Books and Hooks

 Books

 The Hubbo and I have to clean up this house before the super-neat kids arrive.  Not that our form of cleaning will impress them, but hey, at least I can say that we did OK for the two of us.  Besides, they know how messy we are.  But this is our chance to toss and straighten, and we have to do it.  And then we'll feel so virtuous that we'll keep it neat forever.  If you believe that, I know a bridge I can sell you.

So one of my problems is that I cannot stop buying crafty books.  I am pretty picky these days, but if it looks interesting, I buy it.  The result is a huge pile of books next to the coffee table, and on the coffee table, and on the couch and in the TV room.  Books everywhere, and all precious.  Well, I'm not going to toss the existing books in their book cases.  So, what's a girl to do?  Tubs!  Life's answer to everything.  When in doubt,  tubify it.  So, down into the basement I went, 2 tubs in tow, and schlepped 2 shelves of very heavy books downstairs and tubified them.  Away, gorgeous embroidery books.  Knitting and Crochet rule at the moment.  And the end result is no more piles of books everywhere.  Here are some very blurry pics.  The tripod refused to leave the living room.

And that, boys and girls, is just the tip of the iceberg.  What you can't see is that in the last 2 pics, there are shelves below with doors on them.  We are not going to talk about the books and magazines in them, either.  In my dream house, I would have a beautiful, sun-lit library with couches, tables and chairs, and all my books and projects.

Hooks

I had a lovely hooky day on Saturday.  We did our usual field trip, this time to Wycoff, had a lovely lunch, wandered about for a bit and I happily crocheted along the way.  And came home, and hooked some more.

I'm really loving this.  I keep finding long lost skeins of acrylic DK, and adding them to the mixture.  At the moment, the plan is to make a blankie, lap cover, whatever, 5 squares by 8.  I have to pick out a color to edge them and then put on a border, but I'm a long way from that.  Maybe white?  Who knows, but I have lots of time to decide.

Did a bunch of knitting, too.  I'm working on a mystery project, and I'm at the point of 382 sts.  I worked about an inch of the border, and don't like it, so frog I go.  Lately I design right on the needles, and I'm quite used to tinking and frogging.  It's just part of the design process for me.

And now here's my problem yarn.  I dyed this maybe last summer, and totally fell in love with the colorway and decided to keep it.  But here's the thing:  I don't like it worked up in anything other than socks.  And I don't feel like knitting socks at all or wristers or mitts.  Growl.   Any ideas?

And on that note I'm off to continue the never-ending process of putting my house in order.  Gah!

Kitten With a Whiplash - What a great idea.  Imagine the size of the thing, and how many project bags I'd have to use and how much yarn and all those orts.  Boggles the mind.  My giggle for the day!

PandaBearofDoom - DD and SIL are super neat.  Miss P understands our general slovenliness.  It's pretty funny. 

Henya - Pain in the neck, isn't it?  I have 5 more tubs to fill, too.  All those project bags will be tubified! 

Scrabblequeen - The answer is to use clear plastic tubs. You are totally doooooomed if you use boxes or solid color tubs.  Totally.  I'm still not happy about that yarn and motif. 

The Yarnarian Crochets.

Oh, boy!  Am I ever sucked into my annual crochet binge.  In addition to the 3 blankies in progress, I decided to start another one.

This was a trial run in a variegated yarn.  I like it, but an entire blankie out of it would be way, way too busy.  I think that knitting handles variegated yarns better than crochet most of the time.  Here's another motif that is also too busy.

Pretty, maybe as a scarf, but not as a blanket.  Actually, now that I'm looking at it here, I think I'll make more of these and really do a scarf.  But maybe not in this yarn.  Who knows?  Whatever.

So then I went off to the Stitching Bee, and bought a bunch of DK yarns, all machine washable and mostly acrylic, 'cause you know that is what I like to do blankies in.  Decided to use the pattern for the first pic, More V's, please.  I found it on Ravelry, it's free (always delightful), and beyond fun to hook.

I changed the pattern only in that I did 2 rows instead of 3 on the v-stitch area. 

I also did a bunch of dyeing yesterday, but I'll post that later, just so you can enjoy all this hooky goodness.

Susie - The squares are actually about 7", so they are not teensy, and they will get another row or two with my outline color, maybe off-white.  I'm not sure yet of what I want to use, so I'll do some more and then decide.  Once I pick the border color, then I'll start joining them as I go along.  Otherwise I'll yell and scream if I have to do these all at the same time.

