The Next Big Thing

I did not knit much yesterday.  I want to finish the sweater but ribbing is ribbing.  It can sometimes suck up your will to live.

I treated myself to doing a gauge swatch for the next thing.

This is one of the yarns I dream about.  

It is Mirasol Hacho.  Way way back I knit mittens with some and I fell in love.  One of the things that happens in yarn stores is that a colour just doesn't work for people and it sits.  Occasionally it sits forever.  I often felt compelled to give these yarns a home.  This Hacho is one of these.  

I love this yarn.  It is spring, bouncy, stretchy, lively.  It was great for mittens.  It will be great for a sweater.  I always knew that I wanted something drapey with this yarn.  It's a very colour busy yarn so the garment needs to be simple.  I love Joji Locatelli's  Lispstick pattern and I think that is what I will do with this.  

Hacho is not the gauge needed for the pattern so there is math in  my near future.  That's  okay.  It's a pattern I have knit before so I am familiar with what I need to do to get the fit I want.  Yes.  This is my Itty Bitty gauge swatch.  I usually do a row or two more but it's good enough to tell me what I needed to know.  

Ribbit

There was a good amount of knitting yesterday. The bottom ribbing is half done. Most of the day was spent, busy, meandering inside my head.  

I was busy thinking about the Anyday Sweateshirt.

I had decided to frog this one.  I was not happy with the size I had picked and I did not like the way the back was looking.  It puckered oddly at the pickup.  My nifty little starting strip, which was a really sweet little design detail, was still too tightly knit. I had knit two thirds of the sweater and I wanted to take time to reassess.  Would the problems I had stop me from enjoying the sweater? Was the way I was looking at the sweater when I set it aside just frustration or were the problems real.

I took a good long look at it.  I tried it on.  I looked at the neck fit.  I looked at the way it say on me.  The problems were real. Oh well. I set up my newest ball winder and frogged it completely.  

I had ordered a ball winder a while ago to replace my last one and got a dud.  It went back and I left ordering another for a bit.  Did I really need one?  Yes I did.  I thought about all the coned yarn  have and how I wanted to use some of it for some after Christmas knits,  and thought about all that hand winding.  Yes, I needed a ball winder.

This time, I thought about a wood one, but they are pricey.  I also did not like the way the cheap wood ones set the hand winder.  It would be much harder on my hands and on my arms.  I ended up ordering from my usual source but I picked a Knit Picks ball winder.

Wow.  I had seen these before and other than being a different colour, they were the same as my old ball winders. This new one is made of much heavier material.  And it has the bottom screw set up so if I ever need to realign the sprockets inside, I can do it easily.  Its one shortfall is the handle.

It still has a fully plastic handle and since both of my previous ball winders failed on the handles, I would say this is a problem.  Other than that, it looks pretty good.  And it works.

There are chores to be done, patterns to be printed and put together and the start of some sewing to be gotten to. Lots on my plate today but first coffee and a wee bit of knitting.  It's like starting with desert.  Get in some good in the day first.

Knitting and Racing and Happy Hands

First thing, there is an extra r in Fridays post.  I laughed and laughed when I read that.  It stays.  That is the way it goes when I try to do it right.

I had a really good knitting weekend. I worked in the mornings and later in the day and in between was the Mexican Grand Pix.  What a race. Carlos Sainz won which made me happy except that it meant Lando Norris did not win.  But what a  stupendous race.  

My hands are doing just fine.  The last few years I had to be really careful with them as I did my fall knitting,  but by taking decent care of them routinely, they are holding their own.  Weird to speak of them as if they were a thing of their own, I suppose. 

The sweater is looking like a sweater.

It is a fairly wide back of the neck but that is okay because I plan on a double layer wide collar that will tuck in behind itself at the front.  

The first row of ribbing is at the bottom so the body is near the end.  Sadly, I am going to break into ball two of my red before the rib is done and I suspect that I will end up using a good portion of ball two for that, the sleeves and collar.  So it goes. It was only a dream to get two sweaters out of this glorious red.  It's okay because I love this sweater so much and I will think up something great to use these yarns for.  

