On Socks and Heels

Yesterday morning, the sock looked like this.

Now it looks like this 

and sock two looks like the first photo.

I rather like the way the colours on the heel worked out and I am really looking forward to wearing a new pair of socks. 

Once in a while, I ponder not being able to knit and make my own socks to wear.  I might worry about it but I decided to lay out a plan of action for that day.  Then I don't have to worry about it. It's a long way from happening but still. I have also decided that I am going to do a better job making socks for myself next year.  In the last two years there have been lots of starts but very very few sock finishes. The sock drawer is being decimated by time and daily wear.     

It may be time to pull out all the sock books and wander through them for a few hours.  Looking at all the inspiring designs moves me to knit socks, even if all I usually knit are plain vanilla socks.  There are a few designs out there that I really enjoy:  Monkey Socks by Cookie A , Spring Forward by Linda Welch, the Broken Seed Stitch Socks by  Hanna Levaniemi, the Brussels Lace Socks by Stephanie Van Der Linden .  These are all patterns I really enjoyed.  There are a few more patterns out there that I would love to knit too and with the different things I have on my needles, I guess I have options.  Looking at my books inspires and reminds me that socks can be a thing of pure play. Now I just need to make time to do it.

I never did get around to doing any other knitting.  That is the way the world works sometimes.  You can plan all you like but things just do not fall into place.  It is fine with me. I don't really do deadlines except Christmas and that is not for a while yet. 

Finished Object Alert

By midday Friday, I had completed all the knitting on Carter's blanket. It took no time at all to get the last third of the edging knit.  My fingers were flying, it seems. I took a few hours break because I needed to be really clear headed for the last bit, grafting.  

I have grafted lots of things, sock toes in particular but lots of other things too. Grafting stockinette has such a lovely rhythm to to it.  You just repeat the four stitches as you go, like a children's nursery rhyme, knit, purl, purl, knit... and voila the work is done.

But I do not know the rhyme I need to do for grafting garter stitch.  I did a bit of research and found what I needed:  knit, purl, knit, purl.  It is easy peasy after you get the set up rows correct. ( I undid the cast on row to get the cast on edge on a needle) It all worked well but this is a join at the colour change and I wanted only the garter ridges to show on the right side. The instructions said to have a knit row on one needle and a purl row on the other and I did that.  My purl was on the front needle and the knit was on the back.  That was opposite what I needed to get the ridge on the right side and the join showing on the back.  You can see what happened just at the bottom left. 

The join shows.  I decided not to redo. I turned it into a feature instead.  Do you remember the wee heart I showed you the other day?  

I have thought about doing the heart right from the start.  I thought about adding a pocket so he could tuck it in, so it stayed our secret.  It would get lost easily that way so I thought about using the long strands from sewing the parts of the blanket together to make the heart.  When I created this small error, I decided to use it and the heart as a design feature. That way, even if in future, the heart falls off or he chooses to take it off, the line will remind him of the heart and where it had been and he would be reminded of how much he is loved every time he looked at it.

This wee heart turned out much better than my first try.  I pushed the stitches together much more tightly as I crocheted and that seemed to do the trick.  It made pulling the centre slip knot tight easier.  

As ever, the last part of this blanket was weaving in ends. This was only a part of the bits left.  

All the colour changes made for a lot of ends.

The rest of the weekend was working on Carter's Secret Surprise blanket.   And this.

Saturday afternoon, during the F1 pre qualifying show, I picked up some socks and finished sock two.  Had I wanted them to be tube socks, that would have been the end, but I needed heels.  I love heels and the close fit they give in winter.  That little bit of extra snug fit turns hand knit socks into something magically warm for winter wear.   

Heel one is well under way, the only down side being that I am knitting the heels with two strands of sock yarn held together.  That extra firm thickness makes the heels last much better than just a single strand.  I don't like knitting it as much as with a single strand and it is harder on my hands but longer lasting socks are more important that a few minutes of less happy knitting.

My plan for today is to finish these socks and to work on the Secret Blanket.  And laundry. There is always laundry.  Kind of like dishes.  There is that too.  Oh well.  👸

Surprise!

