In 10 years’ time

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

In 10 years time, I see myself living a simple life in a small town or out in the country on some property, with a husband and family of my own. I would have found a church community to belong to and serve in.

If I am still working, I would be working at a small lys or book store in the small town.

I would still be living out here in the PNW, trying to give my children a simpler childhood without all the technological distractions and let them be kids.

I would still be knitting, of course. I couldn’t give up knitting unless it was literally taken from me.

If I lived on some property outside city limits, I would have a garden and grow a lot of my own Berries and vegetables. Maybe have a few fruit tress, and plenty of flowers.

Little Drummer Boy

Hey Everyone!

Last night I finally finished up the pair of “Little Drummer Boy” socks I had been working on for a while.

The yarn is from Forbidden Fiber Co, the colorway is “Little Drummer Boy” and the colorway is on the pride yarn base.

Of the Christmas colorways I had ordered, this colorway was the most “boring” of them all, or the one I liked the least. So I decided to use it first and get it knit up, and then move on to the yarns I liked better.

Now that I have enough Christmas yarn to have 13 pairs of Christmas Socks, or more than enough to do 12 days of Christmas with a different pair of socks every day, I am working on getting the yarn I have knit up. Though I am still waiting on a knitpicks order that has a little bit of sock yarn in it, though it is mainly more DPN’s. I will be sharing that when it arrives.

Unicorn Night Mares

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This evening, I finished up the pair of “Unicorn Night Mares” socks that I started right before I interviewed for my new job. This pair of socks has taken me about three weeks to knit up, since life has happened.

The colorway is: Unicorn Night Mares, the yarn base is: Fingering, and it’s from KnittedWit.

My first week of the new job went well. I am definitely looking forward to life after my first paycheck. This fall and winter, I am definitely going to be checking out some yarn stores and tea shops. This is going to be an awesome fall and winter

I am also waiting for my knit picks orders to arrive this week.

KnitPicks Order

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I got my knitpicks order today. I had ordered three different scents of Soak wash and a katrinkles darning loom. I still want to get a Speedweve darning loom. I just don’t want to have to have to order it from Russia. I am hoping to find one here in the states, or in my travels. I am going to see how the other darning kit works at some point when I need to darn a sock.

The three different scents of Soak Wash I got are: Lacey, Pineapple Grove and Unleashed. My favorite wool wash is still The Laundress Wool and Cashmere Shampoo. It will be interesting to try out this wash, as I have seen it for sale several places.

Today, was a much needed break from the heat. The forecasted high was supposed to be in the mid to upper 80’s today, but it has been cloudy all day, and a bit humid so it never even hit 80 today. After the past five days being anywhere from 90 – 116 degrees (in Portland, Oregon), only briefly hitting 81 today, has been a relief.

This summer has only just begun, so I still have plenty of time to get more socks knit up, washed and hung out on the line to dry.

Lavender Field Heather

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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.

Continuing to work on Cold Weather Necessities

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Since I updated on finishing up the silent night socks, I have finished up the first socks of the two pairs I am working on.

I finished up the first “make it pink, make it blue” sock first.

Then I busted out the first “let it snow” sock not long after.

I had started this sock a couple weeks ago, when we fittingly had snow in the forecast. I thought it might be a “good luck charm” to not get snow. It worked on that Thursday, but not so much that Friday morning. It was snowing pretty good as I drove to work between 4:30 and 5:00 that morning. We don’t get enough snow on a regular basis to warrant having chains or snow / studded tires on my little front wheel car. I just had to take it slow and easy while sticking (pun intended) to main roads. By the time I got off work the snow was pretty much gone.

Last week, I had ordered a bit more sock yarn. I had ordered a couple of Hanks from Forbidden Fiber Company’s Roaring 20’s Collection. I had ordered the colors “The Jazz Age” and “Tommy Gun”. The Jazz Age is a pretty variegated Purple that reminds me of one of my grandmothers, and Tommy Gun is a really pretty Grey variegated.

I had put in my forbidden fiber co order on the evening of Friday the 17th. It shipped Tuesday the 21st (as Monday was a federal holiday, so the post office was closed), and arrived on Saturday the 25th. I have always had a positive experience when ordering from Forbidden Fiber Company, including a quick turnaround on shipping, and good communication.

A week ago, I put in an order with bumblebee acres fiber farm, knowing that I won’t see that yarn for another two to three weeks at the earliest. Considering I have had to wait a month or more for my last two orders from this company, I knew I wouldn’t see the yarn I was ordering until at least mid February, if not closer to March. I am sure I will get the two second socks I have on the needles done as well as another pair or two before I see the last of the yarn I ordered.

I definitely won’t be ordering anymore yarn for a while. I have plenty to work with. When I am ready to order more, I doubt that I will order from any shop other than Forbidden Fiber Company or KnitPicks, they always have a good selection that they keep stocked consistently, and you rarely have to wait for restocks. I have learned my lesson about ordering from shops that don’t have good customer service, and don’t keep enough in stock for those who want to order. I am going to stick with my reliable yarn sources.

The past few days, since work has slowed down, I have had more time to knit, and watch shows. I have been watching The Deadliest Catch on Hulu. I am sad that Alaska: the last frontier is no longer on Hulu. I know that these shows are heavily edited, and to some extent scripted, but it’s Alaska.

