Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Hump Day

My day began great. I do a little bit of Animal Crossing to do my daily activities and see who is visiting. On Tyler's island, Julien was crafting something neither of us had so he decided to try Turnip Exchange to have people visit your island for turnip selling, DIY recipes and more. We have used this site to sell our turnips and get DIYs but never hosted. It was interesting and I think a positive experience for Tyler so maybe I'll give it a go one day.

 We then did our errands, going to CVS, the bank and the post office. I got some coin wrappers because I have a plastic tub of coins that I've collecting for 5+ years. With COVID going on, there has been a coin shortage so places require a credit card or exact change. The other day when we went to the beach, we paid the $7 parking fee in quarters.

I managed an hour of sorting and packing coins. There are still a lot of coins to sort.

 I started my 2nd batch of limoncello. This time I was able to get the Pure Proof 151 which will be a lot stronger than my last batch, thanks to my cousin who brought it from Arizona. Now we wait a couple of weeks and see how it goes from there.



Dealing with my mom who is hard of hearing is exhausting especially when she calls me on the phone asking questions and no matter how loud I speak/yell, she can't hear me or gets it wrong. Sometimes, I can see the humor of it all but today it was just frustrating and depressing. 


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Wrapping it up for tonight...enjoy a close up of Phil.
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Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Knit update: July edition

Knitters are prepared. We have plenty of yarn to keep us busy probably way after we die. I am not a fast knitter. I prefer to knit with sock yarn mostly so that will extend my knitting process. Sometimes I switch it up and double the sock yarn to get worsted weight which is a bit faster for hats.

 This project called for 3 strands of sock yarn so I was down to try it. I have lots of sock yarn leftovers and mini-skeins so I am always looking for projects to make me feel productive and get my yarn stash lower.  I laugh because yarn, in general doesn't weigh much so in the grand scheme probably didn't put much of a dent in my stash.

 So the pattern I found is called Scrappy Birthday Cowl. It calls for 3 strands of sock yarn (which can be a little tangled) and lots of bobbles which is a nubbin or boobles (my term) of yarn so it'll just use up more yarn so I was game for this. 

 The fun thing with using different strands of yarn, you can achieve some interesting looks depending on our choices. I decided to use a dark, almost black green yarn to be used thoughout the entire cowl and throw in other colors similar or contrasting because I wanted the bobbles to stand out a bit. Overall, the cowl has that dark tone with some pops of color.




This cowl is heavy, way heavier than I thought it would be. Definitely for colder weather than SoCal. I am thinking of gifting this to my SIL who lives in MD.

 And here is another cowl but in a single strand of fingering weight which may be okay for California but only for those really cold spells. This cowl hugs the neck so we will see. Also it sits tall (about 14 inches) but can be scrunched down and my neck is not long & elegant enough for this cowl to work for me. This why there is no photo of me wearing it. It really is pretty though. I'll put it in the gift pile for now.



I have a couple more sock yarn projects waiting in the wings, a hat and another cowl. Seriously, I need to stop with the cowls. I do want to start another shawl. I volunteered for a test knit of a hat in worsted weight so I can get that done fairly fast. at the beginning of the year, I gave myself a goal of completing 25 knit projects and currently I am at 11. Hats are the easiest for me to get to my goal but I am trying to challenge myself with bigger projects.

 I do want to start another 10-stitch blanket because I heard a little birdie say another baby is on the way. Not me...



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(Mis)Adventures with Hector #12,739

I love my husband. 

 He keeps me on my toes and makes me laugh, sometimes unintentionally. 

 Last night, he was about to head out for some errands and says, "I can't find my phone." Not unusual, he looks in the typical places and no phone. I offer to call his phone and we don't hear anything, not in his car or upstairs. Hmm.

 After several minutes, I've stopped calling his phone so he takes our house phone and begins calling it. Hector was outside and then comes back in announcing, "I found it!" 

