Tag Archives: knitting

Thawing April 2026, Ink & Life & Space Dragons

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We’re in the tail end of winter according to the birds, though there’s still chunks of snow in the shade and every time we think it might be warm for good we get a little bonus freezing rain.  Still, it’s nice to feel the change of the seasons even when it feels like only a tentative moment of warmth.

 

Three sheets of stickers: cute dragons, large botanicals and weather icons, an ivory covered MD notebook, three ink swatches (Diamine Tundra [grey], Diamine Mint Twist [green with blue shimmer], and Pennoia Selyempezgo [peach]) and fountain pens (Kaweco Liliput, Pelikan Pura, Pilot E95S).

Three sheets of stickers: cute dragons, large botanicals and weather icons, an ivory covered MD notebook, three ink swatches (Diamine Tundra [grey], Diamine Mint Twist [green with blue shimmer], and Pennoia Selyempezgo [peach]) and fountain pens (Kaweco Liliput, Pelikan Pura, Pilot E95S).

Stickers

  • Cute dragon-y creatures by Heather Sketcheroos
  • Botanica pop-art by Maggie Chiang
  • Weather related icons by Neko Mori Arts

Inks & Fountain Pens

  • Diamine Tundra (grey) – in my Pilot E95S <M> (although I had the pens arranged differently before I filled them)
  • Diamine Mint Twist (green with blue shimmer) – in my Pelikan Pura <B>
  • Pennoia Selyempezgo (peach) – in my Kaweco Liliput <BB>

The pennoia ink was a random sample from a fountain pen order a while ago, the other two are both last year’s inkvent.

New Notebook Month!

After many months, I’m bidding farewell to my Leuchtterm notebook, which I started back in October with the plan that it would see me through the move.  It saw me through 6 incredibly stressful months with medical emergencies on top of the expected move, but we’ve made it out the other side and that’s worth celebrating!

Green Leuchtterm softcover notebook with a bee sticker from The Latest Kate that reads "It's enough to bee here just as you are"

Green Leuchtterm softcover notebook with a bee sticker from The Latest Kate that reads “It’s enough to bee here just as you are”

I liked the Leuchtterm notebook better than expected — it was nice not having to write my own page numbers, and it packs a decent amount of pages into a small size.  I did eventually get used to the ghosting but I didn’t love it.  Still, it’s a relief to go back to something smaller so my journalling setup is considerably lighter.

The new notebook is an MD Paper grid notebook.  Cheap and 40-some pages instead of 120-some.  I usually prefer dot over grid but I wanted to try this because the lines looked light enough that it would be pleasant, and so far it’s working nicely and they don’t feel in the way.  I don’t think I’ve shown a monthly spread in a while so here it is in the new notebook:

April 2026 spread in my journal, showing tracking for my yearly creative goals, fountain pens, a calendar, and a set of todo list spaces.

April 2026 spread in my journal, showing tracking for my yearly creative goals, fountain pens, a calendar, and a set of todo list spaces.

My monthly spreads have gotten fairly utilitarian since most of my smaller tracking and notes go on the monthly calendar now that I have space for that.  I still find doing a monthly tracking of the creative goals is useful, and I’m so-so on the todo lists: I use this page so I don’t forget things that I should do this week but don’t have to be done today.  Sometimes everything goes on the day’s todo list and gets done within a day or two so this page isn’t needed.  But other times it’s the only way important-but-non-urgent tasks get done, so it’s staying for now.

I don’t keep a separate commonplace book of quotes and instead just write down quotes in my journal.  Here’s the one from the book I finished this morning:

A quote which reads, "The galazy is big & we are small," I said. "It makes sense to help each other, when we can." - Space Dragons: Cosmic Survivors by Veo Corva

A quote which reads,
“The galazy is big & we are small,” I said. “It makes sense to help each other, when we can.”
– Space Dragons: Cosmic Survivors by Veo Corva

I love Veo Corva’s Space Dragons series.  Book two feels especially in the moment, since a lot of it is about trying to figure out what the right thing is that you should be doing, and then doing it even if you’re scared or angry or not ready or don’t know how to make it happen.  And as is a common theme across these books, it’s about finding your people.  But also it’s about a society where space ships are pulled by dragons and if that’s not enough of a pitch I don’t know what else to tell you.  Plus there’s crochet in this one!  https://veocorva.xyz/books/ for more.

 

And speaking of crafts and space travel, here’s how my latest knitting is going:

Time of the Doctor Scarf, a Doctor Who themed scarf with Gallifreyan style circle-text. It has been knit in ivory and dark teal yarn, and there is a a bright orange/yellow batik project bag and a pom pom sitting beside it.

Time of the Doctor Scarf, a Doctor Who themed scarf with Gallifreyan style circle-text. It has been knit in ivory and dark teal yarn, and there is a a bright orange/yellow batik project bag and a pom pom sitting beside it.

I’m getting close to the end of chart 3 out of 10.  This is going to be a gift for John but I’m not sure it’s even going to be ready in time for *next* winter at this rate!  It’s one that nees a fair bit of attention so it’s a bit much if I want to read, but it’s been okay for work meetings when I don’t have to participate much (we have a lot of talks on how to use new internal tools).

Notes from March

Ink Swatches from March 2026 (described below)

Ink Swatches from March 2026 (described below)

Three of these inks were new last month so here’s some notes:

  • Inkebana Cowslip (Yellow) – This was quite usable in good light but not my favourite when it got dim.  I’ll try playing around with it in art but I’m not sure I’ll use it for journalling again.  I only have a sample anyhow.  I’d forgotten how finicky my Pilot Metropolitan CM nib can be about angles, but I got used to it again pretty quickly.
  • Endless Alchemy Golden Sunburst (orange with gold shimmer) – I liked this a lot more than expected for an ink I really bought to be a fidget.  Super pretty while it’s drying.  Like most (but not all) of my shimmers it takes a fair bit of pen turning if you want to keep the shimmer consistent, but it’s a nice enough colour even with less shimmer so it doesn’t bother me as much as it might.
  • Diamine Marie Rose (peachy brown) – A new one from Inkvent 2025.  I was kind of meh on the idea of writing with a colour inspired by chip sauce, but I actually really liked this one to my own surprise.  Behaved perfectly.
  • Diamine Apple Glory (intense spring green) – This I’ve had for a while.  It’s nice but honestly was a bit too intense a green in this mostly warmish palette which was a pity.  Was nice to pull out the eco with the stub nib for this, though.

I might have a post up soon about some pens I inherited from my grandfather that I’m trying out, but I think that it’ll be its own thing!

 

 

 

Chilly March 2026, Life & Ink & Knitting

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It’s March!  Traditionally, February is the month where I used to feel the worst when I lived in Canada, likely because it’s when you’re sick of winter and the dark, but honestly it didn’t seem so bad this year, possibly because I wasn’t in winter in December so I haven’t really gotten sick of it.  It’s amusing that the number of people with masks on the bus seems to go up when it gets cold — a nice n95 really keeps the face warm, I guess.  Even I keep mine on on the walk from the bus stop some days just for the warmth!

A very fluffy (Eastern) Blue Jay with a peanut as large as his brain stuffed in his mouth. He's sitting on a wooden railing overlooking my snowy backyard. He was actually even more fluffy a moment before I took the photo. The weird pattern is from the screen door on my patio.

A very fluffy (Eastern) Blue Jay with a peanut as large as his brain stuffed in his mouth. He’s sitting on a wooden railing overlooking my snowy backyard. He was actually even more fluffy a moment before I took the photo. The weird pattern is from the screen door on my patio.

Possibly I’m not sick of it because of the sheer relief of being here and not there, though. As exhausting as it is to live in a house where you can’t find anything because it’s “in a box” and hasn’t yet been unearthed or it’s been broken by the movers’s terrible packing, it’s hard not to watch people’s driver’s licenses get yoinked overnight in Kansas and think “I’m so glad I got out before they yoinked my work permit like that.”  One of my new co-workers was aghast that I’d abandon a green card, but I’d definitely reached the point where no amount of getting paid more was worth the risks of being declared illegal at any moment.  And then I wasn’t even getting paid more.  Though I *did* just get my promised partial annual bonus from the old job so that was nice.

