Not a cold

I'm sure that it isn't a cold now. When I think on it, the not being able to knit should have been a sign.  Its a good thing for you that the weekend is here and you won't have to listen to me whine.  Can I tell you a secret?  All I really want is my mummy.

Still, there was some knitting content in the last few days.  Somewhere in the blur that was yesterday or the day before, I stopped to look at Elann's website.  

Elann is one of my all time favourite discount houses, but like anything you have to be very careful and know your prices and avaiability of goods to know if you really got a deal.  The Whats new page held something special the other day.

There were a couple of copies of Janel Laidmans Enchanted Sole.

I don't really do a lot of fancy socks and don't have many sock books in my sock library.  You just don't need many to do plain socks.

But Enchanted Sole, like anything from Janel Laidman's needles is far from ordinary      

and more.

The book is a thing of beauty and shortly one copy will be mine.  A little enchantment is just what I need right now.

 And if any of you know the flu fairy, just send her my way.  

Fog alert

Fog alert is still high and my brain is stuffed with nonsense.  

The only thing I did last night when I got home was  have a grilled cheese sandwich and some chicken soup and crawled to be. 

I am living the high life, I tell you.

Where was I?

I am a little foggy today.  I seem to have the cold Sweet Thing had last week.  That is what happens when you kiss and play with a germy baby, but I think I can take it.  Maybe.  I let you know after today.  If I make it through today I can make it through anything.

I didn't knit yesterday.  Not one single stitch.  I slept all day.  I knew I wasn't fit to be on the roads yesterday morning so I begged off work and just slept.  I wish I could say it did more good than it did.  

But right now I have to get to work and do all the things I didn't get done yesterday.  

On the bright side, there was a box at the door when Mr. Needles came home yesterday.  My copy of Downton Abbey season 2 arrived.   Things are looking up!

Miles of comfort.

My knitting right now isn't very exciting.  The sweater might be if I felt like knitting it right now, but it is still on a time out.  It broke my heart with its sleeve problem.  I'm sure I will fall in love with it again.  It is awfully pretty and so much of it is done.

So I am working on the Bridgewater shawl, which is garter stitch.  Garter stitch, garter stitch and more comforting garter stitch.

This picture has decided to go waterfall, but you can still see that it becoming large.  Not overly so.  I still have a long way to go before I am at the proscribed 205 stitches, but it is already longer than the 32 inch needles.

Because I am knitting a lot of rows of garter stitch, I decided that I would mark it into groups of 20.  There isn't much point in knitting more than one must.  Well, unless I decide that the quantity of yarn means this shawl should be larger.  I haven't quite decided that yet, but I might go larger by 2 of the lace pattern repeats on the lace border.  Or maybe one.   I like garter stitch, and garter stitch is so comfortable, but I am not crazy.

Or maybe I am.  

A Big Bag Full of Yum

My birthday yarn arrived on Friday.  What a lovely way to start the weekend.  

A great big bag full of yummy colours, shown here in a pile of 1 of each.  

The really cool thing is, that without having any but a little bit of yarn to go by, I managed to pick exactly the right colours for what I have planned. The primary red, yellow, green and blue in the base of creamy goodness are exactly Point Blanket colours, perfect for the Point shawl.  

And the more brilliant green, blue, orange-red and yellow with a little help from the remainders of the red in a ground of navy, are exactly the right colours for the Leftie shawl.  

I had to empty out a pretty basket to bask in their prettiness all weekend.  But I did not knit them.  I tried to be virtuous and stuck with the things I have.

Which did not go so well.  I tried on the sweater and the sleeve is awful.  Much too large.  Back to my scrap of paper that stand as my notes, my gauge was taken in the ribbed section.  Sigh.  I am supposed to rib my sleeve.  So I tucked that back into the bag.

I worked on my Bridgewater shawl.  I had dropped a stitch the other day and it was way down, way, way down.  I caught it with a pin as soon as I saw it, but knew it was going to be a bugger to reknit, since so many rows, 18 rows, had been knit without the benefit of that stitch being there.  I did fix it by dropping a stitch on either side and knitting all 3 back up, but it kind of soured me on knitting on it.  I ended up switching to a sock.  

Where I had excellent results!

1 pair ready for the bucket.  I dug out my other ongoing pairs and that is what I worked on on the weekend.  

I dug through the sock stash trying to sort out a few sock yarns I want to knit with this year.  Mr. Needles gets heavy rotation here early in the year, so there is a lot of rather manly looking yarn, but there are a few bright fun things to play with too.  

I didn't quite get to blocking.  To get to blocking, I'd have to get to the blocking tiles in the laundry room and they are currently buried behind a few Christmas boxes, the big ones.

Its really a bummer when your helper and lifter to the high shelves guy is hobbled. Soon enough done and the blocking will happen then.  For now I am going to concentrate on finishing the sweater, even if I have to rip the sleeve again, and the shawl, because I love them too.  I am going to roar through these so that I can knit with my pretty bag full of YUM yarn.  

Oh yes, that bag full of yum came to me from St. Denis Yarns, priced right now at a supremely good price to help clear out Veronique's stock as she moves on to be part of the Brooklyn Tweed in house design team.

