And just like that, there is a young gentleman sleeping on my sofa and generally staying up later than his mom and dad prefer, but only because grandma is a sound sleeper.  His  bigger sister has gone camping and Marcus is just a wee bit too young to be left on his own at home just yet.  He is 10, almost 11, but he is not ready for being alone.  

Good thing he likes puzzles and is happy to play games and watch movies while I knit.

Getting there.

Knitting was fairly desultory yesterday.  

This is not uncommon after a big project is completed.  The burning need to knit will come back shortly.  For now I will be twitchy, roaming the house, looking for something.  I have no idea what, but it would be nice to use the time to do some of those things I should be doing.  I won't of course.  I never seem to get there, but wander aimlessly instead.  

I pulled out a puzzle.  Generally, I do puzzles in winter, but F1 is on their summer break.  Weekdays are broken up by Keith's comings and goings, but without the fun of the F1 race buildup and and the races, summer can drag. And this year, the kids are only coming a little bit.  A puzzle felt like a good idea.  

So there will be knitting.  There will be reading and there will be puzzling.  And can you guess the best part?  After the F1 summer break, it will almost be fall.  Sweater season.  The.  Best.  Time.  Of.  The. Year.  

Whimsy

I had a lovely weekend, so nice that I extended it by a day.  

My hands found their way to Flea   

And Flea is now a done deal.  

That.  Is.  Pure.  Joy.  It was the most fun thing I have ever knit.  There will be more.  An entire sweater knit by on and two rows.  

However, it doesn't fit well.  I like a bit of ease to a sweater and this is all about negative ease.  I suspect my gauge was off from my initial gauge just enough to be a real pain in the backside.  I was pretty sad about it, and I wasn't sure what I was going to do.  

And then my sister stopped for an overnight visit.  She is busty and wider in the shoulders than I am.  I have always wondered if a sweater, knit specifically for my pretty average shoulders and world crushing buttocks, could still belong in a world of normal sized bodies.  

She gamely tried it on.  

It fits nicely in the shoulders and through the yoke.  Really nicely.  I was really pleased.  I asked if she would be interested in it.  I will do some mods on it to fit her better.  I will sew off the sides on the body to the dimension at the underarms and needle felt the seam prior to steeking it.  I will also make the sleeves a bit longer.  She likes them to cover her hands so I will add the last coloursets to the sleeves to match the body.  

A win in the land of sweater knitting.  Just not for me. I am so happy with the knit and that she will use it.  She understands the whimsy of it.  So in the fall, if you are around her city, you may just see a bright cheery striped sweated in the world.  

Brining whimsy to the world is such a wonderful thing.

That London Fog

After my various successes this week, it was time to face a partial failure.

A few years ago, I bought a sweater quantity of yarn from Midknit Cravings.  It was in the London Fog colourway, which I just loved.  It is the picture of sophisticated, homey casual, grungy, misty, elegant soft grey, green, teal, copper speckled perfection.  It could be what you wear every day or that one sweater you mark your special days in.  I loved the colourway and the yarn so much  I bought a couple more sweaters worth in different colourways.  

I am making up this sweater as I go along.  Sort of.  I have a general idea but no numbers, so when the numbers do not do what I need them to do, I need to rip back.  On this one, I was at the length I needed but I was about 8 inches from where I needed to be on the width.  Some of those inches are underarm inches and about an inch and a half was the base of my v neck, but not nearly enough of the missing stitches could be put to those areas.  I needed to up my increases at the underarms and a bit at the v neck.  

Yesterday looked like this.

It's about half off the needles here, well on its way to correction.  Sadly there needs to be a repeat of several inches of knitting but there you go.      

It is huge weight off my mind to have this done.  It could stall to my focus on keeping things from sitting forever in the WIPs bin.  I start things because I want to wear them.  I need to work on all of them to get them done.  I do not need something I want sitting in the bin stuck because of one small problem.  

I have no idea what I will work on this weekend.  Might be fun to finish a Flea.  

Accomplished.

We have a complete yoke.  

I am so glad to be at this point of the top.  And to top it off, I am really, really pleased.  I will do a try on once the body is a bit longer.  I like there to be at least a couple of inches before I do so that I can be sure the whole thing is stable. 

Who knows where my knitting day will take me.  Where ever it goes is going to be pretty interesting.  

A Tea and Cocoa Day

Sleeves?  No.  Not sleeves.

