ETA: There is a non-workplace-suitable photo at the end of this post. Be warned!
One of my duties as a county supervisor is to be the county representative on the two lake associations located in my district. One is my own lake association. Today was the annual meeting and picnic of the other, above. This lake is quite a bit larger than ours, and the crowd visibly wealthier. That woman in the center front in the denim cutoffs and dark gray shirt is a former Twin City anchorwoman who went on to CNN. Elsewhere in the crowd is a well-known Twin City radio announcer, now retired, who was one-half of a popular morning drive-time show for many years. There were well-to-do businessmen and attorneys, trophy wives and doctors (probably; I did not meet any personally). All nice enough people, but definitely a different crowd than that on my own little lake.
Speaking of my lake, let me show you our Fourth of July boat parade. It is a casual affair.
There were a couple other pontoons, but it is always a small parade. Small lake, small parade.
The last photo made me chuckle in a wicked manner. The guy in the canoe is a freshman at Purdue; the pontoon belongs to his lake-dwelling grandparents and is full of his friends. Unfortunately for them, the DNR had a warden on our little lake that day and every one of those kids got a $200 ticket for not having a flotation device. Oops.
* * * * *
One the knitting front, I bought myself a new toy: an adjustable dress form. I have wanted one for a number of years, and the sweater I am making was the trigger that sent me to eBay last week to buy one.
Here it is, hard at work modeling the Summer Raglan (notice how cleverly I matched the stitch markers to the yarn):
You might wonder why it is wearing a bra. Good question; let me explain the ways of adjustable dress forms.
An adjustable dress form is adjustable in length and girth, but only in an overall way. My own particular body bits are distributed rather differently than is represented by the dummy. (No remarks, please.) For example, when I expanded the bust line to be the same circumference as mine, it was obvious that, um, er, something wasn't right. The majority of my bust line girth is in front, not distributed as evenly around my body as it is on the form. This necessitated some improvisation on my part to make the dummy resemble me more closely. Once again, no remarks, please.
Thus, the bra and its *amplifications*:
Yup. Stuffed with plastic bags. I first thought of using a couple breast prostheses, but a quick check on eBay revealed they cost more than I wanted to pay, like, $50. Not worth it, no matter how realistic they are. Hence, the plastic bag boobs. Yay, me!
* * * * *
As Chris suggested I applied my google fu to yesterday's snapping turtle question and discovered that they mate from April to November and lay eggs from May to October. Those periods of mating and egg-laying are shorter here in the Great Frozen North, but I guess my question is answered. They mate whenever the the spirit moves them and the temperature is warmer than, say, 50 degrees, and then they lay their eggs. There. Now we know.
Time for a distinctly sub-par photograph of the WIP.
I took this in my vintage 1970s harvest gold bathroom with inadequate light at 11 pm last night and without flash; thus, the delightful greenish cast to my skin. The color of the knitting is fairly accurate, however, and that's what we care about, right? Right.
I am at the underarm, where the pattern has the knitter put the sleeve stitches on waste yarn, cast on an inch or two of additional stitches where the sleeve stitches used to be, stop knitting in the round, and commence knitting back and forth on one side, double decreasing up the side "seam" and wrap-and-turning at the end of each row so the knitting will gradually fill in the roughly triangular open area at each side. So far, it seems to fit, more or less. The real test will come in another 6" or so, when it will have encompassed the boobage. Mine is rather ample, but I am vertically challenged in the shoulder to waist area, so proper fit is often elusive.
In spite of my short-waistedness, I think I want this to be longer than the pattern would have me make it. If it reaches only to my waist, there is a strong possibility that the proportions would be... so wrong as to frighten small children and dogsugly as sinunattractive unflattering.
Note: yes, that is a small sliver of bra peeking out at the lower left of the photo. Maybe this will make my blog less elementary school.
It helps if you have a friend or two to keep you company.
Even then, impatience can cause one to attempt to hurry things along.
So we wait.
And eventually...
something happens.
Mr. Goldfinch has found the new feeder! He helps himself,
and, being the generous and caring bird that he is, tells a friend.
We are still waiting for these two to invite the rest of their friends and relations.
I have had up to eleven goldfinches at one time on my original feeder. But when that one bit the dust -- those hungry little birds pecked the holes so much that after fifteen years the openings were big enough for the thistle seed to fall out -- I got another. It was very pretty, with a copper top and matching bands around the holes to protect them. But it proved to have a very poor design, indeed. It had a seam on each side of the clear plastic tube; in a short time the seams split open just enough for the seed to get wet and nasty. The poor finches would land on it, sniff, then turn around and give me a dirty look through the window. After an embarrassingly long time I got the message.
