Feeling Periwinkle

I have another skein of handspun to share, fresh off the wheel! I've been a spinner on a mission the past two weeks or so, for no apparent reason, and I've taken advantage of the mojo to plow through a 4 oz. braid of fiber I inherited from a friend. This was a 50% merino/25% bamboo/25% tussah silk from Yarn Hollow in a colorway called Galaxy.

I didn't do anything fancy to manage the colors for this spin, just split the top into three roughly equal pieces. I spun each piece onto its own bobbin and did a traditional three ply. I used up every last inch of the singles I spun by, when the first bobbin ran out, winding off the singles from one of the remaining bobbins and plying from both ends as well as from the other bobbin and then, when the second bobbin ran out, chain plying the little bit remaining on the final bobbin.

It's extremely hard to get an accurate color representation of the finished skein (which obviously still had a lot of ply twist in it here -- it's soaking in the bath right now). Overall, it reads rather periwinkle, but if you look closely, you can see the different shades of blue and purple.

Final yardage will obviously be determined after the twist is set and the skein is dry, but I can already tell that this yarn will have amazing drape. With half of its fiber content being silk and bamboo, it's going to be shiny and have not too much memory, so it's going to be wonderful for a shawl or scarf.

But It Doesn't Count as Stash

What a long week this has been! Work has been super busy (that'll teach me to take a day off, I guess), so I've been using my knitting as a sanity keeper in the evenings.

I spent Tuesday evening fixing the naughty sock cuff and it took longer than I expected. That thing they say about not being able to rip out knitting from the cast-on edge? It's totally true. It probably took me as much time to rip out the old yarn as it did to reknit. But it's done, and although the cuffs aren't a perfect match, it'll be hard to tell without looking at them really closely. With any luck, I've also learned my lesson and will make better notes and actually read them the next time I have two knit two of something.

I've been working on my other two WIPs regularly as well. My first Zigzagular Sock is now at the gusset decreases, and the baby blanket has gotten a bit bigger. My goal for the latter is to have it done in the next week or so, which would enable me to mail it off next weekend (the shower is the following weekend). I'm not planning to make it huge, so I think that's a reasonable goal.

Yesterday was a really gross weather day. We woke up to heavy snow fall that really made the morning commute messy, and it changed over to rain over the course of the day, so I walked home in slush. So it was very nice to come home to a box of yarn waiting for me.

Last week, a friend on Ravelry had kindly mentioned to me that Knit Picks was having a sale on its Felici yarn. It's not my favorite yarn ever, but Rainbow really likes the socks I've made her from it, and it's reasonably priced even when it's not on sale. So the two of us picked out a bunch of colorways and placed an order. A good amount of this yarn will become socks for her in due time. I've got my eye on the rainbow-y skeins at the top left, and I think the gray/brown/blue ones in the top middle would make good man gift socks. I'm not worrying about this order messing up my plans to knit down the stash too much -- after all, they say that sock yarn doesn't count as stash, right?

We have a fairly uneventful weekend coming up, but I'm really excited about tomorrow morning. Rainbow's class has been studying pioneer times and reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's books (something the school has been doing at least since I was there), and tomorrow is their Pioneer Living History Day. All day, they'll be acting as if they were living in pioneer times. They'll churn butter and cook pioneer-era food for lunch. They have to ask to use the outhouse or go to the well if they need to use the restroom or get a drink. And I get to go in for a bit in the morning to share a bit about wool, fiber prep, and spinning. If you've ever read Farmer Boy, you may remember that there are bits about sheep shearing as well as Almanzo's mother spinning and dyeing yarn and weaving it into cloth to make their clothing. So I will be taking in some fiber, handcards, spindles, and one of my wheels to demonstrate how fleece can become yarn and then clothing. It should be a lot of fun!

When Inattention Attacks

One of my goals for the long weekend was to finish up my last secret project so that it wasn't hanging over my head anymore. I was very focused and finished up Saturday afternoon. I even wrote up most of the pattern on Sunday. I was feeling all smug and proud of myself for being so productive -- and then last night I looked at the finished sample and saw something that somehow I hadn't noticed before.

See a problem? As the Prairie Girls would say, Son of a stitch! Apparently I was so confident when I started the second sock (yes, these are sock cuffs), I didn't bother to check what rib pattern I had used for the cuff of the first sock. So now I have one cuff in 2x2 rib and one in 1x1 twisted rib. That means that tonight I get to cut one cuff off and reknit it. They won't be a perfect match, but I can't very well leave them this mismatched. The irony is that when I was writing up the pattern, I couldn't remember which rib I'd used for the cuffs (I was typing in the kitchen while the sample was up in the bedroom), so I'd left that section blank for the time being until I could double check. It didn't even occur to me that the reason I couldn't remember which rib I'd used was that I'd used both!

Fortunately it looks like this one snafu is the only one among my WIPs. I've picked up my Zigzagular Socks as my lunch break knitting and should get to the heel today.

