Knitalong Update

TGIF, friends! Every morning this week, right after I've turned off my alarm, my first thoughts have been related to figuring out what day it is. It's been hard this week with the holiday in the middle, so I'm very glad to have a weekend ahead to reset.

I've been so focused on spinning lately that I haven't mentioned the little knitalong that Mo and I have been doing (and if I'm completely honest, I haven't been working on it much myself!). Mo has been doing a great job of working on her shawl, and she's needed less help the further she gets on it. She was actually ahead of me for a while, but I worked on mine last night and caught up.

I'm really enjoying this knit and finding it to be really intuitive. I think it's a good challenge for Mo, and she's rising to meet it. This is the first pattern she's actually ever made; her previous knit projects were basic hats and cowls that didn't require a pattern because she had me to help her through the tricky parts. So she's learning to read instructions and also has learned things like make 1 increases and yarnovers for this pattern. I think it's a big confidence boost for her -- and it's certainly making me proud to see her work on this on her own after we did the initial repeats side by side!

Spinning is continuing, of course. My combo spin was finally dry enough to twist up and take photos yesterday, and I have about 1,100 yards to work with.

While I've been trying to spin up older club shipments, I kept thinking about the most recent one to enter my stash, so I decided that had to go on the wheel next:

This is Tokyo on organic merino, and it is dreamy. I'm spinning a traditional three ply again, and while I'm aiming for fingering, my singles are ending up pretty darn thin, so it's possible it'll be a light fingering -- so much depends on how much the yarn floofs up when it's washed.

We have a fairly low-key weekend planned here. Tonight we are headed to services at our synagogue to welcome our congregation's first-ever cantor. We are very excited that he's joining us, and as a member of the board, I'm excited that I played a role in bringing him here. He's fairly young and originally from Australia, and he has a really beautiful voice. I'm looking forward to that new musical element of our services.

Hope you have a good end to your week and a great weekend!

Dispatches from Swiftsburgh

Happy Friday, friends! It's been a long week, and it's going to be a long day, but on the plus side, I don't have to work today. I'm taking one of my two annual personal days (because if I don't use them, they disappear at the end of the fiscal year, which is the end of June). Of course, just my luck, we got an email late yesterday that the office would be closing at 2 this afternoon ahead of the long weekend -- the university is closed on Monday for Juneteenth. This is reminding me of the one time in my employment when the university closed due to snow and I was already on maternity leave!

In any case, I am ready for the long weekend, which is shaping up to be a busy one here. Tonight and tomorrow night, Taylor Swift is performing downtown, and in addition to the city's issuing a proclamation renaming us "Swiftsburgh" today, there is quite a lot of hype. Whether or not you're a Taylor Swift fan, there's no denying the economic impact her tour stop will have on the city -- the estimate I heard was that it was anticipated to bring in $12 million. The Swiftie in my household is very excited to attend her first official concert this evening, and I'm just hoping to be able to stay awake! I think a nap this afternoon will be in order.

Yesterday I realized that we were almost halfway through June and I hadn't had something on the wheel in almost two weeks, which is not acceptable to me if I'm going to continue to use up my fiber stash. So I pulled out this Southern Cross Fibre club shipment from last July, Hens and Chicks on Bond wool, which happened to be inspired by a photo I posted in the SCF Ravelry group:

I split it for a fractal two-ply (lately my favorite thing to do) by dividing it in half lengthwise and then dividing one half in half again. I started the first bobbin and took some progress shots along the way of the different colors, and I put them in a composite:

Meanwhile, after finishing my mother-in-law's socks, I started two other projects. First, I'm knitting up another sample of my Obfuscation cowl using a set of mini skeins from Knit Picks that I'm knitting in rainbow order:

And Mo and I have started a little knitalong together, our very first! We're knitting the Mas Vida Shawl, which is a bit of a stretch for her knitting skills, so we are doing it row by row together (and I did the start for her, which involved Judy's Magic Cast-on and was very fiddly). This is an excellent visual example of how individual gauge can be -- we're both using the same weight of yarn and the same needle size, but obviously one of us is a lot more relaxed:

Mo's shawl (on the left) is being knit with yarn from Ex Libris Fibers that she bought last month. I'm using some deep-stash yarn: Fibernymph Dye Works Harmonia, a superwash merino/cashmere/silk base that Lisa doesn't dye anymore. I don't know exactly how old this yarn is, but it still had her old label design, so it's several years old at least.

Finally, some happy news -- look what arrived in yesterday's mail!

I didn't pay for tracking on the broken pair I sent back to Skacel, so I didn't have any way to know if it had been received until this replacement came. Three cheers for great customer service!

I hope your weekend is full of good things. I'll be back on Monday to report on the concert!

A Friday FO

Let's get the weekend started early with a new sweater!

Pattern: Shoulder Season by Shana Cohen, 36" bust
Yarn: Stranded Dyeworks merino/nylon, colorway Four Two Two Four, 1.89 skeins
Needles: US 4 (3.5 mm) and US 3 (3.25 mm)
Started/Completed: April 24/June 8

This sweater was knit as part of the SSK knitalong. Shana was the featured designer for April, and even though I knew I would never finish the sweater that month, I also knew I'd still get credit for it if I finished it in June. And I'd been wanting to knit this design for a while, so it was a win all around.

This is a modular knit and can be done with a contrasting color for the shoulders, but I decided to do it all in one color. The colorway of the yarn is a reference to the distance between where Jude (the dyer behind Stranded Dyeworks) lives and Nashville, where SSK is held, so it felt very appropriate to the project. I did alternate skeins for most of the knitting, but there are a few spots where I did not, and I honestly don't think you can tell. The design itself is absolutely genius -- you can tell that Shana is an architect by how she puts garments together! My favorite feature is the column of slipped stitches on each side and how it gradually angles toward the front.

