Boo Knits

If you are ever feeling just a little uninspired, Check out Boo Knits Shawls.  

The link, if I have done it right, should take you to images of their shawls by knitters from all over the place.  They are so stunning.

I have wondered more than once, about what would happen if I knit two of the exact same small shawl and attached them together on one small spot to make a neck opening and then attaching again somewhere that would be nicely under the arms.  Wouldn't that result be a wonderfully sweet little coverlet for a fancy dress?  

And then I realize that I have nowhere to wear it to.  But I can dream...

Yesterday ended up being a not much knitting sort of day and I can tell that what I really need is a good long lovely day of just knitting.  Sadly, the day was spent having a nap.  Several naps and even worse, several sections of the day were useless staring at the TV with no motivation to do more. That is what comes from having a no coffee day.  Today will be better.  I have coffee.

As to the not knitting, my hand is a bit stressed and has been since I knit those little soap cozies.  I am not sure why, but knitting small things seems to exacerbate hand stress.  Not socks though and I have no idea why.  Perhaps needle size?  

But I have been dreaming, even yesterday during staring at the TV time.  I was dreaming of what to knit next.

I want some plain wear everywhere sweaters.  A henley type neckline.  A nice close fitting neck otherwise.  Full length sleeves.  I think these are some of the things I am going to have on the next one.  Maybe.

And then along comes a couple of things that blow my mind and might lead to changing any plan I ever thought of.  

Like the Rusty Tuku pattern by Susanne Sommer.  Those stripes defining the shoulders?  Brilliant.  Just divine.

Or Teresita by Amy Christophers from Berroco Designs  but I would knit it as a sweater, not a poncho.  I love that idea for keeping  sweater closed forever.

And Kame by Aude Martin from Wool People 13.  I love that neck.  Climbing up the back of the neck like that?  It is exactly what I need for that chill down my back feeling winter brings.  I have some reservations that having the sleeve seams sit so far back might lead to the sweater always wanting to ride back on the wearer, but I think the only way to know that is to knit it.  I have seem a few other sweaters with that shoulder set and couldn't find anyone saying anything negative about wearing them.

I've been feeling a little bit stuck in the mud about what to knit next.  Part of it is that though I know I want some plain sweaters, I don't want to actually knit plain sweaters. I like having one small kick, one little twist to a plain project that blows it out of the ball park.  I guess.     

There really isn't any reason for feeling stuck.  I have a sweater waiting in Briggs & Little Sport that has some wonderful colourwork.  I have a HUN which is ongoing and is exciting enough with its colourwork bands, and I have my Einband shawl to work on right now when I need to.  I could always pop out a Leisl

I suppose, but I would have to think about the yarn.

I really want to focus on getting my summer tops done, but both my remaining summer tops are in the long stockinette body or close to it.  It takes some gumption to keep going.  It is Friday, so i am just going to wish me gupmtion to keep going.  I think.

A thing yellow ribbon

There is a thin ribbon of yellow on my mind today.

It is ll I got done today, but I'm okay with it.  

Sometimes I feel like knitting is a job and I have to do more and more and morebut then I snap myself out of it.  I am making clothing on my own from thread.  The only rush is when I really want to wear a thing.  That is it.  That is all.  It isn't big in the grand scheme of anything if it doesn't happen the way I plan.  I have other clothes. 

I did have a lot of other things to do today anyway.  Remember me saying I was going to try to get by with just  phone and my desktop computer?  I caved and purchased a moderately priced Samsung and today was setup day.  I just could not do patterns on my phone.  It is, quite simply, too small.  My printer isn't working well right now, so I couldn't even go to that option.  

It's ok.  It will do the job I need it to do but it is much too much like my hated phone to make me really happy.  There are a few things where it may be superior to my Surface.  And I hate 'apps'.  Calling a program and 'app' sounds so pompous, affected, pretentious. And supercilious for good measure.  We had our first home computer in 1989 and I have always tried to stay up to date, but the idea that 'apps' were something new and cool makes me laugh.  But things change and I guess I have too.  I shan't whine anymore about it.  Well not today anyway.  The dust will settle in a day or two and I will get over the trauma of setting it up by myself soon enough.   

