Halfway

I got the first side done last night/the wee hours of this morning. And happily it's a lot more even than my colorwork usually is. *insert image of Kermit the Frog flailing his arms here*

In Knit Dance Repeat news, you'll notice a new tab above. I've got two patterns (hopefully) set up so you can shop right from here if you prefer. Yes, my Payhip shop will still be there and I intend to keep adding to Love Crafts as well. Options are good! I'm making sure those two are working and then I'll get to work adding the rest of my back catalogue. While I continue to work on my sample for the Hornpipe Bag and iron out the details of a special project for someone very dear to me! This summer has been one heck of a learning curve!

Back at it while I wait for the hamburger to thaw; I'm whipping up meatloaf and mashed potatoes for supper. 

Yours in yarn and html code,

Síle

Didja' Ever...

"...Didja' ever get one of them (daays)
Didja' ever get one of them days, boys
Didja' ever get one of them days
When nothing is right from morning till night
Didja' ever get one of them days..."

You might've wondered if I got buried by my yarn stash this week. Truth is I just haven't felt like my self the last little bit. Just tired and a bit meh about everything. I spoke to my doctor and she contacted the hospital and then I had to call them to have them call me to get an appointment for bloodwork to be done. Is it just me, or is there a whole lot of phone tag being played these days so we don't wind up with too many people in one spot? Better safe than sorry, of course but it still strikes me that for things being sort of back to "new normal", they sure aren't very organized. 

Hopefully the bloodwork tells them what's on the go and I can start feeling like me again. I've had the above snippet of the Elvis song running through my head, so I thought I'd pass it along.

My grandma turned 98 on Monday, and yesterday my dad's elder brother turned 85. The eldest on their respective sides of my family. I hope they both had good days. And cake. If nothing else a birthday should mean cake. Unless the birthday person prefers something else. Ice cream is also suitable... This could start leading me down a dessert rabbithole so I better stop and say goodnight. 

Hopefully I'll have some interesting knitting content for you next time!

Yours in yarn and yawns,

Síle

Challenges

 

Today I'm working on a bit of a modification; I'm using a pattern and then diverging from the original. Let me explain.

I've had the pattern "Friesland" by Jenise Reid in my pattern library for a bit. [Aside: She's the designer of the gorgeous "Persian Dreams" blanket that many of us have admired/drooled over.] And it's sat in my library because I am not a stranded colorwork knitter. Quite frankly, I stink at it. 

Now, I've read all kinds of tips and hints, and been given more of the same from other well-meaning knitters. I don't need or want any more. Just as some knitters find lace an incomprehensible tangle, and others fear cables, stranded colorwork and I just aren't ever going to be pals. And that's ok! There's so much knitting inspiration out there! Do what you love doing, be it fancy Fair Isles in 40 colors, or intricate cables in cream coloured wool. That's the beauty of knitting, there's something for each of us.

But, and isn't there always a but that gives us pause and makes us reconsider something? But then a challenge appeared in a crafting group I belong to. And that challenge was to take a virtual trip to Holland, centering on the lovely Rijks Museum, and craft something inspired by your trip. 

I have Dutch ancestry; Belgian ancestry from the Walloon region [Aside: I go through life with an Irish first name and a Belgian/Dutch last name; I am the bane of English pronunciations hee hee!] to be more accurate. And the first thing that came to mind was the lovely blanket pattern in my library that is so reminiscent of Delft tiles and ceramics. And of course the Rijks Museum has some stunning examples of that. I made a collage of some of the pieces found there:

Beautiful aren't they? The detail in each example is absolutely breathtaking. I never could have imagined a Delft violin and yet suddenly there was one in front me! And the birdcage! And...

I know I don't have the skills to knit the entire blanket, especially within the timeframe, but I thought I could try to capture a bit of the feel by knitting two of the hexagons and making them into a pillow. What you see in my top photo is my progress using chart D; I'm on rnd 20 of 39. The other side of the pillow will be chart E. 

And this is why today finds me with stranded colorwork on my needles in blue and white. A little challenge to myself to tackle something different. And get some points for my team in the process.

Also currently being worked on are my Hornpipe Bag and a summer sweater called "Twillingate" by fellow Newfoundland designer Jennifer Beale. Here's a peak at the progress on the Hornpipe Bag:

It looks a bit odd squished up on the needle but you can see the sides are growing. I'm quite happy with it, I have to say.

