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Gloves/Mittens

How Cold Is It?

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How Cold Is It Mittens
Started: 13 Jan 2022
Finished: 24 Jan 2022
Pattern: How Cold Is It Mittens by Drunk Girl Designs
Yarn: KnitPicks Palette in colorways B961 (Light Blue) and 2425 (Dark Blue) – used just about half a skein of each
Needle: US 0 / 2 mm
Notes:  This is now the second time I’ve knit these mittens and these ones went to a friend as a holiday present.  It’s not too often that I knit for other people, but there are some folks who are absolutely knit-worthy!  Most of the time I’m knitting for just me because it is a sizable amount of time, energy, and cost that can go into producing a knitted object.  You’re damn right I’m going to do that for myself!  There’s a longer conversation here that I saw on Twitter about men’s vs women’s craft/hobby endeavors and how women are called selfish if they engage in a craft or hobby for themselves while that’s not said of men.. and also a conversation about how I knit for the enjoyment of knitting and don’t need to monetize it and sell what I create in order to make it valid and worthwhile.  Buuuut anyway, back to the mittens!  I had to check back to my notes when I knit the first pair, and I did indeed go down 2 needle sizes to a size 0 since I tend to knit a bit loose in colorwork and the pattern called for a US size 2 which seemed way too big.  I also always use a Norwegian Knitting Thimble for colorwork since I’m a continental knitter, and it works great to keep the yarn organized on my left hand without getting twisted or falling off my finger.  The mittens came out a tiny bit tight straight off the needles, but after washing and laying out, the yarn loosened up a considerable amount and the fit is damn near perfect.  The pattern also comes with a Norwegian style thumb, but I find that those twist the mitten funny when it’s being worn – our thumbs sprout out the side of the palm, not the center – so I switched up and added a “sore thumb” instead.  For the thumb, I started increasing every other row at the edge of the mitten body starting at row 3 of the mitten chart till I got to 25 stitches and then slipped those onto a holder and backwards cast on 1 stitch.  When it came time to work the thumb, I picked up 5 extra stitches along the thumb ‘crotch’ for a total of 30, then worked the thumb till it was long enough, decreased, and cast off.  This is absolutely my favorite mitten thumb type to knit and IMHO, it fits the best without twisting or distorting the pattern while wearing the mittens.  Uncensored version below the jump!

Continue reading“How Cold Is It?”

Drink, Whisk(e)y

Manatawny Whiskey Club – February 2022

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A few months ago, one of my favorite local distilleries, Manatawny Still Works, opened up a Whiskey Club which involves four shipments per year of standard or cask strength selections of their whiskies.  I definitely do more damage than that every year at their distillery, so I figured this would be a fun experience, getting bottles of unique whiskies with no worrying about showing up to release day on time or placing a pre-order, plus the shipments come straight to my door.  Can’t go wrong with that!  When I told the husband about it, his only question was whether I’d go for cask strength or regular, not whether or not I’d join, so, yeah, pretty obvious I had to sign up.

My first shipment was due to arrive while I was visiting the husband who is currently assigned to a posting in the United Kingdom, so they thankfully held it for me and delivered once I returned home in the first week of March.  I think I got the call during the last week of February, so we’re calling this February’s edition since that was the planned delivery date (the delay was my fault!).  The shipment arrived packed extremely well, with a layer of bubble padding on the bottom and paper shred fill inside, and the delivery person even called before to confirm I was available to receive it which is something I REALLY appreciate.  Included along with the bottle was a Glencairn glass with the Manatawny logo, a letter about the whiskey, and a club sticker.  On to the whiskey, it’s a 750 mL bottle of a Single Barrel Four Grain American Whiskey at cask strength, 62% ABV.  The letter included with the shipment details that this was aged in new, charred American Oak barrels for 6 years and says that the nose is cherry, pepper, and vanilla with sweet oak and gentle spice on the palate.  Mine is bottle 6 of just 9 at cask strength making this super unique!

