Daring the World at Large

The very first thing I did this  morning was pick up the Hun sweater and start to knit.  Normally I start with a few rounds on a sock, but my hands needed to start full bore.  That doesn't mean I didn't start without my morning stretches.  I did.  What it does mean is that I started with the heavy knitting before coffee.  Haha.  That's like issuing a dare to the word at large. 

But for all that, it is going well.

Isn't that just the prettiest thing?  The colour work is so crisp, so clearly defined.  Lopi, or in this case, Lett Lopi is the epitome of a sticky yarn.  It isn't going to need excessive blocking to look right.  It just does.  If you are learning colourwork, this is a great thing.  

I'm past the just learning stage on colourwork.  I would say I am more of a novice colour worker who is at the stage where you dare anything but may not quite have the skill to carry it off.  Lopi can certainly give you the confidence to try.

It feels like the sweater will go fairly fast. 

As you can see here, Hun is a sweater of bands with a plain band of colour between the patterns, essentially a striped garment, with a row of eyelets between each band.  And we all know that stripes make the knitting feel fast even when it isn't. That plain knit bands keep this tidy cardigan from feeling too busy.  A pattern on every band could easily make the knitting feel crowded.

The other interesting thing about Hun is the scale of the rows of colourwork and plain knitting.  The higher up to the neck you go, the narrower the bands become.  It's just such a clever thing to do to keep it from looking to heavy at the neckline. It won't overwhelm you.  

Any how, that is what I'm doing today.  I am also hoping to get photos of the turtleneck sweater to show you.  I am so pleased with that.  So pleased.  For now, off to a second cup of coffee and a bit more of what I really love to do.

And another one bites the dust.

She loves it and that is really all that matters.  Marcus was very chatty and he really wanted someone to talk to him and yet, he let me knit because he loved his scarf and he knew that Cassie was waiting for hers. Pretty sweet for a little brother.

I did  lot of colour mangling.  The yarn is fine, lovely and soft and really lofty, but the colour runs were so long it got to be boring.  Once I pulled the colour the first time, I started picking and choosing colours  an in the end, it was just what I was looking for bright 'cool' colours.

She loves it. which is all that matters.

I do have yarn coming in case Marcus did not like his scarf  (he really does) so that will be used for my wee Emmett who is not quite scarf age, but will be soon enough. They grow so fast.

Today I am going back to work on my Hun sweater.  

I've just started the second round of colour work pattern two. The entire sweater is bands of plain fabric and bands of small colour work patterns that larger and more complicated as you work down  the body.  Well, down in my case.  The sweater is designed in the more traditional Icelandic bottom up style, but is easily switched to be knit top down.  

I can't wait to feel the wool in my hands again.  There is just something special about Icelandic yarn. I love the feel of it in my hands and I love the feel when I wear it.    

Sock Mania

I'm sitting here waiting for the kids to wake.  Yesterday they were up right about the time I walked in the door at 6 a.m.  Maybe today they will sleep a little more.  

Socks are still my main take along knitting.  It is rare that there isn't at least one pair at hand.  Yesterday was all sock knitting all the time.  

I did work on mom's socks most of the time but when I got dopey sleepy in the early afternoon, I pulled out the plain socks.  There is always a reason to be knitting plain socks.  

I measured against plain sock one and I have 3 or 4 rows to go before the ribbing but I took a good look at the length and wondered if I meant these to be this short?

They do look very short but the stockinette before the ribbing is 9 inches from the toe.  That should be okay since the heel goes in a smidgen under 7 inches leaving a couple inches plus the ribbing up my leg.  That should work and yet it seems rather short.  

I will knit socks for a bit and then I want to push to get Cassies scarf done.  There is a need.  Also Marcus love his scarf.  He said it was just perfect.  And his other yarn isn't here yet.  So maybe for Emmett.  

Wowsa!

So much to say and not time to say it.  It's late and I have an early wake up tomorrow.  Suffice it to say that some things are done and Wowsa!

And other things are begun again and   

Wowsa!

I have stayed up past my bedtime on a school night to watch Elizabeth R., with Glenda Jackson.  I remember watching it as a teen and being captivated and now that I am watching it again as an adult, I am captivated.  It is a masterpiece from long before there was a Masterpiece Theatre.  On Britbox.  More another day.

Beating the dark part of winter.

I try really hard to keep track of everything I knit on Ravelry.  I try to keep photos and notes current.  I don't want to find something half done then years from now and wonder why it didn't get finished. But occasionally something gets knit and doesn't get listed.  

As I was waiting for Cassie's scarf yarn, I grabbed a big ball of yarn, some Rasta that I needed to repair another project and knit quickly.  She really does need a scarf for school.  They are outside often enough that it matters a lot. Only there wasn't enough yarn and nothing I tried worked with it.

