Re-born Knitter

Chicken Soup Friday

2010-05-14T08:53:00.008-06:00

So, last week was Chicken Broth...Now for the soup. (Doesn't it look delicious?) After you've made the broth, refrigerated it overnight and skimmed off the fat, making the soup is easy. Bring the broth to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. Add any or all of the following: a chopped onion, chopped celery, diced carrots. One ingredient my family loves is a can of diced tomates (including the juice). Cook until the raw veggies are done, then add diced chicken, any frozen or canned veggies you like (green beans, peas, corn?) and bring back to a boil - you may need to turn up the heat. Now add your pasta and cook until the pasta is al dente. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Turn off the heat, serve, eat, enjoy.

One of the neatest things about making your own soup is that the amounts of ingredients are not that important...I usually use one onion, 3 or 4 stalks of celery, a couple cups of diced carrots, 2 to 3 cups cooked chicken, a cup or so of frozen veggies, a can of canned veggies... You get the idea. Same thing with the pasta - depending on what kind I use and how much broth I started with, I might add more or less. Sometimes I use a 14 oz. can of diced tomatoes, sometimes I use a 28 oz. can. Every batch of soup ends up being a little bit different, but they're all delicious.

Knitting? Yes knitting has been done (un-knitting, too). I finished the right "Twisted" sock. What can I say? I feel like I just completed a marathon. I'm a fairly experienced knitter, and have knit probably over twenty pairs of socks - employing quite a few different techniques. But these socks...not for the faint of heart! I think this is the first time I've used one of Cookie A.'s patterns. I wonder if they're all this involved/challenging. I learned some new stuff/techniques, and I really like the finished product. If I could change all the un-knitting I did to knitting there would probably be enough stitches for a third sock. And guess what? I'm already thinking about making another pair!!! But not right away.

Here's a pic showing the way the right and left sock "twist" in different directions. I had to pin them to the bed because they were pretty curly. (No, I don't generally block my socks.) One odd thing about working these socks...the right sock ended up being about 3/4 inch longer than the left sock. (Unfortunate, because my left foot is bigger than my right foot.) Don't know where or how I screwed up, but I'm not ripping these babies, no sirree!

And finally, the backyard bird feeders have been busy, busy. A California Quail showed up the other day (but didn't stay long), and Lazuli Buntings have been regular visitors for about a week now. They usually stop by our Treasure Valley for a couple weeks in the spring and then migrate to higher elevations (as weather permits) for nesting. Lots of black birds - Red Winged, Yellow Headed, Brewer's, Brown Headed Cow Birds. And a few Gold Finches, plus the House Finches and the House Sparrows.

(I uploaded an image of a Lazuli Bunting, but could not (COULD NOT!!!!) move it down here to this end of the post.) If anyone reads this and knows how to manage images in blogger, let me know. I've searched in blogger help, etc. and have yet to find any answers. FRUSTRATION.

Home made chicken stock/broth

2010-05-07T08:43:00.009-06:00

Making chicken soup from scratch (get it? from "scratch"...chicken soup?) is so easy. But it does take a little time. Although it is very easy, there's a lot of explaining to do, so today I'm only going to address the broth issue. Next week - soup. Making the stock takes a good chunk of one day - it takes several hours. Then you refrigerate it over night so you can easily skim off the fat (which rises to the top of the broth). I'm not posting a picture of the broth because...well...chicken broth is not particularily photogenic. (But I have a yummy pic of chicken soup for next week!)

Here's how I do it. You need chicken bones/pieces, water, 6 or 8 peppercorns, a celery rib or two (cut into three or four pieces per rib), an onion (peeled and quartered), and a carrot or two (scrubbed and cut into a couple or three pieces). The veggies are optional - last time I made stock I didn't have any carrots so no carrots in that batch. Also, you could use a couple or three T. of dried minced onion if you wanted to, in place of the whole onion. And, if you wanted to, you could leave the veggies out altogether. I think they add flavor so I always put some in.

Chicken pieces? Last time I made stock here's what I used - the leftover carcass of the whole chicken that I roasted last Friday. I refrigerated it after Friday night's dinner and on Saturday, I removed the leftover chicken meat and returned the meat to the fridge. (I put it in one of those plastic container things with a lid but you could put it in a baggie). I put the carcass into my big stock pot and added the veggies. I also used a package of chicken legs that I had in the freezer (I think there were about 8 legs...). If I had had leftover chicken meat in the freezer, or if there had been lots more chicken meat on the carcass, I wouldn't have used the chicken legs. The amount of chicken meat needed for your soup is variable - depending on your taste and what your family likes, you can use a little or a lot. I usually use around 2 to 3 cups of meat. If you need to cook and use "new" chicken pieces (as I did), the trick is to just leave them in the broth long enough to cook them. When their meat is done, remove them from the broth and when they are cool enough to handle, remove the meat (add it to your cache in the fridge) and return the bones and skin to the stock pot.

Chicken bones and skin and a long simmer are what make for a deep chicken flavor in the broth. When I buy a whole chicken for frying, I save the backs and the wing tips (freeze them) for making stock. Over time and before you know it, you've got enough saved "pieces parts" to make broth. And/or I use a leftover carcass. Any combination works fine. I also cut-off and save chicken meat after we've had fried chicken or other chicken dishes where all the pieces didn't get eaten. (You know...after the leftover chicken has languished for a couple of days in the fridge and it's obvious that no one is going to eat that last thigh... I'll take the meat off the bone, bag it and freeze it and I'll add the bone and skin to the frozen bones/skin I've already got collecting in the freezer.)

As the broth simmers, check it now and again to be sure that your water isn't getting too low. You want the broth to "cook down" so that the chicken flavor gets concentrated, but you don't want to end up with only a couple cups of broth, or *horrors* a burned pot of chicken yuk.

When the broth has simmered at least three or four hours (even longer is OK as long as you're keeping an eye on the liquid). Strain it, cool it and then refrigerate it. I just pour mine through one of my colanders, but you could use a wire mesh strainer if you wanted to. All the chicken sludge left in the strainer? Throw it away.

The next day, after you've skimmed off the fat, you can either use the broth/stock to make soup or as the base for chicken pot pie or anything else your heart desires, or you can freeze it for use later.

Question: Why would anyone go to all the trouble to make broth from scratch instead of buying canned chicken stock at the store? It's cheaper! It's almost free. And it makes your house smell so good!

Knitting... During my long absence from blog-land I knit several pairs of socks. This one is knit from Knit Picks Stroll Sock Yarn in the "Dusk" color, and is my cobbled-together sock pattern. It's a toe-up sock (Judy's Magic Cast-on), knit on two circular needles, with a Priscilla Gibson Roberts heel (in garter stitch) and the lacy pattern on the front is out of one of Barbara Walker's books - it is called Double Herringbone Mesh.

Tip Tuesday

2010-05-04T11:25:00.009-06:00

(I apologize! I started this post on Tuesday, but here it is Thursday - Maybe I should re-name the post "T[h]ip Thursdy" instead of "Tip Tuesday"!)

These notions of mine probably don't really qualify as "tips", but they're things I've learned over the years that make knitting easier for me.

So...stitch markers. At some point after I took up knitting again, I became aware of all the pretty markers you can buy or make and for a while I used those instead of my old plastic ring markers. But...the down-side to both of those types of markers (in my humble opinion) is that they both have this propensity for jumping off the needles right when you're trying to slip them from the left needle to the right needle, and even worse, some of them *poof* disappear once they hit the floor. Over time, my supply of stitch markers had dwindled. I don't think I thought up the idea of making little markers using odd bits of yarn but I began using those. When I began to try lace knitting, those bulky yarn markers were a pain, so I began making them using crochet thread. Now I use crochet thread markers in nearly every project that calls for markers. Easy as pie to make - cut a length of crochet thread about six or seven inches long, fold it in half and then tie an over-hand knot fairly close to the fold. Trim off the excess thread and viola, you have a stitch marker.

Some patterns call for markers that denote different areas or patterns within each row or round - and if all the markers look the same it can be confusing. In this case you can make markers from different colors of crochet thread, or you can just use multiple markers, i.e. one marker for the first marker of the round, two markers for the second marker, etc. (This last method only works well for up to three markers...after that it gets ridiculous.)

If one of the markers manages to jump off the needle, they don't usually go very far - they tend to stick to the knitting, or to your clothes. And if they do make it to the floor, they don't roll and bounce the way plastic/decorative markers do. Nope, they're not very pretty, but they do the job.

On a completely different subject, there were a couple of "new" birds at my feeders this morning - Yellow headed black birds! I've seen this kind of bird before, but not for many, many years. What a nice surprise. (Embiggen picture if you can to actually see those yellow heads.)

And finally, (I'm tempting fate here) here's the heel flap of my second Twisted sock. The first pic shows the heel flap from the right side of the sock. Second pic shows it from the wrong side. (Actually these socks are reversible so there's technically no right or wrong side.) I love the texture on these heel flaps!

Memory Monday

2010-05-03T06:59:00.005-06:00

Back in the summer of 1959 Mother and and I moved from Tacoma WA to Baker OR, her home-town. We moved in with her mother - my Grandma - and one of her sisters - my Aunt Hilma. In the fall, I began attending Jr. High school and one of my classes was Home Ec. I don't remember the teacher's name, but I do have a visual image of her stored away in my brain...She was a little grey-haired woman who wore glasses. I towered over her and probably out-weighed her by fifty pounds. One thing I remember learning in her class was that the cloth one used in a sewing project was correctly referred to as "fabric", not "material".

I know we did a variety of cooking projects and sewing projects, but the only project I actually remember is that we made gathered skirts. (The last thing I wanted to wear was a gathered skirt. I did not need a waist-band to accentuate my non-waist, nor three yards of fabric - or was it four yards?- to add bulk to my silhouette!) Anyway, we learned to gather using the longest stitch on the sewing machine, and we learned how to make a sewed-on waist band. I don't remember if we made buttonholes or used some other method to fasten.

At school we had nice electric sewing machines. At home I had the use of Grandma's treadle sewing machine. Straight stitches all the way. At school we cooked on electric stoves. At home Grandma cooked on an old wood-fire cook stove (which also heated the North end of the house). In the summer when the weather was really hot, Grandma often cooked early in the day. But when the cherries were ripe she canned cherries, and when the raspberries came on she made jelly, and when Aunt Jean's garden yielded produce, there was my Grandma in that hot old kitchen canning pickles or green beans or whatever there was to be preserved. She baked bread at least once a week and on Sundays there was almost always a pot roast and scalloped potatoes. Her cherry pies were legendary.

Knitting...Last fall I stitched this Rose Trellis Lace scarf. I charted the pattern, using the instructions in one of Barbara Walker's books. The yarn is a lace weight part-mohair blend leftover from a long-ago scarf I made for my dear Aunt Chris. I think this pattern is one of my favorite lace patterns. Looking back over my pattern notes I see that I cast-on with a size 8 needle and then knitted the piece with a size 6.

Karma?

2010-05-02T11:08:00.004-06:00

So maybe bragging about progress on the Twisted socks isn't what does me in, it's just mentioning them - after blogging about them the other day, I got hit by the cosmic un-knitting whammy. Yesterday I was happily knitting along when I noticed this little nubbin of a stitch about 3/4 of an inch down from the working needle. Horrors! It was a dropped run-away stitch! The pattern of the twisted rib is such that you would notice right away if you had dropped a stitch - so I know that it happened in the row just previous to the one on the needle...and it had already run a fair distance. I immediately tried to repair the damage using a crochet hook, but this particular yarn is tempermental and that didn't work worth crap. (Actually I already knew that the crochet-fix-it-idea was a lot cause [I had ample experience with "fixing" on the first sock - see previous post], but I had to try - anything to avoid frogging...) Ended up inserting one of those little split-ring stitch markers in the stitch so it couldn't run any farther, and - you guessed it, spent most of the rest of the day unknitting - and again this morning.

The yarn - Bamboo and Ewe is tempermental in that it is both fibery and slippery at the same time. When you go to fix problems using a crochet hook, you inevitable pick up stray fibers - causing even more problems, and yet the stitches gladly (eagerly) slip or run away if given half a chance. In spite of which I do really like the knitted fabric made from this yarn.

Above are a couple pictures of a triangle neck scarf I made from it earlier this year (sorry the scarf is a bit rumpled - it's been folded up in a drawer for a while). I got the idea from one of Katherine Misegades' patterns, but ended up creating my own pattern. Learned a great deal... The original lace pine tree is from one of Barbara Walker's books, and I fiddled around with it to make three different sizes of pine trees. I could have/should have just stayed with the original size. Also, wish I had put more stockinette between/above/below the lace pine trees. I think it would have been visually less confusing and aesthetically more pleasing. I like the size of the triangle just fine - but could have used fewer pine lace thingies. Also, the front ties ended up being a bit too long for my taste. I keep thinking that I'll go back, rip out the last repeat of the design on each tie and re-knit the garter stitch borders. Someday.

I knit it from the tip of the triangle to the shoulder decreases, then put one of the sides on a stitch holder while I continued with the working side. After finishing it, I came back, picked up the stitches-on-hold and knit that side.

Food Friday

2010-04-30T11:11:00.008-06:00

It's been a long time since I was here. A lot has changed in my little world since last summer. But knitting is still going on... More about that in a minute.

I'm going to try and do a "Food Friday" every week. Today it's about Roast Chicken with fennel, lemon and potatoes. This is my take on a recipe I first found through a TV program - can't remember which one, sorry. Here's my version:

Roast Chicken with fennel, lemon and potatoes

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Wash a whole chicken with running cold water, remove any giblets and trim away any excess fat.

Place chicken, breast-side-up in a rimmed baking sheet (grease or spray it first)

Cut 2 fennel bulbs in quarters length-wise. Trim away the core at base of each quarter. Arrange fennel pieces around the chicken.

Cut 2 lemons in quarters. Place one or two lemon pieces inside chicken cavity. Arrange the rest of the lemon pieces around the chicken.

Scrub six to eight medium potatoes and cut into quarters. Arrange them in the pan with the lemon and fennel pieces. (I most often use plain ol' Idaho potatoes, but reds or Yukon Golds are delicious, too.)

Drizzle olive oil over the chicken et. al. (2 to 3 T)

Sprinkle with Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Bake/roast in oven about an hour or until chicken is done - test by piercing thigh with sharp knife or fork - juices should run clear. Or cut into thickest part of breast - there should be no pink showing and juices should be clear.

Serve with a salad or your favorite green veggie. Delicious!

For some reason, I don't like left-over chicken reheated. (I don't mind it cold, though...) I usually strip the carcass after the meal, dice or cube any leftover meat and either freeze it or refrigerate it for sandwiches, chicken salad or soup or whatever. I usually save the bones/skin for making chicken stock. Maybe next week's "Food Friday" will be home-made chicken noodle soup. It's so much easier than you might think. And, no I don't make my own noodles - but the home-made chicken stock is just so good!...

OK. Knitting. I don't even know where to begin. Guess I'll start with a current WIP - "Twisted" socks from a recent Knitty. I started these on April 7 and whizzed through the leg and heel of the first sock. Made the mistake of bragging to a knitter friend (he's "Bugzen" on Ravelry) that I was so proud of myself - no unknitting or mistakes. Yup, you guessed it...I got past the heel and had to rip back not once, not twice, not thrice but four freakin' times. And when I got to the toe??!!!?? Oh, my gosh - what a mess! I had been knitting on two circs (my favorite method for socks) but realized after throughly trashing the toe that I needed to switch to dpns and trade out the plastic-ring stitch markers for crochet-thread markers and even then it was dicey for those last few rows. You're supposed to decrease to 8 stitches and then cut the yarn and thread it through those last stitches. I think I got down to 12 stitches and Just. Couldn't. Do. It. Any. More. so I threaded througth 12 and the toe looks fine and I'm not gonna worry about it.

