Something old, something new, and something cool on the other side of fear

Every time I go outside, I walk around my yard to look for flowers and it always seems to me as though there are never enough. It really is a whole lot greener out here, but what I really want is more purple, more yellow, more blue, more red, more everything. So every year, I plant more. Some things make it, some don't, some just kind of barely hang on to dear life until they either throw in the towel or until I figure out that they need more sun or better soil or something of that nature. Where am I going with this? I don't know. Flowers are pretty. There should be more.

And I have a thing about irises. These buttery yellow ones came from Bekah and the ones that came from Mom are about to bloom.

There are also muffins-- lots and lots of muffins. I found a basic recipe that uses a tablespoon of baking powder, which is really great if you're trying to get rid of baking powder. It's almost Thargelia and I think one more pass through the cabinets and the freezer and I can get rid of most everything that's more than a month old. I never can get quite everything, but I do seem to get a little closer each year.

This is the perfect time to cultivate new things growing and to transform old things into new things. That's where I am in Project Make as well. 

The project bags I'd started are still sitting draped over my sewing machine, waiting to be stitched, mainly because I've started on the eldest's Spring Formal dress. It feels like I'm training for prom because the dress, which is really a top and a skirt, is meant to be beautiful and elegant. The color is perfect for her and she will be the most beautiful princess at the ball.

My only concern is that it's sleeveless and to be held up by gravity, friction, prayers, and a little boning. It's not so much that I'm not sure I'm up to the task as far as technical skill, but really more that my baby is thirteen and I simultaneously have the urge to purchase a firearm and feel a little like a bad parent for making a bustier for her. 

Of course, that said, she's a confident young woman and I'm looking forward to the challenge of this particular design. The pattern is an old one from my pattern stash and I'm glad she found one from there that she liked. I'm looking forward to watching this transform as I work. 

And I have new yarn. I saved my spending cash for quite a few weeks and managed to go to Stitches South with about three times my normal budget. This is the entirety of what I came out with, aside from a pear-scented Lo-lo bar from The Barmaids. The best part of the trip was hanging out with my besties, meeting the most delightful people that I'd only previously known online, and watching yarn vendors flirt with Bu. The yellow yarn on the far left was from such a vendor, A Hundred Ravens, and happens to be in a colorway named Apollo. 

When I started Project Make, I thought I might be tweaking my sewing skills a little, learning some more about weaving, or maybe trying a new heel or two on socks. I didn't think I'd be taking on something as daunting as planning a circular shawl. I've never done it before and have a great fear that it'll suck as a design, but I'm poking along anyway because there might be something cool on the other side of that fear. 

This week's technique is the cast on I'm using to start the shawl. If it has a name, please do tell. I just kind of made this up as I went. Because I wanted to work it from the center out, I started with just a few stitches and increased from there. The intended shape is twelve-sided, but you could make any number of increases with this method. For the dodecagon:

CO 3 sts

1. As though knitting I-cord, kfb in all three stitches (6 sts)

2. Continue as though you were knitting I-cord and knit all 6 sts

3. kfb in each stitch, transferring stitches to three DPNs as you go (12 sts: 4sts/needle)

4. And all even rounds Knit around

5. (k, yo, k) into each stitch (36 sts)

7. *k 1, (k, yo, k) into one st, k1* repeat around (60 sts) (If desired, transfer to four DPNs: 15sts/needle)

9. *k2, (k, yo, k) into one st, k2* repeat around (84 sts)

11. *k3, (k, yo, k) into one st, k3* repeat around (108 sts)

And so on, adding one to the number of stitches on each side of the increases.

I'm also working on transforming myself. Week 4 of couch to 5k hasn't killed me yet, so I'm going to keep on truckin'. I can't wait to see what blooms next.

Soon.

Seams, Madam? I know not "seams."

I'm so excited about this that I can't even. I was taking unnecessary trips to the garage just to look at her. My loom has been in pieces since we moved and I've only just put it together this week. That's almost three years of not weaving and I can't wait to sink my teeth into learning how to make her sing and dance. I never really learned how to weave; I just started doing it to see if I could figure it out. Like with spinning, I managed, but I know I can do better. The garage is more organized than it's ever been and though the space is still not ideal, it is at least workable and that's good enough. Hopefully soon, we'll get to the part of Project Make where I start weaving again, but I'm having a Da Vinci Disorder flare right now and I don't know when I'll actually get to it. I want to do all the things all at once, including petting my loom.

