Socks.

Itchy fingers went to socks.  A week of socks might be the thing.

I went through all but the big bag o sock yarn to assess the status of each bag.  I kind of knew which I would start working on.

It is the pair I have farthest along.  A complete sock!  Whoodda thunk it.  The yarns are both Kroy and I am adding the black to mark colour changes in the  multi colour ball.  This pair will be the first completed, but then I am going to knit to need.  I need some shortie summer socks.  

I am not sure if the pairs I have on the needles right now will become some shortie socks or if I will start with new yarn.  I have a pair of Monkey socks on the go with yarn from a Nova Scotia hand dyer.

Not going to shortie these or these.

Broken Seed stitch socks, imperfections and all,

both patterns found through Ravelry.  The yarn is a Zauberball and an average grey commercial yarn.

I might make these shorties though.

Yes, a pretty average toe versus my usual garter square toe but a good candidate for a shortie sock.  The yarn is Kroy Midnight Orchid.  

I do have several other socks on the go here somewhere but that is enough for now.  Time to be off knitting to see what will be.

Assessing

In between knitting the Mrs. Hunter's sweater, I have been sneaking in a few rows on the lovely London Fog sweater. This colourway is everything I wanted.  Casual.  Changeable.  A little of everything. Good for year round easy wear. 

It isn't that far along yet.  I am not to the underarms but it is getting closer. I have just changed the ratio for the V neck from every four rows to every second row.  If I keep to every four all the way, the neckline gets too deep.  If I do every second row all the way it is much too short, so this is my solution.  As I get to about two thirds of the depth I want, I change ratios.  It works for me and my body.

One of the things I have been thinking of as I knit on the two sweaters is about my WIPs.  I know there are projects in the bin that are not getting knit on and it is starting to bug me.  (I know!  Who I am?)  Having lots of stuff on the go has never really bugged me before but for some reason, it does now.  I cannot pretend that all of them are going to get finished.  I looked at two particular things that are irritating me this morning.

My Linger sweater.  I love this sweater but honestly, it will probably never be finished.  I only need another sleeve and then a few inches on the body till it complete.  It is so hard on my hands that it is never ever picked up for just a few rows.  So time to face the music.  The hardest part of this knit is the sleeve.  It is in a small round which is always harder on my hands and it is a very big to me needle, also harder on my hands.  I enjoyed knitting the body though.  That seemed to go along well enough.  I have decided to pull back sleeve one and finish knitting the body and turn it into a vest.  That makes me feel very good about this project and it is a goal I can reach. Plus a vest is a really great option for my wardrobe.  I am not as cold these days as I used to be (well medicated) so a full on sweater in this bulky yarn might end up too much.  I have been thinking about making more vests anyway and it feels like the right solution to a difficult project. It is NOT a pattern problem, just aging knitter problem.  

The second project getting a review is my colourwork vest. 

I have planned this vest as long as I have been knitting.  I deeply adore the way it looks and after learning to hold the strands in one hand, it is going much faster.  This one will get finished.  I think its problem is that it is bottom up so it can never get tried on to boost my confidence.  I am disappointed in myself that while I said I was going to finish it before last fall, I did not.  I want to put it into the rotation to get it done this summer.  Who says wool knits are not for summer knitting?  Not me. I am not starting another colour work thing till this one is done.  

And then socks.  I have not yet completed a pair this year.  I have knit rather desultorily on several pairs but have not focused on any of them.  Time to focus on one and get it done.  And then the next. And the next.  Maybe I need a week where I only work on socks?

This week?  Who knows where my itchy fingers will lead me.

More needles?

It was a nice quiet sort of weekend.  I pulled out some dvds and watched Wearhouse 13, a lightweight funny quirky gentle Sci fi show.  It's the cozy mystery type of Sci fi. It is also great knitting.  

We are into serious sweater territory now.  I did another try on and am pretty happy with what is happening on my needles.

Speaking of needles, I am in a bit of a quandary.  The last few weeks my hands have been much more shaky and I am finding that wood or bamboo needles are a real benefit.  The luscious London Fog colourway of Midknit Cravings Comfort Dk is difficult to knit without them.  I don't have a full range of needle tips in anything but metal.  The debate is on.  Different tips? More needles?  

I don't really know yet.  I do have to think on it.

Bits and Pieces

I knit!  I knit a lot.  

