New Scarf on a Snowy Day

     

     Yes, this is Colorado and it snowed on and off all week!  We're on the Front Range, in front of those soaring 14,000 ft. mountains that trap most of the moisture on the other side so you have Aspen and skiing slopes.  But on this side, we have yuccas and cactus and sometimes little snow in the winter.  But we do get dumped on in the Spring and Fall when there's more moisture in the air.  So here it is October, the temperature is 20 degrees and there's piles of snow outside!  Great inspiration for a simple easy scarf called Quick & Thick Scarf!  And creamy white yarn reflects the new snow piled up (I love snow!!!).

Photo credit: David Reinhardt Schoeler Kellogg

New scarf pattern: "Quick & Thick Scarf" 

 It uses a less known version of the Fisherman's Rib stitch to make it quick and thick!  It's fairly simple, requires a couple of skeins of Lion's Wool-Ease Thick & Quick yarn (or another Super Bulky yarn) and #15 needles. You can also find a coupon code in our Ravelry Resistance Knitters group on the thread for the Cowls & Scarves for Asylum Seekers KAL on Friday.  

      I'll be also publishing a new pattern - The Simple Cowl in Ravelry soon! 

 This pattern requires Lion's Heartland (or some other soft worsted) and #9 circular needles.  

   

      I'm also starting a new KAL on Friday, November 1st called "Cowls and Scarves for Asylum Seekers".  You'll find our KAL in the Ravelry Resistance Knitters group.  Come by,  join and plunge in!  We will be having drawings for prizes!!!

      All Cowls and Scarves are sent by crafters to Suenos Sin Fronteras to be sent to the Asylum Cities they help up in the Northeast.  We have the head of the organization, Laura in our Resistance Knitters group and we give you directions on how to get her personal address to ship items in the Ravelry Resistance Knitters group.

     I'm still reading The Golden Hour and loving it!  I just have small bits of time to read, so this book will be savored.

Come Join Us at Unraveled Wednesday

On a Thursday!

New Day, New Cardigan

     

     My schedule has changed with a new part-time job.  I'm learning how to dictate phone calls for the hearing impaired.  After training I have Thursdays off, so I thought I better switch my blog post days to Thursday.  So here I am!

© Life Is Cozy

     The call center where we work is beautiful.  One of those new buildings in North Colorado Springs with glassed walls filled with mountains marching in the horizon; Pikes Peak rising above them.  We get nice roomy cubicles and so far I'm very challenged; I will never be bored!  We repeat verbatim calls a few words behind a caller we can hear, and the computer types out what we say.  So the center is cold and I came up with the idea of making a cardigan for work to keep me warm.  Midnight after my shift this week I found this simple, free pattern Life is Cosy.  It's made in Super Bulky yarn, I'm using Lion's Wool-Ease Thick & Quick in Fossil and I've been working on it the past two days.  Ripping out a few times and finally, I got it started!  What fun.  It's going to be soft and cozy, and warm!

     Have I mentioned I can knit at work?  In between calls and right now as I listen to presentations.  Hats are my go-to, requiring no thought.  I've gotten a lot done, while I've learned a lot.  One thing only a knitter could understand; I am so more able to concentrate when my hands are occupied.  Glazing over?  I grab my knitting!  Miraculously, I wake up and are more attentive.  But I purposely picked two hats I'm knitting (The Simple Hat and a Sockhead) that are fairly mindless knitting.  Probably like a fidget for someone else.

(Mini pumpkin decorated during our mini-break at work; art supplies supplied. I've read Kindergarten art is the most free-flowing, replicating that level!😁)

     Halfway through The Golden Hour, a great read.  I highly recommend it.  Just well written; interweaving several time periods.  It goes from 1943 in England, back to the past in Bermuda in 1941, and then back to 1900.  I think it's taken half the book to understand why the switches, but it keeps you wondering what's around the corner.  A unique style of writing.  I'm really enjoying it.

Come Join Us at Unraveled Wednesday

On a Thursday!

The Simple Cowl

     Years ago I was in a Gap store trying to measure a cowl with my eyes, a pile laid out on the table.  Instantly I knew they were that perfect cowl size.  Trying it on was an instant sigh from me.  Just big enough to go over your head, but not too tight either.  A stockinette stitch, nothing fancy (which to my mind translates areas that can be scratchy).  I wanted it, but I couldn't afford it, so I memorized its size.  Years later I've been still trying to recreate that cowl.  I think I've got it!  The first cowl rolled and slumped too far away from my neck to do much good.  As Goldilocks said, this one's just right.

     I've created The Simple Cowl for a KAL I will host in Ravelry Resistance Knitters group on November 1st for the month.  The theme will be "Cowls & Scarves for Asylum Seekers".  We'll be knitting for Asylum Seekers in asylum cities in the Northeast.  We do have direct contact with the head of a relief organization that delivers our knits (more details in the group).

     The Simple Cowl is a partner to The Simple Hat pattern (free).