Most whiskies, I prefer to have the cask strength so that I’ve got control over the ABV.  I’ve had some whiskies at 40% that were disappointingly over-diluted, and some incredible whiskies at 50% or higher that honestly didn’t need even a single drop of water.  Everyone’s palate is a little different, so I enjoy having that flexibility with the cask strength edition, especially since I tend to drink whiskey neat.  I’m not a whiskey tasting expert, but I enjoy a fine dram and have gotten a good handle (I think) on that whole taste-to-brain translation thing, so here are my thoughts!  On the nose, I definitely get cherry – a dark, red, dried cherry, maybe a little bit of raisins too, and definitely the vanilla and caramel I’d expect from an oak barrel.  Undiluted, on the palate, it does have a fair bit of fire from the 62% ABV.  After adding a little water, it mellowed out and my brain immediately sparked to those fancy Amarena cherries we’ve used for cocktails.  That dark, rich, syrupy cherry is definitely what I’m getting on the palate with a really nice rush of dark chocolate (like a 90% dark chocolate bar) as it rolls down the tongue, and spice at the finish with a tinge of smoke from the barrel char.  I mean, wow.  Absolutely perfect for the cold and snowy day we have while I write up this post, and a great whiskey to open the club!

If you want to sign up, the club is open to Pennsylvania residents, and is, in my opinion, absolutely worth it if you enjoy whiskey.  I haven’t been paid or reimbursed to say any of this – the distillery has been one of our favorites since they opened, and it’s been a delight to see them grow and produce some incredibly good whiskey in their 8 years of operation.  I’m only here to share the love of a fantastic whiskey, and I’m so glad to have gotten a spot in the club.

Finished Objects, Socks

Sock Knitting Catch-up – Part 3

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Continuing on with the sock knitting catch-up posts, but at least we’re into 2021 now!  This is some peak winter pandemic knitting, just basic plain stockinette socks, but honestly it was all my brain had space for at the time.

Fall-ish Socks
Started: 25 Dec 2020
Finished: 2 Jan 2021
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight, Mill Ends
Needle: US 1.5 / 2.5 mm
Notes: Mill Ends are the not-quite-perfect runs of sock yarn that are still plenty good, but not perfect.  Ravelry says I picked this up at the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool festival in 2009, so wow was it due to be used finally.  This yarn is an absolute delight – it’s SO squishy and comfortable to wear even if a little thicker than most sock yarns, and what a pretty colorway.

Day at the Beach Socks
Started: 2 Jan 2021
Finished: 11 Jan 2021
Yarn: Spindle City Yarns Handpainted Sock in colorway, “Day at the Beach”
Needle: US 1.5 / 2.5 mm
Notes: It’s my best friends, blue and brown again!  Ravelry says I bought this in 2008, so this was one of my first few sock yarn purchases ever.  Pretty wild how a few skeins of sock yarn became bins of yarn, enough to keep me warm for an eternity.  This project marks my transfer from keeping records on Ravelry to keeping records in a notebook because of Ravelry’s site redesign and refusal to add basic code for accommodating those who found the new site intolerable or harmful to use.  I even noted on the project page, “Last FO on Ravelry.  Going to notebook logging or posting on the blog.  BYE RAVELRY.”  Part of the reason I got back to blogging was to keep better track of Finished Objects, so, here we are.

Stormy Night Socks
Started: 6 Jan 2021
Finished: 11 Jan 2021
Yarn: June Pryce Fiber Arts Plum Panda sock in colorway “Stormy Night”
Needle: US 1.5 / 2.5 mm
Notes: Oooh aren’t these pretty?!  The yarn was picked up at the Pennsylvania Fall Fiber Arts Festival in 2015 so it didn’t wait too long to become socks.  My notes on this say that I left the leg longer than I usually do to preserve the color transition.  I even alternated and used the other end of the ball for the heel since the yarn was supposed to transition all the way back to the dark green again.

Bacon Socks
Started: 14 Jan 2021
Finished: 23 Jan 2021
Yarn: Holiday Yarns Flock Sock in colorway “Bacon”
Needle: US 1.5 / 2.5 mm
Notes: Plain old sock!  The yarn was acquired at Rhinebeck in 2010, and how can you possibly resist a colorway called “bacon” which pools up like streaky bacon?!  I mean it really is pretty great.

Art

Open Print Exchange

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A few years ago, I started taking printmaking classes with a local artist at our community art center to give me something to do and dig back into a creative groove.  Printmaking was something I’d always wanted to try and this class gave us a great overview of the basics of a few different printmaking methods.  I later took more classes with the same teacher and really found a love for all the possibilities in printmaking.  There’s also something neat about the history of the craft.  Anyway, making prints without a press can be a bit limiting since some of the methods involve consistent pressure that can’t really be achieved by hand, so when I saw the Open Press Project on Kickstarter, I jumped on it.  My little blue press arrived and I went to town playing with drypoint etching on plastic plates.  It’s a very small format since the bed is only about 3×5.5 inches in size, but that also makes it portable and takes up less space which isn’t a bad thing.

