More Minis or Still No Knitting

I had a lovely day yesterday.  It happened with help from a lot of different people, including my kids and their families.  I am so blessed.

Cassie and Marcus and their Dad and Grandma Luda arrived after supper with a tin of treats for me, and some cards that the kids had made for me.

Cassie made this snowman stunner.  Such beautiful trees and a beautifully drawn snowman.  She used some nice gel markers that I got for her last Christmas or for her birthday, but it is very well done.  I love it.

She gave me a jewel inside to disguise a bit of a colour problem she had, but that just makes it more special.

Marcus had a card with full instructions and I was to be careful opening it.  I had to read it first, he said.

I did exactly what he said,

and there we were.  Him and I, a ghost heart, a rainbow and a lovely blue sky.  And it seemed there was more.

A baguette.  I don't know why.  His dad said he had to add that right before they came, and Marcus provided no explanation, but it's okay.  It was important to him that I see the baguette and that is what counts.  Maybe he wants me to bake him some?  I love that they came to visit me on a school night in the middle of the week. Luda and mom and dad and the kids.  They are my family and I love them whole bunches and bunches.  

Immediately after Marcus and Cassie et al left, I got a call from Scott. The whole household serenaded me with Happy Birthday.  They have done this a few times now and I love it.  I just adore it.  Owen was in bed but everybody else including my sweet Emmett who had a bit of the flu,  sang my birthday in. Baby Everett didn't sing but he did sleep wonderfully well all the way through it. I love that house full of guys, dad included, with their courageous mom.

It was a great day.

That was yesterday.  Today was a completely different adventure, different and yet the same.  It was time to fix some stuff into the house and onto shelves.

I worked on the kitchen first.  See that wee corner shelf beside the sink?  That is the little things I showed you the other day.  It is a five inch tall shelf, which makes it a perfectly decent sized shelf for canning and pantry goods.  I have a few more things to make for on its shelves but that will come in due time.

We had to add some flashlight to the stove corner.  The all black stove is sweet and looks reasonably authentic but it makes it impossible to see any detail.  That corner needs some lights.  There is also space for a cozy chair for sitting and spinning and knitting while things cook on the stove and when the house holder has moments to spare.

Once everything was sorted for the kitchen, the living room was an easy fix.

There are books to make yet to put in the cabinet with the 'glass' doors and rugs, cushions and some other soft goods will also be added.  It is a room for relaxing ad for evening sitting.  The other thing this room needs is a radio.  Circa 1920 - 1940, there would have been a radio in the parlor.  Needs must.

It will probably sit where the elk picture sits on the easel at the moment.  So comfortable, but it needs a few things to make it complete.

I even had time to clean out what has functioned as the attic.  There were duplicates of little things, extra chairs from a previous set of furniture, and odds and ends for the bedroom, which is what I mean for this room to be.  My house, sadly, has but one bedroom.  The lavatory is outside, through the garden and behind the house.  Baths are taken in the kitchen in the big laundry washtub, which I still need to make.  But my householder will have a pretty room to sleep in.  

As you can see, at the moment it is hosting not only a very fine dressser, but also the little table and chairs which will eventually grace the garden by the kitchen door.

I have had a chest of drawers for a very long time but it matched none of the other pieces in the house. I decided to paint it white.   

It is going to take at least two more coats, but the paint has a bit of a sheen to it so it should look very nice with the white dresser.  At the side of this picture you can just see a roll of wire.  That wire, along with some other stuff, is going to become the bed.  

Which is going to be work for another day.  

Keith made butter chicken from scratch for supper this evening.  My goodness he is a good cook.  He has the spices and flavours just perfect.  Yum.

And now to put on some Poirot and relax before bedtime.  It was a really good day.  I am really starting to appreciate those and be grateful for them. 

Tools!

I didn't do a lot today.  It was just one of those days, I guess.  What I did do was kind of thrilling for me.  

I explored one last bag of miniature things.  I thought the bag had beads and seashells, extra pieces of furniture, and old Fimo. But it had more! I came across my missing mini tools!  The saw.  My screw drivers.  Files of all sizes.  I am so pleased.  

That made everything so much easier and I could carry out my plans very efficiently.

I needed to make some changes to a piece of furniture.  A few years ago, I got myself some minis for Christmas.  One of them was a lovely island or kitchen cart.  

I have long felt that it wasn't quite right for my kitchen.  It was close though and I liked it, but the height was wrong for how I thought my kitchen would need to work surface to be.  

