Holiday sewing

The Passover garments all were picked up on time. No last minute Easter things yet. It's only Thursday and I'm off today, cleaning my house for Sunday dinner with the family. I was making a dress for Easter, but the customer had to leave town early (a funeral), and bought something. We've had a fitting and it will be done when she gets back in two weeks.

I did make myself a t-shirt and am working on a Mother of the Bride outfit.

The Stashdown group on Ravelry has a Stashdash challenge. Show the stash you plan to knit up by July 1. Most of what is in my photo was already in the pipeline.
The gray sweater should be finished by then, The green socks in upper right are moving along. Two of the other projects are socks also. The pile of brown yarn will be a sweater. I've already swatched for it. The yarn in the lower right will be a small shawl. Chart is written.

So what did I work on??? Replacement mitts for DD Jan, who shrunk a pair earlier this year. These are a similar color, knit from Plymouth Encore, and will not shrink. The pattern is Maine Morning Mitts by Clara Parkes. Model is named Bronte, and was more cooperative than I expected. I only used half of the yarn, so I'm knitting myself a pair.

Time to get back to laundry and decluttering. There is so much stuff from remodeling to move. We put coats back in the front closet and put 1/3 of them in the donate pile. I think all of them were bought by my MIL, and we never did love them. Don't need them now. I'm sure we still kept too much! I'm trying to purge as I replace, but it goes against my true nature. I just feel weighed down by possessions. Also life styles change, and what we aren't using gets shoved to the back of the closet. Those things are now visible and will leave the house.

Rhetorical question

Why do people wait until the last minute? Maybe this week is Miracle Week, not just Holy Week.

Spring holidays started with the Jewish holidays starting Friday night. Phone call #1 can you hem some pants by tonight? Yes. They come in with 6 months worth of mending and want it all tonight. I did it and collected the money.

Phone call #2 can you hem some pants by Monday? Yes, I work on Saturday. Mother comes in with son (cooperative) and daughter (in meltdown stage). Son leaves winter jacket and I have no phone # where they are staying. They are in town from Miami. They'll get the jacket back with the pants Monday. Mom may not know where he left the jacket, and many Jewish people do not use telephones on the Sabbath.

Today, another one. Three pairs of pants for Monday. Adult son in town for holidays. I was the first stop after dropping the suitcase.

Easter is next week. I'm bracing myself. Did I say I have an alterations shop?

Major knitting has been my gray sweater. I should take another photo of it. This is easy knitting, a four row pattern with three rows being knit 3, purl 3. My green socks have a pattern which requires chart watching, so not so easy.

What should I start next? I have a shawl charted. I have ideas for a magazine submission. Maybe I'll do that one tomorrow. There's also some bookwork/bill paying.

Same old stuff with socks

Saturday was the day for A Knitter's Fantasy in Youngstown, OH. This is a one day conference with classes, lunch fashion show, and MARKET. I taught two classes; Mosaic Knitting and Pattern writing. Both classes ended early when I ran out of info to teach them, but they were happy. The morning class went to the market and the afternoon class went home.

I got paid in Market money and bought Nancy Marchant's Brioche book and a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Sock yarn.

I finished the socks I was knitting. I called them Dreaming of Violets, but the pattern really is Grun ist die Hoffnung by Stephanie van der Linden. The yarn is Aussi Sock. The sock starts with the lace motif on the foot. The toe is knit, then the sole of the foot, then the heel. The leg is stockinette and the lace ribbing is a pattern from a Japanese knitting book.

The home remodeling is moving along. The crew has finished with patching the hall, and the walls are painted. Woodwork painting starts tomorrow.

The daffodils mean that yard work season is starting. Leaves to rake, Weed to dig up, new flowers to plant. Warm weather to enjoy.

My latest sock is knit from yarn bought at the Guild Yarn Hop last year. It's Crystal Palace Panda Silk, a combination of bamboo, superwash wool, and silk. The pattern is a Chrissy Gardiner pattern from Interweave Knits that I've wanted to do for a couple of years. The yarn is luscious.

A touch of lace

I seem to be on a lace kick at the moment; baby hats, a crocheted bath mat, a shawlette, mitts, and yellow socks so far this year. Then I knit a lace scarf for DD#5. It's a simple drop stitch pattern. I had one ball of yarn and knit until it was gone. The yarn is Crystal Palace Yarn's Sausalito, a superwash wool/nylon blend.

The lime green mystery socks are finished. The yarn is Knit One Crochet Too Ty-Dy sock. I have a surprising number of lime green clothes, so these will get a lot of wear.

I've been trying to design a scarf from variegated yarn for Plymouth Yarn. This one is 3 triangles, sort of like a sailor collar. I'm not really happy with the edging, but I'm tired of working with the yarn and I give up. I do have another color of the same yarn and will try a different idea with that. The yarn is Zino, a wool/nylon blend designed for socks. The repeats are long. I've seen nice mitts from it also.
I thought I was casting on enough stitches for 2 triangles plus edges, but it worked out to be 3 triangles. I think it is long enough, but I haven't written the pattern, because I am unhappy with the final product.

This scarf has had a cultural education. In addition to going to the opera, it went to the theater. We saw "The Complete Works of Shakespeare - abridged" It was great fun! Three men, one of whom took all the female parts, all in pumpkin breeches, tights, and Converse High tops. They said they knew Hamlet forwards and backwards, and did it both ways. "Be to not or, be to" etc...

This week's project is an oddly constructed lace sock designed by Stephanie van der Linden. It starts with the square lace motif, continues down the short row toe off one side of the square. The sole is attached to live stitches on the sides of the square and a short row heel worked when foot length reaches the right point. From that point, the leg is stockinette. I added a lace ribbing tot he top. I'm using recycled yarn, so want to wash the sock before final photos.

The yarn is Oasis Yarns Aussi Sock, which used to be a sweater. It's along story. I didn't design or knit the sweater, but I was supposed to redesign it. Not possible from where I started.