Since I managed to clear my queue for finished knitted objects, I had to cast on something new. I ended up going with a good ol’ baktus scarf. Striped. I forgot how easy and pleasant it is to knit these. I notice that the pattern is no longer available, but I know the pattern by heart. Or at least I think I do!
In this case I chose two handspun yarns to go with a “striped” scarf. These two skeins were from the same fiber source. One was yellow and the other grey with some yellow. So the striping becomes a little bit vague at times. But I really like the effect!
It’s kind of an interesting shaded look that is very pretty. It’s also knitting up very quickly and I’ll have to figure out what to next knit after this! Potentially another one or two of these. It’s too easy!
Now that I am back to starting new projects I have taken a photo of a project that has actually been in progress for a little while.
The fiber spun into singles on these spindles is one which Miss Marja made for me and gave me at the end of last year. It’s very beautiful and she made it on her blending boards! While I haven’t been doing much spinning at all, I have been plugging away at this project and truly enjoying it. I’ll be making this into a 2 ply laceweight yarn, but no clue what I’ll do with it after. It should have loads of yardage though!
In order to ply it I will likely have to finish a project on my wheel that I started ages ago. It’s a very pretty brown and green single project but I tend to not bring out my wheel when we have foster dogs, and we have foster dogs more often than not these days! So, ultimately I am not sure when this project will be completed but for now it’s satisfying to plug away at the spinning of the singles.
You may or may not have noticed but I completely abandoned my project pan and my beauty balance posts when I abandoned the blog temporarily. I am not upset about it. I had fun while it lasted, made use of my products, and got what I needed out of it. I am ready to move on.
Beauty Balance posts aren’t coming back. I just….don’t care. I’ve been throwing empty stuff away willy nilly and kind of loving it. And sometimes I buy stuff too, and that’s fine as long as it doesn’t get out of hand.
But, I still kind of want to do a little project pan. A little something to concentrate on specific products. So, I’ve put together an A to Z project. This will have maybe monthly updates. It will not be rolling. Once the items are gone, they are gone. Or rather, once a goal is hit, the items roll out. I anticipate this being a year long project but mostly I just want to see if I can hit goal on everything and then do something new.
I’ve chosen a wide variety, some items should be fairly easy to use, some will be longer term. Some I won’t even use until later in the year. This is also rather eyeshadow heavy, there are two palettes I really want to see a lot of use in this year. I am also not going to hold myself carefully to one month updates, I’ll just get to them when I get to them. And finally, I am also going to track progress. If I use the item on a particular day, it will get tracked. I do like that idea very much.
A to Z:
A: Mario Badescu facial spray with Aloe, Herbs, and Rosewater. The goal is to finish. B: ABH Sultry palette Bloom-goal is to hit pan. C: ABH Sultry Palette Cinder-goal is to hit pan. D: ABH Sultry Palette Dystopian-goal is to hit pan. E: ABH Sultry Palette Ember-goal is to hit pan. F: ABH Sultry Palette Fresh-goal is to hit pan. G: Grace & Stella Spray all Day Rose Spray-goal is to finish. H: Cover FX Palette Highlighter-goal is to hit pan on one of these. I: IT Cosmetics CC cream-Goal is to finish. J: Elf Jellypop primer-goal is to finish.
K: Kilian princess sample-goal is to finish. L: Estee Lauder Doublewear-goal is to finish. M:Tarte palette Mermosa-goal is to hit pan. N: Tarte palette Nude Beach-goal is to hit pan. O: C.Y.O Lifeproof foundation-goal is to finish. P: ABH Sultry Palette Pearl-goal is to hit pan. Q: Tarte blush color Quirky-goal is to hit pan. R: Rom&nd bronzer: goal is to hit pan. S: ABH Sultry Palette Steamunk-goal is to hit pan. T: ABH Sultry Palette Twig-goal is to hit pan.
U: Urban Decay Eye Primer-goal is to finish. V:Urban Decay eyeliner in Voodoo-goal is to use past the 24/7. W: Lancome Teing Idole Ultra Wear foundation-goal is to finish. X: Too Faced Boudoir Eyes (soft and sexy) eyeshadow palette use up In The Buff eyeshadow. Y: NYX eyeshadow pan (at the bottom of the black eyeshadow palette) goal is to use up. Z: BH Cosmetics Zodiac Palette-goal is to hit pan on the matte Virgo shade.
I really had to start getting creative there in the end, trying to make the makeup in my collection fit a letter. But I think I did it just fine! I’ve gone a little heavy on eyeshadows, but ABH palettes tend to be softly pressed, and I’ve used the tarte palette loads. The others are all more of a primer setting shadow, so I should be able to get those done as well. There’s a number of foundations but they are all sample sizes or heavily used already. I think the blush and bronzer will be the hardest to hit goal on, perhaps the highlighter as well. But, that cover FX palette is one I’d like to pan in the future so getting some good use on it will help get me closer to that goal. Since we are already mid-February, my plan is for the first update on this one to be the beginning of April. I am eager to get started!
I have yet another finished object! I really appreciate having made the time to finish up three projects in the past few weeks instead of casting on new things and letting these languish.
This one is Scottish Stripes. I’ve knit it before. This time was the same experience. Basically, I’ll get about halfway through and then just lose all interest. Then eventually I find I can pick it up again and finish. Honestly though, the lost interest part is severe and I hope I never choose to knit this again.
