Author: Lorette

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!

Hitchhiker, redux

And it’s a finished thing!

Project Details:

  • Pattern: Hitchhiker, by Martina Behm. This is the third of these that I’ve knit, and not the last. It’s a perfect pattern for those sock yarns that wouldn’t necessarily knit up into good socks. This color would have been fine for socks, but it is 100% merino. I will knit plain merino socks, but it doesn’t wear as well as sock yarn that has some nylon in it. I have plenty of that in the stash, so I try to use the plain wool stuff for other things.
  • Yarn: Wollmeise Pure, 100% merino. The color is Flower Power. I love this yarn, her colors are bright, and the yardage is very generous (575 yards).
  • Needles: 3.25 mm. I used plastic straight needles from my precious plastic needle stash.
  • Started: November 4, 2019
  • Finished: August 12, 2020
  • Modifications: None.
  • Pattern/Yarn rating: ***** for both. I love this pattern. It is fun, great for wildly colored yarn, and doesn’t take much brain power. The Wollmeise is just perfect. I have a bunch more of this in the stash for those “little neck things” that I’m growing to love.

575 yards out of stash. I started keeping track of this about 18 months ago. In that time, I’ve gotten a total of 15,625 yards out of stash. Some of that was stuff that went to Goodwill or my knitting group, but the bulk of it has been knitted up. It sometimes seems like I don’t ever finish anything, but I guess I actually do.

Knit, knit, knit

I’m at THAT point in the sock. You know, the one where you try it on, it’s about an inch short of where you need to start the toe. You knit, knit, knit, try it on. It’s still an inch short of where I need to start the toe.

I am thoroughly enjoying my week off, staying at home. Don’t get me wrong, I love to travel, but hanging out with John, enjoying all the spaces and comforts we have at home has been great. It’s giving me a little taste of what retirement will be like.

Flat Ena is still visiting us. I don’t really remember when she is supposed to go home, but it’s not like we have to actually take her to the airport or anything. She has been the best visitor, quiet, doesn’t eat much, certainly doesn’t leave junk hanging around all over the house.

Today she got to go to the dentist with me.

This was a routine cleaning for me, which I scheduled six months ago. I thought about canceling it, but I have a history of bad teeth and dental problems, so keeping up is important. The dental practice that I go to is very on top of things, have adapted their clinic flow for the Covid-19 issues quite well. I’m glad I didn’t cancel, I felt very comfortable about being there. I have only been out of the house a couple of times (other than work) since March, so even going to the dentist was sort of an adventure.

Last but not least, a hint of things to come. I may have finished something.

Stay tuned!

Baycation!

I’m home on vacation this week. John’s sister Ena is supposed to be here this week, but the pandemic had other plans. I’ve had the vacation time blocked out for quite a while, and can’t turn it back in, so drat, I have to stay home. John and I find ourselves saying about every other day that this isn’t a bad place to be quarantined.

So that’s my plan up there. Reading, knitting, maybe a little spinning, and definitely some deck time. We’ve had a really cool and windy summer so far, but this week is supposed to be in the 80’s, so that works for me. If Ena was here she’d likely freeze to death. She lives in Georgia, and it has been getting down into the low 50’s here in the evening.

John’s son (who is a graphic designer) made a “flat Ena” so she could enjoy the vacation virtually. Here are a couple of photos.

She’s already had loads of fun!

That’s the sock in progress. I’m hoping to get more done on that today.

Last but not least, a friend gifted us with a big bowl of Gravenstein apples, so I am making this.

It is still in the oven, but it is starting to smell awfully good. We might just have that for supper tonight! And there will be plenty, since Ena doesn’t eat much!

Pine Needle Socks

I finally finished these this morning. I should get hazard pay for these. I had an eye doctor’s appointment this morning, so finished these with dilated eyes. John did casually ask if this was a good idea or not, but I ignored him. And there they are.

The yarn is Mountain Colors Weaver’s Wool Quarters. This makes nice winter weight socks. It is listed as worsted weight, but this knits up on size 2.75 mm sock needles at 7.5 stitches/inch. This particular wool is not superwash, so if you are thinking about buying, be aware of that. The company does have specific sock yarn that won’t felt in the washer as well.

These were started with 60 stitches, I used my usual generic white bread sock pattern.

And now I can knit some socks for me!

Goals

Now there is a broad topic! Specifically I’m referring to knitting goals. I keep saying that I’m the slowest knitter on the planet, which probably isn’t true, but I do tend to dither around a lot starting new projects and not finishing anything.

I finished Quill in somewhat record time, for me. What was different? I planned ahead, and had a target date. Duh. It shouldn’t surprise me that this actually is effective, I suppose, since it works in every other area of my life that requires some process getting to completion.

