Socks, socks, socks!

Now, this is what I like to see.  A finished object!

I love that about socks.  They are small and a finished object is never really very far away.  This pair is made up of Jawoll cotton, wool and nylon blends in lovely denim heathered tones.  I thought I was knitting pretty randomly, just grabbing whilly nilly, but my wildest willy nilly ended up giving me some that are oddly well matched.  Maybe my willy isn't so nilly?  

Otherwise it is packing packing packing.  The corners are starting to look empty, which unfortunately means that the center is starting to look very full.  There are boxes and boxes on boxes and it is getting hard to navigate around it all.

It is really odd, this moving with a soft deadline day.  Usually when you move, you have a hard deadline, a single day where all the stuff has to be gone and you only look forward.  I am good at that kind of move.  I am not so sure how I am at this kind of move where there is a lot of stuff you have to deal with after the fact.  This move is more of a squidgey move, a soft end move.  The house needs my stuff out to renovate and by having a place to go to,  I save myself the work of taking it to a storage unit, and then moving it again, after the house is sold. 

There is plenty of work to do here yet.  There are some closets to clean out upstairs, There are cupboards in the laundry that need a little work.  There is an entire garage filled with oh so very much stuff that it makes my eyes want to cross.  

I'm kind of thinking of this move, like knitting a pair of socks.  It is a smaller move, the move I can get my head wrapped around.  There is a neat and tidy end and a quick finish.  Almost instant gratification.  

The rest of this move, the large part that hasn't happened yet, and won't until this house is sold, that part?  It feels a like knitting a king sized bed blanket that reaches to the floor on all sides. For one of those ultra high beds you need a step to get into, no less.  It feels as if it will never really end, as if I will never really get through it all to that last bound off stitch.

If I don't post these next few days, it means I don't have an internet connection at my new home, or that my computer isn't set up, or that after this part is done, I am just too pooped to party.  I keep focusing on how nice it will be to have a quiet place to hide in, while I go through the rest of the house.        

It might be a while till I do much more than bits and ends sock knitting but c'est le vie.  Just like that final box is a ways from being packed, I'm not quite ready for new sock yarn yet.   

But I will be.  

That Knitting Back Thing

I'm working on that little baby blanket.  Progress is slow but there is progress.

Large squares of colour, a simple 3 x 3 pattern.  Perfect for my sweet little boy.  And warm because he is always just a little chilly and he quite clearly makes it known.  For a little guy, he has a big strong voice.  

I have kept to my intention of using this piece to become competent at knitting back and I am pleased to report that I am getting better at it.  

Both pictures show some rowing out as I struggle to get my hands to understand tension when knitting this way, but as you can see, it is getting better and my knitting is becoming more even.  The top photo is the start of the blanket, and this second, the more recent knitting.  

There are times when my hands just do the knitting back thing on their own and the knitting is smooth and pretty darn fine, if I do say so myself.  Then I realise that my hands have taken over and know what to do. That is when I have a sloppy row, till my head falls into that zone again.  Knitting equals letting go of conscious effort and accepting whatever happens!

It is a blanket and all my Wee Peanut will know is that Grandma knit him something to stay warm.  He is not going to care about perfection just yet.

Tons of things to do and some serious packing required.  I need more boxes and some tape.  Then I need to head to the lawyers to do the closing stuff, and I have to go talk to my realtor about the farm. (Good things are happening there, pending, pending, pending). 

All in all I am looking forward to a busy weekend and I am going to find a way to squeeze in just a little knitting.  I hope to finish that sock and squeak in a little backwards knitting.  Just enough to keep me sane.   

It's a Number Thing

I did make it to Wednesday Night Knitting yesterday.  I miss everybody so much when I can't go.  It was so great to see everyone again, and to meet a new to me knitter.

I have known her from Ravelry for a while now.  Known might be overstating the case, but I have been an admirer.  She did her Master's in Europe on textiles and I just think that old textiles or new, that is a field that would be captivating. She was taking a few books of mine on wildflower gardening. and it was so nice to meet a new knitter.  

