I spent last evening working on hats.  its getting chilly here and I have one fella that I haven't knitted anything for yet.  So this hat has got to get done as soon as possible.  And I am making some headway.

Decreases!  This is just the Perfect Reversible Watchcap, the perfect boy hat in shape and I think function.  Guys of all ages want simple and this is.  It fits close and it is a quick knit.  Even if it did take me many more weeks than it ought if you go by the calendar.  

Because he wasn't completely committed to this purple, I am going to knit a couple others, on with oragnes and the other with yellow.  And there might just be another down the road too, till he gets a hat he likes to wear.  Because when you are 5 you have to like it to wear it.

As I was sitting there, at the end of my knitting evening, I took some pictures of the stuff at my feet.

I always knew that, left to my own devices, the knitting would take over the world.

I can still make it to the sofa, though that is only because the coffee table is there.  Yup, knitting is taking over my world.  

Nest Steps

 My wee house has high ceilings and I love, love, love this. BUT

the fixtures really weren't well thought out.  The light bulb needs replacing and with the complex cover, and high ceilings, I need a full size step ladder and one of my tall sons. Till one of them can get over here to assist, my study is in the dark.  Anything that I do in here has to be done during the day or be doable in lamplight. Thankfully, the wool room has its own light.

Sunday, I spent some time digging out the things I need for part two of this sweet little sweater.

And they look like this.

Embroidery thread, some transfer patterns a tracing pencil, and some tea towels.  The only thing I could not find was my embroidery hoop. Its just a small one, and it could be tucked anywhere.  I've decided to give up and go pick up a new one.  

The flour sack tea towels?  No they are not the fabric I plan to use for the trim.  At least I don't think so.  There is a long history of using this fabric here for dresses.  Maybe it was a Western Canadian thing, but the sacks used to come in pretty coloured gingham and it was a good sturdy fabric.   It might be exactly right for my Cassie to wear something so blended in tradition and old and new.  There is some linen that was brought back for me from Ukraine that would work too.  Yes, I have choices even here.

Mostly though, I took out the towels to practice.  I have a feeling that I am going to need some practice before my needlework is ready for pretty little flowers and stem stitch. It is years and years since I did any amount of embroidery and I want it to look splendid against the sweater.

There are so many things I want to do and it finally feels like I have the time to do them and try them all.  Or at least start thinking about them.

You gotta start somewhere.    Thinking seems like a good place.

Hats and...

I woke up Saturday morning and went out early to do my errands.  I have to do this more often.  The grocery stores are empty at 8 a.m. and I ended up buying only what was on my list.  Yay me. Plus I got those peripheral things like 2 little garbage cans, and a snow shovel before all the snow shovels are gone from the store.  By purchasing the snow shovel, I have now single-handedly made sure that it won't snow till Christmas.

And then, when all the work was done, I sat down to knit.  Well not all the work.  You know how it is.

First up I knit sleeves.  hahahaha.  Yup more sleeves.  But I now have a good basic black sweater, with 3/4 sleeves.  I am so pleased that I didn't wimp out on renovating a sweater that was ok, in a yarn I loved.  Had I not really loved the yarn, it might have been different, but I am glad I stayed the course.  With the heavy collar and short sleeves, it was a wear last kind of sweater, but it has been completely transformed into a wear first sweater.  I would take a photo, but it is black and I couldn't get anything where you could see more than, yup, it is black.

What to knit next?  I decided that there has been one thing that I have been avoiding lately, and that is hats.

I need to finish a hat for Sir Isaac.  He didn't like my first try

 so I pulled it back to before I started the stripes.  I think what I am going to do is knit him one purple hat, and then knit an orange hat and a yellow and black hat and a ...well a bevy of hats.

I have one question though.

How many is a bevy?

A long debate

I have a very special auntie who asked me to make something for her.  A few years ago, I made one of these for her.

The Fan Neckwarmer by Tania Marshall.  I made a few of these several years ago for her and my mom.  Sadly, my auntie is allergic to wool.  The real kind of allergy.  I made hers out of a silk and wool blend, and she said she uses it because it does such a good job of keeping her warm.