I think the lady of the house would have done most of her work at the table, the kneading would have been done there, vegetable prepping would have been done there, things like that. And the Island effect wasn't quite right and I needed a kitchen table more than an island.

So I made that happen today.

I cut the legs right at the top of the shelf part of the island, and then I cut off the feet from the bottom of the shelf piece.  The feet were then glued back onto the table and voila.  It is exactly right.

Then I was left with a weird piece.  I decided to turn that into shelves for the jars of canned produce from the lady of the houses garden.  Almost like a pantry, it will hold jarred peas and jams and possibly a bag of flour or of oatmeal.  

I cut a popsicle stick to size and inserted it between two slats.  I beefed up the strength of the little shelves with a support underneath.  Here it is all dried and ready for paint.  Somewhere among the bits and pieces are some newel post type things, that might get cut to size and added, to act as legs for my shelf, but that is a tomorrow project.

I also found the bike.  

I had forgotten about the bike, but the bike is going to have to sit near the door out in the garden. It just must.  It is the picture in my head.

Floors!

First off, I am tremendously unhappy with myself about the last post of the year.  I dearly wished I had posted nothing because I was so obviously struggling for a weird reason, though now I understand it, not so weird.  I have been using oxygen during the days as I was instructed to do but the New Years was a challenge, both Eve and Day. I ended up with a sleepless night and then the next day, broke into someone's vacation and called in need of help to sort it out.  Turns out, there is a good chance that I no longer need the daytime O2. I have to monitor my O2 levels regularly but so long as I stay in my target range or recover to my target range quickly, I will do okay without.  Which is lovely.  I have no tail.  I hated dragging air hose all over.  

I did a Sunday morning zoom knitting.  It was lovely to visit for a bit with people and talk about knitting again.  It has been a while.  I couldn't knit though.  I tried and could feel my thumb after only 10 or so stitches. More healing is needed.

When I left you last week, I showed you some of the card stock I prepped by marking it into squares. 

Since then, I prepped a second sheet and painted them, one white, one blue.  Each sheet was then sealed with ModPodge and dried.  And dried.  And dried and then finally pressed flat under the weight of some of my very large books.  I cut the sheets into tiles today, you see them here sitting atop the subfloor.

I am using a subfloor so that the flooring can easily be changed out if I don't like this or if I need to turn the cabinet to other uses again. (It started life as bathroom storage.) It is also easier than trying to stay straight inside the cabinet.  I really enjoyed laying out the tiles.

The first few minutes were very rewarding and

it just kept being enjoyable. I mounted all the tiles using ModPodge again.  It really is a great adhesive, sealer and any number of other things you can use it for.  It dries nice and clear and if you really want a wash of colour you can add a bit of craft paint mix it up well.  After all these years reading about it, this is the first time I used it and it was great.

Here it is finished but for trimming to fit after it is completely set and dry and here, installed.

There was a bit more trimming after this but I was so happy with it that I had to take a picture.  That took the better part of the afternoon.  It isn't perfect but it is close enough for me.  

Now to get all the things I already have for my kitchen back into my kitchen, dishes in cabinets, cookware on the stove, things like that.  As I was working on placing the living room flooring, I was dreaming about what else I might want to do to decorate my cabinet house. 

Wouldn't a chair rail high row of delft look tiles around the room look fine?  Maybe?   And I have to sort out windows.  The plan is to make a faux window.  I don't want to cut cabinet walls to install a real window,  but a kitchen really needs a window or two.  A window needs curtains and there should be rugs so that in the corner, where the rocking chair will sit, your feet are cozy.  There are other bits and pieces needed too, like a washtub and a drying rack for the sink.  I saw the kind I want on the lovely movie, Ethel and Earnest, (which you need to watch).  Earnest built it for her and it is the perfect thing for the style of sink I have.  

I do have lots of little bits and pieces, but I also have lots that I still want to add and make.   I am glad I have it to play with and keep me busy while I cannot knit.  The knitting sadly has to stop till the hand feels better.  I am counting the days.

And here it is.  Time for a round up of everything that has gone before.  

And then reading back I ask myself why.  

I did have one really great knit in January.  I wear it all the time.  It is one of the nicest things I have knit.

It seems I never did take a completed photo.  Best knit of the year by far.

