Winter Wonderland Dress and Cowl - Finished!

I finished up the dress back on Christmas Eve and managed to get a decent picture of me wearing it once it was off the blocking mats.  I have even worn it to work this year.  It is very comfortable.  The cowl was cast on as soon as I finished the dress (Christmas Eve), and was finished and blocking on January 3.

Once it was off the blocking mats I was able to get a decent picture of me wearing both.

Styling the cowl is a bit of a challenge.  It is 21 inches tall and about 55 inches in circumference at the bottom and about 48 inches in circumference at the top.  The red turtleneck is what I wore under the dress when I wore it to work and I really like how it all comes together.  Yesterday I went through all of my Unique Sheep Advent sets (except the most recent one) and have them all sorted and bagged up ready to be turned into beautiful projects.

Pattern:  Githa by Linda Marveng

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering

Needle:  US 2.5 (3 mm)

Seahorse - Body Done!

I started this project almost a year ago (January 27, 2023), and was making great progress until I got into the belly region and somehow confused myself and couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong, so I set it aside.  Yesterday I picked it back up, figured out where I was and continued without any issues, and now I can’t even remember what was confusing me.  I am now ready to work the head.  Then it will just be figuring out the other features and assembly.

Pattern:  Seahorse by Megan Lapp

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Luster Worsted in Time Traveler

Hook:  4 mm (G)

Ramea - Front Cast On!

I have been focused exclusively on my Winter Wonderland Dress and Cowl, but now that I’ve finished those I decided to get back to my Ramea.  I knew that I was going to need some quiet time to do the cast on and knit the colorwork, so yesterday morning I finally tackled it.  It isn’t too hard, but it does require focus, and it is a bit fiddly, especially securing the steek before cutting it.  I did notice a mistake in the last row of my color work once I had it steeked and could really lay it out and examine it, but it was just two  stitches that needed to be swapped and that was easily fixed by dropping the stitches down and pulling up the colors in the correct spots.

Then I started on the lace front.  I had downloaded the supplemental charts for my size and had already set them up in knitCompanion, so I was ready to go.  Joining the side band to the arm was a bit magical (sort of like turning the heel of a sock).

This is definitely not mindless knitting, but it is such fun seeing how this pattern evolves.

Pattern:  Ramea by Jennifer Beale

Yarn:  Karabella Yarns Aurora 4

Needles:  US 1 (2.25 mm, lace), US 1.5 (2.5 mm stockinette), US 2.5 (3.0 mm, colorwork)

 

Wyvern Shawl - Cast On & 3 Skeins Done!

Working up one of my old Unique Sheep Advent sets in to the Winter Wonderland Dress and Cowl has inspired me to pull out other old Unique Sheep Advent sets and knit them up.  So, I dug some up out of my stash, along with some solid/semi-solid skeins (from a Sundara Yarns temperature blanket kit that I never knit, but I love the colors and have used the skeins for other things).  This six skein gradiance is part of a dragon themed set and is called Wyvern.  I found a semi-solid green that matches some of the greens in the gradiance.

At first I started one of my garter stitch boomerange shawls, but quickly realized that garter stitch was hiding the beauty of the colors and that I need to work in stockinette stitch.  So I pulled out an old faithful:  Over the Moon by Vicki Mikulak.  I have knit five other shawls in gradiance sets using this pattern, three in leftovers from test knitting, one from another Advent set, and one from a series that worked through the letters of the alphabet (Jazzberries was the name of that set).  I always finish them off with a knit on lace border.  This one I shall probably gift to my sister Liz, as I think the colors will suit her.

I believe this photo was taken right after I had started the second skein.

And this one I believe was when I started the third skein.

And in this one I have finished the third skein and am working on the fourth.

I have two other sets queued up:

This is another six skein set from the dragon themed Advent and is called Smaug.  This one may go to my niece Erin (Liz’s daughter).

And this set is from an Advent set that was inspired by The Nightmare Before Christmas, and is called The Electric Oogie Boogie, and will probably go to my sister Virginia.

