Two Solitudes

There was a quick disscussion on Ravelry yesterday in one of my groups about Sock Madness and who we should be cheering for.  

Sock madness is 4 teams of about 50 people each, knitting their heads off making more and more complicated socks.  The early rounds are everybody, and as the rounds complete and the socks get harder, the moderators judge who should continue from the pool of who is done their socks.  At the end of the month, on the last sock, only 1 knitter, the most successful knitter, usually the fastest knitter knits alone with all  her teammates cheering her on for sock supremacy.  

I love watching this kind of thing but I would never join it.  By now everybody will have noticed that while I might not shy from knitting hard things, I do have an affinity for earthy simple yarns and garter stitch.  There is such beauty and dignity in those things.

I knit plain socks.  I have knit a few that were mildly fancy, cables,  

I have knit at least 1 published pattern.  

but just one.

I have played with all sorts of variations of toes and heels and cast ons and cast offs.  It is not that I am unsophisticated, as it may appear to the initiated, but rather that it is a deeply personal choice to do and choose the simple. 

Mostly, its plain socks.  Ordinary yarn, but I do have some standards.  Like some colour changes just for a the thrill of watching what will appear.

Stuff like this, Regia World Circus Colour.  Plain.  Simple.  

Socks are my safe place.  You know, that thing you can knit and not have to think, that place where you don't have to step up to anybody else's expectations of what is fun to knit, what someone who should be knitting.

Socks, just ordinary socks that please me beyond reason are mine and mine alone.  Mine to knit, mine to gift, mine to wear.  Just mine and they are safe and right on any occasion and I don't know anyone anymore who questions my knitting them.  Well, all right.  Very very few people out here in the real world do.  Socks have  become part of me, part of who and what I am.  

Much as it is a choice to proceed more simply, it is also a need.  My own personal two solitudes.  

Packing my bags

I'm going to a knitting retreat this weekend.  Just a small retreat, 10 people IIRC.  I am really looking forward to it, but I am wondering what to pack.

I should be knitting on the sweater.  I will in fact take the sleeves along and will work on them but I don't want to be tied to a pattern when we are trying to visit and knit or knit and visit as the case may be.  The rest of the sweater will have to wait.

There are always socks to take along, in fact there is one set I that is hitting a time crunch and I need to get it off to its new owner.  There are several additional sets to choose from for no thinking knitting.

There is the shawl.  There is a lot of garter stitch on the center of it and I anticipate it will be the bulk of my get away knitting.  

But I feel as if there should be something more.  Something with a big challenge for when I need to just have a quiet space and time.  Whenever I go knitting anywhere, there are so many amazing ladies, knitting such incredible patterns, such complicated stitching.  I find it such a struggle to do that but I would like to try.  I think I am going to take my pretty little Forest mittens.  Its looks like very complicated knitting but is fairly simple, and so far the patterning has been basic.  I am about 1/3 way up the palm on the first mitten.  Not much I know, in what I thought would be a year of colour work, but it is what it is.

I might take along a few balls of yarn to swatch too.  Or maybe that bag of cotton that has been thrice started for sweaters.  Maybe I will start another!  I mean what if I can't find anything else to knit?

I'm taking along some books too, just in case I need to fill in the holes. And some magazines.  Maybe I should take that large knitting bag of yarn for another afghan?  What if I run out... 

Yeah, the idea of a weekend retreat of just knitting away from my usual haunts, is making me batty.  

I wonder if I am trying to recreate my study?  My study is my safe place, and is my home for knitting.  It might not make sense but surrounding myself with these things is part of my picture of a perfect weekend.  Well, that and the cook.  

No dishes, someone else to cook for me, good company, and a lot of knitting.  Yup.  Perfect weekend on the horizon.

What garter does.

As much as I am loving the garter on the pretty shawl, I really should be knitting the sweater.  It just isn't that long till Easter, and I do hope to have it done by then.

Shawl knitting, specifically garter stitch,  worked its magic once again.  It has given me the time to get back into the zone and understand why it isn't going so easily. Instead of thinking about why I am in a knitting funk, it gave me time to pick apart all the reasons and sort it out in my head and get over it.

When you knit, particularly if you are part of the online knitting community, there are some things that you know you can't bring up in polite knitting company.  Things like what kind of needles you prefer over others, and whether your style of knitting is the right way, and knitting versus crochet.  Silly things, but things every knitter has an opinion on and isn't afraid to express it.  It is really quite silly but then...

There are certain things that just feel right to me, things like metal needles for most knitting and bamboo for lace and slippery things.  Things like my preference for double pointed needles and one at a time when I knit socks.  Things like a little cotton in the blend being very good for socks and how bamboo isn't sturdy enough for any socks I am going to knit.

The things I prefer come from small differences in how muscle and bone are put together in my hands versus anyone else's hands, like how different needles sit in my hands and the unique way each of our brains are wired and the different experiences that determine how our brain interprets all sorts of different things, like  how cotton feels right at home as it runs through my hands and not so much in someone else's.