But she would like some in a fibre she can tolerate without hassle, and she would like a few different colours.

I would love to give her an army of them in a lofty silk, but that would be hard to afford, and really, I am not so sure that silk is the only right answer anyway.  I am going to make a trip to the yarn store this weekend, to see what I can find, but I am also looking at some of the wonderful Prism colours  from Mary Maxim.

I'm thinking some Simply Soft too.  That is such a nice soft yarn and it has always had that little bit of sheen.  It looks like Mary Maxim has a whole bunch of other new yarn blends so I will have to spend some time looking there too.

If anybody can think of a really good, non animal fibre yarn, that will be snuggly and hold up to the dramatic shaping this project relies on, please let me know.

Your help is much appreciated!

Books

I love books, books of all kinds.  And I have a lot of them.  I know this from the shelf building and box hauling of books that I did earlier this year. These are my knitting books.

Well, not just my knitting books.  There are also crochet books, embroidery books, miniature books.

A lot of them have been looked at lovingly, but not worked from.  Some of them were only ever bought for the pleasure of looking at, if I admit the truth fully to myself.  Its kind of like my cookbooks. 

There is another full shelf and a half that you can't see here. All cookbooks.

 Use them?  Nah.

I can live with most of the books being just for pleasure, but it sort of irks me with the knitting books.

A while ago, I decided to knit things from my books rather than buying a pattern.  for everything I want to knit, there surely is a pattern somewhere here that will be quite perfect for any imaginable yarn.

So these days, when I think about yarns that I would like to work with next, I start thinking about my books.  

I know what sweater will be next.  Its a pattern from a Lopi book.  

Darn, I can't find it this morning, and I don't remember the name.  H something.  Anyway, that is the sweater that is up next.  

But the shawl?  I haven't sorted that out. And I keep thinking of the books and all those lovely patterns in books.  That is my plan for this weekend.  To pull out some books and see what strikes my fancy in my books. Cheryl Oberle's shawl book.  Victorian Lace, Estonian Lace.  Lopi Lace, Shetland lace.  And all the bits in between.

Lovely shawls, pretty yarns, challenging knitting. Or not as the case may be.

Realistically, the knitting of this shawl won't begin till after Christmas, but still, its nice to plan.  It will be interesting to see if my choices are guided by my chilly office. 

Sleeves, Part Duex

You wouldn't think there would be a part two with sleeves would you?  But there is.

As I was meandering about the house on the weekend, I kept moving two balls of yarn around.  I moved them at least 3 times as I was doing everything but knitting.  it struck me that I really needed to put them away or knit the blessed things up.   

It was two balls of black London Tweed.  It belongs to my basic black sweater

which no longer looks like this.  I took the overly heavy collar off and added length to it and I thought it was fine. I still had these two balls of yarn left and I have decided to add long sleeves.  Or if not long, whatever I can get out of 1 ball for each sleeve, sleeves.  

My office at work is really chilly.  I am kind of wishing I had the heavy too warm collar again.  But it is much more versatile this way, for the long haul and will serve me better with just a plain band.  

The longer sleeves are just because I can and it is still cold at work. Saturday, after I knit 3 and a half sleeves on that wee red sweater, I needed to work on something different.  So I worked on making these sleeves longer.

Yeah that's different all right.

The first sleeve is almost complete.  It doesn't take long with a bulky yarn and bigger needles.  Plus I know exactly how to decrease these puppies so they fit right.  

Nice easy knitting.  But still sleeves.   

Sleeves

I knit sleeves this weekend.  Lots and lots of sleeves.  Over and over again.

I think because I enjoy knitting the same thing over and over again, I avoid doing the math and just wing it. (Please note that this is said with heavy sarcasm)  It is easy when it's my sweaters.  I know what to do if I want a really well fitting sleeves.  I know exactly the number of rows to leave between decreases and it hasn't mattered the gauge.  Yet.  On kiddie sweaters, not so much.

