Hubby mitten and no knead bread

There is something about snow and colder weather that just makes me want to knit mittens.

These are for hubby. Nice manly colors don't you think? Boy, can I tell a difference in my knitting speed for my thicker hand spun yarn and fussy sock weight yarn. With my thicker hand spun it took just over a week to knit them. These fussy puppies took over a month?! I found them languishing in the knitting basket all the time and never making the decision to work on them. Silly how things don't just knit themselves when you want them too.

 

As for reasonable excuses to not knit something you don't want to knit I tried making no knead bread for the first time. How have I not tried this yet. It is fantastic! It comes out of the cast iron Dutch oven so crusty.

 No need to put in any preservatives either because it was gone in a day. Hey maybe I need to mix up another batch now. Why yes I think I will.

Happy bread baking!

Spinning behind the scenes work

I've been trying to get a handle on my spinning, not that I have been really doing much spinning. Just that two moves and reorganization has allowed me to take a few deep looks into my stash. When we moved from Oregon I carefully vacuum packed and packed it into totes, now it it fluffed and being admired. 

Burt is as helpful as ever. I pulled out some handspun yarn and tried to do some calculations to see what I could make. That turned into going a different direction and finally some mittens.

You've seen them they are fabulous, if I do say so myself.

I've even filled a bobbin or two.

But most importantly I've pulled out my hand spun to weigh and catalog. When you start a new hobby it is so easy to just throw yourself in with wild abandon. It is part of the fun of learning. Another part of learning is actually keeping notes and labeling your newly spun yarn. Guess which part I skipped right over.

Sigh, how did I spin so much without keeping track of it? The dyed ones are easier to identify, but as to how they were spun... nope not a clue. Good thing I had fun spinning them, 

Luckily I do like showing off what I have bought, right here on this very blog. I spent a morning weighing and matching subtle natural colors to photos of my stash. I think I matched up half of them at least. With some I even know how I spun them.

I am very curious how four ounces of roving decreased to 1.7 in one yarn making. Either there is another mystery ball out there or I misidentified the wool. That is an unbelievable amount of fiber to fluff off.

I now have a dedicated notebook for spinning and three projects were recorded but alas I must admit I am a horrible spinner note taker. I even looked back through my knitting journals. Not a word about spinning. But then why would there be when I run 6 months behind on those during the good times.

Well the lesson was learned now I just need to keep on applying it.

Happy Spinning?

Tea Socks or why Santa always checks the list twice

I found the perfect combination of yarn colorway name and pattern name. I found the yarn on one of my Rose City Yarn crawls. I bought Barnyard Knits fingering yarn in the Lemongrass Tea colorway. Can I just say my color appreciation has vastly improved as a knitter. I once hated orange and yellow but now have learned to appreciate many different colors that I would have turned my nose up at before. (I will also like to note I changed the way I say things. I don't call things ugly anymore, they are simply not my taste. No use calling something ugly when we all know someone out there loves it, just not me.) I think this color is one of my newly acquired tastes. The flecks of dark brown just stole my heart and I will admit to being influenced by colorway names too. Lemongrass tea, doesn't it just make you feel the warm sun as you sit in your lush peaceful garden sipping a cup of relaxing tea? Ahh I'm just going to sit here for a minute more.

And on with our story, then one day I found a pattern called My Cup of Tea Socks by Robin Lynn. The sample socks were a delicate tan color that the designer had dyed with a variety of tea bags. Since it made a fragrant yarn it clicked in my head I had the perfect yarn.

 I cast on and started knitting and taking pictures to share with some friends, 

I managed to get one of the great yarn color complexity. 

Well you can tell where I do a lot of my knitting and texting with friends can't you?

My sock grew and I was still in love. I finished the first one and cast on the second. I even took it to a local knitting meet up and knit on it. 

Then my brain started twitching. I am an oddity in the sock knitting world. I work my socks on many more stitches than most knitters, at least if you look at a lot of sock patterns. I think I grew up with so many ill fitting socks that I cannot tolerate snug socks. But hey that is the best thing about knitting I get to make socks the way I like. 

But recently I've noticed my socks have been a bit too loose. And now it is bothering me too. So for this sock I decided to decrease my gusset a bit more to make it a tiny bit more snug.

I was such a good knitter that I even made note of it. I know I was shocked too.

I was only a repeat or two away from starting the heel when my brain picked a fight with me. It kept popping up and saying Hey didn't we decrease the first sock?

So I checked my notes and admitted we did. I sucked it up this morning and ripped back to the cuff after I took the sad picture above. Well at least I remembered before I knit the whole thing and it didn't match the first one. 

