Summer Sock Conundrum

Summer is a great time to knit socks. They don't sit heavily on your lap, overheating you. They will be very useful when the cold weather in fall and winter comes and many sock patterns are easy to memorize. 

All that has led me to my current conundrum. 

Three pairs of socks in various states. This is just the active ones. I'm sure there's at least a couple of pairs tucked away somewhere. So, let's examine them.

First there's these lovely socks. Knitterly Things Vesper sock yarn in Twitterpated. On her 100% Superwash Merino base being knit into plain old top-down vanilla socks. These are my "purse socks" so they get shoved into my purse and worked on whenever I have a quick minute. They really aren't a priority since they don't have a deadline and they're just for fun. Plus I'm knitting this super fine yarn on US 0s so progress is pretty slow even when I do work on them. Honestly this one is about ready for its heel flap though so I should get through that so it can be mindless knitting again.

Next up there's these beauties.

Knitterly Things Vesper again but on her Superwash Merino and Nylon base. The colorway is Sesame Cha Cha and I actually purchased it from a seconds sale about a month ago. One strand of the yarn didn't take the dye the same as the others so it has a sort of swirled effect. It's still gorgeous and I am loving the semi-solid look of each color. These are being knit into the Skew pattern and are now at the heel gusset increases. If you've ever knit this pattern (or even read through the many pages of it) you know that it's pretty simple but you do have to pay attention and keep looking at the pattern. Honestly these socks fit my feet so well that the attention-paying is worth it though! This is my first time knitting the Superwash Merino with Nylon into this pattern so I'm excited to see how it wears. 

Lastly there's these socks.

These are plain old toe-up socks on Knit Picks Felici in Baker Street. They will have an afterthought heel when they're done. I really have no excuse for not working on these more except maybe that they're boring. I think the colors of the stripes are too similar in real life. And the dark blue is right next to the light blue and all the grays are together and look pretty much exactly the same. Yawn.

I don't really like this method of knitting a sock but I thought since it's in 2 balls that it would allow me to use most of the yarn with the least effort. As you can see I already wound the remains of the first ball into a hand-wound ball. Partly because it was getting tangled and partly so I could estimate the amount for the heel and the ribbing so I could figure out how far to knit the leg. I know they'll be nice socks when they're done, it's just a matter of getting to that point.

So there it is. The summer sock conundrum. Three pairs of socks all waiting to be finished. (Did anyone notice they're all striped too?) 

I've been working on nothing else lately too so they should be getting much more progress. Here's hoping that our car trip this weekend will allow for some knitting time which will mean some things can get done! (More about the car trip later)

500

Oh hello.
Here I am once again, back after an absence. This time I really don't know what happened. I've been doing quite a bit of knitting (and spinning as it was the Tour de Fleece), not to even mention my paper crafting and planning lately but I seemed to have been stuck in my writing. Maybe partly it was the realization that if I posted something it would be my 500th post to this blog (yes, it's true!) and I wanted something special and fun but I couldn't come up with anything great. A giveaway could be fun but it doesn't need to be a giveaway, or something else. I just didn't know what that something else should be.
Plus, I've just been feeling a little overwhelmed with life in general lately. It's a combination of the busyness of summer with graduation parties, weddings, family reunions and the fact that I'm not always doing the right things when it comes to taking care of myself. I'm not talking just eating right and exercising (although that has fallen to the wayside a bit too) but doing the things I know are useful for my mental health like having some quiet time, allowing daydreaming and reading silly books just for fun.
I'm starting to realize that I need all those things though and starting to work them back into my routine without making them something I stress over (meaning something on my to do list that MUST get done).
And since I'm starting to do those things again, it's making me come back into my own brain and realize that the way out of this block I've been in is to just get it out.
Just keep writing.
Even if it's silly gibberish.
So, here I am, trying to get motivated again.
I know sometimes I get held back by the belief that  no one wants to see a post with no great photos. Or maybe no photos at all. But is a written post better than no post at all? Probably.
So I'm going to let it go. I'm going to write when I feel like writing, whatever it may be about and sometimes it will include crafts and wool and sometimes it might not. Hopefully.
But ultimately it will probably be a peek into my very crazy brain.
Welcome to the ride.