And I've started a new project! My college roommate (and maid of honor) is expecting a baby girl this spring, and unfortunately I'm unable to make it to her baby shower next month -- it turns out that while Pittsburgh may be a great place to live, it's highly inconvenient for trying to travel anywhere. I decided to knit something up to send to one of the shower organizers so that she can open it at her shower, and rather than shopping for yarn, I decided to do the virtuous thing and shop my stash. I was rewarded for my efforts with the discovery of four skeins of Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton in a delicate pale green that I bought more than a decade ago. I pulled some large (for me) needles and the charts from Evelyn Clark's Shetland Triangle shawl and got to work.

I'm not following the shawl pattern per se, but I'm using the lace pattern to create a center-out square blanket. I'm not sure if I'll use all four skeins of the yarn, but I've just added in the second skein and am now alternating between it and the first (three of the four skeins were from one dyelot, but as I can't tell which is the odd one out, I'm alternating just to be safe). While this cotton is incredibly soft and fluffy, it's still a little hard on my hands, so I can't knit for too long on this project. But chunky lace on big needles goes quickly, and I imagine I'll have no trouble getting this blanket done in plenty of time to send it for the shower.

The Weekend I Needed

When you work full time and have a family, sometimes you find that no matter how much you want to spend your weekends relaxing, you tend to cram all the things you have to do into them and they're over much too quickly. That's what most weekends are like for us -- there's the errands to run, cleaning and laundry to do, social engagements, religious school, and all the other stuff. So it's extra rejuvenating to get a weekend without all the usual to-do, as rare as it is.

Rainbow has an extra-long weekend this weekend, with school closed Friday and Monday for teacher in-service days. I decided to take a day off from work to stay home with her Friday, so I got to sleep in, have a second cup of coffee, and just generally lounge around. We left the house only once, to make a quick trip to the market to get ingredients for dinner (we had some family over), but for the most part, she did her thing and I did mine. Yesterday we went out for about an hour in the morning to help unload some Girl Scout cookies for her troop and then went out for a nice dinner to celebrate Valentine's Day a bit belatedly. Today we had a couple of errands to run, but for the most part, we're staying put. There have of course been the usual chores around the house, but I've been able to sleep in, read for pleasure, knit, and spin to my heart's content the past several days. It's something I wish I could do every weekend.

I started a new spinning project this past week, on Tuesday afternoon after getting my braces on and before it was time to pick Rainbow up from school. Among the many braids I received from my friend Colleen last year when she was downsizing was a beautifully shiny braid of merino/bamboo/silk from Yarn Hollow. On a whim, I decided to spin it up into a three-ply fingering, and I finished up the first bobbin yesterday afternoon.

The fiber is a mix of blue and two shades of purple, one tending more toward blue and one tending more toward red. I didn't manage the colors at all when I split the braid, so it will be interesting to see how they blend in the plied yarn.

Meanwhile, I decided to pull out my Zoom Loom and weave up a little square with some of the mini skeins I finished recently. It's been a while since I last used it, so I had to review the instructions pretty carefully, but it really didn't take much time at all to get back into the swing of it.

I've only finished this one square so far (using the Karakul mini skein), but I'm pretty happy with how it worked up. It's very scratch and rough, but it should work well as a coaster. I'm going to attempt to felt the squares to make them a little thicker and fuzzier, though I honestly don't know if these breeds will felt. At least I feel rather virtuous for using up some stash, however small.

Mental Knitting

I am still working on my secret knitting, but I'm in the home stretch and should be finished by the end of the weekend. It must be because this obligation knitting is preventing me from working on anything else that all I can think of is casting on something new. As it happens, one of my favorite local knitting events, Indie Knit and Spin, is coming up next weekend, so I'm already plotting my purchases.

One of the patterns on my Make 9 list is Jennifer Steingass's Darkwater.

The pattern specifies fingering weight yarn, but it's knit at a DK-weight gauge (22 sts/4 in.). So it seems that it might be a little flexible with regard to yarn weight.

One of my favorite sweaters in the Humulus that I knit in HipStrings Buoy DK (which really, if you ask me, is closer to a sport weight). It's a sweater that I wear as often as can -- I'm wearing it today, actually. It's warm but very light and comfortable. So I was thinking that I might make try to make this sweater in Buoy DK. Wouldn't this color combination be amazing? I'm already knitting it in my head.

Yes, I know you're going to tell me that I already have a sweater on the needles that I should probably finish -- but has that ever stopped you?

Tomorrow I'm taking the day off to hang out with Rainbow, who has no school, and I am planning a relaxing day with plenty of crafting. Here's hoping you have an equally relaxing weekend!

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.

At Least My Yarn Looks Like Spring

I don't set much store in a groundhog's weather forecasting skill. In fact, as I write this, it's snowing outside, so I think Phil's prediction of an early spring was a bit premature. But I'm feeling springlike with my spinning.

After finishing up my combo spin, all 12 oz. of it, I needed a bit of a palate cleanser. I wanted a quick, easy, mindless spin. I was already halfway through the bag of mini braids of BFL/silk from Fibernymph Dye Works last Sunday, and I finished the last two colors very soon thereafter. I had intended to ply each color back on itself for four mini skeins, so on Friday evening, I used my ball winder to make four center-pull balls and plied all four of them. They were washed yesterday and fully dry by this morning. And they're perfect.

