Knitting In The North

Yarn Along

~Joining in with Ginny's Yarn Along, because I love reading as much as knitting!~

 

 

Even though it's not a Christmassy story, I picked up this book this morning because it's an Inter-Library Loan, and I'm going to have to get it back soon. I believe I first heard of it on another blog doing the Yarn Along, which brings things full circle. I love finding new titles and authors this way!

 

On the needles is my final Christmas project, a Turn a Square hat for a family friend. I'm using stash black wool, and a shifting grey that I found at the LYS, and hope to have it finished tomorrow, which will give me time to block it before the big day.

 

In other news, we've been busy, as have all of you, I'm sure, with much holiday elving. I'm forming quite a collection of photos, and will try to sit down in the next few days to share the goodness. If you celebrate it, Happy Solstice to you! We're headed tonight downtown for a family solstice celebration, and I'm really looking forward to getting the whole bunch of us out and about on this dark night.

Yarn Along

 

 

 

As is usually the case, when one area of life really takes off, another has to slow down.  My Christmas knitting has been moving along really well, but my reading - not so much.  I finished Gwenyth's sweater (it's blocking right now, and then needs buttons), and I finished the first of Brian's socks, and just turned the heel on the second.  Wow - I'm impressing myself!  You can see Brian's socks above (even better, I'll have enough leftover for a second, smaller pair - matching ones for Liam, perhaps?), along with the wool Liam & I wound up this morning to knit felted clogs. 

 

Since my school semester is winding down, I am allowing myself a bit of seasonal reading fun.  I like to read "Christmas" fiction during December, and since I'm feeling so festive, figured I may as well start that, too.  First up is Matchless, by Gregory Maguire.  The cover says it's "an illumination of Hans Christian Andersen's classic 'The Little Match Girl'", and was apparently read on NPR a few years ago.  I just picked it up today, so I can't tell you too much, although I'm very much looking forward to curling up with it in the evenings to come.  Do you like to read holiday themed stories?  What are some of your favourites?

 

 

Yarn Along

~ Joining in with Ginny at Small Things, who loves to read & loves to knit~

 

 

I am trying to be very disciplined and only work on Christmas presents until they're done - I don't want to be frantically clutching my needles on Christmas Eve, desperately finishing one last thing...

 After finishing the first sleeve of this sweater, I decided I was unhappy with the short rows I had worked, and not thrilled with the fullness of the sleeve itself.  I ripped it all back, and am reworking, with one less set of short rows in each repeat.  I also read up on the technique over at TECHknitting, and am much happier about it this time around.  Hopefully it will continue to move along quickly... there are more gifts to make!

 

The book I'm reading is The Winter of our Disconnect - the story of a mom & her three kids, who completely unplugged for 6 months.  I'm just getting into it, but am fascinated by the idea, and the process the family is going through as they adjust to no power.  Can you imagine - no power at all?  I can't even get the family to agree to no cable TV!

 

Yarn Along

 

 

If you compare this Yarn Along picture to my last one, you might think I haven't done any knitting at all.  Sadly, my super duper plan to have a quickly finished project didn't quite pan out.  I finished the first sock, but when I compared it to the one my friend had already knit, I saw that our gauges were vastly different.  One would think I am an experienced enough knitter to cotton on to this idea before knitting a whole sock... but one would be wrong.  Sigh.  I ended up ripping out the sock that my friend knit, skeining, washing, and hanging the yarn, and am now on the homeward stretch for sock #2.  And then, for sure this time, I can get back to that little blue sweater...

My book this week is for another school project.  I had to assess a historical fiction novel, and The White Queen seemed like a good choice.  I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would, and am feeling grateful this week that I'm taking a class that requires me to read novels.  How can I not enjoy that?

Yarn Along

 

 

I've been feeling a bit restless in my knitting this week.  Life seems so crazy, and I'm hurtling through one school project after another, that I felt like I needed some "instant gratification".  Quite a while ago, a friend was fed up with her own project, and put it in a yarn swap we both took part in .  She was working on socks, and had one sock finished and the other underway.  I snatched it up, thinking I would probably rip it all out and do something different with the beautiful, hand dyed yarn.  This week, though, I pulled it out, ripped it back a bit to figure out where she had been in the pattern, dug out some needles, and carried on.  The pattern is Spring Forward, and I believe the yarn is from an Etsy seller who is no longer dyeing yarn.  Which is a shame, because this is lovely.  Now the big question will be whether or not I get to keep these socks, or if they are meant for someone else...

 

I've heard from many people, in the Yarn Along and elsewhere, that A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is an awesome book, so I had to pick it up.  I haven't actually started it yet - I'm waiting until I finish the school project I'm currently working on.  I find it very effective to have some kind of reward dangling like a carrot in front of me, and at the moment this book is my carrot.  How do you motivate yourself to get things done?

Yarn Along: KAL

 

 

I do love me a good KAL!  As soon as I heard about the Stash Sweater KAL in the Stash & Burn group on Ravelry, I was in.  The idea is to knit a sweater in the next two months from stash yarn, which is always an idea I can get behind.  It's inspired me to get Liam's sweater out of the basket and back to the top of the priority list - I'm sure you can imagine his reaction.  He's thrilled to see me knitting His Blue Sweater again.

 

I did manage to finish Lonesome Dove in time last week.  Once I got into the story, it was actually pretty good (probably why it won a Pulitzer Prize...), although I think it's better suited as lazy day reading than get-through-it-quickly-so-I-can-write-about-it reading, if you know what I mean.  Now that that project is done, I've turned my reading attention to Making It.  I love this book!  It's full of great suggestions for things you can make and do at home.  I particularly appreciate the way it's organized - the book is broken down into daily, weekly, monthly and every so often projects, which I think is really useful.  I was a fan of their previous book, The Urban Homestead, but this one is even better.  If you are at all interested in doing things yourself, I highly recommend you check this one out.  And as much as I love and support my library, this is one I'm going to have to own for myself.

