A Cat Bordhi Story

Yesterday, late in the day, I saw a quick note from the Knitmores about Cat Bordhi and her post and request.  I cannot tell how sad I felt.  

I went to a knitting conference in San Fransisco just months after Brian passed away.  I probably shouldn't have.  I was terrible company and I wasn't really ready for being around so many people.  But I had paid for it and had a travel companion and I went.  

One of my classes was with Nancy Bush and another was with Cat Bordhi.  I remember the neat things I learned in Nancy's class and I smile in remembrance when I look at the very pretty blue and white toile de jouy size 4 knitting needles I found at the market but what I learned in Cat Bordhi's class, perhaps lecture is a better thing to call it, stayed in my head and my heart and gave me a way forward.  

I know exactly where this little piece of paper is all the time.  It is one of my most treasured posessions.  It doesn't live in my jewelery box or one of my little boxes where I keep bits and pieces.  This piece stays in the drawer of my sewing table, close to me, where I see it at least a couple times a month.  It sits protected under the dividing sections full of sewing notions.  I know it is there. It is part of my everyday world. It is a very purposeful placement.  I debate putting it somewhere safer whenever I tidy up the drawer to sort seam rippers, button hole cutters, small scissors and sewing machine feet and sort needles and pins.  But it stays here, visible, someplace very ordinary but safe and deep and almost hidden.  Purposeful.  Part of everything ordinary.

I remember that little room so well.  It was a bit airless and we were packed in a bit.   I tried to take knitting notes as she talked but when she said these things, I started crying, quietly I hope, but two things touched the bleeding raw heart of me.

"Forks in the road are not always a choice. Sometimes they are not forks, they are mobius."  

And "Pauses are as important as the rest of the process"  Cat was speaking mostly about design processes but to me, they were and remain about life. 

Cat Bordhi, touched the lives of many knitter's but in a lot of ways, she gave me the tools I needed to find mine. 

#catbordhi

Famous Last Words?

I didn't quite get to the chair fixing yesterday.  I didn't do any knitting either.  How odd, but it seems my mind can only obsess over one thing at a time.  I sewed pajama pants instead. 

They are not quite finished, but I took them to the point where I coud try them on to assess them for fit.  Those were rather burning questions.  Was the back rise high enough to keep my backside properly covered when I sit?  Was the front rise too high so that it bagged?  Did I get the width of the legs right for comfortable ease?  Once the pants were cut, it only took minutes to sew them together to find out the answer.

And the answer is not too badly.  For the next pair I there are a few small adjustments, but they fit pretty much as I was hoping they would.  I will sew the casing and elastics on today, hem them up and there I go, a decent pair of pj pants.  It's a very similar thrill to finishing a sweater.  Not quite, it isn't knitted, but pretty darn satisfying.

I do have to do the chair today though.  No getting away from it.  My regular task chair blew a second wheel yesterday.  I could replace the wheels and have done so in the past, but the chair is so far beyond comfortable it isn't worth putting the money into it.  I spent $25 on it 30 years ago and it was just worn out.  So on to this.

The Chair  I am adapting is a basic Henriksdal Chair with a bright sunny yellow plaid like my sofa and chair.  I had one of the pair I have, sitting in my livingroom for spinning and the other was in my study in front of my sewing table. 

It was a great chair for spinning.  Nice straight back, and we shortened it just the tiniest bit so that it fit me better than an average height chair. But the one in the study was a problem. 

It didn't swivel or turn and when I am sewing, rolling back and forth to cutting table, to machine, to ironing board, even just turning to reach the drawers with all the sewing notions, was kind of a pain.  For 30 years my set up for sewing was that I could turn and the ironing board was right behind me and while I could set the room up to do it here, the chair did not roll.  I dreamt of turning the sewing chair into a wheeled chair for a very long time.  

In the picture above, you can see the cut off legs and a cross brace, just a 2 x 4 cut to fit to  

the span of two legs.  Once the brace is attached, I will be mounting some swivel casters

 to it and away I go.  The caster looks large because it is.  The one thing I have found while trying to find a great hardwearing replacement for my little grey chair, was that if at all possible, I wanted giant rubber wheels.  They move so easily and won't have the problem that a standard office roller has, ie, filling up with pieces of cut thread and fabric bits.  The other big plus is that they will be great on all kinds of flooring.  Office chair wheels can be very hard on some types of flooring.  

The only real challenge here is that the brace needs to be centered and I have to predrill the holes for the screws nice and straight into the legs of the chair.  I am a big fan of power tools, but not so much when used by me.  They make me tense.  In I have visions of fingers coming off when the blades of a saw are whirring. Cionstruction sites are a bit of a nightmare to be near.  Still, I am going to give it a try.  Keith did the cuts for me.  All I have to do is predrill and drive the screws in.  

I build Ikea furniture all the time.  Hacking some shouldn't be that much harder.

Knitting a Hap Centre

No actual sewing happened yesterday.  It is what I did all day, but none of it made it to the machine.  

I took out my pattern which is a pair of pants that have been taken apart.  They fit well, but like so many of my clothes, were so old and worn so long that the fabric was see through in some vital spots.  I used them as a pattern for making pants for my trip and I am glad I did.  Wearing them under travel conditions was a revelation.     

