What do people who don't knit do?

No seriously.  I am struggling with this this week.  I did not knit a stitch this weekend other than 2 rows on that very light lace and my hand is feeling quite a bit better.  I am going to stay off knitting for a couple more days and with a little luck, whatever is bugging my hand will resolve itself.  

It isn't a lot of fun, and it isn't easy, but it is here and that is that.  I had to watch TV and not knit.  I don't think I ever just watched a show.  Well, not much anyway.  I always had books, or something in my hand to do, embroidery, lacework, sewing besides TV watching.  If this goies on much longer, I will have redeveloped the art.

I was driving myself batty, so I decided to wind yarn.  It is something I can set up to do using only my left hand.  And wind I did.    

 

Yarn for a very pretty sweater I am obsessing over.  That isn't quite done, being at the end of my winding.  I still have 7 skeins left to go.

I also wound up yarn for a project I need to finish before Christmas.

I know when I bought it , it was to be a cowl, but I honestly think it may be fingerless gloves, with a mitten top for when it is cold.  I'm not a hundred percent sure of the honeygold brown, but it is striking.  If it is the right yarn for with the rich greens, time will tell. 

And then one for me, just for fun.  First Point of Libra by Laura Aylor.   

 

Rich Warm greys in River City Yarns Semi Solid Series and a gorgeous gradient set form Sweet Georgia's Tough Love Sock in the Wildfire gradient.  I am so looking forward to knitting the shawl.  I love this gradient to bits.

I tried doing some spinning, and I tried some embroidery, and thought about weaving, but all of these things are going to stress the exact same part of my hand.  All my things will have to wait.

But mostly today, I am just tired.  My sweet Marcus and Cassie were here and Marcus had trouble going to sleep and staying asleep.  He started getting lonely for mommy and daddy and Daisy Kitty, and all the rest of his Paw Patrol friends (He only had his Chase stuffie with him).  He would doze off and then jerk awake and so on.  Till 3 in the morning.  It was a back to work day after a weekend, so I had to keep Marcus quiet, so Marcus and I danced around going to sleep until I told him he could do whatever he wanted to, but he couldn't get off my bed.  He was disgusted with me and flopped on his back with great drama, and then in the space of a heartbeat, fell soundly asleep.  I tucked him in and slept very soundly myself till 6 a.m.  When he woke up. 

 So today, instead of anything else, I am having a nap.  A really good nap.

My Morning Prayers

Sometimes knitting is ugly.

Not ugly looking, but looking ugly.  The product is beautiful.  Maybe.  I hope.  But the work getting there is ugly.

This second shawl that I want to send to Kyiv is my Bridgewater Shawl.  There was a problem on one side of the shawl on the lace border and it has been in a time out for months.  Since December of 2016 according to Ravelry.  Ewwww.  

It's a fairly simple lace pattern and the error is on a series of 8 stitches that were fairly simple to isolate between points within the repeat.  My mantra is I think I can, I think I can.

There is a lot of prayer involved with lace knitting repairs.  It is the down and dirty of knitting.  You have two choices when there is an error from a dropped stitch in lace and it has dropped rows and rows below.  You can pull the whole darn thing back to before the error, or you can tough it out and repair only what needs repair.  In lace, that can sometimes mean a lot of stitches and that is why I call it the ugly of knitting.  

You dropped one stitch.  But that one stitch might affect a whole section of lace, and sometimes two.  And then, if you don't get all of the stitches in the section you need to repair picked back up...double ewwww.  Luckily, this pattern is a nice traditional Shetland pattern.  It has a row of plain knits between pattern rows.  My goal when I try to repair a pattern like this is to always drop and start my repair knitting on that rest row.  That means there are no yarn overs to worry about, no decreases or increases or other stitch manipulation.  The goal is to make sure that I have only plain stitches.    

The thing that makes is all so difficult is that in the time that the stitches have been sitting like this, and even as a function of dropping the stitches below the error to repair it, the yarn of each row involved in the dropping pulls the other stitches oddly out of place.  You end up with way too much yarn in the dropped section and other stitches alongside are pulled into tight little wads of something that looks a lot like trouble.  All you can do is hope that when you have made the repair, that the stitches will sort themselves out and smooth out with the yarn as it  eases back into its proper tension within each of the stitches and that all the stitches that are supposed to be there, are there and the design of the pattern looks exactly as if you had never had a problem.  That is how it is supposed to work.  