Yarn Along

 

 

I was so happy this morning when I realized it was Wednesday, and I could join in with the weekly Yarn Along!  I don't have a whole lot to show for it - here is my Echo Beach, in Noro Sekku.  I am more than a little in love with Kieran Foley's designs.  There is another one I have queued up, just waiting, that I love even more than this one.  See how restrained I am, not abandoning poor Echo.  This project is pretty slow going, thanks to the lace weight yarn and smallish needles, but I keep reminding myself of Elizabeth Zimmerman's advice to knit complex patterns with fine yarn if you are a knitter on a budget.  I'm practicing frugality, that's what I'm doing!  (Don't be surprised if, next week, I show off a completely different, bulky weight pattern.  All this discipline is making me long for some instant gratification, and I have just the right project in mind...)

My reading at the moment is less than thrilling for me, I will confess.  As part of one of my classes, I am learning to assess fiction, and am required to read several novels, which sounds heavenly (and it is, really).  However, we were specifically asked to read something from a different genre than usual, and since I have several nice old men at the library who read Every. Single. Western. that we get in each month, I thought I'd try a western.  I did first look for something on the shorter side, but then one of my co-workers suggested Lonesome Dove, and I was swayed by the sticker declaring that it was a Pulitzer Prize winner.  I'm only a few chapters in, and finding it slow going, but I hope it will pick up as the characters develop.  If nothing else, I will choose to appreciate a class I am learning a lot in, and I'm sure I'll find something to enjoy, even in the Westerns.  It's a book, right?  What's not to love?

 

Yarn Along

 

 

While I've always known that Liam is a boy who knows his own mind, I got a taste of just how particular he can be this week.  He has been, for several weeks now, asking me to knit him a blue sweater.  Last week, we finally had a quiet day at home together, and he decided that he had waited long enough.  Happy for the peaceful time together, I sat with him and looked through patterns on Ravelry.  He seemed to have something in mind, as none of the patterns I showed him were right, until this one popped up.  He immediately shouted, "There's my sweater!" 

 

I had planned to knit him a heavier, more outdoorsy sweater for fall, with some wool I have in my stash, but when we went to look at my yarn, he latched on to this GGH Bali he saw, and there was no swaying him.  I must say it is very rewarding to be working away on it, and have him come up to me with a smile and ask, "Are you knitting my sweater?"  He's so sweet sometimes, I could just kiss his face right off.

 

The book I'm reading right now is a collection of essays that were published in a Canadian newspaper.  The whole idea of gardening in a relaxed way, accepting things the way they are and not striving for perfection is just what I need to focus on as our gardening season gets under way.  I'm the first to admit I tend to be a tad obsessive about things, and could easily send myself into an emotional spin while I attempt to have a perfect, mature garden all in place by this fall.  We know that's not going to happen, so I'm really working at accepting what I have, and how much I can really do this summer.  It's amazing how much what I read affects my feelings, and reading things that support what I'm trying to do here and now is very helpful.  Imagine that, eh?

 

~ Joining in with Ginny for her weekly Yarn Along ~

Yarn Along

 

~ Taking time again to join in with Ginny's Yarn Along ~

 

 

Although the past week has been busy, I've been anxiously awaiting this Yarn Along!  I've made pretty swift progress on Shalom, (thanks to a small bout of flu last week - everyone is recovered now, though) and started on the sleeves yesterday.  I almost always prefer to follow a carefully written pattern, and am feeling a bit at loose ends trying to find my way with adding on sleeves, but so far, all is well. 

 

The exciting thing I wanted to share, though, is the book I'm currently reading.  At the library where I work, we do a quarterly inventory of all the paperbacks, magazines, etc.  This allows us to look for any missing items, and also do some weeding of older books that people aren't taking out anymore.  The other day I was going through the Science Fiction section, when the book above caught my eye.  Did you know Cat Bordhi had written a fantasy book?  I didn't, and so instantly added it to my shelf to take home.  Even better?  I'm enjoying it!  I suppose any woman who is so skilled at teaching and writing other types of books is well equipped to put out a novel as well, so I'm not sure why I was so surprised.  But I definitely am enjoying myself!

Yarn Along

~ I'm joining in with Ginny's Yarn Along, and you can, too!~

 

 

May has finally arrived, and I am so, so happy to see her face!  It's funny how the whole world seems to be a better place once the weather warms up a bit, and I can take walks more often.  Another thing making the whole world better recently has been the arrival of two honorary nieces, who I'm so blessed and thankful to have in my life.  The only thing better than one beautiful new baby is two, and so I'm busy finishing up two baby blankets to bless these sweet girls.  I'm using the same pink yarn for both blankets, but doing two different patterns, so that just like these girls, they are similar, but not the same.  I'm using Mission Falls 1824 cotton, which I love.  It is soft and pretty, but has a sort of rustic texture to it.  (Strange that I never seem to finish a baby gift before the baby arrives - it's not like I didn't know they were coming, you know?)

 

Since I'm between school semesters at the moment, I've been reading as much as possible, lots of fiction and fluff to give my brain a rest.  However, this non-fiction book has really grabbed my attention this week.  The New Normal, by David Wann, is a proposal for some major changes in our culture and thought processes, and I'm loving it.  I especially appreciate the way he makes a point, and then offers practical steps to take from both a personal and civic/community perspective.  So often, I hear that we need to change things, that we need to take action, but seldom do I hear real solutions and options for effecting that change.  Wann may not have all the answers, but he does offer a place to start, and I really enjoy that.