Today I submitted my last pattern to Juniper Moon Farm Yarns for a Spring Collection of shawls, eight in all. Pretty much the bulk of my knitting for the last eighteen months has been patterns and samples for Juniper Moon. The first 16 pattern are now all available from Ravelry and your LYS – if they carry Juniper Moon Yarns. I am not sure when the Spring patterns are released but I will certainly write about them at that time!
It has been a very productive time for me personally as well. I have so many patterns half written and with samples knit that I am not sure quite where I am going to start….
Though usually I start with the most recently knit and work my way backwards…. LOL!
So Recent Knits include the class samples: They will be out first, before anything else! Needs must after all!
We are in the middle of our Winter Classes at work so I did a couple of new pieces. A couple of hats. A new fair-isle hat for a fair-isle class and a redo of an older hat pattern – Burka Leaf, now called Galadriel’s Gift. Galadriel’s Gift is one of my favourite patterns, a beautiful beaded lace cap. And a new shawl, a small Shetland style Hap with the beautiful striped border and simple lace edging.
So these things are completed! And patterns will be available in a couple of weeks.
A busy start to the new year! I hope that you are completing some old projects and contemplating some new ones!
The title this week is perfect on a number of levels:
a.) I am finally able to work on the edging of The Serenity Wave Shawl. I have had a back issue for the last few weeks that required pain killers and muscle relaxants. Apparently drugs, knitting lace edging and adding beads to said edging do not work well together! Who knew!? So the shawl edging had been on hold for a couple of weeks. I got back to it this week and I am at about 40% of the edging done. I can hardly wait to finish the knitting and block the shawl.
b.) I have been working on my own Serenity. Peace of mind in this crazy time has not been easy for any of us. And I had been having a rough time of it lately.
So I took this last week off. I napped. I rested. I knit. I visited one of my favourite relatives, my Aunty Evie, and really tried to work on looking after myself. It has been a good week.
My auntie and I share a love of sewing and fabrics. So I had to show her my new purchases from Gala Fabrics – the best fabric store and another reason to visit Victoria. They have this vintage woolens section…. $10 a metre. It was so much fun!
My back is starting to feel better, my shawl edging is finally under way and my ebook, 7 Hats More is slowing growing.
I added a new pattern on Tuesday, Diagonal Spin and will be adding another one tomorrow.
Usually my knitting keeps me sane, but some weeks are more challenging than others. I have been feeling challenged lately.
Do you have tasks or activities that you indulge in that helps you look after your sanity?
For me – I knit – first in line. I bake and/or cook – second in line. And I love to walk on the beach or in the woods – third in line. And lately harder to do, harder to make time for, simply harder.
Perhaps because it means leaving the house – leaving this very safe place and entering a not so safe environment. I use up all my courage heading out the door every weekday morning to go to work! Don’t get me wrong – I love my job, but in these Covid times everytime we step out our doors we are adding a little risk to our lives. I am newly risk adverse. Well not newly – I am not much of a risk taker in any way, but I have never before considered walking out my door risky business.
Perhaps I am channeling my inner Bilbo.
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.
Lord of the Rings
So I am determined to add a walk to every weekend. We will see how I do. The payback is worth the risk.
Earlier this week, between the rains we went for a short walk at Departure Bay Beach, just down the hill. It was the morning after the big windstorm and there was debris, shells and leaves on the beach. The skies and views were still very grey, so that the colours of the leaves and shells popped!
I also practiced a little yarn therapy. Never heard of it? I thought not. It is also called retail therapy. I bought some new yarn. Technically I ordered new yarn and it arrived this week.
Kate Davies is one of my favourite knitting writers and she also creates wonderful yarns. Schiehallion is her new yarn and it is a bouncy, wooly, dk weight yarn that comes in all of my favourite colours (I added a little extra purple as well)! How could I resist?!
I hope that you manage to find some serenity in your life.
Right now, as we are looking for the light at the end of this Covid tunnel and only finding deeper gloom, we need to hold on to the good things that we know are there! We need to hold on to our own Silver Lining!
I think that the silver lining for most of us might be time. The extra time we have at home while we are not doing the busy things that we usually do.
Time to reconnect to our families from work and home. Our extended families as well. Many of us are getting in touch with those that we have lost contact with.
