May Sock Swap

I was invited, by Emily, to participate in a May Sock Swap. As you can guess by my last post, my previous experience with a sock swap was such an overwhelmingly positive experience that I decided immediately to go ahead and jump right in.

I was paired up with my swap partner on Friday, and having visited her blog, am absolutely thrilled at my match-up luck. She's AMAZING - and will be so very much fun to knit for! She (hopefully this doesn't give anything away!) is xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. She just adores colour, too, which makes my job all that much more fun! (2/18/08 - Editors note: After I looked at Emily's May Sock Swap blog and saw that there are only a handful of folks participating, I realized that even my tiny little 'hint' up above would totally give the identify of my sock swap partner away - so I went back and censored myself to keep up the suspense!)

While the Munchkin watched some episodes this morning from Season 2 of the Muppet Show, I browsed through my half dozen or so stitch dictionaries until a certain "lovely 19th century pattern" featured in B. Walker's Second Treasury caught my eye. Then once I knew what pattern I was going to make, it was on to pick the yarn!

The pattern is a lace insert panel, so I didn't want a sock yarn too wildly coloured to distract from the detailed stitches - so I went straight to my tried & tested "semi-solid" source and snapped up a skein of Sundara's 'Grape over Grey Violet' - which should be PERFECT for the socks. I almost got the 'Toasted Orange over Pistachio' instead, but with some input from Peggers felt in the end that I should err on the more-purple and less-orangey-yellow side of things. So now I just get to swatch with some leftover Sundara to get the layout right, and then once the skein arrives I'll get right to work!

Unlike my usual all-knit, all-the-time inclination, I'm thinking of working the main body of the sock in reverse stockinette to make the lace insert panel pop out that much more. Dunno. Just a thought. We'll see how it looks in the trial runs.

Of course, all comments and thoughts from everyone out there will certainly be welcome!

Now I'm off to walk the Munchkin to the public library to get some new DVDs for his weekend viewing pleasure (he's only allowed to watch TV on Saturdays & Sundays - a good way for us to keep our sanity!) and return my books and get some more for me as well. Plus maybe a new book on CD for me to listen to while I finishing knitting a pair of standard socks for our family vet, the Snicket Socks for myself, and swatch for my May Swap Socks.

........and then I get to finish cleaning a few last bits around the house and make a batch of pate brisee cheddar-cheese laced pastry to chill for a few hours in the fridge in prep for the apple pie & home-made meatball and spaghetti dinner that we're having tonight for Peggers' boss and his boss' mom. You know. Just your regular Saturday chores!

Buried

I'm almost literally buried in work at the moment - I've got thousands and thousands of books to order before vacation kicks on at COB on Friday, and nary a spare second between now and then to rest (or blog). Add to that a near constant headache from squinting at order cards all day, holiday stresses, and a very very cranky toddler and you get...............................desperation knitting and late-night spinning-wheel distributor online surfing on my part!

:)

I'd post pictures of our luverly Christmas tree and my most recent yarn purchase (a birthday present to myself from Sundara!) plus my hubby's birthday gift to me, but alas our camera is currently engaged in more honorable pursuits - it's at the law office being used for Real Work Purposes and not documenting my knitting as usual.

Once the camera comes back, I'll take some quickie pictures and post what my world currently looks like.........and spill all about my exciting upcoming combination birthday/Christmas present - - a new spinning wheel! (Which I'm currently in the process of deliberating, debating, picking & choosing. But I'm leaning - this week, at least - towards a Majacraft Rose.)

Because Socks Don't Count.

Nah, they really don't!


I'm suffering from a bit of a knitting ennui at the moment - Icarus is proceeding along nicely but let's be honest - I'm at the end of Chart 1 now which is almost 400 stitches - and mostly it's straight knitting with a few yo's and ssk/k2tog's thrown in. It's a totally and completely necessary evil of the shawl, I know - and makes for a wonderful architectural "bone" structure that is a truly brilliant design stroke on the part of Ms. Mim, but it's a tad dreary to knit at the moment. I worked my way through three separate BBC America disks of Lord Peter Whimsey working on it - it's fantastic movie knitting - but as my Netflix disks are currently in the mail and I have naught to watch it's starting to wear on me a bit. Thank goodness my latest video infusion is due to arrive today, and 2 more disks should show up tomorrow.

I won't bore you with another picture of what currently looks like a blue knitted deflated balloon. It's quite tough to photograph that saggy blue silky blob in an inventive way. I think I might try pinning it out for a photo shot when I move from Chart 2 -> Chart 3, though........

I'm also working on Peggers' vest. A very nice soft Paton's tweed in a brown and orange fleck with an acid-green trim done on size 7 (8?) needles that while it is going along quickly enough is still - no matter how I try to dress it up - nothing more than a hugely mammoth swath of stockingknit stitch. I knit to something like 8 or 10" then shaped for the armholes and am now making the armholes a full 11 1/2" deep. My man - he's a big'un (6'4"!) which means size L and XL in terms of his shirts. Thank god this one isn't a full sweater - his arms are stunningly long - - even HE calls them gorilla arms!