A Tale of Two Socks

Sometimes you can try something and it just doesn't work out. I think as a knitter you have to be okay with that to a point. Sometimes, even if you gauge swatch, it isn't going to come out right.

This is a tale that does not involve gauge swatching though. This is a tale of two socks.

Once upon a time there was a knitter who loved to knit socks. She especially loved self-striping sock yarn and the way you could knit and knit and it would do the work with the colors. Her all-time favorite self-striping sock yarn was Vesper. It was heart-breakingly beautiful and came in so many colors! Plus, it softened so wonderfully once it was washed. After she tried it she started hoarding the yarn like a dragon. Although, she did often knit with it and soon had a lovely collection of socks knit from this magical yarn. Since the socks were so beautiful and comfortable she continued to knit with the yarn even though it was very fine. So fine in fact that she thought perhaps rather than her usual 1s to knit these socks, she should try to go down to 0s to make a firmer fabric that would hold up to wear. This was after her first pair of these socks developed a sad hole. They had, of course, been in service for over 2 years and were worn often as they were some of the knitter's favorites. 

She decided that since she was going down in needle size she should also go up in stitch count so rather than knitting the socks at her usual 72 stitches she went up to 80 stitches. She cast on and happily knit her first sock. Soon after she cast on her second sock, remembering that she was knitting on size 0 needles she somehow got caught up in the yarn fumes and forgot the larger stitch count. Where did she realize her mistake? 

Turning the heel. A whole foot knit incorrectly. On size 0 needles. Now, if it fit properly and seemed to work the knitter would probably have just kept going but with striped yarn, it makes an odd sort of sock if they don't line up stripe-wise. The knitter specifically didn't start on the same color but rather the next so they would line up just right in a little different way. Off just one stripe, that plan was now foiled. That means; it's time to frog. So now the two socks in this tale are down to one. 

In other news, since the knitter will not be working on these socks for a bit since they're so frustrating, take a look at the shawl that's being knit instead. 

It began as this gorgeous ball of yarn purchased at the Zombie Knitpocalypse it's from Penguin Soup. (It doesn't look like her shop is complete yet. Keep an eye on it if you're interested though.) I just purchased it on Saturday and it's already becoming

This. Isn't it the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? Well, it is to me at least. The pattern is Castra and its part of a Yarn Love knit along. We only started on Tuesday so there's still time to join if you're interested, check out the Yarn Love group on Ravelry for more details. 

Get it Started

I've been feeling a little blocked lately. Unable to express myself in writing, even though I had things to say. To be honest, I think I've been feeling a little burned out. Work and life have been so busy lately that I feel I am not myself. But last weekend was just as busy and it energized me instead of tiring me out. It was just what I needed.
So now I'm back and writing again. I hope you'll forgive the absence.
I had a skein of Knit Picks Hawthorne around. I had tried to knit it several times and I just wasn't happy with how it was knitting up. But I wanted to knit it so much! To really give the Hawthorne a try. So I finally decided to get it working as socks for a Christmas gift. That's right, the Christmas knitting has already begun!
I started these earlier in the year actually, as toe-up socks but they just weren't working. So last month I started again, this time from the top down. 

I actually finished them Saturday night at knit night. It was a bit of a yarn chicken situation. Here's the yarn that was left.

I'm hoping it's enough to to knit one hexipuff. But at least the knitting is going again and the first Christmas gift is ready to go! 

Passport Flip Through

Hi planner friends. I know it's Sunday and not Midori Monday but I moved into my passport size Midori to try it out for May and I did a quick flip through on Periscope. 

You can find me there under the name Kalkette and the broadcast will only be up for 24 hours.

If you watch it let me know what you think! 

Ashburton Beauty

As I've talked about before I had been working on spinning some Merino wool from Gritty Knits called Ashburton. I absolutely loved the colors which remind me of a rich, bold sunset so I handled the fiber in a way to keep those colors as they are, separate and beautiful. 

I spilt it the long way into smaller pieces then individually drafted each of them. I then spun them fine end to end. 

The roving split into pieces. 

On the bobbin.

