A Sock Post

I knit a bit on my Sock Monkey Blanket this weekend, but it is getting too large to work on during the intensity of an F1 race.  I keep an end of it tucked under my arm to take a little of the volume out of my lap so it is no longer a fast drop, fast pick up sort of project.  Too bad because up till now it has been great to work on for race day. 

Too bad too,because every one of my sweaters is at a point where I need to have time and thinking to knit them.  Dad's vest is the same.  The back section is almost done and is at the point where I need to watch so I put the back neck in at the right row as well as repeating what I did on the front shoulder.

All I had ready to work that was good race knitting was socks and after working on the Meilenweit socks earlier in the week, I was a tad bored.

So I grabbed another ball of sock yarn and started another pair. 

It is a yarn I picked up in Saskatoon at the estimable, Prairie Lily and is new to me.  Cascade Heritage Prints has a long history on the market, it just wasn't a market I visited before and I am always game for something new. 

It seems a fine sock yarn, but honestly, now that I have worked with it for a bit and I can see how the pattern is working up, I'm not sure that I like it. 

It feels like it is missing something. 

The yellow sock would be the most boring sock in the world if it wasn't for that punchy bit of strong  vivid black.  It sets off the intensity of the yellow and emboldens the khaki.  It sets the whole picture on it's path to right and good.  I am pretty sure that strong contrast is why it ended up coming home with me on the epic sock adventure of 2019.

The Meilenweit is lacking that.  There is no punch to it.  I like the colours well enough, but for all that there is that rich turquoise and that lovely emerald green to set off the orange and blue jumbled sets, it has no punch, no in your face contrast to pull your eyes to it driving you to stop and really look at the sock.

Maybe I have been looking at too many Monster socks lately and have enjoyed knitting them to my own colour preferences switching bits out as I go, but the new socks are boring and I think I am going to pull them back and add a couple rows of deep navy or crisp sharp black between the stripes. These are such summer colours in a way and maybe that is part of what I feel about it.  It isn't summer any longer. Winter and its depths need something a little beefier a little sharper.  This is part of the endless fascination of sock making.

And also sock wearing.  It snowed a little last night.  Calgary and points south got a very heavy snowfall.  Ours is more of a sympathy snowfall, reminding us that it is that time of year. Wool season has arrived!

A Push is Required.

Here is that dastardly missing bag of knitting.

I found it right bout where I thought it would be, sitting quietly at the top of the stairs waiting for me.  Next time I stuff it in my bag, the bag is going to get zipped closed.  Also next time, I ought to be using the bigger bag I made myself last year.

Today, I have a couple things that I am going to work on.  I am going to go and do some weaving and when that is done, I am going to pay some attention to the fleece waiting for combing.  I sure would like to get that complete before winter sets in and with winter feeling like it is setting in right now,  I feel the urge.

But I also want to work on a sweater today.  I want to knit on dad's vest and get that done, and I probably will, but I have also been thinking about the things I have that are on the needles for myself that need doing.

The jacket.  The dark grey yarn that I ordered from Macausland ought to be here shortly so that can get back under way.  It is needed ASAP.

And this.

 I am so close to having the body done on this sweater and I really cannot wait to wear it.  It makes for a great fast feeling knit with its sections.  It feels as if a weeks worth of effort will grant me a sweater.  I know it will take a bit longer than that.  I have sleeves to knit so three weeks is more realistic.

And this.

Ysolda Teague's lovely design, which I think about a lot.  I am so looking forward to working with the  Briggs and Little Sport again.  This knitting needs to be done when I have a lot of time and my head is clear, because the design grows and each row is different.  In the Lopi sweater, I can look forward to large blocks of rest so it feels faster.  All the easy knitting on this sweater happens after the intense start.

And this.

My lovely Harrisville Myrtle. Ish.

Once the furnace does its wake up cycle, the house cools and a sweater is required and I think of each of these, all this lovely warm wool.

Thinking about these brings to mind that I have two other tops on the go, summer tops, which brings the grand total of sweaters I am working on to six.  Plus dad's vest.  I don't think I have ever had this many garments on the needles at one time before and that can only mean one thing.