This pretty red sleeve on Cassie's current sweater, took 4 tries to get right.  First I used needles that were the same size as what I knit the sweater on.  This is a no brainer for me.  Go up one needle size.  All those socks make a difference. I forgot.  

Second, it narrowed too fast. A healthy third would have been a straight tube. 

Third, I forgot to add the extra stitches I use to close up any funky holes on the first round.  

Fourth time was the charm.  I had the needles right.  I had the decrease rate right. I did all the stitches.  

Its lovely.   And it only took the better part of Saturday.

Sunday morning while watching 1 episode of NCIS and 1 of Gracepoint, no commercials, I knit the second sleeve.

The knitting is complete on the pretty red sweater.  

Next button bands and a collar and the embroidery.  I am looking forward to this!

An Honour

I had a really great knitting weekend.  I worked on so many things and made great progress all over the place. In order not to dry up by Thursday, I am not telling you about it!  Bahahahaha (evil laugh)

So I have been working on that blanket for the coffee shop guy.

Voila

Completely repaired and it looks just as if it never been undone and that is what I was aiming for.

Just one stitch that was not firmly caught, one stitch that did the large decrease dropping down and affecting 8 stitches below. Isn't it always like that.  One thing affecting so many others. I didn't have any white acrylic in my stash.  I have cream and golds and rusts and orange and red and a deep rich black brown but not anything that would work with this.  I did have some white cotton and a strand of that now anchors the uncaught stitch and is woven deep into the threads of the blanket, almost disappearing as it goes. It won't be loose again.

In between all my knitting this week, I took breaks and I am so pleased to tell you that though I can tell it was a really intensive knitting weekend, it doesn't hurt or even feel over extended.  And that is every knitter's goal, isn't it.

In some of my meandering, I spent more time looking through my stitch dictionaries.  I enjoy looking through these once in a while.  Its such an inspiring thing, to think about.  Collecting these over decades and then knitting up each pattern to see what it would be and then being smart enough to publish them.  and then to think of all the knitters who developed and created these things.  Such lovely combinations of knits and purls and increases and decreases.  

I found this.

I found it.  The blanket is the Lucina Shell pattern.  Page 267 I think it was.  In BW Treasury One.

As I was folding up this heirloom belonging to another family, I thought about how this very large blanket had been knitted by a grandmother who is no longer here and it would now go on to a new great grandchild who may not know their great grandma, but will know comfort from her. I hope that the mom and eventually the child understands how much Grandpa gives when he passed it on to them.

I am so pleased to be part of this blanket.  And even more that you can hardly see I was there.

A perfect kind of day.

Last weekend a couple of my knitting friends came, for tea.  It was really quite perfect for several reasons.

I had to tidy my house and tuck away the things that were nutsy.  there still is a very large series of piles that need to find their proper home, but each time I clean, that pile gets smaller and more things find proper homes.

The work I did in my wool room the last while, has made a real difference.  I could tuck everything into the wool room and it still looks ordered.  It might be crowded but you can walk to the far end.  Perfect.

I managed to find decent muffins without having to go into Cobs Bakery.    Some things are better left unknown.  It is way to close to me for comfort.

I have realized I should probably have a tea kettle.  Pouring from a pot is just weird.

We knit and had tea and then went to the yarn store down the road.  That is also too close for comfort.  But I have already been in there and really it is quite perfect.

And then I knit a little on what I picked up the yarn store.

This isn't stash.  Honest it isn't.  I needed it to work up a nice warm chunky vest.  I had 4 packages of Prairie Wool, the really chunky stuff that works wonderfully for Cowichan sweaters from Custom Woolen Mills, but not enough for what I wanted.  

I had to laugh at myself over this.  My chilly office is really really driving my knitting.  I hate knitting really chunky things, it is so hard on my hands, but I could not stop myself from starting this.  I am going to work this a few rows at a time so my hands don't get hurt from working on it.  Its going to be one of those sweaters that just magically is finished and I don't really feel I worked on it at all. 

Perfect day.

Searching for something different

Every once in a while I change up how I look at things on Ravelry.  You find the most interesting things when you play that way.