I'm also making some little outfits for little Bu and I've been working from this pattern. Even though about half of the items are just variations in trim, I've decided that I want to make one of each anyway, partly to remember why it is I sew the way I do, if I skip parts that are necessary, or if my way really is better or more efficient. I finished the two shirts I'd cut out last week and the process has had the fortunate side-effect of helping me work out some of my awkward work flow issues.

My sewing space is not ideal, but it'll do, and if there's anything I'm good at, it's efficiency. If the space I have isn't the best, I'll do what I can within those limitations to be as efficient as possible.

Say "rocks!"

This is one of the two that were finished this week and when she tried them on, she decided they were comfy. The other one is virtually the same, but with no ties at the front and a bit of lace at the bottom instead of ric-rac.

Of course, if there's any use at all for ric-rac, it's for little girl clothes and Starfleet rank markings.

I love that it's comfy and a simple enough pattern that I could put it together without fighting with it. The only problem I had was that since the sleeves aren't separate pieces, there's a corner to turn at the underarm that's a pain in the butt. Other than that, it was quick, easy, and an excellent use of some funky but cute stash fabric.

After this, I'll be working on the skirt and top for the eldest's Spring Formal dance, which is going to be a fair bit more complicated. There's boning involved and it's been a bit since I put boning in anything.

This week's technique is an actual sewing technique that has little to do with philosophy unless you want to apply deep meaning to which side of the fabric you want the stitching to be.

Flat-Felled Seams

I always finish my seams in a garment, unless I have a good reason not to. If a seam is hidden, I'm not necessarily going to bother, but generally, a finished seam just looks a hundred percent more professional and wears better in the long run. By and large, I just zig-zag the edges of each side of the seam, but I wanted to try something new-to-me. The shoulders looked like a good place to put something like a flat-felled seam:

For the shoulders of Bu's little shirts, the stitching is reversed from what's shown in the video, mostly because I did them from a vague memory of a sewing show rather than watching the video before doing it, but I like how they turned out and it looks very neat. I'm having fantasies of sewing my own jeans and this is a skill that might come in handy.

I've also been working on:

• Leto in Knit Picks' Shadow and Misti Alpaca Lace 

• Easy Ribbed Legwarmers in Opal Polarlichter

• Brickless in Alisha Goes Around Tracks of Bison

• EZ's Seamless Saddle Shoulder Pullover in Knit Picks' Wool of the Andes superwash
• Several rectangles that are meant to be project bags in the nearish future, though the Police Box got no love this week.

My violas and pansies are doing well  and the roses are leafing out nicely. The berry bushes look like they intend to flower and I'm aching to plant about a million more things. I wish I were as enthusiastic about running and housework, but you can't have everything. Also, I signed up for the mother-daughter dance for Iris' recital. She's the oldest kid there and taller than me. This should be interesting and challenging for both of us. In other news, her pointe qualification is this afternoon and she's both excited and nervous about it. Break a leg, kiddo.

If you start singing, I'll understand.

Now seeds, start growing!

My sleep schedule has been a little off-kilter lately and I'm going to bed early and tired, but it's all for the best reasons. I'm taking this excellent energy that comes with springtime and turning it into a cleaner house, more projects, a tidy lawn and garden, and a healthier me. I started Couch to 5k again with Bekah (contemporaneously, not colocationally, as she would say) and I've made it halfway through week two. I'm not to the place where I love running and want to do more just yet, but right now, it's about moving my body and trying to meet the challenge. I do love a good challenge and if I stick with it, I might even start enjoying running again.

I'm poking away at the TARDIS project bag and it's slow-going because the fabric doesn't want to sit still and there are a lot of parts to it. I've already got five hours in it and there are some kinks in the design that need to be worked out, but when I lay it out on the table, it looks like I imagined.

The rest of the blue silk finally made its way onto an embroidery hoop to become a sampler, of sorts. I'd started to design something, but it ended up being overdone and too many elements in one design, so I tossed it. Sometimes the challenge of Project Make is not about planning something to the nth degree, as with the TARDIS bag, but about knowing when to let go and let the art just happen.

If you were to start singing "Let it Go" right now, I'd understand.

