... And Boy Is My Arm Tired!

Hello and HAPPY FALL to everyone in the Northern Hemisphere! I am more than happy to say farewell to summer. I guess it's climate change/global warming/whatever but summer seems longer and hotter every year. I'm ready for something else. 🍁

Anyway, you know the old joke, "I just flew in from [fill in the blank], and boy are my arms tired!" Well, take out the flying part, but after Saturday afternoon, I have to tell you, my arm was tired! I finally finished two overdue projects (overdue in that they should not have taken me so long), and it was time to wind some yarn for the next things coming. I was originally just going to wind the yarn when I was ready to start each project, but getting out my swift and winder, and setting them up, etc., is a bit of a project, so I decided it would make more sense to do it all at one time.  Theoretically, this would also encourage me to actually work on the projects if the yarn is wound and staring me in the face. We'll see.

So while The Tim was snoozing away, I got to winding.

First up, some but not all of the yarn for a sweater. I want to give a try to knitting a sweater with a yoke design. This is some Kelbourne Woolens Scout (the natural color) and Life In The Long Grass Twist DK (the green, which is actually a lighter shade than shown here). You may remember the green yarn as what I bought during my birthday trip to NYC in March, when we visited a shop in Greenwich Village.

Next, some Kathmandu Aran for a slipover/vest I want to try. It's a pattern that I may not have looked at twice, but I saw a podcast where the person was wearing hers, and decided I really needed to make it. 

Then a Micro Sock Set from Legacy Fiber Artz, which will be - SOCKS! I've actually already cast on and knitted the cuff of the first sock during the Eagles game yesterday afternoon.

Another skein of sock yarn, this time from Nox Yarn Co. (no longer in business) I'm hoping to make this into a pair of Halloween socks.

And finally, all of this yarn is Patagonia Merino DK, and I want to try knitting the Artus by Natasja Hornsby. This will be a challenge for me, but I would really love to have a big, warm, cozy shawl, and this pattern just stuck out to me. It will be challenging because it's quite large, has a lot going on, and relies for the most part on charts, which are not my strong suit. But I'm hoping that wanting the end product will help me learn to improve my chart-reading. It could happen - I knit a hat using a chart earlier this year, and though it was slow, it turned out. Time to try and get my brain wrapped around things.

Such are my big plans. In theory, I would love to get the all done or mostly done by the first of the year. But in reality, if I end up with one pair of socks and one article of clothing, I'll consider it a win. 😊

But if you look at all of this yarn, you can see that my Winding-Palooza took quite a bit of time, and in fact, my arm did hurt once I was finished. Of course, by Saturday evening it was fine, but the thought did cross my mind that I may have wound so much yarn, I wouldn't feel comfortable knitting for a while, and that would be just my luck! But all is well, and I'm looking forward to giving it all a shot.

And that's it from here. Our weekend was quiet, trying to at least get started putting the house back together after the floors were finished - I think that will take a while, but it was a start. Saturday was warm and a bit humid, but yesterday, which was the first day of fall, did not disappoint! 

I hope your week goes well. I have to share my overdue FOs with you, so I'll be back with those in another day or so.