The yarn is Bamboo and Ewe by Sensations and I made the largest size - yup, I have humongous feet. I haven't used this yarn for socks before - in fact it's yarn that was leftover after I made a scarf (of sorts). I'll blog about that sometime soon.

I'm now about three fourths the way down the leg on the second sock. But I'm not going to mention/brag that so far things are going well. No sirree! I learned my lesson!

Before I go for now, one of the things that has changed for me since last summer is that I recently moved from Boise to Star - a small rural community a few miles from Boise. I'm very isolated out here and have to depend on my two adult children for transpo anywhere. I'm lonely (watch out! pity party looming). If anyone out there reads this and knows of any knitters in the Star/Eagle area, let me know. I'd love to join a knitting group or help start one.

Cranberry Socks

2009-07-18T14:03:00.005-06:00

Well, the cranberry socks are coming along. I'm knitting them on size 1 needles and am just about two pattern repeats past the toe. I'm thinking the pattern will pop more when I get a few more repeats knitted. I used Judy's Magic Cast-on for the toe, but changed it up a bit - on the increase rounds I did K1, P1, Kfb at the beginning of each needle and ended each needle with Kfb, P1, K1. I like the way it looks.

Miss Bunny agreed to model the sock-hat - Next time there will be enough of the pattern over the instep to show it to better advantage. (My apologies re/the date stamp...)

Be sure to check out http://sewfunquilts-sewmeow.blogspot.com/ for her giveaways - especially if you're a quilter. Yummy goodness! in a fabric-y sort of way. :-) And, I think today is the last day, so be quick!

...And the Time Warp continues...

2009-07-14T17:06:00.006-06:00

Sheesh! Can't believe another month has whizzed past. And, um, my last post...the one dated in June? I forgot to actually publish it until just yesterday. I kept thinking "I've got to get some pics to go with that post and then get it published!" But the days turned into weeks (overnight or so it seemed) and the weeks turned into a month so finally yesterday I just published it without any pics.

In the meantime I finished the Rivulets socks (I've re-named them the "Re-Rivulets" socks since I re-worked the lacy pattern), and here's a couple pics of the finished pair. Sorry about the incorrect dates on the photos - the camera ran out of batteries again and of course, I forgot to re-set the date. The yarn color is more accurate in the top photo.

Still working along on the Orenburg scarf... it's a few inches longer than it was last time, and I haven't worked at all on DD's sweater. Hard to work on a winter sweater in the heat of summer! I went thru my stash the other day, hoping for inspiration as to a new knitting project, but, alas, no light-bulb moment. Don't know what I'm going to tackle next.

We had a chicken tragedy about a week ago. Very sad. Lucille (her pic is up in the sidebar) had figured out how to flap over the short little picket fence that divides the chicken/garden side of the back-yard from the "regular" side of the back yard. I could usually lure her back into her side of the yard by offering her peas from the garden, but one day she was being all totally independent, and wouldn't be lured, so I left her on the wrong side of the fence, thinking that she would flap back over when she was ready. Later, when she tried to do so, she managed to get her poor head stuck between two of the pickets and died. I cried for two days and even writing about it now makes my eyes well up. In the big picture, I know that Lucille's death is a small event, but ... crap. I hate it when things like this happen.

An update re/ my next project. I have some cranberry colored sock yarn and have begun working on the pattern for a pair of cranberry socks. (I love Barbara Walker's pattern books! - there's no way I could even begin to figure -out a lace pattern from scratch!) Hopefully, cast-on happens today and there'll be a pic or two in the next couple of days.

Long time no we...

2009-06-17T05:57:00.005-06:00

How can it be June 17th already????? "Doo doo doo doo" (Twilight Zone theme music) It's a time warp this time of year.

But...knitting has been accomplished...a little bit. I finished the Dusk socks; I'm further along (several inches worth) with the Orenberg Lace Scarf, the first sleeve of DD's sweater has made it up to the sleeve-cap decreases (and has only been re-knit twice), I've cast on and got two inches past the heel on Wendy's Rivulet socks (click on "free patterns" near the top of her blog-screen) - but didn't like the lace pattern expanded as it was for the large size - so frogged it back to nuttin', reworked the pattern, cast-on again and am barely past the toe. Sheesh - you'd think I might have noticed that I didn't like the expanded large pattern before I turned the heel at least...but no. Just a word or two about Wendy...She is one of the most influential people in my life when it comes to knitting... I heart Wendy.

Remember how I said I was looking forward to doing a "Judy's Magic Cast-On" toe, but doing it in garter stitch? Well, I'm still going to pursue that notion on some future pair of socks, but when I got "sucked-in" to the Rivulet socks I decided that I didn't want a garter stitch toe, (or heel either for that matter), but I did spend a day or so figuring out a heel alternative. I love the way Wendy's heels (at least those that I've knit so far) look. But I hate, Hate, HATE the wrap-and-turn part of that kind of heel. Actually, it's the "Pick-up-the-wrap-and-knit-it-with-the-stitch-it-wraps" part that drives me bonkers. I don't know if it's because of eye-sight problems, or just an old fashioned mental block, but that part of the heel (only eight stitches or so of the whole thing!) makes me break out in cold sweats! I invariably get one of those crucial stitches fouled up somehow and am reduced to a blubbering blob while I try to frog back and repair the damage...

So, I think I've mentioned before how much I like knitting the Priscilla Gibson-Roberts type heel - (Google Priscilla's Dream Socks and read the little box on the right side of page 1 to see an explanation of her yarn-over technique with no holes) but I like the looks of the Wendy-type heel (and they fit my feet just fine)... I figured out how to use PGR's special stitch instead of a wrap and turn stitch to fill-in the hole you'd get if you didn't use one or the other - and the test heel I made with scrap yarn turned out lookin' fine. It wasn't all that hard! I know this kind of thing is old hat to experienced knitters (I'm not one of them, more's the pity) but for me, this was a super WOW accomplishment.

And I've been stitchin' on my two WIP quilt tops. I have plenty to keep me occupied and you might think that would keep me from launching off on other projects, but (again) no. A dear friend mentioned a couple of weeks ago that she needed some way to organize and store her knitting needles, so what did I do? I piped right up and said, "Hey, I'll make you one of those fabric jelly-roll things for your needle storage." I just got her cute little bag of all-things-knitting-needle-related stuff yesterday and spent part of the morning sketching out a holder for her DPs. I'm thinking that her single points will get their own holder and I'm not sure what I'll do with her circs. (Unlike some of us knitters she only has a "reasonable" amount of knitting needles - Me? If there was such a thing as a jelly-roll type holder for all my needles, it would have to have its own zip-code!

Life in the Treasure Valley of Idaho

2009-05-19T15:04:00.008-06:00

Yes, this is my knitting blog. But honestly...I'm at a point in all my projects that it's just same-o, same-o. I'm turning the heel on the second dusk sock - but if you saw the first one, you've seen the second one. (Scroll back a few posts and you can see it if you've forgotten.) I'm up to the armhole decreases on the first sleeve of DD's sweater - but it's just plain stockinette. Nothing to get excited about. The Orenberg scarf is maybe a few inches longer than it was last time I included a pic. And, frankly, I haven't crocheted even a smidgen more on the Sassy Sack handle. Ho Hum.

So let us put knitting (and crocheting) aside and speak of other things. Like, the weather. A week ago tomorrow morning we had a freeze warning right down here in the city. Yesterday we had a record high temp of 95 (beating the former record of 93 set in 1954 I believe). Today's morning low was 71. Tomorrow's predicted high is 68. It all kind of makes your head spin, doesn't it? I love Idaho.

I spent a good part of yesterday sitting in the shade and working on the aforementioned sleeve (my idiot-knitting project at present). DS let the chickens out and I thoroughly enjoyed their company. At one point, Lucille had pressing business inside the coop and DS took this darling picture. She's inside the coop, roosting on (in?) the favorite nesting box. Isn't she just the cutest thing?

DS made three little windows - one for each of the nesting boxes. In the winter he slides in a solid panel to cut down on the draftiness. But in warm weather he slides in the screen-doors so the chickens can look out and we can look in, and the coop gets some ventilation. The silly chickens all like the one box furthest to the left as you look at this view. We've never found an egg in either of the other two boxes.

Here's a "front" view of the coop and the pen. I have teased DS unmercifully about the Taj Majal he built for the chickens, and reminded him yesterday that he still hasn't come up with a hot tub spa, nor has he installed their wide-screen TV with cable. (He reminded me that I never did get around to knitting them shawls or booties this past winter...)

This view (below) is from the far end of the chicken run, showing the ramp (on the right) leading up into the coop. When we let the chickens out into the yard, we leave the door to the chicken run open so that the chickens can go back into their run/coop whenever they want to, and it's not unusual to have one of the cats go exploring up the ramp and into the coop. One time we had a cat in the coop while one of the girls was on the nest laying an egg. I expected a confrontation of some sort but the cat exited the premises leisurely a short time later.

This morning I worked outside and weeded part of a "suicide" strip along the drive-way where we have some of our rose bushes planted. I'm thinking of planting nasturtiums and/or moss roses there. Pansies, Johnny-Jump-Ups and sweet alyssum would be pretty along there, too. Maybe I'll plant some of each. I call that area a "suicide" strip because it tends to get foot traffic off the drive-way and also, in the summer time it's hard to keep it adequately watered - the concrete driveway just sucks the moisture out of the soil next to it.

Maybe I'll have some knitting to share next time I post. Or maybe...who knows. Happy days, happy days. Can you believe this coming weekend of Memorial Day weekend???

One Sock Done

2009-05-09T09:03:00.005-06:00

Finally, something accomplished (knitting-wise)! I've been so distracted by hexagons and DD's quilt blocks, that knitting has been somewhat neglected...along with house-work and other "chores". But I did finish the first Dusk sock, see?

The toe construction on this pair of socks is "Judy's Magic Cast-On" and is a stockinette type toe...but when I got to the heel, I did a garter stitch "Priscilla Gibson-Roberts" heel. (If you're not familiar with PGR, just google her - there are several good tutorials regarding her heel and toe technique - the only change I make for my garter stitch adaptation is that when I turn my sock to work the next row of the heel/toe, I knit the stitches instead of purl them.) Next pair of socks I'm going to use Judy's cast-on method again, but am going to try changing it up to garter stitch. Maybe the anticipation of trying that modified start-up will encourage me to get this second sock done. (I'm especially prone to second-sock syndrome!)

And I've made some progress on the Orenberg scarf. I've learned something about knitting lace with lace-weight yarn - USE LIFELINES! Before I began using lifelines, my biggest problem with this lace-weight was that when I made a mistake and attempted to frog back to fix it, I ended up creating more problems than I was trying to fix, and got into such a muddle that I always had to rip back to ground zero. Now that I've finally embraced lifelines, the most I have to rip back is just a few rows. One of my AHA! moments with lifelines was when I switched from regular straight needles to a circular needle...I could not insert a lifeline to save my soul when using regular needles! But with circs, you just slide all the live stitches onto the cable and it's easy to thread the lifeline through those stitches because they're loose.

So... if you're struggling with lace and you're knitting with regular straight needles, switch to a circular needle. To insert a lifeline, thread a blunt-tipped tapestry needle with pearl cotton or a heavy crochet thread, slide your stitches to the cable part of your circular needle, and thread your lifeline through the stitches, leaving a generous tail on both sides of the live stitches. Then, when you have knit the next few rows and are ready to create the next lifeline, just pull out your former lifeline and re-do in the current row. (I actually keep two lifelines - I'm so paranoid! - so I remove the oldest lifeline to thread through the "new" row.) Also, be sure to mark (on your chart) which row you've used for the lifeline. That way, if you have to rip back, you'll know right where you are.

Just umpty-jillion pattern repeats to go...

Annual Time Warp

2009-04-22T09:07:00.013-06:00

There's some magically evil thing that happens this time of year - every year! Time somehow speeds up and rips past at such a fantastical speed! Outside, the weeds (and grass) grow so fast that when you get up each morning and look outside, you are astonished to see that the just-weeded garden is (again) swamped with weeds and the lawn is now a meadow. Inside, you just can't ignore all the calling-out from projects and wanna-be projects that have slumbered peacefully for most of the winter. And the dust bunnies are multiplying at an alarming rate - far faster than usual. Not to mention the sticky place growing larger and stickier on the kitchen floor.

After the ennui of Winter, Spring wants so much...weed this, prune that, knit on your wips, cast-on for this and this and this, piece (patchwork) this, no this, finish that. On and on. Overwhelmed I am!

In spite of all the distractions, I have made a few rows progress on the Knit Picks Dusk socks -

Oh, hilarious! Finally remembered to "fix" the date stamp on the camera and I got the year wrong!
As you can see, I did a Priscilla Gibson-Roberts heel - in garter stitch, so it doesn't match the toe, but I figure "Who Cares?" Not me.

And, here's a top view showing the lace pattern winding it's way up the foot onto the leg. Sorry about the perspective - it's wonky.

Made a couple of potholders for my across-the-street neighbors who generously gave me a large bag of yeast (they belong to CostCo). The largest size of yeast I can buy in the local stores is the jar - far smaller than the bag, and we go through yeast pretty quickly.

Pot holders for Doug and Rosemary -

The chickens are deliriously happy with the weather and have been outside every day. Outside their coop, that is. Two of them - Henrietta and Penelope tolerate my petting them. Lucille? Not so much.

That's Penelope on the right and Henrietta on the left.

And, this is Lucille. Isn't she pretty?

As I've mentioned previously, my knitting time has been seriously impacted by my re-kindled passion for patchwork and quilting. And this poor blog has "suffered", too. So...I've begun (just barely) a quilting blog here -- will try to keep my knitting here and my quilting/patchwork there. I briefly tried WordPress but ran into all kinds of problems I couldn't solve, so came back to blogger.

Patchwork...and not much knitting

2009-04-14T13:18:00.010-06:00

One day last week I was taking something out of the oven, using one of the patchwork pot-holders I made years ago, and I almost got burned because the poor old potholder was so shabby and threadbare. I decided maybe it was time I made some new ones, and that is just what I have been doing... Digging through my fabric stash (I don't really have very much) reminded me that DD once expressed her desire to have a quilt made by me, so I've started that as well.

Here's a shabby old potholder -

(Sorry, I forgot to fix the date-thingy on the camera...)

Here's some new ones -

And here's two 15" quilt blocks - Geese in the Pond is the pattern name.

This is basically a scrap quilt. I might "need" to purchase a couple fat quarters in a yellow print (I think the greens cry out for yellow and I just don't have any pretty yellow in my stash).

Knitting? Well, not much progress...I did turn the heel on the Dusk sock and make a bit of headway up the leg. And I have managed a few inches on the first sleeve of DD's sweater. It's my "idiot" knitting at present...just stockinette stitch with a few increases along the sides. I've been working on it when I go outside to chicken-sit (say that 6 times fast), but the weather has been pretty severe so time outside has been hard to come by.

In spite of the cold, windy, wet Spring weather, the peach tree has begun to bloom and the plum tree out back is gorgeous - all white and lacy. Sweet peas are up (about 2 1/2"!) and today DS thinned out the lettuce, spinach and radishes and gave the thinnings to the chickens. Boy, were they ever enthusiastic about those little seedlings!

