February WIP Wrap-Up

Well hey, it’s been a while since one of these huh? If you couldn’t already tell, I’m trying to get back into blogging (no promises with how crazy this year is going to be) and I always enjoyed writing these and keeping track of what I knit each month. In theory, it gives me motivation to work on longer term things too.

WIPs/ UFOs on February 1: 5

(Grandma Shawl, Corstorphine, Fall Stripey Socks, Cedar Sparks Socks, Purple Afterthought Everything Socks)

Projects cast on in February: 1

(Hinagiku)

Projects cast off in February: 0

(well the blanket, but I wasn’t counting that in this tracking)

Projects frogged in February: 0

WIPs/ UFOs on March 1: 6

(Grandma Shawl, Corstorphine, Fall Stripey Socks, Cedar Sparks Socks, Purple Afterthought Everything Socks, Hinagiku)

February Total Stitches/ Average St Per Day:  66,109 / 2,361

Stitches Needed to Meet Yearly Goal (547,500) Feb 1 vs Mar 1: 1,401 -> 1,313 ⬇

Projected 2023 YE stitches: 902,070

Yikes 6 WIPs is just a little bit higher than I want it to be. I’ll be honest, I kind of forgot about my fall stripey socks until I went to write this post. That’s probably not a good sign lol. It looks like I’m just about ready to do the top ribbing for the first sock, so maybe I’ll try to get that done this week. I don’t love having three sock WIPS, but I really don’t want to rip any of them out! We’ve also gone another winter without working on Corstorphine, which I also don’t love. I’d be up to frogging that one, but the idea of fogging icelandic wool is just too daunting. Grandma has been languishing, but I actually plan to bring that with me on my work trip at the end of March. I’m going to Spokane, and I actually cast Grandma on when I went out there in 2020, so I think it will be appropriate. I probably won’t have too much time to knit on it as I have full days of work, and don’t like to work on projects that need patterns on planes because it’s just too much to deal with. But I like having something a little more engaging for at night. It will be really interesting to see how my WIP pile changes as I get into my busy season. March’s knitting will likely be primarily on Hingaiku and trying to finish off one or more of the in progress socks.

I can’t be too down on myself about having 6 WIPs, because I really always had at least one more when I did these in the past, which was the blanket! And that got cast of in February so that is super duper exciting. I’m really proud of myself for finishing that very long term project, and I’m already treasuring using it to curl up in. If you missed the FO post about that, you can find it here.

I also haven’t talked about my yearly stitch goal yet this year. Last year, I purposely reduced my goal from 1M to 750K, which still worked out to just over 2K stitches needed a day. While I ended up meeting my goal, I didn’t do it until December 31, and I stage managed two shows last year just like I’m doing this year. So this year, I decided to further reduce my goal to 547,500, which is 1,500 stitches a day. I’ve done a good job getting the average number needed down. I expect that to go back up over the next few months, and then probably drop back down to where I can meet my goal in the fall. I also want to spend more time sewing and cross stitching this year, and I sometimes felt stressed about taking my free time to do that instead of knit. So hopefully this goal is more achievable overall.

Finally, before showing off my one second a day video for the month, I realized there’s someone you all haven’t met.

This is Wasabi! I adopted her from a local shelter on New Year’s Eve. She’s super sweet when she wants to be and is a bit of a yarn demon, I have to be very careful not to leave yarn out or else it will be batted around the house until it’s a tangled mess. She took a bit of time to warm up, but will now hang out on the bed with me at night and let me pet her and give her treats.

What’s everyone else planning to work on this month?