I'll Just...

 The eyes of my knitting are always faster than my hands, bigger than my stomach, choose your metaphor. And yet it is a near constant that I will find myself reviewing the stash and starting a sentence with "I'll just..."

"I'll just whip up a baby blanket"

"I'll just make a full size adult sweater this week." 

"I'll just spend some time this summer making a few new shawls and six pair of socks." 

It's fascinating the ongoing disconnect between what I think I can accomplish in the limited time that is allocated to my knitting these days and the wonderful belief that these projects won't take tens to hundreds of hours each.  

The midsummer / July 4th weekend Must Review The Stash pang hit and I ended up going through the yarn bins at length over the weekend. Part of this was because it's been a year, always good to pull things out and see what you have, check for damage, reallocate bin space. And part of it was to actively get a few things into the Sell or Give Away piles.  

And I did end up winding up more yarn -- two more shawls that I've had yelling at the back of my head, yarn for a couple of pair of socks, and one more honey cowl for when I finish the one I quite literally just started. 

Here's the final work in progress / wound yarn for socks/Honey Cowls of Fall 2023 bucket. So what if I have only knit one shawl this year (oh right, you need the final details on that) and three pair of socks. I've got almost six months left, right? 

I'll just.... get started. 

Winding Amongst the Side Dishes

Friends invited a few of us over for a back patio dinner -- burgers and brats and whatever sides the spirit moved us to bring. I brought the prep for one of my usual multicolored fruit trays and two knitting projects.

First up, I needed to finish the toes on these socks. This is the 99th pair of socks I've finished, which means either the socks that are currently in a project bag or another pair soon will tip me over into that "more than 100" category. That's absolutely wild. I've only really been knitting socks for about 12 years, so that's something like 8-9 pairs on average a year. Though realistically it's been more like 3-5 in the past few years after a very strong start. 

The yarn is Sophie's Toes in a one of a kind colorway. According to my notes I picked it up in 2017 at YarnCon. That feels like a lifetime ago. She stopped dyeing a few years ago and I've lost track of her. Very nice knitter, I hope she is doing okay. 

Once the toes were cast off (and yes, I tried on one sock a couple of times while it was still on the needle to gauge length) I needed to wind up yarn for the Honey Cowl that is going to be desk knitting for the next bit. 

Fortunately, this group of friends has seen it all when it comes to my knitting. Flinging a skein around my knees and handwinding didn't even bring a blink of an eyelid. It was soothing to be in company that close, friends who are so familiar with your habits, hobbies, and oddities that something like getting this skein into a ball doesn't even register anymore. It's just part of what you expect from me. There are many friends and colleagues where I will never have that level of ease.  

The yarn for this is Fiber Sprout (the green) in her Night Zone colorway and Valley Yarns from Webs in Black. I caught the Anniversary sale this spring and bought a lot of black yarn to help with a variety of projects around the Chateau. Yes I bought more yarn so I can theoretically "use up" yarn. Yes I recognize the amusing nature of that. 

Anyway... I hope you're able to find friends with whom to sit outside, share a meal, and wind yarn at without concern for a few moments. 

Au Revoir 2022

It's the end of another year. Not my best year overall, some really amazing and good changes but also some pretty significant losses. A lot of change for nearly everyone I know and that has meant we're all flailing around trying to sort out what comes next. 

 

There's been a little knitting. More than I expected, honestly. I'd set myself a goal of 25 projects and I got through 12. Yarn as comfort object carried from room to room has felt very much the theme of the year. But I've got new socks for New Year's Eve and I'll start another shiny new pair as we ring in the new year. Same as I always do. 

I've also been thinking about Franklin Habit a lot recently and his still fairly recent move to Paris. It was fascinating to watch him pare down the books, the yarn, the everything for an international move. Only the most precious thing went along. There's a lot of things here that are very nice, but they aren't precious. And the precious is getting lost amongst the other things...

A death in the family points out to me again the shortness of life and how holding onto things you do not love, which do not serve a purpose, which are no longer needed, well mostly that just makes me tired. Is it a great surprise sometimes to find I still have thing? Sure. But usually it's just extra stuff.  I'm in my usual winter "why is there so much stuff" round, which spawned UseUpYear two years ago and continues to peck at the back of my brain. 

I hope you achieved some of your craft related goals this year and if not, that you can give yourself grace that usually yarn doesn't go stale. 

Adventures in Shelving: Part 8 of 8!

