Prime Time Knitter

Duty Calls...Or Not

I haven’t needed a lot of reasons not to blog or, over the past month, not to knit, but I faced the mother of all excuses in November.  After receiving a summons for jury duty, and postponing it twice, I decided to bite the bullet and agree to serve.  Lest I sound unpatriotic, let me point out that I have been summoned as a juror three times before, and I have served on juries each time.  This summons was different, however, because it was for federal court in Manhattan—a two-hour ride each way, with the specter of being impaneled for an unspecified time.  I’d have to be on a 6:30 AM train to arrive at the court on time. A perk of freelancing is not getting on commuter trains before the crack of dawn, and at that time, I am typically sipping chamomile tea and reading the newspaper.  And as a freelancer, I receive no income except for the pittance that compensates jurors.  All in all, the prospect of losing the income and having my routine turned upside down for weeks on end threw me into a tizzy.  Things seemed even more discouraging when I called the court to see if knitting needles, like cell phones, laptops, or any other electronic devices, were prohibited—and they are.  So even my most positive fantasy of knitting on the train and during the countless hours waiting around for the court to be in session was dashed.

Before I learned about the knitting needles, I went through a series of mental projects that would be ok for train knitting, and I finally settled on hats.  All members of my household need them, especially Ed.  I had knitted Ed a ribbed watchcap some years ago, but it never fit him right.  It always popped up in the center in an unattractive way.  As a replacement, I decided to make another hat that had more fabric around the crown, selecting the plain watchcap from Charlene Schurch’s Hats On! book.  I also had the perfect yarn in my stash—undyed, handspun gifted to me by my Ravelry pal, Chere.  (Chere and I had actually worked together on a book—she was the staff editor and I was the freelancer—long before we knew that we were both knitters.  We “met” in the Knitters in Publishing group.)  Even before jury duty started, I finished the hat:

 

It is everything Ed could want—yet another gray garment, something warm and comfortable.  It was a joy to work with the yarn, and I think that the plainness of the hat shows the handspun look of the yarn at its best. 

I received the new summons to appear the Monday after Thanksgiving, but surprisingly enough, when I called in to see if I had to report to the courthouse, the message said to call in Tuesday.  On Tuesday, it said to call in on Friday for the following week, and on Friday, it told me not to come in at all!  So this year, the gift of time is something I'm truly thankful for, and I can get back to knitting as usual.  If I'm diligent with this week's knitting, I’ll finish Sirdal's sleeve and be ready to steek. 

Of course, I now have to do all the things I said I’d do “when jury duty is over,” but I think I can deal with that.

 

WIP, or Why I [Haven't] Posted

The way things have been going for the last couple of months has convinced me that I ought not to try taking a long hike and chewing a big wad of gum at the same time.  I am clearly incapable of enduring more than one major project at a time.  

I spent the weeks from Thanksgiving to the end of January, when not shoveling the snow that seemed to fall every Tuesday or Wednesday, working around the clock to finish one book project while attempting to keep another from falling into a scheduling abyss.  

Then, the day after I clicked “send” on the final chapter, my home renovations started.  (I must say, though, electronic transmissions at the eleventh hour beat driving 30 miles over the speed limit to get to the post office before it closes to get the last bit of work in, as was necessary in the “good old days.”)

At the start of February, after the contractors removed my crumbling cedar siding and installed my new windows, my house looked like this.

My house is a little unusual in that from the street it looks as if it is one storey, but it is built on a hill, and the lower level, with the bedrooms, is on the bottom floor. There is also a full basement under that. And my office is under the cathedral ceiling, near the skylights. This is how the work looked after the new siding was put on the front.  You also can see the mounds of dirty snow and, if you look closely, a portable toilet.

