Something about the New Year always sets off knitting ambitions for me. I’m already thinking about Christmas 2008, since I didn’t do holiday knits this year, and of course I have a lot of just-because things I want to make.

I am trying to be good and not stash-enhance for a few months, unless it’s for a gift. So I have to get all my yarn-buying for me in before Jan 1!

I’ve got a bunch of things going right now–two of my co-workers are heading to New Hampshire for the primary next week, and I’m hoping to finish some quick hats for at least one of them, though hopefully I can get two done.

I’ve also caved and signed up for Secret of the Stole II, which means I need to go buy some laceweight on Saturday, as all mine is in 800-1100 yard batches, and I need 1500 yards.

There are a lot of shifting priorities on the needles, but hopefully I’ll get the knitting–and the rest of my life–organized in the new year.

It doesn’t really feel like Christmas Eve to me–I’m 3,000 miles away from my family and I’m not frantically knitting up a gift to get it wrapped by tomorrow.

This is the first year I haven’t done knitted gifts–I might do a few for friends, but they’ll be given after the holidays are over.

I have, however, started a new project for myself.

Looking at my list of WIPs on Ravelry is quite a wake-up call. I think this is the year for some Knitting Resolutions. Start finishing all the WIPs and start doing some serious stash-busting.

Nothing says happy Friday like unraveling slightly less than half a Clapotis knit with double-stranded laceweight yarn.

(In the future I will remember that lifelines are not for losers with no sense of adventure. I will also remember not to leave my knitting in places where it will get knocked on the floor/sat on/shoved under a couch, thus causing a dozen stitches to drop so far down as to be irretrievable.)

Let’s face it. Knitting? Often gets a bad rap.

When you say knitter, the image that springs most frequently to mind is a kindly grandmother, sitting in her rocking chair making booties for her grandbabies.

It’s difficult to find a knitter who hasn’t been subjected to the grandma jokes that people so love to make (generally right before they ask you to make them a hat….and then wonder why you say no.) or been teased for being dull.

So that’s why I was amused to find Kinky Knitnacks, an article on sexy knitting, which linked me to the blog Knit Porn. Knit Porn is exactly what it sounds like, with lots of nudity and knittng–and very NSFW–and I was most entertained by the concept.

I have to say–it does make me feel a little bad about my FO photos. While I’m not planning on taking a picture of myself wearing nothing but armwarmers and undies just yet (or, ever, most likely) I should probably try to do a little better than blurry pics taken using my bedroom mirror.

But apparently I do not knit. At least, not well.

I’ve been having one of those runs where everything I pick up seems to not work. The gauge is off, I’m uninspired, the yarn doesn’t fit the pattern…

I’ve been picking things up and putting them down in a fit of frustration for the past week or so, hence the lack of knitting goodness.

Instead, I set up a winter sprarkly* tree–all on my own, which I consider to be a relatively large accomplishment, considering the tree is taller than I am.

*Winter sparkly tree–I am between religions at the moment, so it’s not really a Christmas tree, but an excuse for me to make my apartment look and smell like the holidays. Also, who doesn’t love sparkly lights and pretty decorations?