I need to finish these before I can start more.  Starting is easy. Finishing, not so much.  I need a push and today's chilly temperature is giving me just that.

Brokenhearted

So here I sit broken hearted...

I am babysitting again today. They do have an arrangment with a local caregiver but that caregiver needed today to do some appointments.  It should smooth out next week.  

It's  actually a really nice day so far.  Cassie went off to school happily though she did admit if shè could choose, she would rather stay home with daddy.  At that age, who wouldn't.   So it is just me and Marcus and we are pretty happy playing with our toys.  

The broken hearted part is that grandma's  knitting did not make it into her bag.  Yeah.  What looks to be a dull day at someone else's  house and no knitting.

Thankfully I do have some audio books.  My brain is occupied but my hands are so restless.  

WWSIPD

Half the week is gone and I did not talk about our adventures for WWSIPD better known as World Wide Spin in Public Day.  

Last year we had a small gathering here in Mundare, well attended though the weather was awful.  It snowed and left piles of slush on roadways.  People thought about turning back and going home but came anyway.  

This year there was a smaller group, but conversation was lovely.  We talked weaving and spinning and a wee bit of knitting.

I had to compliment this really lovely Sock Arms sweater.  It was the perfect thing for the sort of blustery, sunny day that it was.  Very pretty.  Catherine is spinning a batt of alpaca, silk and wool, I think she said BFL, but I can't really recall, and is aiming for socks for this yarn.  She is going to three ply it for a tough,sturdy round yarn that will stand up to a socks wear and tear.

Another lady joined us from about 40 minutes north of Mundare and brought her lovely wheel.  

Lindsay calls this her fire wheel, as in the wheel she would throw in the car if she had to evacuate for a fire. I would too.  It's from 1863, and was made in Norway.  It is quite an unusual wheel but there are a few around.  It is a double drive wheel and Lindsay certainly made it sing. The only down side is that she only has two bobbins so spinning and moving your singles to a storage bobbin is a must.  She was working on a dark coloured fleece of an indeterminate origin sheep that her sister found for her and delivered all carded and ready to spin.  

I forgot to take a picture of what I was working on.  Lest you wonder if I was a bystander, I was spinning.  

This is from the second of two braids Falkland wool top from  Colour Adventures,  about halfway done.  This will be a two play, nice and lofty I hope and ought to be about a double knit weight yarn.  but I am looking forward to getting this done, clearing off the bobbins and starting to spin wht I have been combing all winter.  Mittens?  Hats?  Maybe a cowl.  It is such pretty blues.  

We had several people stop by to chat, particularly one elderly gent who grew up in New Zealand and had sheared sheep in his youth.  He said his mother used to get yarn back from the mill in return for the fleece which she would weave or knit for clothing and blankets, but he had never seen hand spinning before and was really happy to know people still did that kind of thing.  Another lady stopped who was a weaver.  She said she used handspun in many things over the years but she didn't do much anymore.  There were kids watching too and several gentlemen who were fascinated by the way the wheel worked and what it was actually doing.  

You just never know what sorts of stories you will hear when you sit and spin out in the world.  There is always a lot of interest.  

I really enjoy that little bit of social spinning and knitting that we do at Baba's Attic.  It is such a perfect little shop and they are so kind to host us and feed us.  If you are ever out and about and need a good feed of some great homemade perogies, come to Mundare. Let me know and I would pop down for coffee too.   

And that was Spin in Public Day 2019.  Looking forward to next year!

Vests!

Well one at least. There is work happening

I did rip back everything I did the other day sitting at laundromat.  I judt did not like the way the arm looked.  It didn't have enough room at the base of the armscye.  I pulled the book out and did exactly what it said and it worked perfectly.  Funny how that happens.  

There may have to be some changes.  The pattern arm is just under 10 inches.  That may be a bit long for dad.  It isn't  a difficult fix to shorten  it .  

Today I'm working on the back section but I hope to make good orogress and be almost done it by days end.  If I work hard I can look forward to finishing by the weekend. 

