Venturing out.

This weekend I did two excursions where I interacted with people, more than just picking up the mail or shopping at the farmstand, although I did those also.

Yesterday (Saturday) I went to the Art Museum at the University of Saint Joseph to see "Ansel Adams: Early Works" which I definitely enjoyed.  I love his photography and like many people know mostly the later works.  Some of the early ones are quite stunning, and some we know primarily from later prints but the originals have additional depth.

Today (Sunday) I decided to join a friend who was taking a handful of people from New Haven on a bit of a walk around the city.  Kerri said it would be a pastry-centric walk, but only the first two stops focused on baked goods.  That isn't the key for either Story & Soil or Aurora's although they do have good options.  I bought three things at Aurora's, intending to hold two for later meals, and enjoyed the concha as we set out.  I was going to get one from the case but the server took my bag and added a fresh one from the kitchen.  I haven't had a concha in a long time, and while it's different from the Mexican style with which I am more familiar, it was thoroughly satisfactory.

After starters we walked down Columbia Street, which is a historical district, wandered through Pope Park, and down Park Street to the Parkville Market for lunch, after a brief tour of the public areas of the 1429 building.  None of those spaces were open, but we did some window-peeping.

The nifty thing about Parkville Market is that it is mostly a food hall, which does make it slightly problematic to decide on what to eat.  I usually choose things I don't make at home, and this time it was Vegetable Momos and Samosa Chaat from Bombay Market.  I love momos (Nepalese dumplings) and never had Samosa Chaat before, so they are good choices.  And I have a lot of leftovers.  We took one of the shaded outdoor tables, a perfect option on a breezy and warm day, and away from the crowds that were starting to fill the inside.  None of us were ready for crowds.

Because we were full, further pastry-hunting was postponed for other days.  The visitors loved my "Small State: Big Heart" t-shirt so I pointed them to Hartford Prints!, and they took the website for online ordering.

So.

Two outings in two days.  It felt odd, but good.  Yesterday I was mostly solo (the Art Museum limits the number of persons per hour, and I didn't go with anybody); today we agreed that re-entering society and learning to socialize might take some doing.  As I said to Kerri after the others left, I remember days when I would be out and about the Hartford area on a weekend, nonstop from yoga class in early morning to one or more social, arts, or other events in the evenings.  I still have the energy, but I'm not sure I'll ever do that much out-and-abouting again.  I guess we shall see.

May Mini-Resolution Status

I did get my taxes filed, and not just on time but early!  Now to await the refund.

More progress happened on the Omega Shawl, although mostly I focused on finishing this for my mother for Mother's Day:

It is just my usual pattern, done in a K3P3 garter rib, made from Lion Brand "Scarfie" because the colourway reminds me of my mother - she loves red, and wears red and black often.  She's already worn this on a couple of unseasonably cool days.

I also worked on the items I've committed to make for the next Mittens for Akkol delivery, and am trying to not commit to anything else until I have the last two items finished.

Books:  I have finally broken the block, and finished two books.  The Cowgirl Aunt of Harriet Bean by Alexander McCall Smith is a very slim one, written for children, but it counts!  It was the second book I finished this month.  I'd started The Girl of Fire and Thorns Stories by Raw Carson earlier this year, or last year?  It is three prequel novellas to a series I haven't read, and I hit a scary point in the first one and just couldn't go past.  Last week I picked it up and managed to get past, then quickly finished all three stories and enjoyed them.  I'm still slogging through Antonia Fraser's biography of Mary, Queen of Scots and while she is extremely knowledgeable, Ms. Fraser seems determined to show off everything she has learned, found, or determined.  She said she wanted to debunk some of the things that were said about Mary Stuart, and that is possibly why she includes so much.  I'm stubborn enough to finish it - and since the old paperback I have is falling apart, it will probably become a piece of book art, like this one:

That is one I created for the 2017 "Paper Possibilities" show by MakeHartford's Paper Arts Gathering.

Three shawls in November

 By the official calendar, it is December.