Another LYS is Closing

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I found out this afternoon that another Portland yarn store that has been one of the main yarn stores for years will be closing its brick and mortar store in a couple months. That will make the fourth yarn store (that I know of) to close its physical store in about 5 years. While the reasons given, typically are personal in nature (family illness, time to move on etc), I can’t help but wonder if the rising rent / lease prices in the shop front spaces and the growing move of consumers to online retailers is also part of what is driving this shift in Portland’s (and thus Oregon’s) LYS scene.

I also kind of feel like the crafting (knitters and crocheters) community here isn’t what it once was. Then again Portland isn’t what it was 10 – 15 years ago. The demographics of the area has been changing a lot since many of these yarn stores opened.

We do have a handful of local / indie dyers here in the area (only one that I can name off the top of my head), and the closest fiber festivals are 15 – 18 hours away, in SoCal.

I know I order a lot of my yarn online, and while I have definitely ordered a fair amount of yarn from KnitPicks, and will likely order from there again, most, of not all the sock yarn I have ordered in the last year has been from small, indie dyers from back east.

I would definitely love to see things change out here, since this part of the country is home. At the same time I definitely want to attend a few fiber festivals, meet my favorite dyers, and see some more of the country.

Finishing Up The Scottish Inspired Socks

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I finally finished up the third and final pair of my Scottish Inspired Socks.

This last pair of socks, the yarn I used was KnitPicks Hawthorne Tonal Fingering yarn in the Colorway: “Inverness”.

The needles I used were my 2.25mm US size 1 needles.

I feel like I had these socks on the needles for quite a while, since I had two pairs going of the same gauge, so I had just let these sit.

This afternoon I also started in on my first sock of the four pairs of the Steampunk Collection Yarns that I purchased. I am only seven rows into the cuff, and I am already loving how it is looking.

Leaving Ravelry and Finishing Projects.

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It’s a bit crazy how much has happened since my last post.

First off was the #Istandwithravelry / #byeravelry – #unraveled chaos. 99% of the time I do prefer to keep the extent of my political views to myself. Though it came to the point that I couldn’t standby and continue to support private companies that don’t share my values, who choose to discriminate against and inaccurately label a group of people who they don’t agree with. While Ravelry and the companies who support them are well within their rights to have their beliefs, and choose to take whatever stance they choose, it is also well within my rights to choose not to support Ravelry and their supporters. As a White, conservative, woman, I don’t appreciate being labeled a “White Supremacist”, when I am not, just because I chose to vote for Trump over Hillary. Honestly I don’t like the man any more than anyone else, though I certainly wasn’t going to vote for Hillary.

Since all that went down, I have been going through those who I follow on social media, and did some clean up. I choose to follow those who have similar values or are able to keep their business neutral. It did show me who I do and do not want to support.

That all being said, I intend to keep my blog about Knitting and yarn crafts in general, and keep it neutral. I don’t mind explaining something if I am asked a question that is respectful, and out of curiosity and just wanting to know why. Anything that is hateful, or looking for an argument will be deleted, that is how I have always operated.

The only reason I am even addressing it, is because the yarn I used for the most recent pair of socks I had knit up, I had ordered from a company prior to the Ravelry show down, that I wouldn’t have ordered after it happened. I am not going to waste the money I have spent on yarn, it just means going forward that I choose not to order from these companies.

I knit up this pair of socks using the hank of bubble sock yarn I had ordered from Bumblebee Acres Fiber Farm, in the colorway “Scottish Thistle”. The last time I had checked it was no longer available, though I have no idea whether it is currently still unavailable.

The socks turned out pretty, but the yarn was kind of a pain in the rear end to knit with.

This was also the same company that it took a month or so to even ship (so I had to wait for 5 weeks to receive the yarn).

That all being said, I am now definitely more mindful of where I buy my yarn from, as well as my patterns. I haven’t found a new place for patterns that I really like, besides KnitPicks, and the patterns I had gotten off Ravelry, most I had printed off when I got them years ago. I had just one left that I had printed off before I deleted my account. It’s no hard loss for me since I hardly used Ravelry anymore, it’s more the principal of the thing. I don’t support discrimination, and I try to treat people with respect, until I am treated with such disrespect that I need to walk away and tell them “Bye Felicia”.

Finishing Socks and Waiting on Yarn

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Since I finished up the last pair of socks I blogged about, I completely knit up another pair of socks, as well as finishing up a pair of socks I had in the works for a while.

The pair I had been working on for a while and was kind of in the background, were knit up out of KnitPicks Stroll yarn in Tie-dye Speckle. This is the second pair of this particular colorway I have made.

This pair of socks, was the pair I completely knit up since I finished up the Halloween socks. The yarn I knit up, was the yarn I had ordered from Long Dog Yarns, it is their Bounce Sock Yarn bass in the April 2019 colorway.

This was an interesting yarn to work with since it is lighter weight and is 25% Nylon rather than 100% Wool. The Nylon made it more slippery than the wool, so it was a bit harder to work with.

Once I finished up the second pair of socks, I cast on the yarn I had ordered from Forbidden Fiber Co, I had selected the Fortitude yarn base and picked the Fraser’s Ridge colorway.

I still have one hank of yarn that I am waiting on to arrive, that I ordered from bumblebee acres fiber farm. I ordered it two and a half weeks ago, and won’t likely see it for at least another couple weeks since they are backed up with being at festivals. I get it in one sense, but if you are that busy, why hire more staff to keep up with the demand of being at festivals and your online orders. It makes someone like me not want to order from them again. So I am hoping I really like the yarn when it shows up, to make up for the wait.

Even though today was not the warmest, it was in the upper 60’s, I washed up the two pairs of socks I just finished. As of writing this post, they are still out on the line.