 

The siding is now done, and I thought by this time it would be back to work as usual.  But the windows need finishing on the inside, and the outdoor lights have to be remounted.  I’m not really skilled at working in three dimensions, and although the white trim is a maintenance-free material like the siding (a cement composite), I couldn't understand how it would look and I’m not sure I’m thrilled with its appearance.  This material comes in white only, but it can be painted, and I’m considering making it brown like the windows and roof.  But that has to wait for later in the year, when we have a few other renovations planned: a new front door, a new garage door, and masonry work on the front steps.  Then next year it will be on to the deck and retaining walls.

For another few days this week, workers will be inside plastering around the windows and putting in window sills.  And so I’m still struggling to get assignments done and still working weekends to do so. 

All this has placed my big knitting projects (sweaters) on hold, and made it truly difficult to take WIP pictures because I like the morning light, and the workers show up before 8 AM.  I have been progressing on smaller knitted items, notably the Traveler’s Socks from Knitting on the Road. 

I’m now up to picking up the gusset stitches on sock #2. 

And the whole work and renovation ordeal has made me less fussy about knitting mistakes.  Sock #2 has a mis-crossed cable. 

This project was the first on which I used so many twisted stitches, and ripping them is a PITA, to put it mildly.  Getting it right the first time has a lot going for it. I do want to go back to the WIP sweaters when life returns to normal, and I’d like these socks to be finished.  So I left the mistake. 

I hope that by the end of the week the socks and windows will be done, I’ll morph from WIPs to FOs—and I can get back to post writing and blog visiting.

 

From Finish to Start

The last several weeks have been topsy turvy as far as knitting has gone.  I’ve had time to knit, but not time to blog because my early morning photography hours, when the light is the best for capturing the color of my yarn, have been preempted by work. Part of this frenzy is self-imposed.  The installation of my new windows and siding begins about three weeks from now (weather permitting), and I expect my work hours to be disrupted—although I am really eager to have a new office window and to have siding that deters squirrels and sparrows from trying to nest in it.  I’m attempting to turn in assignments quickly, so that I can finish a book I’ve been working on since last May and to get ahead on another.  The goal of getting ahead has been elusive for the more than a quarter of a century I’ve worked out of my home, but this time I’ve tried to convince myself that it is possible.  Unfortunately, the reality has been quite different.  I’ve encountered snags and problems that need long hours to resolve, and I suspect I’ll be doing my best to work through the hammering and noise.

The work assignments that stubbornly refuse to end have contributed to a burst of enthusiasm for several WIPS and UFOs.  At least I can get the sense of finishing something.

The Wool Peddler’s shawl from the Foxhill Farm yarn is done, but not blocked:

 

This photo was taken in haste as the first flakes of what promises to be a major blizzard started falling.  The loose ends have been neatly woven in, and the shawl has now had its bath of Eucalan and is consuming much of my living room floor as it dries. (You can also see from this shot the repair that is next on my list—replacement decks.  My hope is to schedule new decks, masonry on my front steps, and a new front door and garage door for later in 2011.)

I also finished the Multidirectional Scarf out of bits of Noro Silk Garden (color 230) that were left over from my entrelac jacket.  It will get a light blocking when the shawl is dry and the blocking pads available.

There is still enough Noro left over for some other small project.  I suppose I could use a tea cozy, now that old age has made it necessary for me to eschew my coffee addiction and become an herbal tea drinker.  Or I could manage a pair of mitts.

And one of my Traveler’s Socks is knit (but not blocked), and I’ve cast on for the second.

I was really on a roll with these socks, but my efforts to complete them were derailed by the need to start some fingerless gloves (the tipless variety) as presents.  Here are those I finished for DS:

These are from Socks That Rock, Medium, color: Corvid, and there is enough for another pair out of the skein.  Ed got a Christmas raincheck.  One of his gloves is nearly finished, and I’m now skilled enough at glove knitting to do one of these every two to three nights.  Then I’ll be knitting a pair for me, to round out my 2010 knitting.  With all my unfinished projects and my newfound zeal to finish them, I wasn’t eager to start anything new.  But having warm hands seemed to be a worthwhile goal.  And before I get back to some of my unfinished stranded sweaters, I want to knit DS a hat.  So it looks as if more things will be started before the finishing resumes.