While I was struggling to get things where I wanted them, I listened to an audio book, Still Life by Louise Penny.  I loved this book.  A LOT.  It is exactly what I was looking for as a change from Agatha Christie.  It is a mystery but not one of those cozy mysteries.  It has a sophisticated intelligent plot but it isn't about the gore of a murder and the specifics of forensic science.  It is about the who and why they did what they did and it was wonderful.  There will be more Inspector Gamache for me.  

The Pups and the Evil Yarn

A certain Mr. Someone and his Pups and I had a lovely day together. His sister also featured large.  She was up, all dressed and ready to open the door for me when I arrived at 6:30 a.m.!  She whispered to me that she phoned me at 5:30 so I wouldn't forget.  And she did too.  

Knitting was a little dicey though.  His pups and the Mission Paw Paw Patroller had a few hairy minutes stuck to the yarn.  The evil yarn kept getting caught in the wheels and inside where the Mission vehicles ride.  And then,  the yarn made everything fall out but all the pups landed safely on their wheels and were ready to go.  It was close. It was amazing.

I wish that one day when they are grownups that all my grandkids could see themselves as I see them.  Cassie, Marcus, Isaac, Carter and my little Emmett.  They are such bundles of imagination and energy and I truly hope that life and adulthood doesn't suck that out of them.  They mean so much to me.

And then the knitting.  That evil sock yarn finished its socks.

They are pretty nice socks, but I have to tell you, that this is probably going to be my last pair of this pattern.  Since I started these, some of the previous pairs I knitted have gone into the sock rotation and they are not standing up.  I seem to make the slip stitch sections too tight and they end up having yarn breaks right on a slip.

It is disheartening to have it happen on the first wash, but better now than before I make too many.  Please note, this is knitter error and is not related to the pattern at all.  The pattern is great.  Seriously great.  I love knitting it.  I just slip too tightly.  Let this be a lesson.  It was to me and this most recent Geek socks have been knitted with much greater care taken to keep the floats loose.

Having completed that pair, it was high time to set up a couple more pairs so I have something to knit during the races this weekend.  It is the Austrian Grand Prix, the home of Red Bull Racing and it is always fun to watch.  But knitting during F1 can be a little intense and tension can change so sweaters are not always the thing.  Socks really are the perfect knitting for race days.

I pulled out some different yarn for me, one I picked up first at Jo's Yarn Garden on a visit just after Christmas.  

Lovely colours that made an interesting toe and I can't wait to see what happens as it goes up the foot.  That is half the fun of knitting socks, seeing what happens with the colours.

The yarn is called Naked Sock.  It is wool free and is mostly acrylic.  On the ball bands it says perfect for sweater, shawl and sock projects.  I can easily see it for sweaters and small shawls.  It is wonderfully slinky and soft.  The drape would be amazing in anything made from this but I want to know if it would stand up to socks because really, if you are going to call something Naked Sock, in my book, it has to stand on its feet.  I don't think it would make a good really long sock.  I suspect the cuff will slump.

I also started another pair, more just that I had needles free and they were right there beside me.

I picked this up on that same trip to Jo's.  I should have checked.  I am trying not to use only those pretty bright things, but I guess the heart wants what it wants.  

It's an interesting colourway. Lemon,and bright sunshine yellows and khaki followed by black and grey.  I hold out hope that the end product will be uplifted by the sunshine yellow.  It is the perfect example of my belief that a bit of black makes a dull colourway come to life.  Even the brightest yellow couldn't liven it up if not for this black.  Still it is a great wool.  Meilenweit is one of my all time favourite sock yarns.  Second only to Kroy in durability in my sock drawer and that says a lot about it.  