For Thanksgiving last week I got some turkey at a local barbeque place and ate it with sweet potatoes cooked with apples; some greens; and of course a slice of cranberry jelly.  Dessert was a local dairy's pumpkin pie ice cream.

I got to see family for the first time since February or last December, depending upon who it was, as we did a Zoom gathering.  There have been a few photographs, but not live.  I know some families have been doing weekly online gatherings, but somehow we haven't done it.  Next one will be on Christmas Day.

My boss ordered me to take the four-day weekend, and I did very well at (mostly) staying off work.  It helps when most of the persons with whom I am working also have the long weekend!  Weather cooperated so I did some walking outside, and house chores, and attended a friend's (online this year) stupid movies night.  Attendance was much higher than in past years as people from far and wide could attend - and make comments about the films.

Status of my November resolutions

I did fairly well - I finished my grandmother's twinset:

They are Wool-Ease DK in "Meadow".  I used all but about four metres of three full cakes.

It's on the way to her, along with another shawl I'd knit for her:

This is one cake of Parfait Layers in "Peachy Keen", a very simple pattern with eyelets on the rows where the colour changes.  Just a small bit of yarn remained.  This one zipped along because it is a chunky yarn.  I think my grandmother will love how soft it feels.

I also finished my Textured Triangle Shawl of the Periwinkle Sheep's Rhinebeck 2020 colourway:

I rarely knit anything this quickly after buying a commemorative yarn, even when I know what I want to do, but somehow this leapt ahead.  I had to start it three times: First restart was because I didn't like the resulting fabric and drape, so I moved up a needle size to US#8.  Then I realized that one of the skeins was very different from the others, and I thought it would do better at the lower border than the beginning triangle.  So, restart and re-restart, but I am very happy with the finished shawl.  One benefit is that I could tell I didn't like the garter lace, so I changed the return rows from K to P  as the closeup shows.  I like it much better.

My December mini-resolutions

Finish one of my UFOs, and finish a book.  I currently have three partially-read on my headboard, and I have a couple of holiday-themed ones waiting.  I am going to finish one of the three before I open another!  As for the UFOs, I have an abundance of options.

She waited several hours

My grandmother did, she said, after my birthday package arrived, before she opened it.  "I knew it was something that squished" she said, which was true because I hadn't put the gift into a box before wrapping it, so it would fit into the box I was using to mail it.

This shawl: 

Patons 'Glam Stripes' in Navy

For the record, her birthday is next Monday, and I didn't expect her to wait that long.  It's a bit of a running joke that my grandmother doesn't deal well with curiosity - she wants to know what is in the package now.  Sometimes I wonder why bother wrapping it - but she does have fun unwrapping.

I didn't finish my vest, but I did finish and mail the Mittens for Akkol grad items:

The sweater is more person-shaped when it's not patted out for photographing.  For the scarf I used the same stitch pattern as in the borders on the sweater.  The socks are overdyed wool and I didn't realize the two hanks were slightly different shades until I wound them, so I alternated yarns every three rows, with the darker one used for ribbing, heels, and toe.  The pattern had a texture to it but I left it out given the striping.  I wanted these to be semi-mindless.

The vest is past the dividing at underarms, but it's not nearly mindless enough and I am trying to figure out what to do at the armholes.  That will depend upon how much yarn is left.  I may figure it out this weekend.  For mindless things I made five rectangles for The Linus Project, and two scarves that will be donated to shelters.  All but one scarf are in garter stitch - nice and mindless.

I've also been doing cooking, including some very nice bread and sandwich rolls:

I found out about a cooking group at a library, and they moved online.  We had a meeting this week and everybody showed what we've made from our pantry.  I did a soup with lots of kale, because I got a bag of it at the farmstand last Saturday.  We didn't get to taste each other's cooking this time but we did have fun getting recipe ideas and talking about what we miss being able to cook.

Resolutions for May

I am one for two on the April resolutions, because I made the shawl but didn't finish my vest.  So first up will be to finish the "We Knit In Texas Y'All" vest.