When I knit socks, I prefer to use double pointed needles.  They just feel right in my hands.  All the fun of it, the rhythm of it, the knit knit break, knit knit break of it it part of my sock knitting pleasure.  The joy of it goes away fussing around on that long loop thing of magic loop or fight past the which needle should I be grabbing now problem of 2 circulars.  There is no rhythm in those other methods of working socks.

And so it is with a bottom up sleeve, that other tube I knit a lot, on 1 short circular.  Not so much fun at all.  The knitting is looking better on the 4.5 mm needles.  It has lost that stand at attention look and become a nice causal fabric that suits its tweedy nature and the relaxed look of Brownstone.  But though these things are good, I am not really enjoying this way of getting there.  Oh for a spare pair of double points.  It might be very worth it to spend an evening locating one of the two sets of 4.5 mm dpns or even a mix of 5 of the 4.5 mm needles to get it moving along faster.

Plus, I did the increases too fast on this half done sleeve and have to rip back and go a little slower.  Yeah that makes is a lot less fun.

At some point I am going to have to stop playing on shawls which are just for fun and sit down and work on the sweater.  Wishing has never knit a sweater (but wouldn't it be nice).

And such is the path that a little garter stitch set me on.  Its like a fresh breeze clearing the cobwebs out of the corners.  Good for the soul.

Itchy still?

I stopped the endless haunting of the books and yarns around me and picked something out and well...  

I have long been wanting to knit Bridgewater, one of Jared Flood's lovely designs.  I had yarn for it.  I had the book and for a very long time, I thought I was ready, I just needed the space in my knitting cycle.  

And then I read that I needed 4 skeins of yarn.  I had 3.  Sigh.  

My local LYS did not restock.  It took a while but I finally ordered that last skein.  I knew that I wasn't going to get the same dyelot, but so many yarns come in so close that it wouldn't matter so long as I was careful.  

As you can see, that center ball is   a very different kettle of fish.  The first 3 are a rich heathered sort of gray with secrets hiding deep within, but the last is more of a sheeps gray.   The difference was bigger than I thought it would be.

I needed to sort out how to use them and still have enough yarn to finish the shawl.  I wondered if it was the right yarn choice after all.  I scoured Ravelry, but could never quite decide if I was going to commit to such a large project with yarns that might or might not work.  It sat for a very long time.

This weekend I jumped.  Its garter stitch.  I needed that I think.  Its heathered.  I needed that too, I think.  It is the easiest way of adding  stitches there is.  Knit front and back on the first stitch of every row.  It is almost the perfect thing to break out of a funk.  Plus it's got pretty lace.  

I fell into it, and began to knit with one ball of yarn, figuring that at about 1/3rd of the way on the additions, I would add in the 2nd ball.  Oh dear. That single ridge of lighter more browny gray stuck out like a sore thumb.  Rip.  Rip.

I re-started, alternating right away but I think you can see the difference here.  So long as it is an all over the main body thing, I'm ok with it.  So a striping I will go.  

Off and running and my fingers are loving it.  I'm using some bamboo tips for this project.  The longer I knit the more refined my knitting preferences are.  My usual nickle tips are just too slippery for lace.  I want to love knitting lace.  I have the stash that says I had darn well better enjoy it.  But with nickle tips, it was just not that much fun, no matter how much I loved the pattern.  So I tried some bamboo tips and they are the answer.  

Garter hasn't got the rhythm of lace, but it is such a wonderful, traditional foundation.  It is of the earth and the sky and of history and of people who knit a long time ago.  

I can't wait to knit a little more on it in the morning. I'm hoping I wake up before my alarm, so I can squeak in just and extra half an hour.  

And that is a very strong indicator that the funk is done.

That was nice

Knitting on the Clapotis was really nice.  I'm not sure that it has quenched my itchy fingers, but it was nice.  OK, I know it has not calmed my itchy fingers.  

Never the less, it is what I am going to focus on finishing as my 'needs something beside the sweater' project.  Beside the several socks on the go, that is.    

 

I have some yarn coming soon.  Its another wee shipment from St Denis yarns.  I say wee because it really isn't very much.  Just a few skeins of Sport in  sheeps gray and some denim Durasport to go with the other skeins of denim and sheeps gray in the stash.  There was a little thing that happened as I passed the Boreale section of the website too.

I think the sheeps gray is a contributing factor in the yarn funk I have going.  I think I am in love with this yarn.  It is really the most interesting stuff.  It has a delicious warm natural heathered look to it.  I think I was born to be heathered.  There are depths and hidden secrets, corners of sheep and corners of gray, that will be revealed as I knit.  

I would have started but I have to wait to see what happens with dye lots.  Two different source means it will not be the same dye lot which is neither here nor there.  It is going to be a textured and I have no problem alternating balls so for this end use, I am not anticipating any problems.  It does mean I don't even want to start the project until the other arrives though.  

And so I wait.  It is some consolation to know something special is coming in the mail for me, but there is that wait.  Dear post office, much though I malign you in my everyday life, in my yarn life, I revere you.  You bring me good things.  Bring it faster please.

The yarn funk should be over soon.  

No, not socks.

I did try socks.  I was sure it would feel right, but no.  So I am still in search of what my hands want to knit.  

