Wow!

It has been a long time since I have been here, but I have made some progress on my sweater:

It's sort of weird looking, but it hasn't been blocked and that won't happen until I have finished knitting the whole thing. I did start a sleeve, picking up live stitches and casting on about eight more for the required total of 62 stitches.

Then I started knitting, and according to the pattern, I should be decreasing two stitches every 8 rows. I did that and then tried on the sweater. The sleeve was very form fitting, skinny, narrow, tight, all of those things.  

So I performed what I call a "Sally™,"which involves yanking the needles out of live stitches and pulling out row after row after row. I’ve seen Sally do this over and over, and each time, any knitters present, including yours truly, gasp. It will all unravel. She will lose stitches and NEVER get them back, we all fear.

She has never had anything unravel that she didn’t want to unravel, and she doesn't lose stitches, at least not in the presence of other knitters. ( We don’t know what happens at home.)

I pulled back row after row, and then stitch by stitch, took back the first row that I had made decreases in. I came out with the right number of stitches, and, my theory is, that I can just work with that number of stitches, no decreases, and keep trying the sweater on.  If it looks as if I can make some decreases further down the sleeve, in order to have the right number of stitches for the ribbing section, then that’s what I will do.

I probably ought to write down what I do so that I end up with two identical sleeves, right?

Ooops...

One of these things is exactly like the other.

Do you see the two identical halves of a snap?  Yes, yes you do.

I carefully cut off the hand-sewn half on the knitting, flipped it and re-sewed it.

Now I have this.

The snap is a clever way to attach the pom-pom to the hat, but I think I prefer the elastic loop method, where the elastic is pulled through the top of the hat and then buttoned around a, well, a button.  Less sewing.

I played yarn chicken with this project because I was using left-over yarn from the second Cowboys and Angels wrap.  I both won and lost.

I still had rows to go before I could start the decreases and I gambled that I could make it because I had made the ribbing section shorter in order to save yarn.  

As it turned out, I bet I could have knit several more rows of ribbing and still made it, so I sort of lost, even though I won and didn't run out of yarn, because now I have so little yarn left over that there's nothing to do with it.  I should have knit on.

And because it's raining and cold today, I finished my socks as well.

It's a good day for hand knit wool socks.

Now, unless I can come up with another knitting distraction, it's on to the sweater.  I've only had the yarn for a year and a half.

Ramblings

I'm just wandering around in my mind because I don't feel like getting organized, so here are my rambles:

My two daughters and I went to Ireland, had a great time, saw the usual places and some new ones.  

I learned the value of really good car rental insurance.  I have no problem driving on the left side of the road while seated on the right side of the car, and oddly enough, I am a champ at parallel parking.  I DO have a problem with tiny parking spaces in parking garages, and I scrubbed the left front of the rental car on a concrete post in a garage in Galway.  There were two narrow spaces between two large posts and that's where I had the problem; when I returned the car, no problem.  Phew.  Also, the car was a Toyota hybrid, which I think means a Prius, and I loved it.  Used not a lot of gas for a lot of driving.

We found the church in Garvagh where my paternal grandmother was baptized in 1881. She moved to the US in 1905 and died here in 1953.  I only met her once and I was not even five yet so I only vaguely remember her.  I have tried without success to get her birth certificate but I just found my grandfather's bc and it is on its way to me.  If I can get his death certificate, I can apply for Irish citizenship.  

Isn't it pretty!

I need my grandfather's social security number to apply for his death certificate, and I have no idea if he even had one, and if he did, how to find it.  More research ahead.  I have no idea why I would want an Irish passport, or what I would do with it.  But I'm stubborn enough to think that if I CAN have one, I SHOULD have one.  

We had fish and chips, of course, several times. And, of course, Irish stew, and of course, Guinness.  Or at least, I did.  

Because one of my daughters had been to Ireland before, and I had been there twice before, some destinations were a repeat for one or both of us, but everything was a first for older daughter.  A special treat for all of us was Newgrange.  

It was built in about 3200 BC and is an example of very early genius engineering.  It's quite small inside and the ceiling is amazing---slabs of rocks arranged and stacked to form a dome, and the builders knew to slightly tilt the rock towards the outside of the structure so that rain would not get inside---and it hasn't in all these centuries.  Soil is mounded up over the rock portion so it looks much larger than the inside actually is.  Archaeologists aren't sure what the structure was used for, but during winter solstice, at sunrise, light comes inside through the window above the doorway and lights up the path to the center of the round space where we gathered, only fifteen of us at a time.  

