Of Sock Monkey Cabin Blankets and Gray

As you can see the Sock Monkey Cabin Blanket is coming along wonderfully.  I may not feel that I knit much last week while the short people were here but there was progress enough.  

And as you can see, the denim blue looks great!  I wasn't really sure about that but now, with more than a little edge of the marl,  I think any colour would work.  There is an antique purple in the large balls of Red Heart Comfort that would look smashing and in a soft brown or forest green, it would be wonderful.  I am not a hundred percent sold on antique purple and the red stripe, but I would probably come around to it.  

It looks great, and I could gladly knit this a second time for Scott and Amy, but for one thing.  Amy has seen  the sock Monkey in the charcoal and she loved it.  She loved it so much, she almost kept it for herself.   I think staying with the dark rich grey is important because I want her to love this one just as much.  The problem with that, as I mentioned before, has been getting the charcoal.  It hasn't been available for months.

I ordered a grey from Mary Maxim, a long time supplier of interesting stuff, from the same big brand acrylic yarn company, but you know how it is after your order?  Okay, maybe you are not afflicted with this, but I keep going back  and thinking maybe there is a better one.  Maybe I ordered the light grey, not the dark.  Maybe...maybe, maybe.  I could maybe me to death.  

The gray original and the interloper

I put them together so you can see for yourself a bit better.  They are very different.  The interloper is quite a bit lighter and that just raised the worry level up.

And then I did this.

After this stage I felt pretty good because when both samples are put together

I can tell them apart right here, but this picture makes me want to place a bet that Amy won't really see the difference, unless she holds it next to her mom's blankie.  It is going to be just fine.  

The really happy part is that I could order what I needed in one fell swoop.  No note that it was out of stock or low stock.  

Oh oh, I just thought of something.  I found out recently that I am going to be a grandma again come spring. That makes them a family of 6.  Which means nothing except the ideal blanket needs to comfortably cover the whole family.  I think I need to cast on just a few more stitches.  Two more skeins are on the way.

And I think I know eactly how I can use the leftover charcoal gray.  Baby Sock Monkey Blankie!

Involving Kroy

I feel chilly this morning and on a feelin' chilly morning, there is nothing so fine as hand knit socks.  My sock drawer is a little low right now but it is just enough to get by.  I have pressure to knit more without feeling really pressed.  

I have some on the go and they will be completed but I have also come to feel pretty strongly about a certain sock yarn.  

Kroy.  I love this sock yarn.  Every time one of my pairs of Kroy socks are clean they end up on my feet.  I love the doubled heel.  It is sturdy and it wears like iron.  The socks are warm because they are just that little bit thicker than many commercial sock yarns.  

The only socks that I pick before I choose the Kroy socks are the double stranded sock yarn socks.  And there are only two pairs of those.  

I do gave a bunch of Kroy on hand, not quite all the colourways, but many, so my most recent purchases of sock yarns have been the plain colors.  

I could speak much more about sock yarn but there is a demand on my tablet.  Marcus finally took his bath and earned the right play games again.  It seems my tablet is part of this scheme.  

It is okay though.  I have my own schemes and they involve Kroy.

Thursday

Things have been moving along here.  My blanket is looking good and I am about a two hundred metres ( by weight) from the end of the first giant ball of cream.  The end of the first ball of cream means half done so I think it is going along nicely.  Slow and steady seems to be working!

I would knit this morning, but my left hand is unhappy and I really don't know why.  There was no excessive knitting.  I worked out my hand with my stretcher excersizes and I used my powerball to keep my wrist strong and balanced and yet, in the middle of the day, my middle finger started to ache when I move it.  I don't think it is a carpal thing because the pain seems to start in the knuckle and only goes up, not down. It feels more like a sprain. In any case, I am not knitting right now.   

Because of this, I am going to spend my morning doing a bit of yarn winding.  I have that silk I pulled that I would like to wind and that gorgeous fuzzy Handmaiden.  If the kids want to help, then there are a couple skeins of purple Sweet Georgia and a skein of Alegria in the Locura Fluo colourway to wind too.  If things go nuts and the kids really feel like work, there is always a sweater quantity somewhere needing winding.  

The kids and I are having fun, though it has been almost a week and they are really missing mom and dad and their stuff and their beds.  Even fun at grandma's house isn't fun if it goes on too long.  There has been very little squabbling and a whole lot more goofiness. Goofiness like yesterday afternoon, where they had pillow fights all afternoon and never went past the pillows to turn the 'fight' into a fight.  These are good kids and they hardly need me anymore.     