I thought a quarter of the edging a day was all I could do.  Ha.  I was surprised when I looked at it at the end of the day.

I stopped about suppertime.  I thought about doing more and my hands felt like they could do it, but my head said no.  Keeping knitting when I knew I ought to stop is how I got in trouble before and I just don't want to start that all up again. 

The really interesting part of it is that this barely begins to cover what I did yesterday.  All the knitting was between knitting.  Between knitting is knitting between big chores of the day.  Yesterday was baking day.  There was a substantial bit where I was in the kitchen but there were all these bits while things were in the oven or where the dates were cooling, where I could stop, have a cup of tea and knit.  And so I did.

At the end of the day, there was all the knitting but there was also buns, a date loaf, and apricot loaf and a pumpkin or rather sweet potato pie.  

In the nature of a public service announcement: I am listening to/reading  the PG Wodehouse Volume 1: the Jeeves Collection , a collection of PG Wodehouse stories narrated by Stephen Fry.  I love Fry as a narrator.  His narration of his book 'Mythos' is superb and that is what led me to Wodehouse.  And I am so glad it did.  These are silly stories, farcical in that inimitable British way. Not a novel, but very well worth a listen if you love language and silliness. 

Quarto

It was a good solid day of knitting.  I was hoping my hands would hold out for longer but all they had in them was three hours.   

I was a bit disappointed but it is heavy yarn and my hands are out of practise.  It has been almost a year since I could do the lovely long full days of knitting.  If it was the slippy yarn, or fingering weight stuff, I could do more but three hours of heavy yarn?  I will take it and be satisfied.

I am one two rows from quarter done.  I will aim to repeat that total today and look forward to getting blanket one done this week.  Blanket two wont take any time at all.  It feels good.

And that is that for today.  It is baking day today too.  Date loaf and pumpkin pie I think. Plenty of time to knit.

In spain

So Excited.

Now that was a day.  Not much knitting happened but oh so very much progress.

First up, the rest of the pesky ends were woven in.  I sort of fell in love all over again with the pile of four squares.  It was just so good.

Next, I sewed the four squares together to form the body of the blanket.

I used four long strands of yarn to sew the squares together, ending in the middle with all of them. The ends were purposefully left long.

At the very centre , there was a small opening, which was perfect for my secret plan.  Those long ends will be used to make a wee heart at the centre of the blanket, a reminder to Carter of just how much I love him and think of him.  That really is the purpose behind all the blankets, to let my grandkids know how much they mean to me, how precious they all are.  I want the blanket to be a hug from me forever.

My test of the wee heart pattern I used is shown below.  

The pattern is Heart by Zorba Katerina.  I did have to make one small change and that was to take out one half double crochet on each side on the bottom.  The yarn is just too thick to keep all of the stitches.  As it was, I really struggled to pull the centre of the heart closed as much as it is. In finer yarn or in crochet cotton, I can see this being a delightful little thing.  

I haven't done the heart on the blanket yet, but that ought to happen today.  Till then, the ends are all butterflied at the centre while I knit the border.

And that is happening as we speak.

I am still being carried along by the the colours of this marvelous soft blanket.  It makes me feel happy.  Working with this poufy scrunchable playful yarn is pure pleasure.   I cant wait till Carter sees it.

Of Touch and Visons and Joy

I have always loved the feel of things: The butterfly delicacy of a baby's skin, the velvet coolness of begonia flower petals and the velvet warmth of petunia blooms, the paper thinness of an onion skin, the cool dirt in a freshly worked up garden.  We take in so much about the world around us through touch.  

My mother in law used to have two cushions on sofa in her living room. They were plush grey minky type fabric and were something glorious to run your hands over. Stroking it was a compulsion.

Bernat Velvet is exactly that. A compulsion.  Once I picked up Carter Secret Blanket project, I could not put it down.  

I kept knitting and knitting.  The only thing I wanted to feel in my hands was this oh so very soft smooth stuff.  It was very very hard to put down.

It wasn't a bad thing.  The blanket is now a third complete.  I checked the width of the blanket and it is perfectly wide enough, so no worries there.  I will have lots of yarn to make it as long as I want and will no doubt have yarn leftover. In order to deal with the yarns slippery smooth characteristic, I switched over to bamboo needles.  Using grabbier needles has made the world of difference.  It doesn't ever feel like the stitches are going to slide off the needles every time I lay it down.

All that wonderful knitting meant that I did not weave in ends of Carter's other blanket.  That is going to be todays biggest task.  I am promising myself this.  

I really am looking forward to doing the edging and seeing how it all looks when it is done.  Sometimes, midway through big projects, I lose the vision I had of it.  I was so enthused when I found the Bento Box Quilt pattern.  When I did up that coloured square to see which kind of colour combinations I preferred to make, I just burned with the need to start it.  And then I lost it.  I had no confidence in my choices and I was filled with doubts and felt such huge pressure.  I know how much Carter's wants it and is waiting for it.  He understands that a blanket like this is a hug from me for all time.  Once I laid out the squares and felt the sureness of my choices again, felt the strength of my vision of this project surge through me...  it is such a wonderful feeling when the thrill of it comes back to me.  

Onward to the day, to visions of things that bring joy.  Not just the vision and feel of a pair of projects but my joy on seeing a smile on my special boys face.

Good Things

I had a wonderful weekend.  It is always great when you can just knit.  I didn't even mind sewing together of the squares. (Not that I ever really do)  String things are always good.

Carter's blanket in now four large squares that look like this one.

After sewing together the squares, I wove in the ends. It's a lot of ends, and I wouldn't have to do it now, but the border will be much easier to work without ends hanging all over the place.  Two pieces to go and that will be part of my day today.  

It's a rather tidy pile of blanket parts, isn't it.

There was also a lot of knitting on other things.

This is Carter's surprise blanket.  

When you look online at projects in this yarn, I found people talking about the yarns propensity to work its way out to form little wormy loops of loose yarn.  It is the nature of this yarn.  It is just so soft and slippery that it is going to happen.  The row with increases and decreases is loopy and loose but it will be okay.  I give it a bit of a tug in all directions, and it settles down well enough.     

Now that I have some of the blanket knit, I am very happy to tell you that my six balls of yarn are going to be plenty for a nice sized blanket.  

I am still on the first ball of the grey and there is lots left for the next section of grey.  My worry now is did I make it wide enough?  I am going to put it on a longer needle to find that out this morning.  I might cry if I have to pull this apart and start over. 

I am having a lot of fun making these blankets for my grandkids.  Its just a pleasure to make stuff for my little and alarmingly not so little anymore grandkids (Isaac is getting very tall!) Its fun, but I am looking forward to working with wool again.  And sweaters. And socks.  And colours and so much more.       

Energy Spending (UPDATED)

My get up and go got up and went last night.  I feel good but I just can't seem to set my mind to start doing anything.  

I baked buns yesterday and I made a poppy seed chiffon cake with peanut butter icing.  Add to that some knitting and a bit of general organizing and sorting and the day was full and rewarding (See buns and cake), but it has left me feeling sluggish this morning.   Sugar High/Sugar Low?  I wish.

No.  It is that my mind is unsure about the Bento Box pattern.  I wanted to sew it together today so that I could start working on the border sections this weekend and I am worried about how it will look together.  Yes.  That is so very me.  Instead of doing a thing, I am spending my energy and time worrying about what will happen when I do.  Very silly, but there it is.  

When I realized this is what was going on, I reminded myself that these squares are entities unto themselves and that they can be laid out in all sorts of ways.  There are no limits to the final layout other than their physical shape, a square.

So, I am just going to lay it all out on the floor and see it together for the first time. I am going to turn this worry into a do. It is a much more sensible way to spend my energy and time.

10 a.m. update

O.  M.  G.

Look at what happens when you get off your duff and do something.  Now that it is laid out, I am certain of one thing.  Whatever I do for the edging, it is going to have a fair bit of this wonderful vibrant hot pink/fuchsia in it.

