Advent Christmas Music Playlist 2022

This is all Jean’s fault.

She mentioned a playlist I made back in 2014, and I thought ohhhhhh, that was fun! I should do another one. So I did, and you can listen to it when you check out my advent calendar December 1 through 25!

So here it is:

Advent Christmas Music Playlist on Apple iTunes

I hope you like it! There’s quite a -ahem- variety in the list. New tunes, old tunes, and especially tunes that will make you laugh. I hope. It’ll definitely get you in the Christmas spirit!

Advent Calendar 2022 Announcement

Can you believe 2022 is almost over?? It’s hard to think that another year has passed. It seems like just last month I was announcing that the advent calendar for 2021 was just around the corner.

Advent Calendar 2022 is almost here! This year I have done something slightly different. For the first time, this year not only will my advent calendar have a FREE pattern on each day, it will also have a lovely PAID pattern too, which you can buy! I wanted to have a way to let the wonderful designers out there to be recognized, and if you want to, pay them for their fabulous  designs. Let me know what you think! I’d also love to hear what you’ve made from either free or paid patterns.

This is what each page will look like:

Every day from December 1 to December 25 a new page will appear. Just click where it says “Free Pattern Here” or “Paid Pattern Here” to go to the pattern. 

I hope you have a good time with my advent goodies. I certainly had fun choosing them! Have a very merry Christmas and knit the spirit of the holiday!

Squirrelly Time of Year

Hi there big guy. I’m looking at you. Sigh.

Squirrels have been chewing at our bird feeders, trying to get enough seeds to put away for the winter. I know, squirrels have to eat too, but the poor little birdies are hungry also. And the price of bird seed has gone up a lot! 

Anyway. I haven’t been knitting much, but I thought I should post so you don’t worry or forget me or anything.

The Eastport Pullover by Stacey Warner, the sweater that I was working on, is going along. I finished the back and I am a little over halfway done the front.

It’s a really fun knit. This sweater was originally called Silver Birch, but Stacey resized it and renamed it Eastport Pullover. I like how it’s easy enough to watch television and knit, but it comes out looking fantastic. Plus, the yarn (Fleece Artist Chinook) is wonderful.

 I have a couple new things that I started. First is a pair of socks. I’m using some hand dyed sock yarn that I bought in 2009 in Bar Harbor. It has pretty autumnal colors that made me want to start knitting with it:

I bought the pattern for the socks I’m making from AnnaKnitter Yarns on Etsy; it’s called Helgen and I think it means something to do with dragons, but I could be wrong. Anna lives in Germany and speaks very good English. You should watch her podcast. I have a lot of respect for people who speak more than one language; I took three years of French in high school, took a semester in college, and was brought up in a small town that was more than half populated by French Canadians, but I cannot speak French.

The socks went pretty fast when I started, but I have kind of lost interest in them, so I’m only about halfway down the foot of the first sock. It will go faster when I have the first one done. I find the second sock always goes faster; I know, I’m weird, but that’s how my mind works. I will never suffer from Second Sock Syndrome.

Poor lonely sock.

 I love these Lyyke Driftwood double pointed needles. They’ve got just the right pointy bit, are lightweight, have the size clearly marked on them, and they let the stitches slide easily but also at the same time they have just the right amount of “grabbiness” so your stitches always feel secure. I love them. I’m knitting these socks on size 2.50mm, which is US size 1.5.

I also started a Hitchhiker scarf, because it’s easy and there is no pattern to fight the yarn, which is the centerpiece of the scarf.

I’m using Expression Fiber Arts Mirage fingering (60% superwash merino, 20% baby camel, 10% cashmere, 10%silk) in the color Introspective. (Sadly, they don’t have Mirage in fingering weight, but they do have it in sport weight. They have lots of luscious yarns in fingering weight too!) It’s a skein that’s been sitting in my stash for a couple years and now it’s time to be used. Our house is staying at 50 degrees this winter, and it’s time to use scarves!

Speaking of being cold, I finished my handspun fingerless gloves a while ago. They’re beautiful! They felt itchy when I first put them on, but after blocking them, they softened up.

I’m thinking about doing another Advent Calendar this year. I’ll let you know if I get it done. Have a good day, and Happy Knitting!

A Wonderful Season for Knitting

It’s November! Time to be scared if you’re a turkey!

Typepad (which I use for my blog) was acting funny a couple weeks ago, getting worse until a couple days ago when it was hit with a big Distributed Denial of Service attack, which took down the whole site. They are working hard to get everything sorted, but it won’t look right for a bit. Please bear with us.

So, I abandoned my yellow hat I was knitting out of the last skein of Aunt Mildred’s mohair. I actually threw the yarn away, because that skein was too brittle to knit with. It was a good thing that I didn’t start with that skein, because I would have thought that it all was bad and thrown the whole lot away. 