Pattern:  Over the Moon by Vicki Mikulak

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

 

Winter Wonderland Cowl - Five Mini-Skeins Done!

I am half way done with the remaining yarn from this Advent set.  In this picture I have actually started skein 6, and in reality I’m now on skein 7.  It goes quickly and I have the pattern memorized and can even read while working a lot of it (the lace rounds are the only ones that I can’t do that on).   The pattern calls for a series of decreases at the end, over the last 48 rows of the pattern repeat.  Given that I’m just knitting until I’ve used up my yarn, and I really didn’t want to have to keep track of my yarn usage (other than using it up) I decided to work decreases on the first and seventh rows of the pattern, so my shaping will be gradual, instead of all at once at the end.  We’ll see how it turns out.

This project has inspired me to try to knit up the rest of my Unique Sheep Advent sets that I have in stash, so I went digging into one of my stash boxes and came up with this Advent set.  It was inspired by the Grinch.

Unlike the Advent set that I’m currently working with this is not a continuous gradiance, it is instead two gradiances.  I can still use them to knit the Githa tunic, even though my original used 14 skeins, I can shorten it just a little and use 12 skeins and make two tunics.

Pattern:  Githa by Linda Marveng

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering

Needle:  US 2.5 (3 mm)
 

Finnegan’s Run Winter Comfort Box

Finnegan’s Run is my local yarn store in Fredericksburg.  Sadly, I’ve never actually been to it until last week when I picked up my Winter Comfort Box.  Before there was a Finnegan’s Run there was Untangled Purls, which I did stop in to, once, and they did Winter Comfort Boxes, which I also purchased (I think twice), although I had them delivered as it was during the strange times (also know as COVID).  I picked this up this past Wednesday at the tail end of our marathon Trip to Town that I’ve already blogged about.  You can see the gift bag that it came in, and everything was beautifully wrapped, but I failed to get any pictures of that.  I was too busy drinking beer, watching football, and opening goodies (and if you’ve read the previous post you will understand why there were no pictures, plus it was dark out).

As you can see, one of the goodies was a project bag, with the town name and some nice artwork paying homage to the historic nature of Fredericksburg.

The other side of the bag has the yarn store logo on it.

And here is a picture of most of the goodies that came with:

   - True Honey Teas Lavendar & Lemonade, 4 tea bags infused with natural honey

   - A lovely notions tin, with the same artwork on the top

   - 2 shawl collars from Third Branch Leather

   - A beautiful wooden needle case with “Finnegan’s Run” carved on the barrel

   - A selection of candies (cinnamon and ginger mints, I think)

   - And some yarn bobbins by Katrinkles

The notions tin has an insert with dividers, and the needle case came with a darning needle.  There was also a progress keeper, and a pin with the same artwork as the bag and the tin.

And of course, there was yarn.  Three lovely skeins of Polka Dot Yarns and a knitting pattern (The Happy Wanderer by Halfknit Studios, distributed via QR code).  As I recall, there was also a crochet option.

They will also be running a make along that you can participate in either in store or on-line via Zoom.

All in all a wonderful present for the season, and I shall definitely do it again next year.

 

Watch Your Step

We live in a somewhat rural area of Virginia (King George), so approximately every three months or so we go in to Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania to buy the things that we cannot get locally.  Yesterday was the day for one of those trips.  We almost didn’t go as the forecast was for rain, potentially heavy at times, but in the morning the forecast indicated that the rain would be mostly done by mid-afternoon, when we would be doing most of our shopping, so we went.  We don’t get the earliest of starts, leaving the house around noon, and we had a number of stops to make (eight in all), so we knew that it would be a long afternoon, but we made our list and headed out.

The first stop was the liquor store for Bourbon (Jim Beam), then to the Long John Silver’s for lunch.   This is an indulgence for us, as we rarely eat out, and almost never eat “fast food” anymore, but we both have a weakness for Long John’s, and many pleasurable associations with them from our childhood.  A new one opened up between the liquor store and the Giant that we shop at, so we do a late lunch there on our trips to town.  Next stop was the Giant, for Boar’s Head lunch meat for my sandwiches for my work lunches when I go into the office (three times a week now), as well as a few other things our local grocery store does not carry, like the TGIF wings in the family size box that are not already flavored.  They only have the barbecue ones now, but it doesn’t matter because we can just pitch those sauce packets and use our own Buffalo Sauce (I buy the TGIF sauce online).  They cook up wonderfully well in our air fryer.  When we came out of the Giant it was raining a little, but not too much.

