Cats and Stacks

Life is full of endings and beginnings.  Some have very definite starts and stops, while others just flow through life without much notice of when they make their entrances and exits.  Occasionally they stack up on you.  Sometimes you finish something, and you just sit back and reflect.  

Some things have ended recently, some are in an active phase of ending, and others are wobbling a bit with the uncertainty of whether they will continue with changes or perhaps finish completely.  I'm taking some moments to sit with it all and just be.     

You'll Never Guess What Comes Next

It's a real mystery, eh?  Still, it's something to do, and whether I knit the accompanying cat(s), as per the pattern, it doesn't even matter.  I have my needles going and I'm knitting silly little things.  I've made worse choices in this life, that's for sure.  They're also fun summertime knits, and the idea of floating along is appealing.  Just the idea, of course, as I'm mostly an indoor creature.  Also, when it comes to water activities, well, I'm mainly composed of rock and a propensity to develop swimmer's ear.  

Maybe I'll make it through a rainbow's sequence of float-y rings, maybe I'll go on to knit characters to go with them (cats or otherwise), or perhaps I'll move on to knitting the other styles of cats in the pattern collection.  

I am looking forward to what I hope will be the release of a dinosaur pattern this month.  I think that the previous patterns became available as PDFs in August, so I am hopeful.  

What's giving you hope these days?

Saved from Swatching

So, the Hue Shift Afghan has only a few more rows left to knit (and alllllll of those ends) and it will be done.  I could have finished the knitting by now, but a few things have it off to the side.  We've had some unseasonably warm weather not well suited for having a big ol' blanket on my lap.  It will be back and forth with the temperatures, so the project will have its opportunities for finishing the knitting, and I have a backlog of episodes of Days of Our Lives to watch for weaving in all those ends.  It's going to freeze again this week, so who knows? 

Anyway, with the upcoming completion of this project, I've started looking for the next one.  Now, before you mention my Bridgewater, I'll thank you to know that Rock Island refuses to either require less yardage or to magic a particular skein of handspun to have sufficient yardage to knit it.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  

So, I kept up my search for what I was going to knit, mostly flipping through my library.  There's only so long I can just look through patterns.  I either cast on, or I set it all aside and do something else.  Eventually, the itch of the needles got me, and it was time to wind the yarn. 

Side note, with all of the bouts of warmer weather, I have done a bit of work out in the yard.  In and amongst the new green is plenty of brown, and hidden amongst that I found the poison-est of ivies--poison ivy.  I just didn't know it at the time, and it took a few days before the rash revealed itself, and suddenly I had quite a few patches of it.  Did you know that you can get calamine in a spray formulation?  I didn't but I do now, and it is mighty fine.  So, yeah, it wasn't just the needles that have been itching, but I am doing much better now and mostly healed.  

Anyway, I settled on knitting something from Hunter Hammersen's Curls, a book I've never knit from and which is already discontinued.  I decided it was a good choice for maximizing my handspun.  Then I narrowed it down to a few patterns within the book and started swatching.  I changed needle size and tried a different chart, and I still wasn't sure.  My enthusiasm was starting to wane.  

Suddenly I was saved by the arrival of a new pattern, and the new yarn I ordered in anticipation of said pattern had arrived the day before.  I think I'll just knit these for a while.  It's probably some of the best use of my time for now.   

New Year, New Blog Post

We made it!  That last bit was a bit rocky, (no need to worry--life is like that sometimes) and for the last couple of weeks of the year, I had a lot of trouble keeping track of what day or time it was.  Much of that lingers, but it seems a little less difficult.  I don't have a personal 2022 wrap-up, and I'm just fine with that.  We're still here, and that is enough. 

Anyway, you're here for amazing knitting content, right?  My Featherweight Wrap to Knit has all its ends woven in and it even had a nice soak to wash away the years and, well, you know what a difference a dunk makes.  I don't feel like a modeled photo shoot, and it laid out on the floor is not all that impressive for a picture.  It is a mainly stockinette, three-quarter-ish-length sleeve, black, lightweight, cardigan.  You'll just have to trust me on the finished status, mkay?  I like it and might even knit another of this pattern one day.  

I finished knitting the final quadrant of the Hue Shift Afghan.  I really thought I would have sewn the quadrants together or worked in the ends during the ultra-cold weather, but that didn't happen.  I didn't even drag out the other pieces of the blanket.  I'll get to it someday.  I have some shows I want to watch and I think working on this while I do so will be a good match.   

I knit some little bits for the nieces and nephews.  I wanted to make many more tiny things, and I even thought of sewing little stockings for each of them to fill with doodads and little knits, but that was not to be, and it was probably just as well.  In the end, a snowperson and a chocolate chip cookie felt like the right amount of knitting to attach to their Christmas gifts.  

Welcome to 2023!  I'm glad you're still here.              

Nearly a Nickel Creek Title*

My Kindle Fire has been unwell for a while, and I've been sad about it.  Not only have I enjoyed the device over the years, how I got it is special to me.  As it has been getting progressively sadder, I have tried all of the wishful thinking and lucky rituals trying to get it well.  I gotta say, the one where you hold down the power button for twenty-eight seconds in the light of the full moon, surrounded by a circle of power formed by all your best charging cables seemed the most promising, but alas, it was not.  Finally, I managed to do a factory reset, and now I'm back up and running again.  Woo-hoo!  

