Half finished things.

And one done!

Yes, it biases but it is the perfect thing for me.  The crisp twisted stitches make for a closer fit which is perfect for the end use.  I love its work sock vibe. 

And no I did not even go into the sewing room.  It felt so good to knit that I made another square for Carter's blanket

and have a fifth one well under way.  Three more and the blanket is half done.  

Wow.  I posted every day this week.  I guess I had more to talk about than usual, even with the small knitting content.

Small Things

And this is how far I made it yesterday.  

It looks paltry in comparison to my amount of knitting before and I might be disappointed but I know how much went into the making it this far.  I am very pleased with it.  Small diameter things are much harder on my hands than a nice soft sweater. I am practising relaxing and knitting very slowly. My hands are doing fine, but they don't seem to have a lot of stamina.

I have a few rows more on the thumb gusset to do and once those are done, there are really only a few rows, maybe ten or so planned for the hand part so not too much more.  Sometimes these little projects are the nicest thing.  Quick, simple, and really useful to me.

Today's task is to hit the sewing room.  Today, as much as I need the long johns, I have a pile of work to do on existing things, some remodeling, some repair.  I want to get those things out of my head so I have free brain space to play again.

Something New

I was watching Annijuuti Knits on Youtube and she vlogged about a challenge she is following among Finnish Youtubers where you cast on one new thing each day for a week.  It was interesting watching her choices and reasoning behind all seven of her new projects.  

It made me think about starting something new for no reason.  I was swept along with her enthusiasm and I was feeling a bit jealous.  Five year old innner me felt she got to start new things.  Why couldn't I?   More adultier me did not really want to start something new.  I finally feel like I am making progress on the Mid Knit Cravings Pesto and Kelp sweater and Carter's blanket is moving along nicely too.  I have more than enough WIPs on the go to feed every sort of knitting mood.  I do not need more WIPs.  And yet...

  I decided to deal with the urge by casting on a small project that I do need and not just a pair of socks. 

For the last several years, I have been wearing wrist warmers to bed at night.  They really help keep my hands working well.  They cannot make the emerging arthritic joints go away completely, but they really do help them feel less stiff and spongy.  My last pair

 was a really successful project and I have worn them almost every night since February of 2022.  I always meant to make a pair with longer cuffs so that more of my forearm would be covered.  I wanted them longer over my knuckles too.    Casting on wrist warmers isn't a want, it is an almost urgent need as fall has us more firmly in her grasp.

By the time I talked myself into casting on, it seemed reasonable.  I had the yarn in my WIPs bin. It seems it never was put away.  (So much for my ability to clean out my WIPs bin.)  My favourite pair of dpns were free.  What's to stop me. 

And away I went.

I am just about to make a two row red stripe before I knit more of the charcoal and white marl.  The hand will once again be full red and it will be finished off to match the cuff.  

It isn't a fancy sort of piece.  It is a workman like piece and it reminds me fondly of knitting sock monkeys and Sock Monkey Cabin Blankets.  Which reminds me of the Sock Monkey Cabin Blanket that is on my 10 mm needles and needs to be completed, which reminds me of Carter's blanket and one for his cousin Jane and Marcus' blanket and something for Cassie too.  

I gotta go knit now.

A Matter of Expectation

One of the most interesting things about knitting is how no matter how long you have been doing it, there is still so much to learn.  I cannot think of anything in my life that demonstrates so clearly how you can read the words and have them right, you can do each process of a thing and understand it and still be so wrong.  Context is everything.

The black hole of my never ending sweater knitting magically resolved itself one morning. It wasn't just long enough, it was one row past what I was looking for.  No matter, one row extra was perfect.  I started working on the interesting hem of the sweater.  

And stopped.  No matter what I did, it didn't make sense.  I followed the directions exactly but it really made no sense.  Right from the bit where you cast on stitches to the way you attached them to bind off the body of the sweater, it made no sense.  I read it and knit it over and over again.  After try number 4, I put it down and worked on the blanket and played in stash.  Knitting gods 1, Me 0.  

I searched answers on Ravelry and Reddit.  There wasn't any mention of trouble with what I was having trouble with.  I read over the pattern again.  I had obviously missed some small but critical instruction.  I looked at every picture I could find.  Zip, nada.  I left it alone all of Saturday. I ignored it.

