Couldn't have planned that

Merry Christmas .. or happy holiday, or seasons greetings, travel well, or whatever might be appropriate where you are. Things here are an odd mix of quiet and busy, we had a quiet Christmas day, then the busy started, people to visit, wonderful food to eat, and traveling to do with more people to visit. We have just got back from a whirlwind visit to my Dad, where there was even more wonderful food to eat - Harpuka caught by his friend Bruno, and local strawberries. Oh the joys of a summer Christmas, as usual we spent a day at the Waimate Rodeo, it was warm and overcast and great fun as it always is. I can't decide if my favorite event is the junior calf throwing or the sheep riding (you have to be under 6 years of age to ride a sheep - and those sheep are fast). I love the way the horses in the calf riding know to back up and keep the rope taut while the cowboy/girl binds the calf, impressive teamwork going on there.

With all the 'not working' I have been knitting - a lot. Knitting while visiting, knitting while being visited, knitting while the cubs played with new games and toys, knitting in the car ... in short - knitting. Which means that I have finished one more sock, well finished apart from working the afterthought heel.


And made a significant inroad on its mate. These sock are being knit from Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball and I had expected to knit two fraternal socks, as happens with Noro, but these are coming out as a very well matched identical twins. A quick check on Ravelry shows that this is not uncommon - people who knit socks with this yarn seem to have matching pairs, I guess Schoppel-Wolle are clever enough to put two complete repeats in each ball and if you work it right then you will knit two that match. I'm not usually a fan of afterthought heels, but they are a sensible solution when knitting with yarn that has long colour changes. If I had knit a more conventional heel with a flat then I would have risked an unsightly (to my eyes) colour change across where the foot meets the leg.

Bear was very generous to me this year, I got what is known by pen buffs as a 'grail' pen. That is a pen that one learns about and wants but can't afford or find straight away. Like most hobbies people who are into pens have a wish list, and this kind of pen was on my list. His gift was a Parker 51, Vacumatic from 1946, in Cedar Blue. There is several exciting things about this pen, first it is Vacumatic filling mechanism and it has a 'split arrow clip', with the blue diamond, and the cap has a 'stacked coin band'. For all sorts of reasons this pen was only made in this configuration for a few years, before the filling mechanism and clip style was changed, so this is kind-a-rare and so kind-of-valuable - but not to valuable to use. Having said that around 20 million Parker 51's were made in various forms and sold ... so this is just one of many. I'm a little embarassed as my gifts to him are still in transit, so I wrapped up the reviews and order confirmation and picked him up a copy of Pencils from UBS to tide him over until the post is delivered. It is entirely my fault - I left ordering until it was too late.

So we are home, for now, the warm sunny weather has been replaced by rain, and overcast sky's and more worryingly the weather forcast if for torrential rain and river flooding across much of the country ... so I think we will bunker in and relax with another slice of our home made Christmas cake.

take care
hope there is some relax with fibre time in your week
na Stella

Newest sock

Today's post - the latest sock, after a day or so ploughing thru the stitch dictionary books I have I found one that would work for a sock .. and made a start. So far so good. I've also sent away all of my Christmas stuff ... yesterdays effort was two trips to the post office. The first at 8:30am was quick, the second at 1:30pm involved queues out the door and considerable waiting. Still it is all done, all the new Zealand relies and friends have been shipped to, and two pens have gone away to be restored, one to Greg Minuskin to have the nib worked on, and a second to Gerry Berg to have its internals restored so it will fill and hold ink. Speaking of ink - the inks arrived yesterday .. and both Bear and I enjoyed dipping and swishing the new colours across paper. I think we are both a little overwhelmed by having 7 new inks to select from, on top of the eleven we already had. That stuff is just like yarn stash, addictive in all its colour choice. So today's post is about the new sock, new ink and that is about all.


So after a wee bit of time looking thru all those stitch dictionaries I decided on this pattern. There were several things going for this one, it wasn't lace and as this is for Bears sock that was a consideration. It is regular in that the repeats are easy to map out once you get going, and it looks both interesting and simple. It is Rib and Braid from page 201 of BW Second Treasury.