A whole lot of prayer in knitting.  Light a candle for me.  

The Bottom of the Bag

I use a big beer cooler bag for all my spinning stuff when I go out and about.  

It's the blue Kokanee one in this photo actually.  (Boy does this photo go back a long way.  These housed my entire stash circa 2008 or 09. )  The bag works well because it is shaped very differently than my handbag and there are lots of different ways to carry it.  It can also fit a house - almost.  It's padded and water proof too.  

It's been a while since I dug to the bottom of it.  I was looking for something and decided that while I was at it, I might as well give it a good clean and wipe it out too.  

I found some missing dpn's and a book I had forgotten, but the neatest thing at the very bottom of the bag was this.  

These are the little bits of trimmings from adding new yarn, or a small break, or a glitch and a few other clumps for good measure. 

Isn't it just the sweetest little thing?  I am charmed by it somehow.

I debated about keeping it, but seriously, other than stuffing for a kitty pillow (not going to happen) I can't imagine what for.  

Confirmation that I am not crazy.  At least right now.

And Then it is Done

You know how on a big project, you work and work and work and it goes on and on and on and

then all of a sudden there is one stitch left.

Yeah.

It is done.  I might go back and re-do the kitchener at the join of the edging.  It was going along ok, and then all of a sudden it didn't match.  No idea what is up with that and I know I can do better, but for now, the whole project is a win.  I think I will do it again, after blocking it.  Easier to see if I miss something, methinks.

As you see, without blocking it is the size of my sofa.  It is pretty good as is, but with a nice gentle blocking I expect it will gain 6 to 8 inches in width and breadth, and that will make it just perfect.

I used much more of the 5th skein that I thought I would.

Over half for sure.  I am so glad I had extra sheeps grey on hand.

There is always a lull when a big project is finished, and this project is no exception.  It has been almost all I worked on all fall. It feels a little lonely without it.

Still, I dug out the other shawl that is going to Kyiv and it is ready to be worked on. 

 
There isn't much left of the border lace to knit, and the edging is narrow and fairly simple.  Today's knitting is going to be about getting the error repaired or pulling back to just before the error.  One good try and a plan if I can't get it.

Sensing a Theme

A while ago, I did an order from Iceland for some Einband.  I felt it would be the perfect yarn for a shawl that captivates me, the Courant.  I choose the colours a colour cards for Einband.  That deep rich teal and that mustardy acid green.  I adore the combination.  

I found that same combination last time I was in Saskatoon at Prairie Lily, this time in a light delicate Fine Silk from Rowan.  No idea what I will use it for but I sure do love the yarn.

So, when I went to Edmonton's newest yarn store, The Fibre Nook,  for the first time, and saw from across the room, that self same acid green and just below it, 2 different shades of teal, you know where I went. 

The yarn is Highlander from Diamond Yarns Diamond Luxury line.   I think it is going to be a great colour work yarn.  It feels as if it has just the right grabbiness for easy stranding. 

It's a lovely little store, with a current focus on hand dyes.  There is a little something for everyone, for sock knitters, a good kids line up of yarns, my favourite Pima Lino Lace, a good basic worsted, and some really lovely and rarely seen pure mohair,  Pure Superkid Mohair from Diamond Luxury.  It was very very hard to leave this stuff behind.  The colours and sheen were so striking.  The substance of it in hand.  There is something unique about pure mohair yarns. It is richness in every way.  Next time.

And that is how you know a yarn store strikes the right notes with you.  When before you leave you are planning your next trip and the one after that.  It was a lovely pit stop and I really wish them well. 

Edmonton was down to just one store, with one other full yarn store in the metro area, and seriously, this many knitters, 2 is hardly enough.  There are a few other shops out there that do carry some yarn, but only these two that are dedicated to it. There are so many lines of yarn out there and so many many knitters.  We sure could use a broader exposure to more of the market.  No one store can do it all.

Not a Knitting Day

I did not knit a stitch today.  I feel as if I ought to go and get a sock and do a little something knitterly before bed.  And I just might.  

But I was busy busy busy all day.

I think I mentioned my bargain flannelette?    I am pretty sure I did.  4 dollars a metre and really nice and thick for

sleeping or lounging pants for all comers.  The fabric is washed and is ready to go.  The pattern arrived today which is why this is out again.  Just reading and hoping I have enough to make quick work of laying it all out.  I chickened out from trying to make my own patterns.  This is so much easier and there are so many pants to sew.

