Some things are easy to explain ... others not so much

And today's post has two easy to explain projects, and one of the not so easy to explain projects. First up, the frog pond socks,

These grow, and in truth once one is working the foot of a top down sock progress is much much speedier. In this case the lace pattern is worked only on the top of the foot, so the sole stitches fly past in a blur of plain knitting. I suspect there is only an evening of knitting left in these, so my self I posed deadline to finish these before I finish my other sock project seems to have worked.

The other project is working up nicely, You turn by Vintage Purls, I've done with the heel and the gusset decreases. And I must say I'm kind of in love with the Sunray of decreases that form the heel cup. I've always liked Sunray darts and never even considered using or finding them in a sock heel ... But there you go. Note yarn is much more orange than it appears, but it was a dull day, and my camera seems to have taken the dullness to heart.

Now it is time to explain the project that is harder to explain, a butterfly. A few weeks ago one of our final year students was exploring beading for her final collection. She had beaded dresses last semester but the beads were tiny, and spaced wide apart within deep pleating in satin and organza. The end result was pretty close up but lost at any reasonable distance, this time around we all encouraged her to use larger more dramatic beads, and I was asked if I would share my tambour tools. I was happy to but felt I needed a wee practice, so spend a few hours that weekend practicing, before taking a table hoop, student hook and showing her the basics. That wee practice sparked a desire to become more proficient, and I again dug out my books and looked around online. Long story short I realized that doodling away with a tambour hook and a variety of threads wasn't the kind of deliberate practice that would I prove my work - in short I needed a project that provided focus. Butterfly's are a traditional embroidery motif, allowing for a range of colours and stitches ... So a butterfly was chosen and started. This is the work from the back, the side that faces me as I work.

And from the front, there are hot pink sequins, fold bugle beads and gold beads, and shiny silver lined blue beads. The work started tamely enough with dark grey chai. Stitched outlines ... then quickly descended into bling, mor bling, and shiney glossy bling. I can't explain that at all, if you have followed this blog for any time you will recognize my colour palette runs to muted, and dull and matt.
I am at a loss to know how this happened, but is has, and it keeps happening, growing and glistening. Not only that but I feel a deep urge to invest in more sequins ... They are such fun to add to embroidery and I feel in ought be mastering the tambour hook. Once my butterfly is done, I might even be planning a frog, worked with a range of pearlescent and shiny green, olive, grey and other frog coloured sequins and beads ....I suspect i should be asking for help, an intervention, or preventative detention ... . But I don't care, I'm enjoying it and loving the bling, even if I don't know why or where it will end.
Take care - and what's your craft aside you can't explain.
Na Stella

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Some socks fly ... Some drag

And I'm not sure why. Recently I have been plodding along with some socks, knit for me, knit in one of my favorite colours (sage like green), my favorite yarn (indie dyed vintage Purls sock), and a pattern themed to appeal ( ode to the frog pond). The sock knits well, the pattern makes sense, is a lace repeat over 12 rounds, where the increases and decreases form a line that can be easily seen, reading and predicting what one does next is fairly straightforward. Still since casting on these socks when I reach for something to knit I have reached over this and dug out other projects, even ones that have sat since 2011 and 2012. I started these socks in January 2013 ... And have only just finished one of the pair and cast on the second.

By contrast two days ago I cast on a new sock project, and already I am quarter done. This one is also my favorite sock yarn, but not in a colour I like to wear (- soft peachy orange), not knit for me (which is always less exciting), and in a simillar pattern, except toe up. I'd like to thin the speedy progress is due to the trill of the new - but there is something else at play here. Something I am trying to articulate and understand. Again this sock is a twelve round repeat and its easy to read the pattern in the knitting. The same needles, and yet my enthusiasm is much much stronger.

The other wock is Youturn, by Vintage Purls, part of a most recent sock yarn club kit. This is the progress in three short evenings, and for this sock I am working old school, using a magnetic chart keeper, as the pattern is paper not digital. I know I could request a digital version from the designer ... But the paper is cool. The frog pond sock is being worked digitally ..something I usually do, using KnitCompanion, I'd have to say that it's as easy and straightworward as paper and chart hold. You turn was designed to be knit in the bright pink yarn provided in the kit, but i couldn't help wonder what it would look like in soft orange.
One is knit cuff done, one toe up, but I'm not sure that has influenced me on the knitting, Ode to frog pond has a fairly traditional flap and gusset heel, whist you turn has a rather neat heel cup that looks like it is formed by decreases that converge. That maybe it, I am looking forward to working the heel.
I'm going to keep thinking on this, and my challenge is to finish Ode to frog pond before I finish You turn. Maybe you can help ... What makes some projects a joy to knit and fly of the needles, while others that seem outwardly the same lag and drag?
Na stella

