autumn fade

How can it be the end of November already!?! It seemed like autumn barely arrived yesterday. We had a very quiet and peaceful Thanksgiving last week. My MIL stopped by for a whirlwind visit on her way to Florida. So we ended up eating Thanksgiving dinner twice (the other dinner was at my brother’s). I also had quite a bit of time to knit since no one trusted me with Turkey duty. Two socks have been cast off since we last spoke. Both have been my constant knitting companions this fall and were joys to knit. The other project finished was a quick Sockhead Hat using a beautiful fall mini’s set from Hue Loco. I am calling it my autumn fade hat. Quite appropriate since we are now heading into the busy holiday season. Time to cast on some festive Christmas socks!

Did you cook for Thanksgiving? Any holiday knitting/crafting plans?

color therapy

Oh November why do you have to be so moody and changeable? Sunny blue cold grey dark rainy all in one day....it’s enough to drive a knitter to wanting to cast on all the shiny things. Lucky for me I have a stash full of colorful yarns to chase away the seasonal blues. There’s even a few bright and cheerful wips hanging around requiring just a little attention before they are finished and ready to comfort with their cozy warmth, like these socks that were cast on a few months ago:



I am calling these my Sunbeams Socks because the combination of yarn (SpunRightRound in the shock star colorway) and the fun stitch pattern (from Japanese Stitches Unraveled) creates a fabric with tiny little sunbeams dancing all across it. Pure yarny happiness.



I also pulled out some pretty autumnal mini’s from hueloco for a faded Sockhead Hat:



And of course, the ultimate in woolly color therapy, blankets:



I hope that you are finding comfort in your knitting and crafting as the busy holiday season approaches.

spooky knits

Happy Halloween guys! Any fun plans for the evening? We are doing the usual: handing out candy to the trick or treaters and then going next door to my brother’s annual Halloween/birthday party. The kid decided to be Alvin the Chipmunk this year and the hubby is a chicken. I’m going as my usual angry 90’s grunge teen.

I surprised the kid with a special Halloween hat (although honestly, I plan on “borrowing” it to wear year round!) As you know, he had some strong opinions on the scrappy monster socks that I was knitting for the #monstersockkal2018. The skulls were his idea (colorwork chart from the awesome Alterknit Stitch Dictionary by Andrea Rangel). But I had my heart set on some cute Halloween cats (chart from 150 Scandinavian Motifs by Mary Jane Mucklestone) so we ended up compromising. One for him and one for me :) The yarns are a mix of mini’s from havirland and knitty and color. Both of these talented ladies know their Halloween.

For the hat, I decided to go all out on the spooky factor and used the Cake or Death chart from Alterknit. I don’t usually go for morbid things like the Grim Reaper but I thought this would be right up the kid’s alley. And boy was I right! He loves it and says it’s the coolest thing I ever made him. So a win for this knitting mama!

Now I’m off to decorate the gingerbread haunted house. I hope that you all enjoy a fun and safe night. Will you be dressing up as anything?

this and that

Wouldn’t it be lovely to start the new year with an empty wips basket? I am trying to get at least all of my lingering socks finished by then. The above pair was a fun knit. The yarn is Felici in the Spring Blooms colorway and the pattern is a free one on Ravelry called the ifthen socks. It is a simple and lovely pattern for self-striping yarns. I modified the pattern slightly by omitting the eyelets for the back of the leg.



I celebrated a birthday a few weeks ago! It was a wonderful day filled with all of my favorite things: family, food, knitting and yarny presents (of course!)



I had the hubby buy me an extra special present from MustStash yarns. Aren’t the colors gorgeous!?! Can’t wait to dive into these as a special reward for getting the sock wips finished.



We are finally experiencing proper autumn weather with the temps dropping into the 50’s. It’s been lovely getting to bundle up in handknit sweaters and socks again. Not to mention putting all of my favorite cold weather dishes back into the dinner rotation: chili’s, stews, soups and casseroles. It’s been fun choosing a different casserole to cook every Wednesday, with the added bonus of having plenty of leftovers for the following day’s lunch. My favorite recipes are the simple ones that instruct you to dump everything but the kitchen sink into your largest casserole dish, sprinkle in a ton of shredded cheese and bake for 30 minutes. It’s the comfort food of my childhood since my mom learned how to cook “American food” from old church recipe books :)

What are you guys whipping up lately? Any favorite fall dishes or casserole suggestions?

fall woolens

Can you believe that it's already the last day of September? This month has just flown by. There has been a lot of knitting on little projects here lately and today I have a couple of new fall woolens to share with you.

First up is Laurus, the fourth hat in the fringehatalong. It was a quick and simple knit with a cute little bit of colorwork thrown in. I decided to go with a brown/cream marled yarn for the main color combined with a kelly green contrasting yarn. I like the outdoorsy vibe of the finished hat.