So, the knitting is ready for this weekend and races.  School is out for all my kids and with full summer and the spray park in town being open, I hope to arrange some playdates for grandma

with all my kids.  The tasks of the day are at hand and my coffee is ready for a refill.

Three tops and a sock

I may not have finished the sweater on Friday, but Saturday morning, I did.  Finished and worn,with mixed results.  The wearing was great, the looking really good slightly less so.  There is a lot of fabric at the side and it seems to cling and hang oddly.  Some of that may be due to my usual increases, which I did in their usual places on top of what the pattern asked for, but my usual increases will mean that if I decide to sort out the excess by sewing a seam, the top will be very wearable and will fit fine.  No photo because it looks exactly the same as before, just 2 and one quarter inches longer.

Sunday was a raceday (French Grand Prix) so the sock came out of hiding to be knit upon.  Next week is going to need a new sock because all there is to go on this pair is a cuff!  Races are good for simple sock knitting but there was lots of other really rewarding knitting too.

My version of the Cascadas Tee saw the most wonderful progress.

I have finished the lace yoke and have just split for the sleeves.  An inch or two of knitting on the body and it is try on time.  I hold great hope for this top.

I am so happy I went with the lace for with this yrn.  It is so crisp on the lines in the lace.  I am really looking forward to seeing it blocked.

And my second top from the Summer Snowflakes Top pattern, the one with the little daisy lace, is a row shy of the final increase before splitting.

I did a lot of knitting today and all the while I stared at the sample card of Harrisville that I ordered from Camilla Valley Farms a few weeks ago.  I love the yarn and I love the colours.  I think after these summer sweaters, I am going to put Myrtle on the front burner again, just to be able to knit with and play with the colours of the Harrisville.  I may be under a spell of some sort.  I hated to put the card away again.

Summer is here.  The yarn stores are almost done their fall yarn orders.  Time to start knitting fall sweaters? Maybe, but maybe not.

Waylaid

I got up this morning with high hopes of finishing my sweater but it was not to be.  On my way out of my room, I was waylaid by some cheery yarn, a 3 pack of soap, and some good intentions.  

A while ago I made a soap cozy for in my shower.  I kept dropping the soap and found myself wishing for some soap on a rope.  I did think about felting wool on to the soap bar and stringing a wrist loop, but I couldn't get the thought of wasting all that soap till the fibre felted.   I don't really need it felted.  That can happen during use.  I just wanted something that I wasn't going to drop.

I made a quick and dirty cozy very early one morning.  That first one was really just to see I would like it and if it would solve my soap on the floor problem.  It did and I loved it.  

As good as it was, the first one did not last forever and I knew I could make a cozy way better than that first try.  

I wanted it to fit snugly around the soap.  There were frequent try ons.  Twenty minutes and things were looking great.

A quick three needle bind off, seating everything nicely inside it's little sweater and

and i cord knit just long enough to fit nicely around my wrist when it was wet and

in no time at all I had three nice little wool covered soap bars ready for use.  

The red, green and golden yellow yarns are leftovers from a cowl and the yellow with that touch of grey blue is the yellow and a small bit of some leftover Kauni from a scarf.  All the yarns will felt nicely and are exactly the right kind of silly for my morning ablutions.

Wool to bed, wool when I rise, wool all the time.  

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

I am wool.  Isn't that nice?

Are we there yet?

I try not to whine.  That actually my be completely untrue, but I do try not to whine too much in public but if there is something I am pretty good at, it is probably whining.  Are we there yet?

I have to keep asking myself that while I knit this project. The rows are so incredibly long.  I am not sure I would stay sane if I didn't whine a little.  Of course, I don't listen to myself.  That would just be too depressing, and I would probably stop knitting it.  

And then suddenly, there is that magical moment where you look at the marker that marked your original length and

You realize that by gosh, you are there and you measure three times just to be sure and wouldn't you know it?  You are long enough.  All you have to do is the garter stitch hem.

Oh yeah.

And so it goes.  Another day and the second round trying to finish this top will be done.  

