A Victory

I feel really great this morning.  

I finished the Blue Cones sweater and it's a winner.

It fits just right.  It's a really lovely blue.  It's exactly the right length.  Yes it needs a good wash to get the spinning oils out but it is otherwise quite perfect.  I am weaving in ends as I write.  

I don't know how other knitters feel when they finish a garment but I feel deeply fundamentally satisfied.  I took these cones of string things and turned it into something that is uniquely mine.  I made every single stitch, even the error stitches and no one will ever knit a garment exactly like this again.  This is me, jumping up and down inside my heart.  No one can take this from me ever.  This is success.  This is achievement.  This is the pinnacle of everything I ever dreamed I could do and be.  I clothed myself, a very powerful thing. 

And when I put that sweater on, I am armored and protected from the rest of the world.  Knitted garments, handmade garments have always been that to me.  It's odd but I remember the first time I wore something knitted to work and stroked it during the day, and remembered who I was.  I needed that so badly then.  

Ah well.  That was then.  I am not that person in so many ways any longer, but parts of her remains. It is a layer of long ago memory that is only part of who I am now.    

I am going to put in a good bit of time working on My London Fog sweater today. That one is starting to feel as if it is working up fast.  Yay me.

Blue Sweater

Another sleeve!

Another day or two and it will be done.

I haven't made many posts the last while with chat.  I haven't been feeling too chatty I suppose.  I waffle between contentment and curmudgeonly ness.  Joy is easy to chat about.  Curmedgeonlyness?  I'm not sure that anybody needs more misery in the world right now.  I have no patience for the stupid thing people do and I am pretty sure  my anger isn't going to improve things.  

The other part is that though I feel grumpy as often as most people, it's easier now that I am older to just dump those feelings.  I just decide not to carry the misery.  I still care deeply about things and still feel the same sorrow and anger but I can put it down and put it away.  I choose to look for the good in the world.  I look at snowflakes and water drops and I contemplate their shape and size.  I play with bubbles in my bath.  I breath deep the smell of my coffee.  I watch the sun rise up and the world awaken every day.  It makes my life better.  

I have the power to pick what I will be in the world and today I will be a person with a nice cup of coffee and a sleeve on a pretty blue sweater.

Feeling good

I had a great weekend.  It was one of those weekends where I could knit for hours and still felt good at the end.  Plus it has been light when I got up which means spring is on the way... Even if it's snowing this morning.  

I did knit for a while on socks.  Friday morning till lunch time so not too long but it was enough to remember that I really hate magic loop.  Oh well.  It's working better than with dpns at the moment.  

And then it was time to knit anything else.  

I thought that I would work on the yellow, but my hands ended up with the London Fog sweater. 

I was on the first row of garter ridges when I stopped on it last and now after two great days knitting on it, I am a row from starting the third ridge set.  Last night as I was putting it away for the night, I realized it's now sweater.  

Can I just say again how lovely this yarn is.  It's a speckled yarn and I completely went against the speckles trend, but now that that is over, I get it.  It makes a tweedy looking fabric.  I still could never do a pink with speckles or yellow with speckles, but this gorgeous grungy green muddy grey, with tweedy sparks of teal and mustard and green and garnet.  Now that's a thing I get.  I love how this looks.  

Knitting this is also interesting to alternate to the more rustic blue yarn.  It's so soft and springy.  It's makes me feel delicate and gentle when I am not normally gentle or delicate.  I am more of a mule I think or a bull in a China shop.  Feeling delicate makes me giggle at myself.  The yarn is nice and I appreciate that different sort of cozy.

It's chore day and time to get moving so I can knit.  

Socks or sweater?

I woke this morning thinking about one blue sleeve.  I have been thinking of that sleeve all morning right till the moment I opened this post.  It's Friday and it should be sock day.  Oh the conundrum.  What to do.  

I am leaning to the Blue sweater sleeve just so I can complete it.  So close and yet so far in a way.  Not really.  If I focus on just the sleeve it ought to be ready to wash by Monday.  

Washing is going to be a real task.  I am pretty sure that the swatch I have been fondling these past months has been washed three times before it bloomed nicely.  The sweater is going to need that same treatment.  It won't be a fast finish and wear garment.

Thus, there is no rush to get this sweater done.  In a way. Sort of.  I still can't wait to wear it.  Now that I think about it it will probably a sock day.  I do need socks and I do love to wear those too.  Plus the socks are at an interesting place now.  I get to play with needles and techniques to update my practical sock knitting.  

It sounds like a nice day full of things to do. Coffee and tea and forward I go.

Happy Blue Knitting.

I  made it to the ribbing on sleeve one on Tuesday.

I gave it a full try on to check the length and I am so happy.  It fits just how I wanted it to.  It's going to get all my knitting time till it's done.

