Knitting is: a craft, an art form, a way of life.
What are 5 everyday things that bring you happiness?
Fresh Flowers – they always make me happy.
New Yarn – it Sparks my imagination and it makes me happy
A good cup of tea – a cup of Smith Teamaker Portland Breakfast Tea always makes me happy
A full tank of gas – it means freedom and adventures can happen
A good book – a good book I can get lost in.
Hey Everyone!
What a weekend it has been so far (my weekend days are Sunday and Monday). Yesterday, I had gone for a drive to get out of the house. I also had made a blueberry crumble, that had gotten dumped all over the bottom of the oven by accident upon trying to get it out of the oven. The oven had to be cleaned and it was a mess.
I made another blueberry crumble this morning. It came out just fine.
While my blueberry crumble was baking this morning, I wound the yarn that came in my spring mystery box from Forbidden Fiber Co.
While I don’t know what this colorway is called, it reminds me of a sunset at the Oregon Coast this time of year.
Weekends always seem to go by so fast, don’t they? I like to try to get as much knitting in on my weekends, since I don’t typically feel like knitting when I get home from work during the week. This is especially true when what I do for work is literally to earn a paycheck and have health insurance, and it’s not something I am passionate about or even see staying at more than a couple of years. There is no career there for me. In the position I am in, I will cap out pay wise in less than 3 years, and it’s not an income I will ever be able to support myself on my own with. I also have no desire to go into management in this company. Being a freight lead was as much management as I will ever do, and I came back down a pay grade and responsibility wise after 10 months in that role. So my weekends are super important to me, to pursue my interests and what I am passionate about.
What is your favorite type of weather?
Fall! While I love the rainy, cold wet pacific northwest days, a perfect day is a 72 degree October day. These days are the ones that starts off crisp and cool and then is beautifully sunny and about 72 degrees in the afternoon.
Hey Everyone!
Brick and Mortar yarn stores have been struggling to stay afloat even before the pandemic began three years ago. Then the pandemic hit and many more closed their doors, and if they were lucky were able to transition to solely virtual.
While it’s nice to be able to buy yarn from the comfort of your own home, there is more to be said to being able to go to a LYS (Local Yarn Shop) where you can see and feel the yarn for yourself. Many also have samples up where you can see completed projects made with the yarn. Many of these shops also have a seating / work area where crafters could come and work on projects and get help with a pattern and what not.
With the physical spaces closing down, it is harder for the community to come together and be able to have in person interaction with other crafters where they are from.
I know for myself, getting to wool and sheep festivals like Rhinebeck and others back east and in the Midwest are not necessarily feasible or practical in order to have the comraderie with fellow crafters.
Not only had my favorite LYS closed down several years ago (Happy Knits on SE Hawthorne in Portland), I found out that one on my list of yarn shops to visit, closed their brick and mortar shop two and a half years ago. This was Churchmouse Yarns and Teas on Bainbridge Island (near Seattle). This was one of the “destination yarn shops” that was relatively close to me, as in a weekend adventure for me. While I can still order yarn online, I do miss the whole adventure and change of scenery aspect to it.
Part of why it makes me sad is because the generations older than me, who are not as tech savvy as my generation and those younger than I am, are missing out on the yarn shopping options that used to exist. Knitting (and Crocheting) almost died out once. I would hate to see that happen again.
For the past decade or so, I have wanted to visit as many LYS as I could in different places I went. I thought it would be fun to have socks made from yarn I bought wherever I went. The more LYS that close their physical locations, that makes this harder.
I know I talk more about knitting than Crocheting, because I am a knitter. That’s what I do. Crocheter’s are just as important as knitters.
Hey Everyone!
When I got home from work, I had sent my brother the following message.
“Today feels like one of those days where I should be driving on the other side of the road, drinking my 6th cuppa of the day before going back out to working with the sheep or something”
It is a rainy, wet, rather dreary day. As I was driving home from work, it was one of those thoughts that it was like “what could I totally go for right now”, tea, yarn, sheep, and Scotland are the passion.
I have been training for my new job this past week. It’s definitely been a steep learning curve. I have also had a bit more time to knit in the afternoon. I am also enjoying having a bit more energy than I had while working nights. I am sure the 3am – 4am mornings will catch up with me, but this period until it does has been a nice reprieve.
Hey Everyone!
Last night I finished the second sock in the pair of Nordic Noel socks that I have been working on.
The yarn is a sock set I ordered from Bumblebee Acres Fiber Farm, and it’s on the coquette yarn base.
Over the past year and a half projects have taken forever to finish as I have been working nights and slept during the day so it has taken pretty much everything I have to just get through the routine of eat, sleep and work. I am hoping once I am back on days in the next couple of weeks that I will be able to put in a little bit extra time to knitting in the afternoons, after work.
I am definitely hoping the new position I accepted and will be starting soon will be what I need as I transition out of night and freight, as well as focus on what the future holds. Over the past few years my faith has taken a backseat to choices I made, as well as taking the jobs I have had where I have worked nights over the weekend. The way the schedule works for my new position, I will have Sundays off, which is a huge blessing as I have realized how much I have missed practicing my faith and how important it is for me to be around other like minded individuals.
