the skies aren’t sunny, but at least this project is!
I’m not knitting Christmas gifts, just as I didn’t last year. If my kids need or want something, as Marnie wanted a warm winter hat that could accommodate her braids, I’m thrilled to make it to order. But just making stuff in the hopes they’ll like it? A fool’s errand, I’ve decided. The lone exception is my youngest daughter Anna, who shockingly (to me) loves handknit socks. She’s a high-powered behavioral economics/stats major at a fancy college far away, where it’s hot (but dorm floors are always cold), and the only socks she owns are the ones I knit for her. This is a kid who snagged a prestigious summer internship at Standard & Poor’s, who gets all excited talking about economics, and she loves handknit socks. Ah, the lovely complexity of people.
So the only Christmas knitting I’m doing (for her, it would actually be Hanukkah knitting!) is a pair of socks for Anna. She’s still a college student, so I have to use superwash yarn that’s tough enough to withstand college machines; this is KnitPicks Stroll Tonal (golden yellow), and it’s the Kai-Mei pattern by Cookie A, which I knit once before. I’m telling you, it’s an absolute blast to knit, and how often do you end up with socks that have a right sock and a left sock?
i really ADORE this pattern
I finished the first sock in a day and a half, and I’ll cast on the second sock tonight. When I finish it, I’ll get back to my beautiful Audrey in Silt.
Happy Wednesday y’all, and if you’re in NYC, stay dry! I have to be out and about all afternoon, and am starting to hate the weather gods, who give us reliably rainy weather on Wednesdays. Come on. Shift it over a day to Tuesdays or Thursdays, at least once in a while.
angie, you’re beautiful, but ain’t it time we said goodbye?
I finished Katie’s socks — the pattern is Angee, by Cookie A, and the yarn is the ultrasoft and super washable KnitPicks Felici (colorway: green vegetables, in the most obviously-named color ever). Katie picked the pattern when she was here, and it was fun, like all Cookie A socks.
angee, in knitpicks felici
I did round 1 swatching for my Mothed sweater and didn’t like the fabric; I need to swatch again, going down a needle size. It was just too thin and kind of gauzy, and not what I’m going for, really. I persist, like a real grown-up knitter!
Other parts of the NE got snow, and we were supposed to but mercifully we didn’t. It is gray and drizzly, though, so it’s that kind of April Fool’s Day. I hope you aren’t fooled today (unless you want to be)!
i’m not sure i’d do this for anyone else. no kidding. so don’t ask. (though i’d probably do it for you. sigh.)
Folks, this right here, this is what love looks like:
black flippin socks
I’m knitting black socks, because my son wanted them. Black. Socks. Of which I could buy a dozen for $2. Black socks. Me, with my feeble eyes, living in my sun-unlit apartment in wintry Manhattan. Black socks he’ll wear to work and probably throw in the machines at the laundromat in his neighborhood, followed by a tumble in the giant dryer.
And every stitch I strain my weary eyes to see is formed with oopy-goopy love for my boy. Who wants black socks that his mom knitted for him.
*Yarn courtesy of a sweet sharing by Sara over at Wool Durham – swing by her blog, if you don’t already know it!
fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again. (*smack*)
Katie’s favorite color is green — at least theoretically, if not in actuality (though maybe in actuality too…). She’s a pretty Irish girl, she has green eyes, people do associate green with her, and she’s very proud of her Irish heritage. The name she was born with – Katherine Kennedy Galloway – pretty dang Irish, right? Her maternal grandmother suggested the name Katie because she loved the Disney movie Darby O’Gill and the Little People. Which my kids adored when they were little, too.
Anyway. Sidetracked. When Katie was here, we went through my stash and I sent her home with some pretty yarns to get her own stash going. She saw this green KnitPicks Felici, which I’d bought when I got the pink Felici for Marnie’s socks. Actually, I’d bought the green specifically to make socks for Katie, but then it got buried in my stash — you know how that goes — and newer yarn, newer projects, life, time, all intruded and I forgot all about the green yarn until we saw it. She’s knitting her first pair of socks, so I cast on this new green pair for her, hoping that we’d both hit the heels around the same time so I could walk her through it before she went home. Here’s the current status of the pair I’m making for her….and boy, does that springy green lift my winter-laden spirits. I’m dying for lack of color in the city, so I just glance at the socks and imagine the spring:
soft to touch, happy to look at, GREEN.
This is a Cookie A pattern, Angee, so it fits my sock-knitting mind. Top down, fun, and attractive. The Felici colorway is called ‘green vegetables’ and I really like the particular shades of green. Katie should be wearing these by St Patrick’s Day, to be sure. After all, I finished Anna’s birthday socks in one week, so I can certainly get these knocked out, despite everything that’s going on in my life.
We’re looking at a sunny, mild weekend (40s! Whee!), and I may be going shopping with Will on Saturday. The boy needs a winter coat in the worst possible way, and I’m not fooled by this temporary respite from winter. Oh no, not me. I’ve fallen for that before, thinking winter was over in April. Ha. As our former president said, “fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
I just like to pretend he was a comedian, and he meant to say the things he said (now that he’s out of office and can’t hurt us any more).
a little of this, a little of that, and pretty soon you’ve got something.
Well, let’s see, where even to begin. First, I did make the apple oatmeal bars yesterday, and they were QUITE delicious. I used this recipe, and it was incredibly tasty but a little too soft to qualify as a bar, exactly. Next time I’ll make a more standard bar bottom, but do the top using this recipe. I mean, this one is fantastic-tasting if you like the taste of butter, sugar, and apples…and really, how bad can anything be with those ingredients. 
I got Anna’s birthday socks finished inside one week, which is slow for lots of people but not for me! It’s a fun pattern to knit, and free, so double winner. The color does remind me of a Texas summer sky, so since she’s a yankee living in Houston I think she’ll like them.
anna's 20th birthday socks, done in 7 days go me!!