Yours in yarn and wooden shoes,

Síle

Wednesday

Have you ever felt that Wednesday is sort of a day unto itself? Saturday and Sunday are "The Weekend". Monday, and Tuesday to a lesser extent, is the all important "Start of the Work Week". Similarly Friday, lesser extent to Thursday, is the "End of the Work Week/Beginning of the Weekend". But Wednesday just sort of sits there. It's also the day least impacted by long weekends/bank holidays. Just something I thought of while sitting on hold this morning.

I'm happy to report I'm onto the sides of the Hornpipe Bag sample. I'll need to refine the wording on how to transition from the base section to the sides but the actual doing of it went pretty smooth; I only restarted it twice! Third time really was the charm! Shouldn't take too long to work up, although double-knitting naturally takes longer to complete. You're working twice the amount of stitches after all, so it makes sense. But if you're like me you look at the measurements of something and say to yourself "This should take me about x hours.", and then sort of kick yourself when that timeframe comes and goes. You'd think I'd learn but no. *insert image of me laughing at myself here*

I'll leave you with this picture of my furry nephew, Jakey. I've mentioned hockey being played in August this year and my mum sent him a little something to help me and my roommate (aka Jakey's mum) cheer for our team. Doesn't he look cute?? And this could be the last game of the season for my guys tonight, so all the more reason to share a little Canadiens' love.

Yours in yarn and hockey fandom,

Síle

The Humble Dishcloth

 

Sometimes it's nice to return to basics, and knit something mindless. I often knit dishcloths from cotton yarn when I need something in my hands but don't feel particularly like I want to focus on a pattern. I've heard dishcloths called "potato chip knitting" and that really does describe them! 

I normally opt for the basic corner to corner bias garter stitch cloth that many of us learned to knit from. Today I thought I'd mix things up and knit a mitered square. I casted on 49 sts and I'm using the slip 2 as if to knit 2 together, knit 1, pass the 2 slipped sts over, aka S2KP, decrease at the center if each right side row; the wrong side rows are knit. Pretty simple and I'll have another cloth for the kitchen drawer fairly soon. I will add that I like to knit my dishcloths a bit tighter than recommended; I'm using size 4.0mm needles with worsted weight cotton. It may sound a bit silly, but I'm convinced tighter knit dishcloths have better scrubbing ability than looser knit ones.

What's your favourite mindless, or nearly mindless, project?

Yours in yarn and trebles,

Síle

P.S. I thought you might like to see the finished cloth, so here you go!

It's Raining!

The heatwave has broken! We're getting rain and the temperature is dropping :) I've been so sick the last bit due to the heat. Definitely not something I've missed about Regina summers, let me tell you. 

And with that, I'm turning in early. My sleep has been very broken and uncomfortable; I need the recharge! And then I can get back to working on samples and other projects again.

Yours in yarn and trebles,

Síle

Double Trouble?

 

I'm working on the Hornpipe Bag today and it got me thinking: how do other knitters keep their yarns from tangling while double-knitting?

You can see my solution in the photo. For the record, I knit English/American/right-handed style, carrying both colors with my right hand. I like to keep the background color on my right side and the contrast color on my left side. Yes, that means I switch them around at the start of every row. I find it works best for me, but what works for me isn't necessarily going to work for you! 

I've read some different ways knitters handle their yarns, so I thought I'd ask you to share your favourite way(s) of tangle taming while double-knitting. 

Yours in yarn and trebles,

Síle

Processing

Today is a day for processing things. For one thing, it's hot and humid again, and not being overly active means not breaking into a sweat too often. For another, thinking can be done while I knit.

The letter signed by nearly 400 current and former Ravelry designers was delivered to them on Tuesday, and a response came back less than 24 hours later. Considering the track record of response times during this situation, that was near miraculous.