Sometimes I go to my stash and click on a yarn, and then look at all the things people have made with that certain yarn.  Its gives you a really great idea of what a yarn is really good at.

I only recently started searching how a friend searches.  She goes to the people page and looks at finished objects or at favourites.  Another of my favourite ways is to look at the activity of some of my groups,  You can search there to refine what you see too.  I love seeing what other people favourite.  It sends me in directions I might otherwise not go and you can find the most amazing things this way.

And then, for a little illumination, well really, a lot, go to the pattern page and search a project tag search.  For the sheer overwhelming beauty of it, you cannot beat the search by using the colorwork tag.  You might not even enjoy colourwork, but you still will enjoy this search.

side note:  I won't tell you how long it took to write this simple post.  I got waylaid at the colourwork search.  It is page after page of page of forgetting how to breathe good projects.  Breathtaking!

Warding off evil.

If you detect a sense of lacklustre on the blog today, you would be right. I am just not in a happy place this week.  It should get better very soon and I can't wait for the day when that happens.

In the meantime, these are the things that keep me going.

The red yarn is coming with me today to ward off any evil.  I'd take the kids but...well...you know.

A blanket repair

Ok.  Here we have the blanket I am repairing.  Pretty pattern, isn't it.  Simple too.

And here is where the problem arose.  It is one side of the design, one of the decrease stitches forming the top of the stockinette bell section, that wasn't knit totally through and appears to have let go.

And the bottom of the work, 4 sections below.  Its relatively stable.  It is loose enough that the stitches don't have any tension on them, so even with some very rough treatment, it seems to have lived and been used in this state for a very long time.

And here we go.  One section done.  It might not be perfect, but it's going to be better.

Rushing Along

Oh dear.  I seem to have hit the snooze button one too many times, a rarity here, so no photos till this evening but I am doing the most interesting thing.  Besides red knitting of course.

I meet with my knitting friends on Wednesday evenings at a small community cafe.  A couple of weeks ago, the gent who usually serves us, brought us a large bag with an afghan in it.

It is a lace pattern, and two sections of it have managed, over time. to drop.  There are no strands that are broken so it appear that the original knitter just missed catching a stitch.  

I have gone through every pattern book I have and I haven't found a stitch quite like this. I have found dozens that are close, but all of them appear to be worked in the opposite direction of this one.  I sat down yesterday to see if I could copy it.

It went well, but I am not quite there yet. What I produced isn't quite like what the original is, though if its the best I can do, it will suffice for the repair.  I just think I am missing some small quirk that gives it its character.

Photos and a little more contemplation this evening.  

CBC Radio Two, my regular in car radio radio channel, sadly, no longer has my favourite radio guy of all time, Tom Allen, on the radio in the morning drive time, and the drive home sounds more and more like regular radio, except for less talk, better news, no asinine games, and  a lot more music than an average radio station.  If it still played classical during drive time, it would be the perfect radio station.  

More and more often, I listen to dvd and yet, I have to remember and remind myself that keeping an open radio can be illuminating. The most amazing thing happened last week.  

You know how, when you are driving along listening to the radio, you think, 'I have to remember that song so I can look it up'.  Invariably, you forget it and never ever give that song a thought again.  

Well, that happened to me last week.  Only I remembered the song and looked it up. And it stays with me still.

I didn't catch who the singers were. It really didn't seem to matter. it touched the heart of me and I could not stop listening to it. I watched the video a dozen times.  It captures something so clearly, something I could not put words to, so clearly and effortlessly simply.  

After a stressful morning at work, I turned it on and played it at lunchtime.  In order not to weird out the whole floor, I played a couple of the other videos that were sitting there at the side. And that is when it hit me.

Pink.  I am listening to Pink. I only know her from general pop culture where she looked pretty edgy and those ads for makeup where they play on that edge.  I knew she was a singer.  That really was it.  Music?  Nada. Now?  I am a fan.  Big fan.  Of Pink.   And whatever alter ego she wishes to be.

