Over the years, I’ve heard countless glowing reviews about Opal Sock Yarn. If I remember correctly, I learned about the yarn from one of my sock knitting groups on Facebook. (I haven’t been active on Facebook in a few years). This past weekend, I finally decided to see what all the fuss is about and have ordered three skeins of the yarn. I purchased two of the same from the Claude Monet series (one of my favorite painters). The other is the Hot pink from their Uni collection. I should be receiving that yarn sometime this week. At that time, I’ll cast on a pair of socks for myself. Since I’m casting on so early, I’m sure they’re finished by the time I transition into my new job (same company)in September.
Handknit sock addiction; Knit more socks…
I’m going into my fourth week of knitting socks. In that time, I’ve knit three pairs of socks; knee-hi socks and ankle socks. Both were knit for my daughter. Initially, I was going to make the first pair for myself, but they were a bit tight (because of the yarn weight used) and so I told my daughter to try them on and turned them into knee-hi socks. The second pair I cast on was going to be for me, but… I made the same mistake! Which is silly since I was using the same yarn and should have corrected my error, but there you go. This time, she requested ankle socks. The third pair I cast on fit my feet fine. The fiber is different along with the weight. Although listed as worsted, it feels more like DK weight yarn. Those socks and I’ve already worn them several times.
A few years ago, I was on a sock knitting kick and the urge to knit more socks is back again. Since I love the
A week ago, I purchased additional needles/cables for my Hiya Hiya interchangeable sharp sock knitting set and I also purchased a few more cables. I find I can’t have enough of those. 🙂 Additionally, I purchased more sock yarn. It all arrived this past weekend, I’ll post a pictures of all the new yarn soon after the skeins have been rewound with my yarn ball winder). About four skeins of the yarn purchased had a silver thread running through them. I’m excited about receiving those. I told my daughter when I was a child, I had purchased a pair of store-bought navy blue socks from Ben Franklin (department/crafting store). They were crew socks and had a silver thread running through them. I loved those socks and wore them often. Eventually, they wore out from the numerous times that I wore them and I used some of my allowance money to purchase another pair. Apparently, the fibers used wasn’t as good as the first socks that I’d purchased and those socks wore out in less than a year and when I returned to the store, I discovered they didn’t have any more of those socks. Ben Franklin closed the following year. I still have fond memories of those socks and have been meaning to replicate them for a long time. Of course, they’ll be better since they will be customized hand-knit socks
Knitting in Progress: Daughter’s Checkerboard Blanket
The blanket that I was knitting for my daughter was put on hold for several months. I’ve finally gotten around to bringing it back into my active knitting in progress queue. I’m hoping to finish it before the weather turns cold. We’ll see! It’s been extremely busy, which explains the reason it has set on the sidelines for so long.
I’m also slowly gearing up to start spinning again. I know I mentioned that I would be doing that in my last post, however, that wasn’t happening. A few unexpected things happened which made me put a stop to most everything as I focused on finding the issues, with the help of my health care provider, and doing what was needed to improve. Outside of the wrist issues, that I had last year (related to the work I was doing) pregnancy (2003) and an appendix operation (1992). I haven’t had any reason to be seen by the doctor, so this was “new” for me.
It’s a beautiful day outside and so I won’t be doing too much knitting today. I want to enjoy the outdoor weather with my daughter, however, this evening I do believe we’ll watch a movie and I’ll continue knitting the blanket.
Creating with fiber: I miss spinning
I haven’t spun yarn in quite some time, however, recently I’ve been thinking about starting to preparing yarn to tide me over for the upcoming cooler months. Earlier today, my daughter sent me this video of Li Ziqi because she thought I would enjoy watching seeing another spinner create yarn. I did and I’m sharing it here.
While doing a search on Li Ziqi it states on Wikipedia that…
Li Ziqi is a Chinese food blogger, internet celebrity, and entrepreneur. She is known for creating food and handicraft preparation videos in her hometown of rural Mianyang, Sichuan, often from basic ingredients using traditional Chinese techniques
It’s been quiet for several months on my Threadlover website, however, I’m still working with fiber almost every single day, even if it’s only for a few minutes. Recently, I’ve been crocheting face scrubbies for my daughter and I’m knitting another hat for her. Do you know that blanket in progress has been sitting dormant since the last time I posted about it. Hopefully, I’ll be finishing her checkerboard blanket again. I imagine it will be completed much before the cold weather makes an appearance in our area. I’m just waiting for the yarn that I ordered to arrive. It should be here on Monday.
Tomorrow, my daughter and I are finally going to see Avengers: Endgame. I never even watched any of the movies, until I was doing cardio at the gym (with my daughter). We were in the ‘cardio theater’ and some of Infinity War and that got us both interested in the movies. I must say that we’re both looking forward to the movie tomorrow and of course, I’m looking forward to even more time to bond with my daughter.
Urban Threads: Machine Embroidery
The past few weeks,
I’ve been reacquainting myself with my embroidery machine. I have the Brother Designio embroidery machine.
and I’ve been enjoying it immensely.
I hadn’t touched the machine in about two years.
A few days ago, I adjusted the tension on my Brother embroidery machine.
Initially, my stitch-outs were looking like this bunny, and in some cases, it was worse,
like this reindeer, however after making a few tweaks to the bobbin case the embroidered designs are now stitching out correctly. Additionally, I swapped my sewing needle to a 75/11 and now the stitch out is much smoother. I need to remind myself to check my tension after a few stitch outs just to ensure that everything is working perfectly. Now that I think about it, it would be smart to take it apart and to clean it also. Earlier this week, I did open up my machine and was able to remove lint and a few strands of trapped thread. Now that everything is stitching out nicely, I have plenty of works in progress (that I’ve accumulated since making the tension adjustments) to complete. All the designs featured were bought at Urban Threads.
In other news…
I’m slowly making progress on the knit blanket I’m creating for my daughter.
This will be the fourth knit blanket I’ve created this year. Three queen sized blankets and one king size blanket. I’ve used worsted weight wool for all the blankets, so no… these blankets can’t be knit in one day. I’m a fast knitter, the majority of the blankets I’ve knit have taken a little over a month to complete.however, this one is taking the longest, but to be fair a few weeks have gone by without me knitting. My left wrist still is giving me issues and so when that happens, I don’t knit.