Winter Solstice!

  Happy Solstice! It is the longest night of the year, I will celebrate with tea, and cookies (that I baked today), snuggled under a blanket, knitting! Sounds like a perfect way to get through the shortest day, no?

 In the almost 2 weeks since my last post, I have found my Christmas spirit. We went and got a beautiful tree, and the kids decorated it. I started shopping (I still have a wee bit to do, ack!) Teacher gifts were made and assembled (more about that later) and volunteering for a week's worth of holiday related activities at B's school have made me excited and eager for xmas.  So, of course, with all of that, there hasn't been much in the way of knitting, mostly I was concerned with finishing the three wash cloths. Which really shouldn't have been a big deal, wash cloths literally take a couple of hours...but I don't do well knitting on a schedule, and knitting the same thing three times is mind numbing for me. I do really like the Knitpicks Dishie, it's just cotton, but the cotton is not hard on my hands and the colours are wonderful.

   Anyway, I knit up the 3 wash cloths, one for each of B's teachers and one for his helper, made some peppermint soap (yummy!) to put inside...

 and had B put on the eyes, nose and antlers and voila!

Wash cloth reindeer! Thanks pinterest!  I also added a gift card for Tim Hortons, because Canadian, eh!

In between the wash cloths I worked on my Virpi Shawl, and finished it! I love, love, love it! 

I lost the yarn info, but through Ravelry I was able to find out that it's Mineville Wool Project, a dk, plied merino, in a gorgeous teal.

The depth of colour is fantastic, and there's no way I'll be able to take a picture of it that will do it justice.  It's from the same women who make Fleece Artist, so it's not surprising that I loved this yarn. It was wonderful to knit with. 

I did mess up the shawl a little bit, I don't think too many people would notice unless it was pointed out to them, but I skipped one of the lines of the pattern that said to knit a full row before starting the arcs-which means the first arc widens on one end of the shawl, but the next two arcs widen at the other end. 

Still beautiful, still going to wear it!
And now I want to knit all the shawls! 

Seriously, there's been at least 3-4 nights where I could have been knitting, but instead I'd spend hours on Ravelry looking at shawl patterns. 

And since I finished my shawl, I've picked up one of the sweaters (the pullover) and have started knitting on it again,  I finished the decreases, and now I'm adding length and increases (it was supposed to be a cropped sweater, but yeah, I don't do cropped sweaters) I've got about 4 inches to go until I start the ribbing. 

Other than that, the only projects I've worked on have been socks, The felici socks, as you can see, are at the heel flap-which I am knitting with Stroll in Dove Heather.  I really like having a solid colour heel and toe when it comes to striped socks, and the dove heather works really well with the colours of my felici.

 

the second ugleh sock is about 1.5 inch away from the heel flap. I no longer hate this sock...I would never buy another yarn like it, but it doesn't bother me as much anymore. Especially if these socks are strictly boot socks (so I don't have to look at the pooling hah!)

So there we go, just a quick update! I'll probably do my next post right around the new year, with a knitting year in review where I list all the things I've knit this past year. 

Anywho, I wish you all a happy and healthy holiday season! 

 

Bah humbug

It's already the second week of December *gulp* I have not started Christmas shopping, nor have I started decorating. To be fair though, we will be getting our tree this coming weekend, which will no doubt, kick my bah humbug butt into gear...I do so love the smell of a real tree.
 I struggle a little bit with xmas every year, I love giving and receiving gifts, but I'm grossed out by the commercialism. Makes me glad we don't have cable, we're not super inundated with "BUY THIS THING TO SHOW YOUR LOVE", but even without tv telling us to buy, we hear/see enough of it.  Ideally, I'd love it if everyone had to give some kind of hand-crafted item, or item purchased from a local artisan (for the non crafty peeps). With maybe some kind of baked goodies exchange!  Sadly, I don't imagine too many family members would be down with this. 
I know I sound negative, probably because I hate winter. And even though it's been unseasonably warm, and there isn't any snow yet, I just don't do well in winter months. Dark by 4pm, cold, I find it very hard. It takes me a little time to warm up to the holiday season, but I'll get there. (only for January blues to hit-ugh)

Now on to the knits!
I've got some FOs: Last week at stitch&bitch Sunday, I finished the ear flap hat for the 6yr old. He's so worthy of hand knits. He says that he always loves when I make him things because I'm such a good knitter. I was told that he never has to be reminded to put his hat and mitts away properly at school because he's so proud of them "my mommy knit me these".
Russian joining two leftover balls.

