2019 Challenges: Crushed Them!

The end of the year is in sight. I have books that aren’t finished and some projects that still aren’t done, but I’m good with my progress on the three challenges that I set for myself this year. There were three big ones: removing skeins of yarn from my enormous yarn stash, completing and logging knitted projects on Ravelry, and finishing books that I logged on my page at Goodreads. I did really well this year! Here’s the numbers.

Knitting

I set a goal of 30 projects for myself in the Challenge at Ravelry. This was 5 more than last year, and I managed 25 projects the year before, so I was comfortable with the number. Since I was focusing on using up yarn in the stash I really was responsible about logging each project and recording the yarn used and the amounts as best I could. I got lots of things done this year: lots of socks, mitts, sweaters, and some odd items along the way.

Seven sweaters jumped off my needles this year, all of them huge successes; comfy and a joy to wear. Here are some of them (Clockwise from the upper left): Koivua (Caitlin Hunter), Nordiska (Caitlin Hunter), Sturgill (Caitlin Hunter), Daelyn (Isabell Kraemer), and Understated (Joji Locatelli).

I made lots of shawls, socks, fingerless mitts, and even some gnomes this Christmas. The shawl shown here is What the Fade?! by Andrea Mowry and the gnomes are Here We Gnome Again by Sarah Schira.

There were lots of other projects that came off my needles; too many to show here. MacKenzie got a mouse and a blanket. I made cowls, dishcloths, and some thrummed mittens. It was a great year! As of tonight I have completed 48 projects, and the number is actually more as I combined some little projects together in the same Ravelry project page. Knitting goal crushed!

Yarn Destash

I resolved in January to get at least 50 skeins of yarn out of the yarn stash. At my high point in December I had gotten out 75 skeins, but a little trip to my favorite yarn store saw me buying 4 skeins of my most favorite color mohair, more yarn for the cat that I am knitting, and some yarn that I felt I had to grab when I saw it. Nine more skeins walked out of the store with me that day. Whatever. When you deduct the yarn from my total I still got 66 skeins of yarn out of the stash this year. Yarn destash goal crushed!!

Books

Lots of reading happened this year. I began to listen to audiobooks while knitting and once that happened the book count steadily climbed through the year. I set myself a goal of 50 books at Goodreads; as of tonight I have finished 65 books this year. Reading goal crushed!!

I tried to pick my favorite books from the list, but that was too hard. So many 5 star books! Here are some of the ones that really made an impression on me:

- Where the Crawdads Sing is a magical tale of an isolated young woman, abandoned as a child by almost everyone who should have cared for her, who grows to become a gifted naturalist in her own right. Living with nature in a coastal marsh area, guided by her understanding of the biological systems in the ecosystem around her, she becomes the focus of a murder investigation. Is she the victim of prejudice? Did she do it? Was there actually a crime? You will have to read the book for yourself!
- Blowout speaks for itself in the title. Hey, I live in Colorado. Oil money is big here, the risks to the population are real, and I remember when we had earthquakes from the fracking operations. Nowadays there is a battle to control how close drilling can be to human habitation in this state; there are a lot of jobs involved, but there was that home that exploded in Firestone, Colorado… Did you know that an early fracking operation in Colorado involved a nuclear explosive that was detonated underground? Yeah. I highly recommend this book.
- Childen of Ruin speaks to one of my pet peeves in science fiction writing. Why do we always depict aliens as being like us? You know, bipeds who speak and have hands. Beings that think like us. Why should that be? This book goes there using models of intelligence found right here on earth. Octopuses are way smart, but their method of information processing is very different from our own, and they use visual cues in their communication. Portia spiders have object permanence and are canny predators who use a model of problem solving that is formidable and different from our own. Slime molds get together from time to time and act like a multicellular organism… how do they coordinate that trick? Bacteria have more genes in their population than any one member can store; learning is fluid and travels through the population as members swap genes with each other. This book made me think about all these models of intelligence and made me look at my plants and animals with new eyes. One of my jade plants had a slime mold last summer and I put it right outside… best to be safe!
- The Night Tiger was a huge gift to me. Magic. Dreams. The interface between the spirit world and our own. Tigers who become people, or is it the other way around? It was just a fun, wonderful read with a strong female character in the lead. I loved it.
- There were so many other 5 stars in my list, but I can’t write about then all. Here’s a list: Ninth House, The Night Fire, The Testaments, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, The Guest Book , The Clockmaker’s Daughter, and The Alice Network all made the list.

