Holiday Knitting, Round 2

 Made things, with bonus cat and bonus finger

So to catch up...

I finished two hats, the red one for my BIL, the blue one for my MIL.  The grey pile in the basket is for my FIL.  I'm not making scarves, they asked for aprons.  Everything is on track.  I finished the pillow because new(ish) couch needed more pillows.  The warm colors fit the aesthetic we're going for.  Traditional Eclectic is the compromise we settled on.  What doesn't fit the living room right now is my Cottagecore corner, but in the new year I'm going to switch that over and move my Cottage-ness to the sewing room/my new office.  After mumble mumble years in this space I want it to both look like an actual place and not a jumble and have my own space without compromise.  I'm old and growing cranky in it.

My hockey team is not doing well,  sigh

I'm in an odd space of the year right now.  We're Pagan, so we don't celebrate the usual holidays, more or less.  I like to call myself a Pagan in the Episcopal tradition, meaning I don't celebrate the usual but when I do it tends to be very traditional and kind of New England preppy.  It's the same stuff, mostly, just on a different day.  To that end we no longer do Thanksgiving, because when you really look at it it's a shit holiday from the 1940's that celebrates gratitude for what turned out to be genocide, so you know, no.  We've decided to merge it with the Yule holiday, aka the Winter Solstice/longest night of the year/Pagan Christmas more or less.  The turkey is still in the freezer along with the cranberries.  We'll have our feast then, and give proper thanks for the end of the year.  I know the Pagan calendar says that Samhain aka Halloween, is the proper end of the year, but we're not even done harvesting here by then.  So maybe in Britain but not in Oregon.  Yule fits.

Which means for us "Thanksgiving" is really Parade Day, because I stop the world to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the same as I used to with my Grandmother.  After that we spend the weekend putting the garden to bed.  There's a pile of sprinkler bits I get to sort over the next few days, and the frost cloth is over the flowers.  Over the next few weeks I'll slowly turn the house over toward Yule, baking and decorating and shopping.  And then the Yule season starts with Yule itself, then Book Night where we exchange, well, books.  Then Christmas even and Die Hard (yes, it's a Christmas movie) and then Christmas with A Boy Called Christmas and then all the traditional things you would expect from the Christmas Season, only in January, the darkest part of the year, leading up to Imbolc/Candlemas on February 1st, when we actually exchange gifts.  This keeps all the lights/colors/magic around longer and through the gray, depressing bits.

And as part of updating the house I will be updating the blog.  Stay tuned.  

Holiday Knitting, round 1

 

So I'm making hats (and maybe scarves, if I'm arsed enough) for the in-laws for Christmas.  I made them slippers last year, didn't know what to make them, and they live in the Rockies so can you really have too many winter hats?  I decided to go with bulky yarn to get it over with in plenty of time.  I was going to go with wool, looked at the budget, realized that they don't know how to care for wool, really, and so here we are with the Caron.

I started with the pattern Snow Day by Jerry Burch, casting on from the bottom in the round on two circs.  After a few rounds I decided the space between the needles was way too large and ungainly, so decided to try again.  Version two was the same pattern top down, where I immediately screwed up the increases.  Version three was a crochet cast on from the middle, which ran into the same problem as version 1 with the added attraction of crochet casting on 72 damn stitches.  There had to be a better way.

Enter the Sideways Hat by Wooly Wormhead, only 32 crochet cast on, and no weird long bits at the corners.  So far, so good.  I'm even on gauge.

When I found the pattern in Ravelry it told me I had done this hat nine times before.  Nine.  This meant that nine times I tried to knit a hat in the round and gave up.  

I've learned two things here:

1)  I don't like knitting acrylic in the round.  Or bulky yarn.  Or maybe hats.  I do knit mitts and socks in the round, but for both of those I use wool.  I've also knit mittens in acrylic in the round.  So it's either the bulky or the hat bit.  Whatever, I don't like it.

2)  I tend not to learn from my mistakes.

Summer Knitting

 

So, those were my summer knitting projects from 2023.

The one on the right is a very basic garter stitch scarf, done in KnitPicks Felici worsted, in the colorway Bookshop.  Two balls, some likely number of stitches cast on, knit in front of the TV while avoiding the hot, smoky outdoors for two months.

The one on the left is Red Heart Soft, I think, in something navy-ish, with stripes in some white holiday yarn from Mary Maxim.  It has a subtle sparkle to it.  That was the one I worked on mostly while in the park having finished my PT/walk and waiting for my wife to finish hers.  The story is that a couple of years back, somewhere around the intersection of Trump and Covid, she said I needed to find something else to talk about over the dinner table because it was getting depressing.

Enter the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Mistake on her part.

