Our daughter in law and I are doing another knit along together. This time we are making mitts. We’ve both had a few glitches with our yarn choice. My mitts are pink and cream and she is still figuring out what wool she’ll use. Working with skinny double points is relaxing, easy really. October is a knitting month (ha – all months are knitting months!)
Crab apples are my favorite color. I wish hair came in rosy red. I’d have to have rosy red hair.
This hat (above) was a Shetland Wool Week hat a few years ago. I gave this one to a friend but I may make another. I have a quiet week ahead and I am going to knit peaceably and enjoy my own kind of love for it. I have tired of the social media influence over my chosen craft and I’m seeking to let my knitting ways return to the pure love of clicking needles and enjoying fibers.
Soft fruits, stone fruits, are juicy and inviting at this time of the year. My neighbor gave me plums and I messed up the jam. Sadness. I’ll try again.
I bought plumcots at Trader Joe’s. I’m not sure why we would find it necessary to tamper with the gorgeousness of the apricot, but they are interesting.
A friend brought me peaches. She grows them in her backyard. She’s aiming for a mini-orchard someday. One harsh winter many of her fruit trees died. I shall not use them for “putting by” because I want to relish them in all of their sticky juice.
I’m thinking of the winter and how the oranges will come around Christmastime. That smell (especially the tangerines) is heavenly.
I’ve been busy preparing to teach a class of children for Community Bible Study, so I’ve not been knitting much. I have been knitting a little. I am astounded by my Snowy Woods mitten and soon I shall begin its pair.
I like my rendition of the Hitchhiker shawl.
I bought this because . . . Yorkshire. The Dales. I am not sure if this particular skein from Yorkshire is amazing or not, but I wanted it and I’ll make a pair of socks.
I added this to my overly huge collection of knitting books.
This little sunny sun decided to squeeze her neck through the crack in the fence and say hello. Welcome, little flower face.
I’ve got the fall feelings and the crab apples are such sweet mascots. I don’t have a crab apple tree, but I am stunned by the loaded trees in the neighborhood. Wow!
I think I’ll do a little knitting now. First I’ll put on some paint clothes so that after my knitting time I will be ready to paint on the patio (a chest is going from red to green today).
Teddy is sewn together and stuffed. His arms are funny (stuck on him in a funny way) but oh well. His overalls are coming along, taking a lot longer than I thought they would. His face is precious. I like him already.
When I went to buy more wool for the loopy sheep I’m making, I had to buy this cake. Green and gray are a good combo.
It’s hot outside but cool in the air conditioned house, so I shall knit on.
Instead of casting on another pair of socks I dug around for this WIP. I started out with Little Bobbins Knits Twas the Night Before Christmas pattern (an excellent pattern!) but I didn’t want to make trees on the leg so I created purl rounds instead. I really like the twisted ribbing and the way she wrote the heel and gusset instructions. I’ll use the instructions again. The colors are muddy. They remind me of my elementary school because we were the Vikings (ha ha ha) and our colors were green and gold. Go Vikings!
I’m using my Penguono by Stephen West as a decorative item in the hobbit hole. I have put it on a few times when the AC makes the house cold. I’ll use it for that in the fall when the weather changes.
This cake of brightness was a birthday gift . A Sockhead head, perhaps?
When our daughters and I were in Victoria, BC last September I visited The Beehive Wool Shop. What a lovely yarn store. I found this Fleece Artist wool. It smells like a sheep.
I have shopping and sewing to do for our daughter’s theater company. I am puppy sitting tonight for our son and his wife (they are going camping). I must hurry along, but I’m so excited that I have decided to homeschool myself in history. A friend told me about this homeschool curriculum and there are four volumes. When I read about Gertrude Bell (The Queen of the Desert) I realized that I don’t know enough about the history of the Middle East. I want to learn. I could spend years studying history. I am not sure if I ever took a course in world history in high school or college. It’s time to grow my brain in a new way. Yay!
This morning I walked what I call The Ridge. It’s really just an open space with a path. No cars. Yay. I try to imagine the cold weather of Colorado that will descend in a few months time and I pretend I’ll want to take walks outdoors then. I will want to wear my wool sweaters, hats, mittens, and scarves. This year maybe I will. I will finish the thumb of my navy and white Snowy Woods mitten and start the next one. I learned so much from concentrating on the graph, holding navy wool in one hand and white wool in the other. Even though I made quite a few flub ups, the almost finished mitten is stunning and snug. I’m messing up the pattern on the thumb, too. Oh well.
The stripes below were going to be a sweater but the dropped shoulders were tight (I was fatter then) so I took them off and now I just have one sleeve opening to rib and it will be an FO, a vest. I even bought a knit turtleneck (such a granny thing) to wear with it. It’s a little clownish, but extremely cheerful. A win.
I ordered some watermelon smoothie colored wool from Little Knits because they are having a bag sale. Thirty dollars for a whole sweater of Lamb’s Pride Superwash Worsted. I shall have too many pullover sweaters, I fear. Well, I don’t really fear.
The Brown Sheep Company is SO my favorite. It’s in Nebraska, not very far from here. At the Interweave Yarn Festival in Loveland they always have a wonderful booth with SO MANY bargains. They are generous that way.
Now this cubby is full of my Bible study books (and some other small favorites) but it used to be a stash spot. I bagged up everything because of moths. I fear them. When I iron down in the basement, I look at all my wool and feel very content. I have never purchased very expensive wool, just a hand dyed skein every now and then. My LYS is full of hand dyed wool and it’s all in the middle (it makes a pretty show) but I like to look around the edges for mitten wool, sock wool, rustic stuff.
I used to tell my students that even grown ups can improve their reading. It just takes practice. Have you noticed this yourself? I have. I will pick up a book that seemed too detailed and operated from background knowledge that I didn’t seem to have before and I notice that now it’s okay, now I get it. We can always become better readers and we can always become better knitters. Knitting is that vast. Maybe I’ll pick up my Vogue Knitting today or the older version of The Principles of Knitting (I don’t have the new one yet, but I saw the author on Fruity Knitting and she is so inspiring).
Because I’ve had my walk, I shall knit without the “sitting too much guilt” I struggle with. Bliss. Knitting is full of hope and dreams.
Knit Song 