I have to talk about the yarn.  It is Cascade Eco + and Ecological.  It can be knit at a much larger gauge but when you knit it at this gauge, it becomes a great sturdy sister to Cascade 220, one of my favourite yarns. (All yarns are my favourites).  I did this with some green I had and wear it a lot.  It stays crisp and clean looking through all the daily torture I put it through.  At this gauge, pilling is minimal and performance is king.

My mind is starting to meander through things I would like to knit next.  It's always one of the best parts of the journey.

With Morre Care

I ripped back about half of the work I did yesterday.  I started the morning by working on some plain rows and then merrily knitted the bit of colourwork and on the second row of that, I came across this.

This alternating colour work is a very simple thing and I felt comfortable and confident but I did not watch closely enough that the stitches were where they needed to be in relation to the other colourwork rows.  

Harumph.  

I hate when that happens. 

I did not end up doing much knitting yesterday.  I looked on it as a day off for my hands. Hand care is such a good excuse to account for the frustration I felt. So much more sensible than saying to myself that I am mad at my knitting (or myself as the case may be).  

I feel much more with it today and have finished the pull back and restarted knitting much more carefully.   

Progress Across the Board

Yesterday was the definition of success.

I got a good chunk of the red sweater done.  

You can start to really get a feel for how it will look.  Fantastic!  

Socks ?  

Yup.  Toe is done.  

Other sweater?  Yes!

I put in a stitch marker so I could see in this stitch pattern.  I gave it minimal time and made actual progress even though it still looked the same as before I started.

I'm  not sure if I can repeat this progress today.  The red sweater is a very hard task master.  And I love it.

Remember Socks?

Remember socks?  Yes. It is sock season as well as sweater season.  This year I have been paying attention to my sock drawer.  I have finished four pair and am actively working on a couple more. There are others on the go but there are reasons I am not working on them.  I hope to finish two more pairs this year.  It isn't a goal mind you.  Goals always seem to get in my way and end up making me feel like a failure. It is more of a 'would like to' scenario where if I don't, I don't and if I do, hooray. 

The first pair I am working on is a plain pair from the last of my Big Fabel stash.  I wish there were more super washable and machine dryable yarns on the market in this weight of yarn. 

It looks a little long for my feet.  I haven't stated the second sock in case I needed to take off the toe and reknit it.  When I do that, I can't really knit a garter square toe to end a sock so I need to know the fit of this sock before I start the second of the pair.  

I pulled out my favourite, best fitting pair of socks yesterday.   

They are knit in Kroy held double and are the nicest thing I have ever had on my feet.  If they are clean, I wear them.  I held them against the Big Fabel sock.

Pretty much a match.  It will do.

The red Third Coast sweater might not let me go long enough to knit on the Linger sweater or on socks, but if I start with those, they might get some time in too.  

Off to socks.  It's a great way to start the day.

The Dark Side?

Help!  I have been taken over,      

but not by the dark side. I have been taken over by this sweater.  Captivating is right.  I don't feel at all interested in setting it down.  It's siren song is a gentle but firm call.  It calls me to just keep on knitting it.  

My hands were giving me a bit of trouble yesterday.  Not pain. Just that feeling that it was time to stop before pain.  I did cut the day a bit short  It is so difficult to sit there and not knit when everything I am wants to be knitting.   I really do not understand how others can sit and watch TV without dong something with their hands. I know it is my own peculiarity, my personal quirk.  It verges on physical torture not to have running through my hands.  When I was young, turning the pages of a book worked to ease it but these days actual book reading is not possible.  My eye muscles are tired and I simply can't focus well enough to read a physical book.    

So it is.  Sure it could be better. I could knit for 8 hours a day again and do all the things I cannot do.  But right now, in this moment, I am glad for the things I can do.  It is just so wonderful to have so many interesting things to challenge myself with.  I feel so empowered by the things I can make and do with what I do have.  It could be worse  I hope to be able to knit a wee bit longer today.  I will try to space it out better so that my hands still have some knitting in them later in the day.  I have some interesting sewing things coming up and I might get those started today.  Or at the very least, I will get the sewing room back into sewing room order.  

Red and Blue

What a great weekend.  Marcus got to meet Casper and take him home.  

The other side view so you can see how his feet tuck under his body.  You can see one sticking out a bit in the other picture.  Marcus was thrilled and that is all that matters.  We both agreed I need to work just a bit on the nose.