This afternoon is mail and I am really looking forward to it.  I have a package coming from Camilla Valley farms with a different style beater for my loom.  I purchased the loom with a hanging beater and it works well enough but the regular beater has a race now (I don't know that it did before.  I looked for it and there was nothing said about it) and I really wanted a race.  I am not now and am never going to be a great thrower but slipping is down a race?  I can do that.  I also have a package of grey heathered yarn coming from Mary Maxim.  I was looking for a dark gray for Scott and Amy's Sock Monkey Blanket and I am hoping this one will work.  If not it will go to knitting hats and cowls for the those in need and I will have to keep looking.  Keep your fingers crossed that my minion, for whom I am exceedingly grateful, will get off work in time to get there before the PO closes.  

   

Remember Always

In Flanders Field

The Poppies of Flanders  (Please click the link)

Toes.

I am not a sound sleeper.  I haven't been for many years.  Long ago I decided that I was not going to call it a thing and worry about it because that usually makes the problem even worse.  Where some may have called it insomnia, I just call it a weird sleep routine.  I get up and read a little or knit till I feel chilly and then I know that burrowing in my cozy blankets will put me right back to sleep.

So last night when I woke, I found this.

It is the foot of the fey creature in the racoon suit you saw yesterday.

There she was, sleeping under my bed.  I don't know why she was there.  I thought I heard something just as I was going to sleep, but I called out for whoever was under my bed to come out and no one did.  She usually can't stop laughing when she does something silly so I suspect a joke and then by the time I heard her, she was asleep.  I tickled those toes till she woke and she went off to bed and slept really really well according to her account.  

And that is sort of the way the day went.

From Almost Nothing

Last week you saw this.

It was kind of encouraging to me to see it, because I felt like I had spent no time at all working on it.  Inside my head, it felt as if the cummulative time spent working on it, I ought to be no father along than the red rows.  As you see, I was a lot farther along.  

Which is why, when I spent the entire weekend working on the sweater, not even thinking about working on the blanket, this happened.

This is the blessing of working on a project where you hold two stands together.  Plus, it requires no thinking at all, once the first row is cast on and the rib is established, and yet that rib means you are always doing something different.  It hardly feels like you are working at all, as if you create something from nothing.

I am expecting to get a lot of work done on it over the next few days.  I have some little visitors.  

One of my family cohorts is here while they have school break.  Their mom is working on an away jobsite right now and their dad is alone at home, but is also working.  The lady who was babysitting last year has a brand new baby and the after school care isn't available either so Grandma's house was the only option for fall break.  I do suspect the break, which isn't quite the usual comes from 2 extra days the teachers are being given for stress relief plus the Remembrance Day break and likely a couple of days that are more normally for marking report cards. Grandma expects to be busy.  Ish.  They are both so grown now that it is almost not work anymore.  

They will have some outside recess time (recess for grandma) in the afternoons, weather permitting, and we have a plan for making crafty things starting tomorrow, plus baking:  cookie baking,  cupcake making sub buns, hot dog buns and bread for our suppers and lunches. We will be busy.  There is also a portion, not too big of course, of the day devoted to electronics, but after that, there are markers and pencils and colouring books and tons of paper to draw on. 

Besides, in this house, first guy to say I'm bored has to do the dishes. That's the deal.

Crossing my fingers and toes

It is starting to look like a real sweater.

Like a really nice sweater if I do say so myself.  I am also wondering (see me crossing my fingers and toes and even my eyes occasionally, though that doesn't seem to help the knitting) if I have dropped the front neckline enough.

This sweater is made close to the same as I made my Playing Turtle sweater .  Both are saddle shoulder contiguous (SusieM, I love you) with a high close collar kind of mock turleneck in style.  Without the problem this time, I hope.

Playing Turtle is a good sweater and it gets a ton of wear but the biggest flaw was that I ought to have done more short rows to make the back of the neckline higher and done them more to the front of the neck to give it better shaping.  It is a little high and while that isn't a discomfort in that soft yarn, it just isn't right.  

This time, I did more short rows, but I am just not sure if I did enough to get it right.  Crossing my fingers and toes. 

Quickly

This needs to be quick.  I wanted to post before the day gets away on me but I am in the middle of a thing.

First, I found a set of needles!  I have had these since I started knitting and I am not sure I ever used them. They are the old finish Addi Lace Tips where the finish went odd and felt sticky.  I polished them up and they are working just fine.  And yes, I could knit much longer without stressing my hands.

I have also started using a stitch marker to show me my progress. 

The rows can feel so long sometimes, and it is nice to be able to pause and see just how much you have done.  It is almost always more than I expect.

And then the blankie. I moved on to the main body.