I decided to follow the Leafs because while I was considering hockey I found pictures of someone from their rookie year that hit me right in the muse spot and even though it was years ago I'm loyal to my muses.  (So long as the writers don't screw the whole thing up.)  Also, I'm a sadist who likes watching an entire arena of grown men cry.

And then we started walking on the regular to keep up our combined mobility, and my big sun hats were hard to manage so I decided I needed a smaller baseball cap and she suggested the Leafs and then I made a scarf to match.

I have no clue which uniform it's supposed to match.  Don't care.  I look better in darker colors so I went with the navy.

I have the wool to make matching fingerless mitts, but I'm not going to start them until someone get off the stick and signs his bloody contract.

Ahem

So there is that.  Now I'm going to go work on my next project and see if Matthews can get three hat tricks in a row.  Wish the team luck.

A note on representation

 

Photo:  iStock

A note on characters and representation in my current story, because it’s come up a few times in

comments before and we’re hitting original characters.

I’ve mentally broken this story down into three different groups.  There’s the characters from

Downton, the original characters in 1912, and original characters from another time point at the

end, which I won’t give away because <<spoilers>>.

With the characters from Downton I’m stuck with what I have.  That’s part of the fun of writing fan

fiction, at least it is for me.  You have to write within the constraints given you.  I find it an enjoyable

challenge.  Given that it’s a period drama everyone is very white, which fits the place and time.  

Skipping to the characters from another time point I’ve chosen to make them all as diverse as I

logically can to provide some balance.  The one exception being a character based on a real life

person.  Not going into who because <<spoilers>>. 

As for the original characters from 1912 I’ve described three, Lady Sintra, Lt. Demaria and one other

later in the story. One is the actor I've deliberately cast to better hear their voice in my head, oneis the actor I’ve deliberately cast to better hear their voice in my head, one is related to them, and

Lady Sintra is related to a character from a yet unpublished story.  I deliberately tried not to describe

the others so they could be mentally “cast” using actors of any background.  It’s called non-traditional

or color-blind casting and it’s the best way I could find to balance the books, given that I think you

should write what you know best and what I know is sci-fi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color-blind_casting

So to that end, if you want a face to go with the one specific character I’m casting Amy Beth

McNulty from the 3rd season of Anne with an E as Lt. Kira Demaria.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/anneofgreengables/images/b/bc/2017_S3_

PosterNetflix.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20191126184155

And Lady Sintra is a blue-eyed blond due to having William Mosely cast as a some number of greats

grandson.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/William_Moseley_2015_TCA_

Press_Tour_%28cropped%29.jpg/330px-William_Moseley_2015_TCA_Press_Tour_%28cropped%29.jpg

Everyone else is open. 

—-----

What about LGBTQ+ representation?

Oh.  So.  Much.

Downtown we know.  Thomas is gay, everyone else is straight.

That one character based on a real person?  In an interview she referred to her partner as male, but

she’s at work so it doesn’t come up.

The other three set in another time?  Also at work, it doesn’t come up.

Out of the remaining good sized group, one straight couple, one apparently straight couple but they’re

both bi, 1.5 gay couples*, one lesbian couple and the rest are bi or pan or gay/lesbian and single. 

Yes, all of them.  Every last one.  Pan means something somewhat different in their culture, but it’s

close.  And yes, there is a trans character.

Aldara is a very rainbow sort of <<spoilers>>.

*The other .5 is Thomas.  I didn’t create him.

The Growing Seasons books series

 

So ever since the start of the Pandemic I have been super into all things warm and cozy.  I've completed a nearly handmade gallery wall, done more than my share of knitting, and will likely be done with a crocheted afghan by Christmas.  And that's on top of the baking, cooking, gardening....you get the idea.  

If you want cozy the Growing Seasons series is for you.  This series has been a big inspiration for all that.  Melinda Foster is a not-quite middle aged woman who loses her job and her cat, sadly, in short order, and then had the chance to move home to help with the family business.  Home is in the coziest small town, and she rents a farm and...

No more spoilers.  Total low stakes cozy.  Think Legends and Lattes, but set in the current world with a country music soundtrack.  If you want a series of books that are, perhaps not the best written, but are as cozy as a quilt on a cold night then these are the books for you.

Now I'm going to once again go tell my wife that we don't have the spoons between us to raise sheep.

Back. Kinda.

Image by SerpantMistress on DeviantArt.

So the last time I posted was literally right before the pandemic.  Literally.

Honestly the pandemic was good for me.  Kitty got to work from home, which did wonders for our bottom line, and our marriage.  Our friend group bonded in new and wonderful ways.  My physical and mental health improved.  I even found a new muse or two.

What I haven't been doing much is writing.  Hard when you share an office.

She went back to the office six weeks ago.  So I'm back.

I'll be updating all the sidebars tomorrow, or thereabouts.

So true