That vertical line is just where the sweater was folded while drying

My only modification, if you can even call it that, is to work a couple of set-up rounds before the tubular bind-offs for all the ribbing. I don't know if those rounds are strictly necessary, but I like the effect you get from essentially creating a tube at the edge of your fabric. And the bind-off is quite time intensive, but in my view, it's totally worth it.

As predicted, the sweater grew quite a bit in blocking, and whereas fresh off the needles it was cropped, it's now hitting right at my hips, as I wanted. I can wear this over a tank or on its own, and I predict it'll get a lot of wear this summer. I'll be taking it to show off at SSK of course!

In the Nick of Time

It's a strange Monday morning here, but to explain why, I need to back up a bit.

Like many men, the Mister frequently gets up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Often I'll wake up just enough to notice he's getting up, look at the clock to see if it's time to get up or not, and then roll over and go back to sleep. In the early morning hours yesterday, the Mister got up, and as I was rolling over, I heard him making some noise in the bathroom. Then he went downstairs before coming back to get his phone. It turns out that we had almost no water pressure, and when he went to investigate, he found it wasn't an issue in our house but rather with the water utility -- a pump in the system had lost power, which caused the loss in pressure. It did come back a short time later (we could hear the tank in the toilet refilling), but when we got up, we learned that some areas of the city were under a boil water advisory (luckily not us). 

Fast-forward to yesterday afternoon, when we got an email that Rainbow's school would be closed today because it is in one of the advisory zones -- so she gets to be home with me! Hence the unusual Monday morning. I did not mind at all not having to drag her out of bed this morning!

But back to the usual blog content. Yesterday I was determined to finish up one last project for a make-along I've been involved with that went along with the NFL football season. I spent several hours at my wheel yesterday, but I did manage to finish up the second skein of my combo spin. This is a really crummy photo because I took it before the sun was fully up in order to get it entered, but here are both skeins:

The purple skein comes in at approximately 254 yards, and now I can officially say that I have plenty of yarn for the pair of mittens (Ravelry link) I have planned for it. These will be cast on very soon because they're for another make-along; I think I mentioned that I'll be heading back to SSK this summer, and there are monthly knitalongs leading up to the event featuring patterns from the teachers. This month's featured teacher is the amazing Jillian Moreno, and all of her patterns and all the patterns from her book are eligible. So I'll be doing my very best to knit up a pair before the end of the month!

For those keeping track, I've officially spun up six bags of Southern Cross Fibre shipments so far this year. That's already halfway to my goal of spinning up a total of 12! I can't imagine that I'll keep up the pace for the entire year, but I'm pretty happy with how well it's going thus far.

So What's Next?

Friday is finally here (I kept thinking it was Friday yesterday, so I guess I was a little impatient for it to come!), and next week we flip the calendars ahead to March. I don't typically let the calendar dictate what I make, but I am thinking about what to make next for two reasons. The first is that yesterday I got to the ribbing of the body of my Shifty, and though I still have the two sleeves to knit after that, it feels like a major part of this project is done.

I've moved my progress keeper up to the start of the ribbing because 1x1 ribbing on several hundred stitches and 2.5 mm needles is enough to kill your will to live if you can't see that you're making progress. I've done about half an inch at this point, which means I have another inch and a half to go before I do a tubular bind-off. That all might or might not happen today, but the body for sure will be done this weekend and I'll get a start on the sleeves. I plan to make the sleeves match the body as much as possible by using the same skeins for the same number of rounds, though obviously due to the nature of handspun, they're not going to look exactly the same. I'm contemplating doing the sleeves in tandem, on two sets of needles, so that I can work each section on each sleeve without having to worry about remembering numbers of rounds.

The other reason I am thinking about what to make next is because another make-along starts March 1. If you're a regular reader, then you know that I love having the motivation of a make-along to get me to finish things. For several years, Lisa of Fibernymph Dye Works (a personal friend and a dyer whose yarn I love to use) has been sponsoring a yearlong make-along with a different theme, and this year's event is called the Make It Your Own Make-along, or MIYO MAL. For each two-month period (March/April, May/June, August/September, and October/November), participants pick a theme for their projects and then make whatever they want. I've declared my theme to be "work from pre-2022 stash" for at least this first quarter; while I'm not forbidding myself from buying yarn this year, I'm really trying hard not to and instead to use up the very plentiful supplies of yarn I already have. One new project I'm definitely going to be starting is a corner-to-corner crocheted chevron blanket for Rainbow using some sportweight acrylic yarn that was handed down to me a couple of years ago by my mother. Rainbow selected these colors:

The white will alternate with the pink and the green in different strips and then be sewn up together to form chevrons.

The other thing I'm contemplating casting on (if you can believe it!) is another May(be) Queen, in a larger size so it will definitely fit me, using this FDW Ridgetop (non-superwash) Fingering that I think I bought a year ago:

This lovely burnt orange, which I've been more and more drawn to lately, is appropriately named Ember. It's an entirely different yarn from what I used for the first one and is definitely more crisp and rustic, but I think it would look nice nonetheless. Also, now that I've knit the sweater once, I'm more familiar with the pattern and can make some adjustments to some areas that I wasn't entirely happy with the first time around. I likely wouldn't be able to wear this until next fall, but that would give me something to look forward to. Thoughts? Opinions? Do you think I've lost my mind? Actually, don't answer that -- I'm pretty sure I already know the answer!

Hope you have a good and relaxing weekend!

