Life Malfunction

I haven’t blogged in a while and I think I have some good reasons, all of which probably aren’t really that good, but I’m going with them.

At the top of the list is that I accidentally poured a cup of tea onto my beloved laptop.  That’s the bad news.  The good news it that Geek Squad/Best Buy sent it to Kentucky and two weeks and $335 later it is back.  It still has all my data and is seemingly okay.

So that was one problem and I think it is a pretty good excuse. But honestly I think the real reason is this state of hesitancy that I sometimes find myself in.  This is when I keep moving something to the bottom of my To Do List for no apparent reason, or don’t even put it on the list.  It isn’t that the item is boring/not boring, fun/not fun, easy/not easy.  I get into this mind set and the darn thing doesn’t get done.

I did this when I taught also.  It usually took the form of a class set of papers that I needed to grade.  Now I find that I still do this even though I am retired from teaching.  Damn it.

Exercise is in a permanent state of hesitancy.  I have to set up a permanent schedule and commit myself to a person I respect to keep up.  Coincidentally, with the computer being gone,  and my beloved exercise lady, Sharon, off to share the birth of her third grandchild, I am finding myself not only not exercising, but not blogging either.  Hmm.

I think this is a fairly serious character flaw.  Might as well call a spade a spade.

All I can do is keep on keeping on.

I finished my Hops and Ale.  It is pretty beautiful.  I also “finished” the infamous purple shawl.  That is a blog entry all by itself.  I started this Coastal Gradient cowl/scarf that is a 6 shade set of Knitwit yarn with dark red trim.  Oh is it gorgeous and a fun mindless knit.

I am not going to post any photos of these various things as my escape from the State of Hesitancy (I think by this point it deserves caps) is tentative and I don’t want to jinx it. You will have to trust me that I am telling the truth.

Can I also add, in my defense, that my also beloved car was in the shop during this time.  It is a 2002 and I still love it as I did the day it was purchased and I am NOT a big car lover at all. It is fine now and safely in the garage as I speak so I am feeling pretty good.

Love,

Me

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Still Hops and Ale

I am at the slogging part that comes with pretty much every project.  There were four skeins of yarn to start and I now have a wee bit of color three and all of color four left.

I have had to frog twice.  I spliced color two  to color three and it changed in the middle of a row.  Looked terrible.  Then I goofed on the striping.  It is supposed to be two rows lighter color , two rows darker and I knit FOUR rows of one color.  Of course I didn’t noticed either of these mistakes until about 6 inches had been merrily knit.

On another note- if you don’t get Fridays with Franklin, consider it.  I admit that sometimes he is a little too esoteric for my plebian tastes,  but on Franklin Friday he is charmingly informative.  Last Friday he wrote (and illustrated) on lace.  Specifically, what the effects are when you use different spacing between the knit two togethers and the yarn overs.  He also showed what it looks like when you don’t purl the even rows.

I’ve successfully knit several lace projects but never really realized what he was talking about.  His swatches that he paired with the charts were fantastic illustrations. This probably sounds a little geeky, but it wasn’t.

 

 

Humungous Cable

I subscribed, for a year, to Simply Knitting and it has been okay.  I don’t think I will renew.  It was fun to get something knitterly every month but because it comes from the UK it is pretty expensive.

However, this month (April 2016 issue) I spotted the most gigantic cable, and it is made in a way I never would have thought reasonable.  It is shown on the front of a water bottle, not exactly high priority in our Southern Cal household but I could see it on the front of a knit bag.

I took some shots, I’m not sure about copyright so the directions are a little fuzzy deliberately.  Maybe you get the mag and can just look it up.

They give row by row instructions.  But you can kind of see in the photo on the right how they get the big puffiness of the chains.  So Cool!!

I am still working on my Hops and Ale.  It is a fun knit but of course gauge is niggling in the back of my mind.  My project is only 8 1/2 inches wide, it is supposed to be 10 inches.  I thought that is okay but then it occurred to me that it might be short!  That is not okay because I am 5’9″ and need the length.  I am going up one needle size today.  We’ll see.

