I Finished Something!

 

my little Kitsune was very helpful in making sure all my wires were secure

I love the mix of blues and whites in my clapotis

My clapotis is finished!  I am so happy with this yarn and how it looks in this beautiful pattern!  This means that I can cast on something new with my friend but we are waiting a week instead of jumping into a new pattern.

this is my friend's clapotis, I just love the mix
of pink and orange sherbert colors in cotton

this rainbow blanket is such a joy to work on, it is about four feet now

This is a Circle Back week and I am choosing to focus on the rainbow blanket.  I love working on this blanket with all the bright and beautiful colors.  I am on the last skein and an end is in sight.

What are you working on this week?  Did you finish any long-term projects?

Happy crafting!

Ruinwen

😀

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Safe socially-distanced hugs  🤗

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Sending love and light to everyone being affected by this virus.  

May you be safe.  

May your loved ones be safe.  

🙏

**************************

Sending love and light to everyone facing discrimination, hate, prejudice, inequality, or racism.

🙏🙏💖💖🙏🙏

**************************

Vixenpath is a safe space.

If you are:

LGBTQ+

Black

Brown

Asian

Any race

Coming out

Anything.

I am a safe person and I will always hold space for you in love and light.

Can I Get An F in Chat?

Today's title is something you say when someone/something dies in-game and you are paying respects.  Can you please say it for my clapotis?

Everything was going so well, as you've seen in the pictures.  But you see I realized that as I knit into my new ball that it was sock weight, not DK.  It looked so thin and sparse so I ripped that back to the join which was at this point, 14 rows back, and doubled the yarn.  It just looked wrong.

I tried to just ignore it but when one section is obviously doubled yarn and the other is all smooth I just couldn't do it.  It had to go.

I even tried to rip back two repeats but the drops didn't look organic enough for me anymore and I still didn't have enough yarn.

So I ripped the whole thing out even though I was on the last repeat section, because what else can one do?

Meet my new clapotis which I cast on last Wednesday, made out of Brooks Farms, Duet, a sport-weight kid mohair, and wool blend.  I got this at MD S&W many, many years ago.  It is soft and I think it is perfect for this project.

I'm not upset.  These things happen.  I tried my best to make it work and now I have just let it go.  I am happy with my new yarn that is very soft and nice to work with and I know this project will fly off my fingers and I will be back to where I left off in no time.

What project could you not save and had to rip?  In the end, how did you feel about your decision?

Happy crafting!

Ruinwen

😀

**************************

Safe socially-distanced hugs  🤗

**************************

Sending love and light to everyone being affected by this virus.  

May you be safe.  

May your loved ones be safe.  

🙏

**************************

Sending love and light to everyone facing discrimination, hate, prejudice, inequality, or racism.

🙏🙏💖💖🙏🙏

**************************

Vixenpath is a safe space.

If you are:

LGBTQ+

Black

Brown

Asian

Any race

Coming out

Anything.

I am a safe person and I will always hold space for you in love and light.

WIPS [Work(s) In Progress]

 I never really thought of myself as a content creator until a few years ago when my sister mentioned it.  I just had a blog and wrote about life, some "to ponders" and my knitting.  But after that conversation I realized, well, yes I am a content creator.

Being a content creator is a wonderful job and love it.  I treasure my blog and the friends I made along the way.  It is a snippet of moments in my life and I refer back to it for dates when important things happened because they are usually recorded in its pages.

Lately, I have been really pushing the creative narrative, commissioned content (which I can't show), and projects (I can't show either).  This leaves me little time for personal projects and it makes me a bit sad.  I see them on the shelf in their little bags and I feel a pang of regret that I have abandoned them.

I am grateful for my design projects, I really am.  I love creating something new or figuring out a new way to do something.  I have tried during the pandemic to shift my knitting section to more tutorials to help inspire people who are looking for something new or some tips or tricks.  I have a lot of fun with those posts especially since they challenge me a bit with design or in filming which I have been doing a bit more of lately.

For a while now I have been working on a weekly schedule with Creative Tuesday. On Instagram that was taken so I use Creatrix Tuesday.  On Tuesday I sit down with my designs, colors, nature, art, music, and any other inspiration and just listen to my authentic voice.  This has been working really well for me and I have a slew of new ideas and directions to work with. 

On Friday I schedule a CEO day.  On this day I work on the business and attend to stuff on Ravelry and focus on design calls and what I am going to focus on for the next week.  It has really helped me to pinpoint my direction for Vixenpath.

During my last Friday session, I also talked with my sister who is full of good ideas and I added them to my minutes.  One of the things we talked about is that I need to address not having any time for my personal projects.

She suggested a Circle Back Week that would entail just working on all those projects that I have been neglecting.  This way, they have a time dedicated just to them and I can ease off designing for a week just to let my brain reset.