Unraveled, Week 48/2021

It's December, already! Doesn't it seem like we were just starting the year and hoping that it would erase the bad memories of 2020? I won't open up that can of worms this morning, but I will say that I'm still bewildered at the fact that this year is almost over. But it's Wednesday, my day every week to check in with what I'm making and reading and to link up with Kat and the Unravelers, so let's focus on that!

I will likely be dragging today and might need to catch a cat nap or two because I was up until late last night (11:30) knitting furiously to finish this hat so it would count for the end of the 90% Knitting Nature MAL:

Staying up late to finish a project is very uncharacteristic for me, but I needed to finish this project to get me my full-year participation in the makealong (which earns me a special skein of yarn). It's a bit ridiculous if you think about it, but I like nothing better than arbitrary knitting goals! This hat -- the same formula I followed for Rainbow's -- used exactly 100 g/400 yds. of the yarn. My skein weighed a bit more than 100 g to start, so there was no yarn chicken being played at the end.

I now find myself with only one WIP, my Shifty pullover, but I have two time-sensitive projects to cast on soon: a hat for my father-in-law, which I'm planning to knit holding several strands of fingering weight together, and the replacement blanket for my nephew. My goal is to knit the hat this week and finish the blanket before we leave for Florida.

You all know that I don't celebrate Advent, but I do like the yarn or fiber sets that are sold around this time of year, and I got one from Fibernymph Dye Works as I have the past several years. This year I opted for twelve 20 g mini skeins plus the full skein of the special holiday colorway. I received my bag of goodies several weeks ago but have been saving it. This morning I opened the first mini skein, and it's a beauty:

I'm planning on knitting another big shawl or stole with this year's collection, but I may wait until I've opened several packages to see how the colors look together before I decide on a pattern.

Reading has been good this week and has been keeping me good company while I knit like fiend. I've finished two recent releases in the past week.

With a weird title and a strange collection of parallel narratives, Cloud Cuckoo Land is a book that's very hard to describe. I really didn't know much about it when I put it on hold at the library but was counting on the fact that I adored the author's All the Light We Cannot See. This book has three separate stories, or so it seems, that come together over the course of the book. At first, they seem so wildly unconnected that you wonder how they'll come together, but they do, though, in my opinion, not as well as I would have liked. The writing is beautiful, though, and the book could be thought of as a tribute to books, libraries, librarians, and the sanctity of the written word. I gave it 4 stars.

I finished Harlem Shuffle yesterday while working on my hat. Despite the fact that it was about half the length of Cloud Cuckoo Land, it took me just as long to read and seemed much slower. This book follows a furniture salesman in Harlem in the late '50s and early '60s who is trying to improve his lot in life and gets embroiled in the world of crime, first unwillingly and then of his own volition. There is no doubt that Colson Whitehead is a gifted writer, but this book didn't excite or move me the way his earlier books have. I think perhaps this was just not the right book for me. I gave it 3 stars.

I'm still reading some hard-copy books that I really want to finish, but I started listening to The Sentence on Monday and am just loving it. I also just got We Are Not Like Them from the library this morning and hope to start it later today. I'll also note that Harlem Shuffle was the 130th book I've finished this year, which officially doubles my goal for the year of 65 books. Crazy pants!

How about you -- what are you working on and reading this week?

Perfect Timing

I rarely seem to finish things at the right time to use them. It's not unusual for me to finish a heavy, super-warm sweater in the middle of the summer. But friends, this time I got it right. When I got up this morning, it was 46F outside -- fall is here! And I have a brand-new sweater to wear!

Pattern: Torbellino (Ravelry link) by Kristen Jancuk, size XS
Yarn: Jill Draper Makes Stuff Kingston (100% Targhee wool) in Hasbrouck Ave. (red) and Wiltwyck (gray)
Needles: US 5 (3.75 mm) and US 4 (3.5 mm)
Started/Completed: July 8/September 9
Mods: adjustments for gauge (see below)

This project had been planned for quite a while. I bought the pattern as part of the larger collection (Ravelry link) that Kristen released in the spring of 2018 and then bought the yarn for the sweater at Maryland Sheep and Wool that May. Jill had just released the yarn, and I went to her booth first for the specific purpose of getting my hands on some for this sweater.

 
When I finally got around to casting on this sweater this summer, finally egged on to do it by Kristen's Sweater-along, I discovered that not only did I probably need to knit a smaller size than I originally intended, but I had to knit the smallest size because my gauge was a bit off and going down another needle size would have resulted in bulletproof fabric. Knitting a smaller size worked for my stitch gauge, but my row gauge was also off a tad, so I had to add some additional rounds to the yoke to make up for the difference. If you looked closely at the slip-stitch colorwork in the yoke, you'd see that I have more of it than called for, as I added additional rounds (without increasing) and continued the colorwork pattern.

Other than those minor modifications, I followed the pattern as written, and I'm really happy with how it turned out! I also used much less yarn than anticipated -- only about 790 yards of the red and a bit less than 100 yards of the gray. That leaves me plenty leftover to play with in another project; I'm thinking mittens.

Wearing this sweater will take a little bit of thought due to the wide neckline and shorter sleeves; I'm used to wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt underneath my sweaters, and that really won't work with this one (though certainly if I wear that ensemble at home, no one but my family will see me and they already think I'm a bit odd). I had to tuck in my bra straps for these photos, but I don't see that as a viable solution for the long term. Any advice on how to wear a wide neckline like this? You can tell I don't usually go for this silhouette because I'm clueless about how to wear it!

