Weekend Progress

 It was a full weekend. Friday night I was pretty tired so I only watched a movie on Netflix and worked on some knitting (Kalta):

I am working the last repeat of chart 2 now and the pattern is emerging.

Saturday I heard the rain on the roof starting about 5 am. I got up around 7, started soup in the crockpot, and took some packages to the post office. Then I joined the local Women's March. It was difficult to stand around waiting for the actual walking to start. There was only one speech, by the organizer, but it was very long. My back started to hurt from all that standing on concrete, but at least the rain had stopped by then. People were friendly, outraged, motivated. After that I took my car to the next town over to have the annual emissions test it needs before I can renew the registration next month. On the way home I went to Kroger to buy groceries. 

Coming in to my house with the groceries, my excellent Ethiopian neighbor stopped me and asked me to lunch. He's been asking for a few weeks and since I had a few hours free, this time I said sure. It was a fun opportunity to try Ethiopian food at an authentic restaurant with him, and I did enjoy that very much. We had a huge vegetarian platter with an extra beef and onions dish, and as much injera as I could eat. I was not as impressed by the passenger seat belt in his car that didn't latch properly; probably I should have insisted that I drive, but I really don't know my way around and I was afraid his directions would be bad. Then he used about half of our meal to prostelytize because he's very upset that I am agnostic/atheist. That was uncomfortable. I liked it much better when he was telling stories about life in Ethiopia and the many different jobs he had when he first immigrated to the US. Additionally, lunch went so long that I completely missed the family video call.

So we finally got back to the house, and I ate a little of the soup I had prepared for dinner. The rest of the evening I watched another movie and worked on Kalta.

On Sunday, I finally wound the yarn for On the Spice Market

I bought this yarn (it's Valley Yarns Huntington) five years ago. I'm rather comforted that it was always there, waiting for me to be ready, even when I was unable to even think about knitting. Now I'm ready and it's just as beautiful as ever. I started with Arctic (that's the blue one) and knit the first section. I knit it twice, actually, because I misread the kfbf in the pattern as kfb the first time.

Besides that, I also finished the second little stocking hat and added pom-poms to both of them.

Sunday evening I went to the Velvet Note jazz club with friends. We heard a great vocalist and ate dinner in the dark. The show was very good. No time for knitting after I got home, but I'm pleased with the amount of progress I was able to make on several projects. While I was away, my neighbor left a Christian treatise of some kind at my door and texted me a link to his church's sermon. I like him, but this is a problem for me.

 

Kalta the Cowl

I did not finish the tiny hats, nor cast on the shawl. Instead I started Kalta the cowl. Because of course I have start-itis and need five partly-completed projects (so far).

This is a slipped stitch pattern, in which the slipped stitches form the vertical lines of color between the horizonal rows of garter stitch. I did about 20 rows before realizing that I was forgetting to move the yarn tail to the correct side of the work, which hides the pattern. So I started over and the photo above is the result, about 24 rows of the first chart.

Knitting Fever

 I have not had much knitting mojo for the past few years. I have made a few pairs of socks (mostly while traveling) and a hat, but that's about all. This past weekend, stuck indoors at home because of Winter Storm Cora, suddenly things got nutty.

Last week I had done a little desultory poking around in my Ravelry queue for possible ornaments to make as gifts for next Christmas. On Friday night, I finished the pair of blue Glynis socks I had been working on since June. Those were the socks I cast on before my house-hunting trip. I cast on a different pair (Temira) for the Christmas trip and was done with the leg of the first sock when I got home.

Anyway, I remembered that in 2020 I had planned to make On the Spice Road as a reward for completing that very difficult academic year teaching remotely because of the pandemic. I had been buying the yarn slowly and was just about to cast on when my life completely fell apart in the late spring of 2021. I didn't think about it again until I was packing the yarn for the move this past summer. So I dug out the yarn and printed out the pattern; maybe I'll even start this week.

At the same time, I was inspired by something I don't even remember now. I suddenly felt interested in making a cloak. Maybe it was the women I hiked with last week, who have Lord of the Rings Hobbit cloaks. In any case, I found myself searching through the cloak patterns on Ravelry. Then I discovered I had one of them in my library already, and I liked it very much, so I dug the pattern out of my supplies upstairs and read the pattern. It was only another small step to buying yarn on the internet. More yarn I definitely do not need right now, with my unpacked boxes and unorganized stash in the guest room, except that I need it to make this cloak. Also, two more circular needles because the ones I own are not long enough.

While I was poking around on Ravelry, I was also looking for a project to use up the few yards leftover from the Glynis socks. The leftovers were only about 3 grams, so my usual baby socks wouldn't work. I found this adorable Stocking Cap Ornament and in about an hour I had made one hat (without pom pom). There was enough yarn for about half of a second hat, so I had a rummage in the scraps box and found a little more to finish the second hat and do the pom poms. I will try to finish those tonight.

Well, then since I was already having a rummage in the yarn, I pulled out some leftovers in DK that I thought would work for the Kalta cowl I remembered seeing in the Berroco e-newsletter last month. I already had printed that pattern so I almost cast it on immediately, but it was getting late and I have found it better to start new things earlier in the evening. I worked on the Temira socks instead, completing the heel and beginning the gussets for the foot. When I went to bed, the living room looked like an ambitious person had been there. Try to imagine in this photo also the mountain of internet yarn that is now on its way to my house.

I'll try to keep this blog posted with how it turns out!