So that’s that. I made it through all of my resolved goals and I’m now thinking about new ones. It’s time to take out the spinning wheel and the loom, don’t you think? That, however, will be another post.

A Month of Crutches and Panic Knitting: The Destash Project Update

It really has been a quiet month for me as I’ve been more housebound than usual as I slowly recover from bursitis and tendonitis in one (thank heavens only one!) hip. I’ve been doing my physical therapy, faithfully using my crutch whenever I have to do any prolonged walking (like going to the grocery store), and even started a gym membership so I can start on the reclined bike for the prescribed 5 minute workouts. It helps that it has been cold and I’ve been very motivated to get some projects done. I cleaned up my sewing room and started on some quilts, joined another book club, and began some serious panic knitting to get my yarn destash project back on track after a disastrous September shopping spree.

I entered the month with only 33.5 skeins out of the stash, and my goal is 50 skeins out of the stash before the end of the year. Yikes! I settled into the knitting chair, started an audiobook and began to catch up on knitting projects every afternoon into the evening.

I had two sweaters that were close to completion at the start of the month: the Climb Every Mountain (upper left) and the Koivua (upper right). I finished them up rather quickly (3 skeins used) and then cranked out the Understated sweater (bottom right) in less than two weeks, using up 6 skeins in the effort. Pretty productive!

This week I pulled out several skeins of yarn that were kind of rustic (not superwash), paired then with some mohair that I’ve had stashed forever and make MacKenzie (my very spoiled and demanding cat) a cushy padded sleeping blanket in three days flat while a series of cold fronts dumped a foot of snow and drove temperatures into single digits. It helped that I used big needles and 4 strands of yarn held together for the project.

I also managed to polish off a couple pairs of socks (very simple, mash-up socks that are winter workhorses…) that aren’t all that much to look at, but they used up another couple skeins of yarn.

See what I mean? These are just simple ribbed socks with a sturdy heel.

I have a couple of other projects on the needles at the moment, a cowl and another sweater that will take me through next month, and then before I know it I will be at the end of the year. The destash project kind of hangs over me so I have been knitting steady.

This sweater got started this evening and should really use up most of my Heilo stash. I have 20 skeins of the Heilo, so I have been saving this sweater back as kind of a ringer for the destash project. This is Barn from the book Knits About Winter (Emily Foden). It will be nice and warm for me as winter weather really arrives in the weeks to come.

This evening I totaled up the skeins used this month on my little spreadsheet (yes, I am that big of a geek!) and to my shock the total now is…

52 skeins!!!

I have made it! The destash goal is polished off and I will be way over it when I finish the Barn sweater. Whew! I can now shift attention to getting more sewing done and maybe even will be able to spin a little or do some weaving before Christmas if the hip behaves itself. Maybe bake some cookies. You know, go wild with the relief of having made my goal. Who knew that bursitis, tendonitis, and being on crutches for a few weeks would turn out to be a blessing in disguise? Every cloud does have a silver lining after all!

I will, however, be staying out of the yarn store until the end of the year! No more slips, no more slips, no more slips (chant along with me, people!), no more slips…

May your knitting be good, your books exciting, your chronic illnesses (if you are a member of that club with me) well behaved, and all your New Year’s resolutions met. Have a great weekend, everyone.

MacKenzie Speaks: My Blankie, My Blankie!!

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

Do you see this nice yarn that I am rolling around in? Something wonderful has happened this week!