Once that was done I spent a good long while working on the red sweater.  It is a captivating knit.

Stripes.  And just a tiny bit of very simple colourwork. It is actually the perfect knit to practise carrying both yarns in my left hand.  I am getting very good tension dong it though I still find that I have to be careful to knit relaxed.  

You can see what I am dong with the colours.  I have used about half of the red yarn, so both of the secondary colours need to be used for the body.  The important part is to get the pips of colour to line up. Using two cc colours will really change the way this sweater looks but I need to do it so I can reserve enough of the red to do a double layer folded collar on the v neck I have made.   

I really didn't want to put in a zipper but that double layer collar is a great idea for that persistent chill I feel down the back of my neck.  

I had to force myself to put the sweater down during the F1 race.  I manage a sock on race days, but other knitting seems to suffer from tension problems.  It seems I knit tighter when I get really excited. 

After the race,  decided to pull out Linger to work on.  I really could use it in my wardrobe and the only way to get it is to wok on it.  It is a bit hard on my hands but if I do a few rows a day, it will happen. 

My plan for the day is clear.  It is sweater weather.  It is also scarf or wrap weather and hat and mitten weather.  Are you ready?  I am.  Almost. 

One and Almost

Almost.

This is where we are at this morning.  The only part I need to do yet is to make two more feet, do the toe embroidery and attach them to the body.

I did not follow the instructions for the tail.  I wanted a more realistic looking tail that curled more like Casper's did when he slept. Perfection would have been to have the tail curl over his nose but this works better.  I attached it to the body with the long yarn end and can  take it out if Marcus wants the tail loose. 

 I am particularly pleased with the ears.  I did not follow the pattern for them.  I made 5 single crochets, next row, decrease, decrease and then, third row, one decrease to make the point. Much more cat like than the patterns.   

The feet are also an addition to the pattern and are very simple.

A 6 stitch round for 4 rows, a one decrease row and then a round of 5 stitches.  The narrower end will be where the foot attaches to the body.  Then there will be some embroidery to make the toes show up and that will be all.  I am not sewing the ends closed because the toes and attaching it to the body will take care of that for me. 

And in other news...

A cowl.  I wore it with the sweater and it is perfect.  Its a great addition to a sweater to have a matching cowl.  If it gets a bit warm, you can take it off, unlike a turtleneck of other close neck.  And this yarn is so soft.  It's the angora in it.  Nothing is softer than angora.  Which makes me wonder if I still have some angora in my stash.

 Okay.  That is it for the day.  Time to go knit.  And bake.  

I was going to bake cookies for Keith but the dratted guy put this truly awful notification sound on my phone.  Sleeping in late as I did yesterday is not good for me.  I have morning medications that need to be taken on a schedule, and that awful noisy thing was his answer.  So, no raisins in the oatmeal cookies for hm.  Only chocolate chips for me.  Such are the games we play. No grown ups here.

And I  like that. 

Catwork

Where did yesterday go? I woke late and didn't make it to my second coffee till noon.  I hate that kind of day.   

Meanwhile the cat is almost done.  

 

Marcus was here on the weekend, and he likes it but he did say it was awfully big. I am veering from the pattern because he wanted the tail to come right up to Casper's face like the real Casper.  And he repeated that it was really big.  I am not too worried about that because the next cat project is gong to be a wee pocket sized Casper.  I know I have some Palette in the right kind of gold and I have some lustrous mohair that will make a soft fuzzy kitty.  I would like to finish this cat today but we shall see.

I did not work on anything yesterday but for the cowl.  I want this finished because, once again, I am wearing the sweater and the addition of a scrumptious cowl would make it the best thing ever.

The cat and the cowl will be the big push for the day. I really want the cowl and I am looking forward to getting the cat done.  It is time for it to be over.  It has taken much longer than I  thought it would. It is time to get back to the red sweater.   

More WIPs

I might not have felt like casting on a new thing last week, but I sure did feel like it on Monday.  I felt much more like my usual self.  So there are now 16 WIPs in the bin.

I wore my newest sweater on Monday.  It's been getting pretty heavy wear. It fits really nicely and I love...I absolutely adore the yarn combination.

