Honey, I'm Home.

I love how lines from certain movies creep into my daily life, into my thoughts and the way I frame the world.

Mr. Needles used to come in the door at 6 o'clock and call out, 'Honey I am home" and pretend to toss his hat on the hat stand just like the dad in Pleasantville.  It was a huge joke and just one of the silly parts of our day.

I love 'bouquet of sharpened pencils' from You've Got Mail.  It just seems the perfect way to describe certain things.

Today, I bring you a bouquet of yarn.

 These are mini skeins from AlterKnit Universe.  There are 3 groups 50 gram packs here and plenty to do a colourwork hat or some mittens or gloves.   Or a cowl.  

Yarn.  My happy place.  In some ways, my home.

A weekends work

I had a bunch of little things planned for the weekend to help make my home work just that much better.  I failed badly at the first thing I tried, and spent the whole of Saturday afternoon working on my red sweater instead.  I got too enthusiastic I guess and I ended up having to take out inches of knitting.  Saturday was not easy on the ego.

I debated sitting mired in misery on Sunday, but I couldn't face the thought of wasting the whole weekend.  I forced myself to get out and do something instead. Sunday morning, I joined some ladies to knit and then met a friend for tea at a Sunday farmers market.  I will do both of these again.  What a lovely Sunday combination. What nice air conditioning! 

Tea and conversation with a good friend always soothes a damaged ego and I braved a little more work on my house.  I built a big heavy duty storage shelf and managed to free up a bookcase I was using for video equipment.  More bookcases for books!

My ego is somewhat restored even if I have to reknit 3 inches on the red sweater.  Win some, and some will wait for another day.

Friday was missing

Well, not really, but it is late.

I woke this morning and just wasn't ready to write and really could not face thinking enough to write.  These days  of summer are so filled with memories that they overwhelm me.  It was also cold and wet and windy and my bed was snug and cozy and oh so very comfy.  I voted for snug and an extra hour of sleep.

Tonight after work, I went to watch the last day of swimming lessons for my older grandson.  He came to sit beside me under my umbrella after he had had his quick shower so all he had to do was jump in the pool.  He had on his brand new orange, with gold lenses, swimming goggles.  It was kind of windy so I told him to snuggle beside me and I would hold Brian's golf umbrella down so he could take shelter under it from the stiff breeze and the rain. 

He looked me straight eye to eye, goggles and all, and said in his oh so serious way, "You really miss Brian, don't you?"  

There is no way to answer such sweet honesty other than with simplicity and truth.  I said "yes, I do".  

And he looked away for a moment and then back at me, with his big orange covered eyes, and said, "Well, you just have to remember that when you die, he will be waiting for you and you will be together."  He smiled the most beatific smile and then the call came, and he ran off to jump in the water.  

It is hard to feel anything but lucky with that little boy in my life. I just hope that in a few dozen years when he is grown and I am gone, he will know just how much sweetness and joy he added to my life with this sweet and thoughtful caring chat.  I hope he knows how very much he was loved.

Friday isn't missing anymore and it really was the most perfect sort of day.  

I came across this on Ravelry, and really, it is just too good not to pass on.  Created by the inimitable Skeincharmer on Ravely in 2006 on her live journal page.

Murphy's Laws of Knitting

First Law of Projects 
Whenever you set out to knit something, something else must be knitted first. 
Addendum 1: If you pretty much prefer your current project, you will be obliged to cast on the new one. 
Addendum 2: If you pretty much prefer to cast on the new project, it will turn out you aren’t equipped for it (don’t have the required yarn, or not enough of it, or in unwanted color; or miss the recommended needles; or your size isn’t included in the pattern; etc. etc.).

Second Law of Projects 
As soon as you’re knitting what you wanted to be knitting, you want to be knitting something else.

Scott’s First Law 
No matter what detail goes wrong, it will probably look right. 
Justification: And besides, muggles won’t notice anyway.

Finagle’s Third Law 
In any pattern, the section most obviously correct, beyond all need for checking, either contains the error or significant omission, or is taken from a totally unrelated 
pattern. 
Corollary 1: No one whom you ask for help will see that. 
Corollary 2: Everyone who stops by with unsought advice or their own irrelevant question will see it immediately.

Finagle’s Fourth Law 
Once a WIP is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.

Finagle’s Laws of Patterns 
I. The patterns you have are not what you want. 
II. The patterns you want are not what you need. 
III. The patterns you need are not what you can obtain. 
IV. The patterns you can obtain cost more than you want to pay. 
Ditto for yarns.

Klipstein’s Laws relating to knitting 
I. Any yarn cut to length will be too short. 
II. Tolerances will accumulate unidirectionally toward maximum difficulty of assembly. 
III. If a project requires n skeins, there will be n-1 skeins available. 
Addendum: If a shortage will be revealed during work in progress, the yarn will occur to be discontinued. 
Corollary: If you were lucky to buy n skeins, then at least one will be of different dyelot (or even of different colorway) which was obscure in unnatural light at the LYS. 
IV. An error made on first rows of the largest detail will be discovered only after blocking.

