Oogyknitter

Happy Halloween Saturday and the eve of the end of Daylight Saving Time!  I hope this finds you well; we're good here! Fall Back = an extra hour!  Bonus!! I was telling you the other day about how another nephew will be getting married, and that this one has given us a bit more than a month's notice.  In fact, it will be another year, from what I hear! Wasn't I just talking about starting a new afghan as well?   Suddenly I put the two together and we've gone from Sharon's Glamping Blanket (courtesy of Casapinka) to the Next Nephew Wedding Afghan: Except the colors I've chosen will be blues/reds/purples.  The yarn is on its way, so I can show you a pic very soon! In other knitting news - I've finished the first sock of the second set of yoga socks, and have just cast on for the second sock. In wildlife news - Oogyhubby saw a giant fox right in our driveway the other night!  Earlier in the week there was a huge flock of black birds hanging around for a c...

Yes it is!  I hope this finds you safe and well; we're good here. The Casapinka KAL Cowl is blocking: I've said all along how this was such a super fun project.  Each section went quickly and even though I totally messed up one of the stich patterns, I really like how it turned out!  By way of reminder, all of these yarns were from the stash.  Doubling laceweight so that it creates a fingering weight yarn has opened up a whole new set of possibilities! I also just realized that there is yet another nephew planning to be married.  This one, at least, is planning a year ahead, so next October (at least that's what I'm hearing).  They'll be getting the Glamping Blanket that is among the next of the Casapinka KALs, in the bulky yarn.  There's another shawl in there somewhere, too - no idea where that will end up! The yarn for my mom's Xmas gift arrived today - if all goes according to plan, I'm going to make her a rainbow of kitchen towels!  I'm going...

A very happy Sunday to you!  I hope this finds you well; we're good here. The day is still young, but it's already been a great weekend!  Due to their bad luck with travel scheduling, we had the benefit of a bonus visit from the Ws last evening!  We all had a blast, especially Benson, who may have wanted to keep Mr. W as his play friend.  At one point they were playing a combination of fetch and hide-and-seek, and Benson nose-booped Mr. W when he found him in the kitchen! And - I've got some finishing work going on, starting with the first pair of yoga socks: The second sock is drying on the sock blocker, so I'm calling these done!  The color patterns worked out to be very close to each other, which was a nice bonus! Not to spend too much time celebrating, I immediately cast on for the second pair - it's a completely different yarn/color, but the pattern is the same.  I'll post a pic once I've made some more progress. Neuro suggested that we have a finishin...

Hello on this rainy Tuesday!  I hope you're safe and well; we're good here.  I completed the final clue for the Casapinka Cowl KAL last evening: Of course there are 8 billion ends to work in, and I haven't even worked in the ends on the KAL shawl that I finished knitting a month ago now, but I like them both a lot! I continue to make progress on the yoga socks, and will be winding some yarn for upcoming projects. Speaking of which - October Gift was released today, and it's a beret.  So - Neuro is already covered with her awesome new line of colorwork hats, and I have some super bulky yarn that I'm curious about trying, so hats it is!  I'm off in search of a pattern. In other news, this weather makes me want to do more stuff in the kitchen.  Lately I've been on a homemade crouton kick, mostly because I keep forgetting to buy croutons when I get salad fixins.  And I had a bunch of old (somehow non-moldy) bread in the fridge.  Dust on a bit of oil (butte...

Happy Sunday!  I hope you're safe and well on this lovely Autumn day!  We're good here! I realize we're in the middle of a whole lot of upheaval right now, but I wanted to focus on some happier aspects (well, yarn is always happy, even when it's wrong and has to be started over). One of the reasons I'm so happy today is that I had QUITE THE AWESOME DAY yesterday.  I ended up with an impressive lineup of virtual and live visits with dear friends! In the morning I got to spend time with LL and her snoring pug.  LL is the one who connected me with my upcoming gig, although she's terrific for a lot of other reasons as well! The Ws paid us a live visit that afternoon - although it was bittersweet since it's the last visit we'll have in any form until they're headed back to FL.  But we had a great time talking, knitting, and playing fetch with Benson.  Who, by the way, did not try to eat them at all, and had lots of fun with everyone. As soon as they left,...