Well, actually, something wonderful happened this week because things have gotten just awful outside. I blame the Mother of Cats totally for what has happened this week.

Look at this! Almost a foot of this stuff is spread out across MY YARD and it is so cold I can’t even put my paw into it for more than a second!

That’s right. It started snowing three days ago and the cold and the snow just kept on coming day after day after day…

If the Mother of Cats really cared about me she would put a stop to this white madness, but NOPE! she did not. Monday morning she did go digging into the yarn stash and found some yarns that are the kind that I like a lot.

The Mother of Cats decided that it was an emergency to make me a cat blanket, so she started knitting with all four of the yarns held together at the same time.

Hey! This knitted stuff is really nice and warm. I can use my claws on it all I want and it won’t fall apart! The Mother of Cats is really acting nice. I think that she is feeling guilty about all of that cold white stuff.

Since the Mother of Cats was making some knitted stuff that was truly excellent to sleep on I decided to hand out with her all day yesterday while she worked. Okay, it was really cold out in the garage, and there was no way I could frolic around outside, so I had to stay in the house. Of course I stayed with her and helped her knit all day.

Don’t you think that these yarns look nice with my fur?

Because the Mother of Cats was holding 4 strands of yarn at the same time the knitting went really fast. I mean, she must have gotten a couple of inches done between breaks for cookies. I got lots of pets and I held all of the balls of yarn while she worked, and she gave me all of the extra balls to take care of too. The Mother of Cats is so lucky that she has me to help her.

Look at how nice and big this blanket is! It is a perfect sleeping pad for me on the bed.

She even put tassels on the blankie!! I love tassels!

Now I have a blankie to sleep on while the Mother of Cats does stupid stuff like cooking and sewing. I just love my blankie. Yay! For once the Mother of Cats has put my needs first, but it certainly took her a long time to pay attention to how badly I needed this blankie.

I’m such a good boy!

Can I have some cookies now? Can I have them served on my blankie?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The finished blanket is really warm, thick and sturdy. It should be able to standup to claws and chomps for a long time.

The finished blanket is 3 feet long from point to point, and fits nicely on the bed, chairs, and of course the floor. MacKenzie prefers to have his blankie on the bed, of course! My project notes for this blanket are here.
MacKenzie is visibly struggling in the cold and I am sure that he has some type of arthritis. I’m hoping that the warm cushy wool is comforting on old bones; it is in weather like this that I remember that he is a 16 year old cat.
I also did the little bit of finishing on my last sweater and got a not-great photo of it since I had to stay indoors. Ta-daa! Here is my Understated Sweater (Joji Locatelli).

I am considering making the sleeves wrist length, but am test driving the shorter version for a few weeks. I am making matching socks and may have enough yarn left over to make wrist warmers that will extend the warmth on my arms on cold days. I love the endless individuality that knitting my own stuff gives me.

My project notes for the Understated Sweater are here.
MacKenzie is not kidding about the cold. We broke a record here in the Denver area this morning with a new low of 3°F this morning. Brrr!
The blankie ate up 7 skeins of yarn! The destash project is looking good!

MacKenzie Speaks: Massive Slip and Panic Knitting

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

Do you see this knitting that I’m trying to get a claw into? There is a story about this hunk of wooly goodness…

The Mother of Cats has been staying indoors for the last couple of weeks avoiding the cold and babying her ill behaved hip, knitting like crazy on ANOTHER sweater. It is almost like she is on fire to get lots of knitting done. Whatever could have set her off?

The Mother of Cats had a MAJOR SLIP and bought all of this yarn last month for her birthday. She needs to get 50 skeins of yarn out of the stash and she did something like this?!!

Bad Mother of Cats. How could she be so undisciplined and go shopping for yarn for herself? She needs to buy stuff for me!!! More cookies! Another little cat for me to chase around!! A new blankie for me to sleep on. She is so thoughtless and self-absorbed.

