Ravelry Disappointment

I really enjoy using Ravelry. I even sent emails praising the site when there was a bunch of backlash against the new website remodel. I am one that tends to keep notes as I’m knitting my projects. I’m learning to do a better job of reporting my gauge so that in the future I know what needle and yarn creates what gauge. I don’t tend to update stash very much as I try to have projects already identified for yarn when I purchase it. Thus I don’t need to “stash dive” when I find a pattern I want to knit.

I also check out “hot right now” patterns on almost a daily basis. I look for free patterns to add to my library as well as purchasing several that I’ve got in my queue. Image my surprise and disgust when on Friday I saw a “hot right now” pattern that used a disgusting curse word to describe police officers in the pattern title. The pattern description goes on to denigrate police officers. I knew the staff was quite liberal since one of the original operators is transgender going from Casey when the site started to now Cassidy. The site has labeled all conservative stance as “hate speech”. But apparently it’s acceptable to denegrate police officers.

This is so contrary to what I thought Ravelry is supposed to be, accepting of everyone, not making generalizations, etc. Yet when I posted a question about why Ravelry was allowing this pattern, my post got taken down by the administrators. The pattern on the other hand is still in the “hot right now” list. So for me this means I will no longer purchase patterns through Ravelry. Thankfully Ravelry does allow me to block designers so I no longer have to see this disgusting pattern when I visit the site.

#66. Stitch Marker Holders and Socks

Part of the fun of knitting is having fun knitting toys. I found a colorful, and cheap, way to hold all my O-ring stitch markers. I use these as stitch count markers and use different colors to designate different parts of a sweater (front, back, right sleeve, left sleeve). These are pill containers so they are sold in the health section of my local mass market store. I have one for my small rings and one for my medium and large rings. Since I mainly knit with size 4 or smaller needles, I mainly use the small rings. Thus I have more colors of the small rings. It’s easy to drop the cylinder in my knitting bag when I travel. Since they screw together, I can chose to pack anywhere from 1 to all 7 of the containers depending on how many colors I think I’ll need while away from my knitting nook.

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As far as projects go …. this week I did finish one pair of socks. I finished the cuff and ripped out the toes as the foot was too long. I took out about 1/2″ and then reknit the toes. So these are ready to gift. I also completed the foot and heel on the second pair. Now it’s straight forward to knit the leg and get them finished. I have one more pair of these to make before I can send the 3 pairs of socks to the family that hosted my daughter last spring. I warned them that they wouldn’t be ready until Christmas.

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I continue to make progress on my Amrum sweater. Apparently Amrum is a German island in the German North Sea. That makes sense since the pattern designer is German. Seeing how we just spent 2 wks this summer at a friend’s beach house followed by spending last weekend at a beach house near my daughter, it is appropriate I’m making a sweater named after a tourist beach island.

#65 YoP Aug 17

Didn’t get as much done as I thought I would which sadly is not a big surprise. I always envision I’m going to get LOTS of knitting done on trips and it rarely works out that way. On the other hand I’m SO thankful for the day long conversations at the beach I had with my daughter and stepson while visiting my daughter for her “virtual” graduation. I’m feeling a little melancholy as our relationship changes from my daughter being a student to my daughter being employed fulltime with it’s new restrictions on her time.

Here’s a picture of my daughter in the top I made her. As previous blogs note, I had to rip it out twice due to not reading a very simple pattern correctly. But I’m happy with how it turned out and so is she. I’m really glad I modified the pattern to have a garter edging instead of the all stockinette the pattern is designed with.

My knitting for the week focused on completing some pairs of socks I’ve promised. The foot is too long on the blue socks and I was thinking I had to rip out the entire leg and heel. Duhh!! I just need to turn it inside out and unravel the toe. That will take much less time!! Boy, when I get focused on the toe up process I was almost blinded to alternatives. Thankfully I figured it out before ripping out the leg. So hopefully at least the blue socks will be a FO by next week’s update.

I also worked on my Amrum sweater. I’m making slow but sure progress. I can see mistakes but since it’s for me, I’ll live with them. (Yes the red and gold pins means there is a mistake that I will have to “fix” with a sewing needle). I do love this yarn so I’m enjoying knitting the sweater.

#64 Rearranging Knitting Nook

I am lucky to have a wonderful “nook” off our “toy room”.  We finished the area above our garage to be a “toy room” for our kids while they were growing up.  The kids are grown so I’ve taken over the “nook” that used to house their tv, movie videos (then CDs) and eventually video games.  I had a small TV in the corner but this week I “upgraded” by putting my oldest son’s TV, that he left behind when he moved to Florida, just outside the nook thus making my knitting nook a little bigger!!  As you can see when I took this picture, I was enjoying this week’s Grocery Girls YouTube Live broadcast.  I am loving my wall of yarn, candles, and pictures.

