Shopping

 I took part in stress shopping tonight. No yarn was bought.  I have not done that in a long time.   Enough said.  Sweet dreams everyone.  

Row 10 Completed

 After taking the basic Tunisian Basic Crochet class at Birdhouse Yarns  with Lori of Aklori Designs a couple of weeks back, I decided that tonight was the night that I would try out my new skills.  I have been practicing some of the stitches on a scarf.  I do admit it was not smooth sailing. I took out rows 9&10 one time each.  I am working on the Tunisian Quick Crescent Shawl.   As I get ready to call it a night I am very happy with my progress.  

I am hopeful that progress will continue to happen. My wish is for a slightly faster pace with the caveat that I am fast enough to make positive progress and slow enough not to have to rip out entire rows.  

The First Project Finished in 2026

 My first knitting project for 2026 was finished last night.  Amy first charity project is a scarf. For one of my favorite kids charity projects.  The Flowing Wells School District Clothing Bank. This is a scarf for a teenager. It is 100% cotton knit in a broken rib pattern. 

Now how many more UFO’s can I finish this month? I have about 19 to go. 

Walking Away

 Sometimes I just have to know when to walk away from a project for the night.  I dropped a stitch on my fade shawl tonight and it took off running.  I know we have all been there.  I personally find when I drop a stitch close to bed time it’s best to try to fix it right the first time.  If I can’t fix it right the first time, I wait until the next day to fix it.  Preferably at a table.  I find that if I continue to try to fix it, I tend to make more of a mess of things.  

I am using the pattern Grandma’s Summer Shawl on my Ravelry pattern. I am using a fade set from Lanier Aimee yarn out of Paris France. I purchased this yarn sometime ago and I find it a delightful knit. You can find la Bien Aimee yarn at the link.  Right now they are having a sale and the prices look decent.  If you are in the United States they are currently using UPS for shipping and UPS will collect the tariffs. I really do wish they were using Federal Express for shipping because they have the tariff thing down pretty good. Fortunately, for my husband, all the 4 color fade set in the colors that I like are sold out. 

More things are leaving the house

Today’s to-do list was simple enough. First get my doctors and hospital to send paperwork to another provider. That seems like a simple enough task. It took me over 30 minutes to figure out how to do it because it was deeply hidden in the application. Then I had to email them with a complete list of what I needed and where it needed to be sent. I thought it was all done so I thought I’d do a bonus chore of going through books and deciding on which ones I didn’t want to keep. My goal was five books.

At book number three out of the five I get an email back saying that I needed to fill out another form. They sent a PDF so I couldn’t fill it out online. So that was printed out, fill it out and then I had to take a picture of it. Then in the reply email, I added the picture as an attachment and send it back. Back to picking out more books to leave The house. 

The first bag I picked was a bag that would hold the five books. I got that bag filled very quickly. Then I got another larger bag and added more books. By dinner time I had 15 books that were ready to go to Bookmans. After dinner and TV time I decided to try to get pick out five more books to make it an even 20. I figured even with a basket 20 was all the books I could carry in without tiring myself out. 

In the 20 books, there were books that I picked up because everybody said you had to read it. After the books have been on the shelf for more than eight years, it was time for them to go. I obviously wasn’t interested in the have to read book from eight years ago. I also took out books of things that I would no longer knit and other crafts. 

After all was said and done, I forgot to do my 46 minutes of exercise. I guess it was a squirrel kind of a day. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be more organized. I don’t think I should get that optimistic this late at night.

So I am still counting this day as a win because I finished 2 out of 3 things on my task list.  With a bonus of 20 out of a goal of 5 books leaving the house. 

Some Time at my Hansen Mini E-spinner Pro

 Now that my knitting room is becoming more useful and organized I found it was time to finally finish some lingering projects. Please note that I did not say fully finished. I spun up the second roving of a 2 roving set, it is now resting for a few days before plying.  

Now that I am talking about plying, I have a shawl that I started over 2 years ago.  The yarn is a combination of 2 lace weight yarns, with the first being 100% wool.  The second is a combination of 50% mohair and 50% silk, it has that yummy feel. This will leave me with a finished yarn of 50% wool and 25% each of mohair and silk.  I found that trying to knit with 2 lace weight yarns held together was very difficult for me.  I had lots of dropped stitches where I would not catch both strands with my knitting needles.  It was not the look that I was going for.  So my solution was to ply the yarns together as if they were single strands. I decided to use my Hansen e-spinner for this task. I have a lot more control over the twist. I have 2 bobbins filled and 3 1/4 bobbins to go.  After that I will give them a hot water bath to set the twist.  Only then will I resume knitting the shawl.  Currently on the e-spinner is the beginning of bobbin number 3.  I am not quite sure if it will still be a lace weight after plying and the hot water bath. Sometimes yarn blooms in quirky ways after the hot water bath. 

A Refresher Course

 Every once in a while, I find it educational to have a refresher course. Today I took a refresher course for me, which was a first level class in Tunisian crochet by Lori from Aklori Designs at Bird House Yarns in Tucson, Arizona. Within the first 30 minutes I found out why my Tunisian crochet never looked like the pattern pictures.  I learned that you only do the chain one stitch at the beginning of the return row pass. Not on both ends as I have been taught. Now my rippling on the right side is gone.  I learned a few new to me stitches too.  Now I am ready to tackle the shawl.  It seems less scary now. Also I will rip out a work in progress and start it correctly.  Knowing all the stitches makes it seem less intimidating. I would like to mention that Lori’s books are available at Bird House Yarns, and yes they will mail copies out.

I am also trying to start a new habit. They say it takes 30 days to start a habit. John moved my Cubii to a more accessible location under my sewing table in the sewing room. I started with 40 minutes with 3 additional minutes for warm up and cool down.  That is the same amount of time I am spending on the equipment at cardiac rehabilitation.  If they increase my time before I finish, I will up my time at home to.  I would also like to say I am not up to walking up hill yet, so walking in around the block in my neighborhood is not an option yet. It is either the mall or the Cubii for now. Today I managed to close 2 out of 3 rings.  I missed on my stand to walk goal because of my nap after breakfast and class today.  I got 10 out of 12 for the stand and walk.