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Unscheduled holiday

Appears that I've had a blogging holiday, completely I scheduled, and lovely. No blog in two weeks, not really sure why - I've been on leave from work with both cubs underfoot. Although the elder cub was officially measured by our family doctor at 179cm tall, and still growing. That's just under six feet for the non-metric amongst you. I'm only 172 on a good day ... So he towers above me and yet oddly can still be under foot. We have had play dates, and school shopping, uniform shopping as elder cub is off to high school this year, official uniform and timetabled days, a variety of subjects and new teachers for us both to get to know. He starts tomorrow, younger cub In a week. Bear decided we needed a proper holiday so this past weekend we headed out for two days in the tourist mecca of Otago, Queenstown. Fantastic sunny days and warm nights, and fabulous meals. Even some knitting and souvenir yarn!

New thing

This is the newest thing on the needles, a purple strip. There is no pattern, just a case of guess, cast on, knit some, rip some, knit some, rip some ...again and again until it I liked it. This is a skein of 200 grams merino, alpaca, angora from the Milton mill factory shop. There is a need for purple, and long ....I decided the edges needed to be moss stitch to boarder a narrow lace,with a matching grand at the end. The lace is direct from Barbara Walker, horseshoe lace, page 209, the treasury of knitting patterns (volume 1).

Here is the first trial, I had gone shopping for purple yarn, in Aran weight, and found nothing I liked in a natural fibre, only acrylic. Buying yarn is not something that should be done in a hurry, as i settled on two balls of this, I tried to convince myself that this was purple, even to the point of asking people to confirm it was purple. Well blue, they would say, but it is a purple kind of blue isn't it i would ask. Ok they would say hesitantly - in that I will agree with the crazy knitter to keep the peace voice my family have.
I only had 100 grams of this, and the replacement yarn comes in 200grams, so my other worry about having enough to do want I plan has faded.

Before we headed away I had made some progress on the first sleeve of my cardigan, i am up to the ribbing at the cuff! I would have loved to knit this while away but travel knitting from a cone of yarn is not as simple as travel knitting from a center pull ball.

The other new project is the frog pond socks, which grow. But as the pattern is totally charted, and I am working the chart on my ipad (using knitcompanion) this was eliminated as travel knitting. I love my ipad, and I love how easy charts Are to follow in knit companion, but knitting in the sun from a reflective screen isn't ideal. There is a lot of squinting to 'see' the frogs in the lace, but the flare of their flipperey feet and the bend of long froggy legs are very clearly hinted at.
I also managed to sign up for another season of vintage purls sock yarn club ... A wee treat to look forward to.
Take care, stella

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New year - new socks

You will be pleased to know tht Frances has claimed her socks, and for the second post in a row the main subject will again be socks. This year seems to be off to a slow start knit wise, I've been plugging along on some previously abandoned WIPs, a 100th anniversary EX shawl that I started ages ago to fill a gap on the needles, I'm ignoring the sanquhar mitts that I startd in February of 2012, and my latest cardigan has half a sleeve ... and languishes in the knit basket beside my chair. That all changed last night when peeking at my ravelry 'friends' recent activity I came across a pair of socks Ode to frogs and the frog pond by Adrienne Fong. Well the idea of knitting socks within frogs on them was just too tempting. I dug around for greenish frog coloured yarn, found some, bought the pattern, wound the skein into a neat center pull ball on my nostephinne, and cast on. This past week has also had spinning, and drawing distractions ... which I will explain.

Here we are, Top down, not my usual toe up, and I've not even thought about reverse engineering the pattern. The green is more grey blue, but I know intellectually that frogs come in many shades, not just bright frog green so this will do. Knit on some new favorite needles, knit pro/knit picks carbon fiber circulars ... Nice.

This was what I was knitting before I was distracted, I had resumed knitting on my Red Berry Pi, a circular shawl based in the pi principles developed for knitting by Elizabeth Zimmerman. This pattern is by Mwaa Knit, and is free, released to celebrate 100 years of EZ, way back in 2010. I was late to the celebrations as I only cast on in 2012. Maybe this will be my 100 year shawl? When I picked this up after Christmas after a several month break from knitting it I had no idea where in the repeats I was ... So frogged back to the previous increase ring. Turns out I was somewhere in the midst of working the 288 stitch ring. I've now completed that ring and have just startd on the 576 stitch ring. That is slow going instead of one or two four round repeats a night I manage two rounds .... I'm easily distracted but realize that if I abandon this again I will forget just where I am again.

