Happy Labor Day Weekend!
I’m so excited to travel this weekend. Long flights means lots of knitting time and fun with family! This week I finish a pair of baby socks, show some love to holiday-weekend WIPs, release my first sock pattern, and discuss my favorite shows. Enjoy!
Finished Objects
These adorable baby socks are an upcoming pattern from Lauren Slagle of Lolodidit. They are called the “Baby Airplane Socks” because they’re so quick you could knit them during a flight. I made the 9-12 months size in Lolodidit’s “The Quibbler” and “Beauxbatons” in her Lo’rigional base (MCM). It was fun to test these for Lauren and have another quick baby knit in the gift arsenal!
WIP’s- Focus Projects
This week I’ve been focused on a new design {the next pattern in my Fall Means Football Collection} and my August socks. I’ve got some knitting time coming up this holiday weekend though! We are flying to Oregon tonight, and with a 3-hour layover in San Francisco, I’ll have tons of knitting time– provided I can stay awake! Sunday we will make the 4+ hour drive to Seattle- more knitting time. Monday we have another long flight home. So much knitting time.
This WIP segment is brought to you by future WIPs. I’m definitely bringing along my August socks- Waffle Creams by Anne Hanson. I hope to finish them over the weekend.
I’m planning to start my September socks as well! These will be a vanilla pair to show off the micro-striping of the “Go Ducks” colorway from Sunrise Fiber Co. I couldn’t think of a better way to kick off the football season than by knitting on some Oregon football socks in Oregon!
I’m also planning to give my Canyon cardigan lots of love. I was gung ho on this project for the first week {way back in May}, but then I’ve just been off the sweater mojo. I really want to wear a brand-new hand-knit sweater this fall. I really, really want it to be this beautiful over-sized one out of Suburban Stitcher “Cinder”- because you can never have enough gray cardigans!
Something New
My 40-Yard Dash sock pattern has arrived! I’m so excited to publish my first knitting pattern this week. I got the idea for a team-themed pattern collection way back in the spring of this year. Looking through patterns on Ravelry, you’ll see a lot of stripes and clunky patterns for two-color fanwear. I wasn’t into it!
The purpose of the Fall Means Football- Subtle Fanwear Collection is to provide two-color patterns that you can knit to represent your favorite team. However, I wanted the patterns to be subtle enough that you could knit them in any color and still love them!
I’m so excited to have this collection going. I’ve got two more ideas ready to go for this fall. I’m working on a design right now that will be released at the end of September. I have a third pattern that will release at the end of October! I hope to add to the collection again next fall too.
What God’s Teaching Me
A million dreams are keeping me awake. Ah don’t you love the songs from The Greatest Showman? I dream every day of making knitting my full-time job… rather getting to design, blog, Instagram, and craft every day without worrying about making an income- that’s the real dream!
With work being new, busy, and well… work, I’ve felt myself getting discouraged lately. I’m starting to interpret more situations through a negative lens rather than a neutral or a positive one.
I think one of the reasons I love knitting so much is because I find the challenging parts fun, not frustrating. With my craft, I’m likely to say, “That’s different and I want to try it!”, but in other areas of my life I’m wary of change.
A sweet Instagram friend shared a quote on her feed this week:
There is nothing in nature that blooms all year long, so don’t expect yourself to do so either.
So through this time I keep talking to God, “Lord, I know there is purpose in this uneasy time. Where am I needing to be trimmed back? In what areas are you growing me? Teach me how to the good in all situations.”
So right now I’m not sure what God is teaching me, but I know that it is good.
What We’re Cooking
I LOVE berries. They’re absolutely my favorite fruit- raspberries in particular… but man do they spoil quickly. I like to bring raspberries and blueberries in my work lunches, but I kept getting frustrated that I had to either wash the fruit each night or suffer from mold if I prepped them all at the beginning of the week.
A quick Google search led me to the Momables post called “The Trick to Making Fresh Berries Last!” Umm… sold! Laura suggests a white vinegar and water bath for blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries. And guess what? She tells us not to wash our raspberries- thank goodness! I’ve always thought that rinsing raspberries made them mushy and took away flavor, but now I have a witness.
I didn’t have any white vinegar, so I took the lazy approach of using hot water. Both fruits lasted the whole week! {I didn’t cut the strawberries until the night before.} My blueberries were great the whole week. I almost feel like rinsing them in hot water allowed the berries to be their most juicy, intense flavor right away instead of some being a bit tart as they mature. The strawberries were normal the first day, but quickly got a rubbery texture. They weren’t spoiled, but they might be a bit funny for some people. Next I’d like to try it the proper way, as Laura suggests with vinegar!
I cooked one my favorites this week- Tamale Bake. It’s an easy recipe as most of its ingredients come from a can, but I like that I have a lot of control over the amounts I add to the bake. I completely forgot to buy cornbread mix when I went to the store, but luckily we had corn meal in the pantry. I quickly made some cornbread from scratch. It was much simpler than I thought! This resulted in the fluffiest Tamale Bake we’ve ever had. Sometimes mistakes can lead to good things.
I decided to make two casseroles this time- one to freeze and one to eat this week. The one I put in the freezer had just the meat mixture. I’ll add the cornbread on top when I’m ready to bake it. This easy and yummy recipe has become one of my favorite meals!
What I’m Reading
I’m still reading the same old thing {Warcraft- Day of the Dragon} and I probably will be for a good long time. So, let’s talk about something else here- television!
Although I don’t think I watch more TV than most, I do watch a lot of television- that’s encompassing all screen time with Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and Instagram stories. The only show I watch on “real TV” is Live PD on Friday and Saturday night. I just love it!
Kent and I have been keeping up with America’s Got Talent. We usually watch it on Hulu the day after it airs so that we don’t have any commercials. Now that they’re showing performance and results shows we like to save them both to watch in the same night.
My current Netflix show is Once Upon a Time. I like to come up on a trend several years too late… so you’ll often find me watching things that everyone was raving about long ago. I watch a few episodes each week since when I can squeeze it in. Kent and I share our TV time at night with each other and he doesn’t watch this show.
Together we just finished The Good Place. I can’t wait for the next season to start! Kristin Bell is just hilarious. I would highly recommend it if you’re looking for a new comedy. You can find seasons 1 and 2 on Netflix and new episodes (when it starts back in late September) on Hulu.
In preparing for some long flights, I’ve downloaded a few things onto my iPad from Netflix. Magic for Humans is a new-to-me show. It makes me laugh so much! I found a Netflix original rom-com called Set It Up that we’ll see if I can make it through… it might be terrible. I also downloaded the first couple episodes of Jessica Jones to see if I will like it and The Crown in case Jessica Jones is too violent for me. Flights are such a great time to try new shows. I’ll be knitting too of course!
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