Hat Truths. Silly Me.

I have had a thing about hats most of my life.

I love hats....on other people.

My mother has a thing about hats. She doesn't like them to be too fussy, too tight, too high maintenance, and so on. If she didn't worry about the practical needs in cold weather, she wouldn't wear hats.

Last year I made a hat for my mother. a month later she gave it back to me as it really didn't suit her hat needs. No drama.

I found a much better match for the hat and passed it on to a good friend.

This year, on a month of winter travel, I packed yarn because I was tired of my hats.

I started knitting the hat finally on the last leg of travel.

I was not done with the hat in time to wear it for unusually snowy Storm in the UK.

I was not done with the hat until my last day in Dublin.

It turned out to be a great hat.

I was a little worried that when wet the yarn bloomed just a touch, making it a teensy bit looser in fit.

My mother took it home with her after her recent visit.

It turned out to be the perfect hat, good color, good coverage, not tight, happy mother, happy knitter.

I am still tired of my hats. Thankfully there is plenty of yarn at hand.

I think I know the root of my hat issues. I learned them from my momma.

The yarn and knitting issues are all mine.

Paper Trail, Happy Trails

I am at the paper-sifting portion of my packing. There are the receipts I need, the programs I'll want, the fliers I may not need, the evidence of lovely knitterly moments of stopping in a couple of shops.

Once again, the new yarn is tucked into te suitcase, there are too many books, and the recycling pile needs to grow, but I need a break.

Dublin has been lovely, despite the spareness of sunshine. As an extra treat outside the agendas, I was able to sit and knit with a group who knit regularly at the Brooks Hotel in Dublin. They were kind and gracious, and it was clear they are as patient with drop in knitters as they are caring of their regular, steady community. Lovely evening! Made me long for more Mondays in Oak Park, remembered gatherings at Arcadia, past summer evenings knitting in Logan Square, and knitting alongside summer s'mores in Wisconsin. Good reminder to stop more often, wherever I am, for a bit of a sociable craft night!

Who Packs a Hat?

Not this one. I packed knitting. I would like to wear my silly hat yet while traveling. Of course, I was working diligently on socks. This is a break from the socks which are nearing heel number two.

Meanwhile: Dublin! Just outside This is Knit, having cake and coffee at the Pepper Pot just outside it. Looks outdoors but is in a glass roofed courtyard.

I am tired, so the storytelling urge is feeble. Being here and having time to have cake and cappuccino and knit and post so? Not feeble at all.

This is grand, far as I see it. Of course, I packed yarn rather than a hat. Consider the source.

Posting Cleanup, Post Fête

In the spirit of cleaning things up ritualistically for the New Year, I will post the photos I took and didn't yet share.

The blocking was done easily enough and in time for me to pack it for travel. Very light, very warm, and to non-knitters it's somewhat unusual. That's fine by me.

Pattern - Color Affection
Yarn - Madelinetosh Tosh Light in Graphite, Tart, and Wicked

(PS. Started this while it was still Eve, 2012. Lost half of it and felt compelled to regroup and clean it up before calling it a night.)(It is of course 2013 and really very early morning.)

(PPS. Dinner parties start late in France. On this New Year's at the fabulous dinner party I was privileged to attend, the welcoming of the New Year fell between courses, just past the fourth of seven stunning courses.)

(PPPS. More on that story in the morning.)

Bonne Anneé!

New Year's Eve Study With Sock

After last night's cozy and lively dinner party at the host home in the French countryside, today has been a gentle day of reading, knitting, dish washing, dish breaking (slow down!), soup and tea and more reading. Studying materials for the weeks ahead IS actually something I have been enjoying. Taking it as it comes.

Tonight I was graciously added to the guest list for a New Year's Eve dinner. Should be delightful!

I will not be taking the sock. However, it does look nice on this table.

Enjoy your New Year's Eve as it finds you.

Fair, Better, Best

Drive from the country into Paris today.
Fair photos. Not a priority!

Good knitting time on hostess socks. Had felt I was slipping behind my self-imposed schedule. Better progress and with the drive back even advanced to the second half of the short row well.