In Galway I bought another cabled sweater.  What Georgia resident doesn't need even more wool clothing?

And speaking of knitting, since I returned home, I have finished two more projects:

A second Cowboys and Angels

And another pair of socks.  (Magpie yarn)

And now, for something completely different, this explains where ghosts come from, but now that Halloween is over and the ghosts are gone, we are still left with the struggle to put duvets inside their covers.  I've gotten smart and let my husband do it.  He has come up with a technique that involves turning the cover inside out and then doing something that involves hanging the whole thing over the stairway railing.  I have not bothered to learn this technique.  

And speaking of Halloween, sort of, this is what is left of a bag of 90 assorted candies.  I had never heard of Starburst so I tried one.  The pieces look like bubble gum, but, SURPRISE, they aren't.  I'm not sure what they are; they aren't particularly sweet and I couldn't discern a flavor.  Sorry kids, but I'm sure you got some M&Ms, Twix and Three Musketeers I gave out in each handful of candy.

And, that's probably enough rambling for now. 

Thanks for reading, especially if you made it to the end.  

Slán.

Dear Diary,

Dance as if no one is watching. check

Sing as if no one is listening. check

Write as if no one is reading. check!

That I can now do because I announced to the world in general that I was not writing any more posts, and so I imagine that no one gets notices that there is a new post, and yet here I am again. Talking to myself, as it were.

But I have knitting news and it has to go somewhere:

I'm working on my second Cowboys and Angels.  The first one came out really well and it was fun to make so why not make a second in a more neutral color?  So I am.  Also it serves to put off starting work on theThrowback Sweater.  It is going to be such a difficult knit because it involves stranding ON THE BACK SIDE, which I hear is torture.

I am also working on a pair of socks because having two WIPs definitely stops me from working on the sweater.

I'm using Knitjan's basic pattern, the only one I've ever used. (Magpie Yarns Swanky Sock, color Très Bien)

Swanky indeed; it has cashmere in it!  

So the yarn for the Throwback Sweater lies dormant, waiting for me to work up the desire to knit it.

Someday it might look like this:

A girl can dream.

Nine hundred and ninety-three

993 is the number of posts I have put up. This makes 994. And I think it will be the last.

I got nuthin!

However, before I go, Thanks for reading!!!!!

I leave you with this:


My latest knit:

Cowboys and Angels by Isabell Kraemer

Photo from Isabell Kraemer 

It's knit from Malabrigo Rios yarn (color Frank Ochre) and I love knitting with it so much that I just ordered more to make another. The pattern is just slightly more difficult than easy, so it doesn't get boring.

AND---we have a bird maternity ward on a window ledge at our house. 

There is a fourth hatchling, but it's hiding.

The nest is on a ledge between a window and what had been the screen.  We don't have these blinds open often, so it wasn't until Molly kept sitting staring at the window that we looked and saw that birds had ripped out the screen all the way across the window and up to about 4 inches. Then came the nest. Then one blue egg. Then that egg disappeared, which was a mystery because the window is three stories up.  

Then four blue eggs and one speckled tan egg appeared.

Aha!  

$%^&*Cowbird!!!  Apparently the cowbird had checked out the nest and decided it was for HER egg. 

Cowbirds, parasites sort of, adapted to following buffalo across the plains in order to eat the insects the buffalo kicked up from the ground by laying eggs in other birds' nests; they couldn't stick around long enough to hatch their own. These eggs hatch sooner than most birds' eggs do, and so the nest-building parents, who apparently can't tell one egg from another, take care of the cowbird egg and hatchling as one of their own. The cowbird hatches first, grows faster, and probably gets most of the nutrition.

It is illegal to toss out the cowbird egg, and my husband read somewhere on the interwebs that tossing out the egg annoys the cowbird who laid it, and about 50% of the time, she comes back and destroys the remaining eggs. I have no idea if it's true, but I didn't want to risk it. 

So our cowbird was the first to hatch, the first to open his mouth to squawk for food, and the first to spread his wings and open his eyes. As the hatchlings get bigger, they take up more and more space, and I have no idea how the nest hasn't fallen out of the window.  

