It Finally Got Me

Well friends, after three and a half years of avoiding it, I've finally been hit with the 'vid. Those of you who follow me on Instagram likely saw the positive test I posted yesterday. I honestly did think I just had a sinus infection, but when I woke up yesterday with my whole body hurting again, I thought I should test. I read somewhere a while back that the side effects you feel from getting a dose of the vaccine are likely an indication of how the virus itself would make you feel, and that whole-body ache has been primarily the effect I've had each time I've gotten a vaccine or booster. On the plus side, I started getting these aches Monday afternoon, so clearly I've had it for a while, and I'm actually feeling a lot better this morning. Even better, Mo tested negative yesterday afternoon and is back to school today. While I would have preferred not to have gotten it, I am relieved that my bout with COVID has been relatively mild. My symptoms have been the aforementioned body aches, sinus pain, and some congestion (and some associated lightheadedness, which you'd expect). I've been coughing a little, but mainly just because of the postnasal drip from the sinus congestion. I've not had a fever or lost my sense of taste or smell. I have been taking extra-strength Tylenol every six hours, and I knew I was turning a corner last night when I didn't start feeling terrible before my next dose was due. I also slept through the night last night, unlike the two prior, so I'm fairly confident that I will be back to normal in a few more days. It's a bummer that I will miss out on Rosh Hashanah dinner with the family tonight and services this weekend, but my mother will no doubt be dropping off food for me and I can watch services online. I'm happy to be feeling better and able to stay home to keep others from getting sick. I did want to share my experience with all of you because it seems like the new variant that is going around is not causing the typical COVID symptoms and so people may not be testing when they should. So consider this your PSA!

While I never like being sick, I will say that it's been a relief to take time off from work and to not be so sick that I'm not feeling up to crafting. In fact, I've gotten quite a lot done in the past couple of days, primarily on my crochet blanket:

Last night I joined the fourth skein of yarn and started decreasing along the other edge, so I am in the home stretch now. If I keep up the pace, I would not be surprised if I finish this blanket by the end of the weekend! It looks like it's going to be the perfect size for covering my legs; I'm working to 25" wide by 40" long, though I'm sure that I'll be able to coax a bit more out of it when I blog it, given that it's superwash. This has really been the perfect project because it's require so little thinking. While I haven't really experienced the so-called COVID brain fog, it is still hard to concentrate when you're feeling lousy.

Later today, provided my head is feeling clear enough, I may pull out my long-dormant Birch Pullover, which hasn't been touched since the day we left Florida after our spring break trip. It's been sitting in a bag since then for a very silly reason: I need to do some basic math to determine how much of each skein of yarn to set aside for the sleeves so I can blend my skeins sufficiently. It'll probably take me less than five minutes to do so, but my ridiculous unwillingness to do that has meant that I've ignored the sweater for nearly half a year. Now that fall weather is finally here, I want to get back to that sweater so it's done and ready to be worn when we have legitimate sweater weather!

I hope the weekend ahead is as beautiful for you as it's predicted to be for us. Keep your fingers crossed that by the next time I post, I'm COVID negative!

Unraveled, Week 37/2023

Good morning from the sick house, friends. Mo is feeling a lot better, but I've come done with my annual sinus infection and am feeling pretty miserable. I'm glad I'm already working from home and don't have to go anywhere!

Time to check in with Kat and the Unravelers about making and reading. If there's one good thing to say about being at home with a sick kid, it's that there's plenty of time for both! 

I'm still working on my C2C blanket, and though I haven't added much more since you saw it on Monday, I plan to work on it during two work meetings today, one of which is supposed to be two hours long (it's on off-site meeting, but luckily I'd already planned to Zoom in because school pickup time is right in the middle of it).

I'm in the middle of a wrong-side row at the moment, and based on the measurement I took just after snapping this photo, I should reach my target width after one more right-side row. At that point, I will start decreasing on the left-hand side of the blanket and it'll start looking like a rectangle.

I also have added a few stripes to my current pair of socks, and I'm really enjoying this Targhee base.

The main reason I haven't made a ton of progress on either of these projects the past couple of days is because I've been almost completely focused on spinning -- and I finished another skein!

It's still a tad bit damp and the skein got a bit mussed up so I'll have to rewind it to tidy it up, but this is about 187 yards of three-ply worsted. This was Southern Cross Fibre Polwarth from May 2022 in the colorway Maelstrom. I did a very quick-and-dirty spin on this for a change, and while I don't have a ton of yardage, I'm very happy with this one.

I just love a round, bouncy three-ply yarn! Normally I don't have a specific plan for yarn I spin, but as these colors are right up Mo's alley, I'm thinking this might become a hat for her. I'll likely knit it top down so I can use up as much yarn as possible.

Reading has been good this past week, even if it's not been especially plentiful. With all the illness in the house, I've been a bit distracted. But I did finish two good books.

