On The Needles

Test knitting a cowl for Chris Knits

Enjoying my morning coffee and a little outdoor knitting before I head into work this afternoon.  Trying to cram in as much knitting time as I can now because it's Halloween Haunt and the hours are long.  I won't get much knitting done over the weekend.

Three on Thursday - OTN

Today's Three on Thursday post is going to be quick and dirty.  I just so happen to have three projects currently on the needles...

Three projects currently on the needles

1.  Top left is the dish cloth styled baby blanket. I keep thinking I'm almost ready to start fading into the next color but... Sadly, the blanket is at that stage where even if you knit on it for eight hours a day for three days straight, there is no measurable increase in knitted fabric.  But one day... one day soon I hope, I'll measure it and discover it has suddenly grown six or seven inches since I last measured it fifteen minutes ago.  

The yarn I'm using is the no longer available Sock Labs Stroll from Knit Picks.  I'm quite sad to see the yarn sold out.  It's a delight to knit with.

2.  In the middle is the world's widest sock knit from Patons Kroy Sock in Rusty Stripes.  It's a simple vanilla sock and naturally I didn't do a gauge swatch.  I've knit with this yarn 1,000 times before and my notes in my knitting journal told me how many stitches and what needle size I needed.  My journal was wrong.  Very, very wrong.  

This is actually the second sock.  No SSS for me!  Anyway... For the first sock, I was several inches into it before I paid any attention and noticed that the tube I was creating for my calf was wide enough for my thigh, maybe even both thighs!  I didn't want to frog it and I'm not using top dollar hand spun/dyed yarn... so I just made a decrease row and kept on knitting.  When doing the gusset decreases (the socks are top down) I just kept decreasing until the sock was tight enough on my foot.  Okay, that's wrong.  I kept decreasing until the sock was Almost tight enough.  And I will do the same with the second sock.  And this pair will be the pair I wear when my feet and ankles swollen because I've had a long day on my feet and too much sodium.

3.  At the bottom right, we have the cowl/showl I'm test knitting for Chris Knits.  I finished the smallest size and had plenty of yarn left over so I kept on knitting.  I'm about halfway through the medium size and it looks like I still have enough yarn left to knit the largest version.  The yarn, Eucalyptus Leaves from Forbidden Fiber Co., is a delight to knit with so I'm happy to keep knitting as long as the yarn holds out. 

Oops.  I guess this post wasn't as quick and dirty as I expected it to be.  

Hope you'll join me over at Carole's for today's Three on Thursday celebration.

Current Cowl

I'm pretty psyched over here.  Chris from ChrisKnitsSews asked me to test knit her new cowl/showl pattern.  Have you ever heard the term showl?  I hadn't heard it used before I began reading about Chris's adventures designing her cowl but this week I've seen multiple people mention it.  In any event, in case you are in the dark like I was, a showl is a cross between a cowl and a shawl.  In other words, it's a cowl, but more shawl sized.  Cowl + shawl = showl.  Brilliant!

Anyway....

I'm test knitting Chris's newest showl design and it's going very well.

Current Cowl knit with Eucalyptus Leaves

The knitting is going much better than my photo taking, that's for sure!  With my work schedule, photos are either taken at 3:00 a.m. or or outdoors, in the bright, noon sun.  You're just going to have to take my word for it that the yarn I'm using is a gorgeous pale grayish green.

You can see Chris's finished version here.  Chris asked me to test knit the smallest size (there's a small, medium & large) but it looks like I'll have enough yarn so I'm going to knit the large one.  Or the medium, if the yarn doesn't hold out.  But I think it will.

Anyway, the pattern....  The smallest version is cowl sized and called Current Cowl.  The largest is definitely shawl sized and is therefore the Shoulder Showl.  The pattern isn't for sale yet but keep your eyes peeled for it.  You won't want to miss it.  I know I'll be knitting multiples.

