Yes, More Socks

One thing about not knitting socks is that I still had sock yarn in my stash. And some of this yarn will look best knitted into socks. The yarn used in my latest finished project being such an example. The yarn was purchased early in 2016 when I didn’t know my sock knitting was going to fade to nothing.

This particular yarn is from a UK company and I had seen it in many podcasts so I had it sent to my sister so I could pick it up on a visit. And then it sat in my stash for over four years! (We won’t mention yarn that has been in my stash longer than that!) The yarn is from West Yorkshire Spinners in the Kingfisher colourway and it really needed to be socks. So as it appears that I am knitting socks again and as October’s challenge was self-striping yarn I cast on. Actually it took me a while to choose a pattern. I thought I would work one of those fancy patterns where the stripes end up all over the place but decided simple was best and chose Solar.

I used contrasting yarn for the heels and toes, a left over given to me for my blanket. This saves the stripes being messed up by the heels but I am liking it as a feature and should do it more often. Also with this particular pattern I only used half the main yarn so there is enough for another pair when I eventually run out of sock yarn!

 

 

Another Finished Item

I have been slow in posting finished items, mainly as I had to take photos. Here is a cardigan I finished in September.

I purchased the yarn, Zen Yarn Garden Superfine DK, at Stitches SoCal last year specifically to knit this pattern – Comfort Fade - as they had a knitted sample at their booth which I was able to try on. It was a surprising purchase for me as I am not a fan of fades patterns but I loved the colours and I still love them knitted into my own garment. The yarn is 100% merino and is incredibly soft.

I started this on 27 January and did not finish it until the end of September but I was not working on it for all of that time. I had two very distinct breaks. Firstly, after a few days I decided it would make more sense to finish my Girl Friday and see how that fit before continuing. The sample I had tried on was too big for me and very baggy around the armholes. The other big break in knitting was after I had picked up the stitches for the collar. I knew I was going to make changes but was putting off doing it. So that was another couple of months of no knitting.

The changes I made to the collar were to work the colours in reverse order from the pattern, instead of ABCD, I worked DCBA. Also, having seen two Comfort Fades in real life, I did not like the big collar at the back of the neck and this was the reason for my procrastination, what changes did I want? In the end I started the short rows at the third section, only worked two sets, but worked the same total number of straight rows.

The other change I made was to work the bottom edging in garter stitch and not rib. This is the only place on the garment where rib appears and it looked odd to me. Also I didn’t like the way the band pulled down from the rib.

 

All The Hats

I completed a hat for charity earlier this month – Helix Stashbuster – 

 

and now all my hats are packed up ready to be sent off. This year I made seven hats but one did not turn out to be adult size. I have to either find a children’s charity that takes handmade hats or I may frog it.

 

These are the six hats that will be going to Operation Gratitude. The green hats were made with a new skein of yarn otherwise all the rest were made from leftovers. The Helix hat was perfect for that and I was able to use small amounts of yarn in that. For that hat I used two main colours, a variegated and a plain and then the third colour was any small amounts of yarn.

 

 

 

 

Why Am I Knitting Socks?

Good question! When I started to knit socks (for myself) on a regular basis I was living in Canada where winter shoes – and therefore, socks – were worn for many months. And, of course, you are starting from nothing and gradually building up a supply. Also it is easy to buy a skein of yarn for socks because you know 100 gram skein of fingering yarn is plenty for a pair of socks – no angst of buying enough to knit a garment.

When I stopped knitting socks it wasn’t a conscious decision, oh, I’m not going to knit socks anymore, they just didn’t get knit and it was surprising to find out that I hadn’t knit any socks for two years, and just one pair in 2019. Which brings us to now and my second completed pair of socks for this year. The first completed pair this year used leftovers; this pair uses yarn from a completed project.

I used the yarn that I frogged from this project. Although I liked it knitted into a Hitchhiker it was just not big enough and never got worn. I tried to turn it into socks earlier this year during a mystery KAL but the yarn and pattern didn’t work well together. I am much happier with my second choice. The pattern is PB & W  and I chose it as part of Sock Knitters Anonymous challenge for September. They were completely finished on 30 September, so, of course, a new pair was cast on on 1 October because, apparently, I am knitting socks again!