Now everyone is happy.
* * * * *
Knitting continues on the Summer Chevron sweater. I worked on it all last weekend and every spare minute since then. You may remember that it is knit top down in the round, starting with a cast-on at the neck and increasing from there. Increasing 8 stitches every other round quickly leads to a lot of stitches. There are upwards of 450 stitches on the needle now, and visible progress is slow. So far it seems to fit, but the real test won't come for another 6-8". Which would make it twice as long as it is right now, so it will be awhile...
I am swatching for the Summer Raglan. Yarn is Madil Eden, 100% bamboo, worsted weight. Started out with my favorite needles, a Knit Picks Options circ using Harmony tips, US#6.
Even ignoring that random purl stitch at upper left that wandered into the stockinette, the result was... unsatisfactory. This yarn is too slippery to do well on slippery needles, and waaayyyyy too splitty for the KP sharp points. I had lots of little extra loopies where I hadn't caught the entire strand of yarn, which is a loosely plied thing of about 20 cobwebby strands.
Moving on, I tried a Denise Interchangeable, US#5. The Denise needles are plastic and have rather blunt tips, which worked perfectly with that splitty yarn.
Much better. No splits at all.
The problem is that the Denise cables suck big time. Every single cable in the set has started to separate between the cable and the cable end. Knitting with them requires fighting the stitches over that little irregularity all the damned time. No way I was gonna set myself up for that frustration.
I could have gone online and bought another cable, but there was a pretty good chance that by the time I was well into the sweater it would have begun to separate, too. So I went needle shopping online, looking for blunt points. An Addi Natura or even an Addi Turbo seemed possible solutions, but the shipping time for either meant I would have to wait, and I wanted to Cast. On. Right. Now. Sometimes living 50 miles from the nearest [full-service] LYS is a pain.
I searched through an assortment of needles I got on eBay last year and came up with a pair of Bryspun US#6 straights. The points, while not blunt, were at least less pointed than the KPs.
Hey, that looks good!(Ignore that loose strand at the edge of the garter
stitch edge. Garter stitch turned out to be hard to do with this yarn, but
there is no garter stitch in the sweater, so I felt safe ignoring that
little problem.)
Yep, definitely good enough.
But the sweater is knit in the round so the straights wouldn't work. I searched a little further in the needle stash and found a Susan Bates 32" US#4 circ.
Let's compare needle points:
From the left, Knit Picks Options US#4, the Susan Bates #4, and a Knit Picks Harmony #5. Although the Harmony point looks similar to the Susan Bates in the photo, believe me, it is much more pointed.
The Susan Bates was perfect.
That swatch has been through the washer and dryer on the hand- washables cycle, so the gauge is ready to be measured. At the top you can see the complex calculations (ha!) needed to rejigger the cast on, which originally called for 112 stitches at 14 st/4". Sometimes my gauge measured at 21-1/2 st/4" and sometimes at 22 st/4", as in the photo. I went with the looser gauge in my calcs because the pattern says the garment is drapey and if one is between sizes one should go with the smaller size, plus I think the bamboo yarn is probably drapier and will stretch more than the Rowan Summer Tweed called for. I think that since the sweater is knit from the neck down, I can finagle the size.
"I tell my sons, 'When you bring a
girl home, I don't care about her family background. I don't care what
colour she is, or what she wants to be... just don't bring me a girl
who peers warily at her plate and says, "What's in this?".' "
* * * * * One of the duties of being a mother of a kid who lives faraway is the packing/repacking and shipping of stuff.
This duty also includes removing any hazmat from the shipment.
* * * * *
My newest wallpaper, featuring a hanging basket from my deck.
* * * * *
"You might very well think that. I could not possibly comment."
-- from House of Cards / To Play the King / The Final Cut.
Awhile back I included that quote in a blog post and it got me to remembering the source, this BBC miniseries. A quick trip to the library's online catalog and the 3-CD set was on its way to my house. I watched it last week whilst recuperating from that little bout of food poisoning.
It was every bit as good as I remembered. Ian Richardson plays the most deliciously scheming, malevolent, downright evil politician one can imagine in 20th century politics. Hitler could have taken lessons from this guy. I recommend it highly to anyone looking for something to watch this summer while the TV plays reruns and other assorted crappe.
* * * * *
This business of quoting from stuff I have watched or read can have unanticipated consequences. When I said, Winter is coming, I of course had to go check my reference to be sure I had the title right. Lo and behold, I find that book 5 of the series comes out in September! Can I get a w00t?!
