November is half way over, but I'm doing okay so far with my yarn diet. I would like to focus on my long term projects more to make some significant progress on them.

November Goals:

• No yarn purchases. Try to avoid buying needles or books unless truly necessary. (Bought one set of needles and some buttons in November, and a crochet book in October. But no yarn!)
• Finish Entrelac Scarf (On the last ball, working on it every evening. I can probably finish this week.)
• Complete the Horseshoe Pattern #2 section of the Shetland Tea Shawl (this is probably the most difficult goal) (Into the Shetland Fern pattern #1)
• Knit 5 squares of the Kureyon Log Cabin Blanket for a total of 15 complete squares (DONE)
• Get to the armhole shaping of the Mossbank Pullover (Have not knit on this at all)

Some Kureyon Log Cabin Squares

I am very interested in knitting accessories right now. Hats, cowls, gloves, and even scarves. This is a good opportunity to get some quick, small projects out of the way and stock up on winter accessories. I have a cowl on the needles, and that is my commute project now that I got the last 2 Kureyon Squares knocked out. For the rest of the year, any new projects I start will be in this category.

Looking ahead to next year, I need to recharge my sock mojo. I have some older sock yarn that I still want to use. I will get some little lunch bags and make up "sock of the month" bags. I can probably bag up enough for a year (or two!) I am also going to get a little looser about finishing a pair before starting another pattern. Sometimes a second sock just drags--it's a slog, so you need some productive and exciting knitting as well. I would be curious to know if I could actually finish a pair of socks in a month. I can get a lot of knitting done on my commute, and socks are really perfect travel projects.

In regards to buying yarn: I have mostly been avoiding the yarn shop, which is hard because my favorite LYS is one block from my work. I used to get stressed at work go down there to get a little something to take the edge off. Sounds bad, huh? Just the other day I was annoyed by my coworkers and I was tempted to indulge in retail therapy. I clicked over to the Loopy Ewe and looked at the pretty pictures. Then I closed the window. It was fine. I'm not driven to buy if I'm not in the middle of a pile of yarn (yarn stores or fiber festivals) and even then I can be thrifty if I've made up my mind to do so. Stubbornness is going to get me through this if anything does.

Diet Goals

No yarn purchases from 10/14/09 to 5/12/10. Save $5.00 a week towards future purchase

Finish:

• Mossbank Pullover
• Kureyon Log Cabin Blanket
• Tangled Yoke Cardigan
• Shetland Tea Shawl
• One other lace shawl TBD