In week 10 of 2015 I get inspired by snow, get the finishing bug to knock out a few hats and re-purpose some unloved legwarmers into gloves.
Packing my Bags
I stopped off at Michael's this week to pick up some much needed 19" cables to fill a few size gaps in my collection that have made knitting hat's harder than it needed to be and while I was there I stocked up on some more of the acrylic yarn BF likes for his warm thick socks in a few more colors. I also got some cotton in fun colors for washcloths. All in all, I spent too much but now I don't have to figure out where my dpns are and swap them between projects when I want to knit hats.
First Steps
With predictions of over 8 inches of snow on the forecast I planned ahead and grabbed a variety of projects to have on hand in case work got canceled by the snow in. As luck had it I had two days plus a stay-at-home type of weekend to make a lot of progress on projects. Even though I finished or got close to finishing a bunch of stuff I did manage to start a few things too. It seems that snow was definitely on my mind as the two projects I started were both in white, The first, another simple top-down socks for my BF, this one was the Lion Brand, Men's Grey Socks pattern. Hopefully I can make the adjustments as I go to get this one to fit better than the last one, The second cast on was for my hat #3 of Meagheen Ryan 12 Hats in 12 Weeks, an ear flap beanie with some basic fair isle colorwork that I'll do in grey.
Along the Path
I'm making slow progress on my first sock for Sock Madness, the Alohomora pattern in my Unplanned Peacock Purple Hydrangea sock madness special colorway. I also resumed progress on the edging for my ALS Keep Warm wrap.
Final Destination
I pulled out hat #3 of the 12 Hats in 12 Weeks MKAL form Meagheen Ryan.It was a cabled tam style that I had started in an soft grey acrylic yarn. I only had the ribbing done and I didn't have the right circular needles so I made some adjustments and just did the best I could. I made a mistake in the cable crosses on one round but since it comes at the bend in the tam its almost unnoticeable. I finished it up the next morning and now its FO #13.
FO #14 started out as about 6 inches of a pair of legwarmers that I started for my DD in 2010. They've been sitting in a bag for the past 5 years during which time I lost interest and she stopped wearing legwarmers. In my fit of finish-itis I decided that they needed to be done one way or another. I though about re-using them for my nephew but they were sized too wide for baby legs. In fact, as I was testing them out they fit easily over my forearms. This gave me the idea to modify them into some longish ribbed cuffs for a pair of gloves. I used Ravelry pattern search to look for inspiration and decided on a Tin Can Knits Simple Collection pattern called Maize. I did a few decreases to make the stitch counts match where the cuff ended and the hand began and adjusted the patterning detail along the outside of the hand to match the existing cuff rib pattern and just followed the pattern from there. I was following the largest pattern in stitch count and overall diameter but I decided I wanted less fabric at the palm so I shortened the distance past the thumb gussets to the measurements for a smaller size. For something I really wasn't loving, these turned out better than I could have hoped for.
FO #15 is the February Mini Hat from Meagheen Ryan's 12 Months of Mini Hats. These are challenging to work in smaller needles but also fun and relatively quick.
Back Porch
I'm missing having a garden and all the planning, gathering, and sprouting that happens at this time of year. I've also been reading back through my blog posts and remembering all the good, healthy food I used to bring into my house and the creativity that developed by participating in the local food culture and challenges like the Dark Days and One Local Summer. Now that I'm cooking again and trying to re-develop my preserving skills I've naturally started to yearn for the days past when I sourced my meals first from my CSA share and then to the farmers market stands before picking up a very few convenience items at the neighborhood grocery store. I started researching CSA options a few weeks ago and while its a good time to join up and there are more options than ever I wasn't finding something that had all the factors I was looking for. Over the years I've followed several regional bloggers who, like I did, posted about their CSA shares, experiences and the resulting meals. I started reading back through their archives and I came across a few options I hadn't already considered, one of which I've decided to try.
Lancaster Farm Fresh is offering a pro-rated option to join in on their 13 week winter share season on week 9, giving you 5 weeks of vegetables as well as the option to add-on any of the egg, meat, yogurt, bread, pantry, tofu, or cheese shares individually or join the omnivore or vegan value shares. They are also taking signups for the summer season but I don't have the funds to join up yet so I decided to essentially sample the last 5 weeks of winter and see if the co-op, pickup location, communication, quantity and quality add up to a reasonable value for me or if I should keep looking and rely heavily on the farmers market and occasional u-pick farms for this year.
I'll start posting more CSA stuff when I start getting my share toward the end of the month.
This week in my vegetable box from Lancaster Farm Fresh Co-op (week 10 of 13) was:
Packing my Bags
The start of spring also signaled the start of Eco Chic's Solar Flare MKAL so earlier in the week I wound up my set of 6 gradient shades into balls and did a quick swatch of a few rows of each ball to see how the colors would blend. I am truly loving this colorway and the way it carries the tones and shades across the different balls. I also got to cast it on but didn't get much mileage done as the weekend was too nice to do too much indoors.
I finished FO#17 my basic white socks and entered them as my entry to the Solid Socks monthly challenge. These started out as socks for my BF but once I got to the instep I realized that knitting an average mens pattern as is would still be WAY too small for his foot. I decided to reclaim the sock instead of rip out and re-knit almost the entire sock.
First Steps
I didn't make it onto a team for Sock Madness 9. I let myself get so distracted by all the shiny objects I finished last week and in finally finishing up the wrap that even with a solid stretch of knitting at the end, I was only able to finish one sock. Luckily, that's all I need to get the rest of the patterns and knit along with the group if I want too. Otherwise I'll save these for later in the year when I don't have 20 other projects competing for my time. The Alohomora did turn out nice and I have every intention of finishing the second and adding them to my sock drawer someday soon.
I've had this big honking thing on my needles for a long time and this week I finally decided that no matter what I wanted to finish the edging and consider it done. I actually got into the rhythm and started to see the pattern emerge but it was slow going and at the end it was barely able to keep my eyes open through the bind off. I'm not sure how I feel about it now and after looking at the other edge being raw, I might decide to go back at some point and add the second edging on but for now I'm calling this FO #16 and walking away
Sock Madness 9 has officially begun. The pattern for round 1--Alohomora--was posted by the time I woke up well before dawn on March 1st so I cast it on with my official Sock Madness yarn from Unplanned Peacock in the variegated purplely-blue Hydrangea colorway. I have two weeks to finish at least one sock, made to a 9" foot length and exactly as the pattern specifies, in order to qualify to receive additional patterns for the rest of the rounds. If I want to compete on a team for future rounds, I have to finish the full pair in that time. I'm not sure if I will push that hard to get and stay on a team but I would like to knit more socks for me and others for #operationsockdrawer so this seems like a good excuse to power through at least a few of them.