If there was a way.

If there was a way to go back to bed this morning, I would.  Because I woke up Miss Grumpy Pants and on getting to work, my grumpy has not improved.  Why I thought wading back into a toxic atmosphere was something I needed to do was quite beyond me.   Plus, with all the extra volume of reading, I have had a headache since last Thursday.  Or maybe my headache is just making me interpret this world as one giant toxic place.  Yes, I do believe that is probable, indeed, most likely.   Okay, fine.  Its me, it's all me, hoisting my own petard.  But what is it here that makes it so?  It always seems to be here.  Well, I do know the answer and it isn't just me.

Okay enough of that.  On to much better and brighter things.  

Knitting has brought me some very dear friends.  Today is one of my most favourite knitter's birthday. Flood her blog with Birthday wishes!!!!

She introduced me to Icelandic yarn and she is the one that brought back that lovely red Einband for me from Iceland.

Which reminds me that I really ought to block that shawl.  I would so love to be wearing it.  Well, I guess that takes care of my weekend.  You know what I am going to be doing.  I shall be blocking, blocking, blocking.  

See I knew that if I thought about good people and good yarn and knitting, I would feel better. 

Would you look at that.  There is a way after all.

The Things part of This Blog

It is January and January means NaJuReMoNoMo, National Just Read More Novels Month.  I have a long list that I wanted to read and I had hoped to really up my personal total this year.  

I had a nice list of books at the start.  

Hungers Bride - P Anderson but only the Sor Juana part. That is a book in itself.

The Historian - E Kostova, long held, still not read.

A Complicated Kindness - M Toews same same.

Secret Daughter - S Gowda, found hiding on the bookcase. Must read.

The Ship - CS Forester, bought for the inscriptions, Picard, Liverpool Eng, June 1943 and then to HD Davidson 4th RCNVR, HMCS Chambly.

Howards End - EM Forester, which I did not get to last year.

These all came off the bookshelf that is just behind where I sit to knit and though I am working on it, it isn't going so well.

I started with the Ship.  I thought I could plow through it, but there has been so much reading at work, that I'm finding it impossible to read at the end of the day. It is a lovely book though.  A study of the character of each man during a single day's battle in the Mediterranean in World War II.  It is small and intimate and grand in scale in one small novel. I am honoured to give this novel a home in my library, considering the hands who owned it, more or less lived it. I have only a very little to go.

I decided that audio books would be my knitting reading.  I started Anna Karenina and though I like the reader, I confess, I get a little fed up with the story.  Maybe another time.  I was having a lot more fun with Don Quixote, but alas, I started that in November so it can't qualify for this January challenge.  I am going to have to do a little searching through the long list at Librivox to find something else audio and free.  Good thing the list is very very long!

I downloaded a detective novel yesterday, a writer whose detective knits.  Miss Silver is a retired governess, which I would suppose would give all the understanding of human nature a good detective requires.  Or something like that.  Anyway a good British mystery with a knitter?  I am in.

But I left that at home on my Playbook. I won't be starting it today.  Sigh.

I tossed another of the novels on my list in my bag as I left.  Secret Daughter by Shilpi Gowda.  I suspect this is where you will find me at lunch time for the next while.

Such is the state of my reading list right now.  I am a little dissatisfied with that state and I ought to stop being such a pansy about it.  I think I am waiting for the story, any story, to capture me and sweep me off my feet.

But that could be under the very next cover.  'Adventure is out there'*.  That is what I like about reading.  You never know where you are about to go without ever leaving your best chair.

* UP, 2009 Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios.

Hitting the Books

Okay, where was I?

Ah yes.  Sweater.  I did the beginning of a sleeve on Monday evening.  It seemed to take forever and it just never seemed to move forward.  The farther down it got, the less please I was.  

I stopped and had a good look at it.  It was wrong.  The knitting, particularly on the first inch, was so tight!  I hate it when stitches look like they are crammed in a corner and are all silently screaming, 'Release me, I can't breathe'.  

I pushed it back and was thoroughly disgusted with myself and my work and I had a little time out.  I came back to it late yesterday evening.  I debated what to do.  I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong other than gauge but it just looked like something else was wrong too. It was all ruffly and looked odd fitting. Because so little knitting, only 2 inches or so, had been done, the easy choice was to rip it all back. No problem.  Done.

I still had an unsettling feeling like I was missing something.  It is a long time since I did a top down sleeve this way.  I've done many of the simultaneous ones, but I think I'd have to go back to my interpretation of Holly Yeoh's  Jaimie sweater

 to find sleeves knit the non-simultaneous way.  Looking through the cavalcade of sweaters, this appears to be the only one I knit this way.

It seemed it was time to hit the books.  I had to dig for a while because the book case is tremendously crowded.  So many good things, and some of them, if less read, get sort of pushed to the back or tucked tightly between others.  Barbara Walker's Knitting From the Top Down, the masterwork of all KFTD books.  If there was a first before hers, I don't know about it.  All the others since, begin with her techniques as base.  This one is still the class of the field.  