Back to (Almost) Normal

Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts. I'm happy to report that the Mister is feeling almost completely back to normal -- he even went for a run this morning! He's got follow-up appointments with the surgeon and his PCP in the next week, but as far as I can tell he is healing well, and he certainly appreciates your concern.

After the crazy weekend and having to work on Monday, my internal schedule got all out of whack, so it was nice to wake up this morning and realize that it's already Wednesday! I am once again joining Kat and the Unravelers for a round-up of what I'm working on and what I'm reading.

Though I set it aside for a little bit last week, this week my top knitting priority is finishing up my Torbellino. Here is where it stands right now:

I have about three and a half inches to knit on the second sleeve in the main color and then the ribbing in contrast and I will be DONE. I'm actually hoping to manage to do that today, if I can. I started knitting this for the Media Peruana Designs Sweater-along, and it ends next Monday, which is what prompted me to pull it out again. Just in case anyone is worried about yarn chicken, let me reassure you that the yarn you see here is not all the yarn I have left -- there's still most of the fourth skein of red remaining. I just figured that I'd try to eke out this sleeve from the skeins that had less yarn remaining so that the leftovers are in just one skein, which will make it easier to use them for something else.

All the time sitting at the hospital on Saturday also enabled me to finish a sock and start its mate:

These are for my mother-in-law and should match; I wound off a bit of yarn to get to the same point in the striping sequence to start the second sock.

I'm still working on the secret design project (which will be the top priority once the sweater is done), and one of these days I will get back to my Breathe and Hope shawl, which I abandoned earlier in the summer.

Reading has been good this past week. Since last Wednesday, I've finished two books and have begun reaping the benefits of having a number of books on hold at the library.

The Resilience Factor filled the final square on my second bingo card, making it my 50th finished book of the "summer" (we started SAH Book Bingo in early April). This was technically a re-read for me, as I originally read it in college as part of a seminar with the authors. Reading it again brought back some good memories, but it also reminded me how far I've come, emotionally, since the last time I read it. The first time around, I was still in treatment for a major depressive episode, so I was reading the book as much for my personal benefit as I was to fulfill the course requirements. And though I chose to read it again in part because I already owned it and it filled the "More than one author" square on my card, it also felt like a worthwhile read given the difficulties of our current times. I'm not sure the authors could have imagined using resilience during a global pandemic, but it certainly can't hurt. I gave it 4 stars.

Just yesterday I finished The Bookman's Tale, which I'd put on hold after Mary mentioned how much she'd enjoyed listening to a chat with the author at the virtual book retreat she attended. It was a delightful diversion for me, combining so many things I love -- books, England, a good mystery. It takes place at several points in time, following the main character during two periods in his life and a book that plays a key role in the plot as it traveled from person to person. It was a quick read and an intelligent page-turner. My only complaint is that (how to put this politely?) it was very clear to me in reading some of the, um, intimate scenes that the author was a man. I gave it 4 stars.

I am currently reading the anxiously awaited Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by the supremely talented Isabel Wilkerson. I actually got a notification that my hold was up while I was sitting in the surgical family lounge on Saturday, and it was the perfect diversion while I waited. Though I am only about a third of the way through it, I could tell from just the first few pages that it was going to be a phenomenal book, and I have not yet been proven wrong. If you haven't yet gotten yourself on a waiting list for this book, do it now!

That's all for me for today. I hope you'll share what you're reading and working on in the comments!

A WIP Roundup

As much as I love a long weekend, it makes the following Monday a bit rough, doesn't it? I was definitely dragging yesterday, and I may or may not have grabbed a cat nap or two during the afternoon. The weekend itself, though, was very restful. And I did quite a bit of crafting. You saw the spinning output on Sunday, but how about the knitting the crochet?

Despite the fact that we're in the middle of a verified heat wave with highs in the mid- to upper 90s, I already started thinking about my next sweater. One of the patterns on my 20 in 2020 list is Torbellino (Ravelry link), which I've been intending to knit for a couple of years and even bought yarn for at Maryland Sheep and Wool back in 2018. Kristen is sponsoring a sweater knitalong right now, so it seemed like the perfect time to cast on. So I swatched over the weekend.

Swatch gauge tool from Akerworks

Because the sweater is knit in the round, I swatched in the round using the cheater method. Do you know how to do this? I didn't want to sacrifice any yarn (if I had enough, I would have knit an actual tube and cut it to measure), so I did the faux in-the-round method of draping the strand of yarn loosely across the back of the swatch. Here's what the back looks like:

I used a US 5/3.75 mm needle for my swatch and am ever so slightly off on gauge (I'm getting 21 stitches over 4 inches rather than the called-for 22 stitches) but I like the fabric I'm getting and think going down a needle size would give me fabric with no drape. I have to do a couple of math checks, but I think it may work out to knit a size smaller than I'd intended using my gauge. I still have to wind the rest of my yarn before I cast on, but I'm trying to finish up my TTL Mystery Shawl first (more on that in a moment).

I worked on Rainbow's crochet blanket quite a bit over the weekend and am almost done with the 10th ball of Felici, with four more left. It's currently measuring about 42 inches wide. Once I'm finished with all the Felici, Rainbow will assess the size and decide whether it's big enough or whether we want to dig through the stash for more yarn to add. Though I started this for the 100 Day Project, I know I missed a few days recently, so I'm just continuing to work on it and keeping my own count.

Because one crochet blanket isn't enough, I started another one over the weekend. Rainbow had a giant ball of big box store acrylic that she'd started a granny square blanket with around the same time I started mine, but she recently decided she didn't want it anymore and ripped it out. She then gave me the skein to play with, and I'm using it to crochet a corner-to-corner blanket. Have you heard of this method? It's pretty ingenious and is rather like the crochet version of entrelac. I used this pattern (Ravelry link) to get started, and while the very start was a bit tricky, once I figured it out it's been smooth sailing. And this yarn seems particularly well suited to this method.

