Knitting on Impulse

Summer Days

I've come to the realization that the only way to be productive over the summer holidays is to get up... first.  Six AM on the patio looks like this:

And this:

Round about 08:00, the munchkins stumble out for sleepy morning kisses, and the day begins to gather momentum. I try to remember that this time is precious rather than unproductive:

As the afternoon slips away, we turn our imaginations to the remaining farm market produce:

 

Patio suppers are an exquisite summer pleasure, sometimes accompanied by just a wee bit more wine than is technically necessary.  Rob and I linger at the table while the kids run wild in the garden, and a wee bit of knitting gets done:

Then the flurry of baths and bedtime, cleanup and last minute tasks for tomorrow....  it's invariably late, but sleep is postponed just a bit for a cup of tea and a half hour of mindless knitting.

Small steps, incremental progress - summer is a good exercise in choosing to live in the moment.

Daydreaming

It's funny - when I was working in a profession where external forces demanded things of me all day (and often night, for that matter), I used to daydream far more.  It was an escape, a wee act of sanity-saving rebellion, and many of my best creative ideas came about during those daydreams.  Once I gained more choice (well, sort of - I am a parent) in the allotment of my thoughts and energies, I began to permit myself far less thought-leisure, feeling it to be a waste of time, and also unecessary, since I had achieved a more permanent form of escape.  Even knitting became just another form of multi-tasking. I am realizing though, that setting aside driven productivity for quietness and listening and unharnessed thoughts is far more than just a guilty pleasure (and why does pleasure come with the guilt adjective?) Joy and clarity and creativity and simple solutions to seemingly complex puzzles - given the chance, all these things fall effortlessly into the mind, like rain splashing into a quiet pond.  The confounding thing is that they don't come via the familiar avenues of struggle and effort and More, but by letting go and doing.... nothing.

Sometimes the transition to Nothing needs a little help though, and the simple shawl serves that purpose beautifully on a crisp summer morning:

A Whistler Summer Shawl

What happens when you take a field of lupins, highlight it with swaths of fragrant blooming grasses and add base notes of sundappled moss and cedar?

I woke up feeling exceptionally drained today - not unhappy, but definitely bereft of energy and brain power for complex tasks.  All I wanted to do was knit... but all my current WIPs are at points requiring math and design decisions before proceeding.  So I rummaged through the BFL and merino in my "seconds" bin and began the simplest of triangular shawls, based on Laura Chau's Simple Yet Effective Shawl.  (While I was knitting, I had this other related brainwave that will influence tomorrow's dyeing.... more on that Friday.)

Exuberant

Children's sweaters are such a wonderful blank canvas for playing with colour and texture.  No sweating over calculators and swatches to fit waist and bust shaping into stitch patterns, no need to restrain bold colours or agonize over the wisdom of horizontal stripes, and they knit up fast (though not quite so fast as they did a couple of years ago!)

The little pullover for my daughter has become my patio coffee project on these precious summer mornings when the air is crisp, the children are sleeping in, and the only sound is birdsong.

Saturday Diversions

Shades of orange:

Sock yarn box:

Sauntering:

Oh, for a proper telephoto!  He wasn't all that far away, but I wasn't about to push my luck.

Sock Revisited

First though, I want to thank Tora for her wonderful tutorial on no-turn bobbles.  I haven't tried it out yet, partly because I want to finish the body border consistently (I'll try it on the sleeve borders) and partly because all my brain power is currently employed in fretting about my daughter, who has been suffering a week of lethargy, low grade fevers, and an enlarging lymph gland that is now approximately the size of a tangerine. Plain socks are best for doctors' waiting rooms, in any case. 

Speaking of socks, I thought I'd give you an update on the red BFL socks.  As you may recall, I knit the heels and toes in two end stranded fashion for the insurance of double thickness, but without much hope that 2 ply, super-yummy-soft, non-superwash wool would stand up to wear.  I have to say, they have pleasantly surprised me!  I have worn them often and vigorously - long walks in hiking shoes, hanging out around the house, running errands...

