NaKniSweMo 2009

Ever heard of NaNoWriMo (think National Novel Writing Month)? I hadn't either but apparently it's a movement to encourage the writing of novels. The challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. People participate in this every year. A lot of people. This year, they've got 90,000 previous participants on their email list. Wow.

How does this relate to my life? (Because I'm not writing a novel right now no matter how much Tom wants me to.) Well, a group on Ravelry alerted me to Shannon Okey's blog, knitgrrl (I haven't read much of it yet, but I hear it's good), where she spelt out the brilliant idea in 2006 to start a concurrent project.

While all those writers were writing, why shouldn't we knitters be knitting? Knitting big things with a crazy deadline? Well, why not? So she started NaKniSweMo with the logic that a sweater must have at least 50,000 stitches.

Ignoring all the projects I already have on the go and ignoring the fact that November should be consumed with the making of Christmas items, I decided to dive right in. First, I joined the Ravelry group (which itself has 380 members) and then I started looking for patterns.

Last summer, I bought enough of this beautiful reddish-burgundy wool
at Erica's sidewalk sale to make a sweater. (I briefly thought about using it for a sweater for Troy, but the DK weight I'm using for his woven cables sweater is much better.)

So there sits a sweater's worth of wool and then a sweater KAL comes along. (A KAL with the possibility of prizes.) Well, like I said, I'm in!

Then the search for a pattern begins. I first considered this sweater from Vogue Knitting, Winter 2008-09: I still love love love this pattern, but the yarn is not bulky enough. I looked at many others, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with the February Fitted Pullover from Amy Herzog at stashknitrepeat. I still have time to think about it, but it is very beautiful. The lace pattern is from the overpopular February Lady Sweater by EZ. Scoop necks have always done very well for me as well. I'm very excited!

I'm sure by the time November rolls around, I'll have some of these other projects off the needles.