Sock It To Me Monday

Sock knitting is my comfort knitting, so it’s not too much of a surprise that I had to cast on another sock over the weekend. Yes, I still have one on the needles, but it’s a second sock and I’m past the gusset, so I needed one in reserves. Plus this yarn is pretty colors. It’s from Leading Men Fiber Arts yarn in a color called Complete Imagination.

98B2C932-B3A7-46B9-A7E2-208BCEC9F7DEThe weekend was good for more than knitting too! I got all my handknit socks washed and hung to dry, and made some yummy pumpkin muffins.

Unfortunately, I started feeling some vertigo and nausea on Saturday afternoon, so I wasn’t 100% for the girl’s visit. We managed a few games of Scrabble and Bananas, but otherwise I spent a lot of time on the couch not moving around so my stomach wouldn’t get upset. I got brave and went to the MinuteClinic this morning because I was afraid it was an ear infection that would get worse if I ignored it, but found out it’s fluid in my inner ear probably caused by allergies. With any luck, the nose spray and motion sickness meds I got will help quickly. And yes, I washed my hands a lot and used hand sanitizer and avoided touching things as much as possible! So for now, the couch is my friend. The dogs are pretty happy with that.

30E4D272-484E-498F-BAF9-2989418C7400Happy Monday, friends.

Birthday Penny

When I went downstairs this morning, I saw a little red car parked out front, and that gave me a much-needed perk of happiness, because that means the girl is home! She made it home last night and it feels good to have all my people in one place. We had to cancel a birthday gathering tomorrow night with the grandparents, and I’m disappointed and sad. But my mom is over 80 and the husband, girl and I have all been around way too many people lately to feel comfortable visiting her right now. It sucks a lot. But with any luck, she’ll stay well, and I’ll just hang out at home with the kids and the dogs, and sometime in the not-so-distant future, everyone will be able to spend time together!

Last night I cast on the sweater I’ve been planning for about six months, the one with my birthday sweater yarn. It’s Malabrigo Arroyo in fucsia and it’s going to be AMAZING.

55BDC317-0B45-49BC-B969-BFCFC6FD63EE_1_201_aThis bright, saturated pink is one of the hardest colors to photograph, but this is pretty close. The pattern I chose is Penny, a lacy v-neck. You start with the sleeves and body all separate and then join them. I started with the body because that’s always more fun than the sleeves. But the sleeves will be done on DPNs, so if I get bored knitting the body, I can switch back and forth with sleeves.

With all the yarn events being cancelled, I’d probably be doing a bit of online shopping to support small yarn-related businesses. But I’d been planning to shop at Knitting in the Heartland next month, and so far, it’s not been cancelled. (Which seems crazy to me and I hope they end up cancelling it soon. I mean, who among us wants to be responsible for Stephanie Pearl-McPhee getting the virus??) If it does get called off, I know I’ll be supporting some independent businesses! In the meantime, I’ll just keep knitting my from stash.

8A540AFD-9D57-48F3-8171-38CCCE195B7C

Happy weekend, friends. Stay safe, stay happy, stay well.

FO Friday

It’s Friday the 13th and the world has gone mad and I’m getting more evidence that my anxiety lives in my stomach, but I’m still knitting. We have to, right, to keep us sane? Or is that just me? I finished another project last night, leaving me with just two on the needles. This one is my review project and I’m not ready for the full review, but I wanted to give a peek.

img_7180I’ll show good color photos in the full reveal, but this does show off how pretty the pattern is! It’s the Oleada Cowl and it was fast and easy, and I love chevrons.

Hopefully you’re all taking precautions and staying healthy. My goal for the weekend is to stay home and cast on three new projects. The girl is heading home for spring break today, and the boy is on spring break next week, so I’ll have a full house again…just in time to do some good spring cleaning!

One more FO!

Finishing my sweater felt so good that I decided to make it a trend, and I finished my Melodia shawl! I started this on Christmas day so it hasn’t been hanging around as long as the Boxy was, but long enough that I was tired of having it on my needles. It had a LOT of garter stitch, which usually I love, but I guess I just wasn’t in the mood for it. Anyway, it’s done, hooray! The yarn is Blissful Knits Classic in the color Art Yarns and was a Christmas gift.