 Earlier, Hector was packing our old TV in the spare bedroom into the new TV box. As he lowered the TV into the box, his cell phone was in his shirt pocket and fell into the box without him noticing. He then and taped up the box and put it in the SUV to drive to our storage. 

 It was fortunate that he found the phone before the box was put into storage because we may have never found it again or at least many years! It was so random yet so Hector.

 So have you or your partner have some similar story? Share in the comments...
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Monday, July 13, 2020

Catch up: Knitting

Since it is already July, I will show the latest knits I have completed so far. I have several social media platforms but it can be hard to keep up with it all since I don't like to focus on one particular thing and people may find that topic boring. It shouldn't really matter to me what people think but sometimes it does occur. 

 So here we go...

 These hats were done in January for my Puck This group and our annual Hat Trick Challenge. Knit 3 hats in January to get a hat trick. No prizes but it is a fun way to knit some hats, use up yarn and see all the different hats. It never fails that I'll add about 3-5 more hat patterns to my library that month.






Hats are usually a quick knit and it can be satisfying to get projects done. But that leads up to my other projects I have for 2020. I try to set some knitting goals for myself like 25 projects completed in 2020. I also throw in a bigger project to challenge myself or learn a new technique. 

The year began great with my hat trick and I even finished another project for January.


This cowl used scrap yarn and leftovers so half of the battle was choosing the colors. Choosing colors can bog me down super fast but I think I just plowed forward once I picked the colors. This cowl used worsted weight which is heavier for the SoCal climate but I decided it  would be my snowboarding cowl and it worked great. I have some cowls commercially made and I find them a little tight and warm. This one seems to fit the bill, a looser cowl to allow more air flow because it's easy to get hot snowboarding. 
On to February!! The beauty of knitting is having multiple projects going at the same time. I think this Blended Shawl was a 2019 goal of finishing 2 shawls. Didn't make that goal since it was started in October 2019 but I picked it back up and got it done for 2020. Every project is a celebration for me and this shawl is so pretty! Didn't use leftovers this time but the yarn was mini-skeins as part of an Advent Calendar from 2018. 



Another complete project for February...another cowl knit with leftovers (yep, sock yarn doubled). I have a lot of sock yarn and sometimes I swap with other knitters mini-skeins plus the Advent Calendar yarn...well it's a lot. 


 So by now, you may be thinking that I am on a roll for 2020 and I was until mid-March. That's when I got COVID-19 and everything stopped. My body and mind had to recover and it took a lot longer than I expected. I don't think I started knitting again until May and even then it had to be a very simple and mindless project. Well, I always have a simple and mindless project on the needles and I finished it. 

 A 10-stitch blanket is a great project for using up yarn and very adaptable. I don't even remember when I started it but it was in 2019 and it just sits there until I pick it up. After COVID-19, this blanket was a blessing. Only 10 stitches and knit until the corner where a little bit of focus and counting are required and that's it. In May, I realized that my nephew and his wife were expecting their baby early June (so there's my goal). 


I was finally getting my knitting mojo back! It was frustrating when my mind and fingers wouldn't cooperate after COVID because I had started a new shawl project in February with a yarn kit that I bought in 2018. This pattern seemed a little intimidating and a larger scale but since my knitting was on fire in February, I started Vacillate.




I love these colors and it was already chosen for me!! I started knitting and it was going along really well, I figured I could finish it at my current rate by the end of March. Well, that didn't happen. But I DID finish it in June!! 



So the month of July, I have sort of stalled only because I don't have many projects going. I was so focused on finishing i didn't have many ready to go. I don't why it takes me so long to begin, maybe that's why I need several projects going so I can pick up what suits my mood, attention span etc. 

I did complete another cowl by sheer will and nothing else to knit...using mini-skeins again. Looking back, I had a hard time choosing the yarn and order like usual. 


So that's it for now...I do have a couple of projects going so we shall see which one will emerge done first. 
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