 

A Cooling-Off Period

I’ve been as slow to respond to the cooler weather as I was to adjust to the summerlike heat that descended on us in May. And I feel guilty for letting this prime knitting weather slip by. The heat derailed my progress on my stranded WIPs, and Sirdal has languished in its storage box for months.  I had also made some progress on Colour Your Own, but that sweater required some decisions about shaping.  You’d think (as I did) that I’d embrace the coolness and hunker down on knitting with heavy wool again—but it has been hard to get back into those projects.  Once I get into a rut of any sort, it is hard to climb out.

Sirdal requires some knitting back and forth (aka stranded purling) at the shoulder area.  I’ve gotten to the point where throwing when I knit doesn’t make me feel totally spastic, but when I looked at various online videos of stranded purling, my brain went into meltdown mode.  Needles flew everywhere when I tried it.  I swatched a bit by purling only in combined or Continental style, combined being my purling method of choice.  I did that by dropping one strand, purling with the other, etc.  Even though there are only a few rows that would require back-and-forth color knitting, it was truly tedious and the yarns got unbelievably tangled. I signed up for a Stitches class in knitting backward, and if it is possible to use that technique for these few rows, it would be ideal.  So I’m waiting to take that class before resuming Sirdal—heck, a few more weeks before resuming its status as a WIP hardly matters, right?

In the mean time, I’ve been working on Nancy Bush’s Traveler’s Socks.  The pattern description explains what a great traveling project this is, but I must confess that if I did not work on the patterned top in the quiet of my home, while seated before a table, with an Ott-type light shining on my work, this project would have been abandoned completely.  I’m at the point where the pattern ends, except for the clocks that run down the side to the toes:

 

I made every conceivable mistake in getting to this point.  My favorite is to knit two together instead of twisting, only to find on the next round that I’m short a stitch (or more, depending on how often I’ve done this).  Tinking the 78 stitches is a huge pain, and ripping and attempting to pick up an entire round is beyond my abilities—I had to restart the pattern region twice after attempting this bit of sleight of hand.  But I think I can manage to complete the rest without too many more mistakes, and it is destined to accompany me to Stitches. 

So that left Colour Your Own as the project to resume, but I'm doing it by knitting a completely different sweater in Valley Yarns (WEBS' house brand) teal Stockbridge. This is not the bout of startitis that it might appear to be. If this experimental sweater using EZ’s shaped sleeves in the round works, I’d use this sleeve construction as a way to reduce the bulk of Colour Your Own.  In WEBS’ summer sale, there was an incredible bargain on Stockbridge yarn (the yarn I used for Laela, and loved).  At $2.69 a ball, I just couldn’t pass it up.  And because I knit Laela in the same yarn, I already knew what my gauge would be, about how many stitches to cast on, and how the yarn knitted up.  So I’ve been swatching for a sweater that will be reasonably simple to knit, allowing me to focus on the shoulder shaping, but still end up as something I’d like to wear.  I decided to modify this pattern motif, taken from Nicky Epstein’s Knitting on the Edge:

I had thought about shaping the sweater, but the wool-alpaca of Stockbridge is very soft and drapy, and I don't want that much cling.  Instead, I decided to take advantage of the softness of the yarn and make the sweater a bit shorter than usual for me—sitting near the waist rather than a few inches below.  And last night, I finally cast on.  The knitting will be very easy, but the vertical stripes of the twisted stitches will give me some help extending this sweater to others constructed the same way (that might include some more traditional Fair Isle sweaters).  In sewing terms, this sweater will be like a sloper—a basic pattern that I can apply to other designs.  So this is now the current WIP, which, in fact, also might make a reasonable travel project too.

