Tag Archive | handknits

A Year in the Life

Before yesterday, my last post was August 2023. That’s over a year and a half — somehow I didn’t realize it had been that long. It’s been a … full time. I was going to say rough, but maybe life just IS rough? I mean, not that every day is hard but every life has challenges and obstacles along with the joys and laughter and successes.

Things were kind of okay after we lost Grace. I was sad, of course, and missed her terribly. I still miss her. But I’d had time to grieve and mentally adjust to the loss even before it happened – that time to prepare can help more than I realized. About six months after we lost Grace, we adopted a 12 week old puppy and I named her Bella. She was supposed to be a black lab but ended up being mostly pit bull. She was our first tiny puppy, so adorable, but also so freaking smart. Smartest dog I’ve ever seen. She knew the names of all her toys and would go get them when I asked. Anyway. We had Bella for six months before she got injured in a freak accident and broke her spine, and we lost her. That took me out. It was so unexpected, so unfair. Grieving Bella has been harder than grieving Grace, in a lot of ways.

Because I am weak when I am grieving, we ended up back at the shelter about a month or so later. We’d learned that puppies bring joy, and we liked that joy. This time, we brought our youngest with us, and he fell in love with a little tan girl puppy. She wasn’t my first choice, but I did love to see him find his dog, the way I’ve found mine before. She’s mostly pit bull with a bit of dachshund, and she’s cute and snuggly and silly. I like her, but she’s not my dog. And that’s okay. For now, I’ve still got Jack and Duncan. Jack is 11 now and had a growth on his leg removed in January, but thankfully it was benign and he bounced back quickly. Duncan is 9 and just a big old potato with legs.

Of course there’s been more going on – a roadtrip to Philadelphia, a meet-up with the girl in Iowa – but dogs are always the highlight, right? For now, I’m looking forward to an April trip to Salem, MA for the Fiber Witch Festival with some of my little knitting coven. We’ve reserved a house and booked a walking tour and a trolley tour and of course we’re psyched for the vendor market but mostly I’m looking forward just sitting around and knitting with some of my favorite people!

FO: Librarian Vest

Jul10

With my Back to the Fuchsia shawl off the needles, I turned to my next biggest WIP – my Librarian Vest (Ravelry link). I had about 20cm of the body and needed 30, except actually I wanted more like 32-33 because the designer’s was shorter than I wanted. I knitted and knitted while watching Wimbledon and yesterday I finished and blocked it!

I love the gray and pink together, and I’m so glad I only did the pattern on the front instead of all the way around the body – that would have made it go so much slower, and who really sees the back anyway? I’m not a huge fan of the pooling at the bottom. That was before I started alternating my two skeins (WHEN will I learn??) and I didn’t want to frog back that much. And honestly, once I have it on, the pooling isn’t really that noticeable.

And yes, I have tried it on and it fits perfectly, which is a miracle given that my “swatch” was a cowl I knit three years ago with this yarn! I was a little concerned as I was knitting because it was definitely coming out too small for me, but then, blocking worked its magic and now it’s just right. Honestly, I’m kind of tempted to knit another one, but maybe in a solid yarn that wouldn’t require alternating skeins!

Beyond knitting, life is just trucking along, day by day. Work was super stressful for a while there, but now I’m in a quiet period, which I’m fully embracing. Grace is still hanging in there, the stubborn thing, though we’re seeing more signs of the disease’s progression. But she’s alert, she can eat and move around, she wags her tail and is happy to get attention, so I’m trying to go with the flow. We go back to the oncologist for a three-month follow up visit on Wednesday.

I took Jack to the vet last week. He’d had a couple episodes where he was drooling and his teeth were chattering so I was worried he had some kind of mouth/tooth problem. And I was worried they’d just tell us we’d have to put him under to examine him and then they’d want to do a cleaning too and then they’d find a broken tooth or something. But this time we got good news – the vet was able to get a good look and didn’t see anything that concerned her. She also said his teeth were worn but clean and looked good, so she didn’t even recommend a cleaning! Whew. Nice to get a good dog report now and then.

Happy Monday, friends.

FO: Back to the Fuchsia

Jul2

I managed to finish my Back to the Fuchsia shawl on the last day of June, a lovely bit of symmetry since I started it on the first day. I’m actually surprised I finished it that quickly, since there were a few times that the houndstooth pattern felt like it would take forever. But this was my main project for the month so I didn’t really work on much else. And I’m so glad I made it – it’s such a fun shawl!