On the sock I briefly toyed with working the rib over the entire instep, but struggled with how to extend the braid right around the leg after the heel. So ... I split the braid into two columns and have decided to run one panel up each side of the instep, after the heel I can start a second panel next to these ones. It should work, but one thing I have learned about design is what seems good as an idea sometimes isn't quite right in reality .. so I'm prepared to modify the ideas as the sock grows. I realise that once washed and blocked the yarn will fluff and the cable will look fuller .. but perhaps the singles yarn isn't a good cable or twisted stitches yarn?

And Ink, as part of our treat order, Bear and I ordered two of our favorite inks in glass bottles (Diamine Pumpkin and Saddle Brown). These are dearer and larger than the plastic that is usually available, but some how glass seems more luxurious and traditional than plastic. Neither of us had had a good look at the glass bottles before for Diamine inks, but loved the old fashioned details of the bottles when we saw them. I just adore the mock bakerlite plastic cap - all mottled green, with the sunray glass bottle.

I also added a Waterman Encre Rouge Red to our collection, and while the bottle is glass not plastic it seems more modern that the glass one used for Diamine ink.

Bear pointed out something he has learned along the way. These faceted bottles are traditional for inks so one can tip them over and make filling pens easier once the ink level drops.... how cool is that?


.... take care
hope the weather where you are is as you want it, that being snowing where and when it should for Christmas effect and picnic weather where it should be (here)
na Stella

When hobbies collide.

So I've been away from work for nearly a week, and have not much to show for it. Monday I went into work to help pack up the knitting machines. Work has many knitting machines, and most of staff have loaned one or more, I have loaned 3. We have limited space and more machines that we ever need so the idea was to tidy up, sort and prepare some for sale/donation. I thought I wanted at least one of mine back .. but after a day of matching beds to bits and checking all the bits were there, I realized I don't really like machine knitting. I like hand knitting .. so I was brave and helped and decided I wouldn't take one home. Tuesday was the 'end-of-school' picnic, and as I was on leave I went along and provided a picnic blanket and a swing tennis set and a large happy face ball. I knit on a sock, and some one asked what it was, Toby's teacher explained I knit socks, that he often wore 'home-made socks' and then said puzzled 'but home made socks doesn't sound right, those are two words that don't go together'. I didn't say anything but in my world those two words do go together. She also admired the other finished sock and expressed surprise that I had put in 'a heel and everything', mentioning that she thought they would be 'more tube-like'. A humble sock can inspire and surprise!

Wednesday I caught up on stuff around the house, hung out, folded washing, and ironed and then it was Thursday .... which went the same way with a bit of grocery shopping and today we woke to a dribbling cat, leaky tap kind of dribbling . .. so today has gone in a whirl of cat catching, cat boxing, and taking said cat to the vet. Turns out she is not well, but nothing specific yet, so she has been dosed with Antibiotics, Steroids, and Anti-nausea and is to return tomorrow to see if anything specific has manifested. That was the low point of the week, Yoyo really hates beign transported and fails to see it is for her own good. I dislike upsetting any person or animal, and the sound of her plaintive crying from inside the cat-box wasn't something I can easily ignore.

The highlight of my week was a book arriving and some fountain pen maintenance materials arriving with knitting toys to play with tucked inside, and even more exciting finding out that the six inks I had ordered were in the country and on their way (Noodlers Lexington Grey, Walnut, Air Corp Blue Black, Polar Blue, and replacements of Diamine Saddle Brown and Pumpkin). Some how there has been next to not much of my own knitting this week, I've finally finished yet again the spiral bound socks, and started new ones - and that is about it.

So arrivals, I've spent the week hovering over the postbox and back door hoping Bears Christmas present will arrive. It hasn't yet, it was a special request so I hope it does, but there was other mail. I had ordered a little packet of fine brass shim from a FPN member, David at Restorersart, and noticed on his profile he spun. As he put it Spinning (as in wool). I mentioned that I also spun and when he sent my brass shims he included a little packet of his stitch markers to try. These are really really cute ...and explains the blog post title, when hobbies collide, fountain pens and fibre stuff. And brass shim, you use it to floss between the tines of a fountain pen to clean it if the ink flow is a bit patchy or dry. Brass is apparently soft enough to remove crud but not damage the tines.
The other thing that arrived this week was Indie craft by Jo Waterhouse. I first saw this at knit night a few weeks ago and decided I needed my own copy - the cubs think its too bizarre, and won't look at it - but I like the yarn beards.

