Itching to Stitch

It has been one of Those Days. It is just after 8 o'clock in the evening, and I am finally sitting down to have some time to myself. My fingers are just itching to get to some crafting, because I did not get a lunch break today and thus did not get my midday knitting time.

The day started with an early delivery: After waiting a couple of months, my new spinning chair is finally here!

It is so cozy and comfortable -- I'm actually sitting in it sideways to type this on my laptop right now, and it's not at all awkward. It was definitely worth the long wait! I predict that this will become a favorite spot for reading as well as spinning.

I've still got the two same projects on the needles, my ankle socks and my Rhinebeck sweater. Both have seen a little attention the last few days. I finished the first of the socks Sunday evening.

Its mate has been cast on, but so far all I've got is the cuff. Meanwhile, the body of my Rhinebeck sweater has a few more rounds of ribbing on it.

I'll be very glad to finish the ribbing and move on to the stockinette portion of the body if only so I can stop knitting on this particular set of needles -- there's a spot at the join where the yarn keeps catching, and it's really slowing me down. I'm hoping I'll get to the switch-over point this evening, but first I think I need to break in my new chair with a little spinning!

Back of the Pack

Today marks the end of the Tour de Fleece, and I've accepted that I am not ending this year wearing a yellow jersey. There were just too many other things going on this year for me to spend as much time spinning as I would have liked -- and that's okay! Here is where things stand on my big spinning project:

I could probably get more on that first bobbin, but I decided to stop when it got to this point and start on bobbin number two. I'd like to have three full bobbins when I'm done with the singles, so I can squeeze a bit more on all of them if I get to this point on all three and still have some fiber. I may not have finished in time for the end of TdF, but I do want to get this project done before the end of summer (or at least the end of Stash Dash). To that end, I've got some dedicated spinning time coming up in the form of this:

Camp Spin 15 is a virtual camp being held over four days, August 3-6, and participating will give me a good excuse to work on finishing up these singles. I think if I can get all the singles done by the end of camp, I stand a good chance of getting all the plying done.

Thank Goodness It's ... Thursday?

This has been one of those weeks that seems to have gone on forever. Today I woke up thinking surely it must be Friday already. Sadly, it is not, but at least we only have one more day to go.

After all the finishing that happened over last weekend, I feel like I have been slacking a bit this week and haven't gotten a lot accomplished. Our summer schedule is more relaxed, in that Rainbow can sleep in during the week because camp starts later than school and thus can go to bed a little later, but that also results in less crafting time for me. Typically I sneak in a bit of knitting when I get to the office, before the workday officially begins, but during the summer I get into work a bit late after dropping her off at the bus to camp. Likewise, because she's going to bed a bit later, I also don't sit down in the evening until about 8:30, so my evening crafting time is diminished as well. So progress is slow but steady.

During my lunch breaks this week, I've been working on the sample socks for the new sock pattern using some Knit Picks Felici. I think I like how the stitch pattern works up in a self-striping yarn even better than in a semisolid! I've still got a ways to go, but at least with a shortie sock the knitting time is much less than a typical sock -- and I'm using larger-than-usual needles for me (US 1/2.25 mm), which is adding to the speed.

I also cast on a much bigger project last night. Can you guess what it is?

These three or so rounds of knitting, believe it or not, are the start of my Rhinebeck sweater! I spent several hours last weekend trying to get sweater math to work out for a top-down pullover, and after a lot of pulling my hair out, I realized it might be easier to just work it bottom up. So that's what I'm doing. I'm still not 100% sure how the yoke will work out, but I figure that going bottom up will at least allow me to get the easy knitting done while I work on that. I'm already behind schedule (granted, it's my own schedule), so I see no harm in getting started on what I can do now.

As it's Thursday, I think it's time for a Summer Book Bingo check-in.

I finished a book yesterday and achieved another bingo, though I think the category I put it in might be a bit of a stretch (but that's allowed as long as we make it work, right?). The book is The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls, which I've forced into the category of "Epistolary." Though the whole thing isn't written in letters, one of the main character's narratives is told almost entirely in letters, so I thought that was close enough to count. It was an okay read -- pretty well written but also pretty depressing, and throughout the book I felt like there was something I was missing or not understanding that I expected to be explained in the end. There was closure of a sort in the final section, but I wasn't entirely satisfied in that I still didn't feel like I got the whole story. It was a library book, so I'm not sweating it too much. I'm now reading The Lost Girls of Paris, also from the library, and my hold came up as I was reading the last book, so I'm feeling a time crunch to get it done (especially because the library app oh so helpfully tells you how many people are waiting to read it!).

Trifecta

It was a weekend of finishing chez Knit/Wit. Like so much of the country, we were treated to an oppressive heatwave, so we spent much of it inside in the air conditioning. That proved to be a very good situation for finishing up projects, including one that was long overdue.

I'm not sunburned; I've just been photographed by a 9-year-old

Pattern: Soldotna Crop by Caitlin Hunter
Yarn: Yarn Hollow Tango (85% Polwarth, 15% silk) in Ash Gray Patina, Moroccan Blue, Smokey Rose Petal, and Eggplant, less than one skein each
Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm), US 5 (3.75 mm), and US 3 (3.25 mm)
Started/Completed: June 9/July 20
Mods: added length to the body and sleeves

The knitting on this was finished late last week, but I didn't get a chance to weave in all my ends and block until Saturday. If you can't tell by the smile on my face, I'm very happy with this sweater. It's a bit of a departure for me in terms of the cropped fit, but it was a very fun project to knit and even better as a stash buster -- all four skeins of yarn I used were already in my stash!

