black friday

I've updated the sale page with some key sales for Black Friday. I'm not doing a lot of yarn buying these days, so these are the ones that I think will be of interest.

I've made a few projects since July, so I'll come back and update this soon with those.

Herakles Socks

I'm currently knitting plain socks toe-up

Yarn for Toe of Sock: Sanguine Gryphon Yellow Dung Fly from a 10g mini (sport weight)
Yarn for Body of Sock : Fresh From the Cauldron in Herakles colorway (fingering weight)
Knitting Needle Size: US 0 Addi
Method: Toe-up
Toe Cast-on - Judy's Magic Cast-on
                      Used a legline, and knit up for leg, trying it on as I go.
Heel:  knit side decreases for Sock 1 (similar to the toe increases) to the heel with kitchener to complete the heel.

Sock 2 - Judy's Magic Cast-on for toes, knit up, used a legl line for leg
Heel: Added 5 stitch markers and decreased around stitch markers to create a sectioned heel, before kitchener. This made it more conformed to my heel, and the seam is less prominent.

Here is sock 1 to the leg line:
(I actually love the way it's pooling - it's very pretty)

Here was the first sock done, and the second starting.
The pooling didn't match on the foot. I think I had one extra stitch on the left foot (ie. 1 stitch wider), so the stitch color formed in neat rows), so I flipped the second sock over, so the starting rows are mirrored instead of identical.

 I made the sock up to my calf height. As I used other yarn for the toes, there's room in the ball for this. This next photo shows the second foot (right) next to the first sock (left).

Here is the heel I did for sock 2 - seems more comfy on my heel:

I am now on the second leg, just at the point of the beginning of my calf where I will need to start increasing.

Project Completion %age: 80% (yay- over the 70% hump!)

It's a pretty portable project, as I'm bring it around in my purse, and knitting whenever I have a wee bit of time, and can complete a few rows.

January 2017 update

It's a new year and I just updated a few links that were out of date.

I spent most of last year getting out and enjoying life, doing some small travel trips in my local area, and eating out. I did a bit of knitting, but not as much as I'd planned. I found I just don't like to knit to artificially tight deadlines. I did make another Capricuous cardigan in a lovely deep red, and a couple of Vacillate Scarves - one for a retiring friend. Also, a couple of hats in the fall.

This year,  I did sign up to both finish some projects off, and also to try to knit some new things we'll see how that goes..

This year I'm trying to organize and let go of things that don't serve me - both figuratively and physically...

Time flying

Well, Happy Chinese new year!

Seems like I have been awol awhile and didn't realize it's been a bit since I last posted.

I started 2016 with a challenge from one of my online knitting swap groups. You pick 12 skeins and put them in a bin, and try to knit from it. Yep, already missed that one. But I did try. I assembled 7 skeins of bulky, 2 dk, 1 fingering, and 3 worsted, so 13 skeins. I started Ballydesmond fingerless mitts with the 1 fingering, and they are turning out lovely. The others stalled out. The 7 bulky skeins were to be a selkie wrap, but then, I discovered that my needle was too short, and it would have been a very tight knit. I treasure my hands, so that was out. I abandoned that plan and searched for an alternate partern. I settled on an Owls sweater next, and after swatching cuffs of sleeves, realized that the yarn is soo bulky, it's probably too heavy for this climate, so now, I'm back to some kind of cardi/wrap thing that will be most likely of my own design. The dk yarn is too light for the gauge of the project - the baa-ble hat. I want the ribbing to look ribbed, so there's math there that I have to focus on.

The rules say that for every skein you pull out (if you want to substitute), must be replaced with double. Therefore, if I try to pull out the 7, I have to replace with 14 skeins - more than my entire bin. It's supposed to be a challenge to get you to knit from stash. The penalty for not completing your bin, nothing, except a whole pile of personal guilt, if you buy into that kind of thing.  If I complete, I apparently am in a draw to win more yarn (yay! haha you can't hear my sarcasm here, if I'm trying to pare down yarn, I should not be concerned to win more yarn! really.)