All that aside, the finished object is really truly amazing, particularly with handspun yarn! This one is out of Miss Marja’s handspun and it goes to her once it is finished. More than a year ago now I agreed to knit this out of her yarn for her. I bet she doesn’t even remember now! I was really looking forward to knitting it and passing it off to her, but the space in between losing interest and picking it back up was extremely long. It resided in a work drawer without being touched from before covid hit last year until just the past few weeks.
And that’s it! I don’t have any more long term unfinished but close to finished objects that need finishing, so I am back to choosing new items to cast on.
I started this project back in September but set it aside for various other projects over the months. I knew I wasn’t far from being done, so I recently decided to pick this back up and finish it.
I used 3 different handspun yarns. The green and the pink are my handspun and the white is Miss Marja’s handspun.
I had really been trying to use up ALL the yarn, so I knit and knit and knit and then it became apparent that my scarf would be way too long to even wear if I kept it up. So instead, I cut back and ended up with a much too long scarf, and I don’t mind much to long. I would mind unwearable.
I was really taken with all the different textures and colors in the scarf pattern which is truly what pushed me to knit it. I love combining textures and patterns and it really does help keep interest in a large scarf.
This mosaic knitting was probably my favorite part to knit, though I am not sure it’s my favorite part of the scarf overall.
The raindrops pattern looks so nice blocked out even though it really felt while knitting that these would look silly finished. I am glad I knit them anyhow!
Seeing the soft colors added in to the white yarn was really fun and gave the whole thing added interest. Tiny pops of purple, yellow, blue, I just love the way handspun knits up!
I probably wouldn’t knit this pattern again necessarily but I am glad I knit it. It was a very large project and rather intense, but kept my interest and was also quite satisfying. Turns out that blocking it was the true challenge! This has been sitting around waiting for photographs for a few weeks, so I am eager to finally wear it next week when I head in to the office in the extreme cold.
I test knit a pair of night mitts for Rachel at Dyeabolical in early December and after they were done, I immediately cast on for another pair. It was a really fun pattern and I loved the end result!
But as many other projects go, I got partway through the first mitten then put it down to make all the pretty little christmas ornaments. I didn’t pick it back up until a few weeks ago. I’ve been on a bit of a kick to finish up a couple of projects that were languishing before casting on something new.
Once I did pick it up, I started to have a few problems. I tend to knit on two circular needles for these types of projects. The first needle broke. No big deal! I went back into my stash and found another needle of the same size and started using it. The next day a second needle broke. That left me with only 1 needle where I needed two. In my whole stash! Which is surprising because I used to have scads and scads of needles of all the same size. But I bought most of them between 2006 and 2009 so I think they’ve just all outlived their lifespan pretty much all at the same time.
Naturally, completing the mittens took yet another pause as I worked out the new needle situation. I ended up purchasing a few new needle sets. The first one to come in showed up defective. So it had to be returned, setting me back even longer.
But I am now pleased to say that I have a few more needle sets to replenish the ones that have bit the dust over the years. And, I also have a new pair of mittens!
These were knit with some handspun yarn from Miss Marja. I really enjoyed the yarn and was pleased to be able to get two pairs of mittens out of one skein. I gave the other pair to Marja, so this pair I get to use myself. Just in time too, it’s awfully cold here in the midwest!
Last week, our foster dog finished up her time with stitches and had them removed on Friday.
Ultimately, the eye, or lack thereof, healed so well! While we, as humans, are so reluctant to make hard decisions like eye removal or amputations, the reality is that the dogs generally just adjust really well to losing the body part that caused them pain or problems. Our foster dog healed beautifully from this surgery, was clearly way more comfortable after the surgery, and is so happy to be healed up and ready to play.
On Saturday morning, despite cold and snow, we headed off to deliver her to her final home. She gained a family who loves her as she always deserved and are committed to any medical care her buckshot may bring up in the future. She also gains two dog brothers, both of whom she fell in love with very quickly. This adoption felt particularly serendipitous, I felt like I was delivering her new mom her heart dog.
The house was so quiet with her gone, it’s always a deafening quiet when we let them go and I always feel a little off that day. I’ve learned just to take it kind of easy on myself. But her new mom has kept in touch and I’ve seen lots of great pictures of her being loved by all members of the family, and that makes it easier.
I’d say this foster and the previous little jack russell mix have been my favorite foster dogs, but really, we’ve had 5 now and there were only 2 that I wasn’t completely taken with. And even those two I liked just fine, they were great dogs! So, the reality may be that the vast majority of foster dogs will be my favorite.
And on that note, we chose our next foster before letting go of this one. It’s healing to know who we will be bringing in when we let one go. We only had one week break between the little jack russell and the one above. This time we’ll have 2 weeks if all goes to plan. Maybe more if all does not go to plan.
Here she is! Another presumably black mouth cur mix. She’s heartworm positive but being treated in the rescue she’s with now, so we won’t have to manage too much of that care. Doesn’t she have the biggest eyes?! She is said to be about 2 years old and 35 pounds so she should fit our home quite well. She’s coming up from the same rescue that all our other fosters came up from, because why mess with something that is going well? We’ve had really great foster dogs from that rescue.
So, that’s our big weekend update, another beautiful and kind dog placed with a loving family and really, that’s a good weekend.
Suzy Sells Sea Shells 