お久しぶり

お久しぶり= (according to Google translate) Long time, no see.

Yep. After a 2+ year hiatus, I am back to my blog, back to knitting, and back to drinking tea (Irish Breakfast with milk and sugar, thank you).

So much has happened. SO much. But, things are pretty good, and getting better.

Knitting.

Well, tendonitis sucks. I couldn't cook, clean my house, swim or even work on my computer for too long without pain. It took therapy, massage, heat, stretching, acupuncture meds, rest, to get to the point I am at now. I still have to baby my arm, but at least I can function in a fairly normal manner. My knitting, well, it came back pretty well, but holy cow! It will take me awhile to get back in the groove of knitting. 

Rookie mistakes are being made, but I don't care, at least I am knitting again!

Tea. 

Aaah. The funny thing is that I lost my taste for it, but I still made it and drank it. There was just a comfort in a hot cup of sweet and milky tea. 

One day I really began to taste it again, and now I am back to loving every cup again.

Blog. 

Well, no promises, but here I am.

Now What?

It was bad enough when the doctor said not to drink black tea (Irish Breakfast), 

which was my favorite; I drank a couple of pots a day.
It was comforting and soothing and social, and delicious.

But now...I have tennis elbow!
No knitting!!! No swimming! Ouch.

Sigh, and there is more, so much more, that is so not good right now.

Crap.

It has got to get better, it will get better, soon.

In the Right Hands

This is about some yarn leftover from the making of this hat (more about the hat here), for my dear friend T. who succumbed to cancer. T. and I met while training to work with children. She was far more experienced than I, and had an amazing knowledge, warmth, and kindness. 

I held onto this bit of yarn, and couldn't bear to part with the leftovers.

The children I work with nap during the day, and as I sit with them, I knit. Some of them are mesmerized by the movements and the yarn, and one day, I offered a child a piece of yarn to play quietly with, soothing himself with the wooly strand. The next day, I had a basket of strands for all of the children to choose from, if they so desired. The yarn became my trademark, and my coworker jokingly accused me of treating the children like cats. Not a problem, I love cats. 

Basket of yarn and knit finger-puppets.

Going through my stash, I sorted out odds and ends, and I came upon these leftovers. I quickly stuffed them in the bag for school, before I talked myself out of keeping the yarn. Later at school, I debated whether to take the yarn home, because it was so special...and then I realized, this is where this yarn is meant to be, in the hands of children, in memory of my dear friend T.

Handknit Socks and Planning Ahead...Oh, Never Mind

Remember these? Oh, yeah, I don't post very often anymore, so probably not...

The yarn was great to knit with, and the resulting fabric was exactly what I wanted in a sock. The gusset on the sole was inspired by the extraordinarily talented turtlegirl, 

and gave the socks a nice heel hugging fit.

A bit shorter length than I like, but not bad.

A tiny bit long in the foot, how did I do that?

Dutch square heel, my favorite fitting heel.

SO, despite all of these elements I didn't love these socks. The colors were just not me.

While I was still working on these socks my coworker SB spotted them and LOVED them. She tried one on, and it fit her perfectly. Upon completion, I asked the fabulous SB to try the just finished pair of socks on for a photo...and she commented that she would not be giving them back. 

That's fine SB, because they do belong to you.

Sometimes knitting is just like that, the project chooses it's recipient.

Handknit Socks

Got me through the cold winter days. 

Now I am planning ahead with a simple sock in Zwerger Garn Opal Schafpate, 

a lovely wooly sock yarn, with Alternate Step socks by Angela Wilson. Socks are great summer knitting, small, portable and not too hot.

Summer Baby Sweater

Sassafras baby boy is due any minute now.

Mom is not the type to appreciate wool, and digging in the deep stash I found this now discontinued yarn, purchased ages ago: Artyarns Cottonspring

Mom is also not the type to handwash, so I knit a swatch, yes, I did. I KNIT A SWATCH.

I even washed and dried that sucker!

It survived, a little bit of shrinkage in the length, but otherwise okay.

The free pattern was lovely and easy to knit, Top Down Garter Stitch Baby Jacket - 

I will definitely knit this again!

The buttons and grosgrain ribbon came from my stash of stuff...

Color is most accurate here.

The fabric is quite soft and loose.

Babies are such different proportions, baby sweaters always look off to me.

I love this grosgrain ribbon!

Baby Sweater

A simple classic baby sweater from Nancy Elizabeth, for a coworker. 

The yarn is Artyarns Cottonspring, which is a nice blend of 80% cotton and 20% wool. My preference is always for wool, but I have a feeling this mother may not appreciate wool. 

I actually swatched for this to test machine wash and dryability. 

There was some shrinking (I was tempted to just say shrinkage...but...), mostly lengthwise,

so I compensated with some extra length. Took a long bus trip and managed to finish the body.