The yellow and bright green at the top are probably a sport weight, on average, while the drab green and gray are probably closer to DK. They range from approximately 59 yards to 85 yards, for 290 yards from 121 grams overall. I might combine them all in one project or put them up in my FiberCrafty shop. Here they are twisted together -- they make me think of early daffodils:

As long as I was in a mini skein sort of mood, I decided to pull out the two really rough fiber minis from last year's Merry Month of Minis shipment and spin them up. These were much smaller amounts of fiber (each less than 10 g). As with the BFL/silk, I wound up center-pull balls and plied them back on themselves. They're still a bit wet, but I've got them resting on the radiator, so they should be dry by morning.

The darker skein on the left is Karakul and the lighter one on the right is Welsh. Both were very coarse and heavy on kemp, though I was able to spin them relatively fine (fingering weight, I'd say). I think I will likely weave them on my Zoom Loom and then try to felt the resulting squares to use as coasters, perhaps as a double thickness using one square of each fiber. At the very least, it'll be an interesting experiment, and I hate wasting fiber -- the dye job on these was pretty, even if they didn't feel great.

Thoughts of Future Socks

As evidence of how crazy busy this week has been, this morning I woke up fully convinced that it was Wednesday. There is much to do and, it seems, not enough days to do it. But because of that, I am very much looking forward to the weekend.

I am still primarily working on a secret project, and I'm hoping that if I can really buckle down and concentrate on it over the next several days, I'll get it done, meaning I'll be able to move on to projects that I can actually share with you. First and foremost, I want to cast on my socks for the Lots of Socks KAL. I've had this skein of yarn sitting out for at least a month, just waiting for me to wind it up into a cake.

This is Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce in the colorway Girl Seeks Rain; I picked it up last year at Needles Up Maryland. I'm going to use it to knit the Zigzagular Socks, which I've wanted to knit for a long time, and this KAL is the perfect opportunity.

Incidentally, without giving too much away, if you haven't been checking in on the featured sale pattern for this KAL every day, I'll just put it out there that you might want to peek in tomorrow, February 8.

Have a great weekend!

Down to Two on Tuesday

That's right, folks. I am down to only two WIPs. Last night I finished one of my secret projects, and over the weekend, I finished my Elodia Hat.

I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Both it and the secret project will be blocked tonight, and I'm hoping blocking will tidy up the lace panel. On my to-do list for the week is to write up the pattern for this so that I can get photos this weekend and get everything off to my tech editor. I'm hoping to release the pattern later this month, so there's no time to waste!

The WIPs that are still lingering are my Floozy (which, let's face it, isn't getting done anytime soon) and my other secret project, which I'll be trying to get done as soon as possible. I'll likely be casting on a new project or two soon. I pulled some worsted weight skeins for a couple of charity hats, and I also want to start a new pair of socks for the Lots of Socks KAL.

I finished another book last week while working on the above hat. I finally got Where the Crawdads Sing from the library, and I have to say that I was a little underwhelmed. I'd call it a good beach read -- entertaining but not fine literature. I enjoyed the story, but I didn't love the ending. I gave it three stars. Now I'm back to Michelle Obama's Becoming, which is slower going because it's a physical book that I'm only reading before bed. But I'm enjoying it immensely!

A Perfect Combination

My combo spin is officially done, and I couldn't be more pleased.

My second skein ended up slightly plumper than my first, measuring in at almost 100 yards less. But I think it should work out fine for the pattern I've been spinning for, Tegna. I can use the thicker yarn on the top of the garment, which will hold the weight of the top, and the thinner yarn at the bottom. The difference isn't really even apparent unless you look closely.

Overall, I ended up with approximately 1,005 yards, which should be more than enough for my Tegna, and used up 12 oz. of fiber from my stash (we'll ignore, for now, the fact that I bought the braids for this project). More importantly, though, this project has me looking at my fiber stash in a whole new way. I have so many 4 oz. braids of pretty fiber that aren't really enough for much other than small accessories if spun up on their own. But there are plenty that I could combine in another combo spin for a large project. I think it's fair to say that this is only the first of what could be many combo spins!

After spinning 12 oz. of the same fiber, I decided to change things up a bit in the next thing on my wheel. I pulled out a bag of BFL/silk from Fibernymph Dye Works that I won as a knitalong prize last year. It was from one of Lisa's fiber clubs from a number of years ago and had small braids (I'm assuming 1 oz. each) of four colors. I decided to do a quick-and-dirty spin of each color and have gotten singles of two of the four colors spun already.

The name of this set is Emergence, and it definitely makes me think of daffodils blooming in early spring. I'm spinning each color on its own and am going to ply each back on itself for four mini skeins. Given how quickly these two bobbins have spun up, I wouldn't be surprised if I have finished skeins by this time next week!

A Fitting End

We've finally made it to the last day of January, and it seems fitting that it's leaving in a deep freeze. I've spent the past two days pretty much confined to my house with Rainbow, who school has been closed due to insanely cold temperatures (yesterday it was between 20 and 30 below with wind chills). Luckily my boss has been really flexible and allowed me to work from home, so I've been able to keep an eye on my e-mail and do the work that needed to be done from the comfort of my home and without having to get dressed up. Tomorrow, though, we begin a new month, and the weather should be more typical for this time of year, so we'll both be going back to our routines.

