All! The! Yellow! Things!

I make no apologies. Yellow is a favorite of mine, and it has taken me a while to find shades that I can wear next to my face and not look like death warmed over.  While I generally like my burns-in-the moonlight complexion, it can be challenging with certain shades that I dearly love.

But! I think I may have cracked it with this little cowl thing. It was some left over Malabrigo Arroyo in Sunset and I lurve it so much. 

My only complaint is that it is super wash, but that is minor. I’ve made a very good dent in my stash making baby sweaters these past months as I seem to have a lot of pregnant friends all of a sudden!  

The pattern is Kate Davies’ Sprung Rhythm, which is one of two patterns that made me spring (heh—see what I did there?) for the Making Light book in the spring.  It is gorgeous, by the way.

The other one is the Dorchas/Solas sweater, which I’m working on now in a glorious autumnal red.  Stay tuned; I’m in the home stretch on it.

Not much else to say except it was a fun knit once I got into the charted section (the ribbed bottom was tedious but thankfully didn’t take long).  And I have only the tiniest little bit left—I had to unravel the gauge swatch to bind off!  A win for the stash!

Raspberry Lizard Redux

Another brief note, this one an update about that sweater I posted in the fall.  I finished it a year ago but didn't wear it until cooler weather in the fall.  The length always bugged me, as it wanted to ride up in the back and left me feeling cold!  I didn't end up wearing it much at all this past season.  

I decided to lengthen the hem an inch or so, and also fixed one of the cuffs that I had made a mistake on while I was at it.  It was a fairly fast fix.

I didn't want to make a turtleneck out of the neckkline, so I made a little cowl using the pattern as a guide so I can add it if I want to.  I did the first repeat twice (or maybe three times?) and the second repeat twice before purling a few rows and then a bind off.  I like how it came out!  It will definitely be warmer than the first iteration.  Fingers crossed I will wear it more this coming winter!

And yes, it really is cold enough for wools again today!  Go home, weather, you're drunk.

Words about Ferns

This has been a Lenty-Lent.  It started with a bang on Forgiveness Sunday with the news that my brother-in-law and his family were involved in a serious car accident that flipped their mini-van.  They were hit by a drunk driver in a high-speed chase with police.  The cops said if the angle had been slightly different, at least one of them would have died.  They all came out with concussions and minor contusions, but no broken bones or major injuries, so there is that to be thankful for.  That was on top of another hospitalization for my father-in-law, who had been in and out for several months with a respiratory infection.  There were a few other things that happened around the same time that just felt like a pile-on.

The Upper School musical this year was Narnia and it was a pretty intense show with a lot of spiritual attacks during tech week and the first performance.  A lot of weird stuff happened.  The kids were total pros and took every twist and in turn in stride, but it was stressful for the adults!  The whole cast did a superb job but our White Witch was amazing and nailed it as did Aslan (which I just found out is the Turkish word for lion--how cool is that?) I worked on costumes leading up to the show and was backstage again this year and that was fun.  It was a very good show and I still have a bunch of the songs living rent-free in my head.

Just before tech week, my father-in-law passed away.  He had gone on hospice care the week before so while it was not a surprise, it was a little faster than we expected.  My father-in-law was 90 and had not been well for several years. My husband was able to get to Texas in time to prepare his body before having him moved here for the funeral and burial.  (We had bought plots at an Orthodox cemetery about an hour out of town).  

My girls and I sang the Panikhida at our church on the Sunday night and then sang the funeral with the priest's wife at the out-of-town parish the following morning.  Relatives and colleagues came for the services and it was nice to catch up with some people we hadn't seen in a long time, including our beloved spiritual father who happened to be in the area for something else.  Many stories were told of my father-in-law's truly bonkers antics over the years.  After the memorial meal, we went back to the city for afternoon rehearsal at school. It was a crazy start to tech week.  

And since the weather has turned frigid again, I figure I better log this sweater I finished in February. This is Words about Ferns and I reused the yarn I made Ponchik's Weekender with when she was in 1st grade.  She's long outgrown the sweater, but it was a cashmere-merino blend yarn and I just couldn't let the yarn go to waste.  

I had more than 700 yards to play with, and the pattern said 600 was enough for my size, but I am here to tell you that the pattern is grossly off.  I had to buy 3 extra skeins, so almost 400 yards more.  

The new ones were obviously a different dye lot so I had to get creative about blending the new yarn so it wouldn't show as a harsh line.  Three-quarters of both sleeves and all of the collar are in the new yarn.  In some lights you can hardly tell, and others it is more obvious.  It is a little bit of an ombre effect, I guess.  I don't really care, to be honest.  It is warm and cozy and I've worn it a LOT since finishing it.  

