Backblog

Is a backlog of posts a backblog?

As with my knitting projects, I have started and stopped so many blog posts that I almost have more drafts than published entries! With knitting, I find a pattern, choose the yarn, flip pages for the needles (see below), and more not than often do a gauge swatch. Sometimes, however, the process starts and ends with the pattern: I do not have the proper yarn. Sometimes, however, the process starts and ends with the yarn: I cannot decide on the proper pattern. Usually, however, I can always find the right needles: my collection is fairly well organized!

For blog posts, I have titles, themes, and photos. However, these are all incomplete. Some draft posts are just clever little titles with vague ideas for content:

"Sometimes Not Knitting"

"Why Did the Geese Cross the Road?"

Some draft posts are full of clever little phrases and notes:

"To sleep, perchance to dream..."

"...just thinking about knitting..."

Some draft posts just have a photo with no words.

Some projects have no photo:

February Baby sweater- Eliz Zimmermann

Hello Baby Cardigan- Susan B. Anderson

Newborn top-down cardigan- Nancy Pietraszek

Seamless yoked sweater- Carole Barenys

Bernat Baby Softee - baby denim marl

During a recent unusual bout of weather (rain, 20's, snow, sleet, freezing rain, more snow, 2 1/2 days off work, sunshine, an earthquake, a wild thunderstorm, 70's- all within a 1 week time period!) I had the urge to finish a few projects and start a few projects- and I did!

 
One skein 2 hours scarf
This, however, took much longer than 2 hours! It is knit using Lace Sensation by Fiddlesticks Knitting and size 10 needles. I am not overly fond of the yarn or the pattern, but I love the little bonus at the end showing this clever way of tying it!

Mr. Flurry- I completed several of these a few years ago, and this poor guy was just missing his hat! Now he can stay nice and warm in the snow!

It is hard to see the diagonal detail on the ribbing, but it is a bit different and fun to do. This is the Twi-Fall Hat.

I have made a zillion dishcloths, more or less. A friend was making one with the DW pattern, and though I liked the pattern, I did not want another cloth. I though it would make a nice hat, so I modified it to knit in the round. It took a bit of thinking time to keep a nice pattern for the decreases...but it worked!

That encouraged me to think about getting current with Ravelry and TinkandPurl. I am trying. Today is February 20. I am taking pictures, looking up patterns, and organizing words. When will this be publishable?!?     (February 24- only 4 days later!!!)

And when will the next? And when will the next?

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Last spring (2012), while contemplating the many project and blog posts I would be creating for the rest of the year, my brain burst forth with a garden full of new ideas. Suffice it to say, it is now winter, 2013, and few seeds even made it to the garden, little fertilizer was sprinkled, and almost no water was provided.

One small bed of projects I did sow and reap was  the Summer of the Sock, or Sock it to Me, which stretched into Socktember and then Socktober. The drawer of stash sock yarn was going to be empty. Lots of feet were going to be happy, warm, and beautiful. Alas, it has become the Saga of the Six Socks.

Here is what happened:

Sock #1 was begun in April, and accompanied me on a long flight to Montana to say goodbye to a dear friend who had moved there in 2011 to be near her family. As the 3 visiting friends gathered around her bed, she gave each of us a gift. Mine was a needle case she had made as a young woman, complete with her mothers little scissors. Can you believe how perfectly it matched the socks!

The pattern is Baby Cable Ribs from Sensational Knittted Socks.

Sock #2 was started on the trip home. The stitch pattern is the "Waffle Rib" from Sensational Knitted Socks.

Sock #3 is another variation/combination  of the Waffle Stitch and/or Garter Rib. Oops- I forgot to write it down!

Sock #4 is from Custom Knits Assessories- Lace Pattern Socks.

Sock #5 is back to Sensational Knitted Socks- this time, the Openwork Rib pattern.

Sock #6 was begun and finished hastily last month: "six socks" is more alliterative than "five socks." And as I was kntting and thinking about the yarn, I remembered that the friend in Montana was the one who gave it to me several years ago. Beginnings and endings, endings and beginnings. How appropriate! The stitch on the leg and top of the foot is a simple K3P3 rib as a small sacrament to her memory.

And here they all are, in a different order, hung by the chimney with care.

# 3 went to my daughter for her birthday, and #2 went to my daughter-in-law for Christmas. The rest are for me!!

And my drawer of stash sock yarn still is more full than my drawer of completed socks. Guess I'd better get busy!

Holy, Holy, Holy

Lent is the season in the church when we examine our souls.

Does light shine through me? I have put up so many barriers...Do I let God shine through and fill the holes in my life?
~~~~~~~~~
On a light-er note,

Hole-y, hole-y, hole-y.
This is also the season to examine my soles (and toes.) What a mess.

Even my store-bought socks are bare.

What can I do about the holes in my soul/soles? Some things are fixable, by spending time mending mistakes and mending life's little irritations. This is the link to Mrs. Darn Knit.

Some things have to be dealt with as they are, but I have to pay close attention to them.

Some things need to be given up...even the "things" I love.

 

I did not realize socks could be a metaphor for life!