Category: Knitting

New Socks!

And they’re done.

Project Details

 
Pattern: My same old vanilla sock
Yarn: Lang Jawoll Superwash Solids, Black Watch. I think the real color “name” is actually a number.
Needles: 2.25mm sterling double points
For: John
Started/Finished: Started 1/23/17 Finished 5/28/17.
Modifications: None
What I Learned: I keep tinkering with my sock formula to fit John’s feet better. He has very high arches and a genetic foot thing called Charcot Marie Tooth syndrome. With these, I did the gusset decreases at a slower rate to provide a little more width around his ankle. These are a bit snug but are better than just the standard gusset shape.
 
Yes, he has weird feet.
 
Now I get to pick my next sock yarn!

Endless Garter Stitch

That’s my Wool Peddler shawl. I finally finished the bazillion rows of boring garter stitch and have moved on to the lace part. Lace always seems like frosting to me. You eat the boring white cake just so you can justify getting the chocolate frosting.

It’s a pretty easy lace pattern, and in DK weight yarn (moose lace!), so it is still mostly a mindless project.

This is really squishy soft yarn, and the color is growing on me. It’s a nice neutral that will go with almost everything I own. I might not over-dye it after all.

It’s finally warming up enough around here to get outside without being bundled up in wool. We had our first brunch on the deck this morning. This is my afternoon project:

Baby herb plants! Those will get planted today.

Souvenirs

After a long travel day Friday, we’re back home from our cruise. Getting through Seattle traffic back home was the worst part of the trip. We got off the ship around 9:30, and didn’t get home until around 5PM (usually about a 4 hour drive). We stopped in Bellingham for lunch, which accounts for part of that, and also picked up Lewey, which was a bit of a detour, but the whole trip back was just painful. Traffic around here is painful at best, and on Friday afternoon turns into horrifying.

I did stop at one yarn shop in Bellingham, but I swear I didn’t buy anything. I wasn’t really even tempted. Next week I’ll hit 150 days with no yarn buying, and the six month mark is coming up.

We didn’t do any significant shopping on the trip. I bought a few books in a shop in San Francisco. How can you NOT buy books in a nice bricks and mortar book shop with real people running it? Of course, I don’t need those any more than I need more yarn. It’s those little personal recommendation cards written by the book shop staff that get me every time. And yes, I have a Kindle, and use it, but there is something about “real” books that I adore.

Here are the other things I bought. We did a tour of the Queen Mary in LA, which was a bit cheesy, but fun.

A Queen Mary tea mug, and Queen coasters!

And what is that little blue thing peeking out in that photo? Could it be a finished Hitchhiker?

Why, yes!
Project Details
 
Pattern: Hitchhiker, by Martina Behm
Yarn: Wollmeise Pure, color Bluebell
Needles: 3.25 mm Knit Picks Harmony
For: Me
Started/Finished: Started 2/16/16 Finished 4/20/17. Yes, I know that’s ridiculous. It was in time out for months.
Modifications: None
What I Learned: I am likely the last person ever to have made one of these. As of right now, there are 26,921 projects listed on Ravelry. I can see why. This is a great pattern for fingering weight sock yarns, and it’s very easy.
I also learned that my drug dealers scale doesn’t work on a rocking and rolling cruise ship. I was trying to use as much of the yarn as I could, but my scale wouldn’t give me a readout so I just guessed at how much yarn I needed for the bind off. I thought it might be dying on me, but when I got it home and tested on a solid surface, it works just fine. As it turned out, I could have knit a few more repeats, but it’s long enough.
Pattern Rating: ***** This is a well written pattern, no errors, and very easy to follow. I will definitely make more of these, since it’s not like I don’t have any sock yarn hanging about here.
 
You aren’t getting an action photo with me wearing this for now. The other fun souvenir that I brought home was a wicked upper respiratory infection. I’ve been sick for the past 4-5 days, and I look (and feel) like something that a grizzly bear dragged around the back yard a few times. I’m just hoping this is better tomorrow, since I’m supposed to be back at work. I’m one of those people that tries to drag myself to work even if I don’t feel good, but if it’s something infectious like this, not so much. All my little old people patients really don’t need to catch this. It sort of figures that I’d make it through our horrendous cold and flu winter season and then get this in April on a cruise.
 