Monday, Gorgeous Monday

2009-04-06T10:41:00.011-06:00

It's supposed to get up to 67 degrees today and 73 tomorrow!!! Then, rain on Wednesday. But who cares? I live for today and today the weather is glorious! Our forsythia is blooming, along with some early tulips and all the rose bushes are showing all kinds of new growth, even the ones that I pruned back to nubbins. (Yes, I still have to get those other bushes pruned - before they take over the whole block!)

To make matters even more wonderful, the house is full of the fragrance of home-made bread. Actually, home-made Po' Boys for our French Dip Sandwiches (tonight's dinner). Using up some Bar-B-Qued steak that DS fixed last night.

There's been more knitting goin' on! As I may have mentioned, with DD's sweater in no hurry to get finished (it won't really be "needed" until next Fall), I felt the need to get some other things on needles. Actually, I already had one WIP on needles, but I had forgotten all about it (it's from years and YEARS ago!) until I was digging through my yarn stash (for Ravelry). Here it is:

(You can see I've got the date stamp on the camera fouled up again)

This project is from the Summer 1998 issue of Interweave Knits. It's supposed to have a rectangular crocheted base but for some reason I substituted a round knitted base. It was completed up through the middle of the darker blue section - now I've completed the knitting (except for the I-cord draw-string) and am working on the crocheted straps.

Here's a close up of the crocheted eyelet section at the top of the bag - for some reason I just love the look of it...

(I'm a miserable photographer! That's the camera strap on the right.)

This project in IK actually has two bags/purses and I made the other one years ago and really like it - except I made the crocheted straps as directed and they are too long (they stretch-out quite a bit). I know I could re-do but a knot strategically positioned in the straps works fine...

Here's a pic of that first bag/purse. It holds my portable quilting supplies so when I go to my friend Jan's house to quilt I'm all set. Finger cots...check, quilting thread...check, baby powder...check, needles...check, thimble...check. You get the idea.

A "new" WIP - lace. You know, I've been kicking myself because "I can't knit lace" - but that's not it at all. After all, Pookie's Shrug and The Bean's Shrug are both all lace, and the Purple Fountain Lace socks were lace (duh). It's just that lace weight YARN gives me fits. I found a pattern for a scarf (in one of those old IK's-staff-all knit-their-take on some theme - in this case scarfs) that didn't look to be too complicated. It's garter stitch lace, it isn't too big and the pattern is all knit stitches, yarn-overs, and K2togs. You'd think I could handle that, right? Well ... would you believe this is my third try? Yep, ripped it back to nuttin' twice.

Sorry it's so blurry. I tried to stretch it out using "paper-weights) to show the pattern...The yarn is Knit Pick's Alpaca Cloud in the Iris color-way. I just can't justify spending money on new lace weight yarn until I prove to myself that I can knit with the stuff. But my heart is yearning for red. Or bright spring green. Or vivid aqua. Oh dear.

And lastly, a sock in progress. My own pattern (using Barbara Walker's patterns for the lace)...

The yarn is Knit Pick's Essential (I think) in the Dusk colorway.

I loved the cover of the next-to-last Knit Pick's catalog. Which inspired me to take this pic:

I'm hoping to need a larger sock-drawer soon.

Woo Hoo!

2009-03-20T12:21:00.008-06:00

Happy dance! It's the first day of spring! And it actually feels like Spring here in the Treasure Valley of Idaho. Some of our little wild violets are blooming out front - they smell so sweet! I still haven't gotten outside to prune the rest of our roses...I keep looking for growth on the ones I already pruned (none that I can see so far), but the giant, un-pruned roses are showing all kinds of new growth.

Also GREAT BIG Happy Dance - I got The Bean's Shrug finished last night.

Elfin Lace - on the arms...

Mrs. Montague's Lace on the back.

The Shrug really doesn't "go" with this shirt, but oh well!

I've also made a little bit more progress with DD's sweater back...

And, another GREAT BIG WOO HOO - since I've only got one WIP going right now, that must mean that I can start something else! (After all, DD won't need this sweater til next fall, right? What a happy thought!

Now, what's it gonna be? I have quite a bit of sock yarn and I can always use socks. But I keep thinking about lace...and something earthy in garter stitch. Or...

Oh, dear.

Finally, DS gets home this afternoon after being gone all week. What's for dinner? Home-made bread Brat roll-ups. (like hot-dog roll-ups, but with Brats instead). And Green Beans. Yum!

There's been knitting going on...

2009-03-16T13:38:00.005-06:00

How can a whole week have flown past since I last posted? It's a time warp, I tell you. Guess that's what happens when one stays busy.

Showing the bottom...

Showing both the fronts.

I have completed both fronts on DD's sweater-in-the-making. The first one involved much frogging and re-knitting. Despite having measured gauge (on the idiot shawl I started with this yarn) I got about a third of the first front done when I realized that I was getting different gauge than I thought. So, RIPPPPP... Then I got to the second section of the front and didn't like it. Not. One. Bit. So, RIPPPPP again. I liked the reverse of that section so I re-knit it wrong-side-to so to speak. Then I got to the armhole decreases and almost up to the neckline decreases when I decided that the armhole just wasn't quite right, so (you guessed it), RIPPPPPP... and I re-knit that section. The second front went much quicker because I had worked out the problems on the first front. I am now about one fourth the way on the back and it should go OK because it's just like the fronts only back-ier.

A nice surprise this past week. Back-story: I used to be the proud owner of a Bernina 830 sewing machine. I'd had it for at least twenty years and loved it. About a year ago I got it out to do some mending and it wouldn't work. Like, it had been turned to stone. So I took it to the little shop where I bought it so many years ago and left it there for Scott to fix. Scott called some weeks later (he had a BIG back-log of sewing-machines-waiting-for-repair) - long story short, it was going to cost a bundle to order the needed parts because Bernie was so old, and he offered me a nice big fat trade-in on a new Janome. (What's a Janome? I wondered) - He had stopped carrying Berninas. So the Curmudgeon and I went to the shop and I tried a Janome and I fell in love with it and we ended up buying it (for a fraction of what the Bernina had cost us all those years ago). Not very long after that the Curmudgeon died and I had other things besides sewing on my mind.

Now to last week. DS was gearing up for several weeks out of town with his job (home on weekends) and he realized that he didn't have enough changes of clothes to survive a week without a washing machine. But, he did have several pairs of jeans that he had ripped out in the crotch, or that needed belt loops re-attached, or whose pockets were ripping off. My old Bernina didn't do denim - at least not where multi-thickness seams were involved, but I decided to try the Janome. Amazing! This little sewing machine just ate up those seams and all the jeans got mended in jig time. What a nice thing.

I'm about a third of the way through "Ursula, Under" and loving it. What a neat book.

One last thing...I have an ancient Crock Pot and I want to find some truly delicious recipes to make with it. I've always really liked the idea of crock pots - but sadly, never found any recipes that we liked well enough to make a second time. If you read this and have any suggestions, please pass them along to me.

Monday, Monday

2009-03-09T08:41:00.011-06:00

So...I frogged the shawl and have started a sweater for DD. She's very picky about her clothes...not so much about how they look, but about how they fit and feel. So I've taken measurements from a sweater she wears a lot and am trying to re-create it, hoping that it will feel "right" and fit her, too. I'm trying to throw in some of my own personal design touches so it won't seem like such a blatant copy. Working with yarn at this gauge is amazing - it knits up so fast! When I get a bit more done on it I'll post some pics.

And yes, I'm still working on The Bean's Shrug. You know how I am about starting new projects. I love the starting so much more than the finishing!

In addition to knitting today, I need to haul out a whole bunch of re-cycles, gather all the household trash, do laundry, bake bread and figure out what's for dinner. That last one could be very simple. As a good friend once said, "Toast is a hot meal." (And toast made from homemade bread is a gourmet hot meal!)

LATER

Well, I haven't done everything on my "list" today, but I've made good headway. The Bread...

is in the oven. Can you smell it? I think we'll have cheese omelets and homemade bread toast for dinner.

In a totally unrelated corner of my life, I have begun to read Ursula, Under by Ingrid Hill. Recommended by DD - in fact, she bought it for me along with a copy of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. And, I have a copy of Anne of Green Gables waiting in the wings. (I'm probably one of the few people my age living in America who has never read A.of G.G.!) What fun, to have three amazing books waiting to be read.

I recently re-connected with an awesome knitter (through Facebook of all things!) and if you're on Ravelry, check out her knitting. MaureeninFargo. She is amazing! When I grow up I want to be her.

Finally....

Birds

2009-03-07T07:53:00.012-07:00

First of all, there's not a lot of news on the knitting front. I've been in frog land, ripping and re-knitting a section on The Bean's Shrug three times now (aarrugggghhh). Nothing as bad as the Harlot's tale of woe (see her March 6 entry), but gee whiz - why couldn't I get it right the first time? Also cast on (Bad Grandma! Bad, bad, bad!) for a very plain rectangular shawl with some Lion Brand Homespun that was given to me several years ago...I really like having some "idiot knitting" (very plain and simple and either doesn't require a pattern, or is SO idiot-simple that even I can remember what to do) - hence the casting on of said shawl. But two things: first, this yarn is driving me slightly bonky - it's so filament-y and fuzzy that I constantly have to undo and re-do stitches just to get rid of those extra strands that hitched onto to the just-knitted stitch, and shouldn't have (extra credit if you understood that) and second, DD just about did back-flips when she saw the yarn (colorway "Quartz") - she loves it! So now I'm thinking maybe I ought to find a sweater or vest pattern for the yarn and make something she can wear. Hmmmmm.

Birds. Yes, I love birds. Yesterday I looked out our living room window and our big Ash tree out back was full of these:

American Robin

I counted 28 at one time! And they were all facing the house, their big red chests looking like ornaments in the bare branches. I didn't even try to take a picture...I just sat there and enjoyed the scene.

And...

A couple of weekends ago, Pookie looked out the same window at the same tree and said "Grandma, look at that bird!" We looked up the bird in the "Birds of Idaho Field Guide" by Stan Tekiela and found out that we had a Downy Woodpecker in our tree. I have seen Downys in our tree on several occasions. They're beautiful little guys.

And...

Several days ago I spotted a "new" bird at our feeders out front. We regularily see house sparrows, house finches, Juncos, and chickadees - and they all pretty much stick to our regular bird-seed feeders or ground feeding, but this new little bird was at the thistle-seed feeder and was much smaller than the other birds. I think it was a Pine Siskin like this one.

Pine Siskin

And, finally - I love this pic! Emailed to me by a dear friend...

Babka's Eggs

She says that since all the roosters were "dispatched" (by one of her Chicken Lady Friends), her remaining hens are super happy girls. Aren't those eggs just gorgeous!

They're Shrugs - not Shawlettes

2009-02-28T07:18:00.012-07:00

Just the other day I saw a pattern (somewhere?) for a Shrug, and it had sleeves with a shawl type piece across the back. It was constructed like the "Shawlette" I knit(ed) for Pookie and the one I'm knitting for The Bean. So now I know. They're Shrugs.

Pookie - all smiles - with a few of her beloved animals.

Part of the back and sleeve.

The Bean's Shrug? Progress is being made. I'm past the center back portion and about two inches along on sleeve number 2. (Yes, I did finish the Purple Fountain Lace Socks.)

Apropos of nothing, one of my favorite things are "Bird Trees". The Curmudgeon and I always called them that. A "Bird Tree" is a large bush or a small tree where a flock of birds has gathered and they all begin to chirp and shout at each other. (The McLaughlin Group on PBS sometimes remind me of Bird Trees - the talking heads on said program all talking and shouting at once... But, Bird Trees are much nicer and the birds probably make more sense than the talking heads.)

Also apropos of nothing, I heard a profound statement this morning on Religion and News Weekly (PBS). Forrest Church was speaking in an interview with Bob Abernethy and said "The opposite of love is fear." Without thinking much about it, I would have said that the opposite of love is hate. But, I think he's right - it's fear. And then, fear begets hate. It might be helpful to remember that those who hate us most likely fear us. Hmmmm.

Recently a friend of mine (a very wise woman whom I love deeply) also said something profound. I can't quote her verbatim, but the essence of her thought was this: Isn't it strange that religious fundamentalists (of every stripe) tend to be anything but fundamental in their words and actions? Every major religion (that I know of, anyway) preaches love, forgiveness, service, acceptance, non-judgment of others to name a few of their fundamental beliefs. Yet, "Fundamentalists" often preach hatred, retribution, exclusion, etc., and are super judgmental of anyone different from themselves or who disagree with them. Another hmmmmm...

And here's something that I think is hilarious. The Bean's sixth grade classroom has been the recent home to an incubator complete with fertile chicken eggs. Recently, the eggs hatched and the kids in the class got to name the chicks. One little yellow chick was named "Omelet". Don't know why, but my funny bone gets tickled every time I think about it.

And lastly, Clem takes a breather.

And the Frogs were heard in the land

2009-02-25T12:04:00.006-07:00

(Did you hear them? Rip-it, rip-it, rip-it...)

Yes, I did it. I frogged the Fair Isle sock all the way. It was a good thing. I could tell that I was not going to be happy with that sock! Sometimes when I make knitting mistakes I just let them go - I know they're not gonna bother me. But other times, I know they're going to make me nuts and the only thing to do is go back and fix them. In this case, I had messed up not once, not twice, but several times on the heel and the heel was driving me CRAZY (as I may have said before), and there were other issues going on, and, well, ripping was the only solution. I'll probably try these socks again someday, but in the meantime I'm finishing the second purple Fountain Lace sock and then I AM GOING TO FINISH The Bean's Shawlette. Honest.

I debated thismorning about going outside to prune another rose bush. Or ... making cookies. The cookies won. (The Bean will be so happy when she gets home from school!) Also on today's agenda: homemade Beef and Vegetable Soup (recipe from this season of America's Test Kitchen) and maybe homemade crusty French Bread. I haven't made French Bread in years, but I make and bake "regular" bread about twice a week. The aroma of baking bread...one of my favorite things on earth.

(Hey, didja notice? I got the date stamp thing fixed on my camera. Yesterday afternoon I was complaining about the date thing to DS and he gave me one of those looks. You know, the kind of look that says "Oh, you poor pitiful thing. You are so totally clueless!) "You just go into the menu, Mom, and use the arrows to navigate around and re-set the date." Me - "There's a menu?"

Another favorite thing - our Chickens! Yesterday afternoon DS was out back cleaning out the garden beds and he let the chickens out to forage. They were so happy.

This is Penelope, one of our three hens. I wish you could click on her image to embiggen the pic, but I seem to have lost the ability to make that feature work in my blog. Chickens are so cool. My grandma and my Aunt Jean both had chickens when I was a child and some of my favorite memories are the times I helped feed those chickens and gathered eggs. My dear Curmudgeon's family had chickens when he was a boy and one of his chores was to clean out the chicken coop. He ended up hating chickens and wouldn't even entertain the notion of having them during our time together. (He's really missing out now. DS does all the clean-up, and with only three hens it isn't such a terrible task. And we get fresh free-range eggs. Scrumptious!)

Feels like Spring! Did you hear a frog???

2009-02-24T15:03:00.006-07:00

It is achingly beautiful outside today! I worked out front and pruned three of our huge, overgrown rose bushes. Here's a pic showing one of several left to prune, and an "after" pic showing a couple that I pruned today. None of our roses have been pruned in several years. The Curmudgeon used to love doing the dead-heading details during the summer months, but he wasn't so big on doing the big winter cut back stuff. I hope I haven't killed them!

My plan is to dig out all the grass and weeds around each bush and maybe plant annuals around the roses. But then...that's been my plan for at least six years. Who knows if I'll get it done this spring.