The combination of almost 0 hours of sun so far this year, plus EVERY project I’ve finished in 2011 is blue, what’s up with that, led me to seek something that’s a big punch of color. When I glanced down into my huge and overflowing knitting bag (which is really a repository of any yarny thing that happens into the living room), I saw my Zauberball, which is red and cherry and purple and blue and all combinations in between. It made me think of summer berries, and boy that’s just what I need, here in the bleak and grim ending of such a snowy January. I had been so inspired by perches’ gorgeous Zauberball shawl and had planned to make one for myself, but I’m on a very rigid no-yarn no-pattern purchasing diet so I had to do something different.
I didn’t really find it all that much fun to knit, but whenever I wear my baktus, I get loads of compliments. I hadn’t realized there was a lace version when I made the last one, so I’d planned to make a 2nd one with lace. Then Eskimimi came along and did a variation on the plain baktus, striping two halves of a Zauberball skein. So I decided to assemble these variations into one thing — an Eskimimi version plus lace. Here it is, all together:
i really like this section - the stripes are showing up
it's becoming more a muddled purple mess
But see what’s happening? By the random luck of striping, both balls are in the same color right now, so the striping has disappeared. Still, it’s interesting to watch the shifts in colors, so I’ll keep going for a while. I’m not committed to it, so if I don’t like it all that much I’ll frog it and find a free shawl. The yarn is so lovely — be sure to check out perches’ shawl to see what I mean. Really, beautiful.
And speaking of perches, she’s got a month-long thing going called building winter; read this post of hers for details. This week, I have
relied on daydreams of green and warmth and summer; kind and warm words from my friends……
slogged through trying to teach college students the concept of means, averages, etc., and going nuts that they can’t seem to get it; deep and icy-cold puddles of brown filthy snow melt at every corner; a couple days of serious pain in my sheck…..
cherished my sweet sweet daughters and their loving communications; the fact that I get to work at home, which is especially wonderful when the weather is so miserable; the fact that even though it’s sometimes a slog, I get to be in this world again each day.
Happy Sunday, y’all.
not the best, that’s for sure!
Well, given the dark tone of my previous post, it’s pretty clear that my weekend wasn’t my best. Of course, it wasn’t my worst, either — worth keeping in mind, always. I was trying to think what kind of image would best capture my weekend, but there isn’t a photo of it. It wouldn’t be knitting, or baking, or cozying, or wintering, or being outdoors, it’d just be a bunch of white noise or something.
But I did stay up late and finish sock #1, so in the hope of closing my weekend on something approximating a high note, here’s sock #1 of Anna’s 20th birthday socks. The color really is summery lovely, and balm for a bitter winter spirit. Here’s to a much better week!
from poe to kafka to aqua socks. it’s one of those days.
I was thinking about how my posts seems to veer between thoughtful ones — a run of those — and knitting ones, a run of those. (With daily boring ones scattered in between, of course.) So that made me think of a pendulum, and how there are emotional states that go with both ends, too. Introspection is, for me, associated with quieter, more melancholy moods, though not exclusively of course. My brighter moods can be introspective too, but it’s the quieter moods that lead me to write more introspective posts. When I’m dashing about with little time to think, well, it’s pretty obvious that it’ll be the shallower posts, the “here let me show you this thing” posts that are more prevalent.
So then, thinking of one end of the pendulum made me think of a pit of melancholy, which took me then to Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum, which opens with these great lines:
I was sick, sick unto death, with that long agony, and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence, the dread sentence of death, was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears.
And then that reminded me of Kafka’s deeply horrifying story, In the Penal Colony. And then, after all that descent into horror, I remember: wait! I was going to show you some pretty socks!
Anna's 20th birthday socks, Komet
They’re the Komet socks by Stephanie van der Linden. If you think the color is familiar, you’re right. I originally bought this color — Sweetgeorgia in summer skin — and I must’ve been drunk or insane, because I bought it specifically to make these socks. But I bought it in worsted weight. WHAT was wrong with me. I’d planned to make socks for my youngest daughter Anna, who turns 20 early in February, so I showed it to her when she was home over the break. I actually gave her a choice of this color or another, and she picked this color.
The day after Christmas, I picked up the yarnWHAT?! Worsted weight, was I insane (I ask myself this question a lot)? I immediately went online and ordered a skein in sock weight. And I just got it yesterday, almost a month later. Note to self and to y’all: don’t order from Sweetgeorgia if you need something in anything approximating a hurry. I’ll have to get the socks in the mail by Saturday 2/5 to get them to her in time, so I’ve got to focus and get them done. Other people can knock a pair of socks out in that amount of time, I just don’t know if I can. I imagine I’ll be knitting all weekend. Like that’s a bad thing.
Another snowstorm last night — what’s that, the 3rd one so far this year? And today’s only the 21st? Hope it’s warm where you are, and if it’s not, I hope you get to stay inside and knit.
Well! This was really the year of sweater knitting; I finished five sweaters this year. Last year I made two, so this was a dramatic increase. It was nice to start the year off with a sweater, even if 90% of it was completed last year. My first FO of 2011 was the Dark & Stormy cardigan, designed by Thea Colman, knit in Madelinetosh vintage (colorway baltic). The pattern was a birthday gift from my friend Kelly, and I absolutely adore the sweater. This’ll stand in until I get a nice shot of me wearing it:
Continue Reading–248 words totally
Well! This was really the year of sweater knitting; I finished five sweaters this year. Last year I made two, so this was a dramatic increase. It was nice to start the year off with a sweater, even if 90% of it was completed last year. My first FO of 2011 was the Dark & Stormy cardigan, designed by Thea Colman, knit in Madelinetosh vintage (colorway baltic). The pattern was a birthday gift from my friend Kelly, and I absolutely adore the sweater. This’ll stand in until I get a nice shot of me wearing it:
just gorgeous, in every way
It seems to be a blue year, this year; while I was waiting for some yarn to arrive, I knocked out a quick braidy cowl, which I named Oh, Marcia. So corny. It’s the Very Braidy Cowl, in Sweet Georgia worsted (colorway summer skin):
Marcia, Marcia Marcia - a very braidy cowl
In exactly the same colorway, but sock weight (which had been my intention when I mistakenly bought the worsted, above), here’s a pair of socks I made for my youngest daughter Anna’s 20th birthday. She really loves handknit socks, much to my real surprise, which makes it such fun to make them for her. This pattern is Komet:
the komet pattern (free on rav), in Sweetgeorgia tough sock, colorway summer skin
SO MUCH BLUE. Something very different was called for……red. Here’s my “I need something red shawl” (aka LaReine Shawl, by Angela Tong, in OkayKnits Sena, colorway sweetie-pie). I absolutely adore this piece, and wear it all the time:
it's such a vibrant color, and a very nice length!