I did not knit at all yesterday.  I tried but my hands were too tired.  It was doctor day.  I loathe doctor days.  There is always recovery time needed after till I feel my usual energetic self.  I feel like I do at the end of the day in the morning.  So a quiet day or two is needed and all will be well.  

So on to blue knitting and maybe a bit of London Fog or yellow.  Lots to do.  Lots to knit.  This is what makes my day.  

Back to Blue

I went back to work on the blue sweater like a responsible adult.  And it was good.

If this was going to be a short sleeve sweater, I would be almost done with sleeve one.  It isn't going to be short sleeves though.  At the moment, even though the plan is 3/4 sleeves, I find myself considering long ones.  I will continue to play with the yarn and no firm decisions will be made till I am knitting said sleeve.  

Another knitting day beckons.  I am ready for my coffee.  Time to get moving.

A Tale of Needles

It was a really interesting weekend here.  In a good way and a well gosh darn it way.  

I spent all day Saturday knitting on Hiraeth, my yellow sweater.  

You may not think of it as yellow, but trust me, it's yellow.  I cannot tell you how much fun this is. There are no words but it's such a happy experience.  

I woke up Sunday and thought I really ought to work on some socks.  I pulled out my plain Kroy socks and started to knit.  My hand was shaking badly as it sometimes does. I kept working on it but it was such a pain.  I dropped needles.  I grabbed a wrong needle and pulled it out. I struggled to knit the last stitch and so on.  It felt stupidly impossible.  

A random out of nowhere thought found me wondering if changing the the style of needles I was using might be the answer.  I had just picked up the sleeve on the blue and am using a small circular needles for that rather than DPNs.  I thought about maybe trying the 9 inch circulars  but ewww.  I don't think they will ever be for me.  I decided to try the two sock needle methods I did have, two circs and magic loop.  

I did magic loop first.  It's okay and with my current troubles, much easier than my beloved DPNs.  

Next I pulled out and cleaned the needles I bought to do small circumference colouwork, ie colourwork mittens, a very long time ago.  They are the old style Addi lace with the brass finish.  The brass gets sort of gummy over time.  It's the finish over the brass that's the trouble I think.  It needed a good cleaning and then they work fine.  

These were okay too.  I do have quite a few sets of 2.5 mm fixed needles with different cords and different cables.  There are a few more to play with and try till I find the best of them.  

Sometimes aging and age related changes mean you have to give up things you always liked to do.  Sometimes you just need to adapt to the change.  The other thing to keep in mind is, you might like a certain thing now like dpns or metal tips, but  there is a reason other things are out there.  There will be a point or a project where they may well work for you.  

I don't know about anybody else but I want to keep knitting and having fun.  I am willing to do what I need to.  Goofing around with needles is a small price to pay for being able to knit and wear wool socks.    

And on.

Look at that.  

Two hems and

A sleeve.  A proto sleeve anyway.  It's two rows in (checking it).  Okay just one but the sleeve stitches are picked up and ready to go.  I am so pleased with this sweater.  And excited.  I am looking forward to something new to wear.

This is so much better than shopping in a store.  First I get to shop my stash.  Then I get to play with string things.  And next, I get something new to wear.  It doesn't get better than that.

There won't be a new cast on when this is done.  I am going to settle down and finish my colourwork vest.  The pattern is from an older book, Folk Vests by Cheryl Oberle, and I have wanted to knit it for years.  It is time to finish it.  

And so on

I'm into the rib! I'm into the rib!

  

One row in but still.  The body of the blue is going to be complete today.  With a bit of luck, I will get a start on sleeve one.  

Grumpy puss but better at the end.

It was a good knitting day.  I worked solidly on the Blue sweater.  Front and back hems are now the same length so there is only two inches to go on the back hem.  I am looking forward to getting it done.

Otherwise I am grumpy this morning.  Look away because I am venting.  

I got new bedsheets.  I missed the part where it said sateen.  They are pure cotton which is what I wanted but the sateen weave means it feels as if I am slipping ever so slowly out of bed.  I just wanted a simple cotton plain weave. 

I also got a new pair of shoes.  I really hoped that these would be okay.  They are called a barefoot shoe.  Ha.  My idea of barefoot and the manufacturers idea of barefoot are two very different things.  Very different.  I need a thin sole without a thick clunk at the back of my heel that pushes my feet forward.  I needed a shoe that I can feel the floor through it, protected by the sole but not shaped or controlled by it.  I kept hoping I wasn't going to have to manufacture shoes myself.  Damn.

I can tell I am old.  I have no patience for things that have been new and improved beyond what worked.

The new pillow I purchased is great though.  Quite nice.

