Let's Celebrate!

Hello, friends! I thought about skipping a post today because I've already posted three times this week and I'm just tired from the week, but then I realized I couldn't let the day go by without acknowledging it. Yes, it's Friday -- always a reason to celebrate. And yes, it's Halloween, which means getting to see cute kids in costumes and eat candy. But there's another reason to mark today: It's my blogiversary! I started posting here on Halloween in 2005, which means this bloggy thing has now be around for two decades. Crazypants! There have been times I've thought about wrapping it up, but now I'm glad I didn't. I've found such a wonderful community and made such good friends because of this blog, so if you're reading this, thank you.

Have a great weekend and don't overdo it on the candy!

It Got Me, Too

I know several of you have had issues in the past week or so with Blogger not sending you comments by email. I had this issue several months ago but managed to fix it when I discovered that my email had disappeared from the appropriate field in the comment notification settings, but that wasn't the case this time. I tried deleting my email address and adding it again, but that didn't fix it. So I've posted about the issue in the Blogger Community in the hopes of getting some answer; so far the only response hasn't been helpful, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that someone who knows how to fix the issue will see it. Bonny has found a workaround that seems to help some (posting a comment and checking the box to be notified of other comments), but it's not a permanent solution. So please bear with me as I reply to your comments -- I do appreciate every comment that's left on the blog and try to reply to all of them, but Blogger really isn't making that easy these days! [EDIT: I don't want to jinx anything, but it looks like it might be fixed!]

It is a very soggy day here in Western Pennsylvania, which means I'm not going to get in a run today (I'll run in light rain, but not this!). It'll be a good day to stay in with my knitting -- in between work, of course -- and that looks to be the case for the weekend as well. All that is to say that I hope you can excuse my photos today because there's no natural light to be had today.

My Shoulder Season is finally starting to look like a real sweater now that I have joined the two shoulder pieces and started on the back. I've also started alternating skeins, so now there's a bit of detangling to do every two rows. But at least I am at a fairly mindless point (a long stretch of garter stitch) that I can do while doing something else.

Yesterday I also made a lot of progress on my sister-in-law's socks -- I'm almost to the heel of the first one!

I'm doing my usual vanilla sock recipe for these, but I did a tubular cast-on and 1x1 ribbed cuff to change things up a bit. The yarn is Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce in the colorway Cuddletime, a tea-inspired colorway from a club that I'd forgotten I even had. They're not my colors but will suit my sister-in-law quite well. And I expect even more progress will be made on this sock today while I work and this evening, when we're going to Rainbow's school Fine Arts Festival. She'll be performing with the choir at the beginning and end of the event, but there will be a lot of time waiting in between -- a perfect situation for sock knitting!

Tomorrow I'll be up early to go get my annual mammogram. I discovered last year that Saturday appointments are a lot faster because, as there's no radiologist there on the weekend, they send you home right after taking your images. It does mean having to wait until Monday morning to get scans read and results sent to you, but I can deal with that if it means less time sitting in a hospital hallway in a gown. It does mean the potential to have to go back for a follow-up, but that's something that I've had to deal with since I started getting mammograms because I have dense breast tissue. I'm going in for an MRI in a couple months at my doctor's recommendation, too. This is just your reminder to make sure you get your needed check-ups and screenings done!

Have a great weekend, and see you back here on Monday!

PSA

Hi friends! I noticed yesterday that for some reason Blogger has stopped sending me emails with your comments. I'm trying to find a fix for it, but in the meantime I wanted to post this quick message to let you know that I'm not ignoring you. I do try to respond to every comment, and that's usually by email. It seems I've now got a backlog of comments to respond to and will be working through them, so please excuse my tardiness while I try to figure out how to get things working as they should. (And if anyone who uses Blogger has had this issue in the past and knows how to solve it, please let me know!)

EDIT:

I did manage to figure out how to fix it, with some help from Bonny. I was going to delete this post, but then I figured that someone (including me) might have this same issue in the future, and it was probably more helpful to explain what I did to fix it. Most of the solutions I found online said to go into settings and to delete and then add your email under Comment notification email. But when I clicked on that, I just got a pop-up that said something like "there are no emails" and didn't give me the option to add. Instead, I had to invite myself (ha!) to receive notification emails of comments by clicking here:

Once you add the email here, you get a message in your inbox asking you to subscribe to receive blog comments, and that seems to do the trick!

