Oh my goodness, here we are. May was quite a while ago. Next weekend I will be sitting down and writing about June. I’m such a slacker! I guess that makes it pretty obvious that the months have been busy. May was good. It was full and high-speed. I finished my semester, and oh thank God for that! That freed me up to knit to my heart’s content.
Finished objects:
Worsted-weight vanilla socks. I took the rest of the Malabrigo Sock from the Levee Shawl and paired it with Paton Kroy in natural to get the double thickness.
Another pair of worsted-weight vanilla socks. I pulled out a deep stash skein of Stranded Dyeworks BFL fingering weight yarn (left over from a Pavement sweater) and paired it with Paton Kroy in charcoal.
New cast-ons:
Father’s Day worsted-weight vanilla socks
Works in Progress:
Shatar Vest
Harris
Blue Mountain Cowl
White denim skirt
8 pairs of pajama pants/shorts
Goals for next month:
Work on Harris
Sew something
Access my WIPs- get critical
Enjoy my making
It may not seem like I did much knitting in May, but I knit two full pairs of socks and started a third. In addition, I have pulled out Harris and begun working on it again. The elbow isn’t giving me problems (yet…?), and I am also not pushing myself too hard on it. I can’t tell you how much I want to finish this sweater. I want the Father to get his sweater, AND I want it to no longer be hanging over my head. My original plan was to get the body knit and cut open by Memorial Day so that he could try it on. I was worried that it would be too tight for him. My plan was to have him try it on and decide if I would stick with the zipper or add button bands in order to add width. Well, I suck as a knitter and as a daughter and did not get the body finished and cut, so it became a moot point. I am getting work done on it, though. I have no idea where my urge to work on socks came from all of a sudden. I tend to keep a sock on the go just for waiting and standing in line, but for some reason, they are currently my jam. I think I am just really enjoying busting through older/ single skeins of fingering yarn. #oldstashdash is going strong! The two pairs of socks checked off two more boxes, and now there are no more sock boxes to check. My only box of concern is the Fade Project. I know that I want to use the Yoth half skeins of fading blues, but I don’t know what to make with them or how to create a fade on my own. I don’t do maths, so I am a little overwhelmed. I tried using one of the colors to make a stand-alone Rams Horn cowl, but I didn’t like it, so it is awaiting the frog pond. Let’s just not talk about the Sewing Bingo card. Yeah, let’s just skip that one. I did my fabric pairing post, which got me excited about sewing something. Let’s see what comes from that excitement. Guesses, anyone???
May was good. As usual, it was busy. Do I even need to say that anymore? I mean, I feel like I am just being redundant at this point. My goal for next month is to not talk about how busy June was. Duh, Mrs. Collins, your life is busy… So, week one was our first Parent’s Night Out at Taekwondo. Feebs and her two homies went to Revenge of the 5th night, and the parents went to dinner and out for drinks. All 9 of us had a great time. We will definitely be doing this again! I can’t say how happy I am that Feebs is still close with the FH boys. They have been together since they were babies, and I want them to always have that relationship. That weekend, I took the MIL to lunch and to get her hair done. She decided that she was ready to let the color grow out and go natural. Libby was able to high and low-light her hair to help it blend out. MIL was very happy with it, and the day was delightful. The next day was a kid’s birthday party. The next week was my infusion appointment. It was as charming as always, and I felt like garbage after as always. I ended up calling in sick the next day. I just felt tired and like my innards were caving in. That Friday was the in-law’s wedding rehearsal, though, so I still had to get up and be productive. The rehearsal was a hot mess, as was the wedding day itself. I won’t get into it too much since it is over and done. However, I will note the two things that I learned as a result of the event. 