And the small amount of knitting this week? Well I finally cast off the second sock for the second time, that is three cast offs in total on two socks. I suspect they still don't match in length .. something odd going on with my estimation of lengths that I can't explain. I'm at the point I'm ignoring it, it might be so slight as to be imaginary - in which case nothing I do will fix it. I just have to weave the ends in .. and they are done.

Which meant a new sock, for Bear. This time in Zauberball, Ombre. So far I've knit a toe, quite blunt to fit bears paws .. and have some vague idea about a cable or similar pattern in twisted stitches running up each side ... I see a few nights with stitch dictionaries in my near future. That is always the fun part - planning.

Even though I've not been knitting much at all this week, smallest cub has. Not only has she been knitting she has been purling! All on her own! I'm trying not to scare her off with my excitement .. but I'm really pleased at what she has done. When I stitched up the blanket last weekend I played EZ workshop DVD in the background .. and after it small cub wanted to knit a hat just like on the DVD. We cast on together, after sorting yarn from the kids stash, and needles from her set ... and I showed her how to 2x2 rib. This is all her own work! Several rounds and the ribs all line up!

So .. I'll keep you all posted on Yo-yo, they didn't think it was dangerous but a leaky cat isn't something I'm keen to share my house with, small cubs are messy enough without the cat leaking.

take care - don't let the silly season get to you.
na Stella

Premature casting off

is what I did this week, cast off before I should, and only because I didn't think things thru, I've also dug out an unfinished project and made progress. Friday was my last day at work until the 3rd of February - yes 6 weeks off, one week more than the cubs. Of course being work, and as we are moving into a new office in an existing building that is about to be renovated ... I will be back in Monday to help pack up some of the equipment. I will be using most of my leave this summer because I've moved offices 5 times in 10 years, and every time it has been into a space that was renovated for us. I've learned that its best to stay away until the builders and co have stopped making loud noises and the power is on and the IT people have every thing connected. I think that knowing I was about to walk away from work for 6 weeks made me relaxed about my knitting .... which is good until mistakes happen. My good news is that Toby's latest 'lost' sweater came home, finally from camp - and it still fits! That is always a danger with cubs, it seems to only take them a matter of weeks to outgrow some things.


Thursday I knit Spiral Bound sock number two until the leg was as long as the leg on number one, then I worked the few extra rounds where the stitch count is adjusted to fit a 2x2 rib .... and worked the rib and cast off, and woven in all the ends. Only thing is that second sock ended up being a full 1 cm or more longer than the first sock. Turns out that I should have worked the leg of the second sock until it was 5 rounds shorter than the leg of the first sock ... as there are 5 more rounds before the rib starts. Doh! So I've frogged the top of the first sock, seems to make more sense to lengthen the short one than shorten the longer one.




And as it is summer I realize that is the best time to block large blankets. Last time I blocked it outside with tent pegs, and it worked well. To do that again I need to take advantage of the warm sunny weather .. which is now or in the next month or so. To do that I need to finish the blanket. First stage is to piece it together and stitch it together.




I used a more firmly twisted darker grey yarn to stitch it up.The stitch I used to join it is simple whip stitch, just over and over and over, thru both loops of the chain edges.

One done, the blanket sections just ease and fit into each other.Once the seams were done, I wove in all the ends. This yarn is a 6 ply thick yarn, and it made sense to weave them in after the seams were sewn. I split the 6 plies into 2's and sneaked the yarn tails into the garter bumps as neatly as I could.


The next stage is to pick up the loops of the slipped stitches around the edge and work an I-cord edge. I've got matching yarn in natural white to work the edge on this blanket. Last time I did that after it was blocked .... I'm not sure what I'll do this time, depends on the weather really.


And despite the fact that it is 20+ degrees, warm and sunny and we have all the windows open .. I notice the blanket has already been snaffled from the sofa I parked it on to await the edging. Its nice when the stuff I make is liked, really nice.

take care
make sure you have some yarn time, and I highly recommend finished long abandoned WIP's, its like an instant project, a few hours work and then its all done :D
na Stella

December ?