 (Mostly) finished hat!

So, there goes more stashed Berroco Vintage, and yet somehow, I still feel like I have so many balls of this stuff still in stash. Never ending Vintage (I wouldn't complain if it was Madelinetosh Vintage)

Despite my complaint of being overwhelmed by projects, I cast on a new project. It was a super quick knit, a headband called Calorimetry by Kathryn Shoendorf. I often wear my hair in a ponytail or a bun in the morning when I'm bringing B to school, so this is perfect for those mornings.
Of course, I used stashed yarn, leftover O Wool bulky in Oyster.  Reading the comments on  rav, I decided to cast on less stitches than the pattern called for. Many rav users found that it was too big with the cast on of 120 sts. I did 100, and could easily go down to 90 stitches. (which I probably will with my next one, because there will be a next one)  With 32 bind off stitches left to go, I ran out of yarn. Fuuuuuck. I was not going to frog the whole thing for 32 stitches so I looked for the closest yarn I could find to finish the bind off. I used leftover Fleece Artist BFL in smoke. It's noticeable, but not terribly so.
The best part of this pattern is that I got to go through my button box for the button closure. I love using buttons on non-sweater knits.

 

I really love this! It goes really well with my Lost Lake Heather cowl and mitts!

I cast on and finished one (out of three) wash cloths.

 It's a wash cloth. What else can I say about it? I like the colour. I don't like knitting cotton. *shrugs* I have to knit two more.

Knitting with cotton reminded me that I needed to knit another strap for my maya bag (see this post if you care) it's only been like, 6 months since I knit the first one.  Did that. Sewed it on.

Done. FO! hahaha.

I cast on another ugleh sock.

 Just to have it ready if I have to rush out of the house. I don't want a whole bunch of single socks staring at me accusingly every time I sit down to knit, so in theory, having this sock ready to go means it will eventually become a pair.

I've been saving my Virpi shawl for stitch&bitch Sundays. It was starting to feel like I was doing a lot of knitting but not getting anywhere. Yesterday,  I started the wedges. Yay!
                                                   Virpi last week.

                                                    Virpi this week.

Can I just say how much I love and need my stitch&bitch Sunday? It's three glorious hours of good company, good hot chocolate (Timmy's eh) and good knitting.  We always ending up talking to other knitters, they just kind of pop out at you " I knit too!", and they're usually pretty nice people.

And, finally,  knitting on that Felici sock!

I'm liking the felici. The colours flow very well. Knitting it isn't too bad, a little splitty, but I am using sock rockets, and pretty much everything is splitty with sock rockets. I'm eager to finish these just to see how they wear...though obviously not that eager as they are still relegated to being travel socks.


Now, I think it's time for some shopping *groan*

Just one more row...

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by projects at the moment. Those sweaters are starting to weigh heavily on my mind. With absolutely no desire to finish either of them.
But I did finish some other things...the first pixie dust sock is finished and will be waiting a hella long time for it's partner.

I cast on and finished two pairs of mittens for B. The first pair was made with (stashed, leftover) Bulky Wool of the Andes in Wallaby. I'd like to link to the pattern, but I don't have any of the information! It was one of the first patterns I knit in the round and I copied it into a notebook instead of printing it out. It's a great pattern, very basic, easily customizable and always turns out great.
The second pair I made in (stashed) Berroco Vintage chunky in Black Cherry.