My hands did not seem interested in sleeves on a Flea, no matter how much fun knitting that sweater is.  My hands have their own mind and what they wanted was the Tolsta Tee.  

It seems they decided that they were taking the Tolsta to the underarms.  It was a very chilly day yesterday, and I think my heart wanted the warmth this yarn seems to impart. Tolsta it was, and I am into the second broken rib stripe.  Knitting this stripe is going to go fast.  It seems to speed along like nobody's business.

Gauge on this sweater see has ended up at 16 stitches per 4 inches, a bit larger than pattern gauge but just right for this doubled yarn.  Still, it is nothing to worry about.  I will be knitting to fit rather than sticking to the written numbers.   It still is a Tolsta because that is where I started.

 One of the interesting things that knitting from cones means, is that I needed something to hold the cones so they didn't fall and roll away.  

This bag held my Linger sweater that turned into a vest.  Since that project is done, it was sitting empty and after some frustration after cones did, indeed, go rolling, I tossed them in the bag and here we are.  

Perfect.  That bit of containment is making this knitting fun.  (Well, all knitting is fun.)  I am going to use this bag for my next cone project.  For all the cone projects.  

I think I am going to follow my hands again today.  Knitting on this is really perfect for the weather at the moment.  It will be chilly again today so I think tea and cocoa will follow.  

A weekend and a Day

It was a perfect sort of weekend.  I extended it by starting my weekend knitting on Friday.  

First thing I picked up was my Tolsta Tee.  

Each time I pick it up, I find myself surprised by the feeling of the yarn.  It's a kind of dense feeling wool, the doubling of which is making a fabric that feels warm in my hands. It's a tiny bit of an odd feeling.  Feeling warm comes from the fibres ability to hold your body heat.  It isn't about how wool radiates heat but somehow, this yarn, doubled, seems to be radiating warmth.  I can't wait to wear this.  

I do have one concern though.  Running out of yarn.  I have one reasonably sized cone and one small cone.  

According to my scale, I should have about 2100 m.  Doubled, I have 1050 m so a bit shy of a full long sleeved sweater.  That is a big part of why there is some white yarn in this sweater.  I hope to stretch it out, enough so I get a decent sleeve.  With luck, there will be enough to get to elbow length before I run out of the green.  

Saturday and Sunday were spent knitting on my Lusk.  

I cannot begin to tell you how much I love this pattern.  The yoke fits exactly how I  wanted it too.  The yarn is great too.  Unless this turns into a failure because of the way the yarn combination drapes,  it is going to be a really great wearable "toile" as a sewer would say.  This is just a pattern attempt to see if I want to use it for some of my very special yarns.  It will be a bonus sweater.  

Today is going to be a day to return to the last sleeve on my Flea sweater.  No rush.  It's certainly a winter sweater.  So my day looks forward to some rather fun knitting.  While I am doing that, I am going to ponder what to do with the leftover yarn bits.  Yes.  There will be some, more than I thought.  But that is for another day.

The Fun Kind

Well, here it is.  Friday morning and I need to think a bit about sleeve knitting.

I didn't get that much knitting done on sleeve 2, but it is a start.  What I need to think about is, do I finish this or do I give myself a weekend to knit on something else?

I am leaning to sleeve knitting but I don't want to mire myself in must do, and should haves and plans to.  I would really rather do what comes.  That is my best way to work.

Besides, I have a thrilling Tolsta Tee ongoing and a first Lusk that is so easy on my hands lined up for weekend work.  Having other yarns running through my fingers seems to keep my head energized and fresh.  Not that the colourful Flea is not forever energizing, but I really enjoyed that feeling of coming back to it.  It is a quandary but the fun kind.  

Just fine.

Things did not quite go like I planned.  How very me.  

By noon, I had finished three colour stripes.  I decided to do a try on to see how the sleeve fit.  Good thing I did.  The sleeve was practically perfect as it was.  I didn't want the sleeve going over my hands.  Not my thing.  I called it perfect and in the afternoon I did the cuff.

One complete sleeve, not quite to plan, but practically perfect in its inimitable colourful way.

One more sleeve to go.  Isn't that fine?

Five

I actually did the dishes yesterday.  This is as opposed to the previous day where I forgot anything existed outside of my knitting.  

It is as beguiling as ever.  I seem to be getting four stripes a day so another day or two should finish sleeve one.  I know this because when I get to the last colour on the sweater, 

 which is 5 colour stripes away, I will be done.  Wherever that gets to on my arms is how long the sleeves will be.  

