I did not realize how much knitting I had done this week. I have felt like I'm mostly stuck inside this week, even though I've had things to do outside the house.
Knitting
I finished things this week!
The socks for my Graphic Designer friend are done and in the mail. They were pretty fun to knit. I really like the color, I may have to knit myself a pair of shortie socks from the left overs. Of course that will have to wait until all the other WIPs are gone.
The Alaska hat, which I hadn't worked on in months, was finished shortly after the socks. It's a colorwork hat with trees against a multicolored aura-ish background. It came out really pretty and now has a giant pom pom. I love the pom pom, it is unreasonably large.
You may remember there is another pair of socks that I have been working on. These are for my Costumer friend. It is slow going on these socks. I am basically just knitting them in the car. I thought I could get to the toe of the second sock on the trip today. It was an hour each way, that's plenty of time to knit an inch, right? No it wasn't, because I took a nap. Something about long car rides makes me sleepy, and it is hard to knit while sleepy. I have half an inch until the toe now.
My Magical Thinking shawl, the local yarn shop day pattern that I'm knitting out of obnoxious yellow yarn, is being continued. I had stopped because I messed up and couldn't get the slipped stitches to line up like they were supposed to. I figured out why, I forgot an increase somewhere. I did not rip back to fix it, at this point I am ok with the mistake.
My needles are not happy with me. One of them is trying to detach itself from the cable. The problem is I'm using fixed circulars, not interchangeable. The tips should not be coming off. Though I have had problems with the join from the beginning. I guess that's what I get for buying knitting needles at a big box craft store instead of somewhere that sells good needles. But they were cheap. Eventually I need to invest in a good set of interchangeables with the itty bitty sizes. I use them way too much not to have any.
The mass of neon pink that is Nightgale has grown, slightly. I added a row or two. I've started the cables though, which is exciting. I don't know how well they'll show up in the pictures, probably not at all since they aren't super obvious in person.
Speaking of neon pink, the Pank Experiment has almost come out of hibernation. I did one row on it during the trip today. And that row took forever. I don't know how many stitches I have on the needles there but it is more than I want to count. I did get them on a longer needle, which is also a half size larger. I'm only using the needles I already have because I want immediate gratification and the yarn shops around here don't have long tiny needles.
The Scrappy blanket grew just a tiny bit. I am still on the mystery yellow. I am somewhat tempted to cut the yarn, add a new color and use the rest of the yellow later. I have plenty of leftovers already balled up. But I am more likely to make a magic cake from the jar of mini skeins.
I finally went to the local-est yarn shop with time to really look around. It was a very little shop. They didn't have a ton of varieties of yarn, but they had some fiber. We had gone to pick up previously ordered yarn and get a pom pom for my hat. We did not find a suitable pom pom, we ended up going the big box store for that.
On our trip today, we went to a slightly less local yarn shop. I liked the people there. They were very friendly. They had some beautiful hand-spun/hand-dyed yarns. I would love to learn how to spin like that. The colors were gorgeous too.
I have been spinning as well. When I first re-started I completely forgot what I was supposed to do, so I had to rely on Youtube to re-teach me. The first semi-skein looks absolutely terrible, and I am ok with that. I'm spinning my first braid of fiber, it's not going to come out good. I am getting better though. This spindle-full is looking thin and fairly even. I don't know how my plan to make a hat out of my spinning is going to work out. The yarn is going to be all over the place in terms of weight, and I don't know if I'll have enough. I think I'm going to knit what I have and when I run out get more fiber, spin that and finish the hat. It'll be a weird looking hat.
Bread
I have been making more bread. This was a different recipe, from the internet this time. From the flour company's website, not some random blog. It turned out really well. It was most excellent with butter and jam.
The next bread-ish project is scones. We went to a tea shop over in the mall and got some really nice teas as well as raspberry mango jam. Of course the tea and jam need scones, and scones can stay frozen before baking so there can be more scones later.
The Pond
This week the weather has been fairly unpleasant and unpredictable, so there hasn't been much walking around the pond. I think we went one day this week. The fish, and fishermen, seem to be doing ok in the cold weather. I actually saw someone catch a fish instead of just standing with the rod. A pair of tourists have claimed the path between the upper and lower sections of the pond. They may be building a nest there.
Mr. Kitty
My wonderful, lovely cat does not like to be my model. He will wear whatever I can get on him, but he always looks so angry. It's his own fault for climbing into my lap while I'm knitting.
His hopes of a failed modelling career may be why he's been so finicky about cuddling. He doesn't want to encourage me.