I'm also ready to start pattern repeat #5 out of 11 on my backyard leaves scarf. While I am still truly feeling the love for the yarn, the pattern is starting to suck out my soul in little tiny bits and pieces. I think this is from doing way too much on it in 24 hours when I first started. I'm currently relying on the bus trip next weekend to & from the Maryland Sheep & Wool festival to help me out with the scarf - as I figure I can get a huge whacking amount done on that particular bus ride.

I have no picture updates on that (knitting) front either, though.

What I do have to show is my current attempt to still keep the overall number of my knitting projects at a managable level, while simultaneously boosting my current knitting mojo.

(See now where the socks start to creep in, and why they absolutely & positively don't count as a knitting 'project'???)

I went shopping at the farmer's market this weekend (yes, I was able to entice Kim to come with me, which was a lovely time - we drove, we purchased, we ate, and we let the Munchkin run around and look at "horsey hineys" in the horse trailers that were for some odd reason in the middle of town that afternoon - - and a good time was had by all - and she still got back with some time left in the day to study for her microbiology exam!) and picked up a little sock yarn from La Casa de Gryphon.....

The blue-y yellow-y green-y one is Gryphon's sock yarn in her 'Australia' colourway. One of my bestest & oldest friends was born in Australia and spent some wonderful months traveling around there a few years ago - so these will be for her. I'm pondering some sort of slipped stitch pattern to really show off the wild colours.

The hot pink & orange & yellow skein (again, via Gryphon) is for a very very good friend of mine (who I think might read this blog and so will therefore remain nameless!) who needs some cheering up via a bright pair of socks. I knitted a wee test swatch to determine the best pattern for these and the yarn really kind of..........bloomed in the washer/dryer and lost a bit of the stitch crispness, so I'm pondering some new stitch patterns to compensate for that.

The above was my final purchase - a skein of Gryphon's Traveller sock yarn in her 'China' colourway. This is for a pair of socks for an organic farmer friend of ours who is absolutely one of the nicer guys around we know - and while we've chosen to totally break from tradition this year and are NOT members of his CSA, that doesn't mean that shiitakes and bags of mixed baby lettuces and suchlike won't show up nonetheless on our doorstep....not to mention fresh eggs! As he's very very tough on his feet (and he's also on his feet all the time!) this is truly a man who needs some cushy socks for what little 'downtime' he chooses to give himself.

This Traveller yarn is exactly what is called for. VERY soft and sproingy and just luscious to the hand. And of course machine-washable, which is also very necessary given the current mental scatteredness of the recipient. I sat and stared at it and did some sock pattern searching in Knitty and came up with some things that I kind of liked and then took those patterns and modified them to what I ultimately wanted. It's a very simple idea - a k2p2 ribbing that after a few rounds* shifts to the right one stitch (repeat from *) - so that the pattern spirals down the leg. My current thinking is that I'll do that on the top of the foot as well - and will do the toe in a star decrease - that way it will remind me of a screw with the threads running down it plus the tiny little spiral at the end. And our buddy? Very much a wee bit of a 'loose-screw' kind of guy - too many years spent out in the full blazing sun farming without a hat plus some SERIOUSLY fun days as a carefree youth!

Here is where I stopped after about 45 minutes of casting-on, knitting and munching and sipping this morning (rhubarb coffee cake left over from this weekend's Sunday AM baking fest & a mug of basic java).....

.........taken mere minutes ago while walking across campus (knitting bag slung over my shoulder, scouting the whole time for a Perfect Photographing Opportunity!) for yet more coffee... It struck me as I was knitting how much this colourway actually reminded me of rhubarb - that bright oxalic green plus the splashed tinges of pink and brown - just like the lovely plant itself!

I'm quite pleased with the photo (and not just because I was able to giddily cram the entire yarn cake into this bronze cub's mouth!) but because I think it truly shows the elasticity and spring and body that is in each and every skein of this particular line of sock yarn. Knitting with this stuff is just lovely - it really reminds me of the primo stuff that I first experienced via Sundara. It would make a wonderful pair of mittens and an even better sweater, if it were dyed in (to use Purly White language) a Somewhat Solid type of way! Along those lines I have a design idea that I'm going to submit to Gryphon and will see what she thinks of it - now wouldn't THAT be fun if it worked out??????

A Hookup Needed

I kept thinking about this idea all weekend, and mused to myself that I sounded like a druggie......

"I need the good stuff!"

"I need a hookup."

"Hey man, do you have any of the primo stuff that I can score?"

(Gryphon's hand-dyed silk in 'Foxtrot')

...however in my case what I need is 450-500 yards of worsted-weight yarn in a subtly variegated shade suitable for a leaf-themed scarf.


