A Christmas Knit and Niagara Falls

Ta da! When I wasn't knitting my socks this month, I was stealth knitting this cowl, from my own Togetherness pattern:

I used a new-to-me yarn for this gift - Mominoki Yarns' German Merino - and I *loved* working with it. Very elastic, and crunchy yet soft. 

 

Even more so after a bath in Soak wash, though I don't have pictures of that. 

However! there were problems. Aren't there always, when you're knitting under pressure after getting a great idea for a gift with three weeks to go till Christmas, and a move to organize and execute in less than one of them?

For a start, I didn't think I needed to do a test swatch, despite changing yarns, because I was knitting the same weight. Wrong! I was four inches too wide on my first pass, and didn't discover that till I was three inches in. I ripped out and cast on with ten stitches less, and got an inch and a half in before I realized I was still way too wide. Third time was the charm, but I wasn't able to finish in time to cast off, let alone do the Soak and dry it before it needed to be wrapped.

So, my giftee got the cowl, which matches his bike helmet by the way...

 

(squeeee!)

... in its knitting bag, stuffed into a gift bag.

Another problem was that I misread my own pattern. It's supposed to be a double moss stitch, such that you do two rounds in one set of stitches before switching to the other pattern pairing. 

 

That would've been a lot easier for me because every other round I would've been able to do what I'd done before, instead of knitting round one, round three, round two, then round four... and having to check every few stitches that I was following the pattern all right. 

After the fact I realized a third problem, which was that I didn't check often enough, sigh.

Can you see that pimple of a purl stitch where it should be a neat line of knits? There's another one nearby, too.

Still. Done! And he likes it, and it looks great on him. Win win win!

Yesterday we went to Niagara Falls, hoping to revisit the American side as we didn't have time to get out of the car and look at it over the summer. I'm Canadian and though I've visited Niagara Falls often from the time I was small, I'd never looked at it from the south until August this year. Even then, we just got enough of a look to see it was different. 

Well, we've seen it now, and WHOA is it *ever* different!

I felt a lot closer to it, for one thing. It was late and the afternoon was cloudy, but hopefully you can still make this out? Where the mist starts on this photograph, obscuring the hotels on the Canadian side - that's the drop on the southern edge of the Horseshoe.

Also, there are so many more little drops than I realized, leading up to the big drop.

From the Canadian side, these look like spray and bounce, but they're actually stepped rock.

Along the southern shore, there are pockets and outcroppings that direct some of the water to the side, before it flows back into the main body and crashes down to the rocks below. They look so gentle and manageable, even though they're leading to something that definitely isn't.

 

I took this picture of the drop from further up the river.

 

There's a duck swimming in this comparatively calm pool, just as if the mist was only something pretty.

Okay I find the Falls terrifying, if I'm honest. But I'm still so glad we got a chance to see them. 

And I'm glad I'm finished the cowl so I can get back to my socks and maybe also a new project I've been yarn shopping for and may yet even commit to.

 

Hope you've had a wonderful week and also, got in some quiet time for yourself. I'm sure we all need it!

See you next Saturday and thanks as always for dropping by.

Adventures in sock heel design

I'm starting to think I might have a pair of Boxing Day socks on my hands! Or not, because there are only a few days left and I still have a lot of baking to do. Still... pretty, right? And they're coming along so quickly.

Today I want to show you my idea for adapting my vanilla sock pattern to feature a more hard-wearing heel. Wearing out is 90% of a sock heel's job, and the most practical solution to that is to knit socks with afterthought heels you can rip out and replace whenever. But I'm already more than my share of practical so I'm leaning toward a sock whose heel you can just darn a lot. And ideally, not so soon after the first wear.

 

I'm not sure why I've never done a stranded-stitch heel before, because it's kinda fun. 

I brought in the secondary colour about a third of the way down the flap, with a plan to finish with it once I picked up the stitches for the foot.

Bit of a dog's breakfast, that heel turn! This is my third attempt, and the stitches are still pretty loose at the top, but I have two green tails to run in there and I should be able to snug things up while I do that job. 

From here it kinda reminds me of an elbow patch on a corduroy blazer! Let's see if I can get a closeup...

Because I only did one stitch in each of the two colours, the floats across the back are minimal - just enough to hold in warm air, give a little cushion, and serve as channels for any future darning yarn. Not sure I love the lighter concentration on the heel against the stronger colours of the rugby stripes, but I can get around that by striping near the toe, and maybe I'll do that. Of course it means even more ends to run in. Ends I can use to reinforce pressure points before a hole forms, now that I think of it.

H'mmm.

Naturally, all I want to do for the rest of the day is knit these things, and if I didn't have to do that baking, and some wrapping, and some meal planning, and laundry, I totally would. 