 Because I still have a significant amount of that yarn left in stash, I also cast on an ear flap hat by Sandi Prosser.  As you can see in the picture, I've made it as far as the two ear flaps.
I've made a bunch of these hats for him, although I knit them in the round, not flat and then seamed like the pattern calls for.
The Berroco Vintage was originally meant to make a short sleeve sweater, until I bought the pattern and realized it called for mostly seed stitch (which I wasn't able to tell from the picture) and fuck that. I am not knitting that much seed stitch. The second incarnation was a pair of Leethal Mary Jane slippers. Which I adore and wore the hell out of , until one of them got a hole! (I'm actually still wearing them) But they did not use up a terribly large amount of yarn.  The third incarnation of the yarn was to be a long sleeve shrug that was knit from arm to arm and then seamed... I knit up the sleeve all the way to the shoulder and was like, fuck this. and frogged it. Mittens and a hat for the 6yr old it is!

I also knit a bulky cowl using a pattern by Andi Satterlund, it's a cowl I've knit before. The first one I made, I ended up giving it away because the colour didn't look good on me (you can read about it here). Anyway, this time I used (stashed) kp Swish Worsted in Lost Lake Heather.For some reason, holding three strands together seemed like a good idea (when really, 2 strands would have sufficed). So, it was not surprising that I didn't have enough yarn to finish the cowl but luckily mah knitta had 2 balls leftover from a sweater she made and was generous enough to give me both balls. The last ball had to divide in to three  mini balls just so I could complete the bind off. Eep! When I tried it on before blocking, I was able to wrap it around my neck twice, after blocking it wraps around my neck three times. *sigh* So much growth with the swish.

Oh well. I'm still quite happy with it! I will definitely not be giving this one away. Plus, it matches my maize mitts made from the same yarn! Matchy matchy for the win!

Knitpicks, I just can't quit you...I want to be done with you, but you make it so difficult! I needed some cotton in brown (for teacher gifties, I have a plan that I will share closer to xmas) and could not find some ANYWHERE...except knitpicks. Meh. I'm not paying shipping that costs more than the two skeins of cotton (which were on sale, as was pretty much everything on the site) so I added 2 skeins of the Felici sock yarn (in Fanciful) that people rave about. And then I threw in a mug, because I love mugs. Especially knitting themed mugs.

My 17yr laughed out loud when she saw it, saying "that is so you!".


Stitch & Bitch Sunday has been homeless for a while, and we've been trying out different places, last weekend we knit at the food court on the metro level of Place Alexis Nihon (which is basically a mall) I got a hot chocolate from Tim Hortons (how vry Canadian of me!) and mah knitta brought me a piece of cheesecake she made.  

Om nom nom. She also brought a fork-isn't she fabulous?!

While we were knitting, we met Laura, a knitter, and fellow Tincanknits fan,  from New Brunswick, she showed us pictures of her knits, and her quilts, and chatted for a bit. It's always nice to see other knitters-a very "one of us" moment. Especially when it's women my age. Not that I have a problem with elders, but you know, when you knit (and I'm only speaking to my experience having started knitting in my 30's) you hear the jokes about being a old lady/grandma. Meanwhile, I wish I had learned to knit in my teens, I was always so anxious and antsy, I think it would have been vry beneficial. Also, fuck those jokes, mittens and slippers from grandma rock!

I've been having some thoughts about socks lately. About what I like about knitting them, the way I wear them. My preferences. I've come to some conclusions: I do not need to make fancy socks. By fancy, I mean not plain vanilla socks. I know I can follow patterns to make patterned socks, but I don't like patterned socks around my feet, I don't like how they fit with my mary janes or my boots (which are basically the only things I wear, besides sandals and I do not wear sandals with socks). As for the legs of the socks-no one sees them, so why am I bothering doing patterns? I don't need to impress myself. Combined with the fact that I generally prefer to keep socks for my travel project, I'm just going to stick to vanilla socks. They're satisfying, they're super functional, an if I need them to be more interesting, I'll buy snazzy yarn.
That being said, I have a few inches on my Whozit sock (made with the sparkly boreale yarn) and I'm going to rip it back.
I may possibly be overthinking socks.