Of course, as soon as she got this yarn home she began to knit even faster than ever and started neglecting me more then she should. She never lets me go outside anymore, and I am positive that I haven’t been getting as many cookies as I used to. Where are my new toys? I can hardly cope with this lack of attention.

She did leave one skein unwound until the very end of the knitting so I could sleep with it. Do you like how this yarn looks with my fur? This is Chasing Rabbits Merinolux DK yarn in the colorway Colorful September.

The Mother of Cats has been really selfish about sharing her knitting with me…

But when you get down to it the Mother of Cats really is no match for me. I try to keep a paw on the knitting at all times.

The Mother of Cats finished the sweater today and then washed it (WHY does she do these things? That nice yarn absolutely did not deserve to be dumped into water in the sink! I watched it closely and it never did anything that would warrant just extreme measures…).

But then the Mother of Cats spread the wet sweater out to dry on towels on the floor. Oh. I really like wet wool. Maybe the Mother of Cats did this for me. Maybe she does think about me a little bit.

Would you believe that the Mother of Cats put another layer of towels on top of the sweater so I couldn’t got to the wet wool? WHY DOES SHE DO THESE THINGS? Now we need to wait another day or two before we can take the picture of the finished sweater. Oh wait… maybe we will get to go outside to do that!! Things may be looking up.

I love to go outside.

I’m such a good boy.

Can I have some cookies now?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

I have been making really good progress on the yarn destash project, and by the end of September I had used up or removed 49 skeins from the stash. Feeling really confident on my ability to make the 50 skein goal I went wild and bought that fabulous navy/blue/green yarn from Chasing Rabbits.
I also decided to make this cat for a Christmas present and bought some yarn for that too…
I needed an assortment of mohair and alpaca yarns to build the buff tabby cat that I want to knit. Because the designer combined three yarns together to create the texture of the cat’s fur I needed several skeins, but the knitting will consume them fairly quickly because… knit three strands at once. I also bought some dark brown and black yarns because… MacKenzie. My cousin, who had just gone to Peru, also sent me alpaca yarn. When the dust settled I had acquired 8 more skeins of yarn for the cat.
Suddenly I had put another 16 skeins of yarn into the stash. Oops! Panic knitting time!! I cranked up into overdrive and began on an Understated Sweater by Joji Locatelli last week and cast it off today. My project notes are here. 6 skeins polished off just like that! My skein count is now 39 removed from the stash and I am again hopeful that I will make the goal. I do have another sweater that I want to start soon that should consume lots of skeins, so I am hopeful. Then there will be the Christmas knitting…
It is cold and snowy here today, but hopefully I will be able to get a picture of the finished sweater in the next day or two.

MacKenzie Speaks: She’s Casting On Again!!

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

The Mother of Knits and I have been working really hard lately and we have been making progress on her projects.

She whipped up a simple pair of socks with this yarn that she really likes: Concrete Sunset sock yarn dyed by Western Sky Knits. Her project notes are here.

I’ve been closely supervising her work on the Koivua sweater all week. This is starting to look pretty good, huh. Will the Mother of Cats let me sleep on this stunning and fluffy new cat bed? No. She will not. I keep trying to explain it to her, but she is so self absorbed! Always, it is about her needs and she never leaves it out for me to nap on.

This week the Mother of Cats realized that she had NOTHING to knit in bed while listening to audiobooks. There was a panicky search of the yarn stash (woohoo! I love helping the Mother of Cats in the stash room!) and a search for patterns on the computer and in her pattern notebooks. I helped her look for patterns by plopping my body down on all of the ones that I thought looked good. Why does the Mother of Cats get so emotional while I’m helping her? I only scratched her a little bit while scrabbling through the papers… Anyway, after finding the yarns and patterns we were ready to wind the yarn and get going on casting on lots of new knitting fun. I love winding yarn!!! The Mother of Cats needs to do things like this that I like more often. She can be so boring sometimes…

We picked these two yarns to make a Mount Moran Lace Cowl. I can’t wait to make this!