The design is super simple to knit yet never boring.  You're constantly changing stitch patterns, yet the patterns repeat so it's easily remembered.  The cowl starts off being knit flat then gets joined in the round after a while.  By starting off flat, you get a sort of v-neck shape so that the finished showl doesn't bunch up weirdly around your neck.  I love patterns that incorporate this feature.

So yes, I'm loving knitting the cowl/showl.

And then there's the yarn.  Oh! My! Goodness!  I'm in SO much trouble!  I'm supposed to be using up/getting rid of/not buying any more yarn because we'll be moving soon and my yarn stash already requires it's own oversized moving van.  Then Chris tells me that if I test knit the pattern, she'll supply the yarn.  And she tells me to go to Forbidden Fiber Co. to pick out a skein.

Like there's a chance in Hell I could pick just one.  I think there are only two skeins on the whole website I didn't drool over.  I made Chris pick for me.  She picked Eucalyptus Leaves.

Eucalyptus Leaves Fortitude from Forbidden Yarn Co.

And I love it.  The skein I received isn't anywhere near as variegated as the photo shows, but for this project, I'm glad of it.  The yarn is by no means a solid green, but from looking at the photo I'd have expected it to be stripey or spotty.  It's not.  It's simply lovely.  It's a superwash merino, delightfully soft and has great stitch definition.  It also arrived super fast, which is always a good thing.

And did you see all the colors the yarn comes in?  I am in SO much trouble!  I should just go ahead and reserve a second moving van now.

And,

pumpkin stitch marker

The yarn came with The cutest little pumpkin stitch marker.  I just want to knit All the fall things with this little pumpkin's help.

Sunday Supper - Zucchini Boats

Tonight's Sunday Supper recipe is repeat meal for us and another one of those 'so simple it doesn't need a recipe' recipes.  Actually, there really isn't a recipe.  I'd seen one of those Facebook recipe things that pop up on my screen more often than I'd like and it sounded really good.  You sliced a zucchini very thinly, length wise. and wrapped it around a string cheese stick, baked it, then dipped it in tomato sauce.  So simple, I didn't bother writing down the recipe.

But when it came time to slice the zucchini thinly enough to wrap around a cheese stick... I didn't have much luck.  Using a knife didn't produce thin enough strips and using the slicer thing on my box grater didn't produce long enough slices.

Besides the trouble I was having slicing the zucchini properly, I was hungry and impatient for dinner.  Not to mention my husband was in the living room acting like a spoiled toddler and grumbling about how it didn't sound good and he wanted something else.  

But I was determined.  We were having zucchini, string cheese and a bottle of spaghetti sauce.

Those zucchini strips weren't having it though.  

I got an idea.  Instead of thinly slicing the zucchini into strips, I cut them in half length wise, scraped out the insides to form a 'canoe' shape.  I laid a cheese stick in the 'canoe', filled a deep frying pan with lots of zucchini canoes and poured a jar of sauce over and around them.  Not wanting to waste that first zucchini or all the scraped out 'guts', I minced the slices and dumped it all into the pan too, sort of stirring it into the sauce.  Then I put a lid on it and cooked it until the sauce was bubbling, the cheese was melted and I was too hangry to wait any longer.

By this time, the husband was hungry enough to try it and just like Mikey, he liked it!  The whole family liked it actually.  The spouse even liked it enough to ask that it be added to the routine meal rotation!  And of course, we gobbled it all down before it ever occurred to me to take a photo.

Fable Fur

I don't normally post on Saturdays but I am SO excited about a new yarn being offered by Knit Picks, I had to make an exception.  And yes, I could have waited until my normally scheduled Tuesday post to tell you about it, but Knit Picks is offering a coupon code on their home page for a free skein when you order a set of bulky interchangeable needles.  But hurry!  The coupon code expires on Monday.

Fable Fur from Knit Picks

Fable Fur.  Oh. My. Goodness!  

