Year the TENTH: Self-Imposed Year of Projects - Yep, it's going to be Mondays...perhaps (Update #35)

Monday......yeah, I think with the way life has been going lately, posts are going to happen on Mondays. Maybe Sundays but likely Mondays. 

With that said, let's get going :) 

 

FOs (Finished Objects)
1. Greenwood Fiberworks Dark BFL (Viktor): started 28 June 2020; finished 17 January 2021
2. Boo-Yah: started 26 January 2021; finished 27 January 2021
3. Minecraft Socks: started 12 August 2020; finished 6 March 2021
4. Alpaca (Viktor): started 17 January 2021; finished 17 March 2021
5. Dyeing Project: started 9 April, 2021; finished 9 April 2021
6. El Panal Cowl: started 5 April 2021; finished 29 April 2021
7. Rose City Rollers: started 7 March 2021; finished 1 June 2021
8. Unknown Wool (Viktor): started 26 June 2021; finished 27 June 2021
9. Abstract Fibers Merino Tencel (Viktor): started 27 June 2021; finished 29 June 2021
10. Frabjous Fibers Merino Top (Viktor): started 30 June 2021; finished 2 July 2021
11. Allons-y Fiber Arts Merino (Viktor): started 4 July 2021; finished 7 July 2021
12. Rose City Rollers: started 1 June 2021; finished 12 August 2021

Nothing new finished but I'm very close so expect something next week :)

 

WIPs (Works-in-Progress) *these are carried over year after year, as needed*
1. Wink: started 5 January 2015
2. Shetland Neck Wool (support spindle): started 8 September 2017
3. Returning: started 14 January 2018
4. Faerie Mountain Fibers Crazy Batt (EEW Mini): started 13 April 2018
5. Granny Square Blanket: started 28 April 2018
6. UW Ski Hat: started 11 July 2018
7. Purl & Loop Weaving Project: started 28 August 2018
8. Herbivore: started 15 November 2018
9. Linen Stitch Scarf: started 2 June 2020
10. Vanilla Socks: started 9 August 2020
11. Sand Drift Blanket: started 17 January 2021
12. Flax for Stormageddon: started 29 April 2021
13. Rose City Zombies: started 13 August 2021

I'm super close to being finished with the Flax sweater for Stormageddon. I have a little bit left on both sleeves and that's it (well, weaving in ends but that's always a thing). I finished the body this week and had him try it on. I know it's going to grow in the bath so the fact that it fits him pretty well now doesn't bother me too much. I have a feeling he's going to wind up wearing this one a lot. He's been super excited about it every time I pull it out, which is a good thing. 

I also worked on my newest pair of Rose City Rollers. I'm working on the gusset decreases on those. I''m also working on the Vanilla Socks. To be fair, I'm still on the cuff for those but that's fine. 

In addition to that, I also had some yarny things arrive at my house this week. 

A couple of years ago, during Tour de Fleece, I discovered that I'm highly allergic to mulberry silk (also known as Tussah silk) but only while I'm spinning it. I can rub the finished yarn all over my face and otherwise wear a knitted item with that fiber without issue but spinning it was a hot mess. Itchy & watery eyes, stuffy nose, and so much sneezing....it was like when I get around cats. So, I was going through some of my fiber stash and I had this lovely silk that I bought from Briar Rose Fibers eons ago, when I was a new wee spinner. Turns out it's mulberry silk. Now, I could have tried to spin it and it would have turned out lovely, but I would have been a miserable hot mess full of allergies for days. I could have sold it. Woe, it's too pretty for that and I want it. Instead, I found a spinner friend of mine that will spin for you (for a fee, and of course I'm going to pay them!) and sent off my fiber. They sent me a lovely silk that is something like 450 yds of fingering weight beauty. I thought I had a picture of the finished yarn but apparently not. Oh well. 

In addition to that, I was also one of the prize winners in the Monthly Thread on LSG (both on Ravelry & Discord). I received this (and yes, it's sideways and I don't care):

It's a Positive Drinking coloring book, which has alcoholic drink recipes as well as coloring. She also sent me a 24 pack of colored pencils to color with (because duh). And then she went stash diving and sent me a skein of Miss Babs' Tarte in "A Pox on You" as well as a cake from Vice Yarns (which is sadly discontinued). 

But wait! There's more! I've also been attempting to participate in the Bay Area Fiber Fair. So far, I've only made two posts. One was a coloring page and the other was the photo I took of Little Man learning to knit a few weeks ago. The nice thing about BAFF is that if you made a post in the first week, you may still win one of their weekly prizes in a later week. 

Guess what, kids?! I won a prize! 

I won the prize for the 9th week which included a skein of yarn from The Royal Bee Yarn Company (hasn't arrived yet but we've been in contact), three patterns from Kavitha Raman (I picked Inchara, Nila, and Latha), and a project bag from Uncommon Threads (also hasn't arrived yet). 