 

New job is working out, even if it doesn’t pay as well.   I like my new co-workers and we have interesting discussions about technology and security.  I’m less excited about the constant AI push in corporate land (it feels every single Microsoft product is yelling at me all the time), but I only have to use the parts that have a clear benefit to my work flow, so that’s something.  I’m spending a lot of time on the bus to commute and although I miss having more time with my kid at home, I do like having dedicated time where I don’t get interrupted.  I’ve been enjoying podcasts, audiobooks, mentally writing stories and just having time to think about whatever.  I’m not thrilled to have been hired as hybrid and told I’ll be going back to work 5 days a week in the fall (I definitely wouldn’t have applied for this job if it had been listed as 100% in office) but I’m trying to wait and see how it works out in practice.

 

Three sticker sheets featuring corgis & food, bunnies in teapots, and dogs. Four fountain pen inks and pens (described in post) and a roll of green washi tape and a small blue tooth stamp.

This month’s palette was pretty much built around matching those cute corgi stamp stickers.

Stickers

  • Corgi food stamp stickers – bought in Japantown San Jose but I don’t know the artist/company.
  • Tea Time Bunnies – ByMossyPine
  • Tiny Dogs – I think these were from Mind Wave.

Pens & Ink palette

  • Pelikan Pura <B> – Endless Alchemy Golden Sunburst.  I mostly bought this ink as a fidget because of the lovely bottle which is designed to be swirled, but I decided to see how I like it in a pen too.
  • TWSBI Eco <1.1 stub> – Diamine Apple Glory.  I bought this ink specifically for this pen!
  • Pilot Metropolitan <CM> – Ikebana Cowslip.  Accidentally got some green ink on the nib while wiping it off after filling, so this may not be the right colour in my notebook.  Oh well!
  • Pilot E95S <M> – Diamine Marie Rose.  From the latest inkvent.

Quick check in on creative goals

2026 Goals List

Creative space: My office is set up enough to be usable for work and for writing, haven’t quite figured out the desk situation enough work on painting yet.  There are still a lot of boxes but I’ve switched most of them to be clear ones so I can at least find things, and I suspect there’s at least a couple of boxes missing still. I’ve got an initial stationary shelf started (see photo below) but I’m thinking I’ll use drawers for most of my inks and samples and I haven’t decided where in the shelf those should go.

A black, square shelf with a number of small binders (of stickers), a big pencil sharpenter with googly eyes, a bottle of shimmering orange ink, and more notebooks and inks.

 

Crafting for the climate: Finished a scarf for my kid and a sweater for me.  Still working on a very complicated scarf for my husband, but it’s definitely not getting finished before it warms up this year!

Fluffy scarf made out of grey-brown fun fur yarn.A open front sweater laid on the hardwood floor so you can see the back cable. It is made in a gradient of yarns that go from bright pink at the shoulders to deeper purple at the bottom.

 

Painting with fountain pen ink: not set up for this yet but I did get some more watercolour painting books from the library so I’ve got some exercises to do once I figure out where the heck my watercolour paper got packed (or give up and buy more; I’ll use it eventually.)

 

Writing: wrote a bunch of fanfic for a valentines event and I’m really happy with how things turned out.  Got a few things in progress and with all the ao3 downtime the past couple of days I fit some extra writing time in.

Fiber Goals 2025 mid-year check-in

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This year’s goals were as follows:

  1. Revisit Old Goals
  2. Try Something New
  3. Something Stash Something
  4. Game Design

We’re a bit more than halfway through the year so let’s see where we’re at!

Revisit Old Goals

Started strong in January by finishing up a rainbow shawl that had been on the needles for quite some time:

A rainbow bias knit shawl/wrap of my own design.
A rainbow bias knit shawl/wrap of my own design.

I’d intended to release the pattern since I had an old goal about writing patterns but… honestly, I haven’t felt like it, and I focused my time on other stuff that was bringing me joy. But I have a bunch of pattern notes and a bit more time right now so I may publish what I have without bothering to polish it.

February I worked on an old Beanie Bag kit from Jimmy Beans Wool that spanned 3 months. It was… honestly kind of boring and the pattern had a bunch of mistakes/confusing bits, but I finished one month’s worth and will likely do the other two at some point.

The first part of the Textures of Nevada Shawl that was part of a Jimmy Beans Wool kit subscription some years back.
The first part of the Textures of Nevada Shawl that was part of a Jimmy Beans Wool kit subscription some years back.

March-April-May I finally got around to knitting Wingspan, which was on my “something famous” goal plan but I never made it. It was a pleasant knit once I got into the swing of things, but by the time I finished it was too warm to wear it here so I haven’t really gotten pictures! Here’s one from before it was blocked, though:

Wingspan shawl knit in a gradient yarn that goes from burgundy to red to orange. It has no been blocked so it looks a bit lumpy and smaller than the final product looks.
Wingspan shawl knit in a gradient yarn that goes from burgundy to red to orange. It has no been blocked so it looks a bit lumpy and smaller than the final product looks.

June I took a break from old goals (and focused on writing).

July I pulled out some gradient balls and made socks for my mom’s birthday (a bit early because the timing worked out), plus I did tour de fleece stuff.

Blue/green/yellow-green gradient socks using the Affixed pattern from Shoreland Socks by Hunter Hammersen.
Blue/green/yellow-green gradient socks using the Affixed pattern from Shoreland Socks by Hunter Hammersen.

Overall, A+ on revisiting old goals. I have a couple more “use kits from stash” ideas but I may otherwise declare this particular goal complete and focus on some other stuff.

Try Something New

January started strong with me working on a hexagon blanket, which I’m still working on between other projects.

February I tried assigned pooling and made the “Shard” shawl by Romi Hill. It was fun and I’ll likely do other assigned pooling patterns!

Me modeling my Shard shawl (pattern by Romi Hill) knit in Chemknits yarn from valentines day 2024. It's a red shawl with purple "shards" from assigned pooling.
Me modelling my Shard shawl (pattern by Romi Hill) knit in Chemknits yarn from valentines day 2024. It’s a red shawl with purple “shards” from assigned pooling.

March-April-May I worked on Wingspan for the old goals and didn’t bother doing new stuff.

June again was a break from all knitting goals. (I was writing instead.)

July was mostly finishing up work/travel and I didn’t feel like learning something new.

There’s probably some more to be done here but… honestly, I’m not sure this goal is playing well with my burnout? I’ve got some tentative plans for learning some bookbinding in August if my kid is amenable so that might be up next. But I think I may just focus on finishing up the hex blanket rather than pushing myself to come up with new things to do if I’m not feeling it. So this goal may be as complete as it’s getting unless something fun occurs to me.

Stash Something Stash / Write more

I’d planned to run some kind of stash-focused event about appreciating what you have (as opposed to feeling guilty about what you have, a common vibe in a lot of “use your stash” events) and I got as far as coming up with a nice list of prompts and ideas. But then I realized that… I didn’t actually want to run it. I was burned out on social media and wanted to spend less time on my phone. So I’ve declared this goal as complete as it’s going to be. The prompts will keep if I decide I want to run things later.

That said, I replaced this goal that no longer fit with a goal of “Write more” instead since it was what was bringing me joy and it deserved some focus and time.

I’ve done a bit more writing for this blog but the biggest part of my writing this year has been fanfic since I’m having fun. I joined a discord to hang out with other writers in my current fandom of choice and I took part in a prompt challenge (which is why I didn’t knit as much in June-July so I could write). I’m now over the 40k “that’s a novel’s worth” of words since January and I’m pretty delighted with myself.

