Wool and 100 day challenge done!

 

100 days in the same dress

I wasn't sure about this whole thing when I started this.  Could I wear the same dress every. singe. day. for 100 days.  The answer is yes.  Did I get bored and lose enthusiasm for the dress?  Yep, did I throw in the towel and wear something else?  Nope.  I wore the dress to work, at home, camping, kayaking, hiking.  In cold weather, in hot weather, it was nice to not think about what I was going to wear (tho, it did sting when my daughter told me that it's not the most flattering style on me...until I belted it and dressed it up a bit).

So now the challenge is done.  I'm tired of black.  My sierra will get a lot of wear still, but I feel the need for some color.  :)

Eighty (and counting) days in a Wool& Dress

Because I'm not particularly talented at posting pictures in order, these start at the bottom and go up from Day 1 (the day I got my covid vaccine) until Day 80 of the Wooland challenge.  I am actually on challenge day #86, but that group will be added later, trying to get these photos loaded has stretched my computer abilities for a Tuesday afternoon the second week of my summer break.

What have I learned so far with this challenge?  Well. Despite my good intentions I am not going to blog about this every day, nor every week (too late to go back now!).  I started this in April during the most stress-filled school year ever, I was lucky to get out of bed and get dressed, my hair brushed and my teeth brushed and out the door with my lunchbox.  Thank goodness, this dress took the stress out of the getting dressed bit. The last day at school was day 75ish of this challenge and not one person mentioned the fact that I was wearing the same thing, just styled a little differently, every single day.  I did mention it to a couple of co-workers who gently teased me about the fact that my wardrobe before this challenge was pretty much the same thing (as is theirs)

Another thing I have learned is that I'm not wild about my pictures and that I've never had so many taken of myself.  I had all of these great ideas about styling my photos and perhaps having my husband take them for me.  Then I realized whenever I ask him to take a decent photo of me he'll shoot one and say "there you go, it's a good one" and when I look it's fuzzy, my eyes are closed and not at all going to work.  So I have done a few run ins and those last couple of weeks of school I stood at my front door, placed my phone on the stairs took a snap and headed to work.

Most people don't notice what you're wearing.  Oh, they might say I really like that (fill in an article of clothing) you wear when it's (cold/hot/raining/a field trip/etc), but they won't necessarily miss it if you don't wear it for a while.  The kids at my school watch for my hand knits.  They notice my socks, every single scarf I wear, my hats and even a sweater or two, otherwise they could care less what I'm wearing.

At this point (day 86 and counting), I'm tired of black.  The little black dress may go with everything (I've not had the best of luck combining it with navy blue), but every now and again it needs a bit of something else...anything else.  I know that at the end of this you get a "reward" of some $$ off of a new dress, I know which dress will be my next one...but right now I have a lovely olive green one waiting for this challenge to end (on the last day of an upcoming camping trip).

The dress is comfortable and it's made me look at my (rather limited) wardrobe in a different way.  The past 86 days have been a learning eperience, a good one for the most part!!

#wooland  
 

Today is day 19 of this challenge.  I'm getting my hair cut (finally) this afternoon, so no morning picture :) .

Things I've learned in the last nearly 3 weeks.  I'm not a fashion plate, comfort is what drives what I wear and this dress is comfortable.  Lint rollers are a must, especially with dogs that shed like mine do.  I've spent both more and less time getting dressed.  Much of the last three weeks have been spent with copious amounts of snow; as I type this it is snowing outside, for the 3rd or 4th (I've lost count) day.  One would think that a sleeveless dress would be a crazy decision for springtime in Colorado, but having lived here nearly 30 years I know for a fact that layers are a necessary thing.  I have found different ways of wearing many of my "normal" clothing pieces and this is definitely not a bad thing.  So far no one has said anything about the fact that I've worn the same dress for so many days...but that could be the number of snow days we've had lately.

 

 Today is day 9 with the dress.  I need to work on my styling, which this weekend is merely "let's just hang out at home near the fire" with the blizzard the husband believed would (for the most part) miss us.  He's changed his tune, we've gotten over a foot and it's still snowing and snowing...and snowing.