 

SIGH

Hope your holiday preps and/or parties are going along beautifully - and thanks especially for taking a little time out from all that to visit with me today. I'll see you next week after the holiday dust settles... but in the meantime, Merry Christmas from me and my Chompy Sock!

Name these socks

Well I've made good progress on my Golden Christmas socks, and I am *loving* knitting with this wool/mohair yarn again.

Then, around the midpoint of the second stripe sequence, I showed them off to a passing family member. Who said, "Nice. John Deere socks."

Once I'd seen it, I couldn't unsee it... 

 

Everybody else I live with has John Deere merch, so I guess I was due, but still. Golden Christmas Socks!! They even have that tiny extra multicolour border in there!

And check out that halo on the ribbing, which I knit extra loose for easy putting-onning. There are no fuzzy edges on a tractor.

The John Deere adjacency will only get worse when I tackle the heels. I have an idea for slowing their progress toward holes and mending, and the only secondary yarn I have enough of for the job is, you guess it, the green.

Whatever I call them, I know I'm gonna love 'em. I'm excited about knitting again and how nice is that? Besides which, there's no copyright on this colour combo. Maybe I should dub them my Habitant socks, after my plaid gravy boat from J. & G. Meakin.

What would you call this design?

Looking at all those loose threads, I'm thinking Sock of Many Tails is a good choice!

I'm wrapping up a moving project for my aunt today, who thankfully was making a small shift to the residence room directly above her own - same layout, no need to agonize over furniture placement. I grabbed the opportunity to organize a new chair for her, and a slipcover for her original one so she's got extra seating for guests.

And on that point I gotta take a moment here to jump up and down a little with my hands waving. 

The only chair I could find in the style and dimensions she needed, available same-day, turned out to be a *perfect* match for the floor colour in her new space. And the only slipcover I could find in the shape and dimensions for her original chair, for next-day delivery? The colour didn't look great onscreen, but when I unpacked it just now I actually gasped. It's gonna match the room like I'd meant it! 

Packing and moving and unpacking again is such hard work, but boy, when you get those little wins it makes it all a lot more fun.

Hope you've got some good stuff lined up for this weekend. Things are starting to hop for you too I bet, so thanks for taking some time out to visit with me here. See you next week, maybe even with pictures of my heel theory in practise!

Yarn colour choices for the decision-averse

I'm not even showing you a picture of the finished Christmas socks today, because I am super tired of them and I'm sure you are too! It's time to cast on something new.

Okay yes, I've got more socks on my mind, but this time with wool/mohair blend on bigger needles. And I get to pick all the colours. 

That's a slight barrier though, because there are so many in the stash! Anything I use for one set of solids won't be available for another, later. And I do need to blend, because none of these cakes are quite enough for a whole sock in the leg length I prefer.

I've done blue socks before, but not with the green accent I used to good effect in green socks a while back. I've knit in this beautiful soft mauve, but in solid only - it might look great with multicoloured stripes in blue and white and orange.

Or there are bolder options:

Emerald green socks with tan stripes, or brilliant yellow with a mixture of green and multi stripes. The green is left over from the aforementioned green socks, which means I'd have yellow left over for stripes on some future pair of socks... including the emerald green ones, if I don't pick them right now. 

In that scenario, maybe I'd want to save the tan to use as a solid stripe with socks from this multi-colour blue and mauve. Or I could use a blue accent to pick up the blue of the multi.

But wait, there's more!

There'll be some mauve left over from those socks, and I could use that to pair with the multicoloured blue.

My head is spinning. And I'm not done.

I could also do the mauve with the green multi, or the blue with the blue and orange multi.

sigh.

It's snowing outside today.

Our reindeer, currently not It in the ongoing game of hide and seek with the squirrels, is already wearing a white coat. 

I mean, if I can't benefit from working with bright colours at this time of the year, when would I?

Blinding yellow it is, then. Let me try to get a little closer so you can see the halo.

Isn't that gorgeous?

Let the game begin!

Hope you've got a lovely weekend lined up with some exciting new knitting in it, or something else that makes you happy. Thanks as always for dropping by and I'll look forward to seeing you next week!

I am finishing the February socks today

 ... but as anticipated, probably not fast enough for a timely Hug, so you are getting pictures of the In Progress.

I know it doesn't look like much, but check this out:

The first sock is done, so all I have to do is get the second one done and run in a load of ends. Trouble is I finished the toe on the first one so long ago I no longer remember how many rounds I did before starting the decreases. So I'm having to squint under bright lights to count the stitches.

 

And this my friends is why one does not knit black yarn!

Okay to recap: I started these gift socks in FEBRUARY thinking, get a head start on Christmas this year. I truly believed they'd be done by spring, and I'd have time to make a second pair for myself, maybe even three, and work through more of my lonely yarn stash. 