I extended the body a bit so that the bottom edge hits right about at my belly button, and I added a handful of additional rounds to the sleeves as well (two rounds in just the light blue and then two rounds of colorwork with the dark blue to match the body. You may not be able to tell from the photo, but I actually used the dark purple for the ribbing at the bottom, mainly because it was already attached and I didn't want to add more ends to weave in; the two shades are so close that you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference without looking very closely.

I'm pleased with the fit and actually wore it for a while on Sunday afternoon after I pulled it off the blocking drying rack -- I put it on originally just to check the fit, but it was so comfortable in the air conditioning that I just kept it on! Now I just need to look through my wardrobe to come up with some outfits to go with it.

Another quick project that I finished this weekend was the Ball Band jar cozy that I started crocheting last week. Rainbow liked it so much that she asked me to make one for her water bottle that she takes to camp and school (and which has been aggravating her by making puddles of condensation), and I was happy to oblige.

These were super easy and fun, and I'm sure I'll be making more in the future.

Finally, to complete my trifecta, I finished Rainbow's shortie socks on Saturday night.

She is delighted with them, which of course makes me very happy, and having finished up the second I now have a better sense of where I'm going with the pattern. The sample has been cast on and just barely started; I anticipate working on that during most of my knitting time this week.

Slow and Steady

I am most definitely not winning any races in Tour de Fleece this year! Instead, I am just continuing on, adding a little bit to my bobbin at a time. I suppose my approach to TdF this year could be said to be savoring the spin rather than rushing to finish it. And as much as I wanted to blast through some stash this year, I'd rather end up with yarn I really like than yarn that's just done. So here is the latest bobbin shot. Though I'd hoped that this bobbin would be full by now, it's not, but it is getting close (the wonderful thing about the WooLee Winder is that is does pack an awful lot on there!).

I have some excellent motivation to finish up this spin in the form of the last two shipments from the Southern Cross Fibre club, which I have neglected to share until now.

The May shipment is called Forest Gathering, and it's a super luxurious blend of 70% superfine merino and 30% mulberry silk. The photo doesn't do the fiber justice -- it's got some seriously amazing shine.

June's shipment arrived last week. This one I adore. It's South African superfine merino in a colorway called One Fish, Two Fish, and these colors most definitely bring Dr. Seuss to mind!

I'm obviously going to focus on finishing up my Polwarth spin first, but I think this fiber will very likely be the next thing on the wheel. I'll either be splitting it to spin thinner strips end to end and chain plying or doing a barber-poling two ply. Thoughts? I'm sure there's no wrong way to go with this beauty!

Three Thrills for Thursday

In keeping with Mary's theme this week of "good newses," here are three things making me happy today:

1. My Soldotna Crop is almost finished!

The body was bound off a little earlier in the week, and last night I started and finished the first sleeve. Tonight I plan to get the second sleeve done and, I hope, weave in all the remaining ends so that it's ready to block. I won't be wearing it anytime soon, as we're expecting heat indexes above 100 degrees the next couple of days, but at least I'll be able to model it around the house. I've got some less-than-stellar photos from this morning courtesy of Rainbow (who's a little shaky with the phone and, obviously, shorter than I am):

And here's a close-up of the sleeve so you can see the modification I've made (three rounds in the light blue, followed by two rounds of stranded colorwork and a round in the dark blue before the called-for ribbing):

As you can see, this sweater has a good amount of positive ease, perhaps more than I was expecting, though I'll take full responsibility for that because I'm still having trouble with accurately judging my size. I expect I'll get a bit more drape when I block it (and I'm certainly counting on it to loosen up in the collar area).

2. I'm hooking again.

One of my crafting goals for the year was to improve my crochet skills, and I decided to start with something relatively easy. Jen of the Down Cellar Studio podcast recently released a free crochet pattern for a cozy/sleeve for Ball jars, and as I unearthed a random skein of Knit Picks Dishie in my stash this past weekend, I figured it was as good an excuse as any to give it a try, particularly as we'd just bought a package of the special blue Ball jars. I was home with Rainbow a little early last night (I left a work retreat to pick her up from the camp bus, and by the time the bus came it was too late to do anything but go straight home), so I got down to business. In less than an hour, I was more than halfway done. I forgot how fast and satisfying crochet can be!

If I have time, I'll finish this up tonight -- I think I only have about a dozen more rows to do.

3. I have less than 100 pages left in my book.

I've been reading Twelve Years a Slave for the past couple of days, and I'm hoping that I'll find time to finish it up today or tomorrow. Despite the fact that it was written in the 1800s and uses language that's a bit old fashioned compared to today's books, I've found that it moves along fairly quickly. It's also a great (albeit heartbreaking) story; while it's incredibly sad that Solomon Northup found himself in slavery, it could be said to be to our benefit because, as a man who was born free and was educated, he was really uniquely positioned to write such a powerful account of what it was really like to be enslaved.

Stay cool and hydrated this weekend!

Divided Loyalties

Typically at this time of year I devote nearly all my crafting time to spinning in an effort to be as productive as possible for the Tour de Fleece. This year, however, I'm just not feeling it as much. I am spinning, but not in every spare moment. This is mainly because I have knitting projects that I really want to get done and I'm dealing with time pressure on design projects. You saw what I've been spinning in my last post, and frankly my bobbin doesn't look much different two days later, so I'll spare you an update. Let's turn back to the knitting.