Many of the wooden boxes are actually crates that wine came in.  For the two boxes on the left (one fits nicely under a small endtable), I use the cardboard dividers between the wine bottles to be dividers for the skeins of yarn.  This is where all my single skeins (socks) of yarn go.  In the middle and to the right you see my many “prepackaged” sets of yarn for projects in my queue.  When I buy yarn I do like to have a project in mind.  It doesn’t stop me from changing my mind but at least I have a starting point of what I was thinking when I bought the yarn.  I print out the Ravelry page of the pattern and put it with the yarn in a zippered clear bag.

Under the window you can see the quilted bag that I use to hold my current project, the Amrum sweater.  https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/amrum  You can even see the green knitting sticking out the top of the bag.  I adore this space.  The colors of my yarn plus all the wood is so cozy.  I have a lovely window to enjoy the trees on our property (we live in the woods). I feel “snug as a bug”.

Check out my queue on Ravelry if you want to see my plans for all this yarn. 🙂

YEAR OF PROJECTS UPDATE

I did do a little knitting this week too.  I’m making progress on the second pair of Fixation socks I’m knitting.  I’m going to have my daughter do a “test fit” before I make the heel.  I’m pretty sure I made the foot too long on the first pair of Fixation socks and I’m expecting to have to rip out the leg and heel to reduce the foot half and inch.  Fortunately with the thicker Fixation yarn, it doesn’t take long to knit the socks (if I focus).  In the mean time I’ve enjoyed getting back to knitting my Amrum sweater.  As long as it’s done by October, I’ll be happy.  One of those project bags on the shelf is a Sailormoon sweater that I want to start by October.

Mask Making

When 2020 started I had no idea how many masks I’d be making.  I don’t particularly like to sew but I do have a 30 year old machine that gets used occasionally to fix a seam.  After making masks for everyone in my family that wanted one, I’ve started making masks for my church to give out.  We are using the fabric that would normally be used by our quilting group.  Just this week I have 11 children’s masks and 9 adult masks ready to be dropped off.  This morning I cut the fabrics to make 9 more children’s masks and 9 more adult masts.

 

 

#63 Year of Projects Update – Aug 3

 I generated a 2020 knitting project plan (see post #45) at the beginning of the year.  So at 7 months into 2020, here’s a review of my progress.

My project list had 3 sweaters with a possible 4th, 4 pairs of socks, 2 shawls, and finishing a 2019 started sweater and pair of argyle socks.  So that’s 9 projects with a possible 10th plus finishing 2 2019 projects.  That’s 12 projects which is an aggressive target for me.

Socks:  Not too bad.  I’ve made one pair and added a pair of anklets.  I currently have two pair on needles and with make a third as these are gifts for my daughter’s former college roommates and their mother who allowed her to live with them while she completed a clinical rotation in Boston.  I also still hope to get a pair of Christmas socks knit this fall.  So that would be 6 sets of socks versus a target of 5.  I have decided to delay my Argyle socks until it’s possible to meet in person.  I was struggling with making argyle socks so I want to wait until I can get help from my friend that taught the class and/or another friend that took the class and successfully completed a pair.

Sweaters:  Not bad.  I’ve ended up substituting summer tops for some of the sweaters since wintering in Florida has reduced my need for sweaters.  So far I’ve completed the sweater I carried over from 2019 and two summer tops.  I’ve started a sweater which would complete my goal of 4 sweaters.  I still hope to complete a 5th by the end of the year.

Shawls:  Not a big priority for me since I don’t really wear them.  I did substitute a cowl to go with the 2019 sweater I finished.

Bottomline:  I’m decently on track although I do need to focus so that I can get the socks and sweaters finished.  I have so many projects waiting to be knit that I need to stop piddling away time and get more knitting done.

#62 Figuring Out Skeins Needed

I am terrible at figuring out how much yarn I need.  When I knit my Eyelet to Eyelet top I ended up needing an extra skein (4th) and frantically contacted the dyer trying to track down another skein.  Fortunately she had one to send me.

I also ordered 3 skeins of another yarn intending to make another top.  But as I knit the top, I started worrying that I’d again need a fourth.  Fortunately one of the LYS in my area just received a shipment of this yarn and they had the same color and dye lot!!!   So I ran over and bought the fourth.  Well, turns out that 3 skeins were indeed plenty for the top.  So now I had 1 ball of yarn.  Ugh.  What to do.

I haven’t tried mixing different brands of yarn in the same project so I’m not comfortable with that.  I finally decided to go back to the LYS and get 2 more skeins so that I can make a top for myself with the yarn.  The original plan was to make myself a summer top with the Sand color yarn.  When my daughter liked that color, I decided to use it to make her top.  So I’m not unhappy about buying more for a top for me.  I do have cream colored yarn, Quinoa from Berroco, for a top but this yarn is more of a tan so they are different both in color and texture.  I am determined though that the top will be 3 skeins and will make whatever modifications necessary to ensure I don’t need a fourth.