The first one I made was charcoal and I am still waiting for some of that colour to show up.  I live in hope, but till then, I am working on this blue one.  At first I wasn't sure I liked it.  I wondered if the red ought to have been a stripe of solid blue, but no.  That would be wrong.  And not at all peppy, which is part of what I like about this thing.  The blue is already growing on me and in the end, I know it will be just as right as the first one was.  

Knit ribbing till you are tired is never going to mean the same thing again.

A Little Knitting, A Lot of Fun

I did knit a little yesterday. The trouble since I switched to metal tips on my needles is that I have to be a bit careful just how much I do on the sweater.  I bought the Addi short tip lace set because I like the sharper tip but over time I have found that short tip stresses my hands somewhat ever since the great tea cozy event of  2017.  I was thinking about ordering some long lace tips yesterday but I don't know.  Do I really need them or should I go back to the bamboo tips I have and knit slowly?  Needs thinking about.

The day however was not without a myriad of pleasure.  I stash dived.  It was marvelous.  

First things first.  I dived again because I had not found the Quoddy Blue Regal.  I had found a range of supporting colours, but without the Quoddy Blue to set them against for photos, there was nothing to be done.

Found.  And tested.

The dark gray as a third colour.

And the medium grey.

The clear winner here is the medium grey, though my mind still does wander to the blue I used to have.  Yes, that is confirmed now.  The heritage blue that I thought would work is all gone.  I have so many other colours of this yarn that I hate the idea of purchasing more.  I tried the range of purples I have.  The original is knit with Fundy Fog, Lilac and white and I have the two purples but not in quantity to knit Agate Cove.  They were both nice, but did not quite work when I took all the colour out. And so Medium Grey wins. The real test, as always in colourwork is the swatch, so that will come in the next few days.  

I just kept on digging since there were boxes all over anyway and I stuffed my display cabinet with glorious things.  

I pulled out these two yarns. One, the ball, is Handmaiden Rumple and the other is Handmaiden Maiden Hair.  These will be a warm long cowl.  I am thinking of something like the Bandana Cowl, but with a longer neck tube so that it could be pulled up and over and be a be all and end all cosy thing.  I may or may not use both yarns.  We shall see what happens!

I also pulled out this skein of Madrastha Silk.  I think that is the name.  It is lovely and so soft.  Pure silk but not with the gloss we usually see.  Just the soft beauty of a more raw look silk.  It would be a perfect Huj Tub.

I took out a yarn for a a few other things but they really are far in the distance things.  I just wanted to look at the yarns truth be told and I couldn't put them back!  And then socks.  

Socks, the start and the end of all my knitting.  I haven't completed a single sock since February.  I don't quite get it, because I do need socks, though lately sock knitting has not been where my inspiration lies.  That usually means there is a problem with the colours of what I am working on, though what I have on the needles aren't that bad.  Perhaps it is more that I just have so many other interesting things on the go.  Still  I deserved a good dig in the sock stash.

It is joyously colourful even before the plastic is opened.  I dug and turned to my hearts content and pulled out a few skeins to recharge my close to me sock stash.  

There.  Doesn't that just make your hearts go pitter patter?  It does mine.  These aren't the fancy sock yarns, these are just ordinary simple things, but they bring me such joy.  Maybe it is time to see if sock joy will round out this year and make things so much better as they usually do.  

And that sort of was my day.  A little knitting, a lot of fun.

PS, just a little wave out to Fay and Brenda and Christine and anyone else who still reads blogs including this one.  Thank you.  I appreciate you and I think of you more than you know.

On the Hunt

Only a bit of knitting happened yesterday.  But I am now most assuredly at what is my hips.  

Yes, I know it looks like a mere two inches from the chest but my hips are perilously close to my waist and my waist is perilously close to my ribcage and bosom.  I had a good bit of a laugh the other day on reading how clothing manufacturers are working hard to be more size inclusive.  They are still not going to be including me.  It just is the way it is.

I spent most of the day digging in yarn again.  It was lovely.  I found a few things I had been looking for for a while.  

I found the missing cedar!  It is Fleece Artist BFL 2\8 that I planned to make a Tempest cardigan out of.  I have had the partly used skein and the multi colours together for a long time but the second cedar hank has been missing in the stash for more years than I care to think about.  It is nice to have them together again. I used some of the green to make a gift for a good friend several years ago,   I am not sure that I have enough green semi solid yarn to do Tempest now.  It has distinctive striping and I have a feeling that I might have to play around a bit with the stripe widths.  Or height.  Whichever you prefer.  Anyway, I am going to weigh what I have and compare against other projects on Ravelry and see what I have.  I bought generously so here is hoping.