Adding to the Pile

I have fifteen project on the go.  For some of you, this is way too much.  I greatly admire people who can keep the number of WIPs low.  I sure can't.  When I have too few, I feel tense and off my feed.  When I have too many, I feel tense and off my feed.  

Every once in a while, startitis strikes and it feels as if I need, need, NEED to cast on all the things.  Often it happens when I don't know what to cast on, but more often, when a project I am working on isn't quite working out, or when there is a something on it, that I don't want to do.    

It is time to sew the squares together on Carter's Bento Box blanket.  As much as I know he is waiting for the blanket, I am really not inspired by the need to do said sewing.  Part of it is that I am not quite sure how I want to make the now square blanket into a rectangle.  Granny squares on the top and bottom?  Log cabin type sections? I really don't know which I like better.  Each idea has its merits.  Yesterday was supposed to be the day to deal with it.  

I cast on Carter's second blanket. 

It is going to be knit from this delicious Bernat Velvet.  This is a very mink feeling yarn.  When Carter and I were shopping earlier this year, this was the yarn he said he really loved the feel of. At the same time he wanted a bright eye blinding blanket so my special boy is getting both.  He never asked for anything before, or even alluded to anything he would like me to make so I decided then and there, he will get both. Velvet has a more sophisticated colour palette.  No brights here.  I choose a really gorgeous grey, Vapor Grey and the gentle blue, Indigo Velvet.

I am hoping six skeins will be enough.  

Right from the start, I felt the feather and fan pattern was what this yarn wanted to be.  The colours reminded me of ocean colours on a cloudy day so waves felt right.

I started the swatch with 6.5 mm needles as the yarn band suggested.

It felt really loose and far more open than I wanted.  It felt like the strands were liable to catch on everything.  That is not what a good blanket needs.  I went down the the next needle size I have free, a 5 mm.  I wanted to try 6 mm but the sixes are in use on other projects and the 5.5s seem to be somewhere else at the moment, so five was going to have to do.

That was actually the perfect size.  The fabric felt right.  It feels as though the fabric would flow gently over you as you snuggled without being stiff.  The tighter gauge does mean that I may run out of yarn sooner than I planned (as in before the blanket is big enough).

Since that is the same worry I have at some point in during each and every project, I set that fear aside and went boldly forward.

So yup,  I now have sixteen projects in my WIP bin.  I am feeling pretty good about that even if I am avoiding Carter's bright blanket.

Making Something Good, Great

Progress on the Linger sweater is happening.  It looks like very little progress but it is progress.  

The thing about Fisherman Rib/Patentsteek/Knit One Below and Brioche knitting is that it is a bit slower than usual.  The lush stitch creates a wonderful texture but it means you knit two rows to advance one. I knit off and on all morning on this and it looks like a paltry bit of knitting, those few rows that are below the arms.  But I know how many rows there are and I feel good about it.  I am below the arm split, and it is nice easy knitting from here down with only a very few increases for the body fit.  For all that it is a bit slower than usual, I am really enjoying everything about this sweater.

After it was time for knitting to pause, I did a bit of patching type sewing and then I did this.

I love m Elton sweater.  The fabric is light and soft and surprisingly warm for such a fine yarn.   I love the way it looks too, a knitting win in every way. 

Except for the buttons.  The buttons were always popping out of the buttonholes.  They are a bit too small and the edge of the buttonhole is soft.  They just wouldn't stay closed.  

 

I was going to simply firm up the buttonholes and sew them more tightly, but as I was preparing to do this, I found myself thinking that I would never wear it open.  It's unstructured, casual style, which I adore, looks best buttoned up. 

I sewed the fronts closed.  That is the perfect thing to make this sweater a complete and utter delight. This is now a finished finished sweater.

I have plenty of yarn left. I could use a vest to match so that I could wear the sweater longer in to fall and earlier in spring. With all the other projects I want to knit right now, there just isn't time to make one. All I need is a few more hours in the day.  I don't think that is going to happen.