With that done, I’m down to three WIPs: two cowls and a sock. The sock is my travel/work project so I’m in no rush to finish that. Once cowl is pure stockinette and it’s there for when I need truly mindless comfort knitting. That leaves my review cowl, the Oleada, so that will be my next focus. I’m really itching to cast on my next sweater, though, so I hope it goes fast. I might need to cast on a new shawl too!

Birthday hats!

The girl had a birthday recently, and because she wasn’t home to celebrate, I had to send a little birthday box with a few extra gifts. Over the holidays, I’d said I would make her a yellow hat, but then one of the nieces claimed it, so I got another skein of the yarn and a pompom. And what would do but to get a second skein and a second pompom, because then they could be mix and match hats??

The gold is the July hat and it was super fast to knit. The black is Winter Walk, a hat that I saw on Sarah’s blog and fell in love with, and I knew I had to make one even if it involves darn cables!

img_6998I hate to admit it, but it was pretty fun to make and didn’t even take too long. Now I kind of want to make another one. Maybe. The yarn for both is Woolstok Worsted from Blue Sky Fibers. It’s a little rougher than I might typically pick, but you can get a small skein for around $9 and that’s enough for an adult-sized hat plus maybe a small pompom. And the stitch definition in the cables is so good.

Which combo is your favorite?

FO: Faded Boxy

Six months. Six long months. That’s how long it took me to knit my purple faded Boxy sweater. But you know what that means? IT’S DONE! I wove in a ridiculous number of ends yesterday — it took two and a half episodes of E.R. — and now I just need to block it! But will I wear it once first? YES. Yes I will. I have to wear it to work tomorrow to show it off to my knitting group!

8f3593f5-525e-450e-8d40-e5f1d16578f6This used up five gorgeous skeins of yarn from stash. Well, I have enough of the solid purple left over to be sock accents for a couple of pairs of socks. And I had to dip into an extra skein for the top when I lost at yarn chicken with the last color. Thank goodness I had two skeins of a variegated purple from my last trip to my own LYS! It wasn’t a perfect match but it blended well enough.

img_7139

I have slipped it on and I think it’s going to be perfect fit. That might be easier to achieve when it’s a loose, big, boxy sweater like this, but still. I’m quite pleased with it.

img_7149I’m sure I’ll share more photos later, with me wearing it and after it’s blocked. Happy Monday, friends! Hope your weekend was productive too.

A Mini Yarn Crawl

Today we return to regularly scheduled programming, and I will share knitting content. During my recent trip to visit the girl in Colorado, of course I had to visit a yarn store. But I didn’t keep it that simple. No, I went to FOUR yarn stores. When you’re 45 minutes away from Fort Collins, I think it’s just required that you make the pilgrimage. First, though, I drove to Wyoming. It was only an hour away and I’d never been, so it seemed fun. Well. Here’s downtown Cheyenne.

7F3949C7-0799-4AAA-84D8-CA37727F2BEAIt was very Western and not a big town and seemed a little…dreary. I did find a small bookstore/record store that was fun, and I visited the one yarn store. She had a lot of great brands, beautiful yarns, gorgeous samples. She had a lot of everything really.

It was too much for me. Too cramped and crowded, there was no organization that I could find, yarn was just stacked on the floor, and I couldn’t find any prices. I did find a couple of pretty skeins, but it wasn’t the best yarn-shopping experience. However, I went from there to Fort Collins, where I visited My Sister Knits for the first time, and guys,  it might be one of my very favorite yarn stores ever.

It’s in a beautiful residential neighborhood, in the carriage house behind a beautiful brick house, and you have to go through the white picket fence to get there. Then you hear the music as you walk past the chicken coop and you see a radio/speaker next to the coop, and you can’t tell me that it’s not there specifically for the chickens. Inside are two floors of the cutest, most charming shop, especially the second floor with the pitched roof and the big table right in the middle. The second floor had all the fingering weight/sock yarns, so that was where I spent most of my time. The women were friendly without being overbearing, the yarn selection was varied and amazing, and everything was clearly priced. They even had a dog, albeit a tiny one.

After that, I was just going to stop by The Loopy Ewe. But somehow I ended up navigating the car to Lambspun instead.

