Unraveling

I have a couple to knitting projects to tell you about, but let's just talk about the one I started yesterday. I'm frogging the first sweater I ever made (and never, ever - not even once - wore).  It was made at a time when I had more time and money to spend knitting than I had skills.  Now I have skills, but alas, neither time or money!  So here's to do-overs!

I finished The Cuckoo's Calling last week. It was excellent.  Unlike The Casual Vacancy, which I only finished because J K Rowling was the author, I would have loved Cuckoo's no matter who Robert Galbraith was.  The plot was very well paced with mysteries personal and murderous.  Right about page 350, when Robin (and the reader) discovers Strike is unraveling the mystery I wondered how Rowling would keep the plot tight for the next 100 pages.  But she does and she does it beautifully.

Even more compelling than the paparazzi and untimely death is the slow reveal of Cormoran Strike and Robin.  Every interaction they have digs deeper into their character.  And as they grow to like each other, we grow to love them.  Rowling is genuine and loving to each of them and finding out how their partnership will fair was, for me, the reason to read to the end.

Joining Ginny and Yarn a long today.

Hello November

And hello, you!  Happy Monday!

Craig and I cut Colton's hair this weekend. We both huddled around his head in the bathroom, watching those blond lengths fall onto the towel, passing the scissors between us.  There has to be a you tube video on how to cut boys' hair.  I'll have to watch one before the next cut.  The cut looks like a home made affair, but I still think he's the cutest ever.  

Speaking of home made, are you feeling crafty?  Holiday crafty? Here are some links to some crafty gifts I've made over the last few years.

Super hero caps for kids
Quick cowls for ladies
Felted slippers for anyone (link to my old blog)

It you're looking for easy and fun gifts to make for the holidays, I hope you find some inspiration here. See you soon!

Swallows And Amazons

So I started knitting Christmas gifts this week.  I can't believe I just typed that but I did and I can't show you what it is.  But it's something small and easy and hopefully I can finish them all up nice and early.  I'm working on the first one and it was meant to be a test, but it's turning out really nice, so I'll be able to say "One is done" soon.

I finished Year of the Flood, is was a page turner and intense. I have the last book in the series, MaddAddam, checked out from the library, but I'm not ready to start it yet.  I saw Swallows and Amazons on a children's reading list over the weekend and since I don't remember ever reading it, I checked it out for myself. It is very old, published in 1931 and it is very sweet.  Isn't the cover amazing?  I think in a few years Craig would enjoy reading it aloud to the kids, so far there is a lot of sailing.

Yarning along with Ginny today.

Left Over Leftovers

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I'm knitting another baby hat with the leftover yarn from the last baby hat I knit, which was leftover yarn from a pair of socks I knit years ago.  Although suddenly it's looking like might not be enough yarn to finish the hat.  Hummm....it is a baby hat so it's meant to be small, right?

And I'm reading The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. I'm not huge fan of science fiction, but Atwood's dystopian world totally pull me in.  It's easy to see the remains of our days left behind.    This story runs parallel to Oryx and Crake, so read that story first, and then both stories continue in MaddAddam.

Joining Ginny's Yarn Along today

Tangled Skein

I knit this little hat last week using some left over sock yarn.  It is going to a baby I've already had the pleasure of holding and can't wait to see it on her sweet little head.  I'll be meeting quite a few more winter babies this year, so I'm excited to have found a fast and easy little gift for them.

Do you want to take a peek in my knitting basket?  I organized it this week.  All looks calm.....

But......

I am slowly, slowly unwinding this mess, one loop at a time.  But dang, it is hard work.  I just finished Not The Killing Type, which was a quick, simple read.  It is part of the Booktown mystery series, so of course I'm going to have to start with the first book and read my way through.

I'm joining Ginny's Yarn a long today.

Fishing Nets

After a couple of busy weeks with no time for knitting, I finished my two rectangles and am sewing them together.  I think I like it.  It's a little long though and I'm thinking about unraveling a little off the bottom.  Here is the one self portrait I took yesterday that didn't show my embarrassingly messy bathroom.  I'm wearing the fishing net (as someone called it!) over a black dress.  Hopefully I can fix the length and have Craig take some better pictures.

I also started something small (and non-metallic) this week.  It's this pattern, but I'm using a different weight yarn and bigger needles, so we'll see how it works.  I also started Life After Life.  The premise is a little unsettling but the story and characters compelling.  It is set in England and spans pre-WWI to post-WWII, which is a time period I find fascinating.   

I'm looking for a Fair Isle sweater patter to work on this fall.  Does anyone have suggestions?