So, in the meanwhile, I started a cheater project. Yep, already cheating on my bin, one.month.in. Apparently, it's par for the course. I realized that I wear my Capricious cardi the most of all of the cardigans that I've knit, so I've cast on another one and am more than half way through at the waist increases in a from my stash yarn Cephalopodyarns Bugga in Strawberry Crab. It's really a thrill to be knitting with red again. I think I've been knitting for so long with blues that I forgot how satisfying a red yarn really was.

My Christmas was good. A long time ago, I know. I had a week off, and it feels very distant now. I had some socks cranked for me by a swapper friend, and they're gorgeous. Pics to come (when I remember).

It's traditional to do a cleanup to ready yourself for the New Year. At work, I finally went through a whole bunch of old files, and did a purge there. It's part of a move we're doing, and a good opportunity to get rid of old stuff - out with the old as they say. I had some surprising conversations this week...and personally, I'm also trying to lighten my load  a little on my stash, so I'll be updating those pages soon.

Not much being done in the way of weaving or spinning, perhaps one day this year, I'll get back to those.

September

9/23 update - my sale page just got deleted, after being buggy..i'll come back in the next couple of days to try to restore it. in the meanwhile, carol fellers on ravlery has 6 patterns on sale with code plucktober2015 - see the plucky knitters group - plucktober retail/updates thread.

**
The Harvest moon cardi is very very slow going. I misread the collar, potentially poor instructions, and then, knit about 3" of the body and realized I hadn't been paying too  much attention to the edging. The designer has the instruction for right side / wrong side split across 2 rows, indicating right side edge and left side edge instructions separately - silly and way more complicated than it should be..also boring stockinette so it's not getting much attention lately.

The video was posted for a friend. It's longer than expected, and I tried to do a re-do last week thurs/friday to do a shorter one. Figured out a better camera angle, more close-up; problem is my computer might be getting a bit low on memory because just trying to add single slides to the movie - it ends up crashing. I've put it aside for now.

exploring free time and various hobbies at the moment. I discovered Zen Tangles on the weekend, which are like little doodles in ink, and think I might explore those if I can find my micron pens. It's annoying to have put some things into storage so they are essentially unavailable when you need them.

Making a 3D Snowflake (video)

Interesting. I filmed a 15minute video in 15 minutes, and then, took 15 hours to do all the processing, editing, voiceovers, conversion, uploading. It was interesting and fun with a learning curve and a few bumps.

Lessons learned - clean up your phone so you can shoot the video straight without having to do the extras, and get someone else to film you.

September

I have not had a chance to take a pic of the Perinwinkle Cardi that I finished a couple of weeks ago. Too bad, as the weather is getting colder, so I'm not sure how long I'll be able to wear it.

I'm a few rows into the body of a new cardigan.

and most importantly, I updated the sale page - lots of discounts on patterns for Plucktober.

August

The cardi is complete. Turns out I had overknit 3", and ripped back so that the cardi sit comfortably just over the top of my jeans. I bound off and used the remainder re-balled yarn to finish off the 2 cap sleeves, and do the bind-off at the neck. I had to rip back 2-3 rows of my swatch (ack!), in order to finish the bind-off. While I was digging through some stuff, I found some cute shell buttons which I'll affix to the cardigan. I'll have to use the rest of my swatch to secure the buttons. Yay for Emma's suggestion to block the cardi before I could finish it.

Was reading over the June post. The Isotonic Indulgence pillow didn't work out the way I hoped. In a matter of days, I felt it was too flat. I ended up buying a wool pillow instead (used another 20% off coupon) as the e-mail coupons finally kicked in! It's been a dream, I think it's worked succesfully for more than 6 weeks. I've been using the Isotonic Indulgence under my knees, which keeps my back straight while sleeping. Not sure why, but for months now, I haven't been able to sleep on my side. either my arm falls asleep and cramps, or it's just been too uncomfy to do so.

I've started the second swatch of the madtosh dk baltic for the Salted pullover. I think I got about a half a swatch knit.

People keep telling me that the housing market is really hot right now, so I'm back to thinking about putting my house up for sale. I have become cluttered again. So, I found this book by Marie Kondo that a friend had mentioned, and read that one evening this week. It's a pretty good read; way too much stuff about her experiences. The 2 take away gems are: Only keep what you love (and discard the rest), and Sort by Category not by location. She also talks a bit about the psychology and why people rebound (they start with the most meaningful things they are attached to etc).