In other sewing news, I've been riffling through my fabric stash and came up with a stack of pinks and blues.

Some of these are in very small amounts and I don't yet know what they will be, some are in large enough amounts to become project bags, and a few of them are in sufficient quantity to make some little shirts for my littlest person.

I'm starting with the funky floral pink in the center of the second picture. I've already cut two little shirts and the outsides of two quickie project bags that I want to do up assembly-line style later.

Also in my stash was a nice bright purple ribbon and a matching purple ric-rac. I may pick up some eyelet lace, too.

Bekah pointed out earlier this week that two years old is a fine time to receive handsewn garments and I've been planning to both improve my skill with patterns and to start really learning how to make things without a purchased pattern. Making small things for small people or even doll clothes is an excellent way to learn without investing a whole lot of time and fabric into an adult garment.

In spite of all this sewing, I've been knitting, too. I'm at the point where there's enough progress that new pictures are necessary, but I haven't taken them yet. I've been working on:

• Leto in Knit Picks' Shadow and Misti Alpaca Lace 

• Easy Ribbed Legwarmers in Opal Polarlichter

• Brickless in Alisha Goes Around Tracks of Bison

• Genevieve's Tube Socks in Crystal Palace Maizy Print 

• EZ's Seamless Saddle Shoulder Pullover in Knit Picks' Wool of the Andes superwash

So it's been a little bit of everything. 

This week's technique is more philosophy, I'm afraid, but came to me as I was cutting Bu's shirts:

Do not stop for thrift. 

This is one of the Delphic Maxims, #122 to be exact. As religious texts go, it's more of a list of pretty good ideas rather than a set of hard and fast rules. Calling them commandments overstates it a bit and they're meant to make you think about your life choices instead of making those choices for you. Anyhoo, for years, I have been marking the pattern, removing the paper pattern, and cutting the fabric, just in case I wanted to use the pattern again in a different size. That's how I was taught to do it, so that's how I did it. 

It took me thirty years of sewing to figure out that I can replace a pattern for a dollar when they go on sale and my time is far more valuable than that. Yesterday, with this in mind, I let go and cut the paper pattern.

If you were to start singing "Let it Go" again, I would still understand.

Dear Bekah suggested this one means "If you see a Goodwill, keep driving," which I thought was pretty great, even though that's not how we roll here at the House. The TARDIS blue silk is actually a Goodwill find. Hers was not a serious suggestion, but it did give me a chuckle. I think I would rephrase this as "Evaluate your return on investment." If something like couponing is fun for you and you're saving a significant amount of scratch, great! If your duds come from Goodwill or if patching worn clothes makes you happy, that's perfectly okay. But if those things don't make you happy and aren't worth the time, thrift is not a good enough reason to continue. 

Practicing Patience and Persistence

With the cleaning and painting of the eldest's room finally done, I've moved on to other things and those other things have mostly been quilting. There's really not much to see here, though I've quilted 14 blocks out of 81. That's 17.28% of the quilting done (nevermind the binding and finishing), but it's a fair bit more than I'd had done at the beginning of the year.

Like Iris' room, this is an exercise in patience and persistence. I've written a master's thesis and it was a daunting project that went very slowly at times, but I did finish. Certainly, I can finish a quilt.

Really, it's just a whole lot of the same thing over and over again, but the journey between here and arête oft traverses tedium. Slow progress is still progress, right?

It's getting to be too hot to quilt now, so it's time to move on to smaller projects for a few months. After having picked up quilting again I've already learned (or re-learned) that thimbles are not for the weak and that quilting hoops might be useful.

A couple random asides for this week:

• On Monday, I was on a local radio station with our interfaith group. It went surprisingly well.
• The eldest has once again expressed an interest to learn how to sew, but I remain skeptical. I mentioned that she wants to have learned how to sew and she seemed to think that sounded accurate.
• I started Couch to 5k again this week. So far, so good.
• My family is adorable and I'm keeping them. On Tuesday, Bu put a napkin on her head and said "I'M GOING TO SPAAAAAAAACE!" There was much silliness on Tuesday and everyone played along. 

I was going to find a quilting video for this week's technique, but I couldn't find a good one, so that will have to wait. This week is for practicing patience and persistence (and other virtues that start with the letter "P" like "punctuality").