The sweater did not use up all of the Noro Silver Thaw and it did not use up all of the CWM Mulespinner either.  I had  a full skein of the Noro left plus a wee bit of a second and that bugged me.  I felt it was time the yarn was out of my stash.  I can always use the CWM yarn for mittens or toques.  There is just the right amount of it left for that but the Noro was all mine.

I knew I would have the Noro left as I knit the sweater and I seriously debated adding a turtleneck collar but there are times when that would be too much.  I thought about making a simple cowl. One skein of this delicious stuff would make a great cowl.  It is a lovely soft wool, nylon and angora fibre and it is the angora that makes it so perfect.

It all came to a head when I was putting things away to get ready for family coming for dinner on Sunday.   The yarn was still taking space on my sofa and rather than putting it away, I decided to whip up a quick cowl.

I didn't want anything fancy.  I just wanted a good easy to knit something.  I was still feeling as I did late last week (brain foggy) so I wanted it to be really easy knitting.  I wanted it to be a no fuss thing to wear too.  I didn't want t to roll up as plain stockinette would but I wasn't in the mood for garter stitch.

I had been contemplating starting some Broken Seed Stitch Socks and thought seed stitch was the perfect thing. Knitting that in the round using my style of scooping continental knitting is about as effortless as it gets.

And thus, a cowl is born.  I will wear it with the sweater when the back of my neck feels winters chill. 

I have based this one on the Huj Tub  (There should be umlauts over the  letter u, so as it says, Huge Tube) . I will increase as I knit to make a larger dimension so it sits less snug and hugs my upper shoulders just right.  I have the yarn so this felt like a good idea if the goal is to use this up. 

The stories of cats and red knitting will wait for another day.

WIP Works

When it came down to it, I couldn't do the cat yesterday, and I was not in the mood for the red Third Coast either.  

No, I did not cast on for anything new either.  WHO AM I?

I really didn't  feel like casting on something that I wasn't going to finish for a very long time.  I have enough of those.  There are 15 WIPs in the bin already and I really want to finish them.  Besides my bandwidth did not stretch to casting something else on.  I needed a knit with no thinking required. 

The Musselborough hat is perfect.  It's a tube.  I could do that, so that is what I worked on.  

I will probably knit on the red sweater today.  It would be so nice to separate for the body today.  I'm not sure I can do it, but I should be able to have the yoke done by Monday.  

So off to knitting today.  Coffee is to hand, cat things are near, and I am ready to go.  Cat things, you say?  Sure.  It would be nice to get that done too.  

All about the cat

This post is all about the cat.  It is actually looking sort of cat like now except for the nose being too pointy. The pattern shows you how stuffing makes it right.

I do have a couple problems though.   

The chin bit is vey cat like, but seems to be a bit offset making the nose seem as if it goes up at an angle. If you look at the markers you can see what I mean.  The other error I made is that his white nose patch is too big.  Much too big. His whole face is cream here and that was not what Casper looked like.

I do have some big successes too.  

I don't make a lot of toys and I am not into amigurumi or math, so the sculptural abilities of crochet are not currently part of what I know about crochet.  I am starting to get a small whiff of understanding though and am feeling much more comfortable with this cat pattern.  That is a big win.

I am really pleased with my colour plans so cat will look similar to Casper.  He was a caramel coloured tabby with quite a bit of  lighter colour striping.  My two golds are looking pretty good,

with just a shade of difference, very much like Casper.  I have crochet colour changing down pat after this. 

I am particularly pleased with the way I did his neck colouring.  That creamy neck patch looks just as it should.

I think.  I have to check pictures of Casper again to see if his neck was like this or if I am remembering a cat we had when the boys were small.  I do like the way it looks.

There is a very good chance that this version of the cat will be frogged and restarted.  I kept working on it yesterday even though I knew the cream face was too much.  I was so sure it would sort itself out and it really wasn't that big, was it?

We all know how it is.  You know there is a problem but you are sure you can block it out.  We have all been there and it happens with crochet just as much. 

I was planning to do the next step, the stuffing and face embroidery, but now I think I would feel better if I redid it said cat all the things I have learned so far.  

Getting Along

I think I have the problem of the cat resolved.  Maybe.  

