My name is Lorette. I learned to knit in 1999, and took up spinning in 2009. I'm a physician specializing in internal medicine, and live in the Pacific Northwest. Enjoy my blog!
I started and finished a quick project this past week. After my spinning post recently, I rummaged around in the handspun yarn box and found this yarn:
I spun that ages ago. It is Targhee wool, the fiber was purchased from Spunky Eclectic. I think I spun it on my Schacht Matchless wheel. It’s a 2-ply, about Aran weight.
Someone decided he needed a hat. I found a pattern for a simple hat, but soon abandoned the pattern and just knit, trying it on the model as I did.
And the finished hat:
Yarn details are above.
I cast on 104 stitches, did 2 by 2 rib until it was “deep enough”, then knit plain stocking stitch until it was “tall enough”, then decreased around until I had 8 stitches left, pulled the yarn tail through, and it’s a hat. He wanted a “skull cap” kind of hat, and that’s what he got.
What I learned: Knitting hats doesn’t have to be complicated. And they are small enough that if you guess wrong on gauge or number of stitches, just rip it out and start over. Also, I don’t knit with my own handspun enough. This took about 300 yards of yarn, I have lots left.
As promised, a finished project post. It came off the blocking board today.
Project Details:
Pattern: Larch, which is a free pattern available on Ravelry. I’ve renamed it Vinum Mendacium.
Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy, color In Vinum Veritas
Needle: 3.25 mm
Started: February 27th 2020
Finished: January 5, 2021
For: ??
Modifications: None
Project/Yarn Rating: 5/5 (of 5). The pattern is very simple, I was initially annoyed by the non-paired decreases (instead of using SSK on one side and K2Tog on the other, it just uses K2Tog throughout), but it doesn’t look like it makes any difference in the finished shawl. The yarn is very soft and squishy. It is superwash, and not available any longer, except in my stash, where there lives several different colors of this.
What I Learned: I actually can finish things if I just sit down and do them instead of starting whatever catches my fancy. The dates would indicate that this took forever, but I started it, knit a few inches, then it hid in a bag until late December.
Well this has just been a hell of a week, hasn’t it? I’m not rehashing it here, you’ve all likely been stuck to the news as I have, and if you’ve been following me for more than a minute, you know my political leanings well. All I can say is that I’m blaming the flaming migraine I had for two days this week on trump.
So I’ve been looking for ways to calm my anxiety. Not getting sucked into social media helps. Meditation helps. Knitting definitely helps. Oddly, one of the books I’m reading is Nixonland, by Rick Perlstein, and that helps, as did reading Bagman, by Rachel Maddow. This insanity didn’t just start in the past year, or even the last century, which is weirdly reassuring.
And spinning! I haven’t used my wheel or my spindles much in the past year, who knows why. I suppose it’s related to too little free time and too many shiny knitting (and other) things that capture my attention. But I’ve dusted off the Watson wheel and started spinning. And my lovely little spindle collection has seen some use this past couple of weeks.
I was internet browsing late last night (insomnia is bad for the credit card balance!). I had a couple of shopping carts worth of spinning fiber loaded up, when the little angel on my right shoulder yelled loudly that I should check what’s in the fiber closet before I hit “pay now”. I’m glad I did. After a brief inventory today, I found FIVE of those big plastic tote boxes stuffed full of lovely spinning fiber. I have a huge yarn 401K saved up for retirement, and apparently I have enough spinning fiber to last several years as well.
Here is one of my favorite little spindles with some yarn-making in progress.
I’m not sure what the fiber is, or where I bought it, but it really is that eye-searingly pinky-orange. It feels like Polwarth or perhaps Targhee, it spins easily, and is nice and bouncy.
The spindle is a Golding Ringspindle, it is tiny, with a 2 inch whorl. I can’t fathom why these have been idle for so long.
In other news, I finished a little shawl. It’s still drying, so I’ll save it for another day, but it’s a good feeling to have a finished project for the new year.
Last but not least, I got my second Covid vaccine this morning. Hallelujah is all I can say. The next group to be vaccinated is the 70 and older, which means John will be vaccinated in the next few weeks. I’ve lived in utter terror this past year that I would bring it home to him. Most of my medical colleagues aren’t as much afraid of getting this as we are afraid of bringing it home to our loved ones.
Keep calm, and “Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crises”*
What I learned: I can indeed finish something in a timely fashion if I practice project monogamy.
Project/Yarn Rating: Very easy pattern, can be easily modified for size. I was surprised at how nice this yarn is. I bought it at WEBS on sale, the main criteria was that it needed to be washable, and it needed to be blue. I have enough left for a small project. It is the perfect Carolina Blue, so my Tarheel husband may get a hat out of this.