Hitting the books was invaluable.  I knit almost all of the sleeve cap last night and met the underarm stitches this morning.  No I did not knit all night.  I went to bed.  Had a good sleep.  Got up, had a shower, then knit! ;)

I am pleased. It's not perfect, but it is so much better than the first go round.   

 It would be so nice if I had enough yarn to do long sleeves on this sweater.  As you can see, I decided to to the sleeves in stockinette.  That way, if I do have extra yarn after I get the length I want, I can pick it up and add to them without any fuss.  

It's coming along nicely.  I won't win any speed awards with this one, but it is only January 9th.  I'm making good progress.  

One foot in front of the other, skein upon skein, with a little help from the masters.


UPDATE:

Since Yahoo mail doesn't seem to be working right now, Yes Brenda, more or less to the letter.  I don't do the 1/3rd thing at the top of the sleeves.  I find that at this weight of yarn, that is too broad a top.  I do about the same number of stitches across the top of the sleeve as I do across the underarm.  Its usually a large number since my girth has to increase directly under the arm.  But otherwise I do follow her technique.  I don't think I worked with it enough yet to really gauge how I like it.  In general I remain a simultaneous sleeve knitter.

Late today

but I will be back tomorrow.  Sweet Thing had a doctors visit and daddy couldn't be there.  Grannie's job is driving when daddy can't.  

We made time for coffee too.

Isn't there supposed to be another day?

As usual, after a lovely long spate of days off, the first weekend after it feels as if it is missing a couple of days.  The alarm sends quivers and not the good kind through the part of my brain that stayed on vacation.  Its time to wake up and move on.

Even though the weekend was busy with family, I did get some good knitting time in.  

I finished a small project I was doing with the ladies at the store.  There is a pattern called the 'Scrunchable scarf and I had a ball of Schoppel-Wolle In-Silk, a pure silk that you have to see to believe.  It is just the most unusual thing.  As a yarn, it looks a little flat.  Not flat as in not round, but flat like wall paint with absolutely no gloss, and about as exciting.  Once you start knitting it though, it becomes something much more.  I can see In silk in a sweater.  Something not too fancy and warm, with a wide ribbed collar and wide ribs on the bottom.  I had one lone skein of pink from a project that was supposed to be for my mother in law but never happened.  The Scruncable pattern worked really well with the flat chracter of the yarn, giving it some texture and flash in what ended up being a rather nice cowl.  

It doesn't look like much laying flat but it looks kind of neat on.  The seam is sewn offset so that one edge has the excess above and the other below.  When you wear it, turned just slightly to the side, you get a genteel collar and a part that hangs down and covers that space between coat and chin just so.  It really is the perfect little finishing for this.  

Most of the knitting this weekend was on my on-going sweater.  

You can see that I have a fair bit of the skirt section done.  The ribbed part goes right to my waist and I want it to be fairly long.  There are at least 2 'fair bits' to go.  And sleeves.  The sleeves are going to be knit shortly.  I'll knit them using the smallest amount of yarn I can to get the right look and then will just knit that skirt till the yarn is gone.  If I run short, as I said, I have a plan.

Excuse the funky photos.  I'm trying to get them to lay the right way.  My fix isn't really working.  Still, it is time to get to work.  I'll play another day.

I did something yesterday that I wanted to do for a very long time.  I ordered some yarn for two very specific shawls from St. Denis.  I wanted to do this because St Denis will be gone before you know it and besides, the price just simply cannot be beat for this quality of yarn.  Some of my other long desired yarns will be around a lot longer.

A friend showed me the Point Shawl some time ago.  Point is a knitted adaptation of Hudson Bay Company Point blankets.  It is textural and plain and I love it dearly.  You need strong colours to punch the traditional stripes.  (I also have a kind of fascnation for this Hudson Bay Point blanket adaptation.  But we will talk about that later)  I think the Boreale will be the perfect yarn for the shawl.  

I also ordered yarn for the shawl, Leftie .  It is meant to be used with leftover bits of yarn and one main colour.  Some of the models on Ravelry are just stunning.

Like this one,  with its tweedy yummy goodness.  Be still my heart.  Or this one with  its strong contrasts and dark background.  Oh my.  You can see where I got my inspiration.

I did get a little extra of a few colours, because there will be yarn left from both of these adventures.  A little extra plain stuff to do some pretty little colourwork is going to be  great down the road.

Yup, here I am, with the stash for a cast of thousands, and dozens of projects under my belt and I still have so many things I want to do.  (Long may it continue.)

None of these are going to happen in an instant, though I did buy both patterns, which normally means starting is imminent, this time I know it is going to sit and be part of the grand stash for a while.  That too is good.  They will be carefully watched over and much admired and aspired to.

Today is my birthday and stunningly, I am still here, blogging more or less daily after all these years, still doing pretty much the same of everything  and I still don't have any Signature needles.  Maybe this year.  So far I have been too busy collecting yarn

"To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser."  (Robertson Davies, from The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks)

Ach Robertson, it's a good thing I am not a book collector.

In between times

I finally was able to pick up my sweater and get back to working on it.  The couple days break from its volume was the best possible way to rest my hands.  