There’s something deeply satisfying in the current economic environment about making something that is basically non-monetizable put on a website run by a nonprofit (that I donated to!) and my output only serves to make strangers/new friends happy. And I definitely made a bunch of people happy! (Including my kid, who helped with some ideas in one of my stories.) Also I’m amused that my existing community of open source people and my new community of fan writers are somewhat similar and overlapping nerds. Not a surprise that people who share their creative outputs for free have some similarities but it’s still a delight.

I expect I’ll keep writing through the end of the year (and beyond but this post is about 2025 goals). I’ll probably join another challenge or two but even if I don’t do more than finish my current story in progress, I feel like this replacement goal has been met *and* it’s brought me a lot more joy than the original goal. And these goals have always been about finding time for things that bring me joy!

Game Design

It took waaaaay too long to get approval from work saying that my silly games weren’t going to conflict with my job at which point I was so frustrated with my boss for other reasons that I was intentionally trying to get put in the layoff pool (and I succeeded). But the end result is that I haven’t actually *done* any games stuff beyond a bit of helping my kid learn Scratch programming for his robot. I’m not replacing this goal because I still want to make games, but I haven’t figured out an actual plan yet so that’s on my list for part 2 of the year. So far I’ve got my personal laptop set up a bit better for game work (attached it to the kvm with my big screen and mouse) and I think I might aim to play around with some existing frameworks and make silly things with my kid as a goal for August.

More Thoughts

It turns out this year it hasn’t been *fiber* that was really keeping me happy. I mean, I still knit/spin/whatever but it’s writing and video games that have helped me cope with the burnout and grief (particularly from losing a friend earlier this year, but there’s grief tied up in climate and politics right now too). The fact that fiber wasn’t the perfect solution for this type of burnout makes sense because I needed something that engaged more of my brain and took me away from worrying about geopolitics/work/my deceased friend. I knit to focus my brain but when my brain is spiralling that’s not the right thing to do. I do knit-and-write-in-my-head a lot so it’s compatible with what works to distract me, at least, but fiber hasn’t been as much of a focus for a few months and I’m not sure if that’s going to change. I am wondering if I should stop calling these “fiber goals” next year so I can encompass some other hobbies, though.

With work as a stressor out of the way for now but more “international move” and “find a new job” stress coming, I’m intending to just roll with what works for these goals in the second half of the year. I *am* really enjoying using my fiber and stationary stashes now that I’m trying not to spend so much money — past me bought some lovely stuff and now I have time to use it. I think doing some game stuff is going to be fun when I sit down and start playing. And I’m really enjoying writing fanfic in a way that I haven’t in a long time, so I’m happy to keep leaning into that too. Last time I was involved in a fandom I presented as an artist, and writing is a different experience, and I’m loving it so much.

Fiber Goals 2025

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This is my 10th year setting “fiber goals” as a fun way to direct my crafting for the year. I’ve come to feel like setting goals around creativity and joy and focusing on accomplishing things I want to do is important. Especially in contrast to a lot of traditional new year’s goals that are kind of guilt based.

I usually limit myself to 4 that I’m really commiting to for the year, so here they are for 2025!

Revisit old goals – I wanted to revisit some old goals in celebration of 10 years of fiber goals, but I couldn’t decide on which ones. So instead, I’m going to try rotating through them like I did with different crafts in 2024. Every month, I’m going to look at the goals and see if there’s one I want to revisit with one project. Since I know monthly isn’t the perfect cadence for crafts, but it *is* a good cadence for reflection, some of them may take several months, and some months I may not bother, but the goal is to at least look at the list monthly and make a choice.

Try Something New – to go with revisiting old goals, I’d also like to try some new things, but maybe smaller stuff spread out over the year rather than one big thing. As such, I think I’ll focus on techniques I haven’t tried rather than full new crafts: for knitting that might be entrelac, mitred squares, planned pooling, stacked stitches. For fountain pens it might be painting with fountain pen inks, new drawing techniques, mixing inks. Or maybe I’ll try making some things I haven’t made before, like felted slippers or a blanket. I think I’ll try to put something old/something new together in my monthly planning so I think about it regularly but I’m going to be flexible about having things take variable lengths of time.

Something stash something – I think I’m going to run a craft stash focused challenge thing mostly for myself but also invite folks on Mastodon to join me. I’m not sure what it’ll look like yet but planning is part of the goal!

Game design – I haven’t been a game designer in a long time (did you know I used to teach game design?) but I accidentally got my kid excited about one of my old ideas so I’m making this a goal in hopes we build something together, even if it’s not that particular game. This isn’t very fiber-y but maybe we’ll find a way to make that part of it?

Many years I’ve also included a bunch of brainstorming ideas here that didn’t make the cut, but I didn’t make a list of those this year.

Fiber Goals 2024: How did I do?

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My 2024 fiber goals were as follows:

  • gift yarn
  • lesser used crafts
  • pants
  • colour play

I already did a mid-year 2024 writeup so I’m just going to talk about the second half of the year here.

Gift yarn

I finished the lighthouse shawl:

Terri, a mixed race woman, is standing near the edge of a parking lot outside. She has a Flo Mask around her neck over top of a hand knitted lace scarf, is wearing glasses, and is holding a black choir music folder.
Image Description: Terri, a mixed race woman, is standing near the edge of a parking lot outside. She has a Flo Mask around her neck over top of a hand knitted lace scarf, is wearing glasses, and is holding a black choir music folder.

And I started in on a pair of socks with a funny colourway called “Introverts Unite” that apparently I haven’t photographed yet. And I’m still working on the weaving.

So nothing spectacular in the second half of the year, but that’s expected because I wanted to do Finish or Frog Along and the fall gnome and then start in on Christmas socks for my Mom then the winter gnome. Maybe I should knit fewer gnomes? (That may be a problem as there’s going to be a lot of them next year.) The obvious solution would be to knit gnomes with gift yarn, but most of it is too variegated for that so no luck. If anyone wants to buy me yarn, apparently I need more 20g fingering weight minis in solid colours!

Overall, I think I got what I wanted out of this goal, but I do want to keep pushing to use more gift yarn in 2025 because there’s certainly some left that I’m really excited to use!

Lesser Used Crafts

The full year of crafts:

  1. January: spindle spinning
  2. Feburary: tatting
  3. March: mending
  4. April: weaving
  5. May: Origami
  6. June Pants
  7. July: (supported) long draw spinning
  8. August: Embroidery
  9. September: Writing
  10. October: Presentations
  11. November: Sashiko
  12. December: Countdowns

I missed out on some that I thought I’d do like felting, crochet and quilting. But I was really excited to do a lot more writing (honestly, now I kind of want to work on writing fiction, which I haven’t done in forever) and presentations (I had two accepted talks in the fall/winter). By December I decided adding another craft on top of swatching inks for inkvent and taking pictures of my various swatches and countdown calendars was too much, so I know “countdowns” isn’t a craft but there’s a combo of swatching and photography and writing a lot of alt text, and all of those are crafts of sorts.

I think rotating through crafts was very good for me, and I’m glad to have pulled out some stuff that I hadn’t thought about when I set the goal. But I don’t think monthly was the right cadence, and I was kind of less excited about it by the end of the year especially once I wanted to focus on Finish or Frog Along, so I don’t think I’ll be doing it again in this format.

I think this might work better as a quarterly thing or if I doubled up some months and only ran it in the first half of the year. But I’m expecting to have a busy 2025 and likely will wind up packing up a lot of craft stuff to move, so I’m thinking that I may try to pull out some unfinished crafts like my weaving, doing them, then packing up the supplies as I go. Probably won’t formalize it so I can play it by ear instead.

Pants

I finished the pants back during the craft rotation in June! I’d still like to revisit and work on drafting a better pattern for my preferences/body, but this isn’t a priority for me.

Colour Play

The biggest new addition here was that I bought an “invent” countdown calendar full of ink and swatched something Dec 1-25. It was a lot of fun, and I particularly liked the “painting with fountain pen inks” which I honestly hadn’t done much before but seriously, the inks are very fun with the multi-shading and the shimmer and sheen (less so the scented ones, but thankfully I didn’t have an adverse reaction to the scent they were just less-nice as inks because they were so wet).

