Knitting, Sci-fi and other stuff...

Very short from me this week.  I've caught Covid finally after managing to avoid it all this time.  I was sent home from work on Tuesday and tested positive on Wednesday.  So,  I missed the last three days of my contract.  I've done nothing this week but recover.  The brain fog is real.  I started feeling kind of human just a few hours ago.  I just attempted making challah.  Whew, following a recipe was eventful.  I can't even focus long enough to read.  I was trying for a perfect month of reading on my kindle app this month but thats been blown out of the water now.  Oh well, guess that can be a new years resolution now.  That's it from me.   Until Later.  Happy Crafting. -Q

     I've done absolutely no knitting this week.  I did a little bit of mending though.  A thread in my first  Turnstile  had gotten pulled.  I think a cat claw did it.  I had put it away and not worn it all last season, so I finally sat down and teased the threads back into place on both sides of the snag.  Turnstile is an infinity scarf/cowl that gets knit in the round, then the ends get grafted together.  It makes for a nice warm and versatile scarf.  I liked this one so much a made a second.  Before: After: Its not perfect but its much better than it was before.  I think a wash and block will make it completely un-noticeable.  I wore this scarf this week.  We did get that snow storm.  My home in Carthage got snow on Monday, so if I hadn't left early I would have had to drive through it.  Syracuse got the storm Tuesday.  Driving into my work site Tuesday was a little hairy.  The visibility was terrible and I was skidding alot because the tires on the Tundra are bald.  My Hig

We celebrated Thanksgiving as a family on Thursday.  I had the day off so I came home.  My parents and my brother came over to our house.  We had a very non-traditional meal.  I made Polish Wedding Soup and we had sandwiches, chips and my Mom brought a no bake cheese cake and an apple pie.  It was nice to not have the pressure of doing an entire turkey dinner.  If anyone wants the soup recipe I can do a separate recipe post.  Its a very simple potato, corn and kielbasa chowder essentially.  I spent the rest of Thanksgiving day reading The Ever King by L.J. Andrews.  I finished it the next day at work.  I dare say its the best book I've read this year.  There was a plot twist I didn't remotely see coming and it ended on a crazy cliffhanger.  The next book doesn't come out til January.  The Ever King takes place within another realm of the authors other series.  It's a stand alone series but they are connected.  I enjoyed this book so much I decided to start reading the o

I'm going to jump right in here with a quick update.  I finished the knitting on the White Whiskers Hat. I need to do the whiskers yet and it desperately needs to be blocked.  This pattern is tricky.  It has long color sections.  I caught my floats every 3 to 4 stitches but it still is a littly puckery in places.  Blocking will help, but if I do another one I'll probably try knitting inside out.  The extra yarn I ordered for the Sackets Harbor Mittens has arrived.  I just need to get that wound so I can finish the knitting.  Its gotten cold here.  Many evenings its been right around freezing when I get out of work. I did quite a bit of reading this last week instead of knitting and watching TV.  I've read three books in the last week and just started a fourth.  I read Wall St Jerk by Megan Wade.  It was a fun little romance novel that included an FMC who knits.  Thats what hooked me initially but it was witty and pleasent.  It got to the spice fairly quickly and

I haven't gotten very much done in the last two weeks.  I washed and blocked Drops of Spring Mitts. I worked on Sackets Harbor Mittens up until I ran out of the gray yarn.  In hindsight I should have inverted the colors.  But I prefer the color usage as is, so I ordered another skein of the gray.  I'm just waiting for it to arrive. I started a  White Whiskers Hat .  I'm not very far into it yet.  The memory of me getting the yarn for it, ehem 8 years ago, came up on my Facebook page so I thought it was high time to finally start it.  I'm makeing the cats gray and doing the background a lime green.   I made magic cookie bars last weekend for my husband's birthday.  I use  The Eagle Brand  recipe as a guide, but I usually add more coconut and more chocolate chips.   That's about it for crafting and cooking.  I got some news earlier this week about my current job and ultimately how it's going to impact my future.  I need to make some rea

Sorry its been a few weeks since I posted.  I got sucked into Outlander and its taken over, well, everything.  I watched the 5 seasons available on Netflix in two weeks, then went right back to the beginning and I'm watching it again.  I'm already into season 4 again.  Once I'm done this time I'm going to get Starz so I can watch season 6 and the half of 7 thats out.  Then I can experience Droughlander til March of 24 with everyone else. Onto the crafting I did get done in the last three weeks.  I finished everything and mailed out my swap package.  The recipient received it on Halloween so I can post what I made for her.  I made  Sackets Harbor Mittens  with Briggs and Little Heritage.  Sackets Harbor is a little town here in upstate NY, not too far from me actually, that was strategic in the war of 1812.  Two important battles were fought there, the battlefield is now a historic monument and the barracks are said to be haunted.  I found the pattern in my swapee's

      I've been working steadily on my swap project.  I finished the knitting as of Friday morning.  I just finished washing and blocking out the item along with the second pair of Drops of Spring Mitts.  I still have one more step for the swap project.  The yarn I used, Briggs & Little Heritage, is a minimally processed rustic wool, so what I made is a bit rough to the touch.  It's not a next to skin item but none the less, I want to do a lining with fleece.  Back on Monday I didn't feel like working on the swap project and I had picked up that new dishcloth cotton, so I whipped up a quick round dishcloth.                       The new yarn I grabbed was Peaches & Creme Stripey.  The skein put up is a little bit different from the Original line, but its the same yardage.  I actually looked at the labels for the Stripey after I knit the round dishcloth.  The Stripey is milled in China whereas the Original in Canada.  According to the label the Stripey is worsted, bu