This is my little dog, Clem (short for Clemson). He hates it when I go outside and don't let him come along. So his little nose is out of joint from being relegated to the house while I was out side this morning.

He'll forgive me soon though, because after finishing this post I'm going to go out to the back yard and engage in some chicken-watching (our three hens just fascinate me and they're almost as good as meditation when it comes to calming the heart). Clem thinks the chickens might be good play-mates, but they're not very cooperative in that department.

Knitting? This is supposed to be a knitting blog, after all. I'm about to rip out the Fair Isle socks. (I'm sure I heard a frog just now.) The heel is driving me CRAZY! And, although the sock looks plenty big, it's really hard to pull over my heel - stranded knitting isn't as stretchy as stockinette or ribbing. I'm thinking I might do-over: add a pattern repeat going around the leg, lengthen the leg and try a Priscilla Gibson-Roberts heel in garter stitch. I know that will mess up the beautiful heel pattern that Katherine Misegades charted for this sock, but...hey, sometimes you just have to give a sock another chance at life, and if that means simplifying things, well then you do what you have to do.

That's it for now. Out I go to commune with chickens :-)

True Confession Time

2009-02-18T14:23:00.008-07:00

The Purple Fountain Lace Socks? Well, they're not the only new WIP I've begun while needing to finish The Bean's Shawlette... I also cast on for some Fair Isle Socks (yes, I know! I really am BAD!!). Not once, but twice. The first time, I began with an inch of 1 x 1 ribbing as called for in the pattern, but it looked so wonky that I ripped it out and started again, this time with a braided edge that I liked from some long-ago mittens. (Speaking of ribbing...I love the way my 2 x 2 ribbing looks, but every time I do 1 x 1 ribbing it looks like crap! Why is that, I wonder.

Here's a pic of the first couple of inches or so. The pattern is from "The Tongue River Farm Sock Collection" found here, and the wool is Icelandic Wool found here. I love knitting with this wool - It's springy and earthy and very appealing. It also felts like crazy. How do I know? I knit another pair of socks with this yarn several years ago and my Darling Curmudgeon accidentally washed them - and dried them! They were never the same!

I have knit a few stranded projects in my time, but I'd be the first to admit that I don't have a lot of expertise in this type of knitting. However, I found a stranded knitting technique here that I really like. Why? First, the yarn doesn't get all twisted (which drives me crazy) and second, I have more even tension with this technique: the floats on the back are only carried over a maximum of two stitches at any time, so there's less possibility of having extra loose floats or extra tight floats.

I finished the first Purple Fountain Lace sock and only have a few inches to go on the second one but I'm such a WIP whore that I couldn't even finish before I schlepped off to the Fair Isle socks.

As for the Shawlette? I'm going to pick it up and actually knit a bit on it soon, I promise!

Some knitting in spite of everything

2009-02-16T09:45:00.019-07:00

This past Christmas was low budget. Without the Curmudgeon's income, there was/is no extra $$ for much of anything. So I did what frugal knitters do. DS and DD and I agreed that we wouldn't spend any money on each other and that we would just focus on the two grandchildren. I found yarn in my stash (oh, thank heaven for little stashes!) to knit hats for each of the girls and also knit a "shawlette" for the youngest one. Actually it was supposed to be for The Bean (oldest), but in spite of all my efforts it turned out too small, so I gave it to Pookie (youngest). When she comes to stay with us next weekend, I'll try to remember to have her Dad pack it with her stuff so I can get a picture. I did start another shawlette for The Bean and am a little over half way done, but I've been working on other projects...I'm so easily lured away from WIPs to start other WIPs. Anyway, here are a few pics of hats.

The Bean's Hat, Side View

Same Girl, Same Hat, Front

(By the way, I have no idea why the date stamp on the pics says January 6 of '06... these pics were taken just the other day...why is my camera smarter than I am?)

The Bean had seen a pic of a similar hat in a catalog from Limited Too (?) or some other tweenie catalog and wanted one just like it. This one isn't "just like it", but similar enough that The Bean was very pleased.

And here's Pookie's hat.

Back to the shawlette for just a second. I don't know what to call it - maybe it's a shrug? I don't know. Basically it's a shawl with sleeves. (I've sewn the one sleeve so maybe you can see what the heck I'm talking about...You start at the wrist, knitting flat (not in the round),

then increase a few stitches along the arms to make the sleeve,

and knit across the back

and then reverse the process for the other arm. (I haven't gotten that far yet.) After you're done knitting, you sew seams from each wrist (end) of the shawl up the arm to create sleeves, leaving the portion from the upper arms and across the back open so it acts and feels like a shawl. Again, The Bean had seen a picture in a (knitting) catalog and thought it was really cute, hence my attempt at knitting one for her.

And what has lured me away? (Bad Grandma!) Socks, of course.

I'm working them toe-up, using Judy's Magic Cast on and following Wendy's generic toe-up sock with gusset, but making the socks my own by incorporating Fountain Lace and Double Eyelet Cable (from Barbara Walker's books). This is only my second time knitting this type of toe-up sock...I swore I wouldn't use this type of construction again as I sweated through the first pair - but then when they were finished and I wore them, I fell in love with the fit and comfort. So, I've used it again with these purple socks (and still had problems along the way) but I persevered and am now past the heel and working on the leg of the second sock. The problems, by the way are because of ME, not Wendy's pattern. It is superb, as all her patterns are. It's the "knitting the stitch together with the stitch that wraps it" that seems to be my big challenge. Don't know what my problem is...

Grief

2009-02-13T12:51:00.006-07:00

It's been so long since I've posted I've mostly forgotten how.

First, sad news about my dear one. Last April my darling Curmudgeon had a heart event in his sleep, and even though the EMTs did finally get a heart rhythm back, he didn't ever "wake up". It's been about 10 months since he died and I still feel as though I'm on an emotional roller-coaster. Those five stages of grief? What no one tells you is that you don't necessarily move/progress through them smoothly, transitioning from one stage to the next. For me, it's been (and still is) a hodge-podge of profound grief one day, ballistic anger the next day and "calm" acceptance another day. And on and on.

This pic was joyfully discovered in my camera's memory after he died. I don't think I took it - maybe The Bean or DS/DD snapped it. As I look at his face in this tableau, he looks worried or maybe in pain. He also looks more haggard than he looked when awake. We used to tease him unmercifully about falling asleep anywhere, any time, and if any of the cats had access...well, they regarded him as heated furniture.

While he was in the hospital (connected to all kinds of machines in the hours before he actually was un-plugged and subsequently "died" for real) the cardiologist told us that his heart was only functioning at about 60% and that it had most probably been that way for a period of several years. Now, of course, we're all so sorry that we teased him for falling asleep anywhere anytime... Poor guy! He needed it. And, we're all still amazed at how hard he worked, how much he got done in spite of 40% less output from his heart.

And, despite his haggard, pained look, I'm so glad I have this picture of him with his beloved cats.

I'm planning on posting again soon - and with knitting content. Yes, there has been some knitting.

A Brighter World and New Projects

2008-01-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

Firstly, my cataract surgery last Tuesday went smoothly and I was amazed at how different the world looked, even as DH drove me home after the procedure. If I shut my left eye and looked out of my right eye (the eye that had just been operated on) everything looked "clean" and already distance vision was improved. On the other hand, looking only through my left eye, the world appeared yellow-ish, as if there were a yellow filter over that eye.

The next day, at my one-day check-up, I was able to see 20-30 through my right eye, and the Dr. was very pleased with how good my eye looked. I asked him about the color change between the two eyes and he said that cataracts are yellow, so looking through a cataract is just like having a yellow filter. A-ha! Later that same day I was out back with Clem and saw twigs (!) on our big ash tree! I haven't seen twigs (except close-up) for years... I go to see my regular eye-doctor in two days and if all looks well, we may be able to schedule the second cataract surgery for two or three weeks off. I can't wait!!!!

Knitting:

Last week I ordered yarn for two projects... The Pirate Hat yarn came already, but the needles aren't here yet - rats! The pattern can be found here - thanks to Adrian Bazilia at Hello Yarn! for sharing it. The mittens are called Sea Mineral Mittens - I first saw them here, and the pattern is free on Ravelry. I ordered KP's Palette yarn in a colorway similar to Nanette's. (Her blog, by the way, is chock full of information about stranded knitting, gloves, mittens - and she has several highly-reviewed booklets and pamphlets for sale - check it out.)

I'm still (still!) working on the ribbing for the first Anne sock, and have done most of one repeat of the snowflake pattern for my Snowflake Shawl. (Not anything to brag about, as the pattern is only eight rows - but each repeat of the pattern increases the stitch count on the needle by eight stitches...I don't even know how many stitches are on the needle right now, but it seems like a lot.)

It snowed again last night, and today is all drippy and sloppy. I'm not going to complain too much, though, because we're supposed to get an Arctic blast out of Canada this coming week, with night-time temps in the teens. Brrrrr!

Backyard Birds

2008-01-14T10:18:00.000-07:00

I always go out back when Clem goes out for his periodic potty breaks, and one day last week while I was sitting in the cold waiting for Clem, I heard a "new" (to me) bird somewhere in the area. I listened and listened and tried to whistle back to the bird, and looked and looked and never did spot him/her. Then a few days lataer, DD came outside with me and she spotted a Big Blue Bird on the fence. My eyesight is so poor right now that I could not distinguish any features - except that it was, indeed a big bird and it was blue. (Cataract surgery tomorrow on my right eye! Yay!)

Could this be the bird I had heard? I came inside to the computer and went here. I was pretty sure that the bird must be a Jay bird, but didn't know which kind of Jay bird. I typed "jay" into the search box and then checked out all the different Jay birds. Each bird "page" has a map showing the bird's range, along with other facts - one of the best features is - there are recordings of the bird-calls with each bird. Using this wonderful feature I found out that our Big Blue Bird was a Steller's Jay. He/she stayed around off and on all day, flitting from the fence to the ground, peckng for goodies, then back up to the fence. I have only seen one Jay bird around here once before and that was probably five years ago or more.

I really am excited about getting my cataracts removed. I opted for the "enhanced" surgery - so if all goes well, after both eyes are fixed I should have very good distance vision and only need to wear glasses for reading. I am very near-sighted and have worn glasses since I was about 11 years old. (I clearly remember my fascination, after getting my first pair of glasses, with being able to see individual leaves on trees! I knew of course that those big green blobs (trees) had leaves, but had never thought about being able to distinguish them, one by one.)

On the knitting front, I am still working on the ribbing for the "Anne" socks. Another inch or so and I'll change to #3 needles to finish the leg.

A New Sock and A New Friend

2008-01-12T14:24:00.000-07:00

So, there's the new sock - with the heel just completed. Some ankle rows and then a ribbed (2 x 2) leg and the first one will be done. The yarn is Schaefer Yarn "Anne", 60 % Merino Wool Superwash, 25% Mohair and 15% Nylon - I bought it here. I think I bought way too much yarn: each skein has 560 yards in it and I bought two skeins. (I have BIG feet, so I'm always paranoid about not having enough yarn...) I'm more than half way through this first sock and the first yarn-cake (one skein) still seems pretty hefty.

I'm knitting these socks on size 2 (the larger size 2) Harmony Wood dpns. Did I say how much I love Harmony Wood needles from Knit Picks?

On a completely non-knitting subject, above is a picture of Clem, my new Puppy Dog. (We just got him the weekend before Thanksgiving.) I used to have a half-scottie dog named Annabelle. When she died a few years ago, I knew that someday I wanted a lap dog... In the meantime, we baby-sat several big dogs for various friends of our kids, and when the latest one went back to her family, I began looking in earnest for "my" lap-dog. I haunted the local Humane Society and read the classified ads religiously. No small dogs at the Humane Society (over a period of several months) and all the dogs/puppies in the paper were way expensive. Then, there was an ad for a seven-month old Chihuahua for $100...I hadn't thought that I wanted a Chihuahua, but I thought "Why not? I'll just go look." Well, when the lady brought Clem out to meet me, I just fell plumb in love!

It turned out that she had a kennel and raised long-haired Chihuahuas, and then her geographical area got annexed into a nearby community and that community doesn't allow kennel licenses. She had to either move (in a ridiculously short time) or get rid of all her dogs but three... The seven-month-old in the newspaper ad was already gone, but she still had Clem left and, like I said, I loved him at first sight.

He is a character - the heart of a lion and the bladder of a Great Dane. When I take him outside first thing every morning, his first pee lasts a very long time! He is fiercely protective of me - to the point that he doesn't like it when DH gives me a kiss! And, DH wants to play and cuddle with Clem, but Clem won't have anything to do with him. I'm hoping Clem will mellow out in time.

Yesterday I gritched about the weather - all that melting and dripping. Well, today our back yard is nearly free of snow and I swear there's new green grass out there! The birds have been numerous and noisy all day! Our neighbor's back-yard Oak trees and our Ash tree have been full of robins all day and our Juniper "Bird Tree" has been so noisy that you can hardly hear yourself think when you go out back.

I hate to say it, but I'm thinking Spring - and I know better! January is, after all, a six-month-long purgatory, where Spring is too distant to even dream about.

Uh...it's been awhile...

2008-01-11T12:30:00.001-07:00

It's been so long since I've posted, I'm wondering if I can remember how to do it... So far so good - I remembered how to sign in to blogger :-)

It's January. Ugh. I had a friend (God rest her soul) who loved January. She saw it as the clean-slate month and liked the idea of "a fresh start" and "new beginnings". Nope, not me. For me, January is like a six-month-long purgatory while I wait for February. Actually, February isn't all that much better...but at least in February you can more easily anticipate Spring and warm weather.

We've had more snow this month than last year's total. I do love to watch the snow come down - but really hate the melting-off stage. Today is one of those melting, dripping days.

Knitting? Right now I have two projects "actively" on the needles. One is a triangular shawl found here. I call it my snowflake shawl : Knit Pick's Alpaca Cloud (lace weight) in the Iris color, needles - Harmony wood cable needles, size 6 (I LOVE the harmony wood needles from Knit Pick's) . (Yep, that's the same yarn I used when starting two or three other lace projects that fizzled. I ended up having to throw away some of the yarn at the beginning of the yarn cake because I had frogged it so much that it was pretty wonky. Oh sigh.)

I'll save the other on-the-needles project for another day. I've forgotten how to position my pics within the text of the post. Drat!

More Flowers

2007-05-18T09:13:00.001-06:00

The fact that I'm posting more pics of flowers might give you a hint...the knitting progress is nil. :-( I think I have given up (for now) on Eunny Jang's Print 'O the Wave Stole...I hate to admit defeat, but it's just too hard for me. I've only knit two lace projects in the past, plus one little bitty sampler - and although I did complete them successfully, it was a struggle.

However, the lace-knitting mojo is still strong, so I looked though Barbara Walker's second book of patterns and picked out two 8-row patterns that looked do-able. I'm knitting a practice piece that I'm calling the "Why Can't I Knit Lace?" (WCIKL) sampler. I'm doing a center panel of Fountain Lace (p.272) with Branched Fern (p.314) on either side, and selvage stitches at both ends of the needles. I provisionally cast-on 53 stitches - the plan is to go back after one side of the sampler is "done" and pick up the provisional stitches and knit the other side...and then, if I'm still feeling the love, to attempt knitting-on a border all around. If nothing else this will give me practice in the knitting of lace.

I had to wait a few days for my Mother's Day present(s)...Yesterday The Curmudgeon brought home this hanging basket - It hangs on the East (front) side of the house, right outside the over-the-sink kitchen window. DS also funded a similar hanging basket for our other kitchen window - I'll try to post a pic of it tomorrow. (Sorry about the tag at the top of the picture - hubby didn't think to remove it and I can't reach it without stepping in a very wet and muddy flower bed... I'll get hubby to take it off tonight.)