I tried a few things over the year: dyeing, different spinnning colour techniques, pulling out some rainbow shawls and colourwork, learning what fountain pen inks I loved, and just knitting different types of yarn. It was very fun, but I will admit that this is probably all stuff I’d have done even if I hadn’t set the goal. I like colour!

The “other” goals

I often have a list of goals that I brainstormed but didn’t decide to do. But sometimes they happen anyhow!

Blogging – I got obsessed with fountain pens and then started writing more blog posts. Now I kind of want to write some fiction too…

Ditching Instagram/Meta – this did happen, and it’s improved my life a lot to only occasionally post for a contest or something and pop in maybe once a month or so. Not constantly getting bombarded by ads has been good for my wallet, and not getting nausea from auto-playing videos is great. I’m also slowly removing old fb posts on the rare time that I log in, though it takes forever.

Classes – I did take a dye class at Craft Emporium and it was fantastic! I’d like to spend some time experimenting with the techniques we learned but I haven’t decided what to make yet.

In conclusion

I accomplished all of 2024’s Fiber goals and had a good time and learned more about what I want to do next. Stay tuned for 2025’s goals on January 1st!

Fiber Goals from years past

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This year is the 10th year I’ll be doing fiber goals, and I wanted to revisit some previous year’s goals, so I’m starting by making myself a mega post with all of them to contemplate. Fiber goals are meant to be fun things that bring me joy, and organizing them like this helps me prioritize some fun things in my life. So many new years resolutions are kind of chores or guilt-based, and I’d like to avoid that!

It’s kind of interesting to see the progression of what I’ve learned and where I put my focus over the years. Most of these goals were successful. There’s a few that I don’t need to revisit: the pants and that quilt are done and I’m not doing them again! But a lot of these could be revisited with new projects — I definitely have more gift yarn and brioche patterns and a few more “famous” patterns in my queue, plus I’ve got lots of beautiful stash that I want to use.

  • 2024 Fiber Goals (End of year “how did I do” post isn’t written yet. Here’s the half-year one.)
    • Gift Yarn
    • Lesser Used Crafts
    • Pants
    • Colour play
  • 2023 Fiber Goals (How did I do?)
    • Toys
    • Hand-dyed, hand-spun
    • Complicated cables
    • Patterns I own
  • 2022 Fiber Goals (How did I do?)
    • Rainbows 🌈
    • Advents past 🎄
    • Where we’re going, we don’t need patterns 🕸️
    • Finish the sabbatical quilt 🪡
  • 2021 Fiber goals (How did I do?)
    • Knit something famous
    • Self striping stuff
    • Kits in Stash
    • Crochet cables
  • 2020 Fiber goals (How did I do?)
    • Whittle down the WIPs and Query the Queue.
    • A Bit of Brioche.
    • Top to Toes
    • Some Smaller Shawls
  • 2019 Fiber goals (How did I do?)
    • Learn Steeking
    • Document better
    • Finish another sweater
    • Play with mini skeins
  • 2018 Fiber goals (How did I do?)
    • Use more of my project kits
    • More amigurumi!
    • Spin the neat fiber kit Kathy got me
    • Organize the stash
  • 2017 Fiber goals (that is the “how did I do?” post)
    • Knit a “seamless” sweater this time
    • Try some new types of needles.
    • Knit more handspun
    • Create and release more patterns
  • 2016 Fiber goals are in bottom of 2017 post above.
    • Knit a sweater for myself
    • Practice colourwork
    • Learn some new skills
    • Improve my stash for the things I make

The one highly specific goal that I never finished: I never *did* spin that fiber kit from 2018. Maybe 2025 is the year for it!

Finish or Frog Along Wrap-up

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I still spend more time knitting than using fountain pens but you wouldn’t know it from the blog posts I write! So let’s do a bit of an update.

In September / October a group of fediverse folk do “Finish or Frog Along” (formerly Fall Finish Along, but now with a better name for people in the southern hemisphere!) and honestly, I’ve looked forwards to it since last year. I started with 5 things on my list then added 2 more as I finished things:

  1. Clasped Weft weaving
  2. Sweater Ornament
  3. Pigeon Embroidery
  4. Purple spin
  5. Crown Wools
  6. Rainbow Shawl (bonus goal)
  7. Frog knit RPG scarf (bonus goal)

FinishOrFrogAlong is run by ConsumableJoy and I really appreciated the prompts that went with it for helping me think regularly about finishing and get a community doing the same. Plus it’s just really fun seeing everyone finishing things and cheering each other on. Especially since it’s a multi-craft affair so the projects are all so different!

I kind of want to have something similar for stash usage on the other side of the year and I’ve been trying to think about how to organize that. But for today’s post, let’s just talk about what I finished or didn’t finish!

Clasped Weft Weaving

Not finished.

A weaving in progress on a rigid heddle loom. it uses two colours of variegated yarn, one grey/brown and the other blue/green. It's a sampler showing multiple types of pattern that can be made with a pick up stick.
Image Description: A weaving in progress on a rigid heddle loom. it uses two colours of variegated yarn, one grey/brown and the other blue/green. It’s a sampler showing multiple types of pattern that can be made with a pick up stick.

I was really hoping to finish this piece which I started in April during “weaving month” as I rotated through my lesser-used crafts. But while I pulled it out and got it all set up, I only actually wove less than an inch during Finish and Frog along, so rather than being the thing I finished first like I thought when I set up the list, it became the biggest “fail” on my list.

Some of this was because I didn’t really know what to do next — I’d been iterating through exercises in a book and had to return it to the library, and when I bought my own copy I realized I should have taken pictures of all my sticky note flags so I’d be able to restart easily, and instead I had to puzzle it out.

But the other thing is that my current weaving setup doesn’t fit very well into my life, so I have to be more intentional about making time for it and I can’t do it while curled up with the dog in my recliner in the evenings, and as a result it feels like a hassle. There’s some things I can do about that: I can put the loom in a better spot where I can reach it when I’m in crafting mode not during dog cuddle time, I can grab audiobooks so I can multitask, and I really need to spend some time getting a bag so it’s easier to carry the loom and the yarn and shuttles and everything all together so it’s an option when I’m feeling overstimulated and just need to hang out upstairs or downstairs on my own for a bit.

But in the end it winds up feeling much the way I feel about quilting: I don’t hate it but it doesn’t quite fit into my life and it feels like a chore. A stranger commented “to everything there is a season” on one of my griping quilting posts with the explanation that it’s perfectly reasonable to save quilting for another part of my life when I don’t have a young child and a puppy and a full time job and a pandemic. And after two months of thinking I should make time for weaving and then just not doing it, I think it’s time to accept that this is not the season of weaving in my life. And that’s ok: I don’t have to be completely obsessed with every skill I learn or thing I do.

I will note that it’s a bit strange that I don’t feel this way about spinning, which similarly is hard to do curled up in a chair with a book. But the solution with spinning has been to enjoy it during a couple of sprints rather than do it year round: I enjoy Tour De Fleece, I get in a bit more during Finish or Frog Along, and last year I also did the 100 day stashdown from Jillian Moreno’s patreon. I think I may need to find some similar sprints for weaving if I want to do it, or (as I have with quilting) let it just be a sometimes craft in my life. I was really tempted by the Sweet Georgia winter weave-a-long that is happening now, but I’d need to finish what’s on the loom now before I could start it.

I’m still *intending* to finish up what’s on the loom now, and after I spent time writing about it I finally did pick it up in the last week of November. But it’s mostly taking a back seat while I finish my holiday knitting and stuff so I don’t know that I’ll finish it in time to really join the weave-a-long or if I should take the opportunity to pack up the loom in preparation for moving next year.

So, total fail on *finishing* this project, but it forced a lot of good introspection about whether this craft was suiting me and how to make it work better in my life.

Sweater Ornament

Finished!