Back to the sewing room today.  Those long johns I wanted to sew are sorely needed and I mean to make them happen.

No Knitting!

I did not quite get to knitting yesterday.  Not even a stitch.  

Yesterday was laundry day and that always means that I end up spending more time in my room than usual. Spending more time in a place usually means that I end up cleaning my room.  I didn't do that because my room was clean.  It was cluttered and out of order though.  It has been that way for a while and it was time to make stuff happen.  

Going through boxes last week was the start of that process in a way.  That stack of boxes of bits and ends and stuff needed going through and I did that very successfully.  I emptied three boxes of yarny things in total and put away some things that needed putting and as you know, gave a bunch away.  I still had one box of handspun and two small boxes of other spinning stuff just sitting around.  

I was also not happy with my doll display.  When Marcus and Carter come to visit, there was one problem in their room.  The dolls in a display cabinet in that room, were looking at them and their eyes moved and followed them. They were very weirded out.  I took the dolls to my room last winter and they boys were quite relieved.  I displayed the dolls on my open shelves but I worried about dust and I was debating how to keep them clean and displayed.  I do love to look at them.       

  I moved the doll cabinet and a few other things into into their new spaces in my room.  I moved books around on the bookcase and put the white spinning boxes onto the shelves.  And then, the most amazing thing happened.  I cleaned the corner in the hall where the miniature house cabinet sits.  

That corner was a disaster.  When I paused working on it last winter, I put all the tools and bits and pieces in that corner and ever since, I have slowly added bits and pieces, wood, glues, accumulated bits of foam  cushioning, tools for working clay, all sorts of things.  Things would fall and be tossed back but it was getting to the point where nothing would stay put. I had one white box left from former yarn ends storage, and that is now acting as storage for mini making things.  Everything fit but for the foam core board and that is in the closet near the fabric.  

And then I tidied the miniature house.  The little neighbour girl had been visiting Cassie this past summer and was entranced by it.  She played and had such fun, but things were out of order in the kitchen and there was a bowl of cauliflower in the bedroom.  That really needed to be sorted out. 

So no knitting, but I was busy and had a lot of fun. My laundry is done and put away.  My dolls are in a protected display where they cannot scare the boys anymore.  My mini house is ordered and my room is tidy for at least a while.  All in all, a very good day.

Beguiled

I wrote a post Friday but it seems I never published it.  It is there now.  

This weekend, I was suckered in by this beguiling knit.    

It is hard to put down.  Linger from Knitty.com by Asa Buchta

Its just everything that is wonderful about knitting.  It is simple enough that once you get going, you don't have to look at the pattern or fool around with too much worry over counting stitches.  You can just knit.  The patterning is just enough that you can enjoy the simple rhythm. It is hard to put down.

This sweater is consuming yarn at the most amazing pace.  Its double strand of worsted weight yarny goodness is producing a fabric that your fingers just sink into. There is depth to the fabric.  It is a thing of the earth, of the stolid acceptance of the cold. It is a sweater that is says 'you will be warm'.  I can't wait to wear it.   

 I really wanted to get to the arm split, but I am not quite there.  The yarn is speaking to me.  The design is speaking to me.  I am entranced but wisdom is stopping even if it is only two rows but your hands are tiring.  I choose wisdom over the sweater.

I debated about knitting on the Pesto sweater but I thought that might be too much.  I decided socks would be a good second knit for the day.

These are really coming along. 

Funny how that happens when you actually spend time working on them.  The socks were a great idea and I was really enjoying these too.  

I am adding stripes of charcoal to the Kroy colourway just for fun.  I love this Kroy colourway.  I love  all the colourways, in fact, but I thought this skein was like ones I made before from a very similar looking ball of Kroy. This more recent and still available version of these colours, the browns, white, red and greys still benefits from the addition of a second yarn to add more punch to the changes between the colours.  I like a good strong contrast and though this charcoal is softer than I had thought it would be, it still sets off the small bits of red and white that pop in between the major colour divisions. I am really looking forward to getting these done.

Today is going to be a day filled with the usual early in the week chores.  There will be time for knitting in between.  So off I go, into the day, or at least a second cup of coffee with my breakfast.  And my knitting.

