I spent a lot of time in the past month working on the westknits mystery shawl. Now, I know that there are a ton of westknit fans out there. And while I absolutely appreciate his designs for being quite artistic, my personal desire to knit them has been low. But, I had all this yarn I dyed myself in solid shades, and I just had no clue what to do with it. So I allowed him to choose for me.

Thus, I was able to use up 3 skeins of my colored yarn in short order, with an interesting and engaging knit.

I did wear it out today, and it looks good. I am just not sure I knit enough these days to devote a bunch of time to a mystery knit. Of course, I could totally forget this statement in one year, and fall into another one then. It does happen!

Mr Ink and I went out to dinner last evening with one of Mr. Ink’s friends. Now, that friend and I are talkers, and Mr. Ink and I are not. At one point after we’d finished our food and were continuing to gab, I look over at Mr. Ink’s plate, and see that he was working a ball of cornmeal mush (or something) into a creature.

I promptly named this his food baby, as seemed appropriate after too many days of eating a little too well.

I spent a lot of time yesterday with my doodler shawl. I am very close to being done, the icord bind off is complete and I am just now left with the picot trim. I figured I’d start with the longest sections first and work back to the shortest sections in order to preserve my sanity. My hands ache, but I can’t wait to be done so I just keep on knitting so I can get this blocked today!

I’ve still got my pas de valse sweater on the needles and I do want to work on that. My december socks are at work, so I’ll hit them hard next week. But, I immediately began to panic over what I might knit next, then realized with Christmas just around the corner, maybe it would be nice to knit Mr. Ink’s mother a scarf. She has a big shawl from me, which she wears around her apartment, but she mentioned it on Thursday, and it sounded like maybe she could use a handknit scarf to stay warm when she’s outdoors. I pulled yarn out of my stash for that, but I do think I’ll need a bit of a knitting break once that doodler is done!

In any case, here’s a picture of the first picot trim bit done, and now I am off to work on the rest!

Vacation day 3, massive productivity paired with a little time out for knitting. Not much though. I went from just 1 clue 3 wedge to the second clue 3 wedge complete.

Here’s a picture of my doodler all bunched up on a too short cable. Because that’s how I roll. I have absolutely no intention of changing needles at this point.

I have to say though, is there anything more charming than garter stitch knitted on the proper size needle? It really is so need and tidy and beautiful!

I am at a point where I could add a green wedge if I wanted to. But I am not sure. I have plenty of yarn for 4 wedges of clue 3 no matter what way I work it. I just need to settle into a decision.

Today I actually have to leave the house. I know, I know, it’s not ideal. But it must be done. I also have some intention to start some thanksgiving day cooking. Even if I just get the fancy cranberry sauce done, I’ll feel like I am moving in the correct direction.

And now I can hear that the washer and the dishwasher that I rather stupidly started earlier this morning are done, which means that now I can get my shower and get my butt out of the house. The sooner I do so, the sooner I can return to the fabulousness that is being at home on a weekday!

We were able to procure tickets to see our local community production of A Christmas Carol last evening. Miss Bug had been requesting it, as she’s gone once and now feels it’s tradition. I was no opposed to the idea either, as I really enjoy the performance, and as it turns out, even as a grown up I am a lover of all things Christmas.

And there’s something about the story that I just love. It makes my skeptical heart warm up the perfect way for the season.

Mr. Ink had never been to our local playhouse, so that added another element of fun to the evening.

Miss Bug likes to have her picture taken with Scrooge after the show, and she was so thankful to see him in the lobby again this year.

I am officially on vacation. I have no particular plans, other than crafting, cooking, and deep cleaning the house. Well, also, to fix the hole in the hallway wall. I am really looking forward to these tasks as these tasks are the type I find very relaxing. Miss Bug has school Monday through Wednesday and Mr. Ink works all but Thanksgiving day. So, it will be a vacation of alone time doing that which I love. I am so looking forward to it!

The play made it so that I didn’t get a ton of knitting time, but I did manage to finish the knitting on the cardigan for my nephew.

I have now officially created knitwear with a functional zipper. It could be neater and tidier, but it isn’t too bad for a first try. And I did really enjoy the process.

I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!

 

 

The time has come, the time to finally attach a zipper into knitwear. I can assure you I’ve been dreading it a bit, but there’s also so little in knitting that I have not done that it seemed a great project to tackle.

I settled on a techknitting tutorial for a no sew zipper. Mostly because if the choice is between knitting and sewing, I am going for knitting every time.