What there was enough yarn for is this delightfully thick ribbed cowl thing.  Or it will be a cowl once the buttons are sewn on.  It will probably be one of these.

  

 From the great button excursion of 2018.  The buttons are much darker than they appear here. If they really don't add to it, there are a couple of the old fashioned leather covered coat buttons in the box somewhere, that will work.  What with all the other knitting going on, I completely forgot to record this, though, in a way, with one end to be cast off and ends to be woven in, it really wasn't finished till this morning.

I did knit on Cassie's scarf yesterday and I will add in a bit of the green ball, but I am avoiding that mint colour with a passion.  I am also not going to use huge amounts of it, just enough of it to give it a pop of green. She wants colour.  She gets colour. 

But most of my time was spent knitting on my sweater.  I am down to the last ball of yarn.

It is hard to explain how much I am looking forward to this sweater with its close fitting neckline.  I just cannot wait for its warm goodness and yet...

I confess to feeling a little bit down today.  It is possible that it is a cold that seems to be hanging just before the point of misery but it is also possible that it is the realisation that January is coming to the end, and that I haven't even begun to do the things I planned to whack out this winter.  Or it could be that it is that the very dark of winter is finally hitting me and I have yet to absorb enough of the much longer daylight hours we have now that it is the end of January.  

I am going to push to get the sweater done, but you know what else I might do.  I might start another pair of pretty pretty socks.  Something bright and cheerful.  Something to banish the dark of winter from my soul.  You know. One of these.

Or maybe something orange.  Maybe.  Just thinking about it makes me happy.  There are never too many socks.  Socks on the needles till I am out of needles! 

Okay, that might be going too far. Even for me. 

 

Decisions before Coffee?

I finished the first scarf for Marcus

And I am pretty pleased with the product but I  am a little worried.  He said it was a bit itchy and I fear he is going to be jealous of Cassie's scarf in 'cool colours'.  He does avoid his idea of spicy things and I'd hate it if he did not like to wear the scarf.  A scarf from Grandma ought to be just right.

Cassie's yarn arrived pretty much as I was finishing Marcus' first scarf.  I put her scarf directly on the needles.   

 I ordered these from Yarnspirations, direct from the manufacturer.   I had planned to stop at the factory store on my epic adventure but never managed it.  They do carry this at my local Walmart, but it is often picked over for the pretty colours.  This way, I had optimal colour choice plus the only other thing I was in danger of purchasing was this.

.

With all the pretty sock yarn I already bought this year, you would think I would have enough, but no.  I can always use a pretty skein of sock yarn and more pretty socks.

The original plan for Cassie's scarf was to use three balls of colour changing yarn, and have leftovers to use with what is left from Carter's scarf for a scarf for the donation bin but I did not like the third colour with these at all.

It was a little too much mint and not nearly enough zing. It will go to the garage sale stuff.  Somewhere out there is a baby who lies mint.  None of mine do.

This morning, feeling pretty blah and making decisions before I had coffee, it felt right to order more of this same toss it in the wash acrylic for a 'cool' colour scarf for Marcus too.  And a little bit of sock yarn. 

Oddly, I feel better now.  Either the coffee is kicking in or yarn purchasing is curing me.

The Mess

The sweater still looks like the sweater, the socks still look like the socks, the shawl still look like the shawl, the scarf still looks like the scarf.  And that is how things are today.  there was a little progress on each of those but nothing to write home about.  Or here.

I did take some cool photos of my glasses

One for regular wear, one cut high for the computer, and one with a plain lens for watching movies and tv, particularly valuable when I am watching from my bed, as I often do.

I have a project this afternoon.  I, who am noted for my lack of being tidy, loathe disorder.  On my terms.  If I don't have place for it, get rid of it, whatever it is.  That is really how I would manage in a perfect world.  In a perfect world, stuff would stay in order because it would have a tidy home to go too.

I keep my craft things on some of my extra Billy bookcases.  (Extra after an extreme culling of books on moving from the wee house).  I had 4 of the short billy's and what I had room for was two tall ones.  I stacked them and made them one.  Everything else in my room is black or white but these are brown. I planned to paint them white and put some yellow fabric on the backing to give a huge pop of colour to that side of the room.  

As things go, they are still brown and I don't know that they will ever be painted. They hold some paperbacks I am fond of and a selection of craft books that did not fit on the shelves in the living room as well as all the many bits and pieces for doing and making.  Everything but the yarn.  

Well, okay.  Some yarn. When I moved the bookcase to the computer side of my room, I organized it with all the things I didn't mind looking at on top.  Books, pretty yellow boxes.  The bottom half  is stuff I use all the time, but it always looks messy.  Even when my room is perfectly tidy and clean, it looks a mess.  I loathe that more than you can imagine.   