I Made This.

Some days the sweaters I wear affect the whole day.

Today I am wearing my version of Threipmuir.  

I love the pattern.  I love the colours but most of all, I love the feel of the yarn.  It is the wonder of Briggs and Little Sport.

When I wear this sweater, I often find myself running my hands over the fabric just for the luscious feel of it.  It is just one of the nicest things.  

I know that most people love the soft smoothness of worsted yarns but not me.  I am fascinated with the way the strands of the yarn might seem a bit too rustic, a bit scratchy, but when you put it all together, the fabric you get is something else.  Some yarns might feel as delicate as angels wings, but to Briggs and Little Sport, there is a realness, a hard worn, hard earned feel to it.  It feels like you did a thing and survived all the storms.  You relish the feeling of personal victory. You made this.  

That is how my favourite knits make me feel.  I made this and I feel so very satisfied with life when I wear it.

Which Way the Wind Blows

I finished the squares!  I finished the squares!

The greatest part of this blanket is done and I am pretty pleased with it.  

As I worked, I was trying to figure out how I was going to make this square blanket a bit longer.  I wanted a rectangle, not a square.  I might knit rectangle shapes in simple garter stitch in various solid colours but I have also thought about making single colour granny squares, keeping to the square theme.  

I am going to think about it tonight and probably tomorrow too.  Maybe even the weekend.  There is a rush and no rush at all.  Poor Carter has really had to wait for his blanket when all his brothers got theirs really quickly.  I might even start blanket two for Carter while I figure it out.  It is going to be a wonderful speedy to knit, rhythmic, flowing thing and out of a different sort of yarn...and yet the same sort of yarn.

You will see tomorrow.  Or Monday.  Depends which way the wind blows. 

All gone.

I came across some interesting stuff yesterday about Pitcairn Island bark cloth.  Enjoy.

It is so interesting and the textural element of this type of work is fascinating.

I knit a lot yesterday though less than the day before.  My hands may object to the number of hours of work after all.  But all is good.  I listened.

I decided to dig in my yarns that are not in the yarn closet.

  This stack of stuff.  I don't really remember what is in there anymore and you know what?  Whatever it is, I am not sure I really need to keep it anymore.  It was time for a good dig simply for moth prevention anyway.  

There were two of these cube boxes that had leftover yarn in.  Both looked like this,  just amorphous bags of bits and pieces.  Whatever was in there, it seemed like a good idea to dig through and tidy things up.

All sorts of things. There were some really lovely yarns.   I knew I should be using them.  I was feeling a bit guilty that I wasn't but other than a hat for me, I am not really planning on knitting small things this winter. Or next. So many people are making scrap blankets and there are some really gorgeous ones out there.  I am too, but I am only using sock yarns and my project is pin loom woven and that is enough. With all the sweaters I want to knit, I don't really want to take the time to work with scraps just because others are.  I would but there just are not enough hours.  

I decided to put it up for adoption.  The Buy/Sell group from my small town is always active so I put it up there and it wasn't on for more than ten minutes before I had an adopter who was very, very interested.  I added a few more things to the boxes I gave her not shown here.  It just felt right.

It was all such lovely yarn with so many memories tied to it.  BUT I was never going to find time to knit it all even if I really wanted to.  The fact of it is that even if I knit small things in the foreseeable future, there is all sorts of other yarns to make them with right here in my stash.  

The yarn left this morning, and I feel pretty good.  It made me very aware that it is time to go through and see if some of the other leftovers in that hid in the corners of my stash are things I really wan to work with.  Stash dive, as soon as I finish a blanket.

Joy in Knitting

I love knitting this.  

It does grow slowly, but it doesn't seem to matter.  I just cannot stop.  It's wonderful.

And there was other knitting too.  In the evening, I did another square for Carter's blanket.  I love these colours.  

It is pure joy.

Here we go.

When you fall in love with a certain knitting stitch...

I am really enjoying this stitch.  Really really enjoying it.  