I had this absolutely gorgeous colorway of madelinetosh’s Tosh Merino Light called filigree, so I used one skein of it to make a Saroyan. I loved the pattern, and loved the yarn, but for some reason it won’t photograph correctly, no matter what I do, what kind of light, etc. So trust me, it’s a gorgeous olive green, not so brown:
IT'S NOT BROWN!!! grrrrrr!!
If this wasn’t the quickest and simplest hat pattern in the world, I don’t know what is, but the yellow and white combo really lifts it into “Wow! Where’d you get that hat!” status. Made for Marnie, the pattern is “My Striped & Slouchy Hat“, knit in Cascade 220.
adorable, right?!
These socks — Angee, by Cookie A, knit in KnitPicks Felici (colorway: green vegetables) — are for my oldest daughter Katie, who (a) loves green and (b) picked the pattern. I love knitting for my kids. Knitting the hat above and the socks below was a great antidote to winter.
angee, in knitpicks felici
It took forever, but I made a second Traveling Woman shawl in tosh DK, colorway byzantine. It’s gorgeous, drapy, squishy, and warm:
Traveling Woman Shawl, by Liz Abinante, in tosh DK
A very very quick little knit, I cranked out the Fetching mitts in a couple hours. The yarn is so soft, Cascade Eco Duo (70% alpaca, 30% merino), in the vanilla colorway. It’s a fun knit, and I know the mitts will be luscious to wear but I don’t know how they’ll hold up, given how soft they are (and the yarn is loosely-spun singles). Still, look:
you wouldn't believe how soft these are!
I love this hot little number: Hannah Fettig’s featherweight cardigan, in Spirit Trail Fiberworks’ “clotho,” colorway deliciously called dragon’s blood. This is a wonderful little sweater, I see why everyone has made it.
the color is dragon's blood
This was without a doubt the fastest sweater I’ve ever knit; it really just took 13 days, even though there was a 15-day break in the middle while I was gone to Vietnam and didn’t work on it at all. This is my Wintry Mix sweater, designed by Amy Herzog, knit in the recommended yarn (Berroco Blackstone Tweed).
Wintry Mix, by Amy Herzog (yarn: berroco blackstone tweed, in evergreen)
A second Thea Colman design, this one the Vodka Gimlet — but since my colorway was Oz (Plucky Knitter Primo Worsted), I named my sweater Ozma’s Delight. I can’t express how much I adore this sweater, I’ll probably wear it every day:
sweater LOVE
When the weather started smelling cold, I realized I don’t have a warm hat, so I knocked out A Hat for Eudora, designed by Alexandra Tinsley. The pattern was a birthday gift from Kelly, and the yarn is Cascade 220. I call it my Berry Welty hat.
the hem facing is blue and purple, but only I get to know that!
Here’s my Laurayana sweater — Ayana by Amy Herzog, pattern gifted by my friend Laura. This was knit in Cascade 220 Heathers (color, montmartre, which is much more dusty lavender than it looks here).
really such a comfortable sweater to wear.
For my youngest daughter Anna, a pair of handknit socks — the only kind of socks she wears, which cracks me up given who she is, otherwise. Not a handknit anything kind of person!
Kai-Mei (pattern by Cookie A), in KnitPicks Stroll Tonal (golden glow)
Her foot is at least a couple sizes smaller than mine, so that sock is stretched pretty far to fit over my foot!
i love him, i love him, i love him, and where he goes he wears handknit socks, handknit socks, handknit socks (ok, so the rhythm is off for that song, sue me).
Remember Richard Simmons? Yeah. That’s NOT what I’m talking about with the title of this post. Instead, I am the oldie, and I’ve been sweating it this morning. Since I have the old-lady-inability-to-sleep, I finished my socks this morning. It was close, whether I’d be able to get both socks out of the skein of Tosh Sport, and I mean VERY VERY CLOSE. As in, here’s what’s left:
this is it. a yard and a half.
With each row, I went through this pair of thoughts: “Oh, no problem, I’m definitely going to have enough yarn.” “OH NO, problem, there’s no way it’s going to last.” But it did last, obviously, and now he owns a pair of socks knit with madelinetosh (tosh sport, colorway tweed) and my love.
his tweedie-pie socks
I still can’t quite believe he let me knit something for him. He’s not (like, at all) a guy who wears sweaters or scarves, so maybe this is just the first of many pairs of socks I can sneak into his drawer.
my name is the scarecrow, and i’m making a sock without a pattern. WHAT?!
When I was a little girl – back when there were just 4 channels, kids, and “remote control” meant the children (as in “hey kids, go change the channel for me”) – The Wizard of Oz came on tv once a year, around Easter, if I recall correctly. It was such a big deal, so exciting. I watched it every year.
During those later teen years, of course, I was too busy/cool/bored to watch that kids’ show. But when my kids came along and I watched it again, I noticed hey! That’s “Night on Bald Mountain”! The music choices were interesting! I realized I could say whole passages by memory (oh what a world, what a world, who would’ve thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness….). And I realized that I didn’t identify with Dorothy, at all. For me, it was all about the Scarecrow.