I am a little worried though.  The reason that I needed more length was the handkerchief hemline on the sides of the top, created by that fantastic increase line, stopped right at that most unfortunate part of my hips, the wide part.  It was a desperately unhappy ending for an otherwise very pretty top.  If it still isn't a happy result, there will be surgery.  I am just not ready to face more knitting to make it right.

Bring on tomorrow when I will know.  I just want to be there.

Bad Hair Day?

Not mine.  The sheep.  What with all the unspun wool laying around the living room, I got the idea to do this.

Someone online suggested I sample before I decide exactly how I will handle this Border Leicester I just finished washing.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  But seriously?  NOPE. Not even a little bit.  The fibre is just too fine.  It went on in clumps and stayed that way.  I did try spreading it out with my fingers but in order to get even a little onto the carding drum I was spreading it so much that I may as well have been flicking.  This shot is me, trying to get the fibre that did load, off.  Sorry for the blur.

I did try flicking next.  It seemed obvious.  

It does produce a lovely fibre, but you would have to hold each little locklet separately and brush it and there are thousands of little locks.  See the next photo.  The above is one little curl.

Time to try something completely new.  I pulled out my combs.

I have tried them once before but I wasn't very impressed.  It seemed like a lot of work for not a lot of result.  I think I had a fibre that didn't really like combing because today, with this Border Leicester?  Wow.

I filled an entire big sweater storage bag with airy poufs ready for spinning in half an hour. It isn't going to be a fast process.  That was only about a quarter of one of my screen bags, but it produces more ready fibre in a much smaller amount of time than flicking would.  And the result is equally heavenly. Putting your hand in the bag of this stuff after combing is like touching warm clouds.  It is just glorious.

You can see the curly fibre before combing, sitting in the middle of a pile of combed.  It is just so different combed than the tight sweet little curls it starts as.

There is lots left to comb before before this part of the job is done, but I dream of spinning it already.  Just can't wait.

As you may have noticed, my shifting to a new writing time is going much better this week.  My camera is with me all day and that seems to be keeping me on my toes, thinking about what  I am doing and focusing in on this moment in time.  It is a much healthier way to live.  And it has been a true blessing to have something to help me fill the more challenging hours of the evening. 

Plus my dishes are more or less done by the end of the day.  Not sure how or why that is happening.  Don't even want to think about what that means...

To Spin!

Westmoreland

Song for the Spinning Wheel

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

Founded upon a Belief Prevalent among the Pastoral Vales of Westmoreland

SWIFTLY turn the murmuring wheel! Night has brought the welcome hour, When the weary fingers feel Help, as if from faery power; Dewy night o’ershades the ground;         5 Turn the swift wheel round and round! Now, beneath the starry sky, Couch the widely-scattered sheep;— Ply the pleasant labor, ply! For the spindle, while they sleep,         10 Runs with speed more smooth and fine, Gathering up a trustier line. Short-lived likings may be bred By a glance from fickle eyes; But true love is like the thread         15 Which the kindly wool supplies, When the flocks are all at rest Sleeping on the mountain’s breast. Such beauty on the wheel above.  That is Christine plying two wool singles together at light speed.  What a lovely way to start the day, though judging by Wordsworth's poem, I ought to be spinning in the evening. The very first thing I did this morning was to put my newest tool to work to see if it would do what I really wanted it to do. Yes indeed it did and a far better job too, than I could have imagined with no practise. I had to stop and redo pigtail bits only twice.  An unexpected plus was this bobbin held the entire Victoria bobbin worth of singles!  I wasn't expecting that at all.  The proof will be seeing if the much much more smoothly loaded bobbin helps me with my plying woes. Then off to spinning.  I dug out a braid of Colour Adventures Falkland in the George colourway. It is a wonderful soft play on rich blue.  Very pretty. I am rapidly reaching the bottom of my pre dyed fibre.  I  have so much natural colour fibre that I want to spin up before I purchase more just for the colours.  So many textures, so many varieties, so much interesting fibre.  To say nothing of the fleece!   I guess if I want colours, I will have to take the time to do that too. Also, darn. I really wanted to see this tea cozy and forgot to ask after it.  It is just so adorable.  Well darn.