1.) I am too Type A for the in-law family. I will never understand the disorganized chaos of that family, and I need to accept that and move on. 2.) The town of Colma is a necropolis. This means that there are more dead people in that town than there are living. I was unaware of this, and my mind was blown as we drove through, and it was border-to-border cemeteries. MIND BLOWN. That Sunday was Mother’s Day. The weekend was pretty much shot due to the wedding, and we had to take the MIL to lunch to celebrate her day. So, my Mother’s Day didn’t really happen. I postponed the Mother to the next weekend, so we could celebrate her properly. On a positive note, I was told about the Sierra Nevada Yarn Crawl that is happening in September. It is happening, and I am going! So that will be my postponed Mother’s Day weekend. The next week was a field trip to the Oakland Zoo that I chaperoned, it was Open House at school, and it was when Feebs came down with Strep Throat. Again! That is the 3rd time in a year that my girl got strep. My poor Bean. Because she was sick, she missed some fun end-of-year stuff and a couple of her homie’s birthday parties. I did spend the weekend with the Mother. We did some more work around her house and cleared more stuff out. We took down a built-in hutch that was never intended to be taken down. Holy crap, that was a beast to remove. We took it down in order to build a “window” and breakfast bar. Also, that Sunday was the last day of my Spring semester! Man, that class was hard! Well, not hard, but a lot! I was very surprised with myself. Since I have returned to school, I have had a “you’re choosing to do this, so you better do it right” mentality. I have worked to do my best and get the best grade I could get. I very stupidly signed up for a class over the time that I was heading up a triple conversion at work. I DID NOT have the bandwidth to do all of that. As a result, I only got a 92% in my class. That is not bad by any means, but most of the reason for the lower grade is that I missed an assignment. I had no right to skip the assignment. It happened when we went to Hawaii. I wasn’t able to work ahead and ended up being unable to work back while trying to keep up. I got to the final weekend and made the decision to just focus on my final project and let the missed assignment go. So, my grade was lower, but I passed the class and was able to check off another box. I signed up for Fall 2023 and am going to take a film class to fulfill my general art credits. I took this class several years ago, but I butted heads with the instructor over watching a movie that made me uncomfortable. He wouldn’t let me substitute the movie, so I ended up with a W in the class. I am hoping that completing this will remove the W from my transcripts. The next weekend was Memorial Day weekend, and another wedding. One of the oldest nephews married his longtime girlfriend. They are the parents of my grandnephew. Technically, we attended the reception, not the wedding. It was held in my sister’s (his mom’s) front yard. It was really pretty, and they all did a great job getting everything done. I was delighted to see them married and happy. We haven’t had a big family wedding in many years, and we always have so much fun. I saw my former brother-in-law for the first time in many years, and it was really great to catch up with him and for the Husband to finally get to meet him. It was also the first young person wedding I had attended. It was an interesting experience and brought up some pretty funny epiphanies. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be in the stage of life that I am in. I love being married and settled and sure of who I am. We spent that night at the Father’s house and got to spend time with him and Mother since she spent the night too. We left early enough to have a very mellow rest of the day. The Husband stopped on the way home to pick up a washer drum that someone was selling for $30. He intended to use it for the fire when we went camping in June. The rest of the long weekend was spent getting stuff done around the house and preparing for the last week of school. The last week of the month was a bit bittersweet. I can’t believe the girl finished 3rd grade… I just don’t know why the years insist on going so fast. We also went to a niece’s (on the Husband’s side) 8th-grade graduation. Considering she was barely 2 when we met, I couldn’t believe how much she had grown up. Thank goodness I am not getting older! Feebs has continued her taekwondo practice. She earned a Decided stripe on her orange belt. When she focuses and cooperates, that girl is really good. I very much hope that she sticks with it. I want her to be prepared to take on her world as it expands over the years. I want her to have confidence and belief in her ability to defend and protect herself.
May is long over, and June is in full swing. May was a good month, and more memories were made. Things I hope to focus on over the summer are more summer garments. I generally tend to suck at summer-making. I want to remedy that this year. I would really like a new Lawley skirt and a couple more knit tops. I also want to buckle down and make a cute dress for Feebs. We will see what boxes I can check off next.
Loves,
M
Mrs. Collins Makes Stuff 