A small embroidery kit including a nice round yarn holder, a piece of felt pre-printed with an embroidery pattern (a sweater with a sheep and yarn on it) and a small bag with a camping motf.
Image Description: A small embroidery kit including a nice round yarn holder, a piece of felt pre-printed with an embroidery pattern (a sweater with a sheep and yarn on it) and a small bag with a camping motf.

This is from cute Christmas ornament kit that I bought last year. I finished one then, one this year, and maybe I’ll do the last next year. I remembered to put the year on this time!

A small Christmas ornament style embroidered felt sweater with the year stitched on the back.
Image Description: A small Christmas ornament style embroidered felt sweater with the year stitched on the back.

I have to say, I really loved these kits: Knitted Bliss really puts together a nice set with the nicer thread holders, a magnetic needle keeper, needle threader, and everything for the 3 ornaments. This may be the nicest embroidery kit I’ve ever had, with a lot of thought put into how it would be used so the whole experience is just really lovely. (No thin paper to hold thread! Everything well labelled, and big photos to go with the instructions.) I highly recommend this kit and will probably get more from her when I’ve got space for more embroidery stuff.

My finished embroidered sweater ornament viewed from the front. It has a yarn bowl with a sheep on it filled with yarn on the front of a white (felt) sweater with pink ribbing at neck/sleeves/hem. There is a small clothes hanger stuck in between the two halves of the ornament that were sewn together, so the hanger can be hung on a Christmas tree or otherwise displayed.
Image Description: My finished embroidered sweater ornament viewed from the front. It has a yarn bowl with a sheep on it filled with yarn on the front of a white (felt) sweater with pink ribbing at neck/sleeves/hem. There is a small clothes hanger stuck in between the two halves of the ornament that were sewn together, so the hanger can be hung on a Christmas tree or otherwise displayed.

Pigeon Embroidery

Not finished, but that’s the expected result.

Pigeon embroidery in a hoop. The chest feathers have been mostly finished but the rest isn't done yet. There is a bee & honeycomb magnetic needle minder attached to the hoop near the pigeon's head.
Image Description: Pigeon embroidery in a hoop. The chest feathers have been mostly finished but the rest isn’t done yet. There is a bee & honeycomb magnetic needle minder attached to the hoop near the pigeon’s head.

I mostly wanted to put this one into the finishing rotation to avoid hand strain without feeling like I should be working on something on the list. Embroidery fills a weird niche in my crafting repertoire as a hand break because it uses my muscles differently yet keeps my hands busy so I don’t wind up with repetitive strain, so I usually have one on the go with no particular deadline for finishing. I usually finish one or two of these per year unless I’m feeling particularly excited about one or doing something very small.

Purple spin

Finished!

Long draw spinning in progress: my wooden spinning wheel set up with some hanks of fiber sitting on top as a prepare to spin.
Image Description: Long draw spinning in progress: my wooden spinning wheel set up with some hanks of fiber sitting on top as a prepare to spin.

This was another long draw spin from Tour de France Femmes this summer. I’m really enamoured of long draw and am starting to feel actually proficient. I wanted to do a 3 ply since I have the EEW lazy kates and could do it more easily, and I intentionally chose to let the colours mix in plying. It looks nice, but I think I like more of a gradient than a blend so I’ll probably plan differently next 3-ply. Still, I’m looking forwards to knitting with this and maybe I’ll like it more once it’s knit up!

Plying setup on an EEW Lazy Kate: three plies of purple singles waiting to be plied.
Image Description: Plying setup on an EEW Lazy Kate: three plies of purple singles waiting to be plied.
Purple 3-ply spin all done and twisted into a pretty yarn skein.
Image Description: Purple 3-ply spin all done and twisted into a pretty yarn skein. There are multiple shades of purple all mixed.

Crown Wools

Finished!

Crown Wools wrap: a rainbow wrap made with 12 different colours of yarn and 12 different textures. It's a large bias-knit parallelogram but has been curled into something more like a circle for the photo.
Image Description: Crown Wools wrap: a rainbow wrap made with 12 different colours of yarn and 12 different textures. It’s a large bias-knit parallelogram but has been curled into something more like a circle for the photo.

This was my year-long project, slightly condensed so that it would finish in September for the event. I loved doing this and have it displayed in my office, but I do need to acknowledge that while I love the curated sets of rainbow minis that come with these sorts of things, they’re pretty much my least frequently worn items because they’re just a bit too big to be practical for the way I move and do stuff.

I’ve picked out a blanket and some rainbow stash yarn for next year’s ongoing project (it may take more than a year, I’m not sure yet). I may also consider some complicated colourwork sweater stuff for future ongoing project planning if I can figure out a nice way to divide that up over a few months. Inches per body or maybe something with colourwork that I can split up?

Rainbow Shawl (bonus goal)

Knitting still in progress, but charts are finished!

My design for a rainbow wrap in progress, showing colours going from red to blue. I had made a mistake on one side (you can see a bulge marked by a stitch marker where the problem occurred) and had to rip back two sections so I wouldn't run out of yarn.
Image Description: My design for a rainbow wrap in progress, showing colours going from red to blue. I had made a mistake on one side (you can see a bulge marked by a lollipop stitch marker where the problem occurred) and had to rip back two sections so I wouldn’t run out of yarn.

After I finished 2 things on my initial list of 5 I added a few extras and this is one of them! This was a personal design project that I started before my local yarn shop went online-only, before the pandemic. I feel like I was an entirely different person. But I’d taken enough notes and had the physical object, so I fixed up the charts and knit a bunch more repeats. I’ve got a few colours left but i decided to do a Clapotis for Knitty’s Clapotisfest and I want to make winter socks for my mom before shipping gets overloaded in December, so I’ll finish this later. I’m really happy with it and would like to actually make a good free pattern out of it eventually but I have to at least finish the knitting to take pictures before I get to that point!

Frog knit RPG scarf (bonus goal)

Frogged!

The scarf pre-frogging, showing that I only barely finished one motif and it didn't look like much. Although the photo makes the contrast look ok, it was veyr hard to see in real life.
Image Description: The scarf pre-frogging, showing that I only barely finished one motif and it didn’t look like much. Although the photo makes the contrast look ok, it was veyr hard to see in real life.

This was a neat knitting RPG concept where you rolled dice and got different charts to go with the story, but I chose yarns that weren’t working for me and I wasn’t having a good time so I bailed on the MKAL. I usually frog stuff right away but for a variety of reasons I didn’t do it right then.

The yarn just after frogging (ripping out). It looks a lot like dried ramen noodles, all wavy.
Image Description: The yarn just after frogging (ripping out). It looks a lot like dried ramen noodles, all wavy.

So many years later, I had to frog and steam the yarn so it’s ready for re-use. Though I’m not sure what I’d use it in since I’d bought the yarns to be used together then didn’t like them for colourwork. Maybe some brioche instead? Problem for future me.

The frogged yarn sitting on my ironing board with a clothes steamer, used to steam the yarn and straighten it out so it can be more easily re-used.
Image Description: The frogged yarn sitting on my ironing board with a clothes steamer, used to steam the yarn and straighten it out so it can be more easily re-used.

In conclusion…

One frogged, 3 finished, 3 still going (although one of those at least had charts finished, so that should probably count!). I had a great time finishing and frogging this year and I like that this is becoming enough part of fediverse crafting culture that I wasn’t the only one looking forwards to it.

Travel Gear Review: Midori Clip Ruler

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I picked up this ruler to go with my travel notebook. I didn’t use it the way I thought I would, but it found a niche that made it fit perfectly into my travel stationery setup.

What is it?

A metal ruler that also acts as a clip bookmark and a stencil.

A Midori Clip ruler: a copper metal ruler with stencil holes in it. The end is folded to make a clip. It is sitting on a larger black Field Notes brand notebook.
Image Description: A Midori Clip ruler: a copper metal ruler with stencil holes in it. The end is folded to make a clip. It is sitting on a larger black Field Notes brand notebook.

