Thick yarn on big needles really makes a project fly by! I have completed most of the body of my Emotional Support Chicken.
My crochet join of the tail region could use some work but it’s secure and I can always add more rows to cover. I am working with uneven handspun so it doesn’t hide my sins as easily as a commercial yarn.
Next up I need to start and shape the head. And see if I have any polyfill in my crafting stash. I don’t make a ton of toys so it’s not a guarantee…
Happy Knitting!!
I am finally getting my Emotional Support Chicken on the needles. I have a whole bag of crunchy woolly and rough handspun that will be great for this type of project.
I chose not to swatch as I am not aiming for a specific size of finished toy. I am just making sure that I have a tight gauge to keep the stuffing on the inside. I chose US 7s and this handspun is worsted to bulky weight.
This is a lot of my early handspun that is pretty thick and thin. The dark brown is unknown wool and the lighter is romney. We will see how this knits up. I still need to track down some yellow and red accent for the beak and comb.
Happy Knitting!!
The sleeves of Autumn Gold are complete and happily matching.
I ended the second sleeves with just one tiny nub of yarn left from the skein. Both sleeves knit nicely from one skein of yarn. I will have more than enough to finish this sweater based on what I have caked up.
Now I am just on the forever knitting of the body and adding the ribbed side details. So I have to pay attention on every other round. I wonder how many times I will get that wrong?
Happy Knitting!!
In non fibery news, my summer apple tree did very well this year. I harvested close to four plastic grocery bags of decent apples. I probably composted 50 times as much due to bird and animal loss. Or just failing to pick and they got rotten. And that is okay, I am not a commercial apple producer.
I cleaned up the apples and cut out all the bad or buggy bits and dropped into a pressure cooker. My preferred method is jelly from juice so I like to harvest that from the fruit. I cook as much of the apple including core an seed to develop as much natural pectin as possible
The juice is coming out very deep rose colored this year with the peel influencing the color. I use cheese close to harvest the juice. The kids didn’t really appreciate the apple sauce pulp flavor so I chose not to try to salvage any of that. I gave some to my friends with chickens and composted the rest.
It is crazy back to school time again so I don’t have capacity to make jelly right now so I sterilized several jars and I’m freezing the juice until I have time to work it. I am hoping that I can also get my hands on more wine grapes to re-stash my grape jelly stash as well this year.
And then I would just do a large cook day for jelly processing. Hopefully with extra hands to help!
Happy Canning!!
It’s been a hot minute since I last touched my Conference 2025 Hat. I had some downtime getting my windshield repaired so I got the brim folded and attached.
It feels like riding a bike as I have been on a sweater kick lately and returning to my hat knitting. I have zero plans for this hat, just a slow and steady knit that runs around with me in my work bag.
A few more inches of hat body and I will be ready for decreases! Happy Hat Knitting!!
My knitting plans are absolutely out of sync with my actual time available to knit. I have now a fourth sweater that I am putting in my wishful knitting category.
This time it is the Cozy Classic Raglan by Jessie Maed Designs. I have five skeins of a grey tweed DK from my a 2020 virtual yarn retreat that I went to. And DK has been my preferred yarn weight for finished garments as I am warm but not to warm. And I have not yet developed the mental stamina to do a fingering weight sweater.
I have this yarn wound, pattern printed and bag ready to go. I just need to swatch to chose final needle size. One downside of all this fit of creativity is that most of these sweater need US 7 or US 8 needles and I only have one interchangeable set and not a lot of singular fixed needles in this size.
I am torn between sourcing some additional in this size and just waiting for those needles to come open. I want to keep the mojo going but don’t want to amass too many needles, lol.
Happy Wishful Knitting!!
I have so many wishful knitting projects here and here and here. That I decided to break out my ball winder and swift to do some serious winding. I don’t normally cake my yarn and tend to hand wind my yarn.
So after several hours and more tangles that I like….I wound three sweaters worth of yarn and got caked up. I do have another sweater lot that the skein is too large for my swift and I will definitely have to hand wind those.
This swift is handmade by a family member and it works great. But an umbrella swift would be more beneficial. I am considering put one of those on my wish list. And my bigger wish list is a craft room where I could have all my tools set up and I don’t have to put them away after each use 🙂
Happy Winding!!
I can’t help myself, the cast-on-itis and pattern fever is in full swing. I have another sweater that I want to start.
I have several skeins of Knit Picks of Provincial Tweed in a deep red color. This is a worsted weight so not my usual got to for sweaters as it is very warm. But I have this in my stash and I wanted to use it up. I decided on a Basic Round Yoke Pullover from Quince & Co.
I am really finding that round yokes work on my body type. And I really prefer knitting top down sweaters as I don’t want to think too hard about decided when a sweater body is sufficient when I work bottom up. I know it would work out fine and it’s just an idiosyncrasy or mental block on my side.
When I will get this started? Who knows…but I like that I have a bag, pattern and yarn ready to swatch. I may be tipping dangerously close to too many sweaters on the needles, lol.
Happy Wishful Knitting!!
I made a pretty big leap/purchase at SSK that wasn’t fiber or yarn related. I have been saving my mad money for the past year and I decided to take a leap into an electric wheel. SSK had a “try it” room for tools and wheels as well. I was able to try several brands and versions of e-wheels and I landed on a very nice starter wheel.
This is a Daedalus Sparrow electric spinning wheel. It’s 3D printed and very compact and light. I am excited to see what this does to my spinning output. In my current phase of life I have so many kid events and our house does not have a dedicated craft space for me that I find I don’t get my Ashford Kiwi spinning wheel out very much. I have to take it out and put it away almost every time I use it. Which is a barrier to use for me.
I am hoping that this e-wheel is more portable and accessible for more day to day to use. I have it set up in my office right now so I can drop in and spin as I feel the whim. I am starting with the Fiber Pool fiber mix from SSK 2024. It’s a lot of mix of different types of fiber so I will get to “test” a lot on this new wheel.
Let’s see what I can spin now! Happy Spinning!!
Sneaking out and soaking in the last of summer. I took the kids to an indoor water park today for some fun. I did my mom due diligence and I rode all the slides, swam in the pools and lazied the lazy river. I also sat and read my book club book and tried to knit on my Autumn Gold sweater.
Sleeve number one got done and I put in needles to start sleeves #2. And boy howdy was this yarn “sticky” in the hot and humid environment. Not the most enjoyable knitting but it killed the requisite time until my kids were worn out! I also read Broken Country for book club cover to cover in a couple of hours. This one was a great book and I tore through it. And it had a lot off triggers that really got to me. I will have to process this one a bit before I can give a review.
Happy Last Days of Summer Break!
Michele plays with yarn, food, and music in Portland
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