This bobbin picture is when it was finished. It took a lot of spinning hours to spin it this way. I knew I wanted to chain ply it so I just kept going, spinning fine. 

I let it rest overnight and plied the next day. It's a good thing I was camping and had lots of spinning time because it took about 7 hours to ply!!

That is plied yarn going onto the bobbin! Doesn't it look great?! I love it.

The finished skein is a little overpriced, which is normal for me and I prefer that to under plied so I'm good with it.

I absolutely love the look of it though and the ply-twist did relax a bit in washing.

Here's a look at how fine it really is. 

These skeined pictures are from before washing, I wanted to show pictures of it washed as well but it was washed on Sunday morning and still isn't totally dry! The hazards of the spring rainy season, I guess. It's been so dark anyway that I don't know that I could get it to photograph well anyway. 

It really didn't change much in washing except the ply-twist softening a bit as I said and I'm very happy with the skein which is about 650 yards!! 

I can't wait to knit something amazing with it!

Knit Camp Recap

I'm sorry for the long silence blog-friends. I sort of flamed out on re-entry.

I was camping. Well, it was more like glam-ping. A knitting friend and I headed out to our third round of what we call Knit Camp. We rented a cabin at a Minnesota State Park. It's pretty comfortable actually with electricity and heat. You just have to walk to the bathroom. Which is a vault toilet. (Think mini biff in a solid little shed building.)

Here's a look at the outside of the cabin. We were in Maple at Lake Bemidji State Park. Even though it's a drive to get there we like the quiet atmosphere and being surrounded by the trees. So peaceful. 

Can you see George Fredrick IX there? 

He had a grand old time hanging out with the spider who lived on the porch, Milicent. 

William preferred to hang out with the drum carder though.

That's my friend's lovely Romney going onto the carder. Isn't it gorgeous? It has a lovely sort of shiny quality in real life. Since it was just the two of us this time we had plenty of space in the cabin so we both brought our spinning wheels and got so much done! It's lovely having no interruptions. 

I finally finished the singles of my Ashburton and even plied it but I will save those pictures for spinning Tuesday as it is still waiting for a soak and twack. 

We ate excellent food, relaxed and had a grand old time. We even slept really well thanks to the memory foam mattress pads we ordered and brought (the provided beds are a little hard for our taste).

We even had our Camp Knit-Til-U-Drop sign in our window. I'm not sure what the neighboring cabin thought!
Of course all too soon it was time to pack up and leave.

The cabin always looks sort of sad when it's cleaned up and we are leaving.
Despite all the relaxation and the great sleep, it was somehow still hard to come back to real life and get back into my usual routine. I was exhausted Monday, Tuesday was struggling with some anxiety which wore me out all over again and I'm finally starting to feel like myself again. 

I definitely recommend camping with knitting friend though. It was a blast as usual. 

Midori Weekly Set up

Today is Midori Monday but I thought it would be fun to show off not only the completed page from last week but also a little look at how I set up the current week.

So first up, here's week 14 all complete.

At the end I went a little crazy with the stickers in the blank space since I was so excited about the drive-in opening and I bought a bunch of stickers for the movies we were going to see. 

Last week is over now and it's time to start setting up this week. I try to do this before Sunday night but sometimes it doesn't work out that way. So here is a look at the blank spread when I first turn to it.

It isn't quite blank. I did put a sticker on it when I scheduled my day off so I wouldn't forget and that will stay so we will just work around it.

I usually start by drawing my little square for the weather.

Then on the right side I create my time tracker. I start with the long vertical line.

Then add in the other details.

Of course I had to write the pm a little wonky but it's fine. At the very top I have the days of the week, the times down the left and then space below to write descriptions. Mostly I track my sleeping patterns here which helps me make sure I'm not having other issues. (Too much sleep and still tired can mean depression and not enough sleep usually means I end up getting sick.) 

To the right of the time tracker, at the top I put my weekly chart which will track any daily tasks and tasks I try to do multiple times in a week. So, I draw in the base.

I should also mention that for all of this I sometimes use a ruler but often just freehand which is what I did here. To some it would be super messy but it's fine for me. I really don't mind if the lines are a little wavy. Once the base of the chart is in, I start filling in details.