I'm also babysitting sick kids.  Who are well enough to get in trouble.  Wish me luck with the knitting plans.

A little whining, a little wool

It's race weekend.  Dad's vest my experience a bit of a slow down.  The vest, with the careful counting it will need for a bit is not a good F1 race weekend project.  I will try to knit on it during the times when I am not watching the race stuff.  

I did knit on the vest yesterday while I was waiting for my large items to be done at the laundromat but I had forgotten the book at home.  I have to sit down and compare what I did to what I ought to have done.  I knit but I may end up ripping most of it back.  It seems to wide at the shoulder and dad is a small boned leanly muscled man.  I want it to be a little narrower there than most of the vests show on Ravelry.  Too wide in the shoulders and it won't be the trim sort of vest he always wears.   

Knitting will happen but it isn't going to be so much as I would usually do.  I 've got  crick in my hip that feels best if I keep moving about and if I sit very very straight on a hard chair.  The conundrum is I have to keep moving about which means sewing enough to get done a project isn't going to happen,  weaving a lot isn't going to happen, with not a lot of knitting getting done due to the constantly moving nature of this ache.  And that is all it is.  An ache that just needs to heal up a bit and go back to normal.  It leaves me feeling unsettled as well as feeling unaccomplished.

Wandering from here to there, sitting only for short spells means I am getting up and down, leaving browser windows open on the computer, clicking things and going places I don't usually go.   Some of these things and places are really interesting like yesterdays Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.    Today's find is UllCentrum , a Swedish online store that actually has that rare thing, Z twisted yarns!  It is rare to find some place that has it.  

So there you have it.  One find for the day and that is it for me.  Honest, there will be photos soon.  I just need to actually accomplish something enough to take a photo of it.  At least when Marcus and Cassie or Carter, Isaac, and Emmett are here, there are fun things to show you instead of knitting.  

Just for fun, a little Marcus because he was here last and he is modelling his new Paw Patrol Eyepatch,  which is pretty cool according to him.  And a little dirt by his mouth because even when you wash his face, it is his natural state.

A found day

I have already had a full day and it is only 8 a.m.  I got up prepared to run my errands and then to babysit this afternoon.  I did a couple loads of laundry before I left my room (the laundry is in my ensuite) and made some coffee and sat down to see what was up with the world today.  But no babysitting. Their daddy has succumbed to back to school flu, which changes everything. Not only did I do laundry already today and make coffee, but I now had to make large decisions. That is a lot before the coffee is done.

I did a fair bit of knitting yesterday on the vest for dad.  It is looking pretty fine, if I do say so myself.  Today I will be starting work on the yoke of the vest, which I expect to go fairly quickly.  The vest fronts with a shallow v neckline and comfortable sized arm openings, mean many fewer stitches.  

I want to knit section one, then the back and then the second front and in order to keep all the decreases the same on all the parts, I am going to have to go find my marker stash.  I have a  little emptied out mint box full of the little bulb markers somewhere, but I am not so sure which where.  Pictures will be much more interesting now.

Which where.  Isn't that the sort of phrasing that teachers would stamp out in an instant if they could?  I've been reading a book on the English language, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue which delightfully illustrates what we would lose if teachers could stamp it out.  

And then, in honour of today being International Talk Like a Pirate Day, I came across this delightfully piratical offering, the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.  Interesting and delightfully rougueish reading.

  

I am off to do some heavy laundry that doesn't fit into my small machines. I shall sit and knit and listen to interesting books.  A found day ought not to be wasted.

Weaving

I dug my way into the spare room, aka the loom room, and did  bit of work on my problematic battens and reeds.

I read everything that I could find online and yes everything was indeed being put together right, though there are some swinging beaters out there with a wingnut to hold the battens together. Mine is a simpler nut.  This is a good thing because I do not have enough hands to hold everything together and tighten up the nut and a wingnut besides. 

It took a while to get it together again.  Putting it all in place with a warp through the reed is awkward to say the least.  But this time, I made certain to tighten up the nuts holding the reed in place till the nut wouldn't turn any farther.  