My plan is to try to use up all or nearly all of the skein of yarn (which is more than 1,100 yards!) and make a blanket for the couch in our family room, where we've been using two blankets knit by my aunt, one of which is a loosely knit lace blanket she made for Rainbow when she was born (in acrylic, so it's holding up fine, but it's not especially warm). I worked on this new blanket for a while this weekend to get the hang of it, but I've now put it aside to focus on getting Rainbow's blanket done.

Finally, my mystery shawl is WIP priority number one. The final clue came out yesterday, and I spent my crafting time yesterday working on it exclusively. I have one more chart and the bind off left to do, and I'm hoping to get through all that today, but of course work might throw a wrench into the plan.

Once this is done and blocked, I'll be sure to take some better photos -- these unblocked shots really do not do the design justice!

Heeding EZ's Sage Advice

"Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crises."

- Elizabeth Zimmermann

I don't know about you, but to me, everything is a bit surreal right now. Things are being cancelled left and right, and preparations are being made should we all need to stay home for an extended period of time. I tend to be an anxious person in general, and I am really thankful right now that I'm already taking medication for my anxiety, which I'm pretty sure is keeping me from having a full-fledged panic attack right now. I'm also thankful that if we need to self-isolate, I am able to work from home; I know not everyone has that privilege. Some of you may know that I work for a public university, and yesterday it was announced that the resumption of classes is being pushed back a week and all classes are being moved online for the remainder of the semester. My office is remaining open for the time being, but we've been making preparations in case we need to work from home. The Mister is likely to be working from home for the foreseeable future as well, and Rainbow is on spring break for two weeks starting Monday.

While the near future remains very much uncertain, I am continuing to turn to my knitting as a source of comfort. It can be hard at times like this when you feel like you have no control over things, especially as someone who gets anxious due to a perceived lack of control, so I am grateful to be able to be the boss of my knitting. Lately it seems to be all about the colorwork -- and on that note, I have to start by saying thank you for all your lovely comments on my Darkwater sweater!

In the evenings this week, I've been working up some samples of my Yofi Hat and Yofi Cowl for my friend Lisa so she can have them to display in her booth. I'm using two colors in her Mountain Tweed DK base, Eggplant and Mist.

And my lunchtime knitting has been very productive in the past week or so -- I'm on the home stretch on my second mitten! Looks like I won't be scrambling at the last minute to get these done for the end of the Woolly Thistle Mitten KAL after all.

I have a conference call later this afternoon that should yield me some additional knitting time (one of the benefits of having an office with a door that can be closed!)

Tomorrow I have the day off from work, as it's the Friday of spring break week and a regular annual holiday for staff. Lisa is actually going to be coming over tomorrow afternoon so we can seam up the squares people have made for a comfort blanket for Amy of Ross Farm. I don't remember if I ever shared my finished square, so here it is:

This is all Ross Farm Shetland, which seemed appropriate. I am actually supposed to have lunch with Amy on Sunday (though of course those plans could change given the public health situation), and if it goes ahead, I may be delivering the blanket to her then.

In times of heartache and helplessness, it can make you feel a little better to do some good. For me, that means following the recommendations to slow the spread of disease (because while I would likely be fine if I caught COVID-19, there are plenty of people who I care about who might not). But it's also nice to be able to do something more tangible to help others. One thing that's happening now in the fiber arts world is an effort spearheaded by Angie of Gamer Crafting to support marginalized communities, especially in response to some truly heinous actions by White Supremacists (I won't link to give those voices any extra amplification, but if you're clueless about what I'm referring to, you can email me). This all came together so quickly that I didn't have time to design something specifically for it, so instead I'm going to be donating 20% of all my pattern sales from this Sunday, March 15, through the end of the month to Keshet, an organization that promotes the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals in Jewish life. If you've read this blog for the last year and a half or so, then you know that the Jewish community locally has recently experienced extreme anti-Semitism, and while the congregation I belong to has fully embraced the LGBTQ+ community for quite some time, that's not the case with every congregation or every stream of Judaism. While I'm not a very religious person, my faith is a large part of my life and my identity, and it's important to me that everyone who identifies similarly be able to participate in Jewish life to the extent of their wishes. If social justice is important to you, then I hope you'll take a look at all the participating businesses and consider making purchases to aid in this effort (and in light of the public health crisis and the cancellation of shows and festivals, those small businesses would also appreciate your help!).

With that note, I'm signing off until later in the weekend. Be well, check in on your loved ones, and wash your hands!

Sometimes Mondays ...

are for staying home!

I think I mentioned last week that Rainbow had an extra-long weekend, with both Friday and Monday off, and I was going to be working from home on Friday. I decided to take today as a vacation day so the two of us could spend some extra quality time together, and it's been a great decision. There really is nothing quite like sleeping in on a Monday morning, especially when you're awakened by your favorite kiddo crawling into bed to snuggle with you. We did some cleaning and organizing in her room to start the day, after having a leisurely breakfast, but this afternoon we're planning on reading library books and crafting. I also figured I'd shift my regular blogging schedule this week because I had the extra time!

My current library book -- Ann Cleeves's White Nights -- is one I'd been waiting for from the library for quite a while and I was getting really impatient, so I was delighted when my hold came up on Valentine's Day. I think that my wholehearted embrace of the ebook over the last year or so is in no small part due to the fact that provided my knitting is something easy that doesn't require me to look at it, I can read while I knit. Thanks to this book and a couple of hours reading it yesterday afternoon, I'm now more than halfway done with the body of my Darkwater, which Rainbow was kind enough to take photos of me modeling (please excuse my disheveled look -- I figured there was no need for me to put on makeup or spend too much time with my hair if I'm not planning on leaving the house).

