Heart break

I knit quite faithfully on the shawl this weekend.  I am a wee bit surprised at that but I really do want to get this done so I can wear it.   It is the perfect shawl wearing weather right now.  Cool in the mornings and evenings, but warm enough in the day to be without.

The end of May.  Sigh.  It is the end of May and I still feel as if I barely touched all the new knitting I planned for this year.  Sigh.  

There are so many things in the WIP bins and I am really quite determined to get that cleared up a bit.  But it does rather suck the life out of the rest of the knitting.  Particular projects are certainly feeling like they have caused the hold up and I am debating about keeping them going.  I did that once before.  I had a good hard look at everything in my WIP bins and if I did not really love it, I took it apart and set it aside.  This time, I have looked but I really like everything in the bins.  There is only one project that I might take apart and only because I am just not that in love with the yarn.  I love the project itself just not the yarn.  I would easily knit the sweater in a different yarn.  

Feeling so stuck in my knitting is not really what a hobby is supposed to make you feel.  If and I do mean if knitting could be considered a hobby by me.  More a vocation perhaps.

Or maybe it is the weekends news of the children and a researchers belief that every residential school had many children that were buried, unnamed, unmarked uncounted, unrecorded.  It is what the stories of the people who suffered the residential schools tell.  These 215  found unmarked, together, means that it was known and sanctioned by the operators and that it was known by the people who buried them, and doctors for the schools and all those who ought to have cared for them simply as human beings if not as innocent chidren....   As if their lives simply did not matter at all.  My heart is utterly broken by the ugliness of this history we pass to our children and our grandchildren.  My broken heart is rather meaningless against the many, many families of those who bore this sorrow of these lost children and who bore the real story of the residential schools.

I have a page of quotes that I have saved for a long time around here somewhere.  I can't find it at the moment but I saw this one and while I fear it is far too simple an explanation for these things, it is something I think about.  I have to talk myself into thinking about things in the right way to keep me feeling strong and reasonably at peace with my place in the world.  It is just too much if I don't.

If you are depressed, you are living in the past.

If you are anxious, you are living in the future.

If you are at peace, you are living in the present.

Lao Tzu

I originally put this on blog in September of 2019 and it sat as a draft till now.  How did it know I needed it again?

Somethings Bad, Somethings Relly Good.

There are things about yesterday that mde the whole entire day miserable.  I cut my finger as I was ripping a seam while repairing some stuff.  Not a big cut but it is on my middle finger, which I appaently use eash and every time I do a knit two together.  Lace with a bandaid is problematic.  I haven't tried any other knitting, but it may well be socks is about all I can knit for a few days.

Then, as I was repairing the same articles, my sewing machine gave up the ghost.  Or it will very soon.  It sounds like two very large metal parts are bashing together or as if Thor's hammer is falling inside the housing.  This is a very bad sound and means my machine is out of alignment again to the point where repair would be needed.  The last time I took it in for repair because of this sound, the technician came out and talked to me and told me that that was the last repair, that it was as far as it could go to get it back to proper alingent.  I had been waiting for this day but it has held off for many years because I wasn't sweing very much.  The quandry is do I take it in and see if there is more they can do, or do I just call it and purchase a new machine.  I don't need the bells and whistles so it doesn't even have to cost very much. I don't see myself sewing tons of heavy fabrics.   

I spent my entire day trying to sort that out and ended up purchasing an inexpensive new machine and the other will go into storage till I have space and time and funds to drive into the city and see if it is repairable.  For now, I really need the clothes.

The day improved dramatically at the end.  Keith picked up my mail.  My package from Midknit Cravings has arrived.  

I am not much a lover of speckles.  It just wasn't my jam.  The entire speckle thing of the last several years along with its associated speckle gradient garments left me cold.  A 'fade' was not my thing at all.  

Don't get me wrong.  I love a good gradient where the colours flow and get softer and gentler, or richer and darker, but speckled gradients just looked too busy.  Until I saw a post from Midknit Cravings with Rum Raisin, My Two Cents and  Shriaz.   I could hardly breathe at the gorgeous richness and depth of the colours.  And the warmth of them.  I started looking at their yarn sets, dreaming of stunning shawls with such loveliness.  

I have dreamed at their website before but never really paid attention to the speckled yarns.  They have such glorious tonals.  They seem to have mastered the trick of depth and intensity to hand dying.  

but when I saw the way that Rum Rasin looked, I thought it time to look at more to see what was what.   Maybe I was a speckle with solids or tonals person.  