In general, but more specifically, yesterday.  I knit long and it was lovely.  It doesn't happen that often anymore.  My hands often give out before my heart does but yesterday, everything just worked.  I treasure those days.  Yesterday I knit on the grey Mrs. Hunter's pattern sweater.  It is coming along nicely and I am getting close to mid body.  It looks just like it did yesterday so far as pictures go so I won't show that again.

We finished up our last puzzle of the season a few days ago.  

I could keep going but there is outside yard work that the homeowner needs to do in this season and he requested a break.  If not, he would happily spend time puzzling rather than doing yard work.  

I will stay busy in the hours I am not knitting.  For the short term, I have this.  

I got this for Christmas and did not build it, waiting for times when the kids were visiting.  They were not feeling like lego this year, so now, it is all mine.  Bwhahaha

I set the first three flowers and I am utterly charmed.  My challenge is going to be where to display them when the sets are all done.

The other thing I intend to do is to seriously start working on the garden part of my miniature cabinet.  I have been planning and gathering goods and supplies for far too long.  I am missing my paints at the moment because Cassie borrowed them for her diorama last winter, but they will be back shortly.  I hope to have the ground surfaces of the garden ready for when they are back.  Then the real fun will start.  Tiny flowers, vegetables, laundry to hang on the wash line.  And pots.  I have a bunch of tiny pots picked up many years ago in Mexico to fill with faux growing things.

I am also going to work on the living room.

The walls are bare.  There is no such thing as finished and there is always something to add or change in a mni house the same as your real home.  I want to add some wainscoting and wall paper and there are quite a few bits and pieces to add to shelves.  There are pictures to make and books to add and change.  

When the house originally became a plan, I was making a house for me then with a partner and to reflect who we were and what we had.  Now, just like life, my world is different.  That me kept her knitting in her study.  This new me has knitting everywhere.  In particular, there is a pile of it in the corner of my living room.  That is going to reflect in my mini house. Plus there might be some yarn creeping on to the book cases.  I am also considering moving my sewing corner to the living room.  I would prefer the kitchen, but I don't think there is room there.  This is where I wish I had a wee bit bigger house or an attic.  Oh well.

I also am dreaming of a room box library. Such dreams I have in my mini world.  

Dreams are important.  It keeps the mind going full on, thinking, creating, hoping to create.  It feels good to dream.   And in between, I knit.  It is an awfully good sort of life.

Losing and Gaining

And then again, maybe I am settled.  I picked up the grey sweater with the Mrs. Hunter's pattern and had a really good time.

As far as I can tell, today should be more good times knitting this sweater. I love knitting Briggs and Little and I love the way this sweater is looking.

I also may have made a big decision on the Yellow Folklore sweater.  It currently looks like this.

I need another set of increases and I don't quite understand why.  I know it is the math and everything, but the yoke just feels wrong.  It has had me thinking a lot about my first Folklore sweater.  I wore it to bits and there were things about it that I really loved.  But there were also things about it that irritated me.  The yoke had the same trouble as I am having now and the fit was less than perfect. I find many round yokes are like that.

My whole thing with this deep rich yellow yarn from Arcane Fibre Works was the colour play of the pops of stormy skies popping up along the rich yellow.  While that is happening with the sweater, I find myself a little less than pleased with the way the stitch pattern I am using sets the pops of colour under the brilliant yellow.  

Engineering Knits has a pattern for her Mohn Cardigan (Youtube channel too), a really lovely sweater knit off of a vintage design and her colours pop out rather than slipping under the main colour.  That made me think there may be other ways of knitting the pops of colour without having to have a round yoke.  When I was looking in my stitch dictionaries the other day, I found several!  So, as much as I hate to do it, I am going to frog the Yellow and start over with a yoke that I can fit more easily and a stitch pattern where the pops will come out of the main colour background. 

And so it goes.  I lose the hours I knit the yellow sweater so far, but I will gain a sweater I like even more.

Unsettled Paths

I ran with the London Fog project for only one day.  I was still feeling out of sorts yesterday and struggled to set myself to one thing.  I understand why and it will get sorted out but it might take a bit to settle.  

In my unsettled adventures, I pulled out some books.

I also pulled out some yarn that I had focused on a few months ago.

I have seen a few patterns like Thea Colman's Cinnamon Bourbon where she plays with "stripes that are not stripes ".  I am fascinated by these stripes that are not stripes.  