The plan for this afternoon is to cover up that ever changing mass of stuff with a simple white curtain.  I chose a curtain rod designed to keep light out of a room, so you won't even be able to see the mess from the sides.  I picked up the fabric from Ikea because, I see no reason to pay more for simple white nice crisp cotton than I have to. $3.99 is a very good price.  And can you think of anywhere else that you can get linen yard goods for under ten dollars.  Me either. I am seriously thinking of purchasing some of the linen just in case even though I have no where to use it in my home.  It is really lovely stuff.

I had planned a visit with a friend today too.  I was so looking forward to that but I'm snorting and sneezing this morning like nobody's business, and rather than spread my germs, I will stay home. The sewing and the knitting will have to be enough.       

 

How thinking while knitting works.

I picked up Marcus' scarf yesterday to work on and took it a long long way.  I've just finished the second of three blue and yellow sections for this end of the scarf and have only two grey sections to go.  One more good day and that ought to be a bit later this week.  And as I hoped, Cassie's scarf yarn is in my mailbox as we speak.

Today I am reserving all my knitting time for me.  I picked up the Gridiron socks this morning to get them to where they are a little easier to knit.  Establishing the pattern takes a little care and effort, but not over much. You have to be present with your knitting till you get the cool little green lines (green in my case) running up the foot.  Once it is established it becomes very zen knitting.  You can almost zone out while you focus only on mantra the pattern establishes for you.  Very Zen.

Now that I have that set up, though, I am going to hit my sweater.  The plan is to take it another ball down the road to completion.  There are only two full balls left and I want to use up one.  That is the goal, a very doable goal.

Knitting on the sweater is at that part where the rows are long and plain.  Knitting in the round means just stockinette with only a very few rows with any increasing happening.  It is wonderful thinking time and I pan to be doing a lot of that today.

As ever I am thinking about what to knit next.  One of the plans was to knit with some of the yarn I brought home from last summer's epic adventure.  I had figured out what I wanted to do with it, and it is all wound and ready to go.  And then I saw something different that I love.  A lot.  

Hamingja.  I love the simplicity of this and the boldness of the pattern.  It's a new to me designer, but wow, what a find.  Linne Ornstein has some lovely stuff on Ravelry.  The yarn is a different gauge than what the sweater is designed for but that is not really a problem at all other than I have to think about what I would like from epic adventure yarns.

And then because my mind was needed to stop thinking of this problem, I went looking for sweaters in a way I had not searched in a while, using the advanced search with my usual filters but then setting it to show the most recent patterns by publication date.

And that came up with this, which is utterly breathtaking.

  Søster Elise by Hanna Larsen Strik.  I adore this.  A lot.  I think I know the yarn I am going to use too.  I'm just waiting for the pattern to arrive in my email.  Make sure you take time to check out her whole website.  There are some other really fine designs there including some pillows...  .

Which led me to where I am now, and my ever so confused desires, because in the midst of all this thinking, there is a lovely Hun sweater with the yarn waiting right there in front of me, waiting for love. I think about Hun a lot.  I know it is something I would wear often and I love the colours I have.  Plus I want to work with the yarn!

And then, while thinking of things I love to do, I go right back to the Gridiron sock and how much I enjoy knitting slip stitch patterns which takes me to Bacardi by Barbara Gregory from Knitty.com.  I have the yarn for that and just need to swatch and play with colours a bit before I start that sweater.  Knitting Gridiron makes me long to knit this too.

How is it that there are never enough hours in the day to knit and why, oh why do my hands give out before my spirit does?  It is completely unfair.  Okay, that is just whining.  Life isn't fair and hands do need rest.  I get that.  But still.  (whining)

I think I am looking forward for this sweater to be finished just so I don't have time to think anymore, which takes me right back to my sweater, and how I am going right now, to work on her.

A fast turtle.

It's moving along at a pretty good clip.

I will try it on again tomorrow to check if everything is still as good as it looked earlier.  I'm pretty confident that all is well, but it can't hurt. I just started the second partial ball left over from the sleeves and two full balls remain.  I don't have to worry about running out of yarn.  It should be just fine. (Crosses fingers and toes s I type that.)

I love when knitting moves along like this does.  It makes me feel powerful.  I clothe myself with your string.  It is that cool. 

Joy

Sometimes in the morning the first thing I think when I open my eyes,  is 'I get to knit again today'.  My whole being is filled with such pure and simple joy. 

It's my sweater.  I finished the second sleeve and am once again knitting down the body.  I tried it on to see how it looked and I think it is everything I hoped for.   I knit a lot on the body too.  It goes so fast with this bulkier weight wool. 