 

 

WIPing Time of Year

The annual finish your WIPs KAL started on 23 September and, as usual, I have a number of projects to finish. I have ten projects in progress (plus mitred squares) which is too many but the funny thing is that that is the number I had this time last year. So maybe ten is my lucky number? Three of my current projects were on the needles this time last year, although one is very close to being finished. One is the crochet project which was intended as a long term project, the third one is my Palm Springs project which should have been finished by now, except our trip earlier this year was cancelled. We do have a trip to Palm Springs coming up and the project will be worked on then.

This leaves seven projects that have been around for less than a year. Although the oldest one of those was started at the end of November. It is a complicated lace shawl designed for Advent last year. I really would like to get it finished by the end of the year which is just possible if I can knit 1 or 2 rows each day. I started a cardigan in March and that has been set to one side. It is not a well written pattern and I will pick it up again when I have finished this batch of WIPs. This leaves eight projects to finish in just over three months. The good news is that I have already finished two of them and, as mentioned, one is nearly finished. And another is a hat which is at the decreases, so another project not far from being finished. Four projects remaining. Two of these are the aforementioned Palm Springs shawl and complicated lace. The other two are a simple shawl which has become my go to project when supervising children and the squares I knit when the virus first really hit. I just need to make a decision as to what to do with them. I know I want them to become a blanket and that I want it to be bigger than just the squares so do I sew the squares together and then add borders or do I border each square and then sew them together. I had thought about a hybrid – sewing the squares together in rows  and then adding borders between each row and a final border around the whole thing. Actually writing it out clarifies my thoughts because what I think the problem is is that I do not have yarn in stash in a colour I want to use. Hmm, looks like I might have to buy yarn.

Of course, finishing any WIP depends on me not starting any new projects and I have already started a pair of socks on 1 October and there is a Christmas gift I want to make and a small advent project. But I have decided not to cast on any new projects with sale yarn until the new year.

In summary: - 10 projects. 2 are longer term; 2 already finished; 2 close to being finished; 3 likely to finish by the end of year; 1 that could be finished if I make a decision. Can I finish 8 projects in just under 14 weeks?

Yarn To Go With Yarn To Go With Yarn

In October 2016 I purchased the colour of the month from Candy Skein. It was lovely yarn and I tried to turn it into socks but the yarn and pattern didn’t go together. The yarn sat in stash but I had a feeling that it that it would need another yarn to go with it. I purchased a skein of grey yarn at Stitches SoCal in 2018. Now I had two skeins of yarn waiting in stash! 

I was given the pattern Lilli Pilli as a friend was trying to encourage me to take part in a knitalong but at the time I could not decide on yarn. With that pattern in mind I purchased a skein of yarn in the sale specifically to go with the two skeins. And that was the next sale yarn I decided to cast on. The yarn is Belle by ArtFil. I used that yarn in Verdon. It is a slightly thicker fingering weight yarn and there is less meterage than many fingering yarns so I was concerned that I would not be able to work the complete lace sections but I had just enough yarn to finish the last lace section but not enough to bind off. This was another project where I wanted to preserve the squishiness of the garter stitch but also open up the lace. I laid it out and pinned the lace sections and then sprayed them with water.

It is a long shawl but not very wide – which seems to be the trademark of this designer. 

 

 

 

Although my plan is to cast on another project with sale yarn whenever I have finished one this time I decided to finish my Comfort Fade Cardigan before starting a new project. I was close to finishing this and it was easy garter stitch but I wanted to change the collar so I couldn’t just pick it up and go. Having finished the Lilli Pilli it was all go with the Comfort Fade and now I am ready to bind off.

I have been working a few rows each day on my oldest project and I hope to have the knitting finished by the end of the month. I also have a sewing project to share.

August’s Hat

Here we are on the last day of August and I am so close to having two projects finished. In the meantime I’ll show the hat I made for charity this month.

 

I was not inspired by any of the suggestions in my two go-to groups so I picked an older suggestion that had not previously made. This turned out not to be the best of ideas and was frogged. Back to square one and time running out. OK, an exaggeration, it was only the end of the first week. I could have gone for my standard Better Late Than Never beanie pattern, but chose a pattern that I have made before and requires more concentration because I wanted to quickly crank out this thing.

The pattern is Brain Waves Beanie which I made in 2017. It is not a hard pattern but does require concentration as you are working SC, HDC, and DC in groups in each row. I definitely felt I got into a rhythm this time rather than keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best. The yarn is left over from a hat I made earlier this year and now I have used up most of the dark green. There is still quite a bit of the light green left but it is not recommended to use it for the main part of a hat for Operation Gratitude so it is going to take a while to use it up.