There has been some spinning, I'm now 3/4 of the way through my current sock yarn project. Three bobbins done, one to go , then ply and finish and store away for the next Handspun sock project.

With all that going on my latest cardigan languishes, contiguous tempest, needing only half a sleeve and another full sleeve. The weather has been so warm and summery that knitting a merino possum silk cardigan seems the last thing I should do.

I'm still on leave, another week or so to go, and while I 'should' be doing lots of chores around the house I have spent a lot of time relaxing and doing creative things like Bookbinding. I tell myself that lots of bookbinding practice is required to prepare to teach at Unwind, and drawing. That I tell myself is because I am booked into a three day workshop on printmaking at the art school next month. I'd love to feel more confident in visually communicating my thoughts and ideas without words, heck - I'd love to be more confident with words. I've also put my hand up to up-skill on visual note taking, as part of a my 'professional development' for 2013. Doing that means spending a lot more time recording the world and ideas visually rather than verbally ... A scary thought as I usually reassure my students that if I can work in design with drawings that look like maimed stick figures they don't have to be scared of showing me their drawings.
To psych myself up for printmaking and for undertaking a drawing course I went hunting for easy ways to Improve my drawing and my drawing confidence. I hunted out library books and looked at loads of how to draw videos online. Then I came across WetCanvas, a forum not unlike ravelry but for artists, where there is a virtual classroom. I've lurked, and read and read and signed up to work my way through drawing 101, a serries of 30+ online self paces classes that aim to improve drawing from real life. I'm learning new terms like RL, short for real life, and I'm having fun.

I'm up to class five, drawing spheres, and I'm spending a huge amount of time lost in sketching and drawing instead of gardening or knitting. This is fun, I'm not perfect, and luckily I can see most of the mistakes I've made once I've finished and walked away. I hope to develope the skill of seeing mistakes and errors whilst I'm working ... That would be nice. I've set up a slopped drawing board, and gathered together a range of pencils, erasers, blue tack, and I'm drawing. Not sketching but really drawing, taking time to polish, refine and render the things I'm drawing. Here are things I've found around my house. None of these are perfect but they are improving, and i am drawing freehand. I'm aware that I find simple shapes less of a challenge, people, faces, hands and complex things like that scare me silly, probably always will but who knows perhaps this course will combat my fear of drawing complex things like people?

Each of the classes covers a principle, skill, or technique used in drawing, and asks the student to draw things from their environment to develop proficiency with that skill or technique or principle. Then several images are supplied, as either photos or drawings and the student is asked to draw them for themselves. Many many students have gone before me, each posting work for critique by rather considerate and encouraging, insightful volunteer tutors. After looking at the work of those who have gone before, reading comments and observing I am able to take my time and prepare my own interpretation of the excercise photos. For this class on spheres, one of the examples is a solitary eye 'borrowed' from a photo by Man Ray titled 'tears'. The process isn't quick, a drawing takes hours (as does knitting), and for me involves multiple sketches to develope the proportions before transferring my best lines to a new sheet of paper and working on a final drawing. And the critiques are honest, so if the proportions are odd, or the lines confused - the comments will say that. And it's very much hand held, someone guides you through seeing what needs to be drawn and how to do that. The course is a great confidence builder .... Knowing that if I slowdown and take my time I can achieve something like this is an amazing feeling of achievement. If you a keen, there is a process to follow, after joining wetcanvas you introduce yourself and post an image of a recent drawing you have done of something challenging, until you have done this the classes are closed to you. That is scary, posting a 'before' photo, before doing any classes to improve ... But so worthwhile.
So take care, please excuse the drawing content on my knit blog, and forgive me for being distracted, I'm sure it will pass and knitting will be back in pole position very soon.
Na stella

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Would the new owner of these socks please

let me know where to send them. Frances I'm looking directly at you, and the rest of this post is an open letter to you. I know they are not bubble socks, I really really wanted to supply you with a pair of your very own effervescent bubble filled socks, but this yarn just didn't want to be bubbles, it wanted to be something else and the yarn fought me all the way up half a foot. For a while there you fewer going to get boulder socks, not bubble socks, Eventually I gave in, and let the yarn speak have its way.