In other good news, my fabric arrived from GK Fashion Fabrics.  I have found they are the best supplier to use when I am looking for specific fabrics.  I love Fabricville (the Quebec and online branch of Fabricland) but sometimes they don't carry what I am looking for.  If they do, they are not always giving me enough information for me to feel confident in what I am purchasing.  Gk Fashion Fabrics states very clearly the specific amount of stretch and the weights of fabrics.  

  Plus they always seem to have good old fashioned all cotton waffle weave.  I love that fabric.  Heavy enough for pants but stretchy enough for all around comfort.  

My other fabric, the 4 way stretch is likely a wee bit too light for pants I think (330 gsm: this note is for me for future reference).  Too light a fabric and I will end up with that tights that are not pants look.  It will however, be great for a light close fitting pant/tight style that I can wear comfortably under dresses and tunics.  I need those in my wardrobe anyway.  

I have to finish a few things before I do a major bit of sewing though.  Finish the Blue sweater first.  I want that sweater badly.  I just can't wait!

To knit

It feels like forever since I wrote the last post. Long weekends can be like that.  It was such a good weekend with lots of knitting time.

I did knit on socks on Friday.  Four different pairs to be precise.  I couldn't settle. In the end, I picked up the yellow sweater.  I had started that the day before and it was just fun.  I really wanted to keep going on it.  I stayed with it the whole weekend.  

I really enjoy this.  It's simple but really engaging.  I am just working the second increase set now.  It's not a fast knit for me.  My wiggly shaking finger makes me need to go slowly.  But slowly is good.  Knitting this also confirms my comfort with carrying both of the colours in the same hand.  It feels quite natural and normal.  

And that brings me to one of my big plans for this winter.  I meant to work on and finish my blanket colourwork project

(Just a snapshot of the pattern page)

and my vest colourwork project.  

Now that I am feeling more confident with carrying colours on one hand, I had hoped to get these long term projects completed before winters end but here it is full, mid February.  Winter is running out fast.  

I planned this because I wasn't feeling the burning need for sweaters.  That burning need had been a bit of a bug bear for me the last few years. It was a bit all consuming.  It's fun when that happens in some ways but it is nice when it let's you go.  Lusk was the last urgent sweater.  Why?  I have no idea but it was.  It all feels much more relaxed now.  

It may not stay that way.  Who knows.  I just go with it. The only thing I feel the need for now is to knit.  

Boxes of Joy

It arrived!  The yarn I ordered using the gift from my lovely niece.  It is lovely.  Joyful.  Delightful.  A treat!  

  

I ordered the neon colours that Jo's Yarn Garden had in Cascade Anthem, a very nice acrylic, and one colour from Cascade's Pacific line in the neon orange.  All this will be paired with more of the Anthem in a deep Navy blue.  It's going to be a glorious blanket.  

The blanket is not a challenging one at all.  It's the Sweet Shop Blanket from Laura Penrose.  I saw it on several vlogs, most notably, the Knits from Lincolnshire vlog on youtube.  She just had so much fun knitting it.  You could see her joy with this project just shining out from her when she talked about it.   It's one of those fun, always something new projects that are just great knits.

The bright neons come from watching Jana at Finnish Knitting Stories.  She often has these wonderfully bright cheerful projects and in the dark of winter, I crave the brights.  Not necessarily  neon, but just colours.  Her soft colour choices for with the brights are lovely, but I love strong contrasts,  hence the navy.

And so my stash grows.  The whole stash brings me joy.  I feel like it is time to do a dive but I already did that since the New Year began so no dive for me.  There is knitting.  With the trouble I've been having feeling connected to a project, I was surprised to find myself here.

I'm almost at the length of the front cast off.  Since I want to have the back be a couple inches longer than the front I think I have only 4 or 5 inches to go.  Then it is only sleeves and those are always fast, right?  Right?  

Off I go.  It's sock day today.  Maybe.  The hands might stray to the Blue.  It's calling too.

I watched a bit of news today.  I don't do that much.  It usually makes me angry.    Today though, I am just filled with sorrow.  And the first question I ask myself is how did we fail this family?  How many times did we fail this young person? How much more could we have done to help the young person who did such a terrible thing.  Because of how we as a society failed that young person, so many more are lost. 

We, as a society failed and now so many innocents will bear the cost of that failure.  

Cool

I strayed from the plan.  

And it was wonderful.  

I cast on for the Hiraeth sweater by Hanna/Herbgarden Knitwear.  It's not fancy colourwork and elaborate patterns.  It's simpler looking but no less challenging and just as much fun.  

It's exactly what I needed.  The colour is the perfect mid winter knit.  This time I hope it ends in a full sweater.  I want to wear this brilliant colour this year.  

It's also the first day of testing for the F1 2026 season and I am pumped.  

I gotta go now.  Make coffee.  Watch cool stuff.  Knit cool stuff.  Cool.

