The Annex at Neatly Tangled

Summer knitting

June 19, 2025 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been thinking about this and since it’s the first truly brutal day of the year it’s now at the top of my mind. I have a few things in line behind it, but my first project is the Workday Scarf from Sue Flanders in Phydlbitz Sock from Knitivity:

I’m no photographer so you can’t see the shades of purple woven though this one but it’s absolutely gorgeous.

I’d share the rest but they’ll probably change three times before this is a quarter done lol. I want to get a good start on something so I stand a chance of finishing it.

There’s a lightweight wrap I’ve been looking at, and maybe some house socks, and a tomato-colored skein of light fingering that hasn’t found a home. Decisions, decisions.

But first we knit!

The garter slipped scarf is done!!

June 15, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Over 12 years in the making:

Pattern is “My Garter Slipped Scarf” by Knit Pox!

Yarn by Ray Whiting at Knitivity.

I went on something of a marathon knitting session to get this done. I was tired of looking at it in my knitting basket and also I’m on a finishing binge (except for the hexies. They’re hibernating lol). I’ve got everything that’s knitting off the needles, so I can start something new. The goal is one knit project, one crochet project. Hexies aside, I’ve got a fair amount of other crochet I need to clear up before I start something else. This is subject, of course, to the condition that it’s summer and I have no air conditioning. Lightweight is going to be the name of the game. I’ll decide after I inventory.

One of the things I ran up against finishing the scarf was a sanity check on the bind-off. I just wanted to give a shout out toward this article that made me feel less crazy:

The ultimate list of bind-off methods

Anyway, with my oldest WiP off the needles I feel somehow lighter lol. It’s a great way to go into the second half of June. Happy summer!

Misbehaving Hexies

June 14, 2025 / / 0 Comments

So I have some of the pieces to Jewelled Star sitting here…I finished all the hexagons then ran out of steam:

For one, they aren’t overly hexagonal, which I thought might be a problem, and two, they are slightly different sizes which makes joining them miserable, and three I really, really don’t want to make the stars and have been putting it off for something like a year and a half. So I decided I’d just make something with the hexagons and immediately ran up against the problem of their irregularity. I have no idea at all what I’m going to do with the damned things.

I suppose it’s time to put them back in the naughty corner until I have a burst of inspiration. Hopefully I’ll figure out what to do with them, but it’s a relief to declare the blanket a failure. Some projects just never come together they way you think they will, and that’s ok.

My kitchen needs rugs

May 27, 2025 / / 0 Comments

So I’m making one.

We’ve needed a mat in front of the sink and for some mysterious reason, we’ve never bought one. We’ve always just thrown the dirtiest towel within reach down on the floor to sop up the water that escaped. This makes us sound like loons, but we got in the habit of spending very little on the nice-to-haves back when things were truly desperate and we’ve never entirely broken free of it.

This would be better if it had some nonslip material of some kind, but even plain cotton beats the hell out of a random towel. It’s coming along nicely:

This is painfully simple: chain until it’s long enough, do rows of sc, hdc,and dc in whatever order depending on what you feel like. Go until the damned thing is big enough.

I love this kind of project, minimally structured and great for watching TV.

It’s also a great way of getting back in the game. I’ve been slowly adding more crochet and knitting into my day, even if it’s just a bit before bed. I can’t work for all that long before my hands just aren’t having it, but that’s ok. Not a perfect world.

After this I plan to go on a finishing spree so stay tuned!

the more wips the better

October 1, 2024 / / 0 Comments


I’ve noticed something peculiar over the last few months: the more wips I have the more I work on them. This leaves me with projects that each take longer but overall I’m making much more progress. so now I’m embracing my desire to start one more thing and I’m much happier. I love bring able to pick up whatever I’m in the mood for and just go.

when to kill a work in progress?

April 30, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I’ve got a few things on the needles/hook right now and I’m struggling a bit with not wanting to work on one of them. It’s funny, there are things that you just don’t know about a project until you’re well into it. There’s no substitute for experience I suppose.

So I went like gangbusters through the first foot or so of Grain. I somehow managed to make mistakes even in garter stitch, even with yarn overs for increases. This should have been excellent TV knitting and yet I was managing to make a mess. That bit eventually smoothed out, but then I learned something truly problematic:

Each row getting longer drives me insane. This is not a good thing if you want to knit shawls. And I don’t know why I want to knit a shawl. I have no use for one. My daughter says she loves them but doesn’t ever wear them. I certainly won’t. I don’t know any shawl-people.

So what do I do with this growing beast? Do you frog just because a project isn’t speaking to you anymore? Do you hide it in the closet? Do you power through?

I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

WiP…Friday?

January 19, 2024 / / 0 Comments

This week has been all about Jewelled Star. I got obsessed with it and went from this:


To this:

Not too far to go until I start the star motifs. I’m so excited to see how this turns out!

And…that is absolutely all I’ve worked on this week. Sometimes it’s good to just work and work and work on something. And it’s always good to go where the work leads you.

Making time for crafting

January 15, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I’ve put my foot down and started spending the time I need to spend to be reasonably satisfied in my crafty endeavors. I feel a little guilty putting the dishes off until I’ve finished another square (or doing them in the morning!), but that square is important. It is an expression of skill and craft that is worthy of your time and care.

Like many people, I’m pretty bad about making time for myself. There are kids and chores and social obligations filling the day. I’ve learned, though, that taking a bit of that precious time to work on a project brings such rich rewards that it’s worth it. It brings me peace, it helps center me to meet other challenges, it brings on a sense of accomplishment, and it’s just plain beautiful, both during the process and in the finished project.

I’ve started to guard my crafting time, even if all I can carve out is a round of ribbing on a sock or a pattern repeat on a scarf. It’s these little things that add to the day far more than they steal in mere minutes. Time is precious, and so are the things that bring you joy. Keep them close.

Tension

January 12, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been switching back and forth between knit and crochet recently and it seems to be doing funny things to my tension. I really noticed it when I finally went back to Jewelled Star—I had to drop down a hook size to get the same gauge because my crocheting had become so much looser. It’s a problem I’ve never had before but it was remedied easily enough. I’m thankful that that is all it took to fix the problem; it would have been a pain to start over.

I’m seeing it in my knitting, too. I made this pair of ugly worsted weight acrylic socks just to prove that I could indeed still make a sock (thank you Silver’s Sock Classes!) The bumps and distortions from changes in tension didn’t even wash out. I think I was so stressed about keeping everything on the needles that I was knitting way too tight (the challenge of the gusset decreases proves this out) and every time I started to loosen up I’d tighten up again. This left some unattractive ridges, but I got a lesson and two socks out of the deal, so it wasn’t so bad.

The other factor I’ve noticed is just life. A bad day will leave me gripping my yarn for dear life, until I remember that even the toughest project should be one that brings me some form of happiness. I’m going to resist the urge to turn this into a big ol’ metaphor, but you can easily see how life outside of the fiber arts and life within them can sometimes do a delicate dance and how tension affects tension.

May all your projects be tensioned just as you want them, and all your crafting be calm. 🙂

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