Progresses

Saturday at The Frolic was so much fun - as always!! We had the Throwback 4 ways at The Needle Emporium booth. There were so many ooohs and ahhhs as Frolicers realized that we were all wearing our own versions of the Throwback! 

Company T-shirts are cool and all, but seeing 4 versions of a sweater on real people - priceless!! After much discussion, we settled on Understated for out Knitters Fair sweater. Simple, but the simplicity lends itself to highlighting the yarn and the skill of the knitter. I can’t wait to see what we all pick out! I’ll probably head to Julie’s this weekend to pick out my colour ... I might be the one in the group who goes bright on this! 

I am passed the short row shaping for the front neck on Amali and am enjoying the pleasure of just knitting stockinette in a yarn whose spirit just refuses to be captured by a mere camera lens. 

I have also made av bit more fabric on Veronica’s Christian Grey socks. 

The snow!!! in Angus is motivating and I’m going to be productive after I hit “publish”. 

Amali

I have only gotten a little done on the pink Leo & Roxy strip - we’re coming up on the busy season at DQ and the transition for scheduling is tricky so some  most shifts run long. I live what I do, so it’s no great hardship - I’m fortunate that the puppies and Craig are understanding. 
These pinks are so intense and subtle!! I may name this the 50 Shades of Pink strip! 

I’ll do a bit more on this tonight, then tomorrow start on a quick little Amali for la Bien Aimée  It is a privilege to be able to do this sample for her and I can’t wait to get this lovely yarn between my fingers!! 

Tomorrow, amongst my errands, is a mission for buttons for my Throwback for the Frolic - I’ve certainly left it to the last minute!! 

Next

I finished Leo & Roxy s April from their Mystery Yarn Club!! The regularity of the patterning is addictive - I had to count almost every other row so that I didn’t get caught up and just keep knitting.  

My fix is not complete. I am going to wind up the three skeins that Craig & I bought at their birthday event and do a strip for the next Sweet Spot afghan. I’m going to do an “a, b, c, c, b, a” stripe sequence - this is going to be gorgeous!! 

Gonna wind them up now and try to resist casting on as I have to be at work early tomorrow. May the odds be ever in my favour - though I’m not sure what my favour in this instance truly would be!! 

Just. Can’t. Stop.

Look at this face!! You’d never guess that Chica has the most foul flatulence of a dog five times her size!!! I think that it may have been the raw bone she had earlier.  Lord have mercy - there’s no warning sounds as she slumbers beside me, just air so thick with noxious gas that my eyes start watering as I try not to gasp for air. 

Then there’s Petey. What sets Petey off?

People outside

Dogs outside

Voices/sounds from the front apt

Animal sounds on tv

Seeing an animal on tv that doesn’t make a sound

Me putting my knitting down 

Extending/retracting the recliner

End credits on a show (change in music/graphics?)

Crying (mostly babies)

The word “baby”

Me getting up 

This dog is the chillest and also the most high strung dog - he does my head in. But I love him and, more importantly, he loves me. 

I have made much progress on my Leo & Roxy Sweet Spot strip - I just can’t stop!! January has great colours - très English Garden, February is more subtle, but March is giving me life!! That dark blue line, the yellow streaks interrupting the seafoam, and the tiny hits of Barbie pink!! 

April is a study of violet, lavender, purple, and mauve!

The Frolic is only 10 sleeps away. I have got to get buttons for my Throwback cardigan and then sew them on! 

Sweet Spot The Frolic

Planned Argyle

I am finally blocking my Lolo Sweet Spot strip! Wow - this gives me so much joy!!




I did run short on the last colour section, so this strip will be the start of a new afghan, as I need the same number of rows in the strips to be able to join them without fudging. Not a problem as I have many more strips I’d like to do. 

I have started on my Leo & Roxy strip. January is quite colourful and sometimes too a step sideways on a colour, but the patterning still runs through it. February is more subtle and delicate. . 

I’m off to work, so I will have to wait until later to keep making this magic happen

So Sweet

I have been powering along on my Lolo Sweet Spot Strip!! I’m just over 300 rows into a 500 row stretch. I’m not gonna lie - I’m feeling like I might be playing yarn chicken at the end. Fingers crossed.  

There are times when there is a row or two where there is no blue, so I just trust my tension and then it catches up. It’s like a creek (my granny would’ve called it a “crick”) meandering and skipping through river pebbles. This is a lovely colour to finish up with. 

I couldn’t help it though. I had wound up the Leo & Roxy  ystery club skeins and they’ve been singing an enticing siren song to me. 