When I was in need of an audiobook late last week, I decided to reread Rebecca, in part because it's on the Novel Pairings calendar for this month but also because it's been a very long time since I read it (I'm pretty sure when I was in eighth grade!). I watched the Hitchcock film a ton when I was a kid and saw the not-so-great more recent Netflix version, so I knew the basic story, but I'd forgotten just how amazing the writing is! The audio version was well done, too. I think I could appreciate it all a lot more now that I'm older and more well read, and it wasn't until yesterday, while I was listening to Novel Pairings, that I learned that it was inspired by Jane Eyre, but it makes total sense! If you've never read this book, I highly recommend it. I gave my reread 5 stars.

My other finish came from the Booker Prize longlist. How to Build a Boat tells the story of Jamie, a young man who we're led to believe is on the autism spectrum and who believes that if he finds a way to build a perpetual motion machine, it will somehow connect him to his month, who died shortly after giving birth to him. He's helped in this mission by two of his teachers at his Catholic boys' high school, a place where all three of them are outsiders in their own way, and the book is really a lovely story of how they find and help one another through their respective life difficulties. This is one of those books that has no quotation marks for the dialogue, making it a little challenging in parts to know when someone is speaking and when they're just thinking, but it's a beautiful story. I gave it 4 stars.

I'm still reading An Immense World, though I haven't picked it up in the past several days, and I've been reading my next Booker selection, A Spell of Good Things, at bedtime.

What are you making and reading this week?

Finishes and Starts

Why is it that sometimes the shorter weeks feel longer than the regular ones? I can only think it's been the heat here this week -- we officially had a heat wave, with three days hitting 90º F or higher. (I even ran on one of those days, and it was very much Not Fun.) But it's Friday, and we had some rain move through yesterday (including when I thought I was in the clear and went out for a walk, only have to run home in a downpour), so things are looking up.

I know this will likely come as a surprise to none of you, but I did finish the socks for my sister-in-law on Wednesday evening, thanks in part to a rabbi search Zoom meeting. I blocked them yesterday, so today they're all ready to be wrapped up and presented to her at dinner.

After I was so successful in focusing on that project on Wednesday, I decided to do the same with my current spinning project yesterday and finished all my singles, so today I am ready to ply.

While I'm wrapping up my WIPs, I'm also starting some new projects. Yesterday was kickoff day for the Down Cellar Studio Pigskin Party (and the NFL season), and that meant casting on some new projects because WIPs aren't allowed for this make-along. Obviously I had to cast on some new socks, so I dove into my SSK stash and pulled out the skein I brought home from Woolens and Nosh and cast on.

The other project I started is a crocheted corner-to-corner blanket using five of the six skeins from the Fibernymph Dye Works sweater kit that I wound up last week. I made a swatch a couple of days ago, weighed and measured it, and did some math to figure out how big a blanket I could make with the yarn I have and the measurements for it. I'll admit I had to do a bit of Googling to help with the last step, but I'm pretty sure I got it right, and I have a bit of extra yarn should I need it (I did my calculations based on 100 g skeins, but all of mine are a few grams more than that).

Today should be a quiet day at work -- my boss's mother-in-law passed away earlier this week, so she is off for the funeral today -- so I am hoping I can take care of plying that bobbin of singles and make some progress on one or both of the new projects. We have a bat mitzvah to attend tomorrow and thankfully nothing planned on Sunday, so I'm hoping the weekend will be a good reset. Here's hoping it's a good one for you, too!

Unraveled, Week 31/2022

Happy Wednesday, friends! The week is flying by already, which I suppose is a good thing for a week back at work after a vacation. As usual, today I'm joining Kat and the Unravelers to talk about what I'm making and reading.

I did some quick baby gift knitting as a palate cleanser after finishing my brother's sweater (and thank you so much for your many compliments on it!), but now I'm on to my next garment, and it's for me.

This is the start of my Twofer Tank (Ravelry link), which I've had on my list to make since Mary made hers. I have only made a couple of warm-weather tops in my knitting career but haven't chosen the best fibers. This one I'm knitting in Knit Picks CotLin, a machine-washable cotton/linen blend, and I am really enjoying knitting with it. I started this top on Monday and even having not spent that much time on it already have something that looks like a top! This tank is worked from the shoulders down, starting with the fronts; last night I joined the back straps, so now I just have to work a bit more on the back before I cast on stitches for the underarms and start working in the round.

I also picked up the C2C crochet blanket I started for Rainbow several months ago. This is likely a long-term project, but it does go pretty quickly when I work on it. And it matches my knitting this week!

Reading has been pretty phenomenal this past week. I've finished five(!) books since last Wednesday, but one was a short story and one a very short audiobook, so don't be too impressed.

I had picked up a copy of Tony Morrison's 1983 short story Recitatif earlier in the summer at my local bookstore. It's a quick read but a powerful one, and this edition includes an excellent introduction/analysis by Zadie Smith that I think is actually longer than the story itself. This tells the story of two girls, later women, who meet in a shelter as children when their mothers find themselves unable to care for them for a time. They connect again several times as adults, at different points in their lives, and learn how their lives compare. What is most intriguing about this story is that one girl is Black and one is white, but we never know which is which, so it makes for a really powerful way to examine our prejudices and assumptions as readers. I gave it 4 stars.

