Time for a Mini Break

Greetings from the top of a mountain! We've escaped the city for a few days with my parents and my brother and his family (and his dog) in a rental house at a ski resort in the Laurel Highlands. Ruthie bounced back completely from her illness of last week and is boarding with the dog sitter while we're away. There will be other dogs for her to play with and a big yard for her to run around in. We're not going to have great weather (lots of rain is in the forecast), but frankly we brought so much food with us, we're going to need to just sit around and eat all day unless we want to schlep it home again!

We had a quiet 4th of July. I went for a short run in the morning, as I didn't get a chance to get out on Friday when I was at the vet with Ruthie, and then had a quiet afternoon of reading, knitting, and snuggling my puppy. We had my in-laws over for dinner as a thunderstorm moved through. Before I went to bed, I finished up the Baby Surprise Jacket. Once we get home, it will be blocked and two buttons will be sewn on.

I used a US 6/4.0 mm needle for this one, given that STR Mediumweight is more of a sport than fingering. After I sewed the shoulder seams, I did applied I-cord all around the neck, openings, and bottom edge and made a couple of loops on the front in lieu of buttonholes. According to the projects I've logged on Ravelry, this is the 11th BSJ I've knit! It continues to be a fun and engaging project, and I'm sure there will be more in the future.

Meanwhile, Tour de Fleece kicked off yesterday, and I've decided this is as good an excuse as any to get back into spinning. I brought a spindle project with me to work on while we're away, but yesterday I pulled out some precious fiber and split it up to go on the wheel when we get home.

This is some Southern Cross Fibre club from November 2015. I can't remember if I spun my shipment, but this one was acquired via a destash after David announced his retirement. This is a particularly luscious fiber blend: 50% South African superfine merino and 50% mulberry silk. I've split it for a two-ply fractal. I imagine it will want to be spun quite finely.

The plan for this week is to relax. I haven't slept well in the past several days because I've been worried about Ruthie and she's been barking early to wake me up, so I'm hoping I can sleep in a little (and not wake up completely at 4:30 a.m. for no apparent reason like I did the past two mornings). I've got knitting, spinning, a physical book, and my iPad and computer, plus we brought a jigsaw puzzle and my mahjongg set. And there is the aforementioned eating. I'm sure we'll all find plenty of ways to pass the time.

A Final Friday FO

Dear friends, can you believe it's the penultimate day of May? It really has not felt like May for the much of the month, between all the rain (more like what I'd expect from April) and some unseasonably cool temperatures (more like March). It looks like we'll be heading right into summer weather next week, though, so I suppose I shouldn't complain too much!

Today I have a long-awaited FO to share with you. This top was started before Ruthie joined the family and thus took a lot longer than anticipated to finish, but in the end it did get done and in plenty of time. What's more, I'm delighted with how it turned out!

Pattern: Sugar Maple (Ravelry link) by Carina Spencer, size 36 in. bust
Yarn: handspun from Southern Cross Fibre, Mending Fences (70% superfine New Zealand merino/30% mulberry silk), 74 g/350 yds./320 m used, and Primordial (80% organic merino/20% rose fiber), 78 g/384 yds./351 m used
Needles: US 3/3.25 mm
Started/Completed: April 3/May 27

Though the impetus for knitting this top now was for the SSK make-along, it's been on my radar for a while, and it turned out to be an excellent choice for these silky, drapey handspun yarns. The pattern was designed to use a long gradient, but I didn't have enough of either yarn to use just the one and in the end decided that two-round stripes were the best way to go. Once I figured out how to manage my yarn so that I didn't get gaping holes at the beginning of round, it was all good. I love that there are areas where there's high contrast between the two colorways and areas where it's hard to distinguish between them. Both have some similar shades, but they weren't necessarily complementary or coordinating colorways, so it tickles me how nicely they played together. I suppose that is a benefit of using yarn spun from two batches of fiber from the same dyer!

I followed the pattern as written, other than working in the stripes, and I thought it was pretty clever in how the sleeves are done so that there's no interruption in the yarn. Usually sleeve and body stitches are separated and sleeve edging is added later, but that would disrupt a gradient, so the ribbing on these sleeves is actually done while still working the yoke. On the round when the sleeve stitches are bound off, there's a fancy little decrease done to snug up the fabric under the arms. I was less impressed with how some parts of the pattern was written, but that may be down to my job and the fact that my brain is primed to edit any copy I read (let's just say some additional punctuation would not go to waste).

I likely could have knit a size smaller than I did, my bust not being as abundant as it once was, but I'm always wary of a top that I'm wearing directly on my skin being too tight. I wear shirts under all my cold weather knits and as a result rarely have to wash them. I don't want deodorant and body lotion and sweat gunking up my summer tops, so I generally make them a bit looser.

All in all, I'm really happy with this tee and even happier to have gotten it done even with a new puppy in the house! With knitting time being so limited these days, getting anything done is a bit of a minor miracle, so it's a relief to meet my deadline and end up with a pretty new top to boot. And while I'm still working on my swatch for the next summer top, I could not let all my needles sit around empty. I thought, "What would Bonny do?" and cast on a Hitchhiker.