The cream and black were both leftover partial skeins from stash so I’m thrilled to use them up. The black (actually charcoal) is a merino/silk blend from Julie Spins and the cream is Malabrigo Sock. The pink I bought for this project and it’s Baah Yarn La Jolla in Pink Tourmaline. I’ve got about 57 grams left of the pink so it might work well paired with a multi-colored yarn in a bigger shawl. I loved working with it – it’s so nice and crisp.

Blocking was a bit of a challenge. The designer recommended pinning first and then spray blocking, rather than soaking and then pinning. I don’t really know why but figured I’d better go with it. Because the lace sections had more stretch than the houndstooth, I had to fuss with it a lot to get it pinned out evenly and in the right shape. Got there in the end!

With that done, yesterday I had a bit of knitting time and had an initial thought of, “Wait – what am I supposed to work on now?” before remembering that yes, I do actually have several other WIPs that could use my attention now.

I also finished Friday Night Lights yesterday (alas) so I’m pondering my next binge. Thinking about The Bear. Anyone else seen it?

Happy Sunday, friends.

FO Friday: Wonder Woman Socks

Jun23

Here’s the thing: when you have a bunch of WIPs and you spread your knitting time around all of them (or at least some of them), then it takes a while for things to get finished. These socks, for example. I cast on in JANUARY and I just finished them, six months later. And they’re not even what they were supposed to be to begin with!

Originally, I had plans to knit these really cool Diana Prince (Wonder Woman) socks (pattern on Rav). It had the WW logo on the leg, but not only was the stitch pattern just charted and not written out (I don’t love charts – I usually find them harder/slower to read) but there was some weird fancy twisted stitch that looked super complicated and I just decided this pattern was more work than I wanted to do for a pair of socks. I like happy simple sock knitting. Of course, finishing these socks still took a few months after deciding that, but they’re done now and that’s the important thing.

It’s been busy and stressful and hot around here. The plants are appreciating the sunshine and the heat; the dogs, not so much, since it means they usually don’t get walks. I’ve made good progress on my Back to the Fuchsia shawl but have no illusions that I’ll finish it any time soon – that mosaic pattern has a tendency to get real tedious, so I have to take breaks.

This weekend is a busy one, by my standards anyway. Tomorrow I’m going to see Katherine Center with a friend (have you read her books?? I love them, especially The Bodyguard), and I think we’ll have dinner after, and Sunday I have a family birthday party. Both delightful things but I do hope I get plenty of quiet knitting time too!

Happy Friday, friends.

FO: Kitation Shawl

May31

I finished my Kitation shawl over the weekend. This was Casapinka’s pattern for Local Yarn Store Day, free with the purchase of any two skeins of fingering yarn. I was buying two skeins of Malabrigo Ultimate Sock anyway, so I thought, what the heck – let’s use it for this pattern! Well, this shawl felt like it took six months, not one. This was not one of my favorite projects.

I can look at the photos and recognize that it’s attractive, though for me that might be more about the colors than the pattern. So why was I not a fan? I had to carry two yarns throughout, which just got kind of annoying, but it’s not a dealbreaker. The first half of the pattern was almost like a stitch sampler separated by stockinette sections, which I kind of liked – it kept it interesting at least.

Then we got to the second half. It was mostly made up of four big sections that were basically the same: one side of vertical columns made with slipped stitches, one side of horizontal stripes, and each section alternated sides. As a concept, it looks cool. Knitting four sections of it got really boring. Like, REALLY boring. Plus, they recommended going up a needle size because of the slipped stitches, which I totally understand but then it made the stockinette sides looser than the previous stockinette sections. I noticed that more after blocking, and it’s admittedly a minor thing that I probably just noticed because I was already irked.

And then, after getting through all those boring sections, I made it to the “Garter Border”. Yay, the border, that shouldn’t be too long, right? Haha, wrong! The side to the right of the CDD had to go from 38 stitches down to 2 stitches, with one decrease every other row. I’ll let you do the math (mostly to prevent embarrassing myself in case I do the math wrong). Suffice to say, it was a much longer section than I expected a “border” to be and I was already so ready to be done with this shawl!

Finally! It was done, I blocked the sucker – which was its own challenge thanks to the unusual shape – and tried it on, both on myself and my mannequin. It was … meh. It’s awkward to style, because one side is so much longer than the other.

Now I’ve got a stupid shawl I probably won’t wear, so it will go in a bag of donation shawls for when I figure out where to donate shawls.