Another newer to the group knitter just finished her first pair of socks.  And you all know how I feel about socks.  She said she made an error on the heel.  She picked up 12 on the heel flaps instead of the patterns 11, but figured that she would just work an extra decrease and nobody would know.  Some people can't go there.  They have to follow the pattern to a T, but this girl?  My kind of knitter!

Otherwise I knit on my socks.  It is easy and convenient and as ever, it fits in my purse.  So much else has been packed away.  I have to admit.  It's making me nuts.

These denimy, heathered blues and greens and oranges.  I can't tell them apart!  I seem to be working with beginnings and endings just about as coordinated as you could possibly have in a scrappy sock.  There is a section in the blues where what you think is a yarn change is, isn't. No....The yarn change is just a little somewhere else and you really have to look hard for it.  

This would all be well and good, but up till now these 7 rows changes have been easy and almost intuitive.  I could judge the by eyeballing it, and usually came out right.  Eyeballing it isn't working.  

I have to keep a very close tabs on where the beginning of a row is or the count could be way off.  I am pretty sure that there are some 8s and maybe even some 9's in there.  I only hope they are balanced by a few 5s and 6s.

Its making me nuts I tell you.  Batty as all get out. Its a number thing.

A few rounds on a sock

A few rounds on a sock are all that I am getting done right now.  I really hate that, but it is what it is.

I just have to keep my sights set on the end of May.  By then the worst of all the cleaning, the putzing the sorting through ought to be done.

Come the end of May.  I keep telling myself it isn't that far.

Strawberry Creek

I really ought to say a few things about the Strawberry Creek knitting retreat.  It isn't very expensive which is why the rest of us keep going back.  It was great that we had some new people this year, but it is really nice that we have the same faces too.  

Strawberry Creek lodge is a place for all kinds of retreats.  We just had one lady who knew about it and did the organizing and continues to do so.  It isn't anything fancy, no classes, just eat and knit surrounded by good company.  The whole weekend costs well under 300 dollars.  

My personal special event is an honest to goodness Saturday afternoon nap under the covers in my bed.  It is the best sleep I ever get!  Some of the ladies walk and some do yoga, but there is nothing formal.  That is very much part of what keeps the costs low.

I think the hardest part of get away retreats like this is just finding someone who doesn't mind doing the organizing and who knows of a good place to go.  After that it is just getting the right number of people to come to keep the cost low.  For our location, if we doubled all the rooms, the costs would be much much less per person and we have been lucky that right from the start, we have had interested people who paid in a timely manner and that makes any organizers job much more fun.

The kudos for our little retreat go to FrazzeledKnitter  Who does a fantastic job for absolutely nothing.  How do you say thank you to a friend who does that for you?  

That is what I have to work on.  A nice little thank you. 

Coming home.

If you get the chance, you really ought to go on a knitting retreat.  Retreats were something women of my mothers generation did, and I think they really did it just to get away from the kids for a while, to rest and think and have someone else cook for them.  Of course in my mom's time a retreat was to a religious House of Retreat.  No matter, the fashion for retreats went out and now people crave holidays far to the south in warmer climes to make it through our winters. But if you can't do that far trip, and maybe even if you can, you really ought to try getting away with a group of people who love what you love.   

Strawberry Creek was lovely, the company was fine and the food...oh my the food.  We are fed so very very well there.  We went for the knitting, we keep going back for the food.!  And the knitting!

And after that, I stopped to visit my favourite new wee peanut and to play with My Big Guy too.  Gosh darn it I love my grandkids.  

Then when I got home, there were pretty things waiting for me.

 I ordered some rich deep purple Smooshy for another baby Pepita for my Wee Peanut.  It is impossibly deep coloured and rich, oh so kingly and rich.  And there is just no way to take a photo of it that does it justice.  Nothing captures is truly dark deep intensity.  So sadly, this is as good as it gets.  Amethyst Ink and it really is a deep purple inky rich colour.