But my brain would not let me knit happily on. Hey this feels funny I don't remember doing the decreases this way. Why don't I remember this?

So I checked my notes again. I had clearly noted the decreased stitch amount for the foot only! Dag Nab It! I have ripped back for nothing. At least my brain only let me knit 4 rounds before yelling at me to check it again.

But now for something I have been able to do right. I reset my Rhinebeck room to have a nice little knitting corner with a conveniently placed bowl of Mellie. She is graciously consented to be my "At Elbow" assistant. 

Hopefully no more mistakes will be made with my February socks and I will be able to get back on our non-existent knitting schedule. So my friends knit on with authority and never be afraid to check your notes twice, or three times, however many times it takes to do the job right. I'm starting a 12 hour waiting period on all ripping back. 

Handspun Mittens second project of the year

Last year I joined a spinning and weaving guild. So much was going on in our lives and you all know I'm a total introvert. I only ended up attending a few meetings via zoom. One of those was a bi-monthly spinning group. The format is to go around one by one and talk about what you've been spinning. Luckily I had set up my wheel and actually had spun some fiber. But oh man I could feel the pressure coming to talk and it scared me. I thought of jumping off before they could get to me but I hung in there and told them my dirty secret. I have not knit with any of my handspun yarn. Well, except for some ropey spindle spun mini sweater ornaments.

After that I bucked up and pulled out some lovely hand spun yarn. Actually I went down a rabbit hole of my spun yarn but that is a story for a different day. 

I looked around my knitting room and decided on a skein of handspun fresh off the plying bobbin was my next project. I'm not even sure if the yarn was even washed. Oh well it is experiment time. I used Ann Budd's Knitter's book of patterns to cast on. Then because I had no idea of what gauge to knit at I cast on a bunch more times. It was experimentation time I tell you. I finally decided a gauge of 4 stitches per inch would work. I knit a nice long cuff and almost all of the mitten.

Then because it was still experimentation time I weighed it and the left over skein. Partial mitten was 59 g and remaining skein was 57 g. Well this is not going to work. I thought of just using some other hand spun for the thumbs but decided the fun of knitting another mitten the right way was a better plan. 

I ripped back to only a 2 inch cuff, most likely the recommended cuff length to begin with, and knit another mitten and weighed it. 52 g, hey these mittens might even get to have thumbs!

Knitting with bigger yarn and needles than sock weight is fun too. I think each mitten took about a day to knit. Easier to rip back and start over when it is just a day's experiment that you lose. What else does a knitter/spinner do with a weekend?

Will you look at that? I make stripy yarn sometimes. So much fun to play around and have fun and warm mittens at the end.

Once I finished these I cast on a pair for hubby out of some Alpaca Sox I dug out of the stash. Those are not going as quick! 

I can finally say I made something I can use, from fluff to mitten. Just wait till I tell you about the rest of the handspun stash and my vow to do better. Just like my knitting journal vow to do better...

Happy knitting!

Stripe socks

Well it seems I have found my knitting mojo. I am having all of the knitting feelings. I am fighting a consuming case of start all of the things. I want to sort through my stash and pet some yarn. I've been perusing so many patterns. One moment I am looking at shawls, the next is is sweaters, then on to mittens. I have knit several things in my head and they all came out perfectly, if only they were not imaginary. 

But in reality I have knit a few things let me tell you about this little pair. Made from some of my new favorite yarn. Urth Uneek Sock. I may love them partially because I am a phonetic speller and once I realized this company would have upped my 4th grade spelling test by a point if they had been around then. I still have no idea why "of" is not spelled "ove", what about oven people?

I must say I don't love the fact that they number their colorways. It may be easier but I really want to know what "patience sunshine" looks like to someone else. I'm guessing something blue-green with orange-yellow. But that could just be me. 

 

By my own definition these were fun TV knitting time. And that is all that matters. At first they started off a bit baby shower colors, well more of a hip baby shower maybe.

 

But then the green came in and all was right with my knitting universe again. Wait is that brown and gray paired next? It is battle of the neutrals coming down the foot.

This was the first time I knit from the inside of the ball for this yarn and I was not sure I liked the way the colors changed. I might have enjoyed knitting them more if they were opposite. I did think of knitting the second sock in reverse order but my symmetrical side hit me with rolled up newspaper and yelled Bad Knitter! at me so it was not considered very long. I'm not saying others couldn't do it that was, but alas my character flaws would not allow it. 

I was pretty happy when I looked down at them in my Birkies and I could see how pretty they looked on my feet.