And Sunday, I picked up the pdf of the pattern and was looking at my favourite little detail of the design when it hit me.  I was thinking in the wrong direction.   I know.  It makes no sense when you write it out, but suddenly, I knew the problem I was having and I knew what to do, to do it right.

When you knit in the round, you are pretty much working in the same direction all the time.  I was trying to do this part, expecting it to keep the knitting flowing in that same direction.  It doesn't.  It works back in the other direction.  

It was such an aha moment, understanding the one thing I had wrong.  I had forgotten to leave my expectation at the door and was trying to make it be something it could not be. 

With the newfound clarity, I made quick work of getting it set up and making progress.   

I cast on 4 extra stitches than the pattern calls for.  I didn't really plan for this but it feels right.  Instead of being 4 inches, my hem finish will be about 4 3/4 inches.  I dearly hope that the yarn will  holds out.  

If it doesn't, I will just have to order another skein of yarn or change the sleeve hem finish.  Wish me l luck.

With each thing I knit, I learn something.  Sometimes it is about the yarn or fibre. sometimes, it is about a little trick of the stitches.  Sometimes I gain a small understanding of things about myself, and sometimes, oh those notable times, I learn something big about the nature of the world and life itself.  Leave your expectations at the door.  Things often work better that way.

Squares

Two of 8 squares in this colour combination are done and

with each square,  the bind offs are getting better.

The bind off edge is supposed to be done on a needle one size larger.  I do not have a needle one size larger.  I have a needle two sizes larger but it is currently in use on another blanket.  I just bound off very loosely.  When I did that it was fine and yet, the square was still not, well, square.  It pulled a bit and made it a weird not quite square anything else.  

The square above with the yellow outer corner was bound off many times, five I think.  I made one extra stitch at the place where you would normally be increasing at the center line.  On the square with the blue outer corner, I did two.  The shape was much improved with the two stitches and I am going to do that for each of the remaining squares.     

The other big change I made to the pattern was to decrease the number of stitches.  I am making 5 garter ridges and therefore 5 stitches at each side of the marker as you work.  Then I change colours and knit 5 more ridges in the second colour and 10 stitches to each side of the marker.  And the third section will be yet another 5 ridges bringing the total number of stitches to each side of the marker to 15 stitches. 

The resulting square is about 9 inches, just a smidge over.  That means the blanket will be   about 36 inches.  That is a perfect baby size but this is supposed to be a blanket for a 9 year old.  I was aiming for slightly more. Plus I wanted the blanket to be a bit more of a rectangle.  I am currently thinking about how to deal with that and have some interesting ideas. 

The day promises to be a full busy one for me.  The usual household chores will no doubt be interfering with the knitting.  I am trying to slowly build up knitting time between chores so that I can knit more hours in a day, one small bite at a time. 

That place

That place.  Yes.  I am at that place.  

I knit 6 rows yesterday, which doesn't sound like much, but is.  I was thinking I had 8 rows left to make it to the number of inches of length that I wanted before I started doing the hem design.  

I measured before I set it aside for the day.  If the math and the measurement is right, I am going to need about 8 more rows.  

I am at the black hole of knitting, that place where you knit and knit, and it never seems to get any longer.  

Oh well.  I will take some time and will console myself by looking at the pretty fabric that Pesto is turning into.

When it was time to set aside the knitting for the day, I entertained myself by winding yarn.  I spent some time tidying the yarn display cabinet and then wound the yarn that I have for Luda's (Marcus and Cassie's other grandmother) sweater.  I have the last of the lovely Adam and Eve in a soft silvery grey and a natural coloured mohair.  

The mohair was particularly fun and impressive.

Isn't that just spectacular?  It will be like knitting with angel wings.

To give credit where credit is due, I got this from Yoriko Oki via Etsy.  

I had a short sleep last night and am feeling headachy as is usual after too little sleep.  A nap is in order today and it may well be a full bed nap.  Still I am going to knit some of those 8 measly rows before that happens this afternoon.  If the knitting gods are with me, this will be the last time those 8 rows stare me in the face.