Of course I blame the yarn, it's handspun, so has a mind of its own. I know that clever spinners like you are totally the boss of the yarn you make, but I'm not quite there yet. As you will note, the socks are fraternal twins, and I simply can't keep them. Put bluntly they don't fit me, and require someone with delicate small and sensible feet like you. The fiber was a beatiful hand dyed 100grams of sock pencil roving, in grey green, grey, and a touch of mauve. I spun it fine, not as fine as you would have I'm sure but i'm me not you, then I plied and plied again to produce a four ply cabled yarn. I am rather pleased with how the colours sometimes lined up given the spin, ply and re-ply nature of making this sort of yarn.

The fibre was of course supplied by Morag of Vintage Purls, and should you fail to arrange shipment of your new socks ... I will have no recourse but to speak to Morag and see if I can have these secreted into the next shipment of contraband supplies that heads your way from casa Vintage Purl.
These socks are part of a larger master plan hatched by local Dunedin knitters to give you no reason or excuse to not move to Dunedin, with these you can't possibly get cold feet. I've even reinforced not only the heel flap but the heel cup with slipped stitches, all the better to cushion your feet and withstand wear and tear while you work at the lathe and bench.

I've left Yoyo guarding the socks, so they are safe, for now. Please bear in mind that Yoyo is old, elderly almost for a cat, she has been around for over over 15 years, and it would be mean to leave her on guard for too much longer wouldn't it? Spinning is at my house on Monday, and I'm not sure Yoyo is up to defending these socks from local spinners, some of whom have small, perfectly formed and functional feet like yours. However if you supply your postal address, I'm sure I can bag these up and have them sent away before the spinners arrive, thus saving wee Yoyo the duty of care Monday night.
And no, I'm not passive aggressive, why do you ask?
Na Stella

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Surprises,

I've been distracted away from blogging of late, the garden grows green and at a time when we are here to do things in it, deadhead roses, raise seeds, tidy away last years dry growth. There has also been all sorts of end of year holiday things to do, visit my dad, deposit the elder cub with one of his best friends for a camping holiday (without us), bake Christmas treats (fruit mince tarts, fruit cake) ... and all sorts of salads, which are meant to be easy but often involve lots of prep and at times precooking and cooling. Then being away which involves lots of packing and unpacking.

Still there has been knitting, and some spinning, we headed out to Waimate Boxing Day, and did our annual rodeo attendance the day after. Lots of fun. My away-knitting was the Handspun sock. I decided to undo what I had knit, the gauge wasn't right for a redux of bubbles so I did a quick cruise online and founds simple eyelet pattern that looked easy and that would suit the Handspun. I'm knitting these on 2.75mm needles, not my usual sock needle of 2.25mm, and in this yarn I like the result. I also like the speed at which these are knitting up. I started on the 26th December, and mid way through the 27th I was already knitting the heel. Because I was working without a pattern I worked the heel from memory, turns out my memory isn't so good at things like toe up gusset and flap heels, so I frogged and reworked the heel. The second time wasn't a success either but in working it I did resolve the issues ... And the third heel worked out just dandy. That was the surprise, that I knew enough that i could work a heel without blindly following instructions!

By the time I reworked the heel the third time I had a really clear understanding of the structure and relationship between the sections, the heel cup, the gusset, the heel flap, and the sock circumference. That meant I felt confident to add in a slipped stitched heel cup. You might just be able to see it in the close up photo. It's not long, but just wraps the slip stitch around the turn of the heel by a centimeter or so. I made good but cryptic notes and now I'm well past the heel of sock number two. These are slightly smaller than my usual sock, littlest cub is my fit model, she has the 'right sized feet' to match the person these are for.

Because I have been finding progress so fast one these socks, and that in turn drives me to knit them even more the contiguous tempest inspired cardigan seems to be in a lull. I'm around the elbow of sleeve number one. This also was frogged. When the sleeve was about the length it is now I tried it on and discovered the sleeve was firm. After a wee time spent pouting I frogged back to where the deceases started and worked the sleeve again. This time I am decreasing every seventh round, not every forth. Small change but enough to produce a looser fit.