This first week with the dress has been a learning one.  So far no one has said "hey did you wear that yesterday?" even tho for 3 days I wore the exact same thing with the dress (a long-sleeved t underneath) just added a duster, a t-shirt tied over the dress, and just plain.  Getting dressed is easier as I know what I'm wearing, accessorizing is more involved as I don't care to look the same every day.  So here are 8 of the nine photos of the past week and almost a half.  Eight days down...92 to go!

 

 

Day 2 With my photo buddy

Day 3, you really can't see the dress, and I have to say I'm not wild about the scarf.

Day 4 with my photobombers.  I need to find a better angle with the camera as this angle makes my body look bigger than necessary (it needs no help with looking bigger) and makes my head look small (my head may be empty, but it is not small.

I am hoping to find more inspiration for this challenge, but the dress is so comfy I could wear it as is and be perfectly happy.  Okay, maybe not "as is" since it's sleeveless and apparently we're supposed to get feet of snow this weekend.

I am looking forward to figuring out more creative ways to wear things with this dress. :)

 

A little challenge #Wool&100daydresschallenge

 

So this happened today.  A couple of weeks ago I decided to try the Wool& dress challenge.  Wear one of their wool dresses for 100 days, get a credit on your next dress.  I like wool, I like dresses, I enjoy getting a deal.  So here it is.  Got my Sierra dress and began this journey with my second covid vaccine. Love the fabric of the dress, love the dress...hopefully I will love it just as much 100 days from now.

Sometimes, I long for the "olden days"

This year is drawing to a close and I realize that around Christmas we all start looking to the new year, what will our resolutions be?  But a conversation I had with my mother about her new cell phone, her "android" as she calls it made me think backwards, sort of.  Mom was complaining about how long it takes her to make a phone call on her new "droid" and that every time she goes to use it the battery is dead, "the battery lasts no time at all, I just don't understand it".  I can remember when we got our first cell phone and how foreign it felt.  I was pregnant with my 3rd son, I'd lost four pregnancies at this point so my pregnancy with him was high risk.  My husband was working about an hour from home and wanted/needed for me to be able to get in touch with him if I had any problems this time, so we got this cell phone.  I remember it was a flip phone and I will admit that it was handy if I needed to get in touch with him, or him with me.  It made phone calls, it accepted phone calls and that was the extent of it.  We took it on vacation with us when we would take the two day drive from our house to California "in case something happened".  My mother would be upset because she would try to call several times while we were traveling and we'd never answer.  The phone at this point was still just a glorified wireless phone, when we traveled it was turned off and thrown into the glove box as a "just in case" sort of thing.

Flash forward 18 nearly 19 years.  Our phones seem to rule our lives.  We can surf the internet, call, text, listen to music...the dang thing does nearly everything except the windows.  We. are. never. out. of. reach.  I'm trying to explain to my elderly mother that her new cell phone is for all intents and purposes a computer.  We're three states away from each other and she refuses to go into the cell phone store and ask for help.  She's hard of hearing and I just want her to learn to use the damn thing so that she can text since she refuses to write a letter....doesn't matter what type, email or paper, the woman won't write.  I don't know why I think she'll text.  I do know that she hates when I don't carry my phone with me.  My kids hate it too, when they'll text or try to call me when I'm at work and my phone is turned to silent, or I ignore it until I have a break.

I miss 1985.  I really do.  I never thought I would.  I remember searching for a working pay phone and digging around for change so that I could use the phone.  I was 23 years old, but my mother still ruled my life with an iron hand (you get off at work at 10:30pm?  I'll call your apartment at 11:00 sharp, if you don't answer, then I'll call your friends and their parents until I find you....and yes my mother did this and yes I'm still apologizing all these years later for my mother's insane phone calls tracking down her grown daughter).  I kind of wish I'd had a cell phone then. But now I relish the idea that I'm "off grid" for a while.  I don't always have my cell phone on me.  Rarely is the volume so that I can hear it.  Sometimes I feel I just need to slow down and pretend it's 1978...well maybe not 1978 because we shared the phone line with our neighbor, which was a whole different sort of fun when you're a teenager...maybe we'll pretend it's 1980.  We have our own phone line, a letter is something you stick a stamp on and send through the mail.  You have to be patient, life isn't just a click away....  Maybe that's not so bad.

