In October of 2008, I made the following knitting resolutions:

1. Make at least one charity project per month. This can be as small as a chemo hat or a square for a blanket that will be joined together by others.
2. Work down the stash before buying new yarn. I know that this is is a pipe dream, but i am going to make an effort not to just keep buying yarn. S o I am going to try to make at least two projects for any one project's worth of yarn that I buy.
3. Make scrapghans out of whatever leftovers I have that aren't really enough for anything else.
4. Finish UFOs.

So let's see. I have not really made one charity project per month. But I have made about 30 granny squares, and they are all going to other people, so I think that sort of counts. Not *really* but sort of. I have, been generally pretty good about working down the stash. Not amazing - not by any stretch of the imagination, but pretty good. I've definitely gotten rid of a lot of the stash by knitting it up and some by sending it off to other people. Scrapghans. Hmmm.. well, not so much, but again, granny squares. All in all, I'm using up yarn. And as for the UFOs, I ripped a few, and finished a few, and have a few left.

Final tally: I haven't *quite* lived up to my resolutions, but I'm not doing *horribly* with them, either. Making a few blankets for C's knitting group should help get rid of some of the stash, too.

Striped Ice Cream

When I was a kid, I read a book called Striped Ice Cream by Joan M. Lexau. I loved the book. It was sweet, and had lovely life lessons, and family members who truly looked out for one another.

Fast forward about 25 years, and my friend C is making blankets with her knitting group to be donated to newborns. I pulled out some red heart baby clouds in pink, light purple and the ever-so-faintest of light blues. I started doing two lines of each, rotating right around, blue, purple, pink, blue, purple, pink, and lo and behold, what I came up with was striped ice cream. Or, well, striped cotton candy is what I really think it looks like. Did 78 lines, then edged the whole thing in the pink. I love it. I want to give it to C., but I may wait to find out if either of my two pregnant friends are having girls... Or I may just make another.