A Wintry Start to the Week

We had quite the weekend of weather here in Pittsburgh! On Saturday, it was snowing heavily when I got up. I'd planned to go to Costco when it opened, but after looking out the window and seeing the weather forecast, I decided to push that trip back a day. Over the course of the day, the temperature rose a bit and the snow transitioned to rain. Thankfully that improved the conditions of the roads so I could drive to a friend's house to play mahjongg and so the Mister and I could go out for a date night, but it was still gross out there. Yesterday, I woke to rain (and most of the snow had melted), so I had a wet trip to Costco. By early afternoon, temps had dropped and the rain changed to snow. And this morning I woke up to this:

I am glad that Molly does not have school today and I don't have to go outside in this mess! Though it's supposed to be frigid this week, so this stuff isn't going anywhere for a while and I'll have to deal with it tomorrow. For today, though, I can stay cozy inside. And there's more good news -- I had coffee again this weekend with no ill effects, so I can be fully awake this week!

Although the weekend had its fair share of cleaning, laundry, and errands, it also had a good amount of knitting time. I finished up the hat I am testing yesterday morning during my weekly friend Zoom:

This will be getting a good soak today because it's a very snug fit on me. I'll admit that I only did one swatch, with a US 6/4.0 mm needle, and I was so far off on gauge that I decided to follow the recommended needle sizes in the pattern (US 4/3.5 mm and US 3/3.25 mm for the ribbing). I have a feeling the fabric is going to relax a bit when it gets wet, but I want an accurate measurement of the gauge I got with the recommended needles to report back to the designer. I may be that I should have gone down only one needle size rather than two, but we'll see. This can always be added to the donation pile if it's still too snug for me or Molly.

I also cast on for my vest yesterday! The opinions to my blog post were unanimous in favor of handspun alone, and the responses to the poll I posted on Instagram were heavily weighted in that direction (at last check, 83% voted for handspun only). While I liked the feel of the fabric with both yarns, probably because the laceweight was a fuzzy 100% merino, the handspun was so much prettier on its own, and my gauge was closer with just the handspun was closer to the pattern gauge anyway. So that's the way I went. I didn't get very far because the start of this pattern has a lot of short rows, and it's hard to see in any case because it's in stockinette, but here's the humble beginning:

While I'd glanced over the pattern after printing it out, I didn't really get a complete sense of the construction until I read through it to highlight the instructions for my size. It's knit from the top down, starting with the back. The shoulders are shaped with short rows, and then you work down to the underarm, incorporating shaping for the armholes. Next, you place those stitches on hold and return to the cast-on edge, picking up stitches for the front, which is worked to the same spot, incorporating neck shaping as well as that for the sleeves. When the front and back are both knit to the same point, they're joined to work in the round for the body, and then the armhole and neckline ribbing is added at the end. The pattern is extremely detailed, with helpful diagrams scattered throughout. It's an excellent example of a project that appears to be very simple is actually very well designed.

I'm working today, but it's a work-from-home day and I won't have to do school pickup, so I should stay nice and cozy. I got us a rotisserie chicken from Costco for dinner last night, so I'm planning to pop the carcass into my slow cooker and make some chicken broth for the freezer (this is the first time I've done that not using the whole chicken, so I'm excited to see how it goes). I baked banana bread yesterday afternoon, and we're having spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread for dinner -- we are all about the comfort food right now! The Mister has yet another work trip this week, but luckily it's only a couple of days and not the whole week. And while my stomach issues have settled, this week's anxiety-induced fun is an eczema flare around my eyes, one of which looks like I've been punched in the face, so I'll be getting in touch with my dermatologist to see if there's anything I can do beyond leaving it alone and keeping it covered with Aquaphor. It's always something, isn't it?

I hope your week is starting out with as much calm and warmth as you can find.