Just do the things.

I attended an online fiber people hangout this afternoon.  A hundred or so of us gather most Sundays at the invitation of somebody we support via Patreon, to chat and to see what he's been doing (brocante-ing, or a vendor show, or developing a pattern, or whatever), and if you don't feel like being "live" you can sit and work on a project and let the discussion flow past.

Today our host showed some yarn he has been spinning, and said that he'd been stuck for a while, but it's Tour de Fleece season and he hoped he still remembered how.  Yes, he does, and we ogled the purple-with-flecks-of-pink two-ply yarn wound on the niddy-noddy.  Discussing how he approached it, the host said he let go of the need for perfection, and focused on just doing the thing, and relaxing into the rhythm, and simply making thread, and yarn.

This reminded me of a memory that FB showed me, from this date in 2013, when I posted:

It's not quite the same, and yet so very similar.  Sometimes loving what you do, and being inspired to do something, don't align, and sometimes they do, and sometimes it's not the main thing you're supposed to be doing, but doing a bit of it can be refreshing - and soul-satisfying.

So I have my job, and do as I should there, and next week I find out how well they think I am doing (annual review time = report cards for grownups), so it's a time of tension and wanting to do some things and not others, and well.........

I volunteered for a couple pattern-test projects.  One I didn't finish, but there was no deadline, and I have been working on it this weekend.  This is for the Center for Knit & Crochet, and I offered to do either pattern, since I knit and crochet, so they sent both.  I decided to use some leftover yarn, and then realized I was doing the knitted bear in the same colour they had used, so I restarted and now have twin blue bears.  I'll do a separate post about them when CKC allows me to do so.  I did find a bunch of errors in the patterns, so scan and emailed the corrections, as well as emailing one immediately in case others had a question.

The other is socks and fingerless mitts for a designer whose patterns I've looked at, and purchased a couple, but she is very big into using beads and I am not big into beads.  This pattern is heavily cabled with NO beads, so it is right in my pleasure place as to knitting.  I don't like working on a deadline, and had those bears first, so I am behind the others.  On the upside, this means several of the errors in the pattern, or places where clarity is lacking, have gotten sorted.  However, the designer wants to see the socks and get feedback within three weeks from the cast-on for the socks, and the mitt a week after then, so I need to catch up.

I had a problem in that I generally don't buy solid coloured sockweight yarns, because I'd rather do plain quick socks which means a patterned or wild yarn works quite well for not-boring socks.  I found a skein of blue semisolid from Bombshell Dyeworks that will not hide the pattern, so onwards to the testing!  This will also be a blog post once we're permitted.

I've also been making soaps again, as some new moulds arrived.  A friend on KnitTalk posted about his designs because she makes chocolate, and he advertises for that purpose, and she saw some with knitted designs.  I looked and saw they are large enough for soaps, so:

I am also trying to finish that purple-and-pink blanket so I can leave it with my friend to deliver to Warm Up, America! at DFW Fiber Fest.  I'll see her next weekend, and can work on some of it while we're socializing, but it's large and unwieldy and won't do for theater work.

Time to get back to knitting - things are on deadline!

The longest short month

This February has certainly seemed that way.  It's been almost a year since I traveled - the last trip I went on included the North Texas Irish Festival, which will be virtual next weekend.  I remember my mother being worried and I joked that Chinese people didn't tend to come to Irish music festivals.  One woman at the festival wore a mask with "ALLERGIES" written across it, but most of us didn't wear masks.  We did avoid getting too close, although I didn't resist a hug from a friend of mine who came to the festival using a free ticket I had and enjoyed himself immensely.  The festival is dog-friendly and he has a friendly dog, and we were planning to repeat this year.  Well, we'll do it next year.

