Finished and Finishing

Having a holiday and a day off in the middle of the week really throws off my schedule, but I'm pretty sure today is Thursday and one of my regular blogging days.

Yesterday went fairly well; I find that it's easier to fast as I get older, and I think I sufficiently hydrated on Tuesday so I didn't get the horrible dehydration headache I usually get. My only side effects, as it were, from fasting were that I was really cold and really tired. I was actually too tired to knit at the end of the day, if you can believe it!

Yom Kippur, like all Jewish holidays, begins in the evening, at sundown, and there's a really beautiful service that opens it that begins with a prayer called Kol Nidre (here's a video if you'd like to hear it). The service my parents and brother went to started at 6 p.m., so we were in a rush to eat our big pre-fast meal so they could get there on time. We stayed at their house to clean up the dinner for them and then headed home, where we were able to watch the service at our synagogue online. While we watched, I was able to finish up this sweet little project:

Pattern: Little Worsted Sock Arms by Stephanie Lotven, size 6-12 months
Yarn: Fibernymph Dye Works Mountain Tweed DK (85% wool/15% nylon) in a OOAK green and Bona Fide (100% superwash merino) in Pizza Pi(e)
Needles: US 7 (4.5 mm) and US 5 (3.75 mm)
Started/Completed: September 29/October 8

This was a fun knit, though I'll readily admit it was rather fiddly because there are a lot of ends to weave in and not much space in which to weave them. I also substituted a DK yarn, which worked okay, but the fabric is a little loose for my taste. It works fine for a little sweater, but I'm planning to knit one of these for Rainbow eventually and will be sure to use a true worsted for hers.

My favorite part about this sweater is the sleeves. The yarn is dyed so that the stripes follow the digits of pi, so it's completely non-repeating and thus I didn't need to worry about trying to get them to match. The colors in this version are meant to represent common pizza toppings: red/brown for pepperoni or sausage, taupe for mushrooms, white for onions, green for green peppers, and black for black olives. There's a significant amount of yarn left, so I'll likely use it to make a hat, either for my nephew or to add to the charity pile.

Now that this is off the needles, I've turned all my attention to finishing up my father's birthday socks, and it's getting down to the wire. I've only just finished the first sock.

Ideally I will finish the second by the end of the weekend, because the black dye has been coming off on my fingers as I knit (pretty common for very saturated colors), so I want to give the finished socks a citric acid soak before I gift them and will need to allow time for them to dry after they're washed.

In my reading, I am very close to finishing up the Inspector Gamache I've been listening to and should be able to put it on my "read" shelf by the end of the day. I'm about a third of the way through Just Mercy and enjoying it quite a lot; I hope to make serious headway on it this weekend when I can stay up a little later to read. I've also been keeping an eye on my holds from the library, and it looks like I'll be getting The Nickel Boys in the next few days. At least that one I'll be able to read while I knit!

This weekend is my 20th high school reunion -- crazy! Because it's a small school, there's not a big to-do, but there are activities at the school on Friday and Saturday, so Rainbow and I are attending a few on Saturday. It is her school now, too, so it should be fun to go together!

Also on tap for the weekend? Going through the photos from last weekend's sweater pattern photo shoot and getting the pattern ready to launch next week!