Feeling Good About Handwork

I got a lot done yesterday.

Everett's blanket is moving right along.  I am on the final colour section where the main colourful mixed bright is interrupted with pops of green and pinky orange ridges.  I am hoping to get it completed today, though it is going to depend on my hands.  I am finding that I can only knit short spurts of this chunky yarn before I need to break.  Still it is moving along and I am pretty sure that my goal of tomorrow by lunch is doable.  I am going to speed the finishing by weaving some of the ends in while I have to take the knitting breaks. 

 The other thing I worked on yesterday was my gauge swatch for Joji Locatelli's Newspaper pullover.  I am practising two colour brioche, particularly the increasing, at the same time as trying to figure out what the gauge will be in this yarn combination.  The yarns are heavier than the yarn specified by Joji but they are both quite soft yarns that have a tendency to thin out when they are worked.  Manufacturers gauge isn't always what we end up with when we have a fabric we like. The two yarns are Incense from Elann, a wool silk and bamboo blend and Alpaca Peru from Diamond Yarns, both discontinued.  The pure alpaca is a slighter yarn than the Incense so I am holding a strand of a pure wool laceweight, Knitpicks Shadow hoping to give the blue a bit of wools durability and bounce back.  I am going to knit a fair sized swatch and I am going to wash them and do a bit of a hang test to see how they will perform together.  I don't want one yarn to sag and the other to sit nicely.  If they sag, fine, but they both should be doing the same thing.  I hope to work on the swatch a bit more today.

Todays work is getting buttons on my lovely green and blue Elton.  

 I have worn it already and it is really the perfect thing for chilly summer mornings.  

The summer weather here means a light sweater over whatever else we wear for the even the nicest of mornings.  I find I am wearing my variation of Threipmuir with my dresses routinely and my Blue Granito is getting a regular wearing too.  I love the way these shorter sweaters work with the dresses, providing just enough warmth till the heat of the day sets in.  

But the weather can be very changeable too.  The last few days have been full winter gear with undershirts, socks, and heavy sweaters being worn, topped with scarves and shawls.  I was really wishing my winter sewing was done so that I could wear my long johns under my warm pants too. 

The blast of cold gave me the chance to appreciate the way things I have chosen to make, colours I have picked to knit and to sew with go together. I love how comfortable my clothes all are to wear and how the fit is so much nicer than anything I could ever buy. I have a very few things that are not handmade any more and when those are gone, the replacements will be handmade too.  (The exception is undergarments.  I am not sewing or otherwise making undergarments.  Nope.  No sirree.) 

This is my joy. It isn't dancing in the streets though sometimes it makes me feel like I could do that.  It isn't shouting out to the world that I did this, though sometimes I have on this blog. This is quiet contentment and deep satisfaction.  My outside feels like it matches my inside for the first time in a long time.