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.