I'm still working on Rainbow's shortie socks at lunch, though they haven't progressed too much. What I'm really focusing on this week is my Soldotna Crop, which is close enough to done that I think if I can just buckle down for a few evenings, I should manage it. It saw some attention over the weekend while the Mister and I finished up the new season of Stranger Things.

I have about a round and a half of the body ribbing left to knit before I'm ready to bind off. I ended up saving a bit of the light blue so that I can add a bit of length to the sleeves. I'm planning to knit two rounds in the light blue, then add in the dark blue and make the sleeve cuffs look like the bottom hem of the sweater (so two rounds of stranded work with both colors before doing the ribbing). I'd estimate I have between two and four hours of work on this left, between knitting and weaving in ends. I'd say it's doable to get this done this week.

One of the reasons I'm so anxious to finish up this sweater is because I really need to get started on the next one -- and that's the one I'm designing. I did swatch again, using size 6/4.0 mm needles, and came up with a fabric that's not quite as dense (meaning that colorwork portion won't be bulletproof!) and a gauge that will make the calculations a lot simpler.

As you can see, the fabric is still a good density, and going up just one needle size has taken me from 5.5 to 5 stitches per inch. In addition to making my job easier, I think this gauge will also make the pattern more accessible to multiple weights of yarn -- not to mention that it will knit up a bit faster! Now that I've settled on my gauge, I can start calculating all the stitch counts and get started on my sample. I'd originally hoped to have my sample done and a draft of the pattern to my tech editor by the end of July, but I think if I aim for mid-August and she can turn the pattern around in about two weeks, that will still give me about six weeks for test knitting. It'll bit a bit tighter than I would have liked, but such is life.

Reading is still very much happening, and with the completion of a book yesterday, I have my first bingo!

The book I finished yesterday is the one in the top left corner, Prognosis: A Memoir of My Brain. It was a freebie from Amazon First Reads, and I was pleasantly surprised (so many of those freebies end up being duds). It's a memoir about an Australian woman who sustained a traumatic brain injury and her challenges and life struggles as she recovered from it. I found it fascinating to get an insider's view of what it's like to have a brain injury and be aware of one's own failings. I gave it four stars. If it sounds interesting to you, I'll note that there's also currently a giveaway for it on Goodreads.

My next book will fill in the "Originally published in the 19th century" box. I started Twelve Years a Slave yesterday and am already really enjoying it. I am once again doing things in the wrong order -- I saw the movie when it was out a few years ago and am now going back to the primary source. The writing is very much of its time, so if you don't care much for "old-timey" language, you might not like this one. After that, based on Kat's glowing recommendation, I have Middlemarch queued up for the "Classic you should have read" box. I pondered getting the audiobook from the library, but it's a long book (I think something like 32 hours) and I knew I likely wouldn't get through it all before it was due back, so I went ahead and bought the $0.99 Kindle copy so I could read it at my leisure. I'm still thinking about how to fill a couple of these squares (anyone got any recommendations for "Written in the second person" or "Non-human protagonist"?), but I'm sure I can fill up most of this board by the end of the summer.

Of Fiber and Fleece

I feel like a bit of a Tour de Fleece failure this year, as I haven't spun nearly the quantity I have in past years, but the days are busy and the evenings are short, so I'm trying to be happy with what I can get done. For one thing, I am very pleased with the skein I finished yesterday. Remember the purple singles I finished up last weekend? Yesterday, after I went for a good run and did my household chores, I sat down and chain plied the full bobbin. Then I skeined and washed the yarn last night. This morning it was dry and bouncy and floofy and so pretty.

Because the wool in the blend is Targhee, I expected (and got) a nice poof in the finishing. Fresh off the wheel, the yarn was a light fingering. After washing, the yarn is fingering to sport.

I ended up with about 343 yards, which is respectable, I think. It certainly would have been more without the poofing up. But I think it'll make a lovely shawl or scarf-type thing.

Meanwhile, yesterday I dumped the contents of my fermented suint fleece experiment and rinsed the fleece. I won't know until it's fully dry if it worked, but it certainly looks a little better. And I did pull out some more bits that looked dodgy and dumped them, but I've still got plenty of wool. Right now, the fleece that remains is sitting on some drying racks on our covered porch, with some additional drying racks on top so that no animals decide to grab some fleece for themselves.

I was prepared for a really bad smell, and there definitely is a smell, but it's not nearly as bad as I was expecting. I think I may still need to wash the wool once more, perhaps in some floral mint 7th Generation dish liquid I have, but it's looking pretty good! I'll still be keeping it in quarantine from the rest of the stash until I'm sure it's safe, but I'm pretty confident I've saved a good amount.

My main TdF project is progressing, slowly but surely. I think this bobbin shot does a good job of showing all the colors in the fiber.

I am just loving this spin -- and it's a good thing, too, because I still have an awful lot left to be spun!

Three Things on Thursday

Is it really already Thursday? And is it only Thursday? It's been a long, busy, hot week. I feel like I've spent most of it walking around in the heat and not nearly enough crafting. So I'm keeping this post simple and breaking things down into three categories:

1. Knitting

I've added a few rounds to my Soldotna Crop (not enough that you'd be able to tell) and started the toe on the first of Rainbow's shortie socks.