One of the many things I learned on my epic adventure was that I wanted, needed more ease to find a pair of pants really comfortable for hours of sitting in a car, but not all over.  Just a couple of adjustments and they would have been perfect. It was a really good test.  I made the changes I was looking for to the paper pattern I am making now and then set it aside to think about it for a while.  I decided to double check seam lengths against my two pairs of best pants (which are still seven years old) and then it was too hot to cut.  I want the cut to be right.  I don't have endless pj fabric and pjs are tricky.  They have some needs all their own.  

Pjs require total comfort and I want to be sure that when I cut the fabric, I am cutting the right size.  If by chance it is too big, no problem.  With sewing, you can always go smaller.  You only get one chance to cut it though, so cut it big or cut it right.  It was too warm.  My paper pattern waits.

In the afternoon I knit and watched old movies from the vast collection of dvds.

It was too warm for the sweater so I picked up my Hansel ish Hap Shawl.  I swear it is eating the stitches.

I knit a fair bit on this shawl, but honestly, that row never gets shorter.  It still takes me the same amount of time to knit across as it did two weeks ago.  It doesn't change.

I put a marker on it for sanity's sake.  It shows how much I knit.  The row ought to be shorter by ten stitches, but no.  Now of course, I have not counted the number of stitches because as every knitter knows, if you do, the tricky knitting gods will make sure that your count is wrong or that it will take the stitches out only to add them back when you next have your back turned.  

It promises to be warm again today.  Forecast says the rest of the week will be this way. All the blinds are drawn and the windows are closed and I am ready for the day.  But not a knitting day.  No.  Today is not going to be a knitting day.  Or a sewing day.  Today has its own peculiar adventures.

It's a shruken chair.  And it needs fixing.  Wish me luck.

Sewing Magic

It is 8:30 a.m. and it is already 18C.  It is going to be warm again.  All the windows are closed the blinds are drawn and because of the size and amount of heat that comes in off the deck, I will be covering whatever I can of the big bay kitchen window with tinfoil.  Some things, you just have to do.  But the landlord agrees, we need some shade on the deck.

Oddly enough, there was no knitting.  It isn't that it was too hot.  It is more that I just never got there.  All day long, I kept getting drawn back to some pretty special magic.

I sat down to sewing but I wanted to wait to sew skirt two to see if I really would wear one and to see if the way I made it would sit properly and would fit into my usual scheme of things.  There just wasn't any point making a second skirt if I was not going to like wearing the first. I pulled out all the pj flanellette and as I did so , a stray bit of fabric fell.  

Fabric is sometimes like yarn.  If it falls at your feet, and nothing else falls off the shelf, it might be a message.  This was a message.  I made pants of this fabric before my epic journey so I knew I loved the fabric, but I wondered how much I had left of the khaki green linen.  I measured it out and got an idea.

Since knitting  my version of Blanche

and liking the way that fits, I have wondered what would happen if I did the same kind of thing in a woven fabric.  I had a blouse years ago that had a passing similarity of fit as Blanche and that was a favourite, but without the blouse and without a pattern, I wasn't sure what to do.  After knitting Blanche, after all my adventures in knitting really, I think it all comes down to ease.  An unshaped, easy wearing garment needs a lot of ease, and if it is a woven fabric, it needs to have just a bit more.  It needs ease at the arm holes, ease at the hemlines, ease through the chest.  I realized that even for a woven fabric, what it really came down to was closing your eyes and having faith that you could do this without someone else's hand giving you a pattern.

So I sat down, did the cuts that a basic garment and this piece of fabric required and came up with a basic blouse.

I put it on, pinned it together at the buttonband and did a load of dishes to test if the ease was actually enough.  If you can't do ordinary tasks in it, you missed the mark, so dishes. I had to make the arm openings deeper, but that just meant taking out three more inches at the side seam, and I realized that while the neck is the perfect depth, it is a little wide.  I based it exactly on my knitting and that explains all the wide necks I get on knitted garments.  

The work today is to take the seam ripper to all the parts and transfer the pices to the waiting pattern paper with the problems fixed.  I have some striped linen shirting that will look super in an unshaped garment like this and I am already dreaming up a few changes and adaptations for other tops in the future. 

 Once I finish taking the pattern off this piece, I am going to make a bit of a sewn in dickey to fix the over wide problem and will finish the top so that it can  go right into service. The shelves yielded another bit of fabic leftover from Cassie's perfect skirt.

When that is done, it will be a really good wearable garment...That I invented all by myself.  Whoddathunkit?  Certainly, not me.

This will happen eventually, but today I need to sew some pj pants.  I don't intend to wear them so much as pj's as lounge pants.  It is one thing to wear rags when I am alone, but not when others are visiting. and there will be more visitors shortly.

There will be knitting later too.  It's kind of nice to save it for when it is too hot to think. Sewing takes thinking, constantly, knitting not so much. The sewing machine beckons and I will heed its clarion call. 

Well, well, well.

Well, well, well.  Will you look at that.  

                                       

This is the last picture of the sweater.  

And this is a shot from this morning.  As you can see, a lot of work has been done since Friday.  I had a wonderful time.  It wasn't all perfect and not everything went my way.

