Three on Thursday - Is if fall yet?

Now that the 4th of July is in the wind, I have fall fever.  No, I don't want the weather to turn cold so that I have to stop floating in the pool but... I could really go for jeans, a flannel shirt, a fire in the fire pit and some hot spiced tea.

Between my fall fever and Virginia's July heat and humidity, I need to be knitting small, tiny things.  Things that don't lay in my lap.  Things that never even touch my lap.  And so, for today's Three on Thursday, three hat patterns.

Halloween Knit Hat by Holly G. Hats

A hat for Halloween!  What could be better for fall fever knitting in July?  It could also be a good stash buster project, although I don't think I have an appropriate purple or green in my stash.  Perhaps I need to go yarn shopping.

1898 Hat by Kristine Byrnes

I may have mentioned this one before.  I've downloaded the pattern multiple times but for some reason, I've never knit it.  It looks fairly simple, easy and quick to knit, all things right up my alley.

Do any of  you have to use a radio for work?  It's been ten months since I left my job, but the instant I saw that dude's radio, I could feel my finger flexing as if to push the talk button and my old radio call sign popped into my head.  Gosh, habits are hard to break!

Ombre Hat by Emily Dormier

I've been wanting to knit an Ombre Hat for a while.  I think this would be a great stash buster project and I am all about stash busting these days!

I hope you enjoy these free hat patterns and that you'll join me for Three on Thursday.

The Pool

Bliss!  We finally got the pool up and running.  Well, not running per say - we still need a replacement part and a ton of salt.  But there's water in the pool and that's what's important.

First, the pool guys removed the old, mangled liner then they added a new layer of sand.

Then they installed a new liner.

Then the tanker truck showed up and brought us a load of water.  Can you see the ice cubes coming out of that hose?  Okay, there may not have been actual cubes, but that was some seriously cold water!

The next day the tanker truck brought us a second load of water.  It was a beautiful day and Zack and family showed up for a visit and we all ended up getting in the pool.  It wasn't bad once your heart started beating again.  It was a little chilly but really, within minutes of getting in, you were so numb you didn't feel the cold.

And yes, I was kind to my family and didn't take any photos of anyone in their bathing suit.  Well, no one except my own foot.

And the next day the temperature dropped 15 degrees and it rained all day.

Palette Sampler Sweater

Even if we couldn't get in the pool, it was nice to sit out on the covered deck and knit while watching the rain fall into the pool.  Definitely didn't have to worry about being too hot!

On a completely different note... How many of you are Blogger bloggers?  What is up with Blogger??  I chose to switch to the new format early so that I could get used it it but didn't notice much difference.  A slight change in layout for Stats and such but no big deal.  Then the other day, the entire site was completely different. Completely confusingly different. It took me an extra 45 minutes to write a simple blog post because the new format was so convoluted.  And now, I'm back to the old, original format with no changes what so ever.  Is it me, or is it Blogger?

The Palette Sweater

Remember my yarn stash post last week?  Remember the box of 22 skeins of red, orange and brown Palette from Knit Picks?  I purchased the majority of those skeins as a value pack ages ago.  I think the pack was called Fire but I really don't remember.  It may have been named Ember, or Fire and Embers.  I don't know.  It had something to do with fire and the name really makes absolutely no difference here.  

So, moving on....

I had the big value pack of reds, oranges and browns and I had a few more of the same colored skeins already in the stash so I combined them all together.  Some are not full skeins, but most are.  What to do with them?

Palette Sweater

I decided to knit a sweater with them.  I'm holding two skeins together (one red/orange and one brown) and I'm doing a not so great job of fading them.   I started off with the first skeins of red and brown and knit until I got bored, cut the brown, added a different brown and kept knitting.  When I got bored with that combo, I cut the red, added a different one and kept knitting.  

I was pretty happy with it until I wasn't.  I can't decide.  There are three skeins of "orange" that are more coral or pink and are much lighter than all the other reds and oranges.  While I LOVE the coral colors, I'm not sure I love them in this sweater.  But, I'm going to keep going with it because I didn't think I loved the first color combo either.  

I think this sweater may be like a scrap yarn mitered square blanket.  Sort of hideous when you look at it close up and none of the colors coordinate well, but gorgeous from a distance.  If that turns out not to be the case here, then well, I'll have a sweater to wear around the house when I'm doing housework, painting or doing some type of dirty, clothes staining work.

Hopefully I'll have a sweater I won't be too embarrassed to wear in public but if not, it's not a great loss.  The idea, after all, is to use up some of my yarn.

I am lightly kicking myself for not simply knitting an original So Faded sweater but.... I am using up more yarn at a faster rate this way.  And that is the goal.

Three on Thursday - Stash Busting

As much as I love LOVE receiving giant boxes of yarn in the mail, I have to admit, I'm enjoying this whole forced stash busting thing COVID-19 is causing. And thus, three more stash buster project ideas...

Leftovers Sweater by Julie Philip

I love this idea and I especially love how the sweater on the right has been embellished with what I assume is embroidery.

Slip Stitch Stash Hat by Renee Rico

Or how about this beauty?  It always amazes me the effect a simple slipped stitch can have.

Northeasterly by Skeinanigans

Now, this is my kind of pattern.  I can knit for as long or short as I wish with a color before changing.  I can knit it long enough to be a full sized blanket, a baby sized blanket, a scarf, or even a table runner.  The knitter calls the shots!  A friend from my knitting group is knitting one of these and ever since I saw hers, I've been thinking I need to cast one on.  She's using her Advent kit yarns but I would just used stashed yarns.  Although.... it would be a good excuse to sign up for one of those kits.  Hmmm...