By days end yesterday, I had just started the yellow and rust stripe, so if I really push it, I could possibly finish the colours today.  Five colour sets.  Just five.  It might happen...maybe.

Just a sleeve and a bit from a finished sweater.  I am looking forward to wearing it.  It might make me feel a bit Mick Aston like which is a fun thought.

Colours

I entertained myself thoroughly yesterday.  

I picked up my Flea sweater and made some good time on sleeve one.  I had a feeling that if I didn't start sleeves now, it was going to go into the dark corners of the WIPs bin and really, this is too much fun to have that happen to it.  Sleeves it is.

It is a couple weeks since I did any work on Flea and I had forgotten how much fun knitting this is.  I was beguiled again and ignored everything else I planned to do.  I just knit.  The whole day flew by and all of a sudden it was suppertime.  I could have kept knitting.  My hands felt really good but I set it aside.  I might enjoy it but...

Time to start playing again.  I am looking forward to a full, brightly coloured day.

Back to the weekend thing

This was where I left off on my most recent Tolsta Tee on Friday.  

I am through the first set of the broken rib and I love it.  I am doing 12 rows stripes for a very specific reason.  I did debate about it as I was knitting.  Do I want a single wide band of the pattern or stripes? Do I want pattern bands set off by narrow bands of green?  What do I want?  It would probably be a good idea to have these things decided before you start to knit.  However, this blog is home to wild flight of fancy and indecision.  No point in changing now.  I landed on the twelve row stripes because of another project I am working on. 

That project is what occupied me completely on the weekend. 

This is my Lusk Tee.  Or sweater.  You get both plus a DK version and a fingering version with this Rebecca Clow design.  Twelve is one of the numbers she recommends for the pattern if you are striping.  It has to do with the shoulder construction and making the stripe easily match at the underarm.  And you know what?  It is going to work!  Even with my slight variation in row gauge, it works.   Yes, you could fudge it but it is so amazing when I didn't have to. 

I was so happy that I stayed working on Lusk for the entire weekend.  I think it is going to be saved for weekend work.  Doing that really upped my mojo to finish the Mrs.  Hunter's pattern sweater, so I am going to put it into practice again to make some mileage on some of the other longstanding WIP bin projects.  

A decision

I am knitting Broken Rib of a sort.  

Most Broken Rib is 'broke'  by a garter stitch something or other.  What I have here is a Rib broken by a row of stockinette.  The only a oddity is that I am knitting the rib row in an alternate colour and the knit rows in the MC.

I meant to knit Broken Seed Stitch but I like this better.  Here is a close up.

The stacked but changeable v and bar.  It just tickles my fancy.

This is hard to put down. Also the fabric?  Wonderful.  It's going to be lovely and warm.

What do I do?

I just noticed something.  That swatch I posted?  I knit that wrong.

This is the swatch.

And this is Broken Seed stitch.

I am in a quandary.  Which one do I knit?  

Eeeeeeeeeep.

Broken Seed Stitch Tolsta

Rather than knit on Flea, I decided to get just a bit farther on the Broken Seed Stitch Tolsta.  It felt like a good idea to get this sweater to the point where the fun part starts.  

I am really enjoying this yarn.  I have had it since way back at the start of my knitting journey in 2007. Or close to it.  The latest would be 2009.  Notes about it will be back on the blog but I'm not going to search for it.  Suffice it to say, it is old, old stash.

 I do like the feel of it running through my fingers.  Doubling it gives it a loftiness that it lacks otherwise.  Washed, it will be different, but a yarn that feels good is easier and much more fun to knit.  

It's going to be hot today so my biggest job today is to keep cool.  I hope you do too.  

Good Knitting, Good Weekend

I am thrilled to report that I finished my Mrs.  Hunter's pattern sweater on Friday.

And then I finished it again on Saturday.  So far this is the only finished photo and it only shows me trying to see if the neckband was OK.  It was not and it needed to be reknit.  That took next to no time at all and then it was finished finished as we say.  Finish is finish the knitting.  Finish finish is weaving all the ends in.  Finish finished finished is washing and blocking.  I wear it right away and do the blocking bit because hey.  New sweater.

And then I did something I am a bit surprised about.  I completely forgot my Flea sweater.  I picked up my gorgeous London Fog sweater and got it back on to needles.  It was off for a try on and  good think about what I was doing.  All good now so it is ready to go again.  Did I knit on it? No.