Bygones

This was our supper last night.  Beans with soy sauce, a very fine pork loin, BBQd to perfection, and a baked potato of almost beach ball proportions.  That may be an exaggeration but it was large.  Very large.  Keith got them from the pharmacist we use in Vegreville.  The pharmacist had a very prolific garden this year, particularly root vegetables, and was giving them away to his customers.  No doubt at all that his modern home has no cold store.  

Sadly the custom of cold stores for garden produce has disappeared. Time was when every backyard supported much of the vegetable consumption of a family for most of the year.  But as women went to work, gardens disappeared as did cold stores.  There are a few around, remnants of bygone times.  Anthony's house has one. 

There are remnants of the past that we really ought to have in every modern home, like ceiling lights in  living rooms such as we have here in Keith's house where I live.  I love, love love that light.  As the daylight hours shorten here, that strong clear light in the middle of the living room ceiling gives me many more hours of low eyestrain work time.  It isn't enough for needlework, but for knitting?  It is perfect.

I worked on the Midknit Cravings sweater yesterday.  I have a few rows left (6 - 8) before I start the hem finishing in the oh so lovely Kelp Forest.  I cannot tell you how much i am enjoying  working this.  You really ought to try some MidKnit Cravings yarn yourself.  It is such a treat.

As to Carter's blanket, I ended up straining my hand more than I was happy with.  I think I will change to a larger needle to ease thee tension.  Knitting with a needle to small for the yarn is so much harder on my hands and I purposely picked a needle one size smaller to keep crisper lines for the pattern.  I will give that up and go with 8 mm needles and less crisp lines for the sake of my hands. 

Colour and Pattern Games

I spent the day playing around trying to figure out how to make Carter's blanket.  

When I did the other blankets, I knew exactly where I was going with it from the moment I saw the yarn I meant to use.  

I have been undecided about Carter's blanket from the get go.  Part of it was colour issues and part of it was that having seen all of the other blankets he had some opinions on colour.  He wanted bright colours and yet he wanted the Bernat Velvet we had seen in the stores.  Velvet has quite a sophisticated colour palette, much more muted and richer than the Blanket Brights line.  I have both yarns so Carter will get to pick. I know that the Velvet yarn is going to be another Feather and Fan pattern or a variation of it, but the other has mystified me.  I could never get farther in my planning than log cabin.  The Moderne Log Cabin would have  been great, but I made Carter's dad one years and years ago.  For days I looked at blanket designs on Ravelry.  I looked at things in my library of knit books.  But nothing felt quite right.  I even settled on a pattern but when I started knitting, my hands knew it was not right.  

And then I discovered the Bento Box Quilt by Staci Perry.  I know I had seen it before, but yesterday, it felt like I had found the exact perfect thing for the strong clear colours I had.  And more importantly, the colours I had less of would work.  I hope.

I watched the videos on Staci's Very Pink channel, the place to go for sound knitting advice and how to's and she advised you google Bento Box Quilt and spend some time looking at images for colour combinations.  This was great advice for the colour undecided as well as being a delightful rabbit hole of sheer joy.  

I pulled out my box of markers and set down to work to play.  I made two scenarios.  

This one used more of the blue and less of the multi.  I have lots of both colours though I have tons of the multi so I set up another pattern sample.

I love it.  This second bit of goofing around is the one I am going with.  I will border the blanket with the blue and maybe a few other colours that I only have a little of.  The other way, I would have to border with the multi and I have a feeling that it just wouldn't be as nice.  A solid colour will frame it more cleanly and set your eyes to the inside flash.

I started knitting to see how it would look and I feel pretty good about it.  I may change needle size just to make the knitting easier on my hands and to give the fabric a softer drape.  But colours?  I think I have it.

One of the nicest parts is that it is squares that will need to be assembled later but there will not be any real amount of weight on my hands.  Yes, I will take the pain of sewing together over the weight of a blanket on my wrists.

As I learned with all the blankets for Carter's brothers, I can only do a little bit a day.  Too many rows means sore hands and I really don't want to go through that again.  It will give me a chance to work on the pretty Midknit Cravings Pesto sweater.  Maybe, just maybe, I will get that done before October comes.