Sigh. I’m off to make a cup of tea for that pretty mug up there.

Cruising

John and I signed up for a Princess cruise several months ago. This one leaves and arrives back at Vancouver, so we were able to drive up instead of flying, which made it a bit more economical.

It also had the attraction of four and a half sea days, which as you all know, means four and a half KNITTING days. I was very excited to see “Knitters and Natters Get-Together” on the daily program. There are a half dozen or so crafters on board, mostly knitters. We’ve been meeting every sea day morning and having a great time.

Our ports of call so far have been Long Beach, Catalina Island, and Santa Barbara. My favorite has been Santa Barbara. Catalina is lovely, but I’d been there once before so knew what to expect. Santa Barbara is a gorgeous city with miles of beach front. We were lucky enough to have a sunny day yesterday and took a trolley tour of the city.

We land in San Francisco this afternoon, and will be here all day tomorrow as well, then two more of those lovely sea days to get us home again.

I apparently am knitting all blue things. The projects that Sweetpea is helping me with up there are my Hitchhiker, which I may finish one of these years, my new lace shawl, and a pair of socks for John. I finished the first one earlier on the cruise and am well into the second one. I have a spare ball of Opal sock yarn “just in case”, but that’s likely optimistic. I also brought two spindles with me.

Here’s a photo from our day in Santa Barbara.

Old Ben is an even slower knitter than I am. He wasn’t much help.

We’re off to lunch, then an afternoon in port!

*And no, I haven’t done any yarn shopping so far.

Reward Challenge

All done except for  buttons.

I’ve been getting myself through the last bit of this with little rewards*. On Friday, John and I had the pleasure of meeting Jennifer AKA Major Knitter for dinner. We had a fine time, and she brought me a yarn** gift as a party favor.

Here’s the yarn:

That is 1600 meters of stunning lace weight yarn, enough for a huge shawl. And I have just the pattern for it.

I’ve had that shawl in my pattern library for years, waiting for the right moment and the right yarn. It is Longest Night, by Lori Law.

I’ve been rewarding myself for each little step of that baby sweater with a little teaser. I now have the pattern all set up in Knit Companion, ready to go when I sew on the last button. I don’t really “need” a new lace shawl on the needles right now, but I’m doing it anyway.

Jennifer and I did wear our Faery Ring sweaters to the restaurant. Here we are.

I’m off to sew buttons!

*Sort of like “Survivor”. “Wanna know what you’re playing for?”

**No, that doesn’t mean I fall off the Cold Sheep. Unsolicited yarn gifts don’t count. Now, if I gave my husband a list and said “why don’t you buy me a yarn gift”, THAT would end the no-buying streak.

Baby Sweaters

Or,

Why I’m Such A Slow Knitter

I’m still knitting those baby sweaters. I’ve finished the first one, and just have sleeves and a hood to finish for the second one.

You wouldn’t think that two worsted weight garter stitch baby sweaters would take this long to make.

I’ve been having some upper back problems for the past couple of months that are really getting on my last nerve. I don’t make a very good patient, since I’m not very “patient” with not feeling well. It finally got bad enough that I started getting regular massages, which are helping, but it’s been a slow recovery. My massage therapist isn’t one of those that gives you a feel-good spa massage. It’s deep tissue/muscle work, and I’m wiped out for a whole day afterwards. It is releasing the knotted (knitted?) up muscles though. I haven’t been able to be on my Peloton bike as often as I’d like either since it hurts. You have no idea how much THAT pisses me off.

I’ve been trying to be careful with how long I sit hunched over my knitting, so that’s my excuse for how long these sweaters are taking to finish.

Also, for those of you doubters out there, I made it to 90 days without yarn shopping a week ago. It’s actually been a little easier this time around. It helps that I dropped my work hours from 0.8 FTE to 0.6 FTE the first of the year. That obviously* correlates to a 20% salary drop, so I do have an incentive to shop from my very deep stash instead of the internet.

