Two hours, approximately.

A few weeks ago I attended a firsthand report about the H+H trade show, and one item reported about is yarn made of loops that creates graphical designs when the instructions are followed.  While at a Joann's to pick up some other things I found a couple balls of Bernat Blanket-EZ in the clearance bin, and since clearance items were an additional amount off that week, I bought a couple so I could try the yarn.

Scarf in progress - 10 loops wide.

Finished scarf - I could have left
two loops at the start.

 

It's fairly easy to do, once you get the first three or so rows done, and a rhythm.  The scarf took me about two hours, because I was attending one of my Sunday get-togethers, so got distracted, then had to pull out rows a couple times when I figured out I'd dropped the edge stitch.  So I started to count the stitches every few rows to be sure I had enough.  The finished scarf came out about 8" wide by 61" long, and is very thick and soft.  Not something I will use for anything else, but an interesting experiment.  The scarf is, like so many, going to Warm Up, America!

I also made a half-dozen blanket pieces from the leftover green and cream yarn, with a touch of leftover gold from my grandmother's birthday blanket:

Yes, the ones with flowers are slightly smaller - I added to them after photographing.

Otherwise, as far as yarn projects so, I am back to some of the UFOs to complete while I wait for the new skeins of Bernat Super Value Stripes to arrive.  Then it's back to the border on the purples-and-pinks blanket.

Wednesday was my father's birthday so I went over early to leave decorations and banana muffins and a card.  Thursday I made a pizza for him for dinner, because Mom made one of his favourite meals on Wednesday.  Saturday we had a family lunch.  Otherwise it's been a fairly normal week.

Miscalculated.

This has been a week of slow-but-steady on the purples-and-pinks blanket.  As I rounded the corner to the third side, though, I had to start the third - and last - skein of Bernat Super Value Stripes yarn.  This meant that my calculations were seriously off, and I wouldn't have enough to make the whole border in the same yarn:

The long edge at left is about 60", so this is almost a 
finished blanket.  I'll add a border to hide the edge.

So, my options are to frog the border and restart with fewer stitches, or find more of the yarn.  Luckily the yarn is still in production, just no longer available at "the usual suspects" in terms of big chains.  I would have to order it from a specialty vendor, or directly from the manufacturer.  It costs more than the $4.99 original-at-shop price (I bought the skein shown on clearance for $3.00) but still a savings over my time to frog and restart, then add more border to the blanket.

While I am trying very much to stashbust with this, primarily the yarns I had collected in honor of Mari from which to make a blanket, my time is worth more than the cost of another skein.  If I couldn't find the yarn it would be a different matter.

Once I get to the end of this skein and know if I need one or two skeins of the yarn, I will pause until it arrives.  No worries, I have plenty to do!  My father's birthday is this week, and he requested a pizza, so I have to make the dough.  I'm also going to make a batch of banana muffins and drop them off when I do my walk on the morning of his birthday later this week.

Delivered

I finished the commissioned blanket, and since I had time and yarn I made a cowl, hat, and fingerless mitts because the recipient is going to school in New York.

This is what I was given as a starting point:

   

Not the blanket - three photographs, luckily with a measuring tape included in the image.  I think having just photographs, and mostly of the border, is why I was the only person to volunteer when the grandmother said she and the mother wanted a duplicate of the "lovey" as it was too precious to risk going to college.  The new one would be in college colours, and they would supply the yarn.

That was in the spring.

They had to choose the yarn, getting the colours correct, and finally in mid-July the grandmother provided two skeins of Caron Simply Soft, one in Dark Sage and one in Off White.  Realizing they had no no idea about the real yarn requirements, I used a supersavings coupon from Michaels to order more of the Off White.  Then the grandmother dropped off two more skeins, having understood my concern.  So I had two of the Dark Sage, and five Off White.  And about a month in which to do this, given when the girl goes off to college.

First thing was to determine the pattern and gauge.  Luckily I could print the top photo at about life size, so I could use it for pattern-checking:

Size H/8 (5.00MM) hook did it.  If you look closely, you can see the swatch exactly covers the pattern.

Then I did the necessary calculations to figure out how many stitches to start, and off I went!  Lots of crocheting back-and-forth.  Luckily it's a simple repeat and I could soon do it with minimal attention.  I will not bore you with all the progress photos, but the center piece took just past three skeins.

Although the original doesn't appear to have a full round of single crochet before the accent colour, I did it for stability and tidiness.  Then it was one round of sc in green, two rows of double crochet (dc) in green, one more of sc in green, and rows of sc, dc, and sc in white.

The border matches!

For the hat and mitts I used a Caron pattern, making the wrist longer and adding three-row stripes.  The cowl/neckwarmer is just 100 stitches, same striping pattern, in K2P2 ribbing.

I kept the extra yarn and will use it to make blanket pieces for Warm Up, America!  There is very little of the green left, and less than a full skein of the cream, so I cannot do a scarf.  Those will be a handy carry-along project, since the blanket I am working on for WUA is too big to carry and work on conveniently - especially give how hot is our weather right now!

A pizza for my parents.

After seeing the pizza I made for myself, my parents strongly hinted that they wanted to try one.  My mother had some pizza dough from the local CSA languishing in her freezer, and a bountiful basil plant.  I still had half a log or so of fresh mozzarella.  So:

My brother gave us a lot of tomatoes.

Work has been busy, and on the side I did a presentation for one of my professional organizations, as well as preparing several resource documents for them, and drafting most of an article on the presentation topic.  I expect to finish that this week.