Next is a pair of fingerless mitts that I modified from this cute mitten project that I saw on Ravelry. I love how the fake thrums look like little hearts. I used a super soft bulky roving yarn in the stash that had a lovely mix of autumn colors. These feel pretty great to wear and I can't wait for the chilly fall days ahead!

Do you have any fun fall projects in the works? I've been itching to get started on a new sweater but can't decide on a pattern. In the meantime, there are still plenty of small wips to keep me busy. Happy knitting and have a great rest of the week :)

hermaness worsted

Presenting the third hat in the fringehatalong series and my favorite so far: Hermaness Worsted by Gudrun Johnston.

I love the look of the simple Shetland lace pattern knitted up in Brooklyn Tweed Shelter. The colorway is Almanac which is a gorgeous dark blue with bright blue flecks that seem to glow. Would love to knit a big cozy sweater with this yarn! It's so lightweight but with a rustic feel and very warm. I did have one occurrence of a breakage in yarn while working the crown decreases but no other issues. And now that I've fallen down the Brooklyn Tweed rabbit hole, there are some fall knitting plans in the works involving Loft:

Like my back-to-school haul? Toms sheep sneakers, Knerdshop knitting bag, Midwestern Knits book, Brooklyn Tweed Loft.

Also, the fourth hat in the fringehatalong was just announced last week. Can't wait to pick out some colors for this one. Not to mention the second Fringe and Friends Knitalong coming this fall. Must knit faster!

colors of summer

Started some new projects! The Shelter is for the third hat in the fringehatalong. I figured I should finish this one before the fourth pattern is announced in August. So far so good. I love lace patterns that are simple to memorize. Just finished with the lace back panel for the Morning Mist tee. A little concerned about how big it's looking, so planning on giving it a good soak and then some time in the dryer. My past experiences with Hempathy is that it tightens up a bit after a wash and dry. Fingers crossed!

There are lots of marigolds popping up in the garden. The tomatoes are also starting to come in. I should keep better notes of what varieties were planted. One tomato plant that I thought were just of the plain cherry variety are coming up a rose color. Pretty and sweet but I have no idea what kind they are. I also need to trim out my hydrangea bushes. They are taking over the front yard!

And as you can probably figure out from the Camp Tolt goodies: 1) I went on a little shopping spree 2) which might have involved the purchasing of some yarn and 3) another item can be checked off the summer bucket list. I hope that you too are enjoying every minute of this beautiful summer :)

coming up roses

Some random things that are making me smile:

L'Arbre. The stitch pattern was so much fun to knit and is a lot easier than it looks. I've decided to indulge in new-to-me yarn for each of the hats in the fringe hatalong. This pretty rose colorway is one of my favorite colors and the softness of the Malabrigo Twist did not disappoint.

Hitofude. It's funny how the sight of two sleeves can suddenly make a drawn out project interesting. It only took me a little less than a year to get to this point but now I can finally see the finish line. Boy, once you get past the scarf-like beginnings this knit turns into a fun but still easy ride. Too bad that it's a little snug. Nothing a little heavy blocking can't fix (hopefully, fingers crossed!)

Impulse Shawl. I rarely knit a pattern more than once, but when I saw this yarn (Spun Right Round SW Sock graffiti colorway ... click on that link at your own risk) on the Woollen Wilderness blog, there was no doubt that it was going to be another slipped stitch shawl. This is my mindless summer travel project since I am in no rush to get it done. Just savoring all the beautiful colors of the yarn.

Flowers and Herbs. I planted a whole bunch of flowers (mainly marigolds for dyeing) and herbs. It has been very peaceful to sit in the garden with a cup of tea and my knitting. The strawberries are so plentiful right now that we have been treating ourselves to a bowlful of strawberries and ice cream topped with whipped cream almost every night this week. Love this time of year in the garden.

A New Toy. More on this later.


What are some of the things making you happy lately?

a sheepish weekend

Happily exhausted and recovering from a weekend full of fiber, yarn, good friends and fried artichokes. And lots of adorable sheep:

Every year I go to Maryland Sheep and Wool with a wish list and every year I end up ignoring it. But that's half the fun! This year also came with the temptation of an indie pop-up store at the Knot House with irresistible vendors like YOTH Yarns, Duck Duck Wool, O-wool, and Magpie Fibers. Skeins of yarn were jumping off the shelves and into my shopping bag faster than you can say Silly Sally swiftly shooed seven silly sheep. 