Einbandery

I have no idea what happened to Saturday.  It just sort of melted away.  I know that I did knit on all three of my sweaters and I know that at the end of the day, I did try to get the lace pattern established on my Einband shawl.  

Well, you know how that worked out?  Not well.  I tried it and then took it all out again and thought how silly I was to try to cap off a long day with the hardest knitting of all.  It isn't really the knitting that is hard, but the counting.  Oh heavens the counting.

I picked it and only it up on Sunday morning.  I had a cup of coffee and began.  And ripped it out.

I had another cup of coffee and tried it again.  That did not go so well either.  I read the book.  I read the other version of the Dýrfinnustaðahyrna which is on page 28, not page 45, and is finished with a lovely fringe. Lots of info but nope.  It only confirmed that I was thinking right.

I went back and counted my starting rows to make sure I had the right number of stitches.  I did.  I made sure that my center detail was in the right place.  It was.  I counted again and was right on the money again.  So I very carefully started again.  

The biggest part of the problem was the yarn itself.  Einband is a sticky yarn.  It clings to itself most impressively.  It can be a bit thick and thin and sometimes, what you think is two strands, is one, and what looks to be one is two.  

I deliberately did each and every stitch, very carefully pulling the yarn through one and only one stitch, and making sure that each decrease was actually made of two stitches, watching that each and every yarn over set had a single stitch in between.  Slowly I worked along.  First side done!  Second side?  I had to do that few more times to get it right, but by 4 p.m. I was good and my pretty lace was established.  I knit two more rows of lace patterning for good measure and to soothe my soul.

It was feeling a bit battered after all that counting trouble, and I needed proof that I have got this down.  You know what my favourite thing about this shawl is?  The gentle colour changes of the Icelandic wool.  Verklempt.

Today's chores were not nearly so nice, though they were equally rewarding.

I had been waiting for another hot day since Wednesday to finish this batch of wool washing.

Four more dry bags of nice clean Border Leicester.  It will get bagged tomorrow.  May as well wait to be sure it is really good and dry before putting it away.  I haven't weighed this batch, but according to the other large batch, which weighed in at about 750 grams, I think this is a good solid 500, making my fibre outcome after washing about 1.25 kilograms or 2.7 pounds.  

But for today, this is it.  I barely have enough will left to sit on my chair tonight to write.  It was a good day, but long.  And hot.  And I look forward to a nice cool rest. 

The In Betweens

What with all the ruminating on things that were, minutes between sections of huge but rewarding jobs, and grandkids, all the knitting going on here has been about time in between other things. It is sort of rewarding to sit down and really take a look at everything going on.

Each day, I try to knit at least 2 rounds of what was once a completed top, my Not Daisies Top . It looks exactly the same today as it did before I called it done.  I am utterly thrilled to say that it is now as long as it was before I ripped back the garter stitch hem and I am beginning actual new length to it.  So it goes.  I ought to work more devotedly on this one just to get it done but sometimes it isn't the right yarn to work with and sometimes, such as when I am sitting in my knitting chair, which is just a smidgen too high to use one of my WIP bins to support the rest of the top.   My knitting chair is a superior F1 vantage point so that means it isn't a good top for F1 races and there are a fair number of hours every second week spent watching F1. Other knitting happens.

I am two rows away from the start of the second lace section on my stunning yellow top,

the sweet Cascadas Tee by Susana IC in Patons Hempster.  The more I knit with this yarn, the more I like it.  I washed my swatch from back when I was thinking of using it for a Shakerag Top, several more times, to see how it would perform in day to day life, and it does indeed just get better.  I  purchased two more skeins when I was hoping to make the Skakerag Top, and almost had a yarn incident purchasing several more colours. I am really pleased with the way the lace is turning out with it, crisp and clean.  Or it will be when it is washed and blocked.