That is not really the knitting for now though.  That will be after Christmas knitting at the earliest.  First warm sweaters for winter.  Once I have a few of those under my belt, then we can talk lighter weight things.

What I still am looking for is the Quoddy Blue Regal.  I pulled out the two grays that might be my third colour of that very pretty Agate Cove Pullover and I have all the white out too.  The Quoddy Blue is somewhere in there, still eluding me.  I am going to keep digging till I find it.  

If you don't hear from me, call the landlord.  I got lost in the yarn or buried in an avalanche of goodness.  I am likely having a good time, but if you could just tell him to bring me some coffee?   

For Bar Mitzvahs and Weddings

A lot of knitting happened this weekend.  A lot.  

I am thrilled to say by the end of the day on Friday, I was at the point where it was time to leave the sleeves behind and start work on the body of the sweater.  I had decided to do a bit of  feature just because I loved the way my two gray cones looked sitting next to each other.  Choosing a motif was difficult.  

I didn't want something with too many rows.  I didn't want anything too complex.  I just wanted a single simple motif just at the underarms.  I also did not want it repeated at the back of the sweater, so I had to decide how I was going to treat the colourwork.  Do I do it as an intarisa thing doing the loop method and knit back across or do I just end the  yarn and weave in ends.  I opted for weaving.  

 

I found a neat little Escher-esque tree design in the Alterknit Stitch Dictionary .  Originally, the plan was for three repeats, with the center rpeat being trees of the lightest gray.  Then I thought about doing a panel just a few rows deeper with a texture stitch or a three stitch cable instead of the middle motif.  I stayed with that thought for quite a while but then, once the first motif was complete, I realized that a single line of trees was perfect.  If I did more, it would lose something.  That single row also prevents the motif from ending too close to the apex of my bust.  It never works when a panel like this ends there.  So here we are, perfectly placed and well on the way.  I took this picture Sunday morning and am getting really close to the waist.  

Like I said, lots of good knitting.

I also did a lot of knitting during the race.  (F! at Imola)

I should have had this blanket started earlier in the season.  It really is just the perfect thing.  It is also a great way to end the day.  When my hands are doing the smaller gauge knitting, I can do at least an hour on the large needles.  Now that I have learned that I don't need to death grip them, it is a nice relaxing way to finish.  I want to knit another three rows of the cream and then move on to the ragg effect middle.  I can't wait to see how the denim looks!

In less knitterly but equally earth shattering news, I got my hair cut.  I was sort of joking whining as I was brushing my hair, that I could really use a haircut and would he cut it for me.  He told me earlier this summer that he felt it was outside the roommate agreement and that it was even outside the duties of a son for a mom and not to ask again.  I whined that I just couldn't deal with the mess and the knots anymore and he said boy, did he know what I meant...and then he said I will cut yours if you cut mine.  I thought he was kidding, but he went and got his stuff.  

And this happened.   

Might be a straggler there, that lone dark longer strand, but it also might just be the way the strand is combed, but beyond that, it feels wonderful and from what I can tell is at least as good as some of the cuts I have had in my life.  

He did good and I am considering renting him out for bar mitzvahs and weddings.  

Sock Monkey Blanket

Yesterday was mail day and I had a package arrive.  Ok a box, but really it was just ordinary.  Keith and the mail lady both said that can't all be yarn, can it?  It is a two foot by three foot by two foot high box so under ordinary circumstances it wouldn't generally be yarn.

I told Keith he and the lady at the post office could laugh if they wanted when he delivered my apologies for the size of the thing.

Bahahahahaha I don't care!

But it is.  All yarn.  This was something for me after all.  What else would I purchase in quantity?  

In the spring when I finished the Sock Monkey Blanket, 

I was so charmed by it, that I was determined to knit another.  I started looking for the yarn immediately but it wasn't available just then.  I started seriously looking in May.  Daily for a long long time.  The charcoal wasn't available. And I kind of gave up a little bit ago and ordered a heathered denim blue.  I personally like the way the heathered tones look wrapped with the cream and photographic evidence on Ravelry shows me it is pleasing.  So fingers crossed.

Anyway,  Sock Monkey Blanket number two is under way.

Hönestrik.

I came across a new word today.  Early this morning, I was looking at interesting designs for the sweeater in the Mulespinner dark gray that I am working on right now, and it popped up on a particularly interesting hem pattern on this sweater.    

Hönestrik.  Isn't that a great word?    But what does it mean?  I could find pictures easily.    