I haven't just been knitting, I've been getting crafty in other areas as well. I made the ratties a new hammock out of an old sweatshirt. They have a habit of biting new exit holes in their hammocks, and it gets pricey replacing them every couple of months.
I've also started making my own facial scrub (honey and almond meal plus eo), chamomile facial wash (which is too drying, so i'll probably stick with the honey and almond meal scrub) and face/body cream. With the exception of almond meal and beeswax for the face cream, every other ingredient was stuff I already had in the house. I make small batches so I don't have to worry about preservatives, though I may invest in Germall plus or Otiphen plus at some point. So far, my skin has reacted favourably-which is nice, since my skin can be quite sensitive
Next, I'm going to try making bubble bars, which are one of my favourite products from Lush. But I can never manage to keep a stash of them handy, often when I want a bubble bath, I'll realize I'm all out.
I've not taken any shitty pictures of these hand made items. Maybe next time I whip up a batch of facial scrub, or face cream I'll take pictures.

Rat bites and stash

Warning: I will be including pictures of a wound that may be gross to some people.


Mah knitter and I decided to hold our weekly stitch n bitch in my hood last weekend, so we went to Boulangerie Rustique Sweet Lee's. We did not have any of the foods though they all looked yummy (and I'm definitely going to try the cheesecake next time I go) but we did order tea. It was a bit odd, tea in a glass is kind of weird.
I had Labrador tea, and it was very...umm...delicate. Like, lightly scented hot water. I believe I may have giggled repeatedly over my clear "tea".

Seriously, that glass of water is actually my tea. and I poured more from my little teapot, and it all looked just as clear.  At least A's was slightly yellowish?


My kids' school board had two strike days, so it was a long weekend for all the students in the house.
Tuesday, I got bitten by one of my rats. It was not his fault, it was totally mine. Long story short: Cas (the fat-ass) was stuck in a box, he started freaking out, because there was another rat in the box being a dick, and I tried to help him out and my finger got in the way of his face. It was kind of brutal. It bled a lot, it really hurt, and I washed it out and bandaged it up.
Did I mention this was my index finger?? my KNITTING FINGER!!!  The next day it was vry vry swollen and painful so off to the clinic I went. Apparently, I was the first rat-bite victim treated at that clinic so there was lots of conferring and phone calls to government health agencies. Rabies was their main concern, Rat Bite Fever (which I sung to the tune of cat scratch fever, which amused no one but myself) was my concern. I got a tetanus shot (a day later, my arm still hurts), and preventative penicillin.

Needless to say, there's not going to be much knitting in the next couple of days. I've been trying to knit with my middle finger, and while it's been slow and frustrating...I did manage to finish a hat, since all I had left to do was the decreases.

About the hat: I cast on the Antelope hat, a free pattern by Bohoknits using Quince&Co Lark in the colour Storm. Before I hurt my finger:

After I hurt my finger (waiting in the dr's office, trying to do the decreases with my middle finger, vry difficult)

Anywhooo, it probably took  me about three hours to do the decreases, when it really should have taken about 45 minutes. But it's finished, even weaved in the ends. I think i'm pleased with the hat. It has an interesting picot edge and eyelets. But I'm not sure I like it on me. I love the colour, love the wool. I'll have to wear it a few times to really decide if I like it.

Now, I've knit items with Quince&Co Lark and Chickadee and both were quite enjoyable to knit with. No splitting, no weird growth after blocking. Lovely colours. Comfortable against my skin. I would very much like to knit a sweater out of this stuff... Ooooh, I wish they had a sock yarn! I bet there sock yarn would be awesome, and would no doubt have a clever bird name (in keeping with the theme of using our feathered friends as yarn names)


Before the bite, I had also cast on a pair of socks with some sparkly Boreale yarn from Biscotte&Cie, it's a pretty sky blue and I'm using the Whozit sock pattern from Socks a la Carte 2. Haven't gotten very far.

I still have my pixie dust sock on the needles, I have about 2 inches left before the toe decreases.

And now on to the stash pictures-mostly worsted weight.

 Leftover balls, mostly worsted weights, some bulky, some sock yarn.