Next I turned to Maggie O'Farrell's backlist in my continuing effort to be an O'Farrell completist. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox was my first pick, and it felt very much like what I expect from the author: multiple timelines, hints at what is to come, and several stories that come together at the end. While I did figure out a plot twist that is revealed toward the end early on, it didn't spoiled it for me. I also really enjoyed the fact that this novel is a bit of commentary on the history of women's unconventional behavior being labeled madness. There are some elements of this book that are rather troubling, but the writing is good and propulsive, and I enjoyed it. I gave it 4 stars.

Next up in my O'Farrell list was My Lover's Lover, the last one I could find available from my library, and I could only find it on audio. This is one of the author's earliest books, so I think she hadn't quite hit her stride yet, and the format was likely also not the best because it wasn't always clear to me when the timeline had changed. I think this is probably my least favorite of her books that I've read so far, and mainly that's because I didn't really like any of the main characters. There's a bit of a nod to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, including a reference to the Hitchcock film version of it, but in my opinion, it's not as successful as the earlier book. I gave it 3 stars. I now have one book left to read to have read all of O'Farrell's backlist, and a hard copy is on its way to me!

I listened to In Love, Amy Bloom's memoir of her husband's decline into early onset Alzheimer's disease and his decision to end his life via "accompanied suicide" in Switzerland, in its entirety on Monday. It's a very short book -- less than 5 hours on audio -- and read by the author, who speaks slowly enough that I upped the speed to 1.5. As you would imagine from the subject, it's an emotional and heartbreaking book, but Bloom does an excellent job of describing how she and her husband navigated the devastating diagnosis and the very difficult decision to choose when the end comes. I gave it 4 stars.

Finally, I read a book that Mary mentioned recently, The Undertaking by Audrey Magee. I was actually more interested in reading her newest book, The Colony, and finally found it on Hoopla but only on audio. I decided to start with Magee's first book because I wanted something to read with my eyes. This one tells the story of two Germans during WWII, a soldier who wants to get away from the Russian front and marries a young woman in Berlin in order to get leave for his honeymoon. It then follows the couple throughout the war and their efforts to survive. While the book certainly highlights the horrors of war -- on all sides -- I'm not sure if it's meant to make the reader feel sympathy for those committed to the Nazi cause. While ultimately both of the main characters come to reject the story they've been told by their government, it still gave me a bit of an icky feeling; I wanted to know if they survived the war, but once I finished the last page, I was no longer invested in what happened to them. I gave it 3 stars.

Up next for me? I think either The Glass Hotel or The Tsar of Love and Techno, both of which I bought at my local bookstore earlier this year and have been waiting to get to.

What are you making and reading this week?

We're a Go

Well friends, we have made it to Friday. I still have to make it through this work day, but I feel like I'm over a big hump and can let some of the weight off my shoulders now. Rainbow wrapped up her school play with the second performance last night (she was on the stage crew), and she'll officially be on spring break starting at 3:10 this afternoon. We are mostly packed for our trip, with everything in suitcases other than a few items that need to be washed today and the last-minute toiletries and electronics. And work was calm enough yesterday that I could take care of a few things I'd been waiting days to do, like weaving in the ends on that brioche cowl!

Yesterday was busy, but without the frenetic pace of the first part of the week. I took a detour on my usual walk to go into my office (which I had not been to since sometime last year) and pick up my brand-new work laptop -- yes, it took more than two years, but they finally got me a work computer! It's very shiny and fast, and I'm looking forward to getting acquainted with it after our trip (I didn't want to have to take two computers with me, so I'm sticking with my five-year-old personal computer for now). During my team meeting yesterday, I started the second stripe of Rainbow's blanket:

The way this blanket is made is to crochet strips with diagonal stripes that will then be sewn together to form the chevrons. Some of the stripes will be green and white and others will be pink and white. I'm thinking it might be fun to alternate the colors (so a green and white strip will be sewn to a pink and white strip), but ultimately Rainbow will have to decide how they're arranged.

Last night I did something I've never done before -- and it turned out to be much easier than I thought! I completed my very first tubular cast-on.

I used this video tutorial and discovered that it's a method I could have been using for a long time had I just bothered to see how it was done. Really all that's involved is a provisional cast on and four rounds of knitting or purling every other stitch and slipping the stitches in between. Then you literally just pull out the waste yarn. Genius! This is once instance where I'm really thankful to have picked Growth as my word this year, as it's given me motivation to try new things that I've always believed were difficult solely due to my ignorance.

The cast-on was, if you haven't already guessed, for the start of my May(be) Queen, which is coming with me on the trip along with the socks for Rainbow that I shared on Wednesday. I'm not taking the crochet blanket because it's just a little too big. But given how quickly I can knit socks, especially if they're just stockinette, I thought I'd take another project with me in case I need something fairly mindless once the socks are done. And for this, I have to thank Bonny for the inspiration.

These are the leftovers from my Shifty sweater, approximately 940 yards, that I'm going to use for a big Hitchhiker. I think I should be able to get a pretty sizeable shawl out of these bits and pieces, and of course knitting with handspun is always a joy, so perhaps those long rows won't be quite such a slog.

I am off to take a vigorous walk that I'm hoping will tire me out early tonight -- my wake-up call will be at around 3 a.m. for our 5:55 a.m. flight! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and I'll see you next time from further south!

