One piece of finished Tessellated goodness

There's nothing so delightful as knitting Fair Isle. Unless it's finishing Fair Isle and contemplating it while on the foot. Unless it's knitting lace. Or, perhaps, a cookie dough blizzard, or the knowledge that one is in a fine library and doesn't need to leave it for a week. Or maybe a eating a cookie dough blizzard while wearing newly finished Fair Isle socks, sitting in a library (next to a fireplace) with a lace project in the wings?

Let's face it - there are many delightful things in the world. One of them came off my needles yesterday. Another one jumped onto my needles after church today. Even for me, this is not a sock to start during Sunday School.

Vital Statistix (sock 1):

• Needles: 2.75 mm, US 2
• Gauge: 9 spi
  
• Yarn: Purple - ArtYarns Ultramerino, Purple; KPPPM Periwinkle P451-83, and Louet Gems Linen Grey.
• Pattern: More Sensational Knitted Socks, Tessellated Socks

Oh, I like this sock. It fits nicely. It feels cushy. It's a tremendous improvement from the tourniquet I made over 15 years ago. I can hardly wait for November.

I cast on another pair of socks for mom this morning. She likes wearing red, white, and blue on holidays ... and so, for her, from Coldwater Collaborative's Regia yarns, we have an appropriate sock.

And lastly, another bookshelf shot.

Tesselated Sock #1

I am a happy camper. My Work In Progress has two colors, isn't a tourniquet, and is moving along nicely. I am doing some pattern adaptation on-the-fly, but am really looking forward to seeing this sock on my foot.

My desk is clean (deep surface clean, that is ... the drawers are still scary), school starts in two weeks, and our air conditioning works. All is well in my little corner of the world. Except for camera focus, which is really the small stuff.

Scatterbrained?

I'm having a scatterbrained day. Take a large amount of pollen, blend it one allergic lady, add two children not native to the house, editing work, knitting, and attempting to use photos from Flickr in my blog ... and you have a scatterbrained me.

For one thing, no pictures are showing up. How can one have a running commentary if there are no visible pictures? Maybe you can see them. Maybe you can't! (I certainly can't. Maybe here will work? If anyone knows what I did wrong, holler!)

The first photo is of a Shetland wool batt. I'm not sure if it's supposed to look this way. No matter ... it's been spun. But if you know batts, do tell what you'd do if your batt looked like this.

Tucked in here somewhere are pictures of my spinning bobbin and a penny, my shawl blocked out on dental floss (a nice lifeline) to see if it really was large enough to start the edging (twasn't ... I did 30 more rows), some yarn that has been recycled from a baseball, and another portion of a bookcase.







I would have some pictures from the fair, but I didn't go. I didn't even knit. Four rows of a baby sock wiped me out, so I slept. The family entries did well, however. Puer came away with the tallest weed (10 ft giant ragweed, anyone?) and a very unappreciated-by-the-judge 3rd place ribbon for my Lazy Kate. Filia walked off with blue ribbon mittens and a Reserve Champion sweater, and I got lots of blue ribbons and a Champion ribbon on Puer's gansey. No comments on the Holey Shawl , just a blue ribbon pinned to it. I had to chuckle when the ladies taking the entries expressed concern about putting a pin through a fichu (is it strong enough?) but casually stabbed my shawl with no worries whatsoever. (I haven't looked yet to see what the pin did.)

Bleak House wasn't at the library, and I finished up Martin Chuzzlewit faster than I'd expected, so I was stuck without planned Serious Reading Material. I pulled Tom Jones off the shelf,and dove in. So far, so good!

Lazarus, Come Forth!

No, not quite. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus was alive to start with. My shawl was not alive. And it's still not alive.

BUT, thanks to the encouragement of friends, I have a wearable shawl. My (and Denise's) most heartfelt thanks go to Cindy the Super Shawl Saver. Cindy gave me permission to do what no knitter ever should, and what I had never even considered (because I'm such a proper knitter, y'know), and because of that, I could tackle the holes.

Eight of them. Yes, I know I said 5 or 6 ... but eight holes got mended. The cause, near as I can figure, was wetting, blocking, wetting, and .... whoosh ... 16 strands parted like roving while getting gently squeezed. ('Scuse me while I go put my newly mended shawl into a colander so it can safely drip damp).