I purchased a zipper. I have to say, there aren’t that many choices in separating zippers. Color choices are slim, as are length choices. They jumped from 14 inches to 20 inches, and I needed 15 inches of zipper. So, I have a lot of extra length to be dealing with.

I also purchased a tool. Now, this tool is not called a knitpicker as the tutorial suggests, this tool is marketed for beading on fabric. But, it’s the same thing and it serves the same purpose.

The first thing that happened was that it broke. The first thing I said to Mr. Ink when he walked in the door was “fix it.” Despite the fact that the fabric store I purchased it from is just a mile away. He fixed it.

I thought long and hard about how to attach the zipper using knitting, and ended up settling on an applied icord bind off. I picked up stitches, about every 2 out of 3, on both sides of the sweater making sure they matched perfectly. Easy task due to the stripes. Then I put the knitting on the carpet, and pinned it in place without stretching at all.

And here’s where the extremely unscientific bit comes in. I decided to mark the places I needed to pick up stitches on the zipper. Trouble was, the zipper is navy, and nothing I had showed up on the navy zipper. So I said to Mr. Ink, “Fix it!” and he pulled out some yellow paint and an itty bitty brush. It’s useful living with an artist. But, the yellow didn’t work, the pigment sank into the fabric, turned a very dark shade of green, and I couldn’t actually see my tiny unscientific dots.

So I said to Mr. Ink, “Fix it!” and he got out white paint. And my extremely unscientific idea worked with the white paint.

And thus, I picked up stitches along the unscientific dots along one edge of the zipper and put them on needles. Then, once that was done, I decided that the applied icord would look even better if I did it in green, so that’s what I did. And it turned out ok!

I finished the first side last evening and I am fairly happy with how it turned out. I have begun picking up the stitches for the second side, and it sure is going a lot smoother the second time! I picked up 2 out of 3 stitches as trying to fit in a stitch for every row was just way too tight. To make up for that, I went up a couple needle sizes for the icord, which seems to have worked perfectly. It is laying flat.

The one thing I did not consider with the icord, but is probably a huge bonus, is that the stripes don’t have to line up exactly, since there’s a break between the stripes. I planned them to line up precisely, but if I missed a stitch, it probably wouldn’t ultimately matter.

I’ll still have to sew to tack the icord down, as well as to deal with the extra zipper part, but this really was a great way to attach a zipper in a way I am already comfortable with. I am sold, I’ll probably be putting zippers in a bunch of handknits now!

I have decided that the absolute best thing for me is to form a routine, get into that routine, really double down on that routine, and then break it. It seems that I am happiest when I do just that.

Mr. Ink and I took an overnight road trip this week, and it was amazing. We went to see Glen Hansard, an artist I’ve loved for many years, but had never seen live. Mr. Ink, the lover of live music, found out he’d be near enough to go see this summer and immediately purchased tickets. And I’d been anticipating it ever since.

Now, around here, it rained and rained on Tuesday. We drove more than 3 hours in the dark and pouring rain, ending up in a city we were unfamiliar with. It was some extremely tense hours. But, we found our hotel and since I had booked it close to the venue, we didn’t have to drive again. And it quit raining just for us!

Glen Hansard was amazing. It was hands down the best live show I’ve ever been to, and I have been to many! Mr. Ink wasn’t particularly familiar with his music, but kept saying throughout the concert “This is WONDERFUL!” and “This is just AMAZING!” and jumping out of his seat after a particularly amazing song was performed. There were something like 6 encores and the crowd still didn’t want to leave. Great venue, amazing crowd, fantastic artist, just an all around fantastic evening.

The next morning we were able to walk to go out for breakfast, and then get in the car to head home, still clearly on a high from concert. Mr. Ink drove a good portion of the way, so I did a little car knitting.

That’s the hood I am working on for my nephew’s christmas sweater. I forget how fast and fun knitting with worsted weight yarn can be! By the time we got home, I had a finished hood, which meant all I had to do was weave in an end or two and block. Because I was smart enough to weave in the other ends as I went along.

Today is the day I purchase a zipper and look at multiple tutorials on how to sew it in properly!

I’ve been knitting my December Sock behind your back! Mostly because I just knit a tiny bit at a time, and partly because it’s not December yet anyhow.

It’s not too surprising it’s another Monkey Sock, since my November ones flew by so quickly. All those slow moments of knitting add up, since I have already started on the heel flap of this one.

Yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy in Some Summer Sky, it’s been in my stash absolutely forever, so I am glad it’s time to move it along.

I hope everyone is having a lovely week, we’re at the halfway point!