I've also worked on:

• Leto in Knit Picks' Shadow and Misti Alpaca Lace 
• Easy Ribbed Legwarmers in Opal Polarlichter
• Brickless in Alisha Goes Around Tracks of Bison

A Passel of FOs

Gratuitous photo of spring flowers. 

I had almost forgotten what day it was and nearly put myself to bed without posting. It's been that kind of week and it's not been a bad week, just a busy and productive one. You see, it's spring break and I told Miss Fluffalo that I'd help her paint/organize/clean her room. This has been a long time coming and there has been a fair bit more angst about it than I really want to get into just now. When we got down to it, the actual painting and cleaning hasn't been that bad as far as cooperating with a teenager goes. Fluffalo has been diligent and hard-working, so she's been rewarded with frozen yogurt and will be with a trip to Goodwill later-- both to drop off stuff she no longer wants or needs and to look at fancy dresses just because.

I'm painting her sulking corner. I swear it was her idea.
(If I am very still, no one will see me.)

Her room still looks like a mess, but it's the mess of an organization project that's still underway. We'll get there and hopefully by the end of the day after this posts tomorrow (Thursday). Disney songs and a fair bit of mindfulness are the only thing getting me through this. I'll get to that in a little bit.

Last week, I had some FOs that I didn't post, so here they are:

This is Summer's Hanky, a commission work. I still need to pack it up and mail it out, but it's been washed and pressed and is now pretty much ready to go. This is hand-embroidered with various cotton and metallic threads on what was once one of my husband's work shirts. The 1/4" seams are also hand-sewn.
What I could have improved upon: I would have liked to have used a different stitch for the middle of the wing because the double herringbone made me go cross-eyed. I'd also liked to have done both wings at once instead of one and then the other. If I had to do it again, I'd try to make it more symmetrical.
What I did well: The hems are very neat and I'm very pleased with the color choices and the stitch choices overall. I like that the color isn't flat and how pairing different threads gave each layer of feathers a different look. Also, Miss Summer is happy with what she's seen so far and that's the biggest thing that matters to me. Overall, I like it and I'm pleased with how it turned out.

I've also finished a Paisley Fabulous Project Bag for Project Make that matches the DPN roll from late February. I'm very happy with this one, though I want to add a line of stitching through the middle of the casing at the top so that it looks nicer and closes more neatly.

It's actually reversible, but there's a big wide pocket that will just do better as an inside pocket than an outside pocket.

I loved using every single scrap of stash fabrics and I am absolutely in love with the red drawstrings and how they pick up on the red in the paisley. Because the green twill has a nap, the patchwork picks up light in different ways, depending on the direction of the fabric and which way you're looking at it. You can't really see that in the photo, but it really is very cool.

For this bag, I looked at some tote bags I really loved and figured out how the bottom was constructed. The lining tucks all the seams neatly away so that nothing is visible and the bottom of the bag is such that it will stand up with a couple skeins of yarn in it, though not completely on its own. This project was more about refining skills I already have than about learning new ones, but this particular construction is not one I've tried before.

And the Sheep of Unknown Provenance is finally finished! The left was dyed with privet berries and a few leaves and twigs. That's 4 skeins and 7.7oz of fingering weight, fractal spun using the natural colors of the fleece and then dyed. In person, the color is a rich bronze with a bit more warmth than the photo can convey. The right is 4 skeins and 8 oz of fingering weight, gradient spun. This one was too pretty to dye and so I've left it the color the Gods made it.

Because this one is also for Project Make, the making of it has taught me quite a bit: mordanting, dyeing, gradient spinning, fractal spinning, using a drum carder, patience, and persistence.

I'm also working on:

• Leto in Knit Picks' Shadow and Misti Alpaca Lace
• Genevieve's Tube Socks in Crystal Palace Maizy Print
• Iris' rainbow quilt
• A little something in TARDIS blue silk

Before I go, I want to leave you with This Week's Technique:

• Mindfulness of emotions.
  It's really hard for me to manage my emotions around cleaning and organization. There have been occasions, this week actually, where I have a complete and total meltdown about something that isn't clean or organized, particularly when it's a recurring or very large mess that I am not in control of. I have OCD and this is how it shows its face. I'm not "a little bit OCD" in the colloquial sense where I'm really neat and organized (I'm not, actually). I have to be very careful how I clean so that I don't binge-clean until I cause myself physical harm.
  