The Mother of Cats’ feet get cold all the time now. We decided that this yarn would be perfect to make her some yummy cashmere bed socks. Oh. Now that I look at this again it would also be good to make another Mount Moran Lace Cowl. Hmmm… maybe we need to go look through the stash for some more yarn for socks. Woohoo! More play time!!

The Mother of Cats and I decided to make another Suburban Wrap by Joji Locatelli with this yarn. I can’t wait to get started on this one!

But the project that got started right away was another simple pair of socks that can be knitted while listening to audiobooks in bed in the evenings. I always sleep on the Mother of Cats legs and help her keep track of her rows while she works. It is my favorite time of the day/night.

Do you notice that any of these projects are for me? No, you DO NOT!! Not one of these projects is for me after all that work I did to help her find patterns and yarn. There is no mouse here! Where is the new cat bed or kitty blanket? Why is the Mother of Cats so very, very selfish!!

Okay, I’m calm again. I do love knitting with the Mother of Cats. Okay, it isn’t as good as going outside to play in the yard, but she does remember to pay attention to me in the evenings. I get my favorite cat food for dinner, she pets me while we knit, I usually get to chomp yarn, Little Miss Pitty Pat comes out to play and eat her dinner, and I get to sleep on the down comforter on the bed. Life is okay with the Mother of Cats.

Why does she do these HORRIBLE THINGS to me?

That’s right. Today she crammed me into the pet carrier and took me to the vet’s office for SHOTS!!! The horror. The betrayal. There were dogs there!!!! Why does the Mother of Cats do these things to me? She did give me some kitty cookies when I got back, but it was just AWFUL!!!

I have been sleeping since getting back from the horrible adventure this afternoon, but I’m going to get up in a few minutes to demand that I have another yummy serving of cat food and then a trip outside to play with the bugs and squirrels. She owes me! Then it will be knitting time and I’ll be chomping yarn overtime because… she owes me!!

I’m such a good boy!

Can I have some cookies now?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats: I’ve got nothing, MacKenzie said it all! Let’s hope he stays sleepy from his vaccinations so I can cast on a couple of new projects this evening because this yarn is too stupendous to ignore. 🙂

Koivua Days in my Garden

What a wonderful week it has been. I’ve been out in the yard for a couple of hours every day with MacKenzie and a book or my knitting. The buzz of cicadas echo in the trees over my head, the squirrels frolic along the fence, and the flowers are starting to bloom again after the blazing heat of July. Life is good, I’ve raced through two books and last week started a couple of new knitting projects that are keeping my interest and making me happy. Let me show off my current knitting love, Koivua.

How beautiful is this!! I’ve just separated the arms from the body of the sweater and it is time for me to attach the rose yarn again to start the next colorwork chart for the body. Here are my project notes if you want more info about the yarns. The flowering plant is lantana, and it just burst back into bloom this week. This is what happens when you give plants some Miracle Gro… I’m wondering if this plant will survive the winter if I plant it at the end of the season. It will be a plant experiment!

Sweater in progress. — Sturgill sweater.

I had some issues with the planning of this sweater. The pink is left over from this sweater that I knitted last winter, Sturgill by Caitlin Hunter. I really liked the contrast of the rose variegated yarn with the grey, so I ran right out and bought some grey tweed yarn to use with my leftover rose yarn to make a Koivua. Good plan, right? Then I thought about things a little more. Looking at my Sturgill you can see that the variegated nature of the two yarns made it hard to see the colorwork pattern in the sweater. I liked that effect in Sturgill, but maybe I shouldn’t make another sweater that had the same fuzzy pattern effect going on with the same colorways. I snuck out to the yarn store and bought some yarn that would give me more contrast with the variegated rose yarn. I was on the hunt for a nice neutral cream yarn.

Bingo! Look at what I found at the yarn store that opened just a few miles away from me. This Kelbourne Scout is a new yarn for me, but this won’t be the last time I buy it! It isn’t superwash, but it is really bouncy and soft. Just what I needed to show off the pattern.