And when I saw Pesto, I was hooked.

Pesto is the most delicate little speckles.  Tiny spots of greens and teals and intimate tiny dots of something almost garnet.  It had something that the other speckles did not have.  Or maybe it was just the colours and I had just ordered some really lovely olive fabric for pants.  I do not know, but I neeeded it.  I needed it in a seriously goofy way.  The debate began.  Do I want a whole speckle garment or do I want a speckle and blocks of other colours ala the Run Rasin Shawl?  I played around with ideas all afternoon.  My tax refund was just returned so I had leeway. I came across several patterns and spent a day or two really thinking about things.  It has to be right for a purchase like this. 

I ended up with two designs short listed, Neotsu by Shellie Anderson and Sun Dogs buy Laura Aylor.  I kept coming back to Laura Aylor's Sun Dogs design.  I have some stash ideas for Neotsu.  

Laura is one of my favourite designers.  She has a way with the simple things that just feels good to me.  Sun Dogs had a split hem right at the center back that is unique, simple, but different than everyone else is doing.  It has that more causual shape that I am really coming to love too and could be a longer garment or a neatly cropped thing.  And as a finishing technique,  a garter stitch border bind off appeals (I may have been influenced by my pleasure working my Shetland  shawl edging that day).  So a sweater quantity it is.  My next problem is, this will need a cowl.  Something lovely and greenish with mohair.  Yum.

I had also promised myself that if I did a purchase from them, part of it would be some of May's colour of the month, Dancing Skies.  I bought two.  I may go back and buy another of this limited colourway. 

I have a plan you see and would really really hate to run out.  

I had trouble getting to sleep last night what will all the excitement of the day.  I thought it would be a good day to sleep in but at 4 a.m. I was wide awake.  With no knitting.

I am printing patterns and putting them together today.  If the day still has time, I am taking the rest of my cloth stash out and will tag it for how much is there.  If by chance the day permits, I am going  to cut out a top or two, just for fun.  I intend to be ready when the new machine arrives.

The Silly In It.

I knit my heart out in the morning but the shawl is in 'that'  place.  It is midway on side three, the everlasting middle.  I knit.  That is all I know.

In the afternoon was my knitting zoom and it felt right to work on my wee sock monkey.  I made good progress.  My goal was to get the body done.  And here it is!

Do you see it?  What is missing?  It's supposed to be a stuffed toy.  I had the top closed up and was about to tuck away the last tail end of yarn when I realized that it wasn't stuffed.  

Sigh.  It took me longer to pick out my very well done closing than it did to knit the whole top.  

It did happen though.  My wee monkey is sitting here headless.  I feel like I murdered it.  It will be stuffed and reknit this morning.  

The next step is arms ears and face bits.  These need to have stuffing happen as they go of course or as they are attached.  

Silly little thing.

You just never know

I did knit yesterday but in all honesty, I am not really energised to knit.  

I'm energised to sew.  It isn't really a problem because I do need clothes but before I get deep into sewing again, I would like to have a few knit projects under my belt.  

I really would like to finish the shawl so it was ready to wear.  And yes I did have to order more of the cream.  With all my usual places busy with orders, it can take a little longer to get things into the mail.  That's okay though.  I have two more skeins to knit my way through before I need the one or two that will take me to completion.  That should keep me going till I get the new order.  

I did work on it yesterday but I also spent a great deal of time sitting thinking about sewing.  I watched videos that were sewing related.  For instance

Amy describes what this feels like for me.  Clothing was not a problem as a teenager.  I knew my style then, but fashion and sizing bias led to many many years where it was not just hard to find but impossible.  Would you like it if you could shop at only one store?  Amy Beth is so openly and honestly open hearted. So much truth in this video, but also a conundrum.  I already have an overall pattern.

It was the second pattern I bought when I started this sewing adventure.  I have always loved overalls, but they have simply been unatainable for large women.  If they had been available even in my much more slender post high school, pre marriage days, they would have been mine.  But they had gone out of fashion then and when the ones I had in school no longer were wearable, I was without.  And I have been looking, in a subliminal way, for them ever since.  