And City in Colour.  At least I knew some of these songs and know the voice.  A fan?  Not really, just something I heard on the radio. Or his former band, Alexisonfire.  Knew them but not really familiar with the music.  Just knew it was Canadian. Nice enough I suppose. Now a very big fan.  Big fan.  BIG FAN.

So, there you have it.  Keep the lines open.  Look and listen.  You never know where inspiration, where consolation, where that thing that illuminates who and where you are, will come from.

You + Me   Rose Ave.  Dallas Green and Alecia Moore

Red Phase

I must be in a Red Phase because all I can think about is this.

Its a red silk.  Its hanging around my study.  I have no idea what I will do with it.

But I can't wait to try!

Its a red, red, red, red world.

Not only do we have my big red sweater to work on

We have a tiny red sweater to work on.

My granddaughter needs another sweater.  She has grown out of all the sweaters I have knit her.  She is still wearing the white cabled one I knit her last winter, but its sleeves are getting short and the body is looking like a bolero.

This one will be red.  And fancy!

A friend gave me a some embroidery patterns that I just can't wait to use, and they will be used on the collar of this sweater.  It will be made on cotton and I am debating making the collar removable for cleaning.  Collars just don't get dirty as much as the front of a sweater does, Or sleeves.  And there is also the red bleed factor.  I have a feeling that the yarn is going to bleed when it is washed.

The yarn is a lovely little undersung combination of wool and cotton, Sandnesgarn Mini Duett  I love how fibre like this feels.  It is warm but not heavy, and I think it is going to make the loveliest feeling wee sweater.

Mini Duett is a very fine fingering weight. I debated about using it singly, but in truth, its winter.  A sweater needs to be warmer. And I didn't want to be knitting this wee thing till kingdom come.   The yarn is held double and I love the weight that it creates.  It's turning into a really great DK weight and I am getting wonderful mileage out of the it.

I have a few more inches of the body to knit, and then sleeves, which will feel speedy in comparison to my own red sweater.  Then the embroidery! 

Looking forward to playing with some of my favourite stuff!

Thanksgiving

This weekend, I will give thanks for what I have, and remember with a grateful heart the things that were in my life and will look with joy and a peaceful heart at the future.  

Warm Cocoons

My bed was so cozy and warm this morning, I had a very very hard time to get out of it.  I would go back to bed right now to be cozy again but that would be very very bad. I might never get out of it again.

There is work to consider so I will be a responsible adult.  Grudgingly.

I knit on my sweater last night.  Not too much more and the body will be done.  I knits 2 cable twists last night and I was thinking I needed 4 or 5.  

I will measure against some of my other sweaters though and go with that.  This is the point where I have, on occasion, 'ruined' a sweater because I did not knit long enough.  The black sweater is a good example of it.  

Needed another couple of inches.  The extra couple of inches on the bottom mean this is fast becoming one of my favourites.  And I still could knit the sleeves longer.  It is a very warm sweater and I don't want it to be too warm.

The blue sweater is another example.

It is an absolutely perfect sweater and I wear it a ton.  It would be even better if I had used up that last ball of yarn to make it just that little bit longer.

On this Red sweater, I really want that little bit longer.  I might even go a little bit longer than that little bit longer.  There is a point though where it gets to be too much of a good thing and I don't want to go there.  what I am looking for is a length where I feel like I am wrapped in a good warm blankie and I never want to come out of it.  I don't want to feel  like I am overwhelmed by the blankets piled on top of me.

I am sensing a theme this morning.  A warm and cozy cocoon.  You can crave that like anything else.

So

If you had 3 colours of angora ish yarn, in strong clear red, (400 m), a soft medium gray (200m) and a deep dark black (600m). what would you knit?

If you had 3 delicious soft delicate colours (200 m each) of Shilasdair , what would you knit?

I am so strongly drawn to stripes.  Back when I knit this shawl,

my stripe thing was well under way.  Its been several years and I still just love knitting the simple complexity that are stripes.  This is one of my most worn pieces and one of my most commented on.  It really is that good.

