Wallflowers - Sixty-Eight Puffs Incorporated!

Having finished up some deadline knitting, I am back to working on my Wallflowers and today I got the rest of the sixty-eight puffs from Chapter 8 Part 1 through Part 3 incorporated.  I worked these in production mode.

I took a page from Kim and Betsy on the Fleece and Harmony video podcast and started putting my rings onto knitting needles to corral them and keep them safe.

I also have the eight Pebbles made for Part 4.

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed DK

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)

Notions Organized!

Since starting my terminal leave on October 21, prior to my retirement at the end of the year, I have been busy getting things organized around the house and in my studio.  One of the things I have done is get my notions organized.  I do not have a before photo, but previously these two folding end tables held two black plastic crates that had books, and the two small stacking drawers on the right. With a couple of organizers on top to hold things.  Those items have since been repurposed in my studio - more on that in a later post.

 

The two folding end tables came from the booth infrastructure that I used to bring to the Bead and Button Show every year.  But that all ended in 2020 with the magazine folding along with the show.  Originally I only had two of those tables, but one year I forgot them and had to pick some up en route (during my stop-over at my parents house in Yellow Springs, Ohio) and I ended up with six of them.  They have come in handy.  Underneath those tables is the heating/cooling vent.

The cabinet on the left is a DMC thread cabinet that I also brought to the show.  As part of my organizing around the house I was going through the booth infrastructure looking for useful things and remembered that I had it.  I also grabbed a couple of baskets that came as part of Godiva gift baskets.

Going from left to right:

This basket holds hand creams and wool wash.  The stitch holder containers in front are my Coco knits ones, which are my favorites.

The top of the thread cabinet provides a nice horizontal surface for odd things (one really cannot have enough horizontal surfaces).  I also have a lot of mugs, which are getting used to hold tools.  In this case crochet hooks and stitch holders.  Inside the thread cabinet are, from top to bottom:

More crochet hooks.  Can you have too many?

Scissors, tape measures, stitch stoppers, yarn bobbins, clips, and needle gauges.

Row counters, stitch holders, cable needles, and hiding in the back, rulers.

More useful flat space on top of the two drawer set.  The top drawer currently holds my ChiaGoo mini sets and the bottom drawer holds random things from Finder Seeker puzzles.

And on the right, a couple of needle sets, including the ChiaGoo Forte 2.0, and a basket holding tins of stitch markers and progress keepers.   It is astonishing how many I have collected.  It was so nice going around the house and digging in to project bags and odd boxes and finding notions and putting them in their new homes.  This is set up next to my daybed in the living room, where I do the bulk of my knitting and crochet, so everything is conveniently at hand, and neatly organized.

On the far right is an Ott lamp, with Claude the Octopus holding a crocheted Coronavirus, cause where else would you put them?

Kalona - Body Finished!

According to the date stamp on the photo, I finished up the knitting on the body of the cardigan on November 30.  One of the things that I discovered when I got to the final raglan decreases is that one sleeve had more stitches remaining than the other.  Three more stitches to be exact.  I have no idea how that happened.  I’ve checked everything over and can’t figure it out, so I just did extra decreases to get rid of them and moved on.  I picked up the stitches for the collar and got it established before setting this project aside to work on a secret project that I will share this weekend.  Obviously I did not finish this by the end of the Berroco Cardi Party knit along (end of November), but that is fine.  I had other priorities to deal with.

Pattern:  Kalona by Alison Green

Yarn:  Berroco Ultra Wool Fine

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Kalona - Sleeves and Body Joined!

In the end, I did decide to lengthen the sleeves to full length.  I continued with the increases at the same frequency all the way up.  Yesterday I finished the second sleeve up to the joining point and joined everything together and started working the raglan decreases.  The pattern calls for decreasing 2 stitches with each decrease for 3 decrease rows before settling in to the standard of decreasing 1 stitch with each decrease.  I did not do this, instead I am just doing the standard decrease of 1 stitch at each decrease, and will work more decrease rows as I want more depth in the armhole.  I will end up with more sleeve stitches because of lengthening the sleeves and my extra increases.  When I get to the end of the called for raglan decreases I will see if I want to work additional sleeve decreases.  I do have broad shoulders and more muscular upper arms, so the extra stitches in the sleeve will not be a problem for me (and are actually needed for a better fit).

Pattern:  Kalona by Alison Green

Yarn:  Berroco Ultra Wool Fine

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Queen Conch Shawl - Finished!

Even though I always have lots of projects going at once, when one of them gets close to being done I will often focus on it until it is finished, and that is mostly what happened with this shawl.  Once I had found a good border color and a good bead color and got the border started I ended up coming back to it and working on it to the exclusion of the other projects that are high on my “to do” list.  I am very happy with how this one turned out, and I’m also happy to be using up my old Advent sets.  The rest of this particular set is really two 9-skein gradiances, although I could have used them as a single 24-skein gradiance, if I had wanted to.

This is the Queen Conch set.

The Sea Urchins set.

The Beyond the Breakers set.

The Beyond the Breakers set flows in to the Sea Urchins set (right most skein to left most skein) and the Sea Urchins set flows in to the Queen Conch set (right most skein to right most skein).  But figuring out something that takes all 24 skeins is non-trivial.  I’ve done it twice.  For the two 9-skein sets I’m thinking about some short sleeve top-down pullovers.  I’ve been collecting patterns.

Pattern:  Over the Moon by Vicki Mikulak

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Verve and Sundara Yarn High Twist Sock

Needle:   US 4 (3.5 mm)

Queen Conch Shawl - Body Done and Border Started!

Once I had finished the border on the Cindy Shawl, I transferred this project to my Della Q Hatbox and started working the border.

Finding a good color for the border was quite a challenge.  The yarn of the shawl is The Unique Sheep Verve, which is a fairly hard sock yarn, so I knew I needed a similar yarn for the border.  I searched in my stash for all of my sturdier sock yarns and made a list of likely candidates, and where they were stashed and then just went diving.  In the end I picked Sundara Yarn - HIgh Twist Sock in “Oh, The Places You Will Go”.  The next challenge was the beads.  It took me a while, but in the end I settled on Matte/Raku Teal/Plum.  The colors were not something that I originally thought of, but I’m very happy with how it is all coming out.

Pattern:  Over the Moon by Vicki Mikulak

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Verve and Sundara Yarn High Twist Sock

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Joy to the World - Cindy - Finished!

I finished this shawl up on this past Sunday (October 27) and got it on the blocking mats that morning.  The border went very quickly and I just love how it came out.  The colors are so beautiful, and bright, and they make me happy.

With the completion of this shawl, I have used up all of the Grinch Advent Set.  Yay!  Another Advent set knitted up (I have so many!).

Pattern:  Joy to the World by Louise Robert

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Kiri

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)