Done and Almost Done

Monday mornings are always hard, but I'll admit this one was a bit easier because I realized when I woke up that this is the last Monday of work for me this year! I have just three more days of work, and that includes Wednesday, which is the day we're having our office holiday party (via Zoom), so that's kind of a partial work day. I was anticipating that it was going to be a crazy final few days of work, and it still might be busy, but at least one project I was expecting to hit isn't going to, so I'm feeling less stressed.

Another reason to feel less stressed is that all of my holiday knitting is done! I finished up my nephew's blanket on Friday night and blocked it on Saturday.

Pattern: Baby Chalice Blanket (Ravelry link) by Karen S. Lauger
Yarn: Squoosh Fiber Arts Ultra Worsted in Fresh Cut, approximately 1.75 skeins
Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm)
Started/Completed: December 3/December 10
Mods: used a smaller needle and made it smaller than specified

I'm actually surprised, pleasantly so, that I knit this as quickly as I did. The lace pattern itself isn't very difficult, and while I didn't exactly memorize it, it's intuitive enough that I only needed to check in on the chart at the beginning of each right-side row once I'd done the initial repeat. I didn't know exactly what size to make the replacement blanket because while the approximate dimensions were in my Ravelry project page, I didn't note how many repeats that translated to, but I was at least able to count the number of lace repeats on my photos of it to estimate how many to cast on (83, for the record). I then enlisted Rainbow's help in determining when it seemed long enough, and we decided that nine vertical repeats is enough. I did go down in needle size as well, so I know this version is smaller. The pattern calls for an Aran-weight yarn and size 10/6 mm needles, and on the first version, I used worsted-weight yarn and size 8/5 mm needles. I had noted on my project page that the fabric was rather loose, so I went down another full millimeter this time around and am much more satisfied with the density of the fabric. I did stretch it enough in blocking to open up the lace and give the fabric some drape, but it didn't feel floppy or loose.

Last night we had the immediate family (our parents and siblings) over to celebrate Rainbow's birthday, and we took advantage of the get-together to give some gifts of our own, including the blanket. My sister-in-law said that she though the replacement blanket looked just like the original, and my nephew gave it his seal of approval as well:

I know he looks grumpy here, but that's just because he was tired (if you look closely, you'll see he's in his pajamas already -- it was past his bedtime). The fact that the blanket is in his mouth is a good thing; that is apparently part of the reason the first Green Blankie fell apart. The fact that this went right in his mouth means there was no suspicion that this was not his beloved blanket, and that's a win in my book!

Now that the gift knitting is officially done, I am focusing on spinning again this week. I have about half a bobbin of singles to finish up for my combo spin (the one I've been ignoring for the past month or so), and I'd like to do that at a minimum before we leave for our trip. It would be great to get all the plying done as well, but that might be pushing things, and certainly a lot depends on how much work comes in over the next few days. I have one small knitting project in progress that I'll likely be able to finish up in the next couple of days, and I have vacation knitting to plan!

Unraveled, Week 49/2021

Can you believe there are only three more Wednesdays in 2021? I don't know where this year has gone, but it's been a great comfort to have the consistency of checking in each Wednesday with Kat and the Unravelers.

This Wednesday finds me still being monogamous (at least for the time being) to Green Blankie 2.0. It's been a Zoom-heavy week, with three more Zooms still to go, so it's gotten a lot of attention. Here's where it stands as of this morning, with the marker showing where I was yesterday morning. I will move it again when I pick it up during today's first Zoom.

I have completed five full repeats of the lace pattern, and I'm not sure exactly how many I'm going to do, but my plan is to try to use up as much of the yarn as I can. If I'd had the foresight the first time I knit this pattern, I would have noted how many repeats I worked so I could recreate it exactly; I'll be sure to make a note this time, just in case there needs to be a third blanket at some point in the future.

I got some new yarn in the mail over the weekend, the second of my three Encore club shipments from Fibernymph Dye Works. This encore was from the Happy Hour club, and Lisa calls this colorway Galaxy Cocktail. It was a lovely surprise to get when the weather has turned colder (we woke up to a dusting of snow this morning) because these colors just scream spring to me!

As with the previous Happy Hour club shipments, this skein came with a coordinating stitch marker, and I just have to share a closeup of this one:

The whole charm is about the size of a fingernail, which I'm telling you so you can fully appreciate the size of that tiny slice of kiwi fruit.

I've finished three books since last week, too, a feat I'm not likely to repeat in the next week given that I have six more days of work this year and a lot of stuff has come in!

I had put Louise Erdrich's latest, The Sentence, on hold at the library without knowing anything about it other than several of you had read it and enjoyed it, and I specifically requested the audiobook because it's read by the author herself. I can now say that I'm really looking forward to reading it again next year as part of the Erdrich-along -- I absolutely loved this book! It's set in the Minneapolis area against the backdrop of the pandemic and the racial justice demonstrations in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, but it's not really about either of those things. It's sad and funny and heartbreaking, and I particularly loved the fact that the author is a character (though not the main one) in the book and her real-life bookstore is a major setting. I gave it 5 stars and highly recommend it!

