Yopping Update #26 - Going for 21 in '21

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Happy Boxing Day!  This will be a quick post because I have a deadline to meet.  More on that later. 

I finished my Gansey KAL scarf, but it isn't blocked because my son is here and sleeping on the bed that I usually spread my blocking mats on - so no pictures of the full scarf until the New Year. 

Can you see the last motif?  2021

My Gnombleberry and Gnewt gnomes are finished but no pictures until the designer gives us the go- ahead.  This was my favourite gnome KAL ever, and you will agree once I post the finished projects. 

I finished my Sarah Scott Socks.

These were my 20th pair of socks in the year 2021.  My dear friend Cait suggested I go for 21 pairs in the year 2021.  So, of course, I took up the challenge. This is why this post will be short - I have less than a week to get these socks finished. 

SPIDER socks

I have the leg done on both socks and have turned the heel and picked up the gusset on one.  I am loving this knit, I am making the heels/toes/cuff in gray to make sure I have enough of the red for the leg and foot.  

The gnome tree-skirt is on hold for the time being.  These socks need all my attention.  

It started to snow on Christmas Eve, and by Christmas morning  I was living in a winter wonderland.  The temperatures have dropped to -7 Celcius so the snow on the trees and bushes is truly magical.  

My son and I went for a snowy bird walk this afternoon and we saw two varied thrushes, a towie, a hummingbird and a raven.  It was such a treat.  

When I got home I realized it was Sunday so I am getting my post done before I settle in to continue my spider socks.  

I hope, dear readers that wherever you are (and whatever weather you have) you are surrounded by peace, health, and love. 

Christmas Morning

Yopping Update #25 - KALing along

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Quick update today. 

My two KALs are going strong - I can't wait to show you my two advent gnomes...but not yet. 

The gansey scarf KAL is heading towards the finish line - 

Meanwhile I have been plugging away on my Sarah Scott socks from Kate Davies' Bluestockings collection. 

Not one to leave well enough alone I started a project that was in the latest Simply Knitting Magazine.  It won't be done for this Christmas but I always wanted a Christmas Tree Skirt and this one seemed to speak to me. 

Gnomes! (Or Swedish Tomte)

The colourwork is all done with swiss darning after the sections are made.  I tried to do it fairisle so as not to swiss darn, but it looked messy, so I frogged back and will stick with the designers suggestion.  I think I have enough white, red and green in Brava sport to get it done.  If not, oh my, I will have to make another KnitPick order.  Such a shame. 

I have been able to get out for a walk everyday (except yesterday when I just couldn't seem to get out of my pajamas until 6pm).  Today was pretty icy, but also a beautiful sunny day with snow on the local mountains. 

The Lions, or The Two Sisters

This morning a little hummingbird was at the feeder and she let me get very close.  I was checking to make sure the nectar hadn't frozen and she allowed me to get a few good pictures.  

I lit the fourth candle of Advent this morning.  Later today I will set up my nativity scenes and put up the lights on the living room window.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and happy Winter Solstice.  Can't wait for December 22nd when the days start getting longer again!

Yopping Update #24 - Learning new tricks

 

This has been a 'learn new skills' kinda week.  First of all I needed to repair my mitered sock yarn blanket.

About five years ago I finished this:

Last Monday I discovered a hole in one of the eight-hundred squares. 

I blame Otis (the cat)

Luckily I had favourited a  blog post via Ravelry on how to replace a square in the middle of the blanket so once I located the post the rest was fairly straightforward.  

hardest part was finding my woven in ends

 First I had to undo the damaged square from the blanket making sure to catch the live stitches on two sides of the square and pick up the correct number of stitches on the other two sides. 

Then I had to start knitting each row remembering on every other row to knit the last stitch in the row together with the side stitch from the adjacent square.  With me so far?

Ready to start

More than half way done

Ta-Da!

I say Ta-Da, but it took the best part of an afternoon to complete the repair. 

The second skill I learned was how to compensate for the 'jog' in the pattern when you are knitting fairisle in the round.  I wasn't happy with the first paw sock and so I looked up how to correct the jog for the second sock.  It took me a while to wrap my head around the instructions, and I did have to chart it out for myself but once I got going it was actually quite easy and I am very happy with the result.  

Can you see how the bottom and top of the right side of the pad looks wonky?

This is because when knitting in the round you are actually spiralling up as you knit so the end of the round is actually one row higher than the beginning of the round.  

Now it looks right. 

If you are interested in the technique you can check out this interweave article here. 

Otherwise this week I have been keeping up with my gnome KAL.  I am knitting two of them in different colour combinations and I am looking forward to sharing them with you once they are finished and allowed to be viewed. 