Work is incredibly busy.  I had a 16:45 hour day last week, according to my work tracker.  It involved some midnight work with people in China and Japan, including my having to fill out a form that was mostly in Japanese.  I was pleased that I made only one mistake, which they corrected on the other end.  I've worked part of each weekend day this weekend, and last one, and it's likely to continue through March.  My boss approved for me to take time off in April.  I haven't had a vacation since April 2019; last year's was cancelled due to the pandemic, and I didn't do a staycation.  I can think of only one day I've taken that wasn't a national holiday, and I've worked on some of those as well.  I guess I'm a workaholic, but between the weather and the pandemic, I don't have much else to do.

Except cleaning and sorting stuff, recycling, donating to the thrift store, etc.  According to my records, I donated 836 items to the thrift store this month.  They ranged from small items such as a card of buttons to large ones such as the carryon that had seen quite a few flights and road miles before travel stopped.  Books, clothing, housewares I wasn't using, or which I hadn't taken out of their packages.  And so on.  I'm not a hoarder, not the kind you see on television or read about, but I am definitely acquisitive.  Now that I've been around my stuff so much, it's clear what I really need, what I want, and what has no further purpose, at least not for me.

If I'd been doing the Minimalism Game I would have donated 406 items, so I am well ahead.  Yes, it's really a thirty-day challenge and February has only twenty-eight days, but if you add the additional 59 items it's 465, well under the 836 I donated.  I call it good.

I do find items that I'd forgotten, such as this guy:

  

Many years ago the Yarn Harlot wrote about learning to make a monkey out of leftover sock yarn at a retreat.  I thought it looked cute and based upon the photos, made one.  I showed it to her at an event and she was very dismissive.  He does look a little crazed, due to the yarn and my embroider-on-knitting skills.  He's still cute.

I missed the monthly cooking club, also due to work running over, but I emailed a photo of my meal:

The assignment was to cook something from the Pioneer Woman's blog and I chose the Crash Potatoes because I could do them with things I had already.  I changed from cheese on top to slices of lemon, which I needed to use up and I thought it went better with the glazed delicata squash and eggs.  Not a food-blogger-pretty plate of food, but it was very tasty.

Overall, it feels like an incredibly long time, and it's hard to believe that February is the shortest month.  Maybe because work has been so overwhelming, or because I was able to do two trips to the thrift store, or just because the days blur because I am not traveling or even going to local events.  Some cinemas are open, with limited attendance, but I haven't felt like going.  There aren't concerts or other performances in person, not to speak of, and there's still too much snow for me to get in a walk.  The rare time I have the opportunity during daylight it's too cold, or raining.  Yes, tons of excuses.

It's also been over a year since I've seen any of my family, except for a couple of Zoom calls.  I speak to them, and email, but it's not the same.  I haven't seen a lot of my friends in at least that long, except for the ones I saw at NTIF last year.  We keep up via email and social media and a very rare Zoom call, but again - not the same.  I really miss seeing people for more than a distant front-stoop chat, or the routine of post office and weekly CSA or farmstand shopping, or the less frequent food delivery.  It will be nice to sit across a table with somebody and share a meal.  It will be fantastic to hug my family again.

Mini-Resolutions Status

I finally started the second sock, although I haven't gotten far.  I'm well on the way with the BLUE hat for my KnitTalk Make-Along challenge:

The multi has some blue in it that may be too close to the solid, but from a distance it looks better than it does when I am knitting.  I didn't do the deep ribbing the pattern has so I am leaving off one of the rounds of the full-sized dots to compensate.

I haven't finished any of my UFOs, nor a single book.  I am behind on the reading, as I would have to finish an average of one book every two months.  Maybe I need to choose a different book.

Happy 40th, Mom and Dad

My parents got married forty years ago today, the only day both of them plus the reverend, an old family friend, were available.  They invited some close friends and a few family to dinner, with a mystery stop on the way that turned out to be the chapel where they were married.  We don't have photographs because a cousin opened the only camera and ruined the film, but this one from a New York City trip some years ago seems appropriate:

Happy Ruby Anniversary, Mom and Dad!!