That little bar is where I was changing yarns and picked up the wrong yarn after a mere three stitches.  I found the problem after knitting two rows.  It was two rows I was almost happy to do because I.  Am. Knitting. Again, it should be noted that the alternating colours are not as severe as the picture looks.  It is a much warmer, softer colouration and I think it will be okay.

I am now at the teeth knashing point where I have to decide on how long I want the sweater to be. Amy is a little longer in the torso and has a full bust, so I have added an extra three inches of knitting to the front length and I am just now debating if that is enough.  There still is the slighly lower back hem to knit and I know she wants that feature.

I have two rows to go till the lace is at a nicely balanced place to finish it on the front bands, but I think after that, the short row back will get knit.  

I feel wonderful after that long, frutiless sit waiting for resolution to my hand trouble.  

Even better, along with knitting, I finished skirt number one on the sew yourself new clothes journey.  I had a particular piece of fabric, bought sometime in the long before.  It was remnanat that I couldn't pass up.  It was a nice weight for pants or a skirt and was 4 dollars or something like that.    I wanted to use it to see if what I planned for a skirt made without purchasing a pattern would work for my body and the shaping I was going to need to make it look right.  I wanted too, to see if I like wearing skirts anymore.  

It is a lot of years since I wore a skirt other than the dress for Scott and Amy's wedding and the long skirt ensemble I wore for Anthony and Olga's  weddding.  In fact, that is probably it for wearing the things that are not pants for the last 20 years.   I missed the entire cute little dress period that seems to be slowing just the tiniest bit.  That is okay though.  I think I hit the long skirt period, which always was much more my style anyway.  Long skirt, slightly cropped sweater, a la Jacqueline Cieslak Designs  is a look I might be able to wear.  And I haven't been able to wear a look for decades, since the design silhouettes first started being more fitted.

You know what the interesting thing about the sewing plans has been?  I have been looking outside the usual traditional pattern companies for patterns.  They just never seem to have what appeals to me in my size.  I found several companies via pintrest.  Helen's Closet I have already told you about, but I have also found Style Arc and Made by Rae to name a couple.  I also found  Sew Liberated via the Knit Girllls Vlog and guess who I keep bumping into on those pattern websites?  Jacqueline Cieslak. Here and here, where she is wearing what sure looks like an Estuary Skirt pattern from Sew Liberated. Running into her like this all over the place just makes me want to knit her designs all the more.  This is a person who understands exactly where my head is.

Today is supposed to be hot here, so I am kind of doing things in with a mind to what I can do in the late afternoon overly warm house.  There will be knitting.  There will be sewing.  There will be book reading in the afternoon.  All serious decisions will be made before noon and zero serious decisions after lunch.  

Stopping work to knit

Yesterday, I did the unusual thing wherein I took a break from something else to go and knit.  This is so backwards from normal that it is worth noting. 

Even better, I managed to do a reasonable amount on the sweater.  I had to pull out another ball of yarn and now have only two balls remaining.  The sweater looks pretty good and I only hope that I can get enough length out of these last feew balls to take it all the way home. I think so, but it is going to be close.

I'm not going to make my Stash Dash challenge of 5000 metres no matter what I do.  I absolutely counted on getting three sweaters done plus a bunch of  spinning as well as the shawl.  I could have gotten very close but for this three weeks long journey into painful hands.  There is a month left to go and now, my personal challenge is how far can I get,  which is sort of what it is right from the beginning, isn't it?  

Otherwise I am back to sewing today.  I took a bit of a different path yessterday and decided to sew a couple skirts.  I sewed a top for my Epic Adventure that I really loved and 

always meant to make another piece to wear with it.  I have plenty for a simple skirt, but not quite enough for pants which would be the most sensible thing.  Still a skirt it is for a complete 'outfit' as mom would say.  That is what I am aiming for today.

I have another piece that I am going to sew first.  It is a plain bland piece of fabric that I do not care about at all.  It was a really good deal from a end of the roll thing, so I bought it for stuff just like this: To test out a theory.  The weight of this piece of fabric is very close to the pretty fabric so I hope to get a good idea of how the nice stuff will hang and perform.  Simple gathers, here I come.  

Anyway, there is going to be some knitting time too.  Later this afternoon, no matter how far I have gotten in my skirt quest, I am going to stop the work to go knitting.  

  

Cleaning out the drawers

I did do a bunch of sewing yesterday and I sorted through the rest of my clothes.  As I thought, most of them belong in one place only:  The garbage.

When I was done tops, I had a single Ikea Malm 3 drawer dresser drawer full of shirts and tops.  I folded the sitting laundry and assessed each piece of clothing there and came away with the tops I made two years ago, and two more t shirts.  There is an entire drawer for hand knit summer tops and plenty of room for whatever other tops I want to sew. Yippeeeeeeeee.

I have room to knit more!  Which did make me take a look at the cotton yarns I have in my stash.  What to knit for next summer and next spring?  This year there have been so many great top designs come out and not just top down round yoke things either.  I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon matching yarn on hand with patterns.  

I did come across a few tops that made me stop to think.  I bought three shirsts in 2012, nice easy cotton shirts, that had unfortunately awkward to iron pockets.  I wore them when I was working but not at all since.  They have lots of wear in them yet and I am debating what to do.  At the very least I could sew up the awkward pockets and cut out the excess fabric.  I could also refashion them somewhat.  I could put them into the used clothing bins down on main street.  I'm not sure if I need to keep them and I have no ideas on how I would refasion them at all.  I have to think on this a bit but I am giving myself a strict time limit.  I want to know by the end of today.  That way, they will be good, or be gone.