If the pants go well, there will be time for some large sturdy aprons.  I want to make a couple for each household.  All the guys around here cook and I know that the girls will love to have some styled just like the big white ones that you find in commercial kitchens. I have a couple of those old commercial kind for a pattern and, if the first few turn out really bad, I will get some new aprons too.  Or if I am really really good and all goes particularly well, I might treat me too!

They are all going to be the same, or very close to it. Black edge trim from the masses of black linen I have on hand.   This has got to be washed yet, which is going to be a big job.

And tea towels.  Good Old fashioned tea towels.    That is what I was working on today.  

A few years ago, Olga brought back a mass of linen from her trip to Kiev with the kids.    

 It is really good quality linen and will wear like iron.  From what she told me, these linen lengths come from roller towel holders. 

From each length but for the blue, I made four decent sized towels.  The blue, is sadly, too short for anything more than perhaps a towel and a bread cloth.  Hey, that is an idea!  Bread cloths.  I can get three for sure out of it!

Well before lunch I had a large pile of sewing ready to go.  Towels and the curtains that were cut out about 3 weeks ago layered over some mending.  It was getting to be a big pile.

And then by late afternoon, I have cafe curtains hung in my living room (no more ugly mint green blinds!) and masses of tea towels hemmed and waiting.

 I think I hemmed a mile today, straight seams on very nice fabric.  

Next up, the  pièce de résistance, some happy little birds and flowers embroidered at one end of the tea towels.  That is the treat for me.  I get to do some modern quirky little embroidery motifs to create something new with a bit of old fashioned flair.  

This embroidery won't take long and will be a nice in between project. One towel here and there and pretty soon the pile will be done.  I hope.

Spinning today and then home to finish up the lace, I think.  My hand is well rested and is oh so ready to knit.

Not Quite My Target

Try as I might, I did not get as far as I hoped to on my lace.  

I knit my heart out on Saturday and made it round the corner.  Sunday I knit till I just couldn't knit anymore.  

There are about two and a half repeats of lace left to go before the corner and then one repeat for the corner and the graft.  So I am close, so close.  Sigh

But not done.  Oh well, it will happen today.  Or tomorrow.  My hand, which seemed to be healing wonderfully well, flared up and is a little tender again.  I'm pretty sure it isn't the lace doing it.  Working the lace always seems to make my hand feel better as if the muscles are excercized in just the right way.  I am starting to wonder if the pain comes from more than just a computer keyboard that is far too high.  I wonder if the tea cozies weren't exacerbating it.

The tea cozies were done with a Addi Short Lace tips, 4.5 mm and the shortest cable in the set.  It makes a 16 inch needle.  At that number of stitches, it was a little tight, but it was much better than working with a slightly longer cord and having too few stitches. Still, it was knitting that was onlly good for here and there knitting.  Saturday mornings finishing Tea Five, probably made things flare up.  I had a lot of fun getting rid of that bag of yarn but I do not like what it may have cost me.  If I do a big chunk of small diameter knitting again, I am sticking to dpns.

One other distressing thing about this lovely shawl.  

I had to start ball 5 just after I turned corner to the fourth and final side.  I have used a distressingly large amount of yarn working down the side, a little more than one quarter of the ball. By the time I am done, I will be close, but not quite to using up half this fifth skein.

Which is a bit of a bugger because I was going to make another just like this for me. I really don't want to buy more yarn but there is one possible option, a fall back if you will, that, if I am lucky, I could get away with on my own version.  I have one single skein of Durasport in the same colour.  Its close enough that sitting side by side, I can't see the difference, but I won't really know till I start knitting a swatch.  And, I am not 100 percent sure that it would perform the same in a shawl.  It may be that I have to switch my colours around and it may be that my dream shawl will become a sweater.  That is not a bad thought at all.

Time will tell, and it will be fun contemplating in the mean time.   

Come Saturday Morning

Saturday mornings are tea cozy time.  For absolutely no reason.  It's just a good thing to knit while trying to sort out what to do for the day.  I am doing laundry so I am not sure I won.

But I did finish Tea Cozy number 5.

I played a little with the cables on this one, just for fun.