My mods were to add waist shaping and to double the collar, because at that point, I had the extra skeins so I figured I might as well take advantage.  I used up every last bit of yarn except for a 6" piece I'm using for sleeve scrap on a baby sweater.  Talk about yarn chicken!

I went out to the garden last week to spread the salt hay that we can purchase from the garden association to which our community plot belongs.  We received our plot too late last year to take advantage and hauling in mulch by the bagful on a busy city street was not fun, so I was glad to have the hay delivered right to the plot this year.  The daffodils are blooming and the tulips are up with a few in bloom.  The bulbs out back are up green but not blooming yet (just a lone crocus managed to bloom) but the containers tend to lag the big garden by several weeks, so I'm not concerned.

I moved my fig and blueberry bushes there in the fall in the hopes that full sun might encourage better fruit development. The fig has never fruited and the blueberry bushes have struggled in the back. Plus the bleeping squirrels wouldn't leave the bushes and containers alone.  I'm focusing more on flowers in the back, although I still have the raspberry canes.  The birds get a few but don't bother them as much and the squirrels can't really climb the canes very well.  I might move them to the plot at some point, but they do okay out back for now.

Japanese Theotokos and Christ child

We celebrated Annunciation liturgy this morning and it is already Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday this coming weekend!  C'праздником!

Revision

 Just a quick pop in to show a sweater I made last year that I modified this past month. 

My Sarkle was sitting mostly unworn because I found the body too short and boxy, the neckline too tight, and overall not warm enough.  

So I cut off the body just below the yoke, got live stitches back on needles, and reknit the body with waist shaping and additional length.  

I unpicked the collar bind off and added enough length to make a turtleneck and like it MUCH better now!  

Turtlenecks are much better for me in winter because I find heavy scarves a nuisance in my daily activities, so I'm more likely to wear a cowl, but even that can be annoying sometimes, so this is a neat and handy solution!  (The three sweaters I modified last winter have gotten much more wear as a result).  I have another sweater to show soon, but I am busy gearing up for the musical at my kids' school (All!The!Costumes!) and making baby sweaters.  Seems I have a lot of friends who are expecting babies in the next six months!  I'll try to show those as I get them finished.  It is a good way to use up odds and ends, plus some of the superwash wool I collected when I first started knitting but no longer care to use for myself.  It's great for babies because you can throw it in the washer and dryer!  

Right, that's me.  Over and out.

Round About the Neck

Two posts in a week--what is the world coming to?  Ha!  I've got two little projects to share today, both neckwear.  

A few years ago, there was a pattern book floating around the interwebs that had a striped sweater and I absolutely loved the color combo and the subtle texture of it.  Took me a minute to find the pattern but it is Stratified by Tif Neilan.  I was maybe a leetle obsessed with the stripe sequence as I literally counted rows on the photo so I knew when to change colors!

I didn't really want a whole sweater of it, though, so decided to make a cowl with yarn I already had that was close in shade.  I kind of made it up but used a pattern for the shaping.  So the pattern really has nothing to do with the finished object, since it is for a stranded piece.  I admit, I don't think I got the sizing right, as it doesn't want to lay nice and has been sitting in a bin for more than a year unworn.  

How it wants to lay: 

But with a bit of fussing, it is more like this: 

I guess I can just go around with my hand near my neck all day? If I could get it to lay nicely, I would probably wear it more, but it is okay, I suppose.  I should probably frog it to reclaim the yarn.  The dress was a thrift and is a match to green one I thrifted for Ponchik.  Hers is super cute on her and she liked the idea of matching.  The dress is warm and comfortable but I can't decide if it reads frumpy 90s or good 90s.  Probably the combat boots help?  Maybe it needs a knit poncho?  I dunno.  Jury still out.

Next up is the Cowal pattern by Kate Davies.  This was similar to the Gruggle but way more enjoyable to knit and I don't really know why.  I also like how it came out a lot better.

I made it considerably shorter than the pattern calls for because I had two balls of yarn and didn't want get a third.  I was concerned the full size one would swamp me. 

I think this is a good volume and length and I've worn it a few times already.  For the record, it was FREEZING when I took these photos.  That dress and jacket are both wool and I had on wool base layers too.  We had a cold snap where it didn't get out of the teens for more than a week and I was wearing my two wool maxi skirts on repeat:

I don't mind the cold, but my circulation isn't the greatest, so I've been trying to get creative about keeping my feet and hands warm.  It has warmed up slightly this week, so most of the snow we got two weeks ago is done.