Winter Doldrums

I meant to knit on the blue sweater yesterday.  Being so close to finishing the body, you would think that I'd be committed to working on it.  But no.  Not me.   I really don't feel like working on it.  I am giving myself permission to go walkabout and explore something different.  Not too different but out of my routine of late.  

I am going to work on my London Fog sweater today.  If that doesn't get me past this winter doldrums, I may have to bring out the big guns and cast on something new.  

I mentioned last week that I got a gift from one of my nieces.  I debated for many days about what to treat myself with.  My stash does not contain much acrylic yarn.  I have a strong blanket feeling this year.  There are some many neat blanket patterns out there and I feel the need.  I prefer to knit blankets in acrylic, so that's what I decided on.  But not just ordinary acrylic.  I bought a huge pile of neon acrylic with a strong navy contrast.  I am so excited even if, in one fell swoop, I added a half a giant tub of yarn to my stash.  Oh well.  It should arrive next week.  

Good times.

Sometimes when your heart wants to start something new, but your head says wait, it can be hard to settle.  I tried switching projects.  I tried tidying the WIPs bin.  I tried searching through some beautiful yarn and project photos for inspiration.  Don't try this last one if you are looking to get back to focusing on what you have in hand.  

I struggled to settle.  Friday afternoon ought to have been sock time.  I did a few rows.  

Six to be precise.

I tried the blue sweater.

A few rows happened.  4 to be precise.

That was it for Friday and Saturday.  

Sunday I settled a bit and knit on my London Fog sweater.  

That went much better.  I finally found the focus I was looking for and I spent a good part of the day just knitting.

I have made a wee bit of a decision too.  This gorgeous yarn was purchased to be a sweater where the yarn did the talking.  I am going to add one small detail.  I am going to add a double row of garter stitch every 10 or 12 rows.  I'm not sure yet what the scale ought to be.  10 is what my inspiration (the Willard sweater) uses.  12 may be more appropriate for this yarn weight.  The ridges are not meant to show off anything but to highlight, to bring attention to the yarn with the smallest bit of texture.  Ridges also help make the knitting feel faster.  It's like stripes.  There is always something to look forward to.  It will help make a simple sweater in gorgeous yarn be a stand out in my wardrobe. 

As long as it's warm.  That is always my principal goal.  

   

Sticking with the plans

It was an odd sort of day.  I found myself wanting to wind more yarn.  But no.  This is not the time to do that.  I made myself go to do some knitting.  And I did.

A Hem.  The front is complete and I am so happy with it.  It looks exactly how I saw it in my head.  On to the back.  

The split hem is not as long as my original plan.  When I was talking about Vests the other day, I was wearing my purple vest.  I love the way the split is on it but I realized the front and back were a little longer than I needed this sweater to be.  I was going to make this sweaters split front 7 inches long but ended up with about 5 and a half inches.  I did a try on and it ends right where I wanted.  The original intent was to go to 9 inches from the split on the back but I am going to shorten it a bit as well.  

And then sleeves and this sweater will be done and I can cast on one of my many new planned things.  It's going to be a bit of a challenge to keep my focus on what I have on the needles, but I will have to do it.  It is also going to be a real challenge to keep my focus on my planned next up Kauni sweater or my Staffin planned sweater rather than spending my days dreaming about other future sweaters.  Like Flea.  

Grandeur

I love winding yarn.

Look at those layers.  This is Briggs and Little Sport in Sheep's Grey.  I spent way too long simply looking at the way the layers of yarn built up in the cake and the broad range of colours within it.  

It is almost as if you can see past those individual strands down into the heart of the cake.  I want to look deep into the caverns behind and within the strands.  I could get lost in there.  Lost in the looking.  Sigh.  This is grandeur on a small scale.  

It's a Vest sort of day.

It's a vest sort of day.  

It isn't cold enough that I need to snuggle down in my sweater, drink hot cocoa and layer myself in blankets but cold enough that I want to wear a heavier wooly fabric on my back.  My arms are okay free of warm wooly layers.  I am of course wearing a long sleeve turtlenecks as an underlayer.  It's a cotton bamboo fabric so it is only marginally warm but it does the job.  

I have a few vests now and enjoy wearing them but it is one  thing I could use more of in my wardrobe.  My favourite is my Linger vest, where it became a vest only because my hands were very done with the weight of the yarns.  It is so wonderfully warm though and I adore the fisherman's rib.  It take a long time to knit but it's a great fabric.  

The other vest getting heavy wear is the rust vest which I knit so I could understand the European shoulder construction.  I like the shape of it on me.  The back neck stays high on my back neck and fits comfortably across my back.  I also needed to knit it so I could understand my problems with the Ysolda Teague's Anyday Sweatshirt and what I needed to do to make it fit my body the way I wanted it to fit.  