You can see which way my waffling went.  I decided on the marl because I just don't  want the stress of running out of yarn.  According to all my reading on the internet, brioche and knit one below/ patent stitch/ fisherman's knit  use about 30% more yarn than regular knitting.  I have no idea if those numbers will be right for my own knitting and I just didn't  want that worry.  I also decided that I did not want to have a different colour rib on this sweater either.   And here we are, marled stitches.  

And I love it.

It took me a while to get going.  I must have casted on and knit a few rows a dozen times, but eventually, I caught all the little things I missed.  

And then I had a visit from a newly wheeled friend, so though I didn't knit as much as I planned, I had a great day.

Happy Thanksgiving

It has been a good weekend so far.  It was quiet but for the Cassie and Marcus spending the afternoon with me while their dad and Uncle Keith were doing stuff.  It was nice to just sit and talk with them.  

There was lots of time for F1 racing, a sprint race weekend so just a wee bit more pep than usual.  I would hate to see all the races go to the sprint format, but I do enjoy them occasionally.  There was lots of time to knit too.  

I worked on Carter's blanket. 

We are getting there and have a wee bit of a feel for the finished article.  I like it.  All together in one mass, it is going to look great.  

Then I spent quite a while on the Pesto sweater too.  My gosh I love this and I can't wait to wear it.  I have to keep reminding myself that only the body will be done when this border is complete and that I still have sleeves to do.  I confess, the border feels a bit endless, though it is really fun to knit.  No long rows.  Not counting stitches.  Always something to do in short bursts, then turn the work and so it goes.  There is a row for each body stitch so it really does feels like forever knitting.

I stop to admire it every so often.  It's pleasing even from the inside and even better from the out side.

It only feels long.  I know that an hour makes huge progress.  No, I am not using place keepers.  It seems I prefer to suffer through the feeling of never getting anywhere just to experience the joy of suddenly reaching the end. Or translated, I forgot to put one on.

I popped in a wee bit of sock knitting too, in spare corners of the day and put in a wee bit of time on the Utkiek sweater. 

It was just a crazy good kind of couple of days.  Today is Thanksgiving Day and I am going to think fondly of our family's traditional meal of burgers on Thanksgiving day after Brian spent the whole day out in the bush foraging for our winter meals. I miss huge parts of those days gone by, but I am so very  thankful for all the things that I do have in my world, like grandkids and sons and daughters in laws  and friends.    

 

The Perfect Day

It was a perfect day.  It was a sunny reasonably warm day with no wind.  The deep greens of the spruce and the pale old greens left among grasses and plants vied with the reds and golds of fields and underbrush and border plants as they decline for the season.  It looked and felt like hunting season which was part of my life for so long.  

Brian was most himself when he was out in this fall world. He understood the scent of leaves and branches fallen to the forest floor and the crunch each footstep made.  It was his spirit home.  I dream his soul is out there rustling through the trees and grasses and fields, playing with the deer and the elk, quietly becoming part of the world, watching the great and small creatures getting ready for winter.  It may be a fanciful thinking but I am comforted, dreaming of him out there somewhere, observing everything nature has to offer.

  I had my own day of play.  Not content with knowing what I was going to do for one sweater, I had to keep going sorting out what I wanted for Linger.  

I pulled out the two yarns I had chosen and started swatching.  I started with the marl, thinking this was probably going to be my best option.

I started with a 5.5 mm needle and then a 6 and finished off with an 8. You can see the subtle changes in gauge by noting the markers. I really like all three samples but I get the best gauge with the 5.5.  My favourite is with the 6 mm needle, but once it is washed, will be a bit too open. I decided to go with 5.5 mm needles.

I set the project up on Ravelry and found something amazing.  I have twenty seven balls of the blue Highland Wool.  That means that using the yarn double stranded, I will have about 1250 metres of yarn for the garment, which is soo so close, even for my yarn worrier self.  I just had to do a few test rows with just the plain blue.  

The marl was okay.  It was fine, but it just wasn't what I saw the sweater being. I loved the heathered look of the original and wanted that same sort of look.  But I could very much get behind the blue for the whole sweater.  And, with 1250 metres available, maybe that is the way to go.  