I could go through all of the year but honestly, it was just so awful.  The sewing was great, some of the knitting was okay and spending time with Luda has been wonderful, but the vast majority is not time I want to do again.  Ever.  My heart breaks knowing that my grandchildren understand war and what it does.  They are happy little people because Grandma Luda is here and safe and they feel safe here, but they know it.  That is just something that was not in my bailiwick and something I was not prepared for.  The health stuff is something I am glad to understand but hope to never have to face that again.  Losing dad and the other losses that happened to people I care about have been hard, but there it is.  I have kind of had enough of this stuff.

The best thing by far is wee Everett. He is a such a sweet wee boy and I am going to call him blessed simply because his being born made the whole year better.  He is redemption and for now, that is enough.

Perhaps this New Year will be redemption too.

I can only live today, right now this moment in time, and I am going to take the few good things in the year, having kids visit, the good knitting, the sewing, the waking up feeling wide awake, the friendships old and new and I am just going to be content that I have such a good life.

More little things.

I never quite got around to playing with the kitchen things yesterday.  Playing with little things takes time.  What I did do was work on flooring for the kitchen and the parlor.  Yes the Parlor.  When I was little, my maternal grandma referred to her livingroom as a parlor, so in my house, I shall have a parlor, not a livingroom. 

I have had a long debate about what to do for flooring.  You can create some truly lovely floors with popsicle sticks and a wash of colour to make the floors be what you want.  I didn't want to go that route, not right now.  I was looking for a quicker, less time consuming option.  I went with a floor that I found as a free printable on the internet. 

There were five different wood tones and I went with the darkest. I messed up the back a bit, by not properly lining up the board lines, but it won't really be noticed once the furniture is in place.  Otherwise I am pretty pleased with the way it turned out.  I did debate varnishing or shellacking it but I am not sure how the inkjet printing will survive. It is on a backing of sturdier card stock and I am going to hold that in place on the cabinet shelf with museum wax, particularly along the front edge.  Some day, the room will have a rug for the open floor areas too.

I did debate about using a pickled looking finish print for the kitchen, but I have a different look in mind for my kitchen.  I want a floor of blue and white tiles.

I got the floor tiles prepped by measuring and scoring the tile lines and then had difficulty getting the paint tubes out of the drawer.  I got some colours, but couldn't find the blue that I needed.  It took Keith's tall vantage to get everything out of the drawer.  Things were pretty jammed in there. At one time, I had planned to put my garden there, but the garden is going to go on the table surrounding the cabinet I am using for my house.  It will be right outside the kitchen door as it would be in any real house.  

The vegetable patch is large and is set away from the house a bit.  There will be a sign to direct you there.  After all, vegetable patches large enough to feed a family through a whole winter without having to buy any vegetables at all take up a fair bit of space, and a potato patch, even more.  Sustainability requires room and a lot of effort.  The garden at the door is going to be a place where you can sit and enjoy the scent of flowers and enjoy the warmth of a sunny morning.  I want it to be a kind of protected corner, where the wind doesn't creep in and you can have a whole cup of coffee in peace and tranquility.

Which brings me to the other adventures I had yesterday. I reacquainted myself with the little things that were collected and made so long ago.

The tiny rocker that was made by Anthony, Keith and Scott.  Mostly by Anthony, I think because he was the oldest and most observant of the boys.  The seat and rockers were carved from of paint stir sticks that you could get from building supply stores even if you weren't buying paint, and the legs were from round toothpicks.  They ever so carefully stained it (I never saw any messes so they must have been watching when Brian or I stained something) and then put it together.  It is fragile because the glue didn't hold on the stained ends.  I think I did some repairs with hot glue at some point so I could have it sitting with my other things when they were younger, but it came apart years ago.  I mean to put it together after sanding the glue points and giving it just a wee bit more stability this time.  It will have a place of pride in my kitchen right near the stove where there will be a sewing basket table near by, so the householder has a comfy spot to sit and do her hand work in.

These came back with me from Mexico, not our last trip there, but the second one.  We found this lovely little shop with baskets of little things at the back for those of us so inclined and jewellery at the front to tempt a more average consumer.  You know where I was in that shop. Of note, and completely forgotten by myself, was the food plates and the filled jars of veggies.  I have a head start on canned peas, beans and carrots.  They are the beginning of a well stocked larder.

I came across this bag of almost forgotten treasures.  I played a bit with making tiny food some years ago.  I have always remembered making the cauliflower, but had completely forgotten the cookies and the hamburgers.  I could have a picnic right now by the look of things. Some things have not held their colour over time.  The bananas are a funky brown, but then, just as in real life, maybe they are over ripe?  Easily painted.  There are some tiny strawberries and grapes and  apples with stems and teeny leaves.