They had a huge shop, several rooms, with little nooks dedicated to spinning, needlework, and more. The yarn was spread throughout and it was fun to wander through and poke through the shelves, but I didn’t see a lot of great yarns calling my name. That might have been because I’d just been to two other yarn stores, but also I didn’t see a lot of indie dyers, which are my current obsession, and the sock yarn selection was pretty limited. I left there with just one skein.

From there I went to the Loopy Ewe, and that was my last stop for the day. I didn’t take any photos there, partly because I was tired but also because you don’t go there because it’s cute. It’s a nice shop, bright and well-lit, with lots of good seating areas, but you go there for the yarn selection. I was a little disappointed because I didn’t find a big selection of self-striping sock yarn, which is the one thing I really wanted from this adventure. Still, I came home with a fantastic assortment of treasures.

B74CD44D-16FF-41E7-9F47-26A513591A4C_1_201_aIt’s more than I meant to buy, more than I should have bought, but man do I love it all! I was especially delighted to find the Ritual Dyes yarns at My Sister Knits, and saw their cool Knitter’s Backpack in person. Al least I was able to resist buying one of those! I did add to my pin collection though.

65A062C4-71CC-47AF-AFE6-40DDCCB35EB1The Loopy Ewe pin is to replace the one the husband and girl bought for me last year that fell off my bag and got lost. The Ritual Dyes pin might be obvious, but it’s because I’m a Virgo. And I love to collect pins from the shops I visit, so of course I bought the one from My Sister Knits with their shop dog, Molly, on it.

Sigh. That was a fun little yarn crawl. Now I’m not buying any more yarn…until Knitting in the Heartland in April because I have zero willpower and am addicted to yarn. So the only thing I can do now is knit faster to use up as much yarn as I’m bringing in. On that note, I’m off to hopefully finish my Faded Boxy sweater today!

You guys rock

Guys, I love you. Blogville is so weird and wonderful. I never thought I’d be writing a blog post that’s basically like a private journal entry, but I got such wonderful, thoughtful comments that it makes my heart happy. Writing has always been how I work through a lot of my hard thoughts, and just writing that post helped me a lot. But then to hear from others who felt the same, and others who were encouraging and supportive… it’s so good. This morning, writing this post reminded me of a song, Breathe (2AM) by Anna Nalick, whose lyrics I love:

Two AM and I’m still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it’s no longer
Inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd
‘Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you’ll use them, however you want to

So thank you, for using my words to be kind to me and to yourselves. One of the comments made me realize that if I’d made different choices, I might never have started crocheting or knitting, and I can’t imagine not having that in my life, or having the amazing fiber community. I am grateful.

Okay, enough sappiness. I have photos of yarn shops and yarn to share but that’ll be tomorrow. I wanted this to be first.

The choices I’ve made

When I went to college, I thought I was going to be a journalist. I majored in Journalism, wrote articles for the paper, worked as a copy editor. I thought I would be a reporter for a newspaper.

Guys, it was HARD. I had to go up and talk to strangers and ask them questions, and as an insecure introvert, I found that terrifying. I did like writing the stories, though. And I loved the copy editing, but that was always super late at night. I got exhausted and my stomach would start to cramp around 1 am.

So I had that stuff going on, and at the same time, my mom was back home running her used-book store, the one I’d worked at for a couple of years before college. She and I had a lot of fun together, I loved the book business, and she needed/wanted the help. And somehow it was just easier to give up the journalism stuff and plan to manage the bookstore. I switched my major to English but kept a Journalism minor, mostly because I was pretty much already there with the classes I’d taken, and I quit the copy editor job at the college paper.

Current Bonny is pretty hard on College Bonny. Looking back, I feel like I took the easy way out. I gave up because it got hard. Because it was challenging and scary. And the choices I made then affected the rest of my life. It wasn’t all bad: I loved working with my mom for the next three years, and when the girl was born, I got to take her to work with me and my mom was flexible about nap times and tantrums and all those other baby interruptions. I learned a lot about the used-book business and am still a devoted collector and book snob.