I finished a gift project yesterday, so it’s on to something else that’s been in time out. I’ll show the gift thing once it’s dry and gifted. This is the something else:
That is Larch, which is one of those little neck things that I love to knit and wear. The yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy. The color name is In Vino Veritas*, which I’m sure is why I bought it way back when. I’m not sure I mentioned this on the blog, but I quit drinking earlier this year, in January. I suppose that if I had known what 2020 was going to look like, I’d have reconsidered that, but I’m glad I did. In that light, Vinum mendacium* seems like a more appropriate project name. I will say that I don’t seem to have as many totally ridiculous knitting screwups since ditching the wine and vodka. But that does look like a lovely cabernet in that photo. Or perhaps like I spilled a whole glass of wine on my knitting.
I really didn’t intend to disappear for a month. Like everyone else on the planet, it has been a crazy town couple of months. Work is nuts, but at least I have work. I’ve had zero social life, but at least I have a great place to live, and lots of online friends to commiserate with. And I don’t live alone, I have a terrific husband who has helped to keep me from losing my mind.
Modifications: None, other than the occasional screwup.
Project Rating: ***** for both pattern and yarn. Acme primarily sells undyed yarn, but the cream works beautifully for baby things.
One last photo, since I don’t finish something (or post) every day.
The pattern is easy to follow, no glitches that I ran across. While this isn’t a beginner project, if you have some experience with lace, it is a pretty easy pattern. The whole center is just garter stitch, and the lace edging is a simple repetitive lace pattern. The only part that challenged my brain a bit was the short row corners on the edging.
The knitting on this one is finally done. I just need to graft that corner together, block and it is done. Which is a very good thing, since the baby this is for was born in the wee hours of this morning.
I finally rounded the third corner on my deadline-knitting-baby-blanket. My husband just came up with the best explanation of short rows ever.
The body of this is a big square, knit out from the center. When you finish that, you turn the thing on it’s side and knit the edging back and forth all the way around. The corners are mitered so it ends up flat when you are done. There are various ways to do that, this pattern uses short rows to add more fabric at the corners.
I laid this out and was explaining this to John. He got up off the couch, and with an “ah-ha” look, said (and mimed) “it’s like you are at the inside corner of a marching band turning a 90 degree corner”.
I finished these earlier today. The yarn is Three Irish Girls McClellan fingering, which is a wool/bamboo blend. It’s my usual basic sock recipe, knit on 2 mm needles.
Next up is more WYS (West Yorkshire Spinners) socks. I have a bunch of this yarn already stashed away, but saw this recently and couldn’t say no.
Aren’t those pretty fall colors? The yarn name is what got me, though. It’s Hope, as in, I Hope the pandemic settles down soon. And, I Hope (HOPE!) that next week’s election results in a landslide win for the Biden/Harris team.
First of all, thank you all for the sweet condolences on our loss of Lewey. A million things every day remind us of him, but in a lovely, happy way. We don’t know yet if there will be another pup in our future, it is just too early to decide that.
So here’s what’s new in the Knitting Doctor world.
I joined TKGA (the Knitting Guild of America) last week sort of on a whim. I’ve been curious about their Master Handknitting certification program for a long time, but figured I needed a block of time free to do all the work for that. My friend Dorothy completed this earlier this year, and it inspired me to look at this a little more seriously.
I am retiring as of February 1st next year, just a little over 3 months from now. I turn 65 next fall, and was planning on a late spring retirement, but moved it up recently for all sorts of reasons. So now I’ll have that big block of time, with no further excuses!
I decided to start smaller. TKGA has a number of terrific looking “correspondence courses” that are much less involved that the full certification process, the one I have signed up for is Basics, Basics, Basics. It is just what it sounds like. I have the first lesson in hand, as well as the yarn, and will get organized and start working on this in the coming months. After reading through the materials, as well as a bunch of things on their website, I’m already starting to look at my knitting more critically, which is the whole point. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to have my biggest hurdles with even tension and finishing techniques.
In the meantime, I have a baby blanket to finish.
The lace edge is knitted on around the garter stitch square, I’ve finished half of it. It’s a bazillion repeats, with short row sections around the corners, which is something new for me. I have been under the misinformation that the baby is due about a month before it really is, so I have a bit of a grace period. This should be a rule for family babies. Just tell me it’s due the first of November when it really isn’t, and I might finish the project before the kid gets his driver’s license.
That’s all I have. I hope your new week starts out well. I’ll leave you all with one last Lewey photo.
Our sweet boy Lewey left us earlier this week. He was a few months away from being 14, so while it wasn’t exactly a surprise, it has been a tough week. He was such a sweet, funny boy. That photo is fairly recent, here are some older memories.
And that’s all I have to say about that. It’s still pretty sad around here without him.
I’m going to try to be better about posting, I’m blaming my lack of motivation on the mess that is 2020.
It is that time of year again, when the patio tomatoes start to get ripe. We have a bumper crop; that is just some of them in that photo. We’ve been putting tomatoes in everything we eat, but it was time to face the fact that we aren’t going to eat all of those before they go bad. Not to mention the trays full that are still on the vines.