     My cowl pattern will be released on November 1st.  I'll be providing a coupon code in the Ravelry Resistance Knitters group on the thread for the "Cowls & Scarves for Asylum Seekers" KAL to get the cowl for free.  Otherwise, I'm changing a small price that in my mind might supply me in more yarn! 😁

Many of these are The Simple Hat:

Dknit52

     Our September - October Hats for Migrants KAL  is wrapping up this week and we've had lots of hats made for Asylum Seekers in Northeast cities.  Top knitters exceeded 30 hats!  One of our top hitters of knit hats was Dknit52 (hats above).

          I'm loving The Golden Hour  by Beatriz Williams.  Set in the Bahamas in 1941.  A reporter Lulu is trying to gather information about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (the Duke is the Bahamas Governor during the war).  Personally, all I had known before this book was that the Duke had abdicated his throne to marry an American, which seemed romantic.  Little did I know, until I did a bit of research, that the couple were known for their sympathy to the Nazi regime.  Making several trips to Germany to fawn over Hitler.  Apparently, the former King Edward VIII of Britain was related to Czar Nicholas II who was killed with all his family by the Communists, so Edward favored Fascists.  The British feared that Hitler would kidnap Edward and the Germans almost did!  If they conquered England they wanted to install him as a puppet king.  But they narrowly missed him because he went to the Bahamas.  Churchill forced him to become Governor of the Bahamas because he knew what could happen.  How this plays out in the book I'm not far enough in to know, but I'm hooked and it's a great read so far.

Come Join Us at Unraveled Wednesday

One of Those Days

     It's been a dizzying week.  One minute plans to move to be with my son in Maine (which would mean leaving my daughter whose a Senior in High School to finish her last year) and the next he's saying he'll come here to help take care of Dad and get a job.  My husband has been sick for months with something the doctors can't, as of yet diagnosis.  They've eliminated all the big things, no cancer, Parkinson's (which I thought it was) or MS.  I'm stalled in reading and knitting with my son's girlfriend saying work with your hands and it'll help you from thinking.  So here I am, I'll try.

     Today is a good day, my husband is out and about.  We got Medicaid to cover all of us, instead of just him.  And, in the works, our elderly landlord wants us back in his house looking after him (at a vastly reduced rent).  This tough old man whose nickname is "Bad Bob" just gave us $100 off the rent the last two months as a get-well card.

     So I'll get back to my cowl (I'm knitting a simple cowl for a pattern for an upcoming KAL for Cowls & Scarves for Asylum Seekers in Northeast Asylum Cities in Ravelry Resistance Knitters group on November 1st).  I'm trying to think good, happy yarny thoughts and dream of being back in the woods.  It's a cute house where we lived a few years ago.  A beautiful garden.  Lots of room and oddly, I know exactly where everything goes!

     I've been reading a freebie I got through The Fussy Librarian, a daily email I get for free books.  The Money Trail is good but it's the fifth book in the series and at times I hit details that I don't quite get.  At night I like a book on my kindle because I read in bed and my husband goes to bed ahead of me.  But I'm ready to return to a more languid work set in the past.  I got far enough into The Golden Hour to realize it'll be a great book.  And I'm ready for some escapism reading.

Come Join Us at Unraveled Wednesday

Creating a Cowl for a KAL and a New Book

     I love simplicity, and in knitting even more so.  Give me something that goes in circles on a small circular needle, like a hat and I'm in heaven.  Reading my book weighted down by a Vermont Store Leather Weight; tea by my side, a cat close at my feet.  Knitting nirvana, peace and sense of calm returns.  So I'm quite happy knitting hats for the Hats for Migrants KAL and I'll probably continue afterwards.

       In this vein I'm trying to create a sister pattern for my pattern The Simple Hat for a simple cowl.  Even simpler, there's no decreasing!  But I've been stalled this past week busy helping inventory at the artist Rockey's Print Studio and hopefully by next week I'll have a handle on what my pattern will be.  My first version was simple, but simply rolled too much!  I now know what I want to do, I just got to get that first one done, and cast on a new cowl!  This is all for another KAL I'm planning for November 1st in Ravelry Resistance Knitters group called Cowls and Scarves for Asylum Seekers!

     I finally finished my last Anna Pigeon book, "Ill Wind" by Nevada Barr, it was very very good!  I'm trying to hold off reading more of her mysteries for now.  I might not be successful, they are that good!  But I have a pile and half of my top bookshelf filled with BOTM selections.  So I put the most likely books to interest me into a pile and read the first page, or jacket cover.

     The winner is: "The Golden Hour" by Beatriz Williams.  Immediately the time period WWII grabs me.  As also the setting of the Caribbean. The words are descriptive and paint the scene in prose that's just right.  I could feel myself being reeled in.  A story of a journalist writing about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.  Always an interesting story in itself, a man who gave up the throne for the love of a woman.  The pace of the book matches my mood and the oncoming Fall weather.

 Come Join Us at Unraveled Wednesday