I am also keeping up with the gansey scarf KAL.  Wolhobby releases about 20 rows a day which is totally doable and for the most part easy tv knitting.  

In between as I have mentioned above I am knitting my 19th pair of socks.  I finished the first one on Thursday 

The pattern calls for an afterthought heel, but I did a fishlips kiss heel instead.  

I am making pretty good progress on sock #2.  I am glad I didn't knit these two at a time so I could fix the paws on the back of the sock.  No-one would notice, but I am glad I had an excuse to learn something new.

 

I have been walking everyday - and my new waterproof pants arrived which I took for a test run on Friday.  They work great so I am all set for the wintery rainy weather.  We got a little snow last night , and we had a little earlier in the week, but so far nothing to concern ourselves with. 

I did get my booster on Wednesday.  I went with my husband and took my form from the doctor explaining my immune compromised health condition.  The manager said it was the wrong form, but he was very kind and I think because I was tearing up and a wee bit shaky he gave the go ahead for me to get the jab.  I am so grateful. We both had a sore arm for a couple of days, but by Saturday the soreness had gone away. 

I got my Christmas cards in the mail last week as well, and have picked up a few stocking stuffers (when I pass a store on my walks and there aren't any line-ups) so I am feeling like any Christmas shopping frenzy is well in hand.  

Today is the third sunday of Advent and the animals have joined my advent wreath.  We are still having regular whatsapp chats with our granddaughter to open the wee advent knits.  

I saw this little gnome on one of my walks this past week.  There is always something that catches my eye to photograph.  

It is a gnomey kind of Christmas 

  I will leave you with this scene from my Friday walk.  I think it is something we all need, right?

  Oh, and this too.  

Can you spot the difference?  
Two of these things are not like the others!

A dear friend sent me two books this past week.  I am really enjoying these.  I had never heard of Clara Parkes, but they are enjoyable reads for knitters and other fibre lovers.  

I am reading the anthology about stashes right now - so funny, and oh so true. 

Have a great week dear Readers.  Take time to enjoy the season.  Take a walk or drive around your neighbourhood in the evening.  This year especially the Christmas lights seem like magic to me. 

Yopping Update #23 - The 2nd Week of Advent shine

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The 2nd candle of Advent shine
The plants and berries on the vine.

the yellow thing is a knitted mushroom

This week my granddaughter and I have been opening the advent calendar via whatsapp.  

All ready to start

First five days

Day one was a christmas wreath but she tells me 'it looks like a donut', so who am I to argue with an almost three year old. 

My KALs have started.  I can't show any pictures of the gnome KAL but I can tell you I have now learned the estonian braid, and I am definitely going to incorporate that in upcoming designs of my own. 

The gansey scarf KAL is coming along too.  She releases about 20 rows everyday and it is perfect evening tv knitting, or as my friend Cait says, Knitflixing.  

the colour is more a moss green

I finished my Samwise socks - my eighteenth pair of socks in 2021!

I plan to use this branching motif on my next gansey

back view - hugs and kisses

I have been doing lots of walking and on Tuesday we went down to the seawall and it was so windy.  The waves were crashing and splashing against the wall and there were two kite-surfers doing amazing stunts.  

We didn't get any pics of them because both our phones ran out of batteries but it was amazing to watch them in our normally calm strait.

On my Thursday walk I found a new plant I didn't recognize.  It is called a beautyberry. 

Cool, eh?

Speaking of walking, as of November 30 I reached another challenge goal, to walk 1000 kms in 2021.

I finished the Nanowrimo challenge and exceeded my 50,000 words. As of yesterday I have actually finished the first draft topping out just over 56,000 words.  There is a lot of editting to do, but it feels good to at least have a first draft fleshed out.  

We bought our tree on Monday even though we don't put it up until Christmas Eve.  Because of the flooding in the valley near us there is talk of a christmas tree shortage so we wanted to be ready.  Our son is flying to us for Christmas.  He comes in on Christmas Eve so we might put the tree up a day early.  The tree lot was set up like a Christmas wonderland.  It was very sweet to walk through as we chose our tree. 

This one is for Liz

One other goal I have set for myself is to drink more water.  I purchased this water bottle to help me.  So far so good. 

it holds two litres

So there is my week.  My husband has his booster appointment booked for thursday.  So far they are only boostering 70+ people, but the woman on the phone told me to go with him with my form indicating my immune compromised condition and she thought I would likely be boostered as well.  I hope so.  I am due for my bi-annual blood tests but I am not going to go to the blood clinic until I have my booster in place.  

I hope everyone has a good week.  I am actually going to write some christmas cards today.  Last year I couldn't find any stamps to buy, but this year I stocked up early.  