I have not fallen off the earth, nor have I forgotten how to knit.

Blogs.  Keeping track of knitting projects on knitting blogs. 

Life gets busy and pretty soon a year (or more) goes by and you realize that you've not sat at the computer and thrown words into cyberspace for strangers to read (since I seriously doubt that anyone reads my posts except me....and even I don't get here often).

The daughter is having surgery in a couple of weeks.  A big surgery.  To correct her back.  I'm scared, but trying to show a brave face when we talk about the upcoming hospital stay and how life is going to change (she will grow about an inch- inch and a half during the surgery).  I am knitting her a sweater.  I've finished one for her, but this one I found after I'd started the other one.  This sweater has a little keyhole cutout in the back and will hopefully give a peek of her scar.  I've worked with her that we will not hide and try to cover up this scar.  We will celebrate it and find beauty in it.  I don't want her to be afraid for people to see it.

But we're not there yet.  We have 15 days and some number of hours until the surgery.  But we're planning and looking forward to being healed and moving on.

Here's the beginnings of her sweater Myrna: 

Cascade 220 superwash, size 8 needle.

Fire

Wow, I've not been here for a while!  Since I last posted Colorado had a fire...no, not the one we're enduring now....Waldo Canyon fire.  From where I live I only saw the fire on the television news like everyone else, but...I experienced as well as I was on pre-evacuation orders for a week or two (I don't remember how long because each day felt like it was a month long).  Because I live up against the mountain I couldn't see the flames of the Waldo Canyon, but we got all of the smoke, which was terrifying because you felt like the fire was next to you.  Several friends lost houses in that fire.

Flash forward to a year after Waldo Canyon and I'm puttering around my house and I look out toward town and see a plume of smoke.  I'm looking for smoke from a fire on the Air Force Academy, not for smoke originating in the Black Forest. It is about 1:30 Tuesday afternoon, I'm thinking about taking my dog to the vet and what errands do I run.  I tell the kids "ohhhh, look at that, that can't be good"...I look online, the fire has been called in it's still small started over on Shoup and hwy83.  I take the dog to the vet, the fire has spread enough that a woman waiting with her cats starts to fret, the vet techs are talking about it.  I go home and look out to the west...and it's spreading....fast.  In the evening I find out that some friends who'd lost their home last year in Waldo Canyon and have been staying with their parents have been burnt out again.  A yarn shop that I frequent is on Shoup...we all feared that the shop has been burnt along with some other historic buildings in the area.  Information is flying all around as is misinformation.  As I type this 473 homes have been destroyed.  I, undoubtedly, have many friends who are now homeless...I know I have many who are evacuated.

This has been a knitting blog, so I will turn this around to knitting....Table Rock Llama's Fiber Arts, on Shoup Road is still there.  I know that they feel guilty that the shop is there when oh so many people have lost everything.  I hope they know how important it is that they are still there.  It's not about the yarn, fiber or needles.  It is that their doors will open up and everyone will be able to step into the shop and there will be a little piece of "normal".  Perhaps you don't knit, spin, dye...but you step in, maybe you go out to the big table in the studio and just sit.  Talk to the ladies in the shop, talk to the people who come in.  We are community.

Happy socks

I have been out of the United States once...well, except for a week or so in Hawaii, I've been off of the continent once...last year....when I spent a week with my friend and her family in England. This year, before my friend moves back here, I get to go and visit her again.

While visiting my friend I bought two skeins of Noro sock yarn (I know, I know....I, an American, bought Japanese yarn, in England....but I also bought yarn that was manufactured in the UK as well). I'd never knit with Noro before and, truthfully, I find the skeins to be rather itchy and scratchy and wasn't so sure that I'd want to make socks from them for fear that the socks would be...well....itchy and scratchy. My girlfriend assured me that Noro makes lovely socks and I've read many a review that says the same thing. So I cast on. At first I thought "hmmm, I'm not sure that this is quite my cup of tea. Oh well, I only have two skeins". But as I knit on and (I'm not a stripe kinda girl) the stripes are forming, I'm finding this to be a "happy sock". There is just something I find happy about both the colors and the yarn....like I'm harking back to my hippie (such that they are) roots. I am looking forward to a long happy relationship with Noro. (and I may even buy some when I go back to the UK)

Happy New Years Eve!

On my fb page this past year I kept track of all of my knitting projects. I should have done that on my ravelry profile, but I'm slower there to input projects....but whatever (as my kids say).

My last project was a plain vanilla pair of socks, in anything but a plain vanilla color. While visiting my friend in England I was admiring this yarn in a shop and she mentioned that she really likes the zauberball yarn. I'd never knit with it, but have seen it in many shops. I liked this green color and decided to give it a shot. Looking at the yarn I couldn't decide if I wanted to knit it up with a fancy pattern, or just a quick plain sock to let the yarn shine, so to speak. I decided to let the yarn shine, and I'm glad that I did. The plain Jane is a quick knit, no pattern to worry about, no fuss for holiday visiting while knitting, just knit happily away. I am happy with the end result and think they will be a favorite in my wardrobe (of odd clothes and socks). In keeping with my plan to track everything I knit this year, I finished them up this morning....a mere 16 hours before we ring in the new year.

Here is a list of my year in knitting:

11 fish hats
1 pair slippers
1 brooch
3 cowls
2 felted bags
1 felted kindle case
5 shawls
1 doll shawl
2 scarves
1 baby hat
1 baby sweater
1 beret
5 1/2 pairs socks (I ripped out that 1/2 of a pair)
2 vests (one child sized one grown up sized)
1 doll sweater
and about 1/2 of a sweater for myself

Happy New Year. May 2012 bring wonderful things.

Not so much holiday knitting

I'm not a toe up sock person. I've knit a couple of pair and find the fit to be odd. I've done an afterthought heel and a short row heel and this pair has a gusset heel. I do think that the fit is better with a gusset, but we'll see. Perhaps my thoughts are colored by the fact that I knit my socks from the top down.

Holiday knitting has pretty much come to an end around here. Of course with Christmas staring me in the face about the only thing I'd be able to finish in the next couple of days would be a book mark...and only if it were a small bookmark. We've had snow days around here and some delayed starts to the school days. I have had my girl child at home with me the past couple of days, which really throws a wrench into things. She loves to stand next to me coughing and hacking and asking if she can help. Only from afar.

Happy Holidays to whoever may see this post. Enjoy!!

Those odd skeins

One of the LYS's I visit on occasion has an "orphan" basket of odd skeins near the check out. These are usually discounted 15 or 20%. Often, being a lys and all, these are very nice skeins that just happen to not have enough yardage to pull off a very big project. Often these are skeins that do not have enough yardage to be featured in a "One Skein Project" book. You just don't see a whole lot of patterns dedicated to that odd 50 gram 195 yard skein of sock yarn. Faced with a couple of these "50 gram not enough yardage for more than one sock" beauties I decided that I would find something to knit with them. Something useful, something to throw into the one small skein pattern pool, which is how I came up with my "Dainty Chevron Cowl", which I do plan to figure out how to publish as a pdf instead of how it is here as a blog post.

So I dug through the orphaned skeins and found a lovely skein of some Mochi stuff. I'd never knit with it but a friend loves the stuff and soon will have a lovely cowl of my own (since I wrote up the pattern and have knit several of the cowls I thought it might be nice to have one of my own).

My limited Christmas knitting is done. I don't knit a lot of gifts. I find that knitting gifts is a complicated thing. If people don't knit they may not appreciate the amount of time and effort that went into the project. Then there are those who think that the whole home made gift thing is a way of being "cheap" (quite the opposite actually). My very own mother will say "but why would I knit you something? You knit beautifully and can knit anything that you'd like" (but I can't knit the hand knit gift from you, my most precious knitted items are not the ones that I've knitted for myself, but the ones that are gifted to me). If anyone besides myself reads this post, you and I both know that hand made gifts are lovely (and perhaps I've just been lucky, but I've appreciated every hand made gift I've received).

Happy Friday blogland. I didn't think I'd enjoy having my work day rescheduled today, but it's been nice to slow down a bit....even if I should be doing the holiday craziness!