Over and out.

 

Blogs and promises

I got so involved in reading my favorite blogs this morning I am almost out to time to write my own!

But I did say last entry I would post a proper photo of the Coos Bay hat.  I asked Stephanie from my knitting group to model and she obliged.

Now I just need to update Ravelry. I am nparis there.

I tried to get a list started on this blog’s sidebar of my favorite blogs but haven’t broken through the tech barrier yet to make it happen. I did master links though, did you notice?

I will just tell you some favs now.  First and foremost is Stephanie Pearl McPhee The Yarn Harlot.  She is such a good writer and can get to the heart of things wonderfully.  Kate Davies Designs is a treasure to the world.  What a woman.  If you don’t follow her already you have some good reading ahead of you.  Abbey Glassenberg is a treasure trove to a variety of things.  Today’s post has a link called “this giant bobble sheep” which was my main reason for getting to my own blog a little late.  It is the cutest thing ever.  If my que wasn’t the longest it has ever been in my knitting life right now, I would be on it.  Its only rival would be Sam the Ram, who a fellow participant brought with her to Strung Along.  Cute little boy.

My two newish additions to my blog roll are Donna Smith Designs and Karie Bookish.  Both are inspirational.  In fact, I downloaded Karie’s pattern Byatt yesterday with ideas to use a couple of compatible  skeins I bought at the Rose City Yarn Crawl.  On Ravelry there are 95 projects shown using this pattern.  It is stunning.

 

 

 

 

 

1

 

FO’s left, WIP’s right

 

I finished the Coos Bay hat this weekend.  I love the twists and turns of the cables in that thing.  I hope to take a photo with the hat on a person at my knitting group tomorrow. I have a niggling thought that it should be a smaller gauge, it is loose on my head and the feel is a little wobbly.  Maybe I will knit the second hat one or two needle size smaller and if I like that better I will frog the first one and repeat.  I know, it’s sad.

 

In the WIP category, I started the Hops and Ale scarf.  I spent the better part of Saturday watching March Madness and swatching for gauge. Usually I am not that diligent but I was fresh off the loosey goosey  hat, so I persevered.

The  suggested needle size is US #5.  The gauge is supposed to be 25 sts/40 rows = 4 inches.  I ended up with US # 2 (!!) to barely get 24 1/2.  I refuse to go to a US #1 for this scarf to get that last 1/2 inch.  Am I really that loose of a knitter that I need to go down 3 needle sizes?

I had the incredibly good fortune to attend Strung Along last November and spend a day with Stephanie Pearl McPhee (be still my heart).  She said that there is a tendency for patterns  to go up in needle size because people shy away from pattern that use little tiny needles.  Is that the case with this pattern?

 

 

March 17 ’16

 Intuitive

I am working on my first pattern from the yarn/patterns I got at the Rose City Yarn Crawl.  It is Coos Bay Beanie by Kristina Kephart for Yarnia.  It was their pattern and yarn that they offered 10% off the yarn and free pattern.  Each store on the tour did this.

The chart wasn’t originally included in the download but I emailed them and they sent it.  It is the BEST CHART EVER.  The cables are color coded which really works for my brain, apparently.  It is very twisty turny and therefore engaging.  I got the sea blue for myself and the camel colored one for my husband.

Today is the start of the Edinburgh Yarn Festival.  I am dying.  Kate Davies sent an email though that said she would ship free around the world to ease the pain.  Even though I have a basket of yarn from the recent trip to the RCYC I find myself actually looking at the kits.  A cliché I know- but I have lost my mind.  My friend Julie says that Stash Guilt is far too prevalent, and that we need to start a movement to “say no to stash shame”  but . . . can I really just dive in and order a sweater?

I can see that I need to learn how to attach a photo and do links.

I’ll try,

Nancy

ps-I think I mastered posting photos, but now how do I make them smaller?