I did find two pairs of pants that are worth fixing so the sewing today is still going to be repairs.  Updated to add.  Yeah.  So not going here.  All morning and I don't even have the seams ripped out from pair one.  so over repairs.  Going to sew something new.

The one thing I am finding is how much more difficult sewing is this time versus two years ago when I was sewing.  Two years ago, I could go the better part of a day.  Right now, the black things make it hard to get past an hour and a half before I need to take a good long time to rest my eyes.   My black sewing table doesn't help.  The lamp not having a bulb makes it much harder and that the sewing machine bulb has been burned out (hard to find base size) since forever and a day ago, and well, none of that helps. Note to self:  put lamp bulb on grocery list. Still it is all getting done and I am really looking forward to cutting some pretty new cloth.  

First pjs, then pants, then long sleeved tops for winter.  Till I get to tops, long sleeves will be seasonally appropriate!

I know this isn't knitting but before any knitting and wool stuff, I really do have to get this done.  I hope you can bear with me for a wee bit longer.  There will be finished products in another day or so.  And with a small bit of effort, some evening knitting in the mix too.

Listening

I have been up a couple hours now.  When I first woke, the birds were chirping as usual for early morning (early as before 6 a.m.)There were blue patches in the sky and a few clouds, but the sun did not quite have the early morning intensity of the last several mornings.  The birds became very silent about a half an hour ago.  Very silent, almost freakishly so.  They do that when they feel something is coming.  So far, it isn't a big something.  Just a nice, gentle sort of rain passing through on a Wednesday morning.The windows here are placed so that I can almost always keep them open to listen to the rain fall and that is what I am doing right now.  

There are so many things to do today.  I hope to print out the first of my patterns that I just purchased.  Paper?  Check.  Printer Ink?  Check.  These are the first PDF patterns I have purchased and I am kind of looking forward to doing it.  I will most likely mount the design on to my giant roll of paper if the pattern is good and a keeper.  If I am lucky, new sewing starts today on fabric that is perfectly me.  If not, then tomorrow.

So much to do today.  The thought of it  fills me with energy, but before I start, I'm going to sit and just listen. Listening on a quiet morning is very much doing something, and it is doing something important.  

I have nothing much to say today.  I accomplished nothing this weekend.  If I think about it, there was at least one day, where I really didn't do anything, not even read a book.  And I am not sure why.  Just didn't.  

Not being able to knit is getting really difficult.  Dispiriting even.

I am doing the repairs I needed to do on some of the clothes pile, but when I look closely at some of the things I thought needed repair, I realized they needed the garbage.  I am a little sad that I did not see this sooner.  However, it does mean that my need for pants has become a very serious thing.  

I am also contemplating sewing a skirt or possibly a dress.  Nothing fancy, but the sort of comfortable t-shirt style dress that you could wear anytime.  Or a skirt and top combo. We shall see.  Keith is bringing a cartridge for my printer today so I will have patterns in hand tomorrow.  

I ordered three patterns from Helen's Closet.  I ordered the Winslow Culottes, which, if you look around online, can be adapted to so many things and have a lovely flowing leg with no fuss fitting.  I also ordered the Yanta Overalls and the Eliot Sweater and Tee.  I have always wanted overalls and the Eliot piece has raglan sleeves, which is something I do not have in amy of my current patterns.  Or not so current patterns as the case may be.  

The repair pile will be finished today and with the tiniest bit of luck, part of my sewing time this afternoon, will be given over to a fabric and pattern review.  I need to match things up and see if I have what I need to get the garments that my wardrobe needs.

I hope to do a little knitting today, and I have a few treats to make for the kiddies.  Mom is back at work and the regular babysitter has appointments.  Rice Krispie Squares and peanut butter slice can almost be breakfast, right?  Date Loaf?     

Quandry

I have a problem. 

The good kind of problem.  I knew it was in a harbour somewhere off Vancouver.  I knew it would be shipped from the warehouse.  What I did not expect was the speed with which Canada Post delivered it!  Most excellent job, CP.

Well packed in many layers.

The old and the new.

A few parts to put together but not many.

Top view.

Side shot.

It is an Ashford Carder.  I wanted something I could purchase from a Canadian source and that would arrive quickly.  American products were out of the running because the exchange rate is not in my favour.  The biggest reason to go Ashford was that I could adapt ratios if I needed to get the very most out of my fibre.  The other big plus with Ashford is that I could move and set the licker as needed. It didn't quite arrive quickly, but once my mind was made up to do it, I felt comfortable waiting.  Small businesses shouldn't lose a sale over what Covid 19 caused.  

There were a couple surprises that really please me too. 

A place to keep the duffer seems like an almost nothing feature till you live without a place to keep it.  And the little cleaning brush? 

That tucks in really nicely below.  I love it.  And biggest plus of all?  The packer brush.