Christmas knitting

I don't know about you, but for me Halloween marks the true rush toward Christmas. Oh, I start thinking about Christmas knitting mid summer. We'll be sitting around the campfire roasting marshmallows and my mind may idly wander to if/what I will be knitting for gifts especially if we pass by a yarn shop on our wanderings. The spousal unit doesn't put any thought into the holidays until December 20th (tho, it did surprise me when he picked up a watch yesterday and said that perhaps that would be the perfect gift for one of the boy children we have around our house).

I'm picky about who I'll knit for. There are two gift recipients in my family who enjoy hand knit socks. (One of these recipients will actually send me sock yarn hoping for socks). This year I have several requests on wish lists for hats. This time of year is difficult for a lot of knitters (or at least it is for me, you'll have to speak for yourself). Back in July if I said "I'm knitting this as a holiday gift" I was looked at as if I had a screw loose. I'd hear "but the holidays are half a year away!" Come October I find people asking me "Can I pay you to (fill in a craft here, in addition to knitting on occasion I also sew), I'm thinking of giving (fill in gift) to (fill in recipient) for Christmas.....oh, and I need it in time to mail". Rarely do I "hire out" to knit/sew/cook gifts. My general rule is, if you want me to knit your dear old dad a scarf, I should know your dear old dad. And I do have a list of the things that I will willingly knit for gifts. That said, and as snotty as it probably sounded, I do knit for my younger children's school senior luncheon, Santa's breakfast and the Giving Tree. Most years I donate a knitted item or three for door prizes. One year I donated a lace scarf to be raffled off for the PTO. My charity knitting is my favorite and yes, I'm lucky enough that I will pass up a paying knit job to give my knitting away.

I'm not sure what the point of this post is. I'm here with my cup of coffee in hand, working on this lovely beret for my girl child. I am hoping that I can scale this pattern down, or write one that will work so I can knit a matching one for her doll. Then there are ear flap hats to knit, and socks and a scarf and and and. There's always something waiting in the wings.

The Frog Pond

I dutifully knit up a swatch for the "Henley with a Twist"(after starting it and ripping it twice). I cast on after swatching and deciding that I should have not ripped out one of my false starts. Then, I've proceeded to cast on and rip it out another 4 times, prompting the husband to ask "What is wrong with it NOW?" So, rather than making myself crazier than I already am, I have set aside the lovely "Henley with a Twist" to rest for a bit while I finish this little lovely "Estonian Lace Sampler" from my hand spun wool. So, I'm going to try to get myself and my projects out of the frog pond and back onto my needles.

Fall is in the air. Labor Day came and suddenly fall/winter was here. My garden is winding down and the thought is of sweaters and baking and knitting. Perhaps the frog pond will freeze over for a while :)

Swatch-it

Rarely do I do a real swatch. Often times my projects are small enough that I just cast on and knit a few inches and measure my gauge. But I've decided to knit Anne Hanson's "Twisted Henley" and rather than put a sweater's worth of knitting and find out that it's just not going to work. So here is my four inch swatch. (Just like Anne did with hers, I actually copied her from her blog). I think that it will work.

We shall see.....and now...swatch on my friend.

My life in stitches

So at some point I started this blog thinking I'd post about my knitting projects and really I'm kinda spotty about posting about my projects. I decided for a few friends of mine that I would chronicle my year in knitting over on my FB page. Perhaps at the end of the year I'll roll that little tome into a post here. Suffice it to say so far this year I've knit something like half a dozen fish hats, the sweater vest pictured here, a vest for my daughter and some other odds and ends, but for the most part it's been those hats. I'm tired of those hats.

I ordered a sweet little spindle from Thomas Creations (Threadsthrutime) over on Etsy because apparently I feel that I don't have enough projects to keep me busy for longer than I can imagine. And just for yucks, because the tiny was was so wee and sweet and tiny in a day or two a medium one should be showing up. Then I think I'm done as far as spindles go. Oh, I did sign up for a class and they specified a "top whorl spindle". My sweet new spindles are of the Turkish variety (my favorite to spin on)....while I'm no expert, shoot you probably couldn't even class me in the beginner category as far as spinning is concerned (my husband thinks that I'm at least an intermediate spinner, but what does he know?), I have fiddled around with a couple of different types of spindles and I really like the Turkish variety. So, being me, I've bought these nice lovely Turkish spindles and for the class? I dragged the husband down to Home Depot where I bought a dowel and a disc (actually it's the wooden thingy you use to hold the pole up in the closet) and we fashioned a top-whorl spindle (I forgot to grab a cd when I dragged him to the store, so we improvised). I plan to bring my top whorl (which will drive me crazy to spin on) and my Turkish spindles with me to my class. We'll see what I learn.

