Happenings Out Of The Kitchen

Pattern:  Habitation Throw by Helen Stewart

Yarn: A collection of bits and bobs of fingering weight yarns

Needle:  size 6

While it seems to me like I live in the kitchen now, that of course, is not completely true. I expected to do so much knitting during this stay-at-home period of the pandemic. And I have had time. Plenty of time. But I have not always had the concentration—or desire—to work on even the simplest projects.

So I was completely thrilled with myself when I cast off (that's knitter speak for "finished") this throw. Any blanket is just a LOT of knitting because of the size. This one measures 48x48 inches. It is not intended to be a full blanket, but a lap throw. Mine ended up a little larger than the pattern because I had plenty of yarn.

 And like everyone else who owns a sewing machine and has fabric on hand, I have made a few masks. I only had a little fabric tucked away but it was enough supply family and friends. This last batch was my favorite because I liked the colors. They are the same colors I always like.

Pattern:  Perfect Newborn Socks by Tabitha Gandee

Yarn: iknit2purl2 Supra in Castaway color

Needle:  size 1.5

And this sweet thing needed more socks, slightly bigger than the first ones. I used the same pattern but went up a needle size. Added a one repeat in the heel flap and a few more rounds in the foot length. These will last until fall maybe. Maybe. She is four months old now.

And then I ordered a new project. A kit that included the yarn and the pattern. Straight from a Facebook ad from a shop I had never heard of. I would have never done this pre-quarantine. (I am very suspicious of Facebook ads.) But I did it. And I love it.

The yarn is a silk/cotton blend that will be perfect for summer. And since we can have summer temps about 10 months of the year, I anticipate a lot of wear for this one.

I'm loving the simple pattern. This is exactly what my brain needs right now. Very little thinking required. The rhythmic motion of plain knitting is relaxing. And it's fun to see the triangle grow and the colors gradually shift.

And while I've knitted I've enjoyed listening to this audio book series. If you are an audio book fan, you know that most books take hours and hours to listen from beginning to end. (The longest one I've listened to was 19 hours.) So I was excited to stumble across this series. I have been a fan of mysteries since childhood. These are short episodes, each complete story lasts around 3 hours. This story length fits into assorted schedules and it fits into assorted attention spans. Mine is not as long right now as it usually is. Wonder why.

I also discovered last week that I can access Acorn TV with my library card! I have many friends who love Acorn TV which is a streaming service that requires a subscription. I have always felt like I didn't have enough TV watching time to justify another subscription but the lineup of British television shows continued to tempt me. Then I got an email from our library system reminding patrons of the many services they offer. I was so excited to discover that I could access Acorn TV! Not all libraries offer this access but the list was very long. It required downloading the app, RBdigital. And in the set up process you can check to see if your library participates. It is not full access like the subscription service. It's limited to 3 borrows per month. Each borrow lasts 7 days. Plenty of time for me to watch a few things that I've wanted to see.

Funny what good things have come out of this quarantine. All of our time at home has meant a change up in our schedules. Hard times for sure for many people, but there have been little nuggets of positive things. Many of us have learned to Zoom. We've tried new recipes because we couldn't do our regular grocery shopping. And we've had time to just "be." What good things or new things have you found during this stay-at-home time?