And in other news, I get to have dinner tonight with Jennifer AKA Major Knitter! She is flying in later today, and we’re picking her up and heading up to Seattle for dinner. We’re both planning on wearing our Faery Ring sweaters!

*That first paycheck after cutting back my hours was a bit of a reality check!

Seams!


I do love knitting, including sewing seams. I’d rather sew pieces together than go through all the crazy contortions that some patterns have you do to avoid them.
This is the first of two baby sweaters. Our neighbors have new twin granddaughters, and I dug through the Cotton Ease box* and found two bright colors to make sweaters for them. The first one is done, other than the seams, and I’m putting a little hood on it.

In the category of knitting screw ups, can anyone spot the mistake here?

How about now?
Yup, I forgot to put in the buttonholes. I discovered this after I had the shoulders seamed and started putting in the first sleeve. I am NOT reknitting to fix it. I’ll sew the buttons on as decoration, and put snaps in.

That’s the second color.

We’re at Wintergrass again this weekend. So far it’s been a blast, although we are really happy that our room at the Hyatt is on a “quiet floor”. I love the banjos, but not so much at 2 AM.

*Why yes, I have a whole box of Cotton Ease, in the original bright colors. They don’t make this stuff anymore, so my grand stash plan is working!

Snow Day

We had a bit of snow last night, and since I'm off work today, I get to enjoy Snowmaggedon from the comfort of my own home.

In other news, I finished the Douglas Fir Hap shawl the day before yesterday. I'll get it blocked this weekend and do a photo shoot when it's dry.
Here's how the yarn chicken played out.
Less than a gram left. I ended up just doing the decreases on the tail end a bit faster. It won't show in the finished project, and was the easiest fix I could come up with, without ripping all the way back to before the decrease section and taking out a few repeats.
Happy Snow Day!

 

Yarn Chicken!

I've been very slowly working away on my Douglas Fir hap shawl.

The pattern is knit end to end. You cast on a small number of stitches (30 in this case), then increase a few stitches each repeat for awhile, then knit the center part for awhile, then decrease a few stitches each 12 row repeat until it's back to 30 stitches, then bind off.
 
This is one of those patterns that you can use any amount of yarn, you just have to calculate how much you'll need to do the decrease part.
 
You can see where this might be going, right?
 
I weighed, calculated, weighed and calculated some more, and waded in. I'm now well into the decrease section, and playing the REALLY fun game of Yarn Chicken.
 
I have 16 repeats left. The repeat before last took 2.6 grams of yarn. The last one took 2.4 grams of yarn.
 
I have 18.5 grams left.
 
Now I know the repeats are taking less yarn each time around, but I'm not seeing any way here that I'm not screwed. If I'm not screwed, it's going to be very close.
 
Four options:
1. Buy more yarn. I've had this in the works for so long that there isn't a prayer of finding the same dye lot. There are a lot of variations in dye lots in this particular yarn.
2. Rip back to before I started the increases.
3. Decrease at a little faster pace.
4. Just throw caution to the wind and knit faster, because we know THAT always works out.
 
1 and 2 really aren't options. I'll never find an exact match, and there isn't enough whisky on earth to make me rip out that much. 4 is probably delusional, though I'm going to stick in a life line where I am right now and forge ahead for a few more repeats.
 
Stay tuned.

Deep Stash, and the Joys of Rejects

I did a little stash reorganization last month. My entire stash is photographed and recorded in a database by numbered box, but it’s gotten pretty haphazard over the years. The boxes were mostly filled by vintage rather than type of yarn or project, and that had really started to bother me. So I dragged it all out and reorganized the whole mess. I found some real gems that I’d forgotten. I also culled out a small box full of stuff that I wanted to send off to Goodwill or somewhere else besides this house.

Predictably, I’ve already dragged two lots of yarn out of that reject box and started new projects. Here’s the first one.

