The End of a Dig

The Big Dig is done.  It was a long day and I was tired at the end of it.  It isn't that it was hard work.  It was very stimulating, overstimulating really. I was done by the end of it all.  There are just so many wonderful things in my stash, so many things I can't wait to work on.  Sometimes I wish I could knit faster so that I could experience all the things right now. I have to remind myself that knitting is a slower path to joy and fulfillment, even if I am excited about something.  It is hard to dig in all the pretty things and not cast on dozens more projects.

I made a few interesting finds such as these three skeins of the dark green Lett Lopi that Utikiek is made of.  

There might yet be a vest yet out of whatever yarn remains.

I even sorted and ordered the inspiration cabinet.  Occasionally, after a project is finished the yarn remainders get jammed tucked  in there just to get them out of sight. The cabinet is now back doing its job of inspiring me with colour and fibre.  

In a perfect world, I could display the yarns artfully, but this isn't a perfect world.  This world has moths.  Bags it is.  I have pulled out some of the yarns I want to knit this summer for tops and a shawl or two and planning those things will keep me going for a while.

This morning, I picked up this top again.  How nice it is to be back to knitting with my coffee. If you look carefully, you can see how I am extending the green section to reach my desired length for this panel. 

It blends pretty well, I think.  I really didn't want it to be striped but to get the job done, the bottom had to be. I need more yardage from the alternate skein than any attempt at colour matching could do. For this part though, the colours work together so I going with that. 

There are no looming chores.  The house is tidy enough to be getting on with.  Supper was decided before Keith left and all I need to do is sit back and do what I most love. It's a knitting day and that is enough.

The Big Dig Day 2

 When I do a proper and complete dig in the yarn stash to air it and check on its health, it is a two day project.  This time, I am reorganizing as well, so it might take longer than 2 days.  

That means less time for knitting, particularly on the days when you wake late and are running behind all day.  The upside is that I get to play with this.

A whole bag full of reds and whites, all sorts of yarns, all utterly delicious.

Or these cones of spritely cotton.  

It is time to change out the yarns in the inspiration cabinet and look to some new sources of imagination.  I am pulling out yarns I have been thinking about a lot lately.  Some will be knit up soon.  Some are just pure pretty and are just meant for the joy of looking at lovely things.  

There is some re=sorting going on.  There are some yarns, like Drops Alpaca, that have never been put together.  For instance, there are skeins of black Alpaca in at least three different locations.  There are collections of yarn leftovers from projects, where there is enough left for hats and mitts and there are some yarns that are really just bits and ends. They are scattered through other yarns, tucked in just to put them away till I could put them away properly. Doing it now.

So it will be a work day, not a knitting day.  I get to work with all of my nicest things.  But I am still missing my kids, big and small.  It was such a good weekend.      

Way off course but right on target.

I came across one of those random Youtube suggestions that simply delighted me.  It was about something I have long been fascinated by, medieval illuminated manuscripts.

 

The youtube video was The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers & the Belles Heures of Jean de France, duc de Berry.  I have a copy of the book the that they spoke of at the start of the video.  This video is old, from 2010 but there was still much to learn from it.  

My book.  It is a lovely thing, bound well, and boxed for protection.  It is one of my treasures and I have had it since forever.

What was really cool was that they showed several of the illuminated pages that are included in my book.

These are Carthusian monks going in to this,

on the next page.  Instead of showing you the inside of the building, the artists took you to the spiritual heights showing the lay of the land and the entire monastery.

I have read the least of this lovely book.  I keep getting distracted by the glorious art. After watching the video, I had to take a tour through the rest of this part of my library.  And yes, I have read all of these.

The Anglo Saxon Chronicles are not strictly about the art of illumination but the book is filled with pictures from other texts used for illustrative purposes.  It is a lovely thing and I have come across the book in a forum I follow online about British medieval history.  It blows my mind a bit, that a book I got from a discount bookseller is discussed out in the world.  I always assumed it was only a partial copy and I never got around to looking into the book beyond reading it, but apparently it is a complete text of one of the Chronicle copies in existence. 

Next up is a book filled with photos from many illuminated manuscripts.

This is what a book of hours, such as the Belles Hueres looked like.  It is essentially a prayer book for the wealthy.

And then a scholarly copy of a book about the most famous illuminated manuscript, the Book of Kells.

