Peace found me on Christmas morning. I felt able, finally, to take a deep breath and notice the beauty.
Merry Christmas!
Its cold here in Central Oregon and in the morning, when I get in the car, my poor hands don't want to touch the steering wheel, they want to stay warm.
The new scarf: Leaf and Vine. Its four leaves hanging from a thin vine that goes around your neck. I think: Funky. Not sure I'd actually wear this but you never know until its finished as I learned from last month's scarf.
This month's yarn is Nashua Hand Knits 'Cilantro' 136 yards of 70% cotton and 30% polyester, it feels like microfiber. Color: Soft Green, to look like a vine and leaves.
Once again, this is a pattern that if seen by me flipping through a pattern book, would be passed right over without a second glance. However, in this challenge I've set for myself, I must knit whatever they send and learn something from it.
November gratitude: I'm thankful that my family is coming to my home to celebrate Thanksgiving and I get to plan a menu, shop for groceries, and prepare food, all things I love to do.
October's scarf is finished and it actually turned out pretty nicely. It just goes to show, you can't judge a scarf by its picture.
To understand the scarf, you have to knit it up and feel the yarn in your fingers, you have to experience the pattern. This pattern was one of the easiest patterns yet to memorize which makes the knitting a little more enjoyable.
And the scarf turned out so nicely, it just might be a good gift.
October's sock yarn is a beautiful, mixed green with tones from forest to moss called Morgaine. The yarn is Kells Sport Merino - 100% superwash merino in 330 yards. Like all of Sharon's work, this skein's colors are deep, rich, and full. This will make such a pretty sock, I'm thinking of using the Monkey sock pattern for this month's sock.The extra that came along with the package this month is a pattern for a knitting bag meant to hold a sock project and some yarn to make it with. The bag pattern was designed by a member of the Yarnista sock club. The yarn is 100% cotton. You can't tell from the photo due to the shadow effect (its still sunny in Central Oregon!)so I'll just say the cotton yarn is brown.
September's projects are coming along and should be completed soon so I can get to the next projects in line.
This is the scene in October:
My next sock - basic sock pattern in stockinette in the beautiful, September colorway of Sandcastle. The picture does not do it justice, this is a rich beige-salmon w/ flecks of purple, its SO pretty!
The yarn is so yummy that I can't put it down.
September's socks are finally finished. They turned out very nicely and fit just right - another successful Hedgerow sock and why I love this pattern.
I got a little sick of the color after awhile, Lagoon is not exactly one of my favorites. However, it does exactly match a sweater I own that I happened to be wearing while knitting it up. Should be a good wardrobe combination.
Now I've got to get busy with October's projects.
September's scarf for October knitting arrived long before I was ready to tackle its challenge. Which is good because it gave me some time to think about it. The finished product does not look like something I'd choose to make. Its called the Squiggle Scarf and the pattern wants you to cast on and bind off every first and second row of a four row pattern repeat. It makes some squiggly things on each edge. Hmmm
Finally, August's scarf for September knitting is completed. Its not a masterpiece by any means. Its not like the last two scarfs that turned out so nicely. This scarf is a little like the month of September was for me. It goes along smoothly for a little while then there's a mistake. There are several of them along the way. Its not that I didn't try to avoid them, in fact I even ripped back at one point and started over to fix a mistake but sometimes I never even realized I made the mistake until several rows later and by that time I just did not have the energy to change it. Its just going to be the 'September' scarf and remind me that sometimes, things don't always go smoothly.
September's shipment of the Three Irish Girl's Yarnista sock club yarn (for October knitting) is Finley Fingering in the Sandcastle colorway. This is a beautiful beige to light brown neutral color where the darker brown-ish color looks almost purple and lighter color looks almost pink. Its an amazing color that I think is going to need a stockinette stitch to show itself off. Finley Fingering is 100% superwash merino, 380 yards.
When September begins it still feels like summer, when it ends it feels and looks like autumn. This is just one of the reasons why I love the month of September so much, it spans the seasons and offers such diversity. When September begins, its still summer vacation by the time September's over, we're back to school. I also love back-to-school time, but it seems like it used to be so much easier.
Bob checks out the progress of the September scarf.
Now this is a pattern that moves along at a nice pace. Despite being just one size up from 0 which is of course, 1 and still pretty small needles, look how much faster its going. This is two days worth of knitting, enjoyable knitting might I add, and I'm getting somewhere. These may be finished by month's end.
Okay, I gave it a fair shot but it just didn't make the cut. The Honeycomb pattern, that is. Yes, I liked learning the new cast on technique and working from the toe up but there were a few things that let me know this sock would not get finished by month end, maybe not even by year end if I kept it up. It was in the best interest of the yarn and my goal of a pair of socks a month to make a tough decision.
I missed my one-year blogiversary on September 7th. My goodness how time has flown this last year. In many ways, related to my blog and crafting, it doesn't feel as though its been a year but in other ways related to my daily responsibilities, it feels like a long year.
Progress on September's scarf is slow.
The colorways to choose from for the Three Irish Girls August sock club were Arboretum or Lagoon. Meet Lagoon: my choice for August's yarn for September knitting. Along with the yarn we get a free pattern with the club shipment and this month I decided to knit up August's yarn into August's pattern, Honeycomb.
you are knitting fabric between the needles and there is no cast-on edge - magic!
July's sock club yarn has been knit up successfully into the beautiful Rhubarb sock.
The searching I did for the perfect pattern paid off, I really like this pattern and it looks so good on the socks. There was a bit of an error but I was able to overcome and only re-knit the first sock once. I'm very happy with my first Three Irish Girls sock-club yarn and ready for the next challenge.
I'm in the home stretch with July's sock-club sock. I'm working the toe decreases with the beautiful stitch-markers that were a gift from Sarah.
Here is August's club offering for September knitting. I think from now on I'm going to call it the September scarf. Even though I started out in June receiving the club shipment mid-month and knitting it the same month it arrived, it seems that Patternworks has decided to ship at the end of the month so that the shipment arrives on the last day of the month and knitting does not happen until the next month anyway. So, readers, we'll transition this August club offering into a 'September scarf', you with me?
. . . but so appealing to me right now! Susan Branch's seasonal cookbooks are so fun and inspiring. I was give the Summer book for my birthday more than a decade ago and loved it. A few years ago I found the Autumn book and now whenever the seasons begin to change I am drawn to the book and draw inspiration for cooking and decorating for the harvest season and back to school from it.
Not only does she have wonderful recipes of the season for snacks, side dishes, main dishes, full Thanksgiving menu with recipes, desserts, and drinks but she includes sidebars on crafts, gift baskets, decorating, entertaining, family memories, gardening and more. All written in her hallmark watercolor script and each page is painted with her beautiful and colorful watercolor paintings.
These books are fun just to look through even if you don't try her wonderful recipes. They will fill you with the feeling of the season and make you want to embrace every nuance.
My beautiful knit-wear model shows off Patternwork's July scarf club project which I completed last night. This is a very comfy scarf, warm and soft with the 33% angora. And such a pretty scarf, the way the yarn changes color almost every pattern repeat is in a different color. It almost shimmers with the color changes. 
