All Good Things...

 

I'm never ready to see the Winter Olympics end. I get all the feels. Yesterday was no exception.

What made it an especially great three weeks is that we had snow on the ground from start to finish. Just as Saturday's mild weather started melting it all away, Sunday's storm brought it back. It snowed on and off all day. It was the perfect backdrop to the ceremony.

I hadn't planned on getting all that fiber spun yesterday but I had to do something with my hands during that last hockey game. It was a nail biter. 

Ciao Italy. 

Thanks for the memories. 

Four years is a long way off at my age but France, I hope I'm there with you in 2030. 

And...if you haven't had enough of ice sports, let me brag a little about Daughter's high school skating team. They won the silver medal at a national US Figure Skating team challenge this weekend competing against 44 other teams. 

Shrinkflation

 

I'm starting my third skein of Homespun and I'm nowhere near the halfway point on this prayer shawl. I've made several of these in the past and only used 3 skeins for each according to my Ravelry project page so what's up with that? 

I thought I might have cast on too many stitches but it measures the same as my original one. Here are the directions from the free pattern on the Lion Brand website:

After 2½ skeins have been used up, use the remaining yarn for fringe (3-9 inches long). 

Ha. That's not going to work. I'm starting to think that 2008 skeins and 2026 are not the same size. I guess I'm going to have to order a fourth. Maybe even a fifth.

Anyway, I got out today. It was a lovely day for a walk at the beach. Is there snow in those clouds or more rain? We'll find out tomorrow.

A Looming Disaster

 

I took advantage of a couple of rainy days this week to get the latest warp on the loom. 

My last two projects were meh so I was hoping this kit would snap me out of the doldrums but all I see is a lot of white. Boring.

It's a tabby draft which is very plain. It's pretty much how you make a potholder so no fun there either. The only thing that is holding my interest is that it's a much thicker cotton so it's going fast. The faster the better. 

Friday Fluff

 

Woo hoo...I retired one stitch marker this week. 10 more to go. 

Like the Olympics themselves, my Olympic spin is coming to an end. I've got a handful of fiber left. 

The whole time I've been re-knitting this section of the Garter Squish I've been thinking about how nice this would be as a sweater. As soon as this is finished I am going to dig through the handspun stash and see if I can come up with enough of the same fiber for a simple, cozy pullover. 

And I owe Betty an apology. She did come through after all. The Blueberry Lemon loaf didn't rise a whole lot on the counter but it did have a decent rise in the oven.

It was yummy but it was the lemon doing all the heavy lifting. The blueberries are just there for their looks I suppose. 

Slicing and Dicing

 

Look what I bought. That wicked looking thing is a bread slicer.

It does this to my little loaves of sourdough. I had been throwing a lot of it away because we can't eat all of my experiments before they go stale. Now I can slice it up and put it in the freezer for toast. Sourdough defies cutting with a bread knife. It just ends up tearing or so misshapen it won't fit in the toaster.  

As for dicing, I bought one of these doohickeys a while back. I make a lot of soup, bean soup mostly, and this makes very short work of the vegetables and aromatics. I thought these might me a viral scam but they do indeed do what you see them doing online. It makes chopping fun.

Getting back to Betty, I thought I would try the popular blueberry lemon sourdough recipe that everyone seems to be making. I bought the expensive dried blueberries. I zested a bunch of lemons. I watched the videos a million times and followed everything as closely as possible and.....

....it's 8:00 at night and I'm still sitting here 5 hours later waiting for it to rise. It's still sitting in the exact same spot like some petulant ball of goop. Shame on you Betty. I coddled you all-day to get a good peak rise and this is how you repay me? It's going to be a long night.

Wednesday WIPs

 

Let's start out with the FOs today shall we? Riddari #2 is in the history books. 

The Mister hounded me until I made him a sweater and thankfully it fit. I'm predicting it will live in a drawer for the rest of its life but at least I don't have to listen to..."you never knit me anything" anymore. 

The Holm mittens are done and they are very pretty but I'm not a fan. I wore them out yesterday to walk Pup and my hands got cold in them. They never got cold in my Mosi mittens which are knit in skinny mini Palette. I'm going to have to make myself another pair of those this summer I guess. The Holms were knit in Knit Picks Hawthorne Tonal and Stroll which I guess were not the best choice for mittens.

I've still got socks going on. The pair on the left are at the toe. The pair on right are about an inch away from the toe. They are not getting much attention right now.

During this last gasp of winter I've been trying to get the warmer things finished. Right now it's the Ski Sweater that is getting all the attention while I'm watching the last week of the Olympics. Those lice will be the end of me. I'm so bored with them but I've got twelve more of them to do. It takes four rows to make one lice so that means I've still got 48 more rows to go. Ouf....

TNT: Loose Ends

 

This is not what you usually see here on Tiny Needle Tuesday but this is what my tiny needle has been working on this week. The Mister's Riddari is done. Now I'm weaving in all those ends. 

Ditto for the Holt mittens. I'm the world's worst end weaver so this always takes some time.

I did get one motif finished on the Folklore sampler. It's the round floral one on the right of the girl. Next week I hope to put the same thing on the boy's side and then I'm packing it away. I'll be getting out something for spring and I've got a lot to choose from back in the stash. I was tempted to buy something new but I came to my senses.