Keeping On Keeping On

Now that we have jumped straight from winter to summer, Dairy Queen is in full swing!! I really love my job and the daily challenges that make it so far from boring. 

I am making some progress on Nicole’s sock.

I have a new project on the needles, so, as ever, the socks slow down. But progress is progress! 

I am keto’ing like a champ! My determination and willpower are unbreakable when I set my mind to something. This was tonight’s dinner - easy enough to put together after a long day and being rather too tried to really cook. I have recently discovered Haloumi cheese and I am quite taken with it! Salty with a nice soft bite to it. Without much flavour of its own, it pairs nicely with a fresh, bright marinara.

I have also tried guacamole. I have truly never tried avocado or guacamole, but quite convinced that i didn’t like it. In a bid to up the healthy fats in my diet, I decided to take the plunge and selected the Good Foods chunky guacamole from Costco. I may never eat an actual avocado, but this guacamole is now Life!!

The summer sausage is also from Costco. While I try to be ingredient-focused in my food choices, I love summer sausage, and this cotton-wrapped one from Noah Martin is just too good to pass up. It’s relative localness is also a plus. The amount of sugar is negligible, so it is one of my few exceptions.

On top of my secular job, knitting all the things, baseball season starting on Friday, I have taken on a reading assignment. The book is The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy. When i read the teaser for the book, I was quite intrigued and was thrilled when I was selected to read and review the book! I have to say that the presentation of the book was quite enticing.

I’m still early on, but the characters are being well developed; they and their interactions are quite believable. You are pulled in to their lives and that is what makes you want to keep reading.

So I’m quite occupied and have yet to cast on anything for my Wee Bean. I am saving and downloading patterns, so I’m not completely unprepared, I just need to get to it.

The puppies are well and Petey remains my constant little shadow.

I forgot to take their food out of the freezer last night, so it was also an easy dinner for the puppies. They seem to prefer the meaty bones with fibre roughage just plain, old dirt, on them. Silly puppies 

Okay ... back to something - the choices abound!!

Done, done, started

I met my deadline; taking a vacation week was certainly key! 

Before I started on the next Top Secret Project, I took the opportunity to finish a pair of socks for me! 

Because socks for me kinda take the back burner, I don’t have as many new ones coming into the rotation, and since I wear them every day, it’s taking a toll. I have a number of pairs getting holes in the repairs. I think that I may have a go at cutting them off at the ankles and knitting just new feet. 

But before I embark on that, or my next assignment, I have started a pair for a colleague. We have a great management team and I have agreed to knit socks for my friends. They understand that this may take awhile 😏  Except for knitting socks for the Elise’s Knit One Below book, and my children, I don’t knit socks for other people, so this is a significant demonstration of my regard for these women. They make my job easier and more enjoyable. 

I am knitting this pair for Nicole. Her pair will be slightly bigger than mine, so to head off the dreaded Yarn Shortage Anxiety, I am knitting contrasting ribs, heels, and toes. It’s not as black as the pic looks - it’s a lovely dark, heathery blue. My fave reinforcing yarn is Kidsilk Haze. 

A labour of love balances everything. 

Change

The last time that I had my actually cut, not just trimmed, was before I went in for treatment, and I cried. 

Since my hair grew back after chemo, I have trimmed it, but I wasn't in an emotional place to truly cut it. 

Lately, it's been driving me bonkers. I have to put it up every day for work, and I seem to clip it up at home because it's in my face and just hot on my neck. The tension on my scalp of having it up gives me a headache. Craig or I are always rolling on it in bed. The list goes on. I've been looking up short hair cuts online. I wanted to have it cut this time. 

So today was the day and I had it done. 

 

I had it coloured to cover the odd bits of red that didn't get cut off, but going forward, I'd like to forego the colouring and go back to natural, greys and all. 

I got quite a bit accomplished on my socks today; laundry day is for more than just clean clothes! 

  

I love the stiletto Point on my Signature Needles - sock knitting is extra pleasurable with them!

I'm on to the 2^nd half of the last Starting Point MKAL clue and I'm quite pleased with how it's come together.

 Clever construction indeed! 

The puppies were whining and this is what I saw when I went to see what was up. 

 I am tempted to release the wee beasties and see if they could catch the bunnies! I'm concerned at how far they would go on the chase though, and how long it would take them to return home. 

I did all sorts of cleaning and errands today, so tonight I rest and tomorrow is relax, Netflix and Knit day. 

Oh - and wow!!! I ordered the case for my Kobo Aura One from Amazon.ca on Saturday, they sent a shipped notice on Sunday, and the case was in my mailbox on Monday!!! That's service!! I love the case even more in person ... imma be reading all the time!! 

 

Not Boring; done.