I spent a couple of evenings reading The Westing Game to finish it and catch up with Rainbow so I could help her with her last English assignments on it. I don't think I'd reread this since I was in grad school (I know that's when I bought my copy, as I'd stuck an address label inside the cover that had my address from my apartment in Philadelphia), and I'll admit I was a little disappointed in it this go-round. The language is a bit dated and even a tad offensive in some spots now, and I guess I've become more critical as a reader because I found the writing just a little too sparse and abrupt. But the mystery itself is still fun, and I was pleased that although I remembered a few things, I'd forgotten enough to still get a surprise at the ending. I gave it 3 stars.

I'd put We Are Not Like Them on hold when I heard the authors interviewed on the What Should I Read Next podcast (this episode) and finally got to it in the past week. This is a very timely novel about two best friends -- Jen, a white woman who is married to a police officer involved in the shooting of an unarmed young Black man, and Riley, a Black woman who, as a news reporter, finds herself reporting on her friend's husband. This book goes exactly where you'd expect, and while it doesn't shy away from the difficult issues, I found it also doesn't go very deep. This had the feel of an easier book club-style read to me -- and by that I mean book clubs that are less about reading and more about socializing. It's not a bad read, but it's not a serious exploration of race and privilege. I gave it 3 stars.


This week, I'm trying my hardest to finish The Madness of Crowds, and I'm trying not to start anything else until I'm done with the 200 or so pages I have left! But I'd also love to hear about what you're reading or anything wonderful you've finished lately, because I do have a vacation coming up!

Ready for Number 2

I know that I'll be confused about what day it is for the rest of this week, but I am very glad to have had yesterday as a bonus day off. Working from home takes away some of the stress and depression of Sunday night, but when you get home from a trip Sunday afternoon and have all the weekend chores and errands to run in a matter of hours, it's nice to have a bonus day before you have to get back to the daily grind. And it's always nice to be able to sleep in on a Monday morning!

One other thing the extra day off allowed me to do was finish up my nephew's blanket, in plenty of time for his second birthday!

It's on our queen-sized bed here, for scale.

I made this blanket using the corner-to-corner (C2C) method of crochet. It's a pretty simple concept in which you work on the diagonal and add blocks of double crochet stitches perpendicular to the previous row -- kind of like entrelac in knitting. There are ways to use the method to create designs/images by changing yarn and colors, but I stuck with simple stripes. My plan was to work with each color until it looked like I didn't have enough left to work another row, then join the next color. Once I had used all the colors, I started decreasing and mirrored the colors for the second half to create a square.

The yarn is Mission Falls 1824 Cotton, a yarn that was discontinued many years ago and that I bought on clearance at my former LYS, I think when I was pregnant with Rainbow, because I had it in my stash with a printed copy of a baby sweater that I think I'd intended to knit with it. I don't remember if I bought all the yarn they had left, but it sure seems like it given that I had 17 skeins of it. I used a bit more than 12 skeins in the blanket; in addition to the leftovers, which varied in amount by color, I somehow missed the two skeins of a more pinky purple when I was deciding on the order of colors, so I have two full skeins of that remaining. 

The colors actually used in the blanket are Truffle (dark brown), Goldenrod (yellow), Moss and Lichen (greens), Aubergine and Phlox (purples), and Graphite (dark blue/gray). I had two skeins of each color except Truffle, of which I had three, so I used some of the third skein to add a round of single crochet around the whole blanket when it was finished. In all, I used 1,018 yards -- and that's quite a chunk of yarn taken out of my stash! It weighs 606 grams, which is pretty heavy but not surprising given that it's a cotton yarn. The leftovers will likely become some washcloths.

I still need to wash the blanket, so it may shrink a bit, but the finished dimensions at the moment are approximately 32 by 32 inches. I used a size G/4.0 mm crochet hook, and I can't tell you what my gauge is (I really don't know how to measure it with this method because the stitches are in different directions), but it's fairly dense. My nephew's birthday is the beginning of next month, so I will wash it and wrap it up so it's ready to go. Finishing the blanket nearly a month early means that there's still time to make him a little amigurumi friend to go with it, too! And baby knitting will start soon -- my brother- and sister-in-law will find out the sex of baby number 2 tomorrow!

I'm Totally Hooked

I told you all last week that there has been much crafting around here but not that much knitting, and that's a trend that is continuing this week. Spinning is still big, as it always is during Tour de Fleece time, but lately I've been all about the crochet. I just haven't been able to stop working on the C2C blanket for my nephew, and it's now past the halfway point:

I haven't been wanting to play yarn chicken, so I've been cutting each color when it just looks like I don't have enough for another row. That means I'll have some significant leftovers to deal with, but I took this photo with my feet in it so that you can get a sense of the size of this thing -- plenty big for a toddler! As you can see, I've started decreasing, and last night I was ready to join a new color but decided to pause to weave in ends. That's a task that's relatively easy with this crochet technique and with the nubby texture of the yarn, but I am doing it pretty thoroughly because I know this blanket will be treated roughly and washed frequently. I've got about five more ends to weave in and then I'll start crocheting again.