My Year Quilt is Finished

Last time I wrote about this quilt was February last year when I had finished the last squares and was deciding what to do with them. Looking back at my posts, I am surprised that I have not written anything about my choices and the process.

In my post I said that I had purchased fabric to make the squares all the same size. I started out by adding a small border to the largest square and then sized all the squares to that. As the point of the quilt is the individual squares, I placed sashing between the squares. But I also wanted a quilt I could use so then borders were added and then it was sandwiched and then it waited. Another quilt waiting to be quilted. 

In the end I repeated to myself “finished is better than perfect” and just got on with it. Also I told myself that I couldn’t sew anything else until this was completed. (I broke this self-imposed rule when I had to make masks.) The action of quilting was hard because of the weight of the fabric so each session was no more than two hours. But a little here and there added up and I had a finished quilt. As I was not working on anything else I kept the walking foot on my machine the whole time as it is fiddly to change. (This has made me think that it would be nice to have a basic machine that I can keep set up just for quilting.)

There was no plan for the quilting. Just some circles with the darning foot and a lot of straight lines with the walking foot. As I got closer to finishing I started to think about the binding. The fabric I used for the back of the quilt was extra wide and I had just enough in the length to make a self-binding. I trimmed the backing to ¾”, folded in half, folded this over the edge of the quilt and then machined. As this is a quilt for us I did not miter the corners. I tell you, machining binding is the way to go.

I am really pleased with the result.

 

 

 

Oh, and as the impetus to finish this was so I can make some clothes for the family with fabric I’ve had for a while, what did I do? Start a new quilt completely from scraps!

Who Is the Most Patriotic?

A common theme I have found in this war of SJWs and anti-SJWs, is that “they” are just not patriotic or “they” don’t love their country.

I find this interesting because, just because someone has a different opinion does not make them any more or less patriotic than you. But is that correct in the true meaning of the word? I decided to look up the meaning of patriotism and came up with some interesting ideas. There was one local government page whose examples of patriots were; military, police, firepeople, police, nurses, doctors, schools and volunteer who helped after a disaster. If you stuck to that definition then there would be not be so many patriots. 

I also found this definition, which I thought interesting.

What is patriotism? [1]

• Special affection for one's own country.
• A sense of personal identification with the country.
• Special concern for the well-being of the country.
• Willingness to sacrifice to promote the country's good.

The last definition fits in with the description I showed first. But what I find of interest is the third description – “Special concern for the well-being of the country” and this is why I do not believe you can call someone who has different views from you unpatriotic. I would argue that the majority of residents have concern, they just show it in different ways.

But what would the founding fathers think? Yes, I have read this as an argument for sticking with the status quo. I think the founding fathers would think good on ’em, for anyone collecting signatures for a ballot, protesting for change, stopping work. Remember this country (the United States) was founded on a revolution because they were not happy with the people in charge (yes, a gross over-simplification) and they knew that not all citizens would like the decisions that they or future governments would make so in the First Amendment they gave the people “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”.

So why is it unpatriotic, when it is a part of the Bill of Rights? 

I have written about hypocrisy previously and, of course, the nay-sayers are just the same as the people they decry because they love to complain about government, it’s just different forms, so that’s OK.

 

 

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[1] Stanford.edu

Head, Neck and Feet

After typing that heading, I thought what about hands? But I did not quickly cast on some mitts. This reflects the three projects I have finished this month and they have not been replaced by new cast ons.

First finished was a hat for charity. (And, yes, there will be a new cast on next month.) I took the pattern suggestion from the Hat of the Month group on Ravelry. It is Ditto available free on Ravelry and I used Plymouth Encore which has been in my stash for a very long time, leftover from another project. The pattern is in two sizes and I knit the smaller size. I did not make the fold up brim but I have seen photos with such a brim and think it looks better.

The next project finished was an old project, but not my oldest project. This was a project I started in September last year but did not work on after a few rows. But working just a few rows each day quickly produces a finished item. I was given both the yarn and the pattern. The pattern is Cardioid Shawl and the yarn is Fearless Fibers. The pattern is written for fingering weight yarn but, although, originally labeled as sock yarn the yarn I used is a lace weight. I am showing two pictures here so you can see the difference blocking makes.

 

The final finished project is the socks I started in June. The pattern Is Sun Valley Socks Sun Valley Socks, available on Ravelry. I used leftover yarn – Miss Babs Yummy 2-ply and Trailing Clouds Nimbus Self-Striping Sock. For  bit of fun I reversed the main and contrast colours on the second sock.