An Empty WIPs Bin

I don't know where the day got to yesterday.  It just flew by.  There was Christmas stuff.  There was knitting stuff.  There was box making.  The tree is not finished yet, but will be today.  No photos of it but look what is photo worthy!  

I am so pleased with the boxes.  Or I will be when the middle row is replaced with slightly different boxes.  They do the job and they look tidier than piles of stuff on the shelf.  My only problem is that not all my cookbooks fit here.  There are a bunch on a shelf in my room.  I still have to make some cord holders for appliance cords, but that should get done today. 

And knitting too.

I did keep working on my socks.  There was not a lot of knitting though.  The weather is changeable and snowing and my hands were not up to a lot of it.  But socks.

I really love how these socks are turning out.  I didn't find them inspiring when I first started working on the grey and red but now?  They make my heart beat faster.  

It is time to get to work and get the tree finished.  Then some relaxing knitting.  And dreaming.  Because this is the season when you get a guilt free seasonal cast on!  It could be a Christmas cast on.  It could be a New Years cast on.  Possibly both, but it's guilt free.  Right?  Or am I thinking wrong.  Besides my WIPs bin is looking empty ( I moved the overflow to my room so we can put the top down for visiting) and if your WIPs bin is empty...

Boxes

I did not knit a single stitch yesterday.  Not one.  

I spent my day in the sewing room not sewing.  I worked on the box project.  My second shelf of boxes has been an utter failure.  They don't fit the shelves and I can't understand why.  I made all the changes needed to make them fit, twice, and they ought to fit.  But they don't.   I have one plan left and I know it will work so that is what I am going to do.  

I get a lot of large boxes from a certain large vendor and I was planning to cut them down to size and cover them to make the two bottom boxes.  While I was mucking about, I realized that three of the smaller boxes ( which are packed inside the larger boxes.  I know.  It is weird. )  fit the space I am trying to fill perfectly.  All I need to do is cover them. That bottom row is well under way.

And that is what I am going to do for the weird row of boxes.  I am going to gather more of the boxes and will cut them short and cover them.  And that will be the end of my fabric box making career.  It is taking too much time from my knitting.

The Good Keep Going

When things are going good, you have to just keep on going.  

And that is what I did.

For some silly reason, these socks have taken over my brain.  I am completely consumed by them.  It's really silly to feel that way about socks but there it is.  

I am going to work on them again today.  I think I should treat myself to a new pair of socks for Christmas.  

A Mind at Rest

I picked up the dark grey yarn on Friday and started a thing.  Since then I've been wondering, endlessly debating inside my head if it was right.  

It is and I like it.  It's Mrs. Hunter's pattern, an old Shetland stitch.  I am still not quite sure exactly how this is going to go, but I am comfortable now, with wherever it wanders. However, the sweater was not why I am feeling really good about my choice.  

I visited with some local friends via Zoom on Sunday morning.  It was lovely.  I needed something easy to knit on, so I pulled out the Hacho sweater.  

I'm on the body now and it should be easy visiting knitting but my hands felt disconnected from it and clumsy. Plus I still felt unsettled and squirmy inside.  The knitting was not soothing even with some great company.  

I pulled out my knitting biggest guns.  They always work.  

I couldn't find the bag I wanted in the WIPs bin, so I pulled a sock from the big bag o' sock yarn which always seems to be nearby.

It was magic.  As I knit, a little miracle happened and calm rose within me.  I relaxed and felt right with my world and my hands connected with my knitting.  And that is what I worked on the rest of the day.  At the start of the day it was an inch plus the toe.  Now I am starting to feel like I might just finish another pair before the end of the year.  It's a delicious knit.  I am so enamoured with the marled red and grey.  It is being knit with two strands of whatever yarn was in the bottom of the big bag o' yarn.  They are all leftovers with no particular purpose, that never made it out of the bag.  The fabric is thick and cushy and it makes me feel Christmassy, and not Christmassy at the same time.

My mind is at rest and I am eager to knit and knit and knit.  Life is pretty great.

Launching for the day

I am still happily sewing away on boxes. Today is the last of it though.  I still haven't made up my mind what to knit next and so no knitting yesterday.

What I did instead was to print and put together another pattern from Muna and Broad. The tape and scissors were out full force.  I don't think I will get to sewing on it today but I do hope to have the work table clear enough to lay it out with a pattern that I know fits great and make whatever adaptations I need to do for a good fit on me.  

I do hope to have my head clear enough to make a decision about what yarn is going into production next.  As it is my head is too full of ideas to focus on any one thing too much.  I need a broom to sweep its proverbial corners.  

I have had my coffees.  I have goofed off watching a bunch of vlogmas videos. They and the coffee are done for the day.  It is time to launch myself into the day.  It is also eleven o'clock so a late launch but hey, I launched.

Nifty boxes.

Yesterday was mostly a sewing day.  It was time to pay some serious attention to the things that I was planning.  And success.  

Okay,  they don't look like much.  This is immediately after sewing them and they look appallingly floppy and weird for something you have purposefully sewn.  They take shape when you add the stiff bottoms, and sides.  The bottoms pop in covered or plain.  My bottoms are made of corrugated plastic because we had some on hand.  The sides are of cardboard, a free to me material.  You simply cut to size and slip the pieces in and fold the top of the sewing down.  

They look really good on the shelf and they fill the need we had.  Pens and paper in one, batteries in another, simple meds ( antacids, ibuprofen, that sort of thing ) in the third. 

I have a couple more shelves to do.  We need a place for potholders, and a few other things and a place for your basic household rag.  And because we have room, a place for kitchen towels and dishcloths needing a wash to be kept till we have a load to wash.  This last is going to be lined with some waterproof PLU fabric that I have.  

Then I can do some sewing of my own.  That is the part I am really looking forward to.  

There was knitting in the day too.  My Hacho yarn variation of a Lipstick sweater is what came to hand, so that is what got some love.  It will get love a little later today too, but sewing first.  

Lingering Sweaters

I spent the day dong chores and knitting.  I decided to pick up one of my WIPs and make some progress on it rather than casting on something new.   

Behold a completed sleeve on my Linger Cardigan. I really like this thing.  The fabric is thick and rather glorious. It is so cushy and cozy that I am looking forward to getting it done.   I only wish I could knit on it for a week without stopping but that way leads to hand problems.

I picked the Linger up because I have not decided what to knit next.  Its a conundrum.  I thought that it would be a long sleeve variation of the Tolsta Tee  but then I remembered that I had a bunch of dark grey Regal that I wanted to knit up in this before Christmas part of winter.  The yarn for the Tolsta came out in the second stash dive of the fall.  That dark grey is so gorgeous and a very simple very dark sweater is always a good wardrobe staple.  It is the perfect kind of yarn for a Weekender.  It has the right rustic look.  

Only one problem.  I don't really like the Weekenders reverse stockinette and I have just finished a drop shoulder sweater.  Do I want another one right now?   Granito perhaps?  I am not really sure. Until I am particularly inspired by something or other, I am going to leave it alone.

That leaves me to wok on the WIPs bin.  It's not a bad idea to wind up the year working from it.  I won't be working on Linger today though. Though my hands have had a very good fall, working on it yesterday was enough.  The heavy weight work is going to have to be done in bits and pieces. There are plenty of other things in the bin and  I am just going to stick my hands in and see what comes up. 

Pleased as Punch

It's done and I love it.

The only thing I need to make note of for future reference is that I should have given myself an inch more ease at the under arms. Once it is blocked it will likely be okay but without blocking the colourwork feels more snug than I wished for. Failing the blocking magic, I steek and make a cardigan. I do have white left to make a button band.  

I have a bit of the grey left too and I might knit the neckband longer, till the yarn runs out but that is only to prevent there being yarn left over. 

I have two bins of leftovers now and more leftovers feels self defeating of my ultimate goal of knitting down the stash.  One bin is for the true bits and ends of projects and the other is for those yarns where there is enough for hats and mitts or cowls.  Mind you any part of either bin could be combined to make all sorts of things. Many of the podcasters make blankets and I do sometimes think of starting one but then I remember that already have a scrappy blanket project on the go from sock yarn scraps. 

and a knitted blanket that I am making from yarn Marcus picked for me for my birthday a few years ago.