There is also a bag with the taco makings.  I still have to make the tiny tortillas though chips are there (tiny pepper seeds).

There are a bunch of little things that need putting, though there are also extra pieces.  I have 4 rolling pins because that is how they came.  There are a bunch of tiny jars and containers that I bought to fill with veggies.  Somewhere in my kitchen, in a cool corner, there has to be a spot for the larder, where produce can be kept and the extra butter and cream and eggs can safely stay and where the crock for making sauerkraut can sit.  Yes, I know, I never used to eat it, but in my mind, my little house has always had a crock.  It wouldn't be right without it.  In real life, here on the prairies we had basements and basements had cold rooms of course, though in my house, the closest I will get to a basement is a faux trapdoor in the floor.

Today, I will concentrate on getting the floors done.  It might be a bit fussy.  The tiles are not faux tiles and need to be carefully cut and set on a backing paper before installation.  It needs careful work so that the floor looks just right and so everything stays straight.  Wish me precision.

It Is In the Little Things

I pulled out one of my presents from last Christmas and played with that for the morning since I need to avoid knitting right now.  

I gave myself this nifty miniature book making kit last year and decided it was high time I did something with it.  

 

I knew right from the start that it wasn't going to be quite the thing I was looking for.  It is scaled more towards Barbie sized miniatures than the 1/12 scale I like to work with.  Still, the techniques are valuable and it is interesting seeing the possibilities.  Plus, there are a couple of the books that will be just right as is.  

First thing is to gather tools.  I did consider trying out my paper cutter.  In the end, I opted for plain scissors, because they are quicker to use and you can control the cut easily.  

The other obvious to me tool was something to score the fold lines with.  I used the end of a small file that I had, but you could use almost anything to get the fold lines to fold right where you want them to.

Cut out the pages into strips, fold them, add a dab of glue to glue the page sets together and then, glue the book to the inside of the cardstock cover.

Voila.  We have miniature books that are reasonably nice looking which are actually very pretty and are quite readable.  The story of Thumbelina is a short but complete version of the story that could be used for kiddies bedtimes. The art work is really quite nice and I am pleased overall.  

In my dollhouse, the World Atlas and the books on birds and butterflies are going to be well used.  The scale of them can be larger because in my home, full scale, books like that were outsized so details could be better viewed.  And so it will be in my dollhouse.

The box with this little kit comes with a kind of bonus.

The box could be used as the foundation for your miniature room if you wished.  It did include a book case punched out from cardboard for the books to be kept in and the ox itself has pretty walls and really nice floors.  It only lacks a fireplace, a rug and a cozy chair and side table to make a perfectly neat little retreat. I will hang on to the box for a bit.  Who knows if I might need them for something or other.

The kit wasn't a ten for me, but I did learn some things that will be of great value when I fill my bookcases in my miniature house.  For that, I call it money well spent.

Today, I am going to play in the kitchen.  I found some museum wax a while ago.  Museum wax is used to hold things in place but not permanently.  It is clear and will help keep the bits and pieces around the kitchen from falling off shelves every time any of the kids look into my wee house or I knock it as I go past it.  

I am also going to install the lights.  I have led lights that operate using battery power.  It is a very simple solution to the quandry of wiring which just seemed like such a monumental task to me.  I want to get the first lights up so that I can see what other fixtures I might need to really light the rooms well.  I am particularly concnerned with the kitchen.  In my mind, I want it to be a place from early in the twentieth century, like something I might have found here on the prairies.  My house will have electricity, but would only be used sparingly and always backed up with lanterns, kerosene or otherwise.  

So play today.  Why ever not.  These days between Christmas and New Years are precious.  The holiday isn't quite over.  Real life need not resume.  So I shall play and make some things happen that I never seem to make time for otherwise.   

Oh no....

I FORGOT TO TAKE PHOTOS.

That really irks me because some of the little fingerless mitts were really sweet.

Yes I did knit a pair of fingerless mitts for all the rest of my kiddies.  I bought a pair of good gloves for Isaac.  He is old enough to take care of good gloves, and I debated knitting him some mitts for over the top, but I just ran out of time and hand power.  

Cassie and Marcus and Carter and Emmett all got some.  Emmett's were pure red and Cassies were done with a sport weight from a Socks That Rock of old in the Farmhouse colourway full of violets and teals and golds.  They were very very pretty and she liked them a lot.  Marcus was impressed with his and confirmed that yes, he needs a yellow sweater.  