Unraveled Wednesday: Closing In on the Cover-all

It seems it's becoming a new tradition for me to blog on Wednesdays now, joining up with Kat and friends, and as my reading pace is showing no signs of slowing, I am here for it! Earlier in the week I officially hit my Goodreads Reading Challenge goal for the year, more than four months early, so that should give you some idea of just how much reading I've been doing.

Here's what I've finished since last week:

 

I heard about The Things We Cannot Say from Katie, who raved about it and who, like me, is a fan of the WWII novel. I had a fairly long wait for it from the library, but given how much is available to read, I didn't get too impatient waiting for it. When I did finally get it, I ended up plowing through it in a couple of days. I had some issues with it (which I detailed in my review), but overall I really enjoyed it. It was definitely a page-turner. I really enjoyed having two connected, parallel stories to follow -- one looking back at WWII, one in present day, and I appreciated (and I hope this isn't considered a spoiler) that the stories came together in a satisfying ending. I gave it 4 stars.

I'd been meaning to read Grit for several years, in part because I've "known" Angela Duckworth for many years -- when I was in college and she was in graduate school, we took a seminar together. We weren't exactly personally acquainted, but I was impressed by her at the time, and since then I've followed her accomplishments. And though I didn't take my psychology degree any farther than my college graduation, I'm still interested in the field and wanted to learn more about her research. I listened to the audiobook of this while I was out running, expecting it to be a little dry (as many academic books are), but I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. At one point I even laughed out loud at her comments about Marty Seligman, who taught that seminar we took together. This is a book I expect I will buy a hard copy of and reread at some point -- it's great! I gave it 5 stars.

 
I had another long wait from the library for the ninth Inspector Gamache book, How the Light Gets In, but my goodness, it was so worth it! This was my favorite book in the series yet. Those of you who have read the books will likely understand why I felt so unsettled at the end of the previous book, and this one resolved all of those feelings and then some. I sensed a bit of a departure in this installment, in that the murder investigation seemed secondary to the plot. Instead, the main focus is on the key characters and their relationships. And I loved that, because as much as I enjoy the process of solving the mysteries in these books, what I love about them are the characters and how they related to each other. I gave this a very enthusiastic 5 stars.

I know a number of you have read Brown Girl Dreaming already, because one or more of you put it on my radar. I picked it for the "Author of Color" square on my bingo card and chose to borrow the audiobook from the library because, in my opinion, the best way to experience poetry is by hearing it read -- and as the author reads the work herself, it's even better. This is a really imaginative way of writing a memoir, if you ask me, and how Woodson structured her narrative reminded me a lot of how I think of my childhood: not as a continuous narrative but as snapshots in the form of individual memories. It was wonderful to listen to, and I have even more insight into Woodson and how she became a writer now. I gave it 4 stars.

There There was a book that was on my radar because it was much talked about, but I didn't really know much about it when I bought a hard copy earlier this year as a way to support Rainbow's school through their book fair (which likewise supported a local independent book store). The book fair happened after lockdown had started, and so book selections were put online. This was one of the adult selections. It'd been sitting on my nightstand ever since, and I picked it up last week when I realized it would be perfect for the "Told from more than two points of view" square on my bingo card. I wasn't too impressed with it at first, and it takes a while to keep all the characters straight, but it's a slow burn that's well worth sticking around for. At less than 300 pages, it's a pretty quick read, too, and it builds to an exciting finish. I gave it 4 stars.

Let's take a look at my bingo card (my second card, that is), which is getting pretty close to being covered!

I'm currently reading two books, Ordinary Grace (on the Kindle app) and Stamped from the Beginning (in hard copy). I'm already a bit more than halfway through the former and may even finish it today, but the latter is a bit of a tome and, I expect, will be the book I'm rushing to try to finish to complete my square.

I'd love to hear what you've been reading and enjoying, and if you have any suggestions for my unfilled bingo squares, I'm happy to hear them!

One final note before I sign off for the day: I wanted to mention that while I really appreciate all the comments I receive on the blog and love interacting with you, to this point I've been responding only via email to those of you whose email address I have (either because you have a Blogger account that is linked to your comment or because I've emailed with you before). I've noticed recently that a number of other bloggers have been replying to others' comments by replying in the comments, and this surprised me a bit because I've never thought to go back to posts I've commented on to see if I have a reply. What are your thoughts on this? If I can't reply to you via email, do you come back after you comment to see if I've replied to your comment (and if you do, would you prefer that I reply to you that way)? Please let me know -- I don't want anyone to feel that I'm ignoring them!