And then there was an accident of silk. 

 I cannot seem to capture the true depth of the colours that seem to land at my door.  When you have an accident of silk, you really must try to have an accident of red.  Sigh.  Just so perfect. Not at all the cerise leaning colour that shows up here.  Bright cheery cherry.

Now isn't that a nice way to finish off a particularly lovely weekend?  Inky Amethyst and an accident of silk?  Works for me.

A long time ago and far far away

A long time ago and far far away I started a hemlock Ring blanket.

It is really lovely, but I am getting to the part where it is the long slog.  It isn't nearly big enough and I have only two pattern rows till I am at the size the pattern was designed for.  

My yarn is a little finer than the Cascade Ecological Wool that the pattern was designed with. If I was a betting woman, I would bet it is a match for a regular Cascade 220.  Others might swatch, but I am a heartier sort and it is a blanket.  Lighter yarn just means more rows.

This project was hanging behind the door.  Its massive sized yarn ball (I will never get to the end of this yarn) meant it was always in the way, and the seat behind the door was the only place it had room to sit.  However, behind a door is not a good place if you plan to finish a thing.  Behind a door, is, I think, worse than 'at the back of the closet'.  Things can go missing behind the door.

Now that all the other projects are packed away till the move, now that only the sock of bits and the scarf to blanket project for my wee one and this project remain easily accessible, this is getting knit on.  

I do it right before bedtime, at the edge of my bed, sitting there as I decide what to watch on my portable dvd.  Without any effort at all, I do a row an evening.  Or almost a row.    

That wee bit of knitting just before I lay down to sleep has been the best part of my days this week.  It feels special and just a little secret and private.  It could be the kid playing hooky analogy, but this feels more like when that kid has a special hidey hole for that secret special thing he has, and he only takes it out to look at when he is absolutely certain he is alone and no one will see.  

He being he/she of course and yes in my vision he/she is wearing overalls to go with the hayloft.

Anyway, off I go to Strawberry Creek, and some lovely company.  I wish you a weekend as fine as mine.

It's that time of year

It is the time of year when I am off to the small retreat at Strawberry Creek.  

I have my knitting organized, I think.  The yarn for the blanket and a bag of bits for socks.  

This is going to be the smallest bag I have ever gone with.  I cannot take any books.  They are all packed.  I cannot share any yarns.  Packed.  Needles or other interesting things.  As of yesterday, packed.  I cannot take even take any fleece parts to share.  It is all packing.  (around my breakable goodies like my music boxes.)

I feel a little like a kid who is sneaking up to the hayloft to read on a warm summer afternoon without finishing his chores.  

There is so much left to do here and I am running out of weekends to get it all done.  I don't particularly like this soft end fuzzy stuff.  It is much easier to do when you can do it all at once, and clear it all at once.  Heck, there are a bunch of things I cannot even reach without getting some stuff out of here!

All in good time I suppose and this weekend, I will be slinking away, off to the rest and relaxation of Strawberry Creek and some good knitting.  

I think it is working

I made an executive decision and started something new, just like I said I was going to.

But it is not going to be stripes.  I am opting for squares so that it feels like I am working on a scarf.  There will be a cream border around the edges, though If I go and get some more yarn, the border will be blue.  The debate rages on whether I will work it together or leave it in strips to be sewn together.  A good case can be made for both techniques.

I am using this as the perfect opportunity to sort out my knitting back technique. It is going well, though it is going to be a while till I learn how to sort out gauge.  There are a few loose rows there at the start, oddly enough from knit rows, but that is sorting itself out.  If I focus on keeping my usual tension on the knit side and then just work back focusing on keeping the tension even across the row, it looks just fine.  I do seem to have a tendency to start the knit back row nicely and tighten up as I near the end of it, but like I say a little slow and a little focus and it seems to be settling down.