2. Designing

I'm knitting one more swatch for my sweater design using a needle one size larger, just in case. I like the fabric I got in the first swatch, but it was fairly dense, which means the stranded colorwork would be practically bulletproof, so I want to see if I can get away with a slightly larger gauge. Plus, if I can get to a gauge of 5 stitches per inch, calculations should be a little easier.

Today I also published an update to my Non-Euclidian pattern that's a cheat sheet to help you insert the heel into any sock worked at any gauge. I know this is something that Mary, at least, will be happy about! If you've already got the pattern in your library, you'll see an update. If you don't already own it, there's no additional charge.

3. Reading

I've finished four books since my last reading update, though one of them was finished that same day and was a YA book, so really I've read three. Here's a brief summary:

• Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson (audiobook): This was a quick, easy read, and a YA book to boot. It was good but didn't blow me away. I did think it would be a good read and a good basis for a discussion of difficult issues among younger readers. I gave it three stars.
• A Fire Sparkling by Julianne MacLean: This was an Amazon First Reads freebie, and I'm glad I didn't pay for it. It's gotten good reviews on Goodreads, but I was really disappointed with it. I didn't find the writing to be particularly strong, and several story lines seemed to be repeats of stories from other books. There's also a bit of a twist at the end that I found to be completely unbelievable. I gave it two stars.
• The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny (audiobook): I can now say without reservation that I'm completely hooked on the Inspector Gamache series. I loved this one, no surprise. I've found that the Gamache books make my runs a lot better because I'm so focused on the story that I don't spend the whole time thinking about how miserable I am to be running. This one got five stars from me.
• Divergent by Veronica Roth: This is one of those books that everyone probably read years ago; I've seen the movies in the series but hadn't read the books, so I decided to give this a try when I saw it was available through Prime Reading. It was okay, a fun diversion, but not fine literature. I don't know if I'll read the other two. I gave it three stars.

I was able to fit all of these books into my Summer Book Bingo card under the following categories, in order: Protagonist with a different ethnicity from your own, Set in more than one time period, With an unreliable narrator, and One-word title. I've got 12 more squares to cover on my bingo card, and I'm in the middle of one book that I can put in the center squares. Think I can manage to get the rest covered? We shall see.

Swatching and Swatching Some More

When the Tour de Fleece rolls around, I expect I'll do less knitting in favor of more spinning, but I really didn't do much knitting this weekend in spite of wanting to. True, I did keep busy with the usual chores and errands plus an unexpected trip to to the Apple Store (I had to get my phone replaced because my battery was swelling), but I was hoping to try to finish up the body of my Soldotna. In reality, I haven't touched it in days.

My lunchtime knitting is now a pair of shortie socks for Rainbow, using yarn leftover from her sweater and a stitch pattern I'm playing with for a new pattern. I'm still not entirely convinced if I like it or not.

She says she likes it, and I do like what I've done with the rest of the sock (though it still needs some tweaks). I'll need to give it another try in yarn where the big yarnovers can be seen a little better, perhaps even some self-striping. I also think it'll look better when it's stretched on a foot. Still pondering.

Most of the knitting that happened over the weekend was swatching. You may remember when I came back from MDSW that I announced that I would be designing another sweater this year -- it was one of my design goals for 2019. I'm hoping to be able to release it to coincide with Rhinebeck weekend, so I really need to get moving. I first swatched the colorwork motif (which you can get a little peek of in the photo below) to see how it translated from paper to yarn, but to write and grade the pattern, I needed a good-sized stockinette swatch.

I had a number of leftover partial balls of the Ross Farm Shetland Sport in my stash, so I used up some of those rather than break into the skeins I'll need for the sweater (though I did compare the yarn I used for this swatch to the sweater yarn to make sure it was comparable). I know some of you will tell me that I can always reuse the yarn from my swatch in my sweater, but I had a good reason for using separate yarn:

I steeked this swatch! I wanted to get a really accurate representation of my gauge in the round, and I didn't feel that the usual way of faux swatching in the round was going to do that. So I cast on something like 50 stitches and knit a tube. Then I secured two columns with slip-stitch crochet using a contrasting color and cut between the columns. Ta-da -- instant flat swatch to measure knitting in the round! I've got a nice sturdy fabric that still has decent drape, and it's measuring up at 22 stitches and 32 rounds over 4 inches/10 cm. Now I'm ready to sit down with measurements and a calculator to figure out my sizing and adjust the colorwork chart. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Keep your fingers crossed for me!

The TdF and a PSA

It's the most wonderful time of the year for spinners: The Tour de Fleece is here!

For the uninitiated, the Tour de Fleece is a handspinning event that was created to coincide with the Tour de France. It's a three-week-long celebration of handspinning and handspun yarn, and the gist of it is that on all the days that the cyclists are riding, we spinners are spinning our own wheels (as well as our spindles). In past years I've gotten very competitive about it and challenged myself to spin large quantities of fiber, but this year I'm being much more realistic and just taking the event in the spirit in which I think it was originally intended -- to enjoy spinning.

While I had hoped to be able to finish spinning up the singles for the purple gradient I started last week before I started my Tour spinning, I didn't quite manage to do it. So I spent my spinning time yesterday working on finishing those up.

I had been spinning short forward draw but discovered that I could spin from the combed top using a supported long draw, which is a much faster way to get the spinning done. So the whole skein might not be consistent (using long draw, for instance, results in fuzzier singles), but I wasn't really aiming for perfection here, and good enough is good enough. I'm planning to chain-ply these singles, so I'm letting them rest on the bobbin for a day or two.