Here are today's repair photos. Before on the left, and after on the right. The ruler is in there for scale -- one fixed hole is above, and one fixed hole is below.













This hole, to the left, was the first one I saw in the shawl, and the first one I tackled with my Arsenal of Tools. See the tiny needle? See the thread through it? No --that's my yarn. It's tiny too. See the nassssty severed ends? My fix isn't invisible, but I think it will do.











And the last hole. The second hole I saw. The one that looked Miserable. The one that was miserable. It's not all better, but it's a rough representation of what the pattern is supposed to be. I am quite content to live with it.

The shawl is laying upstairs to dry now. I am not blocking this under tension, ever. I saw plenty of roving-esque spots that are holding together by neighborly love and kindness, and I have no wish to go through the past 48 hours again.

It's done.

Snooping around my house

While a friend and I were chatting the other day, we discovered that one of the things we most love about photos on blogs is seeing what books who has. And one of the most frustrating things is when one can't make out the titles. I am going to remedy this (hopefully) by taking systematic photos of my bookshelves and sharing them. My first three shelves are the top three of the eight shelves one is greeted with when walking into the living room. They are, in order from top to bottom, The Shelf We Can't Reach/Theology, The Theology We Really Want To Read, and Classics, Part I (of IV).

Zoomom was so kind as to share her sock yarn stash photos. I am stunned. Bona fide stunned. To encourage others (this is you, Penny) to show and tell as well, I am sharing photos of my sock yarn stash as well, and even my Whole Stash (with a few exceptions, noted.)

First, we have the sock yarns. The center tub is actuall sport weight yarns, and includes all my sport weight stuff ... primarily leftover Parade, Shine Sport, and Cotlin. The sock yarns are all leftovers from other pairs.

Next comes a profile shot of my stash. On the left, top-down, we have Sock Yarns, Fingering Weight (one of every Palette, mostly, Worsted Weight, DK weight, and on the bottom, Miscellaneous (I believe it's mostly miscellaneous fingering weight. I acquired someone else's stash BC (before children) and it was mostly fingering weight. The right stack contains Short Acrylic Worsted Leftovers, Coned Weaving Yarns, and Laceweight yarns.

Other yarns in the house, not covered here, include my daughter's stash (one box), one or two boxes of acrylic (gained from Freecycle), a box-worth of miscellaneous novelty yarns given to me 'in case I can use them' and some pre-yarn (ie, wool batts.)

Then, there is my knitting box. The sock at the bottom center is Filia's ... she'll wonder where it went when she finishes off its mate. The pale pink is Elann's Espirit, thinking about becoming baby socks. The rest has been blogged about recently.

For pictures of my Shetland Triangle, check out Journey to A Shawl. It's got my newest K'Nex yarn toy too.

Last night I spent plotting and planning for school. I think I've got a vague enough plan to last, and a concrete enough plan to get something done. I also splurged and got desks for my children, so they have their own working space. A 6x2 ft table doesn't quite work fo rus.

I'm plugging away on Martin Chuzzlewit. The book has actually gotten quite good, and I am having to pull myself away to get other things done. Like socks (finished Sunday) for the fair (entries Thursday). Hard Times is an easier read, but Martin has grown on me.

Death of a Shawl

It is with great sadness, and a good dose of bemusement, that I write this. My Alpine Lace shawl has died. The cause of death is unknown. I do know that today I spent an hour running a thread around the edges so I could block it smoothly, gave it a warm bath while I wove in the ends on the Molly Pitcher socks, squeezed it gently to remove excess water, and spread it out to block.

And found five holes, involving multiple strands of broken yarn. My shawl is not going to the State Fair. It probably won't go to the county fair in 5 days. And it's never even been worn.

I'm not ready to bury it yet.

Sniff.

A change of plans

God has plans for us. Sometimes those plans are similar to what we were thinking of, and other times, His plans are an abrupt change from ours. In the past week, I've seen changes of great and serious magnitude (not first-hand) and small magnitude(first and second-hand).

For the second-hand small, let me just say that Denise has a juicy blog post to write, and I won't spoil her surprise. And for first-hand small, there's the tooth my husband just broke off (actually, I suppose that's second-hand too, since it is his tooth and not mine), and the knitting project sitting in front of me.

