Fluffy fluffs

The good news: the new blanket is going great!

 

Check out these impeccable stripes. So lush. Wish I'd made the original blanket's stripes this wide. 

The bad news... 

Okay, I don't actually use my finished stripey blanket that much. Probably five or six times in the two or more weeks since it's been available. I love the way it looks waiting for me on my ottoman but I haven't been that cold. And I'm not going to complain about the little tails that are starting to poke out of the spots where I ran them in, because that's life with acrylic. There are no little clutching fibers holding each other in place, like with wool.

What does concern me is the fluff. Especially given the aforementioned light use.

I don't know if you can see the serious halo coming off that off-white stripe in the middle. So maybe this second pic will explain it better. Check out the blurred upper end of the pink stripe vs the crisp lower left.

 

And it's super localized, like the slight pressure from my knees and toes are just too much for the yarn's structural integrity. 

Arg, right? and here I've just bought a ton more of this yarn for a third blanket to match the bedroom. I guess I'd better only use that one over the duvet!

But still... learning to make a crochet blanket has been a really soothing process. I was reading yesterday how helpful two-handed crafts are for mental health and addiction recovery, and it made me feel glad that even less-lasting materials like I'm using are available affordably for people who need them for coping strategies. 

Also, I don't know whether I'd have been able to justify shelling out wool prices for a blanket so big it takes nearly three months to make. I've bought plenty of frivolous things, but even I have limits, ha!

(of course, now that I know how to do this, I will totally be shelling out for wool some day.)

Hope you've got a satisfying and high quality project to work on this weekend, or some other pleasant way to pass a little quiet time! Thanks for dropping in and I'll see you next Saturday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looming looming

Hello again from your friendly carpal tunnel sufferer (who's checking it out with a doctor this week because Ow.) For days now I have been steering clear of typing and scrolling and knitting and unscrewing any lids from pickle jars, which leaves me with... the loom.

I know it looks like there's zero progress from last week but that's because weaving is a lot of repetition and same old same old until suddenly there's nothing left to weave into. And when I say repetition etc., I mean the following activities:

Wooden frame thing into upper notch

Push yarn thing from right to left

Adjust new yarn strand to track a 45 degree angle from right to left

Use wooden frame thing to pat the 45 degree yarn into place

Tug the end of the yarn to make sure the sides are even with the inches that came before

Wooden frame thing into lower notch

Push yarn thing from left to right

Adjust new yearn stand to track a 45 degree angle from left to right

Use wooden frame thing to...

You get the idea. And then periodically you have the thrill of unclipping the gears so you can roll your work onto the frontmost tube, to make room for more from the backmost tube. I know it's hard to see just looking at the back end, but I have actually done that quite a few times over the course of the week. All the buffer cardboard so close together tells me I'm getting close.

You know what would be smart when setting up a new project? Colour-coding the ends of the cardboard strips so you start with some red, then move to orange, then yellow, then green. Then, when you're rolling to the other end and start seeing yellow or orange, you'll feel like you're getting somewhere.

Knitting's much the same on the repetition front, but you can multitask with it if you get bored, even without adding in cables or lace or shaping. With weaving, all you can do is make the fabric more interesting by switching up the size of yarns you're pairing up, or doing a plaid, or both, or even doing a double width which is a magic trick I really do want to learn some time.

Since I can't do any of these things till I have this baby off the rails, I am gonna get back to it. It's cold and windy out, but I am about due to see a sun patch landing on this table, and I'm not sure there's much nicer than sitting in one of those to finish a simple project.

Hope you have a great weekend, and a great weekend next time too! I am begging off Hugs till April 5, in the hopes that resting this arm will get me back to normal faster. Meanwhile, take care of yourself via nice times and treats.

 

 

Knit Trip Fail

I was very excited to get out for two road trips this week - day trips, really, but covering a decent distance - and prepped knitting for them and everything. Here is the sock I worked on, during trip one:

It's all chompy! My favourite cute stage for a sock. And maybe you will be able to relate to this, but I was really loving working on it, too. 

Since I broke two fingers on my left hand a few years back, I've never felt the same about knitting. It's not smooth and effortless like it was, somehow. I am less confident and engaged in it. Not so as I sat in the car and needled the stitches, flying along, missing even that we were crossing the Skyway Bridge over Burlington Bay (which was just as well, as it's always kind of freaked me out.)