I wasn't really expecting this and am going to check with my source if the unit shipped was the right one. I didn't order one because that would have put me over my budgeted amount.  The plan was to purchase the brush later. If all the units now come with the packer brush, yay me.  If not, I owe somebody a bit more money.  Now that it is here it is not leaving my grubby little fingers.

The quandry is what about sewing?  I would love to settle down and just card but I think I am going to be an adult about this.  I need clothes.  I want to prep wool.  Need first but later, oh yes later, there will be play.  

Delicious wonderfully wooly play.  

Or Knitting

While I did spend most of my day sewing yesterday, I also managed to do a little bit of knitting.  Thankfully.  Not a lot, but I managed a few rows before my hands went south.  

I am going to stick with alternate things to do for a few more days yet.  It is time I sewed and that had me digging in the patterns box from my shelf.  There are a few shirt patterns there that I enjoy sewing but a great deal of my time yesterday was looking at patterns online.  There are a few things I am pretty sure that I can do without a pattern but some things I am a little leary about trying without relying on a pattern.

I never thought about sewing without a pattern till Olga brought some things for me from Ukraine.  Their patterns give you a how and the measurments you need to get your garment to look like the design, but there is no paper pattern. You have to make that yourself.  That was an eye opener, but so was everything I learned in knitting about fit and my body's shape. 

I started learning about online small independant designer's and pattern companies through Modern Daily Knitting.  They had a regular column by Sonia Phillips at One Hundred Acts of Sewing.  That opened my generally narrow looking eyes to the idea to look for more independant pattern companies.  

One of the most interesting places I have been looking for patterns lately has been Helen's Closet.   There are a couple pieces in her shop that I really love.  There will have to be adjustments made to fit, but then there always are, and I had to stop and think if I  had the right kind of fabric for some of the things I like from her line, but a purchase is imminent.  As in today.  

That doesn't mean I am sewing her patterns today.  First I have to get printer ink.  Then I have to print and put them together.  Then I have to decide the best way to adapt to fit.  Then I have to pull the fabric out and lay it out to see if I have what I need.  Then and only then, will I be ready to sew.  To sew new things that is.  

Today I am aiming for repairs. Just getting that started yesterday was a huge relief.  The messy pile is already well on its way to order.  If I get that all done today, then PJs and then fun new stuff.  Or knitting.  I am good both ways.

A little sewing

I did eventually get past my grumps yesterday.  I had another nap and that seemed to help.  And I found something to keep me busy.

A while ago, Cassie and Marcus asked me for masks.  I told Cassie to get the box of miscellaneous fabrics from my shelf and we chose some for her and for Marcus.  And they have been sitting there, cut and waiting.  I needed elastic and I wasn't sure if I was going to make the masks so that a filter could be replaced or if I was going to use a good pellon interfacing for a good washable mask.  After all the consideration, here was are.  

Marcus didn't care what kind of mask it was.  His big deal was a mustache.  It isn't perfect by any means, but he likes it.

And a second something fishy mask for Marcus.

Cassie wanted purple, so that is what we have here.  It still needs the elastic and her second mask is still to be made.

I am following the standards given by the the Province of Alberta and I do sincerely hope that they will offer some protection from disease spreading.  There is not too many occasions for the kiddies to be out and about.  That changed quite dramtically when the virus began.  They may never wear them, but they asked and grandma made.

I am debating making one for myself too, though I do have access to other masks.  I don't get out much either, so it isn't a real big deal.  

All this sewing and I am thinking I am almost ready to do a bit of sewing for myself.  Garment sewing, that is.  I need some pjs.  Mine are beyond toast.  I dug out some of the flannel I have from sewing pj pants for Christmas one year,  and there is lots to make me a couple pairs for me.  I haven't worn pajama pants since I was young but they are so much more versatile.  These days, topped by my Big Easy Bulky sweater, 

long pajama pants might become my fashion statement and that says an awful lot about my fashion sense!

One way or another.

Arghhhhh

That scream is that I am not quite back to knitting and I am going just a wee bit stir crazy.  I dabbled a bit with my books yesterday.  I looked through some old friends and debated what book I should take to my bedroom for my night table.  Most often it is an audio book these days, but I like to keep one of my old friends at hand just in case.

 I took a morning nap and an afternoon nap because I could and I was really really tired.  I watched a couple things I really was waiting to see to try and engage myself, but I am just not good at sitting there, only watching tv or listening to a book and I cannot nap all the time. So arghhhh.

Arghhhhh.

That scream is my frustration with the pile of clothing that needs repair.  It has been on an old chair for a couple of weeks and it gets in the way every time I come into my room. Things have fallen from it and tangled in my feet as I walk.  It could kill me.  Seriously.

I guess it is time to deal with it.  They are either going to be repaired or tossed.  I no longer care which.  But it is past time to DO something with them.

Signed the lazy blogger who operates this blog.  

I am grumpy today in case you couldn't tell.  It is just the lack of sleep, though I sleep fine when the kids are here, but there is always a overlayer of responsibility for their welfare.  It isn't that I don't sleep but that I sleep with one ear open.  That kind of sleep is best done by younger people, ie their parents.  But I am so blessed that the kids like to spend time with me.  Grandmas become slightly less important as kids get older so I will take this now.

But yes.  I think today is the day to deal with this pile of clothes, one way or other.  