Isaac, Carter, Emmett and Owen haven't been here yet for their Christmas visit.  The plan was to come on Saturday.  However, they got a way better present than any gloves I might knit. 

They got a baby brother.  This is wee Everett John who was born just past Christmas and whose birth has not been formally announced yet by his mummy and daddy, though I know that the twelve of us can keep it close and quiet among ourselves.  

We will figure out another time for everybody to come visit.  Maybe when mommy has been home a bit, and needs a good sleep, dad will bring the boys over for an afternoon.  We shall see.

No matter how many visitors I have, Christmas is always special.  I have good friends.  I have a wonderful family who support me so well.  And I have peace in my nation, which these days is no small thing.  I am going to play with miniatures or set a puzzle or something like that today.  My hand needs a good rest so I am going to give it to it.

Here is the thing about plans

Here is the thing.  I have 'big eyes'  as in my mom always said I took too much of my favourite food on my plate.  She is right but more so, 'big eyes' speaks to the way I make plans too.

After finishing the body of the sweater for Luda, I decided that I would have time to knit the fingerless mittens that Carter and Marcus asked for in summer.  I also had to work hard to restrain myself from planning to knit something for all the grandkids before Christmas too.  And the reality is that it is not possible.

The reality is even the sweater won't quite get done.  I am going to knit on it and will try but I am pretty sure that there are just not enough hours to finish finish it.  My planning eyes were too big for the time I had left and did not allow for things related to my the realities of health and getting the house ready for visitors and napping and laundry and so on.

And then there is this.  It is the biggest problem with fingerless gloves.  On a fingerless mitt all you have to do is close up one longer bind off and then  weave in a start end, a finish end and a thumb beginning and end.  It is easy and takes only a few minutes.  But on a finger less glove, it is like this.

All those ends.  Instead of knitting yesterday, I wrapped gifts.  I meant to weave in ends, but after a late afternoon dietitian consult, I found my gumption had deserted me.  This morning it is the thing l have to do, and no getting around that.  

I am here, writing this post though, so I am not sure what that says...

EEEEeeeeep

Last summer, I found my feet were warm enough and I did not always wear socks.  I thought that was a good thing and just enjoyed it.  

However...

There is only one thing that can cause this kind of trouble and sadly, this isn't the only pair to have damage.  I do have the Aexeron pheromone traps out, I always do, but one is going into the drawer right now till I can get the whole drawer assessed, and sorted to see how many socks are done for. Then the drawers is going to get a pretty heavy duty wash with borax, as well as having borax in powder form dusted into the corners.   

This pair done for.  I ought to have thought of the results of wool in a quiet undisturbed place for a long period of time.  Moths really don't like being disturbed and it is the number one thing you can do to prevent an infestation.  Stir the stash!  The really odd thing is that I did not see any moths, not more than the occasional one or two early in spring.  They can pop in your house through an open summer and it is not a measure of your house keeping abilities at all. They are around as part of natures food chain and this is proof positive that you can be very unaware of an infestation in a dark quiet corner.

I guess the socks will be going into bags now just like finished garments, shawls and all the yarn.  Everything here is stored with an eye to moth proofing.   And post holiday knitting is clear.  All socks, all the time, till my drawer is renewed and refilled.

Meanwhile eeeep.  My feet are cold and I hope I have enough good ones to get through till New Years.

For crying out loud.

I did a whole bunch of knitting yesterday. I made good progress on the sleeves of the sweater.  And there is going to have to be a repeat of it this afternoon.   

I made good progress on the pairs of fingerless gloves too.  This was at the start of my afternoon before my IVKN (International Virtual Knit Night) afternoon.  

And this was after.

  

And this morning, I have been up since 3:30 and just could not go back to sleep.  I am not tired at all.  It is entirely possible that , like an infant, I have my days and nights switched around or I am just slept out.  There were two nights of ten hours of good solid sleeping and a third night with seven hours.  That is a lot of sleep when my normal all my life has been six to seven hours.  I felt a bit beside myself and was a wee bit annoyed.  I did not know what to do.  

So I cleaned my bathroom from top to bottom.  Yeah.  I know, but it has a door that I can close and it is well insulated from Keith's sleeping space downstairs.  If the door is closed he has to struggle to hear anything from there.  And now my bathroom is clean and I still have all kinds of energy to spare.  