Oh, the pattern? Yeah, it’s apparently only available on Ravelry, even though Casapinka has a Payhip page. So if you can use Ravelry, and you’re still interested in this pattern, here’s the link.

I feel like such a grump with this post, but not all patterns are for all people. Who knows, one of you might love this design. And tomorrow is a new month and I have FOUR new projects all ready to cast on, whee!

FO: Classic Beanie

May6

This has been kind of a strange week. It’s been a good week at work – I’ve been productive, felt confident that what I’m doing is good, made good connections. But at home, Duncan has been limping for about a week now. He went to the vet on Tuesday, and the vet said the motion of his knee (both knees have been surgically repaired) looked good and his bloodwork came back perfect. She said to give him an anti-inflammatory twice a day for two weeks, cut back on food to get his weight down, and keep walks slow and calm. I gave him two walks after that, and both times it clearly aggravated his knee to where he could barely put any weight on it at all. Duncan’s not a complainer so he wasn’t whining, but it was obvious he was uncomfortable. I talked to the vet again yesterday, and she said there was a chance he’s tweaked something so we’ll skip walks for two weeks and give him a chance to rest and heal. I’m really hoping that helps.

I also finished another donation hat this week, the Classic Beanie by Woolly Wormhead. It’s a simple, free pattern and just what I was looking for, but when it was done, I was a little worried – it looked like I’d knit a hat for a conehead! Thank goodness for blocking.

And I found my way back to sock knitting this week too, after a long hiatus where socks just weren’t doing it for me. I was working on my turquoise shorties with my fancy Signature DPNs, and it was fine, but then a couple of days ago I pulled out a purple sock, a second sock on my Knitters Pride SmartStix, and it just felt so comforting! I think partly it’s color (PURPLE) and partly it’s how the yarn feels in my hand (wool/nylon vs cotton/nylon/acrylic). I can’t tell if the needles make a difference. I do feel like I grip the Signatures more tightly, but I need to test them on a wool sock yarn to make an accurate comparison.

I hope to finish the purple sock this weekend – along with some house cleaning. I’m looking forward to a house guest arriving next Friday and I want to make sure she doesn’t know how we actually live, haha! Having company is always a good incentive to clean house, isn’t it?

Happy Saturday, friends.

Saturday Storytime

Apr29

Have you heard of the Loose Ends Project? They match unfinished projects from loved ones who have passed away (or otherwise unable to finish them) with volunteer finishers. They offer the service for any number of crafts – knitting, crochet, needlepoint, cross-stitch, spinning, weaving, and so many more. I signed up a couple of months ago to be a volunteer knitting finisher. It was quick and easy, and you can specify what types of projects or technique you love or want to stay away from. (Needless to say, I stated I could not do color work!) They try to match projects with finishers who are relatively close by, and I got an email earlier this week offering my first project – a pair of mittens needing thumbs.

I reached out to the submitter and discovered she lives just a half-mile away from me, so I was able to walk down to her house yesterday to meet her and pick up the project. She was an older woman, friendly and chatty, and seemed so pleased that I was going to finish the mittens. Her aunt had started them years ago for a child in the family. Now the children are all grown, but I’m going to finish the mittens and make a little hat to go with them, and hopefully she’ll find a home for them.

The thumbs were quick and easy. I started with size 7 needles but the stitches were too small and didn’t match the original, so I pulled them out and started over with size 8, which was perfect. Now to knit a hat!

Oh, and I did celebrate Local Yarn Store day – I’ll have to show you my treasures tomorrow! Happy Saturday, friends.

What counts as a swatch?

Apr28

I bit the bullet and cleaned out some old photos from my WordPress media library yesterday. I was bonkers back in the day – adding five or six photos for one project? Re-adding the photo if I talked about it in another post? Somehow several photos were in there twice. Bonkers, I tell you. I tried to purge judiciously, so that I wouldn’t leave many photos without any of their original photos. Thanks to my efforts, I’m now only at 75% of my limit rather than 85, so I’ve put off the inevitable a bit longer. Maybe it means more posts without photos, or a single photo?

I also decided to cast on a new project yesterday, since I finished the Not a Dickie. I decided to knit a Librarian Vest (Rav link) with some KnitPicks Preciosa from deep stash. I’ll wear it more as a tank under a cardigan or jacket than a vest over something else, so I chose a closer-fitting size. I really didn’t want to do a swatch, and I remembered I knit a cowl with this yarn three years ago. Surely that would count as a swatch? Surely my tension hasn’t changed in three years? Yes, I realize the idiocy of this choice and yet I’m moving forward anyway based on the gauge in that cowl. Stay tuned to see how well it works out!

