Oogyknitter

I went a little wild with the plying earlier today.  First, the two bobbins of Only One and what there is of the first palate cleanser: As soon as these are marinated and skeined, I can start on the first of four remaining sections of the second giant ball of Only One roving: In the meantime, I have one open bobbin for the second palate cleanser, a sample of Romney that has some subtle patches of gold and purple in it: It's possible I'll get that spun later today or some time tomorrow! July Hat is done and awaiting its pom-pom.  I'm still contemplating whether I like it for a boy or a girl.  I'll post a pic soon so we can all scratch our heads together!

I watched a couple of knitting-related vlogs this afternoon, and for some reason that motivated me to finish spinning the first half of the Only One fiber.  I'm glad that Neuro talked me out of trying to cram the last bit onto one bobbin - as you can see they are both pretty full so that would never have worked: (The one on the right is only slightly more purple than the one on the left, but for some reason this lighting makes them look more different than they actually are!) These will marinate for a couple of days so that I can then wind them into balls and have a plying party! I'll still have the other half of that wonderful wool, which should be another four full bobbins in the end.  I will keep going!! In the meantime, I thought a palate cleanser of a small sample of merino/bamboo might be fun: About half an hour later, I had this: Good thing I have a wee niddy noddy for these smaller bits.  I'll take pics during that process as well! I think I...

Another new lily color has emerged, and these flowers look very different from all the others; in terms of shapes, they more closely resemble roses: I've been knitting on a bunch of things, but don't have any finished objects to report today, aside from the latest pair of mitts: These are made with the dwindling supply of specially-dyed Huntington from Neuro.  I have enough for one more pair, perhaps two if I Franken-yarn them together. July Hat is in the decreasing phase (where I have to change to double pointed needles and it gets all fiddly, ugh).  Even though I have it in mind to make it a man's hat, it still seems feminine to me.  I'll have to see if the finishing and blocking process puts any hair on its chest!!

It feels weird to have the windows open and cooler air coming through them, and even weirder that it has been raining softly all day as well.  I realize that it's summer and that it should be warm and sunny, but the last few days were really ridiculous.  Thankfully we had some AC in the right places, and didn't have to spend any time working outdoors. I spent some time catching up on the monthly hats.  Here is April: As you can see, it's a tam.  I'm not really a tam person, and this is honestly the first tam I've made.  The process is not much different than that of a regular hat - you just follow the directions - but the blocking involves a plate to keep the round flat part round and flat.  I think you can pretend that a tam is a regular hat when you wear it, but it's definitely shaped differently.  I think it turned out pretty nice otherwise.  I don't have an intended recipient, so it's joined the stash for future non-emergency knitting g...

Evidently deer don't like lilies.  Both are all over the place here, and the lilies are quite lovely.  I've been familiar with Tiger Lilies, and with what I've come to know as Day Lilies, but as of today we also now have some kind of red lilies (it's possible they are Ruby Spider Day Lilies?): I'm good with all of this - they are pretty, have lots of flowers, pretty much take care of themselves, and come back every year! In knitting news - I decided that May Hat didn't need any kind of pompom or other topper treatment, so it is all done and ready for its future destiny (whatever that might be!  Although Oogyhubby spied it earlier and I think will have his eye on it!): June and April Hats are blocking, which is taking forever in this humidity.  Pics to follow.  April got a self-pom, and June a small knotted i-cord.  July will be blue, and will need to let me know if it wants a modest self-pom or an i-cord. In active process:  Hocus Pocus...

The Sturm:  Today was the first of our boiling hot days as we are in the midst of our most intense sun angle for the year and now we're also in the process of sharing in some of the warm and moist air courtesy of the remnants of Hurricane Barry.  (I realize it's all relative - we've got nothing on the temperatures in Las Vegas or the flood threats in New Orleans, for example, but we're practically in Canada here!)  Today was a blazing 90 degrees until some of that hot air got caught up with cooler breezes coming off of the big lake.  These were lurking over our house when I arrived home this afternoon: (You can kind of see the hay-less field in the first pic.) Then a big wind and rain came, and there was some lightning.  I think it cooled off about 10 degrees.  Although not for long - we're supposed to be in for more of this kind of thing over the next few days.  I don't know how often I'll be running out into it, but at least you can get the...

I see today that I missed a step in the earlier part of the haying process - between whisking and baling, the hay needs to be raked into long mounds so that the baling machine can just suck it right in.  The farmers were here doing that first thing this morning.  Today they are baling the hay into blocks, and it is super fun to watch this because the baling machine shoots the block of hay up into the air and into the wagon that is pulled behind it all.  Not sure why they made round bales earlier, and are now making square ones - different customers, perhaps? I took a couple of pics on my way out this morning, before they got started.  Here is the field that has been whisked and is awaiting raking and bailing: Here is their ancient tractor and I think the whisking thing on the back of it (the tractor appears to be posing here!): I'll miss all of the haying excitement, but I see that there is more hay coming up under what has just been cut.  There shou...

The exciting haying adventures continue, but unfortunately without any additional pictures! Last evening they returned and worked until it was dark, spearing the round bales of hay with some kind of large dagger attachment at the front of the backhoe and placing each bale on the wagon.  There were two wagons and a backhoe, and I think two guys - and they worked until dark from what I can tell.  This morning there were several remaining bales of hay, but all in the goat-owner's field, too far off for my phone's camera.  When I returned from my morning errand, the backhoe had reappeared.  Mid-afternoon, they returned, filled two wagons with the remaining hay bales, and drove off, leaving us with the mover, attached tractor, and whisking attachment. My guess is that, since rain is in the forecast for tomorrow, they needed to get all of their hay (ours and wherever else they're haying) under shelter and/or shrink-wrapped, and that they will proceed with further mow...

