Category: Knitting

Barrels, monkeys

I’m not sure how much fun barrels of monkeys really are. This crazy shawl is more fun than a barrel full of pretty much anything.

The pattern is Snark-o-Meter, a mystery knit-a-long shawl by Casapinka. For someone who finds plain stockinette sweaters and socks a blast to knit, this much color and texture is almost more fun than I can stand.

The colors and stitch patterns change just about the time you get bored, but it’s still an easy enough pattern overall to not be too mentally taxing (i.e. still works for binge-watching a favorite show).

I also have the yarn and patterns for a couple of her other shawls, including the Crown Wools and the Sharon Show. Both look equally fun to knit. All three are big squishy fingering weight rectangular pieces with lots of color and texture, so should be fun to wear as well.

Everything else is OK in Chez Knitting Doctor world. We are recovered from the Great Summer of Visiting Relatives. I love them all, but it did seem like every time we woke up, there was another bunch moving into our guest rooms.

We’re now heading into the season of major home maintenance. Our master bath has been in need of some upgrades/repairs ever since we moved in here two decades ago. And our kitchen wall oven has been unreliable for close to a year. It’s a gas oven, and it sort of works as long as the temp stays under about 400 degrees. Anything higher than that, or if it is on too long, and it just shuts off. It’s an old Viking, and they don’t make the parts to repair it. When we remodeled the kitchen several years ago, we discovered that there was never a 220v outlet installed in the kitchen. Gas ovens in general are hard to find, and quite expensive, but it would be a major project at this point to run a 220 line to the kitchen. We’ve finally found the right oven (and cooktop, since that needed replacement also), and it’s on order. And we’re at the beginning stages of the bathroom remodel planning.

But we’re not spending money on travel, so we have more cash available for home upgrades, right? We’ve recently canceled another big trip that was supposed to happen in October. This was already rescheduled from last spring, so it’s beyond irritating that we’re still in this pandemic largely due to selfish idiots who won’t get vaccinated.

And I’ll leave it at that. Back to fun knitting!

Never-ending lace

This monster is slowly but surely getting done. I’m past the halfway point, but still have 172 rows left, plus the crocheted edging along the long sides. I clocked myself a couple of days ago, I’m averaging 10 minutes a row, so I still have a bit to go.

Because lace-in-progress photos always look like crap, here’s the photo from the pattern with what this will look like.

I bought this yarn years ago, it is handspun yarn, spun by women in Tajikistan as well as Afghanistan. This particular batch was spun by a woman in Afghanistan, named Maliknoz. The fiber is 100% kid mohair, aka cashmere. This is still marketed by Cashmere People Yarns, and you can buy similar yarn here. They also sell a cashgora blend in several weights. Go buy some, you won’t be sorry you did.

And a photo of my remaining skein. I’ll have at least a bit of this left once I’ve finished the shawl, but this surely won’t go to waste.

One finished, another started

New socks! I don’t even think I showed that I’d started these, but they’re done as of this morning.

I started these on July 28th, so just about a month to finish. The pattern is the same MacGyver’d pattern I always do: top down, German twisted cast on with 2 by 2 rib, flap heel and gusset. Knit on size 2 mm double points. The yarn is Urth Uneek Sock, color Tigress.

That makes room in the WIP list for a new pair of socks.

A boy that I know that likes blue has already claimed these. John says these are pretty close to Carolina blue. The color name is Anna Grace, but I think it looks like cumulocirrus clouds.

The yarn is from deep stash. I bought this years ago from Kris when she had a yarn shop named Sonny and Shear. The yarn is from Zen Yarn Garden, especially dyed for Kris and named after her daughter, Anna Grace.

There’s lots more going on in my knitting world, but I’ll save it for next time.

Pesto blobs

We have several basil plants on our patio that have yielded a bounty of basil all at once. I made a huge batch of pesto yesterday (around 12 cups of cleaned basil). I’m freezing it in meal-sized blobs to give us a taste of summer through the dark, rainy days of winter.

That’s just a bag of happiness right there.

