Tag Archive | handknits

Shawls on Sunday

I snuck out into the chilly morning to be that weird neighbor taking photos of knitwear outside because a FO is never truly finished until I have taken the beauty shots! After buying all that yarn on my road trip, I realized it threw my In/Out yarn count out of whack – I was suddenly at 21 skeins added to my stash versus 18 used up. That was not acceptable, not after such a good start to the year! I immediately got to work finishing a shawl WIP that used up three skeins of yarn. This is the Jodi shawl by Joji Locatelli (Rav link) with the yarn from New Garden Farm I bought recently. I love how it came out!

I did run out of the middle variegated color almost halfway through the last row, but I just finished with the solid blue and it’s fine. I love how all the colors play together, and I intentionally started with the blue since it’s a better color near my face than the fuchsia.

Before the trip, I finished another long skinny shawl/scarf thing, the Bright Side, knit with my rainbow Desert Panda yarn. It’s a super fun one too, and I should be able to wear it for a little while into the spring since it’s a smaller, light piece.

This was such a fun, easy knit and such a wearable FO that I might be casting on another one right away – this time with white and black yarn. That seems like it would be perfect for the bright tops in my closet!

Other things I’m loving: the new season of Ted Lasso, the new season of Schmigadoon! called Schmicago, and Jenny Colgan books. I enjoyed (but didn’t love) Tiny Beautiful Things on Hulu, and am currently enjoying Ghosts, though we’re all caught up so now I have to wait for new episodes to drop. There’s also a new musical drama/comedy series on Hulu that I was super excited about (Up Here, I think it’s called) but wow it’s a solid No Thank You for me. Something about it just rubs me the wrong way, plus I didn’t think the songs were very well-written. I keep hoping I’ll find another show with lots of episodes that I can get obsessed with, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Happy Sunday, friends.

Projects, Needles, and Yarn – oh my

Apr12

Let’s start with the bad news first, so we can end on a good note. Grace went to the oncologist last week and the news was basically what I expected: it’s a very aggressive, fast-growing cancer and there’s no getting rid of it. IF it was contained to one spot and they did major surgery to remove it all, and followed it up with expensive weekly chemo treatments, she *might* make it to six months. However, there are indications it has spread to one lymph node and maybe the liver, so that seemed unlikely. We could try just chemo, which would give us maybe a 40% chance of getting her to 3-4 months. Or we could treat it palliatively and give her the best quality of life for the next month or two, which is what we decided to do. And after her doctor visit, we took her out for a good cheeseburger. And maybe a few fries.

We started her on Pepcid, Benadryl, and a high dose of prednisone, all of which could help control the symptoms and maybe even shrink the tumor a bit. And good news – it did! After a week on the meds, the tumor is noticeably smaller. It’s still an extremely large tumor, and this isn’t a sign of her being cured – it’s just going to improve her quality of life, which I’ll take. She is still in good spirits and doing well, so I’m going to appreciate that as long as it lasts.

Because the oncologist said she was stable in the short-term, the husband and I left the boy home with all the dogs and took a road trip to Alabama to visit the girl. We hadn’t seen her since August 2022! That is way too long, friends. Alabama might not be my favorite state, but we had a good time. Our day trip to Huntsville was a highlight. We found a wonderful used book store, a great yarn store, and spent the afternoon at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center – super fun, especially for the husband. I came home with a lot of new yarn and a lot of new books, and a completed pair of socks. Oh, and when I came home, I found my new needles had arrived! I splurged on a set of Signature DPNs for sock knitting and I can’t wait to cast on.

It’s been a rough few weeks for me – I’ve been in a super negative headspace – but the break helped a lot. I’m so glad I decided to go. The warm spring weather is helping too, I think. And the relief to come home and find out that Grace hasn’t gotten a lot worse! Happy Spring, friends.

FO: Scottish Highlands Shawl

Feb25

I’ve got another finished object to share and I don’t want to wait for next Friday. I bound off and blocked my Scottish Highlands shawl a few days ago but today was the first day warm enough to get outside for good photos. This a beast of a shawl — look at it all pinned out!

I didn’t weigh my leftovers but I’d estimate I used probably 85% of the purple and 95% of the cream. The purple was from gnarledpaw, a skein of Frida Helix Fat that was 600 yards and had a bit of cashmere in it – yummy!!! The cream was Deluxe Sock from Honey Girl Farms and was squishy and soft. It had flecks of purple and burgundy that perfectly complemented the main color. I loved knitting this shawl, except for the last bits of garter stitch where I got a bit bored and ready to move on to the fun lace. And I love how the lace turned out!

This was a satisfying project from start to finish, and honestly, it really underscores for me how different knitters are fulfilled by different things. I adore knitting big shawls with complicated lace but several of my knitting friends don’t. So it makes sense that it would work the opposite way for other things. I can let all you colorwork lovers make your beautiful sweaters and cowls, and know that it’s not for me. Heck, why would I stress myself out trying to knit colorwork when I can make things like this, and enjoy the process??