We finally know how many blog posts this is going to take! Apparently 8 was the magic number. 

In the last episode of As the BookShelves Happen, the Philosopher was continuing to polish shelves.  Once all of the shelves were finally complete and had rested for a couple of days to let the finish oil set, we went on an entertaining game of shelving heights. 

If you are also a book lover and have a *robust* library, picture if you will trying to estimate how many bookshelves you need and of which height. Oh, and don't use regular measures, use a few books that are about the correct height. We defaulted to three/four books -- a regular paperback, a trade paperback, a Lovecraft book (unpictured) and this very tall knitting book that I grabbed from my office. (Knitting books live in the home office next to the yarn, not in the livingroom).  And we tetrised, and planned, and discussed, and how many-Cthulhu's did we actually need? 

That many, apparently. Note that this isn't actually the final pattern -- a few shelves did get moved around a bit more, but you can see it beginning to take shape. We used all 27 shelves that I'd ordered. Had I planned that? Not really. IKEA let's you stage your IVAR shelving digitally-- sort of, it doesn't work quite as well as I'd like -- but I'd ordered "this many seems like it should be correct" number of shelves. And it worked out nicely. Go me. 

Isn't the color of the shelves lovely? The Dark Bourbon really did turn out well. Each shelf is different with the knots and occasional wood plug and all the striations. The Odie's Oil finish is absolutely stellar.  It initially feels like absolute satin. That tones down over the first 48 hours but the hand is really lovely. It's also food-safe, though I doubt I'll be doing any vegetable chopping on these shelves anytime soon. 

And then came the loading of the books. The far set of shelves is mine, we split the middle, the near shelf is his.  This was still mid-loading, but as you can see, no problem filling the shelves. It's now this wonderfully cozy giant wall in our livingroom. I love it. 

You didn't think that was our only shelving to tackle, did you?  While we didn't get these refinished, I did go ahead and do a temporary load so that more cardboard could go away.  These two small shelves were in my bedroom when I lived in LaCrosse and they've moved the three times since. They aren't especially fancy or nice but they serve very well and I'm looking forward to painting them next spring. For now -- it's my children's book collection: 

And my graphic novels and coming books. Astute readers will see I have all of the Girl Genius graphic novels and a stack of the original small format Cathy Guisewite books. 

It's so lovely to have our books out again. But it's also made me realize just how many books I have that aren't read and so that's something I'm making plans to address. They're lovely books and they are *right here* -- I own them even.  

Adventures in Shelving: Part 7 of Several

 Yes, I'm aware there was a break in progress. Meet the fall semester in a household of two people who work at universities -- one of whom is actively teaching 3 different courses plus a slew of NIH DMP presentations and the other of whom is in a law program.  Our priorities involve getting the cats fed and snuggled, bookshelves will eventually get sorted.

So shelving staining was completed, the piles of shelves came inside and tuckpointing on our 1920s brick building did indeed commence. The men were diligent in their labor and also in managing to make very heavy loud noises directly over my head during meetings frequently. 

Now there needed to be Odie's Oil on all of the shelves. This was, again, the Philosopher's project. Fortunately, it can be done indoors but it's still pretty labor intensive and, while the Chateau isn't small, there's not good space for sprawling 27 shelves around.  

The uprights moved directly into where they would finally go -- I'm really thrilled with how those turned out and how it contrasts with the stained shelves. It gives a sharper contrast between the sections and looks very solid. 

Anyways....once the Philosopher got a few shelves done, it was time to start getting things vertical. Harder said than done because again, we don't have empty rooms. Also I'll admit I kind of missed it when he was putting up the third and fourth verticals? I watched/helped this one go together but I think he got the others up before I got home one night? It was a process. There are rubber pads and felt underneath everything to make sure our floors are okay. 

Additionally, there was a brief detour through birthdays. The Incredibly Patient Mother has been on the hunt for "art deco book ends" for us, she's very aware of all of the books we're about to unload upon these shelves and that there will be a lot of room for some visual surprises.  See all these cool patterns? 

Last Friday, the final shelves had been oiled and aired for 48 hours, and we were ready to play layout. While these shelves are indeed flexible, the reality is that once they are loaded we aren't going to want to take things down anytime soon. I'll have to dust periodically but those big floofy wands are looking increasingly charming (send ideas if you have dust floofs you recommend for your shelves). 

Oh, and yes we had to immediately weight the shelving down with book boxes -- felines do indeed enjoy climbing.  

