And Now For Something Completely Different!

The last Sunday in October is Reformation Sunday in the Lutheran Church along with many other  protestant religions.  It is traditionally the commemoration of the day Martin Luther put his 95 Theses on the doors of a Catholic church in Germany.  At the time the Catholic church was the only official religion of the Christian persuasion, but change was coming.  Google ML or reformation and you can read all about it.  

In my home church, Reformation Sunday is traditionally Confirmation for the high school freshman class.  My youngest grand was confirmed.  It was a beautiful service and she did a great job at her little speech and during the ceremony.  Gramps and I are so proud of her!

And boy what a difference a couple of years makes!  Here she is with her mom and her big sister when she took her first communion in fifth grade.

This is that same 'little girl' this year, now a freshman in high school!  Taller than her grandma, and I think taller than her sister and mother!

Love the fashion statement via the shoes!

Here she is with her big sister, a sophomore in college.  Studying human medicine with an interest is pathology!  

The Pastor has traditionally taken this pose with every class.  I guess his didn't turn out as well as this one, taken by Miss A, smiling face right up front!  I love this girl...  and who wouldn't???

Another milestone passed, another child of God added to the adult family of my church (actually 7 more 😊).

Keep believing!!

Knitting, and The On-Line Auction

 A friend asked me to knit a baby sweater for an expected grandchild... which I am happy to do, since it gives me an extra reason to do something which I enjoy anyway!  

I gave her a pile of books and patterns to browse.  I of course have my favorites, like the hooded sweater with the back zip that I've made probably a dozen or more times.  

The hoodie...

The picture on the pattern, which was copied from a 1986 knitting magazine that I bought, was horrible, so I think she didn't notice the sweater's adorable quotient.  I made a copy so I could laminate it, without destroying the magazine.  (I don't even know where the magazine is now!!)  Maybe seeing the sweater in person would be better, or I need to replace the 40 year old black and white picture on the pattern!

My friend choose at least five patterns as favorites, and I started in on a couple of them.  The one that was her number one is a new pattern for me.  And a first time to knit using a provisional cast on.  So in addition to knitting an adorable sweater, i am learning something!

                                       

The yellow row at the bottom is a crochet chain, and the first green row is a row of knits that are picked up into the back row of the crochet.  The yoke is then knitted up to the neck, the sleeves are added, and then you go back to the chain.

I ended up picking out the sleeve since I did the decreases too fast... every second row instead of every fourth row.  That was complete inattention on my part.  The taper should be much more gentle.  Lucky me it's a small sleeve and I noticed it before I did BOTH of them!

So after the sleeves were corrected, it was back to the crochet chain.  I pulled it out and put the stitches for the body back on the needles.

Now all that is needed is to knit to the hem, bind off, add the button band and sew on come cute buttons!

The next project I cast on is called Norwegian Fir.  You can see why that's what it is called...

The sample from Cream City Yarn.

I'm using a lovely warm beige called Parsnip in 220 Superwash Merino yarn.  So far I've only knit the neckband, so not much to see here.

                                                                    

I participated in an on-line auction from Iowa that was called The Art of Homemaking.  The stuff for sale was from a collection of items belonging to Rita Farro.  She and Mary Mulari, famous both in the home sewing industry, have written books and booklets about all kinds of project including aprons and bed linens.  If you go to Rita's blog, link in my right panel, her banner includes a photo of some beautiful pillow cases with pink crocheted trim that now belong to me.

I also picked up a chenille bedspread in like-new condition, and a number of redwork pieces that I plan to use in a future quilting project.  Also a few cross stitch items destined for gifts, and this one which is framed, which is probably my favorite:

Was it a typo or did the maker intend it to be Murph's Law??  LOL!

The Spooner!

Additionally I bid on and won one cut glass 'spooner'.  According to Rita, your grandma probably had a spooner full of teaspoons (what else?) on her table for guest to use for sugar for their coffee.  I'd never heard the term spooner before, but my aunt says that my maternal grandmother had one on her table for years.  I must not have noticed it... but then we moved away when I was in middle school, and I never did drink coffee.  