The first thing I noticed was the brilliant colours.  It reminded me a lot of the way that Kaffe Fasset used colours in the 70's (I AM a child of that period so yes, I remember everything Kaffe besides just his knitting, his art, his needlework.  Sigh.)

I could see parts that were influenced by fair isle and by traditional Scandinavian knitting, but the essence of it, the real meaning of it eluded me.  

"Hønsestrik - a Danish knitting style from the 70’s, which literally translates into “Chicken Knit”. Hønsestrik is done with bright colours on a double pointed needle, so no purling is needed. The technique seems to have found inspiration in fair isle patterns, but with the Hønsestrik patterns resembling every day objects, animals and people to a greater extent. But besides the very bright colours and naive patterns (which I think look adorable on kids, maybe not so much on grown men with beards…) Hønsestrik is really all about making a political statement and challenging the norms of society at the time." - Knitted Cakes

Read this blog and it's wonderful posts.

Anna Bauer's website has a list of European sellers of the books.  It is not available in English and is not listed on Amazon.  But it is entirely possible that I might purchase a book and learn to read Swedish  for Chicken Knitting.

I am not sure which part I like the best.  The colours.  The rebellious roots of it.  The sheer and utter joy it gives me to look upon it.    

Hönestrik.  It might be true love.

Overwhelmed

Sometimes when I knit, I get overwhelmed by how significant a thing I am doing.  Right here, in front of my eyes, here in my hands,  I am making something that will keep me warm and comfortable. It is more than that though. 

Sometimes when I knit I am reminded that there is such strength and beauty in this simple task.  Knitting isn't a quick fix.  Knitting takes time and deliberate purposeful small moves, over and over and over again, till your sweater or socks or shawl is complete.    

Sometimes it is the color of the yarn and the way that light shines on it and from within it.  Sometimes it is the earthy, heathered sheepy natural colors. 

Sometimes when I am knitting, I am reminded of just what knitting did for me personally.  I worked.  I went home.  I had so few friends and knew so few people that I couldn't have held a Tupperware party because I did not know enough people to call.  I had a caring and supportive husband and three healthy kids and a decent social life with a few friends.  On the surface I had everything.  But I didn't have me.  Somewhere along the way I got lost and didn't exist.  Knitting helped me find myself again.  

Sometimes when I knit, I am reminded of just what change knitting brought to me and I am overwhelmed. Knitting sometimes is a very deeply emotional, spiritual experience.

I know that a lot of people cannot understand how anyone could feel this way about something like knitting.  A lot of people put it down to over sentimentality and being just a little flaky.  I am okay with that.  

It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks or feels about my knitting.  It really only matters what it means and feels to me.  

Oh my.

There is a moment when you do a deep stash dive, looking for the yarns your hands are hungry to work with where you just know you have to stop or you will have your entire stash sitting in the livingroom.  I faced that yesterday.  I even put some back but I left out enough, if I used every scrap of yarn here for four different sweaters.

I pulled out the Custom Woollen Mills Mulespinner Two Ply that I started the search.  This will absolutely knit me a sweater that is super warm and that can be worn even through the toughest household tasks.  It is a good stable strong sturdy wool and there is nothing warmer on the planet. (According to me)

I have two cones of the darkest gray and what you see here of the lighter colours.  That makes slightly more than two sweaters worth of goodness right there.  One dark gray based and one with a gradient look of some kind or other. 

I started working with the dark gray yarn immediately.  

I planned a very simple, plain sweater, but I think something else is going to happen.  Looking at the other mulespinner yarns and the gorgeous  contrast between the two grays, there might be a little colourwork making an appearance.  A sturdy sweater for at home doesn't have to be plain does it?  And if the colourwork is only a band across the upper chest or maybe some lice on the bottom two thirds of the sweater?  That isn't too much is it?  Probably not the lice though. My goal here is to bang out this sweater.  I am chilly and I want warm. 

Lots more yarn happened before I started knitting though.  

I pulled out the yarn leftover from my Undercurrent.  I think I know what I will do with these.  There are two and a third balls of the gray mulsepinner, a mid gray gray to the two above, and three balls of Noro Silver Thaw.  If I knit two complete sweaters out of the stuff above, there would be enough left to add to this yarn to create a great whatever happens sort of striping sweater.  

I took out yarn for a fourth too.  I have no idea why

 other than it is pretty.  It is a Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport in a sweet multi tone cherry, my favourite red. 

I did have some other yarns out, but I put them back for now.  I could flood myself if I let me.  The stash closet doors are still open though.  Later this afternoon, I plan to fill my inspiration cabinet with pretty things because my goodness, do I have pretty things.  Sigh.  There still is time for a few sweater accidents to tumble their way out of the stash closet.  