However! the experience was doomed. We stopped at a gas station bathroom and the soap in there smelled so very awful, I didn't want to risk touching my yarn again lest there be odor transfer. So I waited and, among other things, took pictures of the High Falls in Rochester:

Because on a day trip, you totally want to spend four hours driving to Rochester so you can turn around and come home again. To be fair I am glad I saw these gorgeous falls, right smack in the middle of downtown...

... and also that we were able to restock our dwindling supply of Kleenex facial tissues, which are no longer sold in Canada owing to shipping costs. 

Coming back we drove the south shore of Lake Ontario and that was lovely too. As was the view of the whirlpool downriver from Niagara Falls. 

I even liked the wild plants growing alongside the cliff path enough to take these pictures.

Plus clouds! It was a gorgeous day for clouds. And for rain, which drenched us before drying up again.

When we finally crossed back home to Canada and I didn't have to check my map every ten minutes, I washed my hands one more time to be sure the smell was finally gone, and pulled out my knitting for more excitement. Whereupon I discovered this:

A DROPPED STITCH.

So much for the return of all my carefree knitting flair.

I know I have to rip back and reknit, but I am telling myself I'll be able to pick it up with a crochet hook and carry on. I have to wait for that voice to quiet down. These socks are for Jan, for Christmas, and they have to be perfect. 

Later in the week we drove to Buffalo and I brought the other sock, but I was still tired from the previous trip and didn't have the heart to knit much. So instead I will show you pictures fro Delaware Park, which is incredibly lovely and well worth the drive.

That's Hoyt Lake, and here is the Rose Garden.

 

This time the skies were clear and temperatures were soooo hoooooot... no wonder I didn't pick up my needles as the day progressed.

That brief glimmer of joy in knitting did make me think about what I might cast on next, though, when I finally finish Jan's socks. Maybe a pair of mohair socks, which are faster and so lovely to work with? It might be that I need the change in fiber to claw back some enthusiasm. Or maybe I should make a sweater? Or even a vest. Just some random thing I might never intend to wear, even, launched for the love of knitting it. 

After all, autumn is only a month or two away now, and there's nothing nicer than a new knit when the temperatures drop. Not even the view of stunning falls, or a leafy well-groomed park.

Hope you're having a lovely weekend and again, thank you for joining me. I'm going to wander off now and think more about how to handle that dropped stitch. See you next Saturday!

Making adjustments

It's getting to be that magical cold-weather time of year where I live, and that means two things.

I get to wear my beautiful handspun twined mittens, and I get to feel guilty about the matching hat. Yay!

Or rather, ugh. I had such good intentions with this hat, and way too much confidence in my abilities to knit a garter band and pick up stitches for the rest. Not sure if you can see the problem in this photo, so perhaps we'll try another angle:

There is a LOT of ease on top. I think the handspun was just too heavy to flop properly, because the crown decreases are perfectly flat, a critical element I did get right.

Ignoring the fact that wearing this hat makes me look like the stem on a mushroom, I even did this elaborate trim feature:

I still really like this element, even though it's wasted on this hat. I look awful with it on, and it keeps sinking and shifting as I walk, too. It's way too big. If I had one of those gazelle necks I could tuck my long hair into it and stride out of the house looking like I have an attractive hat on. Sadly I was not so blessed. So I'm going to have to find a way to make the hat smaller. I see two routes to this destination.

Option A: tuck the excess inside the band, and stitch it down.

 

Option B: fold the excess over the band, and stitch it down.

And at this crossroads, I have stopped. I'm not sure which is better, and also, I need to dig out my leftover handspun so the stitches don't show. Otherwise I'll have to do decorative stitches that look like they were done on purpose, and that's another area where I'm more confident than adept, heh.

I do think it's worth it though, don't you? I mean this hat is WARM. The halo on it is incredible. The colours are beautiful. And, you know, I handspun this yarn and everything.

The good news is, we're doing a whole-house overhaul at the moment to accommodate home offices. I'm sure to find the leftover yarn in my travels, and when the work is done, I'll have a few more cosy nest options for actually doing the alterations. If I'm really careful and lucky, I'll be out in style in January. A girl can hope.

Another hope: that you are having a great weekend. Thanks for coming to see me, and let's do this again next Saturday!

Sock hop

Short Hug today my friends. After a brief recovery last Saturday, I spent the rest of the week with a rebound round of Covid. I'm only just clawing my way back to normal life again now, too late even for the good sunshine for taking pictures, yikes. However! during my brief hours of good health last weekend, I tackled a sock problem that's got to be six years old.