I color code almost everything in my own system so as I fill things in, it's the right color. As you can see I also added our work times on the left here. 

Next up is decoration. I will be totally honest. Sometimes a I do this first, sometimes last. It just depends on the mood I'm in and whether I have a specific plan for the week. This time I had my lovely stickers from Happie Scrappie that I wanted to use. Aren't they cute? They're the stationery theme so I got them all together and then chose a sheet of Planning Made Perfect stickers that was similar colors. I also picked a washi tape that I thought went with them and started decorating,

The biggest trick for me in decorating the midori is to be sure and leave room for my task lists. Under my weekly chart I also set up some goals for the week. I try to do between 3 and 5 goals depending on how busy the week is and how long each of the tasks will take. I don't always finish them. That's something I'm working on.

Once the goals are filled in then I added a note that the remaining space will be used for notes. 

Then I'm ready to start filling in the tasks for each day.

So that's a quick look at how I get my week set up in my midori. I hope you enjoyed it! 

All Done, Except for the Fit

Knitting has been a bit thin on the ground lately as Spring cleaning has begun in earnest on the homestead front. Honestly, right now it's so discouraging as so much of the house has been ripped up and looks worse than ever. To keep my sanity I decided to take a little time and knit each day though. Even if it's just 5 minutes before I collapse into bed, I try to squeeze a little knitting in.

To that end I finished a few things this month. First up some beautiful purple ribby socks out of Gritty Knits nom.

Honestly these had been on the needles for months and were the second pair of ribbed socks I had going at once, I'm not sure what the thought process was there. I didn't enjoy knitting ribbing that much! They're done now and while they're in need of a decent blocking, I wore them anyway today for the first time. They fit so well it almost makes me want to cast on more ribbed socks. Almost.

I also started a little colorwork hat out of some leftovers.

I started just making up the pattern and then grabbed a quickie chart from Ravelry called a Norwegian star. I really love how it turned out and the absolutely gorgeous alpaca silk yarn can't be beat. The trouble though? It doesn't fit. It's too small. I can sort of get it on but it's tight and doesn't look good all stretched out. I'm debating whether a complete rip and reknit is necessary (I already wove in the ends. Ugh!) or if a good blocking will help.

While I decide whether I should go to the trouble of undoing the whole blasted thing I decided to cast on something new. I've been pretty good lately on the finishing front so I felt OK with a cast on.

I've been wanting to place an order with Blue Moon Fiber Arts for some time but the lonely single skein I have from them has been languishing for literally years! It's lovely but has a bit too much of yellow and tan in it for me but I made a deal with myself a couple of years ago that the idea was to try out the yarn before I bought more so I should knit it up before I could place another order with them. Over the years I had tried several times to find the right pattern and they always came out 'weird' to me. It mainly has to do with my aversion to pooling and the dyeing of the yarn tends to create pooling in many patterns. I love the squishy yarn though so I just plunged in and cast on a plain, old sock. 

As you can see it striped decently down the leg but then the heel created big blocks of color. I'm resisting ripping it out. That part will be hidden by my shoe anyway. Besides, the idea here is to get it knit up so you don't feel guilty buying more. So just keep knitting right?

Ashburton on the Wheel

I feel like the entire month of February got away from me. I was so sleep-deprived and exhausted that I just couldn't form coherent sentences for writing blog posts. With the return of some more spring-like weather and sleep I am feeling a little better though and I'm ready to dive back into blogging! 

So, today it's all about spinning. It is Tuesday after all.

After a couple of disappointing spins I decided to go for something beautiful that would make me happy. I chose this.

It's Gritty Knits Merino in Ashburton. I absolutely love all the colors so I wanted to keep them somewhat separated, although this would make an absolutely beautiful barber pole yarn as well. 

As such I split the braid in several pieces the long way and wound them into balls. Here are a few of them. 

Then, when I'm getting ready to spin one of them, I draft it out until it's super fine and thin like this.

See how much smaller the strand is? I'm spinning it fine and plan to chain-ply so I can keep the colors as they are.