In the mean time, I am just going to knit.

Gettin' Giddy

Once that lovely sweater of Amy's was blocked and the buttons were on it, I swear by all that is, that it was the prettiest thing I have ever knit. 

Aaaaand I have no pictures of it.  And so it goes.  My finished objects list still like I don't know how to do it rather than a carefully curated line of things finished proeprly.  It just makes me laugh at how often I forget a final 'good' photo.  

My other cohort, Scott and Amy and all three of my boys were here yesterday.  Isaac is taller than I am now.  Sigh.  I knew it wasn't far off but golly gee.  And Carter grew a couple  more inches.  Like a weed that boy is and missing his friends in school so much.  And my sweet Emmett, who up till now has let his cousin Jane do all the talking for them, is just full of words and things to say.  He also plays a mean bouncy balloon game.  The schools foor all my grandchildren have now had at least one case of Covid in them, so Scott's kids are schooling at home again this year, but the school supports have been really marvelous. They worked hard over summer and Amy said it is a lot better than last year.  

So here I sit, house clean, almost no dishes because we were really ready this time, and I have nothing to do.  I will probably knit on the Thriepmuir sweater though the shawl has been beckining after a few days pause.  But mostly, I think I will do that twice put off stash dive.  

I just can't wait.  Diving is one of the things that make me giddy.  I have some ideas for shawls and scarves, and I want to keep out some mohair colours to think about.  There are lots of interesting things out and about that people are making with mohair.  And as much as getting the warm woolies out to knit with, there is some laceweight that I would like to get out so that I can wind it at leisure.  

I am going to keep my camera at hand so that I can take photos of what I pull and show you some of what is going on in my head.  I am getting a bit giddy thingking about it.  I just need to refresh my coffee and I am off.

Nailed it.

I had a bit of a dead line and I made it.  

This pretty little sweater is done.  It is a fine and delicious thing and I am so very proud of it.  I only have blocking and buttons left.  

As soon as practice two of the racing is done, the blocking will happen so that there is lots of time for it to be nice and dry for tomorrow.  I will take pictures of her wearing it before she goes home.

In funnier news, do you recall the sweater I knit for Keith earlier this year?  Well, it went down on a pile of clothes and was never worn.  I didn't think he liked it very well.  Now that it is colder, Keith was saying he needed to get another hoodie so he had something to wear when his hoodie was getting laundered.  I asked him where his sweater was and he looked at me kinda funny.  So, next morning he came up sweater on.  And the next day.  And the next.  

At least as good as a Hoodie.

He likes it.  He really likes it.  

Maybe Two?

If I do this right, and I really really hope I do, I ought to be able to finish two things this week.  Of course one of them has been sitting waiting for no good reason and will now be finished in a bit of a rush because of it.  But two things done in a week is stellar.

Scott's family is coming for brunch on Saturday.  Amy's sweater has been waiting for finishing since she tried it on for me earlier this summer and if I don't have it ready now, it will be Christmas till she gets it.  After finishing the bed mittens, I took stock of the sweater and what needed to be done.  

The sleeves needed doing plus button bands and neck band.  It will take longer to pick up stitches for each of these things than it will to knit them.  The sleeves are only 5 and a half inches plus the ribbing.

I have an inch or so of stockinette to go on sleeve two before the ribbing.  It isn't quite where I had hoped to be after a full day of work on it, but I didn't knit so much as I hoped.  Oh well.  I have already had a good go at the sleeve this morning, and I think I will be just fine.  I still have tomorrowif I need it.  Buttons, blocking and finishing ends won't take the whole day.

I have been working with Harrisville and Jamieson's Ultra for so long, my hands had almost forgotten the delights of Madelinetosh.  It is such a beautiful blend of wools and I so dearly love the colours.  Maybe when I do get to that stash dive, there will be some diving for my own favourite Madelinetosh stash.  I have Tosh DK in sweater quantities three times over just for me.  

The landlord and I had a big realisation last week.  It was particularly difficult for the landlord.  He has always maintained that he loathes coffee from single serving machines.  He tolerated my old Tassimo.  He said he would tolerate it if I got a Kuerig to replace the Tassimo.  I wanted a Kuerig because I wanted to be able to refill the coffee pods in a more enviromentally friendly way and because the frothy milky drinks are no longer available here for the Tassimo.  In fact, it is hard to find Tassimo pods out here at all.  I really enjoyed the freshly brewed coffee no matter what time of day it was.  Taste is everything.  So we had a keurig and life was good.  