When I found Helen's Closet, after being led there by the Knitgirllls vlog, the first thing in my basket was the Yanta Overalls.  I love the back of these.  I actually love the back of the York Pinafore more but I can add a skirt to the Yantas easy enough.  What would be much harder would be to put pants on the bottom of the York. You see, I love the pinafore style of dress too.  So the Yanta design went into my cart and came home.  

But I wasn't sure it was right.  It seems it needs a zipper and man, I think I am seriously post zipper, you know?  I couldn't see how I was going to convert it to elastics.  I also started to worry about going to the bathroom.  It has to be quick and I wasn't sure I could make these go off fast enough.

This new Otis overall has a tie in the back and will be an easy change to elastic.  Plus, one of the things the amazing Amy talks about is putting these on and off , which is certainly a huge consideration for me.  She also talks about how she would add elastic to the straps and while that would work, I have figured out how I will add elastic so that on and off are just not a problem for those rushed times where one really needs speed. 

My big fabric orders are on the way and should be here by next week, finally.  There was a delay with one thing I had ordered (a knit picks cable, I bet) so it has left me in limbo a wee bit.  My fabric for a  few things that I really want to sew are in there, some dresses, and some fun bright summer things.  The debate rages now in my head though, will any of these be right for overalls?  I don't know.  

This afternoon, I think I am going to go through a couple pieces of fabric to check and see how much I have of the various things.  I did a few pieces a few weeks ago, but this time I am looking for four metres so that I am sure I have enough for overalls and a bit of a comfort zone.  If I can find a piece with lots and there should be a couple, then overalls here I come.  

The possibility has crossed my mind that lack of fabric may lead to shorter pants, clam diggers or something like that. You just never know where this goes.

Back to Responsible

I let myself do something different this weekend and I did it for the whole weekend, including most of Friday.  It was lovely and it was exactly the sort of mind break I needed.  

I pulled out my single WIP bin (the other two are now joined by a top.  The project needs some refining and I will show it off when it is complete.)  and took out a project that surprises me somewhat.  

I am still not a hundred percent sure what it is.  I am getting closer to understanding what will work for this oh so soft and almost delicate yarn but I am not quite there yet.  I think it will be a cross between Rosaline from Berocco and Arvingen by Pia Herno.  I love the bottom shape of the Rosaline but the way the Arvingen is after the split for the short lower arm is a bit nicer.  

If you look at the far right side of this picture you can see the start point on Saturday morning.  I forgot to move it for Friday's knitting, but I am pleased with how far along it came over the past few days.  

The yarn is Phil Light, a delicate fairy of a yarn.  It is just completely soft and airy and is a wonderful replacement for mohair if you like the fuzziness and cozy feel mohair gives, without the mohair.  

I recovered the yarn from another project and when I restarted this sweater, I was knitting a lot of round yoke sweaters so I started like that.  The other thing that has inpsired me along the way is the Shakerag Top, Modern Daily Knitting's Field Guide No. 6 tour de force garment.  You can kind of see what I am doing here.

Let's try that again.

A weird shot but you can start to really see the difference between the single strand and the double.  This is completely inprired by the Shakerag, of which there will be more!

It is time to get back to those other things.  First up the shawl.  I am going to need more yarn.  No way around it now.  I was so sure there was lots.  More fool me.  And there is the Marcus inspired Friesland to do a little of as well.  I knit a few rows a day on this.  My goal is one a month.

And then the sewing.  I have sewn so I have enough pants for my immediate needs.  It is lovely, but I am still wearing tshirts or on really cold days, sweaters.  It is fine of course but but I am so sick of t shirts having worn them almost everyday of the last nine years.  Utterly, completly sick of them.  I want shirts, and interesting tops and fabrics and colours and joy.  Sewing will happen.  Must happen.  For sanitys sake.

It really is not any different than camping, when you go out and live in the bush for a long weekend and then have to go back to your routine things.  That was a holiday.  Now it is back to a little more responsible work.  But it is all still a lot of fun.  

in spain

Sometimes.

Part of me wants to sew this weekend.  I have some lovely fabrics coming.  I have some lovely fabrics here.  Really lovely stuff.   I would love to spend the whole week sewing.  

Part of me wants to get as much done on my shawl as I can.    

Part of me wants to sit outside in the sun and shake off the doldrums of winter.  

Part of me wants to stay inside reading my old favourites and work on volcanoes and snuggle into my sofa buried in shawls and warmth with tea or cocoa at hand.  