I don't know what happened with these. Normally I knit both socks in a pair at the same time, getting one through the cuff and then the other, then both to the heel flap, and so on. Knitting with this stripe, I got one sock complete to the point of a grafted toe with the ends run in, and the other as far a finished heel flap. Then I discovered I had cast on two few stitches right from the start, throwing off the entire heel math unless I fixed it. And fixing it would either mean adding two stitches and living with a tight leg, or ripping out and starting over.

I knew the harder option was the answer, but... UGH. Hence the six years. But in the euphoria of recovering from Covid, I wasn't in the mood for half measures, so I pulled out all those stitches. Okay, I admit it: not all. I couldn't face redoing the ribbing, so I guess that part of the sock might feel a bit snugger.

All the rest is what I managed to get done as my symptoms returned and then felled me completely. But hey, I'll take it!

Knitting with frogged yarn is kind of sad... the stitches are so gummed up compared to what you get with unknit stuff.

I'm pretty sure it will all come out in the wash... or most of it anyway.

The main thing is, I'm working through my knitting backlog, while still in time to produce a single pair of Christmas socks. No pressure, amiright?

Hope you've had a great week, with lots of cheery outside time! See you next Saturday, maybe even for a celebration of Something Finished. Meanwhile, enjoy your weekend, and thanks for making me a part of it by stopping by.

My laptop died but books are forever

Hello again and I so hope your computer didn't curl up and die this week, like mine did. Let's look at something pretty before we dig in to that awful story, shall we? 

Is it just me or does this remind you of a houseful of pets watching the day unfold?

 

I found this picture on an old blog post about matching up yarns to make quite a lot of sock kits, which reminds me that I still have a few of these left to work on. If anything else bad happens, I may race to the storage cupboard and get a pair onto needles. This mohair/wool blend has always been the best for calm blue ocean knitting.

So, my laptop. It was a slow-moving disaster, and one I certainly should have addressed before the crisis. It's not like I hadn't noticed the battery wasn't charging, or that the processor was moving like a geriatric turtle. But you know, if leaning a book onto the power cord is enough to improve the contact points inside the machine enough that they touch the points on the cable, why fuss?

Because someday the points will fail altogether, is why fuss. And maybe even when you've been working off the battery for a while, such that there's only an hour of life left in it.

You can imagine how I panicked as I saw what was happening and the implications set in. And no, I hadn't been on top of doing backups either. I did have an external drive, at least. Somebody else needed one and when I was picking it up for them, I spotted another in a pretty blue I thought would look nice on my desk when I was using it. I swear I am more computer savvy than this normally, but this is apparently what I have become over the last few years. 

Turns out not quite an hour is just enough to get a 97% complete backup, download all your browser bookmarks and note all your passwords, order a new computer, and email critical files to yourself. Thank goodness I had the wherewithal to think of this much.

Finally, with a startled squeak, my laptop shut down, and that was that. 

It's taken with it the title of every book I've borrowed from the library over the past three years, which means I finally understand why people keep book journals on paper. I figured, why bother when the library app keeps track? but for some reason, once I logged in on a new device, all that information was gone. 

Fortunately I remember the titles of two I particularly wanted to mention here, including this absolutely marvellous memoir/cookbook by Sally Schmitt with Bruce Smith - Six California Kitchens. 

 

I honestly can't think of another book I've read recently that I found as moving and insightful and riveting... I guarantee I will not make any of the recipes, with the exception of the one for pie crust, because I don't have easy access to the ingredients or the audience for most. But I pored over every one, learning a ton of kitchen techniques. I looked forward to every moment I could spend with this book. I learned so much about - well, so much. It's a very approachable, very personal story of a woman who became enormously successful doing exactly what she wanted to do in the way she wanted to do it. If that's not reaching the top of Mount Everest without tools I don't know what is. I cried reading it, and I laughed, and who does that with a cookbok? Highly recommended.

I dove into some Ngaio Marsh mysteries this month as well. These are 'golden age' stories published up to seventy years ago, now, but they stand up. 

The one I found most pleasing of the latest batch was Grave Mistake, because so much of it is told through the view of a witty, engaging character with a very practical view of the people around her. If you haven't read any Ngaio Marsh, I recommend this one.