I finished them!! It was some trial and error knitting socks for someone else with just a shoe size, but we got there in the end. 

I amputated the ribs, then reknit them upwards with fewer sitiches. 

   

I don't know how I cast on using a simple long-tail cast on and it's perfect, but even a loose bind off is too tight. 

I cast off using Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind off. 

 It's a bit flary, but this seems normal for the technique, and it functions as a stretchy bind off, so I can let it go.

I'm on the decrease section of the Born Trippy ... pics tomorrow!!  

Sock Love

So he tried on the sock and ... drum roll please ... 

 

His one comment was that the rib felt loose. I'll cut them off and re-knit them upwards. 

I am approaching the toe shaping on the last sock. 

 With luck, I can get it done tonight, then adjust the ribs tomorrow night. 

Also, check the near perfection on the matching!! 

 

With the exception of the heels and toes; I've used a different fluormania colourway as I wanted to ensure that I didn't run short of yarn. Again, a fortunate happenstance, but fluormania seems to do this more than any other yarn I've knit socks with. 

Top to Toes

Born Trippy is trippin' right along! I'm on to the last colour, Coral. It still is a remarkable thing how  blocking transforms wrinkled, undefined stitches into ordered loveliness.

 

 

Another bit of knitting magic that I shall never grow weary of. 

I finished Marks first sock, but I gave it to him last night to take home and try in before I thought to take a picture. Sigh. Hopefully his narrower leg translates into as narrow a foot. 

But I had a fantastically productive night on dock last night and am to the heel flap! 

 I don't know how it happened, but I have a slight bend on the tip of one of my Signature needles!!  

The needles were in the socks, which were in my TARDIS sock bag, which was in my backpack. I certainly don't use these tools as pry bars for anything. It's really a mystery!! Fortunately it doesn't adversely impact my knitting; it's an odd feeling on the tip of my finger as I shift the stitches along, but the knitting clearly goes on. 

We celebrated Craig's birthday a week late because we were both feeling so sick the previous week. The Keg had a prohibitive wait time, so we chose Montanas. Good thing too - there's a Birthday helmet tradition there!!Craig is utterly immune to embarrassment and soaked up his moment. 

 

 

It was a lovely meal and a memorable one. 

If the sock fits ...

Yeah. So it's been about 10 years since I've knit a mans sock, and not having measurements, it was a knit in the dark. 

Definitely looking too big. And Mark is a slight man, so I doubt he has massive cankles. 

 So I stopped short on the leg, powered through the heel and start of the gusset and sent it home with Mark last night so that he could try it on. 

He brought it back today with a 2" excess. Yikes!! So, 16 sts to decrease. I frogged it back to the ribbing, did some maths and am underway. 

Another extended night on dock should, optimistically, see the leg knit to 8". 
 

I am feeling much better! The soup did the trick on The Dreaded Lurgy, and with just a bit of a lingering cough and a healing cold sore, I'm none the worse for wear. 

So Not Boring

So I blocked out Born Trippy last night. OMG - the magic of blocking rivals only the magic of turning a heel on a sock!!

 

 Here it is folded upon itself to show the colour progression. I am thrilled with how it's turning out, and I rarely get so excited for a project before completion! 

While it was blocking, I got a bit more done on Marks sock. I'm loving it as well!! 

 This is the one that I had thought he would pick; there's no way this is going to be considered boring!! I'll have to hit up the stash to find a heel/toe yarn; I don't want to run short.

I had to run out, do a couple of errands today and make a Costco run. I had really been hoping for a whole weekend of couch-surfing rest, but needs must. 

I am home now, wild rice and pot barley simmering for the soup that I made yesterday. 

Ah yes, shit got real. Cold 2.0 vs Wannietta has been stepped up a notch and I brought out the big soup pot. 

Frozen chicken carcasses, celery and extra onions.  It turned out well, even without carrots, but needs the carbs, fibre and toothy bite that the wild rice and pot barley will provide. 

Okay ... now for hopefully my most difficult decision of the day; sock or scarf? 

Sock-tastic

Great night on dock last night! I nearly finished my Indie socks, so I finished the toes after I woke up this morning. 

 I love them!! I don't remember what yarn this is, but it was a large skein as I still have 35g remaining. 

I went stash diving to find yarn for the next pair. I'm going to knit a pair for Mark, the dock Team Leader. He lets me knit and I know that he will appreciate the socks. I was cautiously optimistic about finding a colourway that I thought would be appropriate, but looky here - 

 

Result!! I think that he will not be displeased. He told me that his mom used to make him socks; I gathered that they were thicker ones, but he's agreed to give lighter weight ones a go. I'll have to pull out my Handy Book of Patterns  as it's been a long while since I knit socks for anyone else but myself. 