So, the first week of every month I will be showing you my Circle Back projects.  I don't want to overwhelm myself, so I will only focus on four projects at a time.  Two of them are from weekly knit-a-longs so only two of them will be neglected projects so don't worry about me taking on too much here.  lol

the edges are so clever

The first one is Rosy Blooms, by Steven West.  Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts, Cherry Blossom.  Knit Picks, Stroll Glimmer Black (I think neither of these yarns exists anymore 😭) Expression Fiber Arts dyes in lots, and then they are gone, but she is always creating beautiful new themed stuff. 

I am knitting on this with a friend, though we took a little break on it to do some other things lately.

 stockinette next to the dropped stitches for contrast

The second is Clapotis, by Kate Gilbert.  Yarn:  Knitpicks, Chroma, Manzanita.  This color is not available but chroma has some lovely colorways.

I am knitting on this with a friend and we are almost to the decrease section.  Loving this yarn and pattern together!

love all this color!

The third one is a feather and fan blanket with some homeless Red Heart yarn in the colorway Favorite Stripe.  I am on my third skein out of five and I am loving the burst of color in this blanket.  I plan on using it for meditation and chakra work.

beautiful optical illusion as the colors blend

The final project for this Circle Back week has been this Gingham, crocheted blanket from Daisy Farm Crafts.  If you crochet, please check her out, she has some beautiful and innovative patterns with web and YouTube tutorials.  Yarn:  Carron Simply Soft, blue, white, and country blue.

I love this pattern, the whole idea of it, and how it looks as the yarns blends together.

So here is the hard part for me.  These projects will be my four Circle Back personal projects each month until one is completed.  Only then can I begin or work on finishing something new.   This is my transparent accountability promise to you all and especially to myself.  

You are more than welcome to join me in giving some attention to your personal projects.  I'd love to hear what you are working on!

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To all you Mothers of children, animals, or people you watch over, have a Blessed, Beautiful, and Happy Mother's Day!  🤗💖

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Happy crafting!

Ruinwen

😀

**************************

Safe socially-distanced hugs  🤗

**************************

Sending love and light to everyone being affected by this virus.  

May you be safe.  

May your loved ones be safe.  

🙏

**************************

Sending love and light to everyone facing discrimination, hate, prejudice, inequality, or racism.

🙏🙏💖💖🙏🙏

**************************

Vixenpath is a safe space.

If you are:

LGBTQ+

Black

Brown

Asian

Any race

Coming out

Anything.

I am a safe person and I will always hold space for you in love and light.

Snowballs and Things

I had grandiose plans at the beginning of the year.  I was going to clean up the Basement and work on past designs and get a lot done.  I was doing really well too until COVID struck the world.  And then, well...I just couldn't seem to do a lot of anything consistently except plan meals for the family and do the daily stuff. 

But, secretly...even to myself...I was...

You see I believe in using the "snowball effect" whenever possible for tasks that are just so huge that I get a panic attack just thinking about them.

In the snowball effect just doing the small parts of a task eventually leads to being able to do bigger parts until everything is rolling along and you find yourself at the half-way mark without as much hassle.

I used this technique to get out of debt many years ago.  First I paid the minimum on all the bigger debts, then I paid as much as could to the small debts.  As the smaller debts went away, then I allocated that amount to the next debt with the least amount on it.  It took about three years but I kept with it and then in the end that money got allocated to savings.

Real change takes time.  I have been watching what I eat since last July when I just couldn't move right anymore and everything hurt at the end of the day.  It is a long process and can't be called a diet because I can eat anything up to my calorie allotment for the day.  I just hit my second goal and I am so happy!  Everything feels better.  I sleep better and I move better.

So, at least with everything going on I never stopped working on me.  I've been chipping away at this diamond in the rough enjoying myself at each point of the process of becoming something new.

But the Basement...that is a different story.  I got so disheartened after finding the mice again and again.  It kept me away from organizing and doing all the things I had wanted to do in the Spring.

But to amazement, that wasn't really true.

Over time my hubby and I had been grabbing this or that from the kitchen boxes and they had become much lighter over the years.  When I went down to find something to make apple tarts I found something else I wanted upstairs.  This led to me rummaging around in the box and bringing half of the items in it up with me.  

At this point, I realized why not just clean out the box?

So I did.  I washed everything and found new homes for the items.  

I've never understood why I have to get so freaked out about big tasks that I just abandon them altogether.  

After my success, I decided to make a snowball effect chart for the Basement and list every task from small to big.  I'm dedicating most of my time to the small ones.  The bigger tasks I have broken down into smaller tasks so I can chip away on them just like I did with my bills.

As of today, I have cleared out two boxes and thrown away all the broken items or outgassing plastic that I don't need or want in our kitchen.