PandaBearofDoom - I like the first one as a stand-alone piece.  Maybe If I did a few row border in a solid, I'd like it more for a blankie, but I only have one skein of the yarn, dyed it a long time ago, and have no idea what I did, so I can't duplicate it.

katiemckinna - Thanks.

myhookandyarnadventure - It is very tricky using variegateds on crochet, especially on these granny squares.  I have had great luck using them in scarves, particularly in a ziazag pattern.  Those yarns work if you are looking for a sort of Monet look to your scarf.

When the weather gets warmer, I start to work on crochet blankies!

 Back asswards, that's for sure, but there is something about those longer days with clear bright sunlight that makes me want to crochet.  I have a bunch of unfinished crochet blankies and one knit blankie that I started last summer and put away in Oct., and I dug them out the other day.  They are all going to be blankies just because the thought of making a full cover for a queen size bed or a big afghan is more than I can handle.  I get bored very very easily, and besides I love startitis, so small lap covers these are all going to be.

So, here's the first one:  this is done with Encore DK weight which is my favorite blankie weight.  Easy on my wrists, and yet it doesn't take forever.  OK, it takes forever, but not as in fingering weight forever.  This one is just chugging along.  It's a perfect size for a lap cover, and it'll get finished when I'm totally bored with it.

Then there's the Linus blankie that I started for the Linus project.  It's a good thing that those babies have lots of other blankies available to them because at the rate I'm going, they'll be parents of their own babies by the time I'm finished.  I've decided to do a row/day in the hopes of finishing it before my grands have their own grands.

Here's the African flower one that I started at the end of July last summer.  This one is a keeper.  I love the colors.  Not practical, but then it is totally machine washable, and if it gets dirty, then it gets dirty.  I did those 6 hexies while I was visiting the MN relatives, and then put it away.  When I dug it out, I thought:  hey, this is pretty.  Might be nice if I finished it some century or other.

Here's the Ten Stitch Blankie that I'm doing in Silk Garden.  This one is knit and is a pure pleasure and great mindless TV knitting project.  You just motor along on it.  I might finish it one of these days.

It seriously needs a good wash and blocking but you get the idea.

Every year around this time, I wander into Michaels looking for the ultimate cheapy yarn, and get sucked in by some, come home, start a grannie, and then dislike it.

This is so not calling me.  In the skein, the colors just sang together, but here they look blah.   Ah well, it cost me very little since 2 of the skeins were on sale.  And anyhow, this is worsted weight, which I don't like to work on, so why I bought it in the first place is anybody's guess.  Give me good old DK weight, not worsted.
I don't think I'll do any more on this.

I have 2 lovely shawls that I can't show you plus one in process, and I can't show you that either.  They are all for the Light & Dark Lace Club and are mystery shawls.  You'll see them one of these months.

The skinny yarn sweater is proceeding very slowly.  I'm sooooo sick of it.  I've done the whole thing in lace, including the sleeves, and I'm tired of the pattern big time.  I'm going to do 3/4 sleeves with a bit of a ruffle on the bottom of the sleeves just to finish it before the end of time.  One sleeve is almost there, and then I'll do the second one, put a finishing touch on the neckline, wash and block it, and then that's that!

On the Mommie front, she seems to be aging very quickly now.  I swear that there is a change in her from one week to the next.  I've hired her morning companion to help her out before, during and after dinner, getting her ready for bed, and that's a very good idea.  I do wish Medicare covered some of this.  It's so much cheaper hiring an aide than paying for a nursing home.  And she's at home here with her own furniture and apartment.  The staff is the greatest staff in the world!  and I mean that with all my heart.  They want to keep her here until she passes away, so that's our goal.  But she is so fragile and old.  She's so much older than she was on her birthday on Nov. 4.  Clearly she's winding down, but I still bet that she'll make it to her 97th birthday.  For all her fragility and fuzziness, she's still one tough old lady.  The physical therapist came yesterday morning to see her, and she refused to get out of bed.  Christina and Evelyn are the only people who can get her up; she fights with everyone else.  It's pretty funny and shows that the core Mommie is still in there.

Thanks to all of you for your lovely encouraging words about elder care.  It's really, really hard, and she doesn't even live with me.  I still think I'm blessed to do it, though.  I love her to pieces.

Have a good weekend, everybody.  Maybe our snow will melt?  Of not.

The Yarnarian is in Project Heaven!

I do love starting new projects. Finishing? Eh. Yes, it's nice to have the completed object, but the fun is in the planning and starting. So a really fun sock is in the works. This is being knitted from the first long skeins I played with. I never put it up for sale because of that bit of white that kept peeking through, but it's nice enough for knitting. So here it is:



The pattern is loads of fun to do, and not terribly difficult once you figure out where to place your needle.