I'm not sure it was 100% successful.  After it was almost done, I started looking and I think that for this center section, I should have changed the twists of the cable variation.  that way the change would have popped more and they would still have returned to the regular twist on going back to the plain cable after the variation.  Live and learn.  Still, I am pretty darn pleased.

Here is the mass of them but for mine, which is as ever, in service on my tea pot. 

It was a wonderful in between project and I never have to make room for that bag of yarn again, which was the goal.  It was a very nice way to use up something I wasn't devoted to.


It was great but for one small thing. 

I can probably use this for a pair of mittens with some other odd and ends of yarn. It might work reasonably well with some Noro Kureyon scraps or, if I dig, with some chunky creamy leftovers. 

It's Saturday and all is well.  On to lace!

Sunday or bust.

After a good night sleep...well that will be another night.  It wasn't last night.  I sleep on my back and there is some pressure on my stitches.  It's a little puffy and tender this morning, but not enough to need anything for pain.  More of an ache really.  The surgeon did a great job.

I knit quite a lot yesterday.  More than I thought possible.  I am now just one repeat from the corner.  

See the corner?  Its the little marker.  You can also see the gap just at the point between the edging stitches and the shawl body stitches, so about 15 stitches left to go.  I did forget one thing on this side and that was to work three stitches doubled through this side of the shawl.  I've had to do that to make the stitch count of body and edging lace work for  the corners.  So, this last repeat is going to get all three.  It's not ideal, but it is what it is.  You can't see it on the first side and it will be fine on this side too.

It's the fairy tale 'It will block out'.  If you say it fast enough and pray it often enough, it will come true.

My goal for today, after playing with Marcus, is to get the corner and a couple repeats down the last side complete.  Then I will be in really good shape to meet my weekend goals.

Sunday or bust. It will be done.

Lots of knitting doesn't mean lots of photos.

I am about 2/3 of the way to the third corner.  I am pretty pleased with my progress and feel really good that I will have it completed by Sunday evening.  Unless today makes a big difference.  

Today I am getting a lump cut out from my shoulder.  I expect I am going to hurt some after since the area it covers is rather large.  It was starting to make me feel lopsided so it is time.  Just an ordinary cyst type lump.  

I only hope it doesn't interfere with the knitting.  I hope that I can keep my arm close to my side and keep knitting.  Wish me luck.  With the knitting that is.


Update:  And done.  I have 5 stitches, a fairly long cut, but I can't feel a thing.  I expected a little stiffness and puffines but not today.  Long may it continue!

Turning corners

I'm off to a slow start today.  Just a sluggish morning after a not great sleep as the wind blasted everything in its path. I am really glad that we did all the outside work earlier.  We would have been picking stuff up for miles.

I thought about staying in town yesterday for knitting, but you know what?  I am so enamoured of this lace that I decided to come back and work on it.  I wish it was workable in a group setting.  Maybe some people can, but not me.  That way, insanity lies.

First corner 

and second corner.  They look the same and the peaks are centred which is just what I hoped for. 

You know what the best part of getting a second corner done is?  It is that I can see exactly how wide the shawl is.  No more wondering, no more waiting.  It's wide.  Wider than my arms outstretched.  Which is exactly the way it needs to be if I want this to be a big cozy warm shawl that stays where it is put and can be pinned or belted into place.   

So today, onward.  I hope to get another healthy chunk of side three under my belt today.  I'm not sure how much knitting I will get in tomorrow.  It's a day where I have other things to tend to, and Friday is kiddie day, but only the short day.  If I get lots done today, and keep a steady focus on it, maybe Sunday completion?   It would be really great if I could get the shawl completed on the weekend. 

 Coffee is on and movies are in the machine and I am rarin' and ready to go.  

Shot Down

I was shot down in the prime of my idea this morning.  Sigh.  And just when I was winning the great idea lotto too.

I was up pretty early and couldn't get back to sleep, so I decided to knit a swatch/first square  of the afghan.  I loved it, but the pattern as written doesn't match the picture in the book and my sample wasn't square.  I was all set to go looking for errata when the landlord happened to see my sample.

He did not like it.  Too flashy.  No stair steppy rust among the deep blueberry teal for him.  Sigh.

On the upside he did pick another pattern from the same book.  Oddly enough, it is one the that I choose for  him long ago, when I was first going to knit an afghan for each of my kids.  I have brown and tan yarns in my stash for it and I might even consider using that yarn, but for the colours.  He prefers the Houndstooth blanket.