I am weak. I just had to cast on and swatch, if for nothing else than to find the Sweet Spot. 

Every time I cast on a new yarn, I have a small doubting Thomas part of me that says, “This is the one Wannietta. This is the one that will defy your assertion that every indie yarn has a Sweet Spot.” January has short dye stretches and I was questioning whether this one would be That One. But I trusted my process and I could feel it starting. Kind of like The Quickening from Highlander. I don’t even know how to explain the pleasure and satiafaction that I get from seeing this magic happen!! Random, random, less random, something happening, boom!! 

So now I can go back to my Lolo strip and finish it. Yes. Resolve Wannietta, focus!! 

Where did the Week Go?

In which our knitter went back to her secular job and a week went by in a blur. 

It’s a good thing that I really do enjoy my Dairy Queen job!! No matter how crazy it gets or what challenges each day presents, I still look forward to the next day. 

I have been knitting - my Lolo Sweet Spot strip is coming along; I’m almost done the 3^rd colour section. can’t wait to join up the last colour!! 

 I wound up the first three colours of the Leo & Roxy club so that I can swatch it up for the Sweet Spot.

The only thing more exciting than working up a Sweet Spot strip is finding the next one!! Craig & I will be driving down to the Little Red Mitten for Leo & Roxy’s Birthday bash. It’s a bit of a drive, but it’ll be a nice little adventure and loads of knitting time! I’m clearly a bit taken with the L& R yarn and can’t wait to see what new colours that they have in person. 

I played with SnapChat this morning - there are some fun people working behind the scenes there!! Not gonna lie, I think I’d make a great Bearded Lady ;) and def gonna think about new piercings!!  

Tomorrow will be domestic chores, puppy loving, and knitting bliss.

Staycation Day 9

This is the end of the staycation days. Well, for this stint anyway. 

I have got a lot done and, for the most part, it has been relaxing. I’m pretty sure that the puppies will miss me tomorrow; I know that I’ll miss them. 

Today I went with my heart and worked on my Lolo Sweet Spot strip.

Lauren dyes her skeins what I call “not solid” in that the dyed sections do not have distinct demarcation lines and are not entirely through the depth of the skein. 

This makes the patterning in the Sweet Spot slightly more ... interpretive shall we say. The lines of colour are sometimes broken, but I trust my tension and it hasn’t let me down.

I have worked out a near Fibonacci sequence for the 4 colours that I have chosen. It couldn’t be an exact sequence as I am working with a set 560 rows, but I came pretty close with 59, 96, 155, 250. I think it will be close enough for government work when all is knit and done. 

I started with Tin Roof Rusted and am now on Mustards Last Stand. I have thoroughly enjoyed my knitting today - it’s reached my soul and has been healing. 

I really do wish that knitting paid enough for me to stay at home and pursue that. 

Alas, I will console myself by heading back to a job that I do enjoy and find fulfillment in doing well, knitting as I can make time. 

I’ve been bingeing on CSI NY and the 6:22 episode that I’m watching is très Rear Window - one of my fave Hitchcock movies!! I’m going to finish this episode and a bit more knitting before calling it a night. 

Staycation Days 7 & 8

Sometimes I just get caught up in the knitting and then I’m done and just crash. I think about the blogging, but the yarn is so soft and the fabric is just happening ...

Yesterday I knit a ball of Bernat Blanket into the start of my grandson Amin’s blanket. His birthday is coming up (as he has become fond of reminding me). I have informed him that Nana doesn’t miss deadlines, but I really do have to get moving on it. 

Today I cast on to swatch some Lolo did it for a new Sweet Spot strip. It has been so long since I’ve worked on this personal project!! I have been aching to get back to it; I have two strips done waiting for a few more to make another afghan. 

When I cast on and started knitting the knit one below fabric, I just relaxed so hard into it. My fingers loved the feeling of the stitches, falling into a rhythm and seeking out the pattern that I knew was in the yarn. Some of the colourways let the patterning flow out, some are more complex and less obvious, but it’s there. I love this deconstruction of the colours; it’s like dancing with the yarn, a little give, a little take. I played a bit with the tensioning, stacking the colours instead of moving them. 

When I felt like I had a sense of the colourways and how they wanted to dance, I finally stopped. Now I’ll pick the colours for the strip, figure out how much of each colourway I want to do (yes, I have favourites), do some maths, then set to the real thing. 

I have more colours than I will likely put into a single strip, but I picked colourways that I love, so if I don’t use them in this project, I know I’ll find what they are destined for. 

