A Day to be Thankful

For those in America, today is Thanksgiving.  So, let's get that out of the way first, Happy Thanksgiving!

There is so much in life to be grateful for, that it seems pretty sad that we only really devote one day to it, and even that somehow has turned into another holiday that has been high-jacked with in-store and on-lines sales perpetuating the myth that you need more and more things or "stuff" to be happy.

This year was the year of "stash downing", well until a week or so ago, but I will get to that!  The boys helped, TFB by weaving, which he is getting pretty good at.  And TOB with knitting.  It is funny, two boys following in their mother's steps with an appreciation for good yarn and a girl who turns her nose up at the thoughts of using fiber and prefers to play with rocks! (She makes jewelry, a lot of jewelry!)    I am thankful for the boys helping me use up some of my stash of yarn, because this year was the year that I was going to organize it properly!  Yeah, right, here it is November and today I finally started loading some of it into the Ravelry DataBase.  29 entries down, who knows how many more to go!  (That was only one drawer of sock yarn, and no I am not telling you how many more there are, and some acrylic that I got to make blankets during what proved to be the "stash downing, crash landing".)

I was doing so well, face it having one boy taking entire cones of yarn at a time, to warp a loom really does eat up stash, until Knit Picks had their CyberMonday Sale.  I always thought that CyberMonday was the Monday after Thanksgiving, but they ran theirs from the 16th to the 23rd, starting "promptly" at 9:00 am local time.  As luck would have it, I was home to be able to take a peek.

Dollar deals?  Sock yarn for a dollar? Aran weight Wool for one dollar?  I fell for the deals and I fell off the stash downing wagon hard!

Enough sock yarn for 5 pairs of socks, enough wool for a cabled sweater for me, some yarn for throw blankets for the kids and some lace weight alpaca for my next shawl (or the one after that!)  I think that every single yard of yarn I stashed down just got added back in.

And then there were the up to 80% off deals.

Hmm, I swear I am going back on the Yarn Diet!

Starting to Stash Down all over again!

Just to get it started off right, we have Winter Wheat, almost done.  I have slightly over half a sleeve and two cuffs to go and she will be ready for blocking and wearing!  (Excuse the messy desk, I had several other things going on at the same time!)
 
We also have the starts of a Chevron Cardigan. 

So,you  see I am already starting to stash down the new stash!

I have a lot to be Thankful for.  Yarn to knit with is certainly one of those things!

~M

I suppose I should find it funny

So, let's get the knitting content out of the way first, shall we?

Did you know that the wonderous Andrea Jurgrau, first known to me just as Bad Cat Designs has a new pattern out?  No plain shawls this time around, it is a center back out cardigan, and let me tell you it is fabulous.  If only I had time this week to work on it!

Of course, I had to cast on right away and got through the first couple of charts before other things had to take the front burner and leave the poor thing whimpering in my knitting bag. I have promised her that on Monday she will get some of my attention!

 I don't think I mentioned that I wrote up and published another knitting pattern.  Maybe I did and forgot about it.

Shield Socks.

You can buy the pattern on Ravelry, no account needed!


But on to what I found funny this week.

In case you didn't know, I have been around the block a few times.  Maybe even a few times too many, and although my children as still (barely in one case) teenagers, I am much older now than my mother was when she became a grandmother, so no spring chickens here.

For years I have known that somewhere in my learning to sew I learned to cross stitch and needle point backwards.  As in the threads that I work with,  cross the opposite direction to the way they are supposed to when I am finished.  And I know, that if I concentrate really hard on it I can turn it around, but as soon as my mind wanders and I set my fingers to automatic sewing back I go to the backwards sewing.

For years I have known that I work the purl stitch differently than the people who taught me, and the way most American knitting patterns are written - what you call a slip-slip-knit (ssk) I perform as a knit two together (k2tog) and I adapt everything I do so that my backwards shaping doesn't ruin the line of a raglan sleeve or have lace leaning in the wrong directions.  (The beauty of charted knitting, just follow the lean of the symbols and it all works out no matter if we call it a k2tog or an ssk.)

But today, today I learned of yet another thing I do backwards.

Apparently, I even tie slip knots backwards!

I suppose I should find it funny.  Maybe everything I thought I know how to do, I do backwards.  It would explain an awful lot of crazy things!

~M