It is stranded and I can knit it in the round.  I can steek the edge and tuck the ends into a folded hem.  It is one of the tidiest ways to finish off a steek.  The blanket will be double stranded so bonus for warmth too.  There are no bad things about this choice but for no punchy rust.

But that is a start for another day.  Today, I am working on lace.  As you see, the coffee is on and it is time to knit.

Blanket Times

I do declare, a win.  I think I have got it.

I pulled yarn Sunday afternoon, and took photos and laid it all out together and tried to source a pattern.

I had a pattern in mind, a new one from River City Yarns, The Lodge (Available in print and by Ravelry download) but to be honest these colours just did not inspire me.  They are lovely and soft and...boring.  Plus, the darkest colour, the grey Regal, is the colour I have the least of.  I needed 5 colours for the Lodge blanket, not three.

It did not make my heart sing.  I looked at other patterns.  I looked at other yarns in my stash.  I opened the door to the yarn closet.  I tossed in other colours with these and zip nada.  No inspiration whatsoever. I even looked in my embroidery books for colour inspiration.

I went to my bookshelf on Ravelry and looked for something there to inspire me.  I might have found it.  OK.  I am quite sure I found it.

It is Nordic Holiday from Berroco Comfort Knitting and Crochet:  Afghans.  I remember when the book came out.  This design pushed all the right buttons then, and it did again.  It's a little bit stranded, a little bit textured and a little bit plain.  But it is squares.  That did stop me for a bit, but you know what?  Sewing isn't a problem anymore.  I can do it, and after reading other knitters projects notes, I think I will sew them together as I go along.  It will be a good thing to do when my hands are done knitting for the day.

I sat thinking about colours for this pattern and knew that the dark grey was not the right thing for it.  I needed big help.  In desperation, I hit Pintrest and in a casual search through my own favourites, came to realize what I needed was paint swatches.  And guess what?  It worked.  I searched for teal and grey and kept changing the last colour till I saw something that just blew me away.

 This is my search.   Blew my socks off.   

And these are my yarns.

That gorgeous rust on top is Rennaissance from Classic Elite.  One of the prettiest things in my stash, but sadly discontinued.  I have 6 skeins and should just be able to squeak out what I need for this pattern.  

And the best part?  See how the rust pops out in the grey heather?  

I still have one more test before this is a done deal.  I have to take the yarns down tomorrow sometime during the day to see if they work in his suite of rooms.  I feel pretty confident that they do. Too matchy matchy isn't good, but fighting colours isn't right either.  I'm not so sure I have the yarns to change to if it isn't.

It's a wonderful feeling to have another solid next up project set.  I know that this wasn't one that I picked out in the fall and it certainly wan't something I was looking for in an active way, but it was always  there.  Because it is squares it ought to be good on the road knitting, at least as good as the tea cozies have been.            

And now I can rest.  Till tomorrow, when I have to put the yarn back in the closet.  Again. 

And Four

And four tea cozies now complete.

The fourth one is currently doing it's duty warming my steeping tea and wasn't available for photos. 

They are all similar, but not the same.  I'm playing around a bit with the decreases particularly close to the end.  For no other reason than just to play and see what works best.  I really like the way to top of this latest one looks.  It sort of twists till it can't twist any more and then the columns disappear.

The fifth is cast on and luckily, I am not yet tired.  There are 4 balls to go from this bag.  But it really is only knitting in between things.  Honest. 

Blankies

I have been pondering blankies the last few days.  Blankies as in slightly larger than lap size afghans.  Not for myself but for the landlord.

He gave up his rooms upstairs in his own house in order to rent them out to me, and it is chilly downstairs come spring and fall.  It will get better once winter is here, when the big bright windows mean the furnace runs regularly.  But a blankie is going to be required for real comfort even then.

I started a blanket for him years ago but the browns and tans no longer are right for his space.   His suite of rooms are a lovely cool blue and his rug is grey.  His furniture is taupe, a holdover, but he plans to update that in a few years with a dark grey.  

Which means I need to use different yarn.  I want to use what I have as much as possible, which means I may have to give up some of my precious sweater quantities.  Eeeep.  We have already talked about how hard that is for me and yet, the way budgeting is, to buy a coulpe hundred dollars of new yarn is not in the cards.

In my stash, I have 10 balls of Galway in a lovely heathered blue.  

I also have 25 skeins of Peruvian Highland Wool in a blue that slips to a blue teal.  