At the end of 2021, the team that created the little press put out a call for artists to join a global art swap using the press to create a small series of 10 prints.  For mine, I used a subject that’s gone around a few times in various printmaking iterations from a screen print to a stencil, solar print, and probably eventually a linocut.  It’s my grandpa’s old Polaroid SX-70, and my love of photography bleeding into my newfound love of printmaking is something that should shock absolutely no one!

Here’s my whole series of ten – one will stay with the Open Press Project folks and be part of a catalog and future show, and in return, I’ll receive 9 different prints from artists around the world.  Can’t wait to see the catalog and online archive with all the prints as well, and I’ll add a new post once I’ve received my 9 prints in the mail, hopefully this summer.

Print Details:
Backer #53
Drypoint Etching on plastic plate
Speedball Akua Ink in Mars Black
Printed on Legion Stonehenge paper in Steel Grey

UPDATE: March 2023 – Prints were received in May 2022 and I finally posted about them!  Here’s the link – https://www.sheetar.com/2023/03/29/open-print-exchange-prints-received/

Genealogy

Reese’s Johnny Bar

Trying to get back into regular blogging this year, so here’s another item from Grandma’s scrap book.  It’s a Reese’s Johnny Bar wrapper from probably about 1941 based on the other items on the same page (dated postcards in particular).  I couldn’t find a whole lot on the internet about this, nor could I find another photo of the wrapper anywhere.  There’s a Wikipedia article about H.B. Reese who created the bars and named this one after his son – a companion bar to the Lizzie Bar, named after his daughter.  The difference between the two bars was that the Johnny bar contained nuts (you have to laugh, it’s just too funny).  The bar was made at the H.B. Reese candy co in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and was probably one of the last few Johnny bars made before being discontinued in 1942 due to wartime rationing in favor of producing only their best seller, the peanut butter cup.

The full ingredient list:
Fresh Cocoanut [sic], corn syrup, cane sugar, creamery butter, molasses, freshly roasted peanuts, milk chocolate, salt.

Why grandma saved this may remain a mystery.  It’s on a page that also includes a ticket stub for an airplane flight she took with her then boyfriend (later husband), a bingo ticket, postcards, and a few newspaper articles.  I suppose the most likely reason she saved this is that grandpa bought it for her or they shared it on a date or something like that.  Whatever the reason, it was a neat piece to find in the scrapbook, even if I’ll never know why she held on to it!

Finished Objects, Socks

Sock Knitting Catch-up – Part 2

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Another round of sock posts!  Probably at least 2 more to go after this until I’m done.  Still working through this long backlog of plain vanilla socks, but I wear handknit socks constantly, and especially with boots, the unpatterend ones are more comfortable.

Galapagos Socks
Started: 22 Aug 2020
Finished: 6 Sep 2020
Yarn: Dragonfly Fibers Djinni Sock in colorway “Galapagos”
Needle: US 1.5 / 2.5 mm
Notes: If I remember correctly, the yarn was a gift?  We had been to the Galapagos Islands years ago and it was a once in a lifetime kind of trip.  So yeah, obviously a colorway named Galapagos was a thing that had to happen.

Blue Stripe Socks
Started: 8 Sep 2020
Finished: 13 Sep 2020
Yarn: Austermann Hand Painted in colorway “Esiblume”
Needle: US 1.5 / 2.5 mm
Notes: This one pooled up really weirdly for me!  My standard sock is 64 stitches and I think maybe at 72 stitches, I would’ve gotten the stripe pattern shown in product photos.  I *think* I bought this one on a trip to the Netherlands, but can’t be entirely sure since it was after I’d started to abandon Ravelry.  It’s not a particularly soft yarn, but it’s one of those solid, workhorse sock yarns that probably won’t need darning for years and years.

Harvest Socks
Started: 14 Sep 2020
Finished: 25 Sep 2020
Yarn: Farmhouse Yarns Fannie’s Fingering Weight in colorway, “Harvest”
Needle: US 1.5 / 2.5 mm
Notes: Another yarn from 2010, these buttery hues worked up really pretty into an evenly variegated yarn without really any pooling.  This is outside of my blue and brown comfort range but I can’t help but admire how beautifully the colors work together in the final knitted product.