Something about the colors changing all the time makes this yarn knit up faster. My January socks were done before mid month. Leaving me with plenty of time to start something else. Oh come on you've been here long enough to know there were three other something elses on my needles this whole time. 

I'm knitting at least three rows on that shawl that will eventually be finished, but man is it a slog. I found two mistakes right next to each other 4 rows back and thought there ain't no way I'm going back to fix them. So I didn't and so far I am fine with that decision. 

Happy Knitting! 

One Step at a time

Since I have been so productive in my knitting lately, I'm dusting off a project that has been in time out for a while. It is not my oldest WIP but I really don't want to talk about that one right now.

I pulled this one out. I'm happy with it so far I guess but it needs to get done. I had a panic moment when I thought I had lost my notes on this, and would not be able to figure out were I was on the pattern. First things first take a picture so at least I can compare to the pictures of finished ones. Looks like I don't have that far to go. (She says before realizing she stopped before the bobble section.)

This pattern gave me an insight on myself. I loathe making one stitch into five stitches then turning it back into one stitch a few rows later. Loathe! I buckled down and finished out clue three and vowed to never knit another bobble again. Yes I had checked the finished ones to make sure this was the last clue with a bobble. I should have named this my Outside my comfort zone shawl.

Mellie decided she could be my bobble knitting support cat. She was thrilled I pulled this out and sat down to knit in the comfy chair. Plus a little Christmas glow is always nice.

Burt punched in as a knitting supervisor on another day. Who doesn't want lap time and Christmas lights?

I have pulled out all the tools on this knit too. I bought these nifty stitch markers at a local wool festival in October because I knew I still needed to knit on this shawl. I've been using my clip on ten row stitch markers on this too. This shawl has so much bling on it during the complicated bits the cats still hear the tinkle of bells.

But I'm not just knitting either. I made some cinnamon rolls and overbaked them.

I tried my hand at making upside-down pineapple cake for the second time. It was good but I don't think I need to bake it again soon. I do feel a nice lemon drizzle pound cake in my future though.  

Sitting next to the cake is another experiment. I fermented garlic in honey. Yeah I know I'm not sure how I feel about it either. I had to burp it once a day for a week. Oh the smell was so strong. It is supposed to be an immunity booster but I've not tried it too much yet. The smell did mellow as the week went on but still, Yowsa!

Mellie forgave the smell and kept on knitting with me. We are slowly making our way through clue 4 then on to clue 5 and finishing. 

I have finished a pair of socks and mittens in the meantime to keep my easy knitting brain calm. This shawl will be a long haul. My friend that suggested this knit along is long past being finished with hers. Heck she even finally blocked it. I'm not jealous at all. I have a clue and a half to go and it will be done by 2024. Mellie says I have to!!

Being busy

The start of a new year! So fresh and inviting. I don't really make resolutions but I do make knitting plans and try new habits. I learned long ago resolutions are like ultimatums you give yourself and I don't respond well to ultimatums. I do however think about things I would like to change and try to move forward with making some changes. 

 

I inherited D's grandmother's recipe box a while ago. And thinking about it I would like to tell a bit about it one day. I pulled it out while organizing the pantry and gave it a look since we have been watching Great British Bake Off again. I found a gem called Matrimonial Cake (date bars), since I had already landed my prince I did not feel the need to make this one, but maybe for our anniversary? 

It was quite fun looking through the box again. So many newspaper clipped recipes and even a clipping of her being the senior citizen of the month. I knew what her priorities were when I found the divider card originally labeled vegetables had been changed to cookies. I mean who needs recipes for veggies you just open a can and heat them up, right? Ah midwest cooking a topic for another day.

D had a migraine flare and I knew that once you give it a day or two it is time to take yourself out for an easy hike and enjoy some fresh air. You just have to enjoy The Sandias whenever you can. 

The new year kicked my knitting into over drive. I think just sitting with yarn and patterns and thinking of what to knit is just the refresh I wanted. I pulled out some of my new beloved striping yarn from Urth and started some socks. It is true for me that self striping yarn knits up quick. I have already finished my January socks! 

And planning pays off too since I finally found my favorite match of colorway name and pattern name socks. Pattern is My Cup of Tea Socks by Robin Lynn and the yarn is named Lemongrass Tea. The pattern is sort of the one I referenced. I /rewrote/reworked it for the stitch count I like and I think I left half of the repeat behind. What I'm knitting doesn't really match the pictures I saw online. They will be fantastic anyways and be truly unique to my foibles. That is what you get when you rewrite something then let it sit for a week or so. You forget the details and why your stitch count is different from what you planned. I am loving them regardless.

I have more knitting to show off but one of the things I would like to do is blog more so I may as well end here.