This won't count toward the SSK make-along, but it is yarn that I bought the last time I attended when some friends and I took a side trip to Haus of Yarn. It's Old Rusted Chair Sock in a colorway called Panic in Detroit. I have no idea of the meaning of that name, but one of the friends I was with was from the suburban Detroit area and of course my father is originally from the Motor City, so it seemed perfect. And it's the perfect kind of colorway for a Hitchhiker, not to mention that the pattern is perfect for the almost-mindless knitting I do while Ruthie is napping in the afternoon.

I'm actually on vacation today (taking a day off so I can accrue more), and I'll get to have a little fun because it's Molly's last day of school for the year, though using "day" is a bit generous because she'll only be at school for two hours for an assembly and then I go pick her up. A friend is coming home with her, and I'll be driving them to do a little shopping this afternoon. Then we're going out to dinner with my parents this evening to celebrate the rising high school sophomore (gulp). The only thing on my calendar this weekend is the first class of puppy kindergarten tomorrow morning, though the first session is for owners only. I'm looking forward to getting some help with training and to Ruthie getting a little less scared around other people and other dogs!

I hope the month is wrapping up well for you and you have a relaxing and enjoyable weekend. See you back here in June!

Polwarth in Polwarth

As promised, it's done -- and I love it!

Pattern: Polwarth by Ysolda Teague, size 37.5" bust
Yarn: handspun Polwarth from Southern Cross Fibre, colorway Plot Twist; approximately 1,036 yards used
Needles: US 2 (2.75 mm) and US 3 (3.25 mm)
Started/Completed: December 22, 2024/January 31, 2025

I could not be more delighted with how this sweater turned out. I'd been planning to knit it for several years, probably since I finished spinning the yarn back in 2019 (I couldn't resist the idea of knitting a pattern called Polwarth in Polwarth yarn), and I finally decided that our recent winter vacation was time. It was a good thing that I started it while on vacation because the yoke of this sweater ended up being a lot more involved than I realized. In addition to variable rates of increases (which result in that lovely curve), the brioche detail at the top front is different every round, so I needed my full attention and focus.

When I swatched for this sweater, I could not quite get gauge, likely because handspun doesn't always neatly fall into commercial yarn weight categories. I did a little math, though, and found that at the gauge I was getting with US 3 needles, I could get my desired fit by following the second size in the pattern. For lighter-weight sweaters knit with fingering/sport, I like a little positive ease in the body and a more fitted sleeve, and that's precisely what I got. In these photos, I am wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt underneath (which is how I wear my sweaters in general), and you can see that I've still got a little room. Even though the math was telling me that's how it would work out, I'm still relieved that it did; gauge is such a fickle thing, and we all know how often swatches lie.

The colors are off here, but you can see that lovely increase line.

Knitting with handspun requires ceding some control because inevitably your sleeves are not going to match the body or each other -- that's just the nature of the beast. But I'm pretty happy with how the colors played out here. When I spun the yarn, a traditional three-ply, I planned for the variegation by splitting up the fiber into lots of small bundles (you can see them here) and spinning them at random. Then, when knitting the sweater, I alternated skein every round for most of it, using one skein only when it would be awkward to alternate, such as working the short rows at the neckline. I've found over the years that all yarn spun from dyed fiber, even if it's dyed just one color, tends to stripe, and you can see that happened here. I found it fascinating that certain colors seemed to concentrate despite the complete randomness of the spinning.

I wore the sweater yesterday and was so comfortable and cozy, and I know I'm going to be wearing it a ton on those days when it's chilly but not so frigid that I need something heavier. I really could not be happier with it!

Hello, Monday; Hello, July

I was not very excited for my alarm to go off this morning after a not-so-great night of sleep, but at least it's a short week. And while the heat and humidity are coming back midweek, right now it's 56ºF with a 50º dew point, which means I'm going to have a very comfortable run this morning!

We had a fairly low-key weekend, with the usual chores and errands but also a lot of relaxation time. I started out by finishing up both of the projects that were close to the end, starting with the second Bousta Beanie:

Somehow I used less yarn (about nine yards) on the second hat, despite knitting them exactly the same way. No matter -- I'm very happy with them both! Now they're ready for a bath and a block before they're added to the donation pile.

I also finished up the Benny singles Friday evening, so I was ready to start plying on Saturday:

After several plying sessions over both days, I had one bobbin finished yesterday:

I was concerned about having enough of this yarn for the main color of the sweater pattern I have in mind, but based upon how long it took to fill this first bobbin, I'm feeling more confident. I'll have to wait until I skein up the yarn to know for sure, of course, but there seems to be quite a lot of yardage there. I will continue to ply the rest today, as work allows.

I also started my test knit of the Little Plinth Tee over the weekend:

This is the peplum/ruffle along the bottom of the tee, and I actually think this part is going to be the slowest of the whole project because I have to count rows and work a set of short rows every 12 rows. But I've gotten into a groove now and no longer have to check the pattern as closely, so I don't think it will take me too long to get the rest of it done. Once I pick up for the body and start working in the round, I think it will be even faster. It would be great if I could get the whole thing done before Mo and I leave for our retreat next week, but we'll see. I'm focusing on this week first and will think about retreat knitting next week.

