Just like the old days

Finishing up those handknit socks on the porch a couple of weeks ago, I remembered how I used to take all my Hugs photos out there, twisting around to get a good pic on our shabby steps. So that's what this week's Hug is gonna be.

Boy did I love wearing these merino wool socks with a pair of Blundstone boots, just a bit of stripe showing at the top.

Taking pictures on the porch steps was fun too. Seems to me I was doing that every week or two, because I was knitting socks so fast! Inevitably a neighbour would walk past and I'd feel like an idjit, but it was worth it... felt like a whole lifestyle thing. And then I put on shoes to protect the socks from holes.

I've been on a real Birkenstock jag lately, trying to fix an orthotic issue, dagnabbit. But they *do* fix it, and they last a long time, so I can't complain. Especially since I have blue suede shoes now.

I'm also deeply in love with these clunky white ones. The back strap means they don't fall off on a long walk, and the straps are so soft I haven't had any issues on the breaking-in front either. 

In these pix I'm wearing a pair of wide-leg jeans folded up to into crop mode, which is a bold choice for the shoe/sock combo. Probably works better from a distance, with the whole ensemble showing, but around here we work with what we have! And what we have is not Mary Jane shoes, which I used to buy on purpose to show off the stripes. Those were good days.

Still, it could be worse, right? 

Hope you have fun plans for the day, and the week that's coming! We're expecting a big heatwave in Toronto so mine mostly involve doing a lot of cleaning while it's still cool enough to face it, and then drinking lots of ice water on our breezy shady porch. I cannot imagine knitting being involved, but stranger things have happened when I've got time on my hands... you probably live that storyline, yourself.

Thanks again for stopping by and I'll see you next Saturday!

 

Ready for summer

It's only taken me three months, give or take, but I finally finished my lil sewing project for white shoe season!

I don't plan to use this as a kerchief for my head, but this pose looks cuter and evokes a carefree 1960s summer don't you think? 

Even taking the project from initial idea to fabric purchase took ages, owing to my not being able to decide (and also, having a lot of work on.) 

But to recap, I was hoping to solve the problem knot of white being SO not my colour, while also being a fun and heat-reflecting choice for summer; not liking to put on a ton of sunscreen all the time; and wanting to do a better job of balancing prints and solids. 

Enter, scarves! Only I couldn't find any in shops that would be lightweight enough, apart from bandanas and other square options, which have to be doubled to make a triangle. Too hot for a hot day, know what I mean? And on cooler but not quite sweater-friendly days, I didn't want a big flopping scarf over my shoulder or in a big lump draping down from my neck. I wanted something tidy, like a turtleneck. 

I settled on Liberty of London's Tana Lawn cotton pretty quickly, because it's the lightest, softest cotton I know. Half a meter was, I felt sure, enough to do the job. Then I stalled a long time because I couldn't find a pattern that matched my vision, and I didn't know how to get there on my own. 

Eventually I cut off 27" of one piece, planning to fold that piece to half height, and, with 3/4" for a side seam, make a funnel to slide over my head. The idea is to fold it up a bit to protect whatever isn't covered by the shade of a big hat in full sun, or fold it down a lot to leave air flow while still having some colour near my face to brighten up a black top or make a white one less jarring.

Then I cut out a triangle that spanned the full half meter on one side, with a view to finishing the edges for a single layer jaunty bandana for hot days. For my NECK, not my hair. I need forehead protection too so it's sunscreen or hats for this girl. 

Et voila! This was my first attempt with the finished edges.

My sewing machine took ages for the fancy stitch, which kind of buckled the fabric, and I still had to do a second run of stitches. After this one, I just pressed in a fold and tucked the raw edge toward it as I ran a bog standard stitch down the length. Definitely preferred. 

The funnel neck is pretty much as I described - a tube I stick my head through. 

Boring, right? Let's look instead at how cute these fabrics are with my blue suede Birkenstocks. 