I am speaking of the epic The Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. It is a fantasy series, but unlike many books of that genre, these have engaging, fully-developed characters. The series is great. I listened to the audio books of #1 through #4 a couple-three years ago and was completely captivated. After browsing the plotlines again at Amazon I find I need to refresh my memory before I listen/read #5. Whee! My summer listening has just been decided!
* * * * *
After knitting six pairs of woolly socks since the end of tax season, I think I am ready to move on. I still have 1-1/2 socks to finish before I can truthfully say I knit six full pairs, but still. When those little details are cleaned up I am on to other game. Summer has finally arrived here in the Great North, complete with 80° temps, humidity, and swarms of mosquitoes so thick in the evening that it is problematic to open one's mouth to inhale. The onset of those all-too-brief weeks of balmy weather has inspired me to attempt my worsted-weight bamboo version of the Summer Raglan from More Big Girl Knits.
Right now it is early summer. The birds are singing, the sun is warm, the breeze is soft. Swimmers frolic in the lake. Fisherpersons cast their lines and hope.
But it will not always be so. One day darkness will fall, a heavy chill will descend, and snow will blanket the land. Winter is coming.*
In preparation I am knitting myself a dandy pair of heavy boot socks. Remember this yarn?
It is in the process of becoming a pair of these:
Yeah, that's three photos of my left foot wearing the same sock. Work with me here.
I am in love with the way the two yarns stranded together make such a nifty marled, ragg sock look.
The oatmeal color of the Lana Grossa Megaboot Stretch works perfectly with the greens and turquoises of the tweedy Online yarn. I held the Lana Grossa next to another colorway of tweedy Online yarn, one that is less green and more blue; the two did not do a thing for each other. But these two seem to have just enough yellow in common to be happy together.
When we were camping on the North Shore a couple weeks ago I felt like I should dress in a flannel shirt, jeans, and hiking boots. And maybe sing, "She's a lumberjack and she's okay / She sleeps all night and she works all day." Maybe these socks are my first step in that direction.
While we are admiring these colors, let us take notice of how these same colors may occur in nature:
I missed a photo op earlier this afternoon of a parade of several adult Canada geese and at least a dozen nearly-grown goslings. These five babies (I had to blow up the photo to 100% to count them; you will just have to trust me on the number) are much, much younger. They are also possible loon lunch. This is the first year since 1991, our first summer here, that we have had both loons AND Canada geese on the lake. The loons always chase away the geese and claim this teeny tiny ocean for their own. Good luck, Mama and Daddy Goose! Take care of those babies! (Although the world does not perhaps really need any more Canada geese.)
* Extra points for anyone who can identify the book[s] from which this comes.
Our camping trip last weekend to the North Shore went much better than could have been expected, given the dismal weather forecast for the weekend -- rain, thunderstorms, flash flood warnings, doom/gloom, pack your bags, dude, it's the end of the world. In point of fact, it only rained one night while we were there and even then didn't start until after 10pm, so we didn't mind scattering the embers of the campfire and heading to bed to avoid getting wet.
Perhaps this, which we saw as soon as we caught sight of Lake Superior, was an omen.
It wasn't a very long rainbow, but I think it was the most vivid I have ever seen.
There had been heavy rain earlier in the week, and the many streams and rivers that flow into Lake Superior were still running full. This river was full of debris.
You can see how the guardrail was twisted away from the road and the washout that had occurred.
At the campsite there was tree climbing and dog napping:
There were nature photos galore:
The first and third are the same stump but the third is turned 90°; the second is, I think, trout lilies. They were a week or two past blooming so I only got to see the seed heads. There were hepaticas and wild strawberries and lungwort in bloom, but I got no photos of them.
There was also puking. First Maggie (once), then Matthew (many times), but the rest of us were unaffected. Whew. Perhaps they had eaten some salmonella infested tomatoes before they joined us; but they arrived on Thursday night and didn't get sick until Sunday, so who knows? They were both fine by Monday.
When it was time to break camp Maggie kept Matthew and Andrew on task.
Best of all, there was sock knitting.
The colors are not true in the photo. The background color is more of an olive tan khaki, not as dark as it looks. That ten inches or so of yarn you see lying on my right foot is how much I have left to graft the toe of the left foot. I made the legs extra long; I hate to have cold ankles in January. That little tail is enough to graft, but I want to see exactly how the right foot comes out before I finish off the left. If the second ball -- I wound the 100 gr skein of Colinette Jitterbug into two 50 gr balls -- happens to be slightly shorter, I may finish off both toes with some solid olive green Lang Jawoll that I have in stash. The pair is stalled right now because I ran out of the olive green reinforcing yarn I am using in the heel flaps.The Jitterbug is 100% merino wool, lovely and soft, but I fear it would not wear as well as a yarn with some nylon in it, so I am reinforcing the heels, the spot that I always, always, always wear out first in my purchased socks.