When Knit Picks introduced it a week or two ago I knew I'd either love it or hate it.  Fake fur things aren't normally my thing.  The mention of it does one of two things.  It either mentally sends me to a Walmart's clearance clothing aisle or it takes me back to the '80's and all those colorful 'fun fur' scarves we knit back in the day.  Neither of which are good things.  But it's Knit Picks and I am an affiliate (I'll be up front about that) and it's their new yarn.  I should try it.  So I ordered some.

And Oh. My. Goodness!

First of all, the yarn is crazy soft.  CRAZY soft!  

Second, it's bulky and knits up super fast. SUPER fast!

I stopped by my LYS to purchase US 15 needles because I didn't own any that large.  I went from the LYS to my knitting group meeting.  I sat down and cast on the Ephemeral Cowl, a free pattern designed for Fable Fur, knit a few rows, passed the cowl around for others to feel and pet, knit a few rows, moved to another table to chat with others, knit a few rows, passed the cowl around some more, knit a few more rows... Drove home, knit a few more rows, cast off, sewed the ends together (the cowl is knit flat,) wove in my ends and...

Presto Magic!  A ready to be gifted cowl, (Or kept for myself.  After all, who are we kidding here??)  knit in under 3 1/2 hours, start to finish.  

Ephemeral Cowl knit with Fable Fur

So to answer the question, Will I love it or will I hate it?   Oh, I definitely love it.  The daughter even loves it!  And yes, I've ordered more.  

And I'm sitting here thinking, "You know, that would make a really cool blanket."  I just might have to place a third order.

And since you might be wondering.... 

This cowl was knit with the Kuma colorway on US 15 needles.

I don't normally knit with bulky yarns.  Actually, I avoid them like the plague.  Bulky yarns make my hands hurt.  But this Fable Fur didn't.  Not at all.  

As for actually knitting with the yarn, it's probably not for absolute beginners.  I couldn't see my stitches, I had to feel for them.  Just like the 'fun fur' of the '80's.  But unlike that horrible fun fur of the '80's, the stitches were easy to feel.  The yarn is bulky after all and it's easy to tell if you have your needle in a stitch unlike that awful thread like, hairy stuff of back in the day.

And yes, if you are on my Christmas gift list, you can expect to receive a posh, fur cowl this year.

Wowza!

Apparently I've forgotten how to purl.

I'm embarrassed to even show the finished Newborn Vertebrae sweater.  For once I'm happy the photo is blurry and taken in bad lighting.  The shadows and blurriness help hide the flaws.

How could I botch something so simple, so badly?  Apparently I've forgotten how to purl.

When I think back to most, if not all my 2019 projects, they've been either stockinette in the round, flat garter or open lacework where the purl vs. knit gauge didn't matter that much.  But take a look...

Good grief!  Look at the difference between the body of the sweater knit flat and the sleeve knit in the round.  

Good stinking grief!

I need to go back to beginner's knitting class.

So, this little sweater will be saved for those days when the laundry hasn't been done in two weeks, baby is extra spitty, and they don't leave the house. 

Good grief!

An Ode to Mucinex

Has the blog seemed a little sparse lately?  Or maybe it's just my knitting that has been sparse.  I'm sorry to complain but I've had a bug.  It's not the flu and it's not a cold.  It's just some horrible, horrible bug.  The entire family has suffered from it.  All I can say is, thank God for Mucinex.  I literally don't think I'd have survived without the blue bottle.

The first symptoms were a sore throat and an overwhelming sleepiness.  These hit last Friday.  I thought perhaps my throat was sore from mumbling 'knit off, knit on, purl off, purl on" over and over and over again as I kitchnered my Madli's Shawl.  But no, my throat was just sore.  Luckily the sleepiness didn't hit until later in the afternoon.  The urge to sleep was so strong it was like having narcolepsy and being roofied at the same time.  It was literally an uncontrollable urge to sleep.  As in, falling asleep mid-sentence while sitting up.  By dinner time I was cursing my husband for bringing the bug into the house and chugging Mucinex.