Here's how they look:

The soles have become fuzzy and felted a bit, but they have not shrunk and remain comfortably flexible:

Most importantly, there are no signs of thinning in the high wear areas. 

The bits that show have mild, easily removed pilling, but otherwise look as good as new:

So nice, in fact, that I bought them some shoes:

Actually, I was in dire need of a pair of comfortable walking shoes that weren't hiking boots, but it seemed an opportune time to indulge a longstanding envy of certain other knitbloggers and their Mary Janes.

Hard Slogging

I wasn't doing the actual slogging in this case, I was just dyeing on our patio a scant 6 metres from the jackhammers.  All. Day. Long.  (Not to mention I have nowhere to soak my aching back....)

This, however, is my doing:

One round left, with two stupid time wasting cute bobbles to top off each stupid delightfully funky flower in this border.  I don't know what it is about bobbles.  I have no quarrel with their appearance, (used judiciously) but there's something about having to interrupt a perfectly peaceful round of knitting by turning around and going backwards... and then forwards.. and then backwards again... and then forwards one last time and it only counts as One Stitch.  And you do it about a million times.  Bugs me.  I've been rewarding myself with 15 minutes of housework each time I finish a bobble round - how sick is that? 

Shifting Hues Scarf

Pattern: my own design, presently being proofread and test knit.  Designed specifically to work with the skein length and colour intervals of my BFL.

Yarn: Bluefaced Bliss in Forest Floor.

Notes: Simple to knit, and works up very quickly - would be a fabulous last minute gift.  I plan to provide the PDF free (on request) with any purchase of Bluefaced Bliss.

 

Oddiments

Bear food:

Any day now, we will round the corner to find an enormous bear sitting on his big furry bum, stuffing his face.  They adore dandelions.  Rob saw a lovely cinnamon bear down by the school the other day, doing just that (never a camera when you need one), though I think he was asked to leave by the nice man with the noisemaker.

Bobbles:

The orange sweater is well underway.  It was my reward for a weekend spent sorting and storing my entire yarn stash, which leads me to the literal sense of the title:

The project-worthy yarn lots are safely zip-locked, documented and stashed in the storage locker, leaving two big bags of oddiments - one of cottons and silks, one of wool and wool-ish things.  Despite being unquestionably in love with the projects presently on my needles, I have this huge urge to dig through the oddiment bags and make some sort of patchwork / stripey little masterpiece. 

I'm not entirely sure what fuels my attraction to scraps and oddballs.  Perhaps it's the fact that most patterns I followed in my early days (admittedly crochet) were for stuffies, and the materials list invariably read: "Oddiments of wool in the following colours...".  Or maybe the sense of risk-free potential - these are either leftovers from big projects or ridiculously inexpensive sale items, so I can indulge my imagination and if the result is hideous, the only waste will be a bit of time.  I have these ideas for kid cardigans with a log cabin construction.....

Must. Be. Strong.  Off to the closet!

Off and On

Cast off (and awaiting the perfect buttons):

Cast on:

In an uncharacteristic fit of sanity and self-discipline, I finished the BSJ rather than immediately poach the needle tips for the orange sweater.  Possibly this had something to do with a lack of free cables resulting from the plethora of WIPs lying about who did have their needles poached, but I like to think of it as self discipline. 

Speaking of self-discipline, I am also (re)organizing my stash. The timing wasn't entirely my idea, since I'm already overwhelmed with projects, but a chunk of storage space suddenly came available in the underground lockers and it was use it or lose it.  Admittedly, it will be nice to have more living space than a narrow series of walkways between bins of yarn. I'm not going to photograph it for Ravelry (that's the one feature I just can't get into), but I will play around with a spreadsheet for my own use.  It's not particularly flashy, anyway, consisting mainly of basic workhorse wools and a very small selection of delicacies.