Today I got started on what I was planning for my TdF project, and that's the pile of little fiber bundles you saw here last week. I've got a total of 550 g/19.4 oz. of Polwarth to spin into what I hope will be a sweater's quantity of yarn. Here are a couple of bobbin shots so you can get a sense of the colors.

I really love these colors and am excited to see how they play out as a three-ply yarn.

Now for the PSA, which will really only apply to you who spin and buy fleece: When you've bought a fleece, please wash it as soon as possible after bringing it home, even if you don't get around to prepping it for a while.

A bit of back story on this one: Some months ago, a friend of mine posted that her mother was looking to sell some fleeces from her sheep, so I bought one. She sent it to me, and I promptly put it in our laundry room so that I could wash it "soon." I think you can all guess what happened -- I never got around to. Fast forward to about a month ago, when I kept seeing moths every now and then. Like any knitter and spinner, that concerned me a bit. Though most of my stash is safely stored in various bags and bins, I do have some yarn and fiber out, particularly if it's yarn or fiber I'm working with at the time. I saw quite a few moths in the laundry room, and I very quickly discovered the source: an infestation in the fleece. Yuck. So this past week (on the 4th of July, actually), I took it outside, pulled out a big portion that seemed to be where the moths and eggs were concentrated, and tossed all that into the composter. The rest of the fleece I decided to clean outside using the easiest method possible: the fermented suint method. I pulled a spare plastic bin out of the stash room and a contractor's trash bag (because the bin wasn't opaque), popped the rest of the fleece in it, and used the garden hose to fill it up. It's now sitting on our deck and, I hope, getting clean over the next week.

The trap on top is just to keep critters from sneaking under the lid.

Next weekend I'll dump out the water and rinse the (fingers crossed!) clean fleece. If it needs further cleaning, I can always wash it in our utility sink as I normally wash fleece, though my hope was that this method would save water and allow me to dump the wastewater out in the back of the yard rather than down the drain. I'm also hoping that this method will kill any moths or eggs that were still in the fleece, but I won't be precious about what's left and will happily toss any compromised wool. Assuming it comes out okay, it'll also be quarantined from the rest of the stash until I'm sure there are no more critters coming out of it. Let my laziness be a lesson to you: wash your fleece!

A Home Day

Today is July 4, Independence Day here in the United States -- a commemoration of our country declaring its independence from Great Britain. I'll readily admit that I'm not feeling particularly patriotic or festive this year, given some of the things that are happening on our southern border, but I don't want to get too political here. Suffice it to say that I'm just enjoying having what Rainbow used to call a "home day" with the family.

It's been a fairly quiet day here. We were all up a little late last night (Rainbow because we decided to have a family movie night and the adults because we knew we wouldn't have to get up early for work today), so we slept in and had a leisurely breakfast. I went for a long walk, more than an hour and probably close to four miles, late this morning and then spent some time at my wheel, trying to finish up my current spinning project before the start of the Tour de Fleece on Saturday.

This evening, before we go to see the fireworks (provided they're not canceled by storms that might come through), I'll be continuing to work on my Soldotna. I've been struggling to get a picture of it that accurately captures the colors, so I played around with this one using my photo editing app.

This isn't perfect, but at least it's not as washed out at this WIP usually appears. The light blue is a little less bright than it looks, though I think my playing with the color makes it easier to see that the polka dots, as it were, are actually two colors -- one round with the light purple and one round with the dark purple.

I put about half the body stitches onto another circular needle last night so that I could try on what I've done so far and get a sense of how much longer I want to make it. Right now, it's hitting just as the end of my rib cage, so just short of my high waste. I've still got enough of the light blue left that I can make it longer, and I weighed it after the last pattern repeat I finished so that I can weigh it again after the next to see how much I use for each repeat. I figure that I can also add some additional length in the ribbing at the bottom, and I'm thinking about using the dark purple for that rather than the dark blue because I used so little of it in the yoke and still have a pretty full skein. I toyed with the idea of reserving some of the light blue to lengthen the sleeves, but I think I'd rather have a longer body than longer sleeves and a shorter body. Thoughts on my plan are welcome and encouraged!

If you have today off, I hope you're spending it in a way that brings you joy!

At Least the Knitting Is Behaving

After all the drama of the weekend, I was hoping that when the week started things would get back to normal. Not so -- Monday ended up being a bit of a whirlwind! I think I mentioned that Rainbow was starting day camp, and that involves waiting for a bus. And yesterday, the bus left without her. Fortunately the camp was able to get her another ride there (it's out in the suburbs, so it wasn't realistic for me to drive her), and we got things sorted for today. She even said it was "kind of fun" (believe me, that's an improvement over last year) and the only real negative, other than a lunch she didn't much like, was that she had to rush right to instructional swimming as soon as she got there.

Today was a much calmer day, thanks in no small part that, unlike yesterday, I did get to take my lunch break today and get some knitting time. I find I'm always much less stressed when I can close my door for an hour, pop in my headphones (right now I'm listening to the third Inspector Gamache book), and knit for a bit.

One good thing to come out of the weekend was a finished pair of socks for me:

Pattern: Non-Euclidian, with some twisted 1x1 rib thrown in for fun
Yarn: Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce (80% superwash merino/20% nylon) in the colorway Fairies' Dance, 0.91 skeins
Started/Completed: June 14/June 30

Nearly half of the second sock of this pair was knit while I was at that diversity retreat at work last week, and after that it seemed like the foot just crawled. I would have gotten a lot done Saturday on the drive out to the baby shower were it not for the fact that I was driving (I generally don't like to drive, and not only because not driving means I can knit, but I did it as a favor to my mother). I kept plugging away, however, and did finally finish the toe on Sunday evening before bed.