I started a shawlette out of a skein that I don’t remember where it came from. It was a navy blue hand dyed tonal yarn, which I think had nylon in it, so it must have been a sock yarn. The pattern I chose was Easy Goes It by Michelle Higgins. It was pretty fast to knit, and I added a couple inches to the pattern, because why not.

Then … oh my goodness, look at this beautiful yarn:

It’s gorgeous. I love this yarn! This is the yarn I spun from the 112 grams of hand dyed merino fiber. I wish you could feel how soft it is, how the colors blend together, how perfect this ball of yarn is. 

I decided to knit a hat with it. After perusing the many, many hat patterns available, I decided to knit the Dean Street Hat by Nina Machlin Dayton. I put this hat pattern in my queue before I had my stroke, so over 12 years ago, but never got around to knitting it. Somehow the thought of doing all those cables threw me off knitting it because I thought it required too much attention.  Oh was I wrong.

If I had bothered to simply read the pattern, I would have found that the cables are actually a pattern stitch that is easily done which leads the eye to believe that it makes cables, but it really doesn’t. 

This is now one of my go-to hat patterns. It’s fun to knit, it’s easy, and I love it. And, it was a free pattern.

While I was on a handspun yarn high, I grabbed my skein of lovely goodness that I finished before the yummy brown skein, which was a beautiful rosy golden color with bits of purple and blue. 

I started a pair of fingerless mittens with it. I only have two pairs of fingerless mittens, and I need more, since our house is set to a much lower temperature than in the past due to the high cost of fuel. 

I’ve caked it up and started a pair of Bamboo Field Mitts by Holly Terrell. I’m about halfway up the cuff of the first one. I chose this pattern because it has some texture, but not enough to detract from the beautiful yarn. 

In my last post I said I was going to knit one of the sweaters that has been burning a hole in my stash: Silver Birch by Stacey Warner. I’ve knit it before for Stacey, but I loved the pattern and the yarn so much that I needed to make one for myself.

The yarn is Fleece Artist Chinook, a 100% superwash merino that is just Y*U*M*M*Y. I adore this yarn. I set about to knit a gauge swatch even though I had knit a gauge swatch before for the same exact sweater; I found in running a yarn shop that different skeins of same yarn can vary slightly in weight, especially if they are hand dyed, as this was. Plus I needed a new coaster for my coffee cup. I chose the color Marine.

 

I’m about halfway up the back.

I love the color.

I hope you’re having a good November and staying reasonably warm! 

Monster Mish Mash

It’s almost Halloween! I was going to title this “Mish Mash” but “Monster Mish Mash” seemed more timely. Probably it’s because we watched the movie Young Frankenstein recently, which was fun.

Well, well, well … what have I knit or spun lately …

I finished the little cranberry red sweater:

It’s darker red than pictured. This was a quick little knit, that would have been quicker but for some reason I took a few days off from knitting at all, which was okay.

Also I finished the green socks:

They’ve also been worn and washed and are now drying somewhere. They are very comfy.

 I had two skeins of dark purple Rowan Kidsilk Aura (it’s like an Aran weight of regular Kidsilk Haze that Rowan had for a while; they’ve long since discontinued it.) I decided to make some kid’s mittens with it:

They are so soft and fuzzy, like a petite purple duckling! I kinda wish I had made adult sized fingerless mittens out of the yarn now. But, I am sure they will be appreciated.

The colorful wool that I was spinning turned into this 100g beautiful skein:

It’s gorgeous and I can’t wait to knit with it! The little bit of white that you see there is plied with what I had left on the bobbin. I have these little bits of yarn that didn’t get plied because I never have two bobbins run out at exactly the same moment, and I have started to ply them together. That way I use up all the yarn, and I have some novelty yarn to tie my skeins with when I am skeining off. Win win! Also you never know when you will be seized with the idea of knitting a miniature artistic chicken, so there’s that.

 I still haven’t been knitting much. I’ve started a pair of socks from two skeins of Bartlett yarn in colors Denim and Medium Green Heather:

The green is a little too bright and the denim is more gray than blue in this picture. My iPhone sucks at colors, considering how smart it is. ::sigh:: 

This pair of socks is actually almost done but I don’t have a picture. I hope to finish it tonight!

I am using the last skein of Aunt Mildred’s mohair to knit a simple watch cap:
 
Maybe I’ll finish it tonight or tomorrow.
It will match a simple garter stitch scarf that I already made:

Together they will make a nice Christmas present with some meaning behind it.

About a week ago I started spinning some hand dyed merino that I think I got from a giveaway at the Maritime Fiber Festival (apologies Sharon, if I got the name wrong) or possibly at the Spa Fiber Thingy. I don’t think I would have purchased the fiber, as it wasn’t really my colors. I remembered the fiber as being just brown merino but it’s not; it’s a beautiful combination of grays and browns leaning into chestnut, with a little bit of blue:

All I know for certain is that it is 100g of merino fiber dyed by Sarah Owen, because that’s what the tag said. It certainly spun up beautiful:

I just plied it together making a sport to DK 2ply yarn. You can see the rosy colored yarn at the bottom of the bobbin that is my “waste” yarn:

It’s really beautiful! Just goes to show that I should buy something different from the colors I usually do. This merino will make a magnificent soft and gorgeous merino hat that I have in mind for someone for Christmas. 