And this is a close-up of one of our roses - I don't have a clue as to it's name so I just call it our "Stripey" rose. Very perfumy.

My learning curve with blogging has hit another stumbling block. You might notice that I have a "button" in my sidebar for Knitter's Coffee Swap, but if you click it, nothing happens. I'm trying to place button-links to other websites in my sidebar, but so far I haven't figured it out. There is apparently some help in (Google) blogger groups, but I can't get the info to upload so I can't read about it. I hate feeling so ignorant!

Gotta go. WCIKL is calling!

Knitting Lace is Fussy

2007-05-15T07:54:00.000-06:00

What do you do when you don't have knitting progress to show? You go out in the yard just as the sun is coming up and you take photos of flowers! Thank goodness for flowers...and spring and sunny mornings. We're still enjoying clouds of iris' perfume when we walk outside the front door.

And here are the first blooms of our painted daisies - new this year. I hope this little plant grows into a big clump. I've never grown painted daisies before.

And, a couple of our delphiniums. Sometimes I pick the flower stalks just so I can gather the spent flowers when they fall - they make beautiful additions to potpourri since they keep their color well.

On the knitting front, I made it through about one and a half vertical pattern repeats on the Print 'O The Wave Stole, and then ended up ripping it out and starting over. One of the things that's giving me grief is that I've been using ring type stitch markers between pattern repeats on each row. In some rows there are yarn-overs either just before a stitch marker or just after a stitch marker and it's hard (for me) to get and keep the stitch marker in the correct place - either before or after the yarn-overs. Another problem is that in some rows there's either a k2tog or an ssk that occurs right "over the top" of the stitch markers, using one stitch on either side of the marker, and somehow, I get all goofed up with slipping a stitch to remove the marker, then replacing the stitch and doing the k2tog or the ssk and at the same time getting the marker in the correct place. It doesn't seem all that difficult when I write it out, but the execution of said process is giving me mild fits.

I replaced the ring type stitch markers with little yarn markers in the hopes that they would be easier to manipulate (the yarn-overs) and maybe that would help me in my k2tog and ssk problems. Wish me luck. It's a good thing that I really do enjoy the process of lace knitting, even though it's challenging for me. (Another thing - I'm using my Knit Picks circs -- I love the way the stitches slide from the cable to the needles, but, wow! are those needle points ever slick! The only other circs I have in the correct size are bamboo and the cable join is very "rough" - I don't want to always be babying the stitches over that join.)

In any case, I'm learning as I knit and un-knit and that's all good.

What would I do without Hege?

2007-05-13T22:52:00.000-06:00

Just a very short post to thank Hege, again! In her comment for my last entry she told me how to get a blogroll into my sidebar. It turns out to be so simple that I feel silly...but, in the old blogger it really was more of a Big Deal. In the new, updated blogger is easy peasy! Thanks Hege. (Be sure to check her out - her black-and-white sweater choices are awesome.)

I'll be adding more of my must-read blogs tomorrow.

Iris' and Iris

2007-05-12T05:36:00.000-06:00

Walking out our front door these days is to walk into a cloud of Iris perfume! I wish computers had smell-a-vision: then I could re-visit this page anytime during the year and recapture the fragrance. Just across the sidewalk, to the right of the big clump of bi-colored iris, is our miniature yellow rosebush. It is covered with buds.

This one is the first to open. This little bush started out as one of those super market specials years ago. It has thrived and now stands about four feet tall (miniature?) - but all the flowers and leaves are small.

And this is my lace weight Alpaca yarn from Knit Picks in the colorway called "Iris". I bought two skeins to make the Print 'O The Wave Stole and used my yarn swift for the first time last night to wind one of the skeins. I'll be purchasing a ball-winder before I wind the second skein! 440 yards is a LOT of yarn to wind by hand, especially with the yarn being lace weight.

My Everyday Shawl and Rainy Day socks are still in progress... They'll get knitting time after dark (and/or before dawn). Last night I cast on for the new stole and knit a few rows and found that it was difficult to see the stitches in this colorway without good natural light. So it will be a day-time knitting project. I can't wait for the sun to come up!

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. A bittersweet time for those of us whose mothers have died...My Mom died in 1985 and I still miss her. But...I do have many wonderful memories that I treasure.

P. S. I've whined about not knowing how to accomplish some pretty basic skills in blogging, like how to upload images into the text, etc. (Turns out I need to upload the images first, in reverse order of how I want them to display, and add the text later.) So I bought the book Blogging for Dummies by Brad Hill. A mixed bag ... for me anyway. I learned a lot of basic stuff about blogging in general, but I still have no clue about creating a blogroll in my sidebar, for instance, or posting a button to show that I'm participating in the Coffee Swap. Rats.

Lessons in Lace Land

2007-05-01T08:14:00.000-06:00

This morning I took my cup of delicious hot coffee and went searching for my Rainy Day sock...and found it where? Looking for Waldo! I had to help it (her?) find Waldo before I could knit another round or two. I'm loving this pattern - but I have to say that when I first started it, I sure had trouble "remembering" how to do a yarn-over between a knit stitch and a purl stitch. Finally had to turn to Montse Stanley's Knitter's Handbook. (Thank you, Montse.) I think I bought my copy on eBay. All the stitches in the sock are still look very bumpy and uneven because the yarn was knitted last summer and then ripped out - this yarn has incredible "stitch memory", as it wasn't on the needles all that long last summer.

And, yeah, Sunday afternoon I did the provisional cast-on and knit about one and a half patern repeats on the Print 'O The Wave Stole. And then I stopped. This lace weight mohair yarn has lots (LOTS) of "halo", I guess it's called. I don't think the photo shows it, but it sure complicates the execution of the knitting. Sometimes the halo-hairs are so numerous that they masquerade as stitches all on their own. This little bit of the knitting required quite a bit of frogging... I don't feel comfortable using this particular yarn for an entire shawl, so I've decided to order some Alpaca Cloud from Knit Picks. :-)

This might seem like a disappointment - but it's not. There are many positives out of this little excursion in lace-land. For one thing, the provisional cast-on went smooth as silk, er...mohair?... Another thing, I worked out my own short-comings in reading the chart for the pattern and it turned out to be very do-able. I feel confident about knitting the shawl in a less fussy yarn. And another positive thing is that there will be an edging that is knitted onto the central portion of the shawl - in the manner of Shetland Shawls and I am looking forward to learning how to do that. Eunny's directions look to be very complete and understandable. Thanks, Eunny. (btw, Congratulations on your recent position with Interweave Knits.) And, finally, waiting for the new yarn to arrive will give me more time to (hopefully) finish the Rainy Day Socks and get in another foot or so on my Everyday Shawl. (I will feel so good when it is finished.)

Yellow Flowers and Lace Dreams

2007-04-29T11:56:00.000-06:00

Hmmm... I don't know quite how I did it yesterday...getting an image to post in the middle of the text and not automatically have it go to the top. Today I did the very same thing (at least I think so), downloaded the iris' first and then the African Daisy. Although I can enter text between the pictures, I can't put it above the daisy picture.

Maybe this will be as good as it gets...

My Rainy Day Sock is approximately at the same place it was yesterday at this time. I woke up this morning wanting to knit lace. I have some white mohair blend lace weight and I'm thinking about this pattern. Will I? (Startitis is a terrible thing!)

Bird Calls

2007-04-28T07:14:00.000-06:00

For several years I’ve been hearing a “peculiar” bird call in our neighborhood during the spring and summer months. I say “peculiar” because it was a call I didn’t recognize, and try as I might, I’ve never been able to spot any bird actually saying (singing) this call. For those of you with any musical training, it’s just a descending major second – 2 notes, of equal length. This morning as I was knitting, I had the window open and heard that bird call again, so I went to this web site and after a few tries, I found The Bird! I had suspected that the bird I was hearing was one that we frequently see at our feeders, but that the peculiar bird calls I kept hearing were more of “This-is-my- territory!” calls, or maybe “Hey-girls-lets-have-some-fun!” calls rather than the normal bird chatter that one hears at the feeders. So I typed in several familiar birds and listened to their calls, and sure enough! The bird I’ve been hearing is this…

a Black Capped Chick-a-dee! Singing an entirely different song from his usual "chick-a-dee-dee-dee". I love this web site!

(WOW! Did you see that? I actually got an image placed in the middle of the text! Wonder if I can do another one?)

On the knitting front? Not much to report - I've knit a few rounds on my Rainy Day Sock, but not enough progress to warrant another pic. Early this morning, while knitting, I watched an episode of Religion and Ethics on PBS. Informative and sometimes provocative, it's an excellent reason to watch the telly early on a Saturday morning.

This 'n That

2007-04-26T14:56:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I finished knitting the felted Fair Isle bag - all except for the little loops where the handles will attach. I need to decide if I'm going to go with i-cord handles or purchased leather handles. The leather ones are kind of pricey but I think I'll like them better than the i-cord. That's String Bean striking a pose during the photo shoot. (The Curmudgeon calls him "Nads" most of the time - you'd know why if you could see a South-end view of cat going North.)

I've also knit about an additional foot or more of my Everyday Shawl. It's now long enough to throw one end over my shoulders while I knit on the other end - very comforting on these still chilly mornings. Speaking of weather - we're supposed to get up into the 80s this weekend! I feel so bad for the folks who are dealing with snow, floods, tornadoes, etc. Back to the shawl - I have less than three skeins of yarn to knit up and then it will be finished. (Anthrax insisted on getting in on the photo shoot action.)

I also started a pair of Rainy Day Socks - done my way. I'm doing them with the Sock It To Me! yarn that I won last summer from this wonderful blogger, I'm making them bigger than the pattern calls for, knitting them toe-up (because I don't know for sure how long to make the leg, what with the change in yarn and gauge involved), and I'm using my "regular" short row heel and toe a la Priscilla Gibson-Roberts . I began this first sock with the part of the yarn that I had knit up last summer (and ended up ripping out) and the stitches look very uneven and bumpy. I'm hoping that after being washed and worn a few times the stitches will even out and look OK.

This is the third pair (of socks) in a row that I've begun with a provisional cast-on and from the toe-up. All of my previous socks were knitted cuff-down. I almost feel comfortable with a provisional cast-on now ... doing it this many times in a row has helped me retain the process.

As I was working on the toe, I was thinking about the Miracle of knitting. When it was first invented, surely it must have seemed like magic! Some string and some sticks...and out comes this stretchy, complicated fabric. I've been knitting for many years and I still think it's magical. How could someone have thought it up? And then, all the fancy stuff...can you imagine how the first person to work cables felt? Or the first one to do a yarn over and invent lacy stitches? It boggles my mind.

Thanks Hege!

2007-04-18T12:07:00.000-06:00

First of all, I can't believe that it's been a whole week since I last posted! I swear it was only a couple of days ago... Could it be that our household has been a busy one?

In my last post, I complained because I couldn't figure out how to place pictures where I wanted them within the text of my blog. Hege commented and told me how to do it! (Well, duh! It seems so obvious - I know how to insert pictures into Word documents...what was I thinking?) Thank you Hege, you wonderful, star-bright person!

But alas, even with Hege's help, it still isn't working the way I'm doing it. I know the answer must be something very simple that I'm doing wrong, or not doing at all...but right now, I sure can't figure it out. So, pics are still at the top. Sorry.

I tried the Eye of Partridge heel and it worked OK. I was using some leftover variegated sock yarn, so it's hard to differentiate the stitches (and the pic is a bit fuzzy, too), but there it is...up at the top. Oh, sigh.

And I finished the Eyelet Rib socks. I bound them off like Wendy's Feather and Fan socks, so the bind-off looks almost ruffly, but when they're on the foot-leg, the ruffle part pretty much disappears. I love the eyelet rib and want to use it with a sock yarn that's not stripey or patterned. (It must be time to order some new sock yarn, yes?)

On an entirely different subject, a lifetime ago I was an elementary music teacher and every spring I taught the fourth graders one of my favorite songs - At this point in my life I can't remember who wrote it, or where the lyrics came from, so I apologize to the writer/composer, but here are the words:

Seeds inside the package,

they can't read the label.

They can't see the picture,

so, how are they able

to know if they're daisies

or greens for the table?

This weekend the "good child" (DS) is going to replace the (shredded) heavy-duty clear plastic on our (extremely) little greenhouse - it's really a glorified cold-frame, and then, seeds will sprout! Here's to sunny days and above-freezing temps.

If you don't like the weather...

2007-04-11T09:49:00.000-06:00

Top picture. Toe and foot of Eyelet rib sock #2.

Next picture. Eyelet rib sock #1 showing more of cuff.
Burgundy sock, still on needles after months and months...oh sigh.

The joke, when we first moved to Idaho, 25 years ago, was "If you don't like the weather, wait 20 minutes." It's not quite that changeable, but it's not uncommon this time of year to have snow one day and two or three days later enjoy temperatures in the 60s. Why do I mention this, you ask? Last Friday and Saturday the weather was perfect - just like I hope it is in heaven. Sunshine and warm temperatures. Sunday it rained most of the day and was cold. Monday - sunny again but still pretty chilly. Tuesday - cold and windy, making the wind-chill temp nearly unbearable. And last night??? It Froze! So much for peaches on our peach tree this year. Drat!

I've started sock #2 of the Eyelet Rib socks. Nope, didn't get sock #1 completely done, but I don't want to knit the leg too far and then discover that I don't have enough yarn to knit the second sock to the same length. I really, really do like the eyelet rib pattern and I'm already thinking about the next socks to cast-on after these socks are finished.

Question: Why do I think that I need to purchase more sock yarn, when I have enough in my (tiny little) stash for at least 4 more pairs of socks and I do have at least one pair languishing on needles somewhere (besides the Eyelet Rib socks - they're not languishing but they are on the needles) Maybe part of the "problem" is that within my sock-yarn-stash I have yarn for two pair intended for the Curmudgeon - dark grey and dark heathery blue. This time of year that yarn is about as appealing as cleaning gutters. I do have this lovely, springy-summery yarn sent to my by this wonderful blogger way back last summer...(I ended up frogging it all the way back to nothing because I wasn't happy with how it was turning out - no fault of the yarn, which I love.) And I also have some "when-I-get-old-I-shall-wear-purple-and-red" yarn from Knit Picks - but it looks pretty wintry, too.

And, speaking of next-socks-on-the-needles, I love the look of the eye of partridge stitch heels seen here (the April 11th post). I'm of the short-row-heel persuasion rather than the heel-flap persuasion, so I'm going to see if the eye-of-partridge stitch will lend itself to short-row heels. I'll let you know if it turns out.

(In case you're wondering, I wear socks year round. I think that last summer there was only one day when I went without socks. I suffer from poor circulation and really [REALLY] cold feet.)

I am getting very frustrated with my lack of ability to (figure out how to) control the placement of pictures within my blog entries. No matter where I try to insert them, they always appear at the beginning of my blog entry. I'm wondering if the problem is ME (most likely) or if I need to pursue a different blog host. I've gone through the help section with blogger.com and can't find any help at all. I've tried to contact blogger.com and haven't gotten any satisfaction there, either.

So, please accept my apologies for not strategically placing pictures throughout the text of each post. I would if I only could!

Meanwhile, speaking of languishing, I found this site today. I predict that it shall we well fed with projects-that-are-taking-way-too-long. I'd send them a post about my burgundy socks, but honestly - a sock seems like such a short little project when compared to some of the projects shown on Slogalong. All of which, btw, are gorgeous.

Sproing!

