It’s a beautiful day here on the lake. We had coffee on the porch until we had to “get moving” and I had to get some things checked off my list. Lots of balls being juggled at this time of year. So far, the balls aren’t dropping but they could, just sayin’.
I finished and blocked Dolores’ first outfit this week and it’s a hoot. Today I put it on her for the first time and brought her tiara out of the basket where it’s been for eight (?) years or so. I don’t drink many martinis straight up these days but she sure does have some attitude, right? Thus the title to this post attributed to the late Mae West. Franklin Habit, the designer warns that I’ll be lucky if she only demands a grape. LOL. She has some pampered attitude, that’s for sure.
I really enjoyed knitting the sheep pattern (once I put my mind to it again.) It was quick and the yarn in the kit was quite wonderful. Two 50g skeins of WEBS Valley Yarns Valley Superwash white and one of black and that’s it. There was enough left over to make the shawl (and a hat but I haven’t gotten to that one yet.) I really wanted to knit up her other outfits and this one is the first: Dolores #4 Sugarplum de la Soir. Franklin was speaking french before he moved to France!
The sparkly yarns were interesting to knit with and occasionally my needle tip got stuck in the silver threads but by and large, the knitting was fun. The yarn is still available, it’s Stacy Charles Fine Yarns, Stella, two skeins of the silver main color and one of the purple. I loved the construction of the outfit – it started with the purple overskirt and then the silver is added and folded over to make the waistband. Next the underskirt. There were five silver flowers knitted and attached to the top and I didn’t do the embroidery on the outfit as I thought it was fancy enough. The top has an applied i-cord bind off and i-cords are made for ties on the skirt, too. It all ties on to Dolores in the end so her little sheep butt is showing in the back. Let’s hope she doesn’t look in the mirror. LOL
I’ve got three more outfits to knit for Dolores. I’m sorry that I didn’t buy more of them but at the time, I was thinking they’d be out there forever. If they ever go back on sale, I’d totally buy more outfits. Some of them were designed by different designers that we’d all know. I am going to have trouble choosing which one I knit next but I’m thinking that with all the rain we’ve had here in Maine, I’ll knit the #3 Transatlantic Travel Ensemble by Fiona Ellis. These patterns are a treasure!
The patterns aren’t available and I’ve reached out to Franklin Habit to see if there’s any chance that they’d be released again and he’s not sure who “owns the rights” right now. I hope when he has a few extra minutes that he’ll be able to figure it out. I have a feeling there are others like me who’d love the patterns either as single patterns, as a book, or as kits.
We had coffee on the porch again this morning. It wasn’t a gorgeous morning but we appreciate any time we get to spend out there in the peace and quiet. No loud boats full of tourists from away and not even any fishermen this morning. And then it started to drizzle as it has done on the weekend for what seems like every single weekend since the snow melted. (I’m sure it hasn’t been every one but, geez!, it sure feels like it!)
I’ve been straight out this week and it made the time pass very quickly. I am home this weekend with a very long list of to-dos and I hope to reclaim some time to really focus on getting some of my knitting projects over their humps … most of my WIPs are in a place where I need to pay attention and I’ve been too tired at the end of the day this week.
SO, I’ve paid quite a bit of attention to my Jelly Roll blanket. I’ve managed to start another column of knitting and that makes me, most likely, about half-way finished with the project. I still have a ton of bits and bobs of fingering weight sock yarns so I guess this either has to be much larger than I really wanted it to be or I need to stop knitting socks. We all know that the latter won’t happen so I will have to find more sock yarn scrappy projects to use up all the yarn I’ve collected over the years. It’s not the prettiest blanket to be sure but it’s going to be useful and warm for someone. AND, bonus, I think it’s going to be washable on cold/gentle setting.
Jelly Roll Blanket
And I’ve finished Dolores and her shawl (I haven’t knitted her hat yet, but I may … or may not) and she’s been sitting on my extra chair in my atelier with a whole lot of attitude demanding that I make her some new clothes. So, I started her first outfit from a kit that I bought in “ahem” 2017 or 2018. It’s designed by Franklin Habit and it’s hilariously sparkly silver and purple and it will become a dress, if my understanding is correct. I’ve gotten to the short rows at the bottom of the underskirt which I need to pay attention to so I don’t make mistakes. It’s a hoot.
I think this will be what I pick up first today.
