Blues

Some yarn is harder to work with than others. Most of the time, I can figure that out by looking at it and avoid it. Sometimes I can't.

Diagonal Rib Socks (mine ravelled here)

knit in Regia Hand-Dye Effect in 06552

This yarn is splitty, and got VERY thin in sections. I am not a fan, and I'm not sure how they'll wear. The socks look pretty, and the pattern, as always, is great. (I think this is my 10th pair of this pattern. Ann Budd knows what she is doing. I knit mine slightly differently than the pattern, but just because I'm odd and not because there's anything wrong with the pattern.) I'm just grateful to be finished and moving to a yarn that isn't so difficult to work with.

And I'm praying I didn't buy another ball of this, but I'm too scared to check the stash to find out for sure.

All the Loopiness

Yesterday I took some pictures of the Loop. It's a lovely bit of knitting.

Loop (mine ravelled here),

knit in Madelinetosh 80/10/10 Fingering in Spectrum 

and Good for Ewe Sultry Steps in Gray 98

The Spectrum colorway is my very favorite. Each stitch has the possibility of an unexpected pop of color, but all the colors look lovely together and not at all like clown barf.

The edge is garter stitch.

Then an i-cord bindoff that is a Zen meditation. Breathe. Accept what you are doing. (Abandon hope of ever finishing, but that's where my Zen broke down.) It's beautiful when it's done.

I enjoyed myself so much that I knit another.

Knit in a mysterious sparkly gray from the stash

and Knitpicks Chroma Fingering in the Roller Skate colorway

(ravelled here)

I love this one just as much as the first one. I was worried about how the long gradient of Chroma would behave, but it's lovely. Chroma is unspun enough that I think this pattern is a great use for it. It won't get a lot of hard wear wrapped around my friend in a fetching manner.

Pretty, right?

For both of them, I did a modified garter stitch tab as suggested by a genius on Ravelry and also did a yo between the first two and last two sts on each right side row that I then dropped off on the wrong side. This kept the edge from being too tight. I'd love to take credit for both those ideas, but the truth is that I got both ideas from the Ravelry projects for this pattern.

No Words

Well, I don't really know what to say.

I haven't been posting because it feels like shouting into the void. The political shambles of our country is immense and gut-wrenching and faith-shaking, and it somehow seems both imperative and disrespectful to talk about knitting when action after action being taken by the President and Congress takes us farther from respect, compassion, and justice and closer to intolerance, isolationism, and whatever the hell you call it when policies are made to benefit those who need it the least.

I am knitting. I am also listening to the news except when it becomes so overwhelming that I can't.

I'm reading fluffy fiction. I am also regularly donating to a local charity that works to relocate refugees in the area (here if you're interested).

I am working out, trying to take care of my body both for my physical health and also because working out is good for my emotional health. My trainer, by the way, is an immigrant married to an American. They are afraid to leave the country on vacation for fear he won't be allowed back in.

THE WORLD HAS GONE MAD.

I think, in the face of our reality, of course I don't know what to say. There aren't adequate words, but we have to keep speaking anyway.