Not much to report here.  Work was very busy running up to the end of quarter, as people tried to get deals signed.  I had only a couple days when meals were granola bars and peanut butter, which I consider a win for EOQ.  Because I am home I could have at least one properly cooked meal each day, which is even more of a win.  I've enjoyed cooking local chicken, local eggs, local vegetables, and the herbs from my countertop kitchen garden, rounded out with local cheese and yoghurt and ice-cream or italian ice.

I am reading books again.  For a while, I couldn't.  Too much reading for work, keeping up with articles and reports online, and I just lost the ability to focus and enjoy the words.  A friend finished and launched a book, and I'd seem some early chapters, but it took him long to finish, and coincidentally the book comes out in an eerily similar time.  It's available free to download today, as it is the first of every month, and is a prequel to his earlier book, also free to download today.

Next I will try to finish some books I abandoned when I stopped traveling.  I had a couple that lived in my briefcase or travel bag, and when I cleaned those to put away for the longterm I found them.  They are waiting, but I have a feeling I'll dive back into them soon.

Status of June Mini-Resolutions

I did not finish two of the OTN items.  I did finish the sock, but not anything else that was in-progress.  The Center for Knit & Crochet suggested that World UFO Day tomorrow also apply to UnFinished Objects so I give myself through tomorrow night.  When I read that I was inspired to go to a bin where I have two quite old items.  One is a shawl I started during the nearly-year in Madison, and the other a shopping bag from before you received reusable bags from anywhere.  I am pretty sure I started it when I lived in Texas and the yarn shop from where I purchased the yarn is no longer in business - so it's been a while.  The pattern is fairly mindless so I've made quite good progress, and it might be done tomorrow if I figure out the top and strap.  The pattern is long gone.

I did finish the gift for my friend and the post office says it was delivered, so here are some photos:

I had just enough yarn for two bags - one crocheted, one knit.

  

I used the lace pattern from the Phyllotaxis Hat.

Kim received an elevation within her religion and I had a hank of hand-dyed sock yarn that reminded me of her.  I offered to make something out of it and she sent several ideas.  I decided to make these bags and I think they came out rather well.  Both patterns are my own design, other than following the lace pattern, and based upon measurements she sent.

Edited to add:  Kim posted that the bags are "perfect", she's thrilled.  Huzzah!

July Mini-Resolution

This is easy.  I was going to be on a Craft Cruise this month, but it was cancelled due to the pandemic and because no ships are sailing.  I'd planned to have at least one project in addition to the class projects:  Stephen West's Boneyard shawl, in yarn I purchased at his shop last year.  I plan to cast on July 11th, the day the cruise was scheduled to begin, and plan to have it finished by the time the cruise would end on July 25th.

Maybe I'll get some other UFOs finished, too.

Where did the summer go?

I intended to update the blog over the summer, but I was out and about and kept forgetting.

RESOLUTIONS:

I have now finished all the books in my Resolutions post!  I'd previously reported about finishing "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles", and since then I finished "Dreams in the Golden Country" (I almost finished it on the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, but couldn't, and finished it earlier this month instead), "Rookie of the Year" (which I did indeed finish while at summer camp), and "The Whisperer", which was better than I expected, although with an unsurprising ending.

I have also finished an additional book, "Shopping for Buddhas", a Lonely Planet book from the late 1990's.  I started it at camp after finishing "Rookie of the Year" and since it's not seasonal I continued until the end.  An interesting light read, definitely viewing Nepal through the eyes of an unschooled but sympathetic American.  I feel as though I have read more, but it may be that I read a lot of articles and such, not proper books.

I finished one of the three shawls I listed, the one of handspun (two different skeins by related but different spinner/dyers) purchased at DFW Fiber Fest:

I tried to get a closeup to show
all the wonderful colours.

Very simple basic triangle, with four rows from one skein in stockinette, and two rows from the other in garter, which helped disguise the differences in spinning.  Although they looked very different in the hanks, the yarns blended so well people sometimes though it was a single skein.  The yarn is incredibly soft and this is both light and warm.