I have no new lace knitting to report.  I blame this on the following: The intriguing cabling pattern of May Hat, and the fact that every other row is just K/P so why not just do one more row, and then see what the next one is like???  Before I know it, I'm done with the chart and ready for the decreases!!! The Mystery Shawl KAL - although you will probably notice that I've already changed the color order from the "final" order I shared yesterday, and I'm also about to re-knit it because instead of remembering that I'm typically a needle size smaller than what is called for, I went with the recommended needle size and am hating the outcome so will be re-knitting these sections: The hay farmer has arrived!  Every day brings a new piece of farm equipment with its accompanying tractor.  On Sunday, there was mowing: Yesterday there was whisking/fluffing: You want the hay good and dry, so sometimes you need to whisk it more than once.  It'...

I made it!! It is getting easier, mostly because I now know where I tend to mess up and so take precautions.  (Hint:  it's always on the wrong side, when the symbols are reversed!)  I hope to continue to add another few rows every day, with possible accelerations depending on how far ahead Neuro is and - how much I get distracted from this: This is the color order I'm going with for the mystery shawl KAL, which starts today.  I do need to wind all 12 skeins into balls fairly quickly, so I am putting the swift to work this morning. SRS #2 are nearly dry and will be posing for pictures soon.  I've progressed to the cable section for May Hat, and that chart has officially mounted the chart holder (now to find my cable needle!).  Still pending is the cast-on for Hocus Pocus, but perhaps I'll be a blur of knitting progress today and will get that done too?? In other news - there is this large bed of lilies in one still-damp section of the property ...

My lace goal for yesterday was to be where Neuro had paused on Thursday; she stretched out her work and texted me a pic, and it looked really awesome!  I thought - surely I can catch up to be just two days behind her, and so off I went: The only problem:  Neuro's pause was after Row 18!!  I'd misremembered it as Row 13.  I'd reached my target, but it was a bad target!!  Aarrrgh!!! So now I have a new target to be three days behind.  I'll plan to get past Row 18 later today.  I'm OK with this.  At some point, Neuro has to come up for air and an adult beverage, and I'll have a chance to close the gap! I did have a fairly positive experience with the last few rows:  many of them went really well, and there were no errors in them at all!  I had a couple of issues with one row, but all I needed to do was flip my work over, make the fix to the prior row (I think I'd dropped or forgotten a YO or similar), and continue along.  You ...

Continuing my victorious journey through the first repeat of the center panel of Dunella, in spite of sticking to the yarn due to the extremely hot and muggy weather we've been having this week, I managed to get through Row 8 and partway into Row 9 when something horrible happened.  I don't know exactly what, and I don't know exactly when, but I think I might have YO'ed when I should have SSK'ed.  This pattern was going well until the figures started reversing direction, and all this business about reading from left to right on the wrong side has got my corpus callosum all tied up in knots!  Needless to say, I'll be attempting Row 9 again today and hoping that I managed to figure it all out yesterday. In the meantime - The first pair of July Mitts, made with leftover Oogy Sock yarn! I also finished SRS #2; I'll have pics for you as soon as they're blocked! Next up (assuming I survive Row 9): more baby mitts, May Hat, and Hocus Pocus.  There may...

I don't want to get too carried away, but some of this fine lace knitting is starting to make some sense. First off - I've just completed Row 5 of the center panel, which makes me two rows further along today than I was yesterday: About this I am victorious.  I must have re-knit sections of Row 4 like 25 times, only to discover that I somehow - imagine how this could happen with single ply teeney yarn because I have no idea - split the yarn in one stitch.  Once I figured that out (which fortunately was closer to the end of the row so I didn't have too much to keep tinking back), I was good to go.  I then had to re-start Row 5 like 10 times, because I. Can't. Count.  Once I counted correctly, it all worked out - hardly a miracle, but I'm still celebrating over here. But I now know why the Shetland lace ladies use the long needles and the waist belt - they stretch out their work as they go so they can see what they're doing!  I can't tell you how ma...

I spent some focused time yesterday getting through the first lower border of Dunella, and also added my first lifeline after Row 11: I also spent some time watching a few videos on YouTube ( this one also has some particularly lovely scenery; this one (starts at about 39:00) includes the woman who wrote the Dunella pattern, Kathleen Anderson (thanks, Neuro, for pointing that out to me)!!), as well as reading a couple of articles, regarding Fine Shetland Lace.  Here are some of my thoughts: - This style of lace (COBWEB yarn, every-row pattern, Shetland wool) is a time-honored tradition that has been passed down through several generations of Shetlanders.  It's exciting and inspiring to be part of this experience! - Why have I let this stuff freak me out - it's just knits and YOs.  The Shetland lace knitters don't use stitch markers OR lifelines - they can read their knitting.  Now, I can usually read my knitting as well, except in the case of all those YOs...

Last night at about 5:00 the Dunella scarf looked like this: It was perfect.  Of course it was just a cable cast-on and a couple rows of garter stitch, but I was off to an awesome start!! Then disaster. I chose to work some more on it later in the evening.  For some reason, I thought that I could watch a video at the same time.  Oops!! What happened, you might ask?  Well - I blame my brain.  It switched modes on me midway through row 4 or 5.  I went from task mode to default mode .  I lost focus and therefore lost track of the counting.  I couldn't really tell where I was.  I might have panicked a little.  Then, when I was fussing with it, the left needle slipped out and some of the YOs went all over the place.  I thought I could recover - but after working a couple more rows I was back on track with stitch count but the motif was all messed up.  It was going to drive me crazy.  So I ripped the whole thing out a...