Everybody needs a little bling

The very first thing i saw after my kiddies were out the door was this.  I called when they were just down the road but Cassie said she would pick it up next time.  I think the kids were ready to be home, to play with pets, to sleep in their own beds and to hug their mom.    But seriously, doesn't this hat just say that everybody needs a little bling in their lives?  

I've never been much for bling.  I have some rings and some earrings but they aren't big bling, just sensible sort of bling.  My real bling is my yarn stash.  In every way, little and big, flashy and downhome blingy, that is my stash.  

I was thinking about the good things in my stash this morning after a link came up on facebook from WEBs yarn about using precious stash.  

For people of my generation, Sunday best was a thing.  We always had Sunday shoes, a Sunday coat, and when I was very little, Little white gloves for Sunday.  What yoou wore at home didn't matter so much because if you had to go out suddenly, you always had Sunday best to rely on to be clean and decent enough for strangers to see you.  Somewhere in my teenage years that changed and before you knew it, everyone lived in jeans all week long including Sunday, but the idea of Sunday best remained deeply ingrained into our way of thinking.  We still had Sunday best dishes, we had things we only did on Sundays and for years, Sunday best remained part of the way we thought of things.

When good yarn came into my life in a big way it was difficult not to sort yarn that way.  My Tove yarn collection, over one hundred skeins strong,  became a vital and important part of the good yarn in my stash along with the Einband, the Shetland Ultra, the Isager Spinni Wool 1, the Tosh DK, the...I could go on.  I do have a rather a lot of yarn that I consider special.

And after the last year and a bit, I am getting better at using it.  I knit the first of my intended Einband Icelandic shawls and I am now working on the Shtland Ultra Hap, and I am actually knitting the Madelinetosh Tosh DK and I have plans to use the Tove that are very definite in one case and almost certain in another.  But the point is, I am getting better at using my special yarns, and wearing my 'bling'.

Use the good stuff.  Today is the day for all the bling.

At the end of the day yesterday, I had a post already in my mind and was looking forward to posting.  This morning, I've been trying to figure out what that was.  Now that I remember, it is pretty exciting!

I did get to spinning!  

I really do wish that I could card it again, but it wouldn't help a lot on the old carder.  It needs the new machine to really change anything. Had it not been for the virus, the new machine would be in my hot little hands by now.  Still, spinning is going well and that is enough for me. 

And then, the other big thing!  I am so excited about this big thing.

I finished weaving the first dishcloths.  I started this in July two full years ago, so it was time!  I learned tons and sorted out how to think about weaving with respect to yarn consumption and 'gauge' and a whole lot else along the way.  Even hemming the ends was a learning experience!  I thought I had measured so carefully but it wasn't till I had them off and laying side by side, I could see how different the sizes were.  I was not keeping count and it shows.  I will do better next time to get at a square.

And there are some things I am going to do.

Number one:  I think the loom is going to come into my room. My original plan was to have the loom in the living room in my bay window.  That sucked the life out of the living room though so I put it into the spare room with the intention of being able to tuck it behind closed doors when guests came.  The loom folds so easily, even with a warp on it, but the stand does not fold at all.  I neeeded a stand in the living room but  in the spare room, the Compact Loom, which folds and could have tucked into the closet would have been a better loom choice.  Oh well.  

 I get way more company now than I ever did before and I am always working around loom stuff, tucking it under cover, and tidying my tools.  I really would like to keep all the tools at hand.  I need to be able to access the back of the loom easily and sitting where it is in the spare room, it becomes a hassle.  Having it in my room should help address all these things.  And that one final thing.  The loom is also much to easy to avoid in the spare room.  If I walk past it a hundred times a day maybe I will use it more?  We shall see.

I am taking this warp off the loom and will tie it up for when I need more dishcloths.  I learned so much with these, and would like to try something else.  My goal with this warp was towels but the warping problems and fear of the thing were keeping me from playing with some of the other things I wanted to do.  I have some lovely silver grey and a crisp navy Zephyr that I would love to try on the loom and I would love to see what it feels like to weave a nice wool.  I have tons of fine cotton for towel weaving and I just would really love to do them. Plus, part of my reason for wanting a loom was to play, play with colour, play with texture, to play with fabrics, to play a little with history.  

Taking the warp off the loom will also give me a chance to sort out a small issue on the shafts.  Between shaft 2 and three there is something that catches and causes one to pull up when it ought to be down.  I know what it is, and it isn't a difficult repair, but it does mean that the loom has to come off the stand and be laid on it's back to get at it.  It is doable alone, but not with a warp on it.  

And now it is time for me to stop.  There is more I could say, but I have some small people from my family cohort coming for a sleepover.  Because 'you know it is summer holidays, grandma'.  I have been tidying the corner where all my knitting stuff sits while I was waiting for my hand to feel better.  That job needs to be done before they arrive.  

A sock update

 I spent the day doing eveerything I didn't plan to do.  So no more plans for the days posts for a while.  Maybe.

I went through the socks and that was kind of fun.  It started because I was looking for sock needles.  I have many pairs of sock needles and yet, none are in my needle jar.  None of my preferred sort that is.  I prefer a nice 6 inch needle at 2.5 mm, 2.25 for some yarns, but I never seem to knit socks that are being knit on 2.25s.  It must not feel right somehow in my hands.  I digress.  I am certain that I have at least six pairs of my favourite needles, and yet now that I am looking, I cannot find them.