The Scarecrow was really smart, right from the beginning, but he didn’t understand or believe that until he was awarded a dumb piece of paper by the wizard. Yeah, that’s the part I identified with. I’m not discounting everything I learned when I was in college (ages 36-40) or graduate school (40-45) – not at all. I did learn how to think more carefully, how to test my thoughts and be more skeptical. I did learn a lot of stuff too….the importance of the year 1066, the quadratic equation, how to do structural equation modeling, a bunch of stuff about psychology, etc. But like the Scarecrow, I didn’t really think I was smart, and getting that PhD kind of meant that I was. [note: what it actually means is that you are willing to endure years of hardship and difficulty, and that you are willing to bend over and take it. a few other things, too, but that's the gist.]
Even though I taught myself how to weave and spin and knit and sew and make quilts, I didn’t think I really knew how to make a quilt until after I took a little class. OK, now I have some kind of official stamp: I know how to make a quilt. Never mind that I’d been making them before.
I listen to knitters describe how they completely changed this, modified that, didn’t like anything about this sweater so they tweaked this and that, how they decided to design X or Y, and I think wow, I need to take a class. Maybe I don’t.
Anyway. What the hell does this rambling have to do with the price of tea in China?! And when am I getting to the topic that relates to the title of this post?! OK, now.
I’m knitting a sock without a pattern. (Go me! and geez Louise. Big deal.) You know, I’ve kind of been in a knitting funk, or something. I’ve got several projects going, and I faithfully knit knit knit knit (or knit purl knit purl, all that damned stockinette) and just don’t seem to get anywhere. Blah. But then I got the new madelinetosh yarn yesterday, and it’s just so squishy (her hallmark adjective!) and all, and I cast on last night.
Wowie, knitting sport weight yarn on 3.5mm needles? Fabric flows off the needles. This yarn knits up beautifully, I now think I need to buy a sweater quantity (and find a sweater that’s not just miles of stockinette). It’s not like knitting a plain old ordinary plain vanilla sock requires any brain power – it doesn’t – but I’m knitting without a pattern. Maybe after this I can start fancying-up my own sock patterns. Socks are the easiest thing in the world to knit…..a standard canvas, set and defined sections to play with, easy breezy.
Since this colorway is called tweed, I’m calling them tweedie-pie socks. I know.
your basic sock - but wowie, the yarn
the yarn! the fabric! delicious!
The combination of the yarn, the speed, and the project seem to have cured my funk. Maybe I should just accept that I’m a sock knitter. I love knitting socks. Farewell, funk! Be gone!
.
“come” unto me, saith the lord using way unnecessary quotation marks…
Yarn! Yarn! Yarn! Madelinetosh Yarn Club Delivery, yo. We got two skeins of Tosh Sport this go-round, and mine was in the natural colorway (there is natural, neutral, and jewel). The color is called tweed, for some reason, and if I were to describe it in words, it would be yellow-green-brown and you might call to mind baby diarrhea or something. So here, I’ll use a picture instead of those three unappealing words:
Tosh Sport (tweed colorway), courtesy of Madelinetosh Yarn Club
OK, I was least excited about this one; the other two bases are Tosh Merino Light (oh so wonderful you couldn’t believe it you’d be hooked even if you didn’t like yarn and didn’t knit or do anything with yarn you would still fall to your knees in sheer delight i promise this is true) and Pashmina (ditto). But Tosh Sport – meh, I wasn’t too excited about it for some reason. But I LOVE it. Not as much as the other two, but it’s a very lovely weight, and I immediately cast on for a pair of socks. Shut up.
And then, from the hilarious (to me!) blog called The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks, this:
way to make it sound "dirty," church
look at my new sock!
I know - how many times is she going to write about those socks?! For heaven’s sake. Believe me, I understand. I think I’m just so fascinated by the pattern and this yarn. Plus, of course, I had to start over on the sock after getting through the heel flap so I’ve kind of been at this for a while. Turns out I didn’t get one sock out of one skein; I got to the toe decreases and ran flat out. But luckily I had a brown yarn in my stash that was a perfect blend. Lookie!
coming back to a much-loved pattern, the wowie-zowie sock!
If I haven’t said this lately: Ravelry is awesome. Right? Not only are most of the people wonderful, the resource itself is amazing. I find a pattern I like, then I look at the photos and project notes of everyone who made it – look for people my size and shape, how does it look on them? See how it looks made with a variety of different yarns – and with the yarn I’m considering. I learn about the modifications people made to it, the problems they ran into and how they got out of them. Just amazing. How did we ever knit before Ravelry? I guess we were just all alone and knitting in the dark. Much less fun.
So, one of my ravelry friends (hi Margaret!) gave me some sock knitting tips for my Wowie Zowie sock since she’s knitting them too (and using the same yarn, but a different colorway, so very lucky for me), and tonight I’m going to cast on again with the same yarn. I was making new-knitter mistakes, misunderstanding just how much yarn 8 extra stitches per row can consume, and underestimating how much yarn my few rows of ribbing were taking up. It’s a close fit, anyway; the pattern uses 460 yards per sock, and the balls contain 480 yards. Not a lot of room for adding to the pattern. In addition to my newbie errors, I’d somehow missed the close fit which would’ve made me much more cautious with my modifications. I’ll also try to lighten up a bit and not knit so tightly, for heaven’s sake.
I’m thrilled! I particularly loved that yarn with that pattern, and was entirely smitten with the interaction between pattern and color changes. In fact, I was thinking about how much I’d like to wear them with a skirt so they’d be visible to everyone. Show them off a little. Feel happy when people say “hey, where did you get those amazing socks!” because I expect people would actually ask me. That kind of thing happens to me.
come back to me, lover sock....
Isn’t it great when you’re in love with the things you’re knitting?
too bad I had to frog my wonderful socks. 
Yesterday I got a lot of knitting done. I worked on my great-looking sock and got into the heel flap. I adore the pattern; it’s so thick and squishy, so 3-dimensional in a cool way, architectural, even. The socks must be warm, warm, warm.
