Summer Chronicles Part 1
It’s the last week of summer. Where did the time go? This summer I had plans of pouring my time into this little business of mine, but that didn’t happen. Now, I did clean and organize my closet, spent 4+ hours organizing and filing all my knit, crochet, cross stitch patterns into the best filing tote bin, rest (there were lots of unintentional couch naps), reading, and of course, knitting.
The first half a of July was really a settling time, resting, tackling my closet, and generally just sorting out what I was going to do for my summer break. Usually I print a 2 month calendar on 1 piece of paper for July/August, so I can see the entirety of my break on one page, and put any activities/appointments/plans on it. As the days go by I cross them off, one-by-one.
Originally, I had grand plans of summer knits (way too many to actually knit during the summer break, but I now have quite the line up of projects to choose from as I finish them). I started by finishing my Sampler Shawlette. This is a great little project to take with you on your travels, and it uses 3 × 50g skeins, so a great stash buster or for leftover skeins from projects. As soon as I had finished that I picked up a Lakeside Shawl that I had started months ago, but put away. A friend’s family member was in the hospital, so I felt called to pick it back up, and finish knitting the shawl to give them as a Prayer Shawl. They were so pleased when I gave it to them. The size and colours were perfect, and their reaction went well.
Next up, was the Musselburgh hat by Ysolda Teague. In our family (on my Mum’s side) we do a secret Santa for Christmas, as we have become too big with cousins finding their partners. I decided to knit this hat for my person. What a great knit. I can see why it’s so popular. I used a fingering weight sock yarn in the colour Fiddle Leaf from Pine & Purl. If you need a small, mindless knit, I suggest this hat. With only a little bit of concentrating work at the beginning and end (for the increases and decreases), this is all knitting in the round.
Musselburgh Hat
Somewhere in there I knit a swatch of code in my knitting, as an example for Book Club when I will lead the discussion on the book The Resistance Knitting Club by Jenny O’Brien. This was a challenge for me, as I was trying to compute how to knit the code into the swatch so that it would be the right way round. There was a lot of overthinking, but I was trying to sort out how code would be put into knitting if knitting socks and sweaters top down, or bottom up, then it’s different if you are knitting a scarf flat. Once I got it sorted out, bottom up, right to left, like a lace chart, I knit up my little swatch quickly.
My swatch with code knit into it.
For myself, I started the Ripple Camisole by Jessie Mead Designs. It’s a 3×3 ribbed camisole. Another mindless knit. This was my project that I took to knitting group each week, because I had a large circumference to knit (over 200 sts), in the round for 14+ inches. I used 2 skeins from my Peggy May Yarns Anne of Green Gables collection. It turned out so good.
The beginnings of my Ripple Camisole.
Along the way I made a few cup sleeves and some mobiles with crocheted dragonflies, butterflies, and flowers.
That was all for July. Come back for Part 2, where I talk about my August projects.
