Wednesday WIPs

 

It's been yard work this week that's been keeping me from my projects. The socks haven't grown much. I'm too tired after a day of shoveling and raking to knit a stitch.

Poor Altheda is on the back burner because she makes me sneeze. I can't work on woolly wool when my pollen allergies are bad. Everything and anything sets them off. It's too bad because I could have made short work of those sleeves. They are fun. 

Festive Doodle got a green and red diamond section added on. This is still my favorite project when I can find the time for it-which isn't very often all of a sudden.

My knitting isn't the only thing languishing. My poor puzzle has been shamefully ignored. I only have a little bit to do but I swear I can't keep my eyes open anymore after dinner. All that daylight, all that sunshine and all I want to do is sleep. 

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 

It wasn't much of a stitching week. It was either rainy and perfect napping weather or sunny and let's get outside weather. There wasn't much in between. I did get one more grid square done on the lawn. That's a goose butt right there. The rest will follow. 

The Village Quaker is making more sense to me now that I have it straightened out. I got the top left corner finished this week. 

There is one less block to hand quilt on the squares quilt. I'll be rounding another corner in the near future but there is still on long, very long side to go. I don't want to think about all the borders that will need to be done. One thing at a time. 

Cast Away

 

I had a bad case of sock startitis over the weekend. I had bought this skein of Static a while back and was feeling a little guilty about having no man socks in the gift box yet this year so I thought I'd cast on a pair using this.

I was feeling pretty smug about them. In fact I went online and thought I'd buy a few more skeins in man sock colors because I really liked the feel and the look of it. That's when I discovered to my horror that this is not just some randomly dyed yarn. It's patterned and they are actually matchy matchy. That's just what I didn't want. I wanted a mindless cast on for a change.  Needless to say they are now unraveled and I'm going to have to make the time to figure out how to make this mish mash match because that's just how I roll. Sigh.

If that's not bad enough, I also cast on the latest Felici two at a timers only to discover that although they are the very same dye lot one pair is a lot more vivid than the other. It's hard to see it in the photo but trust be there is a noticeable difference. 

My weekend sock adventures were a bust but I did make some darn good bread. I guess you can't win'em all. 

Better Days

 

As promised there were better weather days ahead. It was still windy but the sun came out and it actually hit 80 degrees on Friday. My little yellow whatchamacallits were in bloom all over.  They certainly made themselves at home. 

The camellia bushes are all in bloom now too but hanging on for dear life in this terrible wind. 

The Mister's been out transplanting. Every spring he goes out and moves stuff around. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but it keeps him busy and out of the house so it's okay with me. 

I wasn't in the mood for digging so I kept him company doing some knit walking around the yard. I think I swallowed a gallon of gnats so I gave it up and went back in. One day of warm temperatures and the bugs have all gone crazy. Yuck.

The sock I am working on is my last Arne and Carlos Pairfects. This one is called Star Night. It looks like the Northern Lights to me and already I miss winter. That hot, buggy world out there is just not much fun already and it's still only March. 

 

Fog Warning

 

The weather has been rather peculiar this week. It was rainy and then it got warm but the winds were still cold coming off the bay so I guess this is what you get. Fog and plenty of it. 

We had no idea how bad it was until we got near the water. It was crazy. None of the crabbing boats were out. 

This is what the bay looked like. There was zero visibility. It gave me the creeps and a bad case of claustrophobia so we went home. There were better days promised ahead so I think I'll stay put until then. 

A Friday FO

 

It's been raining cats and dogs here since Wednesday so all I've been doing is watching women's basketball and knitting. I finished the Felici Twofers but they are not my finest moment in knitting. They are a bit laddery and gussett gappy but a good wash should solve the issues-I hope. I'm a bit sloppy when I knit two at a time. I need to work on that if I want to keep doing it. 

Next up for two at a time knitting are the these two in the Punch Bug colorway. I like those dramatic colors. 

I still haven't cast on another single pair in my very last Arne and Carlos Pairfect yarn. I'm going to get twitchy soon if I don't have some mindless knitting on the needles but I just don't have the will. Since the weather has warmed up my knitting mojo has taken a vacation. In fact all my crafting mojo is off somewhere out of reach. I think I have a bad case of spring fever-and my pollen allergies don't help.

  

Two FOs

 

My latest Arne and Carlos socks are done. Woo hoo....

That makes five pairs of socks in the gift box already this year. Four Arne and Carlos and one Felici. My other Twofer Felicis are not done yet but I'm working on it. It's getting close. 

My second FO is the snowflake quilt. I still can't believe how something so complicated looking came together so easily. It's a great pattern. I only wish I had enough of that scrap material I used for it to have put on one more row. I'm not a fan of its square shape but it does make a nice little lap quilt.

Considering that the backing and the border were both afterthoughts I think they worked out pretty well too.  Woo hoo.....