Hey Everyone!
Yesterday afternoon I finished up my pair of “Road to Rhinebeck 2022” socks, two days after Rhinebeck ended, not that I got to go anyway.
This was the second year I ordered the “Road to Rhinebeck” sock set from Bumblebee Acres Fiber Farm.
The main colorway is “Road to Rhinebeck 2022” and the accent colorway was called “All the Wine”. They came as a set and are no longer available to order. The yarn base is the Coquette base.
The Coquette base my favorite yarn base to order colorways on from Bumblebee Acres Fiber Farm. I like this base because it is a 3 ply fingering weight so it knits up the thickest, cosiest socks without being too thick.
This morning, just before sitting down to write this post, I washed up this pair of socks as well as the pair of Crackling Fire socks I finished recently. I used the Wool and Cashmere Shampoo by The Laundress New York to wash these socks. The scent is called Cedar, but I don’t know exactly how cedar specific it is, but it has an amazing woodsy scent to it that I love. I love this wash for new socks. For socks I have worn and need to wash I prefer using the original Kookaburra wash that has and smells like tea tree oil or Outback Gold wool wash that also has tea tree oil. I prefer either of these two for socks I have worn because Tea Tree Oil is an antiseptic / anti bacterial / anti fungal properties to help kill any funk that might be in my socks and want to grow and cause problems for my feet.
Monday evening, I hadn’t really felt like finishing up the Road to Rhinebeck socks so I cast on the first of many Christmas socks. I decided to start with the yarn called “little drummer boy” it is the darkest of all then Christmas yarn I recently ordered, so I decided I would tackle it first before our weather and days get much darker and dreamer, leaving the brighter colorways to work as the days get even shorter and rainy.
With the socks I just cast on, I went back to my good ole’ trusty wooden needles that I prefer. I definitely do not like metal needles.
Hey Everyone!
I took the time yesterday to wash the three pairs of socks I had finished.
I went into the cupboard where I keep the washes for my hand knit goods. I have multiple brands of delicate wash / wool wash, and only a few I actually seem to use, and in different situations. It also seems that each yarn store I have been to has their own preferred brand of yarn wash. One store had Soak, my favorite yarn store back in the day when it was open carried Eucalan, and at the studio I worked at we used The Laundress New York Wool and Cashmere Shampoo.
I also have Kookaburra Original and Outback Gold washes on hand.
My favorites / go to washes are the Wool and Cashmere Shampoo from The Lundress New York for new Knits and washing anything but socks as needed. I also love the original (not lavender scented) Kookaburra wash when I can get it for washing socks once I have worn them. The Outback Gold works well too, and it has been a little easier to come by lately.
I like the Wool and Cashmere Shampoo because it is formulated specifically for wool items (not just delicates), and I love the smell and consistency of it as well.
I like the Kookaburra and Outback Gold for socks I have worn as they both have Tea Tree Oil, which is claimed to have anti bacterial, anti fungal, anti microbial and antiviral properties. So I feel like it helps keep my socks from growing not so great stuff after being worn.
Now, after years of washing my knits and testing out different products, I finally have decided to stop trying different ones, just because I have washes that work good for me and what I make.
Hey Everyone!
This morning, before heading to a Dr’s appointment, I finished up the second Beach Bunny sock, completing my pair.
I busted tail to get this pair of socks done since the last pair seemed to take forever. I literally went from about row 45 on the leg of the second sock, going into my weekend on Monday afternoon to finishing it up this morning.
This yarn is a Hedgehog Fibres sock yarn from Ireland than I picked up at For Yarns Sake in Beaverton, Oregon. It’s a lightweight yarn, good for summer hiking.
These socks were fun to knit up and see how the pattern work up. While they aren’t my favorite socks that I have, they are a great conversation pair because they are pretty.
One of the first pairs of socks I had made was with Hedgehog Fibres yarn, and they hadn’t turned out well, so I wanted to get Hedgehog Fibres sock yarn another go now that I am better at knitting socks and know what I am doing.
Hey Everyone!
This weekend (my weekend anyway) I finished up the pair of socks I had been working on.
This is the festival colorway, on the fern yarn base by Barker Wool. I had purchased this yarn at Starlight Knitting Society in Portland, Oregon.
This pair of socks took a while to knit up, in large part due to work and doctors appointments. The last one has been seemingly never ending for the past 3 months.
I also recently ordered some more yarn, like I already didn’t have enough. I ordered from Bad Sheep Yarn and Expression Fiber Arts.
The first picture is of my expression fiber arts order and the second is of my bad sheep yarn order. Expression Fiber Arts is from North Carolina and Bad Sheep Yarn is in North Pole, Alaska.
I definitely haven’t been posting much, since life has been so busy the past 3ish months, that I have been doing all I can to keep it together. It’s looking like August will be the last month where life is insanely busy as far as having medical appointments is concerned. I should hopefully have a couple month reprive, before the holiday ramp up occurs at work. I am also glad that it is looking like September and October should be more chill, and be calmer. Fall, and specifically October is my favorite time of year, and I want to be able to enjoy it.
The Knitter's Notes 
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