I dug out all the socks.  It is easy to imagine that I forgot some of the socks I have ongoing.  

I started these a while ago, during a short few seconds while waiting for grandkids.  

The giant ball of yarn is my monster ball.  All the wee little bits of yarn that I could find in my bits and ends bag, all tied together so they can just be knit.  I have the ball of blue at hand and will divide the colours with a shot of blue, I think.  And heels will be double, the monster strand and the blue.  This is a kind of Adventure Yarn.  

And then the very very striking blues and greens of my Fabel socks.

One sock done, the second started as you can see, but only just started.  

And the formerly disappointing socks.  Not nearly so dissappointing.  When I first worked on these I was sure they would be great but they seemed bland and I could find little joy in them.  And the farther along I worked, the more joy they gave.  They are soft.  They are pastel.  But they are really rather pretty in a delicate sort of way.   When I wear them, I shall pretend my much less than delicate feet are beautiful.

My Heritage sock.  These were the saddest socks ever.  I knit half a sock and hated them.  It is hard to make me hate a sock yarn I chose, but I really did not like them, even as much as I liked the way the colours worked in the skein.  Dividing colours sections with two rows of charcoal is the perfect thing.  

And then just for good measure, I started a sock yesterday.  Just to see if my hands were ready to knit.  And no.  No they are not.

But this pretty sock yarn from String Theory is getting worked up into simple socks.

I adore the greens.  I am not so much into the brown, but because it is a hand dyed yarn, I appreciate the gentle variations in the colour.   

I went through all the boxes and bins and this seems to be it, but I just have a feeling like I am missing something.  I haven't really worked on socks since winter, but I am certain that there will be some sockish acheivements shortly. It is race season finally and sock knitting is the best knit for races.  Plain round and around is just the thing.

Formula One racing is back and though not everything is as usual, I appreciate the efforts they are making.  I had a marvelous weekend with the last race and maybe this weekend, I won't be too excited to knit! 

A stash dash review.

I have a pot garden this year and currently, it looks ok, but for my tomatoes.  My tomatoes are not doing so well.  They look like they are drowning.  The last ten days have been so wet.  The rest of the pots look ok but for the severe lack of sun.  The plants look as if it was still mid June.

I took a quick glance at my Stash Dash goals.  So not going to make it.  Maybe.  All I have finished so far is one sweater.

The purple sweater will knit fast once my hands are ready. I have a note below about how that is going. A week of really good knitting and the very pretty thing will be done.  The shawl center might look good but there still are 7 balls of colours that need attaching and three skiens of the cream so there is a lot of knitting to do before it is done.  It takes me two days to finish a ball when I have a really good day of knitting.  

No way around it.  I have to spin.  Which is just fine because I do have some prepped and ready to work on.  Spinning counts seriously for the dash.  Each single counts and then any plyed yarn counts. Freshly spun counts threefold.  Kind of cool that.   However,  if I ply singles spun before the dash, only the plying counts and I do have some of that to do.

 

I was thinking about waiting till my new carder toy arrives to do card this fibre one more time but the new carder is not going to be here till a bit later this month or early August.  Depends on when the shipping containers are unpacked and the stock is sent to the Canadian warehouse.  According to the Canadian source  I bought my carder from, everything craft has been in high demand this spring.  It gives me a great deal of pleasure knowing that. 

Today I am spinning.  I need to weigh the bag first and see what I have and then I can begin.  I would like to pretend that I am a spinner who can spin something with a goal in mind, but I am not.  It will become mitts and or hat.  I still dream of spinning really fine and playing around with this carded prep has shown me that with a woollen spun, I can go much much finer than I have been able to so far.  Lots of time to play with that later.  For now, the goal is to get this to be a washed by me (before stash dash), carded by me (before stash dash), spun by me and knit by me thing to actually be a thing before stash dash ends.

My hand is feeling significantly better.  I have been wearing my wristwarmers at night and I have been wearing them in the day too. Keeping the pulse points warm seems to make all the difference.  Plus I have been using my power ball again.  I am going to take it easy though.  I shan't spin all day, and am going to give my hands some nice stretch sessions and good rests too.  

I aim to weave a bit later, just enough to get my trial wash cloths off the loom to see if they are the size I hope they will be.   I launder them immediately, so I can see how they turn out.  Then if I need too, I can add more warp while my hands can't do anything else.  And yes, weaving does count for stash dash, but I am not sure how.  Must check this out.

My coffee is done and that is always a sure sign that the day is ready to really begin.  Off I go.

Living Dangerously

Soooooo close.

The center is almost complete!  One more good day and that will come soon.  I will be able to work on this a little sooner than the sweater because it is as light as air.  My hands will tolerate that easier when I can get back to knitting.  

I have been looking at the yarns that I have for this shawland debating which pattern I was thinking of knitting.  Yes.  I know.  The thing is well underway, and I still have not sorted out what I meeant to do when I bought the yarn.  