2014: A Look Back

Hard to believe it, but the last hours of 2014 are upon us (or me, anyway -- it might already be 2015 where you are). I'm typically not one to do a whole lot of end-of-year navel-gazing, but it's a day to blog, so that seems the most natural thing to do.

It's been a busy year. In terms of my design work, I blew away my original goal of publishing 10-12 patterns for the year and published 15, including one in a magazine. For next year, I've set a somewhat lofty goal of publishing 17, which would get me to 50 designs total. That might seem like a lot, but I already have nine or 10 that are in varying stages of readiness. I think that if I can keep on top of designs in progress and take advantage of my free time, it's doable.

My theme for the past year was meant to be "Love the One You're With" -- in other words, I was supposed to have been appreciating my stash. I won't lie to you: I didn't avoid buying new yarn. I will say, though, that very little was bought just for the sake of buying it. For the most part, I bought yarn with specific projects or designs in mind, and most of the yarn I bought was used up fairly quickly. From the spinning side of things, most of the fiber that came into the house was spun up in short order (though I did get a little behind with my Fat Cat Knits club shipments toward the end of the year as I was working on finishing up gifts). I am planning on continuing to subscribe to that club, but I'm also going to make a concerted effort to catch up with the backlog once we're back home.

If there was one significant accomplishment, it was that I did use a good amount of my handspun. All three of my completed Gift-a-long projects were done in handspun. That is a trend I hope to continue next year, and I'm also hoping to finally spin up some deep stash fiber.

To get back to more recent events, I've been very productive while we've been on vacation. I finished three pattern samples (all of which I predict you'll see in the next two or three months), and that meant that I could finally cast on for my long-planned Color Affection. I'm not going to finish it tonight -- not by any stretch of the imagination! -- but I should at least get to the two-color section.

I'm using a kit from Miss Babs with three colors of her Yummy sock yarn (Peony, Impatiens, and Lilac) that I purchased at Maryland Sheep and Wool several years ago. I have eight rows left of this first section, and I'll be working on it this evening while we celebrate.

As this year draws to a close, I want to thank all of you for continuing to read the blog. I know that blogging has fallen somewhat out of vogue in the past couple of years, but it's still a valuable practice to me and one that I'm not likely to stop anytime soon. I hope it has been a good year for you, and I hope that 2015 is even better. I wish you all a happy, healthy, prosperous new year.

1,000

Blogger tells me that this is my 1,000th post. Kind of crazy, but I guess it's also not that surprising given that I've had this blog for more than eight years now. When I started it, I never realized how much I could talk about yarn, knitting, fiber, and spinning!

In any case, like much of the country, we're in the middle of the extreme cold, so right now all I want to do is cover myself in wool. It's fitting that I'm working on socks, because my feet are usually the one part of me I have trouble keeping warm during the winter. I've been continuing to find weak spots in more of my socks, all in the same spot, and I've come to the conclusion that it's the fault of a big callous I have on my left foot. I'm not sure why one foot is worse than the other, but I have a persistent rough spot right on the ball of that foot. I am trying to be more diligent about exfoliating it in the shower every day, but I also thought I'd try a bit of an experiment with this pair of socks. In the area of the sock that will cover this callous, I'm doing a slip stitch pattern on the sole stitches for added reinforcement. It's much like the stitch you'd use for the heel flap except that I'm alternating which stitches are slipped each round -- in other words, I do (slip one, knit one) across for one round and (knit one, slip one) across for the other (with plain rounds in between). The result is a kind of Eye of Partridge section, which looks quite pretty and, I'm hoping, will wear longer.

It's not quite this bright in real life/good light, but it's close.

My other project currently on the needles is a hat for Halos of Hope. A number of the podcasts I listen to are participating in the so-called Podcaster Throwdown, so I thought I'd knit a couple of hats to throw on the pile. The first was actually cast on in the car on the way to D.C. on Christmas Eve, though it stayed at home when we went to Florida and didn't get any more attention until Sunday night. I figure I'm now about halfway done.

The pattern is Wurm, and the yarn I'm using is some Knit Picks Comfy Sport that was leftover from a sweater I knit for Rainbow before she was born. I didn't have enough of one or two colors to do the whole hat, but there's enough scraps that I can combine them all, so this Wurm will be multicolored. Once this hat is done, I'm going to use some Wool-Ease that I found on clearance at Michaels a while back to knit an Amberson. My hope is to get both hats done this week so I can send them off on Saturday.

