circular needle ends connected by what looks like Tygon tubing. A big thank you to Rob who loaned me this pair so I could get started on this project since I wasn't able to find anything this big at my LYSs

Big Needles + Big Yarn = Rapid Progress

I guess it goes without saying that I don't expect this project to take me too long. Not just because of the big needles, but because I love the colors in the yarn and the fabric that it makes. I particularly like the streaks of bright green and blue that are shot throughout the yarn.

I've seen a lot of people out in the blog world talking about New Year's Resolutions. Usually I stay away from these things. And I'm not going to talk about the ones I consider personal. But I do have a few that are knitting blog appropriate.

• No more yarn diets. If I find something that makes my heart sing, I'm not going to feel guilty about bringing it home. But I am also going to be a little bit more choosy. I'm not going to get something just because it is on sale. Nor am I going to buy without some idea of what I am going to do with my new purchase. I look at this as the "balanced diet" approach to stash control.
• I'm going to be more critical of patterns -- and I am going to read them all the way through before I get started. Most of the time when something didn't go quite right in a project, my gut was already telling me to stop and think. But because I hate to rip, and because I can be such a slavish follower of instructions, I tend to over-ride my gut instincts. There's nothing wrong with modifying a design to suit my needs. Or to fix a problem the designer didn't originally forsee.
• I'm going to explore my own design skills more. Working on my felted bag pattern was an incredibly rewarding experience. Putting that pattern together woke up something inside me that wants to keep creating. I'm going to try to devote more of my knitting time to designing things on my own. First up is a variation on the Chicago bag, after that, a sweater for John.
• I'm want to master two color knitting. I want to take on both intarsia and Fair Isle projects this year -- and finish them.
• I would like to review one knitting book a week on my blog. I've acquired so many this year...
• I'm going to try to learn more about photography and photo composition. A good photo can really make even simple things look wonderful. Whenever I trip on over to Bonne Marie's blog I am usually struck by her lovely pictures -- not just by the quality of the photo but also by how she puts things together in a photo.

I think that's almost enough words to start the week and the New Year with!

But I do want to add one thing before I close... I'm hoping to create a gallery of finished Chicago bags for everyone to see and also to provide others with useful information about what works and doesn't work when it comes to yarn. If you complete the bag, I'd really love to have your pictures an comments. Just send them to the email address in the link on the side bar. If you send me something, please be sure to tell me what yarn you used and the colors so I can include that information with your picture.