Link: https://www.jetpens.com/Midori-Clip-Ruler-Copper-Daily-Life/pd/29899

What problem did I need it to solve?

I wanted a travel ruler for drawing lines. I was mostly expecting to use it for lines in the knitting charts I was writing out and modifying during the trip. I figured I’d use it for bullet journal type stuff too, such as drawing the monthly calendar I use for tracking.

How did it work out for me?

Turns out that this actually isn’t a great ruler. The stencil meant it felt a bit flimsy on one side as you move it around on the page, and the clip is just barely enough to make a slight bump if you try to draw a line longer than 10cm. This especially was an issue for me when I drew out the calendar I use for a bunch of monthly tracking stuff.

But it is an absolutely *fantastic* bookmark for holding open the Field Notes notebook that I was using. It’s just just enough weight to hold the pages open and it worked quite well when I needed a pattern place marker for the knitting I was doing.

My Midori Clip Ruler being used to hold open a notebook and mark a place in my pattern. The pattern is a variant on the Kelpie Etudes charts from Gannet Designs, and it has been written out in pencil.The ruler is made of copper and is holding the notebook open without much difficulty.
Image Description: My Midori Clip Ruler being used to hold open a notebook and mark a place in my pattern. The pattern is a variant on the Kelpie Etudes charts from Gannet Designs, and it has been written out in pencil. The ruler is made of copper and is holding the notebook open without much difficulty.

It turns out I didn’t need to draw as many lines as I thought I would, but I *did* need to hold the pages open while knitting my shawl for a month during and after the trip. It was also great for just marking my page so I could immediately open to the pattern page I was working on (a bit of an issue as I was working with 4 very similar charts).

It also worked ok as a stencil the few times I used it. It’s very small so it worked best with my mechanical pencil (then I coloured the results with gel pen sometimes). I could probably find ways to integrate these particular icons into my tracking, but many of them are ones I don’t use right now so it’s not super useful to me.

Things that could be better

I feel like there’s got to be a way to design this such that the clip nudges in just a milimetre or so so the full length can be used for drawing lines, but it’s clear that they intended you to use the internal slots for that so maybe that’s on me for using it outside of the design intention? If you look closely in the image below you can see the wobble at the end of the line where I hit the clip while drawing.

Close up of the Midori Clip Ruler in use as a bookmark, showing the shape of the clip while the ruler is on the other side of the paper.
Image Description: Close up of the Midori Clip Ruler in use as a bookmark, showing the shape of the clip while the ruler is on the other side of the paper.

The icon choices aren’t super useful to me, so I’m probably going to keep freehanding most of my personal icons. Still, I enjoyed having some of these and maybe I’ll find uses for them now that I have them!

Overall

I was completely surprised at how much I loved this ruler/bookmark!

I nearly talked myself out of buying it before the trip since I already have a few small “gauge swatch” rulers thanks to knitting. But this was significantly better: it’s super small and slender, stays put in the notebook even if I have to stuff it in a bag in a hurry, and as a bookmark and page holder it found a real niche in my life. Despite feeling flimsy as a ruler, it felt satisfying as a bookmark and absolutely stayed put. I’d be afraid to use it in a library book lest I forget it, but it would be great in books I own. I’m debating trying some other metal bookmarks to replace the post it notes I use in pattern books while I’m working out a design.

I’m tempted to get another one with one of the other stencil options because I love it so much and wouldn’t mind having a spare for my larger journal. I just noticed the cat version has a book icon that would be perfect for my book review tracking!

Estimating my knitting speed

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It’s occasionally useful to know how long a knitting project will take me: When do I need to start a gift for it to be ready in time? How much yarn should I bring on a trip? So I decided to make a personal estimate I could refer to when I wanted to make a guess.

The thing I knit with the most consistent size is socks. I’ve made enough that I know how long it takes in an “average” week while I’m working and doing stuff: it’s about 1 week per sock.

Two socks are usually around 60g of sock weight yarn. Sock weight yarn can vary in yardage by weight, but it’s usually around 400 yards per 100g.

So a bit of math gives me 30g or 120 yards of yarn knit per week.

Estimating a month as 4 weeks, that means I can use a bit more than one skein of sock yarn per month. I use the same weight of yarn for shawls, and sure enough, a one skein shawl will also take me around 1 month.

A rainbow knit shawl in progress and a bowl of dried strawberries.
Caption: A rainbow knit shawl in progress and a bowl of dried strawberries.

It’s mildly surprising that those estimates match since I usually knit shawls with around a US5 needle and socks on a US1, but I often do more complicated patterns on the shawls and make more mistakes, so maybe that’s why it’s not much faster? If I were trying to be highly accurate, there’s a lot of variables that could factor in to how fast I can knit a thing:

  • What size of needle am I using?
  • What weight of yarn am I knitting?
  • How complicated is the pattern?
  • How much time do I have to knit?
  • How distracting am I during that knitting time?
  • How often do I need breaks? (Due to being bored or avoid muscle strain.)
  • Am I working on any other projects in the same time frame?

But I’m not looking for high accuracy so this is good enough! I often knit a bit more on vacation (especially if I’ll be on a plane or a train) so I usually pack more than 120 yards/week, but it’s nice to have a rule of thumb.

The annoying part of knowing this, though, is that I have to be honest with myself about how much yarn I can reasonably buy and use in a year: many yarn subscriptions are 1 skein/month, and since I don’t have space for more stash, that means it’s probably too much yarn for me! This has been really helpful for keeping me away from yarn subscriptions and sales (especially the big ones from knitpicks), and has gotten me thinking more carefully about using my stash.

Fiber goals 2024: mid year check-in

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I’m a bit overdue for a look at this year’s fiber goals. They were as follows:

  • gift yarn
  • lesser used crafts
  • pants
  • colour play

Gift yarn

I thought gift yarn would be an easy one, but I’ve hardly used any! When I started this goal I wrote down 5 skeins/sets in hopes of inspiring myself to make plans, but so far I’ve only used half of 1 of those, and the other skein I’ve got on the go wasn’t even on the list.

First up, my weaving in progress uses 1 skein gifted to me from my friend M in a canadian national park inspired colourway (it’s the lighter weft; the other two balls of blue are from a shopping trip with M but don’t count as gift yarn):

A woven shawl in progress on a rigid heddle loom. It's being woven in two colours of yarn, one variegated blue and one variegated grey, and I'm experimenting with clasped wft which allows stripes to go parway across the weave.
Caption: A woven shawl in progress on a rigid heddle loom. It’s being woven in two colours of yarn, one variegated blue and one variegated grey, and I’m experimenting with clasped wft which allows stripes to go parway across the weave.

And here’s what I’m working on now. The shawl is from gifted yarn, a pretty “lighthouse” sock gradient from Blue Brick:

A shawl in progress in a blue-teal-yellow gradient, a pair of recently finished knit socks in a dark variegated with a blue/yellow varigated toe, and a black pottery coffee mug with a skull on it.
Caption: A shawl in progress in a blue-teal-yellow gradient, a pair of recently finished knit socks in a dark variegated with a blue/yellow varigated toe, and a black pottery coffee mug with a skull on it.

Not a *yarn* gift, but I found a fountain pen that was a gift in a drawer and finally got around to buying ink for it, and I’m hooked. More on that later.

Lesser used crafts

Lesser used crafts has been a pretty big success. I’ve rotated through the following things:

  • January: Spinning (largely spindle spinning)
  • February: Tatting
  • March: Mending
  • April: Weaving
  • May: Origami
  • June: Pants (related to my next goal)

July was supposed to be embroidery month, but we’ve been traveling and I haven’t had much time, but I did have a huge blitz on long draw spinning so I might retroactively declare this long draw month and give embroidery a second shot.