Also, as I began knitting, I realized the pattern uses centimeters throughout rather than inches, and it uses German short rows which are not my favorite short rows. Surely I can overcome those minor annoyances?? (“Don’t call me Shirley!”)

Tomorrow is Local Yarn Store day! Is anyone celebrating? I’m undecided – I want to, even though I have no need for new yarn.

Happy Friday, friends.

FO: Not a Dickie

Apr27

Two posts in one week?? Who even am I? Apparently I am going to continue my sporadic little blog here because it still pleases me to share things occasionally. Like today, when I have a new finished object to share. May I present, Not a Dickie:

The pattern is actually named Shoulder Cozy (Rav link) but when I was sharing the WIP with my lovely little group of knitter friends, one of them asked if it was a dickie and I said Definitely Not because I don’t want to wear something called a dickie and then another one said my Not a Dickie was very pretty and so now that’s its name. It’s shorter than the original item – I knew I had less yarn than the pattern called for so I just didn’t do the repeat of the first lace section, and I think it will be just fine. The pattern did have an error in the decrease section, despite that error being pointed out to the designer eight months ago, but it was easily remedied and otherwise it was a fast and easy knit. It used three skeins of Malabrigo Noventa in Hollyhock and the yarn is perfectly scrumptious, as Malabrigo usually is.

I also finished a book – Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano. She wrote Dear Edward, which the girl and I loved, and I had high expectations. Alas, I felt like this book was completely different than Dear Edward, not just in plot but overall vibe. It was a slow starter but by the middle I was getting into it, and then the last 1/4 I really liked.

After I finished that, I went back to the TV and knitting combo and watched an old favorite on Hulu – When a Man Loves a Woman. It’s not the happiest of movies but I love Andy Garcia, it’s from the year I graduated high school, and the husband and I used to quote a couple of the lines, so it has a lot of nostalgia for me. I must be on a kick of rewatching movies from that era. We watched City of Angels (so much Meg Ryan!) not too long ago and that really held up well for me; I still loved it. Next I want to rewatch Meet Joe Black but it’s not on any of the streaming services so I’d have to actually pay money to rent it (GASP – do people still do that??).

Happy Friday Eve, friends.

Monday Musings

Apr24

I really don’t know what to do with this blog. I rarely write anymore – partly because I have limited mental energy to spend on it, and partly because it feels like it’s just sharing knitting photos, which I can do more easily on Instagram. What’s the point of doing it here too? Plus I’m nearing capacity on my photo storage again, and my options are either delete old photos (don’t love this idea) or pay an obscene amount of money to upgrade to a plan with a bunch of bells and whistles I don’t need (not gonna happen). I suppose I can keep going as I have been, just writing when the mood hits me, though I’ll still eventually hit that pesky image storage limit. If only WordPress offered a little add-on for that!

Still, with all that said, I have been knitting, of course. I finished a sock and cast on another. The new sock is in Saucon Sock yarn from Kraemer Yarns. I reviewed this yarn eons ago and that pair of socks has been one of my favorites, and it has been the most durable pair I’ve ever made – they still look almost as good as when I made them. (Note: I machine wash my socks, dry them on the lowest setting for about ten minutes, then lay flat to finish drying.) And because of their cotton content, they’re so good in the spring. After thinking about it for ages, I finally ordered three more skeins to make more spring shortie socks. I cast on a cowl in my new squishy Malabrigo Noventa. In a moment of weakness, I ordered Joji’s most recent purple bags (and I LOVE them!).

Recently I finished several books I really enjoyed: Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult & Jennifer Finney Boylan (Picoult is the best at those mid-book twists), Park Avenue Summer by Renee Rosen (fact-based fiction about Helen Gurley Brown taking over Cosmo magazine), and The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz (another one with a mind-blowing twist). We’re caught up on the US version of Ghosts, so now we’re watching the UK version and really enjoying it. They seemed really similar at first, but now that we’re in the second season, I’m seeing more variation.

And I’m happy to report that Grace appears to be holding steady. I haven’t noticed any decline in the last couple of weeks, although we have had a few overnight accidents thanks to prednisone’s unfortunate side effects. There might be not-good things happening internally that will cause issues in the near future, but so far she’s just living her best life and stealing as much food as she can.

Happy Monday, friends.