Category: Knitting

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!

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.

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.

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!

Bright side

And they are finished. Same old generic white bread pattern that I always make. I knit these on 2.00 mm double points, starting with 72 stitches. These are my current favorite knitting needles. The brand is Lykke, and I may have bought a bunch of the straight single point needles as well.

The yarn is West Yorkshire Spinners sock yarn, color name Brightside. I love this yarn, it is nicely spun, comes in lots of fun colors, and is also nicely priced. I got mine here, this is a great shop with many tempting yarns, good service and fast shipping.

Stay tuned for the next sock on the hit parade.

Not in the mood

Blogiversary! Sixteen years ago I hit “publish” on my first post. I’ve slacked off from time to time in keeping up here, but I’m still finding it a rewarding way to connect with the many friends I’ve made over those years.

I almost missed it, I’ve been just a little preoccupied with work, and when I’m home, I have tended to just go brain-dead in general. I’m working three days a week in clinic doing primary care internal medicine, so don’t have the exposure that I would if I were working in the hospital, but it is still very stressful right now. It doesn’t help that I’m in that “over-60” group, and so is John. I am very fortunate in that I work for Kaiser Permanente—we’ve had a somewhat heroic response to the pandemic in the past few weeks, in terms of getting ready for what’s undoubtedly coming our way. I think we are miles ahead of other medical groups elsewhere, and certainly anyone that is in private practice.

As someone who likes things that are nice and orderly, and doesn’t enjoy big changes, this has been a challenge, but I’m doing OK. John and I certainly are in a privileged position in that my job is pretty secure, we’re both healthy despite the age thing, and we have enough “stuff” of every variety to outlast any epidemic. I certainly have enough yarn around here to last through an apocalypse.

Since this is in fact a knitting blog, here is some knitting.

I’d like to try to finish those this week. Since I can’t leave the house until Monday, that is a possibility, even for a slow knitter like me.

I think I actually have managed to match the stripes on these.

I still haven’t fixed all of the older photos from the blog after I deleted everything earlier this month. It’s sort of tedious going back into individual posts, finding the photos (if I still have them), and uploading. Right now I’d much rather be doing something less annoying.

Take care of yourselves, wash your hands, and stay home unless you have to go out. There, I’ve covered both the “knitting” and the “doctor” part of the blog!

Sock yarn blankie

I think I posted about this one, but I think it got trash-canned in the Great Blog Deletion of 2020. I have a bunch of leftovers from socks I’ve made, along with a bunch of sock yarn mini skeins that I bought a long time ago thinking I was going to make one of those ridiculous “hexipuff” blankets.

This is much easier.

Mitered squares! They are somewhat insanely addictive to knit. And it’s not like I don’t have sock yarn around here. And time to knit, at least while I’m not at work.

And yes, I am weaving in the ends every few squares so I don’t have a huge mess to deal with.

In troubled times, it is comforting to have an easy, yet satisfying project to knit. The only decision to make is which color I’ll pick up next.

A blast from the past

Since I finished the Winter Solstice shawl, I needed some lace in my hands. I am knitting a secret project that eventually will have some lace, but don’t really want to post about it until it is done and gifted. It is currently in the witness protection program. And currently it is just endless garter stitch, so not particularly interesting anyway.

I have three other lace shawls in various stages of progress. I found the oldest one and pulled it out to work on.

That is the Cathedral Stole, pattern by Birgit Freyer. I’ve renamed it Ruby Slippers, since it is a glowing ruby red.

According to Ravelry, I started this almost exactly four years ago. I remember when I bought the yarn. This is a handspun mohair lace yarn spun by women in Tajikistan.

This is lovely yarn, and the pattern is delightful. The designer has about a million lace shawl and stole patterns available, this likely won’t be my last one.

Since it is hard to imagine what the finished lace will look like, here is a photo from the designer’s pattern page.

The Church of Bluegrass

And just like that, it is Sunday, and the last day of the festival. The theme this year was Bluegrass Beyond Borders, and we heard some wonderful bands from Brazil, Argentina, Ireland, Sweden, and Italy, among others. My vote for best of the festival goes to the band from Brazil, Trio Brasileiro. Look them up on your favorite music source, or try to hear them live. They do educational workshops in Port Townsend, so they do play regionally from time to time.

And I finished a sock. Here is the first of the pair.

And the second sock ready for the day’s festivities.

I might have accidentally managed to start the second sock at exactly the same place in the stripe sequence.

I’m off to hear the banjos!

Winter Solstice

Yes, there is a bona fide finished project right there!

Project Details:

Pattern: Longest Night Shawl, by Lori Law

Yarn: Fyberspates Gleem Lace, 2 skeins, 1748 yards total. I used all but 14 grams. This was a gift several years ago from Jennifer AKA Major Knitter.

Needles: 2.75 mm

Started/Finished: 3/16/17-2/16/20

For: Me

Modifications: None

What I Learned: Patience. This is a huge shawl. None of it is difficult in the sense of technically challenging. There are several rows that have cables, but once I got it out of my head that cables in laceweight yarn aren’t any different than cables in heavy yarn, it was all good. I learned to fix some mistakes without tinking back multiple rows.

Pattern/Yarn rating: ***** for the pattern. It was formatted nicely, and no errors. **** for the yarn. It is gorgeous, but there is just enough variation in the color from one skein to the next to annoy me a tiny bit. In the finished shawl it almost looks a bit like a gradient. In over 1700 yards of yarn, there wasn’t a single knot or whacky bit that had to be spliced out.

I predict that I will wear this one a lot. I love the color, and I really like that it is such a generously sized shawl.

And now I get to pick one of the other four lace shawls I have in progress to focus on! I already have one chosen, since it will be a gift that has a “needs to be done” date.

Stay tuned!