And done

Just popping in to say, socks done!

Socks First

Socks and a ton of baking done.  It was a winner of a day.

Socks first.  

A pair of utterly random socks.  I did a count of rows and only had two rows to go by count.  It needed more than that for length.  I took a closer look at both and found I did a couple more green rows at the toe on one than the other.  It.  Does.  Not.  Matter.  It was a fun way to knit socks.  

Heels to go but you may have to wait to see them.  I am going to call it vacation so I will see you all after the holidays.  May you and yours have a wonderful time together and I will see you all around New Years.

Very Interesting

I think I am at the point where I should count rows.

There are 5 rows of orange to do (I'm on round 3)  and then, may be ready for the last colour before the ribbing.  It all depends on random.  I hope to be ready for heels today.

I watched the loveliest of programs on YouTube yesterday.  It was the Great Big Tiny Design Challenge on the Luxury Living channel.  It was a competition show in the same way the Baking shows are a competition.  What a wonderful Christmasy thing to watch even though the Christmas episode was not part of the whole series program that I watched.  I caught that episode a few days earlier.  It was charming and I highly recommend it for seasonal viewing.

I am going to post till these socks are done and then I am going to take a bit of an extended vacation.  I should return at New Years or just after, depending on how it takes me.  Today is a bit more baking, knitting and blanketing or possibly tree setting.  Not sure what I feel more like doing.  

Great Day

A good amount of knitting and a great amount of everything else.  It was a great day.

I had a 2 row black section and now a longer green section.  I am feeling really good about getting the socks done during Advent.  

I got a huge chunk of work done on Amy's blanket and am ready to do the final sewing down of the top to the new innards and bottom.  

I baked butter tarts and pecan pie tarts for the first time in my life.  I now know the difference between the two!  And I have to say that Keith is very enamoured of the pecan pie tarts even if they were very slightly overbaked.  (Only about 5 minutes worth)  He thinks they are perfect.  

There was watching of Christmas themed things but there was no listening to Christmas music.  Instead, I had to direct Keith shopping for a birthday gift.  My smallest grandson Everrett has a birthday on December 26 and I have been so concerned about Christmas things that I forgot to order his birthday present.  It's too late now to be sure of getting it before Christmas, so Keith made a trip to Walmart for me.  He took video while I shopped at a distance.  

Today's plan is more knitting, more baking, more blanketing and stuff.  I should get to Christmas music and hot chocolate today.  May even listen to a new book.  Might even be laundry!  

Oh well.  Can't have everything.

Christmas Cheer Feelings

While the weekend wasn't particularly knitty, it was hugely successful.

I am really pleased with my progress.  And I didn't even spend much time knitting.  

This weekend was all about baking.  I made our family's favourite treat, poppyseed rolls.  They usually take what feels like decades to make but this year, I made some changes to the rolling of the dough process and the filling process, it took only two hours.  It was amazing. 

Today, it will be about tarts, blanket working (yes, that is still going on in the background), and sock knitting.  A great day will be had by all.  Okay, that means me, but that's alright.  The Christmas music is on.  The fireplace is playing on TV and I am feeling more seasonally in tune than I have for several years.  The day is feeling full of joy and cheer and I can't wait to be doing.

Wow

Look at this.

Yellow in the foot.  Whodda thunk it?

I wanted to mention cowls.  Last year when I knit a sweater using Siler Thaw, an old Noro yarn, I ended up with one entire ball left. My goal was to use up all the yarn.  I decided to knit a simple cowl just to get that lovely yarn out of my stash.  

BEST THING EVER.  I wear it all the time with the matching sweater and it is like having a turtleneck without having a turtleneck all the time.  

I encourage everyone to do this.  And to wear them.  It's fiercely cold out there today.  -32 C when I got up today.  It is definitely a cowl wearing sort of day.  If not a cowl, put on a lacy shawl and wrap it around your neck a few times.  Even the thinnest, finest layers of wool chases away the chill.  

It's a day to pull out the wool and layer up.  Bake today.  The warmth of your oven  will add to your seasonal cheer.  

Sock 2

Sock two and it was 10 days in.  Not as fast as Mijn Wolden on her youtube channel, where in Socktober, she knit 8 random socks.  My one sock this month is not so epic but I am good with it.

The first roll was orange.  I laughed because the first roll on sock one after the toe was also orange.  Such is random.  

I have a problem.  It's not a bad problem and it is one I have known would come.  My sweater chest is overflowing.  I have been stuffing sweaters in for many moons but the last 6 months have been chaos.  I routinely have sweaters bags on the floor or my bed or in a wash basket.  I have always known that there would be a point where my need for sweater storage would take over from my need for stash storage.  That is not quite what has happened because sweaters do wear and you get tired of them but even though they are carefully curated, they no longer all fit in my sweater chest.  

In part, it is because of the mid season sweaters.  There are more of them now that are great for cold summer days and spring and fall but they are not what I wear in winter.  They still take up room. It is almost that I have a wardrobe for warm and a winter wardrobe.  

I have finally decided to bring in a bin from the shed.  I am not certain if these interseasonal garments will be in the bin or if my inspiration cabinet will emptied and be put to sweater storage.   I do have room in the yarn closet.  The stash is shrinking as I work and is considerably smaller now than when I moved here. 

It's a great problem to have and I am lucky to have it.  I lost a lot along the way to get to this point, and I am glad that at least I have the stupidly large stash to keep company with.    So on to socks.  It will be a good day.

  

There is light

It is always darkest before the dawn they say.  Though just who 'they' are is yet to be seen.  That's how this sock is making me feel.  But today is the dawn and there is light.

Sock one is done.  I decided that heels cuffs and toes ought to match because otherwise I won't recognize them as a pair as I sort laundry.  Sock two gets started today.  It too will have a green toe, heel and cuff.  

Does this break my random thing?  No.  Because I say so and because the green was picked randomly when I started. It should also be noted that I did not let random go too far. If a colour came up twice in a row, I rolled again.  I guess these were my only two random rules. 

So here is to Sock two and slow knitting.  

***Check out Cecilia Blomdahl's YouTube video today.  I love watching how they celebrate the season all around the world!

Inconceivable

Can I be honest?  I am just the teensiest bit bored with this sock.  Not with the way I am knitting these socks, random dice as it is but that it is taking so long.  It's a good thing I am doing an afterthought heel or this pair would be very short. 

I'm looking forward to a heavier pair of socks on bigger needles.  This is all so inconceivable to me.

A weekend!

It was a very light knitting weekend.  My brain was filled with the final weekend of the season of F1 Racing.  I really enjoyed it but my knitting gauge changes when I feel tense.  Knitting was best paused.  

Outside of racing,  my weekend was sorting out the things I have for miniature making.  Tools and supplies and ready to go pieces were mashed unsorted, in several boxes and with Cassie and I stirring the pot, disaster was at hand.  It was tidy and sort or the mini things were going to take over the world.  It took one good afternoon.  

Then with my part in Cassies project more or less over, I worked on the recycle corner and readied it for recycle day.  Side bar:  never ever clear out your recycle corner before you do miniatures.  Many many things for minis can be made from those materials.  Cardboard, some tins cans, those things that pastries come in, empty vitamin bottles, plastic dairy containers and so on. I took time to mash the various cardboards into a single big box and sorted a big bag of tins, plastics, and the rest of the recyclable materials.  

I also cooked this weekend. I don't do it often since I fear burning myself yet again, or spilling boiling water on myself. I do soups and oven casseroles when I can, and this weekend, made a nice big dish of ham and scalloped potatoes.  That fed us all weekend and it was lovely.  Keith is working a lot at the moment, and is pretty tired when he gets home so it was nice to give him a weekend off.  

The knitting I did do was this.

I had a few short colour rounds and it seems this socks random wants the top to have a good dose of yellow and orange.  

The sock will continue today, and I do hope to getting to a sweater again.  At the same time, I have a weird desire to work on a blanket.  It has come because this does seem to be the season of blankets.  I do have a couple of blankets happening, all of which need much more work, but I would like to deal with my other Wips just a bit more before I get to those.  Till then socks, because I need those.

Random

And there it is.

Yellow!

And next up is a second yellow for 11 rows.

And that is how random works.

Of socks and blankets

I spent the afternoon yesterday working on Amy's blanket.  It was interesting.  You know how they get to the point where the inside batting lets go and clumps up.  That is where this blanket was.  I opened one side to take that out.  It was attached on 2 places and I had to leave some batting attached so that the outer fabric stayed whole. The stuffing is free and out of the bag so to speak. 