 

Hidden Gems

Delving into my stash as part of my decluttering effort has the added bonus of discovering “new” yarns.  This isn’t precisely correct—I do keep mental track of the yarns I’ve bought, but out of sight often is out of mind.  I considered it serendipitous to locate both my copy of IK Summer 2000 and the yarn I bought shortly after that issue came out: three skeins of Koigu in the most heavenly amethyst purple.  And I’ve cast on for Nancy Bush's Traveler’s Socks:

 

This pattern is also in Knitting on the Road, which I acquired more recently, and the charts are somewhat clearer in the book. 

I smiled as I thought about my choice to purchase this yarn that many years ago.  As a newish sock knitter, I had no idea what I was getting into.  The main problem was that I didn’t have the knowledge to even appreciate that I could never get 9 stitches per inch with the smallest needles I owned.  Now that I’m armed with the Blackthorn 000s, that gauge is possible.  In fact, I was so eager to cast on for these that I didn’t swatch.  Before you gasp in shock, consider that I was able to get 8 stitches per inch on my Koigu Monkey Socks with Blackthorn 00s—so it isn’t the leap of faith that it might seem.  And, in fact, I do appear to be getting gauge, but it is hard to assess that precisely on the lacey top.

At this point, now that we have had some cool nights, I expected to switch back to sweater projects, but I pressed on instead and finished my striped Meilenweit socks (modeling shot to come).  And just as I planned to swatch for a simple sweater to try out EZ’s fitted sleeves in the round, we’ve had a burst of Indian summer (the temperature will be near 90 on Friday).  I’ve gone to Stitches empty handed for the last few years because I had no portable projects to take with me and I sat forlornly as I watched other knitters work away on small projects during breaks between classes.  So after I am done with the intricate top, if I can keep my hands off the knitting, I’ll save these for the traveling project they’re intended to be.  I suppose that if I can’t keep my hands off the beautiful yarn, I can save Sock #2 for knitting at Stitches. 

I can’t believe that Rhinebeck and Stitches are just around a month away, but my Stitches homework assignments arrived in today’s email.  Pulling out my stash at this time of year is going to put a damper on my desire to acquire more yarn, but there are some special things I will be looking for and vendors I’m eager to visit.  It’s time to make my wish list. 

What I Learned on My Summer Vacation

I had not intended to take such a long blogging break, but my progress (or, more precisely, lack thereof) on summer projects was abysmal and I felt there wasn’t much to write about.  I imagined such exciting entries as “I knit ten more rounds on Sock #1 last night.”  

I like the camaraderie of knitters on KALs, and at the end of June I signed up for the Summer of Socks, thinking I’d ignore the summer heat and make a dent in my sock yarn stash (and imagining how virtuous I’d feel at Rhinebeck and Stitches as I replenished those missing skeins).  Surely, I thought, I could manage at least six pairs.  Well, the sad reality is that I’ve done a pair and a half.  And if I want to buy sock yarn this fall, it will remain a guilty pleasure.

But I did learn some new things, despite wilting under the summer heat.  I will digress a bit at this point to put in a picture that breaks up the text.  I’m not the only one in our household who felt that the hottest summer on record was virtually unendurable.  Poor Addi suffered too.  She is now in the midst of molting.  I've never seen a tiny bird lose as many feathers as she has, and she is still at it.  Those dozens of pinfeathers growing in made her truly miserable, although since I took the picture the small bald patch over her beak has filled in. (I promised her that I’d take an “after” shot when she is back to her beautiful self when all those feathers grow in.)

 

Now back to knitting: I always considered my cotton-wool sock yarn to be somewhat less appealing than the many lovely hand-dyed skeins of wool yarn I have in my stash.  It is much more utilitarian—and, indeed, I bought the yarn just so I could have some lightweight socks without the toe seams that irritate my big toe.  The first new thing I learned was that these yarns are surprisingly nice to knit with, and the socks will become wardrobe staples, perhaps more so than the more delicate wool socks I tend to favor as knitting projects. 

After finishing the Sockotta socks, I proceeded to work with my skeins of Meilenweit.  I was really surprised to find that this was self-striping yarn because I expected it knit up rather like a tweed.  Until now, I had been very snobbish about self-striping yarn, thinking it was for wussies who couldn’t manage to switch colors.  Well, learning experience #2 is that self-striping yarn is really fun to knit, and I do like how my socks turned out (actually, it is “sock” because the second sock is still a WIP). 

