Knitting during a pandemic

I don't want to labour a discussion of the times. We have had a pretty easy time of it here in Nova Scotia and let's hope it stays that way.

However this affects everyone and we are all staying close to home more than usual and there is a sort of anxiety running in the background. I now only check the news once a day and told my husband that if he is going to listen to things more often than that would he please put on headphones - some voices I don't need to hear in this house.

I am trying not to add to anyone's angst myself and to focus on things that are more enduring than this moment in time. Nature, children, dogs, cooking, ordering fabric.

And I have returned to knitting in the evenings.

Now I am a garment sewist through and through and I put a lot of effort into my sewing. I am particularly interested in construction details and techniques.

To me knitting is about none of that. I realize how innovative and technical knitting has become but that's not why I knit. I knit like a sort of repetitive meditation. Round and round without a lot of thinking. Like those Buddhist monks in Japan who spent their lifetimes raking gravel into patterns as sort of a religious practice. When I first talked to someone who had gone on a Buddhist retreat and did just this for a couple of months I have to tell you it didn't make a lot of sense to me. My cultural background is big on the useful activity and sitting down or any activity without a meaningful output was just not on the books.

However these days when there is too much incoming to handle all at once the idea of stopping a raking the gravel, or knitting the same stitches for hours if not days at a time, is starting to make sense to me. It's like you jump off the train for a bit onto the platform to catch your breath and let a few of those trains just pass you by.

So committed to non-demanding knitting in my evenings has meant some basic circular knitting with easy patterns. I just don't need to be doing anything right now that requires me to stop and watch a YouTube video to figure it out. 

You get what I mean?

Any of you learning a new language at the moment?

See what I mean.

As a result I have been knitting a lot of socks and a few sweaters. The first of these, appropriately, was the "Homebody" pattern by Heidi Kirrmaier. I had some Eco wool in a bin and knit this up for my daughter. I left it at her house and she sent me back this picture with the message "It fits perfectly."

The fit around the shoulders and neckline in particular is outstanding and due to the placement of the raglan lines. Since this is a seamless top down pattern (I love hand sewing but completely hate sewing sweater pieces together) it is hard to get a nice fit without a lot of shaping but I think this one does it. I think I will knit myself one too once I have figured out a decent online yarn source. I know where to order fabric but not yarn and I am not feeling like hitting the stores at the moment.

As far as patterns go it was pretty cryptic. Heidi is an excellent designer but has a technical professional background and her instructions were very efficient but all charts and numbers. Being numerically challenged, and highly text based,  in a few places I wrote the instructions out in words to I would stay on track, but you wouldn't probably need to do that. I intend to knit more of Heidi's patterns and maybe won't even need to do that myself again now I have a better understanding of the logic of her patterns.

The second sweater I knit was for myself from Ann Budd's really interesting Book of Sweater Patterns. This is a great resource for folks like me who only want to knit something simple and hate fooling around with gauge. Basically you knit a swatch first with a needle size and yarn you like, measure the number of stitches per inch and then match the gauge you already have to the numbers you need to cast on etc. according to the size you want.

Did I explain that correctly?

Anyway it's a pretty relaxed approach to low key sweater knitting and that suits me just fine at the moment. Here I am in a basic dropped shoulder, knit in the round with no seams to sew, V neck. I am wearing my favourite poplin antique pull on shorts and some pretty weird glasses.

The moral of the story with the glasses is if you go into the optometrist's and announce "I need something bright and cheerful" and you only try on the glasses with a mask on over your whole face when you go back to pick up these glasses they might be pretty bright turquoise. The six-year-old thought they were outstanding, my daughter, his mother thought they would be just fine for wearing around the house. 

There is of course a real possibility too that at this stage of the game I worry more about cheerful than looking like a maniac.

Now tell me what you are doing? What are your own current self soothing activities? Any of you knitting too? Reviving lost activities? (I have also considered hauling out some 30 year old cross stitch patterns).

How are you mediating? How do you manage to actually do that? What is your mediation equivalent?

Seems to me ideas on this are worth sharing.

Families, helmets, knitting and toy soldiers

Update from the vacation.


My wonderful, funny, smart, interesting stepdaughter and her sweetheart have arrived for a week. (This is what you risk when you come stay with me and I am taking pictures).

They live in England and both work for a booming business that makes and sells toy soldiers and things to enact historical battles. It took me a while to get my head around the fact that there is such a huge market for this, but then again you folks out there are fascinated by interfacing. I rest my case.

 We are having a lot of fun.


I have also discovered that Kristen has started to knit. This is a baby blanket she is making for a friend, her first ever project out of Rowan wool/cotton. I am going to show her to cast off.

I have also been knitting and here are the latest socks. Please note how the pattern matches identically on each sock. This was a total accident and no one was more surprised than me.

We are off this morning to go shopping. Kristen would like some sock wool and for me to teach her sock knitting and I have decided I need to update my accessories. I hate clothes shopping but man do I love shopping for accessories.


I shared this thought with my spouse who went out and made this addition to my accessory wardrobe:

I am not sure we are totally on the same page on this one. But off we go.

Midnight express

I am sitting up most nights doing Christmas knitting. Last night I finished this hat for my nephew in Winnipeg. It's a pattern used by knitting volunteers for soldiers in the Israeli army and is fun and easy to do. Of course if you aren't watching TV movies at the same time your stitches would be neater. 


On that subject though, what's up with Jennifer Aniston? I swear I have watched three movies of hers in the last couple of weeks and that girl hasn't cracked a smile once. How do you make so much money just from looking crabby?


Maybe she should knit. Or sew.

Found them

Between paper marking I walked around my sewing room and found where I had hidden my missing pair of gift socks from myself.


Literally had to retrace my steps. There is too much random stuff flying around in my head this week and bouncing off the inside of my brain.


So here they are, evidence that I just don't watch the news ...


They are actually more or less the same size - I think it is the angle of the shot that makes the one in the foreground look larger.


Back to papers.

What's also going on

The calendar is telling me this morning that once again I am not going to fulfill the resolution I made last December 25th at about 11:00 p.m. to be more organized this Christmas. 


I will be lucky to get my marks in and next term ready by then and at least two of my white shirts done.


One thing I have been doing is knitting for a bit in the evenings. My idea is to try and make one home-made thing to go with the bought presents at least. Here are the socks I have made for my 11 year old niece:

And the scarf I started last night while I was watching Dancing with the Stars (my mom called me especially to make sure I didn't miss it - they are all super indignant about Bristol Palin - with Sarah strategically posed behind the judges so she is in the shots - will some one please pack up that crew and send them home- permanently) for my 10 year old niece Sophia who is still in the pink and purple stage.

I also made some really nice socks for my daughter but I can't show you those. 


I put them away in a safe place so she wouldn't find them in case she came over and started looking around my sewing room and I can't find them anywhere.


Not anywhere. 


I do this all the time before Christmas, hide things away and then end up hiding things only from myself. I have torn the place apart this morning and all I can say is that they must be in a really safe place.


Busy day today, will have another go later.


I have yet more marking to do and am on alert for the mailman. My daughter is having trouble finding a snow suit for the baby - she is a size 2 at top and a size 3 at the bottom (see how young this nonsense starts?) that is warm enough.


So I have volunteered to "whip one up" and am waiting on patterns from both Jalie and MacPhee Workshops so I can get started. Which ever one comes first is the one I am cutting.


In the meantime the Case of the Missing Christmas Socks is going to bug me.

Knitting

  

I am not a great knitter but I do enjoy it.

Unlike sewing which is a pretty obvious activity to people, you can maintain some level of creative output during social times, my entire family are mega conversationalists, myself at the front of the line, without appearing too distracted if you knit while you talk.

I started this holiday season struggling in quiet desperation with Lopi yarn. Lopi is made in Iceland from I assume Icelandic sheep and logic would

suggest that anything knit from Lopi yarn would be warm, which in Nova Scotia in winter is generally a good thing. The trouble with Lopi yarn however is that it is about as bouncy and flexible as steel wool (poor cold, tough sheep) so having invested in a fair bunch of this stuff I have knit and unknitted 3 whole sweaters of the same yarn this year, all because each product was rejected by the recipient as being too stiff, tight and uncomfortable. ( I sew for myself, knit for other people). These were 3 sweaters that I completely unraveled and started again, mainly because I am as stubborn and as stiff about somethings, like wasting money, as an Icelandic sheep.

Finally I found these great free designs from Norway and a simple pattern for a garter stitch dog walking jacket for my daughter. Finally I was able to make something that had some stretch to it with this yarn and she loved the sweater, as rough and rustic as it is. And most importantly that Lopi is now of my house.

With a few remaining balls of Lopi I also made some felted mitts, that in Lopi are Arctic duty warm and completely wind and water proof.

I actually enjoy making felted mitts, because the felting, which I do by hand, sometimes even in my nightly bath, is fun and all your knitting mistakes disappear. For those of you who haven't done it yet, felted mitts are knit large and then scrubbed in hot water until they matt and shrink. The blue pair here (knit in a lighter worsted weight here and not so steel like) is a before and after.

I should emphasize, in case anyone thinks I know what I am doing, that it is very, very important to establish that the yarn is all wool before you start this. I had a lovely mystery wool pair made for my son and I spent the 24th of December locked in the bathroom scrubbing away in boiling water to try and make those suckers shrink. To cut to the punch line 30% silk yarn will not shrink. At all. However my Dr. Seuss mitts were great for comic relief Christmas morning and my belief has always been that any cause that produces a laugh is not totally lost.

Since then I have been knitting a compensation pair from some real 100% wool, but do suspect that I will run out of this unique yarn 75% of the way through the second mitt.

As a knitter my success rate is fairly consistent.

Another reason to enforce some quality sewing time tomorrow.