Today I have to get the new inside ready.  I got a polyester duvet to go back inside and oddly enough, it is slightly larger than this vintage blanket.  I have to cut off a few inches from one side and about 10 inches from the other.  In some ways, this is going to be the most challenging part of this project.  

In knitting, I had some fun, but still no yellow.

I was kind of hoping for some yellow, but randomness does not yet include yellow.  Yet.  It is entirely possible that the next sock could be all yellow.  There is also a starling sameness to the number of rows.  There are only 2 thin stripes with most being between 7 and 12 rows.  

It a weird sort of fun but fun all the same.  There will be more socks and blanket work today.  Time to get some tea and get moving with the day.

Letting go

I was starting to worry that 4 of my colours were just going to repeat and that the last two were not going to make it in.  True randomness let's this happen.  

It's a bit hard to see but I am working with my darkest yarn, Gentry Grey in Kroy.  The colour it is next to is the dark green.  This is the smallest contrast of all the yarns.  The only colour that has not made it into the sock is yellow.  

I am really enjoying knitting this way.  It is a bit challenging to let go and just let things happen but it's a good time of year to to practice accepting what ever comes.  

Have a great knitting day.  I plan to.

The Adventure Begins

Advent socks are begun!

I picked my yarns 

and am aware of some 'holes' in my sock yarn collection.  I could have used a purple or a royal blue to replace the dark grey black and I wish my green had been a brighter teal.  I did think about using a multi colour but my multis in those colours are striping multis and that just didn't feel right.  These are all commercial yarns so that I can wash and dry my socks in machines.  If I was using hand dyed yarns there would be so many more options but that defeats the dryer drying.  These yarns may not be spectacular but I already have them, and they are all good quality yarns.

Since I couldn't  find a regular dice, and since Keith was at work and couldn't give me his 12 sided dice, I used a random number generator to begin.  I numbered my colours, from 1 to 6, yellow, green, turquoise, red, black, orange.  First roll of the dice said 2, so toe number 1 is green.  I meant to only do the toe, but it felt kind of fun.  Roll 2 gave me 6 and 7, so orange, yarn 6,  for 7 rows.  I still felt like knitting so on to another roll. That gave me 4 and 9 so red for 9 rows.  

And so on.  You should try this.  It's a fun way to approach knitting a pair of socks.  I am going to keep good track on my Ravelry page as the rows and numbers grow and change.  

I am knitting for a bit this morning and then I will get to work on my other advent project.  So many things to do.  I love Christmas.

 

Advent Adventures

This morning, to accompany my tea, I am digging in yarn.  I can't think of anything more delightful than this except possibly for knitting.  

I am planning to do some advent knitting to make some socks.  Mijn Wolden did some chaos socks for Socktober where she shook a dice to choose the colour of yarn and then shook again to choose the number of rows to knit in that colour.  It was fun to watch so I thought I would do that for my Advent socks. 

And that is why I am digging in the sock yarn today.  

This is my entire sock yarn stash  except for this.

This is what I kept close at hand in case I needed to knit socks and didn't want to dig for some.

I am a wee bit picky about socks.  I love strong contrast and have a very clear idea of colours as I like them to be put together.  YMMV.  It is a thing that I think is pretty individual to each of us, so your way of putting colours together may be quite different to mine.  The idea of using a dice to make the choices for me, is the tiniest bit scary.  Still, I learned a lot about colours as I knit the Flea sweater this year. Letting go can be fun.  

Step one is to pick 6 yarns. Or maybe it should be 6 pairs of yarns.  If I do pairs, there should be a strong contrast between the two yarns.  If I do 6 single skeins, there should be good contrast between all of them.  Then I have to number the yarns or pairs of yarns from one to six for a regular dice.

Next, I have to talk to Keith.  He has a bunch of dice, the fancy gaming kind.   I am going to use a 12 sided dice for my row counting dice.  

And then I have to knit.  Today the goal is two garter toe squares.  

I do have another advent goal.  Amy gave me a blanket to fix in the spring and December is the time to focus on it so I can give it back to her at Christmas.  Knitting for me may take a back seat for a bit except for the sock knitting.  So it goes.