Learning experience #3 was more typical of my knitting.  I tried a new technique.  In this case it was Charlene Schurch’s forethought heels.  The instructions are in Sensational Knitted Socks.  [Here are a few versions on Ravelry—not all the knitters used the forethought heels, though.] After I swatched and realized the yarn did stripe, I tried to find a pattern for it.  The chevron socks looked as if they’d work, but the rounds had either 44 or 66 stitches, and I felt that my socks would either be too small or too large.  But I did love the way the heel mirrored the sock stripes, and I decided to do a plain stockinette sock using the heel instructions.  Learning experience #4 is that plain stockinette socks (my first pair) can make for an engrossing project. This is what the first sock looks like, and the heel turned out very well. 

These are heels are, in effect, afterthought heels without the row of contrast yarn that you pick out after you’re done with the tube.  Instead, when you are done with the sock top and ready to knit the heel, you cast on a row of provisional stitches using yarn from the other skein.  The number of cast-on stitches is half the tube width.  You then knit those stitches with the heel to form a round.

  

Then when the heel is done, you remove the provisional stitches, and join the live stitches to form a round for the foot part of the sock.  

 

At this point, the sock looks like this:

And now you just knit the foot as you would on any top-down sock.  This shot, even though I took it at night under a lamp, is the most accurate representation of the yarn colors.

This is the first non-heel-flap sock I’ve knitted, and it is quite nice.  I think it is a little tighter on me than a heel flap, and I’ll have to consider if a modification might make the heels a bit roomier. 

So now that we’ve had enough cool days to make me think that fall is really happening this year, it is back to at least thinking about knitting with wool again.  But there's still one more batch of Meilenweit yarn in my stash, and just to be on the safe side, I might use it for a September sock project.

Finally!

I didn’t plan on taking such a long blog “vacation,” but each time I thought about posting I had practically no knitting to show. At last I can model the World’s Simplest Socks. 

 

These are hardly an FO to crow about.  As far as sock knitting goes, these are as boring as you can get.  But the Sockotta yarn was great to work with during the dog days of July, and the socks do fit perfectly and feel great.  I basically took my 8 stitches-per-inch swatch and extended it to a top-down sock with 2x2 ribbing.  When I got to the heel, I substituted Cookie A’s instructions for the Monkey socks, which conveniently are also at a gauge of 8 stitches per inch and have rounds of 64 stitches. I used my Blackthorn 000 dpns, and the Sockotta is color 10. 

I have been so proud about my sock-knitting ability with the Blackthorn 00s and 000s, which counteract my loose stitches, that now that the dog days of August are upon us, I’ve started the World’s Simplest Socks v. 2:

 

I had purchased this cotton-wool sock yarn before I really understood much about sock yarn.  I thought that this Meilenweit Cotton Fun was going to end up being tweedy, but when I swatched it, stripes emerged.  I had no idea that I even owned self-striping yarn, but my stash can be full of such surprises.  So for this summer-friendly project, I won’t even get creative enough to knit the entire top with ribbing.  After the short ribbed top, which I finished last night, I’ll be working in stockinette.  I may give myself a challenge by knitting short-row heels.  This would be a first for me, since heel flaps look good on my feet and feel fine. I've never really felt the need to change heel types, but short-row heels seem to look nicer on stripped yarn. 

I did actually swatch the yarn in a few lacy patterns, but the cotton content stretched in ways that will only spell trouble later on.  I’d rather wear boring socks that fit than have pretty stretched-out ones in my drawer.  

The garden, which still takes up a lot of time because I must compensate for the lack of rain by watering every day, is now producing more vegetables than we can eat.  I grew a new eggplant variety called Beatrice, which has the most enchanting purple color.  This one grew to be as big as a small pumpkin:

 

It is the most delicious eggplant variety I ever tried, and I’ll grow it again next year, possibly with some of those long, skinny Asian eggplants. 