I finished the commissioned blanket and have started fingerless mitts out of the leftover yarn; I'll also make a hat.  Since the recipient is a runner, probably not a scarf, but maybe a cowl.  I have a whole skein of the green left, and one of cream, although the latter is one of the extras I bought as insurance.  The blanket took most of four skeins of cream and one of green.  A full post about it will happen someday.

I need to finish the test-knit mitt that goes with the sock.  I decided to use a different yarn in case I don't have enough of the cake I was given to make both socks and a pair of mitts.

I've been involved in an exam-question-writing project for another professional organization, which is fun but I apparently completely forgot how to format new references.  However, I think I am back in my stride and hopefully out of the red zone this week.

My crepe myrtle suddenly bloomed like crazy earlier this week, and I thought I got a good photo of it, but couldn't find it when I went to upload.  So I took a replacement but this is after a storm so it's not quite as bouffant as it was:

The branches are so heavy with flowers over the walkway
that I have to duck, which is very unusual.

I've been able to get out most mornings for walks, except one day when it started raining before I got too far, so I turned back to home.  Today I walked over 20,000 steps, which is not a record but very unusual unless I am on vacation someplace and doing lots of exploring.  That was due to a combination of lots of morning walking (two, if you want to be particular, because I had to go out a second time) and doing things to pull out items for the upcoming community tag sale and organize other things and so on around the house.

A pizza from my brother.

Well, sort of - he dropped off some veggies on his way to check on DNiece#1's cat (she and her mother are off on a gap-week trip) and I quickly knew what I wanted to make:

Very simple:  bits of mozzarella, slices of tomatoes, and scattered
bits of basil added both before and after baking.

The original quantity; I did not use all the tomatoes and basil.
The cucumber was lovely.  Still figuring out how I'll cook the squash.

Luckily I had some fresh mozzarella in the refrigerator and a bit of pizza dough in the freezer that I kept meaning to use, but had not yet.  It was the right amount to bake in my cast iron skillet.

Of course I made the weekly soufflé for my parents, this time with a side dish of squash, tomato, onion, and basil.  Veggies from the local farmer's market; basil from a pot my mother has on the front porch:

Work was very busy, and I had three side assignments with deadlines:  An article about contracts, AI, and the metaverse; a cybersecurity test question writing exercise (which goes for a few months, with weekly quotas); and creating reference collateral for a professional association's library.  I also have to finish writing a short article about a Supreme Court decision about trademarks - it's at the top of tomorrow's to-finish list, as I'm partly done.

Yesterday my mother and I went to see the Ruth E. Carter:  Afrofuturism in Costume Design exhibit.  Fascinating to see not just the costumes and her mood boards and fabric samples, but also learn the process behind the designs.  Very scholarly and thoughtful, and so many elements considered!

I've been working on the test sock, and proceeding with the commissioned blanket (just a big piece of what looks like checkerboard filet crochet) while my finger healed from the tiny, sharp needles needed for the sock.  Heel turned and transition to leg pattern achieved, so it's round-and-round for a while until I do the top finishing.

Then I have to make another sock.

Scarves and blankets and bears, oh my!

I am working on a couple things that I cannot post about, one because it is test knitting (several of us are struggling with part of the pattern, but persevere) and one because it's a cybersecurity thing and I have to get clearance.  It's fun - but secret!

I can show the scarves and a blanket I left in Texas to go to Warm Up, America:

Yes, you've seen the scarves before.
Except the one on the bottom, that I made last weekend.
Sorry about the colour, I didn't realize it was so yellow.

The purples-and-pinks blanket is progressing, and looking a little less like a wad of knitting:

I won a prize from the Center for Knit and Crochet because I tested a pattern they created from a toy in their collection.  I told them I'd do either knit or crochet, whichever they needed, and they sent both!  So I did both:

Then I felt guilty because when they announced I'd won yarn from their random drawing of test volunteers I hadn't finished putting the bears together and sending my notes.  (I did send some via email.)  So I did that quickly, before my prize arrived:

I'd planned to make the bears fraternal, but I did the crocheted one first and it turned out the sample knitted one is in red, and I didn't want to appear that I was copying.  So there will be another pair in red with blue faces - once I get a few other items finished!

Just a quick one.

I had a quick weekend in the Dallas area, going to a couple plays, seeing friends, and enjoying some almost-normal time again.  The two plays were:

Both are farces, and both productions were really good.  I know two of the actresses in "Boeing Boeing" but had not seen them onstage, just in virtual productions, so when I heard they are in the cast I decided to try and see the show.  I checked against other productions I wanted to see and opening weekend overlapped the closing weekend of "A Flea in Her Ear", which has two people I know in the cast.  So that pretty much determined when I'd be there.

A couple other shows were "maybe" but without friends in the cast, and no group outing to see them planned by locals, I decided to leave Saturday open to visit friends.  I had a good, and long, lunch with a couple I hadn't see since well before the pandemic.  Wife showed up with a couple bags of yarn she was divesting from her stash, which my hostess and I divided after returning to her home.

Then we went up to Fiberlady to visit.

By the time we got there only FiberGuy (his shirt reads FiberladyMan) and Fiberlady were there, so I got to have a relaxed visit with them.  And bought a bit of yarn.  I wore the top I'd made from their Swirl, and I want to make more of them.  So at least one shirt's worth of yarn came home with me.

I ate some treats:

Breakfast from Sweet Hut.

Lunch at El Noa Noa, enchilada and tamales in chili sauce,
very Tex-Mex.  Yes, I polished off the salsa.

The outgoing flight was storm-delayed, so I almost missed curtain for the first show, but they held it!  My return flight was very late on Sunday, so I had a sleepy Monday, but it was a very, very good weekend of friends, food, and fun.