Its December .. the local shops are full of Christmas cheer, like most of the western world that means fake fir trees, fairy lights, and sparkly things that catch the light in the night time, which is seasonal for those with winter christmas's.E xcept in the shoppers that mill around are wearing sandels and have bare legs and short sleeves, and the sun sets latter and later - for it is summer here. I have one more week at work before my summer vacation begins, five days in which to pack up my desk and book case ready for the move to a new building 5km away, attend an all day professional development seminar, and attend our students graduation ceremony. Five days! I also have to get as much of the preparation ready for next years teaching as I can, I will be off work until 2 weeks before the students arrive so I know I will be flat tack once I start back. In that new office ... oh my - it dosn't bear thinking about does it. So I knit, and walk, I'm back on my feet, the swelling has gone, crutches parked by the door ready to return, and I'm mobile again.


There has not been a lot of knitting on any of my projects, the secret one grew by a repeat or two .... and the Spiral Bound sock is now part way thru the heel, I've worked the gusset increases and now I'm mid heel extension. The gold safety pin indicates progress since last I blogged. Once the heel flap is done ... it is only the leg to go and that is quick.


I added a book to my knit library during the week, Sweaters that talk back by Lisa Anne Auerbach (2008). I stumbled across a reference to this book on Ravelry, and between wanting to support some one working with knitting in a political way and liking her approach ... subversive knitting, I had to buy it. I'm not sure I'll ever knit something from the book exactly as charted .. and here in New Zealand the protest messages in her work are not so applicable, but I will be inspired, and I want to inspire my students.

With the last week at work in our current building looming I have been lugging home my library of books from the shelves behind my desk. As the architects planned the new spaces I measured my shelving, I have 4.7 m of fashion theory, design theory and pattern making books, including some of my knitting ones. There is probably double or triple that number at home. Work wants us to box up our office and label it and will move things for us, but I have moved 7 times in 11 years and each time something has been lost. This time I'm taking all my important stuff home. I warned Bear that for the next 2-3 months there will be a working library under the bed, its the only place I could think of to put them that was out of the way of foot traffic. These are mostly pattern making books, the construction and knitting ones are in a wheeled shopping trundler waiting for their turn to be brought home. The theory ones will come home last as I need those to plan lectures right up to the last days, so they need to be on the top of the pile. While I'm looking forward to the holiday's I can't help thinking the weeks just before and just after might drain me more than the holidays refresh me.

Oh well, such is life, the garden grows, I think I am pulling out more weeds than are growing, spinning is at my house this week, the sun shines the days are warm and life is good. I know life is good because while I was at home last week with my ankle up I took the time to enter in all the yarns that I had acquired that had not made it into my Ravelry stash list - that included my recent spinning. I added 21 new yarns and fibers to spin to my stash list .... slightly embarrassing really, to have so much, but better to have it listed where I can see it and be reminded of what I bought it all for.
Take care :D
na Stella

That wasn't in the plan for this week...

No, crutches were not in this weeks plan, but there they are. In all their ugliness (I think I might have to give them back with a some knitted sort of knitted graffiti cosy). I'm ok, not broken, just bruised, to recap, Friday I had a day off work because one my delightful cubs had brought home a combined tummy bug and head cold, Monday the tummy continued and Tuesday I stumbled and sprained my ankle. Of course I didn't notice immediately, I went to work, and after a walk for coffee and some lunchtime errand running around my ankle began to swell and hurt. By going home time I was sore, and so detoured via the Urgent Doctors to see if they could help. On a scale of 1-3 I apparently have a number 2 sprain, for which the current advised treatment is a ice 20 minutes on, 2 hours off, elevation, rest, firm compression bandage by day, none by night, 3 days with the foot elevated, then resume usual activity as able, massage after 72 hours. So far so good, but much less knitting than I would have expected .. when things hurt, well some how it distracts from the knitting. Oh and painkillers play havoc with my tummy .....which is an excellent reason not to become addicted to them.
but you are here for the knitting, and there is news .... good news, I am teaching at Handmade 2011, and registrations are open. I've had 3 proposals accepted, one as a workshop .. and we are in discussion over the others, one should be more of a lecture.


Last night I did work a little more on the second Spiral Bound sock. I'm mid way into the gusset, and so soon the magic of the heel will happen. I always like those little moments when a garment matures to a shape that looks like a garment.