Wednesday WIPs

 

The collar is now a done deal on Lofoten. I have pinned the sleeves in but haven't sewn them yet. I like to fiddle with them a couple of times before I get out the needle and thread because I really stink at sewing in sleeves. I swear I will NEVER knit another sweater in pieces EVER again. It's seamless or nothing from now on. 

Speaking of seamless, Festive Doodle has another section of her body finished. No seams here. Good girl. 

My poor thrummed mittens have had no love for a while. The sweaters and socks have been getting all the attention but it doesn't matter. I won't need them until next winter anyway-I hope. 

The Felici Twofers are heading down the toe for a not-too-distant finish. I hope so. Those other two pretty balls of Felici that just arrived are burning a hole in my knitting basket. 

TNT: A Whole Lot of Stiching

 

You see that flower in the vase? It took me two tries to get it right. You see that blue corner? It's not the same one I showed off last week. I had to rip it out and start over after I got the flower right because of course it made the corner wrong. Sigh. In other words, none of that stitching is the same as it was. It was all ripped out and redone over the week. It became an obsession to get it right. 

I used to hate this project thinking it was too hard but now it seems easy compared to the blankety blank Quaker. With everything touching like it does on the lawn you can't go too far wrong. I started the third row this week. I am two and a half grids in. 

I finished a third row on the hexie runner but now I am thinking I need to be more creative than just adding more rows. I think I need to applique this section down to something and build more rows around it leaving a space in between so it doesn't just look like a jumble but something planned. I think. Well, I guess I'll make more rows and see where it leads me. 

Hooked

 

I'm not much of a sports fan but I made the mistake of watching the first NCAA games on Friday while keeping an eye on my brackets and now I can't stop watching them. I wanted to sew down the binding on the snowflake quilt and watch the games so it was a good thing that I discovered you can stream them.

I usually listen to an audiobook while I do this but seeing yesterday's upsets was darned exciting-even if they did terrible things to my brackets. You have to love an underdog. 

Sprung

 

Well, I missed my deadline. I wanted the snowflake quilt done and packed away by the first day of spring but I didn't make it. In my defense, I had a week of vaccine hysteria get in my way that I hadn't counted on. I was pretty useless for the most of the week but I did get the machine quilting finished yesterday.

I also got the binding cut and two sides sewn on but then I ran out of steam. I'll finish sewing them on today and hopefully start stitching it all down next week. It's my favorite part of the whole quilting process and I am looking forward to it. 

As for a spring project to take its place, I've got a giant pile of these waiting to get sewn together. 

They are from the Sunflower Quilt kit from Connecting Threads that I started three summers ago. It looks  pretty doable.  I think its time has come. 

March Madness

 

My version of March Madness has nothing to do with basketball even though as I write this I am watching the tournament. I do fill out brackets over on ESPN every year but I never do very well. MY March Madness has to do with fleece. I bet you can't guess what's in that big box that showed up yesterday.

Yep. It's a dirty, stinky, smelly fleece. Actually it's not. It's not washed but it's lovely. As clean as you can hope for in the raw state. 

Meet Cari. Isn't she lovely? I found her on Etsy and she sold me 2 pounds of her pretty fleece to play with since my fleece shed is empty. I haven't been to a fiber festival in ages. In 2019 I missed the MDSW because of Son's wedding and we all know what happened after that. 

Cari is a Corriedale. I already have a big bin of Corriedale I washed and dyed. This Corriedale to be exact.

Corriedale is fun to play with. It washes well, it takes dye beautifully and cards and spins like a dream. 

It's not the softest of wool but it makes warm socks and.........

....and crazy sweaters. It's madness to have bought more but once the weather warms up I just know the spring fleece washing bug will bite me and I want to be ready. 

Grab Bag

 

The Mister has been beside himself with joy that the little local library down the street has opened up for curbside pickup. They even have a grab bag option that netted him a slew of new-to-him authors. Now I can cancel my Kindle Unlimited account that had been keeping him going for the duration. I spent more time helping him figure out how to use a Kindle than he spent using it for reading. 

While he went down to pick up his book order yesterday I was still on the couch with a headache knitting the day away. It's been raining for days so I've got my usual rainy day sinus headache. It's nothing to worry about-not at all jab related. My sore arm feels much better today so the Felici Two at a Timers got their heels turned and rejoined.

Altheda got her first sleeve picked up and started. I was happy that my new 16 inch needle worked perfectly until I realized it wouldn't work for long. I forgot about all those sleeve decreases. I'll have to go to Magic Loop or DBL points soon anyway. Sigh.

I had just finished knitting the collar and had even steeked it when the phone rang for me to dash down and get my jab so Lofoten is still waiting to get that collar sewn down. After that I'll be sewing the sleeves in and then I'm DONE. I won't even attempt any of this until we have a clear sunny day with no headache to slow me down. It's been 4 years since I first cast it on-so it can wait. You can't hurry things like this. At least I can't.