The family was taken down this week. Oldest son was spared, maybe because he has his bedroom and bathroom downstairs. But Mr Fixit and the two younger sons and I all succumbed to covid so there has been a lot of sleeping, nose-blowing, coughing, etc happening.

Now that the headache has gone, and the cold-like symptoms mostly gone, the things I’m having the hardest time with are the sore mouth (a dry mouth and braces do not mix – I hate waking up to find my braces sticking to the inside of my mouth) and the loss of smell and taste. Sweet stuff started to taste bitter a couple of days ago, but now I really can’t taste anything. That’s a kick in the teeth!

We have all been doing what we can to rest and recuperate and after a couple of days of doing nothing I did manage to put some meals together, do some laundry, and knit a bit.

This is what Elizabeth Zimmermann would have called a swatch cap. I have a sweater in mind that I want to knit so I checked how many stitches were in the body for the 42″ finished size and it was 160. So I cast on 80 and am knitting a beanie which will turn out exactly half the circumference of the sweater. A useful and accurate way to check gauge! That EZ was a genius!

Please note I did not pay full price for that yarn. It was vastly overpriced until it went on clearance at 70% off.

The cowl I was crocheting in the last blog post has been finished for a while. I used up every scrap and it is the perfect length to double up around the neck. I think I may have to get more of this yarn (Lion Brand Mandala Ombre).

So far, three scrubby dishcloths have been made with the other clearance yarn I picked up recently. These are going to be made in between other projects, or if I need something portable.

I have made notes, and will write up the pattern one of these days.

Today I dug out some T shirts I was saving for T shirt yarn. I cut off the bottom hems and cut from bottom to armpits in a spiral to make long strips. I was pretty slapdash as usual and made the strips wider than intended but I think my crochet hook is big enough to accommodate the thickness.

I intend to make a crocheted basket and possibly braid the hems for handles. Not sure how to use up the rest of the pieces but I’d like to keep most of it out of the landfill.

I will show you the result later.

Happy pumpkin season!