Vanilla Socks … Yankee Knitter pattern
I started a pair of socks the other day for some “brainless” knitting. I can knit this pattern with two hands tied behind my back. The yarn was given to me so I have no idea what it is other than to report that it’s lovely and soft. I think they’ll be for my middle daughter who likes my hand knit socks and will take care of them and she likes darker colors. The colorway is glorious despite being dark. It reminds me of cathedral windows or stained glass in many ways. Don’t ask me why. I am in the process of knitting the heel flap on the first sock and am close to turning the heel.
I’ve got to pick up the pink mittens again, too. AND my Big Love cardigan. I need to get some major time with the Big Love so that I can bring it to work with me and work on it while I teach.
This week I finished a second Love and Light and hung it up in our granddaughter’s little sleeping nook. It’s plenty of light for her room and it dims to 20% when she’s sleeping. We haven’t made any progress with the mattress support. That’s next and then I can make her bed. Love and Light is a quick and fun project knitted with fairy lights and big DPNs. It’s a hot mess until you’re finished and stretch the wires out ever so gently teasing them into shape. I love making them.
I also cast on my All About the Ruffle Shawl yesterday. I have two (and one on hold just in case) hanks of Emma’s Practically Perfect Sock yarn in a dark teal colorway called Harbor. I cast on and it’s perfectly boring with a ton of garter stitch and increases on the right side. I am going to be increasing for ages until I get to somewhere around 400 stitches if memory serves and then the magic begins.
All About the Ruffle Shawl
On the home front, we ordered a dining room chandelier this week. Our dining room table has been in the dark for over a year since we took down the heavy beam light that my hubby designed and we decided after almost 10 years that we didn’t love it and then we couldn’t find anything we both loved. The new lamp is more his choice than mine but I am tired of looking and wanted to get it checked off my list of to-dos. Now he has to move the box and install the light. Maybe tomorrow.
I did a deep clean in our room the other day. Moved all the furniture and vacuumed up umpteen spidery webs. Now if I could just figure out how to wash the windows over our bed without having to go outside with a ladder. I know I won’t survive the climb up the ladder … on the dirt … on the hill … by the creek … there must be an easier way, right? We are in the process of finding a new bed for us and moving our bed to the guest room and the guest room bed to the guest cottage that we are going to rent out when it’s done. The bathroom is being updated/cleaned up/refreshed and then it needs a good cleaning and a kitchenette and we’ll be ready to go. (By then it’ll be too cold to rent until next summer.) We also have to paint the outside of the building. Hmm. Anybody know a reasonable painter?
It was another beautiful morning for coffee on the porch today. Made even more beautiful by the company of our hummingbirds and more sun after so many rainy gray days. Hubby is off to work and I have gotten myself dressed and ready to head out to help interview for a position at school but I thought I’d take a few minutes to update you on my knitting yesterday.
I spent a good chunk of the morning knitting the first of two Love and Light projects that I need done. One as a gift and one for Sylvie’s nook. The gift, the one that really needed to be done first, is finished. I timed myself this time and it took just a bit over an hour and a half. Not bad! When I saw my photo of the little knitted heart on the porch I have to admit to giggling … it’s literal knitting on the porch. Ha! Ha! I’ve got to find one of those little plug thingies to plug it in to test the lights. I sure hope they work!
Love and Light by Laura Nelkin
And then theres’s Dolores.
I bought the kit for Dolores back in the dark ages, before Covid-19, before forever ago. I started knitting her in November 2018 according to my Ravelry project page. This week I took her out of the cupboard where she’s been hiding and had a look to see what I need to do to get her finished and living life “out” in our house. I had finished her body but didn’t like the stuffing, it wasn’t firm enough, so I opened her up and stuffed her again so her body is firmer. (She’ll be happy I did.) Once done, I cast on for her snout and knitted her ears and got them attached. She’s already looking like a sheep.
Dolores by Franklin Habit (Kit by WEBS)
The pattern and kits are long gone. Maybe they’ll bring them back again. I’d love to have more of her outfits now. Especially since I have a granddaughter!
Yesterday afternoon I started Dolores’ legs and arms. I was knitting away and all I could think of at first was steamed clams. If you’re a New Englander you’ll understand.
And then as I progressed in knitting the leg (arm?) I started to see the old cartoon Granny’s saggy breast. I laughed out loud thinking about Franklin designing legs of a sheep based on the saggy breasts of a cartoon granny. I’m sure that wasn’t forefront in his mind but it did make me laugh. (I can have so much fun inside my little head.)
