Saturday Stash

Time for the knitting report.  It's not really stash as such this week. All four projects were worked with yarns that didn't come out of the original mountain supply.  I'm straying from my pledge - have been for a while now - and knitting what pleases me, or what's new at the moment or what I find in the stash cupboard that suits the purpose.  So, yes, I'm buying a bit of yarn here and there. 

This cool green thick and thin yarn followed someone home from the thrift shop.  Just one ball with less than seventy yards.  What to do?  I chose this quick - about an hour - hat pattern from Laurie Kimmelstiel which has enough textural interest to keep me happy and still show off the colors.  I didn't have a short enough circular or dpn set in the right size, so I knit it flat and seamed the back.  It worked beautifully, I think. Nefertiti enjoyed wearing it on the frosty morning I shot the photo. 

She needed a scarf around her neck as well.  Another refugee from the thrift shop,  this was a worsted acrylic with a lot of fluff and in the most gorgeous autumn leaves colors - oranges, rusty browns, red and green - not the washed out pink it appears here.  Think bright.  Again only one ball but it seemed to have a lot of yardage.  I doubled the strands, grabbed the BIG needles and knit up this wonderful scarf pattern from Nancy Kleiber.  I've made it before and it's really a joy to knit.  Only 15 stitches, reversible and ruffled on the ends.  The yarn made it so cushy and cosy that I could have kept it.  But these are not my colors so it joined the hat on the craft sale shelf.

I have one girl's knee sock finished.  Now...to get to that second one. 

And, this is my guilty pleasure.  When I go out to Steveston each week, I stop in the village if the traffic allows me to be early.  I have a shop that stocks a good selection of sock yarn and it's fun just to browse even if I don't buy.  Last Tuesday, I shook up my routine and stopped at the other yarn store that I also like.  It stocks a lot of very nice yarns that are so much  fun to get touchy-feely with.  I know that their sock yarn selection isn't as good as the other so I felt pretty safe.  But, look!  I've never seen a Donegal-type sock yarn before.  It was red.  Oh, my, I was lost.  And, of course, I couldn't wait to start knitting it up.  Those whining UFO's will have to dry their tears and wait quietly. 

While in the store, I chatted with the woman in charge.  She  made a big fuss over a sweater I was wearing - the Tranverse Cardi - and  I was completely won over.  See how I had to buy that little ball of red sock yarn? Then, she told that she teaches spinning.  Hmmm...I will retire from the busiest part of my busy volunteer work in the coming year.  And I have a wheel that is waiting in a corner of the sewing room.   Is this an omen? 

Fifty Fridays #14

Another week.  I wasn't chained to the computer or the meeting table this week.

But I have been neglecting these kids for many weeks.  They've been napping in the sewing room and every week a few more have arrived looking for a home.  I just showed them into the room and told them to behave themselves...I'd get to them.  Soon.  And soon came this week.  I'm up to my elbows in Barbie clothes, shoes and hairstyles.  My babies are all bathed, brushed and bonneted.  By tomorrow, I'll be putting them all away again for a while.  I must get as many done at once as I can as the thrift store sells a lot of dolls between now and Christmas.
 

However, this is Friday and I must have a photo this week.  My daughter noticed!  Today's dig through the digital 'shoe-box' produced this lovely photo.   This is me and my Aunt K.  I'm the baby and I can only tell you that I'm more than 5 months old.  Clearly it's summery weather.  The notes say it was taken in PEI where we lived when I was a baby.  It could be near Summerside but since there's a car I can't tell you.  I'm guessing that the car is my Grampy's and they've come from Nova Scotia to visit.  But that's just a guess.

 What I can say is that my Aunt K was a very important character in the family stories that I heard from my mother.  Even though I never met her until I was an adult, I always felt as though I had a relationship with her.  I knew that we both were 'sturdy' girls and we both had thick, curly hair.  I think my mother talked about her whenever she brushed my hair.  Especially if I wanted to grow it long.  She feared the weight of the thick hair would pull the curl out as it did my aunt's.  What odd memories to have of someone you never met.

As she moved on with her life, I heard about her education, her first job and her wedding.  My cousins came along and all were as unknown to me as she was.  It always surprised me to think that I had real-life cousins because they were photo people my whole childhood.    I suppose they all felt much the same way.  It's hard to imagine now with all the ways that we can stay connected.  When I was a child, the only connections were letters.  Pale blue ink on thin paper written in my mother's pretty writing and an illegible note scribbled on the bottom by my father.  Letters from the east with older-style penmanship and less comfort with the writing  process.  Always received with great joy from my mother.  She loved letters. 

Photos would occasionally accompany a letter and this was always a cause for delighted scrutiny of the faces and backgrounds.  How they'd grown! Aged! Look what they've done to the house! Such things showed up in the pictures that no one ever commented on in the letters.  Just the stuff of day-to-day life.  For my parents, it was a recognition that the place they came from was changing as well as confirmation that many things stayed the same.  I'm sure for those in the east, it was a glimpse of a strange place.  Family known and unknown.  Grandchildren they would never really know. And yet, there was a familiarity with the way things were done.  As they had been done in the family forever. 

Photos can say such a lot even when the intended message is completely different.  I'm sure this one was just a photo of the baby with her Aunt K.  Now, I get all caught up in the landscape, the clothes, the house. 

Sunday wonders - R

R is for Riches.

I have shelter from the rain and warmth from the cold...

an abundance of food ...

and family and fun. 

Can't get richer than this.

Saturday Stash

Two weeks worth of reporting to do!  I didn't have the photos taken last week and just didn't have a chance to get at them.  At the end of this week, I felt like I'd been in a chess tournament.  So much plotting of strategy - I'm lousy at this - and trying to make sure that my queen isn't captured after two moves.  Since I know I am so very bad at it and it's important that the queen stay in play for as long as possible (and possibly win)...oh, I'm exhausted.  A good mystery novel will be the weekend remedy.  And here we go into what has kept me calm-ish...

I did finish the cardi for Gabby.  I had some fluffy pink stuff for trim and I knit some round balls instead of making pompoms.  It looked huge and it is a bit big for her but not as much as I thought it would be. 

The seasons changed at the craft corner and the scarves made a reappearance.  It's funny how, when things get a second airing, there is often more notice taken than when they were first put up.  So it is with this scarf.  The woman selling it wanted one for herself, too.  Luckily, I had enough yarn.

In an attempt to use up all the yarn, I made one more to donate for sale.  I still have enough left for yet another.  Maybe later.

I finished the Finchy Feet - finally but didn't get a finished photo.  Then I decided that I wanted to make some little socks, too.  Plain ones in fancy yarn...

and fancy ones in plain yarn.

A baby hat with a pompom.  I have remembered that I dislike making pompoms because they never look the way other people's do.  But the hat is cute and makes me think of Christmas windows.  I used the Top Down Pi Hat pattern and just did my own slip-stitch thing.  It all uses up sock yarn. 

I am trying out a basic pattern for girls' knee socks. Oddly, I've never made knee socks but I wanted to see if I could do it with the same amount of yarn that I would use for two adult socks.  I'm sure there's an easier way to figure it out but not nearly as much fun.

I will be back tomorrow with my weekly alphabet offering.  I haven't abandoned Blogland!