45 must be the age when One Starts to Wear Blazers.  When I was younger they felt a bit too much on me, but I'm liking them now.  They do have to be pretty fitted and only in certain fabrics, but it's a good church outfit.

Mentalist in Autumn Whirlpool

It's the time of the year where I lose time.  I've detailed before the crazy that is January and early February in our family because of birthdays, namesdays, and church holidays, but having got through Theophany yesterday, we have a brief reprieve for a week or two before the next thing.  Still a lot of basketball to get through!

I find myself in a Robert Frost sort of mood lately--two roads diverged in a wood and all that, wondering about choices made I when I was younger, etc.  I suppose it is the normal thing for this time of life.  Piglet is in the throes of college search and admissions testing and all that jazz, so it is probably natural to reflect on that time in my own life too.  How is it nearly 30 years since high school?  I just discovered Irene Smith's Substack and it is like she is living in my head, right down to the overalls.  (Well, except for the part about beauty in youth.  Eh, not so much).  

Time is weirdly elastic; it is more like the sea than a straight line, I find. It folds back on itself and stretches out past the horizon, all at the same time. I'm reading Tim Winton at the moment and he is skilled at writing about the experience of the passage of time. I've read some Kazuo Ishiguro recently too, which has a similar kind of wistful feel to it, even if the subject matter is vastly different.  

It will surprise absolutely no one that I went down another actor rabbit hole.  In my defense, (although I don't think I need one, not really), I lost a whole month in November and early December to illness, and there isn't much you can do when sick like that.  So, rabbit holes.  This one featured Simon Baker.  My favorite rom-com has him as the love interest and it was fun to watch that again.  I can relate to Kenya very much.

Previously, I had never managed to get past the first two or three episodes of The Mentalist, but I watched all seven seasons in November and early December and enjoyed them very much.  They really stuck the landing on the series finale, and ended it in a way that was both narratively and emotionally satisfying.  I then tried The Guardian, which I had also tried before and didn't get into, but I loved it this time.  The series finale was good, not quite as good as The Mentalist, but it ended in a narratively satisfying way.  

I've been watching Baker's films too, included his directorial debut, Breath.  Highly recommend that film.  It is so beautifully shot and the story is thematically one that I think everyone can relate to on some level.  His more recent work is good and thought-provoking.

 

During all this sick time, I worked on a fingering weight sweater using the Autumn Whirlpool pattern and nearly lost my ever-loving mind.  The chart was written using symbols that are opposite to the way most pattern writers notate, so I had to have the key in front of me at all times and look every.single.row to make sure I was knitting the thing correctly.  The first 8-10 rows I seriously contemplated giving up and going with a different pattern, but after that, I started to groove with the chart and it got better.  In the end, I'm glad I soldiered on, because it is a great textured yoke and I like the finished sweater very much. 

My only complaint (minor!) is that I should have sized down, but that is a common problem for me these days.  I'm probably going to make a matching cowl or convert the neckline to a turtleneck because I get cold so easily and crew necklines are of limited usefulness to me in the cold months.  I did that with my Cinnamomum sweater and like the options the cowl gives me very much!

Since my first bout with Covid in March 2020, my taste has never quite come back to normal, so I go in cycles with what tastes good (not much, to be honest) and what is not good or downright revolting.  I've had a short run of coffee being a little bit gaggy, so switched to tea.  My husband had bought some little gift tea tins the last time he was in the UK on business, so I've been enjoying that.  

My opinion is that tea should be hot, black, strong, and sweet. Fight me if you want. I learnt to drink it in Russia, and that's how it was always served to me, so there you go.  And one must leave the spoon in the cup whilst drinking it.  All else is outrage!  (Just kidding).  If the glass isn't 1/3 leaves and sugar, is it even tea?  Ha!

As for writing, I started developing a couple of stories in late December; the book is on hold at the moment.  I had great momentum on it right up to the moment I got sick, and since then, it has been hard to get back to it.  I'm not narratively stuck any longer, and I was able to write a bunch that I haven't transcribed into my working manuscript yet (I write long hand and type it later), but I'm questioning whether the story needs to be told at all.  It's probably that I just need to get back into it and I'll be fine.  I have most of a (terrible) first draft finished, so perhaps it is good to let it sit a while anyway. Meantime, I'm knitting a LOT, including reclaiming yarn from sweaters that don't fit or suit, and fixing some other sweaters with minor issues.  'Tis the season for yarn, I reckon!