For other items, I will finish the baby blanket I was going to do in March and hand off to friends to deliver.  Of course, all the travel stopped, so pressure to finish was off.  The baby is already in this world but the month that includes Mother's Day seems a good time to get it finished and shipped.

For a new item for me I think I will take a set of red yarns from one of the DFW Fiber Fest vendors and make a pair of socks.  With the colours I can do a very plain pattern and let the yarn be the energy.  My mother loves red, so it seems appropriate - and somewhere I think I have some red socks I was making for her.  I sent a Mother's Day gift so I don't need to make one for my mother, and my grandmother loved a box of soaps I'd sent to her, so I'm done with gifts for a while.

Music for May

A friend posted this challenge, which she'd gotten from her son:

She posted partway through April, and note it has a bonus challenge, so I decided to wait and start it on the first of May.  I'll post the dailies on Facebook and a summary list here each week or two.

The Fiber Fest that Wasn't - Day 1

Today I decided to wear my old shirt from when I was on the Board, back in the founding days when the logo looked much different, since it's also #tbt (ThrowBack Thursday) today.

The leggings are from Maker's Mercantile, and I don't usually wear my skirt hiked up, but I wanted to show as much of the pattern as possible in this photo.

Today I should have been in the class "Twists on Twists: Reversible, Color, and Multicolor Cables".  I've done that kind of thing before, and like it, and am always up for learning new tricks.

For my knitting, I couldn't decide among the new things, and I wanted something not too fiddly since it's a work day.  I remembered picking up the yarn for this two years ago, and since I couldn't find the pattern I bought it again in digital format, especially as it's a fundraiser.

This is supposed to be a cowl, but I have two yarn sets, and I think it's enough to turn this into a vest for me.  One row is plain knit, the other has the pattern which spells out in binary code "We Knit In Texas Y'all" and  it just seems to be what I need to knit right now, even though I'm not in Texas.

Endings and Beginnings

New Year's Day posts usually review the successes of last year's resolutions and setting new ones.  I didn't do a post on Wednesday because I was busy and sad - MakeHartford closed, and we were doing final clean-out of the space.  Well, I was; most of the work had been done the previous weekend, and I was freecycling as much of the remaining shelving and cabinets as I could.  This meant being in the space to meet people or otherwise arrange for pickups.

Our President arranged for us to merge with other spaces in Connecticut, but I have yet to accept any of the offers (given my longevity, it would be a free year at the new space of my choice) although I probably will later this month.  I just need a little time.  And to organize the things I culled from the space, mostly fiber and paper arts supplies, and the infinity mirror class supplies, and other oddments.

I did get to several yoga classes in the last week, since work was quiet and I had the time.  I tried a Restorative Yoga class and decided it's more meditation than yoga and not for me at this time.  Good to know, as I'd been curious about those.

I'd planned to do more cleaning and organizing of my own home, but kept losing time to being at the space.  In the end, I am glad that things went to good homes, but I feel I'll being doing catch-up at my own home.  I already have some donations to make to the local thrift stores, and will probably do a run this week.  I've had discussions with people about whether to itemize or not; last year my donations exceeded the standard deduction, not by a lot, but enough, so I was glad I kept detailed records of what I donated.  I'll probably keep doing it out of habit.

I haven't made further progress on last year's resolutions since my September post.  The remaining UFOs are still unfinished, although I did make progress on the "Omega" shawl.  The sweater that I was going to take apart and reuse turned into a nice scarf, which I finished last night:

I did get the pantry somewhat organized, although I am now re-organizing it to turn the bottom shelf into storage for supplies and equipment from the makerspace.  I got a small microwave that I can use to melt soap for melt-and-pour projects, and the two crockpots we used to dye yarn.  All of these are technically foodsafe so can be stored and used in the kitchen, but now I don't have to put my own items to double use.  I also have the toaster oven we used for polymer clay - NOT food safe and well marked to indicate this.

I didn't get rid of the china cabinet.  Still need to do that, either through a yard sale (at a friend's house, we're not allowed to hold them in my condo complex) or donation to a local charity.  While at it, I have one or two other items of furniture that can go.