This blanket is farther along than this but only by a few rows.  I need to work on it. But to start another blanket is just silly.  Or is it? I don't have a crocheted blanket on the go so...

As I worked on the last sleeve of the sweater, my mind was fully occupied with other thoughts.  Which sweater next?  I know I have one or two that I really ought to finish (actually seven. I thought it was five.  Eeeep! ) rather than starting something new, but it is hard not to dream with all the lovely yarn I have ready and waiting.  It would be nice to clear out the WIPs bin but those are things I have already dreamt of and put on the needles.  That is much less fun than thinking up something new.

So what is next?  I am not sure but I know it is gong to involve dishes, laundry and dong some needed sewing. Those boxes need doing asap.  And coffee.  The future holds coffee and that, all on its own, is pretty great. 

Or Not?

What is the first thing you do when you are at this point on a really nice sweater?

You rip back and you make it better.

I shouldn't  have done any decreases below the colourwork and the other surprising thing? 

I hated the lice in the sleeves.  It looked great but the floats were making me batty.   I caught it everytime I put it on and off and I just couldn't face it anymore.  Odd, because I really liked them on the body of the sweater.   The white on the sleeves will be plain.  

I am really wishing I had more of this grey.  Sigh.  Oh well.  That is the way it goes.

Sleeve Theory

The really nice thing about a drop shoulder sweater construction is that about a third of the sleeve knitting is done by the time you start the sleeves.

I have to give it a try on before I am sure but I think I am getting close to the cuff.  I have a feeling that four of the lice rows is going to be the right length before the cuff.  That bugs me.  It's about proper proportions.  I can't change how long my arms are and I need the sweater to function properly so the sleeves can't be too long.

I do not care for sleeves that fall into things like water when you are doing dishes, or flour and dough when you are baking.  And I hate it when my dpns get stuck into my sleeves when I am working on socks or hats.  Sleeves are supposed to stay where they are put and if not, they need to be three quarter sleeves.  That is my personal theory of sleeves.  

I will be surprised if the sweater isn't complete by Monday.  The rounds on these sleeves go so fast and there just not that many rows to go.  I am prepared for it not to happen though, but I am hopeful.  I have my trusty coffee by my side and the time to get it done.  

 

The Next Thing

And done.

It is not five inches.  It clocks in at four, but the sweater length is right where I wanted it.  I did a try on and I really like it.  I can't wait for the sleeves to be complete. 

There is a limited amount of the grey.

It was a wee bit over half a skein.  I needed to get sleeve uppers and the neckband out of it.  Before I could divide it for sleeves, I needed to do the collar.  

 

In a sudden burst of knititude, the collar happened.  It will be folded over and sewn down during sweater finishing.  I opted to sew it rather than knitting the edge down as I cast off because when I tried that long ago, I found my knitting got too tight and it was much too easy to put the stitches together unevenly.  Sewing it only takes a moment.  

I also sewed on box 1 of 5.  It is a pretty simple process but getting it right takes some time.  The sizes are all custom based on the existing shelves, so there is a lot of measuring happening.  More sewing is going to happen today.  

 I got up a bit late this morning so I am running behind.  Coffee two needs to happen before anything else.  

Again with the ribbing.

Again with the ribbing.  

I had really hoped to get it done but because I am aiming for 5 inches of ribbing, I knew it was just a dream.  I can't do that in a day.  I deeply and sincerely envy those who can. One more day.

I am mostly going to be working on some boxes.  When Keith did the flooring in summer, one of the changes he made was to take out one range of cabinets.  We did not really use them.  He put in a set of shelving to replace them and I really like it.  The only thing I miss is the junk drawer. A kitchen without a junk drawer is inconceivable to me.  

My job is to make the drawer boxes for pens and paper, batteries, basic meds.  I am making the boxes like this tutorial.  