Before I disabled myself I finished up plying what I had been spinning, now there is nothing on any of my wheels. Here I have the multi coloured yarn from the Scrappy swap, in all its glory. I Chain plied it to retain the colour shifts and whilst it is not a yarn I would have picked to buy .. it may have potential. There is 130g total, with a length of 198m, so DK-Aran weight? And I have no idea of the fibre content, I know I supplied a merino silk blend .. and some of the fibre was considerably coarser - but overall the yarn is light and softish. Next to it is a much nicer pink, Insilk Fingerwolle from Shoppel, sold by here by Vintage Purls. This is 70%Merino, 30% Silk blend sold as pencil roving to either knit as is on jumbo needles or spin. I spun 2 50g packets into 344m. I feel another small shawl/scarf might be the right use of this, it has that soft I want to snuggle my face into it feeling.

So I'm mending (my ankle not more knitted things), and no longer need the crutches, this weekend we have the smallest cubs ballet concert, all three shows so the weekend will be full.

take care,

Summer colds ...

are strange, when one has a cold there seems to be an internal drive to cuddle up, sip hot citrus and honey drinks, keep warm and snug. All that seems better to do when the weather is wintry, and the days dark and cold. In summer .. well being full of sniffles and a 'thick' head feeling is less straightforward to treat, cold orange juice (yes), but some how wandering around in bare feet and tee-shirts seems wrong, and yet if I add more layers them I am too warm. As you might have guessed I have a summer cold, its 23 degrees Celsius (73 degrees F), and warm and sunny and I have the serious head thickening sniffles. I've been sleeping a lot and sitting without doing much - odd for me, there has been a little knitting, but mostly spinning - easy things that don't require much input from me, things I can do on autopilot. I find my self sitting with my knitting on my lap, with no progress and not even following what is on tv .... still the sun is shining, and its warm and the days are longer and sunnier so I'm not complaining.

I've spiraled my way up the first sock (Spiral Bound by Vintage Purls). The spiral finished very neatly into the 2x2 ribbing.


So with the first sock done I cast on 6 stitches, increased madly in pattern, and worked the toe on the second sock. These are designed as mirror images, so one spirals clockwise and the other anti-clockwise. It is easy knitting, just round and round with a little kfb here and a k2tog there.

I'm not sure if it is the head cold so a need to do simple things, or that most of the projects on my needles are worked from charts .. but I found spinning called me more than knitting this week. So I've been treadling my way thru the scrappy swap fibre, I thought if I had it all spun before the end of today, then I could ply it at spin night tomorrow. But feeling like I do I'm not sure that I'm going to make it to spin night, at home I can blow my nose and ditch tissues into a waste paper basket beside the chair and keep spinning. Out visiting that might not be appreciated, and I'm not keen on sharing this feeling with my spin friends. As for the spinning, it could still go either way, beautiful ugly or just plain ugly ....

take care
na Stella

The shortest path from Virginia USA to Dunedin New Zealand is

apparently via Vientaine Lao PDR!

A few months ago I blogged that I had found a Stirling silver ball point pen amongst my Dads work-tools, and rescued it. Then Bear offered to buy me a matching Parker 75 fountain pen and sourced one on line. It duly arrived and was blogged but had a medium nib rather than the fine it was advertised as having. No problem the seller had several for sale and they were all good, and obviously had picked up the wrong one and so sent off a slightly different one. In all other respects it was as advertised, so rather than return it and wait for another I paid a little more and had a xtra fine nib sent at a very good price. That was over 4 weeks ago .. and I had begun to wonder if my parcel had gone missing. Turns out it has traveled to New Zealand from Virginia via Lao! As the seller said when I told him 'Crazy!', so next time your mail takes longer than it should .. perhaps it has taken the scenic route?

There has been some knitting this week, a wee bit on the super secret project of which I can not blog, I worked my first ever Nupps. I totally agree with all that I have read about these things, you really do have to work the nupp stitches very very loosely ... very very very loosely. So far I've only managed Nupps with 5 loops, I will attempt at some point ones with 7 or 9 ... but not yet. Five is fine for now.

My spiral bound sock grows, these are a little snug on me ... I suspect they will become elder cubs as he has leaner feet. Shush ... don't tell and I can make them Christmas stocking presents.