Last week the machine died.  It wasn't heating the water hot enough to make a coffee happen.  We played with it a few times and tried various things with occasional success, but when electricty is invloved, occasional success is not a good thing. The coffee maker well and truly died last Friday.  Keith didn't want to go back to Vegreville just for a coffee maker so he said he would get one for me Monday. No biggie, right?  

Saturday morning dawned and we made a pot of coffee in the regular coffee pot.  

  Almost before the cup was done, Keith was saying he was going to Vegreville.  He said it was to buy some lightbulbs, but he did come home with a coffee maker.  Just sayin'.  

It seems we have become a household of pod coffee snobs.  Oh dear.  Oh well.  

It should be noted that of all the pod machines, the Keuring is not the best.  I have had coffee from Nespresso machines and that is really dramtically, differently good.  It is really great coffee, plus the pods are recyclable, though not refillable at home by me.  But the taste is the best coffee I have ever tasted beside it being prepared in the Turkish way as I had in Kyiv.  

I finished a Thing!

I finished a thing!  I am a wee bit shocked that I did but wow.  I finished.  I had almost forgotten what that feels like.

I finished my wristwarmers from Cat Bordhi's Pure Garter Stitch Mitts.  They yarn is Urth Uneek Worsted and I don't seem to have a colourway noted.  Sorry about that.  This is what it looked like at the start.  

They do look different on each side, which makes them kind of funky, but it is just part and parcel of the way the yarn was dyed.  It isn't nearly as brightly coloured as I thought it would be, but it is pleasing in it's contasts and warm brandy undertones.   

They look a bit strange don't they, but then, they just popped off the needles when I took the pictures.  I wore them to sleep last night and they look more like real people hands now.  

And I won't be stash diving today either.  I have company coming on the weekend and I have a sweater to finish and send along home with them.  

I think it is just button bands and possibly the sleevelets, but that ought to be very doable by Saturday afternoon.  The bigger problem is buttons.  I think I have some tiny pearl buttons set aside for this somewhere.  It is the somewhere that kind of scares me.

At Play

I think I am going to do a stash dive today.  That generally means there will be a bit of knitting, but there will also be a lot of fooling around.  

I am busy knitting things and I have plenty of sweaters to work on, but I have a strong almoost burning desire for warmth, workday warmth.  I have been thinking about that a lot the last while, haven't I, but as the snow approaches, as the cold falls, it becomes not just a want.  It becomes a need.

There are certain yarns I want to pull out.  The big cones of Custom Woolen Mills Mulsepinner Two Ply are coming out for sure.  The Regal so I can assess that pretty pattern and the colours I have versus what the pattern needs and probably the Cascade Eco + that I have, both green and red and maybe the cream as well.  I could always make a cabled something or do something with those ever entertaining twisted stitches of Maria Earlbacher.  And I will probably take out the Mission Falls.  I bought the Mission Falls for Brian so many moons ago, but I kept it for me because it is such a lovely yarn to work with.    

To be truthfull, I would take it all out and keep it out if I could.  Wouldn't it be nice if it could all be displayed like my own yarn store right in my room?  But...and it is a big one, I know how much effort that lovely tidy yarn store look takes.  

I also want to pull out a few yarns for small things.  I made a Huj Tub a while ago with some delicious Eden and a skein ofm Shibui mohair and it is glorious.  I wore it all last winter and I wore it almost daily even through summer.  It is just the perfect thing to wear when your neckline is chilly that first bit in the morning.  I have a bunch af mohair colours and I have a bunch of Socks that Rock that could work perfectly for warm fuzzy simple to knit cowls.  I have some Noro sock yarns that would work wonderfully too.  

As much as I will pull out yarns to work with, I don't really need to go into it for any real reason.  I have all kinds of stuff out that I would happily knit with.  I can take out what I want when I am ready to work with it.  A stash dive really isn't required.  

But sometimes, just sometimes, I just want to play in the yarn.  Opening my stash boxes is like opening shipments of yarn back when I worked at the store.  That is what I am looking for today.  I am looking for the sheer joy of yarns, for the colours, for the feeling of it in my hands, for the glorious cozy, warmth and goodness of yarn.    

A little of this, a little of that

I knit a lot this last weekend, even though Sunday, I knit almost nothing.  My hand needed a break and I am now smart enough to give it one, instead of powering through.  

I knit on this delicate little popover for a while.  I envision a kind of capelike sleeved thing.

