Hiatus: Over. September Challenges, Stashbusting, and Weight Loss

Good afternoon everyone!

It's been a little while since I last posted :-\  I am terribly lax, I apologize. 
I've been working on some personal goals, and haven't had much time for designing or being crafty.

I re-joined sparkpeople.com which is an online weight loss/healthy living support network. I was there a few years ago, and decided to go back. I like the social aspect of it; lots of message boards, teams, and things to challenge myself and keep me motivated.

One of the teams I joined is a crafty team called United Stitches, and they are doing a September Stashbuster Challenge. The object is to see how many yards of our stashes we can get through over the 30 day period. I picked two projects to work on this month and set up Ravelry pages for them so I can keep track of the progress.

GoT-Inspired Dragon Egg Wristlet
I guestimated based on the pattern page that I will use about 200 yards of yarn for this one. 
I chose a Madeline Tosh Vintage Worsted in Ember and Blue Hosta

The First Egg I Made in Brown and Green

Open Work Knit Shrug
I'm going to start with the amount of yarn used in the pattern (320 yds), but may use another 80 yards if the original size doesn't fit properly.

(This is a picture from the pattern's site. I haven't made this one before)

So my yardage total is 520 minimum.

In other knitting/crochet news, not related to the stash bust challenge,

I am also taking a shot at my first knitting Fair Isle-Style piece (stranded color work). I have never knit in this manner before, but it doesn't look like it will be too difficult, since I asked someone how to read the chart. I've never had to read a chart before, so I'll be learning something new!

The pattern is called Knitted Sea Waves, and I found this pic on the Joann's Fabric site. It was a knitting class I was going to take. Since I already paid and bought the stuff for it, they gave me the pattern even though the class was canceled. Nice of them :-) 

I may attempt to design something in this style in the future. The concept is basic: graph paper and color coding instead of symbols. I'll have to play around with it a bit though. Bust out my colored pencils and stuff lol.

So, I have my needles ready and just need to get my yarn wound off the skein and into a ball, and I will be ready to start the needles clicking and clacking tomorrow when the stash bust challenge begins.

Stay shiny and keep crafting!