Goals:

I have a problem. I acquire materials with no specific purpose for them. I start projects and start projects and start projects. I lose tools and patterns. I am beyond unorganized. With the tax return this year I attempted to begin organizing myself because this is a true passion for me. I want to take this and make it into something that can work for me in terms of a career, one way or another. If we transfer to Washington I am enrolling in a Fiber Arts program. Whether I design, write, edit, or work at/own a shop...this is what I love. So it's time for some discipline.
I have an ever-growing queue on Ravelry. I buy a new pattern book or magazine at least once a month. It's bordering on compulsive.
Time to set some goals.
1. I want to finish James' boot socks by Monday, so he can wear them to duty.
2. I want to spend at least half an hour a day working on Thalia. I swatched today and got near-perfect gauge. I love the yarn and I think the color and pattern are going to look fabulous on me. I almost never knit anything for myself anymore and I deserve it.
3. Sylvia needs two warm hats by October. One pretty hat with some cables and one funny hat with earflaps, I think. And nubbins or horns. Something bizarre.
4. James deserves a sweater by our anniversary. So by January.
5. A fancy pair of socks for myself by November.
6. A doll and a stuffed animal for Sylvia by Christmas.
7. A worsted weight wrap/shawl for my mother by Valentine's Day.
8. One heavy sweater for each of us before the transfer. (next summer-ish)

I will be coming back and editing this post as I think of more things to add.

Oh blog, I have not forgotten you...

James had five straight days of leave from the Navy...and we didn't go anywhere. This marks the first leave period in nearly two years where we didn't drive at least 500 miles to visit someone.
And it was heavenly. I didn't accomplish much in the way of finishing projects. The Belle Cardigan is still as pictured in the last post, I've only finished one of James' birthday socks...
But who cares? We all had a great time. Sylvia hasn't spent that much time with her father since he got back from deployment several months ago. We spent a lot of time just hanging around the house in our pjs and having cocktails after we convinced Sylvia to go to sleep. (Which was more difficult than you might imagine. Sylvia wanted to stay up and party since Daddy was home!)
But there was some acquisition! After suggestions by people both on Ravelry and at Knitting Sisters, I went to Colonial Fiber Arts in Yorktown and...
Oooh. Just Oooh. I want a wheel.

some wool/mohair blend and swtc soysilk. So yummy.
Also on my plate, I'll be test-knitting a project from Ravelry. see it here: http://lystessa.blogspot.com/2007/08/thalia.html
Bought my yarn yesterday

Hempathy, in a lovely sunshine-y color. I was going to pick a tan color, but James snatched this up and begged me to make it in this color. I'm hoping to swatch during Sylvia's afternoon nap and to cast on after she goes to bed tonite. Cross your fingers for me, everyone.

And I just had to have another keychain when I saw this at Knitting Sisters. Whee.

belle cardigan

It's coming along insanely quickly. The body is done and on stitch holders, and I just finished the first sleeve. One more sleeve and then I can join it all together. But as my looooovely apartment complex still has not come by to fix the air conditioner and it's nearly three pm, I'm done working on it for today. I was sweating just knitting a sleeve, PITY ME AAAH. Ha. Anyway.
(It really is hot in here. 80+. I call Sylvia my "smelly melly belly with the belly made of jelly...and today she really is smelly. So am I. Eew.)

James (teh spouse) turns 25 next week, and I've been promising him a pair of handknit socks for eons. They have to be black so he can wear them in uniform, and worsted weight is preferable. I'd knit a single sock in Cascade 220, but never finished the pair. Now I'm realizing that gifting my super low maintenance husband with socks that he can't machine wash is probably a poor idea to say the least, so I'm going to cast on a pair in a cotton blend tonight. Hopefully I can finish them by the weekend so I can hide them in my bag and find a properly amusing package for them for his birthday party. :)

Oooh. Maintenance man is here. Maybe the child and I won't die.

I finally remembered my sign in info,

and as I really have little going on that really belongs in a locked livejournal, I plan on making more use of my knitting blog.
And capitalization. Maybe even punctuation, if the desire finds me.
So what am I working on currently?

I just finished the child's version of the ballet tee in Loop-d-Loop. Using up some of my reserves of Cotton Ease was a plus, and Sylvia looks nearly as darling in it as I'd hoped. She liked it so much she decided to only allow a clear photo of it to be taken while she examined the contents of her nostrils.

I'm also working on the Belle Cardigan from the most recent Interweave Knits. I've had Wenlan Chia's book for a while but I'd held off on knitting any of her stuff because it is all bulky/super bulky weight and I have what might be know as gazongas.
but i couldn't resist.
(Photo copyright Interweave Knits and all of that. Do I need to say that? I don't know. So I will.)
Adorable, huh? So I grabbed some camel colored wool from my stash and this is approximately where I am right now.

I'm actually to the ribbed waist area, but I haven't taken any new pictures yet. This thing is moving along so quickly I might frog another cardigan I'd started by the end of the week so I can make something from her book. My Belle cardigan is triple stranded Paton's Classic Merino. If I end up liking how I look in her designs I might try to buy some of her yarn, but I am genuinely cheap at heart and don't quite think I'll justify it to myself.

And the nose-picking princess calls to me, so I'm off.