Hope you'll join me for Three on Thursday.

Three on Thursday - Stash Busting

We're all stuck in our homes, the grocery stores are empty and our local yarn shops are closed. The only thing left to do is dive into that yarn stash pile.  Thank goodness for a giant yarn stash!  I don't know what those poor knitters who don't stash will do.  My heart goes out to them.

Besides stashing yarn, I'm also very, very happy about my tendency to hoard hand lotions.  My family have always made fun of me for it, or more honestly, been irritated with me over it, but they aren't complaining now!  With all this hand washing, we're going through some hand lotion!

But back to knitting and yarn....

What can we knit with all that stashed yarn?  Assuming the majority of your stash is like mine and made up of mostly fingering weight, single skeins rather than sweater quantities of gorgeous hand dyed yarns....  What can a knitter knit?  Other than the 10-stitch and mitered square blankets that instantly come to mind when planning a stash busting project, that is.  And free, since so many of us are out of work due to the nasty "C" word....

Yarn End Mittens by Kathy Lewinski

How about a pair or two of Yarn End Mittens?  They'd definitely be a great way to use up some small scraps of leftover yarn.

The Age of Brass and Steam by Orange Flower Yarn

Looking to use up a full skein?  How about knitting The Age of Brass and Steam?  As written, the pattern is for a kerchief but it could easily be made larger by knitting more pattern repeats.

Smitten by Emily Ivey

Or, perhaps you'd like to get ahead on the holidays.  This mitten garland would be adorable hanging just about anywhere in your house and you could even tuck little gifts or candies into them.  Individually, they'd make great tree ornaments and/or gift toppers.  The pattern is Smitten by Emily Ivey.

I hope you are all surviving this COVID-19 ordeal and will join me over at Carole's for today's Three on Thursday link up.  

Stay well, stay sane, and knit on!

Stash Busting

Have I even shown you the shawl I'm knitting?

Stash Buster Shawl

I know it's made an appearance on Instagram for my 'post every single day in February' challenge but I'm fairly certain I haven't mentioned it here.

Anyway....

I'm stash busting.  One of my yarn dressers had two drawers of nothing but Wool of the Andes and I decided that needed to change.  I pulled it all out and stuck the sweater/big project quantities back into a drawer.  Next I separated the blues, grays and reds from the greens, pinks and purples.  I am definitely a creature of habit!  All but 3 skeins fell into those color categories!  

I arranged the greens and pinks into a pleasing, (Hopefully. I'm terrible at picking out colors,) display; added two of the three miscellaneous colors into the mix and cast on a shawl. 

Wool of the Andes Stash Buster Shawl

As you can see, it's pretty big.  The idea is for it to be a giant shawl that I can wrap up in almost like using a blanket.  The idea is to also use all that yarn I pulled out of the drawer.  You can also see that I'm not worrying about where the yarns stop and start.  I simply start a new one when the old one runs out.  I don't even want any little, tiny balls of leftover yarns when this project is through.  All I want is a big, giant shawl and an empty drawer.

If I stick to my original color stripe plan, I have three more skeins plus the border to go.  I'm not sure if I'll add the border or not.  It's already pretty big and being garter stitch, it's going to grow considerably when I block it.  I don't want it to end up being so big it looks like a weirdly colored bridal train.  We'll see how it goes.

Despite my urge to hurry up and be done with it, this has been a fun project to knit.  For the most part, I change colors after every two skeins of yarn.  When you're used to knitting 450 yard skeins of fingering weight, Wool of the Andes' 110 yard worsted skeins knit up pretty quickly.  The constant color changes help keep it interesting.  Also, being all garter, I can read while I knit.  That helps a lot too.  Also being all garter and thus 100% mindless, it's a good social knitting project.  The pattern I'm using is Grain  although I'm not sure I can claim to be "using" the pattern.  I simply looked at the start up row and made the shawl my own from there on.

And now, I'm off to clean the bathroom mirror and brush my hair.  Based on that photo, I think both of those things need to happen before I spend any more time knitting.

Knitting with books

There hasn't been too much knitting nor reading going on here this past week.  I've knit a few more rows on my Honeycomb sweater,

and I'm still reading The E Myth.  I'm a little upset with myself for neither meeting my knitting nor my reading goal last week.  I'm proud of what I've accomplished instead though.

Instead of knitting and reading, I've been purging my junk.  Over the last few weeks, I've taken three full car loads of junk to Goodwill, the used book shop and/or other collection places.  I'm proud of that, I just wish you could look around the house and tell.  Good grief!

Did I mention I was going minimalist?


Okay, I'll pause while you clean the coffee spit off your computer screen.


I know - me, a minimalist.  It is a pretty funny idea. And I'll never be a true minimalist.  Just the idea of it makes me twitch.  But.... you know how hard headed I am.... and when I jokingly told my family I was considering becoming a minimalist, they all laughed just a little too hard.  So of course now, I'm out to prove I meant it.

I'm getting rid of all my stuff, needed, wanted or not, simply because I'm stubborn and feel the need to say 'I told you so' to my family.  Good Lord.

If you're interested, you can help me out by checking out my Etsy shop.  I've been listing a few crafty items there each day.  They are all under the Stash Buster section and if you buy four things, I'll refund the shipping fees.  So please, take a look & help me get rid of my stuff quickly so I can scream 'I told you so!' at my family then get back to hoarding restocking the craft room.  I've got a lot more to list so check back often.

Join me and many other's over at Ginny's Yarn Along to discuss what books we are reading while we knit.  Or in my case, what I'm not knitting or reading.