How cute will these look with an all-white outfit, or all off-white? And check this for white jeans and a navy T:

Somehow I got into a lot of trouble making the funnel work, so in the end I made a long horizontal tube, pressed the raw edges inward on either side, and topstitched them down to each other for a 25" tube (maybe 25.5", don't quote me.)

 

I think that'll also give the tube some stability in the back, where I want it more or less flat, even as the front part flops down a bit into its fold.

Here's how that looks on my faaaaaaave of the three, the print that matches the one I had in brown tones in a miniskirt I wore for years after finding it at a jumble sale in England.

Swoon

I save this one till last as I was sewing, so I would solve all the little execution issues before I got to it, but then I managed to sew its initial seam with bits of raw thread sticking out right where it'll be next to my face, sigh.

Probably you can't see those bits along the top edge. And I've decided to just clip them close and pretend it never happened. 

Meanwhile, while I was noodling around online looking for patterns to spare me figuring this out myself, I started thinking about how fun it would be to sew a Merchant and Mills top in one of these prints. I mean, assuming I could afford it! Tana Lawn is SO pricey. Another reason for a single-layer neck scarf.

Might try to sew this top in some 'lesser' fabrics first, and see how it goes. 

It's a long weekend here and I have made my usual holiday weekend plans: DECLUTTERING THE HOUSE. I hate cleaning, but if I put on a good audiobook and dig in, I can go for hours just making the place tidy. Currently that audiobook is Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time.

fun quote, paraphrased: your gifts don't count, it's how you use them that matters.

I loved that because it means it's okay if you're not the best at something, as long as you find a way to apply that skill that has a positive impact. Or to put it another way, it doesn't matter if you don't get a project done within a week of thinking of it, as long as you finish eventually, ha!

Hope you have a great weekend however you're spending it, and thanks for spending some of it with me. See you next Saturday!

 

The complete blanket

Guys, it's true. The blanket I thought would take a few weeks (try: twelve) is DONE.

Isn't it a great match for the drapes in the room where it'll live?

And that border - what a dream! 

Okay... maybe it's not *perfect*. 

Like, really not. 

Though who's to say it's not just beckoning a passerby to unfurl it, the better to curl up and cosy? 

I swear I added extra ease on the corners, but there's only so much you can do when the tension on the sides is irregular, owing to the person crocheting it having no clue what they were doing. 

And it's not like curly corners affect function, right? Ditto the wavy belling inside the borders, caused by the same problem...

 

I had to pinch a bit and skip openings when I was setting up the border, which I did like three times trying to get it as flat as possible.

Still, I'm happy with it. It's a first try at both blanket and crochet, and it's warm when it's on me and pretty when it's folded up.

In the end it came out a bit over three feet wide and a bit over four and a half feet long, which is the perfect length for tucking under on a chilly evening to crochet.

Except... now I'm out of something to crochet. 

Next!

Just kidding. I will of course be knitting socks while under the blanket, and repairing socks, and weaving that scarf I still haven't finished after five years.

(but maybe not till I've finished the second blanket?)

Hope you've got a cheery warm weekend lined up even if it means staying indoors to make it happen, or something else that's fun. You deserve it, amiright? And thanks as always for spending a bit of your time with me. See you next Saturday with anybody's guess for a project to share! 

 

What took me so long

Let's talk felting today! Specifically, on-purpose felting the sweater I made last winter, which came out huge and floppy and pilled a lot. Here she is when I first finished her:

Pretty colours, right? I love this combo and I love that I was able to find 100% wool yarn to put them together. Only the wool was so underspun it pilled like crazy, and the sweater was so oversized it just sagged on me. As you may recall if you were around this time last year, I even had to turn up about two inches on the hem or it woulda been a minidress.

In the fall I remembered that felting is a thing, and might just be the *very* thing I was looking for. And over the holiday I remembered that I would rather wear this sweater than let it hog a lot of shelf space in my closet. But before I could felt, I had to take out that hem...

 

... which was a very big job. And in unpicking all the ends I used to do it, I accidentally unpicked two ends that were really just a join between one ball of yarn and another. Oops!
 