The next stop was Wegmans, we had our hats and our rain coats, but were only wearing our hats as it was only sprinkling.  We like Wegmans for their meats - steaks, stew meat, stir fry meat, roasts, pork chops - all vacuum sealed so they stay fresh in our freezer for longer.  When we came out of the store it was raining harder, and I got a bit wet transferring everything to the cooler that we bring to keep all of our perishables fresh till we could get home and load them into the freezer and fridge.  As we were leaving I checked the forecast on my phone, now they were calling for rain until six in the evening, potentially heavy.  Oh well, we were committed at this point.

Then to Lowe’s to buy a replacement toilet valve and some replacement rails for the front steps.  We put on our jackets as we left the car.  It was raining in earnest when we came out, and Bruce got the Element and picked me up so we could pack the rails in with at least some protection from the rain.  Then a drive through the parking lots to Total Wine to stock up on wine and beer.  They didn’t have a number of our favorites, but we were able to get enough good beer (including our case of Smithwick’s) to tide us over till the next trip into town.  We have a small fridge in the kitchen that is dedicated to beer.  We filled the back of the Element up with our purchases and headed out for our penultimate stop - a quick stop at Finnegan’s Run Yarn Store to pick up my Winter Comfort Box (more on that in a subsequent post).  Our last stop was the Murphy’s to gas up the Element as we headed out of Fredericksburg and towards home.

At this point it was almost five in the evening, and beginning to get dark.  On a normal day we have tea and podcasts at five, but today we knew that wasn’t happening.  Once home I had to deal with all of the groceries and we had to get everything stowed, and I still had to go next door to check in on Leggs, a sweet elderly cat that I am taking care of while our neighbors are away.  By the time we headed over there it was after six and dark and raining.  Bruce suggested we wear our sandals so we could slip them off before we went into the house so we didn’t leave wet footprints everywhere.  So, we grabbed umbrellas and headed out.  The front steps of the house are made of bricks, actual bricks, assembled into steps, and the side walk has settled so the first step is higher than it should be, a good deal higher, and I’ve tripped on it at least once before, and there are no handrails.  This time I stubbed my big toe on it.  It hurt, but I really didn’t think anything of it, and so we slipped off our shoes, set our umbrellas down and went inside.  I checked the downstairs food and water, and then we headed upstairs to take care of the upstairs food bowl and the litter box.  Bruce was giving Leggs some attention while I attended to the litter box.  As I finished it up I turned and saw blood, tracks of blood, all over the place.  

At first I thought it was from Leggs and told him to check her over, but then I looked down and saw the blood on the toe that I had stubbed.  Well, I was relieved that it wasn’t the cat, but I had a bit of a mess to clean up, and I couldn’t find a bandage.  I washed my foot off in the sink and wrapped a bit of Kleenex around it while I used damp paper towels to wipe the blood up off the floor (retracing my steps throughout the house), and then used the spray bottle of white vinegar and a wet washcloth on the blood spots on the rug (she uses the vinegar to clean up cat barf, it works a treat, and also worked on the blood spots).  The last thing I wanted was for them to come home to see blood tracked through their house!  Once I had done a last inspection we turned out lights, locked up, slipped our shoes back on and headed home.  As I stepped down that last step to the side walk I stepped full in to a puddle and soaked my injured foot, and there were more puddles on the way, so my feet were thoroughly wet, as were my sandals, even in the relatively short walk from their house to ours.  Once home I washed my foot again in the sink, dried it off and we put a bandage on the wound.  By this point we were done, so we skipped the tea and podcasts and went straight for beer and some chocolate and a football game that we had recorded last weekend.

Leggs, getting scratches.