This morning I find myself pondering if they will work together.  There is a tone of teal in the heathered lighter blue and perhaps they will play nicely if I offset them with some dark gray.

I do have some dark gray Regal that might work even if the texture of the yarn is different.  Maybe? Only swatching will tell for sure and swatching may happen as a respite from lace.  It also occurs to me that this means yet another wool closet dive.

Anyway that is what I am mulling today, seeing how I still can't knit.  

Today I am off to play with Marcus and I will visit with Cassie a little after school.  Not a knitting or computer day so I hope that means my hand will be up to snuff for big knitting on the weekend.  

A busy day of rest.

My hand is much improved but I am going to rest it again today.  I did do a few rows of knitting yesterday, slowly and paying a great deal of attention to how my fingers sit as I knit and probably will do the same today.  Those few rows yesterday were enough that cozy 4 is an almost finished item.  I am 1 row from increase 7 and the decrease rounds.

Today though, I am going to knit on the shawl.  I can knit that lace border slowly and in almost every way, it puts less stress on my hands than the cables and decreasing number of stitches of the cozy do.

Another small task I did yesterday was to get the mass of cotton for weaving practice out of bags and stored in some semblance of order.  I made room on my bookcase and oddly enough, what seemed to be a teeming mass of yarn, spilling out of every basket and bag I put it in,  looks much smaller now

and quite mannerly.  Lots to be getting on with though.  I think I am going to put all the other weaving cottons there too.  There are cones in boxes and that will be dealt with on the next big dig, but some stayed in the bottom of the spare and repair socks bin in my room. Those homeless yarns will perfectly fit with these thicker cottons lest I get some weird idea I need more to fill the shelf. 

I did get rest of the boxes and miscellaneous yarns back in the closet but as with every time I play in the closet, even a little there is a price to pay.  The closet is like going to a yarn store.  It makes me want. I couldn't help it.  There were a dozen new and different projects that I wanted to work on right now.   

I did try to focus on the yarns I pulled out in the big dig a couple weeks ago.  After I put away what needed putting, I fondled the various yarns in the next up bins.  I hoped it would reset my vision and focus back to my fall knitting plans.  This morning, it seems to have worked.  I feel calm and very committed to my planned projects.  There are some real gems in the next up bins and I really do want to work with them.  I want the sweaters, but even more, my hands want to work with the fibres.

It is so easy to get off track. I can knit all the things, but not at once.  As my WIP bins attest, I do try to knit all the things at once as is.  I do not need any help from the peanut gallery aka the stash. 

Harumph

I talked with my doctor about a weird hand problem I am having and she says rest.  It isn't a nerve thing, it is a tendon thing, and while it isn't in fingers I use actively while knitting, it does seem to get under some stress while I knit, so, no knitting.  No heavy mousing for the computer either.  It probably was the mousing that caused it, not the knitting.

I think today is going to be laundry day.  And when that is done, it's going to be scrubbing the floors day.  And if there still is time, it might be bake some buns day.

Just when I was really hoping to finish the edging on the shawl.  I did the first corner and it looks fine so I was hoping to go gangbusters.  Ah well. We shall see what tomorrow brings.

In betweeners

It's been a busy weekend.  Half the family was here for Thanksgiving yesterday and we had a great time.  Except for Cassie, who had a bit of a fever.  She still had a good time though.  I love it when everybody gets together and for the first time in years, getting everything ready, did not exhaust me.  Lovely.

I even managed to tuck in a few minutes of knitting time here and there.  

Tea three is done!

And tea four is well under way.  I don't often knit the same thing over and over.  Plain dishcloths.  Plain socks, perhaps but seldom something where I use the same yarn, and do the same thing over and over.  This project is still rewarding, and even more rewarding with each tea cozy completion.  The goal here is to use up this grey yarn.  The goal is to get it out of the stash.  

The tea cozy parade is a bonus!  

Today is lace knitting day again.  Half a repeat done with my first coffee, and I foresee more coffee and a big pot of tea this afternoon to keep me going.  I have some TV scheduled to watch, Discovery and Poldark, two solitudes of televison and a little Inspector Lewis later in the day.  A little future, a little past and a little murder in the middle.

Knitting and movies with leftovers in the fridge.  My favourite kind of day.

Giving Thanks.

Even as I knit lace, there are other things actively being knit.  Normally it is socks, but not so right now.

