What the sock?

Behold! I made a sock!

It's a Christmas Miracle.

Okay, it's not at all.  It's the first of a pair I started back in June when I was still attached to my breast pump for 5-7 hours a day. It's some of the oldest sock yarn in my stash, some Three Irish Girls I bought maybe 8 years ago and have fallen out of love with.  But I've been attacking my sock stash from the oldest side this year, and this yarn was next.

I did a picot hem, which I like, and Farrow ribbing, which I like.  At least I like the look of it- the construction is another story. It's just very slow.  But I've been working on this sock lately because I (a) have finished most of my other knitting projects and (b) don't love the other projects I have going- and they're the wrong size to travel with.  So yesterday, with a glass of nice whiskey and the company of good friends, I finished the first sock. And somehow I was 3 stitches off on my decreases on needles 1 & 3. And the toe just didn't look right.  I knitted on.

It had been so long since I made a pair of patterned socks that I'd forgotten to stop working in the pattern and switch to plain stockinette, and I wasn't smart/sober enough to think about why it looked funny.  I also realized that in order for the pattern to work with my gauge, needles 1 & 3  had 15 stitches each, and needles 2 & 4 had 18 stitches each. Oyyy.....

So this morning, I took the cat to the vet (she's as fine as an 8 y/o tripod can be- just her annual check-up and vaccines), poured a strong cup of tea, and sat down under my good light and ripped back the woven in ends.  I ripped back the perfect kitchener graft.  And then I ripped back the entire toe that took me most of last evening.  So I'll try it again tonight, plain, with the right amount of decreases.  And then someday I might think about making that second sock. 

I do have 2 other projects on the needles at the moment, but I don't really care for either of them. The first is a cardigan that hasn't been touched since February.  It's red, it's lovely and it has soooo many cables.  Which I'm just not digging right now.  It's also not going to fit until I lose about 10 more pounds, so there's very little motivation to work on it other than freeing up that basket.

The second is a lovely burgundy shawl that my dear friend Brooke will be wearing in her wedding in March.  The pattern is Rock Island by Jared Flood, and I hate it passionately. I started it and frogged the first part at least 8 times before moving on to the second part and deciding to replace the cursed border with one that I like.  I have found a new border to put in but there exists one more roadblock to this shawl that is needed for a wedding that is getting closer and closer...

I can't freaking see it. 

My vision got a little blurry when I was pregnant for Tia, which I've heard is a totally normal thing, and I kept waiting for my normal vision to return.  But that baby is 7 months old now and I can't see a thing.  So my next project is to get glasses, then pick up eleventy billion border stitches in a very fine deep red yarn, and make a very elaborate border.  I'm sure it will be no big deal, once I can see what I'm doing. 

I've been working on a few quilt tops too, for new babies and project Linus and even one for Tia.  I have 3 tops made and need to sandwich them and quilt them, which isn't my favorite part.  So that's just kind of a theme with all my projects right now.  Everything is just a little bit blehhhhhh.

I'll keep chugging along just to get them done, and someday I'll find a project that excites me again.  Hopefully.  If not, I'll get my butt back to ceramics class.  Unbalanced tea cups, anyone?

In case you are interested in the outcome of the D&C, the results were pretty gross but totally not cancerous.  Let's just say "complications from childbirth that could have gotten really bad, but luckily hadn't done so yet."  If you're curious from a medical standpoint, let me know and I can elaborate privately, but it's a bit gross for the general public.

Simply Perfect

So if you are an Instagram follower (I'm knitpurldrop on there too), then you'll know I've been a little obsessed with this simple patchwork quilt. 

As I (think) I mentioned last post, it's just a little destash project- a charm pack I've had for a couple years, the leftovers from the backing of my brother's quilt- I even sewed together batting scraps to fill it! I'd never done that before but the pile of scraps was taking up entirely too much space in the storage ottoman, and I was able to make a dent in that wad with this quilt.  For some reason I was thinking it was going to be hard to piece together batting scraps, but it took about 10 minutes and some zig-zag stitching.  Not a big deal at all.

So here's the quilt, as simple as it gets.  Just simple patchwork.  Simple diagonal quilting (I drew the lines on in pencil and just sewed over it).  Then I just pulled the backing forward and bound it like that- the whole quilt took about 3 hours and I'm ridiculously happy with it.  It's been added to the gift stash for future baby girls.  There is one tiny change I would make if I had to do again, and I'd adjust my machine so the stitches were longer in the actual quilting part.  I normally do that, and I'm a bit rusty and I just forgot. This might be the first actual quilt I've finished in 2017. 