My WIP bin was looking really promising so I have pulled out my ongoing Clapotis. I started it last spring and hoped to get it done so I could wear it in summer.  I never said which summer! 

I thought I was on to the second ball, but nope.  I have about 5 grams of the first ball to go.  That was a little disappointing but well, that is the way it goes.

The yarn is Wendy Happy.  Purported to be a sock yarn by most people, sold as such, it has never said said sock yarn to me.  From the beginning, it said shawl, wrap and quite possibly, it may have even whispered Clapotis the moment I saw it.  

  

It is a bamboo rayon and nylon yarn, and it is soft and slippery, and might feel great to wear on your feet, but honestly, no amount of nylon will make it good for socks.  Rayon fibre holds moisture and socks are not a good place to have moisture held.  But a shawl?  Oh yes.  Bamboo rayon's goodness is perfectly displayed in that sort of wearable object.  

Oh dear.  I looked at my rave project page.  2 years.  It is two years since I started this.  Oh I hate that.  

I have to switch out the needles.  I have nickle tipped needles on it right now and these days, I prefer bamboo tips for slippery yarns but it is time to get this project done.

Yesterday

When I tried to post yesterday, my internet went down.  Not my router, which is usually where the problem lies, but my internet signal.  Realistically, I know that it wasn't me, but when that happens, for just a few minutes, I felt like I broke it for the whole world.  ;)  Not that I had anything important to say, mind, but it was disconcerting. 

The sweater continues apace and my little diversion is done

and now I don't quite know what to knit next.  It never fails that when I am closing in on a project being done (and the sweater is closing in on being done), my mind wanders to what is coming next.  

I know there are a thousand things I would like to knit, and there are a few things I should knit, but I am not sure if I want to do any of them right now.  

I know I talked about Undercurrent, but it is the same colour palette as every other big project I have knit on this year, the brown gray natural.  I worry I will quite simply tire of the colour midway through and there I will sit with no sweater and no gumption to finish.  I hate that.

I should probably knit a couple summer weight sweaters and work down some of the massive pile of non-wools that I have.  I started a couple things this past year, but they went no where.  I have the yarn all wound and ready for my Bacardi sweater, just need to knit the swatch.  I have some really gorgeous yarns that I swatched last summer, but none of them are what is on my mind right now.  None of them appeal to my fingers.  

And yet they all appeal to my fingers.  I might swatch.  Swatching really isn't starting is it?  I mean it isn't committing myself to something just yet.  

Or would it mean I have just that many more unused swatches on the swatch board?  

I think that means this week is going to be a sock week.

Another knitting weekend!

I got so much done this weekend.  Half a sleeve and the whole body of the sweater are done in the new gauge. I did a deep tidy of the Cascade 220 bin.  

It was past time to go digging in the Cascade bin.  A lot of the colours were assembled when I was trying to figure out Mr. Needles vest so there are a lot of grays, browns and walnuts and rusts.  I was thinking about the Cascade stash earlier this week.  I wondered if I had enough good things to combine to work up into a vest.  Not Mr. Needles colours, though I certainly could do that (heaven knows there is plenty left), but maybe there was something that was a little more me.  There is if I keep it simple.  It will be a target project for fall, a second colourwork vest. I already have one planned in blue and white, if you recall, though I hope to do that this summer.

When I was digging, I came across some other pretties too.  One of my Christmas goodies, some very delicious butter cream Mirasol Sulka.  

The moment I saw it, I knew exactly what it was meant to be.

The Bandana Cowl from Purl Soho.  It doesn't look like much here.  It is need of a good blocking before you really see how nice it is.  I used about 1 and a half skeins, and then sat down to do something sensible with the rest.

  

Then I made one of these.

Simple, basic mittens.  

With a wee bit of a purl pattern on the back of my hand.  

I always carry a couple spare pairs of glove s in my car in the winter.  You never know when you will need to warm up someones fingers.  My spares were gone but for one lone mitt and that one went missing in some time in February.  

So when I had a comfy cushy soft buttery yarn left over, I knew it too, had a predetermined fate.  It would make great mittens and would go into the emergency car supply.  

It might be odd to be doing this in the spring, but for a few things.

Its March, and March can get really ugly and its Canada.  Mitten weather is never all that far away.

What else you can do with Knitting Needles

Cool, Yes?

All I got was a t-shirt

Mr. Needles was off for his usual midwinter golf thing and once again, after a bit of ribbing,  

 and joshing from his buddies,

He brought something home for me.

It really isn't quite so bright as it seems here.  It is more of a soft peach, or melon colour.  Very soft and pretty.  

Its a yarn I haven't worked with yet, Cascade Pacific, a 40/60 blend of wool and acrylic.   There are so many babies to knit for this spring and summer and its is the perfect blend for easy care and long wear for kids and families, I am very sure it will get put to good use.  I'm looking forward to it.

And to all his golfing buddies, should they or their wives be checking the blog (or not), thanks for putting up with my wee small request.   

I did a bunch more ball winding today.  It was one of those kind of days.  I had a good time.

Then I finished a project, and though it turned out nice, I should have foll,owed my instincts and  knit 1 part of the lace in the white.  You will see what I mean when I get around to blocking it.