From the stash balls, I grabbed a couple of balls that are mostly full skeins, I'm going to use 4 or 5 of them, held together  to make another pair of leethal mary janes. At some point. When I can really knit again.

Sock yarn stash <3 Look at all mah pretties!

All laid out like that, really doesn't seem like a lot...I feel like I need more Noro, some more Quince&Co, some more Malabrigo, some Madeline Tosh (it's been so long since I knit with Madtosh) I'd like to add some Blue Sky Alpacas, some Juniper Moon Farm, some SweetGeorgia...I could go on and on.
Maybe I should start working on my Christmas wish list!

Perfect...

Still no finished sweaters. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I do have a bunch of finished objects though!
-I finished the pair of Maize socks in Lost Lake Heather.

What can I say about these mitts? They are an easy, relatively quick knit. I like them. I like the colour. They won't be worth wearing when it hits -15c, but I can remedy that by sewing in a fleece liner. Or I could just make that thrummed mitten kit I bought on sale last year...

-I finished the second chocolato sock.

Yay socks! These feel pretty damn comfy, and warm!  Made with  stashed yarn from my visit to Wabi Sabi last year.  I enjoyed knitting with the Misti Alpaca Tonos Carnival very much. Of course, the final verdict rests on how they wear.

-I finished the second attempt at a chullo hat with alpacas on it.

This hat was made with bulky O Wool,which I would definitely buy again. It's not rustic exactly, but not merino soft either. It feels like it will withstand a lot of wear, without sacrificing comfort (ie: it's not itchy) It feels substantial. And I suspect it will be hella warm. I may also put in a fleece lining. Because I live in a cold, cold city and being cold makes me sad. I made the ear flaps striped because I was worried I was going to run out of the brown yarn. It came pretty close.
I did the floats wayyyy better this time. Go me!

-I finished one fucking ugleh sock.

But, it's Alegria. The feel makes up for the ugleh. This may be a lonely single, I do not know if I can knit another one. I have nothing else to say about this sock.



Now, while I have not finished any sweaters, I have done a little bit of knitting on my greenfield cardy. I believe I wrote, a few months back, that I would like to have greenfield completed by the end of October. Nope. Did not happen. Gave myself a new deadline-by my birthday (mid-February) and this is so I'll finish it sometime in December and be all "look how awesome I am! I finished it ahead of schedule!"
I'm not feeling this sweater, and I'm blaming the sleeves. The sleeves are so irritating to knit around. I thought I was sooooooo clever knitting the sleeves first. Hah!
HAH!
Never again will I knit the sleeves before the body. The floopy sleeves get in the way, can't keep them bagged while I work on the body so everything is in my lap, and the yarn gets wound about the sleeve and I have to stop and untangle shit. So annoying!

Also, knitting a sweater body, that already has sleeves on it, does not make for easy public transportation knitting. I know this because when I was taking the 17yr old to get her bus/metro pass renewed, I brought the sweater with me. It's a somewhat longish ride on the metro, so I'm sitting there, autopilot knitting the painfully long rows and this woman sits in the seat across. She's watching me knit, intently. Which in turn is making me anxious, and I start making stupid mistakes. Can I just brag a little about how I can knit for small stretches without even looking at my knitting? Welp, being watched, getting anxious, I'm looking at my knitting and making mistakes, splitting the stitches, picking up bars from the stitch below. It's a mess. After about 10 minutes of this, the woman kind of leans forward, not looking at me, and whispers "perfect".
I don't know if she was referring to the knitting, the sweater or the colour. But she got off at the next stop without saying another word.


Met up with mah knitta on Sunday, headed to Espace Tricot because I NEEDED some sparkly* sock yarn. I told her about my plan to not buy anymore sock yarn (after buying sparkly sock yarn, and a ball of ScrumptiousPurl  striped sock yarn) and she didn't even laugh. Not out loud that is. My plan is simple; if I want new sock yarn, I have to knit a whole pair of socks from stashed sock yarn. Sock yarn is one of those things, so hard to pass up, you can get a beautiful pair of socks out of ball that can cost as low as $8!!-so of course it's easy to build up a stash.