These were knit over 68 stitches, which is not, as it happens, one of the stitch counts given in the pattern; last week I sent my tech editor a "cheat sheet" I'm planning to add to the pattern so that the heel will work with any stitch count and any gauge. I know not everyone is as crazy as I and knits their socks on size 0 needles as a gauge of 9 stitches per inch!

My new lunchtime knitting is another pair of shortie socks for Rainbow, and I'm working on a new pattern to see if it works out in yarn as it does in my head. I'm using yarn leftover from her sweater (I had 80+ g left in one skein).

As for my Soldotna Crop, it's not done quite yet, but I'm getting close. I think I've got about half of the length done on the body, excluding the ribbing, and pretty soon I think I'm going to put another needle in so I can try it on and determine if I want to add more length.

I really want to finish this up soon because I have another sweater I really need to start on -- the one I'm designing! I need to spend some time this week charting and swatching so I can work out the stranded motif and my numbers, and then I've really got to get crunching on the sample. Amy so helpfully informed me the other day that it's only a little more than 100 days until Rhinebeck! I know I'll have no problem finishing up the actual sweater by then, but if I want to debut the design, I'll need to allow plenty of time for pattern writing, tech editing, and test knitting. So much to do! Better get off the computer and get to it!

Spinning for Sanity

Rainbow is home, and with her return comes the return of the hectic weekend schedule. The camp bus came more than an hour past when it was expected Friday afternoon, so it was a rush to get her home, unpacked, and showered before our traditional Friday night dinner at my parents'. Yesterday we did a quick shopping run to get some necessary items and birthday presents for the birthday party for two of her school friends (which was today) and then drove out to attend my sister-in-law's baby shower. Last night we went out for dinner at a Japanese steakhouse with all the grandparents to celebrate Rainbow's homecoming. Today, in addition to the birthday party, there were the usual chores and errands. And we still have to get Rainbow ready to start day camp tomorrow!

All the fun stuff aside, we also had some minor drama this weekend. First, when we got home from the shower yesterday, we found the Mister limping around the house with what he thought was a sprained toe from a fall he took during his run. As we were getting ready to go out to dinner, we got a call from my parents from the urgent care center, where my father was getting stitches on his elbow from a fall he took in the shower (he's fine, though sore, after a few stitches and a tetanus booster). And after we left dinner, the Mister decided that he should really go to the urgent care himself because he was in such pain, and it's a good thing he did, as it turns out his toe is broken. It never rains but it pours, am I right?

With all the craziness, it's been nice to regain my calm a little by sitting down at my wheel. I wasn't planning on starting any new projects before the start of Tour de Fleece, but that pretty purple gradient braid has just been sitting next to my wheel and taunting me, so I broke down and started spinning it. I figure that if I can give it a few good evenings, I might just finish it before, and if I don't, it'll wait for me to get back to it. I haven't done that much spinning since I first got it started on Friday, but I've already made a dent.

I'm spinning this fiber end to end and undoing the braid as I go, with the plan to chain-ply all the singles when I'm done. I'm spinning fairly fine, so I imagine the finished yarn will be in the neighborhood of fingering to sport, but the wool in this is Targhee, so there may be some poofage to contend with.

I also spent some time this afternoon prepping my fiber for the start of TdF next Saturday. I'm going to attempt to spin up a sweater's quantity of yarn from some Southern Cross Fibre Polwarth that I bought extras of last summer. I had five 110 g bags total, and I split the fiber in each bag into 16 little fiber bundles, much like I did with my combo spin earlier in the year.

The colorway, called Plot Twist, has a really gorgeous combination of greens, blues, and purples. I didn't really want obvious stripes (though I know that all handspun tends to stripe somewhat when knit up), so I figured my best best for mixing up the colors as much as possible was to split up the fiber as much as possible and then spin the bundles at random. I'm going for a traditional three ply, so I think I will just fill my bobbins with singles and then do the same with plying, splicing together the leftovers on bobbins as needed. With any luck, I'll get some good color blending.

Tomorrow: You're Only a Day Away*

Tomorrow's the day: Rainbow comes home from camp! I thought she'd be getting in at noon-ish, but it turns out the bus doesn't arrive until around 3, so it looks like I have more of a day to myself than I thought (I have a use-it-or-lose-it day off from work). Perhaps I'll use that extra time to do some of the things I said I'd do while she was gone but never actually got around to?

My main focus this week (or, at least, the past few evenings) has been my Soldotna Crop. Last night I just made it to the sleeve/body split, which means that tonight I'll get moving on the body.

If you look closely at the pattern pictures, you'll see that I messed around with the colors a bit. The reason for this is that I'm working with four skeins that were already in my stash, all the same base, and two of them are very close in color -- the dark blue that I started with at the collar and the dark purple in that center arrow-like motif. If I had followed the pattern as written, I would have ended up with some sections where both those colors were used side by side and you really wouldn't have been able to tell them apart without looking at them closely in bright light. I also used the light purple in the top vertical stripe section rather than the light blue so I'd have a little bit of cushion on the light blue in case I want to make the body a bit longer (and/or add a little length to the sleeves before adding the cuff).