Have I done any knitting? nope. I did however figure out a fix for my too-tight socks that only requires ripping back to the heel flap, so I'm going to do it. I thought I'd leap into that when my computer died, like it was A Sign I should turn my back on tech for a day, but then I looked at my upcoming deadlines and bought a budget backup laptop locally to keep plowing through the work.

Hope your week was a little smoother than mine! Let's meet up again next weekend and see if things have improved at all. I know there will be pancakes happening here in a few days so that's an automatic win, don't you think?

Can these socks be saved

Hello again from from the knitting fail corner of Hugs! Looking over past posts, I see I started these socks as a Christmas present to myself in October 2021 (or more likely, the year before that, and hoped to knuckle down and have them ready for December 24, to tuck into my stocking.)

 

The good news is, they all but finished now. The second sock, currently filling a cute tinyhappy knitting bag, is also ready to graft at the toe. But I haven't done any grafting, because when I got this far and tried them on, I realized.... (cue the dramatic music)

THEY ARE SNUG AT THE ANKLE.

Okay I am pretty sure I know how this happened. The yarn is practically all alpaca and it's a heavier weight than I normally use, so I had to improvise the number of stitches I cast on and trust in the stretchability of the fiber, which was asking too much of it because alpaca isn't known for its elasticity. I knew this at the time. I have no excuse for this error in judgement.

Alternatively, I may have gained weight. I mean we all know our ankles is the first place those extra cookies go, right? 

 

Apparently I've been considering this problem for nearly a year without coming to a decision, so perhaps it's time to go over the two options I've identified. 

I can finish them and never wear them, which isn't a much different outcome than the ideal because hello: white alpaca DK socks? I can only ever wear these on a chaise for reading while not even thinking about getting up to make more tea, or in bed for sleeping for the first twenty minutes before I wake up in a sweat and claw them off my feet. 

Or, I can rip them out and reknit them with more stitches, and hope I have enough yarn to get to the toe because my vision was so very much a monotone foot. This approach will probably involve ripping, skeining, Soaking, drying, and ball-winding because who wants to knit with seriously kinked yarn?

I guess these two options are really:

I can finish them and never wear them or

I can just not finish them. 

Let's leave this horrible thought for your subconscious to ponder, or not, and do what I've been doing all this time which is looking at something pretty.

Two people I like have birthdays coming up - well, more than two people, but two I'm actually thinking about making my own cards for - so naturally I got out my watercolour paints to make some rectangular backgrounds on heavy paper.

This paint - small specialty sets from Kuretake Gamsai Tambi - has a ton of glitter in it and, by some chemical miracle, none of it rubs off once it's dry. I'll tell you though, the water you use to clean your brush is like a glitter whirlpool when you shine light through it. 

 

 

Even with two layered together, the colours seemed a little depressing for a milestone birthday in particular, so I also painted some backgrounds in regular watercolour. After it all dried and I cleaned away the brushes, I got out a Micron pen and started doodling. 

I don't think any of these are ready for their Hallmark Card debut, but I am at peace with that. Well, mostly. After panicking just a tiny bit I decided to work with the depressing glittery ones.

At this angle you can really see the glitter, which kind of compensates for the meh colours, don't you think? And also, in the case of the middle doodle especially, the illusion of birthday snakes emerging from a basket to surround you.

 

Next up: the paper cutter and some double-sided mounting tape. Naturally, I have no idea where my art card stock with matching envelopes have gone, so I will be doing a flat panel and slipping it into a gift bag. Invention, meet your mom Necessity.

Hope you have a lovely week not grieving over the agonizing choice I am putting off for my beautiful, unwearable socks! Let's get together again next Saturday.

(oh, I just realized there's a third option. I can finish the socks and give them to somebody with very slim ankles and a chaise reading habit. sadly neither of my birthdaying friends qualify, but maybe if I wait long enough I'll know somebody else who does...)

Death of a motherboard

Here at Hugs, it's not all knitting and painting and box unpacking and looking longingly at the bag that has the loom in it - I wish!  One must also be a technological whiz, if only intermittently.  And today is the intermittently part because a few months ago my motherboard... died.

Reader alert: this creatively barren post will be illustrated by random arty photos

Thankfully when it happened I had access to a second computer, which is where as you may recall I have been conducting all my various online tasks for the many weeks it took for my computer repair shop to determine that the problem is not fixable, and for the many weeks since while I have been deciding whether and with what to replace it for reals.   This process is still ongoing.