As I mentioned, it's a short week. Obviously we're off on Thursday for the holiday (I'm hoping for an early dismissal from work on Wednesday to kick it off), but I decided to take a vacation day on Friday as well, both because I needed to use up some time and because the Mister and I have a wedding to go to in the evening. I'm also going to try to donate blood again (this is attempt number 4 in the last month) on Friday afternoon; I'll share that saga if anyone is interested, but I'm hoping this is the end of it. In the meantime, I'm hoping it's a quiet week at work given the holiday. I hope it's a good week for you!

Unraveled, Week 20/2024

Happy Wednesday, friends! Well, I'm not quite sure how happy it will be, as I have to go into work for a staff meeting (boo), but at least it's some time away from a computer screen. On the plus side, it is time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers for our weekly check-in. And I have an FO to share!

I've been working on these socks on and off for about a month, and it was starting to annoy me that they were still on the needles, so I was really focused on finishing them this past weekend and Monday. I used the skein of yarn that was in my goodie bag at SSK last summer, a 90% superwash Targhee/10% nylon fingering from String Theory Colorworks in the colorway Convergent Evolution. Because of the long color repeat and the varying width of the stripes, I didn't bother to try to get my socks to match but instead tried to get the stripes to align on the two socks, and I think I managed that pretty well. I used my typical 68-stitch vanilla recipe with two main changes: I used forethought afterthought heels (meaning I put waste yarn in for the heels rather than just snipping a stitch and unraveling) and I slipped every other stitch for a round when the color changed. They haven't yet been washed or worn, which is why the toes and heels look a little pointy; I expect they will relax a bit once they're worn.

After finishing up my bobbin of Björn singles on Friday, I got out the next blue (Agnetha) and started my second bobbin yesterday:

The blue is looking just a tad brighter in the photo than it is in real life, but I'd call it a sapphire blue. And of course it's delightful to spin.

It has been an excellent week of reading for me, with three more finishes!

I knew that the sequel to The Guncle was coming out soon because it kept getting advertised to me, so on a whim, I decided to see if it was on NetGalley -- and it was, and amazingly I got approved for it almost right away! The first book was one of my favorite books of 2021, one that I recommended to many people and even gave as a gift. When I heard there was a sequel, I was a bit wary -- how could it possibly measure up to the delight and the warmth of the original?

While I'll concede that The Guncle Abroad doesn't quite have the magic of the first book (because, really, nothing can match the experience of reading a beloved book for the first time), it has the same overwhelming sense of delight. The problems facing Maisie and Grant in this installment are less dire; five years have passed since the original, and while they are still grieving the loss of their mother, the pain is not as acute. Now their father is getting remarried, and they're not so sure about their future step-mother. Enter GUP (Gay Uncle Patrick), whose mission is to teach them the many forms of love through a trip across Europe, even as he is facing a recent breakup and anxiety about gettin older. It all culminates in a wedding celebration at luxury hotel on Lake Como in Italy with emotions running high. I didn't cry as much in this installment, but I still laughed out loud frequently, and I loved spending more time with these characters I have come to love. I gave it 5 stars.

Thank you to Penguin Group/Putnam and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published May 21, 2024.

While I'm not trying to read all of the Women's Prize nominees this year, or even the entire short list, I have already read two of the titles and have a third on hold, and when Mary let me know that Restless Dolly Maunder was available on Hoopla and was relatively short, I figured why not? This novel is a fictionalized account of the life of the author's grandmother, though I did not realize that until the very end. Really, although that fact is interesting, in the end it doesn't really matter because the story of Dolly -- who was born at the end of the 19th century and lived well into the 20th -- is one that is ubiquitous: that of a woman who has ambition and dreams but whose life is circumscribed by the decisions of men. I found her to be feisty and determined but also a bit of a tragic figure; I wonder what she might have been able to accomplish if she'd be able to go to school past the age of 14, marry who she wanted, choose whether or not to have children, and pursue work that fulfilled her. I also quite enjoyed the narration of the book. I gave it 4 stars.

I actually started Good Night, Irene before either of these other books, but I didn't finish it until Monday evening. I picked this one up in my quest to read WWII fiction that tells lesser-known stories, and this is another one based on real people. The author's mother served as a "Donut Dolly" for the American Red Cross, one of the women sent out in mobile kitchens to serve donuts and coffee to the troops and to keep their spirits up. It seemed like an adventure and a more direct way for these women to do their bit, but in reality, they were headed to war and very dangerous situations. And there are some particularly harrowing reminders of just how awful war can be and how awful WWII in particular was. (I'll add a note of caution to sensitive readers here: There is a storyline in which the main characters are sent to Buchenwald just after it's been liberated, and it's just as horrifying as you might imagine.) Ultimately, it's a beautiful story of friendship between two women and a lovely tribute to the women who served in a way that is largely lost to history. I gave it 4 stars.

I'm still reading Kairos -- in all honesty, I haven't picked it up in a while, but I will get back to it eventually -- and just started Same Bed Different Dreams. I'm not sure what I think about that one yet, but I'm not very far into it.

Please keep your fingers crossed for good weather today. After the staff meeting is the annual faculty and staff picnic, and it's outdoors, rain or shine. I don't want to get soaked!

TGIF

It is a rainy, gloomy Friday here in Pittsburgh, but I finally got a decent night's sleep last night and am feeling much better this morning than I have all week. Of course, the fact that the weekend is only hours away might have something to do with it!