The last heavy weight vest getting lots of wear is my purple vest made from Briggs and Little Regal that I picked up at the mill store in New Brunswick on my Epic Adventure a few years ago.  I wear this self drafted vest a lot.  I love the texture of its mistake rib gradient colours.  Evertime I wear it I think about knitting this stitch on another garment.  The other vests are usually warmer weather wear.  

I would like a vest with a nice deep shawl collar.  What I want will be a bit like the Redhook vest from the cover of Jared Flood's book from the long gone Classic Elite days.  Simple shape, deep shawl collar.  I am also thinking a lot about making a vest with a deep turtleneck like the Vestover or Vilda.  But what yarn to use?  I have tons of yarn in my stash but until I can see a yarn or yarn combination as a vest, it just stays quiet...waiting...lurking in the corners of my mind.  

I knit only a little yesterday but the day was all about yarn.  I wound up a lot the hanks that were pulled from the last stash dive.  Everything is ready for knitting the sweaters I want from each.  I also turned the balls from the spring like yellow Arcane Fibre Works yarn from a frogged project into cakes so I don't need to deal with rolling yarn balls.  

I have two more sweater quantities to wind today.  Along with knitting that will be enough.  Lots of interesting things to do and to think about today.   

Nice Mail

I had good mail yesterday.  

First up, one of my lovely nieces sent me a Christmas gift.  Yes.  It took a month for a Christmas letter to clear the post office.   It's a gift certificate for one of my favourite yarn stores.  What a sweet woman and a lovely gift.

And the yarn I ordered last week was also in the mail.  And oh my goodness did I pick the colours right.  

The navy Cascade 220 is from my stash but the 5 colours are new.  These are going to be  Flea sweater for me.  This time I am going to watch my gauge more carefully and I am going to check closely as I knit that I am keeping that gauge.  It may not look glorious yet, but it will.

And the sock yarn.  

Again it may not feel like much, but it fills my soul with pleasure.  A green farmer sock is on the way for me.  I started on with existing yarns but the Kroy sock yarn was too heavy for some old but very nice Confetti sock yarn.  They were distinctly different weights even though they were both fingering weights.  

They don't look that different here but they sure are when you work with them.  The Kroy would be a reasonable mate to the Fiesta.  

Now I have to figure out what I want to get with my gift certificate.  Right now I am leaning to something a little special.  Noro Kureyon?  Maybe some Cascade to make a gorgeous cabled something?  Hmmmm.

Interesting.

It was a lovely quiet weekend.  Lots of time to knit and lots of time to do tasks that have long been put off.  

I cleaned and tidied my sewing room yesterday and it was really nice to have that mostly done.  I.  Can.  See.  Floor!  And tabletop.  The tabletop is the most amazing part of it.  There were boxes of mini things from November piled there as well as spare blankets and pillows that had been washed after the holidays.  Plus all of the usual fabric I was working with when last I sewed.  It was a bit of a nightmare.  There were all sorts of things that didn't belong taking up floor space.  There still is a bit so work will continue this week.  That poor room has been neglected too long.  

Today's play is going to be going through all the miniature tools and putting them into the lovely little tool box I got at Christmas.  

It's the perfect size for mini tools and will be a real help keeping ordered.  Is time to pull out the things I need to get a start on the garden.  There are a few things I want to do for inside too.  Like real houses, there are always things to do. They are never really complete.

It was a good knitting weekend too.  

I did a good bit of knitting on socks.

 One sock completed in January.  And a start on a toe for February.  I must say though that this is the very last time I do this sort of toe.  It's just too fiddly for my shaking fingers.  I love garter stitch square toes for the fit and comfort and now for the ease in making it too.  

There was other knitting too.  The socks seemed to be enough of a change that I charged ahead and kept working on the Blue sweater.  

What you see is the front of a side split knitting up nicely.  

I might set this sweater aside this week.  I feel like something else today.  It might be socks.  It might be my Musselbourgh hat.  It might be something new.  Maybe.  It might be that I will  just wind yarn today.  There is lots of that to do from the yarns for projects that I really want to do.  

The more I think of it, the more that sounds like fun.  Playing with yarn but not adding to the pile of WIPs on the go.  Interesting.  

Working on the Blue

Somewhere in the week, this happened.

Suddenly, it's a sweater.  The underarm length is 8 inches now and it is time for some decisions. 

Split hem?  I think so.  This is a Basic Tolsta, which is a brilliant design by Rebecca Clow but part of the design mastery is that it is made to be modified.  She encourages you to turn it into your own sweater.  This gorgeous blue is mine and I want it to be something utterly comfortable to wear.  

I have a couple of things I made where the side split is perfect.  I am going to follow those for where this split ought to be.  A vest that I really love has a split starting at 8 inches from the underarm.  The vest is always worn with something under it.  Any lower back chill is stopped by that.  On a sweater, it might be a good idea to knit just a tiny bit more.  I think I will knit an inch more and then split. 