Wowed

I have to say that I am truly amazed by the response to my last post. I greatly appreciate what you all had to say and the fact that you said it; while at its heart this blog is about me and my process, it really wouldn't be the same without readers and without the interaction and dialogue that your comments create. I've responded to those of you who have an e-mail address associated with your Blogger account, but for those of you who don't, please consider this my most heartfelt thank you for sharing your thoughts. Had there been no response, I would have likely given up the blog in favor of more time to knit and spin, but I am really pleased and happy to know that there are people out there who are interested in what I'm doing, and so rest assured I will continue blogging!

I certainly understand that there are many of you who don't like to comment or just choose not to, and that's fine. Please know, though, that it really makes my day to know that someone is interested enough in what I have to say or in what I'm working on that they leave me a comment. I'm going to do my best to comment more often on the blogs I read (even though I'm guilty of reading many of them through Google Reader!), even if it's just a couple of words to say, "Hi, I'm reading and I'm enjoying!"

I'm going to keep the poll up until it runs out, but I'm getting a sense that what I have been doing has been working, so I'm not going to mess with what's not broken.

Since last we talked about actual knitting, I've been dutifully working on my Essential Cardigan, for which the end is finally in sight. Because the sleeves were so close to being done, last Friday morning I blocked the other pieces so they'd be ready once I finished up the sleeves. That happened on Monday, and as soon as they were bound off I sewed the shoulder seams of the body. The pattern says to sew all the seams before picking up for the button/neck band, but that just seems silly to me -- why have to turn an entire sweater if I can avoid it? On Tuesday night, I sat down and picked up the 200+ stitches for the button/neck band (it's one long piece up one side, around the neck, and down the other side); amazingly, I managed to get the specified number of stitches picked up and I did so on the first try! That has to be a good sign. The rows are very long, and the WS rows especially take a long time because they're essentially 1x1 rib, but once I'm done, I'm done. By the end of knit night last night, I had about an inch done, and I have to get to four inches total, so I figure it should take me about another week to finish knitting and get the rest of the seaming done (assuming I'm a good girl and work on this project).

Doesn't this look exciting?

I also finished up a pair of baby socks yesterday. I'd been working on them during my lunch breaks, so only a little bit at a time, but luckily baby socks are so small that they go really quickly. These are being added to the pile of baby items I'm making for a Ravelry service project; I still have to make another washcloth and a couple of hats to fulfill my pledge. These were made from some Patons Stretch Socks that I picked up on clearance at Michaels for about $3. I found another ball that is a pink variegated colorway that might have to be turned into some socks for Rainbow. It's certainly not a luxurious sock yarn, but it's washable and knits into a comfy fabric, and the price was certainly right!

I will have some pretty spinning to show you this weekend and I've been dreaming about some designs in addition to working on them in my waking hours, so it looks as though my mojo may be coming back!

Thoughts on Blogging

I've been thinking a lot lately about blogging and what it's become for me. I started this blog about five and a half years ago, just when I was getting serious about knitting and just when I was first discovering all the online resources that were out there. Because of the blog (and, more generally, due to my discovery of the fact that there were such things as knitting blogs), I've made good friends online and in real life. I've truly developed into a Knitter-with-a-capital-K and become a spinner as well. I've even started doing some designing.

The blog started out as an outlet for me when I was between jobs and alone much of the day. I'd always kept diaries and journals, so this was yet another way for me to think things through and record my thoughts, though in this case they were specific to crafting. Then it became a way for me to keep track of projects -- what yarn I'd used, what adjustments I'd made, what problems I'd encountered and how I'd solved them. Finally, it became a way for me to connect with other knitters, both those I knew in real life and those I only knew in the virtual world.

Obviously, once Rainbow was born, my time to blog shrank dramatically. Still, I knew (or at least hoped!) there were people still reading, so I tried to post regularly, albeit with some reduced frequency. Lately I've been aiming for two posts a week, which has been pretty doable. I've tried not to let spinning take over the blog because this was, after all, started as a knitting blog. But I've also struggled because there are times when I'm just not doing much knitting and I don't feel like I have much to say.

I think it's also important to note that the blog started in the days before Ravelry. At the time, it was great for me to have a place to document all the stages and details of a project, but now that I can do that in my Ravelry notebook, the blog starts to seem a little redundant. That said, I do still like the writing aspect of a blog post; I suppose I could write copious notes in the relevant section of my project page, but hitting "Save" doesn't seem to give me quite the same sense of satisfaction as does hitting "Publish Post."