This did not happen. A lot of Instagram happened, and loads of walks, and tons and tons of writing and rewriting, but knitting? not so much. Even on car trips, of which there have been some, I did not feel like knitting. I wanted to look out the window instead. And I remembered from past experience that when I do that, I drop stitches, and it is hard to pick them back up in a moving vehicle in the dark.

(especially when you drop one in the middle of a black stripe!)

Weirdly though, I am really missing yarny stuff. I think I need to swap socks for something with a bolder payoff at the end. Like an Icelandic sweater, or some kind of granny square blanket, or an interestingly-shaped vest? something I either haven't knit before (blanket) or haven't knit in ages and ages (Icelandic sweater.) I have no recollection of knitting a vest before but I was one hand-me-downed a handknit Fair Isle vest that I looooved so much and wore constantly. A new Fair Isle vest might be fun, right?

Be that as it may: I have Christmas to prep for and that is starting tomorrow with the tree going up, swiftly followed on Monday with the measuring of dry ingredients for several batches of cookies, which I will store in Mason jars. 

 Yep, after many years of chaotic food prep I realized recently that I can pre-measure in bulk, thereby washing the cups and spoons more efficiently and less. Also, pre-measuring lowers the barriers to actually baking. As does clearing space in the freezer, so that you can pre-bake and store for future cookie deliveries.

Basically I'm determined not to have a repeat of my February socks, as I go hard into Christmas prep. But I was also determined not to be knitting these socks at the end of November so we'll see how that goes...

Hope your weekend is looking good, and that whatever hopes you have for it pan out with bells on. And thanks as always for stopping by to spend a little time with me.

See you next Saturday!

Stitch

I am still swamped and still not creating, but the attraction to string and yarn and thread is so real! I pulled some of my wool/mohair blend sock yarn scraps for a Bookstagram pic this week and it felt fabulous in my hands.

To get at it I had to shift a pair of jeans I'd dropped into the top of my work basket, and decided to stop what I was doing and pull out a ripper. I like these jeans a lot - the fit, the colour, the weight of the fabric - but I wasn't wearing them because they had a stupid cuff at the bottom that made them difficult to put on and take off. I mean sweatpants have cuffs, because they are stretchy! Denim is not stretchy. 

Check out the vast acreage I gained but ripping off the first cuff.

Now to decide how to stitch the hem. I *could* pull out my sewing machine, and if my cleanup plan for today goes well I'll have space to, but I could also get a needle and some thread and hand stitch it, couldn't I. Maybe even blanket stitch over top of that. I do love blanket stitch. And in a contrast colour - that might look fun?

Or I could do something else, and learn some other embroidery stitches.

In my travels online I have spotted more than a few embroidery kits that show up at your door with everything you need, including embroidery-friendly fabric which is the one component I don't currently have in the house. So far I'm resisting because it would be a tragedy to add yet another projects to my pile of incomplete and not-yet-started options. But...

Okay. I will take my leave, tackle the cleaning, and see if I can justify pulling my loom and its half-finished scarf out of storage. 

Or maybe even finish those birthday socks for Jan?

 

Have a great weekend all, and thanks for joining me. See you next week! 

Getting to gifties

The other day I noticed this little trio on a shelf and remembered how much fun I had making them for tiny pre-Christmas gifts:

These are the ones I kept, but I must have made twenty or more over the years. They're a quiet version of the Christmas pins every woman had to wear on the lapel of her cloth coat in December, in the 1940s right up to the 80s or even beyond. 

 

Really they were a gift to me, because cutting out the bits and stitching them together was such a pleasure.

I made gift ornaments this way too - baseballs with the recipient's initial stitched on the other side, and snowflakes, same - and let them do double duty as gift tags.

I made so many that nobody has room for any more, so I stopped doing them. And now I'm kinda craving a new stitchy project. 

(even though I *still* haven't finished those Christmas gift socks!!)

I'm also craving a good Icelandic sweater project. Knit one of those lately? I love how the pieces get bigger and bigger in your lap and then suddenly become a stranded colourwork project. It's ages since I made one and I kinda feel like I'm due.

Do you have an irresponsible giftie project you'd like to cram into the very few weeks left before the holidays?

Think about that and get back to me! Meanwhile, have a great weekend and I'll see you again next Saturday.

Leaf Crunching Wreath Making Season

I picked a misleading title for today's hug, but my whole day is unfolding under the weight of this cheery e-mailed sales message: 'Time to load up a tray with mugs and mince pies for a fun day of wreath-making and gift-wrapping!' Cue the panic, because I am still stuck at gift *making*...