  That's a long set-up to say that anxiety feeds the compulsion and if I can manage the anxiety, I can manage the compulsions. The audio that follows is part of an introduction to meditation series from Audio Dharma and it's over an hour long, but this sort of thing has been very helpful to me and is worth a listen. This is the way I've been able to re-wire my brain so that I can keep my cool and prevent myself from tumbling into a full-on binge clean or meltdown. I don't always do a great job of it, but my emotions are no longer the boss of me 90% of the time and I've been able to keep the OCD under control. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. 

In the Spirit of Excellence

That right there, ladies and gents, is my brand new actually functional garage door. I'm really very pleased with the outcome, especially the part where I can open and close it without assistance and the part where it's insulated and has windows. The real test of the insulation is going to be in the middle of the summer, but I can go in there now and see pretty well during the day. We still have a lighting issue in there, but at least now we have the sun. 

I bring this up because in the second picture, just behind and to the left of sweet Miss Bu, is my floor loom. It's a 36" Leclerc Mira 4-shaft 4-harness that I got for far less than she was worth to me. After a little repair and cleaning up, I got her working and managed some rudimentary fabric, but I really hadn't learned to weave as such. My learning style tends to be to jump in with both feet and see what I can figure out before going back and actually asking someone how to do it or seeking out classes. 

One of the more involved parts of Project Make has been that I'm determined to learn how to weave. That's why I'm getting the garage in shape and, if I were to tell the absolute truth, why we got a house with a garage in the first place.

Like Bekah, I don't really talk about my religion much here, though I may have done in the past when I wasn't really sure what I wanted this blog to be. Generally, I now blog about religion elsewhere and like to keep this space primarily for crafting. And then there's when those two things are actually the same thing.

My experience with my Gods has been that They expect excellence from me. If I'm doing well, They push me to be better. I sort of figured out how to weave, now I need to learn how to weave. I may think I know how to sew, but now I need to see if I can't do some more complicated things and hone those basic skills. I can spin, but I can learn more about spinning and make better yarn. 

It's not just about making a better product, either. This is about making a better me. The most useful techniques I'm learning are things like:

• Slowing down
• Letting go of pride
• Concentration
• Silence and stillness
• Equanimity

In the spirit of excellence, I don't have any FOs to show you this week. What I do have needs to be pressed and photographed in good lighting. I'm plugging away at Leto, I'm still on a quilting jag, and I'll have some spinning, sewing, and Summer's hanky to show next week. Right very now, the SoUP* is steeping in the pot and I'm going to leave it there for as long as I can stand in the hopes of more or deeper color. Lots of crafting is happening and I've got spring fever something bad. 

*Sheep of Unknown Provenance, not actual soup. Do not eat the privet berry soup.

Marching on

Between the rain and the sudden appearance of flowers, I'm tentatively declaring Spring to have arrived. We've already got one of the cars stuck in the mud and then subsequently un-stuck, thanks to our very helpful and very nice neighbors. Yellow House Guy and Retired Guy were both awesome and are deserving of good things. Needless to say, we'll be parking in the driveway until we can get the secondary driveway sorted out with some gravel and a hoe and rake.

The Garage Project is about to move forward quite a bit and, if the gods favor us, we should have a brand new green door by the end of the day. I'm super excited about being able to open and close it by myself, but the windows and insulation will also be a plus. I'm strongly considering a celebratory leaf mulcher. (So many leaves. So. Many.)

We've also had sun and warm days. I may have spent the majority of those outside and I may have gotten a little pink from sun. I've had a vitamin D deficiency all winter and I'm half convinced that I actually run on solar power. Thanks to those sunny days, I finally got the embroidery done on Miss Summer's hanky.

While there are things I know I could have done better on this one, I'm generally pleased with the work as a whole. It just needs a hem, a wash, and a good pressing and it'll be completely finished. 

There's this crazy idea that if you work on something, it gets finished faster. Bekah is convinced this is but myth and rumor, but I'm currently testing the theory by actually working on my eldest's quilt. It worked on Summer's hanky and it's too early to tell, but I might be able to finish before she goes to college.

...which was funny when she was in grade school.

