Category: Knitting
Since this guy showed up in my purview, I keep hearing about it or seeing new ways to use it. But when I looked up this comparison, this is what I found on Google:
Flounder and founder are happy little nouns that don’t get mixed up. But it all falls apart when they’re verbs — if you’re floundering, you’re struggling. If you’re foundering, you’re failing completely. I don’t feel I am foundering in any way. Just finding ways to see successes.
So, I am sticking with the fish. And that is better than a horse who founders.
Her hooves hurt, and she can’t go on. Actually, I don’t know that about the above horse. I just was looking for a picture of a horse on the ground. And she is so pretty!
The groundhog is a floundering hog. Or is it that Winter is floundering? Because we are supposed to be getting an early Spring. But we got this:
Meanwhile, I finished the little boy’s slippers:
It’s fun to make smaller socks because they get finished quicker. But now I’m on the mother and the older daughter, and possibly Auntie and Grandma. All around sizes 7 and 8. Yes, the yarn is already on the needles.
My biggest floundering seems to be on the ukulele. My fingers just don’t want to be in those chord situations. But I keep trying. I did figure out I could plunk out Mary Had a Little Lamb on the strings as I figured out where each note was. But moving from F to C and back within a singing timing was crazy. The F chord is the hardest. Well, until I met G. Getting pretty sounds is crippling!
I’m not floundering so much on the recorders. Except I probably should play them before deadening the fingertips on the Uke. I am trying to remember where the F, F#, and B flat are. Other than that I’m getting better, slowly.
And so, I’m off to try again tonight. Wish me luck!
Watch this; I will meander all over the place during this session and find myself right here. Meanwhile, I spent a lot of time on Duolingo. Sometimes I just can’t stop. Sometimes I just can’t. Ya know? Word order is the hardest part of all the languages.
While doing things that take a brain, I usually put on something I nearly have memorized just to have a place to look farther away than arm’s length. I can’t do music as I get too involved in the music and get nothing done. So this time is another run at the Walking Dead. I am always surprised at the wisdom of the writer of how humans respond to scary things. The show has never been about the monsters. It is about how people react to each other and find their own tribe. Or think they have until it is proven that that tribe doesn’t exist.
A while ago, while my husband was in here with me we were watching The Chosen. I am very surprised at how much I like it. It is not for everyone. But then I loved Jesus Christ Superstar, and my mother found it offensive. I think it is like the people in The Walking Dead. Our tribes show up, and even within our tribes, things show that, in the end, our views are our own. We can only agree where we can and find others that fit with other parts of ourselves.
If we feel the need to nap, and since I love to read after midnight, I often need a nap, I put on some animal show. Dogs 101 found my restful place, and I woke wishing for my new canine friend.
So many uses for one word. My husband has a watch that tells him his blood sugar, blood pressure, etc. I had one, but the sensor burned my skin. But I am smiling now as I think of Dick Tracy.
No flying cars yet, but Rosy, the Roomba robot, vacuums our house, and we have these watches that are telephones!
And now I am tired of Floundering.
Back to knitting.
The floundering part of this sock is it is for a size 1 child shoe size. I didn’t have the child nearby to try it out as I went. So I hope they will fit her. The other flounder is that I didn’t have two of the same size cables so the second sock is on a size 2, I think. And I started the sock with a Turkish cast-on far bigger than I should have. I hope they are comfortable and fit.
For her brother, I am making a pair of slippers. I’m following the Toe-up Socks with Fleegle Heel in Any Weight and Size, which I don’t need to watch the YouTube so closely. I have a lot of this yarn, so you may have seen it before. But seriously, this is a new pair of socks. For a size 4 child. I hope spring doesn’t come before he gets the chance to wear them. I’ve posted this YouTube before, but I love it so much that I think it is the easiest sock to knit, no matter what size or yarn.
Many are wondering about my Flounder February idea. It is simple. For most of my life, I have fought myself and my upbringing to be perfect. Now, I am giving my flaws a chance to enjoy life without criticism. I plan to show the challenges that come up. Share the indecisions that carry me. In the meanwhile, I plan to enjoy the progress.
I just heard a statement today that I wish would have been said often in my life. Instead of Practice makes Perfect. Practice makes progress. Maybe it does lead to Carnegie Hall, eventually, but many of us just want to enjoy what we’ve been given and grow.
Bottom-line is I’m writing. Did I ever tell you about all the diaries I had as a kid? You know, the ones with the little locks. Oh, not to mention all of fancy journals I have now. I can’t seem to ever get far in any of them. As a kid, I gave up when the daily jot was , “I breathed in and out.” When I could think of nothing else to share in the secure place, I quit. Here, I seem to have written every day for quite a while. Some of it was not much more that breathing in and out. But other times I found my passions and past times growing. And that seems to work.