The peppers, which drop their flowers when the temperature goes over 90 and stays there (as apparently do eggplant and tomatoes), have now responded to the slightly cooler temperatures. 

 

And, finally, we have tomatoes everywhere:

 

Indecision Is a Bore

The Leaning Tower I adore

Indecision is a bore

I’ve had two songs stuck in my head for a couple of weeks.  The first is “Baby Love,” which is ironic, because by 1964, when this was a hit single, I did not like or listen to Rock ‘n Roll.  By that time, I was a hard-core Classical music devotee and a student of the Baroque recorder. (Yeah, I know this is stuffy, but it’s the truth.  And I did learn to play the Handel flute sonatas on my recorder.)  Pop music was foisted on me when I attended summer camp, where 77 radio and Cousin Brucie blared from every bunk.  That was when I heard (over and over) all the popular songs of the day.  And there also was some parental pressure to attend dances, for which I was totally unsuited, in the unrealized hope of finding my life partner.

So how has this ditty entered my middle-aged brain?  I’ve begun to experience some subtle ageism.  It ranges from people talking to me very slowly as if I have some mental impediment that will prevent me from understanding simple instructions to the postal clerk who shoved the Priority Mail receipt in my face to show me how I could log on to the Web to track my package.  I didn’t think it would creep in at the gym, where there’s an ongoing class in weight training and balance to stave off the ravages of time.  But it did.  The trainers in my exercise classes select CDs that they think will appeal to us over-50 participants.  And apparently there are music CDs intended for exercisers of my generation—to get our geriatric limbs moving, I suppose.  (Now this is silly too because the people in the class range from their mid-50s to an 82-year-old who can still do pushups, and we’re hardly all of the same “generation.”).  But there you have it.  One trainer has a CD with songs like “I Will Survive” and “YMCA,” another has Rock ‘n Roll songs from the 60s and another CD of swing from the late 40s.  I’d be perfectly happy with no music because this isn’t aerobics, but the first thing each trainer does is rev up the stereo.  And so until something else replaces “Baby Love,” I’ll probably continue to sing it at odd moments, especially since I’ll be pumping iron to it week after week.

I started humming the lines from “It’s a Bore,” from the musical Gigi, of my own accord.  Before I fell in with choir members who introduced me to the choral masterpieces of Bach, Handel, and Mozart, I liked musical comedy.  And Gigi is a favorite, even now.  The lyrics—particularly the lines about indecision—captured my mental state as I flitted from one swatch to the next, still unable to find some summer knitting to fill Sirdal’s shoes, so to speak.  Well, more precisely, Sirdal’s sleeves.  The Monkey socks showed me that sock knitting was possible in June’s heat, but then I thought I would switch to lace shawls.  After some evenings of balling up yarn and swatching, I just didn’t like what I ended up with. And so weeks passed without any firm commitment to a project, aside from the Sockotta socks. 

Even with the Sockotta socks, I spent many nights wondering if I should do a short-row heel or a heel flap.  I wanted to try a short-row heel, but the tops are a little snug, and I wanted to be sure that the foot fit.  So I’ll save the short-row heels for another time.  For a yarn that is only part wool and feels like cotton, Sockotta is very pleasant to knit with.  Sock #1 is now ready for its gusset:

I finally got tired of repeatedly pulling out stash yarn, swatching, and ending up with nothing, and I began to pull out partially finished projects instead.  Not much of a remedy to indecision, but at least it was different.  I took advantage of the scorching, not very humid weekend to wash and reblock the front, back, and sleeves of the Calvin Klein cardigan.  (It dried in a day and a half, down from three days the first time.  Cotton Fleece takes a long time to wet block.)