TGIF!!!  I hope this finds you well!  We're good here. Late this afternoon it seemed like a good idea to make a couple of small changes to my daily routine: That's a yoga sock (second one of this pair!) instead of a cowl, and a martini instead of a Manhattan (mostly because I'm running low on bourbon yet again!).  Yeah, really shaking things up over here! We continue to have the most lovely Autumn weather, punctuated by a bit of rain mostly in the evenings.  It's dark now when we get up in the morning, even if we're up a bit later than usual.  More and more often we need to carry flashlights with us when we take Benson out! Speaking of Benson - the Ws are taking their lives into their hands again tomorrow afternoon so that they can visit one last time before heading back to FL.  We'll remain masked and socially distanced (well, not Benson, he's canine-immune, evidently).  I'm looking forward to a couple of other virtual visits with friends tomorrow as ...

So Happy It's Thursday!  I hope you're safe and well; we're good here. Not in my wildest dreams did I think I'd complete Clue 3 prior to the reveal of Clue 4 tomorrow, but it happened: This has been a super fun project, and I'll be sad to see it come to an end! I've been working on a special project, but somehow I managed to finish the knitting on it as well.  I'm starting a new gig next week (very exciting!), so I've taken a bit more time than usual this week to spend on the knitting.  I don't expect that will last past this week, but it's certainly been productive.  More pics to follow! In the meantime, the Ws risked life and limb by visiting in person (be-masked and socially distanced) in order to continue Benson's socialization.  It seems that he may have remembered them, as there was minimal drama when they arrived.  He accepted treats, played fetch (of course), and a bit of tug-of-war.  There were a couple of sudden barking/lunging mome...

So Happy It's Thursday!  I hope you're well; we're good here. I'm not sure why Benson was on such a tear yesterday, but his ingestion of non-food items continued into the afternoon.  (Don't worry, there are no pictures.) First there were the mouthfuls of grass.  I'm told that some dogs like to eat grass, and that it's OK, they only rarely throw it back up again.  I guess some grass tastes good?  We don't treat the grass, and (with two exceptions) he doesn't really eat that much of it, so we don't fret if Benson grabs a bite here and there when we're out walking. Exception #1: When Oogyhubby mows, and the mower leaves behind what I've come to think of as Soylent Green disks - although they're grass, not people, LOL (perhaps hamster food might be a better description?).  They're like compressed bunches of grass that have come off of the lawnmower.  Benson makes a beeline for these - concentrated goodness.  They seem a bit much for h...

Guess what day it is??????  I hope you're safe and well; we're good here. We knew from the first day he arrived that Benson liked to surf wastebaskets for tissues and paper, so into the cabinets they all went.  I'm waiting for the day when he figures out how to unspool the toilet paper.  We've been fortunate so far, particular in these times, LOL. So I should have known better than to leave a draft of a project I'm working on with a friend on the floor unattended.  I left the room for no more than five minutes.  I returned to see Benson chowing on it; here is what he managed to do in that short period of time: And he didn't just shred it like a normal dog, he ate the pieces!  Given all of the other things that have travelled through his tiny dog innards, I'm not yet too concerned, but I'll definitely need to Benson-proof my study.  Brewster once ate parts of two library books, thereby beginning his very own library (because we had to buy them!), but I ...

Happy Monday!  I hope this finds you well; we're good here! It seems that I spent the weekend knitting up a storm in addition to virtually visiting with several friends! Again, I completed this week's Casapinka Cowl KAL clue in jig time: I expect we're at the halfway point.  My experience with her cowls is that they run long - which I like, all the more to bunch them up and look fabulous!  (I'm sure she published the finished dimensions, I just never looked, LOL)  I also love going around and around in circles with cowls, for some reason the work seems to go faster. There may be another Casapinka cowl in my near future as well.  Just sayin. I also completed the first yoga sock while binge-listening to a podcast.  Neuro had asked if the socks would match, and I didn't think they would - the color repeat is very long.  However, it's possible that they will match after all, at least that's how it looks right now.  I'll keep you posted! In other news ...

Sure Happy It's Thursday!  I hope this finds you well and safe; we're good here. Also, it's October again!  Time to sing along with U2 . There's no magic formula about the yoga socks, but here's what I do: - Cast on a multiple of 4; often times it's 64 or 68 - K1P1 for as long as you like (most times, about an inch or so) - Change to K2P2 until 6-7" in length (in total, again as long as you like) - Bind off 1/2 of the number of stitches you have in pattern; in this case, I have a total of 64, so bind off 32 -  Cable cast on 32 - K2P2 around, making sure you've got 64 in total again.  It's OK to pick up a couple of extra stitches to close any gaps, you can always K2tog on the next round to get rid of them (nothing to see here, I do this for "normal" socks all the time!) - Continue for another 3.5" or so (as long as you want!) - Change to K1P1 for another inch or so; bind off in pattern. Voila! Here's what the first one looks like i...