We'll enjoy watching the birds grow, and then fledge...

And then get the screen repaired.

Yay Me!

I rode my bike this morning all bah mahself!  I know what you're thinking---big deal. But it's the first time in years that I've ridden alone because of the time I fell and broke my wrist.

I always ride with my husband so that he can call 911 when I fall. He is in SC today, so I rode with my trusty "Help I've fallen and I can't get up watch," and the phone it calls 911 from. So in that regard, I was prepared and ready to go.

However at about the 3/4 point of my ride, I had to stop and walk the bike over some curbs between neighborhoods, and I discovered that my kickstand was down.  Ooops.

It's a good thing I hadn't needed to make any sharp left turns, although, when I told my husband what I had done, he said that the kickstand would have gone up if it had hit anything.  I'm just glad I didn't have to learn that firsthand.


In other totally unrelated news, I am making this wrap out of exactly this yarn in exactly this color.  

Cowboys and Angels by Isabell Kraemer

It appears that I will do anything to avoid starting work on the Throwback fair isle sweater.

Still Crazy After All These Years

of knitting.

I finished the aforementioned Weekender sweater and it sort of fits.  So...victory?

Not really; I don't much like it.

But in 2018 I had bought yarn for my first-ever Fair Isle sweater and THAT was going to be my New Year's project.  

(On the top right, main color, the bottom photo, the colors for the yoke.)

I bought the colors in October at SAFF, and that was to be it. No more yarn shopping for me.

But then, while I was in Texas for Christmas, I bought the yarn on the left to make another Free Your Fade, AND while I was still in Texas, I ordered the yarn and pattern for the beret, from Kitterly, from whom I had vowed never to buy another kit after my dissatisfaction with a previous purchase.  I HAD to buy the yarn for Free Your Fade; I was in Sated Sheep in Dripping Springs, Texas, and it would have been rude to not buy anything, right?

Right.

Now for something completely different:

My daughter and her family have a new kitten and she, Violet Beaudelaire,
was fascinated by the Simon's Cat videos on You Tube.

My cats pay absolutely no attention to tv. 


I almost forgot!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Long Time, No Post

I've been busy avoiding rain, snow, winter weather, and also, being lazy and just knitting. And this weekend I went through some of my stash in order to record where each skein is stored. I had put my stash on Ravelry (or FB for knitters as my younger daughter, who is not a knitter, calls it) but I hadn't indicated where they were stored. My LYS is no longer holding knit nights (@#$%^&). Since the shop is about 15 miles away and I don't go there usually except on knit nights, I guess I will be doing more shopping from stash. Now I know which location each skein is: bin one, bin two, turquoise cabinet, or the closet. 

What fun going through it. I found yarn I hadn't remembered that I had! Too bad I don't know what projects I might have bought them for, but some are so pretty, I can name them and call them pets:

Does anyone know what this is? There is no label.

100% mink!

They are so FLUFFY!


AND, over the weekend, I finished this:

What hot water bottle doesn't dream of a turtleneck sweater?! It is made from soft, soft, soft Malabrigo Rios.  It would have been an easy project had I read the instructions a little more carefully.  

I read the measurement for the ribbed flap at the bottom as 3/8" instead of 3"/8cm. I realized the error when I had almost finished the cozy. Knitter Anna suggested I just pick up stitches and knit until I had 3".  It worked!  And Hey!  I read instructions! Not carefully, I admit, but at least I did read them.

And to cap off the weekend, I found that I could stream my favorite British police drama DCI Banks.  PBS has only played series 4 and I love it, the stories, the actors, the characters they play. I've started streaming from Amazon and it's fun to see how the characters started out, how they all met and worked together, and to watch the character development.

I have half of series one, all of series two and three to go!

Snow? Rain? I don't care!!!

So maybe I should just knit.

I finished these Honeycomb mitts:

Do you see anything remotely resembling a honeycomb pattern? No, no you do not.

As usual, I did not completely read the instructions and ended up with ribbing instead. The picture on the pattern was very faded because of printer problems, so I didn't really notice that something might not be right until I was FINISHING UP the second mitt. yay me.

