Suddenly August

 I'm not sure what happened to July, but it whizzed by without my doing much in the way of sewing. I did seem to do  a bunch of knitting and reading, but not much blog worthy.

Our latest foster cat has come and gone. His name is Carleton and he went off to his new family, last Tuesday. He did think that all parcel deliveries should be for him.

The potted garden is coming nicely.

It seems to be the year of coleus. They are really brightening the pots. On the other hand, the gladiolas fell over in the rain the other day.

The front door pots are also thriving. I love the fuschia pink in this coleus. It is so bright.

A chipmunk keeps digging in this pot and nothing seems to deter him. However, the plant isn't too unhappy.

I started a new shawl, using some gorgeous yarn I bought from a dyer in Edmonton.  The pattern is Birds of a Feather, by Andrea Mowry. I used the needle the pattern asked for, and I felt the resulting fabric was too loose.

The edges seem to have big loose loops.

So, I started agin, using a smaller needle.

I think the stitches look much neater using this size needle.

Now, I think I will spend some time putting things away in my sewing room so I can make my little guy some shorts before summer is over.

It All Started When I Didn't Check

 A squirrel project of another kind:

It all started when I knit a hat for my grandson, for Christmas, without checking my notes from the last hat I made him. Long story short, it was too small. I went back and checked my notes, and sure enough, I had decided that the pattern was too small, so I had gone up a size, and down a needle size., for the last one.

So, I ripped out the whole hat, and opened the drawer where I keep my knitting needles, to look for a 5mm short circular needle. I found a total mess, and decided that it was time to do a tidy.

I emptied everything out onto the dining room table. I first found my needle gauge, then I started sorting. (Like my new Christmas tablecloth?)

These are the first "grown-up" needles I ever owned. I had started out, at the ripe old age of 5 or 6, with a pair of poorly made needles that came in a craft kit. They eventually broke, but not before I used up all the yarn in the kit, and a number of scrap balls, donated by a neighbour who knit. (My mother didn't knit.) These needles were gifted to me by a family friend, who got me started on a hat in bulky yarn.

I love how the plastic needles bend and stay bent. I don't use plastic ones anymore. 

I have a huge collection of straight needles. I can't remember when I last used straight needles. So I decided to find a new home for these, to help resolve the mess. 

The cardboard mailing tube that I use to wrap the Christmas wall hangings around provided a storage place for the needles, and they will soon be cozy and warm, wrapped in the Christmas quilts.

My needles of choice are now circular needles with interchangeable tips. I separated these into tips and cables, and discovered that I seem to have an extra point. If anyone needs a single 6mm tip, I have it. (I found the other 5mm tip missing in the picture, and now I wonder why I have two sets.)

By the end of the day, I had this. I found a cutlery tray to put into the drawer, it it holds the double pointed needles, crochet hooks, needle gauge and a couple of other tools. The brown envelopes hold the cables, and circular needles. The short circulars now have their own envelope. Needle tips are in a zip lock bag. I wonder if I can keep it this tidy?

Meanwhile, in a weak moment, I decided to join annual Mystery Quilt Along over at Persimmon Dreams. She publishes a block per day, and I am already behind! So, I am going to try and play catch up over the next couple of days. 

This is my fabric selection, pulled from stash.

I finished the first block, but it looks wonky so I may be redoing that, too.

A New Shawl

I haven't been posting much of my own work lately. This is partially because I haven't sewn much for myself,  partially the "Great Sewing Room Clean-up" and mostly, because I have been frantically knitting.

You see, I sort of volunteered to be a test knitter for a designer I follow. The project didn't look too complicated (not like 1001 Nights) and I had lots of wool on hand that I could use.

The shawl was 303 stitches across. Each row took a long time to knit, and it required careful attention to detail. I needed two contrasting yarns to make the shawl, and I had one I thought would work, but nothing to go with it. So, I needed a trip to the yarn shop. When I started knitting, there wasn't enough contrast between the two for the pattern to show properly. I ended up buying another skein of yarn.

After much knitting, I finished the shawl before the due date, although my hands and shoulders were not happy about all the knitting. It is now blocked, and ready to wear.

The Big Reveal:

This is Tyche by Claire Slade.

After blocking, it is lovely and long. It does take awhile to start to see the mosaic pattern, but it goes much faster after you figure it out.

You can tell I was pining for some nice spring weather when I started this. The yarn is Indigodragonfly Cariboubaa in colourway Guppy Longmockings and Sublime Baby Cashmere Silk in colourway Pinkaboo.

While I was gathering supplies for this, I discovered the required needles were lounging in a forgotten UFO. It was a scarf I started in 2015, then ran into difficulties when I realized I didn't have sufficient yarn in my stash to finish the scarf. The yarn was a sale bin purchase of a discontinued line. This is when it is good to have friends. My buddy Cheryl of Grandma Coco fame had rummaged through the same sale bin and had a skein of the yarn in the same dye lot. While waiting for the yarn to arrive in the mail,  I moved on to other projects, and this one got forgotten. It last appeared in my blog in January of 2016.

I spent a great deal of time on Saturday, figuring out where I left off in the pattern (one should always store a UFO with a marked copy of the pattern). So, I am working away on this scarf. Since I am optimistic that scarf season is over,  it can go into the gift box, for next Christmas.

I do find that 39 stitch rows go much faster than 303 stitch rows.

New Needles

I am not a "Social Media Influencer", in that I have a small number of blog followers and and even smaller number of Twitter followers. So, if I want to try new things, I buy them and you get my true impression.

Lately, I have seen these fancy new needles on several well known knitters web sites, and the engineer in me had to try them. The principle sounded good.

They are called Flexiflips and they are by Addi.  The idea is that you have three short circular type needles and use them for socks or mittens, instead of 4 or 5 double points.

Unlike the short circulars sold for sock knitting, the tips are 3.5" long, instead of short tips. This means you can hold the tip in your whole hand. I have tried the circular sock needles and find them uncomfortable to use.

You use three needles, one for the front of your work, and one for the back. The third needle becomes the working needle. Since the needles bend in the middle, it is easy to manipulate the stitches in a round.

The needles have the two different points that Addi has for their needles.

There is a short point,

And a longer narrower point (or in my world, a pointier point).

So far, I think they are okay needles, I don't find them any faster to use then my DPN's. I actually think that ribbing is slower, but maybe that is because I am knitting a man's mitten and there is 4 inches of ribbing. I am not sure how well they will work for the thumb, although I expect it is no worse then 8" DPN's.

I can see using one as a cable needle. Since I knit Continental style, a straight cable needle is awkward, when the cable stitches are left to the back of the work. The bend in the middle would get the needle out of the way.

I have knit with two circular needles to make socks and I have the problem that I lose track of which needle is which, ending up with one needle on the floor when I forget to switch. These are definitely superior to that. If you are working a patterned instep on a sock, these would work well for keeping the pattern stitches together. However, for my everyday ordinary vanilla socks, I think I will continue with my DPN's. They take up less space in my project bag, and a set of 5 (or 6) is half the price of a set of Flexiflips. My sock needles are also a handy measuring guide for knitting socks, since I use 6" needles, which is an excellent length for the leg of a sock.

In all, I don't think that they are any easier or harder to use then Double Points. They are easier, for me, than two long circulars and leave less for the kittens to play with.  If you like to try new things, and you are having problems using DPN's, you might want to give these a try.

Now for today's cuteness:

It's good to snuggle with a friend on a cold rainy day.