Socks

Finished my Dad's birthday socks, which are not needed until January, Mom's were finished a couple of weeks ago. These did not start off well because I cast on far too many stitches and had to frog the entire first sock back to the very beginning after turning the heel. Urgh. The colour is really cool, it appears to be a light grey in most light but sometimes it looks blue. There was also a white stripe just as I started the second sock. Meh, it adds character.

Pattern: Improvised Basic Sock

Yarn: Lang Yarns Twin Soxx in 216

Needle: 2.5mm

Gauge: 41 stitches and 46 rows = 10 cm

Also played a bit of Yarn Chicken with these socks, this what was left.

Ahab

The old pooch had his annual physical last week and the blood work came back as the picture of health except for signs of some arthritis, not unexpected given his age. Excellent stuff for a 14 year old life-long tri-pawed.

Health

My Word of the Year for 2020 is "Health" (bizarrely appropriate, right?) however, I haven't really done much of anything with it. I didn't want to make a New Year's Resolution because no one keeps those, so I chose a word to concentrate on instead. Then promptly did nothing. Well that's not quite true, I had a mammogram (Mom's breast cancer diagnosis was a terrible wake-up call) but that was technically in December. Then I found out my blood pressure had spiked so I got on some medication to get it under control. 

But, I have been lacking in exercise. Mostly because I hate exercise. However, I have been making myself go on the treadmill for 15 minutes every day for the past week.  Some days I even manage 20 minutes and today I noticed that my distance was a little bit further which I suppose means I've been going faster since I still stopped after 20 minutes. 15 minute is what I plan to do though because I can handle 15 minutes mentally. And so far this seems to be as much a mental thing as physical, although I haven't exercised much for many years so, yeah; start slowly. Here's hoping I can keep it up.

Current Weather

28C and partly cloudy. HOT! HOT! HOT! We seem to be getting some actual summer weather. Sweet! Even my home office in the basement is getting warm.

Socks

Finished a pair of socks in record time, only 8 days from cast on to cast off*. I didn't bother looking it up but this could be one of my fastest pairs ever. It helps that the yarn is gorgeous. They don't quite match but they're very close.

These are for my Mom for her birthday; which isn't until December so I'm way ahead this year.

Pattern: Improvised Basic Sock

Yarn: Pro Lana Golden Socks Fjord 4-Fach in 189

Needle: 2.5mm

Gauge: 41 stitches and 46 rows = 10 cm

Current Weather

20C and partly cloudy before noon. All of next week is supposed to be bordering on hot.

* I ended up looking it up and I've finished socks in as little as 4 days so these are no where near a record.

Squishy Mail!

This just arrived from Knit Picks. Yumm. Sooo much sock knitting.

Death by a Thousand Socks

What I thought would be a nice rust colour turned out to be the colour of dried blood. They're still nice socks just a bit unfortunate in colour.

Pattern: Basic Sock Pattern

Yarn: Rico Design Superba Multi Melange Superwash 4 fädig in 004

Needle: 2.5mm

Gauge: 41 stitches and 46 rows = 10 cm

Current Weather

17C and mostly cloudy. Rained for most of today.

Black T-Shirt

Finished my Black T-Shirt at last. I finished my Linen T-Shirt in nine days, this one took a little longer. About two months. Still not bad for fingering weight sweater though, even if it is short sleeved. Not sure if it's quite long enough though, may have to go back and lengthen it a bit.

Pattern: Improvised

Yarn: Knit Picks Lindy Chain in Black

Needle: 3.0mm

Gauge: 29 stitches and 35 rows = 10 cm

Current Weather

23C and partly cloudy. There was a tornado warning just east of here yesterday.

Wee Niece's Birthday Jumper

They call 'em "jumpers" in the UK so I'm going with the flow here for my Wee Neice's birthday sweater. This is a Wilhelmina Wallaby lengthened quite a bit and with a modified neck line. I'm in love with the tall neck with a tie so I went ahead and modified this Wallaby to have this neck line instead of a hood. I hope it fits OK, children's heads are, proportionally, much bigger than an adult's head is to their body size so I'm taking a bit of a risk with a closed neck.

Pattern: mostly The Wonderful Wallaby by Carol A. Anderson

Yarn: Caron Cakes in Mixed Berry

Needle: 4.5mm & 5.0mm

Gauge: 4.5 stitches = 2.5 cm

In related news, my Wee Niece almost had a melt down the other day when she wanted to wear an "auntie jumper" but they were all in the wash. My sister had to dig one out of the wash for her because she wouldn't wear anything else. I treasure this.

Dog

Ahab has an ear infection. How is it that a pointy-eared dog is so prone to ear infections? I'm so glad he's not a floppy-eared dog or he'd be living on penicillin.

Canada Day 

Yesterday Canada turned 103 years old with very little fanfare due to the ongoing world-wide health crisis of COVID-19. There were no fireworks, no large gatherings, no big speech from the Prime Minister (unusual, he loves a crowd), nothing much to mark the occasion. Very Canadian in a way.

Current Weather

19C and cloudy. We had twice our usual rain fall in June this year. And it's been quite cool. Urgh, I'm sure summer's were warmer when I was a kid.