Happy Family Day!

 My Family Day started out really well — with a video call from my daughter in Calgary.  Yippee!  The wee one was mostly playing shy and not looking, but every once in a while she would peek and give me a big smile.  I also realized that it is exactly two weeks yesterday that I am flying out to spend some time with them all.  To claim that I am excited would be such a drastic understatement!

On another note, the situation in the States is not improving.  Not even a little bit.  One of my store ladies has a friend living in Minneapolis.  This friend says that things are so much worse than is being reported in the news.  I have no idea how that happens — both being worse and not being reported. 

On the other hand, coverage of the Peace Walk has given me hope.  The idea that people would walk from Austin, Texas, to Washington DC just blew my mind.  The monks set out, with no expectations.  Just the thought in their minds to restore peace to the earth by way of their intentional meditations as they walked.  I know some folks see it as an attention-grabbing action, or useless.  The community responses that I observed gave me hope that somehow the world and the US will come through this safely.

And courtesy of Google and my love of electronics and fricking passwords ... I have just spent the last hour and a half trying to get pictures uploaded from my tablet to my blog.  It seems that when I removed the recovery telephone number from my Google account, I lost permission to my very own photos.  I have tried everything the accursed Google tells me to try.  I can access photos within Chat, I can finally access Meeting again ... but not the photos.  I am, however, a clever girl.  I e-mailed the selected photos to another e-mail account and here I am.  Life should not be this difficult.  

And now, the reason for the blog.  I have knitting and crochet to show off!  The cowl made with designs from a doodle deck and crocheted waistcoat stitch is finished. I used wool from my stash, and actually used most of it up, so I am pleased.  Waistcoat stitch is an unusually tight stitch, and it was recommended that you use a hook two to three sizes larger than the ball band recommends.  Consequently, I used a 6.5mm hook with my worsted weight wool.

I am quite pleased with how it turned out.  For me?  Not necessarily, as I have a multitude of scarves and cowls already.  I will put this in a gift box and someone will be lucky next winter. 

We published a newsletter at the store, wherein I had to admit that I was not actually making any progress at all on my Star of Logy Bay mittens.  How embarrassing.  So I dug around and found the proper needles and cast on.  This particular pattern asks you to do the ribbing in a 3.25mm needle and then switch to a 3.5mm needle.  I made a rookie mistake ... 

I worked across the first half of the mitten, with one end of the next needle.  And then I worked across the second half with the second end of the next needle.  What you almost see there is that the needles are ... each pointing a different direction.   I diligently slipped stitches and got things properly aligned, and made more progress. 

The wool is, once again, from stash.  I am hoping to have enough to complete the mittens -- but I have a cunning plan if it looks like I am falling short.  (The gold is Haynes Creek Heathers, the brown is Noro Viola, and the light is Estelle Worsted -- all the same as used in last month's hat.)  Once I finish the star chart on the hand, I will start the second mitt.  If I am running short, they can become fingerless mitts.  

At the store, we started a knit-along of the Mountain Forest pullover from Knitty.com.  It is a beautiful sweater as designed, with fair isle colourwork across the bottom of the sweater and bottom of the sleeves as well as the yoke.  Being a slight bit vertically challenged (as in short and losing height), I opted to only do the colourwork on the yoke.  Here you see the current state of my project: 

The body is complete up to where the sleeves will be attached.  I am approximately half way done with the first sleeve ... So much stockinette ...

Our February class is double-knit mittens and so, of course, I had to start a pair.  These are really delightful mittens and Doug absolutely loves them.  He usually wears through a pair every winter because of the cross-country skiing he does.  This year I pulled a skein of Katia DeGrade sock yarn out of stash and cast on.  I am hoping that the nylon component will help the mittens last a bit longer.  Of course, having started them later in the year will assist as well.  (This reminds me of a corny joke from one of my kids' books -- How do you make a pair of pants last longer?  You make the coat first!  Thank you, Dr. Seuess.)

I am quite pleased with the progress.  Even better, without even trying, I have managed to get them to match!  These should be done well before the end of the month. 

I have also been knitting a bit on the Nightshift Shawl that was started back when we were teaching at the Uxbridge Library.  No pictures of it at the moment, because I thought this was enough pictures.  And with the fighting I have done to get the photos up onto the blog, that was enough frustration to be getting on with. 