   It really does relieve the hand stress and I focus on keeping everything nice and loose.  After a whole square, my sore hand still feels normal.  

I just have to re-learn how to knit without the stress.  Who knew?

  

And sock done

And time to move on.  I have started the toe of the next one, but my thoughts are past this and are hungry for something different.

I have in mind to knit a blanket.  Something sweet for my wee peanut.  Something that can be washed and worn and tossed about through the spring.  Something that baby can use through these early days and weeks without excessive bundling, that will carry him through his little boy days.  Spring is a season when you can easily have too many layers but you still need something to snug around you.  In truth, even summer nights in Canada require a nice warm blanket most of the time.  

I have a chunky wool on hand, a superwash called Inca from Fibranatura.

I bought this thinking spring blanket for baby.  I admit to being beguiled by the blue.  It isn't a royal sort of blue, more that chalky blue from your pencil crayon set, the one that got used less than almost any other blue.  Not pastel at all, but something more of earth and I like that.

Part of me worries about it being too heavy for a spring blanket and wants cotton, but there are no cottons in my stash in this blue and this blue is what I want.  Just a simple stockinette knit a just a little relaxed ought to be as spring like as anything.  

It is time to knit something a little relaxed.  Everything I am knitting feels so firm, or rather my grip on the needles is so tight that the whole experience of knitting it feels tense.  I know that this is just the point I am at, this few last days between home and something new, or is it a new home and someplace old?  Limbo, perhaps, but there is a tension running through things and I desperately need to knit.  

So onward to a blanket for my new peanut.  A great project to be getting on with and a bit of a break from socks that make me knit too much.

Will you look at that

Well, will you look at that.

Actual knitting.  Not tons of knitting, but a respectable amount of knitting.  This is another of the 7 row bits socks and to be honest, it was a little too much knitting.  Not way too much, but I am going to have to take it easy this week.  It is just at the 'I can feel it' point.

It was tremendously hard to put down.  Its beguiling, these 7 row stripes.  Don't they blend nicely on these yarns?  It's completely fascinating to watch them being knit up.  Its almost like working with Noro!

There are 3 different colours of the same yarn brand, all Jawoll sock, all a cotton wool and nylon blend.  The really interestng thing is that sometimes where you think the colour changes are, when looking at the photo, they aren't.  There are places and times when I have had a bugger of a time sorting out when the next change needed to be. 

I took some time out and went on a fantastic winter picnic with my grandson Isaac.  he took me to subway and told me exactly what sandwich was the best in all the world.  Ham, cheese, olives, pickles, sub sauce and mayonnaise on white.  Seriously he wasn't far wrong, though he did allow me to substitute whole grain bread and it might have been improved by a little bit of bacon but I digress.  It was a pretty darn good sandwich and the company and cookies and the weather was divine.  The view of the river and the picnic table melted right out of the snow weren't so bad either.

There is also this:

Blog, meet Carter.   Carter, meet blog.  He is pretty darn cute and one of these days he is going to have his eyes open when grandma comes. Right now, it seems to be just too darn much trouble for a guy who needs his sleep.  Up to then, he did have a pretty big week for such a little fella!

Anyway, life is good, things are sweet and there was knitting.  What more could one ask for?

Arrivals

The other morning very early in the day, I met a young man for the firs time.

His name is B. Carter Edward and he weighed in 8 pounds 11 ounces, which considering he is a good 2 weeks and a couple of days early, is hefty.  His big brother is pretty darn proud of him, but was pretty happy that gran brought a stuffie for him, that matched his little brother's!

He looks so like his Great Uncle Lionel that it is uncanny.  I have a picture of Lionel when he was about 4 and it was as if I was peering right into his little boy face.  He has his momma's mouth though, so it is a complete crapshoot who he will eventually look like.  I suspect that he will look like Carter, just himself, as all kids do.     

You will notice the lack of photos.  Grandmas camera is still in transit because she left it at the hospital when she went to see him!  It is in somebody's truck or other on its way back home or so I am told.  

