It is a good thing that I didn’t proclaim as a New Year’s resolution that I’d be writing two or three posts a week because I was shut out of posting again by work on the house. I had purchased indoor shutters for my bedrooms, which were delayed because Hurricane Sandy damaged the factory that makes them. So last week some workdays were lost during the shutter installation and the electrical work on the ceiling lights for those rooms. I made up the work hours on other days and weekends, and blogging and other housekeeping chores were the casualties. (Vacuuming is still on my to-do list, so you can see how I rate that in terms of importance.)
But I’m absolutely thrilled at the results, particularly in my knitting/sewing room.
It is now looking less like a bedroom and more like the “woman cave” I intend it to be. There will be more work on that room eventually, but my decorating dollars are being allocated to the living room and kitchen for the foreseeable future. With the purchase of those cheap shelves from Target to hold my knitting book collection and some notions, it is now time to get it organized.
That formidable task will take a long time, and I’m not putting a due date on its eventual completion. For now, I’ll be starting with my knitting needles—mostly because I can never seem to find the ones I need. The set of drawers on top of the shelves, purchased from the Container Store, holds my straights, circulars, and dpns, but not my interchangeable sets or the sets of Knit Picks dpns, which come in their own plastic sleeve. I do like having the interchangeables in one place, so one of the shelves in the Target book case will have to house the miscellaneous needles that aren’t in the drawers. The needles in the drawers may be misfiled. I’m sure that a burglar has not entered our house and made off with the “missing” ones (leaving my TV and computers untouched), so I’ll be on the hunt to see where I squirreled them away.
I also discovered another box of knitting books. Those books aren’t shelved. Although that bookshelf might seem deceptively neat, it is really a jumble.
Despite the disruption in getting work done last week, I did knit. DS informed me on the first day of last week’s cold snap that his gloves never showed up when he unpacked his clothing (which was removed from his closet and stored in the garage and basement prior to having the floors finished and room painted). I volunteered to knit him a pair of the warmest mittens I could imagine, and I used bits of leftover Morehouse Merino (two-ply, in natural, undyed shades). The pattern is from Folk Mittens. These are the Salish (Cowichan) mittens, and the pattern was very easy to follow. I wanted something that required no modifications because I needed them in a hurry—and all worked as planned.
I decided to use the weaving-in method for the colorwork to prevent floats from catching on Will's fingers. It was a nice practice piece for the method I'll be using later in the year on my Philosopher's Wool sweater.
The mittens were also knit as a public service because whenever I finish a heavy wool garment, it becomes unseasonably warm. So today we’re basking in about 50° weather. Although it is gray and damp, it isn’t in the teens.
One reason I’m back on track with my work hours is that I appear to have some sort of respiratory virus that is keeping me from swimming and the gym in general. I doubt if this is the flu because I don’t feel that sick (just unpleasantly stuffy), and it is definitely not the Noro virus because I’m eating much more than I should for just sitting around without exercise. So while I am stuck at home and waiting around for it to go away, I might just take a lunch break and sort those needles.
It's my dpn heap that I'm forever struggling with. They are all in one glass and every time I want a set I have to work through them with a needle gauge. I really need to sort them out but I can always find an excuse to do something else.
I'm a floater rather than a weaver but I have a sweater where even the three stitch floats on the lice were caught. It looks very like your last photo.
Posted by: Caroline M | February 02, 2013 at 03:43 PM