A thing came up on my facebook page yesterday that pulled the virtual rug out from under my whole day yesterday.  I usually kind of enjoy those facebook memories things that come up, but yesterdays was particularly ...    It was from the time before and it was particularly painful not because of the post itself, but because of how unaware I was, how innocent we both were of the things that were heading our way just a few bare weeks away.  

Brian wanted to go camping and I wanted, needed to plant the garden.  So we planted the garden.  It wasn't nice weather in the mountains anyway.  Brian wasn't feeling great.  His back was hurting a little as it had all that spring and Keith came and helped with getting the last potatoes in.  

When I look back on it now, knowing what I know now, I am grateful that we did not go camping.  Brian could have gotten the boat on the lake, but no possible way could he have gotten it off the water without one of the boys to help him.  

I know how lucky I am in a thousand different ways.  I have a wonderful pile of grandkids who sustain me, and am warm and comfortable and have enough to get by plus enough to have a few little luxuries in my life.  But sometimes, just sometimes, everything I am screams silently for all that is lost.  Sometimes it is those days when I could barely remember to breathe.

It will pass and I will be back in the present and doing fine soon enough.  It is the way of loss and of life, that the day to day stuff fills a life up.  It is as it should be.  But sometimes.  

Two!

Two corners!

Two corners!  I am kind of thrilled by this.  Okay, I am completely thrilled by it.  It is all a pretty wonderful knitting adventure and it feels as if it is getting so close to complete.  

I took some time to measure its unblocked state.  Keep in mind this is just as it sits here on my table and should in no way be seen as anything other than an indication of size but it measured out to six feet.  Wide.  Which is blanket width really.  Still I wanted it to be a substantial shawl that could be wrapped around me and snuggled into on chilly days. It's going to meet that goal easily.  

What is less thrilling is that I am into the third last skein of yarn.  I am using it up a bit faster than I forecast.  

My forecast before the last purchase of yarn for this shawl was that my first three balls would leave me two sides and a wee bit short.  If and that is a very big if, I get it all done with what I have, it will be very very very close.  Inches close but as usual, I have a really bad feeling that I am going to need another ball for the last six inches and the last corner.  I am not going to purchase another skein just yet.  I will know by the time I get near the third corner exactly what I will need.  

I hope this side zips along because I hate this not knowing.     

Drizzle and White

As much as my excitement is all about the Ffiesland blanket, my actual knitting has to be about all the rest of the things.  I still want to finish up some of the projects that spill out from my WIP bins. I am being good about it and i am working on those.

One to be specific.  Working on one, my big Shetland Shawl.  And it is big.  I am starting to get a real feel for just how big it is now that I am nearing the second corner.  This thing is massive.  End to end, it psreads beyond my reach.  I can't tell yet how big it is across corners but I do know that not knowing is probably protective.  

I have just started to do the corner work where I have more edging rows than stitches taken from the shawl.  All along on the flat sides, you take off one stitch for every two rows of edging but to make my straight lace edging go nicely around the corners, I need more.  Over and above the usual, I am knitting extra edging rows by 2s and then 3s into one stitch from the shawl. It is like a waltz, certainly like music of some kind.  121221232333   It's a technique described best in Nancy Bush's Knitted Lace of Estonia.  It worked beautufully around the first corner  

and with my notes from Rav and a bit of care to do it all again, will keep looking beautiful.  

It is raining here this morning and the current forecast for tonight is snow.  You would think this would make me sad but it am so happy about it.  Snow at this time of the year adds a little extra something to the soil, but this year, I hope we get lots, simply because we are so dry.  It is so dry that the spring this house sits on top of is barely running.  Spring usually means the sump pump runs every hour once the ground is fully thawed and it slows over summer, but this year, this spring it is running only two or three times a day.  I am actually listening for it and kind of missing the hum of it.  We are very very dry here and I pray for rain daily.  

With rain comes cooler weather, and cooler weather means winter sweaters and layers of shawls.      

Well Begun

On Friday, I took a monumental step.  

I started a new project, as dear to me as anything I have done.  

I started my Friesland blanket (Jenise Hope) with the yarn that Marcus picked all by himself, for my birthday.  

It took me a few starts to get going right.  I started on five needles but that was too much trouble to track increases.  I restarted on one needle per side and though seven needles feels like a lot of needles, it was much easier to  manage.

This isn't a difficult knit if you break it down into little bite size pieces, as each section and each motif naturally are.   

What it is, is a very intense knit.  It was an exciting feeling, getting the stitches in each segment, increasing every second row, colour work on every row, but I found that the continuous watch to get everything just so, took a toll.  It was and is wonderful, but it isn't going to be something I can knit on for hours a day.  

I am really pleased with the way it looks so far.  She gives excellent notes for the little tricks to make it happen easier and I am following her suggestions but I am also doing a few things, a few tricks of my own.  

I decided that because of each motifs construction, that it would be a great time to learn to hold both yarns in one hand. I am not a hundred percent sure, but I think holding them this way is helping keep both yarns tensions more even particularly here at the small diameter start.   

The other thing I am doing different is that I am not doing quite the same increase.  She uses a m1l and m1r  increase but because this is acrylic yarn I was very concerned about what  I can only refer to as humping.  It is so easy to have happen on a project knitted with acrylic.  You can't block out a too tight knit center and it destroys the way the whole thing looks.  

I am using an ewrap increase that puts no tension on the stitches in the row below but looks exactly like the m1 increases in your knitting.  I have played with this increase and have found that there are some places it works well and others where it works less well.  In a place where too tight stitches can happen it is perfect.  In the middle of easy knitting, it is too much ease in the yarn and leaves holes that show up in time.

Anyway, it is intense and glorious and exciting and as stimulating as can be.  And I will enjoy and revel in every single minute of knitting this, even if the whole thing takes forever.

Happy Friday.

I did knit yesterday, but i have to tell you, it sure doesn't look like much.  One measly inch past the underarm. 

It felt like I knit forever and I know that I really did spend a lot of the day knitting.  It just doesn't look like much.  However, it is a good point for a try on so that will happen sometime today.  

The only other thing I have to tell you of note is that some of my time is going to be spent today sorting out my giant acylic box.  I would really like to get that sorted.  There are bits and ends and leftovers, and then the yarn I bought for my own blanket and it is time to get that in order.  I do not need that giant box sitting taking up all my floor.

But otherwise happy Friday!

It is also forty one years today since I became a mom. By this time of day, I had been a mom for one hour.  My first go at motherhood didn't always feel like a success, but you know what? When I look at him now, I am so so very proud of  him.  Happy Birthday Son 1.

You never can tell.

Yesterday, after the zoom knitting (always a lovely thing to do) I spent some time, putting away some books that I had out in the morning. One of them was this book.  It is one of the prettiest things in my library.

I don't remember any more how I found it.  Possibly a cooking and craft type club but I just don't recall.  Possibly my favourite, and now sadly gone remaindered books place?  Anyway, it is a really lovely thing.  

Beautiful rorses.

Gladiolas, a rarity in stitching sources.  There should be more.  They are such lovely flowers.  My picture doesn't do them justice.  My stiching them might but that will probably not happen. Each of these is three feet tall and about a foot wide.  It is one of those once in a lifetime works.

Tiny Bilberries.  I found myself wondering once again wheat the difference between bilberries and blueberries was.  And now, because of the wonders of the internet, I have the answer to this small  question.

Rich purpled plums.  YUM  There is an apple basket pattern as well, and as nice as it is, it can't quite match these plums.  I want to eat these right off the page.

Part of me wants to stich every single one of these pictures.  They are so delicatley coloured and detailed.  I am pretty certain I won't do them all but one maybe?  Wouldn't that be lovely.  After volcanos perhaps.  You never can tell.

During my zoom yesterday, I worked on this top.  I cast this on in January.  Apparently.  It doesn't seem like that long ago, somehow.  I had it in my inspiration cabinet, and one day, when I was putting something away in there, it fell out.  It wanted to be heard, I guess.  

I took it out to work on yesterday, because this newly almost fashion concious me realized that it will work for one of my two planned fabric purchases from my wild night at the fabric store.  Best get to work on it.  When I started working on it after lunch, there was onlly the barest bit of two back shoulders joined and now, I am just refining the last few rows before I join at the under arms.  From there, it is just going to be a long casual tee shirt. with a nice easy fit.  If it is too boring near the hem, I could do some sort of lacy bit, but jeans inspired things shouldn't be lacy.  I will try to resist the urge. It will probably get sleeves, but only short almost cap sleeves.   

Working in cotton is such a pleasure for me.  I know that a lot of people don't enjoy it but bast fibres beat acrylics, hands down.  There is a smooth clean feel as it runs through my fingers.  I look forward to the wearing of it.  Cotton is such a lovely fibre and this worsted weight cotton is great for our variable summer weather.  A little heavier for mornings and after dark but breathable and great for all but the very very hottest days.  

I will work on this today and then I don't know.  There may be shawl knitting.  I am getting close to the second corner and I am looking forward to seeing if my semi carefully kept notes can help me repeat the corner well. And who knows.  Mr. Monkey may get a bit of work too.  You never can tell.

Monkeying Around

I could have knit anything yesterday.  I thought about working on my shawl.  I think about finishing it so I can start the next big shawl out of splendid yarn, but that is not what my hands wanted.  They went some where else entirely.

For months, years I have been talking sock monkeys.  I have had all the parts for a good long while but it just didn't happen.  I thought seriously of abandoning the project and making a sweater for one of the kiddies with the yarns.    I didn't really have a pattern after all.  I had a booklet but it used Patons Classic Wool and that was much heavier than the Kroy yarn I bought for the project.  I couldn't let go of the monkey idea though, particularly when the sock monkey thing is so deep in my bones now.

Of all the yarns I am not working with right now that were freed from the bottom of the big box, it was the only one that stayed, sitting there, looking at me.  And then, magic happened and my hands grabbed it up and started knitting.

This is a test monkey.  This poor fella is going to end up with afterthough feet.  I forgot the start with the cream.  But, he really is a test to see how much yarn he uses and give me a chance to play with the scale I need to knit to.  It would be so much easier to simply knit to the patterns gauge and size but that would mean more yarn and I have this.  Besides, it is very much part of it for me that these are little monkeys.  Some of my grandkids are past the point of big stuffies, but everyone, even adults could fall for a wee stuffie particularly a sock monkey stuffie.

So tiny stuffies it is.  I'm gonna do some monkeying around.

Unleashed Beasts

I have a problem.  It isn't a knitting problem.  It is a sewing problem.  

As my interest in clothing myself as grown and expanded by the experience of sewing my own pants that fit, I have become re-engaged in the idea of clothing.  Re-engagement has led to the purchasing of fabric and the need for more fabric, and the purchasing of even more fabric.  It isn't out of control.  Really.   

I still haven't spent what an average person does on clothing in a year and I still have only barely scratched the surface of replacing my old, old things. (Yay pants)  I am taking some comfort in that but the problem is that I now have more than enough fabric to clothe me.  In the same way that buying yarn is separate from knitting, fabric buying is a separate obesession from sewing to clothe myself. 

I have purchased material before for sewing and then never gotten to it, but those pieces are being used now as test fabrics and to wear fabrics.  The material I have had for years was for things suitable for office clothing.  Crisp fabric for skirts and jackets.  A few fabrics for blouses. In the life I live now, most of that will become pants because that is mostly what I wear now.  Very little of it has the drape that skirts or dresses I want to wear now would need.  I find myself heading to the online fabric place (Fabricville, the online part of the Quebec part of Fabricland) just because.

For instance, last night.  I woke last night thinking very seriously of a lovely floral fabric I bought a few weeks ago.  It is for a simple dress, loose fitting, comfotable.  I am really looking forward to it.  But I don't really want to use it on a new pattern without having tried that new pattern.  This is where most people would make a muslin.  Muslin is plain and  at 6.99 per metre by the bolt, quite reasonable, but at the end of my work, I would have something so utterly dull, I wouldn't wear it.  

What I needed to test my plans for the dress was cheap fabric.  As cheap as can be.  I didn't spend really big money on all the fabric I have bought so far. Even my very pretty fabric is only 8.99 a metre.  I have been really careful so far, purchasing what I like and getting some very decently priced material.  

This time, I was looking for stuff I wouldn't mind having wasted but that was nice enough that if it worked right, that I could wear and enjoy.  I hit the clearance pages.  

I had a great time. Seriously great.

Last night, in the middle of the darkest of the night, I purchased five pieces of fabric to test out patterns for fit and size.  I purchased colour.  I purchased flow and drape and joy.  It was wonderful.  

Thing is, I really only intended to buy one fabric to use as a tester.  That really was the goal.  I only put the things in the cart so they would be marked and the plan was to pick one.  I couldn't do it.  I wanted them all.  I needed those fabrics like a yarn ho needs yarn.  