It's progress though, right? Ugh. There is so much distance right now between me and wrapping, I could be hugging the Grand Canyon. But it's not even Remembrance Day so probably that's not as sad as it sounds.

I did get thinking though, isn't the cheery bit of the holiday season about making? Perhaps even making *time* for making? That's not something I've been doing lately (see: pathetically slow progress on gift sock, above.) 

So I'm spending part of today clearing off our dining room table, which is where most of the making happens, to reduce the barriers to creative activity. I keep reading in real estate articles that the dining room is a thing of the past but when you break it down, it's a room long enough for a big table in it, plus windows, and potentially even doors you can close off so you can leave it in a terrible mess, and what is that if not a super-essential making space? 

Not like you can cut dress pattern pieces on the floor (past the age of thirty.) Or spread out boughs for wreath-mak---

Okay I am not going to be making any wreaths. Every year around this time we *buy* a lush green boxwood wreath, hang it up over the living room mantel, and let it slowly dry out over the year.  In late spring it's generally faded to a refreshing sage green, and then there's a gradual shift to gold in time for December when we hang up the new one.

Last year the only option we could get in our preferred size was 'with red berries' and I wasn't sure how that would translate into spring and summer and fall, but lookit:

hmmmm it's kind of flat in this lighting, isn't it? In person, it's much more glowy and beautiful. 

 

Oh that's a bit terrifying isn't it, with the lamp on. 

 ... and back to blah. Oh well! Ricardo and Gwenny enjoy it so that's good enough for me.

Meanwhile, it's my favourite time of year: Leaf Crunching Season!

I'm still not 100% after last week's cold, but I am aiming to go out and enjoy it. Possibly even with this year's alpaca hat from the Royal Winter Fair...

Meadowview Alpaca Farm has new owners since we were last at their booth at the Fair, but the alpacas are producing the same gorgeous fibers as always and they are still making hats. Hopefully now that I've bought this one, I will be able to find the one I bought from there years ago, and misplaced? Nothing else has worked, so I'm crossing my fingers.

That's me for today, my friends. Hope you're all keeping well and lining up a lovely weekend, even though it's well into Saturday afternoon as I type this. Thanks again for stopping by and I'll see you next week!

Silver Lining Sickbed

Someone I otherwise like very much has given me a cold, and as I'm at the worst stage of it, this week's post is both late and brief: lookit!

I knew it was coming, so I used that starter phase where you know you're *getting* sick, and you're too fuzzy for brain work, but you're not yet blowing your nose every ten seconds, to finish one of the socks.

Okay it still needs the toe grafted and the ends run in but it is progress. I'll take that every day of the week. And if I get to the other side soon, where I'm sleepy but not blowing my nose every ten seconds, I might actually finish the other. I'm rewatching old Netflix faves and the trees outside are almost bare, which makes it perfect knitting conditions. 

Hope you're well and enjoying a lovely weekend! See you next Saturday.

A day at the Arboretum

A few days ago, before the temperatures dropped and the winds picked up, Pete and I went off to the Arboretum in Guelph! It was very colourful there:

I mean, this is the view from the side of the *parking lot*.

The Arboretum is part of the University of Guelph and all I can say is, lucky students, getting to stroll over here between classes or to de-stress.

We had a perfect day for it, too - hardly a cloud! And beams of sunlight filtering through to the wooded paths. You can barely make out the bench in the lower right corner of this shot, but you can definitely imagine enjoying the view from it.

What a great place to sit down with some knitting. 

IF YOU HAD REMEMBERED TO BRING KNITTING.

That's right folks. I forgot to bring my high-pressure, deadline-looming sock on this car trip! 

Admittedly that turned out to be a good thing, because we took some elaborate custom driving routes and I had to keep referring to a map, but still. I can't believe I wasted that golden opportunity.

Let's look at more pictures to gloss over that omission, shall we? We might, for example, reflect on how gorgeous trees are even as they drop their leaves to the ground in a lush, textural carpet.

Or admire the way they mark a choice between two possible paths.

Since our outing, as I say, the temperatures have gotta a lot cooler - definitely sweater-friendly. And though the sun is bright outside as I type this, and the sky a brilliant blue with only a few, fluffy and white clouds, it's clear we're heading to winter.

I can't wait, honestly. I mean I love this autumn season most of all, but I find I'm craving those cold winter days when it feels good to stay inside and do crafty things, or read a luxurious immersive story, or do both thanks to the miracle of audiobooks.

But first, I gotta finish those socks, aiiieeeeee this deadline is scarier than Halloween, I am tellin ya.

Ahem.

Hope you have, or have had by the time you read this, a lovely Saturday. Thanks for visiting the trees with me! and I'll see you next weekend, hopefully in a better state of sock readiness.