And the yarn – I totally love the yarn. I love the shifts in color, and the particular colors themselves….that brilliant turquoise, a deep olive, dark reds, light purples, rich browns. And this variegated yarn works great with this pattern, because the color contrasts are so interesting.
BUT. Oh, how there is a but. As Pee-Wee Herman said to Simone, sitting in the dinosaur’s head, “everyone I know has a big but.”*** For some reason I wasn’t going to have nearly enough yarn! After only 3 pattern repeats, I was more than halfway finished with one ball of yarn. I kept going back to ravelry, looking at other people’s project pages for this pattern knit with this yarn, and they always listed 2 balls of yarn for a pair of socks. And the pattern makes these 3D squishy socks….but mine were stiff like heavy cardboard. I kept going back to ravelry, looking at other people’s project pages for this pattern knit with this yarn, and my needles were the same size as theirs. I must have been knitting very tightly. I know I was, actually, because I was fighting the needles.
Desperately I decided oh what the hell, I’ll just make the tops kind of short. Three pattern repeats, that’ll be ok, right? But what if I still run out of yarn, and end up needing to buy another ball or two? Then I’d have too-short socks for no good reason. I forged ahead, trusting – other people got one sock out of one ball of yarn, other people used these needles, it all worked out, other times and other projects I thought it’s not going to work but then it did so just keep going, trust the project.
Two-thirds of the way down the heel flap I finally threw in the towel. I pulled the sock off the needles and pulled it on my foot, just to see. Yeah, it was stiff and cardboardey. I had clung too tightly to the yarn and needles. Kind of like life, during hard times – clinging too tightly is not going to help. I love it when knitting reinforces a life lesson.
***here’s that clip from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, where he says that hilarious line to Simone:
loving this pair of socks!
Since I finished Marnie’s Minkeys, I need another small project on the needles. Right? Right? You always need a small project on the needles, can I get a yeah sistah? At the top of my Ravelry queue – small project edition – was Anne Campbell’s Circle Socks (public rav link here), which I’d decided to knit with my colorful balls of Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett. (I have no idea how to say any of those words except design and line, and maybe Regia.)
Last night I cast on and it was such fun knitting, I just kept saying “Just let me finish this needle” “After this row I’ll be ready for bed” “Let me finish this pattern repeat.” YOU know how that goes.
circle socks - incredibly fun to knit, and fast!
I added a short section of ribbing at the top, just because I always like ribbing on my socks. Want to see that cool section up close?
whoa. that is REALLY cool.
I’ve decided to name this pair of socks Wowie Zowie, for the most obvious of reasons.
I hope to get something done today besides knitting. Wait. Do I really?! Or is that just what we say because we know we’re supposed to do something besides knitting. I think that’s it – I would actually love nothing more than to sit in my cozy little spot, with endless cups of mint tea, good movies on Netflix, and to knit the whole day, until it’s time for sleep again. Too bad I need sleep.
I finished a project! I finished a project! SOCKS!
Finally! Finally! A finished object I can share! Yippee!! This is, after all, my knitting blog. I can knit this pattern in my sleep, and the yarn is great fun for socks, but I started them during an extremely busy time so several days would pass without a single stitch. The bulk of my knitting time for these socks was subway commuting, so a row here, a row there, you know how that goes.
Anyway. I proudly introduce you to the Minkeys …. pink monkeys, get it? (the word minkeys makes me giggle because I hear it as Inspector Clouseau — Chief Inspector Clouseau — would say it.)
the top/left sock hasn't been blocked yet - the other one has
oh, you minkeys
i love socks.......
The yarn is the incredibly soft Felici, from KnitPicks. The first pair of socks I knit with this yarn still looks great, after a couple years’ washing. They get a lofty halo, but they’re very hard-wearing. And they don’t need any special care at all, double good for busy people.
These socks are for the bride-to-be, my daughter Marnie. When my older daughter Katie got married, she gave Marnie a t-shirt that said “I’m a worm farmin’ power liftin’ bad ass” and that really says it all. Since Marnie has this photo in her Facebook photo album (and therefore it’s public) I don’t think she’d mind my posting it here.
Marnie and Tom, getting married in a few weeks - taken at Katie's wedding rehearsal
It’s such fun finishing something, if only because I feel a little less guilty about casting on a new project.
let me try to make you smile. come on…..
Three very different things that made me smile (I’m trying to start the day off on a positive note, since I still have my pissed-off author to deal with):
beautiful, beautiful marilyn
From the NYTimes: “There is a sublime silliness to Halsman’s images that can make you laugh or at least smile regardless of how often you see them. They may offer incontrovertible proof of Schiller’s claim that ‘all art is dedicated to joy.’ Evidently the simple act of getting off the ground requires giving in to something like joy. You have to let go. One of the purest examples of this joy is an image of Halsman himself, holding hands with a smiling Marilyn Monroe several feet off the ground. Facing his partner, he seems ecstatic, as if he cannot believe his luck.” Credit: The Estate of Philippe Halsman/Laurence Miller Gallery
Second: this line from Nabokov, which has haunted me since I read it yesterday. “The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.”
And third, one minkey down, one to go:
one minkey down, one to go!
And a bonus thing that made me smile and feel all sorts of things, courtesy of an email from Marnie:
“have you seen marina abramovic’s endurance performance “the artist is present,” where she sits in chair for the entire length of her retrospective. there is a chair opposite her, and visitors sit and look at her and she looks back. the flickr group is so compelling: about 1/4 of the people are in tears.”
Here’s to an interesting Wednesday.
monkey socks are such a quick knit!
Apologies to Einstein – this is about relative speed of the knitterly kind. I’m not one of those cool speed knitters. I guess I’d like to be….or rather, I’d like to be able to be one of those cool speed knitters when I hit long patches of stockinette, or something. But I do love the process and can get into a bit of a hypnotic trance watching my fingers. So I don’t mind my own knitting speed, even if it’s not Speedy Gonzales.