Monday night I spun about half of the scrappy swap fibre ... I'm not sure if this will be as ugly beautiful as M's or just plain ugly. I am trying to spin it from deep blue at one end, thru purple, reds, into orange, and rust then yellow, to green and finally pink. The idea is a stripy blanket or hat or scarf .. but only time will tell if it is a wild experiment with a weird outcome or a good thing to do.

And it is 'that time of the year again' - where I can point you at the end of year show work of the schools students. I'm just going to leave you to look if you want .... I mostly teach the Year threes, the graduates .. and as usual they are all individuals. Which is exactly what one wants in a design graduate ... unique outcomes.
Besides as an 'insider' to the process, I do tend to loose a little focus, remembering how far the student has come, or the risks they took, or all the little out of their hands dramas that may have shaped their collection. Those can range from the wrong type or colour or amount of fabric being shipped, to dyepot disasters, to commercial printers letting students down, to models arriving for fittings and then departing before the show and the replacements not being a similar size or look. As usual - its a team effort, the students and all the staff, and every one almost without exception did amazingly - don't you think?

take care ...
and don't trust the international postal service for directions :D
na Stella

Not much kniting going on around here but

I am spinning and getting ready for more spinning. I managed a bare 2 rounds of the Shetland blanket since the last post, and possbily a few rounds of the sock d... and the rest of the time went on spinning. I tried to knit more, two nights I took the blanket out and tried to work it ... but those nights I wasn't up to lace knitting. The pattern didn't seem to line up, things didn't seem to align with the yarn overs of the previous round. All of that left me with a sense that perhaps I wasn't ready to chart my own lace edges and I should have just left it be. Then last night I took the blanket up and again tried 'one last time' to work the third pattern round of the chart ... and success! That time it worked just fine while I watched Top Gear but when Ultimate Force started, a series Bear likes and I don't mind, - it was a particularly brutal episode that forced me to retreat to something more mindless to do with my hands. I told you knitting was my excuse to watch trash tv - and some of you didn't believe me, but it is true.


So the blanket with two more rounds than the last time you saw it looks like this, pretty much the same as before but with more holes - see


So I had to find something to do with my hands that involved less thinking, less focus - and preparing fibre seemed a good way to go. I had 116g of fibre from a 'scrappy swap', I was invited to join but wasn't quite sure what one was. I'm still not sure, but it was fun, one sends away 100g or so of fibre, and in return one gets back 100g made up from a wee bit of all the sent in fibre. So I had 116g of odds and ends of all sorts of fibre. Mmmmmm, Morag spun hers and plied it with her scrappy swap fibre from the first swap and ended up with yarn that was beautiful-ugly. Because the fibre was all so different I thought it best to diz it to an even thickness before spinning. I'm glad I did - now I have a basket full of smooth pencil roving all ready to spin.

And then there was Monday nights spinning, Monday night is Spin night in town, a group of us take turns to host spinning and we spin, and chat, and swap fibre and fibre stories and catch up on gossip. Monday I plied my Targhee from a Verb For Keeping Warm. It looked good when I plied it, but when I set it it puffed up and is now probably one of the most elastic yarns I've ever spun. Targhee is not a fibre type commonly available locally but it is one I will look out for.

You can tell that I'm still a beginner by the thick and thin plies in the photos .. but oddly the yarn girth (wpi) seems fairly consistent. Work is quietly frantic, as we hurdle towards the end of year show .. lots to do and lots that can't be done until the day/night of the show. Fingers crossed, break a leg and all that?

Take care, Na Stella

Sunday, windy sunday

After a week of warm and sunny days which all ended in rain, spring storms, today we awoke to a day with grey edges. Dark grey, so far there has not been any rain, but there is blustery wind, the kind that dries washing on the line in half an hour, and also tangles it up so it is wound around and around the line and takes more than half an hour to untangle it. There has only one project knit on this week, the Spiral Bound sock ... somehow that was all I wanted to knit on. I tried to knit something with a chart one night ....... but I was too distracted by what was on tv and ended up frogging a round or two and reverting to simpler
knitting. And I'm waiting to hear if I'm teaching knit things.

Given this sock has been my main knit project it has grown quite quickly, from a bare toe to well past the heel. Off the foot this sock seems to have a twisty life of its own, the heel and sections between the spirals collapse and hide away - giving the sock a rather odd shape.

On the foot the sock looks much much cleaner, there are four spiral 'mock-cables' that rotate around the sock ....