Yup, you’ve heard this before—I am going to finish this sweater that has been decades in the making (sounds rather like a trailer for a Cecil B. DeMille epic, doesn't it).  “All” it needs are the button bands, pocket finishing, and seaming—it has been in this state for about three years.  The indecision here arises from the buttonholes.  Lucy Neatby has a great way of grafting them that I’d like to try, and until now, my Kitchener stitch skills weren’t up to the job.  After fixing the ribbed cuff on my purple sweater, grafting stockinette has become very easy.  This is the bang-your-head-on-the-wall-because-when-you-stop-it-will-feel-good philosophy.  But now that I can graft 2x2 ribbing, I can manage stockinette without too much cursing—although doing it in the space of a ¾ inch buttonhole is something else.

While the red sweater was drying, I reevaluated a project started last year.  It is just a plain jacket from some discontinued Cherry Tree Hill variegated silk-wool yarn.  It will be in linen stitch.  This is the swatch.

The yarn feels like cotton, and now that the “balmy” 80-degree temperatures of June have become the downright miserable near-100s of July, this yarn is ok to knit with, albeit a little tough on my hands.  Last year, I had started to shape the body of this jacket, but the decreases on linen stitch looked awful.  So I took them out and started knitting the giant rectangle that will be the body (front and back) until the sleeves. I'm about 2 inches into it.  Perhaps it is the heat that is influencing this decision (but at last I’ve made a commitment!), but a loose-fitting jacket seems more appropriate for this yarn than a fitted style because it has the feel of hand-woven cloth.

So summer projects are now on track, and I’m indecisive no more.  My fear now is that we will have an early fall, and I’ll want to go back to knitting with wool before these sweaters are done—but when the temperatures are soaring into the 100s and I’m holed up in AC for days on end, that hardly seems as if it will happen anytime soon. Humming “Autumn Leaves” seems very premature just about now.

Monkey Wrenching

Let me start by saying that I love my Monkey socks.

These have been done for over a week, and I fell in love with the project.  They feel good and they fit well…and I used up stash yarn.  It doesn’t get much better than that. The yarn is Koigu, color P613, which I’m sure has been discontinued for about 15 years. I’d always wondered how to make the most of my variegated yarn, and this pattern motif really clicked with me.  It also gave me a chance to work with my Blackthorn 00 needles.  So now I can really count myself as a “sock knitter” because I can get 8 stitches per inch (and even more on the 000s).  These dpns have truly enabled me to overcome the liability of being a loose knitter when it comes to knitting socks.

So why do I feel as if a monkey wrench has been thrown into my knitting.  Well, for starters, I liked the project so much that I started dragging out all the variegated sock yarn I accumulated before I decided that I preferred semisolid.  And I started dragging out every stitch dictionary I own (I don’t even want to count how many that is) to see what other motifs might work for something similar.  So for the past week or so, I progressed from one unsuccessful swatch to another, and all I have to show for it is bits of unraveled yarn.  To regroup, I’ve settled on a very simple sock.  It ought to calm my nerves as I peruse the stitch dictionaries yet again.  Why am I bothering to do this when I have books and downloads for what must be 1000 sock patterns?  Just because.  Knitting doesn’t have to be rational.

I’m knitting the simple socks from some Sockotta yarn I’ve had for a while, ever since I had problems with the seams on commercial socks irritating my toes. 

This is a wool-cotton mix, and it is very pleasant to work with on the unbearably hot days we’ve been having.   I don’t much enjoy knitting with cotton as a rule, but the fabric of these socks is very soft.  I suspect the finished socks will end up as favorites.  I’m not really using a pattern but just knitting a 2x2 rib for the cuff and plain stockinette for the foot, although I might get creative and knit a short-row heel.  Heretofore, I’ve knit only heel flaps. I checked Ravelry for the yarn, and the simple style seemed to look best to my eye.

I also have another cotton-wool mix for a similar pair, but I’d like to use some sort of herringbone stitch to keep the yarn from striping. 

