I now have an image of Dotty, in Texas (where she won’t need it for months), modeling the dog sweater I completed in early April. But I’m sure she’ll be glad of it come autumn!
Dotty Modeling Sweater
knitting
Richmond: Diversity Thrift
Tuesday, February 1: After a good breakfast and a late start, the mission for the day was to hit some thrift stores, and a scratch and dent appliance store. Three of us and the dog loaded into the Tacoma pickup and headed for Diversity Thrift – a HUGE thrift store in Richmond. I took a brief glance around, but I do not need to carry anything home on this trip! I went out and sat in the truck with Genne and worked on my knitting – until they started bringing out bags of stuff (two bags of records landed in her dog bed, so she ended up asleep on my knitting – which put a stop to that!)
Then off to shop for a refrigerator, washer, dryer and bed to be delivered to the new house tomorrow, and another thrift store, and by then it was getting late and hunger was making some of us, both human and canine, cranky. We ordered Chinese, dropped the women at the house, and shortly after were feeling much happier. We have lists of things to get done tomorrow.
Happy 2022!
It’s a new year! In Vermont, it’s hard to believe it’s January – the temperatures are too warm! It should be snow, but the day has been misty, drizzle, drip, rain, drizzle – so I’m giving you a fake snowflake!
My objective of the day was to complete the body of the sweater I’m knitting for my cousin – and it took me all day, but I did finish the last three rows and get the 346 stitches bound off. (I will admit to napping when the cat got in the way of knitting, though! We both did.) Now it’s on to knitting the sleeves.
My Aunt’s Yarn
One of you asked if you’d get to see the yarn I brought back from my aunt’s apartment, now that her knitting has slowed considerably. The above, laid out on a double bed sheet, is most of it – I’ve pulled out the yarn to make the sweater she’d planned for her daughter. And since, I’ve also pulled the yarn for a sweater for another of the cousins. Most of the yarn is natural fiber (with some glitz and shiny synthetic). There’s lots of really wonderful alpaca, and the left side of the photo is a pile of mohair and mohair blends. Not all of this is in sweater quantities; a lot of it is left from sweaters my aunt has previously knit. There are also five nearly completed sweaters; the cousins get first crack at them, and I’ll weave in the ends (and make longer, if needed and if there’s yarn to do it!)
Great Northern Yarn Haul #5
Completed Fingerless Mitts
Completed while I was in Northern Vermont, these fingerless mitts go with the hat a posted a bit ago. I dropped them off yesterday.
Knit the VOTE Hat
Completed Cardigan Sweater
Knit for a friend, with yarn she purchased years ago in Italy (Lane Monterosa, RAB), this sweater was a joy to knit. The pattern (Classic Gansey Cardigan, by Beth Brown-Reinsel, Fall 2018 Interweave Knits) was enough to keep me interested, and the yarn a pleasure to use.
I did have to color the buttons – there are none commercially available in these pandemic times. Not perfect, as I was using what I had on hand, but close enough.
I should have made sure the garment was straight when I took the photo – it really is more even than that!
Knitted Socks
(Yes, photo taken before washing socks and trimming yarn!) 
Design: my generic toe up sock, based on Cat Bhordi’s “New Pathways for Sock Knitters”
Pattern: adapted from Hitomi Shida’s “Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible”. Twisted stitches, cabling, lace – enough to keep me interested!
Yarn: Sock Twins Mouliné, from Estelle Yarns, the souvenir from my trip last fall to Prince Edward Island. It comes as two balls of yarn with a gradient, light to dark, and they were very precise.
A Few Too Many Knitting Projects?
(If there can be such a thing!)
“If you can count the number of projects you have going, you need to begin another, so you have a varied range of complexity, from the very simple ‘mindless’ ones to those that demand undivided attention.” Laura Early, quoted in “The Shop on Blossom Street” by Debbie Macomber.
What I currently have on the needles: 
The blue sweater is awaiting info on buttons, so I can knit the button bands; otherwise it’s finished. The marled beige is the utilitarian sweater I’m making for me, as a work sweater. The sock twins got as far as I dared without the Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible, from which I plan to take the pattern for the top. The yarn was a souvenir from Prince Edward Island last year. Those two are my next alternating projects – until I can finish the blue. The white lace shawl was begun – and nearly finished – as a prayer shawl for a friend with stage 4 cancer – I put it aside when she died, and will wait to know who needs it before I pick it up again; it’s a strand each of alpaca lace and a fine linen. And the brioche stitch gold and brown is yarn hand spun by a friend; he lost enthusiasm and fell off the face of the earth. If he reappears, I’ll finish it – but he’s small, so it’s small, and I don’t know a lot of people who could wear it.
So something boringly simple (the utilitarian sweater) to very complex (the shawl); I tend to the complex, as i get bored with knitting if I don’t have anyone to chat with. Coming soon to a blog near you –
A Year of Kayaking 