Saturday I wasn't feeling well, but I wasn't dying and I knew it was going to be a crazy night at work so I went.  By the wee hours of Sunday morning I decided maybe I was dying and I started doing that thing where you cough so hard you vomit.  Fun  times!  Mucinex to the rescue.

By Monday afternoon, the bug had morphed into what felt like a bad cold. I felt awful, not actually dying awful, just wishing I'd die so it would end awful.  I couldn't stop sneezing long enough to eat and I blew my nose so much my skin bled.  Mucinex to the rescue.

And now, in the wee hours of Thursday morning, I'm starting to feel better.  I'm still hoarse and I my cough sounds like a seal barking, but I think I'll live.  Thank you Mucinex.

Madli's Shawl

I'm so proud of myself!

Way back in March I cast on Madli's Shawl.  It was supposed to have nupps but y'all know how I feel about them so I beaded it instead.  The pattern, from Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush, had me knit the border, then 31 repeats of the center lace section, cut the yarn, cast on and knit the second border, then kitchner the second border to the body.

I set the goal of having it completed by October 1st which had me knitting several lace repeats per week.  That doesn't sound difficult but considering my summer work schedule....  At one point I was 12 repeats behind schedule, but I've been on a finishing kick lately and I knuckled down and got her done.  

I knit the last row of the second border late Thursday night.  Friday morning, my daughter went off to school and my husband announced he was heading out for a few hours.  Perfect!  I'd have some quiet alone-time to kitchner those 101 stitches.  

Kitchner 101 stitches, with a two yards long piece of yarn.

Two yards.  Yards, not feet.

Have you ever tried to sew with a thread two yards long?

Let me modify that.  Have you ever tried to kitchner 101 stitches with a woolly thread two yards long that wants to felt to itself, on a Friday 13th?

Let me just say it is a VERY good thing there were no young children in the house because there was some very ugly language flying.  But, despite never having kitchnered anything longer than a sock toe, the fact that the woolly 'thread' wanted to felt to itself,  and it was Friday 13th, I got it done.  My two pieces of fabric matched up perfectly and you can't tell which end is which.  

I was so  happy with my kitchnering job that I immediately wove in all the little loose ends, soaked and blocked it.  I blocked something on the same day I finished it!

I am SO stinking proud of myself!

(So, I might not be proud of the photos, but I'm definitely proud of the finished shawl.)

Sunday Supper - Fall Vegetable Quinoa Soup

Sorry, no photos today.  The website I found today's Sunday Supper soup recipe on wasn't sharing pictures, but here's a link to Fall Vegetable Quinoa Soup.  

The soup contains lots of healthy ingredients and very little fat.  Although it has a shopping cart's worth of ingredients, it sounds like a fairly easy recipe to prepare and it doesn't take all day to cook.  I like that!  I also like that it has kale in it.  Kale is supposed to be so good for you but the only way I've found I can eat it is if it's hidden in soup.  I pretend it's spinach.  I like spinach.

So,  I hope you'll give this Fall Vegetable Quinoa Soup recipe from twopeasandtheirpod.com a try.  It sounds delicious.

On the Needles

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While the Te Ara mitts sit in time out, I started something new.

on the needles

Isn't it fabulous how it matches my yarn bowl?  It's like they were made for each other!

I imagine you can guess what I'm knitting.

Yes, it's a dish cloth style blanket knit with the green set of Sock Labs Stroll from Knit Picks.   Eventually the 'solid' green will fade into the speckled but I have a long way to go before that happens.

Sadly the Sock Labs Stroll is sold out but... Have you seen the new Hawthorne Sock Lab yarns?  Needless to say I'm, once again, anxiously awaiting my UPS driver.

Three on Thursday

It's Thursday, so you know what's coming...

Three exciting things to share that happened this week.

for sale

First, we listed our house for sale... and got a contract two days later.  I'm hesitant to even mention it.  I don't want to jinx it.  But I'm also super excited.  There are contingencies so it's not a 100% done deal but...