Best? A delightful "meet-up" event of informed and instructive champagne tasting, complete with excellent champagnes and scrumptious hors d'ouevres and pleasant conversations.

Knitting in Chartres

Really. A middling cafe. A glorious cathedral.

Seriously, nothing wrong with being here.

A lovely way to begin an end to a year!

Snow and Fun Paths Ahead

We had a bit of snow this morning. I rather enjoyed taking a walk from church to the home of friends for Christmas dinner. Unshoveled and untrampled sidewalks are a rare treat in cities.

Pardon the grey scale. It was not quite this gloomy!

Happy Christmas! I'm heading out on a bit of a journey over the next weeks.

Have to finish packing - and editing the packing - so I can decide what knitting to pack!

La Vie Boheme

It is with casual disregard that I stay up late upon occasion to finish knits.

Artsy temperament? Rebellion?

La Vie Fixated, more like...

Yarn is Spud & Chloe's Outer, a bulky wool and cotton blend.

Needles were 11 & 15, as prescribed.

Pattern is Boheme, from French Girl Knits Accessories.

Just My Colors, Color Affection

Finished! Blocking tomorrow and some better pictures next week, or at least I hope to do so....

Red, grey, brown.

Knitting just for me, this time.

I Am Rocking the Lists

Finished these late Tuesday night, complete with all two dozen ends woven in and a quick wet blocking.  The drying has not been quick, as these things go.  It's been unseasonably warm here, so it was still cool in my apartment, what with the heating system having had a little vacation.

Knitting details: 
Yarn:  2-ply wool from the Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake, Maine.  Bought that back when I worked in Maine.  This yarn has been in the stash for at LEAST 15 years.
Needles:  size 5 dpns
Pattern: Men's Fingerless Gloves, by. J. Campbell, via Ravelry link. 
Pattern mods: Gauge, natch.  I pared down the cast-on count by four and factored that in along the way.  Also I am learning to ignore the minimal suggestions like the half inch from the top of the thum gusset to the start of the fingers.  That's just WAY too short for the palm of a hand.  I also added the stripe because at one point I worried I would run out of wool.  When I reknit and sized them down, I was still worried.... forgetting that sizing that down would perhaps use less wool.  You know I have leftover.


Need a box.  In fact, I think I'm going to take a walk to the post office RIGHT NOW and see about a couple of boxes.  That task has been on my list at home for a few days, and it needs to get done.

Check!

Five to Two

I have knit nearly five glove bodies to reach these final two. There has been resizing, midsection lengthening, and stripe adding.

Remaining, I have thumbs in progress, all the ends to weave, and a quick bath.

Casting Off

I love the fact that the terminology for binding off has historically included casting off.  I am also probably writing the 838th blog post in the knitting blogosphere to that effect, but I don't care.

I am binding off the color affection shawl I'd been working on this fall.  Doing a slim i-cord bind-ff.  If it were here, I'd show you a picture, but it's in the car.

I am casting off.  Tomorrow I head out of town for some small Thanksgiving.  A little family, a little down-time, and a LOT of driving.  I won't get to knit in the car until the second and third legs of the trip.  I'm on my own for the first and last, me and a lengthy list of podcasts.  Will be done with weekend road tripping early enough to have one bit of weekend At Home.  Looking forward also to some playing hooky At Home on Sunday morning, knitting with coffee and pyjamas before heading out, at the end of that day, for a work call.

Tomorrow at 3:00, though, and traffic notwithstanding, I'm leaving the work behind.  NOT packing it. I'm taking one book, the historical novel Wolf Hall - don't know if it's frivolous or not, but it'll serve its purpose.  And the knitting.  I am packing knitting.  TONIGHT.  In fact, most of it is already in the car - the shawl and the green gloves are ready to go.

I need to be ready to go.  Not binding off.  Casting off.

Happy Thanksgiving.  (I don't pretend anyone reading this lives beyond the middle part of North America, or minds the myopia, US expats notwithstanding..... )

What Happened? When? Cleaning Questions

When you find a mess, do you need the backstory? Do you share the story? Do you hunt it down with questions? Why? Who did it?