But it is joy.  Joy comes in many forms.  Sometimes it is sunrises, sometimes, blue wide open skies, sometime mountain slopes but today, it is enough to wake and know that I will be able to knit today.   

I am with Marcus today.  So far, we did this.

It might not be a day much gets knit because it wouldn't be fair if he didn't share a bit with Grandma.

That grimace is me saying arghhhh and being a pirate so I can have a patch just like Marcus.

Right now the Paw Patrol Pups are being slimed.  Right there in their vehicles.  Oh the humanity.  

I am trying to knit on Marcus scarf but slime is a lot of fun.  It is one of those tactile magical things you can enjoy no matter how old you are if you let yourself.  

And then there was

In the grand scheme of things, kids need stuff.  Somewhere along the line, it seems that all of my grandkids need scarves.  I made Isaac one several years ago and I made Carter on at his request last fall, and now that it is full on winter and kids are outside at recess, I am noticing that Cassie and Marcus need scarves too. Emmett is still too small to be outside without momma and he really doesn't need one in his chair, but you know what?  I might just make him one and get it out of the way too.

I am working on Marcus' scarf right now. It's just a simple 1 x 1 rib, which makes the nicest fabric for covering chins and mouths and that little section of your neck that sticks out all the time.

I'm using leftover Ultra Wool from his Chase sweater and some random skeins of Cascade 220 and am about half done.  I've just started on  longer grey section which will be the middle of the scarf and will then repeat the wide blue and yellow sections and so on to the end.

I could find nothing for Cassie.  She wanted 'cool' colours.  She found all kinds of cool colours in my sock yarn, but I am not about to knit a sock yarn scarf.  To be clear, we are talking about wild neons and turquoise and the hottest of pinks.  

I debated going to my closest yarn source, Walmart to see what they had, but the stock levels are so iffy and I knew exactly what colours I wanted.  I thought about heading to the city but that means losing two thirds of a day and the cost of getting there and back, plus any incidental spending that may happen.  It was the time that ended up making the decision for me.  All hours are better spent knitting.  I ordered some yarn for her in exactly the colours I wanted and it ought to arrive in a few days.  Till then grandma is going to loan her a scarf from my vast stock of scarves and shawls.

A lot of scarf knitting happened yesterday but so did sock knitting.  So did sleeve knitting.  Today, I think I am going to focus on getting the sleeves done on my sweater so I can simply knit the next few days when I am babysitting.   

Once more, Gridiron!

You cannot imagine how much fun I am having with al my knitting right now.  I love knitting the turtleneck with the Osprey.  I adore knitting the First Point of Libra Shawl with Sweet Georgia and Hat Trick Semi solids (Yes here too!).  I am crazy over the Gridiron socks and Touchdown yarn.  It is all so very good.

It's the yarns.  I am in love with these yarns.  Okay.  No real secret.  I love all yarns, but these are really just so nice to work with. I love the squooshy factor in all of them but it is the pattern too.  I really love slipped stitches. Even when I am not having fun with other knitting, I can move over to slip stitch socks!  I need to focus now or I will never get this post beyond yummy yarn, so socks. 

Touchdown yarn is a really big skein. There are an amazing 150 grams and 507 metres of yarn.  That means for mom's socks, there ought to be a significant amount left over, even if I am knitting the foot rather longer, just shy of 12 inches, in case she gives them to my brother or dad.  

Sock one has barely made a dint in the cake.  The toe of sock two was almost complete as well when I took this photo. 

I started thinking about leftovers midway through sock one.  Mom has very sensitive feet, made so by shingles and psoriasis.  I don't really expect her to wear them unless she wants to use them as bed socks.  It is really just all about teasing her about football.  But I do want her to be able to get something out of the fun of this too.  I started thinking that there might be enough to squeak a little pair of hand warmers out of this massive skein of yarn. She would probably wear those.   But you know how that goes.  Me, being me, I always worry about running out of yarn.  So I took care of that.

I picked up a skein of Hat Trick Semi Solid in the Hooking colourway for heels and ribbed cuffs. 

Honestly if I had been thinking leftovers I would have knit the toes using the plain green. I do love what is happening on the toes though.  It just looks so interesting and it does indeed tickle my fancy.

If I use the green semi solid for those two sections of the sock, there will be plenty of the multi colour left to knit some sweet little Gridiron styled wrist warmers.  If I knit the wrist warmers starting and finishing with a ribbed section of the plain green, I might even have leftovers of the Touchdown when the wristers are done.

I have a query in to the store to see if anyone there has tried making wrist warmers based on the Gridiron pattern.  Maybe it will work?  A little bit of play is in my very near future. 

I also did want to point out a little something else I picked up at RCY, a Coco Knits gauge cloth.