2007-04-07T17:25:00.000-06:00

Oh how I do love Spring! And she sure has Sprung here in Idaho's Treasure Valley. I'm so glad I don't suffer from hay fever, because the air out in our yard is so full of perfume it almost makes me giddy. The other afternoon my current sock in progress sneaked off when I wasn't looking and I found it out in the Viburnum bush. Silly sock! This morning I finished the heel and am working on the ankle rows. I'm doing a garter stitch heel and toe, and I will do ribbing on the leg - want to do something besides just plain ol' 2 x 2 ribbing... I have only about 5 more rows of ankle before I have to decide. This is the first pair of socks I've made with a garter stitch heel and toe - I really like the way it looks and feels.

Did I mention how much I love this yarn? The way the color changes and develops as you knit along has captured my fancy.

I've also done a few rows on the Fair Isle bag-to-be-felted. I got the pattern from Interweave Knits on what used to be their subscriber-only web patterns, but they're in the midst of changing to something new and right now I can't find the pattern on the web any longer. The only pic I have of it (on my printed pattern) is in black and white and doesn't do it justice, so I won't post it here. I am using 100 % wool from Knit Picks. I couldn't find the exact colors in the Knit Picks wool, but the price was right, and mostly I'm doing this project to see if I can really knit Fair Isle without going bonkers, and also to get some more experience with felting.

Later same day - I decided on an eyelet rib for the cuffs of the new socks. Since I haven't already given them a name (except sock-in-progress) guess I'll call them Eyelet Rib Socks. Now, that's original! I'm only on the third repeat of the 8-row pattern so I can't tell how it's going to turn out (compared to a regular 2 x 2 rib) but so far, I very much like the looks of it.

Teddy agreed to pose with pics of the Feather & Fan finished socks, and the Eyelet Rib socks ... but by the time we got to the Fair Isle Bag, Teddy was bored and feeling silly and ended up putting the bag over his head. I think Teddy needed a nap. (By the way, Teddy, I apologize for cutting off your head in all the pictures...)

Knitterly Camaradarie

2007-04-05T08:13:00.000-06:00

Ever since I discovered knitting blogs on the net I've read about and envied the experiences many bloggers post about - meeting other knitters at conferences or classes or book signings (or whatever, whenever), and the feeling of being part of a greater whole, a community of knitters that spans nearly every imaginable continuum. I've been impressed by the generous inclusiveness of this band of knitters from around the world, and also by the loving charitableness they embody.

Yesterday I experienced just a small smidgeon of that acceptance and rapport... DD and I were in search of a table-lamp-with-magnifier for my sewing table and she mentioned a really neat craft store west of town that would be sure to have a selection of such lamps. When we got there, alas, they no longer carried lamps/lighting devices, but (to my delighted amazement) they had a quite respectable yarn department! And, situated conveniently between the fabric area and the yarn area there was a table with inviting chairs, and sitting in one of those chairs was a lady...knitting!

One of the clerks had already struck up a conversation with me and had found out that I'm a knitter and had invited me to come to their monthly Yarn Yoga meetings (informal gatherings of knitters to gab, knit, share, enjoy refreshment, etc.), so when I sat down at the table, the Knitting Lady (Pam? - I'm really, really bad about names) and I began to chat. Her knitting project is a bag (to be felted) and we immediately began comparing notes re/ our felting experience (for both of us, not much). Both of the store clerks in the area drifted in and out of the conversation from time to time and it was one of the most pleasant and relaxing moments I've had with "strangers" for a very long time. (Among knitters there are no "strangers", I've decided.)

None of my friends are knitters... They're all special, wonderful, diamond-bright people, but...they're muggles. There! I've said it out loud. Sadly, all of my friends are part of the world of muggles. Some of them may have actually knit something during their life-times, but they're not (obsessed with yarn) knitters. When I mention something I've read or run across from reading knit blogs, they all cock their heads and get one of those here-she-goes-again looks on their faces. Some of them even roll their eyes and mutter "Those knit bloggers. Again!" (But, at least they know about blogs - I've made sure of that.)

A wonderful day!

And, just now, I figured out how to upload pics from my new camera (ta da!). Anthrax, one of our cats, lounging on my little TV table and progress - as of last night - of a new sock. I LOVE this yarn! It's schoeller stahl Fortissima Colori 6-fach Socka Color #9048 and I bought it here, just like the sock yarn of my generic-toe-up-Wendy-Feather-and-Fan socks mentioned in one of my last posts. (I'd take a pic of them for the blog, but I've been wearing them ever since I got sock #2 off the needles - today they go in the wash, and then I'll get a pic.) BTW we didn't name the cat - she is an "inherited" cat, from one of our almost-son-in-laws and came with name firmly in place. DH calls her "The Plague Cat". She is my sweet, sweet cuddle cat - especially at night when her place of preference is as-close-to-Mom's-face-as-possible.

My new camera was an impulse buy at Radio Shack. I went there just to get some ear-buds for the (cast-off) MP3 player DD gave to me. (She's got a postage-stamp-sized iPod now.) And I came out of the store with a Kodak EasyShare C643 camera. In my defense, it was on special. And the store manager was a cutie-patootie (and, a great salesman, DH pointed out later). Said camera has an IQ roughly 100 times greater than mine. :-) But, doesn't she take great pictures? (even if I get them slightly out of focus)

Feather & Fan socks on the Needles...

2007-03-29T06:28:00.000-06:00

After all the angst of posting with pictures yesterday, I ended up not sayin' much about the two projects whose pics I did successfully post, and there are a few things I wanted to say about them.

First of all, I love the Berocco Pleasure yarn - it's incredibly soft, easy to work with and shows stitch detail very well. It's a heavy worsted weight yarn so it knits up really quickly. I used size 9 (U.S.) needles for both projects. The yarn is not being made any more, but you can find it on eBay at reasonable prices.

When I made the Human Genome scarf, I learned how to cable without using a cable needle. I did great with this technique as long as the "loose" stitches were held in the front...When they were behind the needle, more often than not, they would begin to "drop" and I would have to fish them back up again using a crochet hook. This took longer (and was more frustrating) than using a cable needle in the first place. I kept trying to analyze the process while I was doing it - why are those stitches wanting to run away? But didn't get to the point of fully understanding the problem - at least not enough to prevent it from happening. So, I'd have to say that my success rate with this new-to-me technique was only about 50%, but it was/is still worth it. Not having to keep track of the cable needle, pick it up and use it for every single cable crossing (and there were lots of them in that scarf!) was a good thing.

The pattern for the Human Genome scarf is from Interweave Knits, Fall 2003. I made it pretty much according to the pattern, but I substituted stockinette stitch for the long borders because I knew they would curl under and I thought that would provide a soft edge to go along DH's neck. I really like how it turned out.

My everyday shawl is very plain. One of the things I "learned" from it when planning it out beforehand was that knitting-math, even the most basic, can cause me grief. (Oh, sigh.) It has a garter stitch border with selvage stitches and the main-body pattern is "Diamond Brocade" from B. Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns. The directions in her book are written out so I made a little chart to follow. I love charts! I find them much easier to use than written-out directions. (If you look really closely at yesterday's picture you may be able to see the cute little stitch markers!)

I'm also working on a pair of socks, using Wendy's generic toe-up pattern with her Feather and Fan pattern for the legs. (Size 2 needles for the feet, and size 3 needles for the legs & cuffs.) I have large feet, thick ankles and "muscular" (read fat) legs, and don't know how long to make the legs/cuffs - don't want to run out of yarn, so I knitted the first sock and did a couple or three repeats of the Feather & Fan on the legs, and then began the second sock. I plan on knitting it to the same point and then go from there with what ever much yarn I have left to make the legs/cuffs of them both. I tried the Feather & Fan pattern on a pair of socks last summer, but ended up ripping it out because I really didn't like knitting on #1 needles - very hard on my hands, and the fabric was so stiff and hard that it felt a lot like cardboard. The yarn I was using for that pair was gorgeous, and I will be using it for different socks (or maybe another Feather & Fan) but on larger needles.

For the current pair I am using On Line 6 Ply that I bought here - 150 grams of sock goodness.

By the way, I apologize for the sock pic. It doesn't do those socks justice at all!

Well...Krap!

2007-03-28T09:35:00.000-06:00

I've been trying, since my last lonely post to upload some images of knitting interest. And the doppelganger is back...or, more correctly, I can't figure out how to change something in the blog template to allow images to upload. Drat and ratzafratz! See, these are the kinds of frustrations that threaten to send me right back to bed and pull the covers over my head!

What is a blog entry without pics? B - O - R - R - I - N - G !! I wanted to show you the Human Genome Scarf I finished for DH - knit with Berroco (or is it Berocco?) Pleasure yarn in the "leather" color. Yummy, and I'm not even particularly fond of brown. And, then my own design every-day shawl also knit with the same yarn but in the "emotion" color - a beautiful, subtle lavender-grey sort of color. This shawl is a "blower", not a "show-er" as my Grandma used to say - that is, it's made to be functional (warm!) not showy or lacy. (But, I really do like the pattern.) (Grandma referred to her hankies as either "blowers" or "show-ers" - the pretty, lacy ones weren't too functional, but Grandpa's purloined handkerchiefs were good for alleviating drippy noses.)

Now, as for the problem with uploading images...I'm a reasonably intelligent person, and although I do not belong to the computer-savvy generation, I should be able to figure this out, right? So, I will try (again). That's one of my missions for today: get pictures into my blog entries. (You might be wondering, if you have looked at posts from the past, why there are pictures in many of those posts...Well, since doing those posts, 1-Blogger has changed to Google hosting and 2-our computer has undergone a resurrection of sorts 3-And we've changed Internet providers 4-And email is only recoverable thru Outlook Express - Somewhere in all those changes lies the rub, so to speak.)

Wish me luck!

OH, GLORY BE! An image appeared! (Not where I wanted it, but let's not be picky!)

I'll try another one!

GLORY BE! Now there are two!

Hmmm...I wonder what will happen when I go from "draft" to "publish" with this entry. Hopefully, the pics will publish, and I'll write again tomorrow - maybe even try images again. :o)

Hello...I'm back, I think

2007-03-23T11:48:00.000-06:00

Sometime after last August 31 we suffered a computer meltdown and for a long while I couldn't blog or even read blogs. And, I "lost" my favorites, so even when we got back on line so I could read blogs, I couldn't remember all their names (like when you have automatic dialer on your phone and you soon forget your friend's "real" phone numbers). And then we were pretty much into late fall and the shorter days began to take their toll and I was just too depressed to write, knit, read, cook - just about everything except sleep.

During the past month or so, I have re-found most of my favorite blogs and a few new ones as well, and the last few days have really been feeling the nudge to return to my blog. So, I go to blogspot dot com and find that they're all new fangled since last I posted. I don't do very well with "new" stuff, but I think I've made it through so that I can once again post.

Knitting? Most of the UFO's I posted about last summer are still UFO's - if you read my blog then, you'll remember how I love to start new projects, but finish them? Not so much. But I did start AND finish a few things... And, of course I'm working on some new projects, too. Tomorrow I promise some pictures...

Maybe it's the way I hold my tongue...

2006-08-31T08:46:00.000-06:00

Weird! Today the Doppelganger must be asleep, because the pics uploaded without any trouble at all. Isn't The Bean a cutie? And the Sock it to Me yarn is gorgeous. I have added about three inches to the foot since taking that picture. I haven't been knitting a whole lot these past few days.

On the exercise front, I failed to mention in my rant (see previous post) that I substituted walking for the running-on-the-treadmill that I was "supposed" to do. The only muscle pain that is nagging at me (so far) is from doing the scissor leg lifts. They were relatively easy to do - for an old out of shape lump like me - but oh, the soreness. I was expecting to experience soreness in my arms, shoulders and back because of the little dumb-bell routines I've been doing, but so far all is well. I appreciated the comments from Hege and Beverly. It's always wonderful to be encouraged.

Tomorrow the Curmudgeon and The Good Son and I are planning a day-trip to Baker, Oregon. (It's officially named 'Baker City' now, but when C. And I grew up there, it was - and ever will be, in our minds at least - 'Baker'. Furthermore, we weren't consulted regarding the name change!)
I am looking forward to seeing the town again - it's been over 10 years since we've visited there, which is odd, given that it really isn't so far away. But life is busy, ya know? I imagine there will be lots of changes - lots of 'revoltin' developments' for us to curl our lips at. Have I mentioned that C. And I sometimes lapse into Old Foggy Mode?

I'll try to remember to take along the camera and maybe the Doppelganger will allow me to post a pic or two with my next post.

The Doppelganger and a Rant!

2006-08-28T13:00:00.000-06:00

Well, today is one of those days when the computer is refusing to upload images to my post. I have a cute picture of The Bean - 2 days after her ninth birthday, and a pic of the gorgeous Sock It To Me yarn sent to me by my blogger friend. I'll try again later and see if the anti-image doppelganger is still in force.

Now, ready? I have a rant. For some time I've been looking for some kind of exercise program that would fit in with my weight, age, sedentary nature and natural inclination to not move. Every plan I've found has included exercises that I can't even begin to do... push-ups? no. Pull-ups? no. Abdomen curls? no. I am remarkably out of shape. But I want to be more active and figure if I start small, with appropriate work-outs, I can progress. Seems reasonable, right? Well, last week I read about a site that advertised trainer-tailored plans for anyone. Even me?

After reading their user agreement - which took about 25 minutes I signed up and among other things, I told them my age, my weight, my health issues and the fact that I don't belong to a gym. I opted for the plan to become more lean. (Choices were loose weight, become stronger, or develop more endurance. Actually, I need all of those, but I expected that if I could work off some of my weight, the other two would be positively affected.)

Boom. Back came my exercise plan and the first thing on it, the "warm up"? Run on a treadmill for 6 minutes at a moderate pace. Now, what's wrong with this picture? (Also included in the plan for that day were exercises involving a weight bench, an exercise ball and a pull-up bar.) First of all, I don't think anyone in their right mind would expect that someone my age and weight would be able to run for any length of time. Second of all, do they expect everyone to own a treadmill (or an elliptical machine), a weight bench, an exercise ball and a pull-up bar? Surely I'm not the only obese, almost-60-year-old woman with diabetes and high blood pressure who wants an exercise plan to loose weight, become stronger and have more endurance, and doesn't have a home gym set up in the family room.

I sent them a message asking what on earth were they thinking? But haven't heard back from them.

Ok, rant over. On the plus side, I decided to take matters into my own hands and devised a simple exercise plan for myself and I also called the care line here in Idaho to request their packet on exercises for oldsters... Both things I ought to have done many moons ago. I did my plan in excel - wish I knew how to show it here in my post, but I don't. If anyone is wondering...I also am trying very hard to improve my eating/diet.

Roses and Yarn and Birthdays

2006-08-22T07:09:00.000-06:00

Sunday morning we left the house to go for a very early ride and as we came out, I looked back at the house and saw the first rays of sunlight shining on our little front porch. See the Adirondack chair at the far left? That's where I usually take knitting/yarn pics and also where I sit outside to watch the sky at 0-dark thirty nearly every morning. The Big Black Dog (Kiwi) comes out with me so she can play fetch in the dark. (She's awfully good at finding her ball when it bounces weird and gets away from her.)

The Curmudgeon has taken such good care of the roses this summer. They are all blooming like mad right now.

