One Stop Shopping

There's knitting coming up, but first: autumn splendour!

Or more specifically, one park, so many looks.

That's the hill we climb sometimes, if it hasn't been too rainy and there's too much traffic on the paved hill, to get up out of the ravine in the park we like into this...

 

I mean can you even? 

I took these pix in the early part of the week and then we went back toward the end of it to find this on a different path:

 

I feel so lucky to live near this incredible green space that has other colours too, and so many textures.

Speaking of colour and texture, I did in fact stop writing for a couple of hours to watch the last instalment of the second season of Karen Pirie (excellent) which meant I needed *some*thing to knit, and since I still can't decide about heel flaps, I did the colourwork on the second blue sock.

 

I even lined up my next project, which is not socks, even though I am writing on a very very tight deadline now with just four weeks to write and polish about 60,000 words that tell a story and aren't just slapped onto the screen. 

A new screen at that, since my computer died with almost no warning between both sets of foliage pix. 

Think I can do it and still post here all four Saturdays? I'm not sure, but I'll know by next Saturday and update you then. Meanwhile, I hope you have beautiful colours around you and have a lovely weekend! 

 

 

Stranded

I started a new project and it's stranded!

Around here it's been all about the stripey yarn for so long, or maybe speckled or otherwise colour-mixy, I have neglected the possibilities for combining colours more manually. (Unless you count the sweater that killed my arm last January, of course.)

Also, it's finally getting cooler and I was excited to bring some Stoddart boot sock yarn back into play. This is, if you may recall, a now out of production wool/mohair yarn produced from the fiber of local animals, then hand-dyed by a brilliant colour artist and farmer. I will cry when I eventually work through my stash. In fact this week I spent valuable downtime hunting for someone else producing anything similar. Got nada. Either it's wool and mohair and undyed, or it's dyed and not the fiber combo I want, or it's not super local, or it's dyed in pastels instead of these vibrant hues. 

Lesson learned: there are times when it is one's duty to overbuy a favourite rare yarn. And thank goodness I did. No beating myself up for that choice!

Anyhoo, I got through the leg on sock number one and then stopped because I couldn't decide whether to make a tweak to my heel flap plan.

Normally, I start the heel flap at the start of the round. But that means the messy seam of the sock, where all the colours came in and no amount of tidy finishing conceals the fact, is on the side of my leg. 

 

What if I started the heel flap one-quarter into the next round, so that the messy seam goes down the back of my leg, were nobody's going to see it unless I'm already walking away from them? 

Like I say, I couldn't decide. I might do the other sock and get it down to the heel flap too, before I call it. I also have to choose whether to strand the heel flap this time too, to make it more hardwearing, or actually hold the yarn double. 

hmmmmm

AND I still haven't decided whether I'm felting the giant stranded sweater from last winter. But I'll get to it. I'm pretty focused on writing the next manuscript right now, a job I have only about four weeks left to complete. WHAT was I thinking lining up editorial feedback with such optimism.

But that's a problem for another panicky day. Right now it is SATURDAY and Saturdays are for happy times. Hope your weekend is great, whether it's a long Thanksgiving one like I'm having (hello fellow Canadian!) or just a regular long one or not a long one at all! See you next week and thanks as always for joining me, even if my head is kind messy and exploding with ideas and overcommitment.

 

 

Sweater makeover

Hello again! Gorgeous and sunshiney here today and I am... not going outside to enjoy it. I mean, I probably will, but I'm more than usually preoccupied with this sweater. Remember her?

 

The super pretty yoke sweater that broke the nerve running down my right arm while I was knitting her? 

I wore this thing a ton in the few weeks of cold weather we still had after I finally finished, and it shows:

Don't ask me now the name of this yarn but it's one of those super underspun and luxuriously soft 100% wool options, so underpriced for what it is you should know there's going to be a problem. See above: Underspun.  And oh, the pilling!!

All that work and it looks like a sloppy sweatshirt already. In fact, it is sloppy. 

What is that, a 46-inch bust? A tad more generous than I require. Plus, the length. If you remember this sweater, you remember I accidentally knit it so long I had to hem it rather than rip back from 'finished' to under the yoke. Like, by this much:

Yep, that's three and a half inches there extra. If I unpick that hem, I'll have a mini dress. Which is not a practical wardrobe item in heavy underspun wool.

It does however complete the ingredients needed to knit something and then felt it.  

I'm not committing to that just yet. I mean, right now, I can wear this sweater. If I felt it in the washer, I might need to pass it down to a neighbourhood child. Or maybe it will turn so dense and stiff I'll have to use it as a wall hanging or carpet. I'm just quietly debating whether to felt it gently by hand in a sink full of warm, soapy water.  

Got any thoughts about this? Because I can tell looking at her, this sweater doesn't trust me not to mess up.

 

Oh, and...

 

The Halloween socks are done, except for the grafting! 

That's me you hear, squealing with delight over having finished a pair of socks this quickly again. 

... and now, quietly squeaking in panic. I really need to get on the ball (ha - geddit?) about my next knitting project, now that it's dark early enough to curl up and binge watch films and other stories before bedtime.

 

Hope you have a great weekend and as always, thanks for coming to spend this time with me! See you next Saturday.