It is filled with intricate magic.  The artists were masters of the hand copying craft.

It comes up often in discussions about illuminated manuscripts.

And lastly, my own favourite from a discount bin, a story of Christmas using plates from medieval books to tell the story, A Medieval Christmas.

The plates in this book, are taken from the Mary cycles from many different books of hours.

This one is interesting.  It illustrates Epiphany, when the three wise men visit the infant Jesus.  No kings here.  Nary a crown.  When were they turned into kings? I know the answer is out there but this blog post is not a biblical discussion.  I only mark it as an interesting observation.  

It was a lovely way to prepare for Easter and it is always fun to wander through my bookshelves.

Back to the Usual

And so the kids all went home and are back to school.  There was a very little bit of knitting, but lots of fun. I stuck to easy stuff the whole week. I miss them when they are gone, though occasionally, they overwhelm me.  It is so quiet and still when they are gone.  I have to keep busy for the net few days.

On to the knitting I did while they were here.  

One sock was completed.  

I really love this yarn combination.  The extra bit of blue just is brings me such pleasure.

And I made a choice. 

I went to my bins and dug till I found my bag o' Noro and found a colourway that was neutral enough to work with the colourway I am using.  I don't need a whole ball of it, but just need to extend the piece a bit.  The first piece for the top is 16 inches long, long enough to go from a nice front neck to the hem but this back one has to go from the top of my back neck to a slightly longer hem in the back.  I am hoping for about 23 or 24 inches for this piece.  We shall see.  I think I have used enough of this other colourway for the stripey bit but if I have to, there is some of a very similar green that will be worked in almost seamlessly.

Today is going to be all about knitting this easy panel.  I have not forgotten my almost complete Utikiek.  It is waiting in the wings till my need for this lovely colourful yarn wanes.  Otherwise, today is about the Big Dig in my yarn stash.  It has been delayed and avoided for long enough.  I am so looking forward to this.  

Kids and Socks

The kids are here, the kids are here!  I am so lucky they have parents who let them come to spend time with me.  I am forever grateful.

With the kids here, there isn't space to lay out all my knitting like I usually do.  My sprawl is filled with them and their sprawl so it was a good time to pull out socks.

I found plenty of time to knit here and there through the day.  We baked cupcakes and we talked and watched a murder mystery and just spent time together.  I managed the entire heel  during the day so I feel pretty good about that.

The multi yarn is an Opal yarn, I think one of the Monet colours from their painting inspired colourways and the blue is one of the colours I used for my advent socks.  Using my usual seven and three row colour pattern, just works with this yarn combination.  It takes two colourways that I used in the last few months and makes a completely different adventure.

At the start of the year I didn't really have a plan other than wanting to knit more socks this year. I am aiming for roughly one pair a month, though I really don't need that many.  Another three or so pairs completed and I will have more than I dreamed I would do.  So far, so good.  Three down and a fourth, well under way.

Decisions

I had a marvelous weekend.  Everything but for the two spinning wheels are off to new homes and I had a really nice time chatting with the people who were making homes for my things.  I hope they enjoy and are inspired by it all.

I did knit on the Utikiek sweater.  About an inch of the last green seed stitch is done on the body.  It didn't thrill me somehow.  

What did thrill me was this scarf like thing.   

The front section of this sweater is complete.  I am measuring the length of it against a sweater of fingering weight/ sport weight yarn that I really enjoy wearing.  Yarn weight shouldn't matter but it felt like a good idea to use a sweater with similar draping qualities to determine the length.   

This is where it gets dicier.  I have started the back part.  

So far so good, but I would really like to knit the back longer than the front.  Ideally, the back piece will go to my back neckline.  I don't care for a low back of the neck on garments.  Problem is that there are 53 grams of yarn left from this skein of Silk Garden Sock yarn and I do not have another in the same colour.  It is almost enough and yet...

I have two options. Or three, I suppose.  One is to use an completely different colourway to knit the back part.  That was my original plan.  I can do this easily and have a skein set out. The thing is, I didn't think there would be so much left after completing the front.  I hate the idea of putting this lovely Noro into the leftovers bin.  It would make a great addition to any hat though or as colourwork in mittens.  

Two is to find a coordinating colour or colours from my vast selection of leftover yarns or from a different skein of Silk Garden sock, using those mid colours that ground any of Noro's blended brilliance.  I am going to dig for the other Silk Garden sock I have in my stash to see what would work.  