I want to add a bit of a detail where that split happens.  Often splits look stringy, like a suddenly loose stitch with a long leg.  I want something to make that separation more reinforced.  I think doing a stitch similar to the way a stitch wraps a group of stitches in Mrs. Hunter's pattern. Some kind of wrapped stitch is what I am aiming for.  

After the split I am following just what I did on the vest.  The front will be an additional 7 inches and the back, 9, some of which will be ribbing.  

And then sleeves.  I think, these will be my preferred 3/4 length.  For a change, I am not concerned about running out of yarn.  

Plenty of yarn left on the cones.  There is another sweater there, possibly a sweater and a vest.  

I'm just happy I get this one.  And satisfied.  There is nothing like making and wearing  clothing you have made yourself.    

Today's work will be socks.  I am finding my way with this process of giving myself a day to work on small things.  It feels comfortable and right.  

Flea Dreaming

Talking about the Flea sweater yesterday with my sister makes me want to knit another Flea.  I will be more careful with my gauge this time and will check it frequently.  I find myself doing that a lot more often these days.  Which reminds me I need to do a check on the blue sweater today.  

Getting off track there.  

I want to knit another Flea sweater.  As I chatted with my sister, I remembered how much fun it was to knit.  I remembered the sheer joy of it and I wanted that again.  I went looking at yarn.  Specifically, I went looking for yarn lines that had a lot of colours.  

I did check in my stash.  My most colourful yarn collection is Knit Picks Pallette.  That bin is pretty picked over now.  There are not a lot of good contrasts left in the box.  Lots of greens though which is good.  Besides the Pallette, I don't have many yarns with a good bright colour range.  

I was feeling pretty free with with my budget.  I had not bought myself anything at Christmas and I totally skipped my birthday, so I felt I deserved a little gander through yarns.  I looked very hard at my local shops for something nice.  I looked at local mill shops online.  I searched several other Canadian yarn choices.  I searched other Canadian yarn stores to see what I might want to work with.  It was fun.  Serious fun.  It's been a while since I shopped with intent.  

In the end I decided to go with Cascade 220.  It's such a good yarn.  It wears hard and I can see the wall of Cascade 220 that RCY had at the Southside store.  The wall of colours seared itself on my soul.  I know exactly what I am getting with it.  

So I played with colour and goofed around and built the sweater I wanted.  

And then I bought some sock yarn.  Because I needed some. NOT.  Oh well.  

I found a really interesting YouTube channel this morning.  She is American, an unusual choice for me but she has a wonderfully real voice. Too many podcasts are over curated, over planned, over processed.  I like ones that are sometimes chaotic, sometimes calm but where the love of knitting and yarn shines through.  Check her out:  ktbl a knitting podcast on youtube.  I spent a lovely morning with her.

Back to Blue

It was Monday.  I picked up the blue sweater and went back to work on that.

I am back in love with it.  It's fussy to work.  The fine strands made finer with the weaving oil in the yarn and the general scritchiness that it gives the yarn, makes it a pain.  Each stitch needs watching to be certain you have both strands.  Each increase  needs care.  It's just fussy knitting.  

That fussing could so easily defeat me.  It could make me set it aside and forget it in a corner.  The thing that keeps me going back is the little, twice washed swatch.  

It is so incredibly fluffy and soft.  I.  Want.  To.  Wear. This.

Compare that swatch to this.  As it is being knit.  It even looks crisp.

I will love knitting this this week and I am really hopeful that I get close to the end ofvthe body.  

I had a message from my sister, the now owner of my impossibly joyful Flea sweater.  She wore it out last night and had many compliments and questions about it.  I am so happy it had good results in public.  It is renewing my desire for one of my own.  It may happen sooner than I think.

A good day ahead.

It was a good weekend.  Some family came to do a few chores for me so there was lots of fun but there was also lots of good knitting time.  

I spent a day on socks.  Go me!  

Well into the cuff now.  I decided to do a 2 x 2  ribbed cuff.  I think it's just a bit of a ploy to keep me going.  I don't do a lot of patterns in my socks but lately, I have been thinking a lot about the basic farmer socks, the socks of sock monkeys.  If I didn't have so many socks on the go, I would be knitting a pair of them.  I think this decision is  my inner compulsive self needing the ribbed bit so I can feel as if I am there rather than three socks from farmer socks.  

And yes.  I am thinking hard about knitting another Sock Monkey Cabin blanket.  Stop me, please.

I also spent a day working on the London Fog sweater.  

It's an underarm!  I'm completely thrilled to be here. 