It has been getting cold here and the weather makes me think I need more sweaters, so I think I’ll knit myself a couple sweaters next.There are two in particular that have really been calling my name and that are soft and cozy… but that will be for next time. Take care and happy knitting!

The Leaves They Are A-Changing . . .

Autumn is here. Mums are the current flower of the day. 

These beautiful flowers were a gift from Barb and Mark! Thank you!

Plants are in from the cold, and candles are lit most days now.

We anticipate a higher cost of heating fuel, so wearing knitted things at all times will help. I like to keep candles where I can see them, because lit candles always make me feel warmer.

Add a cup of coffee and some knitting and I am quite happy.

This pattern is Yankee Knitter #37, Top Down Roll Raglan for Kids, and I am knitting it with Lion Brand Feels Like Butta, an acrylic Aran weight yarn that feels like chenille but is a lot easier to knit with and is machine washable and dryable, which I am sure his mother will like. I’m knitting a size 2 for my great grand nephew who will turn 1 in January. I’m not sure that is what to call him; he is my niece’s grandson. Sheesh. Now I feel really old.

As usual, I am not knitting it in the order that the pattern says. I knit down to the underarm and put the sleeves on waste yarn, but then rather than knitting the rest of the body, I instead knit on the collar, which is supposed to be the last thing knit.

Then I knit one sleeve and am currently knitting the other sleeve. Why? Because I have learned from past experiences knitting top down sweaters that it is way easier to knit the collar and sleeves without having the bulk of the body in the way every time you have to turn your work. After the sleeves are knit I can breeze down the body and then BAM! Sweater’s done, make the baby warm. 

I am still knitting my green socks.

I had the heel flap almost entirely knit last night but I discovered to my chagrin that I had somehow made it a stitch too wide, so I had to pull it all out and start my heel flap over again. Now it’s about half an inch long. But, two more evenings and it’ll be done. 

In spinning news … after finishing spinning allllll that black wool, I started spinning much more colorful wool:

That’s about 4 ounces of some wool I dyed before I had a stroke, and I’m finally getting around to spinning it.


It’s lovely. And surprisingly, it’s kind of in the autumnal spirit. I’ll try to spin it in a two ply fingering weight and maybe I’ll get some socks out of it. Yay! 

Finishes and WIPs

Hello all. I hope you are enjoying the lovely fall weather. It’s been a tad bit chilly, but that only hastens the leaves turning colors.

I’ve got a couple finishes to show. First of all, I finished the Baby Blanket of No Discernible Stitches:

It all went swimmingly once I put the dang markers in. Turns out, it’s a beautiful blanket and I’m sure the baby will love dragging it around the house, once he learns to walk, that is. It feels like a plushy, so it’ll be like a giant flat stuffed animal.

My second finish is the Warm Feelings cowl that I made from Aunt Mildred’s mohair:

It’s warm and soft and lovely. Every time I put it on I’ll think of her. I don’t remember her ever knitting, but she taught me to make Rocky Road Fudge, which I loved. 

The third WIP is one that was long in the making. It’s a spinning project that you remember from last year, August of 2021.

Yes, I have finally finished spinning all that black Romney fleece that I bought at the Fiber Frolic before I had a stroke. And it only took a year! Woohoo! I actually estimated that it would take me three months or so, but a) that was underestimating the time and b) I took several months-long spinning breaks. Like this last July and August, and another break early last spring, because I needed to get my Christmas knitting done for this year. The last six skeins are drying after their twist-setting bath even as we speak, but here is a picture I took of all my yarn, most in washed skeins, two in unwashed skeins, and four still on the bobbin after plying:

I have eighteen skeins of lovely black, cushy, soft, heavy worsted or Aran weight goodness that will be glorious to knit with. My skeins are a little more than 100 g, or 4 ounces. The sweater I plan to knit is this one:

It’s an old Candide pattern from 1991 that I have knit before. I loved that sweater and always wanted to knit it again, and now I can knit it with homespun yarn. 

So that leaves me with WIPs. Actually, I only have one at the moment, a pair of socks for myself that I am using some of Arline’s stash for. It’s an 80% merino and 20% nylon; the color is called Olive Oyl.

This yarn is from The Woolen Rabbit in North Conway, NH.

I’m just knitting a sock out of Yankee Knitter #29, my old standby …

… but I think I will put an ‘umbrella’ toe on it which I found in Kay Jones’ Crunkled Socks and really liked. It doesn’t use Kitchener Stitch.

