I’m generally an optimistic person, so I try to share the happy stuff and not dwell or rant or let my negative feelings show much. There are a couple low points that I will share in passing though. Thankfully none of them are related to my knitting!

Stitched or Still-in-Progress

I have a couple finished object to share here (and another in the next segment, lol), and I’m annoyed that it took so long to finish this first one! This two-color hat is a pretty easy design. I focused on the documented pattern, and that is what slowed me down. The finished photo doesn’t show the orange color very well, and that got some annoying comments from online friends who thought it was “maize” (absolutely not!). Anyway, It came out nicely. I don’t know that I have enough worsted weight yarn to do more of this design, but I’ll look.

My next FO is also a hat, this time with just one color, using up some more-seasoned yarn from my stash. I picked the pattern because the designer is a sponsor in the Down Cellar Studio Pigskin Party (PSP), and I appreciated that the stitch pattern used is quite similar to the one of the elements of my Aran sweater.

The Advent scarf continues to move along, and I am even more convinced that I can finish it this month. I’ve started the last section of the colored minis. With six of these and then a “half-ball” of the main color remaining, it’s possible I can finish it this weekend. That would only take two or three movies, after all.

The Aran sweater has grown a lot since last week! I’m more than halfway below the underarm in the cable pattern. Based on my estimate, I have fewer than thirty rows to go before I transition to the bottom ribbing. Since I plan to knit the sleeves two-at-a-time, I suppose I should wind my remaining two skeins to do that. Then there’s the question of whether I’ll finish the body before moving to the sleeves. Decisions, decisions!

My last WIP that got attention this week was the vanilla sock, and I’ve started on the gusset increases. I might have to shift focus to this early in the week just to get past the heel ahead of my upcoming travels. We’ll see!

Cast-on Conversations

First up, I started and finished a hat this week after completing the two-color hat. This time I knit a pattern I’ve done before. It calls for DK-weight yarn, but to “mix it up” I held two strands of fingering weight yarn together to achieve that. As a bonus, it has sparkle!

After I completed that hat and wove in my ends, I cast on another hat! This one has a stockinette body once I work the ribbing to the desired length. I want this to be my core travel project next weekend, particularly on Saturday for my day in New York City. The goal is to complete the ribbing before the matinee show. I don’t know that I’ll finish the project by the time I get home Sunday night, but that would certainly be nice.

My last cast-on topic to share is the swatch for my NaKniSweMo* project. I knit it up with the same yarn I’ll be using for the sweater but a different colorway (which I then used for the hat above). The contrast yarn I picked is a different base from a different dyer, but this yarn will comprise the majority of the sweater. My swatch shows that my stitch gauge is spot on. The row gauge is a bit off, but I also weighted the swatch when I hung it up to dry, so the stitches are somewhat distorted. I’ll re-block it and lay it flat this time to see how it compares.

Football Frenzy

There were a number of upsets this weekend, but my Buckeyes prevailed against the Indiana Hoosiers to become one of only two of the top seven teams to win. They’ve moved up in the rankings as a result, but the starting quarterback was injured during the fourth quarter and is expected to be out for “several weeks.” Thus, it’s unclear how the team will fare in its next match-up at the University of Southern California on October 31^st.

I was also very glad to see that the Houston Texans triumphed in London on a last-second field goal to defeat the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Texans welcomed their newest wide receiver, Marvin Harrison, Jr., who transferred this week from the Arizona Cardinals. Another Buckeye on the roster is always a good thing!

In other sports news, it was a rough weekend for the Cleveland Guardians. They only won one of the three home games despite having a bonus rest day due to the heavy rainstorms that delayed and then postponed Friday’s game. Tonight they resume in Florida.

Grandson Glimpses

I had a couple outings with the kiddo this weekend. First, I took him to the JCPenney Portrait Studio for their special event: Enchanted Kingdom. He was a little tired, but he enjoys working with their lead photographer. Naturally, he wanted to bring his costume and all the props home with him. I’ll be updating the living room décor when my physical photo orders arrive; but in the meantime, I’m enjoying sharing the digital images!

Following the photo shoot, we stopped for some lunch, then we headed off to the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium, despite the rainy weather. We both had our first adventure in the Stingray Bay exhibit! The munchkin isn’t always good and observing rules and directions, but he did pretty well. The creatures are incredibly soft, and clearly, they enjoy being petted. They were swimming over each other to get to the hands, no matter how small.

We didn’t stay late enough to witness the Chinese Lantern experience, but you can’t miss the displays. We just couldn’t see them glow with the internal lighting. This year the exhibit added dinosaurs to the fun. I also got a photo of the kiddo next to Pepe the Penguin (former mascot for Kroger, IIRC), and one of our last stops was at the carousel! My grandson rode this traditional ride a couple years ago, but I doubt he remembers it (if memory serves, he was terrified). This time, he was nervous at first but had a blast once it began moving. He waved at anyone he could see, in fact.

On Sunday afternoon we returned for their Halloween-themed event, “Boo at the Zoo,” with the kiddo in costume. If you’ve been here a while, you may remember that I bought this costume last year because he’s a huge fan of Spider-Man. But at the time (not quite three) he was terrified of the mask and wanted nothing to do with the costume. Now that he’s older and enjoying some scarier things, he’s had fun with the costume now and then. But of course, he’s pretty much grown out of it. I doubt he’ll be wearing it at the end of the month, though there’s been no conversation about alternatives.

Anyway, we made the rounds to collect candy from the variety of stations they have. But first, the munchkin was very excited to see that one of the roller coasters, Tidal Twist. I was open to a single ride, but not more – and he is almost tall enough to go on his own, in fact (not that I would let him). Once we collected the candy, we sat down so he could eat some of it. Then we continued to tour the area, and we came upon a dance floor! Frivolity ensued, lol. I did have to remind him not to run and to stay out of the faces of the other kids. Because his social interactions have been mostly limited to people older than him, he’s still working on his behavior with kids in his age range and younger. It helped that everyone was in costume, so we had fun identifying everyone’s character.

We didn’t really spend any time visiting animals on this visit, and that’s a huge benefit of my membership! We’ll be back again, and I’ve promised him that he can ride more rides when we return, though it will depend on the weather as to whether or not they’ll be operating, of course.

Movie Moments

I did make it out to the movie theater this week, and I saw Aaron Sorkin’s latest: The Social Reckoning, which he wrote and directed. This is not exactly a sequel, but it’s a follow-up to 2010’s The Social Network which Aaron also wrote. This film walks us through the development of a Wall Street Journal series of articles sharing how Mark Zuckerburg and Facebook’s management changed the algorithms that decide what we see on the platform by default, based on our interactions with it. The story was based on interviews with the WSJ journalist and the former Facebook data scientist who provided the documents to support the story.

This was an intense story, and I wanted to take a spiritual shower afterwards as my empathy was overloaded with the film’s plot, characters (some real people, some representative characters), and the historical events depicted. Despite all that, I think it’s an excellent movie, and the acting in is primo. And of course, the dialogue was quintessential Sorkin.

At home, I’m continuing my MCU re-watch. Because of life events, including baseball and football, I wasn’t able to get ahead of schedule to see Avengers: Infinity War. But that’s on the agenda in the next couple days. I’m on target to get through Phase Three by the end of the month.

Tail Talk

Here’s the worst of the negative news this week: we have fleas in the house. I was informed of the situation last night, as the dog that lives upstairs has them, and she’d passed them on to the cat upstairs. Then I realized that River has been scratching and cleaning herself much more than usual. I’ve got a treatment coming later today courtesy of Amazon.

Knit on. 🧶