Planning Northeasterly

I have gone completely bananas. There is just no other explanation for what I did. I went and lost what little I had left of a brain and ordered a cone of yarn….A CONE! It’s a million miles of fingering weight un-dyed yarn. All because I needed to start another scrap blanket.

I have been seeing and hearing about Northeasterly by Melissa Alexander-Loomis all over blogs and vlogs and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I almost started right off with my scraps from my mitered square memory blanket. But the pattern is written for DK and Fingering. You can achieve DK weight by holding two fingering weight yarns together. And my brain went “Oh…let’s do a marl!” and off I went to find some white un-dyed yarn. I snagged a cone of Franklin’s Natural sock yarn from Webs that was on sale so that I can hold doubled with my scraps. I will get a lovely marled yarn look and make all the crazy scraps look a little more cohesive.

When will I have time to start this? Who knows! But I have the yarn kitted up in a project bag with the pattern. I’m hoping to dig out some US 5 needs on the shortest cord I can find in my stash. I really don’t want to work on straight needles or managed a bunch of extra cord for not that many stitches. Maybe this will make a great new start for the 2019 new year?

Happy Knitting!!

Cast On: Helping Hippos Vanilla Socks

My sock needles have been telling me that they feel very cold lately. Other than the backup pair of socks in my desk that haven’t seen the light of day in ages….I don’t have any socks on the go. This is very abnormal for me.

So I decided to pull some special yarn from my stash. It’s a Lolodidit hippo colorway….Helping Hippos (that she made for hurricane relief). It’s a ton of many many colored speckles and the perfect antidote to the grey of winter coming. I split the hank into two equal 50 gram skeins to make a pair of socks.

These are my own sock recipe of a toe-up 68 stitch vanilla sock with a gusset heel. I am knitting these on US 1.5 nine inch circular needles. I managed to get the first toe started!

Happy Knitting!!

Rosewood In The Wild

It’s the time of the year to get all the parts checked and spend waaaaay too long in waiting rooms. Recently at my well woman visit I found myself with a ton of time to kill in the waiting area. So like any good knitter I pulled out my knitting and put some rows on my Rosewood Sockhead Slouch.

And you guys, I found another knitter in the wild because I was knitting in public! A very nice distinguished woman sat down next to me and asked it I was picking or throwing. And my head snapped up because to ask that question…you have to be more than a novice knitter. So we started up a pleasant conversation about knitting and projects until it was time for us to both head into our appointments.

It turned out to be a rather nice way to pass the time. Happy Knitting!!

Rosewood Progress

My Rosewood Sockhead slouch is about the only knitted item I have been able to make progress on lately. It’s my bedside, in the dark, listening to podcasts and trying not to wake up the baby knitting. It really is knitting up nicely!

I’m at roughly 8 inches of hat and based on my Rainbow Pop sockhead hat I need to get to 11 inches before I start the decreases.

Happy Knitting!!

Mini Madness

Happy Birthday to me!! I received some birthday money and decided to splurge on another month of Row One Yarn Carnival of Color club. (I didn’t quite meet my healthy lifestyle goals this month…but I didn’t back slide either. I’m just going to continue to make better choices every day.)

This month’s yarn is from Emma’s yarn in her Hella Hank base. Guys…this is like a 17 year old entrepreneur. She has a great website, excellent marketing and amazing yarn. Oh if only I was that smart as a teenager!

Happy Knitting!!

Cast On: Rosewood Sockhead Slouch

I recently attended a two day conference for work. Thankfully it was a drive home every night kind of thing so I got to be home to be with PB.  This conference was almost exclusively lecture based. So I KNEW I needed knitting. But I didn’t have any autopilot knitting because Rainbow Pop gloves need my eyeballs on them.

So I fished through my tonal sock yarn and pulled out a lovely skein of T & H Fiber Works Heather’s Favorite Sock in the Rosewood color that my mom got at a fiber festival a couple of years ago. Since I hadn’t put away my needles from my Rainbow Pop Sockhead slouch I simply cast on another Sockhead slouch!

Here is my progress by lunch on Day 1….

And here is my progress by the end of day 2…. I got almost of the ribbing done over two days (conference and travel knitting). I got several compliments on my project and a few stares. But my knitting did strike up a conversation with other attendees about Cognitive Anchoring and the benefits of letting people use their hands to be better focused during meetings.

All in all it was a great conference and some great knitting!!

An Almost Finished Rainbow Mitt

My Rainbow Pop Fingerless Mitts are moving right along.

I’ve made A TON of mistakes because I’m mainly knitting these in the dark after the kiddos go to bed. I have uttered a lot of curse words and mostly gone back and fixed the dropped stitches and wonky yarn bits. But these will be FAR from perfect. My needles are also very sharp and I feel like that is part of my problem too (besides the dark).

I completely just winged this “pattern” and I really hope I can duplicate for the second mitt! The rubber will really hit the road when I cast off the cuff and try these babies on. I have no idea how these will fit other than I know they will fit over my fist.

Happy Knitting!!

A Little Blanket Knitting

I loved the Lemonade Shop’s Stormy Day yarn so much that I couldn’t wait to add it to my memory blanket. I wanted to make sure I got my square done before I got started on the Rainbow mitts too.

I haven’t touched this in awhile and I kind of forgot how beautiful this blanket is. I have an itch to work on this, but it won’t earn me any points in the football KAL I’m playing in so I have kind of let it sit in my bag.

My better angels may win out and this may see some action this fall. Especially after I show you some mini madness I have earned. But that needs to be it’s own post. For now I’m going to pet my pretty blanket and snuggle under it.

Happy Knitting!!

FO Friday: Rainbow Pop Sockhead Slouch

My Rainbow Pop Sockhead Slouch is done, blocked and dry. I am just over the moon with how cool this yarn and pattern combo turned out!

This is how the hat looks with no folded brim. It’s very slouchy and accommodates a pony tail.

Pattern: Sockhead Slouch by Kelly McClure

Yarn: Lemondade Shop Simple Sock in Stormy Day. I used 76 grams or 304 yards of yarn for this hat.

Needles: US 2s. My gauge turned out to be 7.5 stitches and 11 rows to 1 inch.

And here is how it looks with a folded brim. I personally think this is how I’ll be wearing mine. It just looks so sharp!

I did get some pooling at the crown decreases but it’s very negligible. And if anyone gets that close to notice and point that out then I will just headbutt them. This project was soothing balm to my sleep deprived mommy soul. I almost want to cast on another one to have such a happy meditative knit in my bag.

Happy Knitting!!

The Memory Blanket Rides Again

While waiting for inspiration to strike….I pulled out my trusty memory blanket!

This just makes me so happy! I’m two squares away from squaring this off again. I don’t even care how hot this is on my lap while I knit, that’s how much I love this!

I did fall down the Etsy hole and may or may not have ordered a large project bag to contain this beast. Right now it lives in a plastic sheet set bag with the zipper that’s wearing out. I feel like something this beautiful deserves proper storage! I’ll share my bag once it gets here….teeehee….

Happy Knitting!!