If you’re of a certain age, as I am, you’ll understand this. If not, google away …Robert Brown is the cartoonist and he drew for Playboy magazine back in the day. I thought about taking a screenshot and placing it here but I think you can look it up if you don’t know about him.
Anyway, I got three of the four arms/legs done last night and will eventually sit down and knit the rest of the last one today and maybe they’ll get attached, too. Leaving me with the tail and her shawl and a bit of facial embroidery. One more project complete and this one makes me pretty stinking happy. I believe I have a couple of her outfits stored away in a Longaberger basket somewhere around here. I guess it’s time to find them, huh?
Gone knitting.
PS – I found the outfits! I bought four kits and I have four patterns. Those will make good travel knitting for the warmer months … and by travel knitting I mean something to take in the car and to meetings.
I didn’t get out this morning to take a photograph. Not sure why but I didn’t so here’s a photo from yesterday that seems appropriate for today. Mothers/’s/s’ Day. Maine has been experiencing the Aurora Borealis storm that much of the northern part of the country has been but we’ve missed it at our house … the first night because we were too tired to stay up late and last night because of thick cloud cover. Maybe tonight it’ll happen for us?
Today is Mother’s Day (singular) in the USA. A day to honor our mothers when we should be honoring them every day since they gave us life. But I learned something today from Heather Cox Richardson about the origin of Mothers’ Day. Professor Richardson says that Mothers’ Day (plural)
… “actually started in the 1870s, when the sheer enormity of the death caused by the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War convinced writer and reformer Julia Ward Howe that women must take control of politics from the men who had permitted such carnage. Mothers’ Day was not designed to encourage people to be nice to their mothers. It was part of women’s effort to gain power to change society.”
I’ve been receiving HCR’s Letters From an American since its inception and have learned a lot about the history of our country and how what’s happening today fits or doesn’t. Today’s post talks about Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic and who hoped after the Civil War to have women keep their new role as participants in national affairs. But the 14th Amendment established Black men as citizens and didn’t specifically mention women. Howe had an abusive husband and if she left him, her children would belong to him. Her activism lead her to believe that mothers were the only way to stop war; wrote an Appeal to Womanhood Throughout the World, organized a Woman’s Peace Movement and Mothers’ Day events to encourage women to speak up and speak out because she realized that a woman’s life didn’t have to revolve around a man, that they should share human rights and responsibilities equally with men. A fitting reminder today that women must make their voices heard and they must have the same rights as men.
I thought I’d update you all on my knitting WIPs. They only seem to be growing and not much is being finished. I seem to have a case of castonitis. (For those non-knitters, it’s when you start a bunch of projects which in knitting is called casting on.) I have cast on another Emotional Support Chicken and a sweater gift for a sweet mother-to-be and I have two more sweaters for little people that I want to knit and bought the yarn for because I don’t have the right yarn … of course.
Emotional Support Chicken(s)
I have two FOs. One is a bit older than the other but I’m showing them side by side for the size difference. On the left is my worsted weight ESC and on the right is the DK weight ESC. The one on the right will be going to my granddaughter. I will likely be knitting another one because we’re doing a window display for the summer … a chicken coop. Ha! Ha! We’ve asked our customers to participate in a Chicken-along, we stole the idea from Franklin Habit who is doing the same, and we’ve asked to borrow the chickens for our window. I hope we’ll collect a few! This pattern is so much fun to knit and there’s an equally charming crochet pattern. I made the first one just for fun and then made a second one who’s gone to live in Florida with a dear friend and the third I made with one 50g ball of Plymouth Dream Baby Paintbox. I used the same pattern as the worsted weight chicken and a US3 knitting needle. I love her!
Remaining on my needles, however, there are several active and several passive WIPs. The active ones, ones that I will actually pick up and work on over the last couple of weeks are coming first.
In the order in which they appear … My Jelly Roll Blanket is half-way up (down?) the third strip. I was working on it while on a zoom meeting with my friends from college on Friday night and did something screwy and had to frog a few rows, and then a few more, reknit a few, frog a few … not sure why I couldn’t get the stitches back on the needles successfully, but there you go. Today I was watching an Arne & Carlos YouTube video and got it fixed and then continued knitting almost to where I had originally made the mistake. I think I’m going to like this crazy patchwork-y scrap buster!
