Yopping Update 31 - Block and Weave

My daytimer has a quote for each week.  This week the quote was :

"Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain." Mark Twain

So I decided to block my three shawls!  I can only show you two of them because the test knit hasn't been released yet.  Be patient, dear reader.

This was my peace shawl that I finished on December 21.

and this is my Dying of the Light that I finished on December 25th.

Then I took my test knit (now blocked) and my scrappy bias shawl to my knit group on Thursday and spent the whole two hours weaving in ends!

I did start a pair of socks for Knitterarium and both toes are done (toe up pattern).

I got quite a bit done on my classic tee:

Such an easy knit - just two pieces - front and back - and then sew together. 

This week I just couldn't put down the scrappy bias shawl.  I have about 160 stitches of the requisite 200 and I am just having much too much fun changing colours. But look - all ends sewn in at this point:

This week I watched a movie on Knowledge network about the Story of the Coast Salish Knitters and then went and got Silvia Olsen's book, Working with Wool, from the library to read more about it.  I knit two sweaters in the Cowichan style in 1978 and I still have them.  I pulled them out of the closet, and decided to mend the ribbing on them that had tattered in a few places.  My husband and I wore them through the 80s and our children wore them in the late 90s and early 2000s. 

dh circa 1978

 moi circa 1978

Mine still fits!  and I have been wearing it again now it is mended.  It will be a perfect camping sweater.    Here I am modelling them both today!

I have so much black and white fleece that I am determined to wash, card, spin and and then knit into another Cowichan-style sweater for myself.  Stay tuned - so far I have spun about 2 ounces but I am not spinning fat singles consistently enough to begin to knit.

Whew - a photo heavy post today - but it is sooooo rainy here lately - perfect for knitting and spinning.

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Happy knitting, crocheting, spinning, weaving or whatever you love doing this week!

Yopping Update - darn socks!

I have the test knit off the needles - but it needs s p a c e to be blocked so that hasn't happened yet. 
On the upside, I cleaned up my craft room on Friday night so that :

a) I had a place to do yoga, and
b) more floor space for blocking. 

Of course b) means I can't do a).   Lol.   Chock this up to #firstworldproblems.

We have a house full of visitors this weekend, but once the dust has settled I can set up the blocking mat in the spare bedroom and all will be well. I have three shawls to block at the moment so the bedroom will be seconded for quite a few days.

While cleaning the craft room I discovered my bookshelf was about to fall over, so I had to take everything off it and nail it back into some semblance of security.  It mostly holds all my teaching paraphanalia and if that had collapsed I can't even imagine the mess I would have been in.  (especially if it collapsed while I was on my yoga mat.)

I am motoring along on my scappy bias shawl and now have 117 stitches of the required 200.  I am really enjoying this knit and my scrap basket is seeing a dent in its contents which was the whole point of the exercise. 

I got my Knit Pick order:

Two shawls and a cotton tee are in my future!

This Tee pattern comes from one of my Simply Knitting Magazines. 

I started it on Wednesday.  By Thursday I had about six inches done, but it was too big.  I measured it against a tee shirt that I really like the fit of and decided to frog and restart with a smaller size.  I am back to where I was and loving the colour and how this yarn  has such lovely stitch definition. 

One of my Year of Projects goal was to darn socks.  I pulled down my basket of holey socks last week and there were eleven lonely socks looking for some love and rejuvenation. 

Ten were mine, one was my husband's.  Technically one didn't need darning - it just needed a split stitch to be laddered back up and secured. 

See?  Good as new.


So on ten socks I went from this:

to this:

and by the end of the day I had fixed all these and returned them to my sock drawer.

I don't know why I put off darning socks - once I get going it is quite fast, quite easy, and I feel very accomplished once it is done.  Also, my poor sock drawer was looking so empty, and now I know why! How did four holey socks become eleven since July? 

So that is my knitting week.  It has been raining like crazy here this past week but as well as all the knitting we got the camper off and then back on the truck so the truck could have some maintenance done before our next camping trip (soon, I hope, very soon), and I did make it to the pool four times. 

My Croatian lessons are going well, and yesterday my daughter and I had a  long conversation in Croatian via Whatsapp.  I have so many flashcards now - and I am happy with my progress. 

We are making a turkey dinner tonight because my son will be in town and we haven't seen him since before Christmas.  So I better start peeling potatoes. 

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