Snow Washing Shawls and Hats

Today is the snow wash day for all the shawls and cowls. It continues to stay very cold here so that is key to the success of this process.

This is a thing I did with my sweaters and blankets when it was actively snowing. For this round I had to kind of sprinkle and kick snow over the knits. I let these lay out for 4-5 ours and then dried in my basement. I did spritz them with some soak scented spray for extra goodness.

I am finding that the finished objects did relax (a little) like they do with a bloc. And they smelled better even before the spray. For more benefits and better explanation, I like this article by County Living. Basically is it’s like ancient dry cleaning.

Happy Winter!

Coffee And Decreases

I am fully caffeinated and ready to knit. I really want to finish this dang 2025 Fall Hat.

This singles yarn really shows ALL my mistakes or poor stitches. It is also really easy to split with the needles I chose. This will for sure be for the “school” pile or keep at home pile as it’s not the most polished piece of work.

I need like three more row and then I can start the decreases. I have 112 stitches total so I am thinking eight star decreases with 14 stitches each. And another cup of coffee….

Happy Knitting!!

Snow Washing

I’m channeling my inner Yarn Harlot or Norwegian ancestor. We had some SUPER cold temps and very dry fine snow. So I decided at 6 pm to snow wash some of my woolens.

I started with all the wool hand knit sweaters I could lay hands on. There is my Autumn Gold, Love Note, Round Yoke pullover, and Rainbow Radiate. And a few more not pictured 🙂

And with the kids (and dog) using the knit blankets more, I decided to snow wash the blankets as well. I left everything out for about 3 or 3.5 hours before I shook out and took inside. I splurged a little and pulled out that woolen spray from yesterday and gave everything a spritz of yummy scent.

I think next up will be my shawls…..they could use a wash.

Happy Winter!!

A Package Of Cheer

Apparently Late Night Insomnia Rachelle did a little shopping a couple of weeks ago. She ordered some stuff from 316 Dye Studio. 🙂

Honestly, I remember seeing her on a social media doom scroll but I don’t remember buying anything. So this is a surprise to today Rachelle. I picked up some cute Midwest themed stickers, two bottles of flatter which is a Soak product that is used to scent your woolens or help steam/iron them. And finally I got a mixed fiber batt in Pumpkin Spike Latte. It’s a cormo, silk, stellina blend.

But I think I picked up some good treasures!

Handspun Pull

After looking honestly at my blanket yesterday I pulled my handspun tub upstairs and did a good dive into it.

I am finding a new things that might work. Except for the two marled skeins in the middle, these are VERY early handspun. It’s honestly thicker and bulkier than what is in my blanket now. I am for sure going to use the blue, pink and dark brown. I am less sure about the pink/yellow mix. And I’d like to save the two marled skeins for last in case I don’t need them.

It is a nice silver lining to finally use some this handspun in a project. With a unique and bulky as this is, I don’t know what else I would have done with it anyway.

Happy Crochet!!

Going To Need More Handspun

I am still trying to work fairly consistently on this Comfort Blanket. And I’m running low on the handspun I have originally pulled for this project.

The alternating the different skeins is really breaking up the colors nicely. It can get a little tangly when I am turning the blanket back and forth. I am just concerned that this isn’t very big with what I have left. I need to do some stash diving and see what I have would have that could be added to this project.

Happy Crochet

2025 Fall Hat Progress

I am really trying to finish this hat this month. And the Fall Conference Hat is still slow going. I got a decent inch added during a long work meeting.

I think I need another solid inch and I can start the decreases. This yarn is single and can get splitty. I am interested to see how well I can work the decreases without driving myself insane.

I am fully into the second ball of yarn. So there will be leftovers for my leftover pile. That pile got bigger when I did the annual stash toss and container consolidation. I need to come up with more ideas than worsted weight hats.

Happy Knitting!!

Zebra Heels

I think I am getting close to where I need to start the heels on Rhiannon’s socks.

She is a US 7 women’s foot so I am using the internet to help me gauge how long the foot needs to be based on averages. Negative ease can help me here along with the fact that wool stretches out. It should all be fine.

I need to dust off my turned heel instructions…..

Happy Knitting!!

Growing Blanket

The 2026 comfort blanket is growing nicely.

The alternating skeins was a particularly helpful stroke of genius. It does make a lot of yarn management necessary but I think I am put my big kid pants on and deal. I realize that I have no idea how big this will be with the yarn that I have.

The good news with crochet is that I can always spin more yarn and add more later. Happy Crocheting!!