I just noticed that it looks like the columns of purl stitches are wonky in the left sock. They are not, it is just the angle of the photo. I hope.
* * * * *
Back in the heady days of the '60s and '70s there was a saying that dope would get you through times of no money better than money would get you through times of no dope. Be that as it may, I prefer to think that luck will get one through any kind of hard times at all. And my sweetie is Lucky with a Capital L.
On Saturday afternoon he and I took off for a little drive and ended up at Grand Portage at the gas station/convenience store outside the Indian casino there. After we each ate a Haagen Daas ice cream bar with almonds (yum!), he asked if I wanted to watch him throw some quarters down the toilet/into the slot machines in the store. I decided I would rather go back to the parking lot and knit. By the time I had made a pit stop, gotten back out to the car, and settled myself with my knitting, Smokey was back out there, too, with $95 won from a $20 start. That's my Bear.
For all the glory that is spring in the north woods, there are some less than delightful bits.
I think this guy must have spent his winter burrowed deep into the duff on the floor of the woods. Now he is on our deck railing getting a tan. I let him be; no critter, no matter how capable of giving me a nasty ouch, deserves to be swatted after surviving the winter. Unless it is a mosquito; then all bets are off.
Other less than savory aspects of spring are the wood and deer ticks.
Lower left, something called a star tick, which we do not have here. Middle, an adult female deer tick -- those are the ones that transmit Lyme disease. Upper right, adult wood tick, aka dog tick. I found this photo online and stole it because I couldn't find the ones I took last spring of the eight wood ticks I pulled off Hannibal The Fearless Who Fancies Himself To Be An Outdoor Cat.
Like many things in nature, the tick population varies from year to year. Last year we were inundated with ticks. Boo! Hiss! This year, they are almost non-existent. Yay! I think I have found fewer than half a dozen so far this year, which is, I think, a record low for this date.
Despite that, for the past couple days I have felt them crawling on me everywhere. I have not found a single one for over a week, however, so I attribute this annoyance to an over-active tactile sense.
There are the ubiquitous mosquitoes, vector of the West Nile virus:
Don't worry, we shooed that one away before it bit my boy.
There are other less-than-wonderful aspects of warmer weather. Follow the link if you want to see an over-40 woman wearing a too-young-for-her, way-too-short garment while doing her exercise walk. She was doing laps around the block Saturday while we were stuck for a couple hours with what turned out to be a broken timing belt on the Aveo. I probably shouldn't be snarky; she was, after all, very trim and was doing a good thing. She had just made an unfortunate wardrobe choice.
To remove that last image from your eyeballs, here is a sign on the wall of the diner where we had a very tasty brunch that day, right before we discovered that the car wouldn't start.
I had to pay for my coffee, darn. No gossip to trade.
* * * * *
Thanks to everyone who chimed in with advice on yesterday's post about the Summer Chevron sweater. There is a l-o-n-g thread over in Ravelry (special thanks to those of you who told me to check there) that details all the trials and tribulations of that pattern. Apparently it has a wacky row gauge that no one can achieve, and the deep V neck tends to become a wide V when worn. I am still undecided about whether to attempt it with my bamboo yarn, but now I know where to go for more help. Thanks, guys! You are the best!
* * * * *
As much as I love having #1 son home for a couple months, it has been driving me absolutely NUTS that his computer seems to hog our DSL connection. I have forbade him from using BitTorrent -- or downloading anything -- between the hours of 8 am and 1 pm, which is my preferred internet time. But even though he has been completely cooperative about our agreement, sometimes my connection gets so slow it is impossible to do anything. Every single page gets the "Cannot find www.xyz.com. Please check your spelling..." message.
Today I got so frustrated that while he was out for his daily run and clearly not using his computer, I went downstairs to his bedroom to see what was open on his Mac Pro. I discovered that the problem seems to be that Skype, even when just sitting there with a chat window open but not being used, continues to hog our internet connection. I closed Skype, came back upstairs, and walla! my internet connection was fine. Hurrah! Too bad we didn't figure this out a month ago; he leaves to go back to NY a week from Sunday, and I had been counting the days.
Eddie Izzard is hysterically, riotously, manically funny. And smart and well-educated and does NOT talk down to his audience. If you are not familiar with him, search for his videos on YouTube. No, wait! I've done it for you!