Universal Laws for naive knitters 
I. In any pattern, any error that can creep in, will. 
II. It will be in the direction that will do the most damage to the FO. 
IV. The probability of a dimension or value being omitted from a schematic is directionaly proportional to its importance. 
Example: One shouldn’t hibernate projects for years. There is a pattern, a gauge swatch, extensive recalculations and one sleeve. Nice! But no trace of needle size. 
VI. Parts that must not and cannot be assembled improperly will be.

Stockmayer’s Theorem 
If an item looks easy, it’s tough. If it looks though, it’s damn near impossible.

Golub’s Second Law of Craftdom 
A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expected; if carefully planned, it will take only twice as long.

Cheops’s Law 
Nothing ever gets knitted on schedule or within budget. 
Addendum: Or with expected outcome.

Allen’s Axiom 
When all else fails, follow the pattern.

Johnson’s Third Law 
If you miss one issue of a magazine, it will contain the pattern you would like to cast on right now. 
Corollary: All of your knitter friends either missed it, lost it, or threw it out.

Richard’s Complementary Laws of Possession

1. If you keep a yarn or pattern long enough, you will have ample justification for throwing it away.
2. If you throw anything away, you will need it as soon as it is no longer accessible.

Ettore’s Observation 
Others always knit faster.

Second Law of Revision 
The more innocuous a modification appears to be, the further its influence will extend and the more parts will have to be reknitted.

Miksch’s Law 
If a skein has one end, then it has another end.

Shaw’s Principle 
Write a pattern that even a fool can follow, and only fools will want to knit it.

Sleeve Scheduling “90/90” Rule 
The first 90 percent of a sleeve takes 10 percent of the time. The last 10 percent takes the other 90 percent.

Meskimen’s Law of Time 
There is never enough time to knit it right, but there is always enough time to knit it over.

Explanation of the Epstein-Heisenberg Principle for knitters 
In any project, only two of the three parameters can be defined at any given time. Those parameters are the yarn, the stitch pattern, and the silhouette:

1. If the yarn and stitch pattern are chosen, then they won’t work for the silhouette you want (or fit the shape of your size).
2. If the yarn and silhouette are determined, then the stitch pattern won’t show.
3. If the silhouette and stitch pattern will be exactly as written in the pattern, then the yarn isn’t available anymore.

Extended Interpretation of Epstein-Heisenberg Principle 
If, by any means, the yarn, the silhouette and the stitch pattern are happily married into an exact garment you wanted, your life situation will change so you won’t be able to wear it for a long time. (Or ever.)

Law of Yarn Relativity 
If your yarn supply is restricted with no opportunity to buy an extra skein, so you had to replace a neck shaping (for bottom-up garment) or bottom treatment (for top-down garment), or to use another yarn for seaming, then the garment will unexpectedly stretch out after the first washing.

Law of Self-striping Anisotropy 
Any two skeins of any self-striping yarn with directional stripes are always wound in the opposite directions. 
(If you ever knitted from such a yarn and all skeins were wound in the same direction, then remember: If Murphy’s Law can go wrong it will.)

Law of Long-Tail Cast-On 
The required number of stitches can be casted on from either first or third attempt.

Theory of Single PITA 
To get the maximum satisfaction from knitting, the process should involve no more than a single PITA. It could be a novelty yarn, or uber-complicated fashion, or intricate chart requiring your full attention, or whatever -- but just one thing. Unfortunately, most projects presuppose at least two PITAs.

Law of Leftovers 
Any leftovers are enough for 3 socks or 1.5 gloves.

Law of Twoness 
Any mates will be knitted three times in sum.

Law of Knots 
In any amount of any yarn, despite the price, at least one skein always has at least one knot or break. 
Corollary: The front always ends up with more knots than any other detail 
Addendum: On cardigan fronts, a skein always ends at the front opening edge.

Rule of Swift and Ballwinder 
The yarn tangles and/or the skein collapses the moment you blink.

Law of UFOs 
Each crafter has a blur on her/his honour (aka languished project at the back of their closet).

Law of Machine Knitting Bind-Off 
The side of latch-tool bind-off which is intended to be private always looks better than the side intended to be facing.

Law of Charting 
If you chart full-sized details and all contours and shaping lines match perfectly, then the number of stitches or rows along at least one distance is miscalculated.

Law of Calculation 
If your stitch pattern has inconvenient width and/or height and your shaping eliminates or appends whole repeat(s), then the measurements were taken wrong.

Law of World’s Harmony 
Any garment you’ve knitted for yourself, fits and flatters anyone else better. 
Corollary: Any garment you’ve knitted on commission, fits and flatters you perfectly. 
Corollary on corollary: And regardless of size, sex and style.