Its kind of a fussy thing, because of how I am knitting it.  

There are always 3 balls of yarn to work from.  I wanted substantial stretches of colour on all the parts but I did not want to have to sew it together.  If you aren't working the parts at the same time, you have to put a lot more work into tracking shaping increases and decreases.  It might be different with a pattern but nobody knits a pattern for me.  Its just easiser.  Fussier this way, but easier.  

Its looking marvelous.  This is from this morning.  I'm just a couple inches into the 'skirt' of the thing.  

There still is a very long way to go, but it looks really great and I am pleased.

In between though, when I can't knit heavy stuff and when my hands rebel at even the lightest laces, I kept myself busy winding.  I have a substantial amount of yarns in hanks (versus skeins) and I prefer to keep it wound and ready at hand.  The state of my stash is such that keeping it tidy and well packed is important and yarn cakes are a lot easier to keep stored nicely.  

 This was the stack I worked on the last few days.

 Some grey and white Briggs and Little Sport.  I think I have it for a top, and I may or may not use it for that.  I'm not sure the gray is what I want.  If not the grey, then perhaps this?

I think I have 7 skeins of this.  I know how it happened, but the last 3 skeins were supposed to be denim, not Blue Jeans, which is what this is.  (This is Durasport)  I wanted this for a shawl, but I have found out that I don't need 3 skeins, just 2, so this lovely soft colour could go with the white and the soft greay could be something completley different.

I had hoped to get more of this, which is Durasport but the discontinued colour of Denim.  Oh Denim, I loved you well.

This Denim will do very well for the shawl, and I do have 2 so it looks like I am set.

There is only 1 problem with winding as a way to stay with the yarn when you can't knit.  You get to thinking of other things you would love to make.

I ended up pulling this out

 Some wonderful blue green marine coloured sock yarn.  I have 2 more balls of this and it is destined for a shawl.  I could buy dozens of patterns for it, but I have so many lovely books with great things in them.  Time to use those up too.  I had a very hard time keeping my fingers from starting this immediately.  Sense reigned when my hands wouldn't cooperate and I managed to leave it at home yesterday.

Having something interesting in the wings is a ploy I use to trick me.  It is enough to keep me entertained and motivated to complete what is at hand.

It doesn't always work.

And On We Go

My hands are tired.  It was time to come back and get a break from all the knitting. (hah)

I knit so much those last few days that they need the break I get while working!  My sweater is the leading cause of it.  Kureyon is a rather dense yarn.  Just like my old favourite Custom Woolen Mills Mulspinner 2 ply, Kureyon is mulespun, giving it a texture akin to handspun.  That slightly thick and thin, slightly dense yet lofty quality makes working with it a joy and a challenge.  You never doubt that you have a warm sweater underway with it.  You never question that what comes from this brilliantly coloured depths is going to keep you warm.

I did a fair bit of respite knitting on my newly restarted Bridgewater Shawl.  A whole, large center of a substantial square shawl could feel endless unless you are diligent, so I am diligently working at it, getting closer every time I sit with it, to that magical 200 number before I can start decreasing.  The thing about add one stitch per row center shawls, means the increase section is a 'see it soon enough, but the more you knit the faster it runs away' proposition.  The rows go slower the closer you get.  I expect it will take a good healthy week yet till I start the decreases.  I expect the decreases to feel fast.

And there is a sock accompanying me today.  I haven't carried socks for a while, and though my sock drawer is still in good shape, Mr. Needles is starting to look a little shabby.  He never had that many, and with the loss of his very first pair of socks (unrecoverable sole), he is a tad short of good socks.  There will have to be some serious attention given to his feet.

I also have 2 pairs I am working on for some of my kids.  A pair in black for Son1, who deserves a pair after bringing me such a lovely grandbaby, and his sweet wife, the pair that I began as she brought her daughter into the world, and a pair for Sweet Thing herself, who is growing like a weed.  She is 3 months old!  

The other thing about coming back after a break such as this, is that solstice is far behind.  The sky is in its high pink dudgeon, about to break free from its confines behind the horizon to burst the world into day.  I know it is winter and some might bemoan this but it brings the light earlier and earlier each day.  Winter just can't be all bad no matter how cold it gets when it does this job so well.

Anyway, I am back, the coffee is ready and it is time for me to start my day.

  

First Morning

I woke this morning thinking how warm and cozy I was and how lucky I am and how I am blessed with family and friends. What a lovely way to wake. So I snuggled in and put some of my Christmas gifts into the dvd and stayed cozy for a while. 

Then I got up to make some coffee and do the dishes, just ordinary daily tasks and chores. 

Surely there is something profound in this sublime and yet utterly ordinary start to a new year?

I am giving my hands a bit of a break this morning.  I have been knitting so much with heavy yarns these last few days, they are done.  I will be sticking to nothing more than lace  or sock yarn for a few days and working slowly at that.  

But then isn't sock knitting the perfect thing for a day that started so well?  Perfectly ordinary and yet utterly sublime.

"two socks as soft as rabbits.