I had two intended pieces of fabric in my cart as well, long planned for and quite purposeful, well thought out purchases but the full damage last night was seven more pices of fabric, therefore seven more garments are coming to my house.  I am pretty sure that if I include last years fabric purchases, my wardrobe after sewing this all up, will be bigger than it has ever been in my life.  

I can see that I am going to have to do a bit of work lest I unleash a dragon that I did not intend to release.  It's possible it is already too late.  

So what else was in the big box?

I left a hint of this next post on the blanket bingo post just for fun.  Make no mistake, that box was full.  The first thing I did, even before I completed blankets was to put the yarn leftovers away as I no longer needed them.  They went into the acyrlic box in my study.  All that remains of acrylics here is these tiny scraps and I think they are expendable.

So what was in that box?  Well, first up, the Shetland Shawl.

It lives in a very large ziploc and it shall remain there until it is finished.  When it is finished, it will be able to live in a slightly smaller ziploc, but for now, for ease of getting it in and out as I work on it, the big bag is it.  This is the only project that will live outside my WIP bins.  I have decided it will be so and it will be so.

There was also a bag of yarn for actual itty bitty sock monkeys.  

And yes, a stray thought did cross my mind for a fleeting second.  I wondered just how big of a blanket that bag would make.  And then I told myself that no.  No you were not going there, not ever, don't even dream it.  Treacherous thing, my mind.  And my sock blockers.  So that is where they went.  

And my lovely linen.  

Hmmm.  I have to go back and dig out my tester to see what I was planning for this.  I think I remember.  But, since I am not knitting it at the moment, I will put it in my inspiration cabinet.  I have a different sweater on the go for summer at the moment and I will finish that first.

And this pretty yarn.

I had started a thing, but that thing is no longer what I see when I look at it, but I did think of another thing  that will be stunning so I just have to dig out a wee bit of something to hold along with the fingering weight so it all matches with the DK weight of the Tupa silk and wool. I have a really strong urge to find what I need to start this project, but no.  I need to finish at least one more thing before I can start anything.

And last but not least, the bag of sock yarns.  These are all socks on the go, just two pair at the moment, plus the yarns for the Neapolitan Ice Cream Socks from Operation Sock Drawer.

Today is the day that big box will be emptied and gone.  It's been over a year and while it seemed to have solved a problem I was having, it actually did not.  All it did was delay the recognition that I was not happy with the state of things and the beginning of doing something about it.  The need for order becomes stronger till it almost becomes almost an obsession, an obsession I can't resolve until I deal with the root of the thing.  

The big box wasn't the root of it, but it was part of not dealing with it. It is a huge personal victory to finally deal with the big box.  

It is a really good box.  Sturdy, strong.  The highly motivated among you might say it would be a great toy box and even worth covering with pretty fabric.  I'm still getting rid of it.  

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time, I sat down to cast on a blanket I had seen at knitting and very much admired.  I thirsted to make it.  I needed it badly to be mine.

This happened.

But that wasn't enough.  I enjoyed making it so much, that I did it again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

The first blanket was started in August of 2019.  Cassie and Marcus helped me shop for the yarn.  Cassie drove the cart and  Marcus was very interested in the store scooter I was using.   He was very interested in how the wheels turned underneath.

You know what the really weird thing is?  That for a lot of that time, I was also knitting on other things, finishing other things, sewing, embroidering, reading.  For all that I knit five blankets from then till now, and many other things, there is a tiny part of me, that feels like I didn't accomplish anything at all.  

I'm getting better at telling that part of me to shut up.  I'm feeling pretty darn good about all the things right now.

Knitting Day

It ended up being a knitting day.

Today will be too.  Just saying.

Hacking

Today is probably not going to be a knitting day.  There may be some sewing but it is not a sewing day.  Today is a hacking of the furniture day.

I have a cubii 

pretty much like this one and I use it almost everyday.  It has made a very positive difference in my life.  There is only one problem.   Because I use it often, it stays right where I sit, out in the open.  It doesn't really bother me very often but there are times when I wish it had a bit of a home,  a spot where it could tuck into and not be so out there. 

I also have three Bosnas footstool/storage cubes for storing WIPs.  I like these because they do double duty as footstools and are sturdy enough for most adults to sit on because of the metal frame construction.  As a footstool, they are actually a bit low.  I have wanted to raise the height of them since I got them but I also find that for use when I am napping on my couch, that they are a little narrow.  Perfection would be wider.  