Time to rediscover our hobbies – those that we maintain or those that we have revisited (my bread baking skills are much improved!) now that home is our remaining haven. And the things that we do in our homes.
My haven is knitting! Always has been! It got me through a bad marriage and a worse divorce, it was my sanity as a single mom going back to university, it helped me deal with the death of my mum and myriad other life experiences. So I knit!
Knitting is helping me deal with Covid – in the most positive way I can. Making things helps occupy my mind so I do not dwell on the things that I cannot change!
Covid Be Damned was my first response. The happiest colours, a rainbow of course, and 10,000 of the most sparkly beads.
And right now the Serenity Wave KAL. Calming colours and a few less beads, and wavy repeating patterns.
And in progress as well are many hats and accessories in 7 Hats More. Lots of quick gift knits, Lots of finishing, lots of satisfaction – again keeping mind and hands busy.
So, on Thursday, I released,
Every Cloud… the third hat in the 7 Hats More collection. It is knit with Milano, a light as air Merino/Cashmere blend fingering weight yarn.
Every Cloud… is a lace patterned hat embellished with silver lined beads and topped with a little bead pom-pom. It is lined with a bright white to make the patterning pop!
Right now I am knitting a pair of gloves for 7 Hats More. I haven’t knit gloves in a couple of years – it is time.
These are the Mendenhall Gloves, very much still under construction. Lace, beads, a slouchy long cuff, they are going to be so elegant. They will have a hat and small shawl to co-ordinate with them, and even though this is a hat book – I feel that these glove are the feature item of the Mendenhall collection, not the hat! Sometimes the accessories are the most fun to knit. They are already my personal favourite item from the collection to date – and I haven’t even finished them!
I love gloves. Yes – they are a little fiddly to knit – but they fit! I have broad hands and short fingers and no commercial glove has ever fit me. I make all gloves to fit my hand. They simply make me feel well dressed.
There is something so elegant about gloves, even the most basic. They look great, keep your fingers warm and in me evoke thoughts of the classic fashion photography of years gone by… When no elegant dresser was seen without a pair of gloves – women or men!
This weekend my fathers toaster died. It was old and it needed replaced. Well I took that as a sign.
I had been wanting a convection toaster oven for myself for a while and it really wasn’t high on the “list”. But now – I could take my toaster downstairs to my father (he lives in a suite in my basement) and get that toaster oven for myself. And so I did!
First thing I decide to make is Yorkshire pudding (something as finicky as Yorkshires should be a good test of the oven) to go with the supper roast beef! I had always make the Yorkshires while the roast sat. That made the timing never quite right. My husband was aghast. He loves Yorkshire pudding – what if it didn’t work!?
It was a little tricky. The toaster oven doesn’t hold the heat as well as a regular oven and when I turned the heat down the Yorkshires all fell! I wasn’t happy, but I put the temp back up immediately and was relived to see them all slowly rise again and brown! So the oven will really cook just about anything that I want it too! I will need to take a little time to get to know its quirks, but I think that it was a good addition to my kitchen.
I finished the tenth hat for 7 Hats More. This one is called Every Cloud… . It is a lined lace and beaded slouchy and I am very pleased with it. It has a lovely little bead loop pom-pom that just finishes it beautifully.
It was my Grandson’s birthday this weekend. We drove up to Campbell River and had a lovely visit. In these Covid times everything seems a little more poignant as every visit seems that much further apart. My grandson and I played a little in the garden and I admired my daughters sunflowers and collected some acorns.
It was a quiet visit, not rushed, yet I cherish these moments all the more now. He is growing so fast.
I started a new KAL – designed to be a Serene experience, an escape from the stresses of our current life – Serenity Wave KAL. If you want to know more about the shawl please take a look! It is never too late to start. We are a friendly group and there will be lots of conversation and prizes!
We are are a little over 2 weeks in and I am a little frazzled as the first thing I did was throw out my back! But we are back on track now! So I am working towards Serenity!
We have just started the second section! And there is lots of knitting left to do. We have lots of time so if you are looking for a little serenity,,,,,
In the meantime I have published a few patterns and I am working on an e-book of hat patterns and small accessories! More on the e-book later.