I'm still working on some secret knitting that I can't share, but I made a point of casting on something new so that I don't have to keep alluding to secret things. When I released my Elodia Mitts, it was my intention to design a hat to match, and I'm very happy to have finally gotten the sample on the needles.

There's not much to it just yet (just a bit of the brim at this point), but I'm hoping to give it some attention over the next couple of days so that I can get to the point that it's suitable theater knitting. Rainbow, my brother, my future sister-in-law, and I are going to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Saturday afternoon, and I will need a project! My plan for this hat is to have just a small amount of the lace pattern near the brim and then transition to all stockinette, so provided I can get to that point, I should be good -- otherwise, I will be forced to cast on a sock or other plain stockinette-in-the-round project.

The start of a new month tomorrow also means the start of a fun KAL I'll be participating in as both a knitter and a designer. A couple of months ago, I was approached by Lisa Ross of Paper Daisy Creations, who I met last summer at the TNNA show in Cleveland, about being a designer for a KAL and fundraiser she was planning for Down Syndrome International. I enthusiastically said yes, and I'm thrilled to be part of what it's become. DSi has an annual Lots of Socks campaign on World Down Syndrome Day, March 21, and traditionally those celebrating the event wear two mismatched, brightly colored socks on that day to bring awareness to Down syndrome. So Lisa has organized a fabulous KAL running February 1-March 21 in which every single sock you knit (that's right -- you don't need to knit a matching pair!) is an entry for some amazing prizes. In addition, she has recruited a wonderful group of designers (including yours truly) who will each offer one of their sock patterns for 50% off on one day between February 1 and 15. The designer and pattern featured each day will be a surprise, and all sales of the featured pattern each day will be donated to DSi. I'm really excited to be taking part in this event, and I hope you'll join me! You can find all the details about the participating designers and the rules for the KAL in this thread in Lisa's Ravelry group.

A Diversion

My two current WIPs are both secret design projects, which makes for some rather boring blog fodder. It also makes for somewhat monotonous knitting time, and this past weekend, I decided I needed a little palate cleanser with something quick and easy.

Rainbow has started a small collection of pins, but she hasn't found a good place to put them or store them. Her backpack isn't the best place, as she's not exactly careful with it and the likelihood of anything pinned to it getting lost is high. So I decided to knit up a felted pennant for her that she can put her pins on and hang in her room. The idea was to create something kind of like this:

We dug through my non-superwash wool stash and found a skein of Cascade 220 in a bright purple and nearly complete skein of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in a muted blue. I pulled out some large needles and was off to the races!

Because I had 220 yards of the Cascade and maybe 100 yards of the WotA, I cast on with just the purple and worked maybe a dozen rows in stockinette, keeping the five stitches on each end in garter. Then I joined the cast-on edge to the live stitches to create a little channel/tube for a dowel to go through. I then joined in the blue and held both strands together for the rest of the piece, working straight for a bit and then decreasing every right-side row at each end to form the point. Here's what it looked like right after I finished (in the late afternoon on Sunday, hence the bad lighting):

The white you see poking out at the ends is a strip of a piece of rag that I put through the channel to keep the sides from felting together.

We got this thing good and wet (along with our collection of dryer balls, which were starting to fall apart a bit) and then ran them through several cycles in the dryer. (As an aside, I can tell you that my dryer is plenty good at felting, and I haven't even bothered trying to felt in my front-loader since I discovered I could do it in the dryer.) After about three short cycles, we ended up with this:

It's not quite that glaringly bright, but again, winter light. It's now done except for getting a dowel to run through the top and some pretty ribbon (or yarn?) to tie it up. While it's smaller than it was before felting, it's probably a bit larger than it needed to be, but I'd say it's not bad for having improvised the whole thing. Overall, I used a bit more than 220 yards of yarn from my stash, and knitting with size 10 and 10.5 needles was a fun change from my usual 0's!

Combo Spin? Nearly Spun

Spinning up 12 oz. of fiber into three-ply fingering weight yarn seems a like it will take a lot of time at the outset. In practice, I've found that if I just sit down and do the spinning, it's really not that bad. I'm not quite done, but I'm getting really close.

I finished up the second bobbin on Friday night.

It's fitting that the first and second bobbins both ended with this same pinky purple, as it's the one color that's common to all three braids I split up for this project and that I think ties the three colorways together.

The third bobbin is well under way, I'd estimate about a third of the way done at this point.

My hope is to finish the singles by midweek so I can ply toward the end of it and have a second (and final) finished skein by the weekend. As excited as I am by the prospect of having my combo spin, I'll admit I'm equally excited by the prospect of spinning something new (and perhaps a bit thicker)! Don't get me wrong, these three braids of fiber from Gale's Art have been a dream to spin, but my fingers are itching for something a little different. And I certainly have plenty of fiber in the stash waiting to be spun!

On Finishing and Not

Have I mentioned recently how much I hate January? I think I have. One of the things about it that displeases me is that it seems to move at a snail's pace. At least we only have a week left!