Might need a nap today.  We shall see.

Moving Forward

It's been a long tough week and I hope it does not need to be repeated.  As much as my last post still had me trying, that was before it got bad.  In the end and YES, there was an end, I have a new and better suited to me machine and I had two good nights sleep, and I am feeling much better.  Not where I was but better.

I did heeps of knitting on the gloves.  The red ones are done and the first of the blue gloves has two fingers and a thumb left to knit.

That will be done before you know it and glove two will be cast on and will be my end of the day knitting.  I need a simple sort of porject for end of day knitting right now.  Even if it looks like a torture device full of sharp pokey bits.  

Most of my day is going to be devoted to sweater knitting though.

I

It's  going much faster now that I have the right needles and am approaching the striping the right way.  For me that is.

One of the really cool things about knitting has always been that this works for me but may not be right for you and yet another technique might work better for someone else.  So many ways to get the same result is one of the best things of all.    I love to knit and I am constantly in awe of all there is yet to discover.

 

Learning to Set My Sails

Today's quote on the sidebar of my blog is this:  'It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind, which determines which way we will go.'  Jim Rohn.

After yesterday, I needed to read that.  I need to reset my brain and needed to stop my little struggling party, be it pity, anxiety or whatever fear it is and just get on with things.  There is little I can do to change the direction of my life and what I can change, I am already working on. I must accept this tribulation and learn to live with the way my wind is going to blow.  And that is what I am doing today.  I have my mask on to take a better scope on me with the machine, so I am sitting here, writing with the machine on my face, learning to understand what is happening between its settings and myself.  Wish me luck.

In the meantime, I did knit and that makes me wonderfully happy.

First up, the sweater.  Right now I have it on a magic loop technique, but even so, I have had to accept that I must cut the yarns for the sleeves rather than carrying them.  I just could not manage it keeping them attached on the much smaller circumference of the sleeve.  

I will most likely switch out to dpns again because honestly, I really hate magic loop.  I know, I must be one among thousands who feel that way, but it is just so defeating to do.  DPNS forever.  Without the strands getting in the way and sticking where they ought not to be sticking to, I am going home to my much favoured way of knitting small circumferences.

My fun for the day though was knitting a second red fingerless mitt.  DPNS.

I didn't knit heaps, but I did knit some.  Enough to keep my soul from screeching in anguish from all the other hard things of the day.  

The plan is the knit two blue and two red and then two of the little boys are done.  Then I just need a pair for Cassie and a pair for Isaac.  I am still wavering about Emmett.  I think his little hands and fingers are too short for fingerless ones.  Maybe one without the fingers?  I shall see. He is playing games when he is stuck in the car, and that is what the my two big little boys want them for. I do predict a lot of growth for his hands and fingers before next winter.  He is just that age and size.

And guess what?  My little Owen is walking now.  Yesterday he took steps between the big chair on the far side of the room all the way across to the TV.  Till now he was only doing a few steps here and there but everything comes to him who goes the direction the wind is blowing.  His brothers show him you can go faster on your feet.

Taking a lesson that lesson from my wee Owen, I am just going to run with it, learn to set my sails properly and sort out this darn machine.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Duds

I had a long post prepared for today about choosing needles for sleeves and how I really ought to write down the needle size I am using or at the very least, keep the needles or even the tips in the bag with the project rather than putting them anywhere else while I am still working on the project.  Or how I even could leave myself a note so I could remember what tip size I was using for the garment.  And then there is the whole dealing with switching yarns every four rows and the struggle to carry the yarn along as I did on the body and should I be using shorts, dpns, or go magic loop to knit the sleeves...

Lets just say this step is interesting.  Or challenging.  Or driving me batty.

Part of feeling batty with my knitting at the moment is that my sleep machines are not working right and I am not getting the sleep I ought to and honestly, it is making me cry in the middle of the night in fear and anger and exhaustion. My blood gases are all wonky and that means nothing else is working properly either so I feel foggy and just oh so frustrated.  This is the third machine I have had since I left hospital and I want to know why I keep getting the duds?  

I am going to knit easy thing today like the sleeve I have started, which by now is just round and round, with my solution in place for all the troubles I had with needles and yarns, or the start of wristwarmers right up to the fingers part where it get just a little fussier.  

If I had time or brainpower, I would do more but this is all I have for today.

The Little Palate Cleanser.

After knitting a lot yesterday, I knit only a little today and only on little things too.