Three is stripes.  I could use a grey or black or one of the skeins of Silky Wool to get the length I need. I have several colours of Silky Wool that I could use as a colour extender here.  Slipping in a garter ridge of a plain colour evenly through the back would be a good alternative.

I don't know which of these ideas I will do yet, but since I am ready to go on the back, I have to decide.  

Always Knitting

Two finished sleeves.

That s what we are celebrating today. 

No ribbing at cuffs and hem is a pleasant change.  Just a nice balanced moss stitch to finish off.  The only thing I did that may have been unusual was that I doubled stranded the cast off.  The last green section is a bit shorter than all the other colour sections, but the sleeves are my perfect full length.  That perfect full length sleeve means greater chances for wear and tearing and catching on things so the doubling yarn for the cast off seemed a good idea.  

I did start on the last green section on the body of the sweater too, but my hands were done for the day.  Making that be todays work is perfectly fine.  

There are some household chores to do.  Some variation on a theme of grandkids will be here next week, for some of the days at least.  I have a few things to put away in their new places yet and a few things to go through before that chore is done. And I still have not done a big dig in my yarn.  Time to do that for sure.  But in between, always knitting.  Always knitting.

Stress Free

I was sorting and tidying in a kind of desultory way yesterday, interspersed with a bit of stress free knitting.  I just kept working along slowly on part one of this garter stitch top.

I do love watching the colours of Noro develop.  Lots of people don't like Noro because of its thick and thin, earthy rustic style but right along with colour, I love that too. It is such a glorious yarn,

When I started, I said I was going to just let the colours do their thing, but I lied.

I am right near the middle of the piece, so mid torso, and there was supposed to be this long stretch of cream that merged into green.  It went on and on and with all the other gorgeous rich color in the skein, and because of where it would fall in my garment, I decided to pull of about half of the cream section.  I am pleased with it.  

I am also hoping that more of the turquoise and purple make it into the piece.  I love that brilliance.

I am going to pull out Utkiek today and finish up the last brown section on the second sleeve.  After that, only green in a moss stitch remains and a neck finish.   I am looking forward to seeing this one done.  

Quiet Things

I am officially pooped.  I have always hated the business of selling things and selling my spinning stuff is no exception.

Today I am going to clean and sort my sewing room and then I will play in yarn.  I meant to do that on Monday but listing all the things I wanted to sell took so much longer than I thought it would and the response was so much faster and more intense.  I still have the wheels but I am not worried.  They will go in time.  The drum carder remains but there is a line up of people wanting it so I am pretty sure it will be gone shortly.

 Right now I am going to go sip my coffee and think on small things and quiet spaces and good books.  

     

The Sale Post

This is it.  The ads for my equipment are up on Kijiji and are available as follows:

Louet Victoria spinning wheel

Louet S51

These are available through Kijiji.  Contact me there.  

And a few more bits available here.  Contact me at canadianneedles@yahoo.ca if you are interested.

Please contact me at canadianneedles@yahoo.ca if you are interested in anything listed here.  Items will be removed as they are sold.  

Pickup is in Mundare east of Edmonton. I no longer have a car and cannot really deliver or mail. If any of these items remain in May, they will be sold at the Mundare townwide garage sale.  Books remaining at that time will go to the library book sale for their fundraising.   

   

Unpopular Knitting Opinions

On Ravelry and on Youtube, my two main sources of other people knitting content, there are occasionally threads and vlogs about unpopular knitting opinions. I take these tongue in cheek as I am hoping you will here too.

When I started knitting to finish a colour and get it out of the way on all parts of the sweater before moving on to the next color, who knew I would be doing something amazing.

Sleeves are sometimes seen as the tedious bit before you get a sweater.  Sleeve Island is a familiar thing to many knitters.  I am here today to say nay.  

(Unpopular opinion rearing its head)

I love knitting sleeves! After that long row of knitting across the body of the sweater, sleeve knitting is really marvelous. It goes so quick and with a pattern such as this, it is hypnotic.  

    

(End of unpopular knitting opinion.)

