And there we are.

Well, there we are.  Not everything done on my set of family socks, but I am very close.  It should all be done before I go to bed.

You take a daddy sock

And add a mommy sock

and play around a little and ...

See?  And cute too!  Like all things about a baby, they are completely unique no matter what mommy and daddy decide for them.  Babies have plans of their own!  

And just in time for my wee Sweet Thing's birthday.  One year old.  How can that possibly be?

The rest of this week is wedding!  I am looking forward to this in a big way.  Except for one tiny thing.  The bride's family does do the speechifying after dinner.  So I have some contemplating to do and some writing so that I might speak for both Mr. Needles and I.    He might be gone from among us, but he left behind dreams and hopes and entrusted them with me.  It is my job to make sure that our family know them when they need to.  

So yet another week of busy busy.  Today, close out the old.  Tomorrow a wee Sweet Things day and then a little work to make a new family come to be on Saturday.  

And then I shall rest.

Designer Friday

I am going to go out and start knitting that second wee sock shortly, but I really don't have a whole lot to show you today.

I know that I have talked about designers lately a lot, but with Ravelrys new Pattern Highlights feature, also starting to note and favourite designers that I really like.

Like Boo Knits

And Joji Locatelli  Her new Lipstick sweater is the object of my currrent obsessions.

And Laura Aylor  Who is all about colour and for whom I yet may break into the Tove stash.

And Brooklyn Tweed.  Who designed a few things on Ravelry, was picked up for a very popular pattern Vogue Knitting and has since gone on with a line of yarns, and an online magazine and still puts out with the help of other talented people spectacular things.  Like his new volume of BT Fall 2013 

Sigh.  So much wonderful inspiring design.  So many lovely things to want to knit.  

So little time.   

Awwww

Sometimes you just want to sit back and let perfection soak in.

Just one more wee sock to do and then a little finishing on mommy and daddy's and we are done!  

Its been a week of good news.  Some very good news and some just regular good news but as a week, it won over last week hands down.  Here is hoping that the week continues on this path.

Chasing after wee ones

means that no matter what you plan, the plan isn't always going to happen.  I meant to get the wheel from the car yesterday.  I meant to spin just a half an hour yesterday. Oh well.  C'est la vie.

There were lots of other interesting things happening.  My Sweet Things Mommie painted her bedroom.  It isn't finished yet or I would show you, but it looks fantastic.  Oh you are going to like it!

As busy as the day was, I did manage to get in a little knitting time and for that I am particularly pleased.  After several variations on a theme, I have these.

Daddy's and Mommy's and wee Sweet Things. I tried a few different things, playing with some slipping of black stitches to get that honey combed look, but on such a small diameter, I wasn't having any fun.  So Sweet Things birthday socks will be just deep orange stripes and I am good with that. There is plenty of Orange there to take it right through her socks. Its a two and three stripe and above the ankle it will be a rib.  Who knows, maybe a two and three there too.  It would work out mathematically!

As soon as the little ones are done, there will be some finishing required on both moms and dads socks, and then heels but not on the wee ones.  Those will have a short row heel built in from the get go.  It's such a short span of stitches it will work up in no time flat, so short row garter heel it is.

So as much as the next few days are all about getting settled for my new housemates, it will be about tiny wee socks and playing grandma to the cutest little thing out there. That is the plan anyway.

We will see what our Sweet Thing thinks about that!

There are times when I am not sure this blog is about needles anymore. Lately there have been a lot of the things of life and when it has been about needles, there haven't been photos! Harumph.   That just has to stop because even I am getting a little frustrated by it.  

I would do photos about yesterdays gallivanting but it I had so much fun, I forgot to take any and the spinning is still in the car and with wee people and their mommies asleep upstairs, I can't just wander out to get the bag and wheel.  See? Frustrating.

There has been knitting,  The black socks are done and wee baby ones are on the way.  I will show you that tomorrow.  I know, promises, promises.

I can, however, finally, show you knitting!  

I finally had the flexibility to purchase some of Martina Behm's patterns for the Knitmore Girls Behm-along.  I even had the gumption to wind up half the laceweight yarn required to knit it.  I am ready to go.

I am knitting Viajante in yarn that Mr. Needles brought back for me from Palm Springs, Gracie Lace from Fiesta Yarns.  The colourway is Cedar Crest. 

Its lovely stuff  and wonderful to work with, but the colours are a challenge.  There are all sorts of laces that would be lost in the power of these colours.  Cedar Crest is not for the timid.

It is a little hard to get a real feel for the colours till it is made into a ball.  The winding reveals so much.  