But when the shop, and my parents, moved to Arizona, I fumbled. I tried to do my own book business from home but that never amounted to much, and when the boy was born, I gave that up too and because a stay-at-home mom. I fell into retail because it was an escape from constant mom-ing, and because it didn’t really need any specialized experience or degrees. And that was cool for a few years. I was a good leader, I think, and I loved the people I worked with. But when the job got harder, and life at home got harder, and my father-in-law died and my dad died, I gave up. Again. And I stayed home for another four years.

I feel like a failure sometimes. I look back at my choices and wonder where I’d be now if I’d been brave enough to keep pushing. Because I think College Bonny was on to something. I’m getting a few more opportunities at work, chances to write short news pieces, and it means talking to people and asking questions. And the crazy thing is, it’s super fun. It energizes me. I like learning about people and what they’re passionate about, and I like taking what I learn and turning it into something people enjoy reading.

Yeah, I’m a lot different now than I was 20 years ago. I’ve grown up a lot. I’m more confident in a lot of ways. I have a lot fewer fucks to give in general, and that’s pretty freeing. But man, what if College Bonny had just had faith in herself, and pushed through the fear, and kept on writing?

I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter, I suppose. It definitely doesn’t help anything or change anything. I am where I am, and I don’t regret the time with my mom or the time spent with my kids. I’m grateful we had that flexibility and freedom. And if things are starting to swing in a better direction at work, maybe that’s the most important thing. Maybe the hard conversations I had recently paid off to some extent and helped lead to these new opportunities. I’d like to think so, and maybe that’ll help me keep pushing the next time it gets hard or scary or frustrating. I’ll be like Dory, only it’ll be “Just keep writing, just keep writing!”

So, yeah. That’s where I am today. And now I think I’m going to do some knitting and lighten the mood. Thanks for listening, friends.

Socks: A Quiz

I know I promised stories of yarn stores, but I thought yesterday’s quiz from NothingButKnit seemed fun. Feel free to play along, either in the comments or on your own blog.

  • Do you knit/crochet socks?
  • If yes, how long have you been making them? If no, why not?
  • What is your preferred method? Top down, toe up? Which needles? Do you have a preferred heel type?
  • Have you gifted socks? Were they worn, loved and appreciated?
  • Could you make nothing but socks for the rest of your life and be happy?
  • One of the most addictive things about sock knitting is the amazing selection of fingering weight yarn that is available. What is your favorite yarn for socks? Do you prefer solid or multicolor yarn? Do you have a fiber preference?

My answers:

  • Do you knit/crochet socks?
    • Yes, I knit socks!! All the time! I always have a sock on the needles.
  • If yes, how long have you been making them? If no, why not?
    • I’ve been making socks for 3 years, ever since we did a KAL in our knitting group at work. Before that, I resisted because I thought they were hard or fiddly, and I didn’t think I’d want to put pretty yarn on my feet. (OH how wrong I was!)
  • What is your preferred method? Top down, toe up? Which needles? Do you have a preferred heel type?
    • Top down, size 1 DPNs, with a heel flap & gusset construction. I typically go between a vanilla latte ribbed sock and a plain stockinette sock. Maybe someday I’ll try toe up!
  • Have you gifted socks? Were they worn, loved and appreciated?
    • I have gifted socks to many people! Mostly to the girl, because her feet are the same size as mine and she always got excited about them. I know she’s worn and appreciated them. I’ve gifted socks to the husband, the boy, nieces and a nephew, and a few sisters. I believe they’ve all worn them at least once and appreciated them. But it doesn’t happen too often because of the time involved, plus the guesswork on size.
  • Could you make nothing but socks for the rest of your life and be happy?
    • No, I definitely need the variety of different yarn weights and fiber types.
  • One of the most addictive things about sock knitting is the amazing selection of fingering weight yarn that is available. What is your favorite yarn for socks? Do you prefer solid or multicolor yarn? Do you have a fiber preference?
    • My favorite yarn is self-striping; I think it’s magic. After that, I like speckles and variegated yarns. I love bright colors the most and neutrals bore me. I don’t enjoy knitting solid color socks as much because I get bored, since I mostly knit very simple patterns. For my own feet, I love a high-quality superwash merino with a bit of nylon. I can’t do rustic wool, alpaca or mohair because then my feet itch. But I like crisp yarn, not super soft or limp because it seems like those are the socks that sag and felt more.

Happy sock-knitting, friends!