Overall I feel like this goal is working for me: in pulling out different crafts and enjoying them again, and I’ve managed to keep my excess supply buying to a minimum. The time limit helps me keep moving on some projects that might otherwise get shelved. But it also feels like a month is too small for some things. I think I’ll stick to the monthly thing for the rest of the year but I will likely change it up if I want to keep this going past the end of 2024. The months are nice because they fit into when I look at my planner and stuff, but I’ll probably sometimes do two months of the same craft, or have a periodic “make up month” to go back and finish unfinished objects.

Pants

I made them! They are not great, mostly because it feels like I made a size too big but also because the pattern was designed to be looser than I think I want. But I learned a *lot* and I’m happy I did it! I think my next attempt will be some pj shorts since that’ll take less material. While I *could* iterate on this pattern until it’s perfect I think I’m going to try at least one other one to see if I can find a better starting point.

But I’m probably going to make another linen skirt or two before going back to pants, since that’s what I wear all the time now. I should probably make some in neutral colours for travel when I go with more of a “capsule wardrobe” than I do at home.

Colour Play

I took a dye class at Craft Emporium PDX!

A set of 4 hand-dyed skeins from my workshop. The first is blue/green, the second orange, the third pink/grey/blue and the final one rainbow.
Caption: A set of 4 hand-dyed skeins from my workshop. The first is blue/green, the second orange, the third pink/grey/blue and the final one rainbow.

And I’ve even knit one of the skeins into socks so I feel like I got a better sense of how the colour really worked.

I also had a lot of fun playing with Woolly Wormhead’s new short row stitch dictionary and my own rainbow handspun from last year’s Tour de Fleece.

A triangular shawl with a rainbow of short-row leaves on it.
Caption: A triangular shawl with a rainbow of short-row leaves on it.

I did a bit of colour play in this year’s tour de fleece, splitting up a braid to make a loosely gradient skein. Haven’t knit it up yet but it looks promising in the skein.

Handspun yarn on a niddy noddy showing a messy gradient from teal to maroon.
Caption: Handspun yarn on a niddy noddy showing a messy gradient from teal to maroon.

Less fibery, but I have been diving in to the world of cool fountain pen inks. I used to use a fountain pen back in high school to limit strain on body when I had tendonitis and couldn’t write very easily, but there’s a world of very pretty inks now and it’s pretty exciting! I guess paper has fiber, right?

A page of my (intentionally) messy handwriting using a fountain pen. The text is a list of travel gear that I may review in future blog posts.
Caption: A page of my (intentionally) messy handwriting using a fountain pen. The text is a list of travel gear that I may review in future blog posts.

I feel like I’ve made a good dent in this goal, but there’s still some dyeing experiments I wanted to try and maybe some fading and other knit colour combos I could fit in, so I don’t feel like I’m done yet, per se.

Overall

I’m about where I should be for halfway through the year, but I still have a lot of things I want to do, and I’m going to have to make a stronger effort to use gift yarn in the second half of the year.

Finchley Graft written instructions

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I learned the Finchley Graft recently. It makes the same fabric as the more common Kitchener graft, but without the extra setup/end steps that make it stick out at the edges when used on, say, a sock toe.

Unfortunately, I haven’t done it enough times to actualy have it memorized, and when I look it up I find pages of videos without wrtten instructions, and even the pattern I learned it from links a video. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I loathe watching a video to remind me of a technique when I just need a few easy to scan words as a reminder. So I’m making the thing I want to have in the world!

Full written instructions

This is for grafting two pieces of stockinette together, with purls on the back side.

  1. Divide stitches into two equal parts and hold the front/knit sides of the piece together, with the back/purl side facing out.
  2. Cut a length of yarn 3 times as wide as the graft and thread the end onto a yarn needle.
  3. Insert the needle knitwise through the first stitch on both needles and pull the yarn through.
  4. Pull the back stitch off the needle.
  5. Insert the needle purlwise through the first stitch on each needle and pull the yarn through. (One is new, one is the one you did last time)
  6. Pull the front stitch off the needle
  7. repeat 3-6 until two stitches remain then go though and pull them both off

Short reminder for future Terri:

  1. From front go through both knitwise, pull off last (back)
  2. From back go purlwise, pull off last (front)

Other tips

  • The real winner in this graft is not needing extra setup steps that make little “ears” on sock toes.
  • Flipping a sock inside out is much easier if the stitches are on a cable. If using a circular needle pull the tips through. If on dpns maybe try stitch saver or something.
  • Like Kitchener, getting the tension right takes practice. I find it harder to see because you’re working on the wrong side. (So if you’re doing a long graft you might still prefer Kitchener. I find for a sock toe that I can just wiggle)
  • In theory the shorter instructions will be easier to remember, but since I already had the other graft memorized it doesn’t much matter to me.

Meat Hat (free pattern)

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My kid decided he wanted to have a “meat hat” and after some consultation to figure out what he meant by that, it was determined that he wanted a green hat with some sort of meat pixel art on the hat, possibly inspired by Minecraft. He picked out the yarn in the spring, but it was already too warm for a hat so I didn’t get around to actually knitting it until fall. I got him to make some additional design guidance and handed him a pixel art editor for final designs, and this is what he drew:

Notes from my meat hat design meeting with my kindergartener. On the left is hand drawn picture of three types of meat with arrows between them, on the right are the same meats as pixel art. They are supposedly steak, chicken and meatballs.

He then clarified:

  • The types of meat are steak, chicken and meatballs
  • Each one could go on its own line but had to be repeated around the hat

Seems clear enough, although I’m still not sure what inspired the need for a meat hat. But he has outgrown his previous winter hat, so away we go! I can’t really imagine other people wanting to knit a meat hat so it feels a bit odd to document this as a pattern, but who knows maybe your kindergartener is also into meat?

Spoilers: here’s what the actual hat looked like after we made it!

The Meat Hat (and matching mitts) designed by my kindgergartener. The meats represented are meatballs, chicken, and steak.
The Meat Hat (and matching mitts) designed by my kindgergartener. The meats represented are meatballs, chicken, and steak.

My kid’s head is 21″ which is basically an adult small. Yes, he has a huge head (and I had the stitches to show for it, thanks. And not the knitting kind of stitches!).

  • I used the free Barley hat pattern from Tin Can Knits as a base to figure out sizing because it was free and I wanted to try out the new sizing in their app (which is pretty neat). If you need a different size, you could maybe use that to help you figure it out. The matching mitts are the kid’s size from the simple collection, also available in the app or their website.
  • Sorry, I haven’t made a written or accessible version of this because I honestly can’t imagine anyone but me knitting it. There is alt text describing what’s in the charts for curious passers by, but no written instructions or higher contrast charts available, and my kid’s dark green and dark brown colour choices aren’t the easiest to read. If you do want an accessible version and you promise to actually try knitting it, ping me at terri(at)toybox.ca and I’ll see what I can do.

Yarn: Worsted weight. I used Dream in Colour Smooshy for the main green colour, Amano Yarns Warmi for the brown meat colour (the heathering really rocks for this) and Knitpicks Swish Worsted for the black and white bits. The contrast here isn’t as good as it could be, but that’s what happens when your kid picks the colours based on what feels nice in the yarn store. I’m not sad: these were lovely to knit with.

Needles: US6 for brim / US 8 for body. If your colourwork tends to be tight you probably want to go up at least one needle size for the colourwork. (I did not do this, but then had to stretch the hat a bit during blocking as a result.) There are some long floats here: this might be a good piece for practicing the ladder back jacquard technique if you want an excuse.

Brim

Cast on 84 stitches with smaller needs (US6 for me) in main colour (or a contrast colour, you do you!)

Ribbing Row: (Knit 2, purl 2) repeat around

Work ribbing row for around 1.5 inches or however long you want your brim to be.

Switch to larger needles (US8 for me)

Stockinette Row: knit around

Work stockinette row for 1.5 inches if you wish to have a folded up brim and don’t want the pattern to get hidden. If you don’t like a folded brim, you can just work 2 rows instead, but you’ll have to start decreases earlier in the hat colourwork (or enjoy a slouchier hat!)