I can put in hours of knitting on the wedding shawl and have just a bit of growth to show for it, or I can put in the same amount of time and have more than half a sock, to wit:
monkey see
Granted, since this was the first sock pattern I ever knit, and since I’ve knit four other pairs using this pattern, I can do it in my sleep by now. But the thicker yarn just obviously makes things go faster, and zoom zoom zoom I’ve turned the heel and picked up the gusset stitches. Go, Lori, go!
Cute, right Marnie?
pink is making me strangely happy today
I guess I read a little too much Elizabeth Barrett Browning when I was an impressionable young teenager, because “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” came to mind when I was looking at the beginnings of these socks, No Purl Monkeys in KnitPicks Felici (colorway positively pink, as if they had to say that). So let me go ahead, then, and count the ways:
I love thee for thy bright pinkness
p!i!n!k!
I love thee for the pleasure of dpns and clever-feeling fingers
I love thee for thy springy feeling
I love thee for the one who will wear these when I finish
Pretty Marnie, in her senior year at Smith
PLUS: I bought a new mattress! Yippee! Hallelujah! Boy did I need one, that’s all I’m saying about that.
In 2009, I knit one pair of mitts, 4 pairs of socks, 4 hats, 11 cowls (!), 3 scarves, and two Ishbels (which are considered scarves, but since I made 2 I’m setting them out specially). I guess I’d have to say that 2009 was officially The Year of Cowls. I don’t know why or how that happened – I think I had single skeins of really luscious yarn (madelinetosh, primarily), and needed quick and portable projects. I wasn’t confident enough yet to take on big projects. Anyway, I really enjoy the projects I made in 2009:
Continue Reading–167 words totally
In 2009, I knit one pair of mitts, 4 pairs of socks, 4 hats, 11 cowls (!), 3 scarves, and two Ishbels (which are considered scarves, but since I made 2 I’m setting them out specially). I guess I’d have to say that 2009 was officially The Year of Cowls. I don’t know why or how that happened – I think I had single skeins of really luscious yarn (madelinetosh, primarily), and needed quick and portable projects. I wasn’t confident enough yet to take on big projects. Anyway, I really enjoy the projects I made in 2009:
MITTS: I made these Gasteropoda by Kristi Geraci for my daughter Marnie. She doesn’t like anything clinging to her wrists; she’s an artist and carves and draws a lot, so she needs to be able to make fine motor movements; and she doesn’t have good heat in her apartment in Chicago, so her hands get cold. I thought this pattern just fit the bill, in every way. It was also a lot of fun to knit! I used Sunday Knits Nirvana 3 ply, in a rich espresso color. Soft, light wool.
Marnie's Gasteropoda mitts, pattern by Kristi Geraci
SOCKS: Since I’d never made socks before, I started with the very popular No Purl Monkeys by CraftyPancakes, which is a slight tweak of Cookie A’s monkey sock pattern published in Knitty. I made three pairs (two for my stepdaughter Anna, and one pair for me) using Felici, the very soft self-striping yarn from KnitPicks. Mine have held up beautifully to a lot of wear, and to a lot of washing and drying in industrial machines. Good stuff.
Anna's green monkeys
Anna's taupe monkeys
my blue and purple monkeys
And one more pair of socks, using a beautiful skein of madelinetosh sock in Scarlett – Nutkin by Beth LaPensee. It was fun to knit, and while the yarn requires more care than the Felici, I never mind.
my Scarlett Nutkins
Even though it’s hard for me to wear hats since I get such ridiculous hat hair, I made four hats in 2009, only one of which was for me:
Felicity by Wanett Clyde – made by me for me, using madelinetosh DK, in a gorgeous colorway called Iris. The reason for the name is obvious.
my Iris Felicity
And for Marnie, to accompany her mitts, I made this wurm by katushika. I used the same yarn I used for her mitts, and it was glorious:
Marnie's wurm
I want to make another one for me! Then a hat just to have around, the Beaded Braided Hat by Lee Ann Bonson. I’ve made a bunch of these, they’re fun to knit because you get to do cool braiding, some colorwork (and you could easily draft a new pattern for the band), and a beautiful decrease on top:
see the beautiful flat top?
Then one more hat, a Marsan Watchcap by Staceyjoy Elkin for my soon-to-be son Tom, who is marrying Marnie this summer. Somehow I never got a photo of the finished cap. My bad!
Tom's Marsan Watch Cap - I really did finish it!
And cowls, I made 11.
1. helechos cowl, 2. Marg’s spiral cowl, 3. attabi cowl, 4. brown and blue attabi cowl, 5. marg’s attabi in progress, 6. candle flame cowl, 7. destroyed cowl wrapped, 8. holland cowl on, 9. madelinetosh pastoral – spiral cowl, 10. noble cowl finished, 11. Venetian Grassy cowl closeup
So many beautiful cowls, such beautiful yarn. Silky malabrigo, Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca and Silk, Berroco Pure Merino DK, madelinetosh DK (in fig, tart, and venetian), madelinetosh bulky cashmere, and madelinetosh pastoral (in chamomile and bosphorus). The Attabi Cowls were all gifts, and I want to make one for myself because it’s fun to knit. Maybe in 2010.
Three scarves in 2009 -
Queen Anne's Lace Scarf in Noro; Lengthwise Cable Scarf in madelinetosh dk; and Lace Ribbon Scarf in madelinetosh sock
And finally, the last 2 FOs in 2009. ISHBEL – I fell in love with this pattern, as did thousands of others. It has been knitted 7,000 times and it’s in more than 3000 queues. You go, Ysolda. I knit it once in madelinetosh wren, and once in a beautiful purple wool from Sunday Knits.
By the end of this year, I was a considerably better knitter than when I began! I also enjoyed making several items for a set, as I did with Marnie’s wurm hat, attabi cowl, and gasteropoda mitts. I want to do more of that.
these dang hiccups are killing me.
