My Sweet Boy

My Sweet Boy Jack is gone.

I took these pictures yesterday. And today we came home from church and found him...

I am going to miss him.

Proving My Knitting Cred

Am I the only one that sometimes thinks I need to prove my knitting cred? No it is not as harsh as it sounds. It is not like the yarn store stops you at the door and looks through your project pages before allowing you to enter. That's not what I mean. It is more like you know you're going to meet a new knitting friend and want to show off your best work. Or you're going to Rhinebeck and want to wear just the right shawl, socks, sweater, mitts, hat and cowl. What? Do you not encase yourself in knit wear when attending a knitting festival/retreat?

For me it was meeting a blog pal for the first time. I think my cred was lacking. I tend to travel light, but this trip was painfully light for me. I took one project and finished it on the plane, except for kitchnering and weaving in ends.

One project?! What was I thinking?

I was thinking that I better get Adriene's socks done before I actually meet her. That is right ya'll I got to spend some time with my CBF (Canadian Blog Friend)!

D had a conference in Vancouver BC and I flew out once it was done, to have a little vacation with him. D had always said if we were anywhere near Vancouver we should try to meet up. I do have one disclaimer, I did not take one picture while we all were out and about. Guess I am a live in the moment sort of person. Not to mention I am not part of the selfie generation, I don't even have a smartphone.

When we started planning the trip I asked Adriene if she wanted me to knit her a pair of socks since she is not a crazy sock knitter like I am. The answer was yes, of course, only a fool would turn down hand knit socks, and Adriene is no fool.

We agreed on a pattern and I went stash diving for a lovely Rhinebeck yarn that was sufficiently marinated in wool fumes, and not as much cat hair as you would think. The actual socks were to be a surprise.

I knit diligently and finished 1 1/2 socks then the Baa-ble hat came along and stole my attention. I realized the night before leaving that I had half of a sock to knit! I know I am a procrastinator but come on!

By some miracle my long leg flight did not have a person sitting next to me, so I pulled out Adriene's sock and started to knit away the hours. Sigh, my enjoyment did not last long. Some gent decided to move into our row and proceeded to think of us as his personal entertainment system.

First he started by asking if the socks were for him, I did my polite sarcastic laugh. It was not enough. He reached over and picked up the finished sock from off of my lap and said it would fit him. I think not mister!

Once I got up to use the restroom I was caught in his yammering web of words. He kept asking about socks and scarves and what not. Dude I am not a knitwear dispensing machine, well I sort of am but not for you!

Finally at the end when he said "So no scarf?" I told him the socks were the first thing I had knit for a special person that I had been corresponding with for over two years, I am a tough nut to crack. And really you have to appreciate the time and work that goes into them, you know have some knitter cred of your own.

I got to see first hand some of Adriene's work and it is just as beautiful in person. So yeah knitting cred, we have it, even though sometimes it feels like we need to prove it.

How difficult can it be?

You would think that knitting a colorwork hat would be the hardest part of knitting. It is switching colors and learning how to carry yarn properly. You would think that is tough. 

You would be wrong. The hardest part of knitting a great hat is taking a decent picture of it and yourself wearing it.

It least the good news it that it fits the best of any hat I've knit. Many people said the hat runs big. Old melon head over here thinks otherwise.

Here's to knitting sheep on your hats!

Baa along

So my Baa-ble hat...

It has sheep! I spent part of last week worrying that my sheep floats are too tight. See how the sheep are a bit wrinkly? When you knit color work one strand of yarn is carried behind the other floating along the back of the work, floats. Any floats longer than 4 or 5 stitches are tacked down behind the sheep. If your knitting is too bunched up the floats will be too short and cause the knitting to remain bunched up.

See how the sheep have a bumpy texture? I thought about ripping back and reworking it. Last night I showed it to D and he said the most perfect thing, I like the sheep, they're all puffy! 

You know what? I like how the sheep are puffy too. I'm keeping them.

I always intended to make this a practice hat, why not allow it to have some personality? Perfection is overrated anyways.