I have been knitting, of course. I signed up for a mystery knit-along, Casapinka’s autumn shawl project. It’s just plain fun. I have the first clue done, the next one comes out tomorrow. I even used stash yarns.

The first section used three of the four colors, the fourth I’m using is a deep blue. Most of the yarn is from the Sanguine Gryphon, sadly no longer available. That pale gold is a four skein gold gradient from a long-ago sock yarn club (Three Irish Girls).

Those little knitted knots in the center of that are called Gobshites, if you want to know. There’s likely an official knitting name for them, but that’s what the designer calls them, so there you have it. If you’ve knitted any of her patterns, you already know that she doesn’t take things too seriously.

Something new, part 1

Since I was on a finishing frenzy in July, I had plenty of open needles to start some new things. Here’s the first new thing.

This is going to be another CustomFit cardigan. The pattern is Mine Hill, here is the photo from the pattern.

I plan on making it with full length sleeves. This will be a nice “between seasons” layering piece. I’m using a lovely wool blend from John Arbon Textiles, one of my favorite wool sources. They have some wonderful wool blends, I did a pair of socks earlier this year using their Exmoor Sock yarn. This is their latest offering, Appledore DK.

The color name is Sheep’s Nose. The yarn is a blend of Devon, Romney, and Exmoor wool, and it has a nice soft hand despite a bit of a rustic look. It also has a divine sheepy smell. You will hear more about John Arbon’s wool here in the future, since it is becoming one of my favorite sources for yarn. It isn’t cheap, but it is very high quality, and the mill is a small family-run business that uses primarily local fiber, and processes the wool on vintage spinning machines. I ordered this particular wool direct from their UK shop, the shipping was reasonable and fast. The Woolly Thistle here in the US does carry some of their yarns, though not this one at the moment.

I have some other new projects to show you, but I’ll save those for later!

Dockside Cardigan

Finished!

Project Notes:

  • Pattern: Dockside Cardigan, by Amy Herzog. This is one of her CustomFit patterns.
  • Yarn: Warm Valley Orchard wool/alpaca blend. This is deep stash yarn, purchased on a vacation to their farm on Orcas Island in 2006. It’s about time it got made into something lovely. I used a bit under 1600 yards for this, I have a little under 700 yards left for a squishy shawl, or perhaps hat and mittens.
  • Needle: Size 6 circular
  • Started: February 22, 2021
  • Finished: July 27, 2021
  • For: Me
  • Rating: *****for both pattern and the wool. If you haven’t used CustomFit, you pick your pattern, enter your own body measurements and your row and stitch gauge from your swatch. You get a pattern that is customized for your fit and the yarn you want to use. I’m sold on this. This is the best fitting sweater I’ve ever made.
  • What I learned: I need to knit more from deep stash. I have some very lovely yarns that I’ve collected over the years. The new and shiny will always catch my eye, but the “old and curated” once caught my eye for a very good reason. I also learned to trust the measurements. I tend to knit oversized sweaters in general, so I kept thinking that this was going to be on the small size. It fits perfectly.

Another couple of photos, since I don’t finish a sweater every day.

Buttons

I finished the knitting on my Dockside Cardigan over the weekend, and sat down this morning to sew on buttons. Button-sewing is not my favorite task, and it needed to get done in the morning hours when it is still relatively cool around here.

Here they are, half done. There are actually five already sewn on, five more to go.

And a close up:

How about that fancy button-shank-making tool?

Of course, where there are buttons, there should be buttonholes. I did remember to put those in as well. I fidgeted around with a couple of different methods of knitting these, and settled on a one-row buttonhole using the “TULIPS” method. Here’s a link to an article about how to do these, and a video explanation as well. These look really complicated, but once you’ve done one, it all makes sense. It’s the best of the horizontally placed buttonholes that I’ve found.

Next time, I’ll do a finished project post about this, and perhaps a bonus finished project as well!

Little lace loops

I’ve been knitting away on my Cathedral Stole lace shawl for months. My Ravelry project page says I started this in 2016, which is true. This is what it looked like since then.