Bravo Skeincharmer!

And on we go to Red

I've been working on my red sweater most often right now.  I love how it is coming along.

Or maybe I just like that it is top down.

I am almost to where the underarm stitches will be added and I have some serious plans for this part of the work.  There is a fit trick I have wanted to try and this sweater is going to use it.

The trick is that some of the front stitches will move to the back.  That is it.  Simple huh?   But what it does is make the front fit a little more closely while putting the stitches to the back where my body needs them.  If you were a busty person, who carried their weight front above the hip, you might want to try doing the exact opposite and take some stitches from the back and move them to the front.  Although now that I think of it, maybe this is what I need to do. I can't remember!

Aw heck, if you go the Julie's blog, and search her archives, its there.  She was the first one who really talked in detail about it.  Some detailed notes on making fit work for you hide somewhere on her blog.  I can't even remember the sweater it was about but it was a wonderful knit and watching the process was exciting.  

Julie's blog.  Best fit stuff on the net.  Down low and personal and doing it right and not afraid to say when it is wrong.  That is Julie.  Fantastic. Just going to have to spend some time rereading and this is a very good thing!

Blues and Greens

It ended up being a not posting sort of day.  And not for want of trying.  My work phone is ringing off and on all night long for the last couple nights and I can't sleep.  I think the summer drunks and partiers are trying to call cabs and are getting me instead.  2 o'clock, 4 oclock, one o'clock, Three.  Pick a time and it is going off.  Tonight, I leave it at the office and I don't care what my boss says.

I had fun last night.  My daughter in law is very pregnant and is due at the beginning of September and she has decided that it is time to make a blanket for the new little one.    

She wants colours of water and ocean, something of the sea she thought or beaches but not sand.  I dug out my favourite colours and I think we are good to go.  

I love this combination of turquoise blue and bright green. (the green is much brighter than shown here)  It is just the most striking thing and it makes my heart sing.  

Sadly, I only have 6 balls of the combination of blue and green in my stash.  But I had a couple of these too.

They are a sturdier sort of green, darker, richer, and the blues are deeper and more the colours in the depths of a turquoise sea, but I think it will look great together.  Momma does too.

2 balls at 429 metres of the Crazy Zauberballe plus 6 times 165 metres is  about 1800 metres of yarn.  Just right for a nice baby blanket!  Grandma's stash is ready to be put to work for her sweet new little one.  I can't wait!

Good to go.

It is going to be an evening post kind of day.

I love Thursday

For some reason, Thursday has always been the day nobody needs me to do, to be somewhere.  Thursday is the day where I just get to be home and do nothing and I love to do nothing.  It is the day where I love to sit and knit and plan my knitting weekend.

I picked up that pretty candy apple coloured shawl and worked on that last evening.  Not a lot of rows of knitting, really, considering the hours that a Thursday night ought to have in it, but there were other things to do. I spent time writing a letter to a friend, and talked quite a lot with my realtor and then my kids.  There wasn't a whole lot of time left.  

I also cooked last night.  I was particularly thrilled that for the very first time, when I cooked myself some supper, my smoke alarms did not go off.  My little house and its high vaulted ceilings mean the steam from cooking hangs at the top of the vault.  Every gosh darn time till yesterday, I forget to turn on the fan before I begin and the alarms go off, and I am forced to open the doors to fan the air and get things moving.  The entire neighbourhood knows when I am coooking.  

Anyway, last night I got it right.  It was cool and cloudy here and I made soup.  I love soup, thick and rich and warms you right to the center of your soul.  

Little red lentils and rice with chicken in large rich chunks.  It was wonderful and will be again.  I made a very big pot.

I have some big decisions to make this weekend, and life is a little stressful, but overall it is settling down.  I am holding to that thought to get me through.  That and my big pot of hearty chicken soup with a little knitting.  These things will carry me through.

I woke at 6:30 which is late.  It is barely enough time to stop to type here.  But I slept late because I got to bed late, and I am well pleased about it.

I finally made it to knitting.  I almost had nothing to knit in my bag, but I made it and knit a little and gabbed a lot.  It was wonderful.  

I was working on this.

which is the knitting deepest in my bag, a nice simple knit that just grows slowly and is knitting up into the most interesting fabric.  I have got to work on this more.

It was just a reminder, a little taste test of all the lovely long list of lace weights in the depth of my stash.

I went to watch my big guy swim

One of the best parts of being grandma, surely has to be getting to go watch my little kids swim.  2 weeks of lessons for moms and dads gets to be looooong, but 2 weeks of lessons for grandmas?  Just about right to get there twice.

So that is what I was up to last night.  Not any real knitting because when I came home I had to loose my temper with a few people who want to try to help, but while I appreciate that help and concern, they ought to be asking first why something was the way it was.  You don't just go in and fix someone elses place without asking.  

This is the only house I have ever sold in my life, and its much more stressful than I ever imagined.  