 I restarted twice more and it is starting to look like what the designers pictures show. The shape is looking better.  Thankfully, the pattern has lots of pictures. I have decided not to worry about stitch counts but the smartest thing I did was to go my old fashioned way and join the rounds rather than going in a continuous spiral.  

When I was learning to crochet, I started with doilies. My maternal grandmother and my aunt had a whole bunch of Elizabeth Hiddleston doily pattern design books and I learned to crochet from them.  My mom or my aunt told me that you had to turn the piece around after a join and I have always done that.  It seems that many makers and pattern writers do not do this any longer.  It can lead to confusion but since that is my natural state, I have decided not to mind.  It is just better to sort it out in your head and move forward.  Understanding the difference is what matters.   

I knit on my version of the Third Coast sweater  in between cat crocheting.  That is coming along nicely too.

All in all, it was a very good day.  I am looking forward to today being another one.

The Problem With Cats

As good as things are, I feel stalled.  I am petty sure it is the cat.

I pulled back the whole thing this morning and am gong to restart today.   I am going to follow my instinct and am going to try ending rows in my old fashioned way. The continuous crochet spiral does'nt do it for me.   I understand where I have to go and the shape I am aiming for and am going to try getting there following a slightly different path.     Maybe that should read I think I understand.  

This is where my words and number problem crops up and bites me.  I have a lot of difficulty following patterns by line by line, number by number.  It's like a train problem in elementary school math.  The words and numbers all pile up and I get nowhere.  Patterns where I have to stick close to lines of words and numbers without really understanding what the whole goal is, are the hardest things to do.

I shall keep on though.  A cat is only a cat and if I do it often enough, I will get there.  

Not Better Than That

A muddled weekend led to all sots of knitting. And crocheting.

I finished a Kirby.  

He should have white eyes but when I add the white, it looks weird.  I took a second pink out of his mouth too because it made the mouth look oddly puckered, like a fish, not like a Kirby character.

Then I worked on cat one, Casper.  Casper was a golden tabby with a bit of creamy white.

I am not sure I like the gold I am using.  I have another gold yellow colour and might try that for the next go around.  And there will be a next go around.  This is not how the nose of the cat I decided to do should be looking.  My stitch counts are horribly off and there are increases where there should not be increases.  Plus, the way I started it, the cat would be striped and Casper was not striped evenly around.  I need to work on that.  

The cat I decided to do is Marshmallow the Cat.  He is more of a pillow cat and that is much more in line with how Marcus will use the this stuffy.

As consolation for problems with the cat, I allowed myself to cast on for a sweater.  Yes,  picked a sweater!

I decided to start with Third Coast by Renee Kulling from Knitty.  With changes.

I really don't feel like sewing in a zipper. I know there is a lot of this style of sweater in the pattern world right now but I just don't want to do it.  I decided to change that out for a classic deep v neck.  I did debate going with a Henley style neck line.  It would be so easy to do with this pattern but I would rather have the v and save a bit of yarn.  I love the yarn for this, this rich deep cherry red. However did I keep it in the stash for so long?

My plan to conserve the red yarn so I can use it in two sweaters is that I will use the two creams alternating on the bottom rather than separating each cream with the red.  My colours will be red for the yoke, cream for stripe one, oatmeal for stripe two followed by the red and repeat.  That's the plan.  If my red use is still too much, I will add in the natural that is still in the stash as a third layer of cream tones. 

Puzzle setting season s back.  When we did the floors, one of the happy results was that we could move the kitchen table right under the light and we can easily move around it.  It is the perfect size for puzzle setting.  So far this fall we set two puzzles, both of them dark.  They were great puzzles but we are setting on a black puzzle felt and it is just too much dark.  I am looking forward to something a bit lighter.

Lots to do today.  Laundry day has come again. Sigh. But cats and coffee are calling me and there is knitting to be done.  I always feel like saying yippee after this.  It is how I feel.  Might even do a bit of a dance.  Wearing a sweater, knitting another, accompanied by cat crocheting, and coffee.  Life just doesn't get better than that.   

A Bountiful Stash

It's not a cat.

It's a Kirby, the game character, because I was not only asked for cats, I was asked for Kirby.  It is a good way to warm up my crocheting hands. I am using the Cube Kitty Cat design for it.  

It is a good time to sort out the next sweater.

