CROCHET BASKET
I finished the basket. I think it is quite ugly so I’m not going to gift it to my daughter. I put cardboard in the base and the sides to help give it some rigidity. I also folded over the sides making them double thick which helps make the sides stand up (and cover the cardboard). It sits on the end table next to where I knit. I’ve got some journals, a book, and my two current project bags sitting in it. No idea what I’m going to do with the second skein my stepson gave me. Maybe discretely donate it to Goodwill.
LITTLE AMANDINE BABY SWEATER
I’ve started this baby sweater but didn’t get a lot done this week as I was focused on finishing my Fixation socks. I plan to get a lot more done in the coming week. I’m just starting the right front panel.
FIXATION VANILLA SOCKS FO
I finished these shortie socks. I didn’t want to break into the second ball so I ended up knitting almost the entire leg in a contrast color. I didn’t want it to be all yellow so I added a navy stripe to break it up . Not loving it. These are for me so I’m not sure I care enough to rip out the navy stripe and make a shorter sock. I literally taped a note to the remaining ball to remind me to knit the toe, heel, and cuff in a contrast yarn so that I don’t run out of main color yarn for the short leg. I forgot to use a contrast color yarn for the toe on these hence my issues.
YARN AQUISITION
Resistance is futile. I saw this Emma’s Yarn colorway, Lucky Charms, on Summer Lee’s podcast about how skeins can knit up so different than what you expect based on the skein appearance. I NEVER would have bought this yarn. But seeing how it knit up in a pair of her socks, I simply could not resist. After weeks of trying to resist, I finally gave up. I checked the website and there was only one skein left. So I grabbed it. It will be a mostly white sock with little strips of rainbow stitches. With bright, leftover yarn for the toes and heels, I’m sure I’ll get 2 pair of shorties from one skein. (I just realized the red umbrella on our patio table makes the green stripe look brown in the photo.) I want to knit a lace pattern. I’ve picked the Tidewater sock pattern. Since it’s lace I’ll be knitting them 2 at a time. I’m using a new toe – Roxanne Richardson’s round toe. She did a video tutorial back in 2021 but I only just recently discovered it. I’ve been wanting a rounder toe than what I’ve been knitting. I really like the way it looks so this will be the toe I use for future socks.
AMAZON KINDLE BOOKS
As I confessed back in February, I do buy a lot from Amazon. When I can, I postpone deliveries so that I get digital rewards. I use this “money” to buy knitting books since I prefer patterns on my Kindle rather than physical books. So far this year I have purchased Patty Lyons’ Knitting Bag of Tricks, Summer Lee’s The Sock Project, and now I just bought Charlotte Stone’s Charming Colorwork Socks. I have avoided colorwork socks because I didn’t want double thick socks. Then I saw socks with just a stripe of colorwork. Duh!! The whole sock doesn’t have to be colorwork. Even if the pattern is for the whole leg/foot, I can choose to do only a stripe of it. So I bought the book.
Well, that’s another week of knitting. Glad to be done with crocheting and have no plans to do it again. There is just so much that I want to knit that I don’t need to work on a new hobby. Maybe someday in the future. Feels funny to only have 2 projects on needles but I want to make sure I get the baby sweater done before casting on another sweater or tee.
Today is Father’s Day in the US. My siblings and I (and our spouses) got to have a fish fry dinner with our dad at his assisted living facility. Hubby is having a quiet Father’s Day. After celebrating his birthday with family last weekend and hosting a memorial gathering for our stepson’s friend who died WAY too soon of leukemia yesterday, hubby is happy to have a quiet house with no one to cook for. We are both enjoying all the blooms on our mimosa tree.
This has been a Ravelry Year of Projects post. A group of crafting bloggers that create an annual plan and share how it’s going every week.
Knitting Is So Fun 
That skein of yarn is gorgeous! I’m sad that you bought the last one, but I’m also trying to not bring in more yarn than necessary, and I have PLENTY of beautiful yarn already, lol. Yes, I totally agree about how you can’t really know how a colorway will knit up by looking at the skein! My recently completed Austin socks are a testament to THAT fact! Winding the yarn definitely helps give you an idea, though with variegated yarn there’s still some mystery.
Congrats on the finished pair!
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Now you see why I simply could not wait to cast on the pair of socks! I do appreciate yarn dyers that provide swatches of their yarn even though different gauges will produce different results. It’s still better than trying to guess from a skein.
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I quite the navy Stripe in the yellow cuff. Really gives it a lovely pop. Your new sock yarn is going to make gorgeous shorty socks. How much fun it will be to see the colors emerge. I keep telling myself to try colorwork and I keep dragging my feet. Doing a strip of color work on a sock leg wouldn’t be too bad. But double thickness throughout an entire sock would be way too hot for here.
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Yep, that’s my problem too. Also why I have no interest in the current trend of DK yarn for socks.
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Beautiful knits.
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Thank you.
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I think the basket is cool, I think crocheted baskets need a really stiff yarn, I see them made using a weaving (or sewing?) technique with yarn wrapped around a cotton clothes line and tacked to the line beneath it as they go up. They add spots where they wrap cloth around parts of the cotton clothes line as well. They look very cool, but I haven’t tried one yet.
I don’t see the reason to frog any part of those socks, I like the blue stripe, I think they look fine!
Wow that skein of yarn is so pretty!! what a great pair of socks it will make!
There was a channel on YouTube that talked about how to make an herbal tea from your mimosa tree (bark and flowers), and how much you needed, and what it’s good for :). I like finding weird things to learn about :).
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That’s a new one for me – mimosa flower tea but why not?? I’ll be bottling my homemade kombucha tonight. I like hibiscus flowers in it so why not mimosa. Yeah, I’m sure I could learn to crochet a better basket but not sure I’m willing. I still may try making a smaller basket with tighter stitches with the remaining skein except I still have no idea what I’d do with the basket. The yarn is purple and teal, not my favorite colors.
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I love the sock yarn!
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I think the blue stripe was a great idea, all yellow would have looked a bit odd I think but the blue picks up the blues in the main sock part. This wasn’t a good pattern and yarn combo I think and if you had a kit for a nice crochet basket that has a sturdy cotton like macrame cord, I think you’d have enjoyed it much more. I rarely crochet but sometimes it makes a nice change.
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Very true. This is likely the wrong yarn for a basket. I just didn’t know what else to do with it. Maybe I’ll knit some hats with the yarn to give away.
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The basket is lovely and very useful! The socksare great!
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Thanks. I’ll see if I find the basket useful. If not, I’ll probably rip it out and maybe knit some hats that I can give away to my son’s students.
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