Colourwork

Increase row: m1, knit around

My pixel art program produces 16×16 sized images, but 84 doesn’t divide evenly into 16. However 17 is a multiple of 85, so I just added an increase in the first motif and repeated each steak motif 5 times. Technically my kid drew stuff with a lot of white space so if you’re really committed to 84 stitches for some reason you *could* trim his charts down to 12 stitches and make them fit. I just didn’t do this for the steak and chicken charts.

If you tend to have tight colourwork, you should go up another needle size here.

Follow steak chart for the motif, but I removed most of the green lines and kept only 2 between the steak and chicken.

A pixel art rendition of a steak. It is rectangular with some black "grill marks" on one side.

Follow chicken chart for the motif, skipping some green lines as you prefer. I moved my stitch markers so that the chicken lined up with the gaps in the previous chart. I kept 1 green row before starting the meatball chart and removed all the others. I personally did the top of the chicken and black bits as duplicate stitch because I was tired of carrying long floats, but you do whatever works for you. (if you took out more green columns the floats might not be so bad.)

Pixel art as a knitting pattern featuring my kid's rendition of "chicken" which appears to be a slightly rectangular roast chicken shape but it's white with black dots on the end of the "legs"

At this point, I decided I wanted more meatballs, so I tucked a k2tog in the start of the meatball chart to go back down to 84 stitches and adjusted to a 14 stitch motif repeated 6 times instead.

Pixel art as a knitting pattern featuring 4 meatballs on a green background.

Note that I needed to start crown decreases while I was in the midst of the meatball motif on the top meatball, so I just stuck them in between the meatballs (see below for decrease instructions)

If you went up a needle size for the colourwork, you can decrease again here.

Crown decreases

Once the motifs have reached around 6 inches you’ll need to start decreases:

Decrease row: (k12, k2tog) repeat around (6 times)

(Or if you’re still in the middle of a motif, work motif for 12 stitches then the decrease. )

Work decrease row then stockinette row for first 4 decreases, then work decrease row only until you have 6 stitches. Cut yarn leaving a 6 inch tail and weave through the final stitches then pull tight and tie closed. Weave in ends. Block.

The Dread Pirate Kid wearing his Meat Hat in the snow.
The Dread Pirate Kid wearing his Meat Hat in the snow.

And that’s the meat hat! Kiddo did indeed wear it this week when we had actual snow and cold, though I expect the hat won’t get much use since he’s pretty anti-hat unless it’s actually cold. It’s seldom below freezing here for more than a week per year . But it was fun to work on his design so I’m not sad even if it only gets worn a few times. He says he wants a rainbow sweater next!

Two tiny two at a time nested socks knitted one inside the other

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[Note: I wrote this up last year/summer of 2022, never quite finished it, and never published it as a result. I don’t know if I remember enough here to finish writing this up properly without knitting the socks again. I don’t want it languishing in my drafts and I’m not sure when I’ll feel inclined to write it up as a real pattern. So I’m just gonna publish it anyhow and I hope it helps someone else who wants to play with a fun technique!]

The folk at Knitted Wit had a fun summer bingo this year, and one of the squares was “I tried a new-to-me sock technique” so I decided to try knitting two at a time socks with the socks nested inside each other. One of the people in my old Saturday knitting group used to do this somewhat regularly and I was intrigued. I wasn’t up to knitting full sized socks just to try a technique, so I worked from the knitted mirror socks pattern and scaled it down to 24 stitch mini socks and took out all the colour changes.

Since I couldn’t find anyone else who’d done a tiny version of this, I’m writing up my notes in case you too want to try a new technique but don’t want to commit weeks of your life to doing it!

Tips before you start

Choosing yarns: make sure they look very different. Ideally you want high contrast and not a single speckle that matches. I used one speckle and one solid to help me differentiate and because I was using leftovers from previous projects. You might find it easier to just use two solids for the least stressful experience. It doesn’t matter in the finished project since the socks will be separated, but it’ll make the learning experience easier if you can tell your yarns apart even when you can only see a little stitch sticking out.

Two high-contrast yarns and my sock start.

Choosing needles: you want sharp needles with long tapers at the tips because p2tog through the back loop is a pain on blunter tipped needles. I used chiaogoo size 1 because it’s what I have on hand that suits the fingering weight yarn I used. I think this pattern would have been frustrating if I’d tried to use my Knit Picks or Addi needles, even though the addis are my usual go-to for socks. I used a long circular and had a “top” and “bottom” needle. Two dpns (with a third working needle) would work just as well.

You’re going to be knitting top-down with the two socks nested, with the outer one inside out. This arrangement keeps the yarns to the correct side of the socks slightly more easily. If you’ve done double knitting before, it’ll feel pretty similar, you just have to be very careful about not crossing your yarns inside the tube.

Casting on

CO 24 stitches in the round. Do 4 rounds of k1, p1 ribbing. (You could do this two at a time but it’s only 4 rows and this way you get to start on something easier.)

Get a second set of needles, do it again. (Cast on 24 stitches, do 4 rounds of k1 p1 ribbing)

Decide which is going to be sock A, the outside sock that you’re going to purl in reverse stockinette, and which will be sock B, the inside sock that you will knit in regular stockinette. If one of your yarns is a bit thicker than the other, you’ll want it to be sock A because the gauge is going to be slightly bigger and you might as well have the yarn help. This wouldn’t be as important on full sized socks, but it’s noticeable on such tiny ones. (Guess how I know…)

Close up of my socks showing the alternating stitches.

Arrange the two socks on one set of needles so that the stitches alternate. Sock A, sock B, A, B, A, B and so on. I put 24 stitches on one needle (12 of A, 12 of B) to be the top of foot, and the remaining 24 on a second needle to be the bottom of foot.

Move yarn A to the front and B to the back. I hold both yarns in my left hand, so I found it easier to keep A in front with my thumb while working B.

Leg

Leg Row: Purl A, Knit B 24 times being careful not to cross your yarns.

Knit for about one thumb width of stockinette/reverse stockinette, checking periodically to make sure your yarns haven’t crossed. My thumb is around 2cm or 3/4 of an inch if you prefer to use a ruler, but since this sock doesn’t have to fit anyone I’m sure your thumb will be good enough too. Or you can just eyeball it.

Checking the socks to make sure they’re still separate.

Heel flap

Go to whichever needle you’ve designated as the bottom and start the heel flap. This will be knit flat over only the bottom needle’s stitches.

Row 1: slip A, slip B, then [Purl A, Knit B] 11 times, turn work.

Row 2: slip B, slip A, then [Purl B, knit A] 11 times, turn work.

Repeat these rows 6 times, so you should have 6 slipped stitches up the side.

Turn heel

You’re going to be doing decreases now, which means you’ll have to rearrange the stitches so two A and two B yarns are next to each other.

Row 1: [purl A, knit B] 7 times, rearrange stitches for decreases, dec A (p2tog), dec B (ssk) turn.

Row 2: [purl B, knit A] 3 times, rearrange stitches dec B dec A turn.

Row 3: [purl A, knit B] …

Continue like this until dec is at end of each row 8? stitches per sock

Pick up 6 stitches along edge of flap, continue as before across sock, pick up 6 on other edge.

PK dec,

You likely will have a little hole at the heel, particularly on the outside socks that are stretched out a bit more. Rather than fussing over it, just plan to sew it closed at the end.

A pair of socks showcasing the gap at the heel turn.

Foot

Foot Row (same as leg): Purl A, Knit B 24 times being careful not to cross your yarns.

Knit in stockinette/reverse stockinette until the foot looks long enough to you. I once again used my thumb to measure and made it about the same length as the leg section.

Toe

Now here’s the part with the awkward p2togtbl so that you can match the k2tog. If you find it hard, sharper needles will tend to help. Also, since no one’s going to wear these and likely no one will care if the decreases don’t match, you could also just do a p2tog and call it a day if you want. You can graft the last few stitches if you want but these are so tiny that running the end through the last few stitches and pulling tight works fine.