And then I knit socks and my pretty In the Forest Mittens.  I did not want to knit on the sweater.  None of it stuck.  I could not settle. 

It is the spring thing.  It always hits me at this time of year.  Its sunny and nice looking outside. But it is too cold to just hang out on the porch.  I guess that will come...

 i swatched a little when I couldn't settle on anything.  To the left is Custom Woolen Mills 2 ply in a warm heathered gray and the other is Noro Silver Thaw.  At first glance, the earthy homespun looking Custom Woolen Mills yarn isn't a good match for  Noro's lovely Silver Thaw.  In price they occupy the opposite ends of the scale but they are reasonably well matched in weight, the colours work, and the local to me yarn follows the same production ethic that the Noro yarns are created with.  They will be a warm and snuggly combination.

I am inspired by Undercurrent from last fall's Knitty.   A friend knitted it and it looks great!  I need to do a lot of changes.  I'll go with a shawl collar a la Cowichan shaping instead of a hood as well as the usual shaping for fit.  And pockets.  A sweater like this must have pockets.

I am in need of a comfortable, casual kicking around the yard kind of sweater to wear in place of that summer jacket I haven't had in years.  

I felt like winding yarn

On occasion, I take a day or so and do very little knitting.  When I do, sometimes I play in the stash and sometimes I wind yarn.

Yesterday I wound yarn.  

Yesterdays winding was lace weights and a couple fingering weights. No tension, but not so loose that the ball fall apart.  (Also, much though I think Vogue Knitting is foolish to go strictly i-digital, the spring issue is, once again, a truly wonderful thing.)

I know that a lot of people don't like to wind till it is time to knit. I understand why.  Sometimes, the ball winder and swift combine to make a ball of fibre so tight that you can barely pull the fibre out of the center ball, so tight that every ounce of stretch the yarn ever had is used.  I'd worry about yarn that was under that kind of stress for a very long time and if I wound like that and left it, I probably wouldn't wind early either.

I am the master of the double wind.  Once off the swift and then off the ball for the perfect yarny cakes of goodness. On occasion and yarn dependent, sometimes it goes to a 3 level wind to create the perfect tidy cake.  They only have a little bit of stress and tension on them, much like any nice ball of yarn you would find in the store.  If yarn is caked, it stores so tidily in the square sided bins.  I don't know if it saves room but it makes such a tidy pile that it warms the cockles of my heart.  

I like how cakes of yarn sit so quietly, so well behaved beside me when I work from them.  I can put a few in the bottom of a workbasket and they just sit there waiting.  I like that.

But most of all, I like having it all wound up so that when I get it in my head that I absolutely must knit with x today, I can take it and knit and just have a good time.  If I have to wind everything before I start, that can and has stopped me from working on that project.  When that happens, I usually end up with other things started and a bunch more wee things in the WIPs bin.

My preparation in advance seldom means that I knit with a plan.  Indeed, on seeing a new knit queue organizer program on sale in a magazine, I was repelled.  Trying to follow a knitting plan usually reveals that I wasn't listening to what I really like, but was listening to what everyone else is doing, or what I think I ought to do. A general direction, East, west or south is as much a plan as I need. I prefer to knit on a whim and choose my projects on the fly.

I just like to be ready so that when it is time to fly I can do it with as little effort and as efficiently as possible.  

Holden

Knitting on the sweater was bound to leave me wanting a little something else.  My son is a large tall man, and it takes a lot of stockinette to cover him.  I can knit about 4 hours with the yarn before I have to rest my hands or knit something else.

Since I had long lovely hours this weekend, I wanted to knit a little something else.  I thought it would be a break from the stockinette and the non stretchy yarn.  I did a little stash diving, and came across some yarn and I dug out the pattern and away I went.

The pattern is Holden and the yarn is Drops Lin.  Holden, if you have not knit it, is stockinette and the yarn is a pure absolutely non stretchy linen.  

I get away from those 2 things, by going even deeper into them.  Like most simple little laces, it is a very different experience than knitting a simple mans sweater and that seems to be enough.

I would like to say that Holden is a strikingly lovely pattern and I am enamored of this yarn.  It is slippery and shiny and crisp but is not hard-crisp as many other linens are.  It is a little softly spun, a little loose along the edges, and while those qualities might drive some batty, it sure works for me.  

I would be long done but for the fact that I had to re-knit one row in the first lace repeat 6 times before I realized the problem was not in the knitting(always my first assumption), it was not with the pattern(the usual second), but that it was that the knitter was reading the wrong row of the pattern.  I usually mark stuff like lace, but this lace is so simple, it is such a tiny chart, that I didn't think I needed it.  I did.  For a whole afternoon, I really did.

I know March is in its early days yet, but I think March already has a theme.  Re-knit.  I could be sad about that but what the heck. 

It is all very good yarn, and good yarn is just a possibility.  How could anybody be sad with all this possibility around her?

It seems so long

Friday seems like so long ago.  There was a lot of knitting happening here over the last few days.  I think I will start where I finished, on the sweater.