I hit the books pretty hard yesterday.  I love these classic stitch dictionaries but what I have drooled over is is lace patterns.  I never really paid much attention to the many other sorts of stitches in them.  It.  Is.  Fascinating.

These are all two colour patterns and are very interesting.  I am kind of leaning to the third one because what I want, and most likely need is a design that uses a fair bit of the second colour. I would probably run out of yarn if I don't use a significant bit of the cream yarn.  

I might swatch the last one to see if I like knitting it today. I might also knit on the London Fog sweater or maybe I will knit on the grey sweater with the Mrs Hunter's pattern lace  

Which is what I ended up knitting on yesterday.  Who knows where my slightly unsettled path will take me.

Wither I go

My vest came in very handy this weekend.  It got constant wear. It was perfect for the weather.

This is the finished vest, just a simple plain vest with wide shoulder straps.  I was aiming for shoulders that imitated drop shoulders but I think I did not get them quite wide enough.

The fit from the front is very good though. Maybe it is okay, or rather will be, once it is blocked.

Please excuse this shot.  I wanted to see just where the European shoulder seams, as interpreted by me, ended up.  I was hoping for a bit lower on the arm, about 2/3 down the arm but for a first try, I am pleased. It will look much better once blocked.

Once the vest was done, I hit my usual wall.  It was a race weekend too so that made it more difficult.  I could not settle.  I knit on two different pairs of socks.  I knit on several different sweaters from the deep end of the WIPs bin.  I knit on the Musselburgh hat.  None of it felt right.

Eventually I settled on this.  It is the sweater I am making from the lovely London Fog Comfort Sport DK from Midknit Cravings

I am using the little braid that Ysolde Teague uses on her Anyday Sweatshirt, as a saddle type shoulder and I am continuing it down the sleeves.  I am going to pop it down the center front as well.  I am really enjoying knitting that wee bit of trim.

I ought to be working on one of my other projects, but this one has kind of taken my heart at the moment.  It will be whatever it will be.  I am going to run with it and get a bunch of it done before I go back dutifully to something else.

Not Quite a Finished Object

I finished the body ribbing and did the neck ribbing too, but I did not make it to the sleeve ribbing.  I started it but after two rounds on arm one, my hands were done.

Arm one ribbing is almost done.  This is the last round before the binding off and then just one arm hole remains.  

This is a really good thing, because I mean to wear it today.  Off the needles and straight on to me.  All things as they should be.

Updated.

And done.

Almost

A day off blogging meant a great day knitting.  

I had started the lower back short rows to make the shirt tail style back hem I wanted, so first thing in the morning, I picked up and got the rest done. By the end of the day, I made it to the ribbing.

There is still a good few inches to knit and then finishing the neck band and sleeve ribbing, but if I work very hard there may be a finished object tomorrow.  

I am quite pleased with how it looks and am really looking forward to wearing it.  

A Day Well Begun

I am sitting in the kitchen this morning, working on a jigsaw.

I am also boiling some eggs and don't want to forget them which is why I am not knitting at the moment.  The day is bright and I am planning to open the doors* for a while today.  It's spring and it is time to blow out the cobwebs.

I had a good day yesterday.  The digging in the yarn part went way too fast.  I found this.

It is a heathered grey, just a bit deeper in tone than the grey I first picked.  It will go nicely with the many heathered colours I have picked for this sweater.  I think that is what was wrong with the first grey.  It was a plain grey, a sort of crayon grey that just did not sit right.  It stuck out like a sore thumb.  I feel much better now and am really looking forward to knitting Flea.

I have been waffling about this sweater.  I always wanted to knit it, but since I first decided on it, other interesting things came across my path.  Rebecca Clow of The Creabea put out  Kintra and I love that design too.  It's a simple 1 x 1 colourwork that invites colour play that could easily be made with this batch of colours I pulled for Flea. I almost switched my plans for Flea but when I started mucking about with colours, Flea began to excite me again.  I will knit a Kintra but first Flea.

I did knit on the vest again yesterday.  I am so pleased with how it is going.

I am at 9 inches from the underarm so it is time to start sorting out just how long I need this vest to be.  I am going to compare it with my Threipmuir vest version for the details.  Threipmuir is just about perfect for slipping over a dress or wearing with a skirt as an extra little layer over a shirt.  The only change I want to make is to have the back a bit longer than I have on the Threipmuir.  