Last night was Mo's final performing arts concert of middle school. She has signed up for the glee club in high school, but that's an elective; in middle school, all students are required to do one performing arts course -- choir, band, strings, or dance -- and thus we sat through performances from all grade levels, some certainly better than others. Obviously I paid complete attention when she was on stage, but for the other performances, it was the perfect opportunity to pull out a vanilla sock:

This is the sock I started when Mo and I went to see Company last month, and I hadn't touched it since that day. I'm planning for these to be for my sister-in-law for her birthday (which is in September, so I've got plenty of time). Last night's knitting got me to the end of the leg, so I am ready to start the heel flap the next time I pick these up.

Today, though, I am hoping that I will see the end of my Björn singles -- this is all the fiber that's left!

I have an excellent book to finish reading while I spin, so it's just a matter of whether or not work cooperates.

The weekend ahead is looking fairly calm and, unfortunately, not great in terms of weather -- cooler temps and more rain. But I have an appointment to get my hair cut tomorrow (it's been a year since my last cut!) and we'll be going to my brother- and sister-in-law's house on Sunday for a Mother's Day brunch. I've also told the Mister that I'd like my Mother's Day gift to be a trip to Home Depot to get plants for the garden, so we'll probably do that tomorrow and I'll have to keep my fingers crossed for some dry weather on Sunday to plant. Sadly my dahlia tubers did not survive their winter in my shed, so they went into the compost and I will pick up some other flowers to plant. If anyone has recommendations for plants that will not get eaten by rabbits, let me know!

If you're celebrating Mother's Day this weekend, I hope it's a good one, and I'm sending love to those of you for whom it's a difficult day. Here's to a relaxing and restorative weekend for all of us!

Figuring Out What's Next

Good morning, friends! I'll admit I'm a little bleary this morning after a not-great night of sleeping (first there was snoring, then there were loud neighbors outside very early), but I've got a big mug of coffee with my second cup in it and am as ready as I can be to start a new week.

I ended up spending quite a lot of the weekend cleaning and organizing. My closet was the main target. For too many years, I'd been shoving stuff into the back corner -- things that needed to be dry cleaned or hand washed or given away -- and I promptly forgot about them. It was like a black hole. But aside from the fact that I couldn't see what was in there, I also knew that I'd had some issues with m*ths and knew there were some (store-bought) sweaters in there that I didn't want to continue to attract the buggers. I've also been on a ThredUP kick lately and have been trying to clear out clothes I no longer wear or that no longer fits. I did find several sweaters that had been eaten and general yuckiness. But I also pulled everything out off the floor of the closet, vacuumed, and reorganized. Now I can see everything that's in there, I've got a box ready to send off, two bags went to textile recycling, and I have a pile of things to hand wash before I decide if they will stay or go.

That clean-out was badly needed, but because I was so focused on that, I didn't spend as much time as I'd hoped on crafting or on deciding what to cast on next. I did, however, pull out several options for sweaters, so now I just have to make a decision. Here are the options:

Sorry for not taking them out of the bags, but I'm being extra careful given what I found in the closet yesterday. These are all sweater possibilities -- four of the five options are handspun, and I have patterns in mind for all but one of them. I just have to decide how mindless or mindful of a knit I want to do next.

In the meantime, I did find time to ply a skein of handspun this weekend:

This is Island Sunset on grey Merino from Southern Cross Fibre (the grey base is what gives the color that tweedy look). I chain-plied it and ended up with approximately 438 yards of fingering. And I love this! I have no idea what I'll do with it, but this seems to want to become a shawl of some sort -- at some point.

The first order of business for today, however, is going to the dentist to get my tooth fixed! Then I hope to get out for a run because it's sunny and beautiful outside and we might match or even break a record high today! Oh, and of course there's work, which I suppose is important, too.

Have a good one, friends!

Unraveled, Week 9/2024

Happy Hump Day, friends! It's the last Wednesday in February, and we woke up to lightning and thunder. By this evening, we may have snow. And we had some surprise snow over the weekend as well, after which it was in the mid-60s the past couple of days. I know we often have False Springs in Western Pennsylvania, but it feels like we've had half a dozen of them already this year. I don't love winter but would accept its sticking around, but I have to say that this constant up and down is wreaking havoc on my sinuses!

But enough about the weather -- it's time to join up with Kat and the Unravelers! I'm happy to share that my STRIPES! sweater is done! But as I just blocked it yesterday afternoon, there hasn't yet been an opportunity to take modeled photos, so you'll have to wait until Friday to see it. I'm very happy with how it turned out, and Mo has admired it so much that she's asked me to knit her one using two skeins of yarn I bought for her at SSK last summer. I told her I'd be happy to do so, but I need a little break from knitting stripes for the moment. In the meantime, I am working on her socks:

I'm making this pair to be a little large on her at the moment, with the anticipation that her feet will grow a bit more. Conveniently, if they end up being too small for her at some point, they just happen to be my size! I've just started the second sock so I'll have it to take to my board meeting tonight.

