FIBER: Finished Objects

The Pandemic and the social isolation that went with it started for us after we got home from dinner on March 14. We had been out with several high school classmates. In public. At a restaurant. We had no idea that night how many would fall ill to the Coronavirus, and we certainly had no clue that we would have almost 600,000 dead in the United States. Amy did have to leave earlier on Sunday than she would've wanted in order to ensure that the Canadian border didn't close and leave her stranded in the US. 

She made it.

One of the things that extended periods of time at home afforded me was taking 2-3 days (DAYS) to clean out my closet where I have my clothes, but is also home to my yarn stash and lots of UFOs (unfinished objects). I pulled out all my stash and organized it by weight (fingering, worsted, bulky) and kits (a sweater kit, a shawl kit). I kept coming across all these UFOs. UFOs that I had forgotten I had! And ones that only needed the toes grafted to have a new pair of hand knit socks!

I found the patterns that went with the UFOs and bagged everything up.  And then I started turning the UFOs into WIP (works in progress). Here are some of them:

This was my toughest one. It was the only one for which I couldn't find the pattern that went with it. That, and the fact that it was a lace pattern that required one to know EXACTLY where they were (which row and which stitch) in order to have it turn out right. I went to Ravelry to search, using the search terms COWL, LACE, IN-THE-ROUND and FOUND IT. It took me going through about 450 patterns of the over 7000 matches. It was in my library and I printed it out: Merope's Cowl by Romi Hill. Then, looking at both the chart and the written pattern, and when I still couldn't confidently figure out where I was, I decided to rip back to the eyelets portion of the cowl and start knitting from there. (I actually had to do that twice, because after re-knitting about 15 rows, I somehow got "off" by one stitch and it threw the entire portion from that point on out of kilter!) But, within a week of finding the pattern, I had the cowl completed and blocked! It's made of the softest alpaca handspun, hand-dyed, and was a gift from a friend. I should've gone up a needle size for this but it blocked well and I will enjoy wearing it! (Truth be told: I didn't want to give it away!)

These two pairs of socks needed only to have the toes grafted to be completed. 

I think they were both completed when I was away from home and without the Sally Melville book with me, I'm still not capable of doing the Kitchener Stitch without looking at pictures to get me going. Once I do that, I'm ok with it, but I need the instructions first to get going. So these sat in a basket waiting for me to complete them. 

The sock pattern is what I call "Vanilla Sock" which is the plain sock pattern by Sally Melville in her The Purl Stitch book.

Another pair of Vanilla Socks, but this time knit from fingering weight yarn that I hand-painted in sock blank form. I love how they came out--very bright and cheery. First time hand-dying with the inimitable Holly Howard Dillaway on the hottest, most humid day of the year at the Covenant Church in Ashtabula.  That sure was fun, in spite of the heat. And, not nearly as hard as I feared!

These were a gift for Madison, Andrew's GF, who I like very much!

This shows the pattern of the The Shift cowl by Andrea Mowry. I love this pattern. It's "Potato Chip" knitting--you know, the kind where you just want to do "one more" row to see what happens to the pattern. I'm not sure if/how Mowry is associated with Spincycle Yarns, but the way they are plied and the way they knit up, Mowry's patterns (her "Nightshift" using this same stitch is on my TO DO list) are perfect for the variegated yarns.

Even the back side is pretty!

Adult Modular Cardigan Jacket. A fun knit that got heavier and warmer the farther along you got. I found that I had gained too much weight over the (many) years since I first started this and it wouldn't close in the front. So I added a panel to each front side before completing the i-cord binding along all the edges. I love both the yarn (Madelinetosh Pashmina) and the color (Nebula) but the back of the neck of the sweater lies on the back of my neck and gives me a headache. Feh. So, it was not my go-to sweater of the winter of '20-21 as I had hoped it would be. FEH.

This is a collaboration sweater. The collaboration was with Son #1 and me. He picked out the color of the body of the sweater and when he decided he wouldn't be caught dead in this sweater in the color he picked out, he decided that he "might" wear it with black sleeves. So I ordered black for the sleeves. But then he cooled off on the idea of this sweater in any case and it got stashed way in the back of the closet...until it was found!  Not sure anyone will be wearing it but Son #2 did fit into it...the pattern is the To-The-Cottage pullover by Sally Melville from her book The Purl Stitch.

I'm now working on Andrew's college graduation heirloom sweater, "Hugo" by Veronik Avery. He graduated in 2013 from The Ohio State University. 

Oh well....