Aunt Mildred’s Mohair

My Aunt Mildred was the only sibling of my father, and she was born around 1905 or 6. My father was born in 1907, so she was older. I remember a photo taken of the two of them, he sitting happily in a chair and she standing shyly next to him, both dressed to the nines. Aunt Mildred looked about 5 at the time. She had a frilly dress, waist length hair, and a large bow perched on top of her head.

Aunt Mildred died in 1996, and after she died her daughter in law sent me a wall hanging I had quilted for her and a box of pale yellow mohair that Aunt Mildred had, because I knit.

Swiftly fast forward to September 2022. I finally pulled the yellow mohair out to knit something with it. I sort of recognized the label, which said the yarn was from the Reynolds Yarns company. I bought Reynolds Kitten yarn when I was in college, and I think that Classic Elite bought their mohair line and renamed it La Gran, but don’t quote me on that.

Wow, I thought. This mohair looks really old. I wonder how old it is? Then I fell down the rabbit hole of finding out about old yarn …

Ravelry had stashed No. 1 Mohair by Reynolds 168 times, and there were 69 projects that used it. Of the 69, there was one woman who guessed it was from the late 50’s. She was close. 

The yarn tag says it is 85% mohair and 15% vinyan. “Vinyan” is a misspelling and means anger, and there is a 2008 French-Belgian-Australian horror film which was all I could find about it. The word actually should be “vinyon”, which is a synthetic fiber made from polyvinyl chloride. The first U.S. commercial vinyon fiber produced was in 1939. It’s an Aran weight, not a fingering weight as stated in Ravelry’s database.

Back to the Internet. I found a really great website called Vintage Knit Crochet — Bits of History  that had Reynolds No. 1 Mohair. Jackpot!

Reynolds No. 1 Mohair was imported from France in March, 1962 and was marketed with two full page ads in Needlecraft magazines.

The yarn was around for 11 years, and was phased out in 1973. I had thought Aunt Mildred likely bought it in 1972 or 1973, so I was probably correct. She may have bought it on sale when they were getting rid of it.

Aunt Mildred’s mohair is color 8, a lovely soft yellow, and I am knitting it up in a cabled cowl pattern called Warm Feelings, a free pattern from DROPS.

It will be soft and warm like sunlight, and will be like a pleasant hug on a cold day. Just like Aunt Mildred.

Keeping Calm and Carrying On

Between the Queen’s death and the  Remembrance of 9/11, I was feeling a bit gloomy, so I decided to write about my knitting adventures to help you get distracted by my antics.

Having finished my Christmas knitting, I decided to spend a little time using up some of my many scraps before knitting the super secret thing for Bullywoolies and then moving on to my sweater delights.

First of all, I finished my scrappy blanket,

and I finished my giant granny square crochet blanket (I ran out of scraps and just quit):

Then I knit a hat which I didn’t read the title of carefully.

This is A Glimpse of Spring by Willow Canda, and I read ‘hat’ looking at the photo of it, but it is in reality a beanie. Meaning, it comes down to the top of my ears and looks ridiculous on me, so I think I will put it in my stash of hats to give away. Surely it will fit some child somewhere.

Continuing on with gray scraps, I knit a pair of mittens, which was fun because I hadn’t knit mittens in a while

and I tried a new-to-me DROPS pattern for a hat called Autumn Acorn, which was a free pattern knit from the top down:

I really enjoyed knitting this not only because I rarely knit top-down hats, but also because it had a very unusual and fun-to-knit method of increasing the crown:

There are really only 3 increase rounds for the crown! Amazing!

Returning to my Crunkle Socks (a paid pattern by Kay Jones) knit out of Bantam Sock by Chicken Lady Fiber Arts, I finished them and admired their sparkley-ness and have worn them, but I managed a quick photo before grinning myself into a coma from all the sparkles (which are not apparent in the photo):

 I had almost a full cake of Red Heart Fleece Hugs yarn, so I decided to knit a smallish baby blanket from it. I chose a Fleece Hugs pattern and cast on the required number of stitches and set out. The pattern didn’t say to put in stitch markers, so I didn’t. The knit skill level was “easy”.

Harumph. Arghhhhh.

 This pattern has a ripple effect, meaning it has increases and decreases, making it go up and down. Which, generally speaking, is “easy” enough to do if you just follow the pattern. 

BUT!!!

This yarn is like knitting with fur, nice furry acrylic fur that really, really hides stitches extremely well, making it impossible to see your stitches at all. Before I knew it, I had knit about 5” of the blanket and thought it looked a bit weird, so I counted the stitches (really hard to do due to all the fuzziness) and found that I had inadvertently added 20 stitches to my original number cast on. T*w*e*n*t*Y.

Oh dear.

So I briefly toyed with the idea of just throwing the yarn away because I really hated it, but then reason replaced the anger and I chose to rip it out, which was fairly difficult due to the aforementioned #%’gfk;;6^}# fuzziness of it. This time I added blasted markers to mark increases (green markers) and decreases (purple markers) to see if that will help keep it tamed. But be warned: if it doesn’t help, this blanket WILL be tossed and laughed at with glee as I dance around the kitchen. Well, ‘dance’ is stretching it; swaying from side to side waving my arms would be more like it.