I pulled this out of hibernation in mid March and started working on it again. This is a rectangular shawl, started in the middle with a provisional cast on. You knit for miles, bind off, then pick up the provisional stitches in the center and knit for a few more miles. Fortunately I’m happy knitting the same thing for miles and miles. This yarn helps. I bought this yarn in 2014. Here is what I wrote about it then. *

 Peace Fleece got in some lovely lace yarn hand spun by women in Tajikistan. They had a nice little story to go with the yarn about how these women spin yarn to help feed and clothe their families. One skein provides enough money for them to buy a chicken, a loaf of bread, or a kilogram of potatoes. Tell me you could resist that. Let’s just say I bought enough for a nice chicken dinner complete with potatoes and bread for the whole family. 

I’m not sure exactly why this sat unloved for so long. At any rate, I am just finishing the first half. I decided to do a fancy schmancy crochet loop bind off. It isn’t hard to do, just fidgety. And trust me, you do NOT want to have to undo this, so make sure it is what you want before you wade in. You can always put in a lifeline before you bind off, but where’s the fun and adventure in THAT.

It makes pretty little loops along the edge. Here’s a birds eye view of the lace.

Have faith. Lace knitting always looks like crap until it’s finished and blocked.

*The links in the quote don’t work, Peace Fleece only carried this for a short time. This, my friends, is why I buy yarn that I love when I see it.

Forgotten but not unloved

I’m not sure how you can forget to post about such a pretty pair of socks. That color! That woolly wool!

This is my usual generic jerry-rigged sock pattern: 2×2 ribbing, heel flap and gusset, no frills. I modify the standard heel flap by adding a few more rows, it fits my high arch foot much better. I used 2.00 mm needles.

The wool is John Arbon Exmoor sock yarn. It is a lovely wool blend with a bit of nylon for durability. The colors I used are Mizzle, and Quickbeam (that orange). I’m really happy that I love this yarn, because I bought a bunch of other colors as well. You can get some of your very own at John Arbon in the UK, or at Woolly Thistle here in the US (though they are sold out at the moment-not my fault, I bought direct from the UK). I will warn you about checking out the John Arbon website, it will be difficult to resist some of their other offerings. You may see some of their yarn in future projects here at Chez Knitting Doctor.

Ah, Retirement

Yes, it is everything I’d hoped it would be.

Those socks are coming right along. This is John Arbon Exmoor Sock yarn. The colors are just lovely. I may have enough in the stash for a few more pairs. If you must have squishy-soft merino sock yarn, this isn’t it. It has a sturdy, rustic hand, and I suspect it will wear well due to the wool blend used.

Because I know someone will ask, the pins are to help in counting rows so the second in the pair ends up more or less the same length. I just put a pin in every ten rows to keep track.

Hudson Memories

Hudson Bay socks done!

Project Details:

  • Yarn: Biscotte Bis-Sock, color Hudson Memories
  • Pattern: same old jerry-rigged vanilla sock, this time with a picot cuff
  • Needles: Lykke Driftwood double points, 2.00 mm
  • Started: April 26, 2021
  • Finished: May 15, 2021
  • For: Me
  • Rating: ***** on the yarn. This is the first time I’ve used this, it is soft, but feels sturdy at the same time.

I’m on a sock-knitting binge at the moment. I have a bunch of hand knit socks that are approaching the end of their life-span, so I need to replenish the stash. Many of my socks have lasted more than a decade of heavy wear, so I definitely get my money’s worth out of them. John needs more socks too. The next pair will be for him. I already started these for him yesterday.

Oh my. This is Regia Premium Merino Yak sock yarn. I may have lost my mind here in the stash-acquisition department. This yarn is heavenly to knit with, and the yak content gives it a muted heathery color. You should go buy some if there is any left anywhere. Simply Sock Yarn carries this in the US, and Knitting Loft in Canada, if you are in the mood to shop.