I only have one more Staycation day, and I had really wanted to work on my Chatelaine X cross stitch, but I think that I am going to get lost in this Sweet Spot strip. The magic of the stitch and the yarn has such a hold on me ... I don’t even know how to describe it. 

Staycation Day 6

I got a few odd jobs done AND goals met!!

Throwback is blocking - woohoo!! I’ve not seen in the ends quite yet just in case anything needs altering. 

I have like 3+ skeins of the Woolstok leftover, along with most of each of the 3 Dream State colours. I’ve researched some cowls that I can do - solids and colourwork ones. I’ll narrow them down and maybe bang one out tomorrow. 

Though I’d really like to work on a Sweet Spot strip or two. 

I might wind up the yarn I want to swatch for that before I call it a night.

Today was a pretty sports heavy day and tomorrow is shaping up that way as well, so having some easier knitting to do will be a boon. 

Staycation Day 3 & 5

I skipped my best day of all!! I visited with my grand babies on Wednesday. Ramina was being a bit grumpy - just a tiny nap then fighting sleep like a trooper. I brought all my Nana skills to bear. She would snuggle in to me, deeply relaxed as I walked and bounced and hummed, but she wouldn’t leave for the Land of Nod. But my heart was filled with baby snuggles and that is priceless!! I also got a fair bit knit on Veronica’s socks. She chose grey as her colour, and as soon as she said that, my mind went immediately to my stash. I finally used one of the skeins of Lorna’s Laces 50 Skeins of Grey collection. This one is Christian. It will be perfect! 

Yesterday I knit the neck and front bands on my Throwback  I decided to add buttonholes as it is unlikely that I will wear it just open all the time. I’m imagining leather covered “grandpa’s sweater” buttons, but that may change when I start trying buttons on. 

I picked up the neckband with the pickup seam on the inside (traditional) and again with it on the outside (as instructed) and decided that I did prefer it showing. I love having time to experiment! 

Notice my helper? He got a bit enthusiastic with his helping (which was, in fact, not helping) so I had to do a little fixing yesterday as well. 

There’s a bit of bagging below the yoke at the back - I’m hoping that resolves with blocking. 

Overall I’m chuffed with the colours and fit. It’s been awhile since I’ve knit an actual sweater that’s a bit fitted for myself, so this has been fun! 

I’m hoping to get the last sleeve knit today and get the sweater blocked tonight. 

Staycation Day 4

In which our knitter does in fact stay. 

I can’t wait to go to bed tonight. I did laundry today, braved to threat of rain, and hung my laundry outside to dry. I am rewarded with the enticing scent of fresh air and I know that I will sleep especially well tucked into clean, outdoor-fresh bedding. 

I started on the Throwback sleeves today. I was going to do them back and forth so as to not bugger up my tension. I really like maintaining a technique throughout a garment to avoid any potential for gauge deviation. I added 2 stitches to account for the seaming, and was set. But it just seemed slow and I just wasn’t feeling it. So I picked up the 2^nd sleeve with a size larger needle (to account for the lack of a slighter looser purl row) and set to magic looping. 

Remarkably enough, I was enjoying this more! Tension is good and I was 20cm in when I started thinking that the instructions were making for a rather long sleeve. 

Sure enough, on closer examination, the cuff is generously turned back. So I needed to think about whether I wanted that look or not. I was really at a point where I needed to decide so that I wouldn’t have to rip out too much before recalculating decreases. 

I tried it on. And thought about what I was going to do about the front band treatment (I’m likely going with buttonholes), and what kind of buttons I was picturing and how I might want the sleeves to look with that. So many decisions!!! 

Decision made - I’m carrying on with the longer sleeves. I ripped out the 1^st sleeve and the relief that I felt reassured me that I did the right thing. 

It wasn’t a lot, but backwards is backwards. But I’m generally quite philosophical about ripping out and am quite content to reknit. 

I was going to grill tonight, the handle on the propane tank utterly refused to budge!! I’ll have to enlist my landlords help tomorrow; he’ll def have whatever wrench I/we need to crank that loose. Disappointed, but I cooked inside and am quite satisfied. 

Now to resist the scent of bed and knit for a bit longer. 

Staycation Day 2

In which our intrepid knitter did not in fact stay. 

Today is our anniversary and Craig had the day off, so we went on a road trip to Ancaster. In reality, it was to go to The Needle Emporium which is *in* Ancaster. Saying we went to Ancaster makes it sound more couply and less all about me. 

Nonetheless, it was a beautiful day for a drive, and we went on backroads, which will be even more of a lovely drive in a few weeks when there’s more green. 