Anyway, I'm so happy with my acquisitions that I can't bear to put them into drawers or cabinets yet.  I'm letting them sit on the 1912 Singer sewing machine cabinet that's outside of the linen closet, and will enjoy stroking the pile for a while.

I hope you find joy this week in the things you have.      

Knit on...

Shopping, As A Pastime

 Seems like all I did during the pandemic's worst months was shop on line.

Amazon.  Target dot com.  Walgreens dot com.  Yarn shopping.  Fabric shopping other than what I did where I worked.  Toilet paper, aspirin, my prescriptions, whatever we needed could be delivered to my doorstep by any number of brown-clad or blue-clad delivery people in various types of vans and trucks.  And let us not even begin to discuss books!  ...and shoes!  My 'granny vans' came from Zappos dot com. 

Groceries could be ordered on line and picked up without leaving the car.  The mail carrier brought small packages and large ones.  Some that could be tucked into my rather small mailbox and others that had to be dropped or tossed or thrown onto the porch.  Or delivered by a couple of burly boys from one of those furniture places...

My granddaughters love to shop.  The oldest one is off to college now and is very adroit at Amazon's website.  But the youngest is still here, and her favorite places are mine too -- Michaels, Target, and The Always Amazing Goodwill, Salvation Army, St Vincent DePaul.

Last week we spent some time together as the parental unit was out of town.  On the one weekday and one weekend day when she didn't have school, we did actual shopping.  In stores!  I know, weird, right?  But it turned out to be rather enjoyable.  The weather was perfect and we paced ourselves.

Because I'm fully vaccinated I didn't have to wear a mask most places, even the ones where she did.  Wisconsin allows the merchants to set their own rules, and it's a mixed bag.  Some places 'suggest' or even 'recommend' masks whether you're vaxxed or not, and if they did, we complied.  No biggie.

We set limits, and of course she blew through her own cash (what she brought with her, lol!) at a pretty fast clip.  I told her it was for things she wanted if I didn't want to spend $$ on them, and she was fine with that.  She had her gramma-sponsored budget and stuck to it, making choices along the way.

Not that I was in love with everything she picked out!  She buys men's shirts to wear as 'layering pieces', and in my opinion they just don't always flatter.  One was an unfortunate yellowy-beige that probably wouldn't flatter much of anybody, but what are you going to do with a teenager?  Just love 'em I guess!  That lovely purple in the blue bag is a pair of fleece pj bottoms she found, and that was a good choice for her so she was happy.

Anyway, I managed to find a couple of nice higher-end sweaters at the Goodwill, bought some sale fabric at a quilt shop, and about a dozen books at St. Vinney's for the outrageous price of $1.29 each!  I picked up a copy of Ahab's Wife, by Sena Jeter Naslund.  It was on the NY Times best seller list when it came out in 1999.   I also scored a Debbie Macomber and a Kristin Hannah that I hadn't read.  Altogether a lovely time, and we didn't overspend anywhere.

                  

Well, maybe on lunch... lol!

Rock on...

Fall Is Here!

I love fall, or as it's also called more formally perhaps, autumn. I say a big yes to sweater weather!!  Yes to cool nights and warm afternoons.  Sleeping with the bedroom windows open.  Trees changing colors and dropping leaves.  The crisp crunch of those leaves after they've fallen and you step on them.  Fresh vegetable stands with piles of apples and pumpkins!!  Bring it!

And squash! There is nothing like a butternut.  It's got a big fat bulb that's thick when you cut it so you can scoop out seeds without losing all the flesh, but the best part is the skinny bit up to the stem.  

Summer squash is good but autumn squash is awesome.  By now I'm tired of zucchini and ready for a nice orange acorn squash.

And did I mention sweater weather?  I'm not a fan of the turtleneck, but a nice big slouchy cowl style to keep you warm when the wind blows is just about the best thing in late fall.

... and nothing ever beats the Argyle!  I don't care if it's a golf vest or a cardigan or a nice pullover, they're so classic.