Today

It’s that time of year. As the weather gets nicer, it’s time for all the outdoor projects to get started. Those big windows are the originals that were put in when this house was built decades ago, and the seals have failed on all of them. So we have scaffolding built, and measuring happening. The rectangular ones were easy, not so much with the top two curved panes. They are having to take off the framing and remove the glass panes to measure accurately. It’s a good thing that there is no rain in the forecast. They already have one taken out and measured, and are putting it back in. Given that this house was built from Halloween Fun House architectural plans, they are taking the other one out to measure as well, just to be sure.

Hudson Bay socks. I’m a little farther towards completion than that photo. I have the heel done and the gusset decreases completed. A night or two of good television should do it.

We’ve been watching Atlantic Crossing on PBS the past few weeks. It’s the story of the Crown Princess of Norway and FDR during WWII. Not sure how historically accurate it is, but it is entertaining.

Lastly, my newest journal. I love the leather, it is a deep green, and smells lovely. The company is Galen Leather, this is their leather Slim Notebook cover. It comes in other lovely colors as well. The notebook inserts are also from them, they use Tomoe River paper, which you should try if you never have. I’m using the A5 size.

Hope your upcoming weekend is full of fun and happy projects!

Getting closer, and a public service announcement

My Dockside cardigan is all seamed! And it fits! Imagine that, I used a pattern generator that works off my actual measurements, and it worked. What a concept.

I now have the wide collar and the button bands to do, and it will be done. I received some buttons that I ordered on Etsy, and have a couple more sets on the way, so stay tuned for a button-choosing post. I’m really pleased with how this one is turning out. It may well be the best-fitting sweater I’ve ever made.

And now for your public service announcement.

I posted about this on FB, but this has been one hell of a 10 days or so around here. A member of our extended family was killed in a motor vehicle accident a little over a week ago. The family was still reeling from that one, when my husband woke me up a week ago Sunday night, having a stroke in progress. It looked pretty dire initially, although his symptoms were already dramatically improved by the time the EMTs arrived. He spent a couple nights in the hospital getting some tests done, but is now home and doing well. If you weren’t married to him, you wouldn’t be able to tell at this point that anything happened. So we feel very fortunate all in all.

Since many of our friends and family are in our age group, we’ve gotten asked the question, “What do you look for? How do you know you are having a stroke?”

Stroke.org has lots of good information, but just remember F.A.S.T.

F: Face drooping

A: Arm weakness

S: Speech-any changes in speech or comprehension

T: Time to call 911

Time really is of the essence here. If you have a typical ischemic stroke (due to blockage in a blood vessel), the administration of “clot-busting” drugs can be life saving, but this is a time-critical intervention that may not be beneficial if you wait too long.

If you or anyone you know has any of these symptoms, call 911. Don’t just wait it out, don’t drive yourself to urgent care, don’t sit on hold with your doctor’s office. Call 911 and let the professionals sort it out. Time is brain, and you don’t get it back once it’s gone.

New Socks!

Finished just this morning!

The yarn is Retrosaria Mondim, which is a lovely Portuguese wool. It isn’t superwash, in case you are running off to buy some. The pattern is my same old jerry-rigged vanilla sock pattern. 72 stitches, 2.00 mm needles, flap heel and gusset construction. These are for me, though John looked at them and said “I’d wear a pair of those”.

Fortunately I have more colors of this in the stash. I have more colors of damned near everything in the stash.

Antarktis

A finished project!

Project Notes:

  • Pattern: Antarktis, by Janina Kallio
  • Yarn: Cascade Heritage Silk, 437 yard. 85% Merino, 15% Silk
  • Needle: Oh for Pete’s sake. I didn’t write it down. I’m pretty sure it was a 3.5 mm, since there is one sitting on my desk that hasn’t been put away.
  • Started/Finished: 3/6/21-4/17/21.
  • For: ??
  • Modifications: None, though this is one of those great little shawl patterns that you can adjust to use up whatever yarn you have. It also would work well in different weights of yarn
  • Project/yarn rating: ****/*****. The pattern itself is well written and dead easy. There are charts for the lacy bits which are totally confusing, and I’ve been knitting from charts forever. The yarn is divine.
  • What I learned: Again, not having a job that requires me to get my butt out of bed and go to work is great for finishing knitting projects.

One more photo: