Month in review: February

Here we are, the end of another month, and it’s time to assess the old goals. I have to say, February is proving to be a somewhat tempestuous month for me, given the last few years. Extreme highs and lows, great days and abysmal days… Even with the happy events that happen in February, I’m just really quite glad that it’s a couple days shorter than the rest.

As you might have seen over the weekend, I finished my second of a hopeful twelve pairs of socks for the year. These socks should not have taken as long as they did, but life and other knitting got in the way a smidge. I’m optimistic that March’s socks will zip right along, as there’s a couple of non-sock projects I want to knit soon. I also knit a small shawlette for a swap partner. And I even almost finished a Destroyed Cowl (Rav link), but February is determined to end on a lower-than-middle-C note and that turned into a debacle. It’s a really fast knit, though, so I anticipate I’ll be showing it off soon.

My other big goal for the year is not to buy yarn. I did so very well this month. There was an opportunity to snag a couple of skeins in a new colorway series by an indie-dyer friend of mine, but I resisted (she’s promised me they’re not going to be retired any time soon, hence the willpower). I did enter my name to a lottery for a skein of yarn—those chosen were asked to donate $50, which would go to Doctor’s Without Borders, following the disastrous Christchurch earthquake. However, my name did not come out of the hat, so I did not buy any yarn.

There was some transmutation happening at Chez Panda this month. Over the last couple of years, I’d stockpiled a small fiber stash, intending to spin it myself on my drop spindle. Well, time and knitting and frustration with spindle-spinning have interfered with those planes, so I asked a friend spin some for me. She spun up this lovely superwash merino fiber from Gherkin’s Bucket into a fantastically squishy yarn. Now I just have to figure out what to do with it.

I don’t want to be entirely down on February. It can’t help that planets align strangely or the weather is insane this time of year, nor can it take credit for any of the awesome things that happen, but I do have to say that I will not be missing this month. Oh well, February, there’s always next year.