And then I sat down to weave, just to see if I could. I took photos of the nuts before I started and about halfway through just to see if they are still loosening off like they were before.  That seems to be the trouble everyone has with this beater, that the nut loosens after very little work.  I wanted to see if the ultra tightening would make a difference.

 Before

After

  

No significant difference after weaving about half of the second dishcloth.  So I kept going till I ran out of filled bobbins for my shuttle.  I checked the nuts again after I was done and still no movement.

It was a pretty good days effort all in all.

The only problem I have right now, is that I cannot seem to loosen the little suckers at all.  They are good and tight.  I have no doubt that more weaving will change this.  At least I hope so, or it is going to be a problem if I want to weave up some Zephyr  and need to change the reed.  

Places I go while sitting still.

There are so many things I want to do.  I sometimes feel as if  no matter how many days there are, I don't have enough. I am greedy for days to try all the things I want to do, to express all the things I want to express through the work of my hands, even if no one but me understands just what it is that piece of work says,  even if no one else feels a handmade thing says anything at all,  even if it is a journey no one but me goes on, sitting there in my chair.

All last week, while studiously working on my knitting, I thought about embroidery.  I have several pieces on my walls and have ideas for more. So many more.  I was thinking about pulling out all my embroidery books today just for fun.  I cannot imagine not being deeply inspired by Trish Burr's intensity and sure hand in her lovely work (See her website too) or the delicate touch of Kazuko Aoki .  

I think that is what I am looking for today.  Inspiration.  I am looking to go on a journey in my head rather than sitting stuck in what I am doing.  I may not be much of a real world traveler, but I go miles, many, many miles, while my hands are busy.  

The vest is in the middle of the body and is very back and forth and mindless.  I am trying not to think of knitting other things so I can stay happily focussed and busy knitting this project but I still crave the inspiration of the journey to something else, somewhere else.    

Monogamy

any person who checks out my Ravelry project will  note that there are a lot of WIPs.  A lot.  Sixteen if you include the Sock Parade. (Which I do, but I kill it every year and start over)  Project monogamy is a big thing here at Chez Needles.

It makes a difference though.

Dad's vest is coming in at just shy, a half a row shy, of 12 inches.  The vest pattern  from a Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns by Ann Budd says 14 inches for a medium mens vest.  That may be a little long for dad.  He was never tall and now that he is 90, he is no taller than I. Well, maybe an inch, but that is it.  Longer is better in my books.  That way the chill cannot climb up your back when you sit.

I love this yarn though.  It is so soft and tweedy.  No one could ever say its scratchy at all.  This is wool for the fussy people of the world who need wool.  Not that dad is fussy, but mom is.  In her world wool is itchy.  

My world is a wool is not itchy sort of world and that makes me happy.  I can wear Einband at my neck.  I am sturdy or weird, your pick.  Quality wool generally doesn't bother me.  I'm just lucky like that.

In a week where I hopped to be sewing and knitting, I am knitting and babysitting.  My daughter in law had organized a caretaker while she took some classes, but it did not work out and she asked if I could come and take care of them.  

So I am knitting, but it is early starts and full days.  It isn't like they are small anymore, but still I am out of my element.  My work sits and waits for me as householder tasks always do.  Like dishes, only a broader range of tasks.

I will try to take some photos later of where the vest is at.  It is the one thing I am taking with me each day.  Good for project monogamy!  

A little sewing

Way back in spring,way way back, I talked about sewing some new things.  I think I even talked bout it last October when I got some very pretty plaid for some 3/4 length sleeved tops.

All that fabric has been sitting waiting for me to work on it.  I was sick of my clothes then and I am even more sick now. Plain t shirts matched my mood for a very long time, plus they were cheap and sturdy.  but they are not the me who remains.  They are not me now. 

I have been thinking of sewing while I knit.  I have been thinking of sewing as I fall asleep, leading to dreaming of new clothes.  I think more of clothes now than I did when I was 16.  As soon as dad's vest is close to done, sewing is going to commence. 