But fingerless mitten one is complete.  Just for fun I will knit the other red glove to make it a complete pair and then I will knit an entire blue pair before I wrap them up for the boys as a 'pair' of one red and one blue.  

Tomorrow I am going to work on sleeves. I didn't today because I had a middle of the day appointment and I just can't seem to wrap my head around appointments and knitting something really important.  I want to be fresh when I knit important things.  Tomorrow is a free day for me so sleeves it is.

The mitten is a really nifty little palate cleanser.  It's kind of like a sweet treat between courses.  It set me up just right for the next step on the sweater.

It's the Little Things.

And then, just like that, the body of the sweater was done.  

I am delighted with how it looks and am looking forward to knitting sleeves and neck and button bands and then blocking it.  It is the prettiest thing I have ever made.  So far.

I am considering knitting the sleeves using only the Adam and Eve, the non mohair yarn.  I have a feeling that sleeves might get pushed up by the wearer and I am pretty sure that the simpler yarn will stay up better.  Though the mohair is lovely, I am not quite so sure about it's long term performance either.  It is so airy and delicate and sleeves do get more wear than the body of a garment.  I want to think it over a wee bit but time is not on my side.  I have to make a choice asap. 

In the meantime, I pulled out another little thing that was asked for by my boys.  When they were here in summer, they requested some fingerless mittens.  At the time, one hand had to be blue and the other red, so...

I am using the basic mitten pattern from Ann Budd's A Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns. I am making the ladies small with a twist.  The mitt cuff looked great and then I knit in stockinette to the point where I was just past the thumb gusset and about to start going up the hand.  The stockinette part looked too wide for a boys hand, and though these boys are growing rapidly, I just wasn't happy with it. 

I know that the ones I really enjoy wearing to bed are a little ribbed pair.  The ribbing makes it fit around my hand so comfortably and closely.  A close fit will work better for the boys, so I pulled it all back and voila, ribbed all the way up and I am back to where I was before I pulled it out.  The boys wanted fingers on the gloves, and that means things will get a bit fussier, but for now, it was a wonderfully easy speedy little knit.  

It was so speedy that I caught myself thinking maybe I could make a set for Isaac too.  And I might.  It will depend how the fingers go and how the sleeves of the sweater go.  However, if I make something for Isaac, then I must make something for Cassie and what about Emmett and Owen and so on.  

Before I bite off a bigger chunk of the pie, I am going to finish these two projects, the sweater and mitts for Carter and Marcus.  Then and only then will I think about a few more little things.

Sweater Games.

My book is done.  Most tragically in a way.  I had hoped for redemption for one of the characters, in a way that he could go home to where he was loved, yet I knew from reading one of the books out of order, that he did not make it home.  Still, there was redemption for him.  His death and what he died doing was just that.  I am speaking of Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache novels and as to what character I speak of, well, you shall have to read them yourself.  Finishing Penny's novels make me wish I had another to read right now. 

Till I sort out what I will read next, I will watch some shows on TV which will give me ample time to knit. That is going to be the focus of my day.

 

This sweater is tricky.  The yarn has gone all static and clings everywhere.  I have never had that happen before but I suspect that it is the mohair leading the wool astray.  It is making me a bit batty.  And to top it off, when I measured a couple weeks ago, I had only an inch to knit till my optimal length.  I measured again this morning and I now have two inches to go to my optimal length.  

Sigh.  Knitting.  I love it so.  

Sweater games are being played.  All I can do is to keep on knitting my heart out.  Here is hoping that I get to the bottom today.

Pondering

There was no knitting yesterday.  I don't honestly know what I did other than a few house chores, but it just was not a good day to knit.  My hands ached and it wasn't a good day for it.  Looking for better today.

I spent the day pondering.  I am not sure what I was pondering but it wasn't anything important or large or anything else, and yet, I kept myself occupied all day.  I thought a lot about books.  I thought a lot about my grandkids and Christmas and all sorts of things like that.  

I read more than anything else yesterday and may do that again.  It is a good book.  There will be knitting to go with it today.  For a while anyway.  I am certain of that.  

Sweater like

Everyday it looks more sweater like.  You can see the wonderful way that Joji starts the shoulders

and the delicate slope and slant of the neck

and you can see I am getting to the point where it has a real sweater length.  If it was for a smaller busted person, I could call it good right now, but Luda is larger busted and carries her weight through her midriff.  The sweater needs to be a bit longer so that it hangs nicely to her hips.