The top picture is Tanis Fibre Arts Cosmic Blue Label fingering in "Grape".
The bottom is Scrumptious Purl in "Baby Beluga".
NO RAGRETS!!

Anyway, this plan should help me cut down on the sock yarn hoarding. But since I bought those two sock yarns, I will make myself knit 2 pairs of socks before I can buy anymore sock yarn.



Speaking of socks, a few weeks ago I had posted about having lost a good portion of the notes I took on my pixie dust sock. Today, I decided to rip back the sock to the heel flap, and re-knit the foot without continuing the pattern. I got that all sorted out and it's in my little sock bag for travel knitting. I suppose I could have figured out where I was in pattern if I really sat down with the book the stitch pattern came from, and my sock, but it's socks. I don't want to put that much effort into my socks. I like socks I can knit without looking at a pattern (except to note how many stitches I cast on, how long I knit the leg, and did I do a three needle bind of with 20 toe stitches or 24?)



Another pair of my Leethal Mary Janes has bitten the dust. Sigh.

Brutal. This means I have to make another pair of slippers. I think I'm going to weigh out all my leftover balls of worsted weight and bulky, and russian join a bunch of them randomly and then, knitting with several strands, make myself a crazy pair of slippers. (this led down a weird road of searching for Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colours on youtube, and ending up with "Islands in the Stream by Dolly and Kenny-let's not even mention what was in between)






*oh god, sparkly sock yarn. I was taking pictures of my stash because I was going to add pics of my stash to this blog post, but I never finished taking pictures of all the yarn because I can't stick to one task long enough to complete anything ever, but anyway, while gathering all of the sock yarn together, I found some sparkly yarn. Yup, I had some Biscotte & cie Boreale in a very pretty blue. I did not desperately need Cosmic Blue Label yarn. (no Ragrets)

Two times two

I got a lot of knitting done since my last post. It's been a good week!
I finished my Lomond hat (by LittleTheorem on Ravelry) knit in Knitpicks Swish Worsted in Lost Lake Heather.

I'm really happy with how it turned out even though I messed up one of the wraps AGAIN, smh. Barely noticeable to a muggle I think, but a knitter would notice. One of the pluses of being tall though-not many people get to see the top of my head!


I had mentioned last week that I wanted to make an infinity scarf, but I hadn't found any patterns I liked. So I set about playing with patterns. At first, I cast on using US15/10mm. I borrowed a pattern from a sock book and I liked it, but it seemed to take a lot of yarn for not a very large piece of knitting, and was very dense. I think the pattern would look cute on socks, but not on a scarf. I used up a whole skein of the Cadena I before I decided I didn't want to knit a whole scarf like this.

I frogged it, and then played around with garter stitch, stockinette and eyelets. Also on US15/10mm needles, and didn't like it much either. I particularly did not like the stockinette.

The third time was the charm however, I left out the stockinette and did a pattern of garter and eyelets. I also switched to US17/12mm needles.

I lost track because I was enjoying knitting up the Cadena I. Somehow, I ended up with an 11 foot scarf. Oops. But, whatever, I like 'em big! I seamed it up at the ends, and soaked it in Eucalan. Which made it absolutely REEK. It smelled so, so bad, like putrid eggs, and because it's such a big scarf, it took forever to dry. My house stunk for almost 2 days.
It also grew. Significantly.

Seamed, in half, it's well over 6 feet tall. Which is totally cray cray. But I love it, because it no longer smells horrifying, and it's super soft and warm. I'm only exaggerating a wee bit when I say I can wrap it around my neck and head a dozen times.