And lastly I've been a investing in even more colored pencils, this was a set I discovered at CultPens, and had to investigate hands on. The Kooh-I-Nor polycolor art set, 24 leads, the inner bit of a pencil, together with three Kooh-I-Nor lead holders, and assorted other bits. Lead holders are sort of like a jumbo mechanical pencil, except instead of the pencil lead being 0.5mm in a lead holder the pencil lead is 2mm, 3.8mm, or even 5.6mm. Instead of sharpening the pencil and so loosing pencil length, the lead itself is sharpened and the leadholder stays a constant length. Some of us like the way a leadholder is weighty compared to a wood-cased pencil, and how it stays a constant weight and length right down to the last centimeter of lead. I've read reviews that some people find switching out the leads 'tiresome', but since my current aim is to master blending within a tonal range of three to five shades, I expect that even if I have to invest in two more 3.8mm lead holders ( my current collection are all 2mm lead holders), I won't find switching too troublesome. There are only 24 colors available in the 3.8mm leads, although the wood cased range from Kooh-I-nor has 72 colors, but as these are super blendable on good art paper - I shouldn't feel to limited, and in theory I should become expert at colour blending. If not lots of people mix and match between leadholder and woodcased, even between brands and types. Best news is refills are really affordable when compared to artist-grade-blending pencils, and come in packs of six, so I can top up the set as I need to. I like these a lot, so much so I plan to invest in a simillar set for each cub, the Kooh-I-Nor woodless color pencil set in 24, cult pens don't stock these, but DickBlick does, for a super reasonable $13 or so. Woodless means the pencils are solid lead, but in the thickness of a wood cased pencil, and the reviews both at DickBlick and elsewhere online are that the 24 set is fantastic quality, and a brilliant price, and because they are solid usable lead not wood, each pencil lasts for yonks even with heavy use.

When I was in high school, back in the 1980's, we had school certificate (SC) and universally entrance (UE) exams, now replaced in New zealand by NCEA achievement records. Anyway, back when I was preparing my art portfolio I remember one of the panels was a serries in study of hands knitting, just the fingers, and clearly defined stitches with twists plied yarn making up the loops, drawings, acrylics and maybe a print or two. I do recall that my proportion was all wrong, but that I loved the detail of drawing the knitted structure, I have no idea what happened to my portfolio, and little memory of what else was on it, funny what one remembers, and how little things connect, from then to now.

I don't 'do' New Years resolutions, but I do sort out things I'd like to see happen, next year I want to knit, of course, and spin, but also draw more and improve at drawing, and I have a plan to work towards that should help. We both want the garden to start looking like something people actually care a out and take care of in a timely and knowing manner. But my most exciting plan for 2013 is that it be the year of brown ink. Bear gifted me three more brown inks, Pilot Tsukushi (horsetail brown), J Herbin Café des îles (coffee), and J Herbin Lie de Thé (tea). These join my existing collection of brown inks, two Diamine (saddle brown &chocolate brown), and two Noodlers (Walnut, and Galileo manuscript brown). Together with orange for annotations I plan to run the year on brown inks as much as possible. With maybe excursions into plum, and deep violet on occasion. There are of course many more colours than just brown inks in the house ...but I will try and be strong, after all if Gertrude Jekyll decided as an experiment to try an 'all white flower' garden, which then inspired gardeners all over the world for near on a hundred years, why can't I do brown ink?

So, tomorrow is 2013, do you have something lined up for next year or will it be more of the same? Take care, all the best,

na Stella

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Finished object, and returning to things left unfinished.

What happened to the past week, forgive me, it has been a week and a half since I last blogged. Things were busy, I suspected I was getting a cold, still do, the preliminary symptoms have come to nothing. Last week was the last week of term so there were things to do. I had a constant stream of students making enquiries about when they would get their marks back. My standard reply was that mine were done (true)' and that I was waiting for the rest of the teaching team to finish (true), and that organizing other adults was at time like herding cats ( all to sadly true). They took it well, the students, and on Friday I handed back what's could, including the three as yet unmarked, with what marks I had and a note that they had passed, one mark was still to come, the so the total would go up.

Then Bear came home, from two weeks in Christchurch helping with the 'rebuild', and the cubs started their term break, with birthday part invites, so the past few days has been a whirlwind of finding appropriate presents, within budget, and ferrying cubs to and from. In amidst all of that I knitted some, not a lot but I finished a sock, and spun, and distracted myself and little cub with sewing a new dress. Today I am indulging in finishing two books for bear, ones I printed out way back in march 2012. Feels nice to have them finally being works on.