Caribeno Socks
Started: 23 Nov 2020
Finished: 30 Nov 2020
Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Sock in colorway, “Caribeno”
Needle: US 1.5 / 2.5 mm
Notes: Annnd back to blue!  The yarn was a gift from a friend who knows exactly what colors I like and oh, what gorgeous blues.  Malabrigo is so dang squishy and soft too, these are just fantastic.

Genealogy

The Fighting XX Corps

It’s not exactly the right season right now, but this was a little unique piece of history I only found one other place online, so it seemed like a good idea to post it!  The image is a piece of World War II history, issuing Season’s Greetings from the Fighting XX Corps.  Now, I’m not a military historian at all, but Wikipedia has an article for that!  On the back, my grandpa John noted,

This is a card my brother Stanley sent me, a Christmas card from the outfit he is in, some card isn’t it?

I know Stanley served in the military, but I couldn’t verify via available records which exact division or corps he served in while overseas.  The shield on the soldier’s back matches the insignia on the Wikipedia page, and the date on the card shows 1944 which all lines up with the details in the Wiki article.  There’s also another history page about the XX corps here (link to page) that contains what I assume are personal photos from a soldier in the corps.  Again, I’m not a military history buff, so I’m more just posting this to be digitally preserved or in case someone interested in military history finds it interesting.  Grandpa definitely sent this to grandma who preserved it in her scrapbook as part of a wide variety of postcards and tidbits he sent her while he was away with the Army Air Force.

Finished Objects, Socks

Sock Knitting Catch-up – Part 1

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This year will mark my 14th year as a knitter.  Hard to believe it started one summer with a friend teaching me the basics and then letting me fly.  Socks are my go-to comfort knitting because I don’t really have to think about them yet they still keep my hands busy, and I can crank out a pair in one long day or, on average, about a week’s worth of evening knitting in front of the TV.  Now that I’ve given up on Ravelry because of their horrible redesign and subsequent hostile response to people saying it was causing them actual, physical harm, refusing to make even basic accessibility accommodations, I’m going to focus on posting these on my blog here instead of on Ravelry.  So, here we are!  This also gives me a little more room to talk about the knitting, any modifications, and so on.  I’ll post 4 of these at a time until I’m caught up and then hopefully, keep up with posting new stuff here as I knit.  The majority of these will be older projects, and I fell into knitting plain old vanilla socks (using my basic sock pattern) to try and use up some heavily variegated or pooling sock yarn that wasn’t really all that well suited to something with a pattern.  Anyway, on to the socks!

NYC Socks
Started: 25 Apr 2020
Finished: 3 May 2020
Yarn: Dragonfly Fibers Dragon Sock in colorway “City That Never Sleeps”
Needle: US 1.5 / 2.5 mm
Notes: This colorway was a TON of fun to knit.  The black is VERY black, so the colored bits really stand out against the dark.

Nell Socks
Started: 11 May 2020
Finished: June 2020
Yarn: Miss Babs Yummy 2 ply in colorway “Nell”
Needle: US 1.5 / 2.5 mm
Notes: I apparently bought this yarn back in 2010 and then it sat in my stash for .. a decade.  It’s definitely a set of colors that’s right up my alley between the blue and brown and oh gosh they knit together so pretty.

Juniper Socks
Started: ??
Finished: 13 Aug 2020
Yarn: Enchanted Knoll Farm Superwash Sock in colorway “Juniper”
Needle: US 1.5 / 2.5 mm
Notes: It appears that this dyer is no longer dyeing yarn, but it’s yet another entry in my blue-and-brown personal colorway, though this one is a little more turquoise and tan.  Gosh I really loved this set of colors and still do, but this and the yarn above were both bought in 2010, so I definitely had a real thing for those colors!

Dusk Socks
Started: 13 Aug 2020
Finished: 22 Aug 2020
Yarn: Ella Rae Lace Merino in colorway “Dusk”
Needle: US 1.5 / 2.5 mm
Notes: Still sort of blues-and-browns-ish, but definitely aptly named with the muted tones of greens and blues.  Not sure when I got this, but I was pretty great about keeping up with the stash on Ravelry until the last 5 years or so, so it was probably a much newer acquisition that I never added into their database.  Really dig those colors, and Ella Rae’s lace merino is definitely a solid sock yarn.

Next four are coming soon!  Still trying to get a blog post up once a week, so a lot of these are scheduled out in advance, but it’s great to be back at the blogging thing.