Mid December

Hello Gentle Readers and welcome to wool sock weather. The chilly days with a landscape of browning lawns and bare trees looks like December. Wool socks, sweaters, and mittens are in order for walking. Over the weekend gentle rain fell but we have not seen any snow. By Saturday, our packages were all in the mail. This week will be quiet with time for baking and a pot of soup or two. Last week, I dried orange slices in the oven and hung them outdoors on a small tree. The squirrels consumed most of a seeded wreath with a few juncos joining the party. I also hollowed out orange halves and filled them with birdseed. I didn't attract a lot of birds but I enjoyed the making. 

Today I'm joining Kat and the Unravelers for what may be the last link-up of 2024. Time does fly. I finished the Candy Cane socks and am wearing them today. Since then I've picked up the other pair of winter/Christmas socks. The simple stockinette is the perfect project right now. I do need daylight to knit the heel flap and gusset in that dark green. 

I am also knitting on a top-down sweater mentioned earlier. Before we traveled, I decided it was too big and I didn't care for the open neckline. I measured the gauge in several places and then ripped it out. This time I cast on using a sweater recipe from Ann Budd's Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters. I want a simple sweater as a canvas for fading the gray and some handspun. I'm making progress and will try it on soon. Here's hoping its a go.

Now, I'm going to write knitting heresy. Before beginning the first version of this project, I knit a swatch in the round and chose a pattern based on that gauge. However when knitting the sweater on circular needles instead of a swatch on DPNs, my gauge in the gray yarn was looser. The swatch should have been bigger or I could have knit it using the method of leaving a loop of yarn behind the fabric. When knitting a fairly standard top down sweater in stockinette stitch, I may let the beginning of the sweater be the swatch. If I'm open to trial and error it could work for me. At any rate I've learned something about my tension on different kinds of needles which perhaps I should know given the size of DPN's I use to knit sleeves. Sometimes gauge lies.  Any thoughts?

I read Brightly Shining by Ingvild H. Rishioi and translated by Carolyn Waight. (My apologies for not being able to type the o with a slash through it. I did try.) This novella is a story of two young sisters who live with an alcoholic father. The girls take things into their own hands and pick up his job selling Christmas trees when he abandons it for the local pub. They are industrious girls who take care of each other. Along the way, they meet with some small kindnesses. I felt like the ending with its magical realism was tacked on because the author didn't know how to resolve the story. Although I read to the end, this novella just wasn't for me at this time and place.  

I hope you are enjoying this week of the Winter Solstice. Peace to you my friends.