...with one snaking up the middle of the heel before coordinating with the others and taking its turn as part of the quad of spirals winding up the leg. Of course when something works out as well as this visually ... it seems almost wrong to stop knitting it. I am not sure if these socks are for me, or Bear or (yulp) eldest cub. He now has feet only one size smaller than me (at eleven!), and has begun raiding my sock drawer for sports socks when he runs out. He has plenty of socks, but being a pre-teen they don't always make the trip from the worn-pile in the corner of his bedroom to the laundry. And of course if they don't get to the laundry .. they almost never come back washed, dry, and matched.

Friday I had a email letting me know that the the group deciding on who would be selected to teach at HandMade 2011 would be making their decision soon. I put in a proposal, two actually .. and had almost forgotten with all the end of year things to sort at work. The email said they will let me know Friday the 15th of November ... which is this week! In the meanwhile - even if I'm not teaching, there will be lots of wonderful things on offer, so bookmark it in your diary 4-6 June 2011- Wellington (New Zealand).

take care - I have to go and spend time untangling more dry washing on the line and bring it in, and make the chilli con carne for dinner tonight - Yum (the red beans are in the slow cooker !).
na Stella

Midweek post!

Yes, a midweek post, which means that life seems to be in control enough to allow a breather midweek! I can't tell you how relaxed that makes me feel, today its a quick post, I've made progress on the Spiral bound sock, and I'm charting and knitting my first lace design .. in a small way.Yes laugh if you will, this is the knit-blogger who once said that she didn't understand lace, and if she wanted holes in her knitting ... well that actually she didn't want holes in her knitting. And here I am now playing with lace and charting it to extend to the edges ...... how things come back to haunt one.

So the sock, Spiral bound, grows, slowly. After the weekend I had a day in Auckland, leaving in the morning and returning late that night .. and while there was reading about textiles, and I did take my knitting with me. My visit was to look at a students work that was a masters on knitting in the round (Whole garment technology), with all that I didn't actually knit, the day flew past and there was lots of talking and note making, and walking, and meeting and greeting, and shuttles here and there, and those airplane seats are so narrow ... well you know. So here are the socks, really only a days knitting, Tuesday, and nearly at the point of working the heel. I know from the photos that the spiral twists up the middle of the heel in an interesting way .. so I'm looking forward to working that.

Then there is my foray into lace modification, and charting. Oh I'm a long time chart user, loving the way that charts allow a visual representation of the pattern. I've made my own colour work charts, and re-charted lace with its repeats in so I could understand how it fits. This time I'm charting a lace pattern and extending out the pattern at the sides to fit into the increases at the corners of my blanket. I feel so pleased with myself that I understood the principles of yarn overs adding stitches and being paired with k2 and ssk to balance out the lace. I know that is all very obvious, but to me it seems a real step in my understanding to be able to chart it all and be fairly confident it will work - (of course it could all go pear shaped and I don't have a life line in yet). I'm two rows in and so far so good, the holes line up and the stitches fall as I expected them to in the corners.

So there is still work, but the marking has mostly moved from the to do to the done pile. I so enjoyed using Diamine Pumpkin ink to record my comments in their workbooks (do more of this, extend that into some of this, what do you think of what you have done ....and where is the rest of the work?). Now I'm wondering what of the colours I have I can use to write my final comments for my graduating students - they go in with their degrees - last notes from all of us which is a nice tradition. The show is in a few weeks (if you are local ring the school if you want tickets - should be fun and will be the first time in a new venue), then we have graduation on the 10th of December (Jenni as a perpetual adult student myself I'll be cheering you on - you have to be there - its a great day, bring your knitting), them I'm on leave ... in a little over a month.

Which leaves me wondering where did the year go?
Take care
na Stella

Mending ...

Mending, one of those chores that I tend to ignore and put aside. I'd much rather knit new yarn into new things, or frog a project and knit it into something new and exciting than mend. That said usually there isn't much around to mend, most of our clothes tend to be buttonless nowadays, tee shirts and stretch tops, so replacing buttons is not a weekly event, yearly perhaps but not weekly. The same with holes or worn bits, clothes are just cheaper and more plentiful than in days gone by .. for lots of reasons, economics of production and scale and trade, and expectations and standards of living, not to mention use of hard wearing synthetics to add durability to things. There are a few times when I will mend things, and more and more the things I take time to mend are the things that I've taken time to make. This week I sat myself down and mended smallest cubs sock, the one with the hole in the toe, and I checked the blanket was all done by piecing it all together (it would be easy to miss a square, cast off prematurely and delude my self), and I started three new projects (two with charts galore). Yes it is official - I have no self control when it comes to keeping the pile of knitting projects beside my chair in check.



