I love having time to knit and spin...

So, lots of fibery thing have been going on these last two weeks. I’m not going to post a picture of the blue cardigan again until I’ve got past the arm holes, but I have been working on it while working through the Dimensions Church History II course. Lots of fine gauge knitting which will make an excellent, wearable cardigan, but not terribly exciting.

More exciting is my progress on my Vivid blanket! I don’t have enough yarn to finish it, but I have sure been powering through some odds and ends! Here are all the blocks so far; I’m liking all of them but the blue-brown one at the bottom left. I might not end up using that one…

I’ve also been really enjoying the Stitch Surfer Socks. I’m actually re-knitting a sock that was a fail many years ago; it was my first toe up, and I couldn’t get the bind off stretchy enough. So, I’m putting it to much better use. While I was at it, I worked in my forethought gusset that I wrote about in a previous post. Now I want a pair for myself…

Another goal I had for myself this holiday was to finish the current chart on my Names of the Doctor Scarf, and I did! I am so in love with double knitting…

While listening to my History of Ancient Egypt Great Course, I’ve been doing more Whovian knitting in the form of my Weeping Angel socks. I’m actually chugging down the foot now, and I’m quite pleased with how my adding one last feather repeat to the heel turn went. It’s the little things in life…

After a several month hiatus, I’ve also started spinning my Mountain Colors roving again, and I’m really enjoying it. I divided the roving into the three color repeats and an end; here is the end all spun up. I’m continuing with my plying on the fly—very satisfactory. I think my yarn might be getting more even too…

Lastly, two finished break projects, the Sprig cloche,

and my Pincha scarf (it’s not really a shawl or even a shawlette).

So, that’s what I’ve been working on! Various special and mundane cleaning projects have also been in the works, and today I sorted out the cleaning supplies for the coming term. Holiday is almost over…and I have a lot to do this week. Bring it on!

April Picks

One of the best parts of holiday is being able to gulp in music and books that I would usually not have near as much time to spend with. I finished Paolini’s Inheritance series; not revolutionary fantasy, but a nice vacation escape. Oh they were so written by a boy! Also, though I rarely say this, the movie was better. And, I’m glad they didn’t make the rest of the books into movies.

For my music pick this month, I downloaded Anna Johnson’s Winding Road. A friend gifted me a CD of hers last year, and as I enjoyed her Christmas albums as well I thought I’d try another. I like her style, and found it an enjoyable listen. I like Here better, but sometimes I crave the sounds of Nashville.

For my book pick, I downloaded the first three books in Anne McCaffry’s Dragonriders of Pern series. I’m listening to the Great Course, “How Great Science Fiction Works” right now on my walks, and that reminded me of these books. I had heard about them from my mom years ago, but just never got around to reading them yet. So far they aren’t quite what I was anticipating, but the idea of and contrast between sci-fi dragons instead of the clearly fantasy dragons of the Inheritance series is intriguing.

As I enjoy these precious days of holiday, I am also enjoying my journey through Season 2 of Parks and Recreation and various movies. I watched through the extended The Lord of the Rings trilogy; it had been a few years since I saw those movies! So many memories of my teenage years…my siblings and I were pretty much the biggest nerds ever. A friend also sent me the first two volumes of the show Gargoyles that I vaugly remember airing in the mid 90’s—we weren’t allowed to watch it at the time, but I’m enjoying the unusual depth of characters and stories.

I keep mentioning the Great Courses; I am so thankful that they are available through Audible! I have been drinking in “The History of Ancient Egypt” in preparation for this term’s history topic, and enjoying the history of science fiction as sheer nerdism on my walks. I’m taking notes through the Egypt course, and plan to pick up the one on ancient Greece next holiday. I have found that these courses are not only interesting, but have got me thinking about new ideas and given me insights that have made it possible for me to teach on a middle school level more clearly. I want to take a look at their music offerings again, and see what other literature topics are available. For someone like me who loves to learn, these are a Godsend in my narrow environment. Forever a nerd...

In which I ponder a knitting conundrum

Buckle up guys, this is a serious knitting post!

While I love self stripping sock yarn (effortless entertainment!), there is a bit of a drawback to actually using it to make socks. The heel throws everything off. So, you can do a lot of finicky cutting and measuring and keep your color sequence intact while also wasting some of the yarn, or you can just carry on and hope for the best. See on these socks here where the obvious break in the pattern is due to the heel?

It’s obvious to an obsessed person, but ye ordinary mortal might not obsessively follow color changes, so you can get by with it. However, I was dissatisfied with these results and wanted a better way. My preferred heel method is to do a small heel flap and short row heel unless the pattern absolutely won’t work that way. (We won’t talk about how many times I have failed to read the pattern properly and foresee the heel disaster about to come my way…) I like to do the small flap because in my experience most people need that little extra give over the top of their foot; feet generally aren’t perfect right angles oddly enough! So the other night I got to thinking, surely there is a way to get the end result of a small flap without having to break the yarn or kill the color sequence. Obviously an afterthought heel is going to be involved, but could I fake the flap? I decided to make a pair of toddler sized socks to test out my theory. Now, I will say up front that the yarn I used was NOT self stripping, but as I don’t have a lot of that and no yarn store in this country that I know of, I figured I could still find out what I needed to know with a semi-striping yarn. I cast on and did the leg per usual, then I began to try out my theory.