So, eggs are done.  The day is well begun and it is time to knit.

*only on the south side of the house and if the wind dies down.

A Magical Mystery Tour of My Own

I did goof off on the weekend!  It was great and I need to do more of it.

I picked up my vest project and made some major headway on it.  

Last time I featured it here, I had just joined it in the round.  I am about halfway down the body now.  That is some good knitting in my books.

All the time I was knitting, I was thinking about the Flea sweater.  The longer I go on thinking about it, the more I am sure I have to/ want to switch out that grey.  That means I have to do a stash dive, and before that happens I need to do some sorting and ordering in my room.  I started that yesterday.  Today's job is to get in the bins and see what else I have that might be better.  

The other thing I want to do is to dig out the bins of leftover yarns.  I need to go through them and see if I need to keep them or if I should send then to a new home.  I am using my sock leftovers for a zoom loom blanket, but the rest, well, what do I want to do?  

There are many things where there is enough for small projects.  Hats, mittens, gloves, cowls.  All sorts of small things.  There are several yarns where there is plenty left for a vest or kids garments.  Then there are yarns which are just ends.  Do I want to use these yarns to knit those right now?  Do I have other yarns to make that kind of thing?  Yes.  Many, many skeins and colours.

The only thing I am thinking about making with any leftovers is a scrap yarn blanket mixing yarns together willy-nilly.  I don't want to start that right now because there is a blanket I already have on the needles.  One blanket at a time is enough.  I also really would like to see the scrap yarn bins  disappear.  Logically, that is not going to happen.  There is always more going in to them so the idea of no leftover bins...  yeah. There will always be a leftover bin.

I am looking forward to the stash dig.  It isn't going to be a big dig and there are some choices to be made, I love a just poking around, looking for fun stuff kind of dig. Who knows what I will find in there? It always feels like a magical mystery tour of my very own.

General Goofing Off

It's been a week.  Not a bad week, just a mixed up week.  I had company over night on Wednesday and that company will be back on Saturday.  The company is my brother who has finally decided to retire and he has visited while he gets his motorbikes serviced.  The man has motorcycling plans.  Yay retirement.

I did not knit at all on Wednesday.  Okay, that is not true.  I knit two rows. In the wrong colour yarn.  

I had a bad feeling so I set it down and got on with my day.  Thursday, I dug deep and sorted it out.

Two finished side panels.  

Today's work is this.

To pick up the other front, shoulder and back stitches and get on with the knitting.  These rows are long so it is not going to be quick.  The knitting is fun though.  There is the 4 ridges of the main colour.  Then a ridge of the main colour with the different dyelot and a ridge of the Noro sock yarn.  Stripes!  We all know how I feel about stripes.  

I am off to knit and play and generally goof off.  With coffee and knitting by my side.

All Fired Up

I stayed responsible yesterday.  Yea me.  

As the day went on, it got easier to stay that way.  This happened.

One quarter of the front side panels are done.  More importantly, I know how I am going to construct this top.  For so long that has been something that I waffled over. The only part of it that I was certain of was that I wanted the center front and back panels to be made of the Noro yarn. 

First waffle:  sleeves.  Are they a simple straight out sleeve shaped like a T?  Are they on a dropped shoulder?  Are they a fitted sleeve or is the sleeve shaped with short rows to for a cap?

Second waffle: are the sides a separate panel or are they simply knit using short rows for shaping with a grafted or three needle bind off join at the side 'seam'?  

Or is the whole darn thing completely unshaped and simply a knit rectangle with sleeves as wide as everything else and did I have the yarn to do that?

So many questions.  I am certain that all the indecision about where I was going with this top is part of why this top was started last year and has sat in the WIPs bin till now.  It is so nice to finally have a map. The biggest trick now is to follow that map.

There will be an underarm side panel where all the shaping happens.  I am not certain which yarn that part will be made of.  That is going to depend on what yarn I have after all the front side panels are done.  There are also sleeves to knit so some of the main colour is gong to have to be reserved for them too.

Even though only 30% of this top is done, I feel like I am so close to finishing because I can see my way forward. Even more important, I am so excited to knit on it.  I am all fired up about something new even if it is not new at all.  

Gumption

I am trying to be responsible and keep working on what I already have started.  

