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!

Stealth knitting

This is all you’re going to get for the next couple of weeks. I’ve never been one of those organized knitters that start knitting Christmas gifts in January every year. I usually think about it around December 20th, therefore, no Christmas knitting ever gets done around here.

Last week I had the bright idea to knit a few things for a few people. Mind you, I picked some VERY SIMPLE things that I can practically knit in my sleep, more of a “stocking stuffer” type of gift.

Then I started thinking, well, I could do these for a few more people too! Pretty soon I was up to knitting about a dozen of these little Mystery Projects.

Right. I am insane.

Of course, though I had the yarn for a few of these Mystery Projects, I don’t have enough to knit all of them. This is despite the boxes and boxes and nearly half a million yards of yarn around here.

So I ordered more. It was supposed to be delivered Friday. I got a tracking notification from USPS that it was indeed delivered “at or near the mailbox”, whatever that means. I think it means it is “at or near” someone else’s mailbox, since I did not receive it. This makes the likelihood of me completing my Christmas knitting even more improbable than it already was.

This my friends, is why I don’t do Christmas knitting.

Please send whisky. I will surely need it.

Holiday cactus

I’m pretty sure my Christmas cacti are actually the Thanksgiving variety. They are in full bloom. Here’s one of them.

The other one used to be all light pink.

I think there has been a little hanky-panky going on after hours around here.

By the way, I’m still only getting about 1 out of 5 comments emailed to me. I try to check back to see if anyone has commented, but if I miss one and don’t reply, that’s why.

Three on Thursdays

  1. That blogging every day in November sort of fell apart in a big hurry, didn’t it? Mostly it’s because my work day leaves me brain dead for much of my outside of work hours. I’m “just” working three days a week, but they are long days, and require every brain cell I have to keep on top of everything.
  2. Which leads to work meetings. Who the hell plans a work department meeting that is scheduled to run over 5-6 hours? Any meeting that goes over an hour is just going to degenerate into a big bitch session, as far as I can tell. And since it’s my day off, if I went, it would be on my dime. Thankfully, I had something else already planned for this afternoon. Otherwise, there might be a good chance of me stabbing someone with a knitting needle.
  3. I don’t think I’ve even touched my knitting for the past three work days. See above. I plan to remedy that today.

My cable needle went missing over the weekend. I found it this morning.

I apparently stuck it there for safe keeping.

Things I need…

I was shopping for a 2020 monthly calendar for my bullet journal today. I use sort of a free form blank page insert for my daily lists of things to do and notes, but like having a monthly master calendar to keep track of the major events of the year. I could make my own, but buy a two page per month pre-made dated calendar from Traveler’s, since I’m lazy. I’ve bought them on Amazon in the past, but their price markup has skyrocketed for these for some reason.

So I found Paper Seahorse. I’ll warn you now, don’t go there if you have a weak resistance and a ready credit card.

I did find the monthly inserts, at about half Amazon’s price. And a few other planner goodies.

And these:

They are little “business cards“ that you can fill out and give to those special people. Fortunately (I think), they are not in stock, or I’d be very tempted.

Marathon knitting

It is just time to finish this one. I understand if you’ve forgotten the details, since it’s been on the needles since March of 2018. I’m down to one repeat of the second to last chart, and one repeat of the last chart, then I’m done. Of course that amounts to 72 rows, with increasing number of stitches each row, and at the end there are 693 stitches to bind off.

These last charts include a few rows with cables. Though I do know how to knit cables without a cable needle, I’m not a cocky enough knitter to attempt that trick in lace weight silk/merino. So those rows are a bit fidgety.

It does make some very pretty little cables, though.

The pattern name is Longest Night, I’ve been calling it Winter Solstice, and I want it done before the solstice gets here. I think that is doable if I exercise a bit of project monogamy.*

*Remind me of that if you see me casting on any new lace projects before you see this one done.

Tuesday

That’s all I can come up with today. I was back at work, feeling considerably more like a human, and actually got home at a reasonable hour given that I took yesterday off.

I took this photo at my desk this morning. I have a couple of orchids in my window. This one has been blooming for months. The other one dropped its flowers a month or so back, and is waiting for its next cycle.

Don’t ask me for any tips for how to grow them. With me it’s just dumb luck. I kill most plants, but for some reason can grow orchids. I mostly admire them, tell them how lovely they are, water them once a week, and give them some plant food when they’ve quit blooming. I think it helps that these are “grocery store” orchids, not the fancy hothouse kind, so they are bred so people can’t kill them.

Sick day

The creeping crud from yesterday was enough to keep me home today. I haven’t done anything all day except sleep and drink tea. I’m starting to feel a bit more human, so I should be able to go to work tomorrow. It isn’t anything serious, I’m just whiny and really hate being sick. It seems like such a waste of time. I have found that I don’t bounce back from being sick as well as I used to. I suppose it’s that aging thing. I realized a couple of weeks ago, to my dismay, that I am the oldest person working in my clinic. I’m twice as old as some of them, and three times as old as a few. Sigh.

I did start that new Hitchhiker yesterday during the Seahawks game.

Wollmeise Pure, 100% merino, color is Flower Power. I’ve quit trying to use straight merino to make socks, it doesn’t wear as well under foot.