  Strong colours, all of them, but I kind of like it.  I  am getting 7-10 stitches out of the purpley black and pink sections and about double or a little more of the green.  That means it is going to be a real blend with no colour taking the lead. A challenging array, to be sure but it should be just perfect for the simplicity of Viajante.

And yes.  It is begun.  It doesn't look like much and it isn't just yet.  It starts with a wee garter section to form the first point.  Or not as the case may be.  It really isn't a point at all.  

Well, you will see in good time.

The very best part of this is that there is almost no thinking required.  For a while you knit garter.  Then you knit a long long time with just stockinette, like a sock, round and round.  Then you knit a little lace.  Just right.  Makes me happy just thinking of it.  

Out and About

This is a household with a whole bunch of cameras.  I know they are out there.  I know that they all have two things which I occasionally need.  One is a battery and the other is a memory card.

The batteries are not interchangeable between cameras.  Maybe between the same brands.  I haven't looked yet, but camera technology has moved along to where the memory cards work all over the place.  For this I am thankful.  

Because it means that I can still take some great pictures of what I am up to this morning.   

Yup.  Off gallivanting again, but there will be pictures!

 

Ever notice

Ever notice, that a black sock takes years longer to knit than any other colour of sock?

OK, that is not really fair.  Its just that black socks go on forever without being able to see the stitches.  A black sock, or indeed any dark colour ought to be taken as practice for knitting without looking.  Yeah that is what is going on here.  

I have only an inch left and I am substantially done Sweet Things papa's black socks.  Ought to get there today.

My wee Sweet Thing and I along with her momma took a long drive just to get out of the house and do do some thing really different than our ordinary days tasks.  It was wonderful.  

We drove up to Jasper, and spent the day wandering the glory that is Maligne Lake and Canyon.  I don't have any pictures because momma forgot her cameras memory card at home and needed mine to produce some spectacular pictures.  None of them are ready for public consumption since we arrived home at 2:30 a.m. and though I have dragged my sorry butt out of bed, because sweet heaven, I need a coffee, I suspect momma is trying hard to sleep in.  We shall see if that very good traveler baby of ours lets that happen!  

So, after a relatively icky week of stuff, I had the attitude adjust that I so badly needed, and feel much stronger going forward.  

Ever notice how much nicer the world feels when you make up your mind to focus on the good things over the bad?

So Kinitting.

As I said, it isn't that exciting.  It is just black.

See?  Black.

I wish it was more exciting, but there it is.

It's a lot more interesting to think about Sweet Things socks.  I'm using both yarns for hers and I would like to do a little something beyond stripes, but we shall see how much yarn I have. 

My computer is acting techy, as in painfully slow, this morning.  someone else was on my computer on the weekend, and I may have a virus or some stupid application that is making things sluggish.  

So I am going to sign off and see if this thing posts.  It posted.  Now what?

Just a little music

I've got nothing today.  Just looking at some patterns, and feeling a little knitterly but without the time to do much of anything.  Sigh.

I feel a lot like this.

The amount of knitting

that this blog is completing is in the order of zip nada.  

And the amount of knitting that this blog has worked on this last few days that is photographable, is zip nada.  

It is a black sock.  Just a plain black sock.  I have been working on this pair for well over a year.  I started it somewhere about when I found out my Sweet Thing was on the way.  I always said that I would never knit another pair of black socks but it the upcoming birth of a grandaughter seemed to be right for the knitting of a second pair.  It is her daddy, after all, who wanted only black socks and whose feet are not to hot to wear socks.  I am on the second sock, about halfway done, on this black pair.

The project then morphed into socks for the whole family. I started a new pair in colours that her mommy likes as she was being born, and those socks are done right up to the ribbing and the afterthought heels.  It was a lovely fall colours skein of yarn, oranges and greens and goldens.  Pleasing with a little bit of punch.

The plan is, with the bits left over from both pairs, to knit a wee pair for my Sweet Thing.  Ideally, I will get these all complete before her first birthday.  Which is in just a few short days.  Technically and realistically, I should have enough time. It is only the 17th and her birthday is not until the first of October so it seems like there should be time to knit half a sock, some heels and a baby pair of socks.      

I just have to stick to it.  There in lies my problem.

Settling In.

I am settled, more or less in the lower part of my domain. There still is organizing of the day to day stuff left to do, but the stuff is all moved.  There is only a little cleaning and loose ends upstairs that I have to deal with. 

I think the kids will be coming this weekend with their goods and I hope that in no time flat, we will be having something of life that is just a little bit more routine than what has been going on lately.  

Packed, partways, and pooped and tired.  Yup, that is about it.

Galivanting

I've been galivanting the last few days.  Not a whole lot of knitting and yet the progress on what I have been knitting on is sort of amazing.

I have knit almost 6 inches on a black sock and have about 3 inches on a multi coloured sock that is entirely new.  I have also knit about an inch down the last leg of the little green Pepita.  No pictures, but for gallivanting ones.

This last and most important, is Son3 and his family and their lovely new home.  It is filled with love already.

I wonder

Ever wonder what your oldest yarn in your stash was?  

I came across a post on Ravelry talking about using up a yarn that they had bought in 2010, and it got me to asking what the oldest yarn in my stash was.  How on earth would I figure it out?

Well, I may not have much of a memory at the moment, but I do have a blog.  So I went back to see what I could find.  Other than sock yarn, the first yarn I bought specifically for knitting was Laceweight Centolavaggi in black and some Jaggerspun Lacewight 100 percent merino lace in a cream colour.  I still have both of these, though I have used about 1/2 of the Centolavaggi for a scarf project.

It is part of a series of three scarves knit very early on, for the ladies who in one way or another, all led me to knitting.  This is still the sweetest thing anybody ever did for me.  And why not lace scarves as the second third and fourth thing you ever really knit?  Of course you can.

My next oldest yarns have all been used up.  I bought some Socks That Rock that became socks for me, some plain black Jawoll that became socks for my dad, and some Confetti Cotton that also became socks for me, and are still sadly missed.

But when was it that I moved to sweater knitting?  When was it that that first sweater yarn buy happened.  Those first few blogging and then knitting months were about socks and lace.  Ah, there it is.  November 21, 2007.  The first sweater yarn.  That first fatal step.  And used up for one of the nicest things I have ever knit.

Cascade 220.  The gateway drug.

After that, when I go back and read the blog, there was no stopping me.  Once the idea that I could knit sweaters was in my head, life changed.  Well, my yarn buying habits certainly did.

It was a lovely adventure as it happened and almost as much fun to look back on.

Magic in the Air.

Every morning when I wake up, the first thing I see is the colour of the sky out my window.  The window sits high high above everything else here, so I have no curtains to close the sky from my view.  

At this time of year, when I wake, the sun is only just rising  and the sky is soft cerulean blue.  It is the prettiest of sky colours and this morning there was naught to disturb it, but for one narrow high swath of a single planes contrail flaring brilliant scarlet across the sky.

I watched it till the pink scattered and the cerulean was softened and mellowed.

I think I am going to put on my cozy morning sweater and take my mug of coffee and go sit on the front porch swing for a while. Its the perfect morning to soak in the magic of it all, isn't it?  

Solid Progress

I started a Noro sweater last last year or early this year, inspired by a Jane Ellison design, with a ribbed top, a deeply scooped neckline and a straight stockinette bottom.  RCY had a sample of the design from Mirasol, and  I knew there was a sister design out there somewhere for Noro, and I always felt that it would work for me, but its size range was no where near in my league.  I am reinterpreting it for me. A straight knockoff for which Ms. Ellison gets full credit for the design, but sadly, I have no way to pay her.  I guess I shall have to buy more Mirasol and support something she cares about instead!

When last you saw my Noro sweater, it was sans sleeves.  In fact, if I think about it, it was probably after my failed first sleeve.  

The first sleeve was huge.  I picked up in every stitch just like one usually does, but that did not work in a most spectacular way.  It almost wrapped around both of my arms!  I suspect this has something to do with the ribbed upper part of the body.

This is try two and it is just about the perfect size.  I am so pleased with its short little sleeveishness.  I really don't need long sleeves on this.  Short suits me and I won't get overheated in this lovely warm yarn.

Sleeve two beckons, but I know what stitch count I need and I am ready to go.  Then all that is left is for me to knit to the very last of the yarn. There will be a little bit of a crochet edging to crisp up the neckline and I will pop hooks and eyes on for closures, and I will finish at least one sweater this year. 

Its time.  That cold overnite air is telling me fall is on its way.  My favourite season.  Sweater weather.

What Speaks to you

There are a series of commercials running here, that intrigue me.  what the commercials are for really doesn't matter, it is the concept of the commercial I find interesting.  They ask one simple question.

What speaks to you?  That one simple question and its myriad of answers.  Out of the context of the commercials of course, but what is it that speaks to you.

A baby's laugh.  A hug from someone you love.  A good ball of yarn. These are the obvious things of course, but the commercials are aimed at getting you to think about it all in a little  bit different way.  They lead you to think about the spaces in between the paint and the canvas and the spaces between notes on a page.

So that is what I am going to think about today.  What speaks to me, today, just in this moment?

Patches of sunlight breaking through the trees deep shade.  The smell of my coffee.  The twist of the yarn I am working with.  The way wool slips along itself as you prepare to spin.  These are the things I am thinking of today.

Study day

There have been a lot of people in and around my house over the last several weeks. It has been busy but these things are done now and quiet has descended.  While they were here, they cleaned corners I no longer remembered having.  There are a few things that I can't find but this doesn't bother me.  They will show up sooner or later.

What it does mean is that my study, which has a door, became a catch all for stuff that had ends that didn't fit.  Like the 3 pillows I made for my kids when they were little.  I still love them, but they really don't have a home.  Or the 3 large quilt batts that did not fit in the quilt batt container.  (What?  everybody doesn't have an overflowing quilt batt container?)  Or the two spinning wheels that usually stand in front of the fireplace. 

No, those you straight out had to hide from your mother because it is hard enough to explain the one that you left sitting out there, much less the other two. 

The study also became catch all because the satellite tv receiver in here isn't working and I was doing my knitting upstairs the last few months.  

Suffice it to say, the study is a pigsty and no where else in my house is. It is time to sort and order.  All that lovely yarn you saw over the last while needs a home and even now that I have this great big house to myself, the yarn must stay in this one space.  I vowed.  Nothing changes that vow. 

Study clean up day! Yay me.  Firefly and Downton Abbey Day to fix that tv problem and yarn.  ** and the most recent Knitmore Girls podcast. What could be better.  

I like a challenge.

**edited to add this.  I just noticed the new one was up.  Funny how weekly just escapes me.

Pondering

I am feeling a strong urge to knit a sweater.  Its been a while since I felt this in any way shape or form.  I think my sweater mojo went awal last winter and I did not see hide nor hare of it till this week.

Seriously, it was the yarn.  Please forgive any fuzzy pictures here.  I am playing with a different camera which I don't know anything about yet.  I did find the books so I hope to resolve that soon.

A few things arrived and well, just looking at them makes my mouth water.

 Two of each to make the two attempts at purples yarns be enough for a sweater for me, because both of them are really quite stunning but are not purple. (The deep blues need to be much more intense and the yellow in the gray and garnet are not there at all. Undertones are everything)

 My best purple pick yet, a stunning purpley gray that is just about perfect for her. No, check that.  It is perfect for her. (Much softer and more purple, but a gray purple.)

And lastly, first try with yarn for Taiga.  I think it will work, I am not 100% sure that it is perfect.  I am going to think on it a bit.  (Richer in life than here.  More rusty and more deep olive green.  Just more intense)

So I will play with this new camera, which stands for my trusty Canon today.  I don't know where the heck I put the trusty Canon but it is about here somewhere.  I think.

and while I think about that, I will think about sweater knitting.  first up a Still light for my daughter in law, and then an Adrift for my soon to be daughter in law out of some marvelously rich Silky Wool in the stash, and then a little something for me. 

Sweater mojo,  welcome home.  how I missed you.

Small Things

I did that which I had to do yesterday and then I knit.  I also napped, which cut into the knitting time, but the day ended in a pretty nice way.

I just finished doing the nifty little bum increases that tickle my fancy so about this pattern.  (If I am lucky, I put them on the backside.  Been there done that on the first pair of Pepita's)

It isn't every pattern that finds this necessary to do, but over diapers, and toddler bums, I think it is the only way to have a good fit and still fit nicely around their sweet tummies. Bum increases rule.

Now I have a little more body knitting, a few short rows and then off to the individual legs, which feel a little like knitting a pair of adult socks, before doing tiny baby feet to finish off this sweet pair of pants.  

It is a while since I posted anything of my Sweet Thing so I give you this.

September

The weekend is done, the company is gone and quiet has descended on my house.  There was only scant knitting but at least there was knitting.

All along, in my head, August 31, marked an ending.  My husbands memorial was on that day, but it marked more.  May and everything before that were ours together.  June and July were lost to illness and sorrow and August was entirely his month.  These are all memories that I will hold close and deep in my heart.

That whole long hard summer is done and it is time to find that new normal that I am sure is out there.  

So this morning, I took the garbage out and made my coffee and now I will sit down to what peace I can find.  There is a shawl knitted by a friend across my shoulders and a small kerchief from the Orient sitting by me on my desk, reminding me that there are wonderful people out there looking for me, caring for me and waiting till I am ready.

 Summer is done.  August is ended and September marks a beginning, not a beginning I wanted, but a beginning none the less.