In the past week or so, I've been focused on finishing up some WIPs. My first finished pair of socks for the year were completed over the long weekend, and I couldn't be happier with them.

Pattern: My regular stockinette recipe, worked over 68 stitches
Yarn: Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce in Dyer's Favorites 2018, with coordinating speckled mini skein for contrasting heels and toes
Needles: US 0/2.0 mm Addi Sock Rockets, magic loop
Started/Completed: December 22, 2018/January 20, 2019

There's not much to say about these socks; I let the yarn do all the work. They did do a lot of traveling, though: They were cast on in the car on the way to the airport to catch our flight down to Florida, got a bit of action while we were away, and then went to see Hamilton with me. The colors in the stripes are wonderful, and this photo doesn't do them justice (this terrible winter light is another reason to hate January!). I haven't worn these yet, but they'll be going into regular rotation soon.

Next, I finished up what I thought was going to be a charity hat:

Pattern: Alder by Faye Kennington
Yarn: Knit Picks Swish Worsted (100% superwash merino) in Peapod and Squirrel Heather, less than one skein each
Needles: US 4/3.5 mm for the brim and US 5/3.75 mm for the body and crown
Started/Completed: January 15/January 21

If you can already tell from the eerie glow of the green yarn in the above picture, I've edited the photo so that you can see the colorwork. In real life, the contrast is much more subtle, to the point that from far away it's probably close to impossible to tell that there's a colorwork pattern in the hat. While in the end I didn't make any modifications to the pattern, I very nearly had an unintentional mod. As I was finishing up the last round of the crown, I looked at the colorwork and thought, "Hmm, that doesn't look right." Then I reread the pattern and realized I'd totally misread one key instruction. So I had to rip back and redo it all, which fortunately took only an evening. Fresh off the needles, it seemed a little shallow, but a good blocking evened out the stranded work and gave the hat a little more depth. I originally intended this hat to be for me but quickly changed that when I saw the lack of strong contrast between the colors, so I figured it would be added to the charity pile. But then Rainbow got her hands on it and declared that it was hers, so I guess now it is. She wore it to school today (though she's informed me that it still need a pompom).

While I work to finish up other WIPs, I have been reading as much as possible. I was in the middle of a book when I got an e-mail that a hold had come up at the library, so I rushed to finish that and get started on The Overstory, which I have been reading all this week and thoroughly enjoying. It's a great book with beautiful writing, but at 500+ pages, it's not exactly a quick read. This morning when I checked my e-mail over breakfast, I found that my hold on Where the Crawdads Sing has come up, so now I'm in that annoying situation where I have more to read than time to read it. Here's hoping I don't get a third book off my holds list or I'll have to take a day off from work just to get caught up!

Pattern Release: Elodia Mitts

I realize the great irony that is publishing a pattern for fingerless mitts when it's so cold outside that frostbite can happen very quickly, but nevertheless, here it is!

It's amazing how little changes can make such a big difference: I originally used this stitch pattern in a sock design. When that was released, I heard nothing but crickets. Perhaps the yarn I used wasn't ideal for showing off the lace; perhaps there were more popular patterns released at the same time that were grabbing all the attention. Whatever it was, the socks have never sold well or gotten much love, but I still love the stitch pattern. I thought it might make sense to use it again on an item that would be more visible, and you can imagine my surprise at how popular my teaser photos were on Instagram. (My tech editor joked that perhaps the socks might've sold better if I'd modeled them on my hands!) I like to think that this gorgeous yarn has something to do with it. This is Murky Depths Deep Sock in a colorway called Salted Caramel -- a colorway that can look so different depending on the light. It had an almost greenish tint when we took the photo above in the dining room, but it's more of a caramel brown in our bedroom:

See? I think it's a bit magic.

These mitts come in three hand sizes, roughly a woman's small, medium, and large. You'll need 170 yards/155.5 meters or less (depending on the size you make) of fingering weight yarn, plus three stitch markers, a yarn needle, and a bit of waste yarn. The lace pattern is both written and charted, and the whole thing has been tech edited. You can find all the details over on the pattern page on Ravelry.

Eventually I'm planning a hat to match the mitts (that will likely be the next new project on the needles), but for now you can get this pattern on its own:

Comfort Spinning

I was promised a snowstorm this weekend, and I made plans to pretty much hibernate indoors while it lasted. What was forecast, however, didn't quite end up happening. We got a ton of rain yesterday afternoon and then evening, and then overnight the temperature dropped and it turned to snow. We woke up to cold and messy roads. Unfortunately we had to go out in it to do our weekly grocery shopping, but we've been staying inside since then.

My spinning wheels are set up in the corner of our bedroom that's right next to our radiator, so between that, wool socks, and a thick sweater, I've been staying nice and toasty. And I'm making good progress on the second skein of my combo spin!

I finished up the first bobbin earlier this week:

And over the past couple of days, I've made it about halfway through the second:

This evening I've got some knitting to do, but I have another day off tomorrow and plan to spend at least part of it at the wheel!

Three on Thursday

It has been a long week that seems to be dragging by, and I'm very much looking forward to the long weekend (all of us are off on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day).

I've continued to spend a little time here and a little time there on my WIPs. My socks are moving right along, thanks to some bonus daytime knitting. I usually only work on them during my lunch break, but thanks to a webinar and a conference call this week, I was able to sneak in some extra time (my door is closed and I'm paying attention, and no one is the wiser).

I also have a new WIP, a hat I cast on Tuesday night with the hopes of replacing the brioche hat I've been wearing this winter. It's a hat I like but that has turned out to not be too warm when it's been really cold here, so I decided something with stranded colorwork would be a better option. I am knitting my friend Fay (aka UkeeKnits)'s Alder pattern using two skeins of Knit Picks Swish Worsted, one skein leftover from the Mister's sweater and one that I ordered for making charity hats.

The photo isn't great (thanks, gloomy weather!), but I think it's good enough to see that the contrast isn't great. If I finish and I'm not wild about it, then this'll go in the charity pile and I'll knit something else for me.

My third WIP of the week (if you can call it that) has been my reading. Toward the beginning of the week, I finished up The Ragged Edge of Night, which I'd bought on a whim thanks to an Amazon recommendation. I actually really enjoyed it. It's a World War II story from a perspective I haven't read very often, that of a German citizen who opposes Hitler. While the writing is beautiful, I thought the story was a little far-fetched until I read the author's note at the end and found out that it is largely a true story. I ended up giving the book five stars.

Now I've moved onto some more difficult, thoughtful reading, in the form of Michael Eric Dyson's What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America. I saw that Kat had recommended it in the wake about the discussion of racism within the fiber arts community, and my library hold on it came up surprisingly quickly. I'm hoping to finish it later today, though I expect it will take me longer to fully digest what I've read. I'll admit that there are many sections in this book where I haven't felt smart enough to fully understand what Dyson is saying, but I feel like I've expanded my understanding and gain some much-needed perspective.

We're expecting a big winter storm to hit us this weekend, so I plan to curl up with my reading, my knitting, and my spinning and relax. If you're in the storm's path as well, stay warm and stay safe!

WIP Skipping

While crafting mojo is high these days, project monogamy is not. I've been skipping from one WIP to another lately -- not so much because I'm bored but because I like the variety.

Over the weekend, it was all about small circumference knitting. First, because there was such a great response to the first one on Instagram, I knit up my second fingerless mitt to finish the pair.

Obviously they are not yet blocked, but that will happen this evening, and then a proper photo shoot (in real daylight) needs to happen. These are my own design and are already with my tech editor, who has promised to get the pattern back to me ASAP as she wants to knit a pair herself! I don't think I mentioned when I discussed my intentions for the year that my goal for my designing was to reach 100 published patterns by year's end. I'm currently at 87, so that means 13 new designs or roughly one a month. If the timing works out, these mitts will be my release for January.

On Saturday, we had the great luck/good fortune to be able to go see a performance of Hamilton here in Pittsburgh. As excited as I was to see the show, I know that I am not able to sit through anything without something to do with my hands (without knitting, that inevitably means I end up biting my nails), so I took a sock in progress with me. This sock is the one I started on the way to Florida back at the end of December; I hadn't touched it since finishing the gusset decreases on the flight home more than a week ago. It turned out to be the perfect project to bring along, and by the end of the show, I was only half an inch shy of being able to start the toe. I finished up the rest of it during my lunch break yesterday (so please excuse the industrial carpet backdrop):

The yarn is Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce in the colorway Dyer's Favorites 2018; the stripes are the colors Lisa used most often in her dyeing last year. The skein came with a mini skein of white with speckles of the same colors used in the stripes, and I opted to use it for the heel and toe. The second sock was cast on this morning.

Finally, I'm still slogging away at my Floozy, and I've come to accept that it's just going to be a long-term WIP that will get finished someday. While the knitting right now isn't terribly exciting, it is easy and mindless, so I put in a few (long) rows last night while reading.

I've still got quite a long way to go on the body, but that's okay. It will get done when it gets done, even if it's the middle of the summer.

Spinning Thoughts

For once this post isn't about my thoughts about my spinning; rather it's about the thoughts that have been spinning through my head the past few days.

I know we like to think of the fiber arts community as one in which everyone is kind, helpful, and accepting. Sadly, as many of us have discovered in the past week, that is not the case. Just as it does everywhere, racism exists in the fiber arts community. Many BIPOC who are fiber artists have spoken out in the past week about their experiences and have called out racism where they have seen it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I suggest you start by googling "Karen Templer India blog post" and see what comes up. There's a lot to read and a lot to take in.

I've been thinking about how to respond, if at all, to this discussion and to the larger issue. On the one hand, I am a white woman, with all the privilege that entails, and in a general way, I am part of the problem. It doesn't feel like my place to say anything because it's not my story to tell. On the other hand, I also feel like it is my duty to use the privilege I do have to raise up and amplify the voices of those who don't have it and who are hurt by racism, intentional or not.

What it comes down to for me is this: I want to live in a world where everyone is respected for their inherent value, regardless of what they look like, where they come from, who they love, or what they believe. And part of respecting people is believing them when they say they feel victimized, discriminated against, or upset. It is not my job to lead or steer the conversation; my job is to listen, to take the words to heart, to learn, and to grow. I didn't earn the privilege I have, but if I do have it, at least I can use it to help those who struggle to get their voices heard, who are taken for granted, who are misjudged and mistreated.