Fall in Wisconsin is great.  Spring is wonderful too but fall is just so special.  I guess it's because we're anticipating the long winters that start with the first snowfall (usually not 'measurable' until after Thanksgiving) and ends with the last frost in April or May.  <sigh>

Fall also means tons of apples.  The Elegant Farmer orchard is a couple of miles from where I live, so I see the trees as I drive by.  I see the people there on weekends, picking their own apples.  And apple pies are a real fall treat.  The bounty of nature in green and red, with a nice piecrust thrown in for good measure.

                       

Today I'm sitting in the kitchen with the windows open, listening to birds chirp and loving the afternoon sunshine.  Miss Kitty is sunning herself on her padded cat condo.  Pretty soon I'll have to put the soup on the stove and make some rolls, but for now I'm just soaking up the pretty afternoon.

Life is good!

 

Monogamous or Polygamous Knitting?

    Which are you?  Which am I?  Funny, the only place I'm monogamous is in my spousal relationship!  Otherwise, not so much... let me explain.

One husband.  Fifty years this September 25.  Sometimes it's fun, sometimes not so much but I've never seriously contemplated anything else.  

But in my crafting life?  Totally poly!  

                                                

One project at a time is deadly boring.  I have posted in the past about Process vs Project people in sewing and quilting.  I'm talking about where a person is either dedicated to finishing one project before they start another or is just in love with a portion of the process and wants to do it over and over again.  Plan, sew, repeat.  I am a Process person, and getting a project done is a bonus but not vital to my being.  My sister, on the other hand, appears to be a project person, finishing one before she begins the next.  Her philosophy:  Buy what you need and get it done.  Mine:  Stash!!  You might want to start something when the stores are closed!!  What will you do then??  LOL!

                                                                

There's a YouTube channel by two sisters called Frugal & Frivolous and on a recent video they were discussing the fact that one of them is monogamous and the other is not.  The mono sister was kind of lamenting her decision to do a year of monogamous knitting, because she likes to knit big projects and they can take a while.  This results in weeks if not months of endless stockinette stitch on the body of a sweater or a shawl in garter that goes on for miles.

Not. Me.

                                                        

Other knitters talk about the 'bus sock' or the 'car shawl' or which project bag holds what current WIP (work in progress).  Yes!  I am that person!  We don't do much traveling these days, and since I never really spent time on a bus commuting to work, I didn't have that project.  But I did knit in the lunchroom at my job (eons ago!) and I sometimes carry small projects along to the dentist's office or the doctor's, in case there's a wait.  Those projects are generally small items that have patterns that don't require huge amounts of concentration, so you may carry on a conversation while you're knitting.

When I was making the Harry Styles sweater for my oldest grand, I carried it around with the pattern folded up in a project bag.  It was relatively easy to do on the go.  Bulky yarn, size 8 needles, cast on the same number of stitches for every row, knit until you have a square, change color and stitch, on you go.  All the greens are the same stitch, all the orange are another, etc.  Kind of a no-brainer.  This one you can knit and visit simultaneously.  But it's large, so therefore you must have a companion project to break up the boredom!

Enter the baby sweater.  I had a specific baby in mind for this one, but that's not always necessary.  You find out a friend is expecting or has just acquired a new grandbaby and you want to respond right away with a small token of congratulations, not wait until said grand is walking.  I learned this from my aunt Clara.  She knit fabulous layettes in various colors and stacked them in boxes in her closet.  Someone having a baby?  I have just the thing!  And out popped a box of blue or pink or green or yellow.  Her gifts were the hit of any baby shower.  

Besides, the knitting of a small item with no deadline becomes an exercise in pure pleasure for me.  And a 'palate cleanser' when you're getting bored with endless garter stitch or looking at that same yarn for days!

So yes, I am a polygamous.  I will not apologize for having six sets of size 2.25mm dpn sock needles so I can have several going at the same time.  I may need to knit a man's sock in some boring dark color but I can occasionally sneak a short date with a ball or even two of self-striping sock yarn to keep the magic alive.

Knit on...

Knitting Needles - It's Personal!

Ask any random five knitters which needles are the best and you'll get five or more different answers.

For the non-knitters, needles come in a couple of styles, with different uses for various projects.  The style people are most often introduced to first are straight needles.  They come in various lengths and materials.  The first needles I ever had were a gift from my Aunty June.  They were metal and about 14 inches long.   They were silver, shiny and slippery.  