There isn't enough of the Shilasdair to do something on this scale, but there is of the angora wool, and I would love to swath myself like this in angora.  It would be a cozy warm hug that would defeat the worst of winters cold.

I am pretty sure I am going to need it.  My office is cold.  Really chilly.  It takes till 3 p.m. to warm up the space enough that cold doesn't hit you when you step out of your warm office.  My open door, move the air around personal preference means that those layers of shawls and sweaters that I wear are needed most of the day, just to stay comfortable.

I am not sure what I am going to do with either of my newest yarns, but there will be something done fairly soon with it.

As soon as I get that purple and orange hat knit for a little boy who is waiting. And get that sweater done.  In good time.  In good time.

A Chaos Theory

I got home and picked up my mail and found a package that I had forgotten about.  So I unwrapped as I ate my dinner and just had a lovely time.  I didn't really feel like knitting, so I took myself off to my study and decided to do a little work in my stash.  Its a little nutty in here since I last went stash diving a few weeks ago, but it is comfortable to sit among it.  I love the feeling of all the yarn around me.

My package contained yarn from Elann.  I loved Elann for their speedy service and I liked a lot of their products.  I loved their bag sales.  But as everyone knows by now they are going the way of Amazon and are closing the Canadian operations.  Amazon,  the company that lets their shippers drop mail in snow banks on the street where anyone and his dog could pick up whatever you ordered.  That isn't the way I want my yarn handled.

I used my last credits to get something just for play.  I have looked at the Wool and Angora mix, the Dk weight one.  I wanted to see how it felt in comparison to the lovely stuff I have from Elsebeth Lavold.

I do love the way it looks, but I am not I can describe how it feels.  It is unusual. It says it is 75% wool and 25 % angora, so I would have thought it would have a bit more zip to it.  Still the lack of zip, the solidity, the density, is what I adore about the Elsebeth Lavold.  This yarn is woollen spun and that might play into how it feels.  I do love a woollen spun yarn.  It creates a lighter warmer yarn so this combination should win in two ways.

I don't know that I would pay for a sweaters worth.  Its is fairly pricey at 14.50 a ball, but I have enough yarn to make a really stunning shawl.  Angora, with its some haze of warmth will be a perfect accompaniment to something much simpler, like a plain sweater or a basic black or navy wardrobe - like I have.

So it is all good in all ways and I look forward to trying it.

By the end of the evening, I had tucked enough things away that you could walk easily through the room again.  This new yarn is sadly, not tucked away.  

No it is starting its own new pile.  A new pile of yarn.  Surely a good thing. Tidy isn't always what it is cracked up to be.  Sometimes chaos is good.

Knit Much?

Yes.  Yes I do.

The sweater is now looking almost like a sweater.  No more increases on the body so that means we have just a few inches to go before the sleeves. This is the so close I can taste it part of the sweater.

This is where just a few minutes of knitting makes a huge difference, these last few hours of taking a sweater to the finish. It will seem like I am never going to get there, but having the cable switch every 6 rows, means that there is a marker, something that is an easy to knit to mark to make these last long rows feel less endless. 

 I am kind of thinking about taking the little detail, the cabled edge, 

around the front corners and across the bottom.  I am only thinking about it.  I don't have a cable trimming the neck,  I wanted to finish that part with a simple rolled edge, so I might do just the rolled edge across the bottom.  I think it depends how I feel.  Lazy?  Rolled edge.  Energised to knit more cable?  Cable.

It made sense last night when I was working to wonder about the cable, but even as I sit here and type, I realize that yeah, it was a nice idea but it is such a small element that what the sweater gains by having it isn't really a lot.  I will probably go with just the rolled edge.  All bets really are off though, till it happens.  

You just never know what comes off my needles next.

Friday again.

I so look forward to weekends where the knitting is just free and easy and lots.  I seems to spend a lot less time knitting now that there is no one to share the daily chores of operating my house.  At the same time, I seem to spend a lot more time goofing around.

