Lavender Field Heather

Hey Everyone!

I got the pair of Lavender Field Heather Socks that I have been working on for a bit, finished up this morning.

Lavender Heather is the colorway, and it’s on the stroll tweed fingering weight yarn from KnitPicks.

It was one of the few spring colored yarns that caught my eye.

It’s crazy to me how fast the last three months have gone. In the earlier weeks of my furlough, I spent some of my time going and looking for toilet paper, and as the weather started getting better, I have been going for walks. Now, that it’s really to hot to be going for walks at a normal hour, I am definitely trying to spend more time working on knitting. I am trying to get as much done before I go back to work, and the holiday season is upon us again.

Safe Harbor

Hey Everyone!

I was finally able to finish up the pair of Safe Harbor socks I have been needing to finish for a while, since I ran out of yarn. I got the extra yarn I had ordered wound up.

I had ordered Safe Harbor on the Coquette Sock Yarn base, from Bumblebee Acres Fiber Farm. Safe Harbor was part of of the Outlander Inspired Collection. This colorway is no longer available.

Now that ai have this pair of socks done, I finally feel like I am making progress on the socks I have been working on.

Yesterday, I had made another blueberry crumble, which has become one of my favorite recipes.

I got this recipe from the Salmon Sisters cookbook. Knowing me, it’s not surprising that one of my favorite recipes is out of an Alaskan cookbook. I have wanted to live someplace like SE Alaska or Scotland for over a decade now. That is also part of why I am knitting up a lot of warm and cozy items, because I want to live somewhere with a cooler climate, and spend more time outdoors.

Beings that I was furloughed three months ago, and it has been extended every two weeks after the month long extension that happened during April, I am trying to make the most of my time off and spent at home. I am definitely trying to get as much done before the holiday season begins.

Working towards the Future that is Calling my Name

Hey Everyone!

It’s crazy to me that I have only finished (from start to finish) three pairs of socks since I was furloughed from my job like twelve and a half weeks ago. I had a couple pairs that I had finished up early on, that had been started while I was still working during the early part of the pandemic, and I have one pair of socks that I am so close to being done with the second sock on, that I just need to wind the yarn I had to order to finish it up. I also have two other socks in the works that are the second socks of their respective pairs. Once I get yarn wound up, which I will hopefully do this week, I will be finishing up three pairs of socks in the very near future. I am waiting on the last two hanks that I ordered to arrive, so I can wind all the hanks I have in one go while I have my swift out. Once I can get these three pairs done, I will have knit up six pairs of socks while on furlough.

I am trying to make the best of this furlough, because I would rather have work to go to. Having this time off work, has given me time to think and really evaluate and reevaluate what I want to be doing as far as work is concerned. I have been doing what I have had to, to have work, though I feel at times that I have forgotten what I love doing.

Since I have been off, I have really been trying to work on knitting up the yarn I have, and that I have ordered, as well as doing some baking and going for walks. I live near an older / more established part of town, where the streets are tree lined, and these trees, once they get leaves each year, provide much needed shade. With that, on nice days the smell of the trees reminds me a bit of being at summer camp (way away from the city). No matter the weather, the smells also remind me of going hiking in the woods. So for brief moments, my mind wanders and takes me away from the grind of the city life.

I definitely want to get away from the city life, and live a life where going outside means dirt trails, fewer neighbors, more elbow room, more of a need for my hand knit wears through many months of the year. I definitely want to do more hiking (hello hand knit boot sock collection) and in general living life outdoors, even in the colder months, where I can put the hats, scarves and wraps I have made / am making to use. I am really not a big city person, so other than my walks, a lot of my “out and about” time is spent 1) in the car, 2) going briefly from the car to the building and 3) in another building. I am trying to change that, and have the accessories and such that I need to allow me to live the kind of life I feel led to live.

I am not saying that I want to spend all of my time outdoors, just more of it. I still enjoy cooking, baking, homemaking stuff (decorating for different seasons, and making where I live feel like home), and of course, knitting.

I have definitely found that evenings are where I am most productive when it comes to knitting. During the day, I am definitely busier with things like going for walks, making food, household chores, writing blog posts, running any errands I need to run, all that kind of stuff. Evenings are the time of day when I settle in, and have a larger chunk of time to focus on knitting and projects, so that’s when a lot of my knitting gets done.

Aquatic Sprite

Hey Everyone!

While I have been waiting on the hank of “Safe Harbor” yarn that I ordered from from Bumblebee Acres Fiber Farm, a month ago, to arrive, That I need to finish the pair of “Safe Harbor” socks I have in the works, I have been working on other socks.

I finished up the pair of “Aquatic Sprite” socks I started after I finished up the “Healer” socks. The yarn base I had ordered the “Aquatic Sprite” colorway on, is the Fortitude Yarn Base, which is a fingering weight yarn, and it is from Forbidden Fiber Company.

I am definitely trying to take advantage of the time I have while I am furloughed, and it’s pretty much summer. Even if I weren’t furloughed, work is super slow this time of year. I am trying to get as many pairs if socks knit up as I can before I go back to work, especially before we hit the holiday season. This coming holiday season will be interesting with the whole pandemic, and if we see any more spikes in cases. Most counties in the state where I live will soon be entering phase two, yet the county I live in, hasn’t even met the requirements for phase one (yet that hasn’t stopped the nightly protests where thousands have gathered downtown).

As it is, I have at minimum, three more weeks to be able to continue just working on knitting, as my furlough was extended again, until the end of June. It’s been a taking it two weeks at a time kind of furlough. There was only one extension that covered an entire month, and that was back in the beginning of everything. Ever since it’s been taking it as it comes, every two weeks.