I'm hoping you can see the difference in the photos.  The sleeve, to the left in the photo, is knit on 4 mm needles.  It is from the original work.  I don't know why, perhaps it is that there is no wool in this yarn, but my knitting was very firm.  It looked all right, and I would have left it if not for the simple fact that I was knitting much more tightly than the gauge I planned the sweater around.  

The new gauge on 4.5 is much nicer, just  to the right, a little looser, and there will now be some ease in the sweater.  I suspect the way he likes his clothes, some ease is going to be important.  He is a casual sort of fella.

I'm pretty pleased with how far I have come over the weekend.  It shouldn't take too long to get back to the collar split again.  And from there, just a bit of knitting to go to the underarms.  

There was other knitting, relief knitting from all that stockinette and the firm feel of high cotton percentage yarns.

The last ball of my slinky chunky Misti Alpaca.  I was 3/4 done another scarf, when it occurred to me that the perfect thing for a gorgeous yarn stuck in a project bad project, would be Brioche stitch something.  And so it came to be.  A nice slippy buttery good yarn rich with the depth and life of basic Brioche stitch with buttons from the button box.  It will make someone warm some day.

Being good

At the end of a week, where I have been fairly wishy washy about what I really wanted to knit, I am feeling settled again.

I really wanted to get the Lilia Hyrna shawl done, but I am not ready to find out where my screw up is.  I worked on the socks and though it is an interesting way to knit a heel, it isn't holding my interest.  My mind wanted to be elsewhere.  OK, I admit it.  I wanted to be knitting that pretty green.

I decided to pull back a sweater so it was ready to knit.  If that didn't settle me, I planned to wind yarn.  Laceweight.  Yup.  I was ready to pull out the big guns.

I didn't have to.  

Once I was working on the sweater, it started feeling right.  I settled and then, once it was all pulled apart, started knitting on it again.  A little diligence and I will be back where I was before Christmas in short order.  Son 2 should be getting his present before Easter.  

And so it grows.

Some things just happen.

I spent some time wandering in yarn store yesterday.  There were so many pretty things to reacquaint myself with.

Some managed to follow me home.  One of the things that managed to follow me home was a very pretty ball of Zauberball Starke 6, a sportweight version of one of my favourite pretty things.

I've worked with this weight of Zauber goodness before on my Purple Haze shawl.

It is completely possible that I love the sportwieght version of Zauberball Crazy even more than the regular fingering weight version.

The Starke 6 (at the back) was welcomed by two balls of the same colourway of the regular weight of Zauberball Crazy.  (It is a good thing I like all Zauberball, isn't it?)

I have a thing for this colour palette too.  If you recall this wee project?  Turquoise blues and bright apple greens.  Magic!

Though I would have preferred the comfort of two balls for what I have in mind, one was better than none.  A little something else to hold the worry of running out of yarn at bay, followed him home.  

 A couple balls of a perfectly matching fingering weight apple green.  For what I plan, and for the way I hope to use it, the small difference in weight, shouldn't matter.  And, the green really is just the back up plan.  

A two ball back up plan?  Two balls because if I don't need it for this project, I might as well have enough for a decent pair of socks. 

And so a mighty stash grows.   

Forgotten photos of finished things.

I finished my Damson  shawl in December.  I have worn it to work a few times and it has received rave reviews every time.  

But I never did get around to better photos of it.

It loses a lot in the photos.  The colour isn't as vital as it is in life.  In life the blues glow and the black and grays have inky depths.  

In life, the difference in texture between the garter stitch section and the stockinette lace is fantastic.  

And beyond it all, it is soft and completely lovely. It is a thing to sigh over.

I've completed section one of the sweet tomato heel.  I'm sure it will be smooth and nice after all is said and done, but I'll have to practice a little while on my short row technique first.  

Sweet Tomato Heel

I came across something just a little different the other day.  Cat Bordhi has been playing again!

Sweet Tomato Heel

There are some great videos out there too.



Very interesting.  

I might just have to knit a little faster on this sock

to try it out!

Side Note to Self:  Why oh why didn't you make a tag when you started this blog for 'Socks'...cause you are always talking socks.  Sigh.

After all

After last weeks busy knitting, this weekend was a little more laid back.  Not laid back really, but I didn't complete anything.

I had hoped too.

Sunday morning, I was down to 4 rows to bind off on the Lilia Hyrna shawl.  I made an error somewhere on the row, so I ripped it back and re-knit, and still had the error. Just before this row of patterning was a plain knit row and two plain purl rows, so the error, if it exists is somewhere about 5 rows below.  I set it down.  

Just didn't have the heart to go on right now.  Sometimes, when faced with the awful power of the number 2, or in my case the number 3, the best option is to set it down and think about it for a while.

I did think about taking apart the sweater that I need to finish for son2 but though I am ready for knitting on it again, I didn't have it in me to start the ripping back for it either.

I thought about knitting something new, but I slapped myself upside the head and told myself quite sternly that I really needed to finish something before I started another project, or that big WIP basket would be overflowing once again.

I could have knit on a sock, but ...I have no idea why I didn't do this.   I really have no idea.  Instead of knitting on a new sock, I choose to do a little of this.  