Alien pirate socks

Little cubs pirate socks are done, not blocked in water, but blocked on feet, immediately. Being pale green, and with the eyes the skulls have a slightly more alien feel than a pirate feel, I imagine in blood red, white or black these would be spectacular.

Close up of alien eyelet

My change, was to knit the heel flap in eye-of-partridge, and to bind off with Julie's magic stretchy bind off. Oh and to add eyelet eyes to the skulls on thleg section. I knit the medium size, to fit a 9" foot, and have 18 grams of yarn left over. Not bad considering with all the twisted traveling stitches this is a dense sock. I am having thoughts about how I could make use of the skull motif with the eyelet eyes in a more floating alien way on another pair. The pattern is Pirate Danger by Jeannie Cartmel, a well written pattern as far as I could tell. I don't always follow instructions ... so can't be totally sure.

New green dress

Here is the little cubs newest sewing effort, the green floral hidden behind the sparkly silver number. If it were not for the sparkly silver, black jeans, purple shorts and leggings covered with hearts also in her wardrobe I would wonder about the image she presented to the world. Taken on just her preference in dress fabrics, cuts and lengths, she seems to lean towards the uber conservative small town girl. Still that is better the if she were to lean the other way.

Today I am sewing, books this time, guitar chord books for bear. These are two blanks I printed off for the bookbinding class I taught at unwind earlier this year. No one wanted to bind guitar chord books, the class preferred grid, knitters graph, lines, dot grid and plain pages. No worries I knew Bear would want these, and today seems a good day to complete both. Once the stitching is complete, the blanks get a good press to set the stitches, and then I will cut, cover and assemble the covers. I

Book binding, guitar chord books

And finally spinning, I am on leave this week, taken as the cubs are on rearm break. Bear is on leave next week, to cover the other week of the term break. Because I would be at home, and able to spin a lot, I decided to spin on my Philip Poore Pipy wheel. This came after a conversation with Bear where we were discussing how 'full' the house is, how much 'stuff' we both have. I suggested that a traveling wheel in bag plus three other wheels in the back room, and the big Grace wheel in the living space was part of the clutter and I should maybe sell one or more. Bear was horrified, and said no, I should use them. So this week I am using the Pipy, and I am loving it. For some reason I thought woolen spinning was best on a scotch tensioned wheel, but the double drive Pipy is a dream to spin woolen on.

Phillip Poore Pipy

Perhaps once the tension is set to a beautiful delicate pull in, any wheel works well for most spinning? The blend is a carded batt, or batts from Do Arnot, in Oamaru. In the past I have spun Do's batts worsted, short draw and found them not as smooth as the combed top that others sell. This time around spinning fine supported long draw woollen I am really enjoying the carded batts, the fibre flows easily and the prep is fantastic for woolen. What was difficult for worsted is perfect for wollen. The blend is 'Lichen', and a mix of merino, alpaca, and silk with the proportions not identified. The colors are amazing, fawn, gold, green, brown, purple, silver .... all in a combination that works and has life without drama.

Time to go and finish the stitching on the books, and see how little cub is doing with making butterscotch cookies (all on her own - I like this side of growing up).

Cheers, na Stella

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Nearly home

Just a quick post, I feel like the yarn harlot, posting from the airport. KAN is over, stash has been enhanced, considerably (embarrassing details in next blog post), friends meet, and new ones made, flying home, flight delayed new one organized and so more knitting time than expected. Furring the week expect KAN photos will be posted by Maree, when they appear I will link, for now the post is all about the current sock.

The foot

My knitting consisted of the pirate sock, which has grown considerably, surprisingly so given it is totally chart knitting and i was traveling. The foot is done, completely true to chart ...

Eye of partridge heel

The heel is done, and here I admit I drifted away from the instructions. Not because I disagreed with the designer, but because I love eye of partridge stitched heels in semi-solid sock yarn. I simply could not ignore the opportunity to work the heel flap this way.

As I knit, I was surrounded by knitters, all knitting lovely things, all very clever. Most asked about the sock, as you do, i asked about many projects in many hands, and I explained my sock was pirates skulls and crossbones, but one had to stretch the sock as if worn to really see the skulls. M suggested that I put eyes in the skulls with yarn overs ... What a brilliant idea. The kind of 'why didn't I think of that idea' that I wish was. One.