It left quite a hole, but with effort I was able to remember how to restitch through the exposed loops, and the result was more than satisfactory. 

And then I had to run in the ends again.

What a mess inside, huh? Or, as a Canadian, I might say, eh?

Sorry about the colour change in these photos. The sweater really is that lovely rich green, but the light today is so uneven... truly grey and wintery. We've had snow!

Hence my desire for a functional sweater. Okay, moving along... 

I couldn't risk this baby on the washing machine, so I decided to felt by hand in a big bowl in the sink. I put in hot water and some Soak Wash (the better to avoid having to rinse out a lot of soap later) and started kneading my sweater like it was bread dough. When the stitches started to look a little blurred, I stopped, figuring I could felt more later. Then I set it out to dry. 

That was yesterday, so it's still a little damp. But check this out! 

The stitches no longer have big airy gaps in between. And the heft I wanted in the fabric is there - just a little heaviness, still with some floop. Plus: SO SOFT. I honestly don't think I'll see much pilling with the new finish.

Here's a closeup of the before and after, again with iffy lighting quality and poor placement planning:

 

The size shift, by contrast to my photography, is near perfect! The chest went from 46 inches down to 43, still huge but workable; the swing hem from 54 inches to 52; the overall length from 29 inches to 28. My ideal length is 27, but even that one inch reduction makes such a difference to how this thing hangs. 

Weirdly, the sleeve length got worse. It was 27 inches, and now it's 29, covering my hand to the knuckles. However, since the dream was always wear this sweater with loads of layers underneath to sub in for a winter coat on less than freezing days, the extra hand coverage is not unwelcome. The rest of the time, I can just roll up the sleeves, amiright?

I was also pleased to see the inside looking super neat and tidy after a bath:

So I'm asking myself, what took me so long? Felting the sweater took less than an hour. Unpicking the hem and repairing the hole? Maybe ninety minutes. I'm not sure I'd ever make an oversized sweater on purpose again, and I might felt this one a second time in the future if I find I need it to be smaller still, but right now I'm just so pleased. Not least because I just bought a cute pair of walking shoes that match it perfectly, ahem.

(If the link is no longer active when you're reading this, the shoes are Birkenstock Londons, in suede, in the colour Thyme. This is my third pair of this design as I absolutely love them! All the perks of Birks with the added security of a totally closed shoe. Obviously I will not be wearing these in the snowy conditions we currently have going on, but once the roads are clear in spring, and the weather is still chilly enough for this sweater, this outfit is happening!)

I hope your weekend is lovely and hopefully a bit escapist, as we all need that break, don't we? Thanks for spending this time with me, and I'll see you next Saturday. Probably still not with a finished crochet blanket though, sigh.

 

 

Gift knit gloves

In the end I only did two gift knits this year and this is the second one, pre-blocking:

 

They are Ferryboat Mitts from Churchmouse Studios, a straightforward pattern that's such a pleasure to knit! Especially in the very springy alpaca/wool combo I had on hand. There are patterns available at the link for several different yarns and weights but I've linked specifically to the Brooklyn Tweed Shelter for fun. 

These were knit for somebody who likes a long glove and as they got VERY long I worried I would run out of yarn. 

Indeed in the end I had no more than would fit into the palm of my hand...

 

... but it's enough to slip into a matching calorimetry headscarf later if this recipient ever wants one too!

 

Knitting a random project for somebody else reminded me what I like about knitting. You get an idea, and you make it real, almost out of thin air, with string and needles. It helped that I made these on a gorgeous set of Lantern Moon double points, and I'm already plotting something I could make on those again! 

Alas I saw when I went to get the link for those needles that the wood they're using has changed. What I have is brown and warm and a good contrast for all yarns; now it seems to be black. I'm sure I would love those too but it reconfirms something I've begun to suspect, that it really is smart to buy what you like when you see it because it may not be available later. 

This is proving true of book editions for particular titles I want on my shelves, too. A book with nice floppy pages and ink that's got a lot of contrast with the page (sometimes pages are almost grey!) and sporting a good cover to boot? That's a rare thing, surprisingly.