But my newest peanut in the bunch has arrived and I am just pleased as punch.  There will be some serious grandma-ing to do this weekend. Wahoo!

Testing

Yesterday, finally managed to make it to my knitting group on Wednesday evening.  I really hate when life gets in the way of Wednesday.  My goal for the future is to make more often!

I was working on whatever kntting was to hand.  Right now that means Monster socks/ Bits and pieces socks.  After finishing up a pair the other day, it was time to start another toe.

That teeny tiny start of a toe is what came to knitting.  Almost everyone had to ask what I was working on that was so small.  I guess I normally take socks when they are just a little farther along.  Perhaps it is that it takes so little time to get the start of a sock farther along.  In any case it was a little new to most of them.  So, if you are not familiar with a garter square sock toe, tada!

This is what it looks like.  A proto sock.

16 stitches by 16 garter ridges and then pick up the same number of stitches along each side.  Easiest thing in the world in garter stitch.  Just divide the number of stitches you need for your foot by 4 and start with that many stitches for your next pair of socks.

I first read about this interesting toe from Lucy Neatby or Cat Bordhi.  I can't remember which, but it has become the only toe I really knit anymore.  it is comfortable for everyone, and fits my stubby toes in a way that no other toe quite gets as right.

Once you have picked up the stitches, you just knit in the round and before you know it the tube of your sock foot is forming.

This sock is yet another in my long line of monsters.  it is going to be yet another of the 7 row variety.  That number just works for me.  7 rounds and switch. I can't wait to see what these come out like. 

Awwwww

Just a quick post this morning.  I didn't really have anything planned and did not have much to say and then I saw this:

http://www.jacquielawson.com/premiere?page=yarn&source=jl220

No, you really do have to click that link.  Really.  Sometimes you just have to trust me.  

There just isn't a lot to say after that.  Except that there is a puzzle too! Aww neat.

The most amazing thing

Yesterday I did the most amazing thing.

I did just as I planned.  That in itself is pretty darn amazing but it is even better than that.  I knit on the black sweater and managed just a little more than I thought I would because of that most amazing thing.  

I knit backwards, and I knit back so effortlessly that I could hardly believe my eyes and hands and ears!

Do you recall a few weeks ago, I was working though the video Knit Free-Sole Socks with Anna Zilboorg?  As I worked through that video, she was talking about knitting back across the sock rather than turning and purling back as you normally would. It was just a sort of casual comment and not at all what she thought she would teach in that video, but it sure is the lesson I took out of it.  I am not even sure I could find that spot on the video again. I have no idea what the exact words were that she said.  What I do know is that I heard something and saw something in that exact moment that just made everything crystal clear. 

I love those aha moments. 

I got the part about knitting the socks too, well most of it anyway, but to be honest, it was a little hard to focus on the socks after the knitting backwards part that was so life changing.  

Perhaps it is because Ann Zilboorg knits the same style I do, that her way of framing the words, and her way of thinking of what her hands are doing and where her yarn is, changed the way I look at it.  Perhaps it was that my mind was just a wee bit more open that day, that it was searching for a new understanding and and filled with the need to stretch the boundaries of what it knew.  Whatever it was, it really was knitting life changing. 

I worked back across a row that I would have normally purled, from the knit side, and I did it without having to think hard about it.  I knit across that row without needing to constantly stay on top of what I was doing, without needing to watch my hands through every motion.  I have no doubt that there will come a time when knitting back across the rows will be as fast as purling and I think it possible that knitting backwards could become just as fast as my knit rows are with consistent use of the technique.

Plus it was kind of a relief not to have to flop that almost complete sweater about and turn it inside out for the way back.

The biggest benefit is that knitting backwards puts entirely different demands on my hands.  I was able to knit 2 rows farther on my sweater than I planned without any stress whatsoever.  If I can do that even a few days in a row, it won't matter that my knitting is composed of very small steps and few rows.  Slow and steady does get it done.