The weather was beautiful but warm, so I ended up wearing my sheep heid which drew some smiles. It was the perfect accessory for a sheepish weekend :)

Here are some details on the hat: the yarn is from my never-ending stash of knitpicks palette. I've been drawing lots of color inspiration recently from everyday objects such as interesting packaging, printed shirts from my closet and flowers from the backyard. This particular color combination for sheep heid came from one of my favorite flannel shirts.

Doesn't it look like the sheep are standing in a meadow of flowers?

lila

Simple brown pullovers aren't the most exciting things to knit or blog about, but they do go with pretty much everything in the closet. What makes Lila special is the short row shaping happening at the lower body and the exaggerated garter stitch hems. This was made as part of the Lila KAL hosted by the drea renee knits group. Unfortunately, I had to take a short break from it while traveling to Vietnam and so missed the KAL deadline. Quite happy with how it turned out despite a little scare towards the end when I thought that I had overestimated the amount of positive ease intended. It was looking huge and several drastic measures to shrink it were running around in my head (dryer, hot scalding water and blowtorch just to name a few). But the final fit isn't too bad and I like that it's roomy enough to layer over flannel shirts for the colder months. We've been in a cold spell the last few weeks here so this sweater has been seeing a lot of wear. Hopefully the cooler spring weather will last through this weekend for Maryland Sheep and Wool (yay! so excited!) because I love seeing all the handknits on display. But just in case it gets too warm to wear a wooly sweater, I'll have my sheep heid at the ready. Here's what it looked like last week when the cherry blossoms were still in bloom:

Have a great rest of the week everyone!

gifting

Have you been following along with the Yarn Harlot's holiday posts this season? I read with interest how she organized all of her holiday gifting, making, decorating, etc. on a color-coded spreadsheet. How awesome is that? So unlike my wacky method, which is to procrastinate until one week before the big day and then cram all of my shopping and gift wrapping into a couple of days. Although the one advantage to my method is that after those few {intense, stressful, hectic} days are over, I get to relax and savor the fun holiday stuff like baking, decorating, holiday movie watching and of course, knitting. I kept the gift knitting list short and sweet this year, with an emphasis on using yarn from the stash.

❄ A couple of cowls:

For these cowls, I decided to shorten my Candy Ribbon design. These were much quicker to knit than the original longer version.

❄ A trio of Rudolph Hats, two of which you've already seen. I saved my most favorite version for last:

Pop Rudolph!

Now all that's left is a pair of mittens and maybe a few fun ornaments if there's time. But first, some hot cocoa and tree gazing is in order. Look closely and you'll see the sweet surprise that arrived in the post. Thanks Steph! Little Mousie has already made himself quite at home!

calm

We are taking things slow and easy this holiday season. No point in rushing through the days to get everything checked off the list. It will all get done eventually. Right now, I am enjoying the little things that make this time of year so special.

Decking the halls with some festive ornaments and greenery:

Knitting away on a few more gifts while taking frequent breaks to plan next year's projects. So many gorgeous knitting books and magazines have been arriving at my doorstep recently (not pictured is Yokes by Kate Davies which I am so crushing on at the moment):

Wrapping up some handmade presents. This is the hubby's Rudolph Hat in classic outdoorsy colors:

I also finished mine, but will wait until the next post to show you. There's still time after all.

punk rudolph

I hope that everyone who celebrated had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was lovely even though I had to work a half day. Being in the healthcare profession, it is a given that weekends & holidays are not necessarily days/nights off. But I do think that it's sad to see Thanksgiving Day, the one major holiday that has traditionally not been overly commercialized, is now not the case. The shopping malls and big box stores around us were all opened yesterday. And the ones who were closed had early openings on Black Friday. It has been a number of years since I have ventured out of the house on Black Friday. Can't imagine waking up that early to shop! Or standing in those kinds of lines for anything other than a concert ticket to a favorite band or let's be honest....yarn! I would much rather stay home and knit gifts for my loved ones. "What kinds of gifts" you might be asking? Oh, how 'bout a Punk Rudolph Hat?!? 

Is it my imagination or does my beginner's attempt at bobbles make these guys look like reinducks?

It's the perfect holiday headgear for a little guy who loves to follow the beat of his own drums and adores singing along to loud boisterous music. This free pattern is by the fabulous chrisknits. I love how she incorporated the adorable reindeer chart originally used for a sweater into a hat in three sizes. Yes, even adults are not left out of all this reindeer cuteness! In fact, Punk Rudolph was knit in the adult size since the little guy has a huge noggin for his age. All the yarns used were from the stash. Sometimes shopping from the stash can lead to some unexpected color choices. This one even surprised me! Now off to do more stash diving for the hubby's hat. And then mine. Knitting a couple of reindeer hats on Black Friday....now that's punk!

One big pompom coming right up as soon as I figure out how to use my Clover pompom maker