I finished another UFO shawl that I located after creating the resolutions post. It's a basic pattern (based upon one I got in a holiday gift exchange an number of years ago) from a single ball of Taiyo Sock purchased on an excursion with two friends a number of years ago, and which languished a lot.  I took it on a whirlwind trip I had to make suddenly in July, when I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time to think and not a lot of space for packing.  Here it is on a long layover:

Yes, it has since been finished and worn.  Another basic triangle, this one with an eyelet row at every colour change, until those got very skinny and then at every other colour change.

I have made several other shawls, all for my grandmother.  She is always cold, and mentioned that shawls are "the thing" right now, and since they are simple and fun to do, I whipped up a couple:

Crocheted Shawl of Red Heart Dreamy Stripes, and knitted shawl
(Wailea pattern) in Lion Brand Cupcake, colourway "Tundra".

She liked them, so I made three more that I delivered at my last visit, but I forgot to take pictures of those.  One was a rarity for me, using the actual yarn and pattern together, but it came out nicely and my grandmother likes it a lot.  The other two were basic crocheted patterns, both different from the one in the photo.  She likes all of them, and even shares them with friends, but only for the duration of a meal or concert and then makes sure to get it back.  I think she's showing off a bit.

October is coming, which means the KnitTalk list has its annual "Aftober" of completing projects, and I plan to finish the "Omega" shawl (also on my Resolutions list) next month.  I have a lot of travel scheduled, and it's still small enough to be a briefcase project.

SUMMER:

I went to camp.  A friend teaches at a camp, and she has a small cabin of her own during that month, so can host guests.  She gets one day off per month, and we go exploring.  Last year, it was to a local glassworks museum and a small hike.  This year, we went to a local town and wandered through secondhand shops and a flea market, then stopped at a chocolate shop that also carries non-chocolate items.  We got some really cute things for her family and my grandmother.

I visited my grandmother; we wandered around flea markets (one has a pickle-on-a-stick-snack-as-you-shop stand, and you get any of the pickles they have on offer - mine was garlic half-sour - or you can buy quantities to take home) and attended a concert and drove around looking at stuff.  And clouds, my grandmother loves looking at clouds.

MakeHartford celebrated its fifth anniversary with a gathering, and show-and-tell that included a portable pizza oven and a "thermonuclear hot dog cooker", otherwise known as a solar cooker.  We had competing chocolate chip/candy cookies, and I made strawberry marshmallows, and much food and drink and conviviality was had by all.

I've traveled a lot, some for work and some for family and friends.  I've tried to get out more, especially given how nice the weather has been, so movies in the park and concerts in the park and lots of cemetery walks and park walks and other things.  Since the weather is lovely, I think I'll go do more of that today.

Resolutions for 2015

I've been thinking about whether to post them, and why not?  I did last year, and it's not as if I have thousands of people reading the blog and keeping me accountable, so there's less pressure to actually DO them.  And it's fun to keep track, sometimes, and figure out where I am in terms of what I think I could accomplish this year.

So for this year, the three resolutions I am making are:

1. To keep the blog more up-to-date, posting at least once a month.  I know, it didn't happen last year, but that's a good reason to re-use it, to see if I can make the goal this year.  Once a month isn't horrendous.  I know where I fall down is because I want to use pictures, and that means resizing them and sometimes other adjustments to get Blogger to like the arrangement I want to show.
2. Keeping a record of everything I knit, crochet, etc.  I've done that sometimes in the past, and there are usually partial records as I blog, or post on Facebook, or keep records for my taxes, or get pictures of people wearing what I have sent.  It's interesting sometimes to keep a real record and look back to see how many of what I have made, or even just finished, in the year.
3. Put together the standing computer desk I bought, when I hurt my hip and then annoyed a back muscle and sitting was painful.  I've used a kluge when I needed to stand and work, in part because I have to clear and partially re-arrange my office area to put the desk where it will work with the rest of the items I have.  I'm well and have this enforced vacation from work, may as well put it to use!