I'm not even halfway done with the spinning but it's beautiful so far and I should get a nice chain-plied fingering weight yarn. We got a different couch last summer and I'm finding it harder to get comfortable to spin so I haven't been spinning as much as I used to but I really miss it so I want to make it more of a priority from now on. I would like to finish the spinning on this at least, if not the plying, by the end of the month. 

Week 3 in the Midori

It's Midori Monday here on the blog so I thought we would take a look at last week since it's finished. 

I'm using the midori horizontal week with notes page that are predated for the year. It comes in two volumes, the first from January to June and the second from July to December. 

Since I do need it to be functional I tried to keep the decorations to a minimum but as I settle in I am figuring out where I can be a little more fun with stickers and washi tape. I love having everything laid out in front of me at once and so far this seems to be working for me. Don't get me wrong, I still love my ring-bound planners but right now I'm taking a break from rings while I settle into my midori. I'm having lots of fun with it. 

Here you can see my weekly chart where I track my daily or semi-daily tasks and one of my favorite parts of this week. I layered two different washi tapes from my Planner Society kits and a hexagon sticker from The Rest Girl Shop.

I kind of view my midori as a bullet journal where I can customize it to do what I need it to do. 

Algae - Who Knew?

As I said in my last post I was working hard, knitting away on some socks that I hoped to finish in October so they could count for my HPKCHC Detention.
I knit away and finally finished these lovely socks.

Aren't they great? They're pretty bright but not quite as neon as they appear in this picture. They're Knitterly Things Vesper Sock Yarn in Algae. I can't believe how much I like them. It's an unusual colorway name to me, not something I would normally like but I just adore these socks. 

I knit them toe-up using the Wendy Johnson Sock Templates. I'm not a big toe-up sock person but when it comes to stripey socks, that seems to work well for me. 

I did manage to get them turned in on Saturday so they should count for my turn-ins. 

Now it's a new month and I get to plan a new project! I'm not quite sure what it will be just yet but I do have some ideas. 

New Month, New Style

Filofax Friday is coming a little late this week.

I thought I would share some changes I'm making in my planning.

I tried again in October to move into my midori and while I love it for journaling and creative pursuits, it doesn't work as well as I would like for my planning. It's truly just personal preference but I love being able to put in and take out pages at will and that's just what I do in my Filofax. 

Since tomorrow also starts a new month, it's the perfect time to try some things out. I was plotting some gifts for people so I was placing an order with Sew Much Crafting (sewmuchcrafting.etsy.com) and I decided to try a week on two pages layout for myself. 

If you follow my Filofax posts you know I'm not only a planner girl from way back, I'm also a day on 2 page user. This is a very big change. I will be trying out using the week on 2 pages in conjunction with my day on 2 pages for now. 

I'm starting my month in my beautiful purple Malden Filofax. 

Right now it's all decked out with Monsters for October but I will probably be changing that up. 

The inserts from Danielle at sew much crafting are so lovely. Bright white paper, crisp, clean printing, they beg to be written on.

I started with some simple decorations from a past Planner Society kit and then, added in the things I know need to be done this week.

Work schedule, daily cleaning tasks and a few other tidbits. I'm really curious to see how this will work out this week and whether I will enjoy using these inserts. I bought all of next year and through the end of this year so I can always use them into December and if I decide I won't continue, can destash the remainder. They truly are beautiful inserts though.

I'm excited to try something a little bit different and see how it works for me. How about you? What style of pages do you use? Let me know in the comments. 

October Projects

As October winds to a close, I find myself pretty happy with progress I have made in my knitting. I've been a bit of a slacker at actually working on projects and at having a project to turn in for Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup (HPKCHC).

This month I decided to change that. I set a goal for myself to turn in two classes and a detention. Detention is a project started before the beginning of the month that you finish during the month. 

I admit that even last week if you had asked me if I would hit my goal I would probably have said it was unlikely. But I went camping with my knitter friends (well, two of them, not all of them this time) and I made some great progress.

I had finished this hat last week. 

It's just a simple ribbed hat knit from some hand spun English Shetland from Zarzuela's Fiber (sadly no longer in business) I started it last month but had the wrong stitch count so I ended up ripping it out, starting over and I got it right this time.