I have way too many projects going at the same time. So it’s time to whittle them down to a more manageable number. I’m going to work on these things, and just pretend that all the other ones don’t exist for now. In particular, I have five different lace projects going at once, which mostly means I don’t get anything done on any of them.

Here’s the plan, in categories:

Sock:

Those are for John. I have one foot left to do and those are done. I’d like to get these finished by the end of this week.

Mindless Knitting:

Hitchhiker, for me. That is about as mindless as it gets. I’m giving this a 2 week deadline.

Sweater:

I have the back and part of one front done. This isn’t mindless at all, so that’s a good thing. I’m giving myself a deadline of September 1st on this. I have a warm woolly sweater in progress as well, and I’d like to get started on that before it gets cold around here.

Lace: No photo, since this one is a surprise project. It needs to be done by the end of October.

Bonus Project:

This has no deadline. This is the “potato chip” project. If I’m on track to get everything else done, I can do a square or two of this. I never thought I’d say this, but knitting sock yarn squares is a blast.

So let’s see how this works, eh? And remind me to not start any new projects until I have some of this stuff caught up. The exception is socks. I can start a new sock when I’ve finished a pair (two pair, actually, since I have another pair already started).

Today’s knitting

I’m plugging away at my Hudson Valley cardigan. That’s the left front on top of the back piece. As you can see, I still have some “work” to do.

John thinks it is pretty amusing that I refer to knitting as “work”. Knitting is rather a worthy activity however. Perhaps it’s not as necessary as cleaning up the kitchen, or reading medical texts so I know what the hell I’m talking about at my job, but I do provide clothing and accessories for us to wear, even if it is at a glacially slow pace. If I sense that he’s getting annoyed that I’m knitting away whilst he is doing the dishes, I just pull out the sock I’m knitting for him and work on that instead. “Oh look! Here’s the sock I’m knitting for YOU!” It works sometimes.

Here is that sock.

That’s the second of the pair, so I don’t have much “work” to do to finish it.

And here is a close up of the lace on that cardigan.

The latest baby surprise project is in time out. The big center garter stitch piece is on a 16 inch circular needle until it gets bigger. Despite the fact that I’ve collected dozens and dozens of knitting needles over the years, I could only find ONE circular 16 inch needle in the proper size in my stash.

I don’t even know what brand those are, but it’s a 16 inch bamboo needle. I really am not a fan of bamboo knitting needles anyway, and this one has that damned little plastic bump at the join that is a major pain in the ass. So I have a replacement on the way, and this is in time out until it gets here.

The replacement needles on order are Lykke brand knitting needles. They are made of birch, and have perfect points, and nothing annoying at the join to slow down the knitting. I have a bunch of these in the longer circulars as well. I don’t use the shorter circulars very often, but they do come in handy for certain projects. Here’s what the Lykkes look like.

Sorry, you don’t get any better photo of that. I think we had our one day of summer sun yesterday. We’re back to overcast and barely 70 degrees today.

Oh wait, let’s try that again.

That’s better. I love these needles. I have a set of the straight needles also. I know, I know. I’m probably the last person left on earth that loves and uses straight needles.

Back to “work”.

Quill

As promised, a finished project!

Project Details:

  • Pattern: Quill, by Jared Flood
  • Yarn: Acme Fibres Select 17 Merino Fingering
  • Needle: 3.25 mm
  • Started: February 1, 2020
  • Finished: July 4, 2020
  • For: Baby Shah (and his parents Steph and Paraj)
  • Modifications: I did the lace edging with a stockinette background instead of garter. This was a mistake that I didn’t notice until I had several edging repeats done, and I wasn’t about to rip that back. This is the large size, it took a little over 5 skeins of the yarn, just about spot on to the pattern yardage.

This is the second one of these I’ve knit. The pattern is well written, very simple to follow, and would be suitable for a novice knitter. Nicely formatted, it uses knit, purl, basic increases and decreases, picking up stitches along the edge, and doing a knitted on edging. It’s perfect for a baby blanket, but works as a shawl as well. I might make one of these for me someday to wear as a shawl.

This yarn is divine. It is from Acme Fibres, they primarily sell undyed fiber and yarn. This is their Select 17 merino, which is a very fine, lightweight fingering yarn. It is superwash but very soft and lovely.

Project Rating: ***** for both the pattern and the yarn.

Back in business!

After a lot of gnashing of teeth, I finally got this mess fixed. And I take back any disparaging remarks I may have made about my host server.

It ended up being a boat load of malware selling a variety of pharmaceuticals. At some point it loaded so much crap that the Bluehost tech whiz found two dozen processes running in the background. No wonder it finally just quit.

So I think I’ve got all the old posts. I need to sort out whether all the photos were reattached to the appropriate post. I think I still have some work to do on that.