I saw them at the store a while ago, and thought seriously about them.  I used to use large foam floor tiles for blocking and while they were great for sorting out dimensions and ensuring straight lines, they were a bugger to store.  This just made so much sense.  I have a daybed that I pin and block on and if I lay this under my project and pin it in place, the whole thing becomes a much easier process. I don't really have to store it at all.  I can use it instead of the blanket to cover my loom so inquisitive small children don't play there. I have also used it to roughly measure my Gridiron sock as it sat beside me.  

The cloth is woven with precise 1 inch squares.  I have checked.  Most grid patterns like this are not.  I think this is a really cool tool and now, one is mine!

Anyway, time for this post to end and for me to get to my knitting. 

 

Updated to add my mods:  The Gridiron sock pattern is a cuff down pattern with a heel flap and a lovey shaped toe.  I'm changing the pattern so it fits any sort of toe shape and so that I can knit in my preferred direction (preferred so I don't run out of yarn), toe up. I am also knitting my Gridiron with an afterthought heel so I can custom fit whoever ends up with them. The actual clever design of this sock, is completely from the pattern, and I strongly urge you to pick one up.  It is just that cool.

  

And so on

That did not work out the way I planned.  I thought that there would be a nice weekend of regular knitting.  I had planned 2 marathon sessions of knitting and I hoped to be almost finished on the turtleneck sweater.  It did not go like I hoped.  It was my father in law's 95 birthday and they were having a bit of a get together for him.  Chez Needles did not hear about it in time to free ourselves from the temp job and from other jobs some of us do on Sundays and it meant much more for Anthony to be there for his grandpa, so he and Keith stood in for all of us.  

And that meant that this grandma was babysitting.  It got a little long.  By the end, I was having trouble dealing with the movement and the noise of kids.  These are some really good kids.  They don't get into trouble and they don't do things if you tell them not to, but they are kids and they do everything joyfully and with noise!  

Even this photo shoot, which you would think would be relatively quiet, was filled with a lot of giggling and tons of noise and screaming.  Marcus took a series of shots of Cassie with my camera that are just exquisite, when grandma was knitting. 

Don't forget, the ever intrepid photographer,  Marcus is only 4.  The only rule grandma has with her camera is that you have to have the strap on your wrist at all times.    

As much fun as they had, after 3 days, the kids needed home and normal too.  After four days even more so, but this, more or less ended up being five days in a row.  

Now, where was I?  Ah yes.  The turtleneck sweater.  Sleeve one is complete.  

And sleeve two is almost all picked up.

There is that thing where you do have to remember exactly how many stitches you have on front and back of sleeve one so you can match it on sleeve two, but I have got it written down somewhere.  The real trick is actually repeating that same number of stitches.  This is infinitely harder to do.  

Try, try, try again.  It would help a lot if I could find my Addi Click Lace needle case, so I could pick it up on smaller tips and then just change tips to the correct size once that was done.  Dpns looks uglier than it is to do, but it is fussy and not at all something I could do with kids around.  I tried.

So, rather than having a more complete sweater, I have a more complete sock and that isn't a bad thing.  Plus...

Well, once again, this very interesting sock deserves its own post.

      

Happy Knitting

I have been knitting a wee bit less on my sweater than I thought I was going to.  I was so enamored with sock knitting that was hard to get past.  There has been some knitting on it and I am happy to take that.

I have just started my normal shaping, a fairly generic a line, but when this ball is done, I am going to knit sleeves.  They will be short but still sleeves.  It makes me happy.

 Then I will knit until every last morsel of yarn is used up.  Much better than trying to figure out how long it can be with sleeves when you have to knit length first as in knitting from the bottom. 

Knitting this yarn is such a pleasure and I find as I did on the first try with it, it knits so smoothly.  Its just the right blend of bounce and stretch to fair sing as it slips along your needles.  

And since it and a plain sock are all I have with me today, I expect to get a lot done.

Expectations and Finding Unexpected Luxury

As I said yesterday before I left off, some beginnings deserve their own post. Here we are with the rest of that story.

River City Yarns is a lovely store and through the years, the ladies there have been very good to me, first as a new place to buy yarn close to my job, then as employers and finally as friends whom I occasionally buy yarn from.  My favourite yarns may have diverged from much of what they stock, but they are still my favourite LYS.  One of the things they wanted to do in their business was to have their own unique store line of yarn and patterns to support it.  They did that in a small way for a while with a hand dyed line of yarn but in the last few years, they have expanded to several luxury lines of yarns as well as a good basic yarn and some very interesting hand dyed sock yarns in the colours of hockey teams and more recently football teams.  