PS, it should be noted that there seems to be very little of the brilliant Blanket Brights line available.  I looked all over including the factory source, Yarnspirations, but it seems to be out of stock or very low stock everywhere.  It may just be a seasonal variation.  Blanket is readily available, with its subtle more sophisticated tones as well as the soft Baby Blanket tones.  

Progress!

So much progress!   The sweater is almost as long as it needs to be before I do the Sun Dogs pattern interesting hem finish. It is proof that progress happens even when all you can do is a row or two a day.

 I am going for twelve inches plus the hem finish, which is four inches wide.  It will be a little longer than the pattern calls for but I haven't really been following the pattern very much.  The yoke construction is different, the body is more a line shaped so a little longer is probably the smallest of all my adjustments.   Still, I am so inspired by the clean simple and oh so interesting look of the details of this sweater.  It is all about the hem finishes for me.  All the rest is just adapted so my brain could cope and so it fits me.  

I can't wait to wear this.  And I am so looking forward to getting my wonderful yellow sweater Folklore into full knitting production and to knitting all the other wonderful things in my head.

My hands are feeling good and the only thing that is stopping me from spending the whole day working with this beautiful MidKnit Cravings yarn at all is the sewing that needs doing and the simple fact that I have a few more blankets to do in that big chunky Bernat Blanket.  

The goal for today is to get going on Carter's blanket and to work a bit on this pretty tweedy cozy sweater.

Call it Cozy

That turned out perfect.

I made a wild guess about how long the sleeve ought to be and simply whacked off the cuff.  I got it exactly right.  I did very good on narrowing the sleeve too and it fits perfectly with no pulling no matter where it is on my arm.  

I am really happy about it because fall weather is here. The temperature this morning is showing 2 C though the daytime temps are expected to rise to 24C.  2C demands warm and this morning I have it.  

Call me cozy.  

Working on the Do of the Thing.

Remember the Do of the thing I talked about the other day?  It is time to make that happen.

Yes the long johns will be finished today and the fit test will get done, but there is some other stuff that needs to happen right now.  

I made two long sleeved flannel shirts late last winter/ early spring.  The plan was to have them ready for fall and here it is, suddenly the middle of September.  

They are ready to wear and there is nothing wrong with them, only I hate the long sleeves.  I really hate them.  The plan was that I could wear them rolled up casually for working around the house and down when it was chilly.  There is suh a difference between casual in my mind and what really happened. The times I wore them over spring and  summer, I found the sleeves supremely irritating.  They did not stay up well and when they did, there was always something flapping at my elbow. When they were down, my dpns kept getting caught up in the cuffs, interfering with my knitting. My plan is to get rid of of the cuff and shorten the sleeve to a good 3/4 length.  I am going to narrow the sleeve a bit too and finish off with a simple hem. I am pretty confident that once those changes are made, the shirts will get a lot of wear.

Then there is this dress.  

This is made of a beautiful cotton, but heavier and more tightly woven than most of the cotton I sew with.  The end result is a dress that is great to wear in cool weather, but is a bugger to wash because the gathered skirt makes the whole thing almost too heavy for my wee tiny laundry machines.  I love everything about it, but I avoid wearing it because of that.  I am aiming for a lighter  simpler skirt with a pleat in the back to allow for my generous hips. And pockets.  This time, there will be pockets.

There is another dress I will probably adapt but I am not sure I will get to it today.  It is going to depend on my thumb.  Somedays it has been remarkably good and some days not so much. One step at a time.

Folk Things

I had the most delicious lunch yesterday. They were left over from Marcus' birthday supper. I am not sure what Luda calls them.  Many of the names we use here in Canada for Ukrainian foods are considered the Russian names so I get confused.  All things considered the name does not matter.  Only the delicious food.  They are a raised dough baked meat filled dumpling.  And they are so yummy.  

I had them with mustard mixed with a sweet Thai chili sauce and they were so good. Luda is a very good cook.

I played a bit with knitting on the sweater, but then I played with socks.  

This is my variation of this sock from Folk Socks by Nancy Bush.  As ever, lace is like knitting music.  The rhythm of the lace just sings as you knit along.  It was hard to put down.  I was having so much fun, I missed where I was going to do the heel.  Rather than pull it out, it will have an afterthought heel.  