Other things I’ve loved lately: Book: The Bookish Life by Abbi Waxman. It’s a light read but perfectly delightful, particularly for book-loving introverts. I’ve already started the sequel. Movie: The Lost City. I expected it to be silly and slightly ridiculous, and it was, but it in the best way. It was my kind of absurd humor. TV: Extraordinary, on Hulu. Bonkers and absurd in good ways that make me laugh, but also explores some deeper topics. I haven’t finished the season yet but probably will soon. I also started watching the first season of Abbott Elementary. It’s not quite as good as I expected based on everything I’ve read/heard, but it’s getting better as I go on, and makes for good knitting background.

Happy Saturday, friends.

FO Friday: Colorwork cowl

Feb24

Okay, I did it. I completed my goal of finishing my first colorwork project, and my Pawsitive Vibes cowl is blocked and ready to wear. Here it is before and during blocking.

I definitely see the paw prints when I step back from it. I wish I’d actually done the ribbing as ribbing rather than stockinette so it wouldn’t roll so much, but not enough to redo it! Here it is post-blocking:

As you can see, lots of rolling which shows more of the inside than I’d like. The stitches evened out some, but not completely — there are still some very loose stitches and floats.

I’m very much meh on this cowl. I don’t think I’ll frog it, though I may change my mind if I never wear it. And at this point I have no plans, desire or inclination to do colorwork again. I might just stick with complicated lace shawls for my challenging knitting. But at least I did it!

Sock It To Me Monday

Feb20

Knitting is so funny, the way the process starts in my brain. Sometimes I have the urge to knit a sock, sometimes I crave a big lacework shawl, and apparently sometimes I just crave a color. I’ve been craving pink lately, which is what originally sent me to my stash on Saturday. A particular skein of bright pink jumped out at me, and originally it was going to be a cowl, but then I thought, oh, this might not be the most flattering color right up against my face. What prompted that thought? Who knows. I do wear pink, so it’s probably just a bunch of hooey and was just a stupid way for my brain to say this yarn wanted to be socks. And it’s well on its way to being a simple little shortie sock with a ribbed cuff and a garter stitch heel.

Along with that sock, I cast on four other projects … and finished one! When you knit a bulky weight hat on size 15 needles, it goes very very quickly. Normally I love a pompom but I might keep this hat unadorned. The pattern is Urth to Major Tom (I can only find it on Rav but it’s free!) and the yarn is Baah Yarn Sequoia. Our temps are in the upper 50s for a couple of days and then we’ll be back down to low 30s, so I’ll get some use out of it soon enough.

Do you have the day off work like me? Here’s hoping we get plenty of knitting done!

Adding to my WIPs

Feb19

My Pawsitive Vibes colorwork cowl is currently pinned out and drying after its bath. It does look better but I’m waiting for it to dry before I make my final call. But with that being my third finished object of the year, I decided it was time to cast on a few new things. Plus I was trying to resist the call of retail therapy by shopping my yarn stash. I’d ended my work day Friday feeling pretty good – I’d sent off a difficult article to my boss’s boss for review, and I thought it was pretty good. Then I made the mistake of checking email one last time before calling it a weekend, and they’d replied “Not sure this is what {head honcho} had in mind. Might be good to interview them.” Now, I know they weren’t saying the article was bad or poorly written, just that the angle I took wasn’t exactly the right one. But that’s how it feels anytime I get less than positive feedback on my pieces. So I let that get to me more than I should have and wanted the dopamine hit of buying pretty new yarn. I resisted though and now I’m ready for five new projects!

The teal in the back is for my second Turtle Dove II – did I tell you I ended up going back and lengthening the sleeves of my gray one? Much better! The MadTosh Wino Forever will be a crescent-shaped shawl, the pink will be shortie socks, the turquoise on the right will be a lace cowl, the purple variegated in the middle will be a hat, and then all the way on the right you can see I’ve already got something new on the needles. This is some yummy merino worsted from the Wooly Mammoth in Omaha, and it’s going to be a simple Inclination Cowl (non-Rav Link). I started that one yesterday in the car. There’s a new store near me called Bliss Books & Wine and yesterday was their grand opening, and it sounded like a fun thing to do. So far it’s more wine bar than bookstore – the book selection was very very small – but I’m guessing that will evolve as it’s open longer. Of course I had a glass of wine and bought a book but it was loud and crowded so I was happy to come home and knit and read.

Once I finished my colorwork cowl, I decided to read my new book and it was so good I already finished it! If you’re a Matthew Perry fan, I can highly recommend his autobiography. It”s not the happiest of stories but it was really interesting and well-written, and I enjoyed the behind-the-scenes tidbits of Friends.

Happy Sunday, friends.

Colorwork Update: All is Not Lost

Feb18

Thank you to everyone who shared tips, support, and commiseration regarding my colorwork challenges. I really appreciate all of it! I did frog what I’d done of the chart and start over with as much intentional looseness as possible, catching floats every 2-3 stitches. The first round like that literally took an hour, but thankfully it got faster and I managed to get through 31 rounds in three nights. Last night I started the second section of corrugated ribbing and realized I didn’t actually do ribbing the first time. The pattern said knit 2 with main color, purl 1 with contrast color. I just knit them all. That annoyed me so I set the project down for a little bit, and when I looked at my colorwork I was just thoroughly disgusted with it. I’d gone from one extreme to the other, and my stitches aren’t all an even tension and some of my floats are way too loose and when I looked at it, I didn’t even see how that stitch pattern was supposed to be a paw print. ARGH.

