FO Post: Mountain Mama Socks

After posting about re-doing the sock toe on one of the socks I'd been knitting, I decided to see if I could get a decent photo of the finished pair. So here's the FO post for those socks!

Project: Mountain Mama Socks

Pattern: Plain vanilla sock pattern from my brain

Yarn: Knit Picks Felici, colorway Country Roads; cuffs and toes are Fiberstory Fave Sock, Barely colorway

Needles: US size 1/2.25 mm

Modifications: I knit the foot longer than I usually do, because when I tried on the first sock after finishing, it felt too short.

Notes: Well, first of all, I had not really meant to buy yarn, but I saw that Felici was available at Knit Picks, and took a gander. When I saw the colorway Country Roads, I had to buy it, because a) I did like the colors, and b) how could I call myself a West Virginian if I skipped this colorway??? 

I decided to knit the cuffs and toes in the lighter shade, because it thought it would "bookend" the stripes nicely, and I'm pleased with how that worked. The colors remind me of a fall day, and made me decide to put the completed socks away until next fall. That way I'll have a nice surprise waiting for me in my sock drawer (and there's a 99 percent chance I'll have forgotten I ever knit them).

So now I think I need to remeasure my feet before I start another pair. I know your foot/shoe size can change as you get older, so that might be the case. But I'll do a measurement, rather than have to re-knit any future toes on a pair of socks. It's one thing to re-knit if the toe wore out and the rest of the sock is fine, but if it's just because you made the wrong size, that's ridiculous!

*****

I am now in the position of having only one project on the needles, and it's a long-ish term project for the fall/winter. I have a few things swirling around in my head so I need to organize my thoughts to see what I might want to start. Because I refuse to start everything I'm thinking of  and then be stressed out because I have too many things going!

I'm also starting to do a review of my stash. I usually do that twice a year, but for reasons like "I forgot," or "I don't feel like it," I haven't  done it for a little more than a year. Some stuff is easy to decide to donate - I've either changed my mind about liking it, or realized I'm never ever going to start the project I thought I'd make with it. But other things are difficult to decide, because I still like them, and *maybe* I will knit with it? This time around, I've given myself a new rule: If I won't tackle it in the next year, it's getting donated.

Of course, this makes it sound like I have an extensive stash, and I really do not. I've whittled it down over the years with my twice-a-year looky-look. But there are still things that I need to admit are just taking up space for projects that I will just never have the time/brain space/ability/patience to make. So it's time to swallow hard and donate them. In the past, I've learned that I regret it for maybe a few days, and then never think of it again, so I know I'll survive. 

And especially if someone else can enjoy and love the yarn, why shouldn't it go to them?

The Week of Redoing Everything

Hello and Happy Monday - or not, depending on your weather and your mood. I'm in a neither/nor situation. I'm not excited about it being Monday, and it's raining here currently, which is good for growing things. But I'm also not sad that it's Monday, so you can see what I mean.

Last week was another one of those weeks with something every single day. And granted, some of them were pretty quickly taken care of, but they were all a degree of annoying. So I didn't have a ton of time for anything in long stretches, except for Friday. 

But it was a week when I was determined to finish some knitting projects. And I did, but I also did a lot of re-knitting. Gah. 

First up, the sweater I have been making. I wanted to finish it before the end of March - which was three "deadlines" beyond my original plan. And I did finish knitting it on March 30, which was pretty exciting. But when I tried it on, both myself and The Tim agreed that the cuffs of the sleeves needed to be a little bit longer. Which in the grand scheme of things, is not that big of a deal. 

So I sat down on Monday of last week, and tore out the first cuff, and re-knit it. I was really pleased with how it looked - actually better than the original effort. But I'd used up the brain power I had for my knitting for the day, so put it away to do the other cuff the next day.

But the next day, my Dr appt took way longer than expected, and when I finally got home, I didn't have the wherewithal to concentrate on it. So it waited until the next day, and I sat down, did a first check of things, did more tearing out of the cuff, and re-knitted it. I was feeling pretty darn pleased with myself. And then I realized I had re-knit the SAME cuff as I had re-knit two days before! GRRRRRR. 

I'm happy to say, the next day I checked three times before starting to make certain that I was tearing out and re-knitting the OTHER cuff! And finally, voila, it was completed, and all that was left to do was weave in ends and block the sweater. I'm planning on giving it a good soak and then blocking today, so hopefully it won't take days to dry and I can not just count on the knitting being finished, but the actual sweater being finished as well.

I did a "pre-weaving" in the ends yesterday. Meaning that I left a lot of ends sticking out after weaving most of the yarn into the project. A friend told me that it's better to soak and block something and *then* snip off the final ends, because then nothing unravels. Fortunately, on the few clothing items I've knit, that has never ever happened. But since this was a major project for me, I didn't want to take any chances!

