I knit a wee bit oof Friday but not at all Saturday or Sunday.  I have a cold that just seems to be sucking the life out of me.  Apparently, I am too tired to hold my needles.

Ah well.  It will be gone shortly.  By next Friday I ought to be right as rain.  I hope.

Looking like  t shirt!

Giddy Getty

Good morning!  Pbthththth to the weather.  It will not get me down.  

I knit on my striped Lusk in the morning but by afternoon it was time to set that aside and rest my wrists.  I decided to pull out something a bit different to do.  

I started a Geddy Tee by Tanis Lavallee last year. I did a couple of the crochet granny squares to see if my yarns would work.  They do!  And then I let it sit, always meaning to get back to it.  

I was lucky.  I left the tools in the bag.  That was a relief because I didn't remember what sizes I used at all.  

I now have 4 squares ready to go.

They just need to be sewn together to make the saddle shoulders of the top.    It's really quite simple and a genius design.  This is why I pay for patterns.  I want to keep people who see something different in a yarn or technique,  creating, so I can have the fun of making it.  

However, as much as I love the Geddy Tee, I am not going to make a granny cardi.  Not my thing, not even in the 70's.  But this touch of granny squares, is just right and very unusual.  

It helps that my yarns look really great together.  One is a sport weight Socks That Rock from eons ago, and the other is a humble very fine fingering weight in this deep gorgeous teal that will be held double.  

I am thinking about adding a wee bit more of the ricly multi colored STR near the bottom of the tee.  Not as granny squares.  I did think about that but a row of them running around me is too much, too wide. Maybe three rounds of filet crochet, or in other words, the groups of 3 stitches that the grannys are made of.  Something to think about as I knit the top.  

This morning is the Lusk Tee again.  After that, who knows.  

Getting on.

Okay world.  I am ready for spring.  You can stop it with the snow.  It would be very pretty if it was November.  I am so over snow for this year.  I shall make my day by watching Kew Gardens on YouTube.  Even the winter there is striking and leaves me feeling better.  There is a ton of Monty Don on Britbox too, all of which will make my soul stronger.  I may yet get through this most recent pile of snow.

I kept my knitting to spring things yesterday.  My top is growing.

This is going to be today's work as well.  Two row stripes are lyrical.  Ridiculously lyrical.  

I did stop knitting on this about 2 p.m.  I still wanted to knit so I picked up socks and did a bit.  I only have about an inch to go on the cuff till I switch out to the cream.  

I did want to make a mention of something I only realized this winter. 

Remember my advent socks?  

I love these socks and wear them a lot, but each time I do, I have one thought.  These socks are too long. The cuff is much longer than my usual cuff, and it's just not premium.  I love to wear them though.  They remind me of the fun I had making them.  But they are too long.  My perfect length is this.

I fold the sock at the heel and if the cuff and foot are equal, it's perfect. It works just right with my kankles and thick calves.  

Time to go have some Rice Krispie squares.  It's a perfect breakfast, right?  And maybe a glass of orange juice.  Almost healthy.  

Repairs

Having decided that I was giving myself a day off from my cotton top, I faced up to sorting out my MashUp top. Here is where I was when I caught the error.  Okay.  Not quite true.  After after my first attempt at fixing it.  

Utter fail.  

I have no problems with repairs unless it is garter stitch.  I understand what to do and on rare occasions repair it first try, but generally, I mess something up.  SO this time I wanted to unravel a few more stitches and then to flip the sweater just as I would when knitting.  

It looks like a bit of a blip where the earlier repair was, but all is right and will be sorted out once it is blocked.  

That was enough for the day.  I have no idea why, but I was mentally fried after the job was done.  I think I build it up to being a much bigger deal than it was.  

I prepared what I needed for today's soup (pea soup), I made some rice Kristie squares for a quick treat and that was the sum total of my day.  Besides the usual laundry and dishes (The bane of my existence) of course.

It's back to work on my cotton top today.  Back to work.  Back to stripey joy.  And supposedly back to another day of expected snow.  Oh well. You take what you get and there it is. 

** I just realized how different the colours in the photos are!  The first is the truer colour.

Still going

I woke this morning and had no idea what day it was, Monday or Tuesday.  I was pretty certain that it wasn't a weekend day but... It took a while till the world righted itself but right itself it did.  Monday, Monday.

I had a good weekend knitting.  Not great but good.  I knit as much as I could on my Tshirt.  