I read someplace a long, long time ago that not reading instructions/directions is a sign of giftedness. I would like to think that that is true, but I don't. All that not reading instructions and directions has ever done for me is cause me to make mistakes. Sometimes even stupid mistakes. I often don't read complete labels on things in the grocery store and have ended up more times than I can count with soups I have no interest in eating.  

So now I am working on this:

(Pure Aran Shawl)

and I guarantee I am reading EVERY word of EVERY line and it will be done correctly.

I hope. The problem is that I am altering the pattern in order to make it larger, and that means math so that it gets deep enough without getting ridiculously long. As a result, there is still a pretty good chance of error.  

Wish me luck. 

Socks and more

While we were in Ireland I wore hand knit socks every day---what a treat. We walked and walked and walked and my Fitbit was very happy with me and smiled every day. Usually it frowns. Judgey Fitbit.

We live in the south, so warm socks aren't much of a necessity most of the year. When I came home from the trip, I finished the Soumak, phew, and because that had taken so l.o.n.g to knit, I have concentrated on quick projects, among them, SOCKS! I am making these from what I believe is called a sock flat, yarn that has been machine knit flat, then hand-painted with dyes, and then stamped with designs. The completed sock is a totally unpredictable pattern of colors. One down, one to go.

I can't find the tag that came with the flat, so if you wanted to knit the same sock, you CAN'T!

(sorry)  (Actually, now you can!  It's Gale's Art Sock blanks on Etsy.)

My second current project is a pair of Honeycomb Wrist Warmers (fingerless mitts) and I love the Malabrigo Rios yarn I am using. Soft, soft, soft. 

And, at the SAME TIME, I am making the Lost Banner Hat from the Donegal Wool my daughter brought me from her trip to Ireland last year. It had not told me what it wanted to be, but after spending time in Ireland, seeing all of the knitwear people there wear, I realized the yarn was meant to be a hat. A hat it shall be.

And again, at the SAME TIME, I am making the Pure/Aran out of the softest non-cashmere yarn ever, WOOLFOLK FÅR.  

AND, I am making, at the SAME TIME, The Joker and the Thief. How can I keep all of this straight, you might ask. I must be a genius, you say. Why thank you! I must be then!

And since we were talking about socks and walking, and I was, a while ago, here is some walking.

These are the Cliffs of Moher, and they are spectacular. You can walk for miles and miles along them, and the National Trust has put upright slabs of rocks along the path, about ten feet or so from the edge of the cliffs. However, the brave or the crazy, I'm not sure which, choose to walk on a well-worn path on the cliff side of the rocks. It is really windy up there, and I wonder how often someone gets blown over the edge. It must happen, just based on the odds with so many people walking on the wrong side. 

Not MY thumb.  I'm a better photographer than that!

Odd how the publicity for the place doesn't mention the falling off the cliffs death toll. 

There are warning signs, but clearly, people disregard them.

And more walking---this time to get to the Carrick-a-Rede bridge. This is a better photo of it than mine was.

This is just a part of the long walk in to the bridge:

And THIS is the climb down to the bridge. It was scarier to climb this than it was to walk on the bridge itself.

Carrick-a-Rede is at the very northern part of Northern Ireland, and while we were so far north, we went to a couple of towns, including Belfast. Kind of a strange place, Belfast. It's an industrial city with a huge focus on its past, primarily its wars. 

This street is locally known as RPG street because of all of the rocket-propelled-grenades launched at it by the British, during the Troubles. The Troubles come up a lot.

And this photo is of the wall that separates Protestants from Catholics (? not quite sure how this all works out) at night. During the daytime, the gates are open so that people can go to work, school, run errands, and shop, but voters keep choosing to close the gates at night. Just in case???

This is one of two huge structures that were used during the ship-building era in Belfast. They aren't in use now except as a tourist attraction (? not that exciting, Belfast) since ship building has given way to the construction of wind turbines. Belfast is unaccountably proud of the fact that the Titanic was built there. Every tourist shop, every post card display, has souvenirs stating in some form or another:  Belfast --- Home of the Titanic. 

And now, for something completely different, but potentially not more cheerful than wars and deaths from falling off of cliffs, a sign in a tiny cemetery in a tiny town somewhere in The Republic of Ireland, aka (according to me), Southern Ireland.  

I think it's a DIY cemetery! Based on what I saw of Irish tv, the residents are really fond of reality tv.  Maybe this place will get its own show.  

Probably not.

I hope not.