I have always supported the luxury lines, Eden and Adam and Eve  because well, luxury, but Hat Trick, the hockey sock line never quite caught my imagination. I am just not into hockey and without Brian, had no reason to knit hockey socks.  That changed a couple years ago when they launched their Hot Shawl  pattern designed for them by Holly Yeoh.  That pattern is striking, my favourite colours and the strong contrast that catches my imagination every time.   Since that pattern, I watch all their designs and yarns carefully. 

When Touchdown yarns came out, I had to get the  Saskatchewan colourway. Football, specifically being a Rider fan,  is just part of being from Saskatchewan, even when you don't love football all that much.  I had to have it.  I was pretty sure who the yarn would be for too.  My mom.  In recent years, my mom has become a huge football fan.  She always enjoyed it but until she wa a senior she didn't become quite so rabid a fan.  All her grandsons tease her that she is who they go to when they have to know some arcane detail about teams and who played where and when and who did what to whom and so on. Grandma knows her CFL.   I was less sure what I was going to make for her.  The original plan was for a shawl and she still might get the shawl too.  

Doesn't really explain why I am using Saskatchewan for socks though does it?  You know how sometimes you just have to knit a thing?  Right now?  How it doesn't leave your head till you knit it and get it out of your system? 

Well, when I saw the Gridiron sock pattern on one of my forays to RCY, it had to be mine.  On the pattern photo, this variegated 3 colour yarn magically produced stripes of solid red from the Calgary colourway.  Obviously it was a slip stitch pattern but something else really interesting had to be going on, to make that happen. Besides, Kate Atherley knit it, and she wrote the book on fitting socks. It was bound to be interesting.

I set my mind to knit the sock for my mom as a silly Christmas gift (she isn't a wool person) and then things happened, and I did not even get it started.  So now after Christmas and before next football season, she will have them.

When I started the the other night,  I really did intend to simply knit the toe.  When I did not stop, I wasn't worried.  I  had read the pattern though and proceeded, only my sock did not look like the pattern looked.  See the white in the grid lines?

I was kind of disgusted with myself.  I know that wise knitters do not start something new when they are tired.  I know my own personal issue of reading patterns. I know the dangers of starting a new project when all I really needed was something to knit on.  I have the WIPs to prove it!

Looking like the pattern with strong green lines running upwards was the whole point of this sock so this morning, I sat down and read the pattern.  Several times.  And started again, and voila!

I don't think I misread the pattern so much as that I did not let go of an expectation and a supposition of what I was supposed to do.  It's a little like turning a sock heel the first time, you have to let go of the idea that you have to knit all the stitches, every round.  That led to a huge aha moment and so did this, in its own little way.  You have to let your expectation go of what you think you have to do and just do exactly what it says.  

C'est si bon!  My much desired solid lines running up the foot!  

I want to say a word too about the yarn.  It's yummy.  Very yummy.  It is a wool and nylon blend so I have no doubt it will be good and sturdy.  The RCY people demand that from a sock yarn but it is quite strikingly, yummy.  You are very aware that this is not just an ordinary sock yarn.  This yarn is sock luxury, pure luxury for feet and beyond. It is time I learned to let go my expectation of what a yarn is until I work with it.

I expected sock yarn. I found a little bit of unexpected luxury.   Banner headline for a good day. 

Beginnings

There is always a void after finishing a large project. You focus for days getting to the end of a thing, and when it is suddenly complete, you feel a little bereft, a little naked without the focus and drive you have to have to get a large project done.  It can be days till I get my gumption back, but not this time.

First thing in the morning, I picked up a sock yarn and grabbed some of those empty sock needles.  No I did not start with any of my pretty new yarns.  I decided that in honor of me having more than one lovely Opal yarn to choose from, to start with the oldest one, which I have had for a couple of years. I'm pretty sure I got it from Jo's too, when I was living just down the road from her store.  

At the time,  I was enamoured with the Geek Socks.  It works best if you have at least three rows of the same colour to show off the sweet little ripples formed by the slip stitches.

And that is exactly what this lovely sock yarn is going to be, Geek Socks.  I had only the first slip stitch section complete this morning so I stopped before blogging, to knit just a few rows past the next colour change to show off the sweet patterning.  Honestly, it was falling in love with the sweet little thing all over again.  I adore watching that gentle ripple appear.

I also felt very happy that I had more than one pair of socks on the needles!  That picture the other day of all those empty sock needles haunted me.

I did wonder if socks were what my hands would feel like knitting all day but after my few chores were done, I had the nagging feeling that there was something else that needed doing.  I dug through the WIP basket and there it was.

On my trip last year, one of my take long projects was Catboat  from Amy Herzog's amazing Custom Fit website.   She has a process where you can custom size any of her sweaters to your own unique measurements.  I so want to be able to knit a sleeve or a sweater front when I am out and about without having to drag along these huge darn bags of sweater. I really want to free myself from my worry about knitting sweaters in pieces and finding it doesn't fit after all.  I can do it top down easily and the only thing stopping me from feeling comfortable bottom up is  brain block.  My head wasn't in the right place last summer.  Just too much on my mind as I drove, but this year, I am determined to settle down and do one.  Or two.  OR THREE!