And then the second of my tops made using the Summer Snowflakes pattern from Susan Dingle.

This top had the most change over the last ten days.  It made for great knitting during races and between kids and chores and errands because the increases are easy to see and place and there are the same number of plain rows between each set of increases.  I have to do a gauge check to see if I need to do the last two sets of increases, but it is really nice knowing exactly how the pattern fits before I can try this version on.  

And then there is this, my new Icelandic shawl, the Dýrfinnustaðahyrna með blúndu.

It is really too lovely to be an in between project but the little edging really was a great in between.  I have picked up stitches but the next bit is going to take a few days of devoted work and a lot of counting till the lace pattern is established.  Once that is set up, it will be wonderful knitting again.  The lace is not hard (I hope) and the colour changes look intuitive.  

If you look carefully just at the tip of the needle, you will see what seems to be untethered lace edging and indeed, it is.  By the time I got to the right number of picked up stitches, I had exactly one repeat of the edging too much.  I will go back and shorten it after I have knit the rest of the shawl.  The construction of this shawl and the edging pattern allow me to do that.   

And that is the betweens, reported to you, in between.  Gotta go.

Stinky Sticky Work

Right now, in this moment, I am dirty and stinky and completely and utterly victorious.  I need a shower.  Badly.  There is no one here but me so I took the low and mildly disgusting route, made my coffee and just started.

Remember last fall I purchased some fleece from a local sheep farm?  I did cold water washes on them till winter surprised me and showed up before I was done.  Drying them in the house was a herculean task and it took forever, about a week, actually.  Because the first batches took so long and I had run out of drying room, one fleece remained outside frozen into its vat of water.  I did check if it was recoverable, but nope.  

The dried fleece had more lanolin in it than I hoped so I wanted to give it a hot water wash to see if that would deal with it.  

This is what I faced this morning.

 

In preparation for this, I made some large wash and dry bags out of some screen repair rolls. Each 84 inch roll made two and a half bags that fit perfectly into the bins I was going to use to do the job.

As I went through the fibre, picking out the big stuff that remained,

there was some detritus falling to the floor, but much, much less than I thought there would be.  The tips were the dirtiest bits and the cut ends were packed with grease, so I fluffed them all out a bit and separated everything into nice loosely filled packages.

The first wash was pretty dirty but the second was much better,

and after three hot rinses, the water was clear.  Really truly clear! 

I spun the last of the water out in my washing machine.  Seriously debated about this step, but honestly, after letting my screen bags drip for a bit suspended from a wood dowel, there was so little water that I wasn't really worried.  The machine is going to get a good clean out with vinegar and hot water before I wash clothes again, though.

Half of the fleece is outside right now, drying.  By the time the last three screen bags were done washing, the first two bags were almost dry, thanks to a high of 26C today.  There will be another days work to finish the fleece on the next hot sunny day.  It has been fluffed and is ready to wash so it won't take long to do. What with making the bags this morning, and fluffing the whole fleece, today's work took about 6 hours of on and off work.

Plus this. 

The fleece is beautifully clean and pouffy and is completely free of stickiness and the lock structure is reasonably well preserved.  It wonderfully soft, a complete victory.  I can't wait to see how this Border Leicester spins!

Still, victory comes at a price, and it is time for me to go and take that hard earned, seriously deserved and much needed shower hot shower.

Shifting things about.

I hate summer.  I know that it is really odd to hate summer.  I mean who on earth hates summer in Canada?  Winter should be the season we all hate but not me.  It's goofy, but life took a turn and I kind of hate summer.

Six years ago today, a kindly doctor told Brian what the medical team thought he had, several days before the final results were in.  Early results showed he had very little time.  This time of year is a struggle for me but the one thing I learned last year is I cannot run from it.  I knew it before, but I think part of me hoped it would leave with all the new places I was seeing.  I hoped to prove it to myself that distracting me would work, but it did not. 

