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FO Friday: Rainbow Beanie

Jun4

For a fingering weight hat, this went fast! I cast on Tuesday and finished it last night. It came out a tad bigger than I expected, with a hint of slouch, but I’m hoping that will be okay. They can grow into it, right? It’s superwash yarn so I’m going to send it through the washer and dryer before gifting it. The yarn is Lion Brand Mani-Pedi (I think that’s what it’s called) and I really like the colors. It’s maybe not as as soft as some more expensive yarns, but I’m guessing a wash will help with that too.

We capped off the girl’s visit with an outdoor summer band concert — live music! the girl playing her flute! — and dinner and game night on our deck. It was perfect for burgers and Scrabble. The only thing that could have made it better would be if I had won that game!

And now the girl is gone and we are back to three. Grace might be the saddest of all. She got to sleep with the girl while she was here and now she’s back to sleeping downstairs with the other dogs. That is sad for us too, since she gets lonely and doesn’t let us sleep as late!

Happy Friday, friends.

Pride

Jun1

By now, I think most of us are aware that June is Pride Month. What I didn’t realize before doing some reading today was that it originated as a way to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising. I have many friends and loved ones who have come out as members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and I’m guessing I have more who haven’t. I love them, I’m proud of their strength and courage, and I try my best to be an ally. I have someone in my life who very recently came out, and I decided they needed a rainbow beanie, so that’s my first Pride project this month.

It’s fingering weight on size 3 needles, and I think I cast on something like 128 stitches. It’ll be a simple project, but made with love.

Happy Tuesday, friends.

Sock It To Me Monday: Roll On

May31

When will I want to start knitting more complicated things again? It feels like all I’m doing is stockinette or ribbing, socks or sweater body. I’m not complaining, because this knitting is fun and soothing, but it is a little weird. I typically have at least one WIP that requires some brainpower. I guess technically I do, because I started a cabled scarf for the girl, but I have zero mojo for that at the moment. I’m starting to think about some other things I want to cast on. I want to knit another big lace shawl, and I want some sport-weight socks, and I have four skeins of DK that need to become a big cozy shawl. I’ve discovered I love wearing huge shawls; my massive Mermaid shawl is my favorite and I wear it around the house all the time. So I definitely need a huge purple shawl. But until I have the appropriate motivation to cast those things on, I will continue to knit socks. I finished some Rose City Rollers from leftovers, and I had to get creative.

Writers have a term, “pantsers”, that they use for people who write without a plan or an outline; they write by the seat of their pants. Apparently when it comes to knitting socks, I am a pantser because I just grabbed a good-sized ball of leftover sock yarn and cast on. In one sense, it didn’t work in my favor because obviously I ran out and had to supplement with the pink. But in another sense, um HELLO these socks are super fun! And I wrote down how much yarn they used so now I can weigh my ball to make sure I have enough next time.

It’s been a busy weekend. We started with the symphony on Friday night and that was magical. It was SO good to hear live music again in over a year. I knew I’d missed it but hadn’t realized exactly how much. Then we had a family birthday party on Saturday, and a family graduation dinner on Sunday, celebrating the three cousins who graduated high school this year. I loved seeing everyone and had a lovely time and now I’m exhausted and looking forward to a lazy day of watching tennis and knitting.

Happy Monday, friends.

WIP Wednesday: Apogean

May26

Along with socks, I’ve been plugging along on my Apogean sweater, the one with the Manos del Uruguay Locura Fluo. I’m sill in the thick of the long stockinette body, just going round and round. After my last post, I got some suggestions to try helical knitting to help with pooling and that’s been both fun and helpful. Though my first effort at googling helical knitting didn’t lead me down the right path, Kath set me straight and shared a great video about how to do helical knitting with two strands (which she also calls the jogless join) and guys, it’s so cool!