I have wanted to really understand knitting back since I first saw it done and now I know and I do.  I love when that happens!

And a finished thing!

I finally managed to come to the end of the sock yesterday.  I am so thrilled.

I don't know about anybody else, but finishing things is a really important part of my knitting.  I know that some people are deep into the technique and don't really find that finishing a pair of socks is a big deal.  It is the making of one and the way you get there that is the bigger part of the experience.  

I love that part of the path, but I must have a finished object at the end.  Particularly with socks.  I like knitting them.  I love wearing socks in general and beyond a doubt, I am enjoying wearing these socks from bits and ends a lot.

Tickles the fancy of my inner cheapskate!

I am still in love with the idea of knitting from the bag of bits and pieces too. I seem to have displaced the bag somewhere or other.  If I could have found it yesterday, I would have started the toe of the next sock. 

There is just a little time to knit before it is time to check in to work for the day so I am off.  This morning I am going to focus on the black sweater.  A few more rows to make it longer, and then a bit of a steek to deal with the excess width and finally, a zipper to install.

Maybe one more finished object before the yarn finds a new home? If not, then finishing here with a sock seems just about right. 

What I have been up to

It has been a very busy week.  New job starting, home search ending.  Yes, that is what I have been up to this week and I am very happy to say it is done.

 Yes it is a modular home.  In a modular park.  I know that there is a stigma that hangs over these homes and I just want to say there shouldn't be.  This is the view out my back.

 Seriously, how can you not fall for that.  Just open the gate and I am in the park.  There is a bridge across the water to the side where the kids playground is.  What grandma wouldn't fall for this feature?

It is bright and sunny and the way it is situated, towards the front of my small lot, the early morning sunlight will be mine.  It is airy and light and feels like a place I can come home to at the end of a day and be happy to see.   

It is not so many months ago, that my goal for life was to never ever have to go to the city ever again (unless it was for yarn).  Oh so suddenly everything changed, and I was looking at condos and townhomes and small houses on streets with barely a garden at all, tunnels to someone so used to open spaces like me. City was just not my dream.

Here, I am outside of town and just a little bit separate from the rush and fuss, in a small community of about 1500 souls, only 3 minutes away from all the big stuff I could ever want and only 10 minutes, one in either direction, from two  yarn stores.  I will be 20 and 25 minutes from my kids which is more than I can say now.

I still have a tiny bit of a yard, and I can, if I choose, have a small bit of garden and flowers to surround me.  I can still have a slip of lilac from Pete's old border (a childhood neighbour) and I have a lovely deck to sit on the sun in the mornings and shade in the afternoons to sit and sip tea and read and knit .

Yes, I still have to shovel snow. My dining area is smaller than I would like, but perfection is really overrated and well do I know you can't have everything.  I choose the sunlight and open air and I am good with that.

Its been busy and will be busier as the possession date grows nearer, but I am so looking forward to it and feel energized and very very good.  

I can feel it

I knit a measly 2 rounds on my socks yesterday. 

My hand ought to heal fast with so little knitting.  Or would, if I could stop using the computer mouse.  To make sure it does heal, I am going to start using the brace I used last summer when my hand was bothering me when I am at the computer.

My lack of knitting is really starting to hit me.  I get tetchy.  Yup. Irritably peevish or sensitive.  Tetchy.  What a great word.

It really does describe that feeling when your whole body is ready to explode with the need to knit.  It won't though so you have to focus on behaving in a manner that is acceptable in whatever polite society one might find oneself in.  

Until then cool stuff other people have found will have to do.  A friend of mine linked to this little treat from Ravelry.

The Big Bang Theory from Allison Hoffman on Ravelry.  Because seriously you must.  

For all those other little things, Allison is your go to girl as well.  Dr. Who, anyone?  

Well, it thrills this closet geeks heart, anyway.  Sigh. The only thing I need now is more hours in the day and a hand that is sound and healed.