So how about some knitting, since this is a knitting blog? I finished the last lace baby surprise thing, it just needs blocking. No photos of that, then. I started another lace baby surprise thing.

It’s hard to tell from that photo due to the background color, but that’s a cream merino. This is from Acme Fibres. I have a ton of their undyed yarn in the stash.

That’s all I have. Fingers crossed that this uploads!

Ye of little faith

I finally quit procrastinating and called my blog hosting service earlier this week to try to fix the blog. After close to an hour on the phone with a nice tech geek, he said that he’d have to escalate it up the ladder. I figured that was a euphemism for “I don’t know how the hell you screwed this up, but I can’t fix it”. He said to give it 48 hours or so.

I logged in today, and it is back to working. I had to do some tinkering, but if you see this, I’m back in business.

I have been knitting. I finished a sock for John this morning.

There you go. I’m off to get supper ready.

It’s time for summer knitting

I’m still mostly working on that mystery project which I can’t show you.

OK, here’s one tiny photo.

There is a deadline on this, which is a ways off, but I’m not dumb enough to say anything like “I have plenty of time”.

I dragged out an old project that has been marinating long enough.

This is my Hudson Valley cardigan, which got shoved into time out when last summer turned to fall and winter. I have the back nearly done. I’m hoping to get that finished so I can wear it this summer.

By the way, I hate my blog. Nobody will likely be able to read this post. I have no idea what’s going on, but I’ve spent countless hours trying to fix it. We’ll see if this posts. If not, I may abandon the whole damn thing and move to a different blog platform.

Bandwidth

Like most of you, I have a lot of time on my hands when I’m not actually at work. Like most of you (I suspect), I don’t have a lot of brain bandwidth for anything particularly complicated or challenging. I don’t want anything that will take up too much space in my brain, and I definitely don’t want projects that will require too much intellectual capacity.

So I finished the last book I was reading (The Master Butchers Singing Club, by Louise Erdrich–great book), and was rummaging around for a new fiction read.

I came up with this.

Right. That set has been on my book shelves for years, and I will eventually get around to reading it. But not now. I read a bit of the first volume, and put it quietly back on the shelf, then had a good laugh.

I chose the first of a new to me crime series, Michael Connelly’s The Black Echo. It’s perfect. Somewhat mindless, but not too much so. There is a murder within the first few pages, then the story spools out until I suppose Harry Bosch figures out who killed the guy. There are dozens more in the series, so I can just keep reading when I’m done.

I also don’t have much bandwidth for complex knitting. The lace has been neglected for weeks. Here are the current projects.

Two socks, both plain vanilla stocking stitch, a garter stitch Hitchhiker, and a garter stitch mitered square blanket. And a peek at the mystery white project, also currently in a garter stitch mode.

That should do it.

What’s new?

Here is my new sock.

The yarn is from deep stash. It’s from Three Irish Girls, when I was a member of the Sock Yarnista sock club.

Here is the ball band for reference. I have a crazy cat that steals ball bands and carries them all over the house. If you can’t read that, this is McClellan fingering, a merino, bamboo, and nylon blend. It doesn’t look like they carry this particular blend any longer. The color is Waterlilies, I think it looks like Easter egg candy.

Who, me??

The other new thing is at work. I have been working in the clinic seeing outpatients for the past few years. With the coronavirus outbreak, our local hospital and my medical group have been trying to plan ahead for the surge. So today I completed the last of the paperwork I need to do to obtain privileges to practice at the hospital. I surely hope I don’t need to do that, but if it gets as busy as expected, we’ll be ready.

I’m pretty proud of the company I work for, by the way. I was at my desk one day earlier this week, and kept hearing one of the medical assistants on the phone, having what sounded like the same conversation over and over with patients. It turns out that KPWA (Kaiser Permanente Washington) started a process for our nursing staff to methodically call all of our higher risk patients. They ask about who they have as a back up person if they need it, whether they have an adequate supply of meds on hand (if not, they order them right then for mail delivery), and whether they have adequate food on hand and if there is someone available to assist with that. They also ask about their mental health, ask how they are holding up with all of this. They connect them with our clinic social worker and community resource person if they need it.

The other thing that I’m proud of is the dedication of my colleagues. We have a hospitalist team that is part of our group, and they will of course keep doing the tough work that they already do. But when the call went out for volunteers to help out with the “surge”, there were so many more that answered that we will have a full team in place to step in, and a backup team on top of that. We all tend to bitch and moan about work and everything that pisses us off, but KP has had a formal disaster plan in place since COVID hit the US. Of course, there are always going to be parts of this out of our control, but I feel about as secure as I could in this situation.

Stay well, and knit on!