I will leave you with a small excerpt from my novel. This is the opening I wrote on November 1st.  

Letters to my Granddaughter (working title)

I suppose one should start a novel with a kick ass opening sentence. Something to grab the reader, something along the lines of “It was a dark and stormy night”, or “When she came to she realized the knife she was holding was covered in blood”.  

I imagine that kind of opening could lead to all kinds of suggestions of where the story would go next, who the characters could be, where the denouement may reside. My writing group would say that every page needed thirty percent dialogue, and every chapter needed to begin with a crisis either being created or resolved. Where would the drama be? Or the comedic interludes? Or the point?

Yes, the point. The point is you are so very far away and at this point in time you only know me as a face that pops up on your momma’s smart phone a few times a week.You sometimes ask to call us but I think your favourite thing about our Whatsapp calls is when you get to say good-bye, blow us a kiss and then push the button to sign off. 

My worry (and I have many) is that you and I will never know each other face to face. I was there when you were born, and for a few weeks afterwards, but now so much time has passed and you are growing so quickly. Every week it seems you have learned something new to do, or say.

Let’s go back to the beginning shall we? Before the pandemic. Before our lives were, and certainly my life was, changed forever.

Yopping Update #22 - Advent (ure) is here

 

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Good Morning All, and Happy first day of Advent and first day of Hanukkah.  I love it when different festivals line up - more candles!  

I finished my 3rd gansey beanie which I modified to include the planaria motif cause I think it is so cute.  It is hard to see in the picture, but trust me there are four planaria scooting aroung the cap just above the ribbing. 

It is navy despite the camera depicting it as gray

I got quite a few more repeats done on the Samwise socks.  I am really liking the branch motif and thinking I might incorporate it in my next gansey. 

I finally picked my colours for the Advent Gnome KAL that starts this coming week:

I hope to make two - one with the pink and one with the purple #3

I also joined The Netloft this week on Thursday November 25th and found out that it was International Gansey Day.  I learned about an Advent gansey KAL so of course I joined.  I found enough Palette in the Clover colourway and did the set-up so I am all ready for December 1st. 

humble beginnings

I ordered some waterproof sneakers  last week and they arrived just is time for more rainy walks.  All that got wet yesterday were my pants, so today I ordered some waterproof pants.  I am determined to walk this winter like I did last winter.  I can't let all this rain stop me. 

love walking in puddles rather than avoiding them 

Yesterday I stopped to take a picture of the dreaded hill I have to walk to get home. Why oh why did I buy the house at the top of this hill

this picture doesn't do the steepness of this hill justice - just sayin!

I had to put down my grocery bag to take the picture, and looked up from the camera to quickly snap this. 

I think he smelled the caramel apples in my bag

It has been very wet here, and the rivers are flowing quickly. 

so winter is definitely here, but then earlier in the month I was surprised to see this:

A fuschia in full bloom

Nanowrino ends in two days, and I only have 1311 words to go to reach my 50,000 so I will be finished a day early.  Yay me.  I will leave you with an excerpt from Chapter 22

What on earth!” Sarah exclaimed as her mug of hot tea splashed all down the front of Marin’s pants.

In all the excitement - Fred bolted out the door and into the brce.  Marin jumped back and was trying to hold the material of his pants away from his crotch.  

“Jabati” he shouted.  Sarah knew this was some sort of Croatian swear word but didn’t dare pull out her translation app to see how rude it was because she was mad!

“What are you doing here?  Are you stalking me?  You have no business coming to my door?  And now look what you’ve done, Fred has taken off” she was crying, worried about herself, her safety, and now Fred. 

“Ne Ne”, Marin spluttered.  “Not stalking”.  I hadn’t seen you for time and I asked around about Kanadska baka in the village.  Not stalking.  Today I was walking by. I saw yellow cat in window, and had one eye, and I thought maybe Fred so I thought, well I thought I would knock and….”

Marin looked so pitiful as he tried to explain his appearance at her front door, and the now cooled wet spot on his crotch was ill placed for a man in his, well, seventies Sarah assumed. 

Still, there was no way she was going to invite him in - her concern now was Fred and getting him to come home.  

“I will go” “Oprosti , oprosti.”  he apologized.  

“I think you should”, Sarah barked.  “Fred will likely not come home with  you standing outside his door!  

Marin took off his jacket and held it in front of him as he walked away.  Sarah noticed that two of the regulars were in the brce and watching the exchange with some concern.  The two bakas, that often sat outside their front doors in the evenings, had also noticed the commotion as had the next door neighbour.  

Well, thought Sarah, now they will really have something to talk about in this little village. Like the locals ever need any fodder to gossip. As Connie always told her, if they don't know they just make it up.