I got a lovely skein of Mega Boot Stretch at The Yarnery earlier this summer to make mom a pair of Padded Footlets. The gauge was 7 sts/", and the suggested needle size was US 0. I laughed and reached for my 2s, since I always use 2s for socks. I generally get 8-9 spi as well, but I wasn't too concerned about that. The stitch count looked good for my usual, so I forged ahead.

After some charitable muttering about the instructions for working the padded sole, the sock and I made our peace and I knit away. When I got to the point pictured, I tried on said sock. It fit wonderfully ... but the padding only covered the middle half of my sole. And my feet are narrower than my mom's. So, it was out with the ruler. The gauge on the padded part was 10 spi. On 3.0 mm needles nonetheless (I switched to metal from my favorite wooden 2.75 mms, just in case) Some serious rethinking was obviously necessary. What needles would I use to get 7 spi with sock yarn? The gauge on the unpadded part was 8 1/2 spi ... my normal. Why was the padded part tighter? Very likely, the k1 sl1 pattern done for 2 out of every 3 rows. Did I want to re-engineer the footlet? (No. I don't like the padding. It's not circular.) Did I want to knit a normal sock, and knit some padding to go on later? (Not particularly.) How attached was my mom to the Padded Footlets? (Not very.)

And so, yesterday at our very first town Craft Group meeting (attended by just my daughter and I, standing outside of a locked community Room on a 90 degree, humid day) I frogged the footlet. Completely and unequivocally. (We had relocated the meeting back to our home at that time). And now, the Mega Boot Stretch, nee Padded Footlets, looks like the photo at right. Isn't it lovely? No nasty gauge issues at all, and all worked beautifully in the round. During a baseball game, no less.

The baseball season is over. We were around 500, with two ties. I got oodles of knitting done, but am not sorry to have the busy-ness pass. The garden is starting to kick in with produce -- namely, cucumbers. Here's a picture of our very first, surrounded by some Stash Socks for Small Feet. Isn't he cute? Filius is lobbhing for dill pickles, which I loathe (having teethed on the critters). But I have cukes, and I have dill .. so why not? I've also got some zucchini, so perhaps I'll try some zuke pickles as well. I'll make sweet pickles for me, too, of course.

In serious matters, I have discovered Dickens. (Or Thingyens, as one message board filter terms him.) I'd read A Tale of Two Cities decades ago, and remember nothing but the opening sentence. I'd slogged through David Copperfield, over a 7 year period, and found it nice, but nothing that made me want to revisit it any time soon. And then, I read Hard Times. (Saturday and Sunday, to be precise.) It was funny. It was deep. It had some thought-provoking ideas. And so I declared it to be our next Read-Aloud, and checked out Martin Chuzzlewit for my next book. So far, Filii are enjoying the book ... and they don't even know how it ends!

I have also discovered (Thanks, Molly!) that my Christening Gown came from Dale's Book #40, which has been discontinued. But ... thanks to a fabulous knitting network, I have the book on my desk this very instant, on loan. No such luck with the blanket. It can't have been from Treasures in Needlwork, since I have all six issues. Was it Threads? Was it Threadneedle Street? Shall I ever know? I will probably settle for recreating one from the original (my original, at least) and Sharon Milller's Heirloom Lace book.

And that means I need to order more yarn.

Another week, another shopping trip

This time, we had a slightly longer doctor visit, but compensated for it by visiting Three yarn stores, one book store, one gallery, one library, and a few other necessary places (food, anyone?)

At Yarnzilla, I fell in love with the Misti Alpaca Lace, which has been calling my name for some time. The Panda Cotton seemed perfect for a pair of toddler/baby socks, so I got that too.

Coldwater Collaborative was a spot on our map marked "Yarn Store" in Excelsior. It was almost on our route to the bookstore (our official first stop) but we decided to detour and see if we could spot it. We had no name, no address ... just a circle around "Water Street". Wouldn't you know - the last block had a store saying "The Yarn Store You've Been Looking For" What was there to do but park and head on in? They had lots of yummy yarn, including the Regia above, and Mom saw some books she had to have as well. She exercised great restraint in not getting a Koigu book and enough yarn for me to make a cardigan.

Then we made it to the bookstore. Here's our loot - with a few books from the last trip. Book at this house do not stay on the bookshelf. They WANDER from room to room, and out to the van, and off to the front porch.

On the way home, we stopped off at The Tangled Skein for some Brittany needles, but they were OUT so I am still stuck with just 5 sock needles, which is really putting a bind on my traveling/home project, since socks are on the list for both. Maybe I should start spinning for my shawl? (What shawl, you ask? I don't know yet.)

Theresa correctly guessed that my mystery project was from Victorian Lace Today. But no one even thought about guessing which project it was! It was Victorian Ruby, and all is done but the blocking.

Now, some pics of old projects (ca 1995) and some questions. Does anyone know which issue of Treasures in Needlework had this baby blanket pattern? Or where else it might be? I made 3, but feel like I should make some more. Not for me ... Puella got the cream, Puer got the blue, my maid of honor's daughter got the pink ... but just for general principles.


And here's a Dale of Norway Christening Gown. Dale has discontinued all their old booklets (drat) but does anyone know which one this gown came from? I can't imagine where my booklet went to.

The baby stuff is coming out as I've been asked to knit up some things for a baby show this November. Puella is thinking of knitting some socks for it as well. And I may have found a goldsmith to make some lovely shawl pins, so I could knit shawls to my heart's content, and sell them in her gallery with matching pins.

My current WIP looks, at this moment, very much like a sock cuff. How's everyone doing on the summer knitting?

And did anyone actually get a book they wanted at the Interweave Press Hurt Book sale? I started browsing around the site at 10:04 Mountain Time and by the time I got to the right pages (running 7 tabs at a time) all 6 books that looked good were Gone.

Like I needed more knitting books.

1776

An excellent musical, and one perfectly suited to the day. I've learned more about the Declaration of Independence from this musical than I did in my scholastic career. It's pretty accurate, too (although I do believe that Ben Franklin refusing to write politics is a fiction.) And since I can look at "Our Country's Founders" and identify all the men sketched on the front, make-up must have done a good job.

Rosemary, the next two pictures are for you. Our separated-at-birth pups (separated by a few years, if I remember aright) look alike, and are both blanket hogs. Filius wandered into the kitchen one morning to see what was for breakfast. By the time he got his question out, his blanket was occupied. And Terry does not take kindly to having his 'bed' moved. That may have something to do with why he was missing most of his front teeth when we got him (age 6, 2 years ago).

Terry is also a laundry hog. Filii are in charge of sorting the laundry, and then putting their own away. Canis Terribilis does not like having to move so somene else can get his chores done. Warm laundry, fresh from the dryer, is his favorite.

Last Friday, we had to go shopping in St. Paul. A short-but-necessary 10 minute medical appointment necessitated the shopping trip. I won't share the book stack with you (but I did get an abridged version of Johnson, and it looks READABLE! Filius got a book of The Best of Dick Tracy, among other things.) I was also hunting for sock yarn, having finished off my contribution to Becca's destashing efforts. We raided The Yarnery, a new-to-us yarn store. It was accessible, and withstood our onslaught fairly well.

Isn't this a lovely picture? You see some previously bought Koigu (the blue and purple) which came along so I could find them appropriate company for that lovely pink/blue tesselated sock in More Sensational Knitted Socks. That's the Louet Gems light tan. Behind that is Regia Bamboo, a most lovely, cushy, squishy yarn. I'm 3" into the second sock for that. (Our town's parade is 3" long ) . The tropical colors and pink Pony pearls are for Filia, who is aboutt 5: into her sock with them. The Meilinweit is destined for the Padded Footlets (which, along with the Bamboo, are, for my mom). The two pewter buttons are a representative of the 7 that will go on my Spinnery Jacket, the sheep is a Lantern Moon tape measure which Filia fell in love with. She talked grandma into getting it for her, so she won't have to borrow mine. Except, it's more a case of 'not having to return mine.' The question is ... will she ever be able to find her own? And lastly, some lovely Rowan Kid Silk Haze in a Pewter-with-a-hint-of-lavender shade. It's on the needles right now ... any guesses as to what it will become?

I buckled down last week after finishing these child's socks, and wove in the ends for 4 pair of socks. Tis done. And now, it's time to go work with some KSH and watch some men in wigs sing their way through the signing of the declaration.

There and Back Again

or, what I did on my summer vacation.