I cast on a Lusk sweater.  I have been wanting to do this since the pattern came out a few weeks ago.  

It's coming along really well.  It has the same European shoulder construction that the Anyday Sweatshirt has.  I know what needs to happen with this shoulder shaping now so I am going to knit one of the Anyday pattern soon.  But first Lusk.  Lusk is getting made in Incense, a wool silk and bamboo blend from the sadly long gone Elann, and a pure alpaca, Alpaca Peru from Diamond Yarns, a discontinued yarn.  (Deep stash as it all is.)  I hope they will drape and hang in a similar fashion. 

The only problem with knitting a Lusk is that it means I am not knitting on my next Tolsta.  I had been planning to knit a Tolsta using a broken seed stitch pattern with white to add some texture and some colour.  I am so looking forward to it that I decided that I could cast on another sweater.  Because why not.  I have not emptied my WIPs bin at all but I was celebrating.  (It was a great F1 weekend.)

The very beginnings of another but very interesting Tolsta.  The yarns are both being held double.  One is from cones of Jaggerspun Heathers in a wonderful mossy green and the other is a cone of CWM Mulespinner one ply in cream.  

This is a swatch I did with the singles to give you an idea of what I am aiming for. Isn't that fun?  I have knit several pairs of Broken Seed stitch socks and have always wondered what the pattern would look like in a sweater.  

And through all of that, the Flea sweater never crossed my mind.  So, it seems that Flea is going to be my working week sweater. That will be hard.

NOT

I am really looking forward to all the marvelous colours again.  And I can't wait to wear the sweater.

Goodness how I love knitting.  It is an endless exploration of yarns, colours, shapes, techniques, patterns and so much more. And I have a lifetime more of places to go in knitting.  After all these years, I feel as if I have barely begun. How great is that? 

Sleeves and Happy Stuff

Yesterday was a relief temperature wise.  After a few too warm days, it was cool.  Today, even more so.  I will layer spring sweaters today if I must.  

It was a catch up day.  Lots of stuff to put away but there was good time to knit.

I am really happy with my choice to change to magic loop.  Perfection would be to change over to my new tips that arrived the other day, but that would likely change my gauge.  I ought to finish this sleeve today and then there is only the neckband to go.

My original plan was for a folded over collar that lapped itself in the front.  I might still do that but I really want this sweater off my needles.  And with this weather, I wouldn't  mind wearing it.  I had such fun knitting the body, but the sleeves...oh how the sleeves have worn down my spirit.  I am glad the trouble is over, but now, it is definitely time to be done with it.  

Besides, waiting in the wings are the sleeves on my ever wonderful Flea sweater.  And the other things I really want to get working on.

Carter and I had a good talk about feeling happy and getting mad and about how knitting makes me happy and how gaming makes him happy and how we get to choose if we will be happy or grumpy. He is my deep thinking boy and reminds me so much of the talks I used to have with my dad.  I love our talks.  

I am picking to be happy today.  I am also missing my boys but I know they are only a call away.  It will be OK.  And best of all, I can knit. 

I sometimes think about all those who do not have something to excite them like knitting excites me.  I hope they know that if they look, and explore inside themselves, outside themselves, that somewhere there, there is something for them to find happy in.  That every day, if they look, there is always something wonderful.  Yes, there are times where it is the film of oil waste on the top of a puddle of water, and sometimes is it only that first sip of tea, but you can always find something better in your day.  And that is what I am working on today.  Finding all the joy hiding around me.  

 

Working on Job 3

Changing the needles and using a different knitting style to work the sleeve is making a difference.  

It's a sleeve.  

I am pretty pleased with the progress.  And no hand aches which means it is the change I needed.  I don't know why my hands cramp using small circumference needles but they do.  

The one project I am doing where I don't seem to have the hand cramping issue is my Musselburgh Hat.  

In part, that us because I don't knit on it a ton, and because it is a down time project that I knit on only when I need an easy knit or only one ball of yarn to work with.  I focus on keeping my hands relaxed when I am doing it.  I think I get so excited for sleeves because it is something new to wear.  A hat is a hat and that is that.

I haven't had much knitting time.  I have had a couple boys with me for the last few days.  One went home yesterday and one will go this evening, but for now, Carter is busy.  

Job 1.  Make a nest.

Job 2.  Get computer.

Job 3.  Have fun.

And I am going to do that too.