The last inch or so is with the helical knitting, and as you can see, I’m still getting some pooling so I’m not sure it’s made a huge difference, but I love the look so I’m just going to roll with it. I have also discovered the secret to happily knitting a lot of stockinette: really fun yarn. I can’t believe I’ve done this much already and am excited to do more!

Happy Wednesday, friends.

Sock It To Me Monday

May24

This is shaping up to be a busy summer! Many of my friends and family are now fully vaccinated, and it feels good to start getting together again, but I do miss my lazy time when the weekends speed by. We have a lot of family birthdays in May, plus it’s a big year for our family: we have three cousins graduating high school! The boy is one of them, and the other two are daughters of my sisters-in-law. This past weekend saw us at a graduation party for a niece, and a graduation ceremony for the boy, my “baby”.

It was a chaotic morning and he wasn’t thrilled with all the fuss of graduation, especially when I forced him to take pictures before we could go home. I’m a little sad after this milestone, but also relieved (he’s smart but did not love school so it was a challenge at times) and excited to see what happens next. And look — the girl came home for the occasion!

While I may not have had a lot of mental energy to put toward knitting, I have had time, so I do have sock progress. I’ve got one scrappy Rose City Roller done with a good start on the second, and I’ve got most of a leg of a purple sock for the boy. I’m using some Cloudborn for him and I really like it — it’s soft and kind of drapey — so I’m glad I’ve got more in my stash for me!

As glad as I am to see (and HUG) people, I’m hoping we don’t go too far — I don’t want to lose lazy weekends completely! Is your life starting to get busier again these days?

Sunday Solitude

May16

I am alone. Literally alone. I’m petsitting for the sister and got here last night and it’s just me and one dog and one cat. And guys? It’s kind of delicious. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my people and my dogs, but I also love to be alone, and that’s been awfully hard to come by the last year. Even when we’re all in different parts of the house doing our own things, it’s not the same as having the house all to yourself. Do you know what I mean? You can sleep in the middle of the bed, eat what you want, and watch what you want without anyone rolling their eyes when you watch season one of Grey’s Anatomy for the umpteenth time. It’s good, that’s all I’m saying. And the pets have been very welcoming. I’d forgotten the singular pleasure of having a purring cat lie on you.

As you may have guessed, I did spend some time with Meredith and the gang last night, and worked on my Manos Locura Fluo sweater with the pooling problem. I thought I was going to try helical knitting, which would probably work except I realized I’d need to be knitting with at least three strands for that to make a difference. Before I went that route, I decided to keep going as I had been, just alternating two balls without trying to alter gauge. I figured it was worth it to see how it looked before abandoning that option. And I don’t think it’s too bad!

It’s an indoor photo with low light, so it’s not ideal, but you can see that the pooling isn’t so different than the yoke section to be jarring. Before I go any further, though, I’m going to slip the stitches onto waste yarn so I can try it on and make sure the fit is good. What do you think, keep going?

Happy Sunday, friends.

WIP Wednesday

May12

Darn it all, my fun and easy sweater is giving me grief. This is my simple pullover in the crazy-bright Locura Fluo yarn, and I thought I could just knit along and let the colors fall wherever they wanted to. That worked great until I got past the yoke and joined to work the body in the round. Two things happened at the same time: I started a new ball of yarn, and I settled into the body stitch count. I think my stitch count is just the right number to make the yarn start pooling in a stripe-y way, which isn’t how the yoke looks and isn’t what I envisioned.

At first I thought, oh I’ll just disrupt it, and I broke the yarn and rejoined a couple colors later. Duh, of course it fell back into the pooling after the first round. I joined a second ball and started alternating the two, and all that did was alternate the pooling colors. So now I’m fussing with it the whole time, trying to adjust my gauge enough with each row to prevent the pooling. Some rows I intentionally knit tightly, the next I’ll knit more loosely. In other words, it’s not the simple mindless knitting I expected.

Honestly, I wouldn’t even mind pooling (in theory) except that it seems like it would look so much different than the yoke. But maybe I should just give it a whirl, and knit several rows without trying to prevent the pooling and see what happens.