But mostly what I will remember from yesterday is going to be my big guys shiny proud face after he blew the best bubbles and kicked and swum out to the instructor.  He is not a guy who gives half.  He goes full bore and pours all his heart and soul into what he tries.  Most little kids are like that and sadly lose it as they grow up.  I love that I get the chance to see it all happen for another generation.

Some good, some bad, but mostly, just getting by.  There needed to be more knitting in it but otherwise, Tuesday, about usual.

 

Running this morning.  Against the wind or not, I am running!

Red Hot

It was a truly hot weekend and we have more in sight.  It wasn't great knitting weather, mostly because the heat sapped the will to do anything right out of me.

Still I sat out early in the morning sun, when the cool breezes were slipping across the deck, on Saturday morning and started with this.

 It looks a little odd, perhaps a little insect like in its early stages.  Large hunk o' knitting here and another there, connected by small isthmus of knitting.  Bridges of knitting joining islands.
 

This time, I started with Barbra Walker's top down simultaneous set in sleeve.  I can see a place for all the other ways of starting a top down sleeve, but I think this one is my number one.  It's fussier to work than the contiguous start, but I think, overall, it is the one that gives rock solid performance and wear and shaping every single time.  

There was knitting this weekend, but an awful lot of time was wasted because it was just too hot to move. Still, I am pleased at how far this has come along.

Arghhhhhh

I love my little red shawl that I am working on.  I really do but it irritates me every time I work on it.  I don't think it is the shawl though.

I think I'm really in sweater mode.  In fact, I think I am really in red sweater mode.  I would knit on that red sweater, but I don't like the way it is going.  

I think I am going to rip what I have done, back and I am going to start again.  I started it bottom up in the round with a cabled edging.  It is a while since I knit a bottom up sweater and I thought it would be fun, but it just doesn't inspire me.  I just don't see how it will look, which is odd, but I am failing to visualize it.  

I also think I am going to go up a needle size or two.  I am using the same needles I used with this yarn before, but I think I am just knitting tighter than I was a few years ago.  I have noticed that a little bit, but it hasn't seemed to get in the way of what I was doing before and what I knew that a yarn I worked with before needed.

Anyway red sweater? History, and begin again.  Ripping and taking apart to rebuild.  I'm kind of looking forward to it.

A fashion shift

When I was young, clothes were going from fitted to loose, unstructured and comfortable.  Or at least my interpretation of it. A sort of hippy to the loose looks of the 80's to the point in my life where I just wore what was comfortable.

There has been such a well defined silhouette for the last 15 - 20 years and that has been interesting to watch too.  Me?  I still wear what I feel comfortable in though I have thought about shaping more as I have learned to knit.

There are so many interesting things now, though, loose flowing draping things and I love the look.  

One of my favourite designers, Joji Locatelli is one of the people to watch, who just keeps hitting the right marks as this shift goes forward.  

Boxy and Buttony

Lemongrass

Cold Breath

And then there is this wonder from Churchmouse Yarn and Tea,

the Modern Wrapper.

River City Yarns is just wrapping up a knit along of this pattern and you should see the results!  It really does look wonderful on every body!

I just keep looking and thinking, me want.  In lieu of time and brain power to knit the big things, I am looking forward to when all this summers moves and changes are done and am lining up the things I want to do.  Its a good thing I don't do a formal Ravelry queue.  The number of projects that I want to start right now is overwhelming.  As the days of low knitting pile up, the want to knit it pile grows and grows and grows. 

I only hope this fashion shift isn't over before I get there because I am going to need 15 - 20 years to get caught up.

A knitting dream

I am going to work today for a while.  I hope it ends up being a more fun day than yesterday. 

I dreamed about knitting last night.   

I didn't dream of projects, just of actually sitting watching the stitches come off my needles and form, flowing line and rows of fabric.  It wasn't about colour, it was just about the amazing transformation of states of string.  It was about making one step and completing it.  I think that it what I was trying to tell myself.  That one steps completes and another one happens in the flow of things.  I lost sight of that for a few hours yesterday and I think I got it back now but it was the most lovely experience, the most relaxing dream I think I have ever had.  

I hope to actually do it in quantity soon.  Just relaxing restful wonderful knitting.

"Thinking about knitting

Thinking  about knitting, but not actually doing a lot of knitting.  I think life has to have some kind of stability do do a lot of knitting.  For me it also has to have routine and I don't feel like I have that yet.

We did a bunch of house stuff on Friday and Saturday and Sunday I spent flat on my back sick as a dog.  Not a lot of knitting, but I feel good things will happen this week.

Now isn't that just the prettiest little thing?  The more I knit, the more I love this colourway.  Candy apples and fair grounds and , and, and... just a whole lot of yum.

And you can get some too.  River City Yarns Online!

It's Friday right?

That is how I feel this morning.  It just doesn't feel like it could be real and yet I am really really ready for a Friday.