I have a problem.

I planned to use red Eco+ yarn to knit a Bountiful Bohus since the yarn was purchased.  I thought of it when I bought the two Ecological Wool colours.  I wanted that sweater.

And then I started watching the NorwegianKnitter on Youtube. Oline knit the Ingrid sweater from Petite Knits.  It was knit in red yarn and I quite simply fell in love. Those linear sections of texture appeal to me.  

It reminds me of a sweater I crocheted years ago. It was panels of texture patterns that mimicked knit cables.  I got a lot of compliments on it over the years.  Sadly it no longer exists because the yarn was acrylic and it grew and grew and grew as the yarn relaxed in the wash. 

Oline's red Ingrid brought my red wool to mind.  I want that too.

And then there is this.  The Third Coast sweater from the latest issue of Knitty, designed by Renee Kulling.  I feel compelled to knit this sweater.  It is so basic and yet not.  There are stripes and some very simple colourwork that take the whole thing up a notch or three.  

I know from knitting other sweaters in the Eco+ yarn that there will be a good amount of the red left if I knit the Bouniful Bohus.  I have three full skeins of it and one each of the natural tones.  If I used all three yarns carefully, I think I could get two full sweaters from it. I do have some of the lightest cream in their natural range as well, so I am certain I could stretch it out one way or another.

But if I make the Ingrid sweater, I won't have enough for a second sweater.   I need to find another yarn in my stash for one of these three or I need to set my mind to knitting only two of the three sweaters.  Having to choose is hard. I want them all.

I am working on Kirby and cats today.  It is a good time to go through all my stash in my mind and figure out another yarn for one of these great designs.  I am thinking about the yarn I was using for the Anyday sweater too. With that sweater not fitting as I wanted, I need to think about what I will do with it too.  And then there is my beautiful yarn from Midknit Cravings. And somewhere in there is some gorgeous deep teal blue green Cascade 220.   And the beautiful ummm ... well, all the other lovely stuff in my stash.

I am so lucky to have this kind of problem, but I am glad there are Kirbys and cats to make so I can think about it.

A Cat Is a Cat and That Is That.

A cat is a cat and that is that.

Cat patterns, not so much.  There is a huge range of cat patterns out there, from teeny tiny pocket size kitties to great big squishy pillow kitties.  And there there is the problem of  it a kitten or cat? 

I have made a kitty from this pattern.

Mittens the Realistic Cat

and it really is adorable.  I used this pattern earlier this year to make a cat test run and gave it to my two youngest grandsons, Owen and Everett.  It is an adorable pattern. I did find that the the front legs were a bit different than shown, but I know how to fix that.  

I am still waffling though.  If you want to fit cat personality to the cat, then I would have to go with this one. 

The Parlor Cat

Like most cats, these particular cats spend much of their time looking out the windows. I am not fond of the face on this lovely kitty though, but I really do love the body shape.  

I may have to mash patterns and adapt sizes to get the two to match.  The second cat might not be the size I want for the cat in the yarn I have. (Blanket from Bernat)

There is also this adorable cat.

Cube Kitty Cat

He is perfectly sized for my yarn, and a truly quick simple make.  Plus he will be perfectly useful for a Kirby character that Marcus has also asked for.

Who know where I will go or which I will choose?  I only know I have my yarn at hand, crochet hook at the ready and coffee by my side.  

Adventure is out there!

Please note that I have used photos from Ravelry and linked back to the originators.  I am in no way claiming any rights to the designs other than my deep and sincere admiration of the designers work.  

Doubly Lucky

It's  done!! 

I am so happy with it.  With the yarn choice, with the structure, with everything.  I feel so lucky that I learned how to do this.  I can make my own clothes that are completely me.  It's so enormously satisfying.

Except for this.

Ends.  Foolishly, I did not weave then in as I went.  There are always a few end but this sweater has a lot because the stripes were too wide to reasonably carry the yarns up the side.  Each change of yarns has two ends.   Oh well.  That is knitting.  I sure wish I had made the time to do it as I went though.

I will take on good picture of it too.

My brother is visiting and we are talking about all the big things in the world.  We are chatting exhaustively about all the little things in the world.  It is lovely.  I am really 

 lucky in my brother and sisters.