I wonder whether it was a mistake to clean the keyboard of the original laptop with a Swiffer cloth?  (answer: almost certainly.)

Anyway, I miss my beat-up old laptop SO MUCH, right down to the painter's tape holding it together and the super worn down keys.  And I also miss all the stuff that was on its hard drive (especially every single detail of the itinerary I spent about 50 hours mapping out for our summer trip to the UK, which I forgot to back up), and in its browser software, which was remembering all my passwords for me.

Do you use the same password for every site?  It's so tempting, only needing to remember one!  But it's not a good idea security-wise, so I try to be imaginative and come up with a different password every time.  Sometimes I can even remember them all by myself, which is helpful for super-security-needing sites.

I still love stripes.  Here are some vertical ones on linen to balance out the horizontal ones on glass.

I also have multiple e-mail addresses just to make it all more complicated.  But I am juggling so many tasks these days, and so many sites also require usernames that are not your e-mail address, that even though it is easy to reset a password... it's not at all easy to renew access to every site you have to use (I'm looking at you, Presto, keeper of my public transit fare card.)

During a brief lull before Christmas I realized I also don't remember any of the details for accessing my websites to upload and prune files.   Huzzah.  Thankfully I do remember the details for my web hosting service, so I asked them to let me know the server settings I need for that job.  Today, or this weekend, or else Really Really Soon, I am totally setting aside time to make use of that information.  After I finish shopping for new software to allow me to transfer files up to the web and back down to oblivion.  My tech support friend recommends WinSCP, which I notice also has a portable edition... and that seems smart because if I have all the necessary server information on a thumb drive, it won't matter if my computer busts up again.

Well, it won't matter quite so much as it did this time.  I'm sure it will still matter at least a little.

Ugh technology, right?  But on the upside: the fact that I finally have time to address this issue plus the fact that Ray is remodeling somebody's bathroom on Monday means that our giant renovation project is pretty much done.  Whooo hooooooooo!

(except for the outside, which has to wait till spring.  oh well: more time to plan right?)

Closing with both kinds of stripes: plaid for the win!

Have a great weekend and I'll see you on Monday.  So glad to be able to say that with confidence after a whole week of posting every day - MAN I have missed Hugs.

And then I burned my hand

Just popping in to say Merry Christmas to everyone here at Hugs!

Thank you Wrona for the beautiful card

...something I wanted to do so much, I'm typing with all of the fingertips I have that aren't burned.  But more on that later.

It's been a lovely first Christmas for us back at the new/old house, complete with snow covering every horizontal surface outside, especially on the cedar trees beyond our living room windows...

and lots of baking that happened at the very last minute... naturally!

I wouldn't have bothered at that late date only I wanted my one aunt to have a treat given that she was stuck in hospital for Christmas Day, and the family of the other to have one for the same reason (that aunt is sticking with pudding.)

Of course, three different batches of cookies (chocolate chip meringues not shown) plus brioche buns for Christmas morning plus some handsewing of ornaments to top the odd present means No Sleep For Tired Girls.

Kinda worth it though?

Then of course,  there's 'Making Supper While Exhausted..."

The potato ring keeps the sweet potatoes from burning. Wish I'd had a potato ring...

Here's what happened with all that.

This afternoon, we went to see my aunt in the hospital to bring cookies.  No time for turkey when you do that, so it was Festive Pork Tenderloin on tonight's menu.  I had the idea to save time by searing it in a deep frying pan of stainless steel that can go right into the oven.  Sear with olive oil, add apple juice and put on the lid, cook it in the oven, then return it to the stove to make a sauce with the drippings while the pork rests. Forget the pan's been in the oven at 425 degrees for 45 minutes, shift it by the handle with a bare hand, and enjoy Christmas Dinner while standing at the sink running cool water.

In other news, Pete and I got our new-to-us 1950s cast aluminum lounge set home and onto the porch:

The cushions are in the attic. There's also a pair of club chairs, the ladies' one a little shorter in the seat. So cute!

Closeup:

Sock photos coming to this space, eventually.

Yeah... It's my right hand this time so I guess it'll be a week or two before I can knit, or type with two hands, or paint?

Next Christmas I will have to wrap myself in cotton wool because I don't want a third festive hand injury after the last two holiday mishaps!

Pale blue bird of hope on our new artificial tree. Thank you Balsam Hill - looks almost real doesn't it?

Hope you've all had a marvelous holiday! with no burns because Ooooowie.