As happy as I am with how it turned out, I'm not a big stocking hat person so this will probably just go to my dear husband. Especially since I have a much cooler new hat that I didn't have to knit! Maybe I will make another post about that.

Anyway, a friend asked me knit a cowl for her sister-in-law. She agreed to pay me and I agreed to knit it. I was plugging along being completely monogamous, which is very unlike me (in my knitting! Get your mind out of the gutter!) But the monogamy paid off and I finished it while we were at the cabin! 

It's called the manic panic cowl and it's completely linen stitch. It turned out great! It was a little hard to hand it over. I would like to knit one for myself but I can't face that much linen stitch again. At least not for awhile.

Just look at the color play on this fingering Malabrigo yarn. 

So, I will be turning both of these projects in for HPKCHC! Very exciting. I'm also working hard on a pair of socks that will be perfect for my detention project. I'm getting close so I'm off to work on them.

Make an Effort

I've been a pretty big blog slacker lately and I'm sorry about that. I haven't made my blogging a priority in any way and I definitely want to so I'm making an effort.
I'm in the Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup (HPKCHC) again this term, my fifth year, very exciting. So I'm crafting away on things for that. I also have a very cool wooly gift from a friend that I could blog about but I haven't gotten around to taking pictures of it yet.
Then there's Midori Monday/Filofax Friday. I've been so back and forth in and out of each system that I have tons I could say in each instance but I haven't.
As you can see, there are lots of topics and interesting things and somehow it gets shoved to the bottom of my to do list each day and often off the list and onto the next day's list.
So here is what I propose. I'm going to make a better effort to blog each week. At least one time. Preferably two but one for now. If you don't see a post up by me on or before Thursday, email me. Bug me about it. Get me motivated.
For my part I'm going to try to do some things to make it work better. I'm going to make a bigger effort to make it a priority, I'm going to make a definitive plan and I'm going to attempt to execute that plan each week. If that doesn't work, I'm just going to write something. With or without a picture just to make sure you all know I'm still alive, I'm still knitting and planning and playing in my midori and filofax.
More soon but for now, I need to get to work.

Slacking

I have been slacking so much on my blogging. I would like to offer up some wonderful excuse but there really isn't one. I've been feeling pretty meh about a lot of things, especially my knitting. That leads me to have nothing good or interesting to say.

I signed up for another term of Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup and honestly, I was partly hoping the cool fall weather, and the required one class a month would get me motivated which would help me fall in love with my knitting projects again. The truth is that I should probably have a frogging fest because I don't love most of them. Some of them I should power through and just finish but it's time to do something new that I'm excited about. I'm not sure what that is exactly yet.

In the meantime, I can do a little planner talk. As much as I loved One Book July and made it work so well, I was feeling pretty blah about it by mid-August. I decided to try using my Filofax again. When it comes to planning, especially daily task lists and to do lists, for me, nothing beats a ring-bound planner for looking at least semi-professional and allowing me to get everything I want to on a page. I have a system, I use it and it works. 

Here is an example of a recent page. Everything I need for the day is there. I can do my daily devotions, keep my food log (which I am slacking on so badly) keep track of the schedule for myself and the husband, my home to do list, my work to do lists and anything else that comes up. Even any medication I take or anything else like that. Since I have insomnia and often find my anxiety is higher if I'm overtired, I also track my sleeping habits so I can be aware of extra wake ups or other issues before they affect me in other ways. 

Here's a day where I was running a fever. (See the little thermometer icon I drew?) I can also keep track of things like that so if I read the cold medicine bottle and it says; if you have a fever for more than 5 days, discontinue use and see your doctor, I can look back and see just how long I had that fever. All these little things help me. 

Here's a day when an Internet order I had placed arrived. When I order something I write it on a page flag and stick it on a plastic ruler near the monthly calendar. Then I know what things I'm waiting for. I move it to the daily pages when it arrives. 

These are all simple things that help me feel more in control of everything going on day-to-day. For me, it just works. I have tried multiple electronic methods for this and it will not work for me. I need the tactile writing down on paper and not having to worry if the battery will die. That has happened to me too many times! 

Do you have any little tips and tricks that you use to stay organized? Let me know! I would love to hear it.