Old and New

Yes, I started a pair of Monkey Socks from Knitty. And I admit they're as much fun to knit as everyone has said. Except, somehow they are so small around that they're going to fit no one; have to frog them - sigh.....
Going to have to really check gauge before I attempt them again.

The pattern calls for a size 2/2.5mm needle. I used a KnitPicks size 1/2.5mm needle which I assumed would be the same but I'm getting 9.5 stitches per inch while the pattern calls for 8 per inch. I'm not a fan of walking in socks that have been knit on anything larger than a size 1 needle. Guess I can knit the foot on a smaller needle when I get there. Good-bye Monkey.

By the way the yarn is Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in the Spring Frost Colorway.

While I was coming to terms that my Monkey Socks weren't going to fit I switched over to knitting the sample socks in Cat Bordhi's new book, New Pathways for Sock Knitters, Book One. These socks really are constructed differently.
Here's the Sky Sock Architecture

that gusset in the front is the one and only gusset in the sock.

And I'm in the middle of the Coriolis Architecture


I've always knit my socks on double point needles. I've tried two socks on one circular (hated the twisty yarn problem and constantly moving everything around) and the 2 16" circulars (didn't like the short needles on 16" circs) but for some reason never tried 2 24" circulars. Reading the directions for the sample Coriolis Sock I decided it would be easier to use the two circular directions so I hunted up two cirs - the ones I came up with aren't the same size and one is 24" while the other is 32". I have lots of stuff hanging off these socks but the two circ method is really working well! I'm going to have to invest in some matching size circs when I actually make this pattern to fit a person's foot. Can't tell you how long I've put off some patterns because they're written for two cirs and I'm just too lazy to translate - now I don't have to!

One of the items on the materials list for all the patterns in Cat's new books are A & B stitch markers.

Cat's come up with a brilliant way to simplify her directions using these labeled stitch markers. BTW did you know that there are several, maybe even more than several, videos on YouTube of Cat demonstrating her techniques?

I tried regular colored stitch markers for the Sky Sock but soon realized how much easier it would make it to have the markers she specified. I got busy searching through Etsy's vendors and found red markers from Suann.


And some lavendar ones from Beadmarker

I think I'm set no matter the color of my yarn.

There's been a sock failure

There is a yarn break; I've no idea how or why the yarn failed. I wore the sock with out noticing any problem but when it came back from the wash (machine washed on delicate and laid flat to dry) there was this hole - "Ohh Nooo!!!"


I leave you with some visiting bird pictures from The Photographer.


Remember the perennial sunflower pictures six weeks ago; the birds have decended to scavenge the seed heads. There's also a flock of green finches but they're too skittish to photograph.

My Camera is Back - Yeah!

My Canon A710 IS camera was delivered Thursday evening. The Photographer checked it out and said it is fixed! You can actually achieve focus now. That's all that's important!

There's a FO to show:

Joelle Hoverson's Chevron Scarf Pattern in Socks that Rock Mediumweight - in colors Farm House and Watermelon & Tourmaline.



I enjoyed knitting this scarf so much that I immediately cast-on another in Blue Sky Alpaca Melange; colors 804, 800, 803. And Blue Sky Alpaca Sportweight ; color 531.

the colors aren't exact in this pictures; the light color yarn is really a true baby blue. (Blue Sky calls this color 800 cornflower.)

Last Tuesday I had the pleasure of attending an all-day Lucy Neatby workshop on Finishing Techniques at the Shepardess in Old Town. (I'm asking for all her instructional videos for every Birthday and Christmas present until I have them all. She's that good!!) She uses her videos during the class for demonstration purposes so the whole class didn't have to gather around her while she knits up a small sample.

Before class we were to knit 2 - 8X8 swatches and 1- 5X6 swatch. We ended up making a small sweater sampler practicing her techniques.


First we grafted (Lucy doesn't like/use the term Kitchner) across the shoulders

My second color wasn't different enough to really show off the stitching well in photos.

We practiced mattress stitch when we seamed up one side and sewed in the sleeve. She spent quite a bit of time talking about sleeve heads and their seaming. And the last couple hours were spent on front bands and her button hole technique.

We did a lined band with matching buttonholes and a picot turning edge.

The next day she was giving her sock class but I had to work and we won't mention the $$$ to take TWO of her classes. I did get her to sign my copy of her Cool Socks book.


Everyone in the USA have a Happy Thanksgiving this Thursday.

Flagstaff Vacation Photos

Since I can't show you any new knitting photos (my camera was two weeks past the 1-year warranty date but Canon took it in as under warranty - YEAH!) I thought I'd post some of our vacation pictures. If you hate other people's vacation pictures - Stop Reading Now.

A decade ago we tried to go to Walnut Canyon but it was so cold ( with wind chill it felt like ZERO) we never made it out of the Visitor's Center. This trip it was 70 degrees F, a perfect day to hike through the Early Native American Cliff dwellings down in the Canyon.

If you look in the center of the Canyon Wall you can see the hallowed out areas which were made into rooms.


Here I am for scale - these people were much shorter than we are today.


This will give you an idea of the cliff side path we walked along and you can see how the canyon-side holes were walled into rooms.


The Photographer stepped inside the hole in the wall to photograph the view looking out.




This is the view from down in the Canyon looking up toward the Visitor's Center where we started our hike. See it up there - that little white triangle in the center of the rim? We had to hike back up out of there - all 257 steps at 7000 ft! Our own little stress test.

The following day (Sunday)we drove to the Grand Canyon. The Village area was wall to wall cars and buses. No where to park and it was getting very windy; even thought it was sunny and clear it was unpleasant to be out in all that wind. After talking to a park ranger we drove east out of the Village and found some view sites with better views than in the more frequented Park View Points.


We actually saw the Colorado River down there.


This couple dashed out of their car, set up their camera on a timer, took their own picture together at the Grand Canyon and were back in their car in under five minutes. Guess they wanted to show up in those photos?


Stopped at the required Native American Jewelry on the side of the road.


And stopped at the Desert View Tower which was built by the Harvey Company in the 1930. (You remember that Judy Garland movie The Harvey Girls?)


Interesting painting inside the tower.


Looking straight up to the top of the tower.

All day Sunday the winds' speed kept increasing; it was that evening we got the call about the fires at home. We knew from past experience that the winds would be driving the fires westward which made us worry. Monday morning we decide to change plans and head home. You know the rest...

Socktoberfest Confessions

The end of October brought an end to Socktoberfest 2007; I only finished one pair of socks - plain gray ribbed for The Photographer - who is yet to wear them.

(Sorry no new photos! My Canon A710 isn't working right; the Imagine Stabilizer has become a de-Stabilizer! Even with a tripod the pics are blurry. Sending it back to Canon to see if they can fix it. We'll see how long that takes?? Not like there aren't half a dozen other camera's in the house I can try and use. "Try" being the word of the day - I prefer my little point and shoot! Any photos in this entry are old pictures you've probably seen before.)

So, only one finished pair of socks in the month that was suppose to be devoted to socks. Now, I did knit on socks, it's just that I have several in the works and even started another pair while on vacation. Let's count the socks I'm knitting:

1. My traveling sock in Paca Peds. Spiral Eyelet Socks.

I'm into the gusset decreases on the first sock.

2. Seeded Rib Socks from Getting Started Knitting Socks by Ann Budd in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Peacock. End of decreases on first sock

3. Waving Lace Socks from Favorite Socks Interweave Press in Fleece Artist Paris colorway

Just to heel on second sock.

4. Cookie A's Monkey Socks in Cherry Tree Hill, Spring Frost Colorway.

I swear I knit on every sock project during the month; just not enought on any one to finish. Do you think I have Knitting Attention Deficit? Is there an organization dedicated to helping Knitters learn monogamy to one project? Would that be any fun? I think I have the Knitter's Almond Joy mentality -- sometimes I feel like [knitting] a sock, some times I don't!


I do have a photo of a FO that I haven't mentioned before. It's from Monthly Dishcloth's Yahoo Group - Sept Mid-Month Kal.

And it hangs around the neck of the bottle to dry, how clever is that?

Now to go see if I can figure out one of The Photographer's cast-off SLRs. Wish me LUCK!!

As the smoke clears...

We're still here; a little sooty but safe. The 2003 Cedar fire cleared the brush so there was little fuel to lead the Witch Creek fire toward my area of town. Small favors!

Once we got home Monday evening we sat in our closed up house for two days watching the news day and night. I knit constantly which helped me keep my sanity; it's so hard to watch reports of fire in neighborhoods where I have friends. (So far I haven't heard of anyone I know losing their home - still keep those prays and Red Cross donations coming - there are so many thousands that did lose everything.)

For close to a year I've been hearing about the Chevron Scarf Kal and seeing the fabulous pictures of the scarves that came out of it. The pattern is in Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. It's a simple feather and fan pattern but the trick of it is the combination of two colors of fingeringweight yarn. The original pattern used Koigu KPPPM but the combination I saw over and over on the Kal was Socks That Rock medium weight in colorways Farmhouse and Watermelon-Tourmaline. While watching the fire reports I looked around for something simple and soothing to knit and decided this was the project I needed right now.

(see how orange the light is - that's the smoke in the air. It looks like sunset all day here.)

Prior to the fire we were on Vacation in Flagstaff - love that town. My favorite place to eat there is Martanne's on San Francisco St. (No picture just wanted to plug the restaurant.) My car knitting was a simple Reader's Wrap; lots of stockinette with a double seed stitch border.

I'm using Kathmandu Aran in Color 124, a tweedy burgundy, which is 85% Merino, 10% Silk and 5% Cashmere. That sounds soft doesn't it? I knit English style and as this yarn draws across my right index finger it was scratching the skin below my cuticule. Karen at the yarn shop suggested self-sticking gauze; it worked very well. I'd wrap my finger and could knit an hour before the yarn started cutting through the gauze and wouldn't pull easily across the top of my finger. It worked well as a car knitting project.