I'm also thinking about learning to quilt after I finish this one. Because I jump in and do before I learn something, I tend to miss things like "Heeey, you can make the corners match up!" or "Did you know that you could plan a quilt? Who does that?" For now, I want to just do what I can before the weather gets too hot. It's just straight lines, but I can't be crawling under that in June.

And hey! A Finished Object!

These are Fork in the Garbage Disposal from Fork in the Road Socks by Lara Neel, done up in Andey Originals Sock yarn in the Holy Crap! Bubbo's on Fire! colorway.

I. Love. This. Heel. I have never had a heel fit so well, much less an afterthought heel. Offering Fork in the Road for free is about the cleverest thing because now I really do want Sock Architecture. The only thing I changed about the pattern was doing a rip cord/zip line thingamy instead of the provisional cast on in the middle of the sock. That worked a treat and I wish I were clever enough to have figured it out myself, but Bekah was the one that helped me wrap my brain around it. 

And that's this week's technique:

• Rip Cord/Zip Line for afterthought heels

So, when you get to where you want to put a heel, whether you're going toe up or top down, grab a piece of scrap yarn, drop the working yarn, and use the scrap yarn as your working yarn. Knit across however many stitches are going to become your heel (usually half), drop the scrap yarn, go back to where you dropped the working yarn, and work across those same stitches again. Keep on keepin' on until you get to whichever end of the sock you were trying to get to. 

There should be a tidy little line right across half of the sock where your heel is going to go, as you can see in the sock on the left. 

For the next part, there are probably several ways you can do this, but the following is what I did: 

First, I picked up the stitches on either side of the rip cord.

You can see the brown scrap yarn between the needles here. Once I made sure that my count was right and nothing was going to be twisted, I picked out the scrap yarn. The first few stitches were a little challenging, but it got easier once I could open it up a little. 

When that was done, it looked like this:

I joined the yarn, crossed the stitches at the corners to reduce the dreaded corner gap, and proceeded with the heel. This worked much better for me than trying to fiddle with a provisional cast on and seemed much quicker and more intuitive. 

I'm also working on:

• EZ's Seamless Saddle Shoulder Pullover in Knit Picks' Wool of the Andes superwash

• Leto in Knit Picks' Shadow and Misti Alpaca Lace
• Brickless in Alisha Goes Around Tracks of Bison
• Easy Ribbed Legwarmers in Zwerger Garn Opal Polarlichter

And I made a rainbow pizza for Ultimate Pi Day:

Spring Forward

This last week has been full of dance things. Miss Fluffalo's dance school did a performance of Sleeping Beauty and, because I generally try to be supportive of her artistic pursuits, I made sure she got to all the practices and to the performance on time and with all necessary accoutrements. She did very well and I can tell that she's grown a lot as a dancer. I am told that she'll be on pointe by next year.

She has other dance practices this week and, because I am a supportive mom, I will make sure she gets to those as well. There are times when we both wish she could drive, but neither of us are truly ready for that quite yet. I feel unprepared to have a kid who is almost in high school and I really wish we could send her to private school instead of our questionable public school. I have concerns and freshman orientation did not fill me with confidence.

She will do well whatever the circumstances, but I worry. I'm her mom. It's in my job description.

One thing that dance practice has been good for is focusing on the Fork in the Garbage Disposal socks. I haven't done any spinning or embroidery this week, but dang if I didn't get some sock knitted. That's about all I've done. Since this picture was taken, I've knit a good seven inches on the second sock since this picture was taken and that while stopping to graft many several places where the dermestids had got into my yarn. This is old damage and I've since managed the problem, but it's still frustrating. Dermestids are the bane of my existence both professionally and privately. Now all the yarn is in plastic. Even some of the stuff that's in plastic is in plastic.
Ugh! We hates them, precious. We hates them and their yarn-eating habits, we do. Nassssty little carpet beetles.
They don't taste very good, do they?

Actually, I don't know how they taste, but they're not on the list of bugs I'd eat.

The March cast-on-a-thon, which is way more fun than startitis/startosis because it sounds more "make a pledge to cast on some things!" than pathogenic, continues with the casting on of a pair of legwarmers for me. My legs and knees get terribly cold in the winter and I'm hoping these will help with that. I'm considering a pair for the eldest child for dance, but the jury is still out.