Who’s Floundering? What works and what doesn’t?
Your prompt for JusJoJan, January 26th, 2024, is “atrocious.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!
Jemima of Jemima’s blog provided us with the prompt of the day. Thank you, Linda and Jemima!
My achievements for this Friday are meager, but I feel good about them. My greatest accomplishment is over a year in getting it done. Now, I need to find a way to send it to its new home.
The socks I was knitting ended up being tinked back to the arch area. I had them all the way to being close to done, but I held them in my hand and wondered about the size. They are supposed to fit a size 1 child, but when I looked that up, that would have been at least 7 inches long. These were only 5. So most of the week I have been undoing the work. The good part is I am getting better acquainted with the shadow wrapping needed for the heel and above. So when I finally get there again I’ll know what I’m doing. By the way, in the picture, you will see that each sock has its own needles. When I reach the heel of these no-show socks I find I do better with them separated.
When I want to just relax I am working on this pair of slipper socks.
I’m still only on day 8 of the lessons as I haven’t mastered the few chords taught so far. My fingers are getting tougher, but they still aren’t coordinated enough to not mute other strings. But, hey, I can now get through Row, Row, Row, and Mary Had A Little Lamb. Yay! I’m thinking I need to make a strap for my uke to carry it around and take the pressure off my hands. There are several patterns on YouTube.
I wish I had learned recorder as a kid like these guys. But I’m glad I do understand music so that I can read and play the notes I know how to play. I finally got out my alto and found I remembered how to play it. My lapse of learning happened when I realized I had been using the wrong fingering for the type of recorder I had. Baroque versus German. All of my recorders and I inherited a lot of them from the school I worked in, plus my alto and my tenor that I bought are the Baroque.
Now that I know that I have retaught my fingers the F. I stopped playing before because it sounded wrong, and I couldn’t figure out why. Now I know, and I have to re-train my brain for it.
Speaking of the musical instruments, this is the time I usually play around with them. So, have a great Friday night and week-end!
Per Linda:
Your prompt for #JusJoJan the 20th and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “in a nutshell.” Use it as an idiom, or use it literally. Enjoy!
In a nutshell is the best way to eat nuts, not salted, not cooked. And hard to eat a lot at a time, which can be my way if I don’t have to work at it! Maybe that is something to look at in life. I could go out and buy a lot of socks. But my body won’t be as happy as the ones I make myself. I thought it was just me, but my son and brother both told me they love the way the sock feels like it’s hugging their foot, like a little massage. I feel that way, too.
I do seem to be a paradox, though, as I look at this line of thinking. Though I love the process of learning music as opposed to buying and listening to it, and I love diamond painting instead of looking at magazine pictures, why do I find such laziness within? Shouldn’t I be happy with a process no matter what?
A friend and I were talking about how some things seem too much work. The first and silliest example is when I am playing a game, and I have to leave the scene and click five times to find myself in a totally different scene. I sigh like it is a lot of work. I find myself complaining: why do I have to go all the way out there? In this case, the game is Mystery Case Files®: Return to Ravenhearst™ Collector’s Edition. If you play it, you know there is a place where you need to leave the children’s town to go back to the well to get the knife. FIVE clicks. Yet it seems like so much work! It definitely says more about me than it does the game. I love the game, though I have played it so often. It is mostly boring and just something to do when I need to waste time. If you’re curious, here is what it looks like:
But I lost my stream. It is that often I feel something is too much work. Even though when I do the work of most tasks I am satisfied that I did it. I rarely am unhappy when I put in the time and effort.
Some things feel unproductive. Knitting, there’s an item when done. Riding the stationary bike? I go nowhere. But I have seen proof it is working just in my energy levels, and my abilities to do certain things have improved. But that box of things I need to go through… Seems like five clicks too many! I need to work on my brain! That’s it! In a nutshell!
This post is part of Linda’s Just Jot it January, and today’s prompt, tenaciousness, is courtesy of Cheryl. Check out her blog here!
Oxford Dictionary says of ‘Tenacious’:
“ending to keep a firm hold of something; clinging or adhering closely.
“tenacious grip”
or
not readily relinquishing a position, principle, or course of action; determined.
“you’re tenacious and you get at the truth”
or
persisting in existence; not easily dispelled.
“a tenacious local legend”
When I am working on something I can seem stubborn. But I would rather think of it as tenacious. Sticking to it until I become better, sticking to it until I have a product to wear, or give to someone else to enjoy. The following are my newest slippers and socks.