In my 50's I developed arthritis in my hands.  It got bad enough that I did some research to see what I could do to prevent the constant ache I got from doing various things.  One thing I had noticed was that holding metal needles hurt, not because they were bad needles but they felt cool to the touch all the time.  The fact that they were slippery made me grip things tighter, which caused aching later in the day.  So bye-bye metal needles.  Now I have bamboo straight needles, and a few sets of plastic needles.

Next come double pointed needles, or DPNs.  These are great for knitting things in the round, like socks or sometimes sweater sleeves.  They'll be in sets of four or five or six, and anywhere from four to seven inches long.  The fancy type has a metal tip with a plastic or wooden barrel.  I knit my socks on dpns,

although I have flirted with other methods.  Like magic loop, or two circs.  But more on that later.

Sets of four plastic needles in various sizes.

                                            

Knit Picks Wood Needles in colors that change by size.  Fun!

The last type of needle in my collection is the circular needle, also known as the curly needles by my grands.  They are needles connected by cables, and come in lengths from nine inches to 40 inches, and can either be fixed or interchangeable.  Fixed is as you would expect permanently connected.

Interchangeable have ends that come off, and various cable lengths that can make any of a gazillion combinations of needle size.  This shows what normally come with an interchangeable set:  Ends, cord, caps and pins. 

The pins are little wires to tighten the ends of these interchangeables.  That prevents the disaster of lost stitches when the end comes off because it was too loose!  And the black circular items are caps that  make the configuration of one end and one cord into the equivalent of a straight needle.  They prevent lost stitches.

Interchangeable needles are expensive when you buy the whole set, but probably cheaper than the total price of the equivalent number of fixed needles you'd have to buy to make everything you can make from the set.

I have two interchangeable sets.  One is bamboo from Clover.  I like them and use them a lot.  The one drawback as I see it is that they don't lock so the size five ends tend to unscrew and I have to tighten them periodically.  Why only the fives is a mystery.  I also have a set of Knit Picks wood needles with a longer end piece.  Their longer length makes them reach out past the heel of my hands when I knit. This is more comfortable for me. They lock and stay secure.  I love them and use them for nearly every sweater project I start.

That is my dissertation on knitting needles!  There are reasons to use each type for various projects, and every knitter has his or her preference.  Some day I may tell this blog about my sock knitting adventures, but you can learn more from the experts than I could tell you.  My advice?  Take a little trip to your local yarn shop and stand in front of the needle display.  Start a conversation with anyone who comes to visit you there.  Listen, learn, absorb.  Then try some!

Knit on...

Blame It On the Yarn Harlot...

 Ha ha!  Not really, but maybe...

So if you're reading this you know that I have all of the fiber addictions.  Fabric.  Yarn.  Thread.  Beads and buttons and patterns and rulers and all things crafty.  Paper too.  Cards and stationery dating back to when people used to write actual letters and send actual cards.  

But as far as my yarn went, I shopped at the chain stores and bought the most inexpensive yarn I could find.  My mother and I were Red Heart fans.  NOT that there's anything wrong with that! It comes in lots of great colors, it feels nice in your hands, and it's readily available in all sorts of quantities.

But when in my sewing life I came across American Sewing Guild and was introduced to the concept of using the best materials you can afford, and saw what a difference it made in the things I was making, well, that sort of life-altering concept can transform you.

I researched and found a local yarn shop or two in my area.  A couple of them have since closed but my favorite one, Cream City Yarn, is still in business.  It's a tiny little shop with lots of personality.  It's also where I learned to knit socks the right way(s) and where I learned to do colorwork.

I cannot remember exactly how or when I stumbled across a blog called Yarnharlot.ca on the web.  Probably more than a decade ago... but who's counting?  Anyway, she is Stephanie McPhee, a Canadian knitter of famous proportions, who excels at explaining things to people in clear and concise language which in turn makes them better knitters.  You can tell I'm a fan, right? 

After discovering the blog, I also discovered she's a writer, and I bought and devoured many of her books.  AND she teaches knitting!!  I'll bet you could see that coming.