I don't actually believe knitting opinions need to be popular or unpopular.  How we feel about certain things in knitting is entirely our own. The term just makes me smile as I think it does most people.  I am pretty sure it is meant to.  This is our hand work.  We can take it and it can take us wherever we choose to go.  There are no knitting police.  Our choice of needles and hooks, what we make using them, what yarn we use,  all those things are ours to decide.  It is the action of our hands, the thrill of making that unite us.     

I have one pattern repeat to finish and this sleeve is done.  It took almost no time to knit last evening and it was hard to make myself stop.  I had to because one finger was trigger locking, but not to the point of pain. That actually means that I went on a bit too long so I am going to sit a day out to let the tendons heal.  

That is okay.  I will stash dive.  It is time to do that for the health and well being of my stash.  I may also pull out certain yarns for knitting some summer like things.  We shall see.  

Oops.  I almost forgot to say there was other knitting besides the sweater.  Sock knitting has been my warm up knitting in the morning the last few days.  

I need something plain, with no thinking needed before coffee in the mornings and this blue and green combination makes me happy.  Starting a day with happy is the nicest thing.

So off I go, diving deep into the yarn.  With a second coffee to make sure I am really awake.

Noro is the perfect way to end a day.

Because I am an adult, I picked up Utkiek and sorted it out.  

But only because I am an adult. All that adulting did not make me happy to have to do it, but it was nice to be past it. I find I have to be really careful checking the counting.  It is so easy to just count to four when the patterns says count to three and then do something.

I did work on it for a good chunk of the day too, and made good progress.  I should be able to get to the end of this colour on the body today and maybe even get to start of a sleeve. After that, all that remains from the overfull bag of yarn that I started with is green.  

I love this part of the progress of a garment.  You remember the pile of yarn you started with and here you are, with just a few skeins remaining. All it was was a pile of string wound into a ball, and you turned that pile into something else.  Magic. Pure magic.

 After supper, I picked up the Noro again.  It is such a calming thing to work on, just knit, knit, knit across the row and back   

 

letting the wonderful colours of Noro happen.  I do love Noro, even the weird sections.  It's a good way to end a knitting day.

I am reading Richard Osman's fourth Thursday Murder Club mystery, The Last Devil to Die, at the moment.  I recommend the whole series. They are extremely well written and in the world of the lighter end of crime fiction, that is something to be treasured. I love books that make me laugh out loud and touch my heart at the same time.  Long may he write more.

Time out

Utkiek and I are not speaking to one another at the moment.  It isn't the sweaters fault, nor the yarns.  

No.  The fault lies solely with the knitter.  She cannot count.  

The little brick pattern is 3 knits and one slip stitch.  Sounds easy, right?  It would be if she actually did three knits and then a slip rather than four knits and a slip.  The first two sets were done right but this third tier of bricks is off.  I have to rip out the two and a half rows that I have completed.

Sigh.   

There are times when you know you just have to listen to that voice inside your head that says 'Step away from the knitting."  You know that if you don't do what it says, you will mess up everything.  I listened and searched for other knitting.

I thought about going back to a sock, but decided that might be too complicated.  So I did this.

Looks like a scarf but it is going to be a t shirt in the line of this pattern from Noro Knitting Magasine Spring Summer 2013 or Recalibrate .  

I'm going to wing it for this top.  I love the shape of the top and the way the colours flow, but I don't like the width of the center panel of the Noro Top and I don't like the gauge of Recalibrate.  So, I am aiming for a top like them, but my own way.  

The happy thing is this part is Noro, always nice to work with and secondly, if I get bored of the top or garter stitch, I will have a scarf that can be sewn together to form a cowl.

Next!

And done that colour!

Its a good thing that I used the slightly darker colour to help stretch the natural fleece colour.  This is all that remains from both.

At the end of this project, I ought to have enough of my Lett Lopi stash left for mittens or a hat but that is all.  These two will be nice for bits of colour work in them.

And on to the last of the colour and texture sections but for the last greens.  

This part of a sweater is sometimes a bit tedious.  All those long rows can feel like there is nothing going on, but the texture and the changes of colour are keeping this entire garment fun and engaging.  Its been a great project for winter.

It's all Magic

I cannot explain the weekend to you.  After all that good knitting on Friday, Saturday and Sunday were even better. 

By Sunday morning, I was on the heel of sock two.

And very shortly, I had a finished pair. Gauge on foot two is a tiny bit tighter than on sock one.  It was all the racing! 