     I didn't do a ton of crafting this past week, but I did some.  I finished up the knitting on the second pair of Drops of Spring Mitts.  I still want to wash and block them. I want to do one more pair with Indiecita, Whales Road and Solis.  I don't think I have enough Whales Road to do both mittens so I may have to buy a new skein.... oh what a terrible prospect.  Ha ha.  I finished these off because I needed the size 6 needles for the swap project.  I'm about halfway done with that project now.  That's all the knitting I've done this week.        Today I went through Liara's clothes and sorted out all the too small stuff.  Well, not all of it as some things needed to go through the laundry.  I took three totes of clothes and shoes over to my aunts house today.  She'll be going down to visit her oldest daughter who has two daughters younger than Liara.  They get all her hand me downs.  While I was sorting clothes I also put away the summer st

     I've started my "new" job/contract.  I've worked for this company before, just not at this site.  I brought a few projects with me, but I quickly ran out of yarn.  I've been working on a dishtowel.  I'm combining two patterns to make it.  I'm using the premise of  Stay Put Kitchen Towel  with the stitch pattern of  Lizard Ridge Dishcloth .  I, of course, don't have a picture yet of the towel.  I took my book of postcards and colored pencils with me.  I've colored in two of the postcards in between knitting.     When I got home at the end of the week, I had two packages waiting for me.  I received an angel package for one of the swaps I did a few months ago. The cowl and headband are made from handspun yarn.  They are very soft and pretty.  My angel got me a lanyard set perfect for fall.  The black kitty looks alot like Jangles and the flowers are very fall colored.  There's a pair of snippy style scissors.  I love this style of

     I had a fairly busy crafting week.  Procrastination at its finest.  I realized over the weekend I needed to get cracking if I wanted to finish up some gifts for my coworkers.  A bit ago I made a  Cable Me a Pumpkin Hat  for Cara's unborn son. I wanted to make a hat for Bobby's daughter who's about a month old now.  I have a bin of baby acrylic from my early knitting days.  Most of it isn't even entered into my Ravelry stash.  When I was digging through it I found some Bernat Baby Blanket yarn I forgot I even had.  I made a  Poppy  hat for Bobby's daughter. Then I started on two blankets.  I didn't use patterns, just winged it.  I made a corner to corner in boys colors. I had a bit more girly colors so I did a larger one with the girly yarn.  (I was also trying to use up as much yarn as I could.) I did a very simple eyelet border around the edges.  I didn't finish the girly blanket til after I went back to

    I'm actually updating on a Sunday for once!  I don't have too much to update, so it'll be short and sweet.  I had mentioned that I washed and blocked the Drops of Spring Mitts.  I got them off the blockers and took a couple decent pictures outside in good light.  So here they are all finished. I used the smallest size of the three blockers.  The middle size stretched the fabric too much.  Blocking really evened these out and even though I didn't toss these in the dryer to spring the super-wash Mal Rios back into shape it sproinged back all on its own.                        I need to weigh these yet so I can figure out approximate yardage used, but my guess is its not really much of either of the three colors.  I hope to do at least one more pair of these.  I have so many little mini left-over skeins, its a great pattern to get those used up.     I made homemade pizza on Wednesday.  I use  this  recipe in my bread machine for the dough.  It calls for a teaspoon of a

     It's already been a busy week as I predicted.  On Wednesday after I left for work, this happened. She is from my parents farm.  We all kind of had an eye on her for awhile now.  The kids have been wearing me down for months.  I've been calling her Nyx, but I don't know if that will be the final name.  She and Jangles have been playing like crazy.  Everyone else has accepted her pretty decently as well.  Reese and Tali, who hate everyone except eachother,  have been just avoiding her mostly.  Edi is fairly indifferent, although I think she may be a little jealous as she and Jangles played together quite a bit.  Nyx already prances around her like she owns the place, so all in all it's been a pretty smooth introductory period.      Jangles got out again and luckily came back again.  The screen has been put back on the garage window so there should be no more escaping cats.  We were planning on making some sort of insulted cat house for Twinks the outdoor

      I actually had a fairly productive week.  Not so much on the crafting front as the cooking and baking one.  But that's okay.  Saturday I stopped and did my grocery shopping at my halfway point.  I even remembered to get most of the things my husband had mentioned throughout the week.  I came home to squishy mail.  I started acquiring the yarn for my next long term project.  I got two skeins of Wool-Ease from a Rav destash.  I think half the fun of these long projects is getting the yarn.  This will be for that modular hexagon blanket I have on my list.    When I got up Sunday morning I went about using some things in the fridge.  I had some potatoes left over from the get together we did a few weeks back, so I made  Cheeseburger Soup .  I made it once before, or something really similar.  It a good one that reheats well.  I keep "better than bouillon" in my fridge so I don't have to keep broth in my pantry.  I used beef for this one.  I also just used whatever c