I only had an hour to knit last night but I used it fully and got 4 more rows done on my sweater.  only a half an inch but every half inch counts.  I am going to have to go through my projects tomorrow and find my longer cable.  It is almost to the point of not comfortable to work on its getting so wide in comparison to the short cable I have it on, and I have quite a ways to go yet and a lot more stitches to add for the A line shape I am looking for in it.

Red, Red, Red, Red, Red and yum.

Not a knitting day.

I've not got any knitting stories today.  It wasn't that sort of a day.

What I will remember of yesterday, for all the rest of the days of my life, is balloons and the joyous giggles of a two year old who is figuring out how momma made static electricity.

My Cassie is two.  How fast time flies.

From this to these.

My Cassie is two.

PS, these are my daughter in laws photos.  Grandma never seems to remember her camera anymore.

Way more interesting than anything I am doing.

Bored Panda

Lunchtime Knitting and Great Yarn.

Though I am knitting to beat 90 on hats and sweaters, at lunchtime, I am working on something else.  

I have an hour and there isn't a lot to do at the office other than work.  I don't like to Ravel from the work computer and my ability to enjoy stuff on my phone is limited by the size of the screen.  And I have a really large screen.  (Samsung Galaxy Mega)

Anyway, I use the time more productively to knit.

My shawl is coming along beautifully.  I am nearing the end of the first ball of yarn so last night, I decided to wind up ball 2.

I held that hank of Adam and Eve in my hands and just played with it a while.  It just flows like water in the hank.  Only not cool, but warm and encompassing.  The drape of this yarn is just superb. 

I know this about this yarn and yet for just a minute, I stopped and just revelled in the pure, simple pleasure of it.  I had to play with it, just flipping it through my fingers, running it over the back of my hands and my arms.  In the rush of ordinary living, I had almost forgotten how fantastic some of these yarns I have, are.

There is always more good stuff on the horizon, but it pays to remember the wonderful things I have in my stash.  It pays to shop there.  its a pretty darn fantastic stash.

End of the weekend

I Love weekends.  Really, who doesn't, but I particularly like Sunday evenings.  It's such a great knitting evening.

Those last few hours there isn't any point in starting another major household task. Not enough time to finish anything new. All the really big stuff is done and the hours are not pushing you or pulling you anywhere. Nobody makes demands on Sunday evenings.  It is the ultimate free time. 

And I have been taking advantage of it.

I needed a break from kiddie things, though kiddie things are up for tomorrow evening, I think.  I do have to get it going again to see how my big guy reacts to the next go at a hat that he will like. But I digress.

The red sweater came to hand the other day and my goodness I have been having fun.  The last time I worked on this I was ripping it back.  I had knit the fronts too poorly and I really need this one to be a nice sweater.  It made with Briggs and Little Regal and this is the kind of yarn that will last forever, I think.  I hope.

This third instance (the first was a bottom up try that I was not enjoying) feels just right.  It fits very nicely and the sleeves are much much better.  It feels as if it is moving along very fast because of counting for the little red cable switching every 6 rows.

 Anyway, this is going to be a good basic sweater, with an ordinary sort of button band. Nothing fancy here.  And yet, I have a feeling it is going to be stunning.  

Just stunning, I think.  

Urges

Yesterday I had the overwhelming urge to knit a sweater.  I spent a couple of hours scrolling through my favourites on Revelry.  surely there was something quick I could knit there.

I know two quick sweaters, shalom and Leisl, but i didn't want either of those and I didn't seem to want any of the favourites list.

I sat myself down and gave me a good talking to and asked me what I really did want.  

I wanted wool.  Woollen spun wool.  I wanted warm.  I don't know if that is because it is supposed to be cold this weekend or not but it sure is on my mind.  I wanted something I already had on the go it seems.  

My red sweater.  So I sat down and knit that.  It will be my weekends knitting too.  We will see just how far along we can get this sweater when I have chores at the house and a birthday do to go to.

But I will knit.

Oh Dear

Oh.  Dear me.

I took the hat with me to babysit the kids and let me tell you.  there is nothing sadder than a 5 year olds face when he sees his hat and does not like it.

Sigh.