I am not really certain that this is going to fit me.  I really ought to put it on a cord or a longer needle and give it a try on.  So far, all I can tell you is that it fits my sock length card, which should mean it will fit me.  It is quite a stretchy lace, but it does have changing stitch counts and sometimes, there just are not a lot of stitches on the needles. Cassie may get a pair of socks out of this.

When I stopped knitting, I pulled all of Interweave Folk series books that I own off my bookshelves.  

 

I had a lovely evening meandering through these books.  They are filled with techniques, history, interesting stitches and so many lovely patterns.  Sometimes I forget the riches that live on my bookshelf.

I have made some of the designs Folk Shawls and have two projects on the go, one from Folk Vests (The Scandinavian Star Vest from Mondays post) and the one above from Folk Socks.  I really hope to use more of the designs.  

The Do of the Thing

I woke to orange and pink and deep purple blue cloudlets dappled over the navy morning sky.  It was lovely.  The next time I looked out the window, there was a heavy dark presence hanging over us. It was deep, dark and had weirdly crisp edges for a cloud.   It was as if every sci fi movie of space aliens with their imperious ships closing in overhead was real.  But no.  Just a big, dark rain cloud.  

I am really hoping to do a bit of knitting today.  It should be possible to get in at least a couple of rows.  It would be nice to get it to the next increase but time will tell.  

If not there is always some sewing to do.  

As I mentioned before, I am sewing some long johns and tights.  The long johns are being made of the traditional waffle weave fabric and the tights out of a cotton spandex knit.  I hope.  I am sure that what I make will be wearable.  The question is will they be wearable under pants and dresses and will they look weird.  If they work under regular clothes, I win.  I am not really all that worried about looks, just warmth.  If my family says they look weird, it means I just won't wear them to doctors appointments or shopping and such.  

So far it looks good.  

I have only a bit of the waistband to sew on before I can try them on and do a fit test.  I want them to snug nicely to my legs so the fit will be fine tuned before the seam finishing is done. And once, that is done, I can cut out the other fabrics for more warm winter wear.  

I have just enough of the fabric left for a tshirt of some kind.  I was hoping for enough for a long sleeve undershirt, but all that I will get from it is a tank type shirt.  What will be will be.  Undershirts will be sewn after all the tights leggings, long johns are done. 

Along with the fabrics for said undergarments, I pulled out a very old fabric.  

I was thinking about how old this was and concluded that it has been living in  my fabric stores since before 2007.  I bought it for a dress for work when I was still doing office work and it just never happened.  It is a lovely soft knit and the same kind of fabric was available last fall, so it isn't even out of date.   The colour is such a basic deep red and that too adds to its timelessness.  I have another piece in a forest green as well.  I plan to make a Hexham Dress with this piece, with long sleeves and a turtleneck.  Lots of fabric to do that, I think.

Well, time to get on with it.  I could babble on for hours more about plans, but if I did, I would never get to the DO of the thing and if I never get to the do of the thing, I could never free my mind to wander through all the things I want to knit.    

Knitting Dreams

I know that I just cast on a pretty vibrant new thing.

 I know that I want to finish and wear some of the things that I am currently working on.

I know that I really want to work on and finish and wear a project I have dreamed about knitting for a long time.

(My version of the Scandinavian Star Vest by Cheryl Oberle)

And so many more things in the WIPs bin that are waiting to be worked on. I want them all.

So with all these lovely things in my WIPs bin, why do I keep obsessing about new things I want to knit?  Because I am a knitter.  That is why.  

I spent the weekend working on almost nothing.  I did a wee bit on my almost a Sun Dog sweater (the middle photo).  It is really starting to look like a sweater. All these tiny bits of knitting on it do add up.  

What I did spend a lot of time on was looking at stitch pattern books.  I have so many lovely pattern books and occasionally when I can't knit, I wander through them and dream of knitting this pattern or that pattern and which of my many yarns I will use to make them.  This weekend I pulled out the Japanese pattern books and just dreamed.  A thousand tiny doors to the many ways of putting together the movements of hands and needles and yarn. A simple basic sweater shape and any of the hundreds of patterns?  Yes.  I want to knit them all. Doing this is kind of a mistake if you are trying to be a monogamous knitter so you can have finished things.