Sadly, while many of us hoped for better results, their answer was unsurprising. I screenshot the Instagram post by Sarah, who was one of the main organizers of the letter. (Kudos to her for that! It was no small undertaking.) So here you go:



Because the post is too long to fit in an alt text caption, I have typed it here:

"sarahmgoodwindesigns Wednesday update for the Designer's Open Letter on Ravelry Accessibility. Do you want to know the good news or the bad news first? Let's do the good news: we got a response from Mary Heather late yesterday afternoon (sorry, too wiped out to update last night!)
yarn ball emoji

So the bad news: (quoting response in full because it pertains to everyone who participated) "Thank you for writing with your concerns and care. I shared your letter with Jessica and we discussed it this morning. We hope that Jessica's letter last week addressed these concerns and helped share our thoughts behind our decisions and our next steps. We will be following up with continued updates on our blog and look forward to continuing this work. Best regards, Mary Heather (and Jessica)."

yarn ball emoji

I know many of you poured your hearts into this and I don't want to tell you how to feel about it. I thought I'd check in here with everyone before deciding if a follow up would be at all productive? Tell me what you think? Also, tell THEM what you think (email: contact-us@ravelry.com)

yarn ball emoji 

Personally, I find that laughably dismissive & willfully obtuse. For one thing, it's still unclear whether they believe the people who have had neurological symptoms (migraines, seizures, etc) due to the website (or tilting towards super problematic claims of mass hysteria). They've apologized for causing "anxiety" and "issues", but are committed to keeping a website which has triggered seizures for multiple users as the default. That's... not really something you can successfully put a positive spin on.

yarn ball emoji"

Basically, "We gave at the office, now go away." Several of us have commented that there's really no point in a follow up letter. Willful obtuseness won't respond any differently. No amount of beating our collective head against a wall can change that.

For myself, I feel my removal of my patterns from sale on Ravelry is more than justified. I was wondering if I'd done the right thing. Yeah, no. No more wondering in that direction. I'm maintaining my account to have control of my pattern listings and to participate in one group in particular where I play a fair sized role. And even that is a lot less checking in than I used to do. This is to say if anyone messages me there about my patterns, or anything else, I will answer you, just not as quickly as I would've before.

Today as I knit, I'm processing what was, what could've been, what is, and what will come. Some of that is very different than what I pictured in early June. I may be processing for awhile.

Til next time,

Síle

August & Hockey: does not compute

This year is definitely one for the history books. Saturday night, August the 1st mind you, I watched a hockey game. A pro, NHL, game. In August. If that's not a sign that things are off kilter, I really don't what is.

It's 27℃, 32℃ with the humidity factored in, and I'm pondering my next cast ons. I want to restart my next design, the Hornpipe Bag, and I'm debating a top for myself. Debating between two patterns and color palettes that is. One is a gorgeous summer top but the only yarn I have in the right weight and quantity is a bright red. Bright red and my already tomato-esque cheeks lead to no where flattering. The other is a sweater, written with ¾ length sleeves that I will be making shorter, with (for my size) four textured bands of different colors, that I've chosen from teal and green shades of stash, at the yoke and then a very straightforward plain body. I have a really nice (neutral! No one faint!) charcoal shade for the main color.

You can tell which one I'm leaning towards, can't you?

You're more interested in the Hornpipe Bag? Of course I'd love to tell you about it!

I'm not sure if you know this, but the most common time signature for hornpipes is 2/4. Another odd one! So I decided that since the slip jig pattern became lace to denote its difference from the "normal" jigs, the hornpipe design could definitely be something other than cables too. 2/4? 2/4? What if the 2 were two colors? I confess, I'm not very good at stranded colorwork. But I am fairly competent at double-knitting (see my pattern Rínce Fada; it even has cables!). And more importantly, I really enjoy it. 

I had decided fairly early on the hornpipe design would be a bag. I got the idea of a bag for one's ghillies, or perhaps small projects, into my head. A drawstring bag seemed the right thing. How to make it though? Knit in the round, insert eyelets near the top to thread the drawstrings through, seam the bottom, done? Or some way else? You'll have to wait and see! I can tell you, I'm constructing it in such a way that it will be completely reversible in keeping with the double-knitting.

And there will be at least one new technique for you to learn! I'll be including a photo tutorial section at the end of the pattern to guide you through three techniques I use, two that you've probably come across before but the other I sort of unvented and then looked to see if anyone else had used it. I didn't find it anywhere. So I'm fairly sure you won't have seen it/tried it before. 

I hope this Monday is treating you well. Are you starting the week off with a new project? Getting close to finishing one? I'd love to hear about your project(s).

Yours in yarn and trebles,

Síle