Joined below the arms!  

I love working on this.  Two rows is so liberating and creative somehow.  I've not done two rows that often if at all for a sweater so it's nice to know that I like it.  My next plan for  Kauni sweater is two rows.  Two colourways.

Sadly, it's cotton and even though I am loving it, I can't knit too long on it without my hands feeling it.  I quit when I feel it.  In fact, today is going to be a no knitting it day.

I alternated knitting the top this weekend, with this.  

I only have the cuff left!  It feels like this is going fast.  Fast but there is a wee problem.  See that stitch marker?  I dropped a stitch on one of the short rows.  I probably ought to have gone back and redone it but you know me.  I can live with it, right?  Right.  I really can.  I will stabilize it when I am weaving in ends.  

The snow here is looking rotten.  It will all be gone soon.  The sun has too much power to be defeated now.  However...it is going to be stormy and snowy and rather miserable over the next few days.  It is the way of springtime in Canada.  

Stripes

It's Friday again and I ought to work on socks but I think I will go with my current obsession.

It's coming along and I am really looking forward to having this done.  It's just going to be nice.  Simple basic and good.

I love stripes.  I really do.  It's such a small thing but till you do it you don't quite understand it.  It focuses you on what's next.  You are always looking forward.  Even though logic tells you that you are working at your usual pace, it feels fast.  

All the mushy ice has gone, melted off by the power of the sun.  Yes there still is a 3 foot bank 9f snow on the lawn but it's looking old and shriveled.  It has a layer of the last snow on it but you can see that the covering is on old bones.  Spring is coming no matter what snow says.  

 

Repairs

I am wearing a favourite sweater this morning.  

It's a simple saddle shoulder sweater knit with some help from Ann Budds Knitting from the Top Down.  I used the start up numbers to get the neck size I want and to get the saddle right and then I go off and just knit.  The yarn is Custom Woollen Mills Mulespinner and Noro Silver Thaw.  This is my favorite yarn combination ever.  The two yarns just create magic.

I haven't worn it in ages because it needed repair.  

All of the armscyes  were a problem.  One had a section where two strands were floating and the loop of a stitch was just sitting there, free.  The problem arises from knitting the yoke a bit too short but also lies in the yarn.  The split for sleeves happened in a row of the Silver Thaw, which is a slightly less sturdy spin than the CWM.  

I found some Regal that is a perfect grey match to use for repairs.  I did what is essentially a duplicate stitch to beef up those pulled open stitches to reinforce the underarms.  

And voila.  Wearable again.  

I have a couple more things needing sorting out.  

This is my Green BFL 2/8 Elton.  I need it now.  It is the perfect lightweight spring and summer morning sweater.  That sleeve edge is iffy after getting caught on the dishwasher rack.

I also need to fix a summer top that gets lots of wear.  

I made a Cascadas Tee out of this bright yellow Patons Hempster.  I loved this yarn and was hoping for more but it was discontinued.  Still I love what I have and want to keep the tee going for a good while yet.  A tiny section of the neck band stitches need repair and this yarn is always at hand. 

So a few more repairs this morning and then two more renewed sweaters to put out, ready for wear.  And then I can spend my day on the fronts of the Lusk cotton sweater.  Fronts are on the menu for today's work.  

There was snow and slushiness happening outside the last few days.  If you are feeling down, search Kew Gardens on YouTube.  Even the winter stuff looks lovely to my winter weary prairie eyes.  Keep your spirits up.  The sun is getting strong enough now to beat the snow.       

Woe or Not

I spent the day yesterday frogging and reknitting.  It could have been soul destroying but it wasn't.  I am not working on my Mashup Top.  I am working on the cotton t shirt.

I put up this picture of the start of the top yesterday, and the more I looked at it, the more I did not like it.  I started out thinking wide stripes but I did not like the way the colours looked.  They were ... wrong somehow.  Too blocky?  That is not what I wanted.  Not at all.  I ripped back to row three at the very start of the neckline.  

If wide stripes were not working then how about narrow, two row stripes?  

There.  That's better.  That's what these colours need.  I want it to say is it a white t-shirt with cream stripes or a cream t-shirt with white stripes.  That's exactly right.  

And then I had to rip back a few rows.  I intend to machine wash this top.  That means it will shrink.  I want the shoulders a bit wider to account for that.  I am also going to make it longer because the length will likely shorten a lot.  