My vacation began Sunday. Since my flight was leaving Minneapolis at 7 PM, I ended up going to church in the morning, staying for a picnic, and heading straight up. This gave me some extra knitting time in the terminal, and time for a sock picture. Isn't the Rhapsody beautiful? Thanks, Becca!

The flight was overbooked, but otherwise uneventful. Security gave me no problems with 10 double pointed needles (5 metal, 5 wooden) in my bags, and the stewardesses had no problem with my knitting during the flight. I finished Rhapsody Sock #2 and started Tofutsies Sock #1.

I found the shuttle to the hotel with no problems, and called Lene to tell her I was on my way. She, too, was on her way, in annoyingly heavy traffic. In keeping with 'slow and steady wins the race' she beat me to the hotel, but not by so much that I didn't catch up with her before the elevator doors opened. (That's an amazing feat, you know ... rushing to catch up with someone you've never met when you can only see her from the back. I'm glad I had the right person.)

We talked and talked and talked some more, then caught some shut eye early Monday morning so we could get up a bit later and head off to the conference. I was the Book Table Lady, and so had to get a picture of the Book Table with Sock. (The sock pictured was finished before lunch was.)

Then, it was off to the airport to come home. All went well until I checked in. You know those delightful e-ticket machines? It didn't like me. It made me go see a ticketing agent. I thanked God that I was in Terminal 2 and not Terminal 1 (where Lene stood in line over an hour to check her bags). Terminal 2 had only one clerk at the Northwest desks. But there were also only 3 people on the other side of the desks. And two of them were self-checking their bags. The clerk informed me that my 8:00 flight had been cancelled. (rats) She put me on the 6:45 flight instead (hooray!). I didn't quite knit my way home, since my hands were considering staging a protest about 12 hours of knitting with only short breaks, but I still landed with only 4" of the post-lunch sock to do.

The next day, it was time to find my desk so I could get to work. Reading 295 e-mails, sweeping, unpacking, laundering ... never a dull moment. And reinstalling everything on Filia's computer. Her hard drive died, but was able to revive itself to factory specs with the touch of a button The data was unrecoverable :( and taking the hard drive out killed the touch pad (?) but the shop gave us a free mouse (computer, not mammalian) so she's set. Then came cherry picking time. Filius and I picked for 20 minutes and brought in 3 quarts of cherries. Then I 'computed' while they took turns pitting. One entire cherry pie disappeared into them at suppertime, and there's many more pie-worth of cherries on the tree.

The Tofutsie socks are lovely, but I could have done without the three knots between the heel and ribbing of sock #2.

Speaking of which ... you've heard of Second Sock Syndrome? I don't have it. I have Weaving In Those Ends Syndrome. I have 3 pair of socks waiting to have ends woven in right now. I shall have to buckle down and do it one of these days. I wasn't about to take my beloved hand forged silver yarn needle on the airplane, though, so I have some small excuse for 1 1/2 of those socks.

And on the needles now is the first Stash Sock for Micah. On the desk is Clement and Diogenes. I'm at the Answer Key generation point, which is the most time-consuming and fun part. There's another book waiting in the wings for editing, and more to come. "Of the making of books, there is no end," Solomon said, and he was right.

The Signs of Summer

Two boys, hanging out under a willow tree, fighting battles with Lego men ...






A girl, curled up comfortably, reading a favorite book ...






A Jackmanii clematis in full bloom. It's worthy of being a desktop background (although in real life, a bit hail-shredded at the moment)

and This Week in Baseball. I began and finished two pint-sized socks ... but that reminds me of the Horrible Thing That Happened on! Friday! I left my knitting at someone's house. This was truly a terrible, horrible, very bad thing. Not because the person was untrustworthy, or would put my socks on 2 circs, or anything like that. But because, for almost 48 hours, I was Separated From My Project!

I broke my monogamy, and whipped out some lace for a pillowcase edging. And then, just as I was about to start the edging for a second pillowcase (and why my husband would *want* pink lace edging on his pillowcase is beyond me, but that wasn't the point ... the empty needles were the point!), my knitting box appeared at my side. How blessed are the feet of those who bring good projects! Faster than you could say Elizabeth Zimmerman, I frogged the 4 stitches I'd cast on for the second edging, stashed all that in my box, whipped out my almost-finished sock, and began ribbing away with a sigh of contentment.