Baa Bump

I joined CrazySheepLady and some of her friends in a knitalong (KAL). I've been wanting to knit the Baa-ble hat since Rhinebeck. This KAL was just the final push I needed. I happily cast on and knit almost the full cuff at trivia night. (We lost spectacularly at trivia.) Tonight I settled in for a nice increase round and needle change...

Then I frogged the whole thing when my count did not match what the pattern said I should have. How could this be? I checked the increase round, did I not increase enough? I counted the increases, yep the right number of increases? (No not really but they were spaced correctly.) Finally I counted my ribbing...ah there is the mistake!

How could I not count the cast on correctly? Did I mention this is my first KAL and I am pretty darn excited about it? Oh you figured that out by yourselves? Could one of you not told me to count it again??

We have a saying in the USA, measure twice, cut once. D said that to a coworker a couple of years back. "That's interesting in Russia the saying is measure seven times, cut once." Why was I not Russian while casting on?

So I started over and believe me I counted more than twice, but did I count seven times...

Finally

Ok I found a workaround for getting a picture here. Did I ever tell you how much I hate it when computer stuff changes and makes everything more difficult? I get it you have to improve things but make sure the stuff that it used to do still works. Yowsa!

I know, I know let's just talk about knitting. See these socks?

They took quite a while to knit. Well that's only true if you call call sitting in a corner being ignored knitting. Ravelry added a new feature that lets you see all your updates to a project as a timeline. These poor souls say in hibernation for 16 months. Yes that is right 16+ months on the needles for one of them. Sigh, don't even think about taking my yarn away as punishment. Nope that is not gonna happen!

Anyways back to the socks. They're Nemesis Socks knit in Socks That Rock Raspberry Moose. That yarn was a Rhinebeck purchase in 2011, it marinated in the stash for three years before being chosen. I thought since it was a semi solid it would not pull too much away from the lovely patterning. The first one knit up in two months. But I started to be very concerned about it. When I tried it on it was  tight. But I being the denying knitter that I am, cast on the second sock and knit a couple of inches on that, before allowing myself to be drawn away but many, many other yarns. There on a shelf sat my lonely first sock and sad cuff of a second sock...

The afore mentioned 16 months pass, I woke myself from my denial induced haze and decided to just get on with it. (Anybody else hear the cast of Monty Python there?) It took me a month to knit the second sock, a month that is it.

Deciding to throw caution into the wind and hope that everything would work out, I washed them. They fit fine now, maybe even a little loose.

Sometimes you just have to knit the darn second sock.

Ramble On

Well that balance thing I'm trying this year is not working as well as I would like. I am back on the exercise horse but my church work is taking a bit of a hit. Ending one year and starting another is one of the last things I had not yet done. There were some bumps and ruts along the way but I feel I am slowly clawing my way back to a schedule.

Gus had a small bump or two also. We've not had to see any vets urgently but I've cleaned up in the middle of the night a few times. Somedays he just looks so old and tired, but any day without a vet visit is good.

I tried to show off some socks that took me a while to knit but it seems I cannot get the photos to work here. Alas I will just have to talk about the book I just finished listening to instead.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman touched my soul. I am trying to convince D to listen as well. I loved it with all my heart. I knew I would either love Ove or hate Ove. He was more than a jerk at times but oh man did I want to spend more time with him and Parvanah. I especially loved Parvanah's will of steel. I laughed in so many spots and cried more times than I am willing to admit. I saw both myself and D in Ove's story quite a bit. I know I will be listening to Backman's other book that has been translated, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry. I'm so glad I took Crazy Sheep Lady's recommendation.

Knitting has been going on, I've even finished a pair of socks. But my works in progress had dwindled to two, so I cast on another pair of socks yesterday. I knit about a quarter of a second sock at a church meeting last week. I had over packed for the meeting too, I brought three projects for a two hour meeting. Next time you all need to remind me something simple and already on the needles. I need to think of it as TV knitting but just a tinge less focused.

I have a pair of socks on the needles that have a deadline so I am fighting the urge to cast on the Baa-ble Hat, once these socks are done I will be knitting at least two of those hats, one for practice and the other for show. Oh yes there will be sheepy hats!

I had better make another pot of tea and put my nose back on the grindstone. Happy Knitting to All!