Second, I finally got a hair cut.  I went from,

before

to,

after

Yeah, nice blurry, highly cropped, bathroom selfies.  Sorry.

I'm loving the way the new hair looks but I'm hating the way it behaves.  It's constantly in my face.  Constantly!  I may go try something different next week.

Madli's Shawl

Third, I finished the 'body' of the Madli's Shawl and am half way through the final border.  The border is knit separately then grafted onto the body.  My goal has been to finish this shawl by October 1st and it looks like I'll make it.  

Join me over at Carole's for today's Three on Thursday party.

Te Ara

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I may be knitting a pair of Te Ara mitts, 

photo courtesy of Wikipedia

but I'm certainly not getting a tiara for my efforts.

Te Ara Mitts

Things were going so well until that last row of cabling.

I'm not sure what to do about it.  It's three rows back.  Three rows is a lot of tinking.  I know, I know, there are only 52 stitches per row.  It's not That much tinking... but it sure feels like a lot.  But frogging those rows and trying to pick the cabled stitches back up seems scarier.

This mitt may end up in the time-out corner for a while.

magnetic cable needles

It's only escape may be my fascination with my new cable needles.  I bought them because I liked the way they look.  They're bamboo with a metal section in the center.  I thought the metal was purely for decoration but it turns out, they stick to a magnet.  So, if you're using one of those magnetized chart keepers....

Magnetic or not, I love these new cable needles.  There's five of them in different sizes and the join between the bamboo and the metal is just course enough to hold the stitches well.  It's not so rough that it snags the stitches, but they don't accidentally slip off.  I wonder if that was planned.

As for project details, I am/was knitting the mitts with Knit Pick's Palette in Spruce and using a US2 needle.  I really like Spruce's bluey-greenness.

Sunday Supper - Cabbage & Sausage

Today's Sunday Supper recipe is super simple.  So super simple it doesn't require an actual recipe.  

At the moment, my 'let's get healthy'  eating plan consists of eating home cooked meals, eating more vegetables and cutting out boxed foods.  I'm also trying to eat more in-season foods.  I figure not only are they healthier but they also help with the budget.  In theory.

Anyway....

photo courtesy of amazon.com

Today's 'recipe' is cabbage and sausage.  So, so simple!  

Open a tube of pork sausage (we use Jimmy Dean's usually) and dump it into a large, hot frying pan.  Break the log up by smashing it with a spatula.  

While the sausage is cooking (remember to stir it around and break up the lumps a little more,) chop a head of cabbage in slightly larger pieces than you'd use for making coleslaw.  My go-to method is to cut the cabbage in half, remove the stem part, the slice each half in quarter inch slices, then turn the cutting board and cut across those slices two or three times.

Once the sausage is no longer pink, drain most of the grease off, add the cabbage, shake on some garlic salt and lots of pepper, stir, cover, and let cook, stirring occasionally, until the cabbage reaches your desired softness.  Personally I like mine tender but not mushy.  I also like to turn the heat up a little, remove the lid and let some of it brown.

I used to make this with bacon, but bacon is more expensive and my husband eats it like I eat chocolate.  I couldn't keep bacon on hand.  One shopping trip, there was a sausage display near the vegetable section and I was feeling lazy.  Instead of walking back to the back of the store to grab the forgotten bacon, I grabbed a thing of sausage.  It all comes from the same animal, right?

I discovered that I like the sausage version better.  It's less greasy and not as fiddly as cooking bacon.  Did I mention I'm lazy??  Another benefit to the sausage version is that it's Much better at room temperature than the bacon version.  At work, I end up eating all my meals at room temperature because I'm considered on call and I don't get a dinner break.  I heat my food in the microwave, and the very moment the timer goes off, a line of people waiting for my help forms.  I deal with the line, reheat my food and Bam!  Another line has formed.  I've given up trying to eat hot food and have learned to eat everything at room temperature.  And the less greasy sausage version is Much better at room temperature.