I knit quite a lot on my pretty little shawl.  I love the ways the colours are working out.  No pictures yet, but for sure on Monday.

I wish it could be a weekend of just knitting but I have a feeling that the weekend will be more looking at houses.  The reality of moving is catching up.  There are still corners to sort out though none of it is coming here.  Well except a couple of things.  My big storage box.  The two tables. 

My hope for the weekend is just to feel rested at the end of it. That isn't too much of a thing to ask is it?  In summer?  Ought to be doable.

Thursdays.

I love Thursdays.

It isn't any different than any other day, really, but for some reason or other Thursdays are the day no one needs me and no one is looking for me and I don't generally go to a knit group.  All I have to do on Thursdays is knit.  

I love Thursdays

I also love my knit group.  It was small and lovely and quiet and cool and air conditioned at Paulette's very lovely home.  I had such a nice time.  

A little bit of knitting

I didn't get as much of anything done on the weekend, but then, I did do more of everything around here than I ever have before.  that happens when you don't have to run over to the other place all the time.  

I finished the blue hat for my Big Guy.  An inch longer and a little more ribbing.  2 inches more knitting sure makes a difference.

Then I knit on the red sweater I started so long ago.  I am still not sure what I am doing with it, and yet  I keep knitting on it.  I am seriously thinking of starting over from the top though.  Bottom up feels so aimless somehow.

Then I did a little something just for fun.  I started a Bracket Form,

another simple but interesting small shawl, by Meghan Jackson I love that long sweep and swirl.  It is so much more rewarding than a plain progressions of eyelets.

I started using a 4 mm needle and I am using a couple skeins of Adam and Eve from River City Yarns in the colourway Poppy.  The merino, cashmere and nylon blend is just splendid, a perfect match to their other premium house blend, Eden. The yarn was perfect. The needle, not so much.

 

One hot mess.  What should show up is the graceful drape of holes lowing out over the fabric, but all that you can see is mess.  

I started over with a 3.5 mm needle.

 Much much better.  I worked on it most of the afternoon, yesterday and it just keeps  getting better. 

I love it when that happens with a pattern.

I bought a sweater yesterday

I bought a sweater yesterday.  Its ok though. It is the kind you self assemble.

I wandered in to the yarn store on my lunch hour.  It just felt like that kind of day.  I stopped as I always do, by their stock of Rowan Pure Wool Worsted.  I  have always loved Rowan's Pure Wool line.

It just is such a sound yarn, such a round yarn.  I have been looking for the right project to use it for.

I wandered towards the back of the store and came across a new to me Noro.

Sitting here this morning I have no idea what it is!  I had to take the ball in to the office and I left it behind at home time. But the colours.  Oh my.  There is a richer than sin royal blue, and turquoise and even some deep purple.  I will put up a picture if I can.

OK, late in the day but I have found out what it is!  Karuta.  Absolutely splendid colours.

The colours, the vibrant richness of it were the spark.  Before you can say why a woollen sweater, I had the yarn assembled for a Shalom, yet another Shalom.  I really like knitting that sweater and I love the creative possibilities it gives  you for using fantastic the colours of Noro.   

And I could use a blue sweater.  No better reason than that.

I also forgot to mention to the Noroa aficionado among us, Noro has a new solid colour line that is Silk Garden but solid colours.  I can't wait!

The New Knitty

First Fall already, to which my knee jerk reaction is no, but you know, if you are knitting a sweater, it isn't out of line.

I'm not wanting to talk sweaters today but socks.  There is a most intriguing sock.  I don't normally look at patterns for socks, but this caught my eye.  

Plus there is a whole book with this new and unusual architecture.  Soleful Socks.

You can get it from all over.  Interesting times we live in.  for knitting at least.

The Silky Wool

The Silky Wool.  Ah yes.

I love Silky Wool.  The colours are so vibrant and it is so soft.  I have heard a myriad of stories about it.  Some, that it stretches too much, some that it just doesn't wear.  Me?  I.  Do.  Not.  Care.

I just love Silky Wool. I kinda have a collection.  

I have a copy of New England Knits, and a friend who went through a Northampton Neckerchief phase.  I went with her. 

I made one

and for a couple of weeks played colour games with the pattern and well, ended up with a collection of Silky Wool.  I do have a lovely purple in quantity to make a sweater and it will probably used by Christmas this year for my second daughter in law for a sweater.  

According to some, the yarn has flaws, but I think the job for us is to pick a pattern to suit a yarn.  It is a soft yarn.  It is thin and might not hold up to very detailed patterns.  Picking the right pattern for it is going to be important.  I am leaning to Adrift or perhaps Ecuador.  Both of these have the right kind of soft drape that will only be enhanced by a soft wonderful yarn

So.  Yes there is the Silky Wool.  And lots and lots to think about and even more to knit.  And this is a wonderful thing.