It isn't a serious depression or even a mild version of ptsd.  It is just a sort of gentle soft sorrow that rears its delicate little head many more times than is usual on any given day.  It is always there, but at this time of year, I really have to work on it to keep it from becoming life.

The best thing for me so far, is just to keep busy by stretching my mind and doing something just a bit different (Road trips leave you a lot of time to think) and shifting my day around seems to help as much as anything.  Jolting me out of my long established routine works.

So this morning, I am getting my errands and routine chores done really early in the day. This afternoon, I am going to wash some fleece.  The rest of the week should be warm enough and sunny enough to dry them quickly.  Next week will be carding.

Then, this evening, I will knit, like a normal person, in the evening.  Going to bed at 7:30 is just not acceptable and that has happened more than once in the last few weeks as this season approached. When it is close to bedtime, I will sit down and write about my day rather than doing it in the morning and discussing my plans.  It may take a bit of work and effort to adjust to evening writing again, but I have done it before and it will work again.

So if things seems a bit weird here for the next bit as I adapt, run with it.  I have to.  

Begin Again, Again

Today is back to the drawing board for my pretty Not Daisies top.  After my success yesterday with beginning again, it seemed like a good idea.  

Yup.  It needs a couple inches more.  It hits right at the worst possible point.  A bit longer and it will be much much better. With me loving everything else about it and wanting to wear it, it feels right to do it before the urge wears off.  

I had a wonderful time knitting yesterday.  This Cascada pattern is working much better for this yarn.  

Begin Again

Yesterday, I started work with Paton's Hempster, a cotton and hemp blend.  I have been mulling patterns for a while and settled on the Shakerag Top from Mason Dixon Transparency, Field Guide No. 6. 

I did a large swatch and thought, yeah it will be fine with the right needles.

Not that I felt any of the three needle sizes I used for the swatch were the right size, mind you, but I moved forward with it anyway.  You know that thing where you are blind to something and a good sleep takes care of it?  Well, a good sleep made me see that even on the largest size needles, a size 5.5, the sections where two strands of yarn needed to be held together, were stiff and much to firm for what should have been a drapey fabric. Rock Toasties firm.

Wrong yarn for that pattern.  For the rest of the day, I worked on my Daisies top.

I started this when I started the same top in Remix Light, intending them to be the same top but for the lace bit.  I can tell you, I am not doing the out of control flare again.  No way.  Just to much knitting!  It is going to be a more toned down version with shaping to fit me, which is already plenty of stitches in a row.

But because this yellow bright cheery yarn is the yarn I want to work with,

I found another pattern that I hope works, the Cascadas Tee.   There is a lovely little lace pattern around the yoke and it is designed to be knit from the top down, my favourite thing.  I'm hoping that a bit of lace with crisp well defined lines, is this yarns forte.

I'm taking today a bit easy again.  Feeling much better today.  No headache!  and the rest of the stuff I have been feeling seems to be leveling out.  Thank heavens.  

I have got to be more careful.

I have been feeling really crappy the last few days, Sunday being the worst.  I may have gotten an inkling of why this morning.  Or part of why.

 I listen to CBC One in the morning via TV where they carry a lone hour of the show.   The health guy was talking about licorice this morning.  He spoke of a patient who was having headaches and whose blood pressure, despite meds, was out of control.  When asked what he ate or drank or did differently the patient said he had some herbal tea with licorice in it.  The guy was in hospital for two weeks getting things back in order.  The health guy discussed not just licorice, but also green tea and things that are more widely known, like grapefruit, that can be very harmful to people taking certain medications.  

I am not a natural medicine is better for you sort of person.  I am also not a western medicine is the only valid medicine sort of person.  I would lean to natural remedies more often if the people prescribing them were better trained and better regulated in their qualifications.  I would probably trust a person trained in China as a Chinese herbalist for instance.  I would NOT trust what the internet tells me just because it is on a website I like.