But lately, while I've thrown myself into spinning, I feel like my life is spinning....out of control and I'm fighting to get it back to something more manageable. I have one kid going into braces on his teeth. Not earth shattering, but boy are those things expensive! The boy could go visit Europe....twice on what we're sinking into what will be a lovely smile. I have another kid going into a back brace to try to slow the growing curve in her back. That one is more earth shattering. I'm not even going to mention the expense on that one (in part because I know that we don't have insurance coverage for the mouth braces, and I have no idea what will be our share on this back brace). I just know that the doctors get all excited to see us coming we do contribute to their bank accounts these days.
But for now I'm going to enjoy the sunshine and try to not think about spinning out of control. I will concentrate on spinning a nice yarn, and perhaps a tale to go with it.

Disappointments

First let me say that I have a love/hate relationship with Colinette Jitterbug Yarns. I love the colors, I love the feel of the yarn (that said, I think it knits up into a very very warm pair of socks, not something you'd ever feel and say "gee, this feels summery"). There's just something that I love about the yarn. But there's a dark side to it too. For some reason it seems to be skimpy on the yardage. I've knit a total of two pair of socks from Jitterbug and the others I've had to frog back because of this (see photo above). Yes yes yes, I could always knit my socks from the toe up, but I prefer a top down sock having never gotten a toe up sock to fit quite right. So there you have it, a lovely sock from Cookie A's first sock book, knitted to the toe, where I ran out of yarn (after I took this pic I knitted several more rounds just to further convince myself that I'd run out). So now this lovely yarn has been rewound is will be a finger weight "Traveling Woman" shawl-ette/scarf/something pretty that will be seen.

My life in Fish Hats

So at the beginning of the year when I decided that I would photograph and keep track of all of my knitting (there are people out there who actually do this. They catalog everything that ever appears on their needles. I have always been fairly lazy about this...it's on the needles, then it's off the needles and out of my mind until my sister says "hey, I love those socks! What pattern is it?"). But really I've knit so many of these hats since January 1 (5 of them so far!) that I don't really feel compelled to note the pattern (dead or alive fish hat) or the techniques I used to knit it (whatever entertains me at the moment, same with my color selection....I'm more governed by whatever odd skeins I have hanging around).

A friend asked if I'm tired of knitting these hats, and the answer is yes......and no. I've knit so many of them now (I've knit a total of 8 or 9 of them) that it's a fairly mindless knit and they're quick to do....which is good as I still have 4 or 5 more of them to knit for gifts.

I remember when

I have been a knitter for most of my life. I can remember when it wasn't "cool" to knit. It was okay that my mother knitted sweaters for me, I preferred her knit sweaters to match my school uniform to the scratchy uniform sweaters. But I remember being that age when knitted gifts were looked down upon. You know, like in "A Christmas Story" when Ralphie's aunt made him that Bunny costume for Christmas. Doesn't everyone have a gift like that costume? For me it was a woman my dad dated, she gave me this lime green sweater. She didn't knit it, a friend of hers did for me. It was horrid. I thanked her for it and wondered what in the world I would ever do with it. (for the record, I did wear it. It was warm and perfectly suited for wearing around the house and in the yard).

This whole thing crossed my mind as I asked my son's friend what kinds of things he might like for his birthday, since my son is invited to his party and, of course, a gift is customary. Several of the boys in my sons class have asked for a hat. So when asked this boy piped up "A fish hat". The party is day after tomorrow, I got the invitation yesterday. I know, I know I could just go buy a nice gift to give the kid. But I already had started another fish hat because I knew that if I could get a fish hat or three or four ahead that they would make perfect gifts. So, I'm madly knitting away on this hat and wondering how it is that now hand knit items for the middle school set have become so popular?