  

The properly equipped toolbox

The properly equipped toolbox.

For my Auntie Doris.  Why yes of course, because it is everywhere!

Tired, but in a good way

While I stayed home last week and putzed about, my boys. the men that they have become, finished pretty much everything at the house.  The bin is filled, the yard is cleared of large stuff that no one wants.  My job was cleaning after the fact.  Everything is scrubbed and washed and wiped down.  It is done and a more worn out troop, you could not find.  We are too tired to even be happy about it but inside, we are jumping for joy.

Somewhere among the last days, I did have time to finish the hat for my Big Fella.

Well, maybe finish.  I think I want to go back and knit it just a smidgen longer.  I followed the dimensions from the Sockhead Hat, even though I used the stitch count from Barley.  I wanted that more slouchy look.  When I was working on it, the hat was long enough and I bound off.  Now that it is done, the stockinette part is an inch short. Go figure.  I think I will make the ribbing longer too.

So...I will snip off the ribbing and will knit that extra inch of stockinette and will then make my ribbing long enough so that you can fold it back over your ears for double warmth where you most need it.  I have the yarn, and this is a little boy hat. He needs the warmth for playing outside and walking to school.

I love the way this hat sits and looks and is.  Just about the perfect slouchy hat.  I like it so well that there might be one in for grandma in the future too and I know just which yarn.  STR, blue and yellow, a wonderful mix!

I should have been knitting

With the biggest part of the work I can do at the house done, other than cleaning, that is, I have been home recovering these last two evenings.  It has been lovely.  I really thought I would take the opportunity to knit my lovely new yarn or finish my hat for my special young man, but I never quite make it there.

I've been dealing with some of the last remaining boxes in my big back room.  After a couple of days of sorting, the boxes under the daybed are filled.  One contains bedding for the daybed.  The other contains my sewing fabric.  

Well I hope it contains my sewing fabric.  All of it.  There are a couple boxes marked linens though.  I have no idea what they contain.  

There is also one marked Linen from Ukraine and I know exactly what is in that and I can't wait to get to it and find a way to use it!  I have lovely windows in my living room and dining area with some nice blinds but they feel a little bare.  I was thinking that if there is enough fabric, and if it is drapey enough once I mangle it to soften it, I would use one length as a narrow panel at either side of each window.  I might do a little embroidery.  We shall see.  It would look great if it worked and I would love that as a way to connect to a place I now hold really dear to my heart.

Just a few more boxes and the big back room is clear of boxes.  Just one closet away from being truly organized.  But that is another story. 

Going to lunch at the yarn store

Yesterday I went for lunch at the yarn store.  

No I did not have food at the yarn store, but it surely was time to feed my soul.  

I love just wandering among the skeins and colours.  I am transported to a place where there is nothing but harmony and splendor and the joy of losing yourself for just a while.

It doesn't look like much here.  

Better.  Maybe you begin to see a little of what I see in it.

It is that combination of silvery taupe sometimes found on old fences or on ancient farmyards where long abandoned buildings stand in groups like old men watching what might come down the road. Silvery taupe will share space with the soft colours of wet bark and earth and places where things grow.  As I grow older, I am so drawn to these colours of earth.  

It will be a cowl of some sort I think or perhaps a long scarf that you could wrap around your neck and snuggle into on the next cold wet day.

Some days all you really need is food for the soul.

Ready or not

My house goes up for sale today and I am so glad.  Pray for a very quick sale.

I don't want the sale so much to close that chapter or anything but the stress of it all is just dreadful.  One of my boys says it makes him feel like he is responsible for ripping up home and throwing it away.  

I have to sell fast so that he gets some relief.  So we all get some relief.

But the upside is that this next step is a lot more fun.  Buying is stressful but it is a lot more fun than getting ready to sell. So it is all good.

Sunrise, Sunset

There have been many many days the last few weeks, where going home at night means 10:00 p.m. and a long drive around the south end of the city.  There have been a lot of evenings devoted to getting the house ready for sale.  

The long evening drives have afforded some spectacular sunsets.  It's been cloudy and those evenings where the clouds were broken with the sun streaking through have been just breathtaking. Pink light shooting up and down, rich salmon sweeping into orange and brilliant flame.

I have no pictures though.  It's a major highway and there are no pullouts where there is a chance to stop and admire the sunsets.  That might be a flaw in modern highway design.

They remind me of a couple of truly brilliant sunsets that Brian captured.

 Puerto Vallarta where sunsets are a 10 minute event but still something to capture and remember.

 The long slow brilliance of a northern sunset in the fall.

 October majesty.

 And the long view, typically prairie.

He was a wonderful photographer. 

My home is generally oriented east and very soon, I hope to enjoy sitting on my pretty little deck with some early morning coffee, snuggled in wool, watching sunrise.  And in the evening, all I have to do is sit on my sofa and turn to watch sunsets out of a perfectly placed western window. 