#1 son introduced me to him several years ago by giving me for Christmas the DVD of his Dressed to Kill HBO special. I didn't watch it right away -- had never heard of Eddie Izzard -- so I didn't know what I was missing. But once I watched it I was hooked.
Way back in March I saw that he was coming to Minneapolis in May. Checked with Andrew, still in Mexico, yes, he wanted to go if he were here at the time; his internship application with Partners in Health in Boston was still pending so he didn't know where he would be in May. Checked with Matthew, yes, he wanted to go, absolutely. Checked with Smokey, no, Eddie Izzard was too edgy for him. A quick online trip to Ticketmaster, a virtual swipe of the credit card, and wham!bam! I had three tickets.
A short rant: Ticketmaster, while convenient, yada yada, certainly tacks on a lot of fees -- facilities fee, ticket fee, convenience fee, printing fee, boat payment fee, kickback fee, college tuition fee. Sheesh. All those fees increased the cost of the tickets by something like a third, and those tickets were not cheap to begin with. [/rant]
When the actual day came Andrew was out of town, having gone to a music festival in Illinois that weekend. Smokey still didn't want to go. So Maggie, Matthew's girlfriend -- who had never heard of Eddie Izzard -- got ticket #3. We met up downtown, had dinner, and hit the historic State theater.
Once again I failed to take pictures, but let me paint a word picture of the theater. It opened in 1921 and was considered a technological marvel of the time. Until 1958 it had the largest movie screen west of the Mississippi. It hasn't been a movie theater since the late 1970s, but miraculously, through all its varied uses -- vaudeville house, movie theater, church -- the elaborate murals and wall sculptures have remained intact. There are cupids, there is gold leaf, there are crystal chandeliers. It is BIG, seating around 2,000 people. In other words, it is a special place and one that is fun to go to.
No, wait! I found a couple photos online.
I cannot tell you much about Mr. Izzard's performance except that he touched on many subjects -- Hannibal coming over the Alps, Minneapolis and local humor, Alexander the Great, language, Michelangelo, school, grades -- and that it was all very, very funny. He referred to himself as an off-duty transvestite, so he was dressed more or less normally -- blue jeans, white dress shirt, and a black tail coat, possibly denim, with red lining under the swallowtail. No elaborate makeup, no 4" heels, no sparkly sequined dress, more's the pity. But he was so funny we loved him anyway.
* * * * *
I would like to solicit your ideas on a knitting project. Here is the sweater I am thinking of, a short-sleeved summer number from More Big Girl Knits by Amy Singer (of Knitty.com fame) and Jillian Moreno:
The yarn I am planning to use is at the left in the photo: Madil Eden and Eden print (Ravelry links), 100% bamboo, worsted weight, and 22 st per 4"/10 cm. The pattern calls for Rowan Summer Tweed, 70% silk/30% cotton, 14 st per 4"/10 cm. Obviously, my gauge will be significantly different than that called for in the pattern.
I know that a pattern can be rewritten for a different gauge; it seems to me that this one will be easier than many because of the diagonal construction. The garment is knit top-down in one piece, and the diagonal texture of the front and back is formed by increasing 2 stitches every other row at the top of the sleeves and at center front and back, 8 stitches increased each time.
(This next paragraph is complicated. These word pictures can be tough sometimes.) The center front and back reach the desired length at the same time that the upper yoke reaches armhole depth. (You can see that by following the last narrow stripe from the center front up to the armhole.) At that point the knitter puts the sleeve cap stitches on holders, casts on a few more stitches for the underarm, then works back and forth on one entire side, say, left front and back, at a time, doing double decreases along the side "seam" and short row shaping at the bottom front and back of that side. The short row shaping achieves the straight-across-the-bottom edge. When one entire side is done, the knitter does the same thing on the other entire side. The whole garment is knit in one piece, using double increases at center front and back and double decreases at the sides, plus short-row shaping along the bottom edge, to achieve the tubular shape of the body.
It seems to me that once I recalculate the number of stitches I need to cast on, the rest of the body can be knit according to the pattern. In other words, as long as my row gauge is proportional to the original row gauge in the same ratio as my stitch gauge is to the original stitch gauge, it will all work itself out. I will be knitting on more stitches and will need to knit more rows, but as long as I knit each section to be the desired number of inches long, all will be well.