But back to baseball. We did lose to the Diamondbacks, but by a respectable score of something like 8 - 3. The next game was much sadder, and the victory margin was wide enough I have conveniently forgot it. More than 10 runs, I think. Then yesterday we comfortably beat our opponents, and Filius bears the distinction of having been hit (as a batter) by a ball in each of the last 3 games. I discovered that even simple lace patterns distract me too much from the game, so after I finish this set, back to plain knit I go!

My current pair, in Wildfoote Rhapsody (courtesy of Becca's unloved stash), has a simple chevron lace pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks , or the sequel. I've chipped three needles while working on it, and am switching over to metal (and getting replacement wooden ones). While I was examining my needles to see which were chipped and which weren't, I noticed a curious thing. Some of them were no longer round just below the tips! They rather reminded me of sticks rubbed together to start a fire. They're not half-round, but definitely heading that direction.

And another storm is definitely heading our direction, so it's time to shut down this 'puter and go knit. Hopefully by electric light.

This Week in Baseball

Admittedly, a bit late, but still ... last Monday, en route to a game, I cast on for the sock at the far left of this photo. Three games and one Monday afternoon later, I cast on for the sock at the far right.

We're leaving for a game in about an hour, and I seriously need to find two more almost matched partial balls so I will have sufficient knitting for the game.

The record is 2 and 1, and rumor has it the team we are playing tonight has some serious hitters, and will hopefully lose one game this season so their heads don't get too big. I think that means we should be happy if we keep them under 40 runs.

What can I say? I like being happy.

I have now used all my new kitchen tools. Homemade corn tortillas have been pronounced delicious, my grain mill motor is a delight to use, and gluten-free pasta is now available with a bit of time and cranking. I've enlisted Filius to build a drying rack for me. Lehmans has one in their catalog, but one made of K'Nex should suit me just fine.

I've been reading a good bit lately, and think I will plop a list in the sidebar of my summer reading. They're not Great Books, but they are getting read. Now, if I can just figure out how to DISCUSS them with my young bibliophiles, all will be well. And if I can't ... all will still be well.

Now, as to that Green Thing. Here it is, in all its Green Splendor.

Baby Bogdom

As requested, here is a picture of Filia's Baby Bog jacket.

But wait ... there are some booties with it! And there's another Baby Bog jacket! Yes, the Baby Bog Bug struck. You're looking at Projects From The Stash as well. I worked mine pretty close ... the scraps on the right is ALL the leftover I had of that yarn type (Swish Superwash). I was wondering if I'd be in the sad position of ordering more yarn so I could finish a stash project.



Bohemian Wrapsody Socks are finished as well. I hunted through my sock stash to find two yarns that would go together reasonably well, and in reasonable quantities. I wound them each into two balls of equal weight (four ball), tucked them in my sock bag, and headed off somewhere with a boy looking like this...

and by the time we got home, I had a decent amount of sock done. Nothing has happened to it today, since I have cleaned the pantry. (which would be an even bigger gasp if I hadn't caught the missing 'r' in that last word.) Things have been lurking on those four shelves since we moved into this house, I think. But, the shelves are now tidy, and the bathroom looks neat.

Bathroom? Didn't I say I was cleaning the pantry? (there goes that r again.) I was. The pantry is scant inches from the necessary feature of the bathroom, and opposite the washer. Which is not a front loader, since there is roughly 18" between the front of the washer and the vanity. And next to the vanity? The basement door, opposite the dryer. In a room that is about 4x8. It's snug. I have delusions of making it more w/c accessible some day by changing the vanity to a pedestal sink.

I am also DISPOSING OF 2 boxes of medical supplies (to a health clinic rather than the landfill, yay!) and sending away four AFOs, 1 KAFO, and 1 TLSO to a medical mission. (And if you can read that last line without blinking, you probably know what SB, HKAFO, RGO, and ACMII stand for also, and don't think Private Eye when you think Ace Malone. ) That will free up some space for more dryer lint to collect in.

And to round out the hats I wear, this evening found me studying some directions on my computer, waving scissors around, and looking at the back (sides, and front) of Filia's head.

She's quite pleased with the results. Tomorrow, I'm going to let her trim my hair. And maybe then I'll find time to open a book.