I forgot to mention yesterday when I was talking about my internet 'friends' that a very exciting event occurred last week. I had been reading here, and the blog writer had a little contest. She invited readers to guess where she and her family were going on vacation, and her hints were: 1) they intended to go canoeing and 2) there weren't many yarn shops there. My first guesses were already taken, so I guessed my home state, Idaho. We have gorgeous lakes and rivers for canoeing (but we're famous for our white water river stretches) and there aren't many yarn shops in Idaho. Nobody guessed the correct state, but the blog writer had her children pick names out of a hat and mine was one of two names picked. She had promised a 'knitterly' prizes and I don't know what I expected (maybe a tape measure?...knitters seem to be unable to find tape measures when needed), but the prize that came in the mail just blew me away! Two lovely skeins of "Sock it to Me!" yarn and home-made stitch markers made by my blogger friend herself! The yarn is gorgeous...Variegated with watermelon pink, fuschia, purple, orange-pink and a little sky blue for good measure.

I couldn't help myself...I immediately cast on for Wendy's toe-up feather and fan socks. Which meant that I had to do a provisional cast on. I've done that kind of a cast on a few times in the past, but still feel anxiety about it. After a couple of false starts it went smoothly and the toe is done plus a wee bit of the foot. I'm using U.S. size 1 needles. I usually use size 2 needles for socks, and I've noticed that the #1's are harder on my hands. Oh well. Live and learn, right?

Today is The Bean's ninth birthday. How can she be nine already? She is a fledgling knitter... We use this little rhyme for knit stitches:

"In through the front door, run around the back. Peek through the window & out jumps Jack."

Does anyone know a rhyme for purl stitches?

Just What I needed

2006-08-20T11:16:00.002-06:00

I've been away... Not physically, but spirit-wise I suppose you could say. Not very much knitting going on, but lots of other stuff. Among which is that I've been thinking about life and where I am right now in my life journey (hopefully the journey isn't ending any time real soon). And, I've found some inspiration and direction - along with a whole bunch of other neat things - through the internet.

Nearly every day I try to check on all my favorite blogs (most of which are knitting blogs), and the list grows as my 'usual' blogs refer to other blogs and when I check them out I find that they are inspirational or funny or interesting or whatever. So, I add them to my favorites list (which remains un-organized and apparently un-organizable) ... You can see the semi-viscous circle of semi-exponential proportions can't you? But I digress.

A little history: I learned to knit when I was about 14. My best friend and I wanted to learn to knit to fulfill some sort of badge thing through the youth group at our church. There was a lady in our congregation who agreed to teach us to knit. Under her tutelage we went to the LYS and bought yarn and needles and then she had us knit a sweater - everything from casting on to ribbing to stockinette, decreasing, button bands, the whole nine yards. After that I knit quite a bit through the rest of high school and college, but my creative and crafty energies drifted off to other endeavors about the time I got married. I did knit a couple of sweaters and vests for the Curmudgeon, but I never did knit anything for the kids. And then, I didn't knit at all. For many years.

About three or four years ago my health deteriorated to the point that just going to work each day became pretty much the limit of my energy and ability. I had to give up being the choir director at church, I quit going to my weekly group with a few wonderful friends, I quit shopping, I hardly socialized. And depression set in. I'm not talking about the "I-feel-'blue'-today" variety. (There are few good things that came of this change in life style, but mostly it was and remains a time of loss.)

I no longer had the energy to sew and my eyes had gotten so old that counted X-stitch was out. I needed something to do that I could do sitting in my favorite chair, and also something that would provide some calm in my life. Knitting was a logical and welcome choice. (I was totally unaware that there was a knitting revival going on across the land, and specifically a sock-knitting revival.) The Curmudgeon took me to the LYS and I told the lady that I wanted to knit socks. I had chosen socks because knitting two socks would take much less time than knitting a sweater, and I knew I would need some sooner-than-later gratification, and I had never knit socks before and wanted to learn to do something new with my rusty knitting skills.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Except for the internet. As I was knitting one of those first pairs of socks, I googled on 'hand knit socks' and found Wendyknits and was introduced to the whole world of blogging. I had never even heard of blogs before. Every day I would look forward to reading Wendy's blog and then one day I noticed that she had a list of other blogs on her side bar. Other blogs!!?!

Now, as I said earlier, I have literally dozens of blogs I try to check every day, and since being fired from my job last December (just two weeks before Christmas!), I usually have the blog-reading time I want. (But, I sure wish my computer would tell me when there's a new post on one of "my" blogs so I wouldn't have to go to each one every time to see if there are posts I haven't read...)

I've found the most amazing group of "friends" through blog-land. Not that any of them (or, hardly any of them) know me or reciprocate the friendship. After all, I haven't been blogging myself for very long, and I've been way too shy to leave comments until quite recently. But I've met guys who knit, grannies who knit, young mothers who knit, famous authors who knit, knitting gurus who knit (that's redundant, isn't it?), re-born knitters like me, irreverent knitters, speedy knitters, slower-than-molasses knitters (I especially like them) and totally un-characterizable knitters. They have all become important to me - they're my circle of friends. I follow their knitting adventures and mis-adventures, their domestic situations and life styles...I have met their children, parents, friends, spouses, partners and even their pets. And, each one of them enriches my life in his or her unique way. Recently I found another 'new to me' blog and this post. And, it was just what I needed to read.

Am I beginning to "Get It"?

2006-08-09T07:23:00.000-06:00

Although I have been dreaming of new socks (and thinking about the coming cold weather and the need for more pairs of warm socks), I have continued to work on my Rosebud Shawl. It's going much better than the last time I wrote about it. And, I think I'm beginning to get a glimmer of understanding about lace knitting...

I've only knit two lace projects before Rosebud. In each of those projects (both scarves) the lacey pattern was quite apparent after just one pattern repeat, and neither pattern bunched-up very much. So, as I knitted along, I could see progress and design with nearly every row. Rosebud, on the other hand, just looks mostly like a jumbled snarl of yarn. You can only see a hint of the pattern if you stretch-out the knitting and hold it up to the light, and then you can only see a small patch of knitting that looks like it has a plan. Part of my glimmer of understanding here is that lace knitting requires faith and patience...faith that it will turn out to be at least somewhat like the picture of the FO on the pattern, and patience to keep on knitting until you can block it.

Also, I've noticed that the more I knit, the more I tend to fool-around with any given pattern. In this case, I'm adding several pattern repeats to the first section of the shawl - which will result in a longer shawl. In the pattern, when you finish the first section you are one fourth of the way through the shawl. (In musical terms, this is an 'ABBA' design. The two 'A' sections are identical and the middle 'B' sections are each equal in lenth to one 'A' section.) When I reached the point in the pattern where the first 'A' section was to be finished, I looked at my little jumble of weird knitting and decided that the shawl wasn't going to be nearly long enough. I'm a big lady, after all. I stretched it lenghwise and it was about 18" long, which would result in a shawl approximately 72" long after blocking. Since I want the shawl to be a bit longer than that, I'm adding several pattern repeats to this section. And that means, of course, that I will add a few pattern repeats to the middle section and to the final section as well, to keep the ratio of A's and B's correct.

There just isn't enough knitting time in the day for me. I want to knit so many things. As I said, I'm dreaming of socks and also thinking about the second Fair Isle mitten to do, and I really want to work on a Fair Isle project on circular needles (a hat? A bag?) before I try to tackle a whole sweater knit in Fair Isle. Maureen remains my inspiration... And to make matters even more frustrating, I find that sometimes I just have to set the knitting aside and do something else for a while, even if it is during my 'knitting' time. Aaughhhh!

Could I please have some cheese with my whine?

2006-08-04T10:01:00.000-06:00

After finishing the vineyard stripeys, I really wanted to start something entirely new (you know how I am...), but I disciplined myself and picked up the Rosebud shawl I started for Amazing Lace. Yesterday. Want to know how many rows I've completed? Well, I've knit about 12 rows and un-knit about 15 rows. You do the math. Is this even possible? I can't figure out why I'm having such a hard time. There is one mistake in the printed pattern (the last stitch in row 5 is incorrect), but I figured that out the first time through. And, I'm counting the number of stitches between markers for each pattern repeat to make sure that I'm not goofing it up, but somehow I still manage to keep making 'mistrakes'. Of course, Pookie was here yesterday - that may have had something to do with it. (But today has been no better.)

Is this a SIGN that I really do need to start something new? Oh, probably not. So I shall persevere.

Every day when I sign on to the computer I check all the knit blogs that I read, and I keep finding more outstanding blogs that I keep adding to my list. (Knit bloggers are the best.) And this very wonderful plenitude of interesting/funny/informative/moving knit blogs takes a long time to go through...And that brings me to a confession:

I can't figure out how to add a list of my favorite blogs to my sidebar. I'm such a dork. And a complaint...

I've lost the ability to organize my favorites...Every time I try, the computer says it's "loading", and there it stays. Forever. I would really like to get all my knit blogs into one folder, and all my how-to web sites and individual blog postings that illustrate or explain a technique into another folder, etc., but MSN refuses to allow me to organize them. I've looked and looked for a way to contact MSN to see if they can help me with this, but every time I try to contact them, I get their help site in German. Does anyone else out there have these kinds of problems? Or, is it true that my computer really is possessed? Maybe I should festoon my computer with garlic or something.

Boy, I sure am full of the grumpies today aren't I? Sorry. I'll just stop now before it gets worse. Happy week end everyone.

Another sighting (!) ...

2006-07-29T12:01:00.000-06:00

... Of UFOs that is. This maroon sock is an adaptation of a pattern found in the Summer 2000 issue of Interweave Knits (Traveler's Stockings). It's written to fit an "average woman's foot", but since I have larger-than-average-women's-feet, I took it up a couple of needle sizes (from size 0 to size 2). I'm also doing short row heels instead of the heel flap type in the pattern. Another adaptation is that the pattern calls for some stitch decreases as you work down the leg toward the ankle, and I used fewer stitch decreases because I have heavy ankles. Oh, sigh.

For some reason knitting these socks is very hard on my hands and wrists, so I put them aside (quite a few months ago) to work on something easier on my old arthritic joints. How do I like this pattern? Well, I like the smaller band of cuff-pattern you get when you knit on size 0 (looking at the picture in the magazine). If I ever knit this pattern again I will most likely try to alter the pattern itself instead of just increasing the needle size. I've tried the sock on though (as much as I can at this stage), and it fits well, feels right and looks OK.

On the Vineyard Stripeys, I've gotten all the way around the heel of sock #2, so it's all downhill from here. Woo Hoo!

Is my computer possessed?

2006-07-28T08:10:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I couldn't upload images to save my soul and today it's working just fine. I have no idea what I was doing wrong yesterday or what I'm doing correctly today... But I won't complain!

I spent the better part of yesterday re-organizing my knitting notebook (which was so stuffed I don't think I could have added even one more sheet of paper). The curmudgeon had brought home three colorful 3-ring binders, and they are now the proud holders of gobs of Very Important Knitting Information. I'm one of those people who learn more easily from reading something than by seeing it done, so over the last few years (since becoming a re-born knitter) I've down-loaded and printed everything from knitting tips and how-tos to patterns and general information. It was really good for me to go through everything yesterday - I had forgotten about many print-outs, and discovered some gorgeous patterns that I didn't remember at all. I guess that's one good thing about older age and memory loss...When you go through stuff it can be almost like Christmas - lots of good surprises.

I read in Spiderwoman's blog today that she is beginning to suspect that blogging about UFOs is a jinx: once she posts about a project it frequently gets relegated to the pile of UFOs in the closet. For me, it works pretty much the opposite. When I post about a project, I am re-enthused about it and want to work on it. And I really want to finish it so I can move on to another project (with less guilt). For instance, right now, I'm down the ankle rows on the second Vineyard Stripey and I can't wait to finish it because I have some purple-dress-red-hat sock yarn and I can't wait to start the feather and fan socks a la Wendy. (Not to mention all the other UFOs that have been calling seductively to me...)

Today will be the ninth day in a row that Boise has had 100-plus degree temperatures, and tomorrow's high is forecast to be 99 so we might break the 9-day record (set in 2003, I think). Next Monday it is supposed to be down to 86 for a high. I can't wait. I woke up early (very early) this morning and went outside to sit in my favorite chair (well, it's the only chair) on the front porch and it was a balmy 73 degrees out there at 4:10 AM. I noticed that Baker City, my old home town had a 56 degree temp at 6:00 when I caught the local news and weather. But Ontario was 77 (!) so I shouldn't complain. I'm not, I'm not.

One down, one to go

2006-07-26T11:48:00.000-06:00

Well, duh...the problem with mittens is they're just like socks. You finish one, you feel so good because it's an FO, right? And then reality kicks in and you realize that now you have to knit another one! (I'm having trouble with uploading images to the blog - but trust me, I did finish mitten #1)

Also finished the vineyard stripey sock and am more than half-way down the cuff of sock #2.

One thing I have to say about having multiple, simultaneous projects on needles is that you need to keep meticulous notes regarding just exactly where you are in the pattern and what modifications, if any, you have made. Picking up a UFO after several weeks (or...months) really tests the old noggin, and those notes are necessary. And the better your notes are, the more easily you can pick-up the project and keep knitting. Several times in the past I have avoided UFOs because I had had a foggy recollection that I made changes to the pattern or didn't keep track of "things" the way I should have and didn't have complete-enough notes to get myself back in the stitchin' saddle again. Ah, well. It's all part of the learning process, isn't it?

One of the reasons that I'm so obsessed with knitting is that I've realized how much more there is to learn about knitting than I ever guessed. (I love to learn new things!) And the internet makes it so easy! We only have one decent LYS here in Boise and it is clear across town. If I had to drive over there every time I had a question or needed help, I would just give up I think. But all I have to do is google on the problem or technique and within minutes I can usually find very specific and helpful directions to get me past the hurdle.

Well, wish me luck. I'm going to try again to upload those pics. If they don't appear, you'll know what happened.

Is this Roswell? Sure are a lot of UFOs around here

2006-07-18T10:34:00.000-06:00

I used to worry about my UFOs. Some people stash yarn ... I seem to stash UFOs... But now that I'm the ripe old age of 59 (as of yesterday), I've decided to look at the situation in a different way (I've actually been looking at it from different perspectives - read 'rationalizing' - for a long time.) The truth is, I just like to start projects more than I care about finishing them. There you have it. I love the new-project-excitement, the planning, the swatching, the pattern comparisons. I think I've mentioned this before...

So, anyway, above is a picture of Mina's Vest. (Mina is my oldest grand-daughter, usually referred to as "The Bean", and is going to turn nine years old next month.) It is being knit from Ram Wools' Cameo Cotton in color #10, which is actually a beautiful light aqua. My picture doesn't begin to do it justice. I am making-up the pattern, but borrowed the shell motif and the seed-stitch cable panel from Alice Starmore's Cape Cod in "Fishermen's Sweaters". I love that sweater! Couldn't quite see trying to knit one for myself - Ms. Starmore's sizes don't go that large, and the sweater already has 85 bazilion stitches in it to begin with, so trying to make it larger would really (totally) be daunting. The resulting compromise (my love of the pattern vs. my need to knit something more within my feeble abilities and attention span) is Mina's Vest. And, yes, I will need to finish it within the next 6 to 9 months or Mina will have outgrown it. But grand-daughter number two, Leslie Elaine ("Pookie") gives me at least two years in the unhappy event that I procrastinate beyond nine months or so.

It was 100 degrees yesterday and we are still living without our air-conditioning. Today's high is only predicted to be 95 - a cooling trend! Now that I learned (via The Yarn Harlot) that Lee Ann's surgery went very well, I can share that I've actually been very comfortable without air conditioning - just closing up the house in the mornings when the outside temp begins to rise, and using fans strategically placed throughout the house.

Remember the heel on Vineyard Stripey that I fouled up? Well, it got ripped and re-knit and I am now about a third of the way down the foot. Plain stockinette...Idiot-proof knitting. (Or so I hope.) ;-)

Knitting and reading - the fun never stops!