Here are the bits left after my first go:

The other project that was waiting to be finished was a pair of socks. I had finished the first sock about a week or so ago, but when I tried it on, it was too short in the foot, and I knew that my toes would work through quickly, so decided to rip it out and re-knit the end of the foot and the toe. (And yes, I was doing the same pattern, with the same measurements, etc., as always, so I have no idea ...)

The good news is, not only did I manage to get that accomplished, but when I sat down to finish up sock #2, I didn't accidentally tear out and re-knit sock #1. 😀 Granted, that was because one toe was complete and the other had not even been started, but the way things were going for me, it could have still happened. 

So there you go. After having a lot of fits and starts with my knitting in general, I managed to finish some things that had no business taking as long as they did. But I will be able to share them with you soon, once they are ready for prime time and once I have some decent photos. 

I can tell you though, that if for some reason anything else needs to be re-knitted anytime soon, it's going into a time out! 

Is It Wrong That I Want One?

I saw an article last week, saying that these hats were being worn by a lot of people in Greenland in advance of the visit from the Vice-President and the Second Lady. 

Is it wrong that I want one? I don't want America to go away, really. Just the current iteration of leadership, from the top right down to the local level. They really all need to just go away.

*****

Here we are, on the last day of March. I know that Kym's birthday is here, so best wishes! It's always nice to find another March birthday person. 

Of course that means that tomorrow is April 1, aka April Fool's Day. I have my volunteer gig tomorrow morning, so I hope the kitties are not planning a prank for me. 😊 (Though I should probably be more worried about my own kitties at home, to be honest ...)

Have a good rest of the day, and here's hoping that April has good things in store for all of us.

Words for the Weekend

Scrolling through Instagram this morning, I came across this, and thought it was well worth sharing.

Have a good weekend!

Well, I Didn't Mean To Do That ...

Hello there, and happy springtime! I certainly didn't mean to disappear for as long as I did. But when you have two weeks in a row where every day has at least one thing going on that zaps your will to live, you tend to let a lot of things go by the wayside.

Today is the first day in two weeks that I have absolutely nothing going on - no appointments, no obligations, no must-show-up-at-a-certain-time events, and boy is it nice! And I do have something tomorrow, but it is my monthly lunch get-together with my friend Louise, so that doesn't count as part of all that has come before - that's something I'm looking forward to doing!

Anyway, spring has sprung in the garden: 

These little narcissus are a happy surprise for me. A couple of years ago, I bought a small pot of them for Easter, and then once they were finished blooming, planted them in a spot in the garden where I thought they might be happy. And of course within days, the squirrels had dug up the bulbs! But apparently not all of them, because these bloomed unexpectedly, and there are a few others that look like they are trying - so what a nice surprise when I noticed they were there. And it looks like a tulip that was in the same situation is trying to come up as well. Maybe my gardening works better when I assume it's not gonna happen ... 

And my forsythia in the big pot is blooming, which makes me extremely happy! Though I need to figure out how to take care of it better, because it's pretty spindly. I wanted to cut it back last year, but a neighbor said not to, because it would not bloom again. Since she has all kinds of flowers and plants in her garden and is successful, I left it alone. But it's just gangly and spindly, with flowers at the end of the branches only. So time to do some research. (Please feel free to share any info you might have about forsythia - I would appreciate it greatly!)

Of course last night it was in the low 30s, temperature-wise, so I'm not sure how well anything will be doing now ... 

My next project is to get new glasses. I had an eye exam on Monday, and I had taken the glasses with my most recent prescription in them that I had been wearing when I fell in January. One lens got knocked out, and the other terribly scratched. Well, I got a new prescription anyway, so when I handed them over, we realized that not only had a lens popped out, but the frame was broken, and of course not in a way they can repair it. I don't want to give them the frames I'm currently wearing, because then I have no glasses at all - and though the ones I'm wearing have my previous prescription in them, they are better than nothing. So I went to the Warby Parker near us, and found three frames I liked, and brought them home to have The Tim help me decide (they have a "free" try-on program). Then I'll return the ones I won't be using, and drop off the other one at the eye exam place. So theoretically, in two weeks I'll have new glasses with the most recent prescription. Which will not just be nice, but will close out the last part of getting things taken care of after my fall in January. 

And that's all of the news and blathering I can think to share right now. I'm working on laundry today, so I should check on it as I think I heard the buzzer on the washing machine a minute or so ago. 

I hope all of you will have a good day. I'm looking forward to this afternoon, since it is Opening Day for baseball, and the Phillies game will be on TV. It's not the home opener - that's on Monday - but I've been looking forward to seeing how they will do this year. 

Let's hope it's a good season!