I knit some patches for some older socks that were way past darning.  There were 3 heels repaired in all.  In the same yarn.  I thought about doing a more matching repair, but if I ever want to use all my sock yarn bits for something more substantial, I'll need the bigger bits. I used a wee ball of something left over from one of Mr. Needles socks instead.  

It wasn't a weekend of massive knitting accomplishment but my fridge is clean and the kitchen is just a glance away from spit polish.  Two pairs of socks are back into service.  In the grand scheme of things, two pairs of socks, a clean kitchen and a clean fridge are nothing to sneeze at.  

And a Wee Bit More

I'm taking it to Friday with last weekends knitting!

As I mentioned, I did a good and deep dig in the yarn stash.  One of the things that struck me was how many lone balls of yarn I have.  I don't mean the sock yarn.  I mean the stuff that is 100 metres at all kinds of weights.  I have some very lovely yarns in this category and though some of them were bought for mittens or hats, many were given to me.  For many of them, 1 ball is all I will ever have.  Such is the land of the discontinued yarn.  I suppose I could search Ravelry for some, but really, there are so many other good things out there, that if find a pattern I just have to knit, I'd start with new yarn choices, or choices where I have plenty of yarn in the stash.  I wouldn't even consider these.  These loner balls are just going to have to be  small things.

When I get and idea, I'd like to use them up.

So as I said I was digging and came across some Chunky Misti Alpaca.  My fingers, it seems, much though they love working with simpler types of yarns, wanted to knit some buttery soft slippery yarns.  Out the 3 different loner balls came.

And turned into these...

First off, the basic unshaped tube Cowl.  It is really wonderful in this kind of yarn and it shows off the soft colours perfectly.

And a plain ribbed scarf, just perfect for filling in necklines of coats on cold winter days.  

I didn't finish the third, but there isn't any rush.

Since winter gave it a miss here this year, I will be waiting for next year to use them...

I have to make this quick.

One of my sisters is coming to dinner and to stay the night.  

There was yet more knitting last weekend.  

I finished a pair of socks.  Finally one pair for the year.  Its is a darn good thing that I am not doing one a month this year.  Yaaaaaay, me.

I started another pair too.  

This is one of the Regia line, I forget the name, but it is the one that was knit into a scarf like thing ready to be what you wanted it to be.

Most of the fun of that type of thing is that they are usually dyed after they are knit into a tube or flat piece or, in this case a scarf.  You get interesting little variations of colours when you do that.

This one is not.  It is just a sock yarn, dyed, then knit for packaging reasons and Regia thought that it was the packaging that made it cool.  

Hah.  No. In this case, Regia didn't get the message.  It still is nice yarn and will make a fine pair of socks, but they won't have that cool factor I was hoping for.

Ah, more knitting

As I was saying, there was more knitting, though surely that eye popping turquoise is hard to beat.

I completed a cowl I had started from of the other ball of Wadaiko. Initially I was knitting this one row of that wonderfully matching Tove, and one row Wadaiko.  

That irritated me to no end.  I found the dragging of they yarn around and around tiring.  It probably didn't have anything to do with anything other than I am not really fond of things knits on big needles.  It was driving me batty.

I took it apart and just knit it out of the Wadaiko.  80 stitches. Big needles. Knit every stitch in the round till you have a nice tube.  

Instant Cowl.

Its good.  I kind of like it. Nice Noro colours.  A little Noro makes everything better.

NOT Shalom

It is finished, even the buttons, but I needed to think about something different this weekend.  And I did.

Friday night, after finishing Shalom, I went digging in the yarn stash. I had no idea what to knit.  I only knew I wasn't ready to commit to something from the WIP basket. Digging through yarn struck me as the perfect task.

I opened every box and fondled every skien.  Well at least one of every colour, but I went through everything.  I wasn't tremendously inspired by anything.  

I didn't finish the digging till noon Saturday and by then, inspiration did strike but it really wasn't my ordinary project and it wasn't just one thing.  

I will start with something that I showed you just after Christmas.  One of my boys, my youngest, gave me a few balls of yarn for Christmas.  You may remember this.  

See that brilliant turquoise Tove and the multi coloured Wadaiko?  As I was digging I rediscovered   

two balls of perfectly colour matched 2 ply from Custom Woolen Mills.  I finally knew what the bright skein of Wadaiko and the Tove would be.  A felted bag.

It is bright and eye popping and I love it.  

The perfect thing at the end of a couple of nice but staid projects.  Perfect for midwinter blahs.  

But there was much, much more knitting this weekend.  Stay tuned.

Inches and Sleeves

The last 2 days have been days of inches and finishing the bottom of Shalom.  This next day or so will be a days of sleeves.  Or not.

The main part is complete.  I just need to do a little finishing around the sleeves.

The pattern binds off the stitches that are left for the sleeve caps and do a good sturdy cast on for the underarm stitches.  It makes a nice open summery sleeve. 

The other popular option is to pick up the stitches for the sleeve caps (on holders, not bound off) and pick up stitches at the underarm and knit a ribbed section to form short little sleeves.  It might be a little closer to seasonal wear and has more of a finished look.  