Just about perfect.

Progress?

I suppose it is progress of a kind.  

I am almost to the end of the first ball of yarn and for all intents and purposes, the hat is long enough for a child's hat.  

I suppose I really ought to go read the pattern.  Yeah there is always that isn't there.  Read the pattern.  

I am using a different pattern than for my wee prince's hat but that was only done because I was using a very different weight yarn.  The two hats finish off the tops very differently.  One uses a graduated series of decreases and the other grows wider and then finished up with a set of dramatic quick decreases.  I haven't decided which of these two topping off methods I will use.  

Or maybe none.  Maybe I will do my own thing. That will be tomorrow's thing to think about.  

Settled.

Sorry for being AWOL yesterday.  Just plain old had too much to do.  OK, mostly what I did do was sleep in and it was lovely and a marvellous cure for feeling tired.  It was needed.

I also made a blanket decision that I was not going to the house yesterday.  There just wasn't enough for me to do there.  My skills will be called into service on the weekend, when they are ready for some actual cleaning and washing of things.  I took the opportunity to make an actual meal for myself.  I sat and watched TV for a bit.  I washed some clothes.  I knit a little.  The little blue hat is coming along nicely.

Anyway after knitting a little, I found I just couldn't sit still.  It was almost time for bed but I felt like I had wasted my evening. Dinner and rest was, apparently not enough.  What is up with that?

I went to the big back room and built the one last thing that needed building from the great furniture build of 2014, an under the daybed drawer.  And then, in a whirlwind of efficiency, I emptied the bags of pillows and I tucked the bedding into the now completed drawers. I picked up all the bits of cardboard, the instruction sheets, the little bits of tape that was stuck on the floor, all the detritus of building furniture and being unorganised and moved a few things around and...

Voila!!

One corner of the room done!  It isn't everything.  The bookcases are not ordered and tidy and there are still boxes of things that need to be put into those lovely under the daybed drawers, but it feels settled and right.

Home.  I am almost home.

I am tired

So very tired.  there is tired on my tired and my son and I pulled rank and rested today.  He has issues from a motorcycle accident and I creak just because.  This weather is making life hard.

But my hands are not tired tonight and I ought to knit but I just barely have enough energy to sit here for a bit.  I have exhaustion on my exhaustion.

I could write a hundred thousand things today, but really that is not what you need to hear and as much as my own misery is comfortable for me, I am not sure my misery is good for you and I know it isn't good for me.

So I am going to think about pink and coral skies, twilight and sunset and wide open spaces and hearts that fly in the heavens and souls that walk with God.

It isn't perfect.  It isn't what I would have choosen.  It isn't what I planned.  but it is.  And I have two ways to go with it.  Forward, finding the good I can in it or buried in the sorrows of the day.  I choose the first.  Its just better. Even if I am really tired.

Deep in the yarn closet

Deep in the yarn closet, there are all sorts of treats and I keep asking myself what I will knit first when everything is settled.  

I can't even get into that room right now.  When I had company, a few miscellaneous baskets of stuff were pushed up against that door and it has stayed that way.  I haven't had a moment to think outside knitting my wee hats.  

By the time I get there, it is going to be time to start to knit for winter.  Well fall anyway. I have always had an ongoing like affair with some pattern or other. Right now, the hit de jour is Hitofude.  I like the open little flow of it and I think it would work even on my hippy body.     BUT and it is a big but, the yarns I have that might work well for it are not the yarns I want to knit.  

I want to be working with some of that lovely lovely Madelinetosh that I bought while trying to find the right soft purple for my daughter in law.  There is a lovely opal gray with shots of greens and purple burgundy.  There is a stunning Baroque Violet, blue and dozens of purples.  It is not the right weight so the choice is going to have to be right yarn or right pattern.  

I will start a sweater, or at least work on one of the ones I already have started.  There is a very pretty red that might just make me feel wonderful.

If not, just to take the edge off, I do have a marvellous shawl that I am ready and waiting to knit.  It's a little reindeer colourwork shawl and it is absolutely splendid.

Umm, note to self:  when you are talking about things on the blog, don't go looking at your favourite shawls list.  It takes up waaaaay to much of your time and really, this week, you don''t have time.  But next week?  Yes, time.  You are mine.  And you and I will go deep into the yarn closet.

Hats and more

Hats!

 I kept telling them that it was on backwards.

And this was was a hit with everybody.  His big brother put it on his head and asked for a blue one with some orange.

When you are asked by the sweetest pair of big brown eyes, this side of Lake Winnipeg, you knit it.  

It just so happened that I have the right kind of blue in the big basket up front.  I don't have the orange and I am not sure what I can do about it.  I might go with some white, but I might just do some bands of moss stitch or some other texture pattern to give it a little oomph. 

Slouchy hat for a bigger boy is under way.