So a few more sets of stripes.   I seem to be able to do a set a day on a good day.  After that my eyes give out and I start dropping stitches on this fine lace yarn.  Some days, what with our changeable weather, and the shifts we have right now from really mild to beastly cold, and the stiffness that it brings to my hands, I can only get one.  Today was a one stripe day.  It is what it is.  

But it is a sweater and it looks really fine and I am pretty darn proud of how it is turning out.

Surrounded.

There has been knitting happening here.  It struck me that I am going to have to really work my buns off to get even one Elton done before Christmas, much less two.  I am doing better, but focus on one thing at a time has been hard when there are so many things to stress over.  Sigh.  So I will put all my energies into working on the blue River colourway  Elton for Luda.  I did some serious inches yesterday and today, but particularly today.  I did a lot of knitting today.  It was great. The River Elton really did get knit on but it looks exactly the same as the last picture I showed you.  It is just rows and rows alternating two lovely yarns.  Very good for where my ability to focus is at right now.

 At least someone will have a pretty thing this year.  As to the rest of the WIPs?  They aren't going anywhere.

I have watched them (the WIPs).  Seriously and just like dirty dishes, stuff piles up.  They might eventually be way more fun than dirty dishes but you know what I mean.  There are always WIPs around and they spill out and climb up of their own volition till I am surrounded.

The the left side of me.

WIP bin shot one.

WIP bin shot two.  See, caught in the act of climbing out of there to join me on the loveseat.

WIP under the embroidery topped off by a bag with a pair of socks ongoing.

The knitting.  It's everywhere, It's everywhere.  And that is a very good thing.  

I have it!

I have it!!!!  

It is a while now since I spoke of the beautiful yarn I bought a while ago from Midknit Cravings.  It is their Comfort Sport base in a colourway called Pesto, a marvelous tweed looking green based multi speckled colour that I fell in love with.   I started a sweater with it and just could not seem to get the right fit at the neckline.  I frogged it some time ago and it has been waiting ever since for inspiration to strike.

It struck.  

Joji Locatelli released Arco Iris this week and it is the perfect thing.  Here is a link on Joji's website in case you can't see the pattern at Ravelry.   It is a simple pattern that lets the yarn do the talking, something I think is really important with this seriously fine yarn.  

I really cannot wait to finish up the Eltons so I can knit this.  I am so excited!

Living with the world as it is.

Once again, I seem to have not knitted yesterday. Morning appointments and discussions seem to have taken the entire day.  Add in a nap and there was not time to accomplish anything more than a few household errands.  But it did give me time to think.

My dad was a really special person.  He taught us so many things mostly by example.  One of the things he taught us was to try to see and understand all sides of an issue.  He tried to see all sides and he did not believe in cutting out what he wasn't really comfortable with.  He tried to live with things as they were rather than how he felt they ought to be.  He always tried to find a way to work with and find the good even in the most impossible people and the really hard situations. He found solutions for little things for anyone who asked for his help and he took pride in it.  He took responsibility for the things he did in this world and tried to act with a thought for how the little things he did would ripple out there in the big wide world.   

I am thinking a lot about him as is natural, and those good memories are helping to heal the hole his passing has left in my world.  But it is a very different thing than before.  I was prepared for the difference, but knowing it and living it is such a different thing.  I am seeing a different side of grief.   All the colours of grief are kind of amazing to me.  I never really wanted to know this, but here it is, and I will live with things as they are rather than how I wish them to be.  

Now it is time to go write a letter to my mom.  One of the things I learned through all of this has been just how nice it is to sit down and write a letter, a real letter.  A letter allows you to think about the words you use, and mull over the way you say things.  You can cut to the heart of a story in a way I really can't when I speak.  It allows you to edit which is lovely.  

So off to write a letter to my mom because there are so many things I appreciate about her, so many things I remember.  I love my mom. I wish she did not have to know these differences I know.  

**In case this strikes you as so sad, it really isn't.  I find comfort in all those memories with my family and times with dad.  It fills me with love. I know how lucky I have been in my family.

On the River Blue Elton

TI did get a bit of knitting done over the last few days.  In some ways the two Elton sweaters feel as if they are growing by leaps and bounds and as if it is all going to come crashing to the sleeve part before I know it.  

This lovely blue one is showing itself to need only four or five more inches.  Each set of striped rows is just over an inch and a half of length.  So not too much to go.

They may just be done by Christmas time. Maybe.  Which would be a real delight.