Grandma needs more orange.  And luckily, with all this weeding through the stash, I found some solid orange that will work very nicely with these other colours to knit 2 x 2 for the main part of the hat.  And red.  Apparently I forgot the red that he wants.

Knitting for a 5 year old is hard.

Lovely Things

So.  Let's take a little closer look at that package from a good friend.

 Yarn and a good book.  It seems so simple when you just glance.  And I suppose it is.  But it is kind of special. It comes from far away.  My friend picked it up on her travels, and a visit to Loop, but you can get it too from its online home!

 Shilasdair - Flag Iris  a yarn from the island of Skye dyed in an ancient way with natural materials, local to the maker.

 Madder and Mushroom and Cloud, each spun on and dyed so far from here and yet, here they are, sitting on my table so far from Skye.  Isn't the modern world wonderful?  We get to see and be transported there with a click of a button, going places our forefathers couldn't imagine going to, by a means that wasn't in their dreams at all.

I'm not a big traveler.  That was Brian's forte, but ever since I was a very young woman, I wanted to go to the islands of the North Sea.  Shetland and Orkney, the islands of Faeroe and Iceland.  Greenland even.  These places have always been in my dreams, my if I could.  And maybe some day I might. These are the places where if I went, I might never come home from.

There will be something very special from this yarn.  A shawl to show the simple natural beauty.


And then a book of good yarns.  I had not heard of this recently published book, Knitting Yarns, Writers on Knitting.  Some of your favourite authors are in here.

 Barbara Kingsolver, Ann Patchett, Sue Grafton and a host of others, including a name very familiar to many knitters, Ann Shayne.  Perfect  shorts for my brain, which cannot seem to concentrate or large long books right now.

And to cap it all off, a lovely little card from an artist with a special and treasured message inside, just for me.  

All these are the perfect thing to have with a cup of tea.  And that is what I am going to go do right now.  Have a nice cup of tea, and to pet these lovely things and have a quiet moment before yet another busy day.  I don't always get that before work, so I really treasure it when it happens.  Then work and off to see some babies and my knitting peeps tonite. A busy day to be sure, but one I really really love.

All the things I didn't know

I don't know why the sadness of this widowhood strikes me some days and not others.    It is never quite when other people say I will find things get hard, not the big celebrations like Christmas or anniversaries that are hard generally.  It is the days between where I am just doing my normal stuff where something stirs a reminder of something and I am awash in missing him.

The approach of fall brings some of that to me.  He was always so eager for fall.  Just the smell of it, the smell that arises from the old grass starting to return to earth, of leaves piled up, of the crisp morning air.  These marked the turn of the season for him and came to mark it for me too. 

This weekend wasn't tears and sadness.  It was wonderful in so many ways and yet it was tinged in sadness.  Sadness seems to hang on and cling like burrs on the side of my socks.

I went to get the mail yesterday and found a parcel card in among the piles of useless things.  I hadn't ordered anything so it took a while to recall what it was.  

A little house warming package from a dear friend.  I will talk more about it later this week.  And then I cried.

My heart felt so full, so completely overwhelmed with the warmth of her caring and her sweetness. It was a hug from far away.

I sat down and had a cup of tea in my one classic tea cup, good sensible black tea, the kind that my friend would like, the comforting kind that one reads of in British books, where it is served with milk and biscuits.  

I put on an episode of Miss Marple and I read my book a bit, sipped my tea and petted these lovely soft wonderful skeins and let the warmth and comfort of my friend wash over me.

The sadness doesn't go away. It sits quietly there in the center of everything, colouring the sweetness and comfort of friends and complete joy with its own tones and shades.   It isn't particularly dark. It isn't particularly bad.  It just is.  I did not know that they could walk so closely hand in hand that you don't remember where the joy starts and the sadness ends, that these things don't have edges, that they blend so to make the whole. 

Some days I seem to focus on the tones and shades of the sadness and some days I focus on the warmth and comfort of friends. And sometimes I do both.

These are all the things I did not know.  But I am learning.

   

Please don't worry about this sadness.  It's so nice to be able to understand it and have a place to put it.  It's a relief to know that it belongs.