I still want a turtleneck but I am not quite feeling I want to challenge myself with this yarn right now. I have a limited number of balls of this and when I start over with the challenge of knitting to a pattern in pieces from the bottom up again, I want to do it with a yarn I have lots of.  

This yarn is what my hands wanted to knit, though.  This was my answer yesterday's naked and bereft feelings.

Started from the top down, with a narrow saddle shoulder growing naturally from the collar, this sweater is complete to just below the arm join.  I do mean just.  I had to push a bit to get the underarm stitches to more than just the cast on.  But I really do love this yarn.  In a perfectly just world, I would have more, but shipping and cost of the yarn itself and my very large and lovely, treasured stash mean it won't happen anytime soon.  But knitting this surely does fall into the category of knitting the good stuff. 

The only trouble with it all was that by suppertime, my hands were done.  I had planned to listen to another book for NaJuReMoNoMo, but without knitting?  How?  I did think about actual reading of a book, but my eyes were tired too.  I did a little work on putting Christmas away and then sat down to watch a new Father Brown on Netflix and...

picked up another ball of yarn and a set of needles.  I wondered if maybe I could squeeeeeek out a toe on socks for my mom.  A toe is really very little knitting, right? 

I did  little more than just a toe, but that is a story for another day.  

It was an entire day of beginnings and the sheer joy of letting my fingers wander as they would.  How lovely a thing it is to do just that.      

 

Interlude

Oh the Griegeness of it all, the beige green stunning colour that is my new sweater.

I love it and am wearing it right now and I love everything about it.  

Except it isn't what I would call a warm yarn.  It fits close and snug and is what I wanted in a next to the skin wear sweater, but at the temperature we keep the house during the day, I need another sweater over it.  A 50/50 Wool Cottonbend is not an deep of winter sort of yarn.  I have two more colours in this same yarn line and I think those will be used for summer type sweaters. 

It is exactly what I wanted from this project though, a sweater that was a standalone garment, rather than being a wear over a shirt garment.

There are dozens of things that I ought to be doing today  The trees should come down and Christmas should be put away. My boxes are where I cannot reach easily so that task is going to wait till Keith gets the down for me.  I have a little laundry to do.  There is a little cleaning in the kitchen to do.  

So I am sitting here feeling a bit at a loss.  No seasonal rush.  Sweater done.  Coffee for the day consumed.  Time on my hands. I do not like this interlude, sitting before picking up the next thing, hoping for my hands find the right thing, waiting for inspiration.          

It's the Little Things

Do you get yourself a Christmas gift?  I try to or at least I think about it.  I take great care about picking it out. It is usually something that I wouldn't buy for myself, but something that I will really enjoy.

One year I bought a really nice gradient set of yarns. I thought about yarn this year.  There are so many nice ones.  But I do have enough really.  Sort of.  I debated about what else I might like.  I thought about books, but I buy those anyway.  Then I came up with the perfect thing. This year, I bought myself a mini kitchen.

Some of it came before Christmas.

And then I dithered.  I had to decide just what era the kitchen will be from.  It took longer than you would think for me to make up my mind.  I sensibly ordered from a Canadian source and got everything I wanted and more.

 

I needed a wood stove.  My maternal grandmother had a wood stove till after 1968 and I remember it well.  It was required. 

The dry sink was negotiable.  There was a pump and a cistern in the house when I was a small girl, as well as at my aunts house.  It wasn't in the kitchen proper though but for my purposes here, this works well. And that is it for major furniture.  Note there is no icebox.  A prarie farm in the 20's to the mid 50's and later, which is kind of the period I am aiming for, would not generally have had an icebox.  They would have kept stuff cool down the well and if they were lucky, would have had a chilly root cellar somewhere too.

I picked up a bunch of little things to fill my kitchen with.  I ordered all but the white furniture from the Little Dollhouse Company. 

One of the first things I ordered was a $5 dollar grab bag.  As you can see it was a really great buy.  Each of those little things would have been somewhere between 3 and 5 bucks or more on its own.

These were purposefully chosen. Baking pans and wooden mixing bowls and knives, and a coffee pot and good plain cups.  The lovely little delft like plates arrived because they did not have the blue enamelware I wanted in plates.   The jars are for filling with goods from the farm wifes garden.  And yes, there will be a garden.

They also, sadly, they did not have the enamelware pots I wanted either.  Enamelware is popular.  I opted for a much more familiar and authentic to the place and period, cast iron look pots.  there are still some small things that I need and plenty more that I want, but this would be a very good kitchen set up for most homes here in farm country.  