Skull eyes

So I did, Added eyes. Just where the skull was the widest, on the second row of that section there are four stitches inside the twisted edge stitches, I worked a YO, SSK, K2tog, YO, and now there are little eye sockets. In the green maybe a tad more Roswell alien pirate skull ... but eye sockets just the same. I plan to do this all the way up the leg, and work the second sock to match.

na Stella

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Getting back to unfinished projects

Todays post has two parts, I have a much better image of the finished Teosinte socks, and a languishing project has been dug out of the workbasket and ..... worked on. I also discovered that I had completely missed the start of the Tour de Fleece, the annual self paced spinning event that accompanies the Tour de France. I had signed up .. but somehow wasn't at the start line on the day. I guess that happens some times with the cycling tour, people miss the start.  I'm wondering if my Tour becomes a clearing of the work basket  - with the rest of the time devoted to working on unfinished projects.

Teosinte socks all done and blocked

It is daylight here, Wednesday, and Winter, so daylight is between 9am and 4 pm. Well I might exaggerate a little, but before 9am and after 4 there isn't enough light to make good photos, and I am torn between pulling the curtains and putting the lights on or sitting in the dusk. Some how it just seems wrong to pull the curtains and turn the lights on so early ... but if I want to read, or sew or do anything detail-ish - that is what I have to do.
Teosinte is a lovely sock, and makes the most of a yarn that is more stripy than semi-solid. I like it. 

With the sock off the needles, and the grey cardigan caught in the endless loop of rows between the armscye (fancy tailoring name for arm pit) and the waist ... I dug around in the Work in Progress basket for something to finish. There are plenty of things there, gloves, fish, and a colour work beret. The Gloves won out - so between last night and now I have worked 6 rounds. I'm impressed, I was able to work out just where in the chart I was thanks to the highlighter tape I was using. I opened my workbook page and there the next round was ready marked and easy to spot. There are 13 rounds to work before I divide for the fingers, at which point I get to decide if I am making fingerless gloves, or gloves. Right now I'm not even sure I will make a second, so the decision seems even the more difficult. I've never had gloves that really fitted, I have long fingers, and most commercial gloves have short stubby fingers and leave me with glove-webbing at the base of each finger. I'm tempted to make these as gloves - just to see if I can make gloves that do fit.

Next post I might have a new sock started, littlest cub admired the Tardis socks I knit for elder cub and requested some of her own. Then again  I might have fingers and thumbs, on a glove . .. who knows? The excitement of indecision, this must be why I keep knitting.

Stella

Term break

It is term break, which means the cubs are on holiday for two weeks, in July,  mid-Winter, so frost and sleet and hail and wind ... and maybe if we are lucky blue sky, sun  or snow, all of which would be  good. I've taken two weeks leave, one of the few bonuses of being an academic, lots of leave, but the pay scale reflects that. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of marking and meetings, knowing that I was to be away for two weeks and knowing that I was to come back on a day of teaching - I had to get marking and such squared away before I left. Today is a bit of a tidy up as well, responses to the last post, and reports of things done .... one post-able and one not so much.

Soap sweaters, I posted last time that I had been making a few of these, and I was asked to say more. I'm not sure what to say, there are a few patterns on Ravelry, this is the one that is perhaps the most like the ones I make, but mine are plainer. I cast on as for a toe up sock, and then knit to fit, with increases and decreases as needed. I graft the top together. Some times I have worked an icord three needle bind off and added a wee loop so the soap can be hung up. Previous soap sweaters have been knitted, but I mistakenly thought that I could crochet them faster. Turns out no, but the crochet ones are pretty, and maybe have a little more texture. I think I mentioned before that I like the way the soap sweaters keep the soap from going soggy, especially when traveling, and double up as a bit of a wash cloth. I can squeeze the soap+sweater almost dry in my towel and pop it in my wash bag ... and it survives a trip nicely. I've knit mine in a variety of yarns, handspun, and most weights from sock to Aran ... they all work fine, just use the appropriate sized needle. I use circs or dpns, but I guess you could knit them flat and seam them.

 These are some old and empty soap sweaters. They smell like the soap they contained, so these are a mix of Pears, and Eco Store scents which are heavenly. As the soap is used the wool felts and shrinks around the soap, and at the end there is a little felted bubble of wool with a delicious smell. I store  mine in the blanket box - to keep the winter bedding smelling nice. I have heard that some people make their soap sweaters refillable - and you could if you used superwash wool so it didn't shrink and felt. I'm not sure a button or dome would be useful, but one of the patterns provides for that - with the water and agitation and all, I just can't see that working for me, both staying done up and not shrinking so it could be refilled. Besides I can cover 3 or four soaps  in an evening and I love the little felted peebles and rocks that are left over.  If I refilled them I would miss out on those.

