Long Weekend

I sorta fell off the face of the earth for a few days there, sorry everyone. I’m back now. I switched my sleep schedule back to normal for the holiday and that tends to result in both K and I passing out on the couch at 7:30 pm and waking up at 2 am with sore necks. I’ve been struggling a bit with staying up all night lately, I’m trying to decide if the benefits are worth the troubles. Anyways, hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend, or regular ol’ weekend for any readers not in America (as most of you are not).

It was in the 50s on Friday which is unseasonably warm but a most welcome reprieve. K had some secret Black Friday/Birthday shopping to do so I stayed home to rake all the leaves out of the front yard. Not an entirely un-enjoyable task, at least the weather was nice, but my hands hurt so bad from rake. Even now, three days later, the bones in my hands feel like they’re bruised. That didn’t stop me from knitting though. I knit an entire pair of socks these past few days – all that’s left is the kitchener toe and to weave in the ends. It’s my first of five (???) holiday gifts this year.

I also got to see my best friend and her family this weekend. My town is situated conveniently between her Husband’s family in Illinois and her family in Wisconsin. We were able to meet up for breakfast in between baby naps and catch up. Saturday we took a lovely little hike at Glacial Park. I basically spent the weekend trying to soak up as much sunlight as I can for the last couple weeks of Autumn.

I’ll go back the knitting posts tomorrow and finish those off over the next few days.

#FridayFavorites Halloween

I love this time of year, and every year it sneaks up on me (so spooky haha). I never end up doing anything besides eating a bunch of cheap candy and then feeling sick. So in honor of that, here’s some cute spoopy hallowing patterns I forgot about knitting until it’s too late.

Spooksockular Halloween Socks by: Theresa Ehlers

Theresa Ehlers

Theresa Ehlers

These socks remind me of socks my sister and I had as kids. They were super cheap and scratchy and always made my feet sooo sweaty because they were basically just plastic. But they were cute to see peek out between our dumb Mary-Janes and our too short jeans. Anyways, this pattern is like the sophisticated, nostalgic feeling version of those socks.

Boo Pullover by: Rae Blackledge

Willow Yarns

Willow Yarns

It’s hard not to include children’s clothes in something like this. Most of the halloween knits are for kids and babies. If someone really wanted to do that math, this could probably be worn by an adult. It’s cute without being cutesy. Also almost every Halloween in my experience has been close to freezing, sometimes it snows so this would definitely be warm. On the other hand it seems really funny to me to knit a child’s garment that would be appropriately worn for like two weeks of the year. Still cute though!

Tiny Pumpkin by: Anna Hrachovec

Anna Hrachovec

Anna Hrachovec

If I had orange yarn I would cast on right now. I’m a big fan of everything Anna knits and these are just so fun. They probably take less than an hour to make. You could have handfuls after one good Netflix binge.

#FridayFavorites

Last weekend I made the coziest pair of sweater socks. I made both socks in like 36 hours which didn’t even seem real to me since I usually knit with needles no larger than US 2. They knit up so quick and easy that I made a hat the next day in practically one sitting (It could have been one sitting, but I woke up the next morning and didn’t like the crown decreases so I ripped that all out and made it better). I’ve got them all blocking in the kitchen right now and hope to have a pattern worked up sometime this weekend, but the weekend tends to get away from me.

Studland by: Clare Devine 

I’m really not even sure why I’m so drawn to these. Usually I’m interested in more textural pieces or crazy colorwork pieces but there’s something so simple about these that I just love. I do really just love the yarn color and I was drawn in by the ‘lifestyle’ photos. Lifestyle photos are something I’m not very good at when photographing my own work, granted it’s pretty difficult to take normal looking pictures of your own feet when you don’t have a tripod or an adorable apartment.

Ola Sokken by: Lill C. Schei

I’ve been kind of obsessed with gray and white and gray and yellow lately and these bring the best of those together. They’re geometric and fun and would certainly keep your toes warm all winter.

Keel by: Brenda York

I just love how classic these socks are. They would make a great gift for anyone and would look great in any color combo. They make me think about sitting a porch watching autumn leaves fall drinking a cup of hot cider.

 

Autumn Adventures

Yesterday the sun came out for like four whole hours in-between the bouts of endless dreariness and rain we’ve been having. The weather seems to be affecting me way more than I’m used to. I’ve been having a lot more panic attacks and days where I just feel like I can’t/don’t want to do anything at all. The Boy and I decided to take advantage of the sunshine – even though he was going on 18 hours of being awake. We drove over to the local nature preserve  and went for a little hike.

Fall weather definitely fucked us up. In our ongoing game of temperature chicken we’ve gotten used to it being pretty cold all the time. We checked the weather before we left – 67 degrees – pretty much the same as in the house. We left with jackets and scarves… Not ten minutes in we were stripped down to t-shirts and sweating our asses off. Despite the swamp ass we had a nice little walk and enjoyed some nature and then promptly took a two hour nap.

#FridayFavorites

Since I’ve spent the week wishing I could wrap myself in as much warm shit as possible and it looks like its going to rain all weekend – tanking my very limited social engagement… here’s a few of my favorite warm and cozy looking things I wish I had the yarn and patience to knit.

Stornaway Throw by: Anita Grahn

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/stornoway-throw

I think at one point I planned on knitting this for my mom. Theres just something about those cables and the drape of this fabric that makes me want to snuggle up under it. It’s intimidating to buy all that yarn though because theres always a solid chance I’d get bored half way through.

Yoga Shawl by Andrea Mowry

Andrea Mowry

Andrea Mowry

Andrea Mowry

I think this pattern is the perfect excuse to wear a giant blanket around all the time. I really like how many different ways this can be worn. I could probably get a lot of stuff done while also being wrapped in a blanket.

Persian Dreams by: Jenise Hope

Jenise Reid

liesbraam

HelenKnitsUK

I have been drooling over this pattern for a loooong time now. I don’t even have a good reason for not knitting it already. Stranded knitting is kind of my shit. I just don’t know what color way I would go with. I like the simplicity of two colors or the muted colors but the first image is just so striking and fun.

 

#WIPWednesday

Its another dreary, gloomy day. I’m playing the annual fall game of chicken with the weather – see how long we can freeze in the house before I have to turn the heat on. The weather might win this one early as I’m wrapped in two blankets on the couch, the cat hasn’t left his pillow in hours, and The Boy has the mattress heater turned on while he sleeps. My coffee went cold. I’m avoiding the shower because I don’t want to deal with wet hair for the next four hours. I wanted to quilt something today but my studio feels colder than the living room for some reason. It’s really very tempting to just stay under all these blankets binge watching something and knitting away at my shawl.

http://www.ravelry.com/designers/kristen-mclaren

But alas the lure of feeling productive beckons. As of yesterday I’ve officially been publishing knitting patterns on Ravelry for one year. Today I have ten patterns available!   Thinking about it blows my mind. I’ve recently decided to get very serious about producing patterns. I started by having my last pattern test knit. I put out a call on Instagram and a few people agreed to help me out. This ended up being a mostly disappointing experience. For my latest pattern, I went with a professional Tech Editor. So far it’s been really good, although getting my first draft back was like getting a term paper back covered in red marks. It forced me to really edit myself though and I ended up reworking a bunch of stuff I was too lazy to deal with in the first draft. All good things. Much learning.

Anyways – since I’m kind of refusing to leave my nest on the couch today except for more tea and the resulting potty breaks – It’s time to go through my old patterns and apply some things I’ve learned over the last year to fix ’em up.