Knitting that is like knitting lace without knitting lace.  It is fluffy but so very light.  I wanted a light top layer, simple in construction and plain, letting the yarn do all the talking, and yet now that I am a bit farther along, I am wondering if this shouldn't have some lace effects as it gets longer.  It is still close enough to the start that I could plan or do an all over  lace on the front or do a lace panel that gets wider starting just after joining for at the under arms.  I have also been thinking about 'striping' like the Shakerag Top, by using two strands of yarn.  I have plenty of yarn so it is worth thinking about.

I also entertained myself by going through the WIPs and knitting on my wristwarmers.  A good day of work would finish the pair I think.

  

  

The pattern is from Cat Brodhi's Family of Fingerless Mitts ebook.  It is simple to knit and brainless to fit perfectly.  I may just keep working on these today.

But I also took myself on the journey to the edges of the Shetland Shawl.  I chose something that wouldn't be too wide.  I think it's already there.  I also want something where I won't need anymore yarn.  I have three and a half balls and deep in my lace there is one more skein of cream.  I think.  

This edging is called the Doris edging and comes from Heirloom Knitting by Sharon Miller.  It may or may not match the pattern pefectly, but it is lovely to look at and is kind of fun to knit.  It isn't a long repeat and has a lovely kind of regularity to it.

I am about a third of the way down side one and it feels nice to be at this point.  It is also warm to work.  The whole thing sits in your lap as you flip back and forth working off one stitch at a tme.  It is cozy and warm and I am getting really excited about wearing it.

I may be hitting the sewing machine again.  Plenty to do there and I may just play around with my knitting.  It depends if I can talk Son3 and his kids into coming for a weekend visit.  Worth a try and something to look forward to!

A Little String of White

A little string of white to brighten your day.

Well it sure brightens mine!

I am wondering though, if one garter stitch ridge is enough or if wiser heads would do two or three garter ridges.  I am going to hit the books and see if there is anything that talks about the strength of that edge.  

And I am going to have to pick an edging.  

So close and yet, so far, far away.

So close and yet, so far, far away.

I thought I would make it yesterday.  I had nothing else much to do.  Not a lot of housekeeping tasks, some good videos and coffee at hand and not too many rows left to knit in the pattern.  I really thought I would make it.  Plus I meant to keep knitting till it was done.

But no.  I got to the end of a program and was about to put in another and I realized that while the spirit said I could do it, the eyeballs were tired and so was the brain and that leads to only one thing in knitting.  Trouble.  So I went to bed with a round of purl, a round of pattern stitch and another of purl to go.

I have no idea how many stitches there are on each side right now.  I did think about counting, but there is a point where counting makes it harder to go on.  To be clear, I am not there yet.  I think that has to be a higher number for my pea sized brain.  No, the cable of my needles isn't letting me count safely.  There are too many stitches on it and I worry that stitches would slip off.  That would hurt right now, even with a fairly well mannered sticky yarn.  You never know what could go wrong dropping stitches at this point.  I will wait till I am actually knitting.

I was thinking about it and once the pattern rounds are done, I am going to do a couple rounds of plain knitting to make a nice crisp cream edge to work with as I knit the edging stitches off.  That will hide any ugly joins and those times you need to work extra rows in a corner and things like that.  

What all that means, pattern work and spare cream rounds, is that the chance of me starting work on the edging today is probably zero.  And that is a good thing.  I don't quite have my edging choice clear just yet.  

I have till tomorrow.  No rush.

In spain

Feeling Tall

Well, the jacket was in the running.  For 3 whole rows.  And then my hands were tired.  This isn't a particularly bulky yarn.  It rates an 'Aran' on Ravelry, but it is a very dense yarn.  In yards per pound it is dense.  It does bloom when you wash it.  I know this from my swatch so that is what I am waiting for on this jacket.  Anyway, I did put the jacket down after the 3 rows.  

And picked up the Shetland shawl.  I worked on that quite a bit, to the point that I have about 6 rounds to go plus the purl round I am working on.  That does inspire me to keep going, keep sticking with it, keep focusing on this one huge project.  

Truth is, I can't wait to wear it.  The thing about big shawls is that you can snug them around you and hunker down.  Can't you just see yourself with them with a good book and tea snuggled on a sofa on a chilly afternoon?  That is how I see me in this shawl and I mean for it to be me.

Lots of people say they can't see themselves in a  shawl.  I can see me in one, but I have a feeling that I do not look like a person who wears shawls even when I am wearing shawls.  Persons who wear wraps and ruanas and shawls are usually tall end elegant.  I am not these things.  I am the polar opposite of tall.  And elegant.  If there was something farther in the opposite direction than that of elegant and tall, that is me.   I am tall but only if by tall you mean that I wear my tall short and wide. When I wear a shawl, I feel warm and cozy and ... tall and elegant.  

And that kind of works for me.