I've also returned to my spinning, though with less sense of urgency. I learned on Monday that David of Southern Cross Fibre is retiring, and March's shipment will be the last from the club. So the shipments I have in my stash, plus the two that will soon be on their way to me, will be the last. It's sad news for sure, but I cannot begrudge anyone their retirement, and I know David has had some health struggles in the last several years that have made keeping up with his dyeing more difficult. Although I will miss his fiber quite a lot, there is still plenty of fiber to spin in my stash. What I'm currently working on is the August 2023 club shipment, Island Sunset on grey Merino. It's nearly impossible to capture in the darkness of the storm we're having right now, but the grey base makes for such amazing depth of color.

Reading has again been quite good this past week. I've finished three books.

After exploring, in depth, the works of Louise Erdrich and Barbara Kingsolver, the little group hosted by Mary is moving on this year to back list winners of the Women's Prize for Fiction. First up is the 1998 winner, Larry's Party by Carol Shields. This is an interesting book because there's not really a plot. Instead, it's almost like a series of stories about the main character at different points in his life. I had some feelings about the fact that a book about a white man was awarded the Women's Prize (and I'm sure it will be a prime topic of discussion when we meet this Saturday), but I did really enjoy the writing, and now I am interested to read more of Carol Shields's work. There are some truly laugh-out-loud moments in this book and some heartwarming parts, too. I gave it 4 stars.

I was in need of an audiobook to listen to over the weekend and Hoopla is giving me grief again (it's not recognizing my account), so I went to Libby and borrowed the first audiobook in my "to read" list that was available. I'd heard of Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory from Sara Hildreth of Fiction Matters, I believe. It's a collection of essays that I'd put in the category of memoir. You may or may not be familiar with Sarah Polley, who I first knew from the series Road to Avonlea. She's also an award-winning director and screenwriter and a political activist. Her essays deal with a lot of trauma, from the difficulties in being a child actor and the death of her mother when she was young to dealing with sexual assault and the long-term consequences of a concussion. They're well written and thoughtful, though certainly not for everyone. I gave the book 4 stars.

Finally, last night before bed, I finished The Custom of the Country, just in time to listen to the Novel Pairings episode on it that dropped yesterday. This novel follows the ambitious Undine Spragg, who is unfailing in her desire and determination to move up in society but who finds herself wanting more each time she achieves what she believes to be her aim. The book takes aim at American society of the time and, I think, provides a pretty convincing case that money can buy many things but can't guarantee happiness. This was an excellent book to be reading as I've been watching The Gilded Age on HBO. I enjoyed it, and I'm really looking forward to hearing what Sara and Chelsea have to say about it. I gave it 4 stars.

I now find myself reading ... nothing! I've got to pick my next book to read, which I expect I'll be doing later today.

What are you making and reading this week?

Let's Wrap It Up

Happy Friday, dear readers -- it's been a long week! And it was an early morning for me, as I was off to the orthodontist shortly after 7 so they could look at my broken retainer/night guard and scan me for a replacement. I will say that the nice thing about such an early appointment is that I was able to find a parking space easily, right out front, and I didn't have to wait. And I was even home before the Mister and Mo had left for work and school! It has been a long week, and I'm very happy to see it come to an end today.

My sweater is continuing to move along at a good pace. I tried to take a modeled photo of it for you (because my face has healed enough at this point that I'm willing to show it on camera now), but between the dim light this morning and my general lack of skill in taking selfies, it did not go well. So you'll have to settle for a photo of it on Matilda:

My first sleeve is pretty much halfway done, and I am completely tickled that it appears that the stripe sequence will work out perfectly to result in the cuff in light blue to match the collar and the hem! Whereas I went through the sequence three times on the body, it'll be four times on the sleeves. I'm still weaving in ends as I go, which does slow my progress down a bit but is something I know I'll thank myself for doing when I get to the end.

Although I'd like to get this sweater done by the end of the month and probably should really focus on it to do that, I felt I needed to get another spinning project going, particularly as the most recent club shipment just arrived. So I've started in on the shipment from last August, Island Sunset on grey Merino:

I love how the gray base fiber add such depth to the dyed colors! I've split the fiber into strips lengthwise and am spinning them one after another to chain-ply the resulting singles and end up with a self-striping yarn. I didn't do a great job of splitting and ended up with three strips rather than the four I was aiming for, but that's okay. I decided to put the biggest of the three in the middle, so I'll end up with slightly longer/bigger stripes in the middle of the skein and narrower stripes at the beginning and end.

I'm hoping for a calm last day of the work week and a productive weekend of sleeve knitting. Happy Friday!

Staying Warm, or Trying To

It is a frigid Monday morning here in Western Pennsylvania -- the current temperature is 13ºF, but a "feels like" 7º. So I'd say all three of us are happy that we all have today off and don't have to rush out to work and school early. Mo does have an orthodontist appointment a little later this morning, though, so we'll have to bundle up and go out eventually. I'm still deciding if I even want to try to run or just take the week off (we're supposed to have these below-normal temperatures all week).