At work, I've been making good progress on my socks, thanks in no small part to the all-day diversity retreat I attended on Tuesday. I knit during the two keynote addresses, part of lunch, and the panel discussion at the end of the day (all were in a big ballroom with a lot of people and I was sitting toward the back, so I didn't distract anyone). All that time took me from a little bit more than the cuff done to being partway through the heel. I'm now ready to turn the heel and move on toward the foot.

A little trick I did on this pair (which I picked up from someone on Ravelry recently) is to use the yarn from the other end of the ball/cake when I start turning the heel. This keeps the stripe pattern from being interrupted on the front of the sock. Smart, right?  I lucked out when I did the first sock, as the yarn on the other end was the same color at the stripe I was in the middle of when I finished the heel increases, so you can't even tell by looking that I didn't just carry on with the same strand.

Incidentally, I should mention that I've now got a Non-Euclidian heel "cheat sheet" with my tech editor that will be added on to the pattern to allow you to work it at any gauge and with any stitch count, so those of you who aren't as crazy as I am and don't work socks with fingering and size 0 needles (coughcoughMarycoughcough) can try out the heel.

Reading has been happening as well as knitting, so let's take a look at my bingo card.

I've added one book to my card since my last check-in, and that is The Goldfinch, which I finished on Monday. I really enjoyed it, though there were some parts I didn't much care for (the last chapter, in particular, lost me). I'm now listening to Harbor Me for a group read-along and discussion sponsored by Anne of Little Skein in the Big Wool. I totally missed out on discussing the first book, even though it was a book I had already read -- I blame a busy time at work. This one is only about four hours long and I've got about an hour and a half left, so I should finish it by this evening. I think it will likely go in the "Protagonist with a different ethnicity from you own" box on the bingo card.

I've already got my next books lined up as well. I'm number 1 on the wait list for the next Inspector Gamache audiobook from the library, and bought a new hardback book that arrived yesterday that I think will be a very timely read given recent events. One of the two phenomenal keynote speakers at the retreat on Tuesday was Crystal Marie Fleming. She was such an amazing speaker that while I was listening to her I got on my phone and ordered her most recent book, How to Be Less Stupid About Race. It's been a while since I bought a hardback book, but I think this was worth it. I'm looking forward to reading it and learning more!

*I apologize for the earworm I'm sure I've given some of you. It probably wouldn't surprise you to know that at one point in my childhood I loved to sit on the counter of the built-ins in my living room and belt out the songs from Annie.

Cute (but Not Especially Little)

'Tis done! In plenty of time, no less!

Pattern: Little Boxy by Joji Locatelli, size 8
Yarn: Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce (80% superwash merino/20% nylon) in Peacock Blue, 2.21 skeins (another 808 m for Stash Dash!)
Needles: US 2.5 (3.0 mm) and US 4 (3.5 mm)
Started/Completed: April 28/June 22
Mods: None

This was such a fun knit. Yes, it's true that the body was a bit of a slog, but in reality the hardest part about this adorable sweater was dealing with two skeins of yarn (I alternated every round on the body and every other row on the parts that were worked flat) and having all those extra ends to weave in -- and those have nothing to do with the pattern itself but rather with my decision to use hand-dyed yarn, which meant alternating to avoid pooling or clear lines where I switched from one skein to another. It really wasn't that much extra work, and I think it was more than worth it. The only place I did not alternate was on the sleeves, where I used the remains of the two skeins I started with in order to leave the third skein more or less intact for use in another project.

I was originally going to knit the next size up, thinking that Rainbow will be 10 later this year and I wanted this to fit her for more than the next few months, but I did some measurements and she's such a skinny little thing that the 8 was more than big enough. I did have a brief moment of panic when I went to pick up the stitches for the first sleeve that the arm openings were too small, but then I pulled out one of her pajama tops for comparison and my fears were laid to rest.

As you can see, the circumference of the sweater is nearly twice that of her body (this top has minimal positive ease on her), meaning that the sleeves are going to hit in the middle of her arm to begin with, and on top of that, the armhole opening on the sweater is the same circumference of the armhole opening on the top -- so that even if the sweater armhole did hit at the biggest part of her arm, she'd still be fine.

I'm thrilled, and more importantly I think she'll be thrilled, and I'm happy to have finished it up in plenty of time. I even blocked it over the weekend so that it's all tidy and ready for her to wear, should she so choose (and should the weather cooperate) when she gets back on Friday. And I'm fighting an urge to cast on a new one for me!

Now that this is done, I'm focusing on a sweater for me, specifically my Soldotna Crop. I think that if I give it the same amount of attention I gave Rainbow's sweater last week, I can make quite a dent in it! I'm about halfway through the yoke chart at this point, and the number of stitches is now big enough that I've been able to spread out the fabric on the entire length of my circular needle instead of magic looping.

Today I'm attending a diversity retreat at work all day, and I'm taking my sock project with me (I finished the first one on Saturday). I think there will be enough attendees that I can blend in and knit without disturbing someone, though of course I'll put it away if someone takes issue. But just think of how much sock I can get done if I'm able to work on it more or less all day!

Quick and Dirty and Pink and Fluffy

After my last spin, I was craving something that would be fast, so I pulled a braid of BFL out of the stash and started long drawing it (yes, I verbed it). I was so focused on finishing up Rainbow's sweater this week that I only got back to it yesterday, but I did finish up all the singles last night. I let them sit on the bobbin overnight and then, this morning, used my ball winder to make a center-pull ball so I could ply from both ends.