I do love the look of the solid blue.  And, if I don't have quite enough, I can extend the meterage using stripes of the heathered grey blue held double for all the ribbings.  I do like this sort of look from Deb Hoss's vest, Angels All Around Us.  

Which takes me right back to the start of it all.  If I use the plain blue held double for all the ribbings I will have lots to get the body and sleeves from the lovely heathered grey blues.  

So blue, marled, or heathered, which way do I go? I have some decisions to make.  Thankfully, I have tons of knitting on other projects to work on while I decide.   

Two for the price of one finished object

I got busy yesterday.  I was busy with my head in the depths of Ravelry and knitting vlogs and all sorts of wonderful interesting things.  I finished the first square in the new colour combination on Carter's blanket and let me tell you, these are eye maddeningly bright colours. The combination is wild and brilliant and makes me me go just a little bit blind.  But I love it.

That's when the Ravelry dive happened.  A week or so ago, Knitty the best ever online knitting magazine, put out it's fall issue. It is, once again, a treasure trove of riches.  I love everything. Some I would knit.  Some I wouldn't but I love them all.  Knitty is ever an inspiration.

I fell hard for Linger.  I absolutely love the style of it, the flow of it, the knitting stitch used.  I would cast it on right now but for one problem.  I do not have the yarn.  The yarn in the pattern is Berocco Ultra Alpaca Chunky.  I have several colours of Ultra Alpaca in my stash but not the chunky version of it.  The search was on for a yarn or yarns to combine to get a weight that would work.  I know the yarn I would love to use, but I do not have enough of it to double strand it..  Maybe.

One of the ways that I might be able to make it work is to double strand it with two colours.  I have a sweater quantity and a bit more of each of these two yarns

but not enough to make a whole garment using a double strand of jut one of them.  I dearly wish I had enough of the grey blue Galway Heathers.  It would be the sweater I see in my head but I don't so I am currently contemplating striping it doubling each or combining the two to make a deeper coloured marl.  Both ideas have merit.   
  

I also have a ton of a rich warm green Mission Falls 1824 Wool which would be great too, but if I double it, I am a wee bit shy.  I mean a very wee bit and I started digging though things to see what would work with it for button bands and hems and collars.  I am still looking.  There are a lot of choices that would be wonderful. It may take a while and there may be swatching involved to get the look I would want out of Linger in the Mission Falls Wool.. 

I got distracted.  

My mind was full of stripes and yarns and combinations when I saw my box of Lopi and just pulled that out to look and touch and dream.  Dreaming about working and wearing Lopi is easy.

I did think seriously about using the Lett Lopi I have for Linger but it just didn't feel right.  I had thought about using it to make a vest to wear with my Hun sweater but I have much more than I need for a vest.  I have enough for a sweater and probably enough for a vest too.  There is a sweater's worth of the green at the right side of the shot but once again, not quite enough to double strand for Knitty's Linger.  

And then, with my mind full of stripes and combinations of colours and warm thick winter knits, I knew what I was going to do.  There is a sweater I have been thinking about  called Utkiek or Outlook in the english language. I have been thinking about this sweater and its myriad of textures since I first saw it in 2022.  I loved it but it is knit in a sport weight yarn and I don't have any uncommitted sport weight in a sweater quantity.

But the second I thought of Utkiek, Lett Lopi in hand, I knew this had to be.  Yes I was going to have to engineer the garment and do the math but sometimes things are so very worth it.

See?  It is the sweater I want.  The sweater I need my version of Utkiek to be. Rustic, a little fuzy and very earthy and real.  And I have plenty of yardage for it plus there should be lots of the green left to do a vest that will work with my Hun too.

I cast on.

I did finish something this week and I am making great progress on Carter's blanket and I have been cleaning and tidying the WIPs bin.  I worked on socks too.  I have been very good  so surely I deserve a little reward. 

Two for the price of one finished object?  Yes.  Linger and Utkiek.  Its a perfect winter pairing.