The benefits of Ravelry

I still meet a lot of people who don't know Ravelry, or who went there once and didn't find much.  If they say that, I would posit that they didn't look.  There are a lot of people who don't use it fully, who only go there for patterns, who only check out yarns.  A lot of people pick their one or two things they find it useful for and that is as far as it goes. 

I put me in the middle.  I don't use all the bells and whistles but I do appreciate the ways I do use it. One of the most important things it does for me, is track my projects.

When I start a project, one of the first things I do, ranking right up there with finding the right needles, is load the project to Ravelry.

I pop in the yarn from my stash, I list a needles size (I used to not do this till one time, it was information I could really have used), if I have them, I put up a first picture.  I try to keep the projects I have worked on up to date.  It is a sort of Saturday reckoning and it kind of directs me to the things I really want to work on for the weekend.

And some days, when everything is just too darn much, I find comfort not just the wool I wear, but the memories of wool already knit.  I can look at a long list of things that turned out and whatever the days troubles are, and find a peaceful list on which to rest my weary eyes.    

Sometimes that list of completed things is part of preparing for knitting the next thing.  What would I do differently?  What worked really really well?  What is it about that one, that made me so comfortable wearing it? Looking at past project helps me make the next one better.

My projects become part of the greater whole.  I don't think a very valuable part of that whole.  I don't have pictures of me in my sweaters. I have a long tradition of taking pictures of them in the raw stage after the knitting is done and before the blocking.  I have tried to improve that but it just is the way it is.

I love Ravelry.  I love how it lets you do the things that you want to use it for, and in a way that you want to use it. Nobody is shoving anything in your face. Not like some other sites, that shall remain unnamed.  

This is my little shoutout.  It my own little Ravelry appreciation day.  Thanks, Casey and Jess.  

Convoluted reasoning.

My hands didn't want to work tonight, so I played around with some other things.  Its rather unfortunate, since the wee hat is almost done, but not done enough.  

Aviatrix is such a sweet little hat and this yarn really works wonderfully for it.  but that is not the really sweet thing about Aviatrix.  

It is a class in wraps and how to knit them, and each time I knit one, my wrapping and knitting wraps skills improve dramatically.

I am almost looking forward to the next thing I knit that uses short rows.  Almost.  It will probably still be something garter stitch, though.  You know, so I can avoid any stress from stuff like short rows.  That might not make any sense at all to you but in its convoluted way, it is perfectly clear to me.

Seasonal Wear

I have been wearing a lot of knit wear to work.  In the early spring, I was going for layers and layers on layers.  I was cold all the time and I appreciated the fibre so much.

Now that the weather has become more spring like - actual cumulo nimbus clouds - I find myself loathe to stop wearing knitted things.  They are as they have been for a good number of years now, the pretty in my wardrobe.

Now that it is hot, I find myself reaching for the same couple of scarves and shawls.

This one, this creation from some patterns in books, is one of my favourites, courtesy the yarn.  Ruca is a sugarcane yarn.  An almost rayon fibre with all the drape and flow and cool against the skin properties of regular rayon.  

And this one show up often too.

This is my version of the Holden Shawlette, in Drops Lin, a pure linen.  Linen is the perfect fibre for warm weather wear.

And then there is this one one of my all time favourite designs in one of my personal favourite yarns.

This one is Bitterroot in flaxen.  

These all cling to my neck and back and just flow over me.  I love that in a shawl.  

I know a lot of people don't knit with non wool or animal fibre yarns, and you know what?  They really should try it.  It is just the loveliest thing you can imagine to wear.

More than one hat

A little fella needs more than one hat.  So grandma is making more than one.

This is the start of an Aviatrix.  Its a fantastic pattern and I love this yarn I am using.  It's perfect for the pattern.  Just the right amount of give and stretch for a not so warm summer hat.  

I got the yarn in a bag buying spree when Elann had a bunch of yarns from a South African yarn company called Elle.  Its is a cotton and wool blend and is the most wonderful colour.  It is the colour of certain kinds of clay that ceramicists use before it is baked, and the colour of a good honest mud in certain parts of the world.  That lovely slate greeny gray.  I love it.

This isn't the last hat this week.  There will be one hat for my Wee Fella in the cotton to match his sweater and then one that it pure play.  I think I am going to recreate a hat from my kids infancy.They had a hat, that was really just in the shape of a stubby T, with the bottom leg, sewn to the 2 corners of the longer cross piece.  Where most times the side is seamed up, the sides are left open.  It was the best hat ever, for days when my wee people needed something but it was too hot for anything much.  And I have the perfect yarn for it.  A nice mid colour indigo dyed denim, exactly the colour of worn jeans.  Perfect for an all together great summer hat. Worn jeans but in a hat.

Wee hats are fun and who says knitting for boy babies isn't fun?  Not me (and if I did, I was so wrong). 

Too Cute!

Hat one done!

Almost too cute for words and quite impossibly fun.  There will be more.