Much of November and December I spent making items for family.  My grandmother's annual vest was joined by two shawls, since she really likes shawls these days:

The vest is Lion Brand Ferris Wheel in Buttercup; I knit a tube to the underarms then back and forth.  The green shawl is Lion Brand Cupcake yarn in Peas and Carrots (slight playing with the yarn to pull out the white and use it for the edging) and the other shawl is Caron Cakes yarn in Buttercream, which she chose when we were out and about one day.

And DNiece#2 asked for a hat with ridges to mimic the hat she has been wearing while portraying Thomas Cromwell in a course at college.  Here's the hat:

She wanted more of a beanie style.  And maybe a scarf.  And mittens? I offered.  Why not.  I got the hat and mittens done for Christmas:

DNiece#2 was surprised to find out how the mittens fit, and realized she's been wearing the same ones since about third grade, and now they barely cover her hands to the wrist.  I am still working on the scarf (based on a Hufflepuff house scarf - hence the yellow stripes on the wrists of the mittens and inside the hat, to tie the set together) and I think I'll whip up another pair of mittens to send with it.  A few years ago I did a hat and scarf for this niece in blue, her favourite colour, and I have a bit of it around in a similar yarn, and mittens work up fast, so - obvious!

RESOLUTIONS for 2020

I was thinking about this, and then read an article about doing micro-resolutions: a small one each month, something you can focus on and achieve, but which doesn't seem so daunting because you commit for only 28-31 days.  The author also talks about resolutions to add things to your life, not just take things out of it.

I'm going to do easy things.  First up, resolution for January:  Finish Scarves.  I've started a number of scarves for charity, and this month I would like to focus on getting several of them finished.  Of course, I also have to finish the scarf and mittens for my niece, but I want to try to not start anything new until I get a bunch of the charity scarves done.  I keep starting new ones when the old ones are too big to easily carry around, or if something fiddly happens, and I need to get focused and pin some together (rolling them to be a smaller item) to make them more portable and thus get them finished.

I've started this by frogging one, which I realized wasn't too skinny but would be very, very long if I use all the yarn, so I am going to make it wider.  Luckily it's garter stitch and the kind of thing I do easily on planes and in movies and while standing on line everywhere.

Current list, done from memory, and all plain garter stitch unless noted:

• Browns - Bernat Super Value Stripes in Beechwood and Caron Jumbo in Chocolate Variegated on the sides.
• Patons Lace in lavender and Porcelain, held double (the fiddly one, because the yarn sticks to itself).
• Red Heart Fleece Hugs in Jungle - crocheted corner-to-corner.
• Stitch Studio Sweet Dreams in Creamsicle - the frogged one.
• Premiere Serenity Chunky Big Ombre in Walnut.
• Caron Chunky Cakes in Trifle (red/white/blue).
• Leftover Ferris Wheel from my grandmother's Christmas vest, crochet.

I always have at least one in the car, easy to grab when I run into shops or the post office.  At least one should come with me on a business trip next week - I will have to convince myself it's small enough, and I don't need to start a new one!

I'm going to try to read (or finish, as I'm partway through one right now) at least one book a month.  I'd love to read more, but since work requires me to read all day, my brain gets tired of processing words.  I'll report as I finish.

My grandmother's vests - Holidays 2013

As promised in my last post (which I have now updated with the totals of items I knit and crocheted for charity in 2013), in this one I tell about the vests I made for my grandmother.

This is a longstanding tradition.  I am not sure for how many years I have given her a vest for Christmas.  We see her for Thanksgiving (Christmas celebrated with my SIL's family) and leave her Christmas gifts, wrapped, for her to open when appropriate.  One year, I wrapped the vest with a big book of crossword puzzles, which my grandmother loves to work, and she was disappointed that the gift I left was clearly too heavy to be a vest.  Another year, I asked in the fall what she wanted, and my grandmother said that she didn't need a vest, she had plenty.........then in November she whether I was giving her a vest that year because she was "cold" (I think it was in the mid- to high 60's(F)), and when I protested that she had told me in September that she didn't need one and I wasn't sure I had time to make one, my grandmother said that I should not listen to what she says in September because it's not yet cold enough for vests!  Of course I hadn't listened to her, and she did get a vest that year.