I slipped my feet into them
as if they were two cases
knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin,"

(Pablo Neruda, Ode to my Socks)

Late Breaking Update

While tossing through the WIP bin I came across the Pretty Thing I was working on before Christmas.  

It was supposed to be a gift, but I had some misgiving about the last part of the chart. It did not look like the first part of the chart so I assumed I had done it wrong.  I was going to rip back (again) and re-knit (again).  

I had coffee the other day with a friend and she laughing pulled out an absolutely gorgeous version of it.  Looked just like mine.  And since she wouldn't make foolish mistakes, I realized mine must be OK.

As I tidied up the bins, it came to hand and I looked into the bag.  I had one half a row and the bind off to do.  I smacked myself on the back of my head and did them.  Silly Me.  Giving up when I was almost done.  No more of that in 2013.

Its really quite fine, you know.  Quite fine. Fits me perfectly.  I couldn't have given it away under any circumstances!   I may have to go after some of the red cashmere my friend was telling me about.  

Wrapping it Up

I suppose it is the time of year when one must do a bit of a roundup of everything that was and focus on what will be, or dream of it at the very least.  

What was is pretty obvious.  Much knitting, a grandbaby, some garden stuff, a daughter.  It was a very big, big year her at Chez Needles.  May 2013 be just as good.

As you all can see by the sparse posts this past week, I am taking a bit of a holiday.  Not from knitting, but from everything else.  I'm doing lots and lots of knitting.  

In the deep parts of my head, there were yarns that I wanted to use this year and it occurred to me that I was hanging on to them for no good reason.  I had long worked out what I wanted to do with them, so it was time to use them.  

And you know what the best part of using them is.  Falling in love all over again.  How could I not?

I decided to pull out my Noro Kureyon.  I had split some bags with a friend and they decorated my shelf in the nicest way, but it was time to use them.  I can always use another addition to my sweater wardrobe.  This time between Christmas and New Years seemed the perfect time to get a serious amount of knitting done.

I started on Thursday.

I did more on Friday and Saturday

And by Sunday I was here.  By Sunday, my hands were tired so I slowed the pace on Sunday.

I'm not really sure if you can see what I am doing here.  The top is ribbed and the bottom, stockinette.  I'm about 2 inches into the stockinette.  I still have a long long way to go.  I'm going to be cutting it close on yarn, but then, isn't that my usual fear at this point in any sweater.  I do have the most marvelous fallback position though.

The 'skirt' of the sweater needs to be quite long.  I would like to have sleeves that are at least 3/4 length, but I suspect that I will have to give them up to keep the length of skirt it needs. I can live with short sleeves, I suppose but my bigger and better option is that I could, if needed, do a black border on all of it.  Button bands, sleeve ends, and bottom welt could all be a solid black.   I figure those things will give me at least 2 extra balls of yarn to work with and at least 3 more inches of length.  

I'm going to knit the start of the sleeves in a little bit, but only to the best short sleeve length, and then put them on holders. Then I'll see what I can get out of the rest of yarn I have for length.  If there is enough, I'll come back and finish the sleeves longer and if not, they will get a nice black yarn welt.  

I don't mind knitting without a pattern but I am most decidedly uncomfortable knitting without a safety net or sound fallback position.  And that is the state of my knitting.

I'm not sure if that is everything I have to say about the year that was, but it is everything I have to say about it today.  It was a pretty good year.  Life has been kind.  

Can't beat that as a year end wrap up.    

Another one almost done

I doubt that I am going to get another project done before the end of the year, so I've updated my yearly total for the last time.  Its right about the same number of metres as each of the last two years that I have been tracking.  Right about 21 - 22,000 metres of knitting.  It's kind of a comfortable number and yet.

There were so many times this year where it felt like I had not knit at all, where it feels like there were huge chunks of time where I ought to have been knitting, but could not.

Guess not.  Which I find rather funny.

I'm off now to meet one of my favourite people, and we are going to catch up and chat and have a generally lovely time.  She has red cashmere and has promised to tell me about it.  

EEeeep

There is always this sense of unreality as it gets so close to the big day, knowing full well, I am not ready.  I still have one stop at the stores, but that will have to happen at lunch, then wrapping, then cleaning, and baking, and early prep of the Christmas meal.

That last is actually the one thing I love these extra days for.  I can prep and then have all the dishes done, table set, and everything spotless and sit around and just visit on Christmas Eve.  Well that is my plan and with a little luck...

I'm working on the last little sweater.  Its really cute and I ought to have it done by tomorrow morning.  It is just zipping along.  I love little things.

I have to admit I wasn't very sure about my colour choices. Not that I had any choice.  The only other colour they had that worked at all was a gold and I just don't see this little gent as a gold kind of guy.  Few 4 year old boys are in my estimation.  These are Berroco Vintage colours 5175 and 5179.   

At first, the colours look wrong.  There was so much green it was swamping the soft brown olive tones of the brown.  I stood back and decided to persevere and kept knitting.  Now that there is more brown there is a better balance.  It looks just fine.

Just a little more knitting, just a little more time.

The view out the window.

This job has one perk that I am really going to miss when it is done and that is, its east facing window.  