What do you guys think? Embrace the pooling, find a different pattern, what do I do now?

Sock It To Me Monday

May10

Happy Belated Mother’s Day to all my mom friends out there in the US. The best thing about the holiday this year was that I got to spend time with family, in person! Saturday night we were out on my Knitting SIL’s patio, celebrating a niece’s birthday as well as Mother’s Day for my MIL. The boy, who usually works all weekend, had sprained his ankle so he was even able to join us. Last night we were on my brother’s deck along with my sister, mom, and my siblings’ kids. We had pizza and very strong margaritas and much hilarity ensued. It just felt so good to hang out with them again, and this time we got to hug each other because we’re all fully vaccinated! I’m looking forward to being more social this summer, especially on my new big deck.

But here’s the thing: today I am exhausted and I don’t want to talk to anyone. Being social has always taken a lot of energy, but now I’m out of practice and I did it two days in a row. I’m even kind of glad the workmen aren’t here today, as much as I want them to finish the job. Today I’m just going to quietly work and knit and pet dogs.

Speaking of knitting, I have socks to share! I finished my first pair of Desert Vista Dyeworks socks, the Twilight-inspired color named Bella and ZomBody Edward.

I used a ball of leftover blue sock yarn for the heels and I’m happy that I got them to match almost perfectly. I just started the toe a row or two sooner on the second sock, I think. Close enough for me!

With those done, I worked on my striped socks, cast on a purple sock for the boy, and pulled out a ball of brightly striped yarn for a new pair of shortie socks. I just love shorties in the spring! The only problem is that I am running out of space for socks.

Does anyone else have that problem? If you have a brilliant sock-storage solution, let me know!

Take a seat

May8

Earlier this week I saw a chair advertised at a local vintage market. It wasn’t any ordinary chair — no, this was a deep royal purple velvet chair, complete with matching ottoman. It was gorgeous. I’d very recently decided I would like a chair in my craft room, so this seemed like a sign: this chair should be mine. The market is only open on the first weekend of every month; there’s a whole neighborhood of antique and vintage shops that open for First Fridays. This particular shop opened at 5 pm on Thursday. We got there at 5:45 pm.

You can guess what happened, can’t you? The chair was gone, already sold. Someone must have been there right at 5, waiting to get their grubby little paws on MY chair. In my despair, I wandered back through the shop to another chair that had briefly caught my eye on my first pass. It wasn’t purple, or velvet, and it had no matching ottoman. But it was green, and cute, and it kind of matched a desk chair I already have. Best of all, it was very affordable at only $57. I dithered, because I really wanted a purple chair, but then the boy said we should buy it and once I got a purple chair, he’d take this one. That made it very easy, and now I have the cutest little seating area in my craft room.

Won’t you come and sit with me for a bit? Bring your knitting, I’ll make you tea. I’ll tell you, this room is one reason it’s tempting to stay in this house. Any house I move into from now on must have a separate room just for me, and now I know it must be big enough for yarn, my Twilight shrine, and my little green chair. Do you have a room of your own?

Happy Saturday, friends.

FO Friday: Walls (circus) Wrap

May7

This was a BEAST. I used a set of five 250-yarn skeins, for a total of 1250 yards/300 grams. And of course I didn’t check my gauge first because who does that for a wrap, so mine ended up 138 inches, which is 11 1/2 feet. For comparison, the pattern shows the longest edge to be 114 inches. So I ended up with an extra two feet, whatever.

Dog included for scale.

The pattern is Walls (circus) and it’s simple, alternating garter sections with easy eyelet sections, but doing that over and over for 11 feet does get rather monotonous so I’m delighted to finally have this off my needles. And I’m happy that I used up all of the beautiful gradient set from Neighborhood Fiber Co.

Now I just have to figure out how to comfortably wear this much wrap — or maybe I’ll hang it above the windows in my craft room like a valance!

Happy Friday, friends.