So far this year, I spent yesterday organizing things in my crawlspace, and the extra area I use for yarn storage overflow.  I am trying to get the overflow to fit into the crawlspace, and might succeed, in part because I pulled out a lot of yarn to donate to my father's church, where a group of ladies knits and crochets items for shelters, the kids who come to the afterschool tutoring program, and so on.  A great place for odd balls of yarn to end up, or yarn from projects that never quite got started.

I also started a hat for me.  I decided that I want my first new project of the new year to be something for me, and special, and the hat I planned to wear this winter came out a bit big on me so I put it into my Etsy shop instead.  Since I've gotten into entrelac in the round over the holiday, beginning with this mitt:

Not quite one ball makes one mitt.  Yes, I will finish the other!

I decided to find a hat pattern and use some yarn I have in the stash.  In part it is because I found the yarn in my cleaning, and decided to use it for a hat and mittens for me.  I noticed that the yarn ("mystery bump" from Tidal Yarns) has very long colour changes and I thought that instead of making plain items, it would be fun to take advantage of that and make them in entrelac.  Here's what I have so far:

Not much done because I was busy organizing on January 1st.

The second hank, at the top, and whatever is left over from the hat-ball will become mittens.  The yarn is soft and squishy and I am enjoying knitting it.

My cordless drill needs charging, so I guess it's back to knitting.  Or maybe I'll replace the bulb in the entryway ceiling light.  And there might be a couple upstairs.  I like quick-to-finish chores!  Then I'll get back to knitting.

Go-Go Dancing and Knitting and Crocheting Things

It may actually surprise a few readers that I did NOT do these at the same time!  Last night - so just barely into August - I went to a party at a local venue.  Theme was "Deep Blue Rendezvous" and part of the inspiration was The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, so one of the costume suggestions was light blue clothing and a red watchcap.  I told a friend I would lend one to him, then realized I needed one for me.

And of course, far be it for me to have a plain red watchcap:

That's based upon the Trilobite pattern, but with a repeat of three instead of four.  It took less time to knit than you might think, at least once I got the cast-on number right.  Most of it was knit on Saturday, finishing about 6:00pm.

We had a LOT of fun dancing to The Aquatudes, which turns out to be one of four surf bands in Connecticut.  Fun stuff!  There were DJs in another room and after The Aquatudes finished, we danced there.  Typical of a lot of the parties I've been to here, whether you have a partner or not is fairly irrelevant. There was a Poseidon, a sailor, several persons in swim gear (including an inflatable stingray that was passed around), and lots of people in red knit caps, including the friend at right who's also wearing one of mine.  Several members of a local burlesque troupe mingled, often dancing on boxes of flashing lights like go-go dancers, and when the hour waned and the crowd thinned, I was pulled up on a box for a bit.  Yep, that would be my new thing for August, and completely unplanned by me - go-go dancing.  Even, go-go dancing with members of a burlesque troupe!

Of course, that was not my only knitting.  I finished a cotton top I'd started a couple months back, just in time to wear to brunch today.  Not entirely happy with it so it may head to the thrift store after a wash, but I want to wear it because this group saw me knitting on it at previous brunches.  I didn't get it done sooner because I've been sidetracked by mostly charity knitting and crocheting, such as these items, which I wrote about on the charity's blog, especially about the yarn in one of the singleton hats:

Eighteen wool yarn and sock yarn baby hats ready to mail.

Easy crocheted caps with earflaps for warmth and ties to stay on.

These five hats came from two balls of Patons Classic Wool.
The center one is a favourite pattern of mine from KnitPicks.

"Onesie" hats, unlike any of the others, mostly doubled yarn.

Pairs of hats - same yarn used, although the center one is a
different pattern, not the standard watchcap.

The crocheted hats pattern is a Lion Brand one, and the hat in the centre of the picture of pairs is based upon a Lion Brand pattern but done in a single weight of sock yarn.  The others are two or three strands together - three of sock yarn, or one sock yarn plus a DK or sportweight wool - in a basic watchcap pattern on 56 or 64 stitches.


Do you remember back in May when I knit four black-and-grey sweaters for boys in orphanages in Kazahkstan?  I now have photos of the delivery.  Only three of the boys wore their gifts when posing for the camera:

Mittens for Akkol Campaign Contributions

I should write stories about the trip to New Zealand, or some of the other things I've been doing, but I'm still busy playing catch-up with my life.  So this will have to do for now.

After I was insulted twice in the blog for another charity, I was told about Mittens for Akkol and how they knit woolly items for children in orphanages in Kazakhstan, and for mothers and babies in "baby houses" there.  Since I have a lot of wool yarns on hand because of the previous charity's needs, I decided to switch and knit for this group.

I found out about them barely in time to contribute to the last campaign.  This time, I was almost too late even though I tried signing up immediately.  Some of those ladies are quick!  I was able to send these items:

Toddler hat at left was made from a free pattern on KnitPicks, out of leftover bits of 100% wool yarn.  The picture seems to be of the back seam, sorry!  It is very cute and very thick, will be nice and warm for a small child.  Also stretchy, thanks to the garter stitch, so not to be outgrown soon.

The yarn from the hat was originally part of the blanket below.  The other charity wants bigger ones that MfA does, so I ripped back the partly-done blanket and finished it at the required size.  It's a couple oddballs of shaded yarn done in two-row stripes, surrounded by aqua handspun and handdyed wool yarn that was a leftover in my wool basket.  I think it's pretty cute.  I folded it in half for the picture so I could get a closer shot:

They also wanted baby sweaters.  The first one is out of sock yarn, from a cute pattern and on US#2 and US#1 needles.  This is the three-month size, and I used a ball of striping yarn and a partial ball of the solid.  It was great carry-around because of its small size, but tedious:

Note that I changed the closure from loops to a proper placket.  I did something similar on this cardi, which is six months size and adapated to use some Limbo, a discontinued 100% wool yarn I had in the stash.  I just made pieces that reached the recommended measurements, sewed it together, added the borders and then added buttons from my stash.  They happen to be rose-shaped.

The socks below were knitted on two different choir tours!  One on the tour of Argentina in 2008, and

the other on our tour of New Zealand this year. I kept meaning to get the second one done..... Basic toe-up pattern, using SWS (Soy Wool Stripes) yarn in "Natural Earth" and US#4 and US#5 dpns.  They fit my foot and I do the K2P2 ribbing so they will stay up better on a leg, and stretch to fit different sizes.  I actually had a repair job to do after the second one that I will write up in another blog post.  They are fraternal because the balls started in different places in the colour sequence and to economize the yarn so the socks could be as tall as possible, I didn't get too particular.  This yarn is 70% wool and 30% soy and too warm for me to wear as socks.

Package was mailed with my usual prepaid, pre-addressed postcard for the organizer to send back so that I know it arrived safely.  She does post a list of packages as they arrive, but I got used to adding the postcard and it's a nice extra confirmation.

More photos of things I have created recently (I did a LOT of knitting and crocheting on the NZ trip) and my yarn purchases, the sock repair, yet to come.  Plus some tour reports, with lots of pictures!

Sock Yarn Mittens

I finished these in time for the storm:

They are from an oddball of self-striping sock yarn (lost the band) knit with US#2 dpns and a basic mitten pattern that lives in my head. I knit one, then knit the other, and had enough yarn left with the right repeats to go back to the first one (on the right in the photograph) and reknit the fingers portion so that the stripes are more even. I was almost done when I realized that they look like fraternal twins, matched opposites. Pretty cool and I didn't plan it, I just started the second mitten where the yarn ended for the first one.

These are very close-fitting to my hands and I really like them. I am going to knit some more with a couple other oddballs. They are also handy as carry-around projects because they are so small.