Another Finish

I have another FO to show you.

Eclipse

Eclipse.  Actually, it's a modified Eclipse.  

Per the pattern, it should have an additional purple section but I purposely left it off.  I've knit this design many, many times and have always stopped after two sections of the main color.  The first time I left off the third section only because I ran out of yarn.  But I loved the narrower scarf-like result so much I've repeated it several times since.

I knit this version with sock yarn from Unplanned Peacock.  The purple is Starling and the green is Lagoon.  It's a little brighter than intended and I sort of wish I'd reversed the main/contrasting colors.  But bright or not, I'm happy with it and ready to move on to the next project.

What will the next project be?  Good question!  A baby blanket?  The Te Ara mitts I mentioned last week?  Or perhaps I'll focus on finishing my Madli's Shawl.  I'm so close, yet so far away from finishing that shawl.  I'm part way through pattern repeat #27 out of 31.  Each repeat has twelve rows and then there'll be the border to knit.  My goal is to have it finished by October 1st so I really should focus on it.  But....

We'll just have to wait and see how I feel.  Dorian will be here this afternoon and it may be too difficult to concentrate on beaded lace.  Or not.  I think we are far enough inland that we won't get anything more than a few thunderstorms at most.  Of course, that's what we thought with Isabel many years ago and we ended up without power for 13 days.  

What ever happens weather-wise, I've vowed not to complain.  Honestly, I'm having a hard time being the least bit concerned about Dorian now.  After seeing the destruction that took place in the Bahamas...  It's hard enough to imagine a Class 5 hurricane, but one that hangs out and stays basically stationary for over 24 hours....  Good Lord!  Now that Dorian is down to a Class 2.... I'm having trouble taking him seriously.

If you never hear from me again, you'll know it's because I just jinxed myself.  Apologies to my neighbors!

Off the Needles

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Today's Three on Thursday is a showcase (Showcase?? That sounds so fancy!) of three shawls I've finished recently.  And please excuse the lighting in the photos.  We've got weird, pre-hurricane light happening and my camera is not appreciating it.

Reyna knit from Hawthorne, The Pearl

First, Reyna.  Okay, so maybe Reyna isn't exactly a "recent" finish, but still...  Here she is, finished and no longer spread out on the blocking mats.  This one just may be my absolute favorite thing I've ever knit.  I can see myself wearing this almost every day.  It's light and airy yet surprisingly warm and I'm head over heels in love with the casual blues and taupe color mix.  Green is normally my go-to color but this Reyna is the new love of my life.

Hitchhiker knit from Sublime Eden

And an even less 'recent' finish.... Another Hitchhiker.  This one was knit with Sublime, a wool/cotton mix that I picked up at my LYS, Center of the Yarniverse.  I usually dislike knitting with cotton but I had no problems with this yarn and I wouldn't hesitate to knit something else with it. 

Out of Winter knit with Sock Lab Stroll

And, Out of Winter.  This shawl was knit with Knit Picks' Sock Lab speckled Stroll which is apparently completely sold out now.  It was lovely to knit with and I really wish I'd bought every color set they offered.  

I do have one question about the yarn though.  Is the top of the shawl more speckled because it's made up of shorter rows or was one end of the skein much more speckled than the other?  Since there's such a definitive line, I'm leaning towards the skein being unevenly speckled.  Have you ever experienced this before?

Out of Winter detail

I wasn't too happy with the lace border at first but I quickly learned to love it.  There's a 'knit four stitches together' row and I was using extremely blunt tipped needles and found it nearly impossible.  But, I quickly realized I could use a smaller, much pointier dpn to knit the four together then transfer the stitch to the blunt needle and all was well.  If you're looking for a quick, mostly mindless, two-color shawl pattern and you have pointy needles, I highly recommend giving this one a go.

Join me over at Carole's for today's Three on Thursday link up.  Hopefully, assuming Hurricane Dorian doesn't blow us away, I'll be back here tomorrow to show you an even more recently finished project.