So mending, a few weeks ago I posted about the hole in smallest cubs sock. One thing I have realized about kids is that if something is uncomfortable they won't wear it - but they will sit playing on a cold hard floor in the most uncomfortable position to play ... go figure. I just knew that if I darned this sock there was a risk that the slight bump of the darn would mean the sock was rejected. Oh in the old days, when socks were mended as a matter of course I doubt a child or adult would have dared mention the discomfort of a darn least they be told how ungrateful they were and left with holes or had to mend their own. But I live in a modern world so my kids, well when I said they were works in progress that includes the part where they say what they think instead of stopping to consider the consequences. I could just imagine my youngest telling me 'it feels strange'. So I decided to reknit a new toe, first I snipped a stitch just above the hole.
Then I raveled stitch by stitch one row of stitching, you can see the hole more clearly here. It was a good size - large enough for a toe to poke out. Because this was a worn sock, one that had been washed a few times - the stitches behaved beautifully, and held around waiting for me to pick them up.


Once I had separated the end of the sock with the hole from the rest of the sock I picked up all the stitches onto my standard sock needle (2.25mm). One advantage of mending ones own knitting is having a record of needle size and stitch counts to work with.


Then I headed off to the stash of left over sock yarn and sorted out one that would work with the pink.


Blue it was, I started to knit, decreasing 4 stitches as per usual every second round until I had the same number of stitches I had cast on for the sock.


Then I grafted it closed from the outside, over a darning mushroom. Handy things those darning mushrooms even when one is not darning.

On the inside the new section is a little less fuzzy than the original section of the sock. I wove in all the ends, the one from unraveling the sock, the one from starting to knit with the blue, and the tail from the grafting the toe closed.

And all done, possibly a bit weird to have one blue toe on a pair of socks - but a successful mend. Time taken - less than one hour all up including a cup of tea and stopping to hunt for a suitable yarn to use. I briefly thought of replacing the second toe 'just-in-case' but a quick examination showed no sign of a hole forming. It probably was as I said, unkempt toe nails that caused the wear and tear.

So the blanket is all there, I've checked as did Yo-yo the cat. I half expected to have her curl up and sleep on the blanket .. but no the end of the hallway was in direct sunlight so she stretched out and sleep there. My next step on this project is to locate a yarn to seam it with - odds are there is something in stash, when that is done I have a wheel of white ready to use as an icord edging - then it will be ready to block.

Knitters Study Group was Saturday(yesterday). We have two sessions on Estonian knitting, the idea is a small sampler type project ... I've started an alpaca scarf. This is loosely based on one in Nancy Bush's Lily of the Valley Scarf in Lace of Estonia, but I'm planning to work the body of the scarf in the Greta Garbo Hearts Number 3. My scarf will be wider to allow 3 repeats of the hearts across the width of the scarf .. and so far so good. I've worked the edging -and thought I'd work the other edging then work the two ends of the scarf at once ready to graft together in the middle.

And then there was knit night, where I needed a project with no chart, one that could handle conversation, distractions and stop start knitting. I was tempted by Heart of Glass by Vintage Purls, and I have the pattern but seems I used the yarn in the sock kit as the contrast in my Nightingale. Nothing else in stash seemed right for Heart of Glass ... so I started Spiral Bound instead. Its fun .. a nice straightforward knit at least for now - that might all change as I get to the heel which like all her heels is nicely planed to fit with the stitch pattern.

There is a third new project on the needles .. but that one is a secret project .... one I can't blog, yet .... but it has a chart and colour and is soft and squishy.

So with any luck this week will be clearer, with less time allocated to meetings and marking - except I have only 4 weeks of work left this year so my time will be full of meetings and marking. But it is spring, it is warmer and the evenings are lighter so there seems more time to do things in. Take care .... hope your knitting basket is full of fun stuff

Stella