 

I hope any knits you did over this holiday season went smoothly and were well received, and that your weekend is looking restful or fun or any combination thereof! Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you next Saturday. With a blanket update, because I know you're all desperate to see how that's going, ha!

 

 

Rethinking gift knitting

I finished and gifted a knit this week!

This manta ray-like Calorimetry head scarf was a last minute idea for a friend who often wears a ponytail, and for whom I really wanted to show the love of a handknit. And that's the key for gift knitting, right? It's not just because we enjoy the work and don't have space to store all we make. We want to show our love. 

With this project, I also showed how close to the line I was willing to go, to get the best possible colour combinations for my giftee within the constraint of what I had in my stash. I wanted to emphasize the green but I had only 20g and the scarf needs about 45, so I grabbed some grey in the same tubular-spun superwash wool and hoped for the best with the striping.

Look how much green I had left when it was done! (and overlook the blurry photo... I got too close with the camera.

Not even three inches. And I only had that much left because I ran in the cast on tail so I could cut off the rest and splice it in for the cast off.

Then it was time to add a button for the closure but it turns out I had no buttons to choose from. Somehow I have reached this stage of life without a button box full of castoffs and cutes. I did have one green sweetie but...

Wrong colour, wrong hole size. So when I gifted it I made my friend try it on so I could pin it to the right size, and then I used the tail I'd left hanging to stitch it shut. 

Flexibility is so important at this time of year.

Speaking of which... 

I did knit something else too, and I had plans for a second Calorimetry for a third friend, but it was giving me trouble and I had to rip out to start over. At that point I thought, she does not need this, and is already getting an I Love You message via perfect tiny things I found over the course of the year.

So that's not happening. (totally saving this idea for next year, but I won't wait till December to knit it!)

And the fourth gift knit I was considering... I'm not sure it's even what that person would want or wear. So maybe I'm better off enjoying my blanket project during these final days of chaos?

I mean, Christmas is basically four days away at this point. And there are still visits to make and wrapping to do. So... I'm rethinking my plans.

Probably knitting that last thing anyway, but with a side of second-guessing all the way through, ha!

 

I won't check in till Saturday and Christmas falls in between, so I will take this opportunity to wish you a very happy season however you celebrate, and thank you for your friendship. 

See you next Saturday!

 

Sock love

Today, let's graft some sock toes shut! It's true: I am finally finished my Christmas socks, just in time for Pancake Tuesday.

I agonized for a while about how to work these toes and ended up taking the stranded two-colour route, to match the heels. 

Last night I fell asleep thinking about whether the graft would look better in yellow or green or one of those with the other colour duplicate-stitched in to keep the pattern consistent, before realizing I was bordering on obsessive behaviour. And in truth, when I looked at the yarn, I realized I have to go with whatever is lying on the end of the row. 

For this sock, it was green:

and when I was done I didn't fuss so much about which colour stripe I used because isn't this a little odd looking? And doesn't it also look a little odd in side view?

Yellow graft this time:

.... and, yep. I decreased to six stitches on each needle, instead of seven. I have medieval elf toes.

Even on, they look elfy. So I guess these are definitely Christmas socks, even if they do look a bit John Deere. Or maybe it's less elf than bunny? those corners really stick out!

Never mind: I have knit a pair of warm socks and they have reinforced heels and toes and it doesn't matter that I made that small mistake because they will be inside shoes. Or inside Birkenstock sandals inside the house, and eventually I'm going to stop looking down at them.

Plus I can probably rein in the ear corners a bit when I run in the ends. Oh, did I forget to say there are still ends?

I am *so* not taking care of these now. They will make a lovely excuse to curl up in an armchair tonight under a working light.

Hope you get a nice peaceful patch of armchair time in your day! Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you next Saturday. 

 

Wait, I can't really leave you with a thread explosion image, can I?

Here's something nicer to take away - the other side of the socks, where the new colours did not begin or finish.

Ahhhhh, much better. And won't it be nice when they look like this all around!