The Cubes usually sit in front of my loveseat, and act as a sort of coffee table.  I had the brainwave that since it was time to recover the cubes, that perhaps, I could add an extension to make a place for the cubii to tuck under as well.   Maybe it will have a home?  

I don't know.  Still playing around with the idea really.  I have all the materials or at least I think I have the materials and the stools are surely getting new covers, an added foam padding on top to make them higher and two are being joined by one common top.  But will cubbii have a place to tuck or will it remain that its only home is sitting just beside the new look, larger, taller footstools?   

 I just need to pull out the staple gun and start trying things.    

Brilliant Things and Endless Excitement Or How to Have a Happy Pandemic

See that button on a pin?

That button is my place marker at the start of each day of knitting.  That was yesterday.  It was a good day.

I kind of feel like powering through this big thing quickly right now so that I can go on to much more interesting knitting.  

Some of it would be seasonally appropriate knitting, as in knitting a summer tank top.  I have one I started with some Rowan Cotton Jeans that has been living in my stash since forever.  It was recovered from a top that did not work, and I really would like to wear it as a something.  It is really a superb yarn. Also reminds me that I have to add this project to Ravelry so I can track it.  

And there is my very interesting green sweater out of yarn from MacAuslands from my Epic Adventure.  

It has an interesting construction.  The back, which you see here is a bit farther than this now, very close to being complete.  Then there is a front panel to knit, or two front panels, if I make it as a cardigan.  Once those are done, I can start the bigger part of the knitting, the sides and the sleeves.  It is an any gauge sort of project of the best kind.  It still produces clothing that you can easily custom fit to you.

And then there is the exciting colours in my Starting Point.  I am so looking forward to feeling caught up enough to knit on that. I do have a goal for it. 

 I want to do at least one section a week as it would have been knit by its first knitters. It was a brilliant mystery knit along and at the moment, I am a week behind.  If I had been knitting it with the KMAL, this would have bothered me.  Because the make along is long over, it doesn't bug me at all.

Sitting here at my computer, I am also looking at a cabinet full of pre clothes.  Pre sweaters, and shawls and all sorts of yummy good knitting.  There are greens and purples and reds and beautiful blue Regal from Briggs and Little for  my Agate Cove sweater. 

Spring may not just mean knitting on tops meant for summer wear. It can also be knitting all the colours of the rainbows.  I love knitting greys and natural tones.  They are wonderful for fall and winter knitting but for summer, surely brilliant coloured things are a must.  Thinking of grays and natural tones  reminds me of my wonderful Shetland Shawl!.  Second Side half done.  Can't wait to work on it more.  

There isn't anything that isn't exciting to knit at any time of year, in any colour of yarn.  Needles and string things are endlessly exciting! I count myself very very lucky to be stuck in a pandemic with something I adore doing.  I am so lucky knitting is somewhere beyond craft into the land of compulsion for me.  It has made me have a happy pandemic.  Weird, maybe, but good.

And done.  I found enough red buttons to do it right, but then I found a Mickey mouse button, and I know his momma is a big Mickey mouse fan so...She loved it and that is what counts.

I ended up not putting the elbow patches on to the sweater.  The knit is fairly firm and with an elbow patch, I am not sure baby would have been able to really move his wee arms.  He is one whole month old now and is starting to respond to everything around him.  

  

Once that wee thing was complete, I pulled out several projects.  I knit a bit on my Shetland Shawl.  I knit a bit on my socks that need watching on the design.  I worked on the last of the current batch of blankets.  Then I pulled out my version of Ysolda Teagues's Threipmuir and that is the proejct that stuck.

I really really love this.  I love the colours even if they are not the perfect group of colours (the teal and the seafoam are a wee bit too close in hue) but they are perfect for me.  When last I worked on this, I had taken it to just two rows below the arms.  

In the time I knit on the weekend, I am now a nice firm two inches below the arm.

I am debating making this a cropped sort of top.  It is a lighter weight sweater so it won't see wear in the coldest winter when I like long suggly things.  It is more of a chilly summer morning thing, so maybe a crop would work.  I have been playing with models of me (if you want scary do that sometime) where I black out the me and just work with the shapes, and cropped looks just as good on that body as anything else.  

I think I have lots of yarn if I want it to go longer after I try it cropped for a bit.  There is always the comfort factor that plays into the things I enjoy wearing and one way or another, cropped or long, I intend to adore this sweater.