I guess where all this is going is that I'd love to get your feedback, dear readers (if, in fact, there are any of you left!), on where this blog is heading. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a bit of a comment "hoar," as they say on Ravelry, and I've notice that for the past month or so, there have been very few comments on my posts. I know that I read a lot of blogs and don't always post, so I'm sure some of you are still reading, but it would be nice to know for sure! If you're reading but not commenting, I'd love to know why. Are you too busy? Not interested in what I have to post? Something else entirely? If I do decide to keep this blog up and running, I would like it to be useful, and one of the most useful things I've found about it is the dialogue it has started with readers.

In the interest of doing some market research, I've put up a poll in the sidebar. It'll be up for the next week. Please feel free to leave a comment as well! (Oh, and you'll also notice that I changed the layout again. Seems I was still in the dark ages of Blogger and wasn't using all the tools available because I hadn't upgraded my template.)

Doo De Doo

I haven't blogged in a few days because I've been steadily knitting along on my current WIPs without much excitement, but I think I've made enough progress to warrant an update with pictures.

My Tangled Yoke Cardigan is coming along smoothly. I'm nearly finished with the first sleeve, so that should be done tonight and the second sleeve cast on.

My lunch break knitting, since finishing the Lace Ribbon Scarf, has been Waves of Grain, knit with my own handspun. I'm just a handful of rows away from completing the first half, so the plan for tonight is to finish that up and cast on for the second half.

Meanwhile, I've been furiously spinning away on my merino/silk laceweight. I managed to finish off the first bobbin late last week and am probably halfway through the second. I'm anxious to finish this yarn, not only because I want to see how it turns out but because there's some spinalong fiber on its way to me from my favorite fiber pusher.

While I have been working diligently on these projects, I've been feeling a bit of ennui about my knitting in general lately. I'm not sure what it is or what's causing it, but it's been a bit of a cloud hanging over my head and has been keeping me from blogging as often as I like. I feel like there's not too much point in blogging when all I have to say is that I'm still working on a project and all I have to show for it is a progress shot that looks very similar to the last. So I may not be posting until I have something exciting or significant to show for a while, at least until I get my mojo back. In the meantime, if anyone has some good tips on how to chase the knitting blahs away, please feel free to share!

New Year, New Look

It's now 2009, my fourth year of blogging, so I thought a new look was in order. I still have to do some playing around -- much of it with The Mister's help -- to get my buttons and stuff back in my sidebar, but most important to me is that I've moved away from the black background. (I figured that if it was bothering my eyes, it had to be bothering someone else's eyes.) Thoughts?

Technical Difficulties

I had a blog post full of yummy yarn pr0n ready for you this evening, but Blogger is not cooperating. It's refusing to upload my pictures due to "internal error," whatever that might be. So watch this space for a real post, I hope within the next day.

2007: A Year in Review

Today is the last day of the year, which means it's time for my annual knitting self-reflection post. It's certainly been quite a year. By far, this was the most productive year I've had as a knitter. It was also an extremely busy year at work and in my personal life, which really makes me think I might thrive on stress and pressure. This year, I completed:

• 39 pairs of socks,
• five adult sweaters,
• four baby sweaters,
• two scarves,
• one lace shawl (for the wedding!),
• one baby blanket,
• one lace garter (also for the wedding),
• one baby hat,
• one pair of baby booties,
• one felted bag,
• and a heck of a lot of miniatures/ornaments.

You can see the year's photo album here.

I have a number of knitting goals for the year ahead. The first is to finish all the baby sweaters I have planned. I also want to continue to work to reduce my stash, because I know there's a lot of great yarn I have that I've forgotten about because it's been in the stash so long. I won't exclude the occasional yarn purchase every now and then, but I have several sweaters' worth of yarn already and plenty of sock yarn to keep me busy for a while, so there really isn't a need. Although I know I will likely have to have a pair of socks going at all times as usual, I'd like to focus more on larger garments in the year ahead, specifically sweaters and lace. It's gotten to the point where I could probably go about three weeks wearing a pair of hand-knit socks every day without having to wash any, so my feet certainly aren't cold.

My final goal is to finish the WIPs that have been on the needles this year and will be on the needles going into next year: Shedir (the oldest WIP, on the needles since February), Icarus (cast on in August), and the mate to the first Bird in Hand mitten (cast on 12/14/07). Here's a peek at what's destined to be the first finished object of 2008:

I wish all of you a very happy, healthy, and productive 2008!