As it is, I take medications that helps to make my life.  It makes life not just livable, but I suspect that I would be gone now but for taking it.  

I do think about herbal remedies and how they may affect these meds.  I looked into CBD oil  for general pain and aches and have researched ginger, which I do take and really enjoy.  Mixing natural remedies and western medications has to be very carefully done.  I think about it because I know what I felt like in the time before my meds and I know what I feel like now, which is a lot better.  I really try not to upset the balance. I clearly missed the boat this time.  Green tea which I was aware of and licorice which I was not, are both bad, indeed very bad at small doses, with my meds.  

I have been trying to cut down my coffee consumption.  It too, is not a good companion with my meds.  I have been doing tea every second day, but because caffeine is what I am really trying to avoid by lowering my coffee intake, I have been using my favourite herbal tea of all time, Bengal Spice tea from Celestial Seasonings.  I decided to change things up on Saturday and Sunday and had one cup of coffee and then grabbed other tea in place of my usual Bengal Spice tea.  Unfortunately one of the teas  had a green tea component and the other had licorice root.  I alternated them and probably had four cups of tea on Sunday.  After lunch on Sunday, I really started feeling awful, headaches principally and every day since, I feel as if I am not taking my medications at all.  I went to town yesterday and the rest of the day was a wash.  I slept.  Not just napped slept, I mean.  I slept.  It feels almost like the time before my meds.  

So today, I am having my lone cup of coffee right now and then I am going to have hot water with a squeeze of lemon juice in it for any following hot beverage I have.  (I checked.  A bit of lemon juice ought to be okay.)  And then I am going to call on my doctor to check it all out in case I have done bad stuff to my well being.

There will be a knitting component to the day, though.  That always lowers my blood pressure.  Well, it makes me feel better so bright side, one, dark side one, but I am rooting for the bright side to win.

Finished ?

I managed to find time to finish my Not Daisies top yesterday.  

It wasn't a big effort at all.  It just needed the sleevelets to be finished.  

But though it is technically finished, I won't really know if it is finished finished until I wear it a bit.  I made it slightly longer than the pattern calls for, but it still seems plenty short to me.  If I don't feel comfortable in it, then it will be knit longer.  It turned out really nicely and while there are times, I wouldn't go back and do more major knitting, this one, I would.

Why major knitting?  There isn't any way not to with this design.

Here is the grand sweep of one side.  It gives the top it's distinctive draping and short rows at the back mean it isn't just the dropping sides of  handkerchief hem.  It also means that each round is a lot, a LOT of stitches.

I won't like it if it needs to be longer but I will do it.  It is just too pretty not to.

On the Edge

I don't quite understand why, but so often I feel like a spring under tension, waiting.  For something.  I have no idea what I am waiting for.  I wish I did because then I could resolve it. Sitting here waiting to blow isn't quite the way I would like things to be.

I had a plan in place to start something different this week, and I mean to start today.  I am going to card some fibre to spin and while I do that, I was planning to wash some other fibre.  I am going to leave the washing part though, because that may just be an unrealistic expectation.  I have some sewing to do today because none of the sewing was finished last week.  The skirt is today's main task.  In breaks between I will card.

There are things that were resolved so nicely last week that I am using very actively today.  I was in serious need of new seating by my computer.  I had found what I wanted but it took many hoops to sort out shipping with Amazon.   In the end, I had to find an in the city address to ship it to but I now have it an am using it.  It isn't the usual sort of office chair.  I had that and the way my space is set up, doesn't fit a regular chair.  I need something that I can tuck below my desk.  It needed wheels, so I started looking at lab stools, made my way through drummer's thrones, and kind of ended up with a really comfy mechanic's stool that is the perfect answer to a rather odd quest for something that will comfortably support me and will hold the height I set it to and will roll around less intrusively than my former chair.  The kids torture tested it this weekend.  It will hold!

And that is pretty much it from Chez Needles today.  Unless the spring is sprung or the pressure blows.