Nice soft easy shapes, stretchy fabrics with beautiful drape.  Some of it at least.    I have fabric for pants, some knit, some soft medium weight linens, some sturdy cottons.  I've even been thinking of skirts. 

I think very differently about sewing now than I did before.  I have sewn since I was 14 so I know the basics  (I do not always do the basics...), but my thinking about shapes and ease and form and fit is so very different now since I learned how to knit a shape that fits me well.  I have a different approach and a different kind of confidence.

Very shortly some of this pretty stuff is going to be sewn by me.  Wearable or not, is yet to be determined, but it will be sewn.

Starting more

I have been thinking of knitting a vest for my dad for a good long while. Several years, in fact. I had kind of decided against it because mom would have to wash it and she hates wool.  I was telling my sister about a conversation I had with my dad on one of the few brutally hot days we had.  He said it was the first time he had been warm in a long time. 

That meant the vest was back on.  My sister said she would wash it for him, though we both agreed that a ninety year old man rarely gets dirty enough that a vest, worn over a shirt, would need washing more than once or twice a season. 

So my sister and I went looking for yarn.  I told her the kind of thing I thought would be nice and showed her a few things as we came to them.  We talked about colours and since she sees him much more often than I do, I went with what she thought.  I thought that it needed to be a basic thing, something tweedy and not solidly coloured.  I showed her some stunning blue Rios.  She thought it was a little too bright, but not bad.  She wondered off while I thought about how much I would need and then she called and asked about some yarn she found. 

She scored.

She found Friday Harbor from Cascade Yarns.  It's a new yarn I think, with only five projects on Ravelry, but it is a stunner. It is 80% merino and 20 % silk and oh my goodness.  Once I saw it I knew it was right.

I started this after supper Saturday and knit a good portion of the ribbing.  I knit on it this morning while watching the F1 race from Monza and did very well. 

Friday Harbor is a lovely smooth yarn, warm in your hands and a bit of that dry feeling from the silk but it is so soft and is a perfect sort of gentle tweed for dad.  It is knitting up wonderfully fast, which is great because I really would like this project done before it gets desperately cold.

I am using the basic vest pattern from Ann Budd's  Knitter's Handy Book of patterns, one of my favourite go to books.  The yarn will speak in this project and besides, dad is not  fancy vest sort of guy.  Simple is exactly right.

On Coats

Well gosh darn it.  I had a post in my head, was ready to write and then started watching an episode of Rumpole of the Bailey and forgot all about it.  If you have never watched Rumpole, you ought.  I went to bed awash in the complexity of the stories and in amazement that the two episodes I watched remain absolutely relevant today even though the stories were produced in 1978. 

Yesterday was a waiting day.  I was waiting for a call back that never came.  And that is ok.  But I am still waiting today for that return call.  In the meantime I am knitting.  

I started by opening bins of WIPs and picked up my jacket.  I ordered a deep grey yarn to do the colour blocking this jacket will need and then started knitting.

I knit and knit and then wouldn't  you know it.  The ball of yarn ran out.  So I measured. It's  actually just about what I hoped for.  The green ran out right about 3/4 of the way down my arm.  I may extend it a bit longer but that will have to wait to see just how much green yarn I need on the body.  Since I only had one skein allotted for the sleeve, I put the stitches on a holder and picked up for sleeve two.

As you can see, the sleeve is huge.  It looks particularly odd because the width of the coat is pulled together on its holder so the center looks small and the sleeves, weird.  It is perfect though.  I want this coat to fit better over the top of another sweater.  The roomy sleeve means minimal pulling as I put it on, and no binding as I move.  Everything about this sweater is made to be an outer layer, a coat.

I don't  know  why but moving to sleeve two has been such a boost.  I felt as if completing sleeve one  is confirmation that this sweater will get done.  I will get by till it is done, but I do need it.  

I have been using an Argo sweater that I knit several years ago for my outer garment, 

but it does have issues when using it as a coat.  The sleeves are a bit short and it isn't quite roomy enough for over top other layers.  It's a perfectly marvelous sweater though, made from the warmest locally produced yarn (Custom Woollen Mills Mule Spinner) and I wear it as much in my house as I wear it outside.  It's difficult to explain just how much I love my Argo other than intensive use.  It isn't a great coat though.  It's just an acceptable over layer and I want more and better.