A new cast on. I have a young woman in my life who I mentored when we both lived in Florida and she was a student at my local school. I fell in love with her as a ten-year-old and love her still today as a young woman and soon a mother of three boys. I cast on this sweater to send to baby #3 who is due in a few weeks. I’ll have to head to Target or somewhere to find a little something to send to the big brothers, too. The sweater is an oldie but a goodie – it was in a magazine in 1982 and is out of print but we have a very poor copy of the pattern at work and I’ve used it a few times. I’ve chosen Cascade’s washable/dry-able acrylic and wool blend Pacific Print to knit the Zip Up A Baby Sweater. Since the yarn is multi-colored, I decided to do the plain front and sleeves rather than the cabled one. The yarn is busy enough!
My second pair of Hermione’s Everyday socks are coming along slowly. I finished the first sock and have started the second. This yarn was deeply stashed ages ago but it was calling my name. I love this pattern and even mentioned it to a customer at the store on Thursday who was going to knit her first pair of socks. (I didn’t suggest it as her first pair. I suggested she use the Yankee Knitter sock pattern for her first pair and when she’s ready, she can branch out.) Anyway, the socks travel with me to work and when we’re out and about.
I’m knitting a little cotton sundress for Sylvie. I couldn’t resist this dress when I saw the pattern and I am loving it. The pattern is Sunbeam Kids Dress (on Ravelry) and I’m making slow but sure progress. It’s still too cold for Sylvie to wear it so I’m ok here. I suspect she won’t be wearing it for a while since our weather has been so bizarre. I am hearing rumbles that we might get snow next week? Are you kidding me?
Oorik Tank Top – arm hole #2
The Oorik Tank Top (vest) has been languishing in the project bag. I have exactly one sleeve opening to finish and I haven’t touched it. I think it would take me less than an hour to pick up the stitches around the steek and knit a few rounds of ribbing but I haven’t done it. No reason, no excuses. I’d like to say that I will finish it this week but I’m not a liar. Ha! Ha!
And last but not least, the Fiddlehead Mittens. I’ve started the first lining and have reached the thumb gusset but I’m more interested in knitting baby sweaters than knitting mitten linings apparently. So it goes. They’ll get done one of these days. I’m working on keeping my sanity and not fretting about not finishing things. It’s all good.
I’ve still got the pink mittens and Three Seasons Cardigan in “time out” and they’re not really even on my radar right now. My knitting mojo has been a bit “off” and I’m trying to just go with the flow and knit what speaks to me. There’s a time for everything in its time.
We celebrated Mother’s Day here with a trip to our favorite Longfellow’s Garden Center in Manchester, Maine. We bought some new compost and soil for the new raised garden bed and we bought flowers to fill the window box and the bee pot in the door yard.
The term door yard is used a lot here in Maine and it helps me because we two main doors in our house – one at the lake side of the house that leads to the porch and the other at the back of the house that we go in and out of from the driveway and yard. We aren’t sure which is really our “front” or “back” door so I’ve decided to use the “door yard” for the (technically) back door which is the main entrance door that would typically be termed the “front” door. It’s confusing. But they’re pretty and cheerful now and let’s hope the weather stays reasonably warm because some of them need to be hardened off and some are already. If it decides to snow, I’ll pull them in. Let’s hope it doesn’t snow.
So, I’ve written about having been struggling with “tennis elbow” since the end of July. It’s still a nagging problem but I’ve been doing some knitting. Not much but some. Yesterday I went to get a massage to work out some new kinks in my shoulders and arms. It was very helpful and I felt pretty good afterward. I had a couple of errands to run and then planned to go home to get some Christmas stuff “wrapped up”. (ha! ha!)
I was stopped in traffic on my way to the office store for labels when *CRASH* … I was rear ended. After a call to the police, waiting for them to arrive and make a report, I was able to drive my car away with minimal damage. The woman who hit me wasn’t so lucky. Her car was towed. Just before Christmas, that’s a big bummer. She said she was trying to find a cough drop and looked down. My response and the police officer’s response was the same, “That’s all it takes.”
Today I am feeling fine. I was happy to head to work with minimal aches and pains. I think those that I had were more from the massage working out kinks than from having been hit. So, I am feeling so grateful that it wasn’t worse. That nobody was hurt. That I was able to drive away.
Oh, and my knitting … I’ve got several projects on the needles. None are moving along at a quick pace. I knit a few rows (or rounds) at a time and then put it aside. A pair of socks for my favorite son, a pair of fingerless mitts that have been languishing for thirteen years. A Bristol Ivy shawl in Cashgora yarn, Dolores (Franklin Habit’s sheep) and several others.
I did finish a baby hat knit in cashmere yarn for my new nephew in California for Christmas. He’s perfect and I can’t wait to meet him!
Queen Bee Knits 