Right now, my on the road knitting is tea cozies just to use up the grey yarn, which really is great for cozies, but not so much for anything else.  It's just a little coarse.  I am on tea cozy number three from this bag of grey yarn. A couple things to know about this particular tea cozy.

I added 6 more stitches just like cozy number two.  It really is quite the right size. 

I already knit half this cozy once.  Unfortunately, I started it with needles that were 3 needle sizes smaller than the ones I used on the first tea cozies and it was a bugger to knit.  I just grabbed the wrong needles.  Because I only want to use 3 balls of yarn on each tea cozy, and because it looked like knitting it on too small needles would turn it into a 4 ball cozy,  I am working on tea cozy three, version 2.  

If redoing the entire thing wasn't enough,, I knit too many rows between cable rows, while playing with Carter and Isaac.  I knit one row too far before the cable switch.

I could have pulled back the errant round and redone it.  Many would have done that, but I just didn't want to.  Once the boys were settled in bed and all the reading was done, I started dropping the plain knit stitches to the row below to cable and then knit across the newly corrected stitches.  It wasn't hard, but it probably would have been quicker to pull the row back to redo.  Still, I like a challenge.

And here we are, all fixed.  

The other thing to note about this cozy is that I think I should have knit another round, maybe two,  before I did the first cable round.  It really won't make a difference to the coziness of it, but it will mean I have to knit a couple rows longer before I start decreases.  Note to self, don't just count cables.  Measure!

I have to go out to get a few groceries for our families traditional Thanksgiving dinner.  Historically, we are a farm family on both sides.  October is almost always harvest.  Nobody takes a day in good harvest weather to do a big sit down dinner with a bunch of people unless it is raining or you had a really early harvest.  For my children, Thanksgiving meant dad was hunting, because it is right in the high peak of hunting season.  It never made sense to do a big a big meal when you were going to spend half of Thansgiving day dressing game. Even the years where the hunting produced no results, there was always a pile of smelly laundry from a long weekend in the bush to do.  Yeah, big fancy dinner? Not so much.  Thanksgiving dinner at our house almost always meant hamburgers on the barbecue.  Some years were really lazy with your basic preformed puck burger.  

The last several years Brian did do turkey on the barbeque to give our daughter in law from Kiev another big traditional Canadian meal but this year, we are going to go with our family traditional.  We have all kind of missed it.  We are going to go with hamburgers, homemade of course, fresh baked buns,  apple salad and moms best broccoli salad, twice baked potatoes with cheese on top and pumpkin and lemon meringue pie.  Broccoli and grapes, some cream and some shortening for pie crust and that is it for groceries. Oh, and hamburger.   The rest of the whole works will be done from the pantry with what we have on hand.  

To me, that it is made from what we have on hand is a very important part of this Thanksgiving.  A chapter closed this year in an awful lot of ways but it feels right to mark, to celebrate and to embrace all that we do have.  We live pretty darn good lives.  We have all the basics and much, much more.  We have warm homes, and plenty to eat and decent clothes to wear.  Our kiddies go to school and are doing just fine.  We live in a nation that is stable and safe and that values our diversity and works to right wrongs from the past.  I have yarn to knit with and when that runs out, I can spin and make some more.  If that isn't enough, I can sew, weave, crochet or embroider to my hearts content.  We have so much more than we need.  We, none of us, are rich.  We are not even close to well to do, but we are good and that is plenty to be thankful for.  Being thankful for what we have, with what we have, is the whole point of the day.  

The only thing I will miss at all from a big turkey dinner is turnips.  They said turnips don't go with hamburgers. Oh well.   

Going full bore, but not the dull kind.

Well.  That was fun. Seriously amazing fun.  Endlessly engaging.

I firmly believe that when everything is right with my knitting, it moves along quickly.  It hasn't been trouble free and there is always at least one row that I have to pull back and redo (I am adding and extra yarn over at the end of the pattern row occasionally) but it is moving along at a rather remarkable rate.

I am approaching the first corner.  Two pattern repeats, I think and then the corner, which will likely take an entire repeat, and then on down the second side.  If I worked things out correctly, the 4 corners will be exactly the same.  If not, I will have to do a little fudging, to make them right. 

 

The more I knit the edging, the more I like the way this pattern looks with the rest of the design.  