OH, and my ring broke because I’d apparently redone one of the loops/adjusted the loop too much and the wire said, nope and snapped off. That was okay, though — I still had one loop and that was enough to keep the strands separated enough.

Anyway, this morning I laid out my cowl to take a photo so I could blog my sad sad colorwork story, and in the photo I saw … paw prints?? Let this be a lesson about getting distance and all that jazz.

That was the reassurance I needed to power through and actually finish the damn thing. So this weekend I will do the final three rows of corrugated “ribbing”, bind off, and see how much shit actually blocks out. I will definitely be doing before and after photos. If I don’t love it, I will be frogging and reusing the yarn because it’s gorgeous and I love it so much. I know it’s Old Rusted Chair and I think it’s Squish DK which I also used for my first Douglas Cardi and I adore it.

And I’m fairly certain this will be the end of my colorwork journey. According to my knitting support group, I should have chosen a smaller project and yarns with more contrast, and after 3-5 projects I might actually knit something attractive, but I’m not sure I enjoy the process enough to ever try again. If I do, I’m going to order a Norwegian thimble rather than try to make another ring for myself. The wire’s just not sturdy enough.

BUT. Before I go back to my stupid colorwork, I’m going to wind about nine skeins of yarn. Five are for my second Turtle Dove, and the rest are for other new projects – details to follow!

Happy Saturday, friends.

Frustrated & Discouraged

Feb14

I’m so in awe of all you cool people who can knit beautiful color work projects, seriously. Color work is (was?) one of my goals for the year, and I’m trying, but let me tell you, it’s hard. You know that. I know you know that because you had to learn it once upon a time too. I started by holding the yarns in one hand, but that didn’t work, so I tried with the yarns in two hands, and it kind of worked, even if it was slow as molasses, but then my tension was forked up and way too tight so I had to frog four rounds of color work and start over.

That’s when I started shopping for a ring. Have you seen those? The rings you wear on the tip of your index finger to guide your yarn when you’re working with multiple strands? The one I’d seen on instagram was $77 plus $28 in shipping from somewhere international, and friends, I was not that committed to color work. I was just about to buy a simple one on Etsy when I remembered: I used to make jewelry! Not only that, I used to make rings! As luck would have it, I still had some of the heavier wire I used for the wire-wrapped rings, and I set to work. My first prototype was no good, but my second has a lot of potential, and with it I was able to almost-kind of-sort of-quickly do color work!

The corrugated ribbing went great, just a 2/1 pattern. But then I got into the charted paw prints, and as I had longer floats, I discovered the tension on the yarns became harder to control. Whichever yarn I wasn’t using got loose and floppy, and hard to catch when it was its turn again, so I had to fix the tension pretty often. Still, it was doable, I was making better progress than I’d expected, and I was pleased with myself — look at me, doing color work! But Sunday night I stopped and really looked at what I’d knitted so far, and while I can see that it’s okay, it’s not what I’d hoped for. The paw print pattern is awesome but my tension is clearly too tight in places and it’s pulling together. Argh.

While I’d like to think that sh*t will block out, I don’t think that sh*t will block out. SO. Color work is in timeout for now. I just wanted a darn paw print cowl, that’s all! Is that really too much to ask? I *might* frog this and start over with the charted section, catching my floats more often. We’ll see.

And now, having attempted it myself, I am even more in awe of you people knitting your beautiful color work projects. You have mad skills.

FO Friday: Curiosity Cowl

Feb10

The I cord drawstring didn’t take nearly as long as I expected. In fact, it might have taken me longer to sew down the top edge to enclose the drawstring! But, in any case, my Curiosity Cowl is complete!

Overall, I do like it better now that it’s done and I can see it on. It’s not as floppy as I expected and while not the warmest, the bamboo yarn is comfortable. Mostly I’m just delighted with the drawstring because it reminds me of hoodies, which are my favorite thing to wear.

With this FO, I’ve finished three projects this year and used up 7 skeins from stash. I’m pretty pleased with that progress. I also finished another book: The Love of My Life by Rosie Walsh. It’s a family drama/suspense that kept me hooked from the beginning. I liked it better than her first book, Ghosted. Have you read anything you loved lately?

WIP Wednesday

Feb8

I’m so close to another FO! I finished knitting the body of my Curiosity Cowl last night while binge watching Ginny & Georgia (omg that show is like Gilmore Girls on drugs and so addictive). Now I’ve just got 32” of I-cord to knit for the drawstring.

I really don’t know how I feel about this cowl. I got super bored knitting it, and I think the bamboo yarn is going to be super floppy, and sometimes I like the sort of fish scales vibe it’s got going on and sometimes I don’t. I do love the idea of the drawstring though, so maybe that will be the thing that tips it over into cool.

Hope you’re all enjoying your WIPs today!