I haven’t been knitting all that long. I’ve knit a lot of gifts that I don’t see because the recipients are in far-flung places. I haven’t been knitting long enough for anything to wear out or get old and hole-y. But it turns out – as much a surprise to me as to anyone else – that I knit a lot of socks. (Well, 9 pairs, to date – a lot for me, since I don’t think of myself as a sock knitter!) Five of the 9 are for other people, so I’ll bring into the spotlight the first pair of socks I knit for myself: the no-purl monkeys.
-
- toes
-
- cuffs
-
- heels
I hadn’t knit socks before, but this pattern was easy, and set my mind very clearly on What Socks Are About: top-down, and Cookie A. The yarn – Felici, by KnitPicks, was a dream to work with, and loads of fun as the stripes unfolded. I made these in February of 2009, and the photos above were taken today. The yarn has held up to a hell of a lot of wear and machine washing (in industrial washers and dryers!), and it’s just so soft and wonderful, still. I highly recommend the yarn for socks.
But right now I have the hiccups and they’re driving me nuts. I’ve drunk water upside down, I’ve held my breath, I’ve cursed {a lot!}, and nothing stops them. So I think I’ll sign off and stomp around for a bit, cursing some more and shaking my fist at the hiccup gods. Happy knitting, everyone!
To see other posts about resurrected finished objects, click here: knitcroblo6
look at kai-mei!
How do you think you pronounce that name, Kai-Mei? In my mind it’s always Ky-May. Anyway, here’s sock number 1, started and finished in subway rides:
top view of the foot
close-up of the lace detail, very neat to do!
and outside of the foot
Doing the other sock involves working in reverse – this pair has a right sock and a left sock, which is kind of fun.
gee, I guess I’m really a sock knitter!
I am a social psychologist; most people think ‘psychologist’ means therapist, but clinical psychology is only one subdiscipline. There are cognitive psychologists, who do research to understand the way we think (and other stuff), developmental psychologists, who do research to understand….um…. human development across the lifespan, industrial/organizational psychologists who apply psychology to work, health psychologists who study mind-body stuff and health communication etc. Social psychologists do research on all kinds of things, but the bottom line is that humans are social animals, and our behavior is affected by that fact, whether we like it or not. Social psychologists have done some really fascinating studies – some quite controversial, like Zimbardo’s prison studies at Stanford in the 1970s, and Milgram’s obedience studies at Yale in the 1950s.
One very interesting line of research concerns how we understand and learn who we are. We observe ourselves! We don’t realize we know something, or like something, or do something, until we notice that we do it a lot. This is primarily a knitting blog, believe it or not, so let me put this all together: Apparently I’m a sock knitter! I didn’t know that, and if asked to describe myself as a knitter, I don’t think I’d ever say that I’m a sock knitter. (Note, I could also say that I’m a cowl knitter and that would be true…. maybe it’s that I’m an accessory knitter.)
I just noticed that all the posts showing on this page feature socks. And if I look at my ravelry project page – the sock edition – I see 9 pairs of socks.
Hi. My name is Lori and I’m a sock knitter. What do you know about yourself from observing?
is he drunk, or a suicide bomber? how would i know?
Last night I had to take the subway downtown a little ways, and when I got into a car, the absolute REEK of alcohol literally made me gasp. Of course, when this happens I immediately begin to try to figure out which person is the drunk. Because I want to stay far far away from him. And it’s almost always a him. The last time I was trapped too near a drunk, he started vomiting and the car was so crowded, we were all just trapped, and on and on he went. Other times, the drunks are rowdy and big and loud, and kind of scary. Especially to me.
So, last night I grabbed a seat and started looking around, trying to ID him. I didn’t think it was the big guy sitting next to the door; he had a gym bag between his feet. I didn’t think it was the Sikh man standing, facing the door. Yeah, probably not him. (I know I’m being guilty of visual profiling!) No one looked drunk, but I figured it was probably the young(ish) guy standing in the middle of the aisle with his back to me. He wore work boots and a long jacket, and he had some kind of leather bag hanging down, which he wore under his jacket. STRANGE.
my subways
So that leather bag…..hanging inside his coat…..what’s that about? Who does that? Is he just some strange guy, or someone who was robbed once, so he learned to do that? Or is he some crazy subway bomber?! And that gym bag by the door, what’s really inside that zipped duffel bag?
Suddenly the question of whether the guy was a drunk was much less important.
Living in post-9/11 Manhattan, with the ongoing question of whether to prosecute the 9/11 suspects here, with subway bombings happening elsewhere in the world, with the occasional pair of murders happening (a double knifing on my own subway line a couple of mornings ago), you know? You pay attention in the subway. You get used to random bag searches; my assistant at work was routinely searched, but I’ve never been stopped. According to a story on Gothamist, “one rider said, “I feel the tension on the Metro. Nobody’s smiling or laughing.”" And that’s different from other days how?
To close on a much nicer note: Crow Kai-Mei:
Kai-Mei socks, madelinetosh sock in crow colorway
Isn’t that such a beautiful color, that indigo blue, with shadings from black to denim to lighter blue? I would never have thought to call it crow, but I guess madelinetosh was thinking of the blue-blackness of crows so I get it. To me, it looks more like denim but I’m no colorist. I’m only knitting these socks during my commute to and from work, so I get a few rows done at a time. At this rate, I’ll have one done by the time I finish my daughter’s wedding dress and shawl, but who cares! I’ll still have feet, and need socks, so there.
rainy thoughts on a rainy day
It’s cold and rainy here today – after the spring tease of a couple of weeks ago, this breaks my heart, as it does every single year. It isn’t really the cold aspect of northern winters that wears you down, it’s the long aspect. Maybe it’s the gloomy weather, but the following things have captured my notice:
* A 19-year old male committed suicide by jumping in front of a subway train in my part of town. It’s so sad, to be so filled with despair at only 19 years old. And do not judge New Yorkers whose quick response is to complain about the way that affects their commutes. When you don’t have a car and rely exclusively on public transportation to get you to and from work, or grocery shopping, or anything at all, you have a slightly different perspective. It’s very sad – it is – and now how am I going to get to work!