She has taught (before Covid) at knitting conferences, some of which she runs with friends in Canada. I narrowly missed getting into a class before I retired (not quick enough to react before they were full...)  And now, she teachings via the Web on a site called Patreon, to which you can subscribe during this not-getting-together-too-much time.  I subscribed.  After all, what else was there to do besides watch bad TV and YouTube on any subject known to man and some unknown (and should remain so!)

Also about this same time I discovered Roxanne Richardson, who is a Master Knitter and very knowledgeable and who has a YouTube Channel and a Ravelry thread called Rox Rocks.  Which led me to Clara Parkes and Suzanne Bryant and Barbara Knits and, well, you can see where this is going.

ANYWAY, back to blaming.  These knitters have one thing in common.  They know a LOT about yarn.  Especially Stephanie and Clara.  Clara may be the and I mean capital THE yarn expert.  She now has a place called the Wool Channel.  A. Maze. Ing.

Watching Patreon after reading the yarnharlot blog for years changed my yarn shopping a bit.  I started buying better quality natural fiber yarn, and most of that yarn comes in hanks.  This is a different sort of configuration than they have at the chains.  You need EQUIPMENT!  

You can see that this nicely wound hank of Malabrigo yarn is lovely, but if you tried to knit directly from it, Tangle City.  Take my word for it and don't even try.

You can untwist the hank and hang it over the back of a chair if you want.  In the 'olden days', a child or spouse might be convinced to hold the skein while you wound the up to 500 yards of it into balls for knitting.  Therefore, a yarn winder is required.  Well, not required, but it speeds up the process.  The winder creates what's called a cake (see the top of the picture, the blob in red) which can be used from the outside or from the inside.  A cake tends not to roll away from you or attract your cat.

Using the winder from yarn slung over the back of a chair was somewhat challenging, although I did that for a while.  I graduated to winding from chair to ball by hand, and then winding from ball to cake. (You put the ball in a box or a bowl to keep it from escaping.)  That then, led to finding an alternative to the back of a chair, since my spouse/children/grandchildren were not available for the holding.  My aunt had a yarn swift, made for her by my uncle, who was also unavailable for holding the yarn.  

I searched sites for something manageable both in size and in price.  I found this type.  *It should be noted here that my local yarn shop will wind anything that I purchase there at no additional cost, and so will some on-line dealers although some have a winding fee and many do not choose to do that.

My swift is easy to assemble, use and disassemble, and stores in a flat box in my closet.

The next thing I wanted was a yarn bowl.  It holds a ball or a cake, and the yarn goes from the slit on the side to your needles.  Control is gained, and cats are discouraged.   I had my eye on this shape below for so long... and finally one Christmas my son bought me one.  Until then, I'd used a number of things, including a plain old bowl, a flower pot and an orange juice carton with the side cut out.

The bowl is nicer.  But sometimes you're knitting more than one project.  (What?  You're a monogamous knitter?  OK... skip this part.)  So I became a collector of nice yarn bowls, and I now have, ummm, more than two.

So in my yarn collection I now have yarn, a winder (or two), alpaca yarn, one swift, a couple of bowls, wool yarn, many different types of needles (which might be a future post), also a million knitting markers of different types, cashmere yarn, knitting gauge tools, cotton yarn,, needles gauge tools, mohair yarn, patterns, a Ravelry account where I keep a stash list more or less current, and crochet hooks.  I subscribe to several favorite YouTube channels and a have couple of Patreons I follow.  

My youngest grand has taken a lot of my chain store yarn and is learning to crochet.  She's doing great and her great-grandma would be very proud, as am I.

I also at some point bought a hand-made yarn spindle.  It works fine for cakes but not for balls.  As you knit from the outside of the cake, the spindle turns and viola! No yarn tangles!

If Stephanie McPhee hadn't explained to me the various types of things in her stash, and why to choose one fiber over another, would I have all of this stuff?  Well, probably yes, but it would not have the quality or the value to my knitting that it does if I had not learned the whys and the wherefores.  

So, Steph and Rox and Clara and all the rest, I'm not so much blaming you as showing you homage as I knit on wool and blends and yes, sometimes even my beloved Red Heart.

Knit on...