Remember the multi-colored triangle scarf that I kept posting and frogging? It's baaaack, with a much nicer neck edge. That last neck edge was awful. I kept seeing it and it offended me mightily. The Hubbo never saw what was wrong with it, but then he's the Hubbo and not a knitter.

So, I frogged for the umpteenth time, and am now happy. Yes, I know it looks as if it could use a good blocking. It can use a good blocking, and that will make all those nice woolly stitches line up and look good. It always does. Happiness is wool. So, I changed the edging yet again, and I really, really like it. It's going to make its way onto a sock or something else. It's a weirdly worked zigzag, not done in the usual fashion, and I quite like it. Look for it, because it's going into my pattern collection.




I'm into serious zigzagging these days. It seems that every new project that I start has a zig and a zag.

But here's what I'm really excited about! The crochet blankie, the one with the hexagons. I'm have the time of my life playing with this. So, of course, I'm now thinking of the next one. It's a very nice change from knitting, different arm and hand motions, and I've always liked doing Grannie pieces. As you can see, I have a long way to go, but I'm not in a hurry. I'm doing it in a skinny DK, more of a sport weight, but crochet is much heavier than knitting, so it feels like a worsted wt. object. Such fun! Clearly I'll have to do different grannies for the American Girl dolls in the family. And a winter, spring, summer, and fall grannie or two or three or four. Ach, I'm getting grandiose here. OK, I'll finish this one first.



Off to work some more on it. If you've never crocheted, go learn how; it's tons of fun, and lace crochet is amazing, quite different from knit lace.

Polzic - Thank you. I like your legos, too.

CathyR - The yarn really does stripe. I knew it would, but it's one thing to know it and another to actually knit it. The poor scarf, it's been frogged so many times. I'm knitting it in Bambi, and it's holding up. It's getting a tiny bit fuzzy, but so would any yarn frogged 5 times. Too bad on the crochet for you. I can only do it in little time spans because it is hard on my hands too.

itsJUSTme-wendy - That's a great idea. I'm thinking of making some blankies for the various dolls our granddaughters own.

Linda - Actually crochet hurts me lots more than knitting. Don't know why either. Also, for the life of me, I can't figure out how to decrease within a pattern.

Henya - So now I'm about 1/4 way through with the blankie, and I'm already planning the next one.

The Yarnarian is Back!

Ah, peace and quiet. Love, love, love those grandkids, but it is nice to get back to just the 2 of us. We enjoyed The Kid very much. It's the first time he's slept away from home for more than one night. He got a bit scared the second night, but we did lots of hugs and cuddles, and he conquered his fear. I'm so proud of him. It's hard for an 8 year old to take risks, and he did it. So 3 cheers for The Kid. Kids his age are into collecting adorable Japanese erasers. That became the theme for the visit: where to find these babies. So I ordered some online for him, and he and the Hubbo found some on their Boys' Day Out, and then we hit paydirt: Kinokuniya! Yes, that amazing Japanese book store has tons of little tchachkes including those erasers. The Kid was in seventh heaven. Much fun, and now we are happily enjoying just being us.

Dyeing news: I did get a bit of dyeing done. The Kid wanted to dye, so after he was done, I did a few skeins, and here are the results. All will eventually appear in the Etsy shop, but if you need one, email me, and I'll hold for you. After all, why shouldn't you, dear reader, get first dibs. fritzL234 AT yahoo DOT com

Soft Fade and Old Rose (I was in an antique rose mode this week)




Dusk and Chanson:




And 2 yarns that are NOT in that faded look: Abbra and Fancy Schmancy:




And Sandor (which is Hungarian for The Kid's name. He wanted to name the yarns. OK.



Knitting news: I started and finished a little skinny lace scarf for me for next winter. I used Alexa, which is so soft around the neck, and I used an almost solid of a rosy/pink colorway. I love this yarn. It is beyond soft, and yet affordable. I think, however, that from now on, I'm going to make my scarves a bit wider, just so the swoop is more luxurious.



And, I'm back to working on my version of the Shelly Kang Blankie. Miss P and The Kid were both entranced with this thing, and I realized that if i want to ever give each little kid her/his own blankie, I have to seriously work on the thing.



I have a loooong way to go on this thing. What are the odds that I'll get 5 of them done before I demise?

Update: Chanson and Abbra and Dusk are spoken for.

Henya - I could duplicate this one if I tried. I did it while The Kid was watching, and he gave me input, so who knows what I actually did. Not I. He kept futzing around with the greens and blues, and this was the result. Talented child, no?

And your mother is right. It's great to have them, and then it's great to send them home.