You can see that I've got a nice amount of positive ease, though if I'm honest, I'm a little worried about there being a little too much fabric in the yoke. I'm hoping that blocking (and adding sleeves) will help with the bunching, but I know it's because of my being so worried about those long floats and overcompensating by relaxing my tension. I'm sure using a thicker yarn than called for had something to do with it, too (the pattern calls for fingering worked at a DK gauge; my yarn is labeled DK but really knits up more like a sport, in my opinion). As long as it doesn't look like a potato sack on me,  I'll be happy, and honestly I wanted a slightly oversized fit anyway. It just boggles my mind a bit because I'm making the smallest size in this pattern, and while I'm smaller than I used to be, I'm not that small.

Meanwhile, when I've been in the mood for a project requiring a little more attention, I've been working on a new cast on, my Brackthaw mittens. I started these on Friday night and have worked on them for a couple of evenings. This collage shows you both the back of hand side (left) and the palm side (right) of the same mitten.

I'm using yarns that were sent to me in my FibreShare package when I participated last year. The green is Quince & Co. Finch in Sage, and the cream is handspun that came with only a small hand-written label indicating it's a blend of "Georgia rustic wool," silk, and nylon. The handspun is a bit thick and thin, which I don't mind at all, but you can see that it does mess with my tension a bit (you can see it most prominently in the corrugated ribbing at the cuff). It's always a treat to knit with handspun, and I rarely knit with handspun that's not my own, so I'm enjoying this. The dense gauge for the colorwork (9 stitches per inch) is a little hard on my hands, so I can't work on these too much, which is not a bad thing considering that the chart is also small and probably not great for my eyes, but I'm moving right along on them. I'm entering these in the Woolly Thistle Mitten KAL this year, my first time participating, and as long as I get them done by late March, I'll be fine -- of course, I'd much prefer to get them done sooner so I can wear them!

Doodling in Yarn

This past weekend was a good one for finishing. On Saturday evening, in addition to finishing up the skein of handspun I shared on Sunday, I also finished the latest pair of socks I've been designing. That was perfect timing, because on Sunday evening I had to cast on a new project that is time sensitive.

One of the make-alongs I've been participating in recently is the Down Cellar Studio podcast Pigskin Party. Jen hosts this annual event to coincide with the NFL season, and throughout the event there are various challenges and short-term mini events. This year Jen introduced a new team challenge, and one of the final events for the team challenge is a head-to-toe relay. The goal is to produce items to cover a person from head to toe, with each participating team member completing an item. The catch is that only one person can be crafting at a time, so it's a bit of a race to finish up the project so the next person can start. There are bonus points for yardage used and more difficult techniques, like cabling and stranded colorwork.

Because I'm pretty fast as them, I volunteered to do one of the socks. The other sock knitter and I also agreed that we could do colorwork for bonus points. I had an idea for a stranded sock pattern, so I figured this would be a good way to swatch -- because a sock is small enough that knitting one isn't much more work than doing a serious swatch. I cast on Sunday evening and as of this morning have most of the heel flap complete.

This photo was taken at the end of my lunch break yesterday, so there's a bit more knit by now, but you can get a good feel for the pattern (the rest of the leg is a mirror of the smaller motifs). I am using some Knit Picks Felici for the main color, and the black contrast is some very deep stash Knit Picks Essential. You can tell it's old because Knit Picks hasn't used that name for that base in a long time; it's now called Stroll. I'm quite pleased with how this "yarn doodle" has worked up, though I can see where it needs a few tweaks. Fortunately I don't have to have a finalized pattern for the relay, just a completed sock, and I imagine another couple of days of knitting with take care of it. I will likely make some changes to the stranded pattern on the foot, and once I figure out what works/what I like best, I can start over with the real thing (which might end up being a pair of socks for Rainbow, as she's already mentioned that she has no colorwork socks and heavily hinted that she'd like a pair). I have to say, it feels really good to be doing some serious swatching and getting something useful out of it in addition to the swatch!

That Was Most Unfortunate

Today I'm asking you to forgive any errant typos you see in this post because I'm typing wounded:

Last night, in a misguided attempt to save time, I decided to get out my mandoline (similar to this one, though my blade goes straight across) to slice some zucchini for my dinner instead of using my handheld spiralizer. It came with a hand/finder guard, which I foolishly decided not to use. And I paid for it -- I not only sliced the vegetables, I also sliced off a chunk of my thumb. And of course it's my right thumb, which is most inconvenient because I'm extremely right-handed. It's complicating pretty much everything I do with my hands, but amazingly I am still able to knit, albeit carefully. The Mister wondered if I should go to urgent care to get stitched, but there's really not anything to stitch together, so I think I'm stuck with lots of Bandaids for the time being.

Once I was fully bandaged up, I managed to finish up a blanket square, save weaving in ends (which I don't yet have the dexterity for) and blocking. I'm hopeful I'll be able to accomplish both this weekend.

This square is going to be part of a comfort blanket for Amy of the Ross Farm, and I used leftovers of Ross Farm Shetland yarns for all of it. The lace panel at the center is a heart, which should open up a bit after blocking. The blanket was the brainchild of my friend Lisa (the dyer behind Fibernymph Dye Works), and the two of us will be seaming all the squares together into a blanket and delivering it to Amy.