 I finished a sock, the second so technically I finished a pair of socks. Teosinte by Knitspot, all done, rib, cast off, and ends woven in. These turned out a tad looser than I would like, and they have a short row heel with is not my favorite to wear, so I'm putting them aside for Bear. He has ten pairs in his drawer, so I feel ok about stockpiling some for when he needs more. I do have to admit I knit the larger size .. and I would knit this again, in the medium and with a flap and gusset heel for me.

 I used Judy's magic super stretchy bind off for the cuff edge. I love this but have to look up every single time how to work the yarn overs for a knit and a purl stitch. I love how the way the extra yarn overs are worked at the transitions between knit and purl forms a hinge that lets the cast off zig and zag like the rib pattern. I also love how this stretches ..... I don't have a photo but believe me it easily stretches three times or more its original width.

And the last photo, is the two Bears, Big Bear and eldest Cub, hanging out and doing what ever guitar players do together. Jamming? Eldest cub asked Bear to show him how to finger a particular cord, so he could play a particular tune .. and they sat and played for a good three hours. I thought I better record this moment so when one turned into one of those teen age trolls that I hear about I could remind myself that there are times that he is not a troll. Hidden amongst the yarn at the end of the blanket box is my mystery swap knit for 2012. For now that is as much as you get to see, it may be done, it probably isn't, and if you guess what it is or who it is for please keep mum until after next weekend when it is swapped.

The rest of today involves a finger nail painting party with the younger cub, her friends arrive at 1 with their favorite polishes, I have a large pastic mat, lots of cotton balls and nail polish remover, have given several lectures on the importance of 'being very careful', and have bought chocolate biscuits, fizzy and baked muffins. Seems a good way to kick of a term break.

Take care
na Stella

Progress

Hello
Sunday here, over the past few days there has been quite a bit of knitting time. My dad had cataract surgery on his right eye. As he lives alone I did the dutiful daughter thing and headed up to Waimate to take him to Timaru hospital, I stayed over to make sure he was ok and to take him to the post-opp clinic the day after. He is fine, grinning from ear to ear. One of the reasons he was so happy was the medical staff kept asking him what medication he was on and when he told them 'none' - they told him there were very few 70 year olds who were not on any meds at all. That made him feel all healthy and fit for his age - and gave me hope I might inherit the same health. He says there is no pain, he can now see clearly so has his depth perception back. Depth perception is very important to Dad, he found with he was unable to hit nails and rivets and weld things with only one working eye - mighty frustrating for a someone who lives to spend time with mechanical things in his workshop. Fixing vintage tractors, motorcyles, cars and rotary hoes for my Dad is sort of like knitting for me, we both have to be doing something, making something, busy with something. Being unable to work in his workshop because he couldn't see well enough really upset him. As a dutiful daughter I stayed with him overnight until I knew he was ok, I planned to read some papers I have to review (for work) and knit. The papers didn't get read as he preferred the  lights to be off making reading all but impossible so I knit instead.

 I did get quite a wee bit of knitting done, the foot, heel turn and part way up the leg of Teosinte . The pattern repeat in this is very intuitive, easy to pick up and put down. The heel was short rowed just like the toe, picking up double wraps as one works the second half of the heel. When I was knitting more of my socks with short row heels there was quite a bit of information on how to work the turns without getting any holes. 

 The  method used for the short row toe and heel in Teosinte is quite pretty, with almost a decorative braid formed by the double wraps up the diagonal from the heel to the instep. In this yarn - slightly more variegated than most of the Vintage Purls I have stashed - this works well and looks very pretty.  

The other project that has had some 'lap-time' is Deciduous. The lace repeat is only 4 rows, and the reverse ones are purled - so only really two pattern rows. The lace pattern is called Tiny Leaf - and right now I'm trusting the pattern as what I'm knitting isn't as 'formal' as the images on the pattern. I assume that once blocked my bumpy knitting will look like the tiny leaves of the finished photographed lace. Progress is fairly fast, but I know that as the rows get longer and longer each one will take longer and longer to work. I'm just done on repeat number 12 .... of twenty something, as some one once said "I might be a while".

Short post this week, I'm off to ring my Dad and check he has remembered to use his eye drops as instructed, three different ones four times a day for two weeks then a new regime. Dad probably doesn't need reminding but it makes me feel like a good daughter if I ring him.

Take care
na Stella