Meanwhile I have a couple inches to do on the back and then on to fronts.  Worsted cottons knit up so nice and fast.

A Spring Dig

That.  Was.  A.  Good.  Day.  I cleaned my room and then I dug in yarn.  It brings me such joy when I dig through it all. 

I think of my stash as sweater quantities.  That has always been how I think of it.  It was a measure of what I needed in my life.  Pre thyroid medication, I was cold.  Deeply inside me cold that seldom was fixed by wearing one warm garment.  Wool was like a hug and it helped. That's why, in my mind my stash all looks like this.

Nice tidy bags of sweater quantities all sorted and ready for use.  But...

There is lots of this.  Single skeins or 2 or 3 of brilliant colours that burst from the boxes.   There are about 7 boxes like this.  Lace weights and fingering weights and all sorts of lovely things.  The idea that all my yarn is sweater quantities is ludicrous.  

Even though all my yarn is now in the closet and I no longer have an inspiration cabinet (it's a second sweater chest) it all fits in the closet.

Two of the boxes have significant space in them so next fall, I will probably merge them.  By then, there may be space in another box.  Who knows.

I forgot to put away ant of my winter sweater yarns but I did pull out a few yarns that I want to use for this summers crop of sweaters.  

The green is for Rebecca Clow's Airundle.  I thought very seriously about buying the perfect green yarn but I have this.  The crisp green is my current colour obsession, FYI.  This is close to perfect and it will do.  It is some St Denis Boreale, a sadly discontinued yarn that I will hold double.   I found a couple skeins to use for repairs on current sweaters too.  I pulled these all out to set up for projects.  Unfortunately I am out of the bags I like to use for pre projects, so I have to do something about that.  

I did rearrange the stash boxes so that the bins of cottons are easily reachable.  There are a few other yarns I want tops from before summer is done but I can't pull out the entire stash.  Well, I could but you know how it is.  

And then I went to have some tea and knit.  I know I have two very recently started projects but my knitting heart is not into them right now.  So this happened.

I have a giant box of Handicrafter cotton for pin loom weaving dishcloths, and one giant ball was pure white.  There was also some cotton yarn from a frogged project in the box.  It struck me that they would make a great speedy summer t shirt.  

And so it goes.  A new knit and yarn to dream with.  What a lovely thing...even if it snowed again last night and covered the rotten snow with a blanket of soft white.  It would be pretty in October.  But April?  Not so much.

Discombobulated

It was an odd sort of weekend.  I wanted to do something but everything I did was not right.  I didn't want that or this or anything.  I was discombobulated and unsettled and out of sorts.  

Friday I was knitting on my Mashup Top.  I was feeling good about that but then I saw I dropped a stitch 5 rows below.  I fixed it once and then saw that I missed the first of the dropped rows of yarn so I did it again.  Then this.

I set it aside.  I can't do repairs like this if I am frustrated.  I'm not ready to do it today either.  

I picked up my Kauni sweater and worked desultorily on that.  My heart wasn't in it so there isn't much progress.  Even then progress was slow because I am at the counting part where I needed to know my stitch number and gauge to check if I am ready to split for sleeves.  

What I really feel like doing is a deep stash dive.  The thought of that appeals to me.  I can pull out what I need to make repairs on a few sweaters and I can see what appeals to me for spring and summer garments.  I can also put some of my winter sweater making away.  It seemsmy desires were bigger than my knitting speed. As usual.

I did come across a movie that I really enjoyed.  It as an old one and really great if you are a Father Brown fan.  The movie was The Detective with Alec Guiness.  It is the closest representation of the Father Brown to the books in character.  In my opinion of course.  It's a gem of a movie.  

And that's it for today.  I have to go find my vacuum now.  Before the stash dive, I must deep clean the floors.   

Sock!

And somehow, since yesterday, there is a crust on top of the rotten looking snow piles on the front lawn.  Winter is not broken yet but it is looking like an old decrepit man today.

I didn't feel like knitting on sweaters.  I picked up a sock.  

The first of the green sock pair is complete.  I don't really know why but this basic sock with that worksock red stripe makes my heat beat faster.  Plus this.

The toe of sock two!  I am pretty chuffed at this.  Might be a pair of socks completed sooner rather than later.  

I also have started to notice that my sock knitting seems to be more likely to happen on Tuesday rather than Friday.  So I will pronounce  Tuesday as my sock day.  I suspect I will now find myself doing sock knitting on a different day because that is just how things go.