There are five skeins of dark grey Macausland's yarn  on order and five skeins of this green left.  It seems like a lot.  It well may be, knowing my deep seated fear of running out.  I meant to order four grey but I found myself telling the lady five.  I guess I will have lots now to if I decide to make the hood I've been thinking about and plenty for the generous button bands. 

 I hope.

Did you hear that?

That noise?  That loud and frightful screech that could only be a creature in deep distress?  

Or me, trying to weave.

I had some trouble getting going but then started to feel more in charge of the thing.  Not everything was perfect, but this is a dishcloth.  I just need to to get weaving. 

I thought I was doing pretty well even though I seem to have missed one reed space.  It isn't going to compromise a dishcloth.  Later I noticed that there is one place where I have two warp threads on the same shaft, but again, not going to be a real problem on a dishcloth.  I made both ends with a crochet cotton so that I could sew a sturdy proper hem and not have it be so heavy.  

If you look carefully above, you can see that the bottom batten is not on the reed.  Look for a dark blue straight edge near the top of the photo.  That is the bottom of the reed and ought to be encased in a frame made of wood.  Mine kept falling off. I checked more than once that it was seated properly and it was.  You could not get it any farther into the frame than the wood is cut.  That was the trouble getting started.  I decided that I really did not need that piece.  It wasn't attached other than by friction fitting and since it kept falling off, ha, I was going to ignore it.  And I wove.

And then this.

The top of the reed fell out.  

I replaced it...'eighteen... times 'to quote the brilliant and much missed Robin Williams, in his ever so funny piece about the invention of golf. (Please don't click the link unless you do not mind a bit of rough language.)  I think of this because that is exactly how I felt after the fourth of fifth time. There was language.

And then I decided that I had done enough for the day, that it was time to go to the manuals to see if the parts were put together correctly (they are), to see if I could find some help on ravelry and to have another cup of coffee.  

And then I noticed it was 1 p.m.  I ate some lunch.  I did some knitting.  

If anyone says that knitting cannot soothe the savage beast, they are wrong.

Does gauge lie?

And because I m too lazy to do anything else, a sweater knitting update.

I really like how this is working out, but I am going to have to take it off needles and put it on a holder so I can see what I have.

I have started decreases but honestly, this is a stressful way of knitting. My nerves are shot.  What if it doesn't fit even now?  Eeep.  I mean, I know there is math and gauge and everything says it will be fine, but I have trouble believing it.

Gauge lies sometimes.  I worry.

Go North

I am here. Now.

I wasn't here last week.  I was there.

There was a lovely little rustic cabin in Northern Saskatchewan, not too far from Prince Albert National Park at Anglin Lake.  Northern is debatable.  It is not even an hour north of Prince Albert, but once you leave that little city, you really are north.  My sister knew of it and did the arranging.  I would love to go back and just sit and knit on the lovely little deck.

Because it was pretty much the same distance from here to the lake direct, versus a stop in Saskatoon, I did stop and start my trip in Saskatoon.  It gave me a chance to visit the lovely yarn store there, Prairie Lily, and pick up some yarn for a couple projects for the fall.  More on that as I work them up.

And I knit.  I had two projects along, but I found the blanket was my best bet. 

For the dimensions I want, I am almost halfway there.  I worried about how my hands would cope, but seriously, so long as I am mindful about keeping my hands relaxed, and not let them go to the grip of death, I am fine.  Big needles.  Who knew?!!

My trip also included  side trip to our old farm, which is once again, lived on and at by a new family.  I am so happy about that.  It is really wonderful to see it with a lovely new home and kids and a wee doggie.  It was nice to see the changes in the community and still to feel like it was, at the heart of it,  the place I remember.  It was sad and happy and more than a little nostalgic.

Back to routine today.  Back to errands that should have been done last week, like the plates for my car.  Little stuff like that.  And knitting.  Lots and lots of lovely knitting to do.