And then I spent time going through the sweaters I have favourited on Ravelry.  I don't even have to describe that.  My favourites list is a whole box of unfulfilled wants.  There are so many beautiful inspiring, wonderful patterns just waiting for me to knit them.  Going through your Favourites list is a mistake if you are trying to be a monogamous knitter.  

My thumb is not quite ready for me to get back to long lovely hours of knitting just yet but it is doing a lot better.   It's a good thing that today I have lots of household chores to catch up on to keep me busy.  It's a good thing that I have some long underwear and some tights waiting to be cut out in my sewing room.  Maybe I will stop dreaming and wishing for all the things I am not knitting.  

You just never know.  I might just give in to my dreams and desires and cast on something new.  I'd be okay with that too.   

Much to do.

As the season changes, I am pondering the needs of my sweater chest and looking back to what I really wear.  

This summer, I wore my shortie lightweight Threipmuir .  

For a sweater I was feeling quite ambivalent about at the time I first finished knitting it, once the neckline was changed, I wore it all the time, and I do mean all the time.

The other one that saw very frequent wear was my green Elton.

Its only flaw are the too loose buttonholes and that will be fixed shortly.  

Both of these sweaters work so well for those days of summer prairie days that start cool.  Plus they look seriously fine with all of my dresses.  

One of my winter goals is going to have to be light sweaters, probably cropped.  I have a few in mind that I really want to make, not just the ever so popular colourwork, like Soldotna or the Secret Garden Sweater , but things like Anther  and the Tolsta Tee.  The sweaters and tops that could be worn over something or on their own really appeal to me.  

There are a ton of sweaters I want to knit and I have some vests planned too, to keep me cozy this winter but first, I really would like to get the things in my WIPS bin under control.  I need to finish some socks.  I want to finish my Bridgewater shawl. I have a Starting Point Shawl that I absolutely love that needs some time spent on it. I have to finish a couple more blankets for grandkids. 

  

I have been working on my variation of Laura Aylor's lovely Sun Dogs and sewing winter long johns for myself.  I can't do much of either but I am doing a wee bit each day.  

The season changes so fast here.  It was long bright warm days and now it seems to be instantly harvest and chilly nights and darker evenings.  In this part of the world, though it still is technically summer, no one told mother nature, so she has made sure that the autumn has arrived.  Knits and wool are no longer just to keep the chill off for an hour or so.  This is the season of knits for survival.

A Tiny Bit of Knitting

Yesterday was weird.  I did go to the city and hated every moment of it.  It was so smoky there where the smoke was pretty light at home when I left.  Oh well, it is what it is.

While I was waiting I did try some knitting.  

I took along this sock and managed two lace repeats.  And they were done right for a change.

Thankfully, the small yarn and light small needles were the perfect way to start.  There was no feeling of tingles or strain in either hand and my hands never felt tired.  It wasn't a long appointment, only about two hours.  It was the perfect length of time to get back to knitting.  

I am going to try a little bit more today.  Not too much though.  No sense hurting them again when they are almost ready to go full time.  I will be patient and firm with myself and will be back at it before I know it.

Discombobulated

I am slowly going crazy, 1,2,3,4,5,6 switch.  Slowly am I crazy going, 6,5,4,3,2,1 switch.

Absolutely no doing anything this weekend.  It was long and torturous, but my two inflamed joints and the nerves are feeling a lot better. Another day or two till I can resume my usual work.  I did try sewing a bit but I found that the stretch needed for this part of the work was too much for my hands so there was none of that. The only thing that kept me even remotely sane was reading.  I am working my way through the Daisy Dalrymple's again and have only the last two novels in the series remaining.   

The only other thing of significance that happened was that yesterday as I was making a cup of tea, the bottom fell off my cup and all the very hot water landed on my one knee.  And you all know how that turns out.  Still it no longer hurts and I am really lucky I was wearing a cotton dress.  I have some bandages covering the worst of it so all is good.

I am going into the city for the afternoon to get some long put off warranty work done on my car.  So if anyone wants to come pick me up to go for coffee, please save me from myself.  I will be at Sherwood

Honda from 1 p.m. on.  I have books on my phone, I have ear buds, I have a sock to work on if I can, so one way or another, I will survive.

I dream of knitting all the fall things, but I will tell you about that tomorrow.