Buying 5 skeins of yarn puts me back a little on my yarn destash project, so I need to really start knitting fast now. I casted right on and after a couple of days I had this:

The cream yarn knitted up wonderfully: it is bouncy, has a slight halo, and shows off the pattern well. I’m happier than ever about the yarn color switch as this cream really brightens up the rose yarn.

I’m much happier with the cream colored yarn than I thought I would be. I tend to avoid light colors in yarns, but this time it was the right decision as the colors in the rose yarn are just shining. The yarn is such a joy to handle I’ve been working outside in my garden swing in the late mornings with little gardening breaks.

Butterflybush bloom — My butterfly bush is finally getting its act together and producing some blooms. Okay, I had to baby it a little bit; I sprayed all the baby blooms with Neem oil to protect them from insects and then started deep soaking the bush a couple times a week using a big bucket and a drip line. Success! Doesn’t this bloom remind you of the yarn in my new sweater? I probably should give this bush some Miracle Gro too.

I am on fire to get the sweater done by the end of the month, but that probably won’t happen since I need to keep on babying my wrists (which are much better), and life keeps on getting in the way. Still, I am hopeful that the next report on my destash project will be a good one. 50 skeins… I can do it… must stay out of the yarn stores…

It feels like the height of summer with the flowers and the buzz of insects, but there are a lot of crickets and some of the leaves on the trees are starting to turn yellow. The kids in the neighborhood have all returned to school, and it is only a few weeks away from the colors of fall. Yep. Must knit faster!!

Update on the Suburban Wrap:

The wrap arrived safely in California earlier this week and it has already gone to school!

My knitworthy niece is a music teacher, and the wrap traveled to school with her as she met her students this week.

Where it also looks pretty good on my grandniece, who is a student at the school where my niece teaches. How fitting that this wrap should be in a classroom devoted to artistic expression and worn by such knitworthies!

It’s a Wrap!

I have finally finished the Suburban Wrap for my totally Knitworthy niece and popped it into the mail today. Check out this piece of wonderfulness!

I am so happy with the looks and drape of this wrap.

The knitworthy niece showing off her fabulous mitts!! — Do you remember the Knitworthy niece? Here she is flashing the fabulous mitts that I made her last winter. Yep, that it winter in California in the background there. Green grass… how odd! We won’t even talk about that tree trunk next to her!

My niece saw the Suburban Wrap by Joji Locatelli on her facebook feed, shared the post with me, and the rest was history. As soon as I saw it I knew that this was a knit that was calling my name. I dug in the stash, sent her some yarn choices, and after finishing up some works in progress I cast on and got to work several weeks ago.

My niece loves color (did you notice her hair?), and as soon as I showed her this yarn combo it was the one. All of these yarns were already in the stash… win!

This project was just one chunk of fun knitting after another. So much fun, in fact, that I got into a little tendonitis trouble because I knit too long at a time as I raced along to get to the next color section. Lace. Stripes. Textured knitting. An interesting shape and rows that were a manageable stitch count. In other words, everything that a knitter’s heart could want. My project notes on Ravelry are here.

This afternoon I popped the wrap into a box and mailed it off to California where I hope it will be useful in the cool evenings to come. It made my heart happy to send it off. I can’t wait to hear that it has arrived safely.

Then I hit the yarn stash hunting for some yarn, in more sedate colors, to make one for myself.

Knitting Speed Bump

A few weeks ago I went to see my primary care physician for help with shortness of breath and joint pain. I totally scored! I walked out of there with a tetanus shot (fail), inhaled steroids to control my small airway disease (win) and an anti-inflammatory gel to put on my swollen, painful joints (huge win). What a difference to my life these new medications have made. I can breath! I can walk without pain! I can sleep through the night! This is huge, people. Take that Sjogren’s and scleroderma! Feeling so much better I began to spend more hours up and about, and there was a lot more knitting happening too.