See that little triangle there? I alternated rows of increasing a stitch on either side of the ‘heel flap’ and plain knitting till I had increased 3 stitches either side; what I would have planned on picking up on a more traditional heel flap. I then did Elizabeth Zimmerman’s ‘Thumb trick’ to hold the stitches for my afterthought heel (I’m not quite ready for a true, snipped after thought heel yet!), and then for the next three rounds I decreased those three stitches. Since the sock was still tubular at this point it looked a little funny, but I held to the fact that I was going to be making this into a right angle!

Because I didn’t know how much length the heel was going to add and I didn’t have a measurement for this small of a sock handy, I decided to do the heel before I finished the rest of the sock. So, I began to undo my waste yarn, picking up the live stitches as I went. Such an ingenious trick! On an pair of adult socks, I have a chart so I wouldn’t have to do the heel right away.

I then knit a German short row heel (which I was a little less than pleased with; not sure why it turned out so sloppy), and then I was ready to graft the two sides together. Notice that I am grafting on the heel side; I figured if I had a bit of a bump, better there than under the heel. Next time I think I’ll stop the ribbing pattern a row before the heel to make it easier to graft together. Because I was grafting on to ribbing, it did leave a bump; good to keep in mind for next time.

So, there you have it, the conundrum that kept me up for an hour in the night, and I think will end up being the way to handle the pair of socks I’m planning with some self-stripping yarn. Of course on an adult sock the little ‘gusset’ will be a bit bigger, but as the principal is sound I’m confident it will turn out well. Yes, this will disturb the color pattern a bit because of the increases, but no where near as much if I carried on as normal. I need to make the second toddler sock to further refine this process, but I’m really excited to see it on a full sized sock too!

In the interest of fairness, the two personal drawbacks that I can see to this method are

a) You would have to know the foot length of your sock without the heel or toe. I have a very helpful chart for adults, but not for toddlers, so I had to do the heel shortly after passing it. And,
B) I think I would miss the excitement of the heel after the monotony of the leg. This way it’s interesting for just a few rounds before you’re back to the same old, same old, with the only difference being the smooth foot. Part of the reason I love socks is that about the time one part becomes unbearable, the next section comes up. So, I don’t think this will become my primary sock method.

Playing with yarn is fun!

I haven't finished much this week as I have several large projects that I'm working through. The problem with large projects is that it takes a long time for obvious progress to be made. But rest assured that my needles and hands have not been idle! I caved and started the Vivid blanket that I've been coveting for awhile now to use up some ends of sock yarn. Plus, being able to finish a square in an evening gives you a great finishing rush!

I've already got the yarn for the next few squares picked out...

I made the Mason Dixon washcloth and since my gauge was too tight the thing buckles, but it's a dishcloth so that's okay. More fiddly than I would usually do for a dishcloth, but I want to try it again with bigger needles and omit the bobbles. Bobbles are evil!

I worked some more on my big cross stitch-

And I worked out a sock conundrum which shall have a post of it's own once I finish the samples. I've been working on many other WIP's and hope to knock out at least one project before next week.

I've been cooking--potato pancakes, where have you BEEN all my life?--and reading quite a bit. Both for school--ancient Egypt is coming up for history, and the Inheritance Cycle because why not? Dragons are always fun, though this series was SO written by a teenage boy. Cleaning has happend--who KNEW it was so much work to scrub walls?--and napping. I got a lovely parcel from Annie and my calendars that were the last part of my Christmas present. I'm working through a Great Course on ancient Egypt, and enjoying the sound of silence. How my soul has needed this breathing space...

Despite my many projects, I still want to cast on more things.

I just bought this pattern (Foolproof) yesterday, and I’ve been wracking my brains to think of I have some suitable yarn for it. I need another project just now like I need a proverbial hole in my head, but it’s so fun to think of knitting new things! And since I knit so much faster in my head, I could get it all done before term starts up again!

Coming back to reality… First, a few finished items. My Ned hat,

and second my gingham dishcloth. Not a pattern I’d do that often, but a nice little side trip.

I’m still working on my peacock shawl, and I’m sating my cloche craze by doing Sprig. Now that I’m in the ‘brainless’ part, it will make good Great Course knitting. I’m loving how it’s turning out; here’s hoping that it looks as cute on me as I think it will! This is just the brim before stitches were picked up.

I had made really good progress on my Weeping Angel socks, but then I realized that the gauge was off, so frogged they were. *sigh* The worst part was that when I looked back at my notes from the first time I made these, I had made the exact same gauge mistake. So what’s the point of taking notes if you don’t go back and read them…

Finally, to give my hand a break from all that knitting, I’ve pulled out my four seasons wreath cross stitch and been working on that again. Nothing like huge project!

Parting shot: Hieroglyphs are a lot of fun to play with!