So, yeah, what with the end of the Mochimochi Photo + Video Contest 2022 (no, I was not a winner, nor did I expect to be) and a bunch of other stuff, I've not done quite as much knitting.  I mean, I was cranking out the tiny creations all summer, so the slowdown is not unexpected.  I don't think I've shown all of the little creations.  Anyway, I do have ideas that would get my needles going.  I would say I'm excited to show you, but much of what I have is not exciting at all.  Of course, now you're excited and feel confident that it will actually be interesting.  In thanks for your good and positive thoughts, I present you with a little bit of my knitting with my revived Kindle Fire.  It's just a couple of Fumin' Wombs from the 20th Anniversary Knitty.    

*Why Should the Fire Die? 

Sharing Is Caring

I made a thing.  Actually, I made many things, thought a lot, took many pictures, and then I made this thing.  It's my entry into the 2022 Mochimochi Photo + Video Contest.  I had hoped to have made something better, but I think it's good that I put myself out there and tried something.  This contest is awesome, and I really like seeing what everyone makes.  Today is the deadline for entries, so you have just a little bit of time to enter.    

No-No-Notorious, Notorious

Watching the water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi has had "Don't Drink the Water" by Dave Matthews Band stuck in my head for days.  Now I'm trying to dislodge it by getting another song in there.  So...

Ah

No-no-Notorious  

Hey, it could be worse, I could have tried to change the lyrics to go along with knitting Tori the Tiny Triceratops.  Knit-Knit, Kni-tori-ous, Kni-tori-ous.  You like that better?  I get it.  You're trying to decide whether you find me more clever or more entertaining.  Tough competition on those options, so why choose? 

Anyway, back to the pattern.*  Have you checked it out, yet?  It's good, a fun knit, some assembly required, and so satisfying when you get it all together.  Yeah, that's why I've done it again.  And again.  And again.  

*Side note:  The end-of-summer sale is happening this weekend over on Mochimochiland, so check it out, if you like.

Should Have Knit More

If only I had knit more little things I would have created an awesome entry for the 2022 Mochimochiland Photo + Video Contest by now, right?  

I have this little pile of recent knits.

There's this other pile I knit before that.  

Then there's this other pile of little knits that have been just hanging out in a bag in my knitting bag by the couch.  

Don't forget the pile of tiny rabbits and carrots, 

or the gathering of little Elizabeth Warrens.  

Of course, we haven't even gotten to the biggest pile.  

Still, I'm coming up empty.  If the answer to music is more cowbell, the answer here must be more knitting, right?  I'm starting to think it's just not going to happen, and I am trying to be fine with that.  I just wanted to contribute to the event.  Oh, well.  Then again, I still have a few more days, so maybe I will manage to get something together.      

One Thing Leads to Another

Do you ever stop and try to figure out the paths your mind takes to get to a particular topic, activity, or line of thinking?  I do that pretty often.  Sometimes when I have a number of concerning things going on in life my brain tries to sort them into patterns, tries to make puzzling things make sense, works to understand things when I might not have enough information, and the next thing you know my mind has stirred up something seemingly out of nowhere.  I've got quite a bit of that going what with some family getting ready to move away, others appearing to be engaging in patterns of behavior that have historically meant they were not doing well, swirl that all up with the pandemic, climate crisis, inflation, and all of the *gestures broadly* stuff, and it doesn't take much of a leap to figure out why my brain is going the places it goes.  

Other times, the hop-skip-jump is lighthearted and fun.  Anna just announced the call for entries for the 2022 Mochimochi Photo + Video Contest and its theme, Sharing is Caring.  So, I had recently knit some corn.  Maybe sometime I'll fill you in on what got me knitting corn, but that's a story for another day.  Anyway, sharing is caring, inflation is terrible, people are in need, corn is food, I should knit more food and turn it all into an awesome stop-motion animation (a skill I do not possess) and let it join what I'm sure is going to an amazing crop (see what I did there) of entries for the contest.  So I flipped through patterns and the pearl part of the Joyful Oyster pattern from the book Adventures in Mochimochiland was a great starting point for an apple and a peach.  After that I knit a little banana, a tomato, and a lime.  At this point I get a bit mentally stuck in my bin of green yarns and unnecessarily lose too much time lamenting not having full-size skeins of Limeade Heather, Alfalfa, Green Tea Heather, and Edamame despite having mini-skeins of them all and only needing small amounts to knit tiny fruit and veg.  I can be a bit silly, for sure.  I have so much and can relax and enjoy.  Anyway, after knitting all of those healthful foods, you know I'm back to Adventures in Mochimochiland and knitting a donut.  Then my brain is back in the green bin and after another flip through Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi I've knit a little pear.  

So, yeah, I may see if I can put together an entry for the contest, but I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone else does.  In the meantime, I think I need to knit a smaller donut and then maybe I'll try to knit up some little veggies (more green!), but maybe now that I've taken a picture and blogged these, I'm done knitting little food for now.  Sometimes I'm like that, y'know?  

Take care of yourselves and others, lean into love and allow yourself to experience the joy that is available to you. 

"Knit on, with Confidence and Hope, Through All Crises"

Well, I stumbled a bit with the confidence, remembered that hope is a discipline, and lately, we've all had plenty of crises.  It's been quite a month, hasn't it?  Not for the first, nor probably for the last, in difficult times, I turn to knitting.  Here you see my poorly photographed Pride 2022 knitting.  Not only did I knit on with hope, but I knit on with love, and I knit on for love.  

  

Not Enough Orange Yarn

Sometimes I turn to yarn and needles while I process thoughts and feelings.  Tiny heart after tiny heart.  So much loss.  So much grief.  Hate.  Fear.  Terror.