This afternoon, I sat down and plied it all. I literally just finished, so I haven't even skeined it yet, but I'm hoping to do that later this evening.

My long draw technique is not as precise as my short forward draw, so the finished yarn is a bit thick and thin and pretty much fuzzy all over. But I'm happy. This is just the kind of palate cleanser I needed (especially as I'm planning to start another fairly fine yarn sweater spin soon), and it was very satisfying because I think it took a total of three spinning sessions to do the singles and one to ply.

I'm debating about whether or not to start something new, given that the Tour de Fleece starts in less than two weeks; perhaps I will do another spin like this one to bust some more fiber stash.

While I was plying this afternoon, I was multitasking. Thanks to Kat's link on Friday and a big box of good-looking strawberries at the market today, I thought it was the perfect time to make some Roasted Strawberry Balsamic Jam.

Before:

and after:

I think this might be my topping for my daily oatmeal this week!

For Want of a Sleeve

I thought I was setting myself a rather lofty goal when I decided to try to finish Rainbow's Little Boxy before she got back from camp. As it turns out, I had much less left to knit on it than I'd realized, and thanks to several evening of undivided knitting time, it's now nearly done -- all that's left to do is the second sleeve.

I knit all of the first one last night, after I had finished weaving in the remaining ends from the body and the neckline. Sadly, I then had only about 10 minutes left before my usual bedtime, so I didn't even attempt to start the second (picking up a precise number of stitches is never a fast process because I usually have to do it three or more times before I get it right). I'll at least get a start on it tonight -- I'll be out looking at bridesmaid dresses with my future sister-in-law for part of the evening, so I won't get as much time as normal. Even so, I'm pretty confident that this sweater will be done before I go to bed tomorrow night, and I am thrilled about that.

After my last reading post, I did indeed finish the Inspector Gamache book (and gave it five stars). I also read a short but powerful book around the same time: When Breath Becomes Air. It had been on my want to read list for a while, and I saw that there was no wait for it at the library. In the end, I read the entire thing in a day. It's a very moving and sad memoir; I cried at the end, mainly at the thought of what Kalanithi could have done had he lived a full life. And it made me think a lot about life and death and how to make the most of our time on earth. It's a heavy book, to be sure, but one that's worth reading. And it fills the "Originally Published Posthumously" square on my bingo card.

My current read is The Goldfinch, which I've been wanting to read for some time. My mother had it in hardback when we were in Florida a few years ago and was reading it, and she said she'd lend it to me when she was done and then apparently lent to it a friend first. But I found it from the library with no wait, so now I just need to try to finish it before the loan is up -- it is more than 700 pages long! It'll fill my More than 500 Pages square on my bingo card, and I'm finding the writing quite good (though I'm finding the story to be quite depressing). I'm about 40% through it and hope to make a decent dent in it this weekend.

We've got a relatively quiet weekend ahead, the only one we'll have with Rainbow away. We have  a nice dinner out planned for Saturday evening, but other than that we don't have anything on the schedule. The weather is supposed to be nice on Saturday, so I'm hoping to get out for a run and generally be outside after a week when it's been rainy and gloomy pretty much nonstop. The rain has been good for all the plants, though, so I expect at least some of my time will be spent in the garden, pulling weeds!

Fessing Up

I have a confession to make: I bought yarn. I am supposed to be on a yarn and fiber diet, and yet I bought some yarn. But I don't feel too bad about it, to be perfectly honest. I have been successfully knitting from my stash for a while now, and in addition to using yarn up that way, I sent six skeins of DK yarn off to someone else this weekend as a prize for a knitlong (it was a sweater quantity of a Madelinetosh yarn that I had one in the same event a couple of years ago, and I was never going to use it, so I offered it up as a prize). I also have a plan for the yarn in question, which arrived yesterday:

This set of six skeins of DK is a Serendipitous Sweater Kit from Fibernymph Dye Works; Lisa only recently started offering up sweater sets, and after seeing a Ravelry/Instagram friend knit up a Bubble Sweater with one of these sets, I just had to make one. I'm not casting on just yet, but I expect I will soon, as soon as the current sweaters are off the needles.

About those current sweaters? They're moving right along. Rainbow's Little Boxy, in fact, is getting very close to being done!

I've got about three rows total left to work on the back shoulders and then I'll be ready to the three-needle bind-off to join the shoulders. After that, all that's left is the neckline (which I'm thinking I might do first) and the sleeves -- and of course weaving in a bunch of ends, but I can probably take care of that in an evening. I've been knitting on this furiously the past two evenings, and I think I can realistically say that this WIP will be an FO before the week is out.

I also gave my Soldotna Crop a bit off attention over the weekend and am moving right along on the colorwork.

The colors are a bit more vivid in real life; unfortunately we're in a gloomy weather pattern this week, so the light is not ideal. I do like how my color swap worked out, though, so I'm plowing ahead.

In addition to the sweaters, I've got one new WIP, which I started on Friday morning thinking I'd have time to work on it during my orthodontist appointment first thing (it turned out that I didn't). But it did come in handy when we went to the movies on Saturday afternoon.

This was some FDW Bounce from a club shipment earlier in the year; the colorway is called Fairies' Dance. I'm doing a Non-Euclidian heel on these, but I'm trying a little twist (literally) in the form of some twisted ribbing on either side of the increase area. I'm curious to see if this changes the fit at all or if it's purely ornamental. In either case, it's something a little different and therefore quite engaging, and socks are always good for lunchtime knitting!