Happy Halloween

 I don’t know about your trick or treaters post pandemic, we have had noticeably less trick or treaters.  Since I tend to offer candy and non candy items for the children I have found that they love the following items in order of what goes faster.  

1. Pencils and erasers. #2’s go the fastest followed by colored pencils, lastly pencils that are anything else. The animal erasers that you can switch the parts around, go the fastest. I never buy them around Halloween, but other times in the year when they’re on sale.

2. Candy - it does not matter which kind, just not marshmallows. 

3. Crayons  and bubbles for the younger children. 

4. 3D printing errors and benches.  All the benches come from printers that have left the house.  

5. Various Halloween items. 

This year to get some extra ice packs out of the house, I gave away sets to parents who were with their kids.  I still have one set left and it comes with its own canvas bag. Let me know if you want it.  

Have a good weekend.  

Boo-boo Fixed

 I had to rip out row 9  of the Skill Builder Hat by aklori Designs and crochet the whole row again.  I have to admit that the row looks better than trying to patch things up.  I am just not that good at Tunisian crochet yet. So I went with my strength and ripped the row out. By the way I prefer ripping out Tunisian crochet over knitting just because I don’t have to be as careful.  I just put a stitch marker where I want to stop and rip away.  Then I got to row 10 the hardest row for me so far. It required dropping 2 stitch markers to accommodate a change in the pattern.  As you can see from the picture below I am starting to add the 2 rows of curves for the medium size hat.  It took 1 1/2 television shows to get through row 10.  I think I should be calling them rounds, because I am crocheting in the round. Rows just sounds better to me right now.  

I have one more row to crochet before I start the body.  That sounds very easy after rows 10 and 11.  Just the Tunisian knit stitch and the Tunisian simple stitch for a lot of rows.  The good news is that I will be down to 1 stitch marker.  Then I get to the brim and have to learn 2 new to me stitches.  Wish me luck.  

Tonight’s progress.  You can see the first row of scallops that I added tonight.

It’s been a very hard day on my body so I am calling it an early night. 

One Booboo

 I have found 1 boo-boo on round 9 of the Skill Builder Hat by Aklori designs.  Tonight I just gathered up the stitches and put a stitch marker to hold it together.  Tomorrow I will go to the back side of the work and pick up the stitch.  I am hoping that the repair work will be similar enough to just pick up the stitches and put them in there proper places.  After all I have over 26 years of experience and people hand me their projects to fix all the time.  If it comes down to the worst case scenario, I will just take out round 9 and fix it.  I have really started to get my rhythm down on the crown work.  

Without further ado, here is the current picture. 

Not So Visible Progress

 In the not so visible progress I managed to start the next round of a bespoke shawl for me.  I am only using “luxury yarn” from my stash.  I am 3 full skeins in with skeins 4 and 5 currently being added.  So far I have used a merino and silk blend for 2 skeins.  One skein of llama.  Currently being added are 2 skeins of 100% silk yarn.  The center panel is Tunisian Simple Stitch.  The first 2 color blocks are a half double crochet.  The current round is Tunisian crochet in the round. Honestly it went much faster once the stitches were picked up off the half double crochet round.  I am not sure how big it will become.  Whether or not, I will add more yarn to the project. Or call it quits once I go through the current skeins that I have picked out.  Only time will tell, and of course more crocheting.  

I added a couple of more rows to a charity scarf tonight.  All progress stopped when the television shows became too interesting. 

Of course 30 minutes of house work and organizing required a 2 hour nap.  The antibiotics are just zapping my spoon level to the basement.  I even sat down to sort the silverware.  I have to say it was a little awkward, although everything was put in the proper place.  

My new Apple Watch is a bit more jumpy than I expected.  Putting away the plates triggered an alarm for loud noise. Excuse me have they ever had a baby crying in their ears nonstop? Smashing a bug that landed on my arm,  elicited an alarm for “did you fall? Do you need medical assistance?”. Cleaning and organizing has had multiple alarms for me to sit down immediately and rest.  At this point I’m not even sure if I bought a watch or a portable mother hen.  I have been using smart watches for a long while.  I have never had one this jumpy.  Of course my last watch refused to give me the temperature in Fahrenheit, one day it decided all it would do with Celsius no matter what I did. When it started dying I gave up brand loyalty and switched to an Apple Watch.  Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make the watch less jumpy? I would love to hear your thoughts.  

Visible Progress

 Today I made some very visible progress on finishing my UFOs. With only one project left in the bag, the big bag was empty,  I emptied the project from the big bag and placed the project in a smaller bag. Going through the yarn in the sheep bag, since it was not super wash yarn I put it in with the weaving yarn .  

For knitting projects completed today, there were 2 charity projects completed. One child’s hat.  One scarf for a teenager.  Now they are headed to a pile of finished projects waiting to be photographed.  Then off to be used by my favorite knitting charity. The clothing bank at the Flowing Wells School District. If you would like to help the Flowing Wells School District, just go to their website and click the donation button for the activity of your choice. For residents in Arizona, the money you donate can be taken off your taxes. Please contact your accountant for details.

You might have noticed the pin on the front of the larger knitting bag. It is in support of Ukraine, with the colors of the Ukrainian flag and national flower. Please remember the heroes in Ukraine. They did not ask for this war, but they will finish it and win..

A Salvage Mission

 This is the yarn from the 7 times failed hat project. The yarn has been in time out for about a week. Of course the idea popped into my head after dinner. With not enough time to finish it before tomorrow in honor of Malabrigo Day celebrating 20 years in one of the most difficult business to become successful in. 

 If you follow my blog on a regular basis you will know the trouble this yarn got me into.  Now I have a perfect solution for this lovely yarn.  A striped scarf using Malabrigo , I think it is Caprino, but don’t quote me on this. I got this yarn in a class with no labels.  I am using a 6 mm Tunisian Crochet hook. I am doing 5 rows of Tunisian Simple Stitch. Since I have not yet learned to invisibly hide the yarn carrying, I am using a similar method that I use in knitting.  I am getting better as I tweak each row.  I am on row 15 of actual rows right now, so that would be half way through row 8 in Tunisian Crochet.  As you can see from the picture below, the yarn is very happy in this new pattern.  This is what the yarn wants to be.  I think I will add a bit of fringe on the ends since my side edges are not curling.  

Round 7 Completed

 It took an entire hour.  I have completed round 7 of The Skill Builder Hat by aklori designs.  The piece is still flat. The rows look fairly symmetrical. I took the pattern one repeat at a time and made sure it was as perfect as I could make it before I went on to the next repeat.  That is why it took an hour for this round.  I am happy with the results so far. So it was well worth my time. Forward progress has been made.