I am now off to enjoy the remainder of Family Day by having a lovely dinner with Doug, and then some TV watching and knitting.  Hope you all have had a good day, with FAR LESS frustration than me!

 

 

January 2026

 2026 is off to a start.  Not a great start.  Will the “incinerate the year” idea work on a monthly basis?  I definitely hope so, because I already have slips of paper with writing on them.  In the world at large, I am heartsick at the happenings in the US.  As a white woman, I have always felt a tad safer than, for instance, my daughter-in-law.  She is a naturalized US citizen who was born in Hong Kong.  The murder of Renee Good has made that assumption of safety fly right out the window.  The unprovoked attack on the capital of Venezuela and the rendition of its president have shaken me tremendously.  Turns out I was relatively confident that the military would not blindly follow the regime’s orders; I was wrong.  And now listening to all the sabre rattling about Iceland, Cuba, Canada … I am genuinely fearful that my beloved grandchildren will not have the chance to grow up.  Period, never mind in peace.

In an attempt to change the subject and provide distraction, let me turn to fibre-related thoughts …

2026 has been declared The Year of Saltwater Knits.  This means that Barb and I will be starting (and hopefully completing) a project from one of the Saltwater books each month.  For January, we decided to knit the Star of Logy Bay Cap.  It is a stranded colour-work beanie representing the stars above the Logy Bay, Newfoundland.  I rifled through my stash and found three balls of the proper weight and cast on! 

I am about a quarter through the chart, making quite nice progress.  The wools being used are Haynes Creek Heathers (gold), Noro Viola (brown), and Estelle Worsted (tan), and a 4.5mm needle.  Delightful!

My next project is … unusual for me.  It is a crocheted cowl!  Crochet!   Me!  Last year a very cool idea for “Doodle Decks” occurred to some enterprising ladies, and a craze was born.

A doodle deck is a collection of cards (deck of cards) with charted motifs — collections of themed motifs.  Holidays, cats, dinosaurs, dogs, various hobbies, etc.  These were quickly adopted by knitters as a small card is easier to tote around than a large book.  Additionally, the cards stay put unlike a book which tries to close up at the worst times possible.  

Crocheters felt very left out.  The charts were perfect for knitters, but what about crocheters?  We went looking, and found a crochet stitch called “waistcoat” stitch.  For all the world, it looks like a knit stitch.  AND even better, it works like a knit stitch.  Barb figured out the numbers and we are now teaching a class using crochet and Doodle Decks.  It is very well received.

Going back to my project, though, I am not satisfied.  The grey and white work together just fine.  But, be honest — does that look like a candy cane?  I thought not.  I will frog back to the border and go find some geometric shapes and life will be good.  The wools are Wendy Wool Pure Wool (grey) and Croftland Aran (white) from my stash.  i am using a 6.00mm hook and so far very happy with the fabric.

We also have started a KAL for the Mountain Forest pullover from the new Knitty.com.  It uses a worsted/medium/#4 weight, so it asks for 4.5 or 5.00mm needles.  I happily opened up my Addi i/c needle kit … and noted the absence of a number of sets of needles, including the necessary sizes.  Not a problem because I have another Lykke i/c kit.  Except that kit was also missing a multitude of needles, including the sizes for which I was looking.

This necessitated a review of projects underway.  There are so many!  Ten, in fact.  For a girl who struggled with more than two projects underway, this is incredible!  So, in no particular order, we have:

1.  The hat shown above.

2.  The cowl shown above.

3.  A pair of socks for a grandchild.

4.  The Mountain Forest pullover.

5.  Central Park Hoodie

6.  A top-down raglan pullover for Doug.

7.  A lace jacket I am finishing for a friend.

8.  A brioche scarf which started life as a shawl, until I sold one of the necessary skeins of wool.

9.  The Nightshift shawl started with the Uxbridge Library class.

10.  The Berroco Mystery Blanket KAL.

Oops.  I just remembered another —

11.  Lace shawl made from some beautiful alpaca lace-weight given to me by my daughter.

I can be found in my craft room, on the futon, surrounded by my knitting.  Decision paralysis is a thing, but I will persevere.  Really.  Because there are more projects just waiting for my attention.