On Friday, as I hoped, I was able to ply up my first skein of handspun for the year. And after the longest day on Thursday, we got an early dismissal at 2 p.m., so I was able to skein and wash it as well without having to worry about work interrupting me. Here is Lake Tekapo on Bond wool from June of last year, approximately 400 yards of fingering:

We had a fairly low-key weekend, which was desperately needed on my part. Mo was at school for a good portion of the day on Saturday for Future City prep (the regional competition is next weekend), and I spent part of the day doing the usual cleaning and laundry. Yesterday we had nothing on the calendar, though Mo had a bunch of homework to get through, so I sat with her and worked on my sweater. I got to a pretty exciting point in my progress, so I had her help me for the silly pictures:

"Look at my new sweater!"

"Sleeves: Make two."

The second sleeve has since been picked up and started and is well under way. I did end up making some adjustments to the first one, so now that I have a better idea of what I'm doing, I'm anticipating that sleeve #2 will go faster. It would be great if I could finish it up this week and have a new sweater to wear next weekend! I'm already thinking about my next sweater and have had to stop myself from swatching a couple of times (I just know if I do that, I'll want to start the new one before I finish the current one). While I'm hiding from the cold today, I will for sure be working on the sleeve to get as much done as possible.

Stay warm out there, friends, and see you back here on Wednesday!

Unraveled, Week 1/2024

It's the first Wednesday of the new year and I've started the count over again! Thanks to Kat for hosting our weekly link-ups. Now let's check in on the making ...

Vacation is truly over, so progress on my Birch Pullover has slowed. That was not helped by doing a poor job of picking up stitches in the underarm on my first attempt. Last night I ripped it out and started over again, and this attempt looks much better (though I'll still have to close up some holes when I weave in ends, as it always the case). You'll have to excuse the darkness of my photos today; we're in the midst of the typical January gloom here in Western Pennsylvania.

After two weeks away from wheel and fiber, I was of course anxious to start a new spinning project when we got back, so what is now the oldest Southern Cross Fibre shipment in my stash (from last June) is now on the wheel. The singles are very dark at the moment, so I'll share a photo of the fiber instead. This is Lake Tekapō on Bond wool. I've split it in two lengthwise and will be chain-plying the singles.

I expect less reading time this week (because I'll be reading copy for work), but I did manage to finish two more books before the end of the year, taking my total for 2023 to 130 books -- not too shabby!

If you follow Parnassus Books on social media, then you've likely heard a lot about Do Tell by Lindsay Lynch, who is their buyer. I wasn't rushing to read it, but when it was a Kindle daily deal a few weeks back, I thought I'd give it a try. And it ended up being a light palate cleanser after some harder books. This novel is set in the golden age of Hollywood, the late 1930s and early 1940s, when actors were under contract to studios and gossip could make or break a career. The narrator is an actress whose contract is just about to expire who finds herself in the middle of a scandal. I found this to be an entertaining book and an easy read; the editor in me found the frequent breaks to be annoying, especially when they weren't needed, but I suppose that was a stylistic choice. I gave it 3 stars.

I'd heard about The Frozen River on the What Should I Read Next Podcast, when Anne Bogel interviewed the author, and I was able to put it on hold right when my library got it. This is a work of historical fiction set in New England in the late 1700s and centers on Martha Ballard, a real-life midwife who left behind a record of her life in a daybook. Amid the daily activities of being a wife and mother and delivering babies, there is a rape, a murder, and a lot of intrigue. I found it to be a good read, though I would not necessarily recommend it as a truly accurate representation of the time. The author has (admittedly) taken some liberties and updated the dialogue for a more modern audience, though I appreciate that she has based it on some real people and real events. I think it does have some powerful things to say about the role and voices of women in society. I gave it 4 stars.

I'm currently listening to Winter Solstice, a book that many of you have read and that has long been on my TBR list; it feels appropriate now that I'm listening while running and walking in the cold and snow. I've also started Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, which I'd picked up at Barnes & Noble in Florida and then snagged in a Kindle deal. It's a fascinating book, but I haven't had too much time to get into it just yet (see earlier comment about work).

What are you making and reading this week?

A Day for Tea and Toast

Here we are again on Monday, and this morning I'm feeling a little under the weather. Either the Mister gave me the tummy troubles he had last week or I'm having an IBS flare. Either way, I'm very happy that I work from home and don't have to try going into the office today. I've already sent my boss an email to let her know that I'm playing the day by ear, but I've had some tea and toast and will be taking it easy today.

After I posted on Friday, I did indeed finish plying the handspun and did indeed get it all on the bobbin. I could've fit more on, too, if I'd needed to! Skeining took a while, but the day was calm enough to allow me to get it all done, and it was dry by the next day.

I can really only get a rough estimate of the yardage because of the size of this skein, but my conservative estimate is about 817 yards -- now I know why it took so long to ply! I'm very happy with how the blending turned out. too.

I called the skein "A Pale Olive in a Blue Fog" after the names of the colorways, although a number of people have commented that it looks like silver and gold rather than blue and green, and I can see that a bit. Don't ask me what I'm going to make with this -- I have no idea! For now it's just going in the big bag of SCF. And for those of you who are keeping count, this skein used up two bags of fiber (these happened to be prizes) and takes me to 33 for the year. I don't know that I'll get more done before the end of the year, because I'm focused on my Fibernymph Dye Works minis right now, but I have just seven bags left, only five of which are club shipments, so it should not take me long into the new year to get caught up.

In spite of not feeling quite like myself this morning, I did get enough preparation done yesterday so that all I had to do this morning to publish my new pattern was click a few buttons.