I generally prefer tops to come just past my hips rather than be as short as this one. To lengthen this top I would continue to knit in the round (after putting the sleeve caps on waste yarn and casting on additional stitches for the underarm) and maintain the tubular shape of the body by double increases front and back and double decreases at each side. On the other hand, many garments are too long waisted for me, plus few summer tops are hip length; if I want mine to be shorter than the pattern is written, I would commence the short-row shaping/filling in each side sooner.
The reason I like this pattern is that, because of the use of different colors of yarns, it seemed to fit my vision for my yarn. I had been picturing my bamboo yarn in some kind of summer t-shirt-like thing using the print for the sleeves and solid brown for the body. This pattern uses three shades of the Rowan, shading top to bottom from lightest to darkest, and creating a deep V yoke effect to echo the neckline. That seems to me to be a far more flattering design than my t-shirt idea. I plan to cast on with the solid brown, switch to the variegated yarn for as long as it lasts and probably no farther than the lightest color yarn is used in the original, do a couple of narrow stripes as the color transition, then switch back to the solid brown for the rest.
I have never used Rowan Summer Tweed so I don't know how it behaves in a knit fabric. My bamboo yarn makes a very soft fabric that drapes well but does not have a lot of body. I had originally cast on the printed yarn for a narrow Clapoutis, but it curled too much and I was not happy with it.
So, my questions are these:
Does my rejiggering of the pattern make sense? Does it seem do-able? Math is easy for me, so the calcs are not an obstacle.
I am rather more, er, well-endowed than the model in the photo. Any ideas on how to make the front bigger without changing the size of the back?
Will the soft bamboo yarn be suitable for this pattern written for the nubbly Summer Tweed?
What say y'all? I know there is a lot of knitting expertise out there, so any and all advice/opinions are welcomed. Thank you for your support.
Those of you who come here for the sparkling prose, heart-rending insights, and outrageous humor will just have to look elsewhere for those today.
Today, we talk knitting.
I have become a knitting machine. I think it is because I was knitting-deprived during The Tax Season From Hell, but for whatever reason, I am drivenam compelled find myself knitting a lot. Really a lot.
First, there were these socks, which are now done and worn and washed and worn and washed and worn again. Several times. What with the lateness of our spring, my hand-knit wool socks are still in the rotation almost every day.
The remarkable thing about these socks was how incredibly fast -- for me -- I knit them. They were knit on a US#0 needle. I know, I know, I said not too long ago that life is too short to knit on zeroes. Apparently I was wrong.
These socks took me about a week and a half to knit, maybe less. Since every pair of socks I have ever knit in the past has taken more like two months, I have clearly encountered a warp in the space-time continuum. I plan to remain there until further notice.
Yarns: Online Supersocke 100, Caribic Color, #738; cuff borders, heels, and toes Knit Picks Essentials in black, turquoise, and red, respectively. None of those colors are on the KP website right now. Weird. Needle: Addi Turbo US#0 circ, Magic Loop. Pattern: Generic stockinette top-down sock, 60 st. Mods: As is apparent in the photos, the red toe is longer on one foot than the other. We shall call it a design feature and leave it at that.
Notice the new black clogs in the first photo. I bought them specifically because they will show off hand-knit socks. When I told my husband that he laughed at me. "That's certainly the first thing I look for in a pair of shoes," he said. Cretin.
Determined to use up every scrap of the patterned yarn, I immediately cast on for a pair of fingerless mitts with what I had left.
I am wearing them right now because it is chilly today. I used the basic mitten pattern in Ann Budd's A Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns to do the gusset, then continued in 3x1 rib until they were long enough. The edging is the red and turquoise from the socks. Easy peasy. And warm. And snug enough that they stay on well.
There was still a tiny bit left of the yarn so I made another Kleenex Kozy. No picture, though, because I haven't sewn the sides together. The pattern, such as it is: cast on 36 st on US#1s with fingering weight yarn (if you happen to have sport weight yarn, cast on 26 st on US#2 and carry on with the KK), knit 2x2 ribbing for a half inch or so, change to stockinette until the thing is nearly long enough to wrap around a pocket package of tissues, switch back to 2x2 ribbing until the whole thing is 7-1/2 to 8 inches long. Sew up the long sides, overlapping the ends so that you have to dig a little to get at the tissues -- an opening that gaps is tacky, don't you know.
Somewhere in all that knitting on zeroes and ones I made Maggie's socks. And cast on for some more socks on US#0s. These are going swimmingly, as well.
ETA: I wrote this post last weekend. I am now decreasing for the gusset on sock #2. They will be done by the weekend.
Colors in the last photo are most accurate, except there is a more constant undercurrent of green than may be apparent.