I had a little bit of time before bed after I bound the square off, so I started a dishcloth. It's also a project on my 20 in 2020 list and it counts for a knitalong I'm participating in, so I feel like I'm multitasking. I've only gotten a handful of rows done so far, and I appreciate that it doesn't look like much yet.

I'm using this pattern and two skeins of the Knit Picks Dishie I bought in the Great Kitchen Cotton Acquisition of 2019. The colors are Coffee (deep brown) and Swan (natural white). I expect that when it's done, Rainbow will inherit it; in addition to her obsession with sloths, she's also quite enamored with hedgehogs.

Because the knitting is rather boring at the moment (and also won't photograph well) and it's Thursday, how about we talk about reading, specifically the three books I've finished so far this year?

1. My first book finished of the year was an Amazon First Read freebie, Room to Breathe. As a vacation read, it served its purpose, but I'm glad I didn't pay for it. It was moderately entertaining but not especially well written, at least not in terms of character development. All the characters felt very one-dimensional to me. I gave it 2 stars.
2. Yesterday, I finished reading our next online book club selection, Fever. This one I liked a lot better, and it was certainly very well written and well researched (save for one mention of crocheting with needles!). I did enjoy the first half of the book more than the second half, though, and my lack of enjoyment of that section pulled my overall rating down to 3 stars. The book did give me a lot to think about, though, and I'm looking forward to our discussion of it.
3. Finally, just this morning, I finished listening to the fifth Inspector Gamache novel, The Brutal Telling. I'd started listening to it while taking my long walks in Florida, and it's been good company on my commute this week. I won't give anything away, but I will say that I'm still a bit shocked about the ending of this one. As is always the case, I enjoyed it. I gave it 4 stars and am looking forward to reading book six!

Up next is my first Ann Cleeves book, Raven Black (the first in her Shetland series). My hold from the library very conveniently came up this morning, just in time!

Three Things This Thursday

I had a dentist appointment first thing this morning, so I dropped off my work bag and lunch at the office (it's on the way to the dentist's office) and then walked the rest of the way because I didn't see any buses headed that way. It was really the perfect morning for it: The sun was out, the sky was clear, and it felt decidedly like fall -- I actually needed a light sweater! And as it's Thursday, I've got three more things to share that are making me happy.

1. New knitting projects in waiting
Today also marks the official start of the NFL season, and while I don't care about that too much (I'm just a casual football fan), I do care that it means the start of the annual Down Cellar Studio Podcast Pigskin Party, which is a months-long KCAL that runs concurrently with the football season. Jen's KCALs are always a lot of fun, and I enjoy the camaraderie of making things and chatting with the other participants. I've been wanting to cast on a couple of new projects, but I held back for a few days so I could count them for this. Last night Rainbow helped me to wind four skeins of yarn that will shortly be put to good use.

All four skeins are from Fibernymph Dye Works. The skein on the bottom left is on Bounce (fingering superwash merino/nylon) and will be cast on during my lunch break today for a new hat design. The other three skeins are all DK and came in a mystery grab bag that I bought from her a while back (I knew how many skeins and what weight they'd be but not what colors or bases). The two skeins on the right are going to become a Little Worsted Sock Arms for my nephew, with the tweedy green for the body and the self-striping for the arms (obviously). The skein in the top left of the photo is a one-of-a-kind colorway that was immediately claimed by Rainbow, and she's still deciding if she wants me to use it for a hat or a cowl for her.

2. Granny square all the things
While I was waiting for today to come, I didn't want to start on anything new for my lunchtime crafting, so I've brought in my granny square blanket to work on this week. This is being crocheted from several years' worth of leftover sock yarn scraps, and as I get to the end of one scrap, I just join it to the next with a Russian join. It's highly addictive and kind of all I want to work on at times.

I haven't measured it officially, but I'd say that the square is more than a foot wide at this point, and I still have quite a lot of scraps. My plan for this is just to keep going until I run out of yarn or I determine that it's big enough, whichever comes first. I have a few mini skeins that will likely be added in, and I'll be getting a mini skein Advent calendar thingy later this fall that I expect will also go into it.

3. Reading good books
After finishing up my last book for bingo, I went back to my library app to see which of the books I had tagged "to read" were available without a wait. The first one I found was When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir. I believe I heard about it because several people I know have read it, and as I've been really trying this year to read books that will help me to confront my white privilege and help me to be a better antiracist, I'd added it to my list to be read. It was really a powerful book and a fast but not an easy read. If you're in any doubt of the reality of the United States being a very different place for people of color compared to whites, you need to read it. I gave it four stars

My current read is completely different. On another recommendation, I borrowed Mr. Rochester. I was fully sucked into this book almost from the first page. Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favorite books, and thus it should come as no surprise that Edward Fairfax Rochester has long been one of my favorite brooding male love interests. I'm a bit more than halfway through the book and simultaneously want to devour the rest of it and not want it to end. It is superb. I'll reserve my official review until after I'm done, but at this point I think it will very likely be a five-star book for me.

I hope your Thursday is making you happy! I'm off to see what Carole and friends are up to today.

Three FOs on Thursday

I've become something of a finishing machine since my last "real" post, and I've actually finished three projects in the last week (one of which was also cast on since then). First, there was the baby blanket:

Pattern: improvised, using the charts from Evelyn Clark's Shetland Triangle Lace Shawl as a jumping-off point
Yarn: Blue Sky Fibers Organic Cotton (100% cotton) in color 83, approximately 3.6 skeins
Needles: US 10 (6.0 mm) Knit Picks interchangeables
Started/Completed: February 16/February 28

This was knit as a baby gift for my former college roommate and maid of honor, who is expecting her first child later this spring. I was invited to attend her baby shower next weekend, but thanks to where I live, I couldn't find any way to get there that wouldn't take the better part of the day and either require a flight and several trains or 7-8 hours in the car. That seemed a bit ridiculous for an event that's only a couple of hours long, so I sent my regrets to the hosts and sent the finished blanket to one of them so my friend could open it at the shower.