Unhappiness plucked

This is going to be a thing post.  Not a happy thing, but it ends much nicer than it begins.  Just a warning should you not need this sort of thing in your day.

I am not going to be fun this morning and I am not even going to pretend that I am.  I just spent 8 hours with the most negative person I have ever met.  

The last two evenings I was supposed to be learning the ins and outs and quirks of my new job. What I was doing was sitting, waiting in a deeply, fundamentally, cigarette smoke infused room, while things that ought to have been done months ago, were being done.  Two nights in a row, I did not get home till 10:30 p.m. , when all that should have been needed was a quick couple of hours to update me on where things were now, to have her email everything to me, pack up the documents, and said 'sayonara'.

So today, my goal is to be done with the negativity from that experience, and to wash my sweater, shawl, and clothing to rid it of any lingering fumes (and trust me, there are lingering fumes) and to see what treasures I can pluck from my own brand of unhappiness. 

I have always thought that there is something to be learned from everything we encounter in our lives.  I suspect my lesson here is going to be about the fundamental difference between the deep and forever sorrow my world is filled with, which is a negativity of loss and subtraction of a deeply beautiful and important soul, in my life, and the depressing negativity I have been so recently surrounded with, which is an attitude.

Really, for a lesson, it isn't such a bad thing, I suppose.  Clarifying that lesson, has in fact, been very positive.  Understanding the lesson seems to have set my head back on my shoulders the right way and everything feels just a little brighter.  That little bit brighter is a treasure indeed. Unhappiness plucked indeed!

 

The Secrets of the Big Red Mass

Since the middle of February, there has been a red mass sitting at the side of my chair.  

The red mass is a proto-sweater, the earliest form of a sweater, a sweater so new, so burgeoning into life that it doesn't really know what it is going to be except that it will be.

It keeps its secrets and holds them close to its chest

like the faux seams at the sides, faux seams that are just a simple single purl stitch there among all the rest.

Like the wide section where it isn't sure what it wants to do, 

but we sure had better be prepared to steek it here, in order to get rid of it.

Like the glory of its just a little fancy cable,

Or the deep, dark, gaping maw of its greatest sin.

Or the simplicity and beauty of its plain jane stockinette

that allows the heart of the woolen spun Briggs and Little to shine through.

There is a mass of red sitting beside my chair and and it waits quietly but hungrily waiting to be knit.  My hands are not quite ready yet, but soon.  Each day it is a little better.  Soon, I can work on it again.

For now I will content myself with the sock and the plain black sweater, which is easy, no thinking knitting.

PS: if the blog suddenly goes dark for a day or two, don't worry.  I am going to be a grandma again soon, and though it is a couple, as in three weeks early, the indicators might be indicating...or it might be a false alarm.  In any case, it is high time to the hunt for delicious baby yarn for another wee Pepita !

A world filled with other things

It has been such a busy weekend.  So many things were packed and cleared up and sorted and gone through.  I have a pile of new boxes that I am going to have to address and move aside if I want to be able to move around in my living space.

But I also found my way to a little knitting.  Early in the morning Sunday I did one stripe on my most recent sock. Late in the afternoon, I did another.  A bonus stripe or perhaps a sign that my hands are slowly healing.  For all that this not much knitting is making me nuts, I am getting other stuff done and that is a big plus.

 That long slow process of only knitting one stripe a day and no more or knitting a couple rows on the sweater and no more, means progress on knitting things is slow but steady.

Two weeks ago, the socks looked like this

And today they look like this.

5 days of knitting.  sigh.  Ah well.  The only person I can complain to about this is me.  Done to myself and I knew better.  I was under the haze of knitting but I still knew better.

I am almost to the last of the 3 taupe stripes so it isn't far now to the end of this sock and that is good enough for now.

There will be errands all day today, filling wee bits of time between this early morning and the late at night.  But mostly, there will be work.  It is good to be getting back to work.