And as you can see, I’m making a valiant effort to stay awake and do a little medical review. It makes me feel a little less like a slacker for staying home from work. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Hitchhiker, take two

That right there is a Finished Project. I finished this one on the plane ride home from Poland, I just haven’t gotten around to posting about it officially.

Project Notes:

Yarn: Wollmeise Pure, 100% fingering weight merino. Delightful to work with and to wear.

Needles: 3.25mm. I started on straights, but transferred it to a circular for travel.

Pattern: Hitchhiker, by Martina Behm. As of today, there are 31.7K projects on Ravelry using this pattern. It is the most commonly knit pattern! This is the second one of these I’ve made.

Modifications: None

What I learned/love about this: This is such a versatile “little neck thing”. It’s an easy pattern, perfect for meetings or TV watching. I have no doubt that I’ll make more of these.

Pattern/yarn rating: ***** on both. The pattern is clear, and the yarn has the most vibrant colors. I have a bunch more of this in the stash, I just might start another one for those times that I need to pay attention to something but still want to knit.

I was a bit tempted by that Wollmeise link up there. I checked my stash, though. I have another eight hanks of this in some mighty lovely colors. I think I’ll go dig one of those out the boxes and cast on!

NaBloPoMo

Otherwise known as National Blog Posting Month. The idea is to commit to writing a blog post daily in November. It’s a riff off of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.

You all are going to get sick and tired of seeing the same unfinished knitting projects, so I plan on changing it up a bit and adding a little non-knitting content.

Today it’s meditation. Carole wrote today about her meditation practice. I’ve meditated off and on for years, though my practice has slipped a bit more recently. I find myself using all sorts of excuses, like I’m too busy, and I’m too stressed out. Of course, scheduling a meditation practice every day helps enormously with that sense of being too busy or too stressed.

See how that works?

Anyway, I have been using the Calm app, I can do either one of many guided meditations, or just use their meditation timer, with or without soothing background music or sounds. I have found that doing a daily meditation practice really does slow down those squirrels in my head that run around like crazy banshees.

At work, I have this tiny note on my computer.

Yes, it does really help to have that little reminder.

And here’s a screen shot from the Calm app.

If you don’t already have a regular meditation practice, give it a try.

Trust me, I’m a doctor.

November

How the heck did that happen? Time to start thinking about Thanksgiving plans and Christmas.

It also is time to start thinking about wool. Specifically nice wooly sweaters.

I’m currently knitting Shinsetsu. It was on the back burner for most of the summer, but now it’s just the perfect thing to knit. And I want to wear it before winter is over.

That’s the back. The front is all lovely cables and a wide shawl collar. The back is just plain knitting. I’m up to where the sleeves will be. I am modifying this in one way. The back is knit in reverse stockinette, meaning that what is normally thought of as the wrong side of the knit fabric is the public side. I detest the look of that, so I’m doing it my way.

Here is the pattern page on Ravelry so you can see what it looks like finished.

Lace reboot

Kiri was a bust. I spent much of the day trying to get it started. The pattern is described as easy, for beginner knitters. After a couple of false starts and tinking back, I eventually ripped it out. I’m not a beginner lace knitter by any means, but there was something wonky with this pattern. I couldn’t get the stitch counts to come out, and I just didn’t like the look of the pattern in this yarn. Last but not least, I use Knit Companion to keep track of absolutely everything I knit, but especially lace charts. The grid on the pattern chart was “off”, with grid squares that varied ever so slightly from place to place. This made adding stitch markers and counts impossible. It was driving me nuts.

So here is the reboot:

This is much better behaved. The entire thing is charted, the pattern repeats don’t shift around aimlessly, and best of all, the main shawl body chart has 16 rows, 12 of which are plain knit or purl rows. This is much more what I had in mind to keep my sanity.

The pattern is Feather Duster, by Susan Lawrence.

By the way, WordPress has stopped emailing me blog comments again. I can still reply directly from the website, but if I miss a comment and don’t answer you, that’s why. ????

I might have lost my mind

I finished my Hitchhiker shawl on the long plane ride home yesterday (finished project post later when I find it in the heap of bags). So I had an itch to start something new. Meet Cloud Blue Kiri: 

 I purchased the yarn when we were in Carnation and Duvall WA a few weeks ago. We stopped at Tolt Yarn & Wool, and this was one of my purchases. It is Biches et Bûches Le Petit Silk & Mohair. I’m not quite sure what possessed me to start yet another lace shawl, especially in fuzzy lace weight mohair. If you’ve ever knit with Kidsilk Haze, this is similar, but if anything, with longer mohair “feathers”. Any mistakes in this are likely not going to get ripped back. The pattern is Kiri, which is a similar version of Birch, but top down so you don’t have to cast on (and count) millions of stitches. I knit Birch 15 years ago, and there isn’t enough whisky in the world to make me do that cast on again.

For those of you keeping track, this makes four lace shawls on the needles. My plan was actually to start a simple project to take the place of the Hitchhiker, but this yarn just rolled out of the bag and into my lap. It’s mighty pretty yarn, but I might need that whisky before this is all over.