I was....well, I wasn't expecting any of that. I mean, I have literally posted twice with the BAFF tags in the past nine weeks and I still managed to win. 

Lest you think I'm done.......hahahahahaha! THERE'S MORE! I have a knitting friend that lives a few blocks away. She was my friend before I found out she was a closet knitter. Her son is one of Little Man's best friends and Stormageddon is absolutely in love with her daughter (who is twice his age, which means she's 13 and he's almost 7). Anyway, she's trying to teach and go to grad school and she's got two kids and things are kind of a hot mess over there. She needed a few extra hands, which she hates asking for (she's fiercely independent in some ways and this is one of them) and she saved my ass a couple years ago when I had kids in two different schools because I could drop the older one off at her house on my way to take the younger one to the other school. Anyway, she needed someone to take her son after school a couple days a week (Tuesdays and Wednesdays). That's easy. He can just walk home with Little Man and come to our house. Not a big deal. So what does she do? She drops me a gift card for Purl Soho (which is her favorite shop) for $200....I was like, "oh no; no no no" because I don't need that. Her kid is a delightfully wonderful pain in the ass and I don't need anything for helping out a friend. But she insisted. This is also the same friend that bought the kit for the Sand Drift Blanket and got frustrated with the "dental floss yarn" that was held double and two colors and threw it at me and told me to take it away (hence I'm knitting the blanket for her). So, I went shopping. Now, it hasn't arrived yet but I wound up getting several unneeded skeins of yarn and a book (because I'm a sucker for books). I'll show you pictures after it arrives. 

For now, I'm done. Put a fork in me!

OMGLSGWTFBBQ

Design WIPs:
1. Messed Up Moss: started March 2009 - write pattern as PDF (iterations: first, second)
2. Susan's Hat: started 31 August 2010 - need new prototypes & write the pattern (iterations: first, second, third, mini, fifth, sixth)
3. Little Man's Baby Blanket: started July 2010 - need new prototype & write pattern (iteration: here)
4. Chunky Scarf: started 6 October 2012 - need new prototype & write pattern (iteration: here)
5. Pacific Waves Hat: started 9 March 2016 - need new prototype & write the pattern (iterations: first, second, third)
6. Fall in San Francisco: started 18 September 2016 - need new prototype & write pattern (iterations: first, second)
7. Stomping Grounds Collection: started 26 February 2017 - need prototypes & write patterns
8. Unnamed Hat Design: started 14 August 2017 - need various weight yarn prototypes & write pattern (iterations: first, second)
9. Paradiddle Socks: started 19 October 2017 - write pattern (iteration: here)

 

Design Ideas:
1. Christmas Stocking for Husband
2. Christmas Stocking for Little Man
3. Christmas Stocking for Stormageddon
4. Baby Blanket
5. Stomping Grounds Collection

 

Items for ME (Selfish Knitting FTW!):
1. Rose's Wrist Warmers (DK weight - using Aran instead; hand-dyed Malabrigo Twist?)
2. Perianth (fingering weight - Knitcircus Trampoline in The Whole Enchilada)
3. Stranger Things Hat (worsted - Malabrigo Rios in Archangel)
4. Autopilot (worsted weight - Sincere Sheep Cormo Worsted or htNEVELE Worsted in Reveire)
5. Fine Tune (fingering weight - uses minis so maybe a rainbow type one with the Canon Hand Dyes?)*
6. Flax (worsted weight - Misty Alpaca in the Harry Potter colors)
7. Park Slope (fingering weight - Mountain Fibers Crazyfoot in Shamrock)
8. Undone (bulky - maybe the reclaimed yarn from the Freeport Vest?)
9. Socks (fingering weight - Bob knows I have enough so I should use it - maybe with the CSM)
10. Sockhead (fingering weight - I have tons...pick something!)
11. Age of Brass & Steam (Handspun purple/white barber pole)
12. Radiate Shawl (fingering weight - Artfibers Carezza maybe?)

Children's Items/Knitting for others
1. Honey Badger: (worsted weight - black & white acrylic I have banging around the stash)*
2. Mittens for Stormageddon (worsted weight probably)
3. Maybe a Flax for Little Man...maybe...
4. Mittens for my grandmother (worsted, purple...she loves purple)

 

Utilitarian/Household Items
1. Garter Chevron Blanket (KP Mighty Stitch - may need to get some more black or white)
2. Diagonal Knit Dishcloths (cotton of some sort)
3. Reusable Produce Bag (cotton or acrylic of some sort - worsted)
4. Grandma's Favorite Dishcloth (cotton or maybe bamboo, depending on the use)

Spinning:

1. Wonderland Dyeworks BFL

2. Mixed BFL

3. Allons-Y Fiber Arts Merino, Trilobal Nylon, Silk

4. Fiberlady.com 100% Bamboo 

Dyeing:

1. Sock Blanks (I think I have 5 left)

2. Random worsted/sport skeins (I have maybe 2-3 left)

3. Anything else I find along the way (I don't think there's anything else)

Other Fibery Endeavors:

1. Create project bag inventory

2. Update library inventory (on Ravelry) *in progress*

3. Update stash inventory (on Ravelry) *needs to be redone*

4. Stitch markers: kits and individual

5. Destash as necessary (it's always necessary)

6. Stash Fit

 

 

 

Here in California, the fires are getting really bad up by Lake Tahoe. The southern Lake Tahoe area is under evacuation orders. Lake Tahoe is at least a 3 hour drive from here but we have friends that have cabins or second homes in that area, plus we know a few people that live there otherwise. The air quality is ridiculous bad, the sky is weird colors, and you don't want to be outside for any reason (and that includes pets). For us, we're getting a bit of the smoke but not a lot. It's mostly blowing away from us, which is good for us but bad for others. 

In addition to that, there's still this pandemic happening. Thankfully, of those eligible for vaccination in our county, 91.4% have been vaccinated, which is absolutely amazing. Unfortunately, there have been small outbreaks at a few of the schools in our district, notably one school where there have been 14 new cases over the previous two weeks. I think that one made local news. There's also a case up in Petaluma or Marin, both of which are in the North Bay, where an unvaccinated teacher went to school knowing they had symptoms, would take their mask off to read aloud, and wound up getting most of the class sick. These were young kids, too. I feel like that one is going to be a lawsuit eventually. At least one of the vaccinations is now fully FDA-approved, not that anti-vaxxers seem to care all that much. ::sigh:: I'm out of tolerance and patience with people that believe all the propaganda that these vaccinations are bad or not needed or that Covid is a hoax because _____. I'm just done. 

In happier news, we ripped out the carpeting in our back room and got the new flooring put in place. Little Man helped with the installation, and Husband called a couple of friends who also came to help. For a bunch of amateurs, it doesn't look too bad back there. Yes, there are some things that could be done better but, really, it's not bad. 

 

 

This is where Husband is setting up his office and we're going to redo the theater. Our new theater-seat couch is coming tomorrow and then we will be ready to go back there. I took this photo from the spot where his desk will be located. Right now, it's just a table but the desk will be coming soon enough. The flooring is hardwood laminate so the boards snap into each other. Aside from cutting boards down and doing some fitting around doors and such, it wasn't a difficult project. Now, to be fair, one of Husband's friend has done this kind of flooring before and we had all the correct tools for the job (for the most part) and it does require some jigsaws and some circular saws and some cutting implements (to score boards) but aside from that, it wasn't all that terrible to work on. 

Aside from getting the back room ready, the only other "major" thing to happen was me falling on my ass. Puppy is getting older and when he sleeps in the bed with us, he usually wants to go out for a pee in the middle of the night (but he's fine in the kennel). So, last Monday night, I took him out around 2:30am. This was all fine and well except the sprinklers were on in the front. So, I took him on his leash out back. If I let him just go free, he's out there for an hour, acting a fool. On his leash, he pees and we're done. The sprinklers were not running in the back but they had been. The yard and the deck were soaked. As I was going down our very wet deck stairs in my socks, I slipped. My feet went flying and I landed on my right backside where my thigh meets my leg on the stairs, then bounced to the left where I landed on my left arm and shoulder in the yard. In between all that, I also managed to knock my right ankle on a stair (says the swelling and bruise) and possibly my knees. The bruise on the back of my shoulder was the size of a softball. It's still a dark purple/red with green around the edges, even after a week. I'm not entirely sure but I think I hit that on the stairs as well as the ground. The bruise and bump on the back of my thigh is also pretty epic. The back of my left arm still hurts, though the bruises are just now showing up a little. I landed on the ground on my arm. I couldn't stand to have anything brush up on it for days. I can finally handle that but it still hurts. I'm also still having trouble walking and going for long distances. The only reason I managed to land on my arm was because if I didn't, I was going to wind up in the hospital with a broken face. I'm still not sure how my glasses didn't break. 

 

No pictures. No one needs to see any of that. 

 

It was a rough few days, and then we were ripping out carpet stuff and getting the back ready. 

 

No wonder I'm still sore. 

 

Stormageddon has been having a bit of an easier time at school. It helps that there are at least four adults trying to keep an eye on him, as well as Little Man and some of his other friends. Now, if I could get him to stop chewing on his mask, that would be ideal. ::sigh:: 

Anyway, that's enough blathering on. I hope you've had a lovely week and weekend! Stormageddon turns 7 this week so we'll see how things go :)