In the process of all this cleaning, I found something that gave me an idea for my next project for TKGA.  I never would even have thought of this without the help from the Basement project!  I feel like my snowball is rolling already and I just started last week!

😀

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So, the last post I was working on Thorny and I had gotten really far...I even ordered this yarn from TheWoolyCabin:

This yarn was specifically picked for how it meshed with my memories of Sis and me at our cabin in the Shenandoah.  We would roam the woods in hues of green and brown and then sit by a roaring fire with orange embers dancing on the logs.  The cranberry color was my favorite color of leaves in the Autumn.  It is one of the reasons I have a Japanese Maple tree because I love those beautiful brilliant jewel tones of red.

It is soft and beautifully dyed.  I can't wait to see my pattern knit up in it.  But for now, that will have to wait.

I received a design call and my knitting had to change gears.  I spent the week swatching and trying out ideas.  

This is another of those projects I can't share with you until publication.  

I feel like this is always how these things begin.  I have an idea, I don't know if it will work but I feel inspired and curious...so we will see how things work out.

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I have missed knitting with friends during COVID so now I have two virtual meetups where we are making a project together and I am using stash yarn.

Rosy Blooms by Stephen West, yarn Expression Fiber Arts: Cherry Blossom, Knit Picks: Stroll Glimmer Black (I think neither of these yarns exists anymore 😭) (Expression Fiber Arts dyes lots and then they are gone, but she is always creating beautiful new themed stuff)

Rosy Blooms caught my eye because it has lace and brioche.  I love the whole idea of it.  Stephen West is such a brilliant designer.  He is always thinking outside of the box.

Clapotis by Kate Gilbert, yarn Knitpicks: Chroma Manzanita (This color is also not stocked, but chroma has many beautiful colorways and it a joy to watch shift colors.  This yarn has really long color stretches...I just adore working with it!

I have made so many Clapotis over the years.  It is such a fun pattern.  Dropping the stitches is scary...then fun...then freeing.  

I hope you are making something that brings you joy!

Happy crafting!

*****************************

Safe socially-distanced hugs  🤗

****************************

Sending love and light to everyone being affected by this virus.  

May you be safe.  

May your loved ones be safe.  

🙏
************************

Sending love and light to everyone facing discrimination, hate, prejudice, inequality, or racism.
🙏🙏💖💖🙏🙏

************************

Thanks for reading!

Happy crafting!

Ruinwen

😀

Clappy Close Up

I was just so intrigued to see this all come together. Me and clappy have had some seriously tense moments but in the end, she came out beautifully! Here is a close up for your viewing pleasure!

The Knit Red Knit Along Clapotis is Fini!

After long last, my clapotis is done and I am so happy with it! I am going to make another in a few months with the rainbow Dreams Carron yarn in Rosy Forecast...but it will be smaller...this one is huge!

Ruinwen
:)

The Courage To Be Imperfect

Sorry I haven’t written in a while. I hope for those of you who celebrate you had a Happy Easter / Ostra. We had the family over and 1 surprise guest. I strayed from the traditional path and served seafood (shrimp, mussels, clams, scallops and flounder) and huntsman’s stew (sausage, pork chops and chicken thighs). Everything was good but it left me little time to knit.

On Monday night our neighbor had smoldering wires and we had three fire engines and two ambulances with strobes going arrive to our neighbor hood around 11:00 pm and stay for quite a while. Everyone was fine though the house took a little damage. Needless to say I never got back to sleep.

And that said, I knew I shouldn’t knit when I was so very tired but I did and now today I find that as I unravel my ladders on my clappy there is a big, most terrible mistake in my work. And I was about to just rip the whole thing out when a voice in my head said, “You can fix this. No it won’t be perfect but only you will know.”

And it made me think about the reason for this clappy and that I probably talk to people who have some sort of inner blemish that none of us can see but makes them who they are. For me it is my inner ear it was damaged either in formation or when I got really sick one year and now I have vestibular neuronitis. If I lean to far one way without leaning the other way I get vertigo for about three weeks. But you wouldn’t know it to look at me.

Most people that have heart disease don’t look any different on the outside. But on the inside there is some trouble with their heart. You see my clappy is still teaching me about life and it wanted something hidden that no one else could see so that it could become a symbol…a symbol of the Courage to Be Imperfect.

I think imperfection is harder then perfection. In perfection you are striving towards something that cannot be but you can forever work towards. In imperfection you have to accept yourself and all that makes you a whole and complete being. I feel it is far scarier to accept ones’ self as we are.

It is that lesson that my clappy teaches me today. Isn’t it beautiful? If you didn’t know about the mistake you might never find it, though now I bet you will look for it because you know it is there. Yes, I will leave it there and remember this lesson and just maybe I can look at myself with a little more love and a little less criticism...after a much needed night of sleep.