I have a really good idea of my yarn consumption too.  Had I gone with the border the pattern uses on this shawl, I would have used 3 balls and maybe the smallest few metres of a fourth skein.  With my much wider border (26 stitches), I will use most of a fourth skein.  I have used about two thirds of each skein of the gradient colours and just a wee small bit of the purple.  

 I have a second skein of each of the gradient colours remaining.  When I ordered the yarns, I planned for leftovers so I could make a shawl for myself too, using just the darker gradients and whatever remained of the Sheeps Grey ordered at the same time. Using up more than the ordered amount of Sheeps Grey for Grandma's shawl was fine with me.  I still had plenty for a vest.  But I have 4 skeins remaining in my stash of Sport in Sheeps grey, exactly what I used for this shawl.  Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.    

I always thought that my Sheeps Grey stash yarn would be used for a vest or sweater.  I even had a prospective pattern picked out for it. I was leaning toward the XO Cardigan or the Clock Vest, both from Folk Vests by Cheryl Oberle,  but now, I am not so sure.  

Maybe I need to listen to the universe.  A dreamed of shawl may just be the more rewarding of the two things.  

A nice big square shawl just for me.  I've always wanted that.  

Settling down

Finally today, I feel like I am settling down.    

I had the gumption to start working on the lace again yesterday and decided that I needed to take it off.  The edge, as worked, was never going to lie flat in the valleys.  So, I faced a redo.  I tried a few things yesterday but didn't have the feel for it at all.  By late afternoon, I had pretty much decided that I needed a new design but I did not sit down and choose it.  I felt that a day off knitting was wiser.  Almost off knitting, but that is a different story.  The decision was made and that seemed to be enough.

This morning, I began peppy and snippy and ready to go.  It took me only a half a cup of coffee to set my path on a new pattern and to begin. We are go for lace re-launch.

As always, it doesn't look like much and is a little hard to see, but trust me.  It is looking good.

It's a very similar pattern to the first pattern, but has broader bands of garter that seem to mark sections better for me.  It knit easily and with speed. 

I hope that continues.  There is a bit of time pressure to get it all done, plus there is another shawl that needs a border to knit by the end of the month.

And there you go

I ought to have been doing a dozen things around the house, but oddly enough, housework never seems to vanish.  I felt completely justified knitting all day.

And I am done the hat.

I wish the internet had an app so you could feel this.  The yarns might not be the sort of thing that most people would put together, one being a slightly felted single and the other being a big lofty aran weight yarn, but it worked.  Really, really great.  That lofty pouffy white stuff, gives a kind of oomph to the crisp green.  Your fingers just sink into it.  It is just a dream to put on your head.

I used the same combination of yarns for the inside.  I was a bit concerned that my lone ball of white would run out before I was finished, so stripes are the order of the day and it was a good choice.  The white would have run out right about midway of the second green stripe.  There was plenty of the greens left after the outside was finished and never did get to the lovely turquoise sections.  Oh well.  

My wild guess for the difference in stitch count for the lining worked out just right.  I took 4 stitches off each earflap, to count for the join and to be sure that the flaps pulled in, rather than flipping out.  Then I took off 2 stitches on the back section between the flaps and two off the front section.  The lining fits perfectly inside.  It might have been the tiniest bit better if I had started decreasing 2 rows earlier, but as is, it is pretty darn good.

It is so nice that I kind of wish it was mine.  But it is promised to my neighbour in return for all the garden produce she has been sending our way.  I do hope she likes it.  It is really quite scrumptious. 

Pretty

I am going to get knitting out of the way first this morning.  Interesting knitting the last couple days but I am pretty darn happy with the way this is going.  

Today I hope to finish up the lining of the hat.  I've been debating what I was going to use for lining, waiting to see what the size of the hat would accommodate.  What I really want to do though, is just use up what I have out.  There is plenty of the Gradient left and lots of the white too.  I will go stripey inside, and will simply knit with fewer stitches.  

I would actually rather be knitting on the shawl, but that is going to have to wait a day.  It snowed last night and I was reminded yesterday that by Thanksgiving last year, we had snow that stayed.  So, hat first.

So with knitting out of the way, I have to tell you that my granddaughter Cassie is 5.  How could that possibly happen?  So fast I mean.  Where do the days all run to? 

From her first moment, I have been head over heels in love with her,

and I don't see that changing at all in my lifetime, nor in hers.

Superhero or princess

Always my sweet Cassandra.  Happy Birthday!