I separated to work the underarms which is a huge step forward for this top.  It defines everything that needs to happen from here on in.  I feel pretty good about that.  This next bit will go much faster because the rows are going to be short.  There will be many because the body shaping happens here but  I am looking forward to interesting knitting.

When my knitting was done for the day, I went back to colour play. My plan was to colour to make a pattern to follow and to shift colours around till I was pleased with what I saw.  I could have done this by knitting a proper swatch but my yarn is a little shy so this seemed wiser.

I only did this one sample.  I like what is here and it didn't feel like I needed to go farther.  I have a feeling that no matter what colours I change or shift, it is going to look great.  The only one I am even remotely not pleased with is the soft grey and I don't think that I have another colour yarn that works.  I will search though.  The very bottom set with the green is the wrong colour.  It should be the pink at the top of the next column.

I did a check for tones and as expected, there will be a strong colour set and a softer colour set but I think that is ok.  It flows too and adds another dimension to it.

This is where it is going to get hard to keep working on the teal top.  Gumption.  That is what I need.  Gumption.

Colour Play

It is back to school for the kids and this grandma misses them.  It is getting harder to have them here for more than an overnite but I would miss it if I could no longer play with them as much.  I am the luckiest grandma in the world. Ah well.  Back to my usual.

I spent a good deal of time knitting on the yellow.  I will be splitting for sleeves at the end of this round so my head is full of all the numbers I need for sleeves and fronts and back.

I am so glad to be knitting this brilliant yellow.  It really is the perfect thing even if my sons think my love of strong yellow makes me look like a bumble bee. Working with it and wearing it does make me feel like a queen so I am good.

I was also feeling a bit unsettled after the kids left.  It seemed like a good time to play with markers.

It is time to sort out just how I want the colour order to be for the Flea sweater.  I have linked to the designers pattern page.  She has several variations of the sweater and I fond it a great help to look at all the many ways knitters have played with colour.  I love them all.  I bought the man's sweater pattern because I might knit one for Keith. I don't need the pattern for my sweater.  I will use the basic design from Anne Budd's Knitter's Handy Books but the colour advice it gives is vital.  

This is my first proposed line up of colours.

I might shift the pink and green to the space where the purple and grey are but I am not sure.  I am going to 'colour swatch' so I can see how I like the layout as the colours shift their small bit and flow down the sweater.

I do not need another fingering weight sweater on my needles.  I already have two ongoing.  I know that responsible me feels I ought to finish one or the other of them before tackling the Flea but irresponsible me is fighting it.  Since it is my knitting, and no one else's, who knows where this will go.  I will be happy either way.

More kids

More kids!

No.  We are not having snacks for breakfast.  We had breakfast much earlier.  We are having a movie day, starting now.  We already built a fort and we have some adventures planned for the afternoon too.  

Only Grandma is knitting.  I asked but nobody wanted to knit with me.  Oh well.

Bright

The last colour section is complete.  Or rather I think the last colour section is complete.  

I could do a couple more but I like the scale of this now.  You can get too much of a good thing and these bits are a very good thing.  I will need some increases and I'm going to keep doing them in the round at a similar rate to what the pattern is built with in yellow stockinette.  

Bright yellow knitting is perfect for today.  The sun is out and it feels like spring is coming in.

Always Something to Think About

I stayed strong and finished the finishing. 

My third Tolsta is done and I am wearing it.  Yea me.  I didn't knit a stitch on my new WIP bin fascination, my yellow sweater till after the Tolsta was complete. It is never difficult but it is fussy.  That 'fussy' is why I always knit my sweaters with as little seaming as possible.  

My head is deep into the yellow sweater.  When last you saw it, it looked like this.

The yarn is Arcane Fibre Works Merino Nylon DK in the Prairie Storm and Sun Yellow.  

The combination is just perfect knitting for this part of the year where our hearts cry for spring but the weather refuses to comply.  I felt so happy after working on this for a couple hours.  

I am still working the interesting yoke and have made it to where I had to change my needles to a longer one.  

I took the time to spread it out and I am really glad I did.  I had skipped a row in the last colour section.  It has been ripped back and repaired now and I am going forward.

I am not happy with the way that neck trim is looking and may have to sort it out later.  I won't really know that until I have the rest of the sweater finished and ready to try on.  

I have a couple more sections of the colour bits to knit before the yoke is done, but I will need a set of increases after that is done.  Depending on the depth of the yoke, I might finish with raglan style increases.  There is always something to think about when you knit.