I don't pretend to know everything there is to know about this situation or that I am without fault. I'm sure I have unfairly judged people based on some aspect of who they are, whether that is their skin color, how they speak, or even what yarn they use. I am constantly working on myself and trying to be a better ally and advocate. So please do call me out if I do or say someone that is offensive. Please do tell me what I can do to make our community more inclusive for all. Please do suggest books or articles or blog posts I can read to continue to educate myself. And please do continue to share your experiences if you've been a victim of racism in our community. We can only change if we are honest and open and if we are actively seeking the change. And I truly hope we will be.

Knitting Season

I woke up this morning to a cold, snowy day. Though earlier in the week we had unseasonably warm weather and, if you can believe it, thunderstorms, it seems nature has remembered that it's January and returned us to winter. My skin has remembered as well, so I'm back to slathering on the lotion multiple times a day after getting a brief reprieve thanks to the humidity in Florida. (As an aside, I was complaining the other night about how dry my skin was, and the Mister asked me if there was a pill I could take to fix that. If only!)

While I don't enjoy feeling cold, dry, and itchy all the time, this weather is very good for my knitting mojo! I'm really not content to just wear my handknits during the winter; I also want to have a lap full of wool whenever possible. And I've been working on my WIPs and casting on new projects as a result.

I'm closing in on a finished mitt thanks to my lunchtime knitting at work this week, and I'm very pleased with how it's turning out.

I cast on a new project on Tuesday night that unfortunately I can't show you (it's a new design for a third-party publisher, so it has to stay secret until it's been released), but it's moving along rather quickly, too.

Then there is the sock in progress that got a good amount of attention on the flight home last weekend but hasn't been touched since. It will get a fair amount added to the foot this weekend, though, because we are going to see Hamilton!

Some of the knitting this week has happened while reading, and as a result, I managed to finish Warlight last night. I'm still processing my feelings about it, but for now I'll say that while I thought it was good, it was nowhere near as good as I expected it to be. So it's back to Michelle Obama's Becoming for my bedtime reading and a new book, The Ragged Edge of Night, for when I'm out and about.

Back to Work

I am back to work in my full-time job and back to work at designing. Though I took two skeins of yarn meant for future designs on vacation with me, I never did anything with them beyond unpacking and then repacking them. So on Sunday night, I finally pulled one of the skeins out and cast on for the next pattern sample, and I've been working on it during my lunch break at the office the last two days.

This pattern is for a pair of fingerless mitts, and I've adapted a stitch pattern from a previous design. I'll be making a hat to match as well. The yarn is from Murky Depths Dyeworks, a new-to-me dyer. Debbie contacted me last year on Instagram to see if I would be interested in using her yarn to design with. I looked at her Etsy shop and fell in love with this colorway. It's called Salted Caramel and is much prettier in real life -- and pretty much impossible to capture accurately on camera. The above picture was taken in the middle of the day when it was sunny, but not in direct light. Here's what it looks like in full sun:

I'd describe it as a golden brown with greenish undertones. It's delicious, quite frankly, and I'm very pleased with how this sample is knitting up so far.

Before we left Florida, I did manage to finish the yoke of my Floozy cardigan and split off the sleeve stitches, so now I'm in the long slog of the body. I've spent at least a couple hours on it since the split and only have a little more than an inch or so of fabric to show for it, so I may have to designate this my 2019 Rhinebeck sweater to ensure it'll get done.

Though I haven't had much time for reading the past few days, I finally did get to the top of the wait list for Warlight at the library and am about 10% in. I'm not yet far enough along to evaluate the story itself, but the writing is lovely and I'm certainly enjoying it. I just hope I can squeeze in a few extra hours to read this week so I can get through it before the library snatches it back!

Hello, Old Friend

One of the good side effects of being away from home for two weeks is that it definitely reignites my spinning mojo. I have contemplated taking a spindle and fiber on more than one occasion, but I've never actually done it. So usually by the time we get back home I'm desperate to get back to my wheel. We got back in town yesterday afternoon, and once the things I had to do (unpack, clean the bathroom, start the laundry) were complete, I sat down at my Lendrum and got started on the second skein of my combo spin. I put in a little more time today, too. There's not much on the bobbin, but it feels good to be back in my happy place and under way.

My last finished skein of 2018 was left on the radiator in our bedroom to finish drying while we were away, and it was lovely to come home to a fluffy skein that I could finally look at in daylight (the photo I snapped of it the day we left town was taken before the sun was fully up and while it was still slightly damp). I'm quite pleased with this one.

While that neon-y green is really standing out, there are some truly beautiful muted shades in here. I think I've decided to knit it up into another brioche infinity cowl, as I have a friend who has been very vocal in her admiration of mine, and it would make a nice gift.

On our last night away, I did manage to finish up my first finished book of 2018: Beartown by Fredrik Bachman. This is third Bachman novel I've read, and it was unlike the previous two but still an excellent 5-star read. The writing (or perhaps I should say the translation) is wonderful, and the story is one that really makes you think. I will note that there is a rape in this story, so if that's a trigger for you, you may want to avoid this one.