Pretty simple, yes?  Making them is going to take some time, though and there are 5 boxes.  That's a lot of cardboard to cut and a lot of fabric to sew.   I am using the bolt of black cotton that I bought in spring.  It's really nice knowing I had it on hand and that there is lots available.  Fabric stash.  It's a good thing.

Ribbing!!!!!

Ribbing!

I stayed with seven rows of lice (the pattern has nine) but I did add a couple more rows of plain stockinette to match the space before the lice began.  So lazy but not really.  Just right perhaps?

I have been thinking about sleeves.

The original Cait pattern has the same design at the colour change on the sleeves.  I am not sure that the scale it is, at my gauge, is going to look right on the sleeves.   It worked on the body because, let's face it, I have a lot of body to cover.  I am thinking about just doing lice on the sleeves and the stripe of red.  If I had enough of the grey, I would do the sleeves all grey.  I do have enough white but all white sleeves were vetoed at the start of the sweater.  I am closing in on a finished sweater but there are still lots of things to think about.

About my thoughts on dealing with the dark of winter, I decided to take one step at a time.  I started by watching Vlogmas episodes on Youtube.  It is hard to stay feeling a bit down when people are having so much fun opening tiny packages of yarn and other knitting goodies. I thought about ordering a calendar back in June, but I prefer my mysteries in books not yarn.  Jana's Finnish Knitting Stories is a great place to start and I love Annes' My North Knit Corner.

  I also watched another Advent calendar featuring two guys who are opening a bit of an array of advent calendars and picking a daily winner of what was in the calendar.  Keith was watching while he made himself some coffee, and it sounded like fun.  It was.  They are on my watch list this season.   If  you might be interested, the channel is extraashens on Youtube.

Last year one of the things I did was to knit striped socks from my stash of plain sock yarns.  It was fun.  I thought about doing it again but using black or a dark yarn as a main yarn with the same colours of stripes.  I am not really in a sock mood right now where last year all the knitting was all blankets and socks. I am just going to keep on with my sweater kick, I think.  

Making that decision felt good because it allowed me to pick which of my yarns I was going to work with first.  I pulled all those yarns out a couple weeks ago and my hands are itching to start working with them.  I think my first is going to be a Tolsta Tee long sleeved variation with the green Jaggerspun and some sort of striping with the creamy Custom Woollen Mills single. 

Right now I am playing with the idea of making two garter ridges, rows of yarnover, knit two togethers, followed by two more ridges of garter stitch in the white. That won't be firmly decided till I am knitting the sweater. 

As sure as I am that the green will be the next sweater the pretty blue is calling loudly too.  I do like the idea of a Felix Pullover for it.  

The blue will be so pretty with the lacy raglans of the Felix.  

Well as much as I could talk all day about the next sweater I will knit, it is time to go and finish the body of the current sweater.  And my coffee cup is empty. Time to get on with the day.

Almost There.

 I did something different this weekend.  I stuck with knitting the same thing my sweater.  

It is almost long enough.  I am planning for a rib at the bottom.  The question is do I stick with my current 7 rows of lice and a good long rib or do I do two more sets of lice and a shorter rib?  Two more sets of lice would make the body quite long and I am not sure if  I want that.  I have two more rows of stockinette before I have to decide.  

The body of the sweater is almost done.  Sleeves won't take long because of the dropped shoulder. So yipeee.

I have been feeling a little down this last week.  I suspect it is just the darkness of winter.  I can't change that but I can change the things I am doing to address it.  I need to look at what I have been doing  reading, watching, knitting, thinking about, to see what I can adjust to make winter feel better.

Let's see what I come up with.

The good and the bad

Now that the heavy sweaters are in full rotation and one of them is worn every single day, it's time to assess the things I like about them and things I don't really care for.  We will start with the most recent. 

The red Third Coast sweater is pretty amazing.  I am wearing it today.  If I was knitting it again I would do one more of the series of colour changes before the ribbing.  And I would make the raglan start with more stitches on the sleeves to avoid the too tight upper sleeves.  

The very best thing about this sweater is the folded over collar. I got the idea from Oline at the Norwegian Knitter Youtube channel.  Many of her knits use this and I am thankful for her inspiration. It is the coziest thing to wear.  The deep cherry red makes me happy and that is how it feels to wear this.  