You see, sitting at home 2 weekends ago I was feeding the Munchkin bites of mushroom & cheese omelette (he out-ate me by about 2 helpings!) and listening to Sunday Edition on NPR when I heard a news story about a local-ish woman whose son had been killed over in Iraq...........and how the first anniversary of his death was coming up on Mother's Day. Sitting there listening to her talk about her loss, and her struggle to not only come to terms with such a impossible thing but to also how she tried to console her remaining two children as they tried to figure out how to live with such a loss absolutely crushed me. Sitting there with my little guy eagerly eating mushrooms and proudly showing me how he could fork up a mouthful with only a little bit of spillage (cutlery skills are high-up on his list of Things I'm Proud Of at the moment!) I sat and listened and just cried. Particularly on hearing how this mom found out the news of her son when some Marines walked up to her while she was gardening outside on a lovely spring day.............and thought how that all too easily could have been me. How maybe possibly if the Munch decides to go against most of what I believe in (being raised a Quaker and therefore quietly and vehemently anti-fighting) and what his father would undoubtedly council - how it could even actually be me someday.



So I tried to think of what to do. I just couldn't get that image out of my mind - that of a woman working in her garden, surrounded by the warm smell of dirt and seeing little fat seedlings pushing out of her garden, having these strange men walk up to her - and having her probably know immediately what it meant the second she saw them.

So - lacking anything else to do - I thought I'd knit her something. I figured that anyone who was working in her garden in May was probably a basic nature-ish person - and so something nature-ish based would be appreciated and possibly even worn. Which made me think of leaves and trees and shoots - - which made me think of the Backyard Leaves scarf by Annie Modsitt in Interweave's Scarf Style book. I looked through my stash, and didn't see anything that would fit - as this is an Important Knitting Project and none of my acrylic-ish beginning knitter yarn that I have steadfasted refused to throw out and so still remains in my stash even came close to being nice & important enough.

(Another hand-dyed silk of Gryphon's - this one her 'Flamenco' colourway)

So what I am doing is asking for any and all recommendations & potential yarn 'hookups' that I can get. I know what they recommend for the scarf, but I think that the Karabella Aurora 8 is only ho-hum when placed against what I **could** knit the scarf out of. See Gryphon's examples for what I mean.......altho' there are loads of folks out there (Jessie, Sundara, Handpainted Yarn, etc.) who could also serve as excellent examples of the kind of truly primo yarn that I'm talking about. (I'm just guessing that Gryphon won't sue me for pirating her images to use in this post without first asking for permission, hence why I went and shamelessly stole images from her Etsy shop!)

;>

Wee Tiny

My sock is done! I knitted it last night while watching about 1/2 of The Holiday (Jude Law, Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, & Jack Black). I'd only give this movie a B - and that's because Kate Winslet is in it - - otherwise I'd give it a C. Jude Law does okay - but it's a role that I just can't get my head around him in because in the movie he's actually a decent guy - and his escapades in the Real World suggest otherwise! Cameron Diaz is ditzy and far too cookie-cutter stereotypical - annoying, almost. Jack Black is Jack Black - not given enough screen time to actually become the character in the actual movie - and while I like Jack Black well enough, he can be annoying in large doses. Kate Winslet is lovely as always - I wish that she lived in town so that she and I could go for coffee and chat, and I could hang out at her house & try and figure out how she brushes/styles her hair so that it always looks so good without actually looking like she spent too much time on it (in my world, spending more than 5 minutes on your hair is Too Much Time) - and maybe even raid her closet.........you know?

But anyway - I digress.

I knitted the sock first on size 1 dpns, then after wrestling with them for about 10 minutes (keeping in mind the entire time that the whole knitting exercise was only supposed to take about 60 minutes!) I ripped them out & off and re-did the whole thing on two circs and was much much happier. I did a basic k1tbl,p1 ribbing for the top then did the leg plain then switched back to dpns and did a garter-stitch heel then turned the heel then used the dpns to pick up the stitches for the gussets (and here I probably would change the pattern for myself and next time pick up 7 instead of 6 stitches, as I had a hole at the top of the gusset which I can sometimes kinda' avoid by picking up an extra stitch just to be extra careful at that super-tricky spot) but then switched back to circs to finish off the foot and the toe.

I used some leftover hand-dyed Sundara sock yarn in Dusk. Hey, if you're going to do a swap, better do it w/ the good stuff, right?



Then this morning I came to work and wrote a nice little letter to my swap pal and addressed the envelope and sealed it and then spent an hour out at the reference desk where I actually had a chance to look at blogs again for the first time since last Friday............and when I got to Emily's blog I realized that -DUH!- I had totally forgotten to take pictures of it. So I went back to my desk, hauled out my letter opener, and staged a few photos, then tucked the sock back away yet again and sealed the huge slice in the envelope with some good old sticking tape!

Man O Man O Man but this week has been a brain-frying sort of a time.................

I shall mail the wee tiny package off to it's intended pal tomorrow - oh what fun what fun what fun - and what a lovely lovely lovely Emily to come up and then also be willing to coordinate all of this!

I'm going to go now and post my picture to her Flickr group - and then go home and start watching my mailbox!

:)