You’ll see a picture if I get it done. Or you won’t, if I set it on fire. 

Anyway. Hope I made you laugh. Keep calm and carry on and remember to smile!

Happy Scrappy Blankets

Hi! I hope you are doing well. There is a mouse in our house. She looks pretty chuffed because there is no cat to catch her. Soon she’ll tell all her friends and we will be overrun with mice; mice are cute when there is one of them, but when they number 25,806,447,864 it is more like an army. 

I have been working on my last Christmas present and will soon begin another project I can’t talk about, but I have been planning and plotting my free time knitting and it looks like it’ll be fun!

My first happy scrappy blanket is the Memory Blanket that is made out of DK and sport weight bits and bobs that I have been collecting over the years. It will be done tomorrow, August 25th, as planned. I might later decide to do a border, maybe an I-cord border, to finish it, but for now it is almost done. 

After I “finished” my scrappy crescent shawl a while ago, I was left with a significant number of fingering weight scraps. I don’t have enough to make a blanket right now, but I can start one and then as I get more scraps, I‘ll add them to it.

Scrappy blankets look weird because you just add a new color when you run out of yarn, which makes it look quite wobbly, but as you are only snuggling with it when you are on the couch or in a recliner, that is fine. 

I’ll be able to talk about my sock knitting adventures and my knitting video adventures in a few days! See you then! Happy knitting.

Treading Water

Hi there! I can’t really talk about my knitting right now, so I thought I would talk about other things, like Christmas advent calendars and mini skeins and whatever.

I watch a handful of podcasts on YouTube about knitting, and they all pretty much have the same format (which is about what I do in this blog but I am not doing it on video). The podcaster (or two or more podcasters) have a little chit-chat about the weather or something going on in their world, and then they talk about what they are working on, followed by their finished objects, finishing up with what they have bought or acquired be it yarn or patterns or needles or gadgets. Then they usually talk about what they want to knit or are planning to knit, a little about their kids or the trip they just took or whatever.  


Usually after watching a podcast I want to buy the yarn they were gushing about or the pattern they made or are making or want to make, or the New Knitting Thing they were enraptured with. Then I usually take myself firmly by the hand and say, not today. If I still want it a week or two after I hear about it, I may buy it. I wonder how many people buy stuff they don’t really need by just hearing about it? A lot, I bet.

A lot of people go gaga after mini skeins - 10g or 20g little skeins of usually fingering weight or DK weight yarn that are hand dyed and packaged 5, 8, or 12 together at a time. Now to me, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to have all these little skeins of different colors. But that’s because colors aren’t the most important thing in my knitting world. I know, seems odd, but what can I say. I’d rather focus on the garment design and the stitches and the tools than the color. But for most knitters, color is everything. And those mini skeins give them the chance to buy 5 or 8 or 12 colors at a time instead of 1 or 2 or 4 full skeins.

Every podcast has something that makes it different as well. Some people are in a different country, some are hand dyers, some just have a good sense of humor. But one person that I watch loves yarn, makes hand dyed yarn, and she loves the same books that I do!

Holly of Mystery Mouse Knitting loves to read  mystery books and knit. She’s not a huge yarn dyer, but what she has is named for something related to a book. She had colors reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s Poirot and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and lately, Nancy Drew mysteries. She makes a few skeins, they sell out, and then she puts up another color. But the best thing is, she is offering her first yarn Advent Calendar, calling it Holmes for the Holidays. It includes twelve 20g mini skeins; a full skein of yarn, all in gorgeous Victorian colors no doubt; some stitch markers; and other treats and surprises.

The big surprise is that you follow the clues as they appear and solve the mystery of what Sherlock Holmes story the whole thing references! I thought about it for a good long while and then I bought it. So I will have a nice little gift that comes just in time for Christmas! Usually these advent calendars are pre-ordered in the summer, and are delivered in October or November. I think she has a few left, but if you want this advent calendar, you’ll have to be quick because I think she’ll be ending preorders really soon.

Scrappy Blanket

It’s another beautiful day here on the coast of Maine. The sun is shining and hummingbirds are strumming at the feeders. I keep thinking that it will not be long before autumn and winter changes everything. I’ll always enjoy my summers.

Last night I bound off my Scrappy Shawl/Scarf thing. It’s really more of a scarf than a shawl because I couldn’t make myself knit it any larger. It’s one more WIP off the needles!

I started a Memory Blanket  with my DK/sport weight scraps back in March, mostly because I failed miserably making a crocheted blanket, so I decided to knit one.

The Memory Blanket is good because each square is picked up from two previous squares, and if you weave in the two ends of each square as you finish them, the blanket is done when the last square is done. 

The difference between my Scrappy Shawl and my Scrappy Blanket is: I love love love my Scrappy Blanket! See? I told you I was a bad  Project Parent. 