Was it meant for Hansel, which is kind of what I have been working on as a starting point, or was it meant for Dusk?  Both are a variation on a feather and fan border, which is the most relaxing lace of all time.  Both are knit from a starting square.  Hansel uses 5 colours of yarn.  Dusk uses 7.  I have 6 colours.  Six colours makes me think that I was aiming for a variation of Hansel but the colours I have the most of are the two darkest shades.  Hansel ends up with a white edging, and Dusk ends up with a darkest at the outside edging.  That dark outer edging and my more yarn in the darkest shades makes me wonder if at purchasing I bought with Dusk in mind for my hap.  

I have been thinking this yarn was purchased on my epic adventure when I stopped at Camilla Valley but research on Ravelry after sorting my stash by date added shows me I bought this earlier, just after I sold the house at the same time as I bought my loom.   It has taken several hours already just this morning to find a post where I show the purchase of this yarn.  I knew that it had to be there because I talk about the most exciting things in my day all the time and it is 100% guaranteed that getting this yarn was exciting.

Finally.  Finally.  Finally.  

And what does that stash origin story reveal?   

Nothing. 

I have no idea what I am going to do.  I think I am going to have to live dangerously and let it happen as it happens.  At least this time of no knitting is going to be full of thinking and planning and dreaming and that is not a bad wway to spend some days at all.

Half an Hour in an Afternoon.

The one thing I learned about silence that last week and a bit was that silence isn't so silent.  At the house, silence was bush, far off car noise, and the occasional train from a half mile away.  My tv's were not in the living area, or were downstairs.  We had no stereo any longer and no radio. Laundry was in the basement. The kitchen appliances only made noises of an active working unit.  That is not the way things work in the modern world. In the modern world, all these things demand our attention right now.  

The dryer beeps when it's cycle is done.  The washer buzzes in the most irritating fashion.  The dishwasher beeps when it is done and beeps again when you open the door and it thinks you want to start another load but have forgotten, when all you did was get your best coffee cup.  The coffee maker beeps when the coffee is ready.  The breadmaker making the bun dough beeps when it is time to add things if you were planning to do so, fruit, nuts and such, and beeps again when the proofing is done.  The oven beeps when you turn it on and when it reaches temperature.   

Who decided this was what I needed?  Who thought my life would be improved?  Isn't requiring your phone be attached to your hip enough of an impostion of the modern world into life enough? Couldn't these things be set as an alarm on that apendage if you really needed it?  

In the silence I was searching for, I found all this excess noise stridently demanding my time and attention.  Who decided this was the way that the world should work, that I needed a beeper for everything I do?  I fully accept that I have reached the age, where I need an alarm to remind me to take my midday meds, but that is set to my choosing and my choice of sound when it goes.  I can live with that.  At least they haven't attached buzzers to the pill bottles.

Beepers buzzers and bells.  They fill the world interferring with the silence. 

Returning

Hello!!  It is me.  I think I am back to posting. or at least I hope to be though for a bit, the knitting content is going to be slow.  I have not been wearing my wristwarmers to bed the last few nights.  It felt tight and clostrophobic so I left them off and now I am paying.  My hands are not doing well at all, proof to me how well the wristwarmers and keeping pulse points warm worked.  So today, I will be finding the little wrist bands I knit a while ago for daytime, and tonite, I will be wearing the long wristwarmers again.  It is kind of like wearing a bra.  You may not want to wear it when it is hot and sticky but you really ought.    

So for the next while there will be weaving content, spinning content and sewing content, possibly even some embroidery content. 

While I was taking my break, I did a little sewing related stuff.  

I fixed snaps that needed repair.

I checked out the varying colours of my Tosh DK for Amy's sweater.  And I had someone, not Amy, try on her sweater.  I think it is going to be just perfect.  

I took a long while to asess the colour variation.  In photos, the variance is severe.  In daylight, not nearly so heartbreaking. It isn't dark versus light and it doesn't really stripe.  Everything not good seems accented in pictures. Because this is going to live in the world not in photos,  it will be fine.  I am thinking about using some yarn from the darkest skein, and duplicate stitching a bit more dark in the top if it needs it when all is said and done.   

I am thrilled at the progress on this. Three balls of yarn to go and while I thought I would end up with one to spare, I think now, that I am going to use every single inch of each and every ball.  

It is a captivating knit and I am going to be a tiny bit sad when the knitting is done.

Linen. Also Happy Canada Day

I am not sure if I am still on my vacation or not but I wanted to post this.  I was digging in my laundry basket the other day and I came scross this most interesting thing.  I had sort of forgotten that I had tossed it in the laundry a couple loads ago.  

It is the swatch that I made for a Shakerag top from Modern Daily Knitting.  It has been some time since I did the swatch.  April 29 if the blog can be believed, and it has been floating around ever since, eiher on the way into the laundry or in the bottom of the to fold hamper. When my hand came on it the other day, I had to stop and think for a second just where it was from.  And then I realized and

it may be love, true love.  The only thing more wonderful may very well be a commecial jersey knit linen top that a friend has. She showed it to me and if I was a different sort of person, I would swathe myself in that fabric and be utterly in heaven.   What delicious hand this has.  Such drape.  I love wool, but this is something that is a whole different class, literally and figuratively.  Knit linen.  Wow.

I have two things that I must knit first.  I must finish Amy and Olga's sweaters and then I will just knit for me.  Only me.  And that is when I can work on the splendor of this. 

It is rather marvelous indeed.

Also, Happy Canada Day!