Hydrophily is now available on Ravelry and on Payhip, and soon it should be up on LoveKnitting, too. No pressure, but I hope you'll take a look.

And with that, it's time to get back to my second cup of tea and get ready for my morning work meeting. Have a good Monday, friends!

A Friday FO

It's been a very long week and I am very happy to see Friday come -- though I have to admit I think I'll be a little happier for Saturday to come so I don't have to wake up to an alarm in the dark. I'm also very happy to have an FO to share this Friday!

I've carefully hidden the ends that still need to be woven in

As predicted, I did finish the shawl up on Wednesday evening. And I did it in grand fashion: by winning a game of yarn chicken. I'd been weighing my main color after each pattern repeat to try to determine how many more I could do. As each one had more stitches and thus used more yarn, that wasn't as easy as it sounds. The first repeat whose MC usage I'd recorded used 7 g; the next one used 8 g. I was down to what I hoped was the penultimate repeat and hoping I had enough for one more. I was very excited when that second-to-last repeat used 8 g and left me with 10 g remaining. I figured the last repeat would use 9 g and leave me with just a little wiggle room, and I was spot on:

I blocked the shawl yesterday morning and started to weave in the ends last night (I'll finish that up later today).

Because I finished the knitting portion of the shawl, I allowed myself to start a new spinning project yesterday. I'd had this one planned for a while. I'm using up two semisolid colors of Southern Cross Fibre South African Superfine Merino that I won as prizes earlier this year. Rather than doing something simple like spinning each onto its own bobbin and plying them together, I'm doing a gradual transition from one to the other in a three-ply yarn. The colors are both soft pastels, so it will be very subtle. This is the photo I took of the fiber after I split it up to give you a sense of how it will be spun:

Each column here represents one bobbin of singles. I'm starting with the left column and have already started the second ball of green. Unless the yarn poofs up significantly when I wash it, I should get a fingering weight in the end, and I'm hoping I can fit the whole skein onto one of my WooLee Winder bobbins (though if it looks like it might be close, I'll get out my miniSpinner and its giant bobbin capacity).

I'm happy to report that opening night of Beauty and the Beast Jr. went very well and had an enthusiastic audience, including, I was happy to see, a lot of students. Mo gave me permission to share a photo of her on stage in full costume, which I think explains very well why she's come home complaining that her whole body is sore:

That's a lot of costume to wear! The Mister and I will be going to tonight's performance with my parents, and then we'll go again tomorrow for closing night with my in-laws and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law.

We've got a much-needed quiet weekend planned ahead of a short holiday week next week. I'm working through Wednesday (with the hope that the office will close early), and I expect many of my coworkers will be taking some extra time off, making it quiet -- back when I went into the office, I used to enjoy working the Wednesday before Thanksgiving because there were usually so few people actually there! We're supposed to get rain coming through this afternoon and tonight and then chilly weather over the weekend, which is just perfect for putting on sweaters and socks and getting cozy. Hope it's a good weekend for you -- see you back here on Monday!

TGIF Indeed!

It's been a week, and I'm quite happy to see Friday come. The Mister was traveling at the beginning of the week, Mo's been at school late every evening for play rehearsal, and I've had an endless parade of meetings -- five of them just yesterday! The other two members of my family both have the sniffles, and we're all tired, so I think we will have a very low-key weekend.

Thankfully all of my meetings yesterday were on Teams or Zoom, so I was able to craft my way through them. I was able to finish plying the singles I spun earlier in the week, and the skein was all dry this morning.

This was April's Southern Cross Fibre club shipment, a colorway called Bali on Merino X Corriedale top. I split the fiber in half lengthwise and then split each half in half again so I had four long, narrow strips. I plied from both ends of the skein with only one mishap: Some of the singles being pulled from the inside got so tangled that I just broke off the problem area and discarded it. I don't think it was more than a couple of yards' worth of singles, so I'm not too concerned about it. The finished yarn did not really bloom at all when I washed it, and it's mostly fingering weight, though there are some spots that are closer to sport and some that are closer to lace. It's not particularly soft and in fact is rather crunchy, but I do like the colors.

Because there were really only three colors in the fiber -- a royal blue, a light blue, and a silvery gray -- there's a mix of solid sections and barber-poled sections in the finished yarn. I don't have anything in particular in mind for this skein, so it'll just get stored away for the time being.

I'm itching to start another skein (particularly as my most recent club shipment just showed up this week), but I'm really trying to focus on my shawl sample. I've just added in the second contrast color, which is ever so slightly darker:

The two most recent contrast stripes are with the second color in the gradient -- see how the pink is just a little more intense? I'm hoping I can really focus on this shawl over the next couple of days and make some considerable progress.

Mo is off from school today (it's the end of the trimester, so it's an in-service day for teachers to wrap up their grading), but she has a work session for her Future City team this morning, so I've got to run shortly to drop her off. The Mister has also decided to work from home. I will be encouraging them both to rest and drink plenty of fluids so we can get these sniffles out of the house. Mo has a long day of play rehearsal tomorrow (the performances are at the end of next week), but we otherwise have nothing planned this weekend, and that's just fine with me!

I hope you have something enjoyable planned for the next couple of days, whether that's going out and doing stuff or just staying in and relaxing!