Sweater knitting always feels speedy as soon as I get to this part of a sweater.  It also feels like this because suddenly, you are only knitting on body stitches. Sleeves have a lot of stitches and separating those out is such a relief.  

I hope to get to a try on later today.  

It doesn't look like much yet but it's getting there.  

It's also going to be a laundry and baking day.  We are having chili for supper so I want some fresh buns.  Nothing goes with chili better than some nice fresh buns slathered with butter.  It is also going to be a good knitting day.  I feel it.  A good day is in the air.

Curmudgeonly

You know how sometimes you do things that bug you but you don't seem to change it?   You just sort of work and are bugged by it?  No?  Well I do.

See that ball of yarn?  Harumphhhhhh.  It happens when I frog and restart and don't do the sensible thing and get my ball winder.  I never minded when I had a yarn bowl.  You could pop it into it and just let it roll.  Without a bowl, the darn thing just rolls around and defeats you.  As you can see, I have adapted.  I just need a holder and I roll off as bit when I need to.  But it bugs the heck out of me.  

Sensible people would go get a kitchen bowl and stop whining.  I am not sensible.  I think I must like whining.  Curmudgeonly.  I have gone curmudgeonly.  
 

My knitting

When I rose yesterday, my hands did not feel like knitting the blue yarn.  It's as if all the things I find special about it, suddenly overwhelmed me.  I tried knitting a couple times but my heart wasn't in it.

Time to change projects.

I picked up my London Fog sweater and gave that a go.  Much better.  

Isn't that gorgeous?

It's starting to look like something.  A sweater I hope.  There are only a couple inches to go till the armhole split.  I love the rustic feel of the blue yarns but I also love the cozy soft of this yarn.  I am going to have to do some dishcloth knitting or weaving very shortly and I am looking forward to knitting with the cotton again.  I already have some linen ready to knit a summer top.  There aren't and yarns I don't like, corded fibres that I dont think about knitting with.  If I thought that Keith would put it up I would absolutely knit a fence.  If my hands could take it that is.  

I simply love the feel of string things running through my hands. It fills me and feeds my soul in ways that nothing else ever has.  Someone once said that they supposed it was a decent past time.  I remember how angry I felt that they would say that and think that.  I felt deeply insulted and indescribably hurt that what was like breathing to me was passed off as a 'past time'.    

My knitting is so much more.  The way an artist needs to paint or sculpt or make.  It's the way a musician has music spilling out of them even when music is the farthest thing from their minds.  It's the burning need to do whatever it is.   

I have to knit.  Even when I am not knitting it fills my head and soul.  It lives in every little corner of me, even the dark ones.  I wish I had found it sooner in my life, but I don't regret that I didn't.  I am just glad that I found it.  

In the Heat of the Night?

I got up early today.  It was warm and my usually cozy morning bed was uncomfortable.i went to shower and as I prepped, I thought wow, it's warm in here.  The furnace started up and I felt that it was too hot to breathe.  I texted Keith and asked if it was just me having a hot flash.  He was just noticing the heat too.  The heat was verging into holy batman territory and the shower I took was a very cool one.  Meanwhile Keith got up to find that the front door had popped open just a crack.  There was a nice little ridge of snow standing where the door ought to have been so Keith felt it couldn't have been open for too long.  No snow had come inside.  This house shifts a lot, so our front door is locked day and night. We had a delivery midday and Keith forgot to lock it after that and at some point, the wind popped it open.  As for me, I am finally feeling comfortable.  But that was how my morning started.  

I spent the day knitting yesterday and made good progress.

I've been using a progress keeper lately, particularly at this point in garments.  This part can feel as if no matter how many hours I knit it never gets any longer.  It was getting me down.  Sometime last fall, I put in a progress keeper on a garment and it helped.  If I can do an inch a day, I will be satisfied.  It isn't the several and more inches I used to be able to do but then, my hands are older now.  This will do.

More blue knitting today.  All of it good.  

Gee whiz.  I am starting to feel chilly now.  I need a heavier sweater.

Looking Towards a Great Day

Friday was not sweater day really.  As I was writing I forgot that I had planned to trick myself into knitting small things by making Friday a small things day.  I did knit on a sock in the afternoon Friday.  It was lovely to do that.  

I like this particular Kroy colour.  Plain stripes are not often found in commercial sock yarn.  At least not the ones in my sock yarn bin.  This sock won't be as long as I ended up making my Advent socks.  Those were 12 inches long between toe and cuff and that is just too long with my stubby feet.  The cuffs are too long.  I think I must have done 10 inches from toe to cuff on afterthought heel socks before rather than 12.  Oh well.  This pair will be my usual, which happens when I get tired of it rather than being a certain number of inches.

I have been giving myself the weekends to knit on something else but I found myself just wanting to keep knitting on the blue.   So, blue knitting it was.