Actually, I knit these to the heel, then decided they were a bit too tight. They are a gift for my SIL, and if they were kinda tight on my legs I knew they would be no more comfortable on hers. So I frogged and cast on again, 68 st instead of 64 and on US#1 instead of US#0. That size seems to be perfect. I went back down to the zero needle when I got down to the ankle and decreased 4 st when I got past the heel and gusset. The yarn is Trekking and I am loving it. These will be difficult to give up.
* * * *
omigod, the first hummingbird of the season just checked my deck for the feeder. Gotta go boil up some nectar for them. See ya...
The perfect way to spend Mother's Day, imho, is knitting. And if the opportunity presents itself, to do that knitting with others. And if all the stars align perfectly and one has been really, really good, that knitting with others is in a class taught by Annie Modesitt.
Shepherd's Harvest Sheep and Wool Festival happens over the Mother's Day weekend every year at the Washington County fairgrounds, north of St. Paul. I went two years ago and had a blast, bought yarn and more yarn. This year I decided to take an introductory lace class being taught by Annie. Perfect to get my lace mojo into working order.
Saturday it rained, but I planned ahead and registered for the Sunday class. Of course, the class was only offered on Sunday. That just proves the power of my planning and my excellent foreknowledge of the weather.
Sunday was a beautiful day for a drive.
The trees in the St. Croix river valley were just starting to green up.
I knew I was in the right place when I got out of the car and saw this:
Shepherd's Harvest is no Rhinebeck or MDSW or any of those big Right Coast festivals. It's down home and human scaled, a perfect non-stress way to spend a day or two. With my declared Yarn Fast of 2008 in mind, I arranged to arrive at the fairgrounds just in time to have lunch before the class started at 1 pm.
Many others had the same idea about food. To me, this was a long line; from what I read of others' experience at the aforementioned Big-Ass Festivals, this is nothing.
I had a lamb burger, a small tray of veggies with dip, and bottled water. $5.75, reasonable. No pictures of the food -- I didn't want the others seated on my left and right and across the table to realize just how weird we bloggers can be.
A quick run to the rest room before class and I was set. Oh, you would like to see the rest rooms? The stalls were cute.
Annie had the Poultry and Rabbit building all to herself for her class.
But the day, although bright and sunny, was windy and quite cool and inside that building it was even colder. So she organized us outside in the sunshine.
There were twelve of us, the perfect number for a class -- small enough to get any individualized help one might need, but large enough that one (me) didn't feel any pressure. And I learned a few things, too.
We all made swatches using a lace pattern from Romantic Knits. The original scarf, which Annie had with her, is knit in light green Tilli Tomas Disco Lights (100% silk, sequined). Try to imagine just how gorgeous it was in the sun with the gleam of the silk and the sparkle of the sequins.
The class ended shortly after 3 and the festival ended at 4, so I thought I was safe from yarn-buying fever. Wrong. I succumbed to the wool, er, cotton and silk fumes. But I'll save showing you my acquisitions for another post. Let's look now at what I saw after I left.
When one is forced to drive one of these (Smokey was using my little car)
one must endure this.
But sometimes one is lucky enough to observe this at the next pump.
Some llamas from the festival were on their way home, too.
I walked over and put my camera between the bars to get an unobstructed picture of one of the pretty faces, but my viewfinder suddenly went black. Another llama had come over to check out the camera, up close and personal-like. That happened every time I tried.
Well, almost every time.
No, that llama is not about to attack me; I caught him (her?) in mid-chew of his/her cud. Check out those eyelashes!
The owner tried to get one of the llamas to demonstrate how it gives her a kiss, but the llama was having none of it. They all were tired of people and tired of being on display. They were ready for a good roll in the grass and some nice quiet *me* time. I guess we can all identify with that.
I made a pair of socks for Maggie, #2's girlfriend.
She and #2 came up this weekend; I finished grafting the toes on Friday evening and left them on the table when I went to bed. She found them when they got her sometime in the middle of the night, and she liked them so well she didn't take them off all weekend.
I am ashamed to say I started these w-a-y back in February. There were two reasons they took so long to finish: the tax season from hell, during which my brain was unable to handle anything more difficult than the Mason-Dixon dishcloth pattern; and once tax season was over, Maggie was 75 miles away and it was difficult to try the sock for size upon her dainty foot. Originally I started them toe-up, but when she tried them on a few weeks ago -- I was past the heel at the time, maybe even on the second sock -- she said they were fine, but #2 confided later that she told him they were a little tight through the ball of the foot. Since I wanted them to be perfect, and since STR heavyweight knits up like a flash, I frogged the sock and reknit it. Once I had the size worked out it only took me about a week, of on and off sock knitting interspersed with knitting on another project, to finish the pair. I knew by that time that I had plenty of yarn so there was no need to do toe-up; besides, I can knit a generic top-down sock without referring to a pattern. ::pats self on back::
Thus endeth the Saga of Maggie's Socks. It tickles me that she likes them so well.
