Can't believe it is nearing the end of April already. 2021 is flying by. There's been a lot of activity in the month since I've last posted.
Things have changed a little, but not as much as I'd like, on the job front. The vendor I work with has asked me to be a Project Oversight Manager on one of her contracts. From what I gather it is mainly a babysitting role. I will monitor the work of the subcontractor who is doing the technical work and communicate with the customer to make sure she is happy. Any issues that arise are to be passed along to the vendor. Sounds easy enough, but it scares me a bit. I am conflict-adverse by nature and this could put me right in the middle if things start going wrong. This job will only occupy a few hours a week for me. I'm still waiting to hear about a few other full-time positions. The longer things take, the harder it will be for me to go back to work. I really enjoy not having to work, even though the cash flow is not the greatest.
Permanently retiring is not an option right now. Ed has a job but he isn't enjoying it. The work itself is not hard and he does enjoy that, but the hours are demanding. The company is expecting everyone to work 7 days a week and has said they are not approving any time off indefinitely. The project that he is working on is in serious trouble and the company is doing the classic 'throw bodies at it' to try to correct the issues. Once I start working full-time again, he's going to start looking for something else. If I can work another 3 years (Oh! How I hate saying things like that!! I wanted to be done doing my grown-up job by the time I'm 58-next year.) he can look for a job that provides benefits but doesn't necessarily pay a lot. I just keep praying things get straightened out soon for us.
While I've been waiting for news about jobs, I've been doing a lot of fiber related things.
I finished up dyeing the samples from the natural dyeing class I took last month. In the above photo are cotton handkerchiefs and skeins of merino using each of the class extracts. The top is logwood (purple), then osage orange (yellow) and finally madder root (red). I also dyed a skein of worsted weight merino to use up the exhaust bath of the madder. It came out as a peachy pink color. I'll save this for a little baby sweater for someday.
After taking the natural dyeing class last month, I ordered a sample pack of extracts with the intention of dyeing up more yarn to go with the single-ply merinos I made in the class. My thought is to crochet an afghan using all the colors.
But, as usual, I got distracted by another project. I volunteered to be a test knitter for Judy Jewell of
The Autumn Acorn. She is releasing a new sweater tee pattern and called for volunteers. After she notified me I decided to dye up some of the yarn blanks to make a main color for the sweater. I used weld extract from the sample kit I ordered and made 3 skeins of very bright yellow.
After a stash dive, I came up with a ball of Rowan Kidsilk Haze and a skein of Baah La Jolla to go with it. The La Jolla has turquoise blue, bright green and yellow in it. It pairs very nicely with the bright yellow of my yarn.
The test knit is coming along, but working with fingering weight means a lot of stitches. I'm making the XL size. Overall I'm happy with how this is turning out, but I will admit this is brighter than anything I usually wear. It is definitely a spring-summer sweater. People will see me coming when I wear this. I'll need to find my jeans skirts wear with this. Let's hope I can still fit into them.
Before all this came up, I got the bright idea to knit a Ranunculus using the Berroco Remix I bought back in February when my friend (also known as my enabler) and I took a field trip to a new yarn shop. I bought the yarn with the intention of making a Tegna sweater, but realized when I got home that it was too heavy for that. After a few weeks of buyers remorse, I then realized it might work for Ranunculus. I was slogging along with this when my enabler mentioned a KAL to me.
Our newest favorite LYS announced a KAL for the Anker Summer Tee during the month of April. We had been wanting to make a trip to that shop so we went on another adventure on the first Saturday of April. I'm making this out of Cestari Ashlawn Collection. I decided to modify the pattern slightly by lengthening the sleeves just a bit to bring them down to my elbows. By doing this, I think I'm going to be playing a bit of yarn chicken to get the length specified in the pattern. Since I'm short, I'm hoping that it even if I can't get the specified length, it will still be a length I'm happy with. I really don't want to buy another skein of yarn just to add an inch or two.
As I mentioned above, I'm also doing a test knit for The Autumn Acorn. This is her Tender Hearted Tee. I finally separated for the sleeves and am working on the body. I should be knitting monogamous on this to get it done by the deadline, but my ADD won't allow that. I've decided that my morning knitting will be one of the other two projects and my evening knitting is this.
I know I really should be more disciplined about my projects. I have a pile of UFOs upstairs. After I'm done with one of these, I'll cycle a UFO into the rotation.
Speaking of ADD, Mother Nature has had a bit of it lately.
Spring sprung beautifully. The daffodils were extra gorgeous. My star magnolia bloomed. The crabapples were loaded with blossoms. I even had a mystery blue flower pop up in my flower bed.
Then this happened last week. About 4 inches of snow. I know better than to put out plants this early but I know a few neighbors that did.
By the afternoon most of the snow was melted. There didn't seem to be too much damager to crabapple blossoms.
Today is a grey and dreary day. Now I'm going to refill my tea, grab one of my projects, turn on a podcast and knit for a while.