I put them on immediately.  That is my favourite part of socks:  putting them on.  Slipping on a new sock that fits your feet exactly. A handknitted sock bespoke, cups your heel, snuggles around your foot and ankle.  There is just nothing like it.  It is the closest thing to a hug from your grandchildren or your kids only for your feet.  All kinds of goodness in a small thing you made out of a kind of string.

This is what is left of the Kroy, so I can get at least another pair of socks out of it.  

I reached to put it away in the bag of various sock yarns I keep near the WIPs bin, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw something. It was just a flash of blue and green 

but I knew that was the next good sock.  I didn't even have to dig for needles.

My little notions box is stuffed with needles for socks.  In the blink of an eye, this happened.

And so it goes.  

Socks have cast a spell on me again.  The thing is there was lots of other knitting.  There should have been knitting on ongoing sweaters but I did not touch Utkiek all weekend.  I didn't even touch Linger.  I did play a bit with this sweater,

which really is the perfect thing to knit in March, with it's brilliant yellow and summer greens and blues.  And yet, I did not knit on it.  

I took another path and grabbed a bag of yarn ready for knitting and sat down to play needle ploys and gauge games to get ready to start another project.    

Today I will be responsible and work on Utkiek.  I am getting excited for it the closer I get to finishing.  

I feel just as if I were a squill or grape hyacinth ready to burst out of the ground and pop open in the sunlight and show off my wares.  I am ready to flower and grow in the sunshine in warm corners where even now, the ground is starting to peek out.   Winter is almost done and everything is about to awaken and I just can't wait.  

Wow Kroy. Why didn't you tell me.

A cheery picture of how I am dressed this morning.  

Plus I have the hat I just made on. ( I might need to become a hat knitter.  It is getting a lot of indoor wear.)  The sweater is a pullover using a melding of Undercurrent from Knitty.com and Romy from Ankestrick made with Fleece Artist Thicket.  It is one of the comfiest warmest things I have ever knit.  It does not match at all with the brilliant red dickie or the red and grey hat and I do not care one bit.  I am cozy and that is the point of the products of knitting.  To be warm. Mine at least.

I was sick of socks yesterday, so what could I do?  I started a new pair of course.

I am making this pair with a double strand of Patons Kroy, aiming for a pair of standard looking work socks.

 

How did I not know this magic?  Double stranded Kroy is the most delicious snuggly thing!  It's just amazing.  I will be using Kroy like this again. Just cushy.

Work socks is very much part of what drew me to make all the Sock Monkey Cabin Blankets.  I remember this kind of socks as what my dad wore in his work boots.  I can remember folding them and pairing them while helping mom to put laundry away. I remember the good wool kind and how the old kind of nylon (or possibly acrylics?) used to get hard with wear on the heels and toes.  

I know now that it was the colours that interested me.  I still find that the pairing of grey, red and white is one of my favourite things.  Every time I see that combination of colours, I get excited.  

This morning as I got ready to watch the F1 qualifying, my new sock looked like this. 

And now, just at the end of qualifying, an hour later, I am starting the heel flap. 

Socks knit with double stranded Kroy go fast.  Yet another reason to like it.

And sometimes knitting is a pain

As much as I love knitting, sometimes knitting is a pain.  

Take this sock.  And this sock yarn.

 I love this yarn.  It is Cotton Fun from Meilenweit and has been in my stash forever.  It is a blend of cotton, wool and nylon, now discontinued.  I loved the feel of it in my hands and for high summer makes great socks, warm but not too warm.

As much as I love it, I am having a bugger of a time with the knitting of this yarn.  All the patterns I have tried with it are fine, but become tedious after a very short time and I end up avoiding working on them.  I am finally doing it all properly and yet, I am disliking every second I am working on it.  It might be time to dig into the sock yarn bin and see what more interesting stuff I can find.  Or it might be time to pull out one of the other socks that are already on the needle.  I am not too worried about it though.  I have already completed two pairs of socks since Christmas.  These are going to the bottom of my want to knit pile for a good time out.

Today I am going to knit with joy.  I am almost done section three of the little squares pattern 

and guess what?  I will not run out of yarn.  Not even close.  I have just started the second skein of the cream so there will be lots.  If I run out of anything, it will be the darker colour.  

So back to work on this one.  Hoping to get to the next colour today.