And the blanket is not the only crocheting I've been doing, either. Rainbow has wanted to learn to make amigurumi figures for a while, and we thought we'd get started this week so that we could conceivably do some in the car this weekend. She wants to make some animals for my nephew, and I have some books with some really cute patterns, but she needs to learn some basics first. Conveniently, I heard that Craftsy was running a special where you can get a year's premium membership (meaning access to all their classes) for $3, so I signed up, figuring that at the very least Rainbow could get some use out of some of the classes. We have started taking a class on crocheting amigurumi animals and are working on a bird:

We are doing this project mainly as practice, so Rainbow is focused on the technique more than the product, but I feel like this photo would make an excellent "got gauge?"-type meme. Granted, my yarn is a tad thinner than hers (DK versus worsted) and I'm using a slightly smaller hook, but both of these pieces are done to the same point in the pattern. She's definitely getting it, though, and that's what matters; we can make adjustments to get her gauge to tighten up a bit when we make some animals for real.

I am going to see if she'll consent to letting me go for my walk before it gets too much hotter (it's already 82F!), but I will be back tomorrow with a reading update. Stay cool out there, my friends!

Hello, Summer

Technically summer has arrived, but it is feeling a bit more like fall here this morning. We had some strong thunderstorms move through yesterday afternoon and evening (and thankfully we only saw heavy rain and the power stayed on), and behind it came some much cooler air -- we are only expecting to get to a high in the mid-60s today. That's just fine by me, though, after the sticky weekend we had.

Today is my last day of work this month, if you can believe it. My employer temporarily removed the cap on vacation time accrual during the pandemic, but it goes back on at the end of this month, so that means that if I want to acquire any more time, I needed to take about six days off. I rarely take vacation time under normal circumstances (usually a few days around Maryland Sheep and Wool and Rhinebeck, plus a day or two on either end of our end-of-year Florida trip), so it feels like a real treat to take time off for no reason! The Mister is resuming work travel beginning this week, though, so it will be good to have the time to spend with Rainbow. And we're also all going on a quick trip up to Michigan to visit my aunt and uncle for July 4 weekend after not having seen them since December 2019. After today, I won't have to log back into my work email until July 6!

And if that's not enough to be excited about, I'm also going to get my first haircut since, I think, November 2019 this evening! I gave myself a trim last summer, but I really need a professional to do it and feel comfortable going back to the salon now that I'm vaccinated.

But I'm guessing you didn't stop by to hear about all that -- you're here for the yarny stuff, aren't you? I haven't made a ton of progress, but I do have some photos to share.

I am just starting the fourth stripe on my ADVENTuresome Wrap, and the reason I haven't gotten much farther is not from a lack of time working on it but rather because I've devoted a good chunk of that time to weaving in ends. There are SO MANY ends to deal with on this project. Obviously there are two from each mini skein. But I've also been joining and then breaking the neutral yarn that's worked between each stripe each time, so that's been two more ends to deal with. I'm going to keep it connected and carry it up the side for the next stripe so see how that goes in the hope that I can eliminate at least some of this extra work. I've also lost a little bit of time to tinking back more than once because no matter how many times I remind myself, I seem to always forget that there are several rows in each pattern repeat that involve decreases worked on the wrong side. This is really not a hard pattern, but my brain has a tendency to go into autopilot mode far too easily. I'm hoping now that I am working on this more regularly, I will actually start to remember what to do.

I've also started my nephew's blanket, and that, at least, shows progress quickly. I can manage about a skein of yarn per crochet session; the tan and green, for instance, were added during this past Sunday's Zoom session. My plan here is to use up as much of each skein as I can until I don't have enough to complete another row (I want the stripes to be solid, so I'm only changing them at the beginning of a row). The second of three dark brown skeins will form the center stripe, and the color order will be mirrored on the second half of the blanket.

I haven't cast on any new projects, though I did restart the hat with the too-big brim (but I'm only a few rounds in). I think some new socks will get started next week in anticipation of the car trip, and pretty soon the baby knitting will commence because we'll find out if my nibling is a boy or a girl on July 7!

I'll be back tomorrow with less hair and more chat. Happy summer!

A Craftly Long Weekend

After four lovely days off, I am back "at work" today (already dealing with a noisy inbox), but before I get my head totally back into work mode, I wanted to share some results of my long weekend.

As you know, I've been focusing on finishing projects this month, and late last week I finished my oldest active WIP, the C2C crochet blanket.

Started July 3, 2020/Completed February 12, 2021

I used this tutorial (Ravelry link) to get me started with a size E/3.5 mm hook and a giant ball of baby acrylic from Michaels that Rainbow had started crocheting into a granny square blanket and lost interest in. My plan was to increase until I'd used half the yarn (by weight) and then start decreasing, which theoretically should have resulted in having just enough yarn but in practice didn't quite work out that way. So one corner of the blanket was finished with some white Lion Brand Baby Soft that I inherited from my mother awhile back. After I finished the final square, I added a simple border of single crochet around the outside edge to stabilize it, and then I gave the entire blanket a generous steaming with an iron. I'm not sure if I officially "killed" the acrylic, but it's certainly much softer and has more drape. In all, I used 1,185 yards of yarn, which seems like a lot given that the blanket is only about 31 inches by 31 inches square. But it does make a nice lap blanket (I've been putting it over my legs the past few evenings while I knit and watch TV), and more importantly I've now got another way to crochet a blanket in my tool box -- and I'm eyeing my giant bag of sock yarn scraps and pondering another blanket now.

Rainbow and I also did some sewing yesterday, and I used the opportunity to complete another item on my 21 in 2021 list.

I used up the last of the RGB fabric that I ordered from Spoonflower last year for this project bag (I wanted to maximize what I had left, which is why this is so tall). I also felt pretty smug because I repurposed a cloth bag that a piece of luggage came in for the lining and I adapted the basic pattern from the drawstring bag tutorial I'd used in the past. Rainbow made her own bag alongside me as well. Both bags are a bit wonky because we weren't being terribly exact about measurements (or, as is likely apparent in the photo, about pressing the fabric), but they are perfectly functional. All that remains for my bag is to do something about drawstrings; I had some cotton rope that came from the cloth bag we repurposed, but I we used that for Rainbow's bag and there wasn't enough for both. So I'll likely need to make and sew up some bias tape for mine, or perhaps I'll use my lucet and make some cording.

Finally, there was cooking this weekend. On Friday, we successfully baked another challah (thanks in large part to the fact that the Mister was in Zoom meetings all day -- though I did put a sign on the oven warning him not to touch it just in case!):

And we made dinner for Valentine's Day as well. After flipping through quite a few cookbooks, we settled on a menu of baked shrimp scampi with a side of pasta aglio e olio and green beans. The star of the meal, though, was dessert:

These are s'mores brownies that we made more or less following this recipe (we were making a smaller batch, so we used fewer graham crackers and less butter for the crust). I did accidentally burn the marshmallow topping and set off the smoke alarm (oops!), but I actually like that bit of char -- it gives them an authentic flavor! The recipe is quite easy, particularly as it calls for using a boxed brownie mix, but it would be just as easy to use a scratch brownie recipe. My main piece of advice is to watch the pan when you put it in under the broiler to toast the marshmallows, because it happens really quickly! If you have a kitchen torch (like the sort you'd use for creme brulee), it might be safer to use it for this step.

Okay, the work inbox beckons. Stay warm and catch you back here tomorrow!

C'mon Get Happy

Good morning, friends! Yesterday was a very long day in part because I spent the last two hours of the work day doing school pickup and then at the pediatrician's office with Rainbow (she's fine -- it was just her annual checkup, but she had to get three vaccinations, so it was a bit dramatic for my needle-fearing girl). After such a Monday Monday, if you catch my meaning, I did not expect to wake up so happy this morning, but I did, so I thought I'd share some of that happiness with you!

First of all, look at what we woke up to (with apologies for the screen):

We were supposed to get 1-3 inches of snow overnight, but the Mister estimates that we got more than that. He was out shoveling for a full hour this morning and said that what he'd shoveled was already covered again by the time he came in. Normally I'd not be that excited by snow, but there was enough overnight that Rainbow's school decided to close for the day, so she's home doing school online. That means I get to have lunch with her and I don't have to drive in this mess to pick her up! She's also excited because it means she can stay in her pajama pants all day!

One good thing to come out of yesterday was that I managed to finish up the baby sweater, just in time for the last day of the Pigskin Party, too.

This is, of course, the classic Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmerman. I used the instructions found in The Opinionated Knitter, but you can now get the pattern for the baby, child, and adult versions directly from Schoolhouse Press. I was a bit worried that this version was going to come out a tad small, even for a preemie, but I compared it to the version that Rainbow came home from the hospital in and it's just a tad smaller (I blocked out a little more room in it as well). I used scraps of several fingering weight yarns for this one -- the green is Knit Picks Stroll Tonal, the blue is Little Skein in the Big Wool House Sock, the yellow is Dale Garn Baby Ull, and the red is Malabrigo Sock. I followed the pattern as written except for working on a smaller needle (US 3)/at a smaller gauge to make it suitable for a preemie and adding the applied I-cord around the entire body edge. If you look very closely, you might be able to see where I joined the I-cord at the center of the back, but I think I did a decent job of finishing. I did add buttonholes to one side, but I think the neck opening becomes way too small for even a tiny baby if you overlap the fronts enough to button it, so I'm going to do some duplicate stitch on the wrong side to close those holes up before I deliver it.

Another reason to be happy? Finishing the sweater means I can move on to the next WIP to finish, and that's my C2C crochet blanket. I've officially started decreasing!

The colors are again completely off here, but at least you can see that the sides are starting to square up. I've noticed that I'm also getting a little faster at this and can manage a little bit of it without looking, so clearly all the practice is paying off. And now that I understand this method of construction, I can see making a lot more blankets like this in the future.

Finally, what is happier than getting yarn in the mail?