I also had quite a bit of knitting time today at the Dr.'s office.  I'll spare you the gory details, but I've been having some girly problems since I had Tia and then went back on birth control. (One and done for me)  Anyhow, after about 45 minutes of Feather & Fan with some Posie by Good For Ewe, I found out that there's a mass in my uterus.  We were unable to tell exactly from the ultrasound if it's a fibroid, a polyp or something else, so I'll be having a D&C as soon as there's an open OR- probably the first of the year.  It's totally not a big deal, just an outpatient surgery.  The worst part is the anesthesia, which always takes a couple days for me to shake off. It's probably nothing bad, but I have a family history of uterine cancer on my mom's side, and I'm BRCA2 positive, so it's better to be safe than sorry. Years ago, I came to terms with the fact that my uterus would try to kill me at some point, so I've been staying on top of my reproductive health as best I can.

I also wanted to say thank you for all the kind words on my post a couple weeks ago about my PPD.  There's such a stigma about mental health and disorders, and it's been really good for me to talk about it and let it out a bit, and I've had a couple people open to me about their own issues. so it's worth it to know that I'm not suffering through this alone- and there is some sort of comfort in this miserable company.  There are starting to be more okay days than bad days, which is a very slow step, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.  

The Great Destash

Over the past year, I have been on a serious yarn diet (only bought 2 skeins of yarn- seriously!) and sold a ton of old stash in sweater quantities on eBay.  Did well on some, not so well on others, but trading old stash for cash is always nice.  My tastes have changed in yarn, so it's natural to have some from old phases that can go to a new home.

I've also been on a destash group on Ravelry, that makes you fess up to yarn coming in to the stash and yarn leaving, and it's all done by grams.  So you check in at the end of each month, say "Hi, I purchased 250 grams of yarn/fiber, and I knitted 745 grams".  Stash sold or gifted doesn't count, but whatever.  It counts to my checking account!

But that system has been keeping me honest about my stash in and stash out, and tracking it has been really great when facing a somewhat intimidating stash.  It felt like I hadn't knitted or crocheted very much this year- and I haven't compared to some people in the group- but it's nice to go back month by month and see progress.  And holes starting to form in the stash.  I dream of one day fitting ALL of my personal stash in a smallish chest which currently holds my sock yarn. And thanks to finishing some old projects, that dream might come true in a couple years.  I'll keep you posted.

But here's my most recent finished project- the Uglysweater.  Or Mrs. Weasley Sweater, depends on the day.

Here it is in it's unblocked beauty, about 30 seconds after weaving in the last end.  I started this sweater with my BFF Rachel (you'll be hearing a lot more about her, she's my other-other half) back in February at a Superbowl party. She asked me to teach her to knit last year, and we've been doing this by starting projects together that teach her different techniques.  She's the fastest learner I've ever seen, and she'll probably publish a fair-isle knitting book by the end of next year.  Anyhow, she wanted to knit a sweater, we picked out a pattern, and we casted on together at a Superbowl party.  We'd work to the the next part of the pattern, stop, and get together so I could show her how to separate the sleeves from the body, how to pick up stitches, etc.  When she got close to finishing the first sleeve, I figured she was good to go on her own, plus I wanted to have that sweater out of my knitting bag.  So here it is, unblocked.  I wore it on Thanksgiving, unblocked.  And it's sitting next to my laundry basket, still unblocked.  I'll get to it someday. It will be fantastic for a Christmas Sweater party.

Yarn is Crazy Yarn Mill Ends by Stonehenge Fiber.  Each skein is unique, but I found skeins that all had the same Kelly green in them. I used just over 5 skeins.  I'm still a little heavy from having a baby, so I hope it gets more flattering as time goes on. 

I've also been trying to sew lately, since I was really in a quilting groove before Tia was born, and the chair in front of my sewing machine is one of my happiest places, but it's hard to get there with a 6 month old.  I've also been on a fabric destash, since BFF Rachel brought me 2 enormous bags of fabric that someone had gifted to her and I had a bit of a growing stash of my own.  I've been making tote bags at an alarming rate with the fabric from Rachel, which I'll give to people who buy lots of yarn from me at fiber festivals.  2 birds with one stone!  But yesterday I dug into my stash for a quick project and found an old charm pack that was a door prize at a show years ago.

I put this little quilt top together in about 40 minutes, and then I found a backing fabric that is the absolute perfect size- leftover from a quilt I made my brother last Christmas.  I'm even sewing together batting scraps to stuff it with- how thrifty am I? (I mean, how cheap?)

I have it shown here on top of the backing fabric so you can kind of see what it will look like when it's done.  It's definitely a girl baby quilt, but it's not super girly, and I like that.  It's also on the small side, which I used to hate but now that I have a baby, I love this size for strollers and car seats. But that's the entire charm pack, so that's what size it is.  I'll quilt it on my Janome machine, so it will just be diagonal stitching, nothing fancy.  I'm not paying someone with a long-arm to finish this destash quilt for me.  The only question that remains is....what do I do with it?  Tia doesn't need another blanket, as much as I like it.  I have a quilt in progress for her, which I'll show off when I get back to it.  But I'm torn between putting it in the gift stash for future baby girls, and giving it to Project Linus- because I haven't donated any baby blankets for a year or two.  Decisions, Decisions.

And lastly, Madeline sends her love and requests more treats.  She's spoiled rotten and still my little baby.