My grey plain Saddle Shoulder sweater.  Perfect, though I don't think I would split the ribbing at the sides next time.  It's such a good way to start a sweater for my body though.  

This is sadly, the best photo I have of it.  There will be more. Sweaters like it not photos.

All the way back in April I finished an Utkiek sweater.  It is exactly what I wanted, a nice big coat sweater that I can wear over another sweater for the ultimate in winter warmth. 

The only problem with it is that I didn't do a really good job picking up the button band.  There is a wobble where there are a few too many stitches.  I have artfully hidden it but I know it is there and it bugs me but not enough to do it over. Though I finished it in April t has only been worn a few times out and about.  I do wear it in house when I feel particularly chilled too but it s not knit at a gauge that makes it a sturdy wearing sweater.  I find it easy to catch on the dishwasher rack my sweater nemesis.

Next up, my variation on Laura Aylor's Sundog.  I love this gently soft sweater.  The high neck makes it a snug and cozy garment for winter wear.

I also hate the high neck.  It doesn't work for me and I have considered redoing it but alas, I am lazy.

My Agate Cove sweater.  

I.  Love.  This.  The only change I might make is to make the back neck a bit higher.  Perfect.

And then a simple forest green raglan.  

This is my perfect for with collars sweater.  I would make the bunny pocket wider if I made this again.

Well that takes me back two and almost three years.  There are more sweaters, but these are my newest happiest sweaters.  Why am I thinking of sweaters past today?  This latest sweater is at the point where I have to decide how far I go.  And how I finish it.  The best way to know is to look at past sweaters and see what I like best.

I should talk about socks again too.  There are good stories there too.  Suffice it to say I believe you need to go knit some now.  So I will.

A picture paints a thousand words.

I am loving every minute of it.

Feeling Powerful

This is so much fun.  

The more I knit on this, the more it is showing up to be a really great combination of very talented designers ideas and is becoming it's own distinct sort of thing. 

I am so happy with it.

My gauge is different than on Ann Budd's Cait. The colourwork from Cait becomes something very striking and really interesting at this larger gauge.   The shoulder construction with its gentle slope gives the sweater a more natural set comes from Joji Locatelli's Lipstick but at its heart, it is a Basic Drop Shoulder from Ann Budd's A Knitters Handy Book of Sweater Patterns.  

No doubt, you can tell I love Ann's Knitters Handy Book series.  It harkens back to the old sweater wheel I have from the time before I was a knitter but wanted to be one so badly.  I have the whole series and use them all the time.  Mittens. Hats. Gloves. Vests.  Sweaters of all sorts.  They are as valuable to me as anything ever written about knitting by Elizabeth Zimmermann.  They put you in the drivers seat of your knitting and I like that.  

There is something very cool about sitting down and putting it all together just the way you want.  It is very empowering.  

Lead On

Good things are happening.  Like the weather and babies, it comes in its own time.

I picked up the sweater of several patterns and worked on it yesterday.  I was chilly and its slightly heavier yarn was calling to me.  It is moving along smoothly.

Its really starting to look like a sweater too.  I am using my new method of colourwork where I hold both colours in my left hand.  I don't have it down perfectly yet but it is going well and I feel more confident and comfortable with it all the time.  It is not taking much longer to knit the colourwork than to knit plain.

The pattern is just starting to make sense from the right side and the inside looks pretty well balanced.

I am still finding that my main colour is the colour I knit too tightly and am having to watch the tension of it carefully but I am doing better.

I only have to finish the row I am on before I switch to my two rows of red as the main colour.  The idea of it makes me giddy.  This pop of red is really going to be fun in this otherwise very neutral sweater.

Lead on McDuff.  Time to knit.

Yarn Play Days

Friday I rose and I had the strongest feeling that something wonderful was going to happen. I did not feel much like knitting but I knew that my expecting wonder was dirrectly related to knitting.  I knit.  I made the first few rows of colourwork happen and then I set it aside.  I had to go digging in my stash for a tiny bit of accent yarn to mark the colour change on the Cait colourwork chart. 

I came up with this red Peace Fleece.  

I made a hat and mitts last year and there is a nice bit left from it. It is the smallest bit heftier than Regal, but there are only two rows, so I think I can get away with it.  

Then, the rest of the afternoon, I played with colors of Palette to use for the Flea Sweater I want to knit.  The goal is to have strong contrasts in the colours you chose.  

I started by picking sets which seemed to work.

  

I am not sue I have it yet.  The dark colours from the back right are purple, green, royal blue, teal, a greener teal, and the rust.  The darks read so close in colour here, but they read quite different in good strong daylight.  I have to play with them a bit more to see if it will work. I am hopeful.

The sweater design calls for six different 100 gram skeins of yarn.  I have only 1 skein of most of the Palette but as backup, I have full bags of black, white and a medium grey colour.   I am leaning toward using the the white for all the ribbing or welting at the neck, sleeves and hems. There is plenty of contrast and plenty of dark and to my eyes, white looks like the best bet to meld the myriad colours together.

After all the yarn play, I knit socks a bit.

and Sunday I pulled out the Hacho yarn Lipstick sweater.

 

I was working happily on it when Cassie called and needed some support and supplies for a school project.

It is a diorama of a story they read.  The story was a translation of a French story called The White Owl.  I am not sure if you can tell but the two people found a deceased person under a log near a sugaring shack and there is a large snowy owl hovering in a tree nearby.  That is all I know of the story, but I can tell you, I had huge fun helping Cassie create her people and her scene.

I have no idea if that meets anybody else's idea of a weekend of wonderful.  None of the things that happened were really big. None of them would mean anything to anybody else, but if I tell you I had the loveliest of weekends, and that it was deeply wonderful and exciting to me,  you will just have to believe me.  It was great!

And today I have to do laundry, bleeeech, because that is the way of the world.   

It's In The Air

The arm openings are corrected and it is looking great.

I am going to knit a few more rounds and then do the sleeves so that running out of light grey is off my mind.  

I am really enjoying knitting this.  At a gauge of 4 stitches per inch, it is knitting up wonderfully fast.  I love this one but I am kind of looking forward to getting back to the peppy colours of the Hacho yarn Lipstick sweater.  

It's a race weekend and I am expecting lots of good knitting time. It's expected to snow heavily this weekend,  the cupboards are stocked and the house is cozy and warm.  Something exciting will happen this weekend.  I can feel it. The feeling is in my needles and in my yarn.  

Updated to add:

I just noticed something.  There is the tiniest bit of another colour at the change of main colours in the Cait sweater.  I have to go digging in my leftover yarns for just the right thing.  I haven't looked through that bin in a while so it's going to be fun.  It's like going to Disneyland, but with yarn.

Only a bit

I joined at the underarm and knit a few rounds.  All is ready for a try on.

And now I am going to rip back.

It's just three rows so not a biggie.  The arms openings are not quite right and I would rather they be right.  

So, back to the drawing board, but only a bit.

So many choices. So much fun.

My knitter errant ways continued.  The upper back is compete and front 1 is at the base of the collar.

Front 2 is picked up and needs to be knit and joined to make the complete front.  There are a couple inches of working across the full front but it wont take long.  The shaping is leaning to the general shaping of a Lipstick sweater.  It's a good thing too considering how far into it I am.  

I have had company the last couple days.  My brother stopped by.  It is always great to visit but I need to be more responsible about feeding people and tidying up when company is here.  The world can fall around me if I am knitting on my own.  I am not quite as far as I hoped and yet I am pretty pleased with my progress.  The gauge of the sweater is 4 stitches per inch and it is working up nice and fast.

Because I am working with a limited yarn color issue particularly for this light grey, I am going to knit the sleeves as soon as the upper body is complete.  Not quite sure yet how they will look.  I prefer all grey but because of the yarn issue, there might be a switch to the bleached white with the colourwork zigzag from Cait and the darkest grey lice like the bottom section of the Cait.   Or perhaps they will be only white with the lice.

So many choices.  So much fun.