The hot weather has made these small, lightweight projects very appealing.  And I still have not had time to work out Sirdal’s sleeves, although the idea of working on a two-color project when the weather is so summerlike has little appeal. Yes, I know it is now summer—but really, 90 degrees and humid in June? What will August be like?  The weather has been great for my garden, which now looks like this:

The garden has eaten up much of my weekend knitting time and weekday blogging time.  Despite the waves of thunderstorms that have gone from West to East, I’ve gotten very little rain.  My little patch of yard seems to fall between the clouds.  To compensate, I’ve gone out nearly every morning to monitor the soaker hose system Ed installed, while I check for bugs (and mercilessly contribute to their demise) on my vegetable plants and do some weeding.  By time I’m done, I’m already getting a late start for work, and posting has fallen by the wayside.

But nearly everything is planted now, although the row of bolted mustard greens (second on the right) has to be pulled today and replanted with carrots, and so there is a little less to do.  I’ve also been much better at keeping it weed-free than in past years (there’s nothing like a new hoe to keep me motivated). I've also put down black mulch under the deer net, where it is hard to weed. 

There are lots of promises of things to come. 

I pulled some beets to see how they were doing, and they’re next up on our “to eat” list now that the first crop of lettuce is about done.  These are luscious Chiogga beets (if you think you hate beets, as I did, then these are the ones to try).

 
 

Tiny cucumbers have started appearing on the vines.

 
 

My pole beans have already grown nearly six feet (no flowers or beans yet, though).

  

All my tomatoes have flowers.

And we had our first pesto from the basil for Father’s Day, and my basil plants have rebounded already and look as if they’ve never been cut. 

Monkeying Around

One thing I like about Mother’s Day (and Thanksgiving too) is that I don’t feel guilty about taking a bit of time for myself to tackle something that isn’t on my to-do list, and Sunday was no exception.  And I achieved a goal that has eluded me for almost all of my knitting life.  I can now knit sock yarn at 8 stitches per inch.

A few weeks ago, I indulged in a few sets of Blackthorn needles—they arrived promptly but work and getting my garden started ate up my free time for several weekends.  I had read about Blackthorns on Ravelry, and they seemed just about perfect.  Being a loose knitter, I cannot manage to knit socks tightly enough to get the kind of gauge you need for Cookie A’s or Nancy Bush’s socks (not to mention socks I’d like to design on my own from a rather impressive collection of indie sock yarns).  Even size 0s don’t do it for me.  It is really hard to find needles that are less than zero that have the heft of my preferred wooden dpns, and so I eagerly ordered sets of dpns in 0, 00, and 000.  And this Sunday I cast on for my own set of Monkeys using the 00s and joined the ranks of the nearly 12,000 Ravelers who have knit these socks.  It took a bit of doing to buy the needles sight unseen because they are expensive, but I’m delighted that I took the plunge.  Not only can you locate these thin dpns, but you can order them in the length of your choice, and 5 inches is my preferred size for sock dpns.  These are great needles, and a terrific addition to my knitting tools.  Their only drawback is trying to find them if you drop one on a wooden floor. When I have a bit of extra cash, I'll collect the larger sizes because I love the way these feel and the sharpness of their points.

I’ve had this Koigu yarn in my stash for a long time (how long?  the price on the yarn band is $8 per skein, so you can travel back in time to figure that out). 

I also had regrets about the yarn because I thought you needed three skeins of Koigu for socks, and I had just two.  But when I browsed all the socks that other Ravelers had knit, I saw that most managed a pair of Monkeys from two skeins. I earmarked the yarn for that project.  Since I've bought this yarn, I've grown to like semi-solid hand-dyed yarn better than the more variegated varieties, but I do like how the motif in the Monkey socks breaks up the colors. 

I need a traveling project to replace the Multidirectional Scarf that is nearly done and requires some attention to finish (the last triangle and the fringes remain).  The Monkey pattern might be pushing it a bit for a portable project, but it is one I’ve wanted to try for so long and it is knit out of yarn that I’ve wanted to use up for so long that it has become my designated knit-in-public project.

Now that the Monkeys are started, it is back to Sirdal, and some stash diving to see what yarn to use for my next pair of socks.