Snapshot

My family and friends will tell you that I am not a good photographer. I don’t look at composition. I don’t wait for the perfect pose. Thankfully, smartphone cameras do most of the work and usually I end up with some snapshots conveying what I had in mind.

Today, I am going to share a snapshot with words. Where am I at? What am I doing? What have I produced in the last three months.

If you want some context to my snapshot, I am writing this while waiting for the Artemis 2 to re-enter into earth’s atmosphere and make a splashdown. Oh, and I bought some Artemis yarn at Hand Knit Yarn Studio today without even thinking about the big event. How fitting!

First of all, there are a couple of things I have only touched on in my previous posts.

1. I keep working on newborn, orange hats to send to Sioux Lookout. They are a great project for waiting rooms, meetings and car knitting (as long as I am not driving). I have done 16 since the beginning of January and there are a few more made by a friend.

2. The green and black brioche sweater has been repaired. The new neck brings the over-sized sweater perfectly together. It was a challenge to unpick the baggy (sort of) turtleneck. Once I had all the stitches back on a circular needle, a great YouTube video helped me with the decreases. Then it was a breeze to complete the round neck and weave in any loose ends.

3. The small gloves, I have been working on are also finished. I am not happy with a couple of the increases, so I am going to start over and make a second pair. Thankfully, I have enough yarn left.

4. The Alyanna (name of the pattern) dress has been completed and gifted. One of my friends gave me the idea and necessary hardware to make a pair of matching hairclips. How adorable!

Secondly, here is what I am working on right now.

1. Back in my twenties and struggling with some extra weight, I came across a book titled: the F-Plan Diet. Since then, I have kept fibre a big part of my eating. Altogether, fibre is a huge part of my life. I eat Ancient Grain bread and right now I knit with Ancient Arts yarn. I started working with the yarn I purchased at KnitCity, making a fringed collar. After four different swatches, I settled on a simple garter stitch holding the Alpaca Suri and 3 strands of Ancient Art’s Kid Silk Mohair together. The yarn is definitely the star of this show.

2. I needed a project for my upcoming trip. A 200g cake of self-striping cotton and a pattern to crochet a top seemed to be just the right thing. The pros are that it is a easy project to pack and will feel okay to work with even if the weather should be warm (I hope so!). The cons are that my left hand becomes sore if I crochet to much, and the yarn wants to split in a split second if I take my eyes of the work.

3. That means, I needed to pack another project. I picked up some plain blue sock yarn to pair at the YarnBar Café (what a lovely store!). It will make a nice pair of socks.

Thirdly, I want to talk about my writing.

1. My Squishy Rib Hat pattern is with a technical editor. I should receive some feedback in the next couple of weeks.

2. Three people are testing my eyeglass case pattern. Let’s see how that goes. If there is anyone else who would like to test knit this small project, please let me know.

3. I am working on a pattern for gloves in adult sizes small, medium and large (mentioned in my knitting section). I finished knitting the gloves in size small and realized, I did not like a couple of the increases. That meant I had to go back to my graph paper and work the math again. I think, it should now work out better. I am almost done writing the pattern. When I get back from my trip, I am going to use the pattern to reknit the gloves. Not the other way around. Let’s see how that turns out.

4. My cozy mystery has been mostly left in the box for the last couple of years. I took it out (virtually) in February and realized that I need to make a few changes to the draft. My plan is to start setting time aside regularly to work on it. In the meantime, I am brainstorming ideas for the second book, but those ideas are still mostly in my head. I guess, if I want to get anywhere, I have to put in time and effort.

The splashdown was successful. I hope that I will be able to report the same for, at least, some of my ventures.