I just looked at the blog. I had been in a habit of marking my knitting year with the start of a summer. Got away from me this summer. I don't think there's an interesting story in any of that.

Cleaning up: 
1 Pair Socks
Sunrise Blender  Sock  

1 Pair Gloves
Gorky Rustic Gloves

1 Garment
Baby Kimono - finished and gifted, though knit forever ago  

4 Scarves/Shawls
Dragon Lady Pogona Scarf
British Breakfront: a Frangiflutti scarf
Silver Square Scarf for nephew
A Sorta-Sontag (T.Y. Godey)

12 Hats
Linen Hat
2 Hats for Minneapolis Swatch Team 2011
Grey Bulky Hat
Entrelac hat
Urchin hat
Many Manly Hats, 6 actually

That cleans up the list on the side. It also leaves it pretty empty. I did a lot of sewing this summer instead, even if it was quick stuff. I'm not going to bother to add in all the links. If you stop by the blog often, you saw it and it's old news. Nothing very illuminating last year. The knitting was functional, and it did what I needed it to do, product and process.

Former UFO

Done.

This is a particularly odd section of the back.

But done! Binding done!

Where's the UPS? This sucker is outta here!

There IS Something to Small Steps

Binding cut, stitched and pressed.

No bias was used this time, as the fabric had a perfect stretch of on-grain already built into the leftovers from the first quilt.

That's right. There were two of these. One was done, 20 blocks worth, and well over twenty years ago. This one got to 12 blocks done and stalled.

This summer I framed and sashed the miserable set of twelve to get it DONE.
I cobbled together a proper leftovers backing and sent it off to be machine quilted.

It came back this fall.

It sat.

A forgotten piece of fabric used in the first quilt was in the box where the scraps went - surprise!

Binding was prepped. One step to go.

Playing, Two Minutes at a Time

- In the microwave
- Cleaning up past weeks of fabric paint and dye activity
- Very old yarn
- Used up the leftover koolaid from the pitchers
- tropical punch and cherry
- This didn't suck.

Wearing Socks Knit For Me!

Thanks, Elizabeth!

We have this great big cold hallway at work.

If I leave my office to go to class, I have to go to the next building. If I want to go to the shop, I have to go outside to a different door in the first building. If I am in the shop and want to find rest facilities, back out to go into the second building or into the front part of the first building. Lunch at the desk? Go next door for the fridge or microwave.

I am not complaining. We see the sun through the course of a day. And I look forward to wearing all the hand knit wool socks.

Here's to beautifully chilly autumn weather for sock wearing! Ooh, and yummy cabbage soup to heat up for lunch!

You Know This When That

You know you've been knitting socks for awhile when you look at the sock you are putting on and realize you cannot recall the name of the pattern anymore.

You know your housekeeping is suffering when you try to take a photo of a sock and have to do strange tricks to keep the worst of the floor out of the frame.

You know you are busy when you aren't posting a photo of a sock you've just but are taking a hasty shot of an old sock.

You know you are fortunate when this is the trouble of your day. Not water. Not power. Not shelter.

I know. Quite a turn there. Was thinking about the contrasts and the revelations a lot this past week. You know how it goes: smack up against successful plays and nice kids come funerals and heart breaking stories of PTSD. Angsty house hunting with silly self-doubt and self-recrimination stopped in their tracks to watch the devastation of Sandy. Watched houses topple, water surge, and fires burn. Breathed sighs to hear of friends out East that they were okay.

You know you are blessed with even a silly pair of socks.

You know you have thanks to give, and not just one day later this month.

You know you will find time and energy to get some important things done. Sock knitting will keep.

The Cat and the Cobra

Yesterday's rude awakening included a yoga moment I which I may have found a new degree of old and out of shape. My face-up dog failed, and I came near to pulling something in the groin. What?!? Did I mention that my yoga practice had taken too long a vacation. Horrible behavior.

So today, cobra practice, to ease back in.

The cat decided I was there to give him head butting. When I stopped he followed me everywhere, complaining I had stopped too soon.

Meet my yoga coach. Every day, he says. Every evening.

I have permission to hit the shower, he says.