I like both.  I have no idea which I will do but I am leaning towards the small sleeves.  I also know how lazy I am, and if lazy wins, I will just pick up stitches and make a nice finished garter edge and bind off.

I won't knit this evening.  There is time tomorrow.  And this weekend is the family day weekend so its nice and long.  And this time I have no where to go and nothing to do.  I might cook for the kids but otherwise lovely knitting, knitting and more knitting.

Again with the Shalom

Yes there is still dedicated knitting on Shalomy.  I know!  I'm schocked.  It's been 5 days and just one project has been worked on. What is my world coming to?  I would worry but I have seen my WIP basket.  

I am close to complete...I think. On my Shalom, that is.  I have to put it onto a longer needles to try it on again and make sure that it fits nicely around my hips.  I want to know that it is long enough (to short and I feel uncomfortable) to cover when I sit down as well.  If I was tired of it, this is where I would have to be diligent about keeping knitting it, but I am not at all tired or bored with it.  It has moved along too well for that. 

I haven't really talked about the yarn yet.  It is Cascade Eco Plus.  It is a good thing I have more in my stash because  I love this stuff.  It is a more processed looking yarn than the Briggs and Little, Lopi and the other earthy homespun yarns I like, but it doesn't have nearly the firm spun qualities of Cascade 220.  It is loftier and softer and knits to a slightly larger gauge. The very very large skeins (437 m) means almost no ends to work in and even then, felted joins work beautifully.  I think I love everything about it.

You might hope to come here and read the truth about the yarns that I use and the I knit.  I might be able to be reasonably balanced about the patterns I knit and the books I read, but I don't think it is possible for me to be anything other than pleased with the yarn I am working with.  

Yes, this is the blog where I never met a yarn I didn't like. I have the stash to prove it.

Close but no cigar.

A sweater on the weekend?  Not quite, but I did fairly well.

Another few inches.  Shalom, in Rust Cascade Eco Plus.  

I understand why this pattern is so very popular with knitters.  The top part is rhythmic to knit.  Its purls and knits through the back loops are simple but make such a crisp lines that it is hard not to fall for this sweater over and over again.

I can also understand why, even knitters who don't feel comfortable winging it are winging it.  The basic instructions are so sound, so simple.  It doesn't take a genius to figure out how much more you need to make it fit you.  

Had I stayed home the whole weekend, I would have done it but I visited with friends. I drove to Lacombe.  I took my daughter in law to dinner.  Life is full.  

And very very good.

Shalomy

I took a trip to that dangerous territory in Lacombe, better known as The Crafty Lady and I came home with just a few balls of yarn. 

Nothing huge but still special.  Noro Kureyon would be special even if I had a hundred skeins.   And once again, bought with a very very specific purpose in mind.  

It's sitting here with a skein of Cascade Eco.  I have a few of these and am not going through with the original project it was bought for, so what was once a smart idea is now 3 colours, 1 ball each of Eco. It isn't quite enough to do anything with.  

Except a project like a Shalom if you use some Noro for the ribbed section.  There are dozens of them on Ravelry and I. Want.  One.

So as soon as this sweater is done, I will knit another.  It's a Shalomy time of year.

Temp Work

What an interesting day. I slept late this morning which after not sleeping much this week, I surely deserved.  And so as you see, no blogging this morning. I was feeling a lot more than dog tired.  

And this evening I feel light as a bird!  As I might have mentioned, or maybe not, I have been working as a temp this fall doing accounts payable at an local Edmonton firm that did business around the world.  I had the opportunity to apply for my position full time and I did, but I asked them to take my name out of contention.

My previous office experience was as an office generalist.  In a small business, I did a little of everything and for a very long time all of everything.  This was strictly AP and I found out some things about AP that are just plain weird.

For instance, did you know that most people figure that if a cheque doesn't go out fast enough, it must be AP's fault. Wow.  There were a few times where yes, it was my fault, but there were only 3 that I can honestly say it was me and only me.  There were dozens of people touching, signing, sorting, adding, deleting and sometimes losing from each and every thing I did, after, between, and before I did my part.  But I  and AP were the end of the line.  In AP you get all the abuse from inside and outside your firm. If it doesn't happen on time, it is your fault.  AP has to have a very strong self image and a surety of the quality of their work.  I was unprepared for just how much.  I should have known better.  I do now.

AP also has no ability to control what happens to anything ever.  That was a real struggle, to know that no matter what I did there were walls that nobody and nothing I did would breach.  And that was for payments that were clean and pristine and didn't have any problems.  I have always thought that if you worked hard and did your best things would resolve and be done.  Not so in AP.  A mountain is a mountain and sometimes, nothing will move it out of your path, even when you know how to drill through the mountain.

I had a good long talk with my sister who works in AP for a huge international company and I felt so much better.  I did take a bit of a 'suck it up buttercup' approach to my last week and I felt a lot better about the whole thing.

I know I did right asking for my name to be taken out of contention because when they told me I was done, I was content. Not thrilled, mind.  It was a great place and they had wonderful people, but content.  My first thought was Monday I can go to the yarn store for a good browse!

As we were were making dinner this evening (OK Hubby did it all - nice man that he is) I had a second thought. That thought was gee I wonder if I can knit a sweater in 3 or 4 days.  That is all the time I might have.  I do have some other irons in the fire and who knows what might happen and where I might go.

So I am going to take the next few days to do just that.  Knit a sweater.  I'm not going overboard here.  I know I can knit a Leisl in 2 days, but 2 of those is enough.  I was thinking Shalom.   A lot of people found it a quick knit.

I have some lovely rich gray  and turquoise from Custom Woolen Mills as well as some rich rust Cascade Eco Plus that might work nicely.  I have to think about which...

but not too long.  A sweater by the end of Monday. Hmmm. Do-able?  We shall see.

Why get one blog post from a project when you can get two?

Haha, you caught me, Sandra!  Yes quite wrong of me not to note the pattern.  

Sivia Harding's Victorian Shoulderette.  This was one of the first knitting patterns I favourited when I got to Ravelry.  I have loved it that long.  I don't know why but those small collar type shawlettes, pelerines might be a better name, have always appelaed to me.  

There is a lovely example in Victorian Lace Today - The Harebell Fichu  and another, the Lace Fichu  I have no doubt that I am heavily influenced by the Battenburg lace collars that were very popular in the 80's .  If I dug deep I think I bought one once, but never wore it because it looked stiff and odd.  But a knitted fichu?  Oh yes.  Very very me. 

Oh my, another one is the Opera Fichu, also from Victorian Lace Today.  A lot of the small shawls so very popular today would have been called fichus in times past.  Annis is a very pretty example from Knitty.com or the Fabulous Filigree Scarf from the book One Skein Wonders. 

Sorry about that.  I could go on. Really I could.  There are so many and they are so stunning.

OK, Back to the Victorian Shoulderette.  

I never knew what yarn I would make it out of, but I always knew I would make it.  Ideally, the yarn should have been just a little heavier, double stranded would have been perfect with Trauco but I was a little concerned about yarn quantity.  Still I am pleased with it and look forward to wearing it a lot.

See, a whole other post about the same wee project.  ;)

Picking up some older stuff

After finishing the big tie shawl, (Noon on Sunday) I knew I was going to have to knit something quick.  My fingers itched to knit.

I looked at new books, and pulled outsome lace but nothing struck me with a ' you must cast on this ___ now.' urgency.

I sat looking at the basket of WIPs on the shelf, the one with the green basket stuffed in it.  The first thing that crossed my mind is a project of shame.

It isn't because of what it is, or how long it has been a WIP.  I feel just a bit of shame, because I had no pictures of it at all till I was about 5 minutes from finishing it.  This hasn't happened since I started knitting.  I take usually take photos compulsively.  Pictures. More pictures.  Pictures of almost every row!

But not with this one.I started it the last time I had a good long visit with my mom and dad.  Good visiting knitting.  Lots of plain knitting.  

I think I had 1/4 of the outer edging to work on yet here. 

Now I don't have to be ashamed.  It can hold its head up among all the other projects now.

Blocked and ready for show!

Yes I know.  These days a weekend with 2 finished projects is almost unthinkable.  

After was finished, I sat there looking at that darn basket again...

More tomorrow.

PS.  Thank you for the nice comments on my wrap.  I love it too.  It is so nice when a plan works out!

Other things to knit

You would think, what with writing everyday, all the things I knit would show up on the blog.  Not so.

I was taking photos of my lovely new shawl and I was sitting being warm and cozy in it.  I had my feet up on my chair and I realized there was knitting that no one had ever seen.

A year or so ago, just before Christmas, I had this idea that I would knit everyone a pair of slippers.  There is a slipper pattern at RCY that is the simplest, most fantastic felted slipper pattern ever.

It is like a super sized sock, low fitting on the ankle and round in shape and oh so comfy.  It is so easy to customise, to add little embellishments. They are knit with a double strand of Lopi or a any Aran or heavy worsted weight yarn.  Lots of times, people would knit a strand of mohair with the other yarn just to add a little snuggly cushiness or a few strands of  novelty yarn at the ankles to make fantastical cuffs.  Once felted, they are perfect for embroidering or beading too. 

I thought I would try it.  I knit 2 pairs plus one slipper of the third pair and that is as far as I got.  I threw the first pair of slippers in the washer to felt them and after 2 good washes, they fit nicely.  But they weren't very felted.  I wore them till there was nothing left of the soles.  

The last pair was sitting in a wee tub on a shelf here for months and I pulled them out the other day when I was cleaning the study.  I felted them, but only one go round in the washer so they retain their newly knit look.  Another wash would felt them up nice and tight. Another was would also make them too small.

That, you see, was my quandry.  I was knitting on big needles, which I dislike,  with two strands of yarn (Thick yarn.  Dislike.) and the final product, given the size I knit them prefelting, was too small.  After 2 pair, that were too small, I was completely un-rewarded. Without the thrill of a finished product, I was bored.  

And that was the end of the great slipper project.  With every project I learn something.  With this one, I learned I am not a slipper knitter or wearer.  

I do socks.  It is more than enough.

The pattern is for sale for just enough to cover the printing costs, at River City Yarn in Edmonton, Alberta. The pattern is great.