These are the Easy Ribbed Legwarmers by Carol Wells and they are indeed both easy and ribbed. I'll let you know how the legwarmers part works out. They're an easy knit, but are taking a nap in the WIP basket until I finish my socks.

Meanwhile, it is raining. Rain is not an entirely bad thing, but this solar-powered lady needs some fresh air, sunshine, and flowers.

So. Close.

I hear the spring peepers, it's nearly the middle of March, and I am ready for flowers.

Pin curls!

This week's technique doesn't have anything to do with wool and does have quite a bit to do with watching several episodes of Agent Carter in a row. I taught myself how to put the longer parts of my hair in pin curls and, remarkably, it's really cute. The back is super short, but I like how it looks and it stays all day without anything in it. I just wet it and put it up again at night and I'm fabulous again in the morning.

This tutorial really helped. For my hair, I wet it, curl it by hand, pin it, sleep in it with a wide elastic headband over it, unpin in the morning, and brush, following up with a light finger-combing. The more I do it, the faster it goes and I think I can get the whole shebang down to about fifteen minutes, total.
My haircut is supposed to be more like the picture to the right, but then there were pin curls.

March is for Making Lots of Things

February is for Finishing was a resounding success. The month ended with just four projects still on the needles and four freshly off the needles/hook. Predictably, this means I felt the need to cast on a bunch of new things. This week, I've cast on a pair of wee socks for Miss Bu, using the Knitmore Girls' Genevieve's Tube Sock pattern and some ancient Maizy from stash. I'm nearly two inches in now and they seem to go pretty quickly when I'm not watching Sesame Street. I try not to knit things where I need to count stitches when Sesame Street is on.

Which, brings me to Brickless. There's more counting in this one than is safe for Sesame Street knitting, but I've been wanting to make it in my Alisha Goes Around: Tracks of Bison for some time. I'm one repeat in after two false starts and wrestling with the yarn to get it wound into a cake. There were several breaks in the yarn from previous insect damage and there were crosses and tangles in the yarn. All of this is my fault, of course, and if I'd taken proper care of the yarn, none of this would have happened. But it's going to be beautiful and match half of everything in my wardrobe. I'm already in love.

An alarming amount of spinning has been getting done, too, and I can see the end of the SoUP batts from here. 

Fluff...

Became singles...

Became yarn.

All that happened in the space of a couple of days and I can definitely see myself finishing this one up either next week or the week after. 

It's a space helmet.

I've been very productive this week, so far as knitting goes, and I'm starting to feel much more like my normal, healthy self. I've made a commitment to try to get my step count every day this week and I've done so every day since Sunday. The checklist has helped considerably and I'm hoping the warm weather will help take care of the cabin fever.

I've got it bad this year. I'm ready to frolic in the flowers and run around outside in my garden. Tomorrow is another OMGWTF, WEATHER?! day, so the biggest kiddo is out of school and I'm theees close to spending the day in my room like Achilles in his tent or Janeway in her ready room. I want the kids to be able to play outside, but I also really want me to play outside. I'm tired of cold, rain, snow, and cold.

Did I say cold? Because that can go now. I'm so done with cold. My most sincere sympathies to those farther north than we.

This week's FO is Mr. Rippley, my coffee friend, because I wasn't quite done with him last week before blogging time. He's 2,487 yards of Brava Worsted. That's nearly 12 skeins and as much yardage as I have knit and/or crocheted on average each year since 2007. He's cuddly, warm, and matches my couch. All these are good qualities in an afghan and finishing him puts me in a mind to do more crocheted afghans for all the beds in the house. This is the delightful Neat Ripple Pattern by Lucy of Attic 24

So much love in this handsome fellow.

No technique this week, but quite a bit of knitting love. 
I'm also working on:

• Fork in the Road socks in Andey Originals sock yarn - I'm at the cuff of sock #2. Guess who's WIP picture is featured on the Ravelry pattern page! This made my whole week. 

• EZ's Seamless Saddle Shoulder Pullover in Knit Picks' Wool of the Andes superwash

• Leto in Knit Picks' Shadow and Misti Alpaca Lace

The Garage Project is still underway. Our new door has to be special-ordered and it's going to cost us a wee more than anticipated, which is fine because we have the budget for it, but my fabric stash and various supplies are buried for the time being. Turns out you're not supposed to attach a garage door to drywall.