I'm waiting for the computer to install updates so I can download the snooks that Helen and Mark have sent me. 

I am determined to read more this year and be better at logging them on the 50 Book Pledge  I've been a participant for 4 years, but with varying degrees of diligence. 

Just enough time for a nap then before work ... self-care comes more easily when I'm feeling poorly. If I don't take care of myself, I can't take care of the rest of the lot! 

Lemongrass

I finished the front of Lemongrass and I'm onto the back.  

Should be fairly quick as it's simple stockinette. 

Not a great picture, but I can't be bothered to move to lay it out. 

I've been struck by The Dreaded Lurgy. Not the worst one ever, but I'm feeling downright oogy. The puppies are good nursemaids. Not much on fetching tea, but they are great for long naps in bed. Petey has finally mastered jumping up on my bed!! He's a better snuggle buddy than Chica; she's still working her bitch streak, though she's mellowing out a bit.  

I finished my Flamingo Beach socks! They took almost three weeks, but they were done strictly at work; I was off one day and in the plant for 5, so basically two weeks of found knitting time! 

 Those of you who have been following me for a while know that I don't deliberately make my socks identical. I finish one and just start on the next one. I didn't change my strategy on this pair, so it is mere happenstance that they are as identical as one could hope, even if they had tried!! I love the colours and am deciding on the next pair. Though it may be another Hitchhiker instead.   

This one will be for Craig's mom; she knits too so will be especially appreciative of the effort put into it. 
 

We had quite the snowfall here yesterday! Barrie and Alliston weren't hit as hard, but we finished up with 60cm/24" of the fluffy white stuff!!

 

Lovely to look at though. 
 

The end of that, the start of this

I finished Sorrento, pockets and all! Yeah, you know pockets aren't my fave thing, but they really add the perfect touch to this sweater.  

I did discover an small error on the inc section of the back; the correction is on the errata section of the Erika Knight website. 

I'm sure that Julie will post better pics, this one is rather dark. 

I have moved from the plant at Honda to the dock crew. There is more parking, driving, and getting driven back around. It's a smaller crew, just 4-5 of us and Mark is chill and lets me knit while we're in the bus. Seriously, it's just dead head time. I take the expected teasing in stride, just happy to be able to fill in the time productively. 

 I started these on Tuesday, and considering that I spent most of Friday helping out in Plant 2, I'm well pleased with what I got done. I estimate that if I only knit socks in the bus I could get approx 1 sock knit per week. Impressive for straight up bonus knitting time yo!! 

My plans for this weekend fell through and with Sorrento finished, Craig and I decided to head to Ancaster to trade a finished sweater for a potential sweater and chat with Julie and Cathy. It was a decent day for a drive when we set off. Ditto has been in play in Pokémon, and we've both been capturing low level Pidgeys, Rattatas, and Zubats like crazy trying to find one. Well, Ancaster is the place to go! 5 between the two of us, and I caught my first whilst I was sitting in The Needle Emporium!

 We stopped at Costco for my work week snacks (chicken nuggets, eggs to boil and yogurt) and when we came out it started pouring bone-chilling rain. I dozed off on the drive Back and woke up when Craig stopped at a Tims just south of Orangeville. We went in for a coffee and when we came out it was snowing giant, fluffy flakes like someone had just shaken our snow globe!! 
 

Needless to say we started to think that we should stop stopping and just get home!! HA!! 

Since we decided on chili for dinner, there were a couple of stops for provisions, then I set to the making as soon as we got in, getting Craig set to his sous chef duties. 

 This is the start of something delicious!!

We are enjoying a lovely bottle of red while the chili cooks down.

 

 As soon as I post this, I am going to wind one of the giant skeins of Cascade Yarns Eco in Turtle and cast on for Lemongrass  I was admiring pics of her new Vneck Boxy on Jojis instagram feed, so I'm excited to knit this up!!

Bread's ready - gotta go!

Another Pair

Woohoo!! It's been far too long since I knit myself a pair of socks, but there's another pair in the drawer tonight!!



Yes, the tops are a bit pointy, but my toes are kinda like that. Once they're in shoes, the socks conform perfectly.



Totally not identical, but socks are the one thing that my OCD doesn't rear its demanding head. I think it's because the first pair of socks that I ever made were out of a Regia that broke with patterning so it would have been nigh on impossible to match without a lot of yarn wastage. So fraternal my socks are, and my knitting consciousness rests peacefully.

With the warmer weather and all the melting, the puppies are having a sniff fest!! They love outside and have been rediscovering the neighbourhood smells. I hope that you all took some advantage of the lovely weather, even if it was sitting by a sun-drenched window.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone