Back to Business as Usual

We are finally getting back to business as usual here. Most of the property repairs have been completed. The only exception to this is some painting. We need to repaint the work shop and storage shed. They have had the roofing replaced and we are waiting for a few warm, dry days to repaint. In January that can be tricky, so we will see when that happens. It may have to wait until spring.

Preparing for the New Year

During the last week of 2023 and the first week of 2024, I have been busy with tasks to close out the old year and get ready for the new one. I spent three days doing inventory. Everything was pretty accurate, with only a few discrepancies.

The next task was doing the end of the year bookkeeping to get ready for income taxes later this month, and also 4th Quarter income and Sales Tax reports. Those tasks took a couple afternoons. I still need to set up new folders for 2024 bookkeeping soon.

My next priority was to use the information gained from my inventory count to determine how much of what needs to be dyed for the spring festival season which begins in early March. So, I spent part of another day organizing that data, making plans, and ordering base yarn. Dyeing will most likely happen in February. The days are getting longer by then and we usually have a mix of warm and cold weather to work with.

Production in the wood shop is at the moment still focused on Shawl and Hair Sticks, but I don’t have any new pictures to show. I do have some picture of the other job I am working my way through, which is washing the booth samples. I try to do this once a year or maybe every other year.

I am not even halfway through them yet. I have an obscene amount of booth samples. (grin) Oh, and speaking of blocking, which I sort of am above, minus the pins, I am finished with Mingling Daisies! I knew that I-cord bond off was going to take awhile with 601 stitches, and it did! It took several sittings to complete it and I think I clocked about 6-7 hours doing it. I haven’t blocked the shawl yet because of all the samples to get done. I can only get so many blocking at at time due to horizontal surface limitations. Here is a picture I took fresh off of the needles to hold you over.

Knitting

Since we are heading into knitting territory at this point in the post, let me show you what I have on the needles now.

As you probably can tell, I spend most of my knitting time, making booth samples. I enjoy that knitting and I am not complaining about that. Sometimes it is good to do some stuff that is just for fun too. This year I decided to splurge on my knitting time by joining WestKnits Year of Socks 2024. I guess I am on a bit of a Stephen West knitting binge.

So, the sock pictured above is the December 2023 bonus sock called Billowing Braid Socks. I am making them from some personal stash yarn from Webs that I bought in 2010 to make baby stuff for Elijah. I did make an Owl Vest from it, but had 5 skeins left. It is Webs Valley Yarn Superwash Merino DK. I am using US 3 dpns. I started this sock yesterday afternoon and have already completed the first cuff. You gotta love a DK sock for quickness. These will be “around the house” socks for me.

The January pattern in Socks of 2024 released a few days ago. It’s called Spiral Stash Socks. I can see casting on for these soon, since the cabled DK socks are going so fast.

The yarns above are discontinued colors of Classic Merino Superwash Sock. They are skeins from my personal stash. The design calls for one solid and one self-striping or marled yarn. I am using my hand painted variegated skein in place of the self striping, but I am still undecided about which solid I want to use to go with it. I am leaning towards the purple, because why not? What do you think?