This year, I found some really fun brown self-striping yarn, and tried to make a zig-zag with it that was just not cooperating.  The weekend before Thanksgiving, I realized I needed to do something else or there would be no vest.  A quick search and I found a pattern for an afghan square that was done in three colours, which I translated into (trust me, the camera doesn't take quality pictures, and yes, I'm replacing it) just two - peach and rust:

I made up the rest of the vest around it.  Then I wrapped it and left it for Chanukah, which overlapped with Thanksgiving this year.  My SIL and I agreed to give my grandmother one gift for each night of Chanukah, since we would be there for several and she loves getting gifts.  The best item she opened while we were there was a one-pound Snickers® bar.  My grandmother didn't open the package with the vest before we left, but I heard several times about how wonderful it was after she did, even to the point that she had to completely change the outfit she planned to wear to supper that night so she could show off the vest.
The full-length picture has colours that are closer to actual, and the sides are straight despite what you see in this photograph:

When I got home, after finishing some of the other items I needed to get done, I returned to the original vest and decided to do a pattern I have done before, which is simply columns, and straight across on the back.  I like both ways the yarn worked out:

 

This close-up shows how interesting the yarn is in shorter stitch counts.  The above photos are truer to the colours, which are warm browns; the one below is rather cool and a bit washed out.  Yes, I did the front as intarsia, rather than having to sew together columns:

My grandmother sometimes wears the backs as the front, I wonder if she will do it with this vest?  This one went out just after Christmas (I'd left a gift for my grandmother to open for Christmas, never fear, and as expected she opened it on Christmas Eve - it is a scarf out of a ruffle yarn, which made me nuts trying to get it to work out properly) and I guess will be an Epiphany gift or something.  With it is a print of our family Thanksgiving portrait in a glam frame, and a note explaining that the vest was just included as padding in the package.  ;)

I really like the yarn and am sad it is a nameless millend so I cannot get more for another project.  I do have some that will probably turn into hat and mittens.  Since I tend to make both as seamless tubes, it will be interesting to see how differently the colour patterns turn out in those items.

Some more things I knit (or crocheted) recently

While writing a post to Knittalk, I realized that I have done some other knitting recently that I could post. First, a dozen hats for Bedstemor's Beanies:



There was someone on Knittalk who would knit hats every year for her daughter to give away at school. She died of cancer over the summer and the inhabitants of the list decided that we would carry on her tradition. I got a bit carried away! Some of the hats were made from yarn donated by a friend who received it for her charity, which could not use the yarn. The two red-and-white hats were actually part of that donation. The others came from my stash, various bits of yarn. The red-and-blue one at the bottom is Jared Flood's "Turn A Square" hat, slightly modified. It was hard to photograph to show the square!


Every year for Christmas I give a vest to my grandmother. This has been going on for quite some time. She gets cold in Florida in the winter and loves to wear vests (not sweaters!) over shirts or turtleneck sweaters. This year I used a yarn called "Mesa" that has long repeats, and did the vest with different front and back so my grandmother can choose which side to wear frontwise:

My grandmother said that she heard from a lady who has a sweater from a fancy designer with just the same yarn. My grandmother made a fuss that HER vest is one of a kind because I made it - not mass produced by a designer. Oh, boy! I think that my grandmother just likes to make a big deal that the vests were made for her by someone in her family. For knitters: the side with blocks was done in intarsia, three balls and the colours fell where they would.

Right now I am knitting a pair of mittens for me. Parts get reknit as I adjust where the stripes on the yarn fall, but I am nearly done with the second one. Finally, as we have had quite a lot of snow this weekend. I did find the pair of mittens I mislaid on Friday but I've been meaning to knit some mittens for myself. I'll post pictures when these get done. There are two more playoff games today and I have an adult learning class this morning - lots of knitting time!

Unless the games are as tense and exciting as the end of the Jets-Colts game was last night.......