I've spent endless hours watching the sun rises and this pleases me more than I can say.  Its been a pleasure watching the sun crest from behind the building across the way, out of my view, somewhere off to the northeast.  

Its was a pleasure being blinded by the brilliant morning sun of early fall and late spring when it rises almost in front of me.  It crests the building across the way, and floods my desk with warmth and light, like a little blessing from on high.  I could stop that blinding bit by closing blinds, but it only last a little while, and I would sooner treasure the experience than miss it.  

It is a pleasure even now, in the darkest heart of our year, on what is almost the longest night of the year, watching the sun creep sluggishly from behind the horizon.  

I've been trying for weeks to take a picture of it, but it hides southeast of me, almost out of view from where I sit.  It hides its brilliance in the tree branches that block its solsticial rays, sneaking me but glimpses of it.  It defeats my little camera and photographic skills.

Shards of light shine are only here for a moment before they are gone.  It's okay, though.  Come Saturday morning, the whole magical arc, begins its long slow slip back to the north.  I'm looking forward to watching it wend its way again. 

    

Planning at the last minute.

Wow, this planning at the last minute thing is really working out!

Hat.  Done.

Oh, I know it needs a good wash so that the yarn can do its blooming thing and I know it needs a good shaping.  Those will come and will be aided by the power of my dehumidifier.  Who would have thought there was a good use for it in winter.

On to one final sweater.  Its already cast on and there is a little bit of the ribbing done.  I ought to get nicely into the body at lunch time, and then it is just a matter of knitting and knitting away till it is done.  It will be the same general sweater as the first little green sweater, your basic with a pouch, no hood.  No huge challenges but that is good.  

I also wanted to say Happy Anniversary to my Sweet Things mom and dad.  It is the first anniversary they have had where the anniversary did not involve flying half way across the planet!  

It has also been one year since my daughter1 arrived in Canada. We are so blessed.Congratulations Son1 and Daughter1!  What a year it has been.  

Sweet Thing is sending mommy and daddy a wave too!  (Perfectly still but that wee hand ?  Man can it move!)

I'm over that now.

I think I am over the chunky scarf thing.  

Not too shabby production for late Sunday till early this morning knitting.  Each one is one complete skein of Magnum, and is long enough to twist around your neck twice or your neck once and over your head.  Its just the right amount of snug for the head bit to stay whilst keeping the neck bit perfectly loose and comfortable.  And warm.  Just a few minutes and you are nice and cozy wearing these.  

I still have a few things I have to knit before Christmas can come.  Well you know what I mean.  I think it is doable though. 

I need to knit a toque for one person who I hope is coming to Christmas at our house.  I dug out the remains of Mr. Needles sweater from last year.  It's some Briggs and Little Regal and there is plenty for a nice knit 1 purl one ribby hat, where the brim can be rolled up far enough to give your ears double protection.   And if there isn't I have two balls.   

I'll be knitting on that at lunch and I hope to finish it up before I go to bed.  Then there is just one small sweater to knit, and that is eminently do-able before Christmas.  

Chunky scarves were a little unexpected but sure take the crunch time right out of the knitting.

The Awsome Power of Wathching Y'all

I am subject to populist influences as much as the next guy.

So I swear by all that is, this is not my fault, but I am not going to lay any blame. It's Christmas and that wouldn't be neighbourly.

The basic pattern is Marian and the yarn is the just slightly smaller so I cast on more stitches, Cascade Magnum.

Pretty Thing

Morning found me working again on Pretty Thing.  

I have to admit that I wasn't sure this would look right in such a light laceweight yarn.  Much of the beauty of Pretty Thing comes from the twisted texture game that is going on.  I wasn't sure that would translate well to such fine stuff, and that the gently fuzzy yarn would hide it all.  

But no.  It's really quite lovely.

I am really quite enamoured of this cloud of the softest blue flowing off the end of my needles.

Now that the pattern is in my head and I understand the plan of it, it won't take but an good evening to finish.  After that, there is going to have to be some massive work on a pretty green thing.  I finally have some new needles and it is time for Sweet Things momma to get a new sweater.

I made it to a Knit Night

This shouldn't be something big or something of note, but it has become that.  With everything else that is going on, it has been a long time since I was a regular.  And I dislike that.

I knit on the Icelandic Overblouse sweater.  The garter stitch is perfect for a knit night and the Icelandic Overblouse, even at the increase stage, is so basic.  The perfect pairing of knit and talking with some very good friends.  

It was lovely.  Good coffee too.  

Breaking out the old stuff

It isn't often that I get to say that with knitting, but on  occasion, I have knit things that do not get a lot of wear.  When they finally fit with something, no one is more thrilled than me.  Its like a whole new wardrobe without any work at all.

Not that this is amounts to a whole new wardrobe but it is something I knit quite a while ago and have seldom worn.  

I knit a simple ribbed scarf from a skein of the original Cotton and Silk from Misti Alpaca, pictured at the bottom here.  Its the warm purple.

This is probably the only photo of it.  This is from 2009.  None of the other yarns pictured here have been knit, though I have picked up more of the gorgeous red B&L Regal.

Back to the dusty eggplant. I knit the simplest ribbed scarf from this yarn, and really liked the feel of it.  However it was so softly spun that the yarn was fuzzing badly before I was done knitting it.  I'm not so sure that it would have worked for a garment.  Would have felt very nice though.  Scrumptious even.  The next iteration of this Misti yarn was very different.  

I never wore it.  Well, hardly ever.  I wore it once or twice that first summer and found it just too warm to have on my neck in summer.  I didn't really have anything to wear it with for winter.  

Well now I do and the weight and warmth of it are perfect.  I think I have worn it

3 or 4 times since I dug it from the drawer, each time with my Undercurrent sweater.  It is the perfect colour to complement the soft purples found in it.  

It fills in the neckline when I don't have anything high collarish, and keeps my back extra warm when the furnace here blows down the back of my neck.  

It adds such a different dimension to a wardrobe that is mostly black or navy with a spot here and there of colour.  It's neutral but so much more.  

So, my advice to you is dig out your old favourites and see what else they can be!  Also, knit an Undercurrent in a very multi yarn.  Best decision ever.  I love this sweater.

It's the Yarn Harlot's Fault.

I'm done my Christmas shopping!  There are 3 things to pick up but that is just a matter of stopping at one store.  Hardly shopping at all.

But that still leaves 'things'.  Like this.  

I reworked the problem on the neckline( pulled tight to put in my bag.) and have only one row left before a nice super stretchy bind off.  I am forgoing the hood.  It isn't my fault.  No.  

Its the Yarn Harlot's fault.**

The deep dark stash holds 3 balls of such stuff, 3 balls of blue.  You will note that I am already prepared with needles and since I bought the pattern when it was new, I am set.  Lunch time here we come.  

I bought the pattern ages ago to knit Pretty Thing out of some Louisa Harding Kimono Angora.  At the time I did not own any short circs, and I was new to Bamboo dpns.  I had a horrid time keeping things in order and eventually frogged it.  I've fixed the needle shortage issue and now have circs in all sorts of short sizes.  I just haven't gotten around to knitting up the angora yet.  It might be the perfect thing to do between Christmas and New Years.

I think if I took a good look at the stash, there would be 2 balls of Kimono Angora.  Different colours if I recall right.  Maybe 2 things between Christmas and New Years.  

For now I will concentrate on this soft blue cashmere.  One small thing.  A nice evening of work.

I hope.

**Just in case, because weirder things have happened, Thanks for the reminder Stephanie!

Here it is Monday again

You know how when you go to sleep Saturday night, the last thing you think is 'Thank heavens there is another day to sleep in' and you wish there were more?  

Me too.  

It just feels as if there is never enough time.  It was made worse because I forgot to stop and drop off a Christmas tree at Son1's on Saturday so I had to drive back into town on Sunday morning to do so.  Had I not had to do this, I would have finished this:

It is the perfect sweater for a little boy, or rather, it will be soon.  Just the last few decreases to do and a quick little hood and voila, 1 Knitted present done.  

I might drop a few rows and change the neckline slightly.  I think I stopped the slope of the neckline too soon and now I have some awkward stitches that I am not quite sure what to do with.  That means I have to change the start of the hood slightly, but it isn't a big deal.  

I could work on cute rewarding little bits of knitting for sweet kids for a very long time before I get tired.  

The other sad news is that I have to redo the feet on Sweet Things wee overalls.  Somehwere along the line, her slender ankles have chubbied right up as babies feet will.  I thought it would take longer!

Just fooling around.

I'm posting from my playbook as a test.  This little thing has a camera and I want to see how good it is in comparison to my usual camera.

I have come to a horrifying realization.

Somewhere back in the mists of time I made a Northampton neckerchief.  It isn't as big as I would like it to be, but then I have never really blocked it.  I steamed it once to make the lace lay straight, but I am pretty sure that when I wash it, it will grow to be exactly the size I want. Still, I wear it a lot, as a square over my shoulders, pinned at the front, capturing the look of an old fashioned sailor collar.

I have never worked the ends in either.  I think I remember this every time I wear it.  I wear it a lot.  This horrifies me somewhat, that I walk around the office with these strings hanging down my back.

I am also sure that I have noted that I have not worked these ends in before on the blog.  I think it probably was last time I wore this little kerchief to work with the strings hanging down my back.

When I tuck things away, I tuck in ends so it all looks pretty and then promptly forget about ends down my back.

 You may laugh. I accept this as my due for such silliness.

What pleases me (and what doesn't)

I had to leave work yesterday to pick up Mr. Needles and take him to a doctors appointment.  Just the way things worked out, I drove home in the worst whiteout conditions I have ever seen.  If I could have found a place to pull off, I would have but it was so bad you couldn't see the side of the road.  It reminded me about reading about how long ago, they used to string a rope between house and barn, so they had something to follow if a big blizzard came up.  We think this never really happens, but yesterday?  Yesterday was a rope to the barn sort of day. 

I got home, made lunch and hunkered down.  I had a nap and knit and felt really awful because the poor person who was covering my desk over lunch, was left covering it the rest of the day.  Without lunch!

It did give me the chance to sit down and play with my current sweater knitting.  Not the green sweater, which I really would like to be working on - I haven't had time to go get another needle, nor even time to find the right sort of glue to fix what I have - but on my version of EZ's garter stitch Icelandic overblouse.

There are lots of things to love about this sweater.  It is simplicity itself.  It is colour gradients.  It is knit to fit.  But most of all, this.

This picture posted sideways.  It is much more striking if the orientation is correct.

These little dots of black.  Totally my favourite part of this.  Enough of a thrill that I am working furiously to get where I can make that happen again in the next colour.  Its a small thing I know, but it doesn't take much to make me happy.

See how pretty these wee dots look marching across the sweater?  Its very fulfilling.

I've just begun the sleeve increases.  its kind of interesting watching that happen.  I'd post a picture of it, but honestly, it is sideways too and would make you seasick.

(The other thing that would make me happy?  Photos that uploaded in their correct orientation.  You would think somebody out there in the great land of computer wizardry that is Blogger, would fix this.  But no.  Blogger is sure this is something we are doing, but all I do is copy the file from the camera to my photo file, no camera software, nothing.  It is right till Blogger gets hold of it)

Whine, whine, whine, whine, WHINE

Don't say I didn't warn you.

You will have noticed that there isn't any sign of Christmas knitting on this blog.  Mr. Needles adventures in knee problems have stalled any hope of that.

It isn't that I did not have some dreams.  I did.  I have yarn for them.  I wanted to knit our Christmas guests little guy Alex, a sweater.  He is only 3 so it wouldn't take long.  It was going to be a nice quick gansey in some utterly edible Fennel 5175 from Berroco's Vintage line.  Its just a perfect yummy looking thing and perfect for this sweet little boy.  This sweater might happen.  

I also had planned a Taiga Cowichan in cream and the softest prettiest blue green ocean froth colour  Donegal Luxury Tweed Chunky.  I was originally planning to make 2, the second in navy and crisp appley green, but I thought that might be weird.  More skeins arrived in the mail so the appley green will be another sweater, also planned originally to be knit before Christmas.

And there were supposed to be a family of socks for son1, daughter1 and sweet thing.  

With Mr. Needles surgery events followups and doctors appointments, blood work, and trips to the far side of the back of beyond to pick stuff up, I doubt any of it will happen.  

At this point, it is going to be a big deal to fit the turkey in.  For one thing there has to be time to shop for one.  Sigh

If anybody has a 36 hour day, that is what I want for Christmas.  

  

One thing and another.

You know how I love delicate and the longer I live, the more enamoured I am with very simple things.  There is a project I have long wanted to do for its delicate simplicity.  

The project is a Churchmouse pattern.  .....

You have no way of knowing this, but a significant amount of time has passed as I whiled time away at the Churchmouse website.  Its a dangerous place.  They have new patterns.   They have yarn.  They have tea.  Sigh.  ...

OK, that is enough of this.  Focus.  I have puttered away 20 minutes looking at pretty things.  Not that that is unusual mind, but it doesn't normally happen while I am trying to write. (I was even distracted as I was editing just before publishing!  Its a lovely, lovely website)

This lovely Beaded Mohair Scarf  pattern has always spoken to me.  Utter simplicity.  Delicate beauty.  I have the yarn.  

Or I thought I did.  I bought 2 skeins of Punta which I thought were Punta colour HP71.  One isn't  

as you can see.  I think my remembery failed me when I bought the second skein. Sadly one skein isn't enough to do the little bit wider scarf I wanted, so I decided two row striping and damned the torpedos.

Using two very multi coloured yarns is often the path to complete annihilation (to continue the topredo analogy), but not so this time.  The 'torpedos' look pretty striking.  

My monitor isn't showing off the green as rich as it really is and it is beefing up the yellow gold, but up close, there are rich greens and rusty rosy colours that dominate.  Its really lovely.  

You can see the striping but just when you realize it is striped, you realize that it almost isn't.  Its harder to appreciate here, but there is enough of the yellow rusty golds in HP72 and enough of the greens in HP 71 that it works in the most magical of ways.  

Sadly, the beautiful Beaded Mohair Scarf is not what this yarn was destined to be.  The construction of the pattern is such that you start with a yarn over on every row (I think).  This doesn't work very well when you are two rowing yarns together.  I'll save my visions of delicate beaded beauty for another yarn.

So, what is this magical thing to be?  Just a nice wide stole to which I will attach some very fine light shell buttons and will proceed to wear the completed stole in the many ways that the gorgeous Wisp (Knitty, summer 07) is worn.  

So, back to winging it. Back to two rowing it. There seems to be a lot of the two rowing it lately.  It seems to work out so marvelously well.  And in the back of my mind, you know what I am thinking?  I am thinking that I have this lovely dark rich forest green Mission Falls 1824 Wool that would make a really great sweater to wear with this.  

Its never just one thing you see.  There is always the next thing on the horizon.  

I'm running behind.

There will be an update later in the day.  It is drive hubby to his appointments day here at Chez Needles.  But somewhere I will find time to post.  

Lost to tell!  Yummy lots.