I knit a square on my Scrappy Blanket every morning when I have my coffee. I can watch my YouTube videos as I knit, drink my coffee, and it’s a great way to start the day. It feels like those mornings when I was a wee little girl, going down to the kitchen and spending time with my father while he had his coffee. Special times.

My Scrappy blanket is almost done. I decided to make it ten squares wide and fifteen squares long, and I have thirteen squares left to do. I’ll be done on August 25th if all goes well.

Wonder why it’s called a memory blanket? Each square uses yarn from another project, and I think about them as I knit. There are among the many a Harriet square …

and a Beekeeper square …

and a Sitwell Shawl square. 

Another fantastic thing that happened on Wednesday is that Sue officially became a Crazy Sock Lady, having completed her first pair of socks ever!!!!! Yayyy!!!!!! Congratulations Sue!

Now I want to knit socks. 

Scrappy Crescent Shawl

I started a scrappy crescent shawl back in February after watching WatchBarbaraKnit’s (Barbara Benson Designs) How to Knit an Easy Crescent Shawl on YouTube. It is very easy garter stitch; you increase four stitches on one row and increase two stitches on the back row and repeat those two rows until it’s deep enough or long enough or til you run out of yarn. I never run out of yarn - really, it’s a foreign thing to me - but mostly I think I will knit til it just about bores me to death and I’ll bind off. It will make a good shawl to keep warm in the mornings. 

Anyway, Scrappy started off being my knit-before-bed knitting, which moved to my-chair-knitting-to-watch-TV, and then I got caught up in my Christmas knitting and poor little Scrappy forlornly sat under my end table waiting to die, or until I picked it up again. The fact that Scrappy was fairly ugly didn’t help it much. I was using odds and ends of fingering weight scrap yarn, and I found that my socks and shawls had been lacking in nice colors. 



Now that my Christmas knitting is winding up, I’ve picked up Scrappy again and had to decide, do I rip him out? Or keep going? I shrugged. Scrappy is pretty ugly, but I am only wearing it to keep warm. It’s kind of like a working shawl. The stripes of many colors will be okay I guess. I decided to just increase two stitches in every row because I couldn’t keep track of whether I was on a 2-stitch row or a 4-stitch row. Well, I could keep track of it, but I didn’t really want to, being lazy and all, so I just switched at some point. 

I hope you are a better parent to your scrappy project than I am. I bet you don’t call it ugly or neglect the proper knitting technique or say, “Well, it will keep me warm anyway.” I hope your scrappy project will benefit from proper planning of colors and care of proper knitting and love!

The Kai Shawl

My beautiful Kai Shawl by Kristina Smiley is done, which is good, but I kinda wish it wasn’t done because I enjoyed knitting it so much. Kristina Smiley is aptly named, because knitting her design made me smile a lot, and I am sure that wearing it will make me smile too!

This is it before blocking. Even unblocked it’s pretty. I let it sit there for a couple days so I could admire it before I blocked it.

Of course, on the actual hottest day of the entire year, and at the hottest hour of said day, I decided it was time to block it. What an idiot.

For my birthday, I got a set of hard-ish foam interlocking blocking mat things and a cool set of blocking combs to use with it. Can I just say, blocking has become a joy and a task to be relished! Why didn’t I get this years ago? 

There are many types of blocking mats on Amazon, of all different costs, as well as play mats for kids which do the same job. The difference is kids’ mats have fun colors, and knitters’ mats have inches and helpful lines for blocking curved things if you know how to put it together right. (I don’t. Yet.) But the thing that really floated my boat was this set of mats came in a handy zippered bag  and stores upright in a small space! Winner!

I braved the incinerator-like heat, washed the shawl, and pinned it out. The process was quick and easy and I didn’t even have to swear! Amazing.

It’s like magic to see how lace opens up like a butterfly’s wings to reveal its beauty.

Well, it would be easier if I had the kids’ mats so you could see it instead of seeing the lines and stuff, but trust me, it’s beautiful. 

My Kai Shawl should be dry soon in this heat, but the humidity will slow it down a bit. And I can’t wear in this heat anyway. But it will start getting cooler at the end of this month and I will wear the heck out of it then!

Kindness and Communications

We recently lost two people who played characters in two of my favorite shows, Dr. Who and Star Trek (the original series).

The first one was Bernard Cribbins, who played Wilfred Mott, Donna Noble’s grandfather, in Dr. Who. He lived to the age of 93, and was 70 years in entertainment. He was known as the kindest character in Dr. Who. Though his part was relatively small, it was memorable. 


The second was Nichelle Nichols who was Lt. Uhura, the communications officer on Star Trek. I loved Uhura. She was so beautiful, smart, able to get things done. Nichelle Nichols lived 89 years. I miss her. Another part of my childhood has died with her.

So, I have added two things to my queue of knitting items to make. I might not get around to making them right away, but I will make them. I already have the yarn!