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The yarn is Sirdar Balmoral, it’s a lovely wool/alpaca/silk blend. I bought enough of it for a sweater. The first problem is that I don’t really need sweaters with alpaca in them, it’s too warm. The second problem is that color. I’m not sure what I was thinking. Actually I do, the color name is Corgi. There you go. Lewey says it doesn’t look anything like him.

But it’s nice yarn, despite the color. And it’s been discontinued. And it wasn’t all that cheap. So I pulled it off the top of the reject pile and started a shawl. I figure I can overdye it when it’s knit up. It’s way more than a shawl’s worth, but I’ll either put the leftovers back in the reject box, or make mittens or something out of it. This is Cheryl Oberle’s Wool Peddler shawl.

The second “reject” is for John. He saw this and thought it was ridiculous to get rid of perfectly good “guy” sock yarn. This is Lang Jawoll superwash sock yarn, the color looks like a black tartan plaid.

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That one is really deep stash, I don’t have a purchase date, but I probably got that not too long after I learned to knit (1999). I guess it’s probably time I used it. And John has been hinting around for a pair of socks for him. I’m not sure why it went into the discard box, it’s actually quite nice to knit with. It’s a nice, basic sock yarn, and has a bonus spool of reinforcing thread in the middle of the skein for the heels and toes.

I’ll let you know if any of the other reject yarn turns into projects in the future. It’s pretty tough to actually toss out useable yarn, even if I have enough to last well into my next lifetime.

I’ll leave you with a cat photo. Will and Zoe are getting along pretty well.

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Fritz’s Baby Blanket

As promised, I’m finally getting around to posting a “Finished Project” update. I finished this right before we left on vacation in September, and then just forgot about posting.

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Project Details:

Pattern: Quill, by Jared Flood

Yarn:  Frolicking Feet sock yarn, Sapphire Blue

Needles: 3.75mm

Started: 4/29/16

Finished: 9/6/16

For: my grandnephew Fritz

Modifications: none

What I Learned: Babies sometimes get born early. Starting knitting now.

This was a well done pattern, instructions clear and straightforward. This would be pretty in a lace weight yarn as well.

And more photos.

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In other news, for some reason I’ve started to get blog comments emailed to me, at least sometimes. We’ll see.

Knitting Done!

I finished the edging on the Blue Blue Blue Baby Blanket late last night. I decided to save the grafting bit until daylight when I was rested (I know, an uncharacteristic decision for me).

Grafting went quickly and here it is.

Not blocked, but done, done, done!

I have to get it in the mail on Thursday if it's getting out of here before our vacation, so I'm off to soak the thing. We'll see if it dries in time.

 

Helping

Willie thinks he's helping.

The knitting marathon continues for Baby Fritz's Blisteringly Blue Baby Blanket. It's a big square, with a knitted on edging that consists of eleventy billion repeats of the same 12 row pattern. I have finished 2 sides of the square as of this morning. I started the edging just a few days ago, so I should be on track to finish this hopefully later this week, barring some major knitting screw up, like cats “helping”.

Here's another photo of Fritz.

Awwww. I think he looks a lot like his daddy in that photo.

And like all good knitting marathons, this one is involving major television watching. I started rewatching Game of Thrones earlier this week, I'm one episode short of finishing the first season.

It's too bad Will and Zoe can't knit, that would really be a big help.

 

Fritz!

Or,

Knit Faster, Lorette!

He's here! My grand nephew was born a few weeks early. Parents and baby are all fine.

His name is Fritz Samuel Meske. His grandpa, my brother, was named Samuel Fritz, after HIS grandfather. My baby brother Sam died in a house fire in 2001, but he is no doubt up in heaven beaming on this little boy and his parents.

He's adorable, right? He deserves a baby blanket!

I was right on track to finish this about 2 weeks from now. So we're now into marathon TV knitting. I have the body and border done, and “just” have the edging left to knit. I'm not quite half way done, I did one whole side of the edging yesterday. I think I can finish the rest this coming week. We're headed out of town for a few weeks in September, so the drop dead finish date has to be enough before that so I can get it blocked and mailed.

Back to knitting!