Originally I had planned to do a provisional cast on so I taught myself to do a basic crochet chain. (I watched a video by Very Pink Knits-she's awesome and I like to pretend we're buddies when I watch her videos) But then I realized it wasn't going to work because I don't have a big enough crochet hook. Super annoying, but it's pretty amazing that I even have crochet hooks at all. I think I got them when my mother gave me some of her knitting stuff? Or maybe they belonged to my grandmother? Either way, the provisional cast on using a crochet chain is pretty nifty and I'm going to try to find a project to use that cast on.
I tried to do another provisional cast on using waste yarn and I could. not. do. it. I just could not figure it out. Reading directions, watching videos-numerous videos and trying the cast on over and over. Could not make it work.  I was, and honestly,still so frustrated that I couldn't do it. I wanted to scream. I'll try again at some point, but I need some space from it. I don't think I've ever been so frustrated with my knitting :(

Anywhoo, after the scarf was completed, I cast on the first of what will be a pair of Maize mitts by TinCanKnits, using some more stashed kp Swish worsted in Lost Lake Heather.

I needed mitts to match my Lost Lake Heather Lomond, and Maize is one of my favourite patterns for mittens.

Sunday, went to Mouline with mah knitta to get some Debbie Bliss Paloma (60% Alpaca, 40% merino, chainette) which was awesomely on sale, so I could knit another infinity scarf. I grabbed the last 3 hanks of the Paloma in black. Score!

We stopped in at a cute little cafe, where we got down to the serious business of knitting, and in my case, drinking  hot chocolate.
I cast on my second chullo hat, using the O Wool. First I started on DPNs, got annoyed and switched to my interchangeables.  Then I ran out of yarn while doing the long tail cast on. Then I miscounted the stitches I had cast on, even with markers (wtf?) to keep track of how many stitches I was casting on. Didn't notice that I didn't cast on enough stitches until I was putting locking stitch markers (for the ear flaps) in the cast on edge. Ridiculous. I should not ever attempt to cast on a project, even a simple one when I'm out in public. I'm too easily distracted.

I finished the garter stitch rows of the hat and then it was time to head back home...and then completely lost interest in the hat.

On Monday I didn't knit much. I was too busy looking through stitch dictionaries for a pattern for my infinity scarf made from Paloma, I ended up choosing a Broken Slip Stitch pattern.  I cast on 15sts, with US15/10mm needles and only knit a couple of rows... but Tuesday I knit a huge chunk of the day and it was awesome.
See, my mother was getting some furniture delivered, and couldn't miss work so I waited at her place for the delivery.  It was promised that the furniture would be delivered before I needed to leave to go pick up B after school (she lives 3 minutes away from his school).
I brought three projects

(the scarf, maize and the chullo hat.) Brought my laptop so I could binge watch Hannibal (SO GOOD) and knit, knit, knit. As I'm plugging away at my Paloma scarf, and watching Hannibal eat people, I start thinking about making another Lomond hat, out of the leftover Paloma. But, I don't think one hank of the Paloma is enough for the hat, and I don't want to skimp out on my scarf. I check the yardage needed for Lomond-103yrds. Paloma is only 73yrds per hank. I've got about 7 repeats (of a 20 row pattern) done on the scarf, I could definitely make a hat, and then if there are any leftovers, I can add more rows to the scarf.
I couldn't start the hat while at my mother's house because, while I did have the right size needles, they were currently being used by the Chullo Hat and I didn't have any waste yarn, or an extra cord so I could use those interchangeables. Argh. So I did an extra couple of rows on the scarf,  estimating what 30 yards looks like so I'd have enough for the hat.  I spent the rest of my time at my mom's finishing the first Maize and casting on the second.

That night, after B went to bed, I couldn't wait to cast on Lomond with the Paloma. Double Seed stitch did not even phase me, my needles clicked furiously as I flew through this project.

This time around, the w&t's went smoothly and I didn't mess up the wraps!
I finished up the hat yesterday morning, and then with the leftover yarn,  I finished my scarf as well. I don't know why I bothered with a pattern, you can barely see it. To be quite honest, this scarf would have been just fine as a garter stitch scarf.

I managed to get in 10 full repeats of the 20 row pattern. But it was vry, vry close. By the end, I was worried I would not have enough yarn left for the bind off and I would either have to tink back the last row, or scavenge some of the tail from the cast on. But it worked out!

Chibi to show you just how close I came to not having enough.
End result:

Yay!

tl;dr: finished two hats, two infinity scarves, mostly finished a mitten. Still no sweaters.