It anyway inspired me to separate out some clothes for donation, and I brought a stack of clothes downtown to Velvet Crease (cook st.) for consignment. They accepted 7 items, and suggested another shop for the t-shirts and such. I think some stuff will end up being donated, and some stuff will perhaps wait for a later visit - November for Christmas-type items, and Spring for the rest of the dresses/short-sleeve or no-sleeve tops. They said they were focused on women's business clothes but I think they might mean middle-aged women's business clothes, because they did not take a couple of business/nicer sleeveless tops that could be easily layered with jackets year-round.

Overcast day and I hope that it get sunny again soon.

Last weekend, went to a wedding, and it was fabulously sunny and I met a lot of interesting people and practiced Connection. It was fun. Sometimes highlights in my life though make the rest of the time feel dreary and low.

Cardi is almost complete

Apologies for the bad pic, taken inside. The color is a stunning periwinkle blue.
I ripped back 3" from this last week. Pre-blocking was a great idea (thanks emma!). It ended up relaxing and being a couple of inches longer than I wanted. 

Good thing too, as I was almost out of yarn, and still had the sleeves, and neck to do. Now, I've finished the ribbing at the hem, and one sleeve cap, and I have 12g left. It was 5g for the one sleeve's ribbing, so I think I have enough to finish up.

hot

I think I might finally see why people in California and Arizona don't like knitting heavy sweaters during their mild spring and winters. It's just too hot to think about hauling a heavy sweater around, and it's only in the low 80s here. I love the warm weather, but lately it's just a bit too warm in my house to entirely cool down or even sleep. I miss having an air conditioner. I have a little fan which rotates and pushes some air around.

As I peruse my queue, I see a lot of heavyweight sweaters in there.
Also, it might be time to cut my hair...

Here's the cardi i'm working on so far (pattern - Mary Mary):

mid-June

I started a new project - it's called Mary Mary, it's a lightweight cardigan which I hope to use over dresses in summer. The yarn is Handmaiden Casbah in a light purpley-blue periwinkle color.
It's the first thing I started in a really long time.. I hope the knitting sticks this time.

Weather is warm and I'm really enjoying wearing dresses this year. Almost the whole June, I've just been delving into my closet and wearing dress after dress. I've even given up jeans on Casual Wednesdays. There's something freeing about wearing them, and I feel happier when I do wear them.

I also buckled and got a new pillow. I can't really remember what I was using before..One of the good ones had gone flat after what I remembered was 3 months. Bed Bath & Beyond allows you test out pillows (and once in awhile they have a 20% off coupon), and if it doesn't work out for you, you can return it, and try a different one. They seem pricey, but when it's a good night's sleep that you're trying to get, it seems worthwhile.

I tried a Stearns & Foster one, and then, an interesting goose down one, and now, I'm back to the Isotonic Indulgence, which I hope to keep loftier longer by sleeping on different parts of it, instead of the centre only. They'll also roll over the coupon if you used it from one to the next.  The upside of the whole trial process is that I also bought a hypo-allergenic type cover for the pillow and that has worked like a dream over the last 6 weeks.

BB and B also has a huge gadget section so I splurged on a tea scoop strainer thingy. You rotate the base of the handle, and the 1/2 ball rotates open or closed. It's pretty handy so far. Used it for a couple of teas at work.

Other new loves this summer:
(a) SB Frappuccinos - Red Velvet Frappucino specifically, and I found a really good Black Forest Cake at Thrifty's that reminds me of the ones my mom used to buy when I was a kid. I also splurged on a Rootbeer Float at QV Cafe last Friday - it's a great way to cool off. None of these things are good for me, but they sure taste good.  The Frappucinos are essentially sugar syrup with flavour/colour, crushed ice, and whipping cream (which is whole milk and more sugar syrup). No wonder the whip adds 70 calories on a tall size (yikes!) and the frap. drinks are all around 350-450 calories for the tall. Not that I'm counting, because who needs that when you want a bit of sweetness in your life.
(b) going for quick walks - in the sun..what could be better...