2006-07-16T07:40:00.000-06:00

Above are photos of the Rosebud Shawl and the Vineyard Stripeys. You can see that my camera and I have issues. Not to mention that I keep forgetting how to save individual photos (after I've tweaked them to get them as clear and color-true as I can, which isn't very) in such a way that I can find them again and upload to the blog. Forgetfulness is a wonderful thing. Not.

Also, I can't figure out how to upload more than two photos to any given post. Or, if I ever knew, I've forgotten that, too.

Last night while watching "Dune" on DVD, I snarled up the heel on Vineyard stripey, so today it's un-knit, un-knit. Rip-it, rip-it. Usually, sock knitting is a no-brainer for me, but I shouldna-hadna-oughtna tackled a heel while sucked into Dune. (The DVD reminded me how much I've enjoyed reading the book many times in the past. Maybe it's time to read it again.) I have several favorite books I re-read every few years - Dune is one of them.

Also the Elswyth Thane Williamsburg novels (especially the first three or four) and Stephen King's "The Stand". And "Watership Down" by Richard Adams, "The Hobbit" and the trilogy by Tolkein, and all of Guy Gavriel Kay's novels. Sometimes I don't re-read entire books - just my favorite parts, but usually I start at the beginning and just read to the end. Hmmmm.

Drat you, Skippy!

2006-07-15T11:21:00.001-06:00

Speaking of time-warp! I'm still trying to get accustomed to June-ness and here it is July! And, I've been too long away from writing (this blog). I have been in a funk and while in a funk I am easily discouraged. (Actually, I have an evil twin named Skippy and I think s/he has been in control these past weeks.)

In spite of the funk, I have been knitting and reading my favorite knitting blogs -- as well as discovering some new ones. One exciting thing that has happened is that I actually got a comment to one of my posts! Thank you, Antynin. What a smiley-spirit-lifter-upper that was. And when I shared the info on frogging (rip-it, rip-it), the Curmudgeon laughed so hard he nearly cried. (It doesn't take much to amuse us. What can I say?)

I have not knit any further on the Rosebud Shawl. Still bogged down with misgivings regarding the yarn color-pools and the cast-on edge.

Socks-on-needles -- I'm almost up to the the heel of sock #1 in the Vineyard colorway of Simple Stripes from KnitPicks. Just a plain-ol' ribbed-cuff sock a la Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts' "Simple Socks - Plain and Fancy" (my sock bible). I am thinking about using Wendy's Generic Toe-Up Feather and Fan Sock pattern found here for my next pair of socks. (An opportunity for me to learn [again] how to do a provisional cast-on. Oh, sigh.)

And I'm nearly done with mitten #1 of the February mitten from "A Year of Mittens - A Monthly Celebraton" by Ann Swanson & Katie Nagorney. I have knit using two colors before, but hated it because my yarn always twisted into a snarl. (I hated it so much that I can't figure out why I bought the mitten patterns and yarn in the first place. About a year ago.) But I LOVE the look of Fair Isle, and following Wendy's advice while she was knitting Mara (back in June sometime), I just decided to jump in and try it (Just Do It!) again. Sometime after I started on mitten #1, exciting thing number two occurred: I heard about this site (from Maureen), and on the site, I discovered an excellent little video about how to knit Fair Isle while holding the two colors separately in one's two hands. No twisting! It felt awkward at first, but now feels almost "normal", and I am wanting these mittens to be done so that I can try a real Fair Isle project on circular needles. (The dpns required for mittens are challenging, in spite of the fact that I knit socks on dpns all the time and love doing them.) (Maureen also provided some wonderful advice and encouragement about knitting Fair Isles - Thank you, Maureen.)

And, finally, in hopes of attracting cosmic BAD KARMA on Lee Ann's behalf (see the Harlot's July 13 post), I would like to point out that our air condictioner konked out Thursday evening, just in time for our 100-degree-plus weekend. We're not getting it fixed any time soon.

It's a Time Warp, I tell you!

2006-06-14T10:38:00.000-06:00

How the heck can it be (almost) the middle of June already? Not only does time move faster the older you get, but May and especially June move at warp speed. I think it may be because I'm always thinking "If I don't get the (fill-in-the-blank) planted, they won't have time to bloom/produce this season." And, the days just scoot along anyway. And, yes, I do still have some planting to be done. Shame on me.

On the knitting front, the green stripey socks finally managed to jump into my hands and demand to be finished. I'm wearing them now. Oooo, Aaaaah. Very comfy and warm. (And we need the warm just now. Last night there was a tornado warning [!!!] for the Treasure Valley here in Idaho - none actually materialized - and, today the high is expected to be 69. It's rainy and grey outside - a perfect day for green stripeys.)

The green stripey yarn is "Parade" from Knit Picks in the forrest colorway. The yarn was advertised as getting 7-8 stitches to the inch on size 2 or 3 needles, but when it came in the mail, there was a nice note from Knit Picks explaining that between swatching and spinning/advertising, the yarn turned out to be a bit heavier. As I knit the socks, the yarn reminded me of 6 ply Regia. I ended up having to use four skeins to finish the socks. As you probably know, most sock patterns require 2 50 gram skeins, but I always buy 3 because I have big feet and I like my socks a bit longer than most patterns specify. If I purchase more Parade, I will probably buy 5 skeins so that I have plenty left over to re-knit the heels when they wear out.

My Rosebud shawl is relegated to a back burner while I decide what to do with it. I'm about nine inches into it and I'm afraid that when I block it, the cast-on edge is not going to be stretchy enough. I thought I had cast on very loosley, but I'm thinking now that I should have cast on using size 6 or 7 needles (and doing it loosley) to compensate for the side-ways stretchiness of the lace which is knitted on size 4 needles. And, to add to my dilema, I'm not really liking it a whole bunch. I think that is because of the yarn I chose... So I either have to rip it out and start over with a much looser cast-on edge, or chose another pattern, or chose another yarn (and another pattern?). More choices than my little brain can handle right now.

Why is it called "frogging"?

2006-06-03T07:24:00.000-06:00

The good news is that the hand-wound center pull ball is working fine! The bad news is that five rows into the lace pattern on my "Rosebuds" shawl, I managed to create a giant snafu and ended up un-knitting, one stitch at a time, all the way back to the foundation row and starting over. If you had been listening very carefully Wednesday night you might have heard me quietly growling and snarling. The pattern repeat is only 12 rows, so I hadn't even thought of putting in a life-line yet. Now, having successfully worked through one and a half 12 row pattern repeats I think maybe I'm getting the hang of it. One way of keeping myself on track, is that every pattern repeat (horizontally), I check immediately to see if I have the correct number of stitches between markers.

"Why is she only one and a half times through the 12 row pattern?" you ask... Both Wednesday and Thursday I watched my just-turned-five-years-old grand-daughter, Pookie. (My love-name for her) Not much knitting got done. The knitting I got done Wednesday night after she left, turned out to be a snarl, as described above, and Thursday's time at the needles, in between approximately 85 million interruptions, was un-knitting. (By the way, why do knitters call this "frogging"? I've run info the term a lot, but never have knows the history of the term.) And, Friday I just vegged and napped - recovery time.

This whole Amazing Lace adventure is a learning experience, right? Well, I'm learning. To count stitches... Also, I'm beginning to suspect that the particular color-way I chose for this shawl might not be the best. I love the colors, but there is a lot of difference in the colored sections, as opposed to a yarn that varies between different intensities of the same color, or two or three closely related colors. The Stained Glass colorway varies from dark purple to bright turquoise, with magenta and pink. The way the colors are pooling as the pattern grows might end up subtracting from the beauty of the lace pattern. Just have to keep knitting and hope that the finished product will work.

Wednesday morning Pookie and I saw a hummingbird feeding at one of the feeders outside our big kitchen window. The little hummer had landed on the perch and stayed for a long time (measured by hummingbird standards). When she was finished drinking her sugar water, she cocked her tail the way birds do and went potty (!) before she zoomed away. Pookie laughed and laughed until I thought she was going to fall down. (Why do kids love bathroom humor so much?) I make sugar water for the hummers using a recipe I found here. Lots of good info if you're a hummer lover.

Also, as long as I'm talking about birds, yesterday I saw a pair of American Goldfinches at our sunflower-seed feeder. First ones I've seen this season. Our winter and spring flocks of chickadees and Oregon Juncos have moved on, it seems, and mostly the feeders are visited by house finches and sparrows these days. I saw a robin taking a bath in the big old bird-bath that our son hauled all the way from Seattle for me. (I've wanted a bird-bath for years...)

Back to knitting... Several projects that are waiting, on needles, are beginning to pout because I'm spending all my stitching time with the Rosebud shawl. My green-stripey-socks (only half a foot left to finish the pair) are the worst. Every time I reach past them to pick-up my shawl basket the green-stripey socks try to jump right out of their basket and into my hand. Silly green-stripeys. Maybe later today, if the sun comes out, I will get them out for a photo shoot - maybe that will help them feel better. Another still-on-needles project that is beginning to make a lot of noise is the vest I started months (MONTHS, I say) ago for our oldest grand-daughter, The Bean (she's eight, going on 14). I sort of made my own pattern, using stitch patterns from Alice Starmore's Fishermen's Sweaters, particularity the patterns from "Cape Cod". Took me hours and hours to chart out the whole thing, figure out stitch counts and do a couple of swatches. And I love the way it's turning out, but...well, I already confessed to being easily distracted. 'Nuf said!

I may deserve a medal...

2006-05-30T10:59:00.000-06:00

First, let me apologize for the poor quality of the photos. (If you have any questions, see yesterday's post. Oh, sigh.)

Several weeks ago I tried to wind some sock yarn into a center-pull ball. No directions...how hard could it be? Apparently, too hard. The resulting ball looked great, but several yards into the ball, the yarn refused to come out. So, I tugged and I tugged and I pulled, and POP out came a HUGE snarly tangle. I swear, about half the ball came out! After un-snarling the tangle, and re-winding that half of the ball, I now have two balls of connected yarn, and I'm scared to even think about the whole thing.

But, you see, I have these two skeins of lace weight yarn that need to be wound into balls before I can begin my project for The Amazing Lace (see yesterday). I found directions for hand-winding center pull balls here, and in the above pictures you can sort of see one skein au naturale and one skein wound into a (hopefully) center pull ball. I'm too scared to pull out more than a few inches. Got to work up my courage...

The writer of the directions mentioned that she liked to use her yarn swift and ball winder when working with lace weight yarn. I don't have either one of those items (nor can I convince the Curmudgeon that we should use the power-bill money to purchase them), and I looked at my two lovely skeins of lace weight yarn and thought "I can do this...these skeins only have 440 yards in them...piece of cake!"). Well, you know how sometimes the more you get done on something, the more there remains to be done? - Or, at least it seems that way? That's how it was with the skein of yarn... I draped the skein over the back of my Mom's old wooden rocking chair, and propped-up the front of the chair so that the back came down to a good height for sitting-on-the-couch-and-winding-yarn. And, following directions (religiously), I began to wind. Approximately 8 hours later (have I mentioned that I sometimes exagerate, just a little) I looked at the remaining portion of the skein still on the back of the chair, and I swear, it had not decreased in size!

As you can see in the photos (can you see it?) I did get one skein wound. That's why I may deserve a medal... I'll wait until after my arms and shoulders heal before I do the second one.

I am excited to begin my Amazint Lace adventure. I've chosen the "Rosebuds and Climbing Roses" shawl from Lavish Lace by Carol Rasmussen Noble and Cheryl Potter, published by Martingale. I'm using Knit Picks yarn called Shimmer (70% baby Alpaca, 30% Silk) in the Stained Glass colorway. (And, I'm thinking of using a US size 4 needle.) Both the yarn and the book were purchased here.

There's also a small lace sample piece in the above photos, in case you can see it and wonder what it is. It has nothing to do with the Amazing Lace project. I just thought I'd get a picture of it.

I did successfully sign up for The Amazing Lace, but haven't figured out how to import the button into my side-bar. And, in yesterday's post, you can see my abortive attempt to import the Lace Ring Button. Even the Curmudgeon couldn't help. I'll keep working on these dilemas.

I'm definitely not a Geek (in the best sense of the word)

2006-05-29T10:48:00.000-06:00

The really sad thing here is I keep proving it to myself over and over...not being a geek, that is. I love geeks. They amaze me! The IT guy where Curmudgeon works is one of my favorite guys. He's cute and funny and young enough to be one of our kids -- and extraordinarily smart... Contrary to the stereotype, all the geeks I know have super personalities - in addition to being wizards when it comes to computers and other geeky stuff. Too bad the great personality trait thing isn't automatically linked to the geeky trait thing. I might have half a chance 'twer it so...I consider my personality to be OK, but my geek-quotient is non existant. To paraphrase a comment recently made by Matt Lauer on the Today show, if being a geek is a battle of wits, I am sadly, deplorably un-armed.

Proof? I took the Seed Stitch Vest outside for a photo shoot in the sun. (Our first sunny day of the whole Memorial Day weekend.) That part went pretty much OK, considering that I am also camera-challenged and our digital camera is a freebie we got years ago for signing up with one of the internet providers. So... then the upload-photos-to-the-computer process... I've only done this once before and, sure enough, I couldn't remember how... Had to call in the Curmudgeon - he's always glad to help, but since he is close to geekness himself, and his brain cells function astronomically faster than mine, he often "rushes" through these things, and I am literally sitting there thinking "...duh..." I think I did get the pictures successfully into the computer, but exactly where, I'm not sure... If I can find them, one or two may appear in this post. No picture? You'll know what happened.

Note to self: Save up for a better digital camera. (I know, I know...a better camera really won't compensate for my shortcomings, but I would be nice to be able to take close-ups...)

Also on my mind...

Amazing Lace - find the details here. Today is the last day to join, and I've never joined a group-knit adventure before... But I love to knit lace (having knit two whole knit projects and one sample piece), and I've got some lace weight yarn calling to me. (You know what that means!)

The Amazing Lace
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Design Angst

2006-05-28T14:12:00.000-06:00

I am learning new respect for knit designers. I've been designing a Seed Stitch Vest (snappy title, huh?). It started out so easy...12 rows of seed stitch, followed by 12 inches or so of stockinette. The armhole seed stitch borders and armhole shaping only caused moderate angst. But the shoulder shaping combined with the back neck shaping and the back neck seed stitch border. I'm certain it shouldn't be this hard! The graph paper and I have become nearly inseparable (and both very frazzled).

Why am I trying to design my own pattern? When there are such a plethora of lovely patterns out there? It's because I'm...umm...ahhh...rather LARGE. Not only is it extremely difficult to find patterns that actually fit me, but when I do, they're invariably knit out of fingering weight (or smaller) yarn and the stitch counts are astronomical. I know myself well enough to know that I require gratification sooner rather than later, so projects with 18 bazillion stitches are never going to be finished. And, I have to admit, I am a Start a New Project Junkie (SNPJ), and also the queen of Projects Still on Needles (PSN). I am so easily diverted and easily bored. Both of these character flaws used to bother me a great deal. Now that I'm more mature (read older) I just try to live with my limitations... For example, I don't generally go out and buy yarn to start new projects per se. But if the yarn is in my stach and is calling to me, then I have to answer the call, right. And, I usually don't put projects on stitch-holders just so I can steal the needles for another (new) project. But, it has been known to happen.

Above is a picture of the Seed Stitch Vest early-on.

As I'm sure you can tell, I'm new at blogging, too. Bear with me while I (try to) learn from my mistakes...