These two half skeins of Fibernymph Dye Works Ridgetop Fingering arrived yesterday (they were a prize). They should have been here on Saturday, as the USPS told me they were out for delivery, but when they didn't show up, I checked the tracking and discovered that they hadn't been delivered because the carrier "could not access the delivery location." I'm not sure what that was supposed to mean; the mail carrier delivered the rest of our mail with no problem, so I can only surmise that we had a sub for our usual carrier who didn't want to be bothered with carrying packages down our street. In any case, it arrived safely yesterday, and at least it didn't take a tour of the state this time! I also am expecting another squishy delivery today, as I might have taken advantage of the HipStrings moving sale (they are moving out of their commercial studio and into a new space). Assuming the snow doesn't deter the mail carrier today, I'll share that tomorrow.

Stay warm out there, friends, and keep and eye out for things to be happy about!

It's a Wrap on Another January

January has always been my least-favorite month. It's always dark and cold and long, and there's not much to look forward to other than its being over. So I was happy to say good-bye to it over the weekend.

While this particular January was more eventful than most, in both good and bad ways, one thing I can say for it was that it was pretty productive for me. I finished my fifth scrappy charity hat on Sunday morning -- that's five hats knit from January 20-31!

I opted to keep this one with the stockinette side out because I was using a textured/slubby yarn (Fibernymph Dye Works Pouf) along with two smooth yarns (Knit Picks Stroll Tonal). I started off holding the Pouf along with the darker of the Stroll shades for the brim and then started alternating between the two shades every round until the darker shade ran out just before the last couple of decrease rounds in the crown. I used a total of 305 yards of yarn in this hat! I also used up two of the three scraps, which was more exciting to me. There was a tiny amount, maybe a yard or two, of the Pouf left, but it wasn't enough to actually do much of anything with, so I tossed it.

Here's an array of all the hats I knit in this brief period of productivity:

They officially complete my "knit five items for charity" on my 21 in 2021 list, but I highly doubt these will be the only items I knit this year, especially considering how much yarn is still left in the scrap bag. I've now got a nice pile of knits to donate, but before I drop them off, I want to add some labels and tie together the two pairs of socks and the mitten and hat set so that the components don't get separated from one another.

Yesterday I pulled out a WIP that's been ignored for a while, and I think I might give it some more attention now that it's February and, as my friend Bekah reminded me, February Is for Finishing.

This is the corner-to-corner (or C2C) crochet blanket that I started with a giant ball of big box store acrylic last summer. I don't even think I'm halfway through at this point; my plan is just to increase until I've used up about half the yarn and then start decreasing. I think getting this done this month might be a good goal, and I actually do want to get out some older WIPs and finish them up (that's another item on my 21 in 2021 list, after all!). This project is pretty mindless, but it's not one I can work on while reading because I still have to look while I crochet.

And that's a good segue to tell you to remember to stop by here tomorrow, when I'll review some other WIPs and update you on my reading!

Heinz or Hunt's?

If you're wondering about the strange post title, it's because I'm feeling a little punny this morning -- this is a catch-up post (get it?). (Oh, and the answer to the question is always Heinz. Always.)

I'm still trying to get Rainbow to pose with her finished blanket, but thus far she's only been interested in snuggling with it. I guess it's a indication of the blanket's success that she's been sleeping with it every single night since it was finished. Blocking went well and squared it up decently, but it also stretched it out just enough that the fabric has really nice drape now. Here it is atop my queen-size bed for scale:

The details: I used Casapinka's Blanket of Calm (Ravelry link) as a jumping-off point to get me started, mainly because it was free and had just been released when I was thinking about starting this blanket. Once I understood the construction, I didn't have to refer to the pattern at all. The entire blanket is double crochet, with about four rounds of single crochet for a border. I used an F hook (3.75 mm) for the whole thing; I didn't swatch, but I knew that I generally use a US 5 (3.75 mm) knitting needle with fingering weight yarn for things like shawls, so I figured it would work well with crochet, too. The very center of the blanket is Holly Press Fibers SHEEPISHsock leftover from my I've Got Sunshine (Ravelry link) socks and the rest of it is Knit Picks Felici. I used two skeins each of the colorways Thunderstruck, Summer Camp, Test Pattern, Goth Kitty, Material Girl, Ever After, and Dark Rainbow (though there's about half of the second skein of Dark Rainbow left because Rainbow declared the blanket Big Enough at that point). Altogether, I used 677 grams -- 2,957.9 yards/2704.7 meters -- of yarn, and the only Felici left in my stash is that half skein or so of Dark Rainbow. I'm quite happy to have all that yarn out of my stash and that big boost to my Stash Dash total (which right now stands at 13,445.5 meters!).

Over the weekend we attended our nephew's first birthday party in the park. The theme was the Very Hungry Caterpillar, and I have to say that my sister-in-law did an excellent job on the treats (she ordered the cookies, which, though it's hard to see here, are foods with holes in them, just like in the book):

My nephew, however, remained unimpressed by the whole thing:

(That's Rainbow's hand and drink on the left side of the frame, trying to get his attention so he'd look at the camera. And yes, quite a few people at the party were not wearing masks. My sister-in-law comes from a Faux News family. Le sigh. We were all masked, and thankfully the party was outside.)

The good news is that the crocheted alpaca I made him seems to be a hit. Or at least it passed his taste test. I received this photo from my brother-in-law this morning:

I can't ask for a better reception than that to a hand-made gift for a 1-year-old!