I got some socks finished right up. Here are my project notes.

I made a lot of progress on my Suburban wrap and was lured into knitting more than usual because I just had to get into the next section of the wrap. This is such a fun project with lots of color, texture and lace interest. So addictive. So hard to walk away from…

Oops. Then this happened.

One of the problems of getting better is that swelling is going down and the tissue is tightening up on some of my joints. My knees are really tight. My wrists are stiff. When I knit my joints loosen, so I thought I was helping them stay flexible. That is probably true to a certain point, but I guess I now need to be careful to not overdo things. Sigh. I am using the tendons in my left hand the most since I knit continental, and I push the yarn over the needle with my middle finger for each purl stitch. I’m really fast that way, but my tendons have totally rebelled in my left hand and wrist. To make things worse I can’t take NSAIDS or any other anti-inflammatory drug because of my scleroderma-battered kidneys and stomach. Sigh. My doctor ordered a knitting hiatus.

I want to be a compliant patient, really I do. I read a couple of books, managed to get through a couple of days without knitting, and then I snapped. I must knit!! Want knit now!! Knit, knit, knit. Why go on if I can’t knit? Sniff. Obviously this is totally unacceptable and I am going to figure out how to knit in spite of this bad boy wrist. Really, my left hand is the one having trouble, so maybe I can work around that. I tried to tension the yarn in lots of creative ways before I remembered that lots of people on the planet hold the yarn in their right hands. English knitting. I have never mastered purling English style, but now I’m really motivated!

I was in the last striped section of the wrap when disaster struck; stockinette means I have to purl back every other row.

I managed to continental knit with the brace on (okay, it is a little loose) and am moving my left hand very little by working slowly and relying on my right hand.

Working very slowly I am also managing to purl back English style. So slow. So awkward. So much safer for babying rebellious tentons.

Last night I finished the stripes and am ready to enter the last section of garter eyelet. Yay. Knit all the way! I can do this! Then it is into the last, ribbed section of the wrap.

Ribbing. That is going to be slow going. I think that I will check out Norwegian purling. Somehow I need to do this without moving my fingers too much. Yay. A new stitch to learn.

I’m on it!

Take that, scleroderma. You are messing with the wrong knitter!!

The Yard Destash Resolution: Half Year Report

It’s summer now. I can hardly believe it, things have gone by so quickly. I’m feeling pretty darn good these days and have been steadily working my way through projects around the house and in the yard. It is cutting into the knitting time, but I’m still being pretty productive.

Mr. Demanding is hanging out with me in the yard while I work on projects out there.

Yep. I’m out of the flare! It was only about 2 weeks this time, which is something like a record. I credit my dermatologist and the new antibiotic/anti-inflammatory that she started me on for this. Scleroderma/Sjogren’s/fibromyalgia begone!! Okay, they are still misbehaving on a daily basis, but I have energy, my brain fog is gone, and I am up doing stuff every day. Good days.

Anyway, back to the knitting and the yarn destash project. Back in January I cleaned and organized my stash, gave myself a good mental shake, and resolved to use/remove at least 50 skeins of yarn from the stash. I made great progress over the winter, had a little slip when I went to the Interweave Yarn Fest, and have been catching up from the setback since then. Here’s what I have finished since my last report:

I finished up my V-Neck Boxy sweater by Joji Locatelli. Skeins used: 3

I cranked out this Nordiska sweater by Caitlin Hunter pretty quickly. I love, love, love the colorwork in this one. Skeins used: 3.

I collected the yarns for a pair of No. 5 Union Street socks to match some new shoes. Then I made matching arm warmers. There was still yarn left over, so I made some mitts. I still have some of the silver grey and bits of the others… a cowl? I’m having so much fun! Total skeins used: 2

I’m also cranking out socks with single skeins of yarn that are lurking in the stash. This was a colorway from Chasing Rabbits produced for my LYS called Colorful January. Skeins used: 1

I still have a some projects on the needles: a Suburban Wrap, a What the Fade?! shawl, and another pair of socks. All this knitting brought me up to 25 skeins used this year, so I am right on the pace to meet my resolution.

Tomorrow is my DIL’s birthday so she took a tour through the stash hunting for some gift yarn. Woohoo! She took 5 skeins of yarn that I don’t really love or have a specific project for, and three skeins that will make a fabulous Suburban Wrap of her own; those three are a set that I love and felt a pang in letting go, so they make the gift.

All of this yarn headed out the door with my DIL this afternoon. Yay!! The three on the right will become the Suburban Wrap and the others were colors that I bought for her in the first place or didn’t love anymore. I’m so happy that they are going to a good home.

There has been a surge in the Destash Resolution project. With the skeins that just left the building I am now up to 33.5 total skeins used/removed this year. Yay! Some of those yarn bins are getting kind of empty and it will be time to reorganize the stash soon. I already have two sweaters and another wrap organized and waiting to move into the knitting workroom, and the goal of 50 skeins is suddenly in reach. Woohoo! Maybe I should up the total?

Best to not get cocky! I’ll just keep knitting on and let’s see what happens.

Happy 4th of July everyone who is celebrating that holiday.

Hello Summer: Rainy Day Knits

Yesterday was the first day of summer. It was a cold and gloomy day. It rained, it hailed, it snowed in the mountains. The afternoon was filled with flashes of lightening and the booms of thunder. I kept the television on and watched the footage of a storm chaser stalking a supercell on the plains east of me while I knitted. (Here’s a supercell shot by Meteorologist Cory Reppenhagen last month.) Yep, just another crazy day in Colorado.

Hello summer. I thought you would never get here.

There has been so much water over the last two weeks it has been astonishing. I’m not complaining, really I’m not. The water is free, I don’t have to pay to put any on the lawn, and unlike many others in the United States, I haven’t sustained damage. Okay, the roses have taken a couple of hits and there was the matter of a destroyed tree, but I’m still grateful that we weren’t hit by a flash flood (even through the phone went off with a flash flood alert one day this week…) or baseball sized hail. Life is good.

I’ve been attacking the yard in the short rain-free openings in the weather, but mostly I have been knitting. There has been lots of knitting. Check it out:

I’ve made a lot of progress on a Suburban Wrap (Joji Locatelli) for my extremely knitworthy niece. This is such a fun knit: because of the color and pattern changes I just keep knitting and knitting so that I can get to the next fabulous section. My project notes are here.

I’m also knitting on my new arm warmers that will match my No. 5 Union Street socks that I made a few weeks ago. I’m having so much fun knitting on these in the evenings while listening to The Clockmaker’s Daughter. The book is excellent, full of rich detail and compelling characters who are introduced as the story evolves; the story is centered around a remarkable old home. How fitting that I’m listening to this book as I knit arm warmers that are designed to reflect the architectural details of an old home located at No. 5 Union Street in Stonington, Connecticut. My project notes are here.

I have another What the Fade?! shawl going too. I love brioche knitting (after surviving a rather traumatizing learning curve that left me dreaming nightmares that involved picking up dropped brioche stitches…), and this shawl is the one that I pick up in the evenings while binge watching Netflix. My project notes are here.

Finally I have this little sock going as there always has to be a small project that can be stuffed into a bag that can head out on a trip with me at a moments notice. This is another of my ubiquitous 64 stitch vanilla socks based on the Dave pattern by Rachel Coopey.

Today is the second day of summer, and guess what is happening outside? Yep, you guessed it: it is raining!

As soon as I get this posted I will be settling down to knit. Again. June is going to be a pretty productive month when I total up all of the yarn that has been used up this month. The “Get 50 Skeins Out of the Stash” resolution project is looking pretty good at the moment.

I just have to get some of these projects done! Maybe I can just weigh them to figure out how much yarn has been used by the end of June? Must knit faster!

Have a great (knitting) weekend everyone!