Today is roast tomato day. The larger ones will go into tomato sauce for the freezer, but a lot of these are getting roasted.
Those are the smaller and medium sized tomatoes, cut in half or quarters. I tossed them with olive oil and salt and pepper, then put fresh thyme on top and stuck them in the oven on low heat (300 on my oven, which tends to run cool). They’ll sit in there until they are collapsed and look like sun dried tomatoes.
These will go in stews and soups and such, much of the fall. I’m going to freeze some, though I’ve not done that before and don’t know how well they’ll keep that way.
The bigger ones will live for another day. I plan on making a rustic tomato sauce/purée which definitely WILL go into the freezer for fall and winter meals.
And supper will be this tonight.
That is a tomato tart with pesto and ricotta. That very one up there was dinner last week, it was so good that we’re making it again. It couldn’t be easier. Here is the recipe, it is from NY Times Cooking. This tastes sort of like the world’s best pizza, if you were asked to make pizza and didn’t know it wasn’t supposed to be made with a puff pastry crust. It is divine, and relatively healthy.*
Enough about tomatoes. I’m going to find a comfy spot to read and knit for the afternoon. It would be a gorgeous summer day if it weren’t for all the smoke from the fires out there. I stepped outside once this morning when the mail came, and almost couldn’t breathe. The fires in Washington have been awful, though nothing serious has come “we-gotta-get-out-of-here” close yet. And the wind has died down, which should help with fire control a lot. Stay safe if the fires are close to where you are.
*Relatively, considering it starts with puff pastry that likely has a bazillion pounds of butter in it.
I am reading Mariana, by Monica Dickens. This was republished a few years ago by Persephone Books. If you haven’t discovered Persephone, you should. It’s a London bookshop that specializes in republishing books by relatively unknown women authors from the 20th century. So far they have published 137 books. I have several on my bookshelves, and every so often treat myself to a new bunch of half a dozen or so.
I have a stack of these I haven’t read yet, so pulled this one off the shelf.
This is a delightful book, and after I read a bit, I went back and read the introduction. Monica Dickens turns out to be the great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens. Her writing style is quite different than his, but equally enjoyable.
One thing led to another, and I pulled Bleak House off the shelf and added it to my “currently reading” pile. I believe the last time I read any Dickens (Charles, that is) was in the late seventies. I was in my second year of medical school, and decided for some insane reason to take a night class in Victorian literature. I guess studying pathology and pharmacology until all hours of the night wasn’t enough of a challenge. Probably my favorite book I read for that class was Middlemarch, and I don’t recall which Dickens we read.
We’ll see how long this lasts in the paperback version. The print is tiny, and it’s a pretty cheaply bound volume, so the pages are starting to come out. I might end up finding a Kindle version if it gets to the point of holding it together with a rubber band.
The Persephone books all have that same pale grey cover, with lovely endpapers (including a matching bookmark) in every book.
…doesn’t necessarily stay in Bean Club. I’ve mentioned the Rancho Gordo bean club before. It’s a hot ticket item, and there is a perpetual waiting list to get a spot. With the pandemic, their regular store offerings also tend to sell out quickly. It’s a quarterly shipment of 6 pounds of beans (and occasional peas and lentils), along with fun stuff.
Of course you want to see it, right?
It also came with a jar of real Spanish paprika, and a fun gift:
It’s a bean passport! With stickers! And you guessed it, the Coronas are getting cooked today. Actually what’s cooking is a pound of Coronas from a prior shipment. These are huge runner beans, very creamy when cooked up. They are sort of perpetually sold out, but worth hoarding and eating.
Here’s what they look like compared to pintos.
I’m cooking those simply with some sliced onion, olive oil, and fresh herbs from the garden. I’m also cooking up a bunch of pintos to go into the refrigerator for later in the week.
I also buy a lot of beans from Purcell Mountain Farms. They have the Coronas in stock if you can’t wait!
RG also sends their branded tissue paper in the box with every shipment. Lewey isn’t sure about it, but he’s pretty cute in his tissue paper bandana!
Summer has finally arrived in the Pacific NW. It’s going to be close to 90 today, and warmer tomorrow. At least it will drop to the low 60’s at night. That’s a good thing, since we don’t have air conditioning.
I am making progress on my summer cardigan. Which is another good thing, since it is actually summer.
The back piece (on the bottom in that photo) is done, one of the front pieces is a few rows short of the armhole shaping. It’s mostly mindless except for that cable/lace border, which is pretty easy.
You might not be able to tell, but the edging on the front is an I-cord edge, which is pretty cool. I don’t think I’ve done one of these on a sweater before. It does pull in a bit, making a slight curve in the edge rather than being nice and straight. We’ll see if that blocks out. The yarn is mostly cotton with a bit of cashmere, so who knows. I can live with it either way.