There are lots of little things I can make for my kitchen.  Bread, buns, pie, pickled carrots and cukes, canned beans,  pes and beets.  The list goes on.  Eggs.  The milk bucket.

That will come down the road, but for now at least my wee housey is a home.  Or will be very soon.

Addi FlexiFlips and socks

A while ago, lte October if I recall right, I bought myself a pair of Addi Flexi Flips .  These are interesting needles with a flexible centre portion 3 needles to a set.  The look really interesting and I wanted to see what they were about.

I wanted to knit a sock the night I purchased them so mine are 2.25mm and are about 8 inches long.  

They work fine.  I knit about  third of a sock with them, before I just tossed them in favour of any other sock needle I could find in a 2.25mm.  When I work with them, I seem to cramp up my hands till they knuckles won't bend.  All that tension isn't worth it.

It's not that these are not good needles.  I can see huge benefits using them for colourwork mitten and glove knitting rather than using 2 circulars.  I really loathe 2 circulars with all the ends in the way.  I like the flexiflips about as much as I like magic loop knitting.  If I had to, I would knit with them. 

Luckily I don't.

I am a bit appalled at all the sock needles that are just sitting here. It took only moments to gather these, so I know there re a couple more pairs in the vase.  And if you added in the 2.5 mm needles and 2.25 mm needles that are 8 inches long, I would have many, many pairs of sock needles. 

These are the only pair of socks I have on the go right now, and I think I am okay with that. You can see that I popped the socks onto my lone pair of Addi Flip Sticks, which I much prefer over flexiflips.   I want to spend some time finding the right pattern for the next socks. 

 

I actually do have another pair ready to go.  It is out of River City's Touchdown socks for my mom.  As she has gotten older, she has become a great lover of football, Saskatchewan Roughrider Football to be exact.  I am going to make her the Gridiron Socks by Kate Atherley for RCY.

Though I may not make her socks.  Mom has very tender feet and she doesn't wear anything that she can feel a texture of.  She doesn't wear my handknit socks.  she tired.  This yarn and this pattern will also make a perfectly wonderful pair of handwarmers.  I am pretty sure she will wear handwarmers to help keep the ache away.  

While she is cheering on her team of course.

But that is where I am right now.  On socks and more socks and other good things.  Ain't this life grand?

The Question of Sock Yarn

A while ago, while I was going through my sock yarn, I noticed how many seemed to have orange in them.

It felt like everything I had was either plain or orange.  It isn't quite that bad, in truth, but a lot of my sock yarn stash is plain.  I do have patterns I want to use them with, but the middle of winter, or rather the start of deepest winter is not the time to knit those.  I need to be much more thoughtful about knitting plain colours in summer in wild cable and lace patterns.  In the middle of winter, I need all the colour I can get.

I made a little excursion to Jo's Yarn Garden with a friend, and answered the question of sock yarn.  I really tried to focus on buying yarns that were not orange.  I would also like you to note just how many of these lovely lovely yarns have orange as a major component of them,  Perhaps orange is a major component of the colours of joy?  It must be.

There are some delicious yarns in here.  My first Opals!  Some pretty joyful Jawolls, some Comfort Sock and even a skein of Allegro from Wisdom yarns.  It's the purple one and contains no wool.  It is wonderfully soft and has an interesting twist to it.  I have a family who really isn't into wool, so I thought trying an alternative fibre was smart.  The yarn is going to have to meet my demanding washer and dryer and long lasting standards but it is worth giving it a shot.  I long for a good plain not stretchy all cotton sock yarn in pretty patterns like the good old days of 2008. I miss my old cotton Confetti yarn. (I think it was called Cotton Confetti)

And there is more, but not too much.

A few other tidbits fell into my basket.

I couldn't leave that electric blue Zauberball. I needed, needed, needed that blue.  Sigh. So perfectly blue.

The other things were a bit of an accidental find.  The little tool is a Multi tool called a Loome.  It says it can do at least 6 different things, none of which are why I purchased it.  But it is sweet and will get its own post a bit later.  

The tube of rayon is silly sort of thing, but it will work for what I need.  I'm not sure you will remember these from my trip, 

  

These are ends from large weaving cones that I found at Camilla Valley Farms last summer.  I had to have these colours and didn't really know why till I got home.  Obviously, a memory of Grandpa Diederichs' blanket.  This cream will stand in for the cream in the ripple design to recreate my grandpa's blanket as a scarf or shawl for myself.  I am a child of the 70's and I love these colours.

And that was my bright wonderful day adventuring.  Back to babysitting days and sleeve knitting tomorrow...unless I am overwhelmed with the need to knit socks in bright pretty middle of the winter dark breaker colours.