Enough of that. My clappy is on the decrease rows and as soon as she is finished and blocked I will put up pictures.

I have worked on nothing else since the last posting…so will have nothing else to show.

I have decided to make another clappy. Originally I bought a poncho from Old Navy that is a clapotis sewn together poncho style and then stitches were picked up for a neck collar. I like this idea and I may make one this way later…the jury is still out on this one.

I hope you all are enjoying the sun if you have it.

Ruinwen
:)

Scarf with Tail

ETA: another lost picture due to upgrading.  It was a really pretty purple piece.

This is the latest scarf with Obsidian's tail in the background. I loved this eyelash yarn but working with it was really frustrating! I used size 15 needles and it seemed to help...but golly all those lashes get tangled up and caused me a lot of grief! And I tried to frog the piece I first created but it would not unknit! Crazy stuff!

Investigating the Tail

I think cats love clapotis because they are both drawn to it. Widdershins is looking for Obsidan's tail and not allowing my DH to take a good picture!

Widdershins Chasing Obsidian's Tail

As you can see the final outcome of my clapotis shoot was Widdershins trying to find Obsidian's tail. I thought that this no longer bordered on cute and whisked away my clapotis to a cat-free zone!

Dropped Stitch

Here is my first dropped stitch!

The Blessing of the Red Clapotis

I really love the Encore yarn that I am using for the clapotis. It reminds me of the warm days ahead with its blazing reds.

I've gotten into the groove of this now and at least for the section I am on, I have no trouble following the pattern.

I substituted my rubber band markers for these little white plastic ones and now the piece moves freely back and forth across the needles.

Since this is my project for heart awareness I am working on it mostly before bed and meditating on all the wonderful "hearts" that fill my life on a daily basis.

I am truly blessed with wonderful family and friends. I have a Mother and Father who have always been the pillars that I could lean on when I was too weary to go on. They have supported my interests over the years even if they haven't understood them. No one could ask for more loving parents.

I have a wonderful sister who also has been there for me in my darkest hours. I can always count on her love and support and kicking me in the butt when I need that too! :)

I have a partner who weaves his interests in with mine to form a beautiful life together. His hand has always been intertwined in mine when I am starting to falter. I can always count on his love support to get me through anything.

My son shows me daily new ways to appreciate life and how to really see the beauty in it. He is really amazing. And when he says, "Mommy I love you so much!" my heart just melts!

I have wonderful friends who uplift and support me and we have so much fun together!

I have e-friends who I've never met who are so sweet and wonderful!

So as I said before, I am truly blessed and as I knit and purl I am weaving all this goodness into my work.

I am going to raffle the clapotis off at Spring Fling with flyers on the heart info so that I will actually educate people in the process.

So there you go, the yarn is shaping me. What started out as a love-hate project has become an appreciation of my life and the people in it project.

Ruinwen
:)

Knitting in the Round and My Clapotis Woes

Have I mentioned that I really hate seams? Well, I do! So, I have been trying patterns on circulars so I could cut back on the seams and all and I didn't understand what was happening to my knitting. It was all coming out stockinette and I couldn't figure it out after all I was knitting one row after the other. So I dug out the reference books and found this little tidbit...

Knitting in the Round

To make garter stitch: knit 1 round, purl 1 round
To make stockinette stitch: knit every round
To make reverse stockinette stitch: purl every round

So I frogged what I had done and now it is working and I am really happy with my knitting in the round. If you scroll down to my LYS trip you will see the lovely yarn my son picked out for his sweater. I decided to do the trim in the kelly green and then the rest in the lime which he picked as his main color.

I must say I love this Encore yarn. Normally wool burns my fingers but this stuff only has 10% and it is so soft and dreamy without the pain. This may be my new favorite yarn...which is good because I bought it in three other colors one of which is becoming my clapotis.

Yes, you kitting-chicks did it to me...I've come down with clapotis fever. It really frustrated the heck out of me in the beginning but Chelle helped me over my pfb dilemma as well as some other problems I had in the first few rows. Thank you Chelle!!!

But needless to say I got to the part with the ssk, another stitch I had never seen done before and I stopped. I know that all you clapotis gurus are saying but that is only the first 12 rows and you would be absolutely correct. But I made it that far...baby steps...

Now I know how to do the ssk stitch the sister to the K2tog stitch...and I am pretty excited to work on the clapotis again tonight!

So, they say slow and steady wins the race. I am not one of those people who read through a pattern and find all the stitches that are unfamiliar before hand...so they always surprise the heck out of me! But that is part of the process...to learn and grow... :)

As much as we shape the yarn, the yarn also ends up shaping us.

Ruinwen
:)