As for the vacation: We found Fall in full glory.

This is the road up to the Snow Bowl. The men were up checking the gondola towers - skiing can't be too far off.

We saw this flat-bottomed cloud formation that we've never seen before. It was the only cloud in the sky at the time.

Anyone know clouds? What makes it so flat on the bottom?

We drove to the Grand Canyon east of the Village. Much better views without the crowds and tour buses but a long way between bathrooms so plan ahead. Here's Annie on Vacation enjoying the view.

She took one look and then wanted back in the car - it was cold and windy.

San Diego on FIRE

The Photographer, the Dog and I spent the last five days in Flagstaff Arizona. Sunday evening we received a call that San Diego was once again in the middle of a Santa Ana induced Firestorm. After watching the news reports Monday morning we packed up everything and headed home. It wasn't easy figuring out how to get back with all the Freeway closings. We came home across Hwy 8 with no problems; made fabulous time as all the trucks and RVs had been ordered off the roads due to the high winds. Climbing out of the desert this was the view looking east as we crested the Laguna Mountains

this is the fire in eastern Chula Vista. We were 30-40 miles away. (No more photos as it was too smoky to see very far once we decended the other side of the mountains.)

We arrived home to find the area we live in was still safe even if it was terribly smoky. The Photographer isn't sure about where he works; it's right in the middle of the big evacuation area North of Hwy 56 and he can't reach anyone by phone.

This fire is said to be much bigger than our previous biggest fire back in 2003. That fire came within a mile of our house. What can I say - scary times deja vu!

Say a pray for us here in the Southwest corner of the US, please. And a donation to the Red Cross would sure help.

Solutions

The past two weeks I've been knitting swatches of my Alpaca/Rambouillet handspun. I want to make Sausalito by Dolce Handknits. My 2-ply washed swatch matched both the stitch and row count but I couldn't figure out the simple Tiny Bowknot stitch. First I looked through all the Barbara Walker books and couldn't find anything similar. (Turns out it is in BW2 page 125) Then I took the pattern and my swatches to spinning class and to the Yarn Shop where I work and none of us could figure out row 4 and 8's stitch pattern.

Finally wrote to the Publisher; Kim answered my questions and now I've got it. It was really a simple thing. You're suppose to knit completely through the stitch below then slip off and drop the stitch above. (Neither the pattern or BW mention this "slip off and drop" part.) Usually once I find the solution to why something isn't working I feel dumb - why did I not see it for myself - but this time I feel rather annoyed. Why couldn't the pattern have mentioned the dropped stitch? Would have saved me a couple weeks of effort.

Two weeks ago while I was knitting with several friends/customers at the shop I mentioned that I wasn't pleased with my 3 needle bind-off at the back of my Mitered Sweater.


(to refresh your memory, the sweater is all garter stitch and I knit the above bind-off.)
Karen mentioned that she remembered that in doing the 3 needle bind-off that you purl knit stitches and knit purl stitches. So I went back and pulled it all out and purled the bind-off this time around. Much better!

I need to go back and tighten up the last two stitches but over all it looks better and lays flatter. I had doubts that the lumpy knit bind-off would have blocked out as nice as this looks before blocking.


October has been dye lessons in Spinning Class. We've been learning how to measure and weight so that we can reproduce our efforts. I tried at home to dilute colors and I met with so so results.
This yarn I like and will keep (BFL Superwash)


This one will be thrown back and overdyed, hopefully, with better result.

I kept diluting down Turquoise and Aztec Gold; the Turquoise dilutions didn't show much difference and the Turquoise ran into the Gold and took on an odd greenish cast.
Not sure what color(s) I'll add to try and fix it. Overdye it with green??

My third and final yarn from the Simply Socks Yarn Club arrived yesterday and it's my favorite of the three!!! Dream in Color Smooshy in Brouhaha colorway.

No idea what sock pattern I'll use but I really like this color.

It's similar in color (but not in feel) to my current sock. Spiral Eyelet Socks

This is a very enjoyable pattern to knit; each sock spirals in the opposite directions. I'm on the SSK sock which makes a left-hand spiral, the other is a K2Tog right-hand spiral. This is Paca Peds Alpaca Yarn in Fireside colorway and those are size 1 Knit Picks Harmony DPNs.

What do I think of these new needles? Well, I broke one needle on the second stitch. (I mailed back the piece I could find - couldn't find the piece that catapulted across the room, didn't know I needed to wear protective goggles to knit with them - let you know if I hear back from Knit Picks) The needles are very nice and smooth (maybe a bit too smooth, they don't grab like bamboo does) and are a pleasure to knit with... except for one tiny thing. I'm having difficulty seeing them unless I'm in very good light. Maybe it's my eyes, or the color of my yarn or any other excuse but I believe I'll stay with their wonderful metal needles - LOVE those pointy tips.

Lastly, my sock drawer is full!

Now what do I do with my handknit socks?