Although I could have easily charted this myself, I happened to have copies of the charts from the shawl on hand, so I just referred to those while knitting. For everything else, though, I made it up as I went along. I used Emily Ocker's circular cast on to start and worked outward. When it looked like I was getting close to finishing up the third skein of yarn, I started the border, which is all garter stitch save for the diagonal lines that fall between the increases. I ended up doing five garter ridges total for the border; I could have done more, but I was pretty much out of time and thought it looked good. I blocked it overnight using blocking wires to open up the lace and pulled out the wires and pins when it was just a little damp so it could fluff up a bit. I'm quite happy with how it turned out, though I think wool would probably be better suited to keeping the lace crisp. Still, I'm happy to have purged some deep-stash yarn and I know that my friend will approve of the fiber content.

There was much sock knitting over the weekend, between going to get our taxes done and sitting through a security training and meeting, so I now have another finished pair for my sock drawers!

Pattern: Zigzagular Socks by Susie White
Yarn: Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce (80% superwash merino, 20% nylon) in Girl Seeks Rain
Needles: US 0 (2.0 mm) Addi Sock Rockets, magic loop
Started/Completed: February 11/March 4
Mods: changed the gauge, stitch count, and heel

This pattern has long been one I wanted to knit, and the Lots of Socks knitalong was the perfect excuse to do it. The yarn was purchased at Needles Up Maryland last year, and I'd actually had it sitting out for a couple of months just waiting to be wound into a cake and cast on.

My main modification was to adjust the stitch count because I worked at a tighter gauge than specified in the pattern (9 stitches per inch rather than 8). That gauge change put me between sizes in the pattern, so I decided to go with my usual stitch count and make adjustments as necessary. I really only had to pay attention to the placement of the traveling twisted stitch panel; once I did the set-up round, I was good to go. I did decided to go off book for the heel and do an Eye of Partridge heel rather than the traditional slipped-stitch heel, for no other reason than I haven't done one in a while and felt like doing something a little different.

The pattern is very well written, and I had the stitch pattern memorized after doing one repeat of it. It's very intuitive. That made for a good multitasking project. I have a feeling there will be more of these socks in my future.

The final FO for the week is a project you haven't seen because it was cast on Monday night and finished this morning (and when I say finished, I mean just the bind off was finished -- I just couldn't stay up any later last night to get it done then).

This is obviously fresh off the needles and hasn't had its ends woven in or been blocked yet. This is a new cowl design that's been on the to-do list for a long time -- the yarn I used was purchased back in August 2017 when we were on vacation in Cape Cod, Mass. I still have to measure the leftovers, but it looks like I might have enough to do a second one if I reverse the colors. This project reminded me just how much I love stranded colorwork and how fast it goes because it's so addictive. I've been playing with this motif for a while and I'm happy with how it finally ended up; I think I might have to do a hat with this pattern as well.

I cast on a new design project this morning, and I've been working on my Floozy cardigan as well. I am looking forward to knitting a lot this weekend, as I'm taking tomorrow off (Rainbow has no school due to parent-teacher conferences) and Saturday is my birthday. The weather is finally supposed to warm up in the next couple of days, but until then, I want all wool all the time!

A Throwback

Today I feel a bit like in a time warp and have gone back to middle school. Why? Here's what I spent my afternoon doing:

I originally had braces a number of years ago (we won't say how many), from seventh grade until ninth grade. My teeth are still fairly straight now, with the exception of one tooth on the bottom. That tooth has been the cause of three gum surgeries over the past several years -- my periodontist believes that because the tooth is sticking out a bit, it's stretching the gum tissue and causing it to recede. So we're hoping that getting that tooth aligned will fix the gum issue once and for all.

It's been a bit trippy to do this, not just because I feel like I'm a teenager again, but also because I went back to my old orthodontist to do the work. He has a big wall in his office that he used to have all his patients sign (I'm not sure if he still does it, as it's pretty much covered by now), and when I went in for my initial consultation, Rainbow in tow, I found my signature on the wall. I guess it's good to know that some things haven't changed!

But enough about teeth -- let's talk knitting! I am still working on secret project #2 and getting closer to finishing (my hope is that I'll be done by the end of this weekend). Last night I cast on a pair of socks for the Lots of Socks KAL, in part so I could take it with me to my appointment today. I'm knitting up the Zigzagular Socks by Susie White using a skein of Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce in the colorway Girl Seeks Rain (I picked up this skein at Needles Up Maryland last year).

The colors are brighter in real life; it's been raining all day.

I've had to modify the pattern just a bit: It's written for a gauge of 8 stitches per inch using a US 1/2.25 mm needle. But I'm using a US 0/2.0 mm and working at a gauge of 9 stitches per inch, so I was between stitch counts. Fortunately, it was easy enough to cast on a number between the two larger sizes and figure out how to place the twisted stitch panel. I'll likely do my own thing for the heel and toe, as my numbers won't match, but you shouldn't be able to tell when I'm done (unless you want to get really, really close to my feet to count my stitches). I'm really enjoying the pattern -- it's a nice break from plain stockinette, my usual MO for self-striping, and doesn't require too much thought. With as busy as things have been recently, and given that I've been under the weather with a rather annoying cough for more than two weeks, almost mindless perfectly fits the bill.