But I can’t leave this prompt without this tribute:
This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt for today, Craft, comes from Astrid. Check out her blog here!
I love being retired. After a lifetime of crafts that I never had the time to dive in whole, even though I had a lot more money, there was no energy at the end of the day, nor the time. Being able to deep dive until the muse is used up on a topic or drive.
Diamond Painting is calling me back, and now that the bigger knitting project is finished, the Dragon from last year needs the sealant so I can send it off.
Oh, that’s the thing about these crafts; it is delightful to indulge deeply, but it is so much better to have someone to gift the finished products to. I know some actually sell their works. But I just can’t get to that point. I don’t like a timeline, and I get too perfectionistic the minute I think someone else will see it or pay for it. The minute ‘time is money,’ it is called a job. I can’t. I just can’t.
But yummy yarn, loom knitting, crocheting, Tunisian crochet, diamond painting, drawing, Zentangles, playing with my wig or my own hair (a throwback to my first career of being a cosmetologist), all my musical instruments recorders, ukelele, piano, singing, coloring, rainbow looming, writing, reading. There are many I’m afraid I’m leaving out, and I feel like a bad parent for neglecting them to the point of forgetting their names! And are they all considered crafts? Then there’s macaroni. Oh, yeah, that’s spelled with a ‘K’!
These leg warmers were tough. I’ve never made leg warmers and hadn’t a clue. I wanted to do them Two-At-A-Time so they would stay the same length as each other. But I mostly knit socks toe-up, Two-At-A-Time, but then I realized others do the cuff-down, so I looked that up, and a random single-leg warmer cast-on. I can’t remember whose tutorial I watched nor how many stitches I cast on. But the thing I can say is that I did one-by-one ribbing for the thigh cuff. Any time I added a new color, I pulled a bit. Then, the new color was just knit-stitch. As I worked down to the knee, I made sure there was room to bend. As I came to the calf, I started to decrease. By the ankle, I had decreased about 20 stitches. Then, I did the one-by-one ribbing for the ankle. I think they turned out okay. They might be nice early mornings with tea and toast, don’t you think? I hope so.
Oh, I forgot, I used size 8 ChiaoGoo cable needles. The cable is quite long, 40 inches, I think, And the yarn is just acrylic but soft. I wanted them to be comfortable in southern California. I think wool would have been too hot.
I may not do another pair of leg warmers for a while. But when I do, I think I will do bamboo and more lightweight yarn or just the superwash wool for up here where it’s cold. I might be fun to get good at these.
Thank you, Linda, for Just Jot It January.
Thank you, Barbara, for the prompt, Toast.
Your prompt for JusJoJan January 1st 2024, is “train.” Use it as a noun or a verb, use it any way you’d like. Have fun!
Train
Some people wake up and see their day full of organized plans like this.
It’s peaceful to know where the train is taking you.
On a good day I wake to
Mostly my trains have a spiderweb network of tracks that overwhelms me.
This blog helps me focus. In case you think yarn and weather is all I deal with, just know it’s just about all I concentrate on before life and distractions take me elsewhere.
Oh, speaking of weather
So, I need to train my brain on the personal possibilities of this new year.
My stationary bike goal has increased from 5 miles in 30 minutes to more miles in less time. Today I reached 5 in 28. So win!
I know last year I planned on podcasting. Stagefright won. So it goes back on the list of things I still feel I want to do.
Besides German, Spanish, Italian, French, Scottish Gaelic, Latin, Esperanto, Japanese, Navajo, Hebrew, I’d like to add a couple more to my Duolingo list so that I am always doing 10 lessons a day. And I want to get more serious about my American Sign Language classes. My brain loves working on languages.
Hello editing. You are cruelest of all. I’ll do what I can and finished products will go see the light of day on the podcast.
I still will continue working on getting healthier.
My diamond paintings are calling so tomorrow I will play.
Why did music find itself this far down the list? With a new ukulele, I’m trying to learn to make my fingers fit the chords needed. But daily practice might get me there, right?
The recorder is calling. No more trying Carols. Now I can enjoy whatever music strikes my fancy.
Okay, piano. I hear you. I will turn around from the diamond painting table and tickle you on occasion.
Singing loud and proud and dancing like no one is watching sneak into this list.
And that’s not including the bins of organizing I’m already doing.
And I want to get over my phone fear and try to enjoy socializing a bit.
There are only so many hours in a day but all these trains want to leave the station and make their way to improvement and new possibilities. There has to be a way. Some things must be daily Duolingo and blogging (no longer on a struggling list but on the ‘it happens’ like eating list).
The list looks like last year. More has been added. Few trains ended their tracks. My brain and strength expand to meet the fun.
Train-ing is fun
Darswords 
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