I finally tried on my Throwback  I had decided that if it didn’t fit and I couldn’t block it to fit, I’d just be giving it away since it would be less work to just knit another! Fortunately, it seems to fit nearly perfectly!! Lynn snapped a couple pics :) 

About 5cm more of ribbing, then on to sleeves!! I’m even more excited to get to finishing now that I’ve tried it on. 

We had lunch at the Coach & Lantern  Craig is proclaiming the injustice of evidence that he’s carb loading today. You do you, boo, I’m not gonnna judge.

It’s consistently good food there and it’s just up from the yarn store, so it’s practically perfect. 

The ceiling tiles were interesting too. 

I bought a few things at Julie’s, not the least is yarn for an Olibane for Mina (the yellow Baby Bamboo) and a little In Threes (Liberty Wool is on sale for $10 - get it while it lasts!!) I am so please that Ramina can wear such a range of colours! 

 I did buy the Twill & Print pins (who’s surprised?) - the glittery black sheep is my fave! I also let Julie know a couple more faves wdit when she orders again :) A Namaste Interchangeable Buddy Case and the latest Laine magazine are also now in my possession. All in all, a lovely day, not the least for the company. 

Off to an anniversary dinner, then more knitting!! 

Staycation success so far.

Throwback

I finished Jenny’s Bernat Baby Blanket   but I didn’t take a finished pic. When she sends me one with the baby, I’ll share!

Today is the first day of my staycation, and I slept poorly last night, so it was a day of just not much but resting, but I did get to the body ribbing on my Icy Throwback. Yay - 10cm of 4x4 ribbing!! 

I really love this colour! I’m usually more of a jewel-tone/deep, rich, dark colour person, but this icy blue woolstok has its own depths and richness that I am utterly in love with. 

It’s hard to capture the colour indoors, even with an Ott light. I’ll have a go tomorrow outside. 

Here’s Chica in a moment that makes me believe she’s not the bitchy little bundle of bark that she lets on most of the time. 

Tomorrow Craig & I are going to drive to Ancaster and see what’s new at The Needle Emporium .  Julie got in some adorable pins from Twill and Print - I’ve no doubt these will be the least of my purchases! 

Staying Warm

I finished my Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock socks!! I couldn’t quite get them done last night after work, even though I stayed up late, but I got them done this morning. One of the reasons that I love knitting with indie dyed yarn is the lovely, subtle colour changes. The yarns from Turtlepurl is perfect example of this. The yarn is such a pleasure to knit with. 

My feet shall be warm! 

I have made some excellent progress on the Bernat seed stitch Blanket today; I’m almost at the halfway point where I can start decreasing. It’s large enough to keep me warm while I knit. 

This fabric is so plush! I don’t knit with it often, but I’m reminded how much I love it every time I get the opportunity. It also makes me remember that natural fibres are fabulous, but acrylic has its place too. 

Domestic

This was a busy day - Staples, Costco, massage. In between Costco and the massage I spent :45 mins portioning and vacuum sealing all the meat that I bought at Costco. 

Since I was a kid, I’ve always had at least one freezer (and the tiny one above the fridge doesn’t count). It’s a great way to take advantage of sales, put down veg/fruit for the off season, save leftovers and prep meals. It’s a frugal necessity. 

When I moved out on my own after The Separation, I bought a food saver since I couldn’t possibly use the meat before it was freezer burnt beyond usefulness. 

For the life of me, I don’t know why I didn’t buy one sooner!! Costco should offer these up as a membership incentive. 

I saved $10 on $80 worth of meat and that represents 16 meals worth of meat, each meal with leftovers. Knowing that the meat will be good for months and that I’m

not wasting the savings has paid for the machine multiple times over. After 7 (8?) years, it’s still realiable. The little accessory that seals special bags no longer works, but it was a nice-to-have extra, not essential to the machine itself. 

I normally buy boneless skinless chicken breasts  I know, not super economical, but my fave. Costco had thighs on sale so I changed up my go-to. I took the skins off to freeze them and I remembered that the chefs on Masterchef Australia often crisped them up and it was a bit of a treat. So I did a Google after my massage and came up with this recipe. 

O. M. G. So delish!!!

I have gotten more done on my sock - no 2^nd sock syndrome here!!
Yes, that’s my comfort pile beside where I sit. lol I like to have my projects to hand; it just makes me more calm to be close to all my favourite things. 

I’ve only had one day off, but it’s felt like two even though I’ve been busy. Days like these are truly gifts.