 Joining Ginny's Yarn Along on Thursday this week!

Evening Light

Last night I finished A Week In Winter and really enjoyed it.  It was a short, light read.  It might have been more appropriate to read the book in winter, but after my library debacle last week, I was just looking for a win.  And any Maeve Binchy is a good summer read, in my opinion.  One summer when I was in high school, someone gave a paper bag full of her books and I read them all before school started in the fall.  Ms. Binchy passed away last year, which I didn't know until I finished this book.  Tonight I'll start The Light Between Oceans.

The knitting continues.  I'm on to the second rectangle.  Knitting what-ever-this-is sometimes feels like watching a scary movie, I just can't look away, or in this case, give up on the project, no matter how bad I think the outcome will be.  It is possible I'm being over dramatic.  Time, as it always does, will tell.

Yarning Along with Ginny today.

Knitting Summer

I'm working on my two rectangles sewn together.  I have to keep telling myself that it looked really cool on the mannequin at the yarn store, because right now it doesn't look like much.  Well, it does look like summer, light and shiny, but not like anything I would wear.

I was going to tell you all about the shows I'm watching night now, but then I realized this post is just in time for Ginny's Yarn Along, so I'll tell you about that I'm reading instead.  We can talk TVDVDHulu another time.

Last night I started reading Charlotte's Web to Audrey.  I think she enjoyed it.  I hope she enjoyed it, because I can recite most of Arnold Lobel's books by heart.  We will continue on tonight, I hope.

I'm reading The Expat's ( on my nook) and it's really, really good.  Sometimes I laugh out loud at Kate's description of the tedium of staying at home with her children.  But then there is the mysterious, sinister life she had before her children, a life she can't quite leave behind. (And didn't we all have mysterious, seemingly sinister lives before we decided to stay home with our children?  Lives that are now tucked away in  memories and occasionally pulled out and compared to the current state of days? For example, knowing People magazine by heart vs. knowing Mouse Soup?)  That's the good stuff.  And so friends, yarn along.

My Lonely Sea

So this is my Lonely Tree Shawl, knit in Malabrigo Arroyo in Indiecita on size 8 needles.

I was thinking of the ocean, well really abalone, while I stitched, and the way a small piece of iridescent shell stands out against a beach of wet, black pebbles. It reminds me of walking, head down, eyes searching the beach just ahead, waves drumming to the west, on foggy mornings, with bean sized treasures, tumbled by time and water, clutched in my palm.  It is the best kind of lonely I know.

As I shared before, I decided to knit the whole pattern, plus chart D.  I ended up with about 8 inches of yarn left over at the end, which in my mind makes the yarn/pattern pairing just about perfect.  In fact I have another hank of Indiecita waiting to be wound.  It will no doubt make another Lonely Sea.

 

Unraveling

This is my very lovely, and very completed,  Lonely Tree Shawl.   But I really wanted it to be bigger. Soooo...

This is me preparing to unravel the last eight rows, using this method.  It was very nerve wracking, but don't worry, everything turned out ok.  It's such a lacy pattern and it's three weeks worth of knitting and there are no mistakes at all in the shawl. So I really debated if it was worth it to take the risk of dropping a stitch while unraveling.  But I decided that I have worked so hard on this that it was worth it to have it exactly as I want it.  

So out the stitches had to go.  

Ok, back to knitting again.  I can't wait to share the finished product with you!

Labor of Love

Kids, cooking and knitting.  It's a lot of work, but I love it all!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Knitting Circle

A year ago my grandmother, Martha, gave me her collection of knitting magazines.   They are a trip to flip through, yet I have not attempted to make anything from them yet.  I was looking for inspiration this weekend and may have found it in a hooded mohair pullover - "it's too dashing to save just for skiing"!

This is by way of an introduction to another gift from my grandmother: the hand -knit wool jumper she made for herself in the 60's.  It's been in my closet for a few years, but it has never seem to be the right time to wear it.  This week, as the temperature dropped into the single digits, I thought, "It's now or never."

When my grandmother knit the jumper, she was just a little younger than I am now.  She and my grandfather were raising their five children on the east coast and in less than a year the family would move to California. 

It's startling to think of my grandmother as a mother.  I mean, she always been my grandma, but of course to become a grandma, she had to be a mother first.  She's been where I am now, through the joys and the  struggles.  And in her quite moments, she knit.  A half century may separate our days, but some things stay the same.  

Loop Da Loop

Have you done this too?  Made your regular scarf into an infinity scarf?  I bet you have, because you're so crafty and cute! Here's what we did the rest of the week!