The Dreamtime

I don't know about you, but I was not happy to greet this Monday morning. The title of this post is a bit ironic because I did not sleep well Saturday night, despite the extra hour, or last night. We really need to stop this clock-changing business (and if we could stop the Mister's snoring as well, that would be great). While it wasn't the most restful weekend, it was good in many other ways. We had a lovely family dinner on Friday night and got to see my nephew (who is now 6 months old) starting to crawl! He also has a couple of teeth coming in, so he's drooling up a storm and sticking everything, including his entire fist, in his mouth.

Mo had a very busy weekend. She had a play rehearsal on Saturday morning and then went to see The Wiz with the Mister Saturday afternoon. Normally I would take her, but I wanted to be home for the Kingsolver-along meeting on The Lacuna. That meant I was able to finish plying my latest skein of handspun, which I'd started on Friday but was unable to finish because a bunch of work came in.

This spin was from the March Southern Cross Fibre club shipment, a colorway called The Dreamtime. I really loved the colors in this one, but I was also really interested in the story behind it. This is the inspiration photo David shared:

He also gave an explanation of the name:

The Dreamtime is the foundation of Aboriginal religion and culture and dates back some 65,000 years. It is the story of events that have happened, how the universe came to be, how human beings were created, and how their Creator intended for humans to function within the world as they knew it.

I chose to return to my default yarn with this one -- three-ply fingering. I simply split the fiber into three pieces, width-wise, and spun each onto its own bobbin. I was apparently pretty consistent in spinning my singles because two of the three bobbins ran out at almost exactly the same time, so I didn't have to do any faffing around with the last bits of singles to use as much as possible (I did have some remaining on the third bobbin, so I just added them to my "bits and bobs" bobbin). I'm very happy with the finished yarn, even if my camera refuses to accurately capture the richness of the colors.

You can see some of the subtlety of the colors, but if you look at the skein from farther away, it looks like part of the skein is mostly red with the blue/purple highlight and part is the reverse.

I ended up with about 385 yards -- a little less than I was hoping for but still respectable. More impressive is that this is the 30th bag of SCF fiber I've spun this year! I'm going to continue to see how much I can spin up this year, though I doubt I will get completely caught up (I have nine more bags in the stash and another on the way). I did start a new spin yesterday that seems to be going pretty quickly, so I'll share progress on that on Wednesday.

Okay, time to get started on my day! Here's hoping your Monday is off to a decent start.

Unraveled, Week 44/2023

Yes, I'm posting again -- third day in a row! But you know that I would never willingly miss posting on an Unraveled Wednesday! Today, as per usual, I'm linking up with Kat and the Unravelers while I give you and update on my crafting and my reading.

First, I finished a charity hat over the weekend. I used my top-down any-gauge hat pattern and knit the biggest size I could and used up just about all of my yarn. It's big on me, but it looks better on a head than flat.

The skein was the odd man out from a six-skein set from Fibernymph Dye Works; the other five were a gradient and were used in my COVID blanket. This skein technically had the same colors but looked a little too much like camouflage for me. I'm sure someone will like it, though, and that's all that really matters.

I've started a new crochet project, and the yarn might look familiar:

Originally I had four skeins of this Hedgehog Fibres Skinny Singles that I got from Bonny, and I used most of two of them in my Love Note. These colors are so gorgeous and saturated that I had to find another use for the skeins that remained. Rather than another pair of socks, I decided to make my mother-in-law a scarf for a holiday gift this year, and because I've enjoyed crochet so much recently, I decided to do it as a corner-to-corner. This is very simple and easy and should come together quickly. It's about eight inches wide, and I'll make it as long as I can with my two skeins.

I've also started another spinning project (I know you're all shocked!). I'm doing my usual three-ply fingering weight, or at least I hope so, using Comeback wool from the Southern Cross Fibre. This Australian breed was created from mating British longwool sheep crossed with Merinos back with Merinos. The wool is fairly soft but has some body and toothiness to it, and it's a favorite of mine. I'm also loving these saturated colors:

I'm on the second bobbin of singles at the moment and hope to finish that one up today, so it's entirely possible I'll be plying by this weekend.

Reading has been good this past week, even though I have only finished one book since this time last week.

The Barbara Kingsolver book group hosted by Mary will be meeting this weekend to discuss The Lacuna. I have a hard copy of the book but decided to listen to the audio, primarily because it's read by the author. I'd missed this book entirely when it it came out, I think because it was published the year Mo was born and I was a little preoccupied, so I'm really happy to have had an excuse to read it now. It follows the story of a fictional writer, Harrison Shepherd, who lives an usual childhood thanks to his American father and Mexican mother. He encounters real-life figures in Diego Rivera, Frieda Kahlo, and Leon Trotsky and even comes under the scrutiny of HUAC. It's a really wide-ranging novel with a lot of history, but at its heart, this is the story of a man struggling to find a sense of home. The writing is, as you'd expect, quite beautiful, and I really enjoyed it. I gave it 4 stars.

Currently I'm trying to finish up An Immense World, and I'm pretty much exactly halfway through In Ascension, which has really been tempting me to stay up late reading. I hope to have both of these done by this time next week.

What are you making and reading this week?