Lingering WIPs

I know that the start of a new year is when many knitters take stock of their works in progress and determine whether to finish or frog them. It's rare for me to let a WIP linger too long, so I've started 2019 with only two projects on the needles. The first is the pair of socks I started on the way to the airport to catch our flight to Florida, so while they haven't gotten a ton of attention recently, they're still a relatively new WIP.

This is the special Dyer's Favorites 2018 colorway from Fibernymph Dye Works that Lisa sent me as a holiday gift. The seven colors that form the stripes are the colors she used most often in 2018, and I just love it. There's also a mini contrast skein (white with speckles of the seven colors) that I may use for the heel; I'm still deciding. I'm just knitting a basic stockinette sock with this yarn, so I know they'll be done before too long.

The other WIP is a bit older. It's my Floozy cardigan, which I started on the drive on the way to Rhinebeck back in October. I brought it with me to Florida because I had grand delusions about getting a ton of knitting done, but the reality is that it's fingering weight yarn on size 2/2.75 mm needles, so even with a lot of knitting time, it's not going to be a fast knit. But I have put in some time on it, and I'm hopeful that before we leave, I'll have finished all the yoke colorwork and separated the body and sleeve stitches.

Meanwhile, I have been reading what should be my first finished book of the year (I want to finish it before we leave, as it's my parents' book and I don't want to take it home). It's called Beartown, and it's by Fredrik Backman, the man who wrote A Man Called Ove. This one is about a down-on-its-luck hockey town, and so far I'm enjoying it, though perhaps not as much as the other two Backman books I've read. Still, it's enjoyable to be able to spend more time reading than I usually get, and if I finish before we leave on Saturday, I will have read four books in our two weeks away.

A Day of Intention

Happy new year! Though I didn't plan it to work out this way, it's a happy accident that the first day of the new year falls on a blog day. The start of a new year is a time when many people make resolutions; me, I find that resolutions are quickly broken, so I prefer to start off January with intentions for the new year, as it's always easier to move forward with intent and hope that you will accomplish something and not feel any guilt if you don't.

I have three main intentions for 2019. The first, as you will expect, is an intention to craft a lot over the coming year. I want to be more mindful about using up my stash and not buying more yarn or fiber just for the sake of buying it. With that in mind, I've hopped on the bandwagon of a creating a Make Nine grid for the coming year. These aren't necessarily the only things I'm planning to make in the next 12 months, but I certainly hope that they will be among my finished projects by this time next year.

From top to bottom, left to right:

• Little Boxy by Joji Locatelli: This will be for Rainbow, and I already bought the yarn for it: three skeins of Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce in Peacock Blue.
• Cailleach-Oidche by Liz Corke: This was a Giftalong pattern purchase, and I think it will look lovely in the two skeins of Dusty Tree Dyeworks Root that I purchased this past fall at Indie Knit & Spin.
• Tegna by Caitlin Hunter: This one has been planned for a while, and my first spinning order of business when we get home is to get started on the second skein of handspun to make it.
• Archer by Elizabeth Doherty: I've got three skeins of Stranded Dyeworks fingering weight already in the stash for this one.
• Cathedral Grove by Faye Kennington: I might make more than one of these, one for me and one (or more) for charity.
• Boxy by Joji Locatelli: I love my handspun Boxy so much that I'm planning another one (likely in a smaller size) in FDW Bounce.
• Coronal by Allison Janocha: This will be another charity knit. I really want to see how that crown is created!
• Darkwater by Jennifer Steingass: This was my first impulse purchase of the year, and I think that despite the fact that it's written for fingering weight, I might be able to make it work with the HipStrings Buoy DK I have (it's more a sport weight in my opinion anyway).
• Edinburgh by Kate Bostwick: This is the pattern my brother picked out when he asked me to knit him a sweater, and I conveniently already owned the pattern. I ordered yarn from Knit Picks on Cyber Monday and it's waiting patiently at home. 

I'm sure there are other patterns I've been wanting to make that I've forgotten, but as I said, this isn't an exhaustive list.

My second intention for 2019 is to read more. I really surprised myself by how much I read in 2018 (70 books -- even more impressive when you consider that my initial goal was only 25!). I've set my reading challenge on Goodreads for this year at 50 books, which seems reasonable without being too lofty. If I have the same pace as I did last year, I'm sure I'll exceed that, but reading time is tough to predict. (If you're also on Goodreads and would like to connect with me there, you can find my profile here.)

My third and final intention for 2019 is to continue to be good to myself. Last spring I made some pretty major changes in my diet and my habits to make a difference in my health; as a result, I'm starting this year weighing less, in better shape, and with significantly reduced cholesterol (which was the main objective). I feel better and stronger, and I want to continue to feel that way, so I intended to keep up the good habits I've started.

A phrase I've been thinking about and reading a lot today is "Start as you mean to go on." I think that's a good mantra in general and for the first day of a new year specifically. So this morning I took a long walk before brunch, I spent some time with an old WIP this afternoon, and later on I'll spend some time with a good book.

Here's to a healthy, happy, crafty 2019!