I love tote bags. If I could travel easily with just tote bags, I'd do it. In fact, whenever I go somewhere, whether for an hour or a week, the endeavor always involves one or more tote bags. There are tote bags everywhere in my life. Here is just one pile.
There are library-themed tote bags:
That last one is adorned with this button, which I love:
I have knitting-themed tote bags:
The button on the Knitty bag (this is my favorite bag because it is deeper that any of the others, plus it has handles long enough for it to work as a shoulder bag):
It is not really such a great button, but I was so delighted to find a knitting button at an anarchist book store that I had to buy it plus the little one next to it, in commemoration of Andrew being arrested at the Republic national convention in New York in 2004. Yep, that's my boy.
Some bags are travel souvenirs. I bought the one on the left, below, in Chinatown in New York City when I accompanied Matthew's high school drama group on their 2004 trip to see Lion King and Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, and the sock bag on the right at Purl Soho when we went to NYC for Andrew's graduation last spring.
The Chinatown bag works best as a bag for smallish projects because the handles are probably not sturdy enough for hard wear. It is currently transporting a pair of socks and a pair of fingerless gloves, both WIPs coming soon to a blog near you.
This messenger bag came home with me from the Madrid airport on the way home from South Africa.
It also caused me to be the target of some very pointed questions from Homeland Security at JFK. "Why does this bag test positive for explosive materials, ma'm?" "I have no idea, sir."
Then Customs started in on me about all the biltong I had in my suitcase. But that is a story for another day. Today we are discussing tote bags.
Some commemorate places and events gone by.
Clockwise from upper left, a bag from the Minneapolis public school my kids went to and loved; a Marshall Field bag I inherited from my MIL, who lived in Chicago most of her life; a Macy's bag I have no remembrance of acquiring; and three souvenirs from past tax conferences, aka knitting retreats with CPE credit.
Arghhh! The electricity just flickered -- it happens frequently in the *summer* -- and I lost about half this post because I had forgotten to click on Save for rather a long time. Crap. Retyping...
I try very hard to remember to keep these in my car to avoid having to use plastic or paper grocery bags:
Just last week the mail carrier brought me these to help in that endeavor:
But why am I boring you all with an exhaustive recount of my vast inventory of tote bags? I told you all that so I could show you this, my latest treasure-toter:
It was handmade in Guatemala and is my belated Christmas present from Andrew. The flowered section is hand-embroidered:
We were entertained one night this week by this fellow. Smokey spotted him while he (Smokey, not the raccoon) was watching the evening news.
Mr. Raccoon had been bathing himself while nestled in the crotch of the tree, but when I came out onto the deck to photograph him he decided he needed to come down.
How does a raccoon come down from a tree? Very carefully.
* * * * *
Andrew found out that he could increase his loan for med school enough to cover a new computer. His old one, a $795 Averatec laptop from Sam's Club, had barely made it through four years of college. This time he wanted a good one. 250GB hard drive, 4GB of RAM, screen the size of a soccer field -- he got what he wanted.
He set it up with the dual boot option so he could also run Windows, which is necessary to play several of his video games. $9.27 to a Guatemalan street vendor scored him this:
which is Windows XP Professional en español. That $9.27 also got him MS Office 97, Windows Vista, and a blank-looking CD that the vendor called el crack and which is supposed to keep Vista working after 30 days. He will only use the XP. Piracy is apparently alive and well.
* * * * *
On a more legitimate note:
I cast on this sock Tuesday evening and knit barely an inch that night. On Wednesday I took it with me to the finance committee meeting and knit most of the leg. I have since turned the heel, knit the foot, and I'm currently decreasing for the toe (which is red; these are fun socks). I'll finish it this afternoon.
Now the kicker: I'm actually knitting these on US #0 needles.
I know, I said that life was too short to knit on zeros. This yarn (Online something or other) is what inspired me. I don't remember exactly where I got it but I'm pretty sure I must have won it because I don't remember buying it. It has been sitting next to my desk since early last winter. (Sitting there because I was too lazy to put it away in the sock yarn box at the bottom of my Tower o' Rubbermaid.) I would look at it and try to figure out how best to knit socks from it fast. My plans were to double-strand it with black. Or turquoise. Or white. Or all three, in stripes.
