"Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either." ~ Elizabeth Zimmerman

6/16/12

This Weeks Brainless Knitting

Despite being extremely busy, I am managing to get some knitting accomplished. I have made good progress on the Butterfly shawl. There are times when I feel like it's the black hole of projects, but if I keep plugging away on it, eventually it will be done. It is such, though, that I can not take it with me for public knitting though. Too much concentration is needed. So I have two projects I worked on this week that are brainless knitting.

I had a whole skein of yarn leftover from the February Lady Sweater I made earlier this year, so I decided to use it to make a pair of mens fingerless gloves for Knit Wits. As you can see, I've got one done and I'm well into the thumb gusset of the second mitt.



Knit Wits was given a large donation of fur yarn. I'm developing a pattern for it that I decided to name The Muppet Skin Shrug to use it up. I knit this one this week.



I'm knitting on big needles-size 15- and combining the fur with a smooth yarn (to add body to the fabric). I'm having some difficulty determining how much of the smooth yarn is needed, in yardage, to get the finished length I need of 52 inches. I seem to have not written down that information when I knit the first one. I used two full skeins of worsted weight Caron Wintuk on this one and didn't have quite enough. Three skeins would have been better but there were only two available and I really thought it would be enough. So this shrug is about 4 inches short. However, it is all acrylic and polyester fiber, and I used a garter drop stitch lace pattern, so I think if I just pin it out, stretching a bit to proper size, and gently steam it, that will fix the problem permanently. I decided to knit it flat and seam up the seams instead of doing the sleeves in the round like I did the first one because I wanted more flexibility in the blocking process. 10 inch seams won't take that long to sew.

I did not get any beading done this week. Probably won't this next week either. Got a lot on the plate of life.

Yesterday I had a man come over and roto-till my garden for me for what I think was a very reasonable fee. We had to take the gate of its hinges so he could get his little tractor in. It was an easy thing to do. It just slides off. He spent about an hour and a half working on it.



Sweet Hubby just wasn't going to get it done and summer is upon us. I was getting very frustrated over the whole situation. One of my friends suggested hiring someone to do it for me. What a brilliant idea! It's too late to plant the beans, corn, and sunflowers. But I can still get some beets, carrots, and flowers for sure. I think I may see if the acorn squash will be successful too.

Still loving my new car. It is such a pleasure to drive. Tomorrow, for Fathers Day, Sweet Hubby wants to drive the Selkirk Loop. Since we all have passports and Cable is current on her shots, I say "Lets go!" It should be fun. I've been wanting to do that trip for ages. We'll be going into Canada, so that's the need for the passports. I bet this will be Cables first time in Canada. I bet she'll like it.

I've got seeds to plant, so I'm signing off.

Live long and prosper. \\//

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