I am pleased.  It's coming along nicely.  Sure it is just a plain stockinette raglan sweater but this colour is so good.  It raises my spirits to no end.  I did a try on yesterday.  It was perfect.  

I am also at the place where I should be thinking about adding the pockets from the Mayhemma sweater.  I love that idea but I am no longer as certain that I want to do them in this sweater.  I really love this as it is.  I can do that another time.  

So, more blue knitting today. It's going to be a great day.

The Time has Come

The time has come.  

For what?  Shoes my friend. Shoes.

It has been years since I needed to think about Shoes but, sadly, the sort I have been wearing are no longer available at a reasonable price, ie, a price I can afford.  Plus, since I started wearing shoes like this, they have been new and improved to  their detriment.

These are a pretty basic little shoe.  Nothing fancy.  No anything but a soft stretchable top and a good grippy rubber sole.  There is nothing fashionable about them.  I found them a couple years before my medical event that sorted out most of my health troubles.  They fit my very swollen feet and there was fantastic grip on the floor.  Having that good grip was a revelation in feeling plus, and this was a very big thing for me, I could feel the floor with my feet.  

Most of the shoes we wear, sneakers and the like, divorce us from the reality of the information that we get from our feet.  A thin flexible grippy sole is the number one thing I need from a shoe. Grippy thin soles are a rare thing.  Okay, grippy thin soled shoes I can afford are a rare thing.  

A very long time ago, I came across Sophie and Me on Ravelry.  The designer had Oxford shoe looking tops and a series of sole configurations depending on the materials you were using.  

At first, I just liked the idea of making shoes. I was gathering materials and then along came my first pair of little cheapie shoes and I didn't think about making them any longer.

Now, need is driving me.  I can't find what I am looking for in the places I have access to.  What I could find, was grippy sole material exactly like I have on my current soles.  I was just going to repair the soles but I started thinking about fit and the things I don't like about the fit.  I wear a 6 1/2 and like many shoes, particularly cheap shoes, they do not do half sizes.  The last pairs I had were 7s so they were a bit long.  This pair is a 6 and I find that a wee bit more room for my toes would be nice, necessary really particularly when I am wearing thicker socks.  

So here we are.  Ready to make shoes.  I have everything ready to make a test pair.  The yarn was picked when I was on the big dig.  Though I don't have any flip flops I have some foam that will work for a test.  Pair one is not going to get the good grippy soles.  It is simply a try out, a toilet if you will, a mockup.  I am not starting them today but they may well be my weekend project.  

Today is a sweater day. It's going well and I am focusing on wearing delicious yarn.

Looking for the Magic

As I have been chatting the last few days, there has been a good amount of knitting.   Since Christmas  I'd been working on my London Fog sweater, but I really needed to get back to the Blue Coned yarn Sweater.

 I had not touched it since before Christmas.  November, I think.  It was put away because from the cones the doubled yarns are fine and thus fussy to knit with.  It is not a project to work on when you have a lot of other things going on.  As a fussy sort of project, it had the potential to sit in the corner forever. This week, I decided to pull it out and make it my weekday knitting.  

As of yesterday evening, I have split the sleeves.  Go me!  Even in its partial state, it has great sweater vibes. 

What I am looking forward to with this sweater is the feel of the yarn.  I am still under the spell of the swatch I made many months ago. When I wash this very thin stiff coned yarn, it becomes something magical.  I want that magic.  

Accepting what is

The other thing I did on the weekend was a repair job on my Myrtle sweater,  a Kate Davies pattern that I love to wear.  It's been on the repair pile for quite a while now.  I have debated about repairing it for many months.  

Myrtle in her glory.

Myrtle"s problem.  I debated about doing a proper lace repair and then it sat.  For months.  I missed it in spring and I missed it through summer on the chilly days.  

I came across it again when I was getting ready for Christmas, in a bag in my WIPs pile with the yarn it needed for the repair.  I thought very seriously about getting rid of it but I really love to wear it.

I decided on Sunday morning that my repair did not have to meet any body's idea of swellness but my own.  It is on the side and higher up.  And even if someone noticed it, phfttttt.  If I was worried about it, I could change if someone came.  I am not that worried about it.  

I gave it a good plain patch.

Not pretty but very workable.  

Hardly noticeable.  Good enough for me.

Many might feel I did not do it justice, but I have so many things I want to do, things I have been looking forward to.  A perfectly blended repair feels to me like going backwards.  This sweater has been worn and used and loved.  I don't mind it showing its scars.  That is part of its story, just like grey hair and wrinkles are part of mine.  Accepting what is gives me great peace and in this case, my sweater.

Update:  The damage came from a dishwasher incident.  The sweater got caught on the tray of the dishwasher.  It did not appear to be fatal, but I wore it as usual and washed it and that is when I noticed the trouble.