* I was reading a piece in the NYTimes magazine by the former editor of House & Garden, Dominique Browning, and she was talking about grieving the loss of her identity when Conde Nast closed the brand. She cited this line from Psalm 22:14, as the most eloquent description of pain, and I do agree: I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me. The tone of that line brought the work of Robert and Shana Parkeharrison to mind, whose work used to be one of my son’s favorites:
* And I’ve been thinking lately about the way our society has moved away – ever closer to entirely away – from the authority of institutions to the authority of individuals. In the process, it seems like the output of individuals is of much higher quality than ever before. This is just a note to myself, still unpacking the concept.
* Finally, even though all my knitting time is being assigned to the secret wedding shawl (hi Marnie!), a girl does need something to knit in the subway to and from work. That’s a good 20 minutes each way! So I started a new pair of socks for me, this time. I’m making the really cool Kai-Mei socks from Cookie A’s Sock Innovation book, using madelinetosh sock yarn in the crow colorway. As it’s knitting up, it looks more like denim, like your favorite dark pair of blue jeans. I’ll take photos asap, tomorrow maybe. Anyway, here’s the yarn:
madelinetosh sock, colorway: crow
not my kai-mei socks, just posted here so you can see the interesting pattern
[courtesy of reeniebeanie - check her out!]
Stay warm, stay dry, stick around.
a mishmash of thoughts, plus a picture of monkey socks
A random mishmash o’ stuff today:
* It’s been a hell of a week – 12.5 hour workdays, which were nowhere near enough. By the end of each day, I was still too far behind, how does that work?
* I saw a friend I usually see once a week, and the evening I was on my way to see her, I thought ‘man, it feels so long since I saw her!’ It took me the whole trip to realize that I hadn’t seen her in 2 weeks, and that’s because last week I was on vacation. In Honduras. Last week feels like forever ago. And not real.
* Until this moment: for my vacation, I took the electric kettle, a huge coffee mug, a plastic cone for making one cup of coffee at a time, and a stack of filters (plus a bag of fresh-ground really good coffee). So every morning on vacation, my routine was to make a cup of coffee and drink it on the porch and knit. So this morning, I just made my coffee and poured a cup into that particular mug. The vacation feels real, I remember it. And I wish I were there.
Two sides of me:
* The not-so-nice side – I always get really mad on the subway when an adult with small(ish) children expects other adults to give up their seats so the kids can sit. What??! Kids have all the energy! They haven’t just worked a terrible job all day, they’re not stressed out, their backs don’t hurt! I’m sorry, if you’re 4 or 5 years old and there’s enough space for you to very safely stand and hold onto a pole, I am going to keep my seat. Bite me, adult giving me a dirty look.
* The nicer side – I have a friend who had a major stroke last year and who is currently in the darkest place of suicidal depression. She’s very brave but she doesn’t know that (or anything good) right now. So yesterday I wrote her an email that included this: “The bravery of us poor little frail people in this world, going forward as if we know what we’re doing, going forward as if it’s all somehow guaranteed (until something happens and we’re reminded that it’s not……but we go back to our old habits of thinking it’s all guaranteed). It makes me feel quite tender toward humanity whenever I think about this. Here we all are, with all our troubles, with the pain and trouble that we all bear in one form or another, with our small joys and our fragile hopes and plans. Here we all are, tiny little specks in an unimaginable infinite, on a tiny little planet whirling around a tiny little sun in just one little galaxy, here we all are, doing our best. GREAT. Now I’m starting to cry. I think we are all amazing, and that includes you. And I guess, then, that it must include me.” See? I can be kind towards people. Just don’t ask me to give up my seat to a 4-year old.
Finished the monkeys – will block them and get them in the mail to Katie first thing Monday morning:
one's a little smaller than the other - i'd bet the smaller one is more tightly-knit and therefore the one i knit here in Manhattan. looser = vacation.
blocking the monkeys to make them closer in size to each other; actual color is closer to the photo above this one, which came out weirdly golden.
I have a 3-month plan: I am putting all my ducks in a row, getting everything lined up to quit my job in 3 months. Period. I’ll teach, as much as I can; I’ll do writing and statistical consulting, as much as I can; I’ll try to do developmental work and rewriting on manuscripts for publishers, as much as I can; and I’ll make things and sell them, as much as I can. I’ll pare down my expenses, as much as I can. I cannot persist in this job that sucks the living life out of me. I’ll be 52 in November, and I say uncle. I want to have a life that’s not just bearable and happy on the weekend, you know?
This week, 3 people at work quit. Two of the editors in my group are going on interviews and will leave the second they get another job. Granted, I don’t know everyone on my floor, but everyone I do know is looking for another job. No exception. My boss even told me that she suspects our brand new assistant is already looking for another job. My company is based in the U.K., and there, it really is an enormous honor to work for this company. People stay with the company their entire lives – so very proud to work for this company. And I get it – it’s an amazing amazing and old company! It published the very first book. BUT (1) it doesn’t hold the same cachet here, (2) the Madison Ave experience is 100% different than the experience on that lovely lane in that beautiful town in the U.K., and (3) publishing is under such pressure now due to the economy and the transitional moment between books and online presentation of [free] content, we’re all turning into diamonds from the pressure.
Anyway. Lots to get done this weekend! No easy traveling knitting right now, as my knitting time is turned entirely to the wedding shawl. I’d hate to carry that in the subway – snowy white cobweb-weight wool, complicated Estonian lace patterns. My only other knitting alternative right now is the lettuce-green Ishbel, which is also a bit hard to do on the subway. So this weekend I’ll get back to the shawl, and I just have so much other stuff to do towards my eventual release to freedom. I feel myself getting lighter, just thinking about it.
back from vacation and planning the next!
……and, we’re back. Roatan was just wonderful – even better than last year, in many ways. We weren’t able to be online with any ease, so I just put up one giant post on the Roatan blog, with a flickr slideshow. It was great to be there, and kind of awful to be facing work tomorrow. I only have 235 emails, so it could definitely be worse, but