Adventures in Shelving: Part 6 of Several

I know you were waiting with baited breath but yes, Dark Bourbon won.  However, there was also the issue of the uprights. The 89" (226 cm) uprights that arrived in the first order back in late June/first week of July.  We'd gone through a variety of discussions of options about finishing these.

The plan had pretty much always been that we would have a contrast. I think this was somewhat based on an example we saw somewhere on the internet where they'd done darker uprights and a lighter stain on the shelves and the contrast looked nice. Honestly, we've gone through so many options of "but what about....." --  anyway, Plan A was paint, Plan B was different paint, Plan C was one of the other stain colors we'd already purchased, Plan D was the Hedgehog goes back to HomeDepot for Ebony stain. (Yes, the bottom of Test Shelf 4 is Ebony -- we needed a significant swatch.) 

But the Ebony stain wasn't working.... and so it was back to Plan B -- a satin finish Behr paint in the color "Dark Secret."  If there isn't at least one dark secret book on our bookcase, clearly we're doing it wrong. I have so many mystery books, there's got to be something. 

The Philosopher has been on staining duty which meant painting the uprights was my project. This was our major push over Labor Day weekend. Thankfully the weather held and there wasn't rain. Our downstairs neighbors were definitely curious -- but since we're very good about drop cloths and we're not being loud, they weren't too concerned.  I did a coat of primer, because pine is going to soak up paint and then two coats of the Dark Secret. 

As I'm finishing this episode -- the last 8 shelves are finishing Side 1 drying (it takes 3 hours) and the uprights are all done and just airing out. Philosopher will finish Side 2 in a little bit and then tomorrow morning we'll bring everything inside just in time for them to start tuck pointing our courtyard. That should be a whole extra level of fun. 

Once things are stained, we need to apply the finishing oil. That'll be both sides at a time and I assume my hallway will be lined with shelves.  But the end is in sight. 

Adventures in Shelving: Part 5 of Several

Way back when we'd been wandering around IKEA and I'd been eyeing various shelves, what had initially appealed to me was the black Billy bookcases.  They would be crisp. They would anchor the room. They wouldn't be either white or the shade of IKEA pale wood that everyone my age has far too much of. (She says, sitting in her home office and staring at an entire wall of that shelving.) 

Once we'd settled on the IVAR, I was adamant that we not keep them natural pine. It was too casual for our living room and since we are going to be living with these for a number of years, "aged pine" was right out. We have a significant amount of that already -- see the shelving my yarn stash lives on.  Thus the Philosopher and I watched an extensive amount of YouTube and rummaged through websites and color ideas in order to try and get a sense of what color stain would look best. 

Sampling was delayed by worrying about shelf arrival. If we were going to have to get an entirely different plywood to make shelves -- staining shelves we weren't using didn't seem useful. But once the shelves arrived, the Philosopher set up a station on our back deck and tested our three chosen colors. 

Reader, I didn't like any of them. The top one, Gunstock, was orange. The middle was fine but it was an entirely unexciting brown. And the bottom calls itself cherry and I think it's lying. Cherry should be a dark brown with red undertones. I've owned cherrywood furniture. We looked at them again in the daylight. 

And then we went to HomeDepot. 

Seriously, what is summer, or periodic adventures of the Hedgehog and the Philosopher without a multiple trip run over to HD? Armed a new with water based stain in four colors (the previous three colors are oil), we returned home. 

This picture is from when I got home after this year's white coat ceremony. It meant I hadn't left campus until well after 7 p.m. and while joyous, I'd started teaching that morning at 8 a.m. and was really tired. But coming home, I found three of the four samples waiting for me.*  And they were universally better. I liked all of them. You can see them here on the deck set up next to the oil samples. The middle bar split is because the Philosopher was testing the fancy finish oil he wanted to use. 

We looked at the samples in our actual living room under real daylight and the color Dark Bourbon seemed to be a favorite. Here is the bottom of Test Shelf Number 3, which is entirely  Dark Bourbon so that we could see an entire shelf against the just barely pink of our living room walls. (The wall color, which the Incredibly Patient Mother and I applied last year, is still glorious and absolutely glows in the evening.) 

We appeared to have a winner....possibly... 

*Color 4 of the Water Based Stains is the Varathane Aged Wood Accelerator Stain. It looks really neat but I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like it for the shelving. It hasn't been opened but is on standby for another project of the  Philosopher's.