2018 in Review

2018 was clearly not my best year for blogging. I did manage to do a few interesting things since my last post in July though, so here are the highlights:

In late July my daughter Jess moved out to OR in hopes of finding a decent job in a friendly city and state. Her instincts were good: she was able to set up a couple of job interviews within 2 weeks of arriving in Oregon, and had a good job offer before the end of August.

In early August Dan and I flew out to Oregon to stay with Mom and join her and all of my siblings, their spouses, and most of the grandkids (everyone except my oldest who couldn't get away from work) to spread Dad's ashes. It was a good weekend spent together and sharing memories.

I was able to take a knitting cruise on a schooner (!!!), the J&E Riggin, out of  Rockland, ME, along with 2 knitting buddies, Iris and Elizabeth. It was a 4-day cruise along the coast of Maine, great food and company, a little bit of knitting instruction (socks), and a great way to really get away. The knitting instruction was for socks without a pattern. I only managed to knit most of one sock, and fear I haven't written down what I did for that sock in order to knit the second one in the same size. Hopefully when I finally get around to finishing the pair I'll be able to read my knitting well enough to make a reasonably well-matched pair.

While I was cruising, my daughter Jess and son Jeff flew out to CT and they, along with Dan, drove my car out to Oregon for Jess to have. Jeff had limited time available to help and wanted to be back in CO for his first wedding anniversary, so they drove straight through from CT to Cheyenne, WY in about 30 hours in order to get him back home in time.

In September Dan and I took a vacation to Stowe, VT at the Trapp Family Lodge. Wonderful, relaxing week and great hiking.

Started a new job as part-time office manager at a Synagogue office and had to leave it due to a flare-up of tennis elbow (from the computer work).

Dan and I flew out to OR for Thanksgiving this year. First time I've had Thanksgiving dinner with my side of the family in over 20 years!

Managed to do a little knitting anyway (my arms are recovering, and I'm diligently doing my stretches and exercised from physical therapy) and finished a cowl and continue to work on my cardigan. The pattern is called Conic, designed by Lori Versaci, and turned out great! The cardigan I'm working on, Pour Moi, is also by Lori Versaci. The back is finished and I'm working on the left front. As my arms improve I'm hoping to get more knitting done so I can actually wear the cardigan this winter.

To finish out the year, I sang in Christmas concerts, had 2 of three kids home for holidays, and am looking forward to a busy 2019 finishing more knitting, sewing, and quilting projects!

Shelley in CT

How did we get to March already?

First off, I finally finished the carboy sweater for my youngest son. Ta-da!

And, he likes it and has been wearing it to school almost every day. Definitely the mark of a successful sweater. Makes the knitting worthwhile. I had some real slow-downs while knitting this sweater though. Over the summer I didn't get much knitting done just because this project is big and wool and our summers are hot and humid. Not really a good mix. Then, when I was close to finishing, I procrastinated A LOT over cutting the steek in the front. The pattern is actually written to be knitted back and forth, no cutting involved. I've made sweaters in the round with steeks before, and not had any problem with them, so I thought it would be much easier to avoid all that purling on the wrong-side rows and just knit it all in the round and cut down the front later. Now that it's done (and I'm very happy with the result), I'm not sure I'd do the same thing again. Sure, the knitting went great, but crocheting and cutting the steek (I used a crochet steek that I learned in a class at Stitches one year), tacking down the cut edge, and even determining the exact middle so I could cut in the right place, slowed me down as I worried over doing irreparable damage to the sweater by cutting in the wrong place. If I were to knit this pattern again, and I might, as it was a really straightforward knit, I think I'd stick to the instructions and knit back and forth.

Here's a nice article from the Vogue Knitting archives, written by Meg Swansen, about steeking, with instructions for the crocheted steek.

Today we are finally getting some spring weather. I could use all the snow this winter as my excuse for not blogging all these months, but really it's more like plain old laziness. It did, at least, give me plenty of time to start and finish some small projects.

First new project was a cowl for my daughter. I had been looking for some nice yarn but couldn't decide on a colorway, and she and I were having a hard time determining colors that she like via iphone pictures long-distance. One weekend in January, I had driven up to see her at school and just happened to find a nice local yarn shop. So I brought my daughter in to pick out some yarn. She found some wonderful bulky yarn, and the shop owner just happened to have a free pattern with yarn purchase. With bulky yarn, the cowl knit up in no time and she has been happily wearing this cowl every since!

While I was on a roll, I decided that I needed a cowl for myself. I had some lovely bulky Malabrigo yarn that I had won as a door prize at Stitches East several years ago. I had found a hat pattern with reversible cable on the brim, and it knitted up beautifully, but I really didn't look good in it, and haven't found anyone to give it away to. So I frogged the hat and reknitted the yarn into a cowl. I used a free pattern that I found on Ravelry called Cobbled Cowl by Annie Riley, which is a linen stitch pattern. I modified it by adding  k2p2 ribbing at the top and bottom so it wouldn't roll.

Malabrigo yarn as a hat "BEFORE"

Malabrigo yarn as a cowl "AFTER"

I have already gotten some good wear out of the cowl, and it coordinates beautifully with my blue down coat

Next snowy-day project was a new clock for the kitchen. Our old clock, which had lasted us probably 15 years or more, had faded, cracked wood, and wasn't really fixable. I decided to hunt for a new clock. No luck at the local stores, but I found some interesting clocks on Amazon. I finally decided on this "steam punk" style clock, which was a good size and a neat look, but was made in cheap plastic in all one color.

I had read a lot of the customer review on Amazon when I was shopping, and many of them talked about enhancing the look of the clock with a little metallic paint. That sounded like fun to me, so I bought a few different metallic paint tubes and started my art project.

I had to mix the metallic paints with black paint to tone them down a bit and with each other to create different colors, but was very happy with the result.

On the Wall

Well, that's probably more than enough projects for one post. I've got another one in the works that's a suprise for the recipient, but by my next post it will hopefully by finished and gifted and ready to be photographed for the blog!

Shelley in CT