The first is Wilf’s Hat by Patricia Schonhold. It’s a beautiful red hat with cables on it, and I will try to get an airplane charm like Wilf’s to put on it. It’s a free pattern!

The second is Uhura by Zohar Designs, a shawl that is shaped like a communications officer’s badge with “hailing frequencies” stitches reminiscent of Lt. Uhura’s job on the bridge. It’s available for £3 from payhip. I’ll knit it in red like Uhura’s uniform. 

Flowers and Animals

“If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for a moment.” — Georgia O’Keefe

It has been quite hot lately. I mean, here on the coast it’s been almost 80 or 81 a couple days and in the high 70s most days. That’s really hot for us. But the flowers seem to quite like it.

I am really enjoying knitting the Kai Shawl by Kristina Smiley. The motifs remind me of flowers separated by bands of stockinette or garter stitch. It’s easy enough that I can watch TV while I knit, but it’s pretty enough to keep me interested too.

This yarn is wonderful, as I mentioned before. The speckles of bright pink mixed with a light smattering of purple and blue floating over a sea of white is a perfect canvas for the flower motifs, which will show up better when I block it. I love the colors of Expression Fiber Arts yarn.

I never knit with yak and silk lace weight yarn before. I’ve knit with 100% yak and with 100% silk, but knitting with 50% each yak and silk is the best of both worlds. Both fibers are very soft, breathable and static resistant. Yak is also very absorbable as are all wools, and yak down is the ultimate in softness. 

Unfortunately, silk pupae are killed in the process of making the silk that their cocoons are formed from. However, many pupae are a snack food in China, South Korea and Thailand. I hadn’t really thought about all those little silk worm pupae dying, so probably in the future I’ll try to get tencel or bamboo to pair with my luxury fibers. (That’s assuming that I’ll be able to afford luxury fibers ever again.) But I am enjoying knitting this yak silk yarn to the utmost, and I will love wearing it!

Endings and Beginnings

Hey everyone! I’m back. Sorry I have been gone so long; I took some time off from my blog. I’ve been knitting on Christmas presents so I couldn’t really show anything.

Pogo left us on July 5 this year. It’s very sad and I miss her like crazy. It’s the first time that we haven’t had a cat since we lost Dippy about twenty years ago, and it feels really weird. I keep catching myself looking for her or thinking I’ll get her some tuna, and then I remember she’s gone. I may be biased, but I think Pogo was the best cat in the world, and she lived to be twenty years old, so I guess she thought we were pretty cool too.

Anyway. Let’s talk about glorious knitting, shall we? I know that you are on the edge of your seat, waiting to hear what I have been knitting. I’ll tell you what I knit for Christmas presents after New Years, when winter is stretched out before us and we have little to talk about, and Christmas presents will be a good topic to fill the time. But I have done a little other knitting.

I knit some baby things, a hat and sweater for one baby

and a hat and sweater for another baby,

 and six little pairs of baby socks and a sweater for my great niece’s baby son. 








For myself, I bought some merino/bamboo yarn from Chicken Lady Fiber Arts in Colorado in the color Pink Peppermint and knit a cowl:

It looks funny here but wait:

It looks much better on!

 I finally caked up some yarn I have been hoarding forever and started a triangular shawl with it. It’s from Expression Fiber Arts (they make luscious yarn), and it’s a lace weight 50% yak down and 50% silk that just feels incredibly yummy:

I wish you could touch this shawl to experience how wonderful it feels. It’s like a warm, soft, light cloud. I can’t wait to put it around my neck. I might just wear it all fall and winter. Maybe spring too.

The pattern is called Kai Shawl by Kristina Smile.

Today I cast on another WIP, a pair of socks. This is another Chicken Lady Fiber Arts in Bantam Sock, which is very sparkly, because I need more sparkle in my life. It’s 92% superwash merino and 8% lurex (sparkle!) in the PIK (Politically Incorrect Knitters) color. It actually reminds me of collegiate colors, except for the sparkle. Maybe it’s Hogwarts School of Wizardry? Wizards would have sparkle!

So that’s me, all caught up. I’ll be done Christmas knitting at the end of August, and I promise from then on  it will be all knitting all the time, though I’m sure it’s dry as dust to most people. I’ll see what I can do to make it more exciting!

Blocked Magazine

Blocked is a new knitting magazine on the internet, with free patterns, articles about knitting and humorous cartoons. What it is also about is a knitting community made up of people who have been blocked, slandered, called names like ‘racist’ and ‘white supremacist’ and ‘anti-Semitic’ and ‘homophobe’ and the like by people who are just plain wrong. Those people have basically tried to ruin the lives and livelihoods of good, caring people, and Blocked magazine has given them a space to write their stories, tell the world what happened to them, set things straight. 

 

If you feel triggered by reading these stories, just download Blocked magazine for the free patterns and knit your heart out. If you like Blocked magazine, there is a place at the back to support it ($5) through a Patreon account for the magazine,  and another page to go to the websites of the people whose stories are in the issue of the magazine, where you can buy their stuff.

Blocked magazine is put out by many fabulous people. The editor in chief who spearheaded this publication is Neil of UKnitted Kingdom, a feisty Brit with a huge sense of humor who is like a breath of fresh air. Neil has, expectedly, received hate for putting out the magazine, being called all sorts of names mentioned above and having the magazine taken down over their first weekend (it’s up now, no problem). Neil is now the ‘Knitler’ of his UKnitted Kingdom and he is pretty happy about it, too.

This first issue has a 2-page spread about knitting a gauge swatch, my favorite thing! It uses cute little drawings of a mouse with a sweater that came out too small, and one of a sweater that came out too big, and several ideas of how to get around knitting a gauge swatch if you really want to just start knitting but still want to have it come out right. Talk about a useful magazine! I’d put those two pages up on the wall of my yarn shop if I still had one!

The cover sweater is a pattern in this issue, as well as gorgeous mittens, a cowl, a hat with a modified intarsia in the round motif (with a great blank chart to design your own motif!), a hat with a block pattern (appropriate for the first issue!), a crocheted amigurumi emoticon, and dishcloths. Also, there are a couple of KALs/MKALs too. 

I encourage everyone to go take a look at Blocked magazine. If you agree with it, great; if you don’t agree with it, then fine. I think we all need to get over ourselves a bit anyway. But we can all use a free pattern in these inflationary times too!

Pam’s Gloves

The gloves for which “Pam’s Gloves” are named were originally bought in Doolin, Ireland at O’Brien’s Craft’s, because Pam’s hands were terribly cold when she, Kevin and Joseph took a trip to Ireland many years ago, long before my stroke.

She wore them a lot, and they eventually wore out. I took them and made a pattern from them to knit her another pair (the original pair were of dark brown wool, and I think that my copy also was dark brown wool). Unfortunately they came out too small and Pam never wore them much. I was thinking Pam needed another pair, in a slightly bigger size, so I started these green ones in Donegal Tweed, because Pam had visited the mill that produced that in Ireland. But then I had my stroke, and it languished unknit for 11 years. 

Recently I found one finished glove and just the cuff of the other one when I was cleaning out my stash. I decided that since this year was going to be about getting rid of my stash, I needed to finish it.

I knew that I had written down my pattern notes many years ago, before my stroke, BUT that was on an Apple Mac (I think it was my tangerine iMac, that tells you how long ago it was) and I used Appleworks, which wouldn’t open now except in some weird text in GoodReader and the chart which the whole pattern depended on wouldn’t open at all. Sigh. So I had to make the chart from the existing glove.

I ended up using Stitchfiddle.com to make the chart, and the glove came out relatively well, and almost the same size as the one I knit before my stroke. I gave the gloves to Pam for Christmas and she loves them. She says they fit just like the originals gloves did. 


I did write the pattern for the gloves and was going to make it available here on Demonic Progress, but I found the website for O’Brien’s Crafts. They are still there and still selling children’s mittens that use that pattern. I think that they also have adult size mittens and gloves, but there is only so much that you can put on a website! So, if you want a pair of these gloves, I encourage you to take a look at their website and contact them to see if they have gloves and if they ship to the USA. We should all support craftsmen and small businesses.

2021 Advent Calendar Day 25

MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Image by FABIANNE SIBBIO from Pixabay

Day 25:  Christmas Balls! Start for next year!

Here’s your Christmas Bonus - a fun video about a naughty little Santa ornament

2021 Advent Calendar Day 23

Image by ELG21 from Pixabay

Day 23: Mystery Sock ‘09

2021 Advent Calendar Day 24

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Day 24: 45-Minute Mittens    

And bonus video: 

 

2021 Advent Calendar Day 22

Image by Angeles Balaguer from Pixabay

Day 22: Knit Christmas Stars Washcloth

(Pattern consists of a chart only, and is located at the bottom of the page. The chart is labeled “Christmas Stars - a face cloth”.)

2021 Advent Calendar Day 21

Image by Terri Cnudde from Pixabay

Day 21: Heart Double Knit Hot Pad

2021 Advent Calendar Day 20

Image by John MacAulay from Pixabay</

Day 20: Pieces of Eight Mitts

2021 Advent Calendar Day 19

Image by emmagrau from Pixabay

Day 19: Fisherman’s Boot Socks

2021 Advent Calendar Day 18

Image by Thanks for your Like • donations welcome from Pixabay

Day 18: Apple Leaf Tidy Mat (Doily)

2021 Advent Calendar Day 17

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Day 17: Reversible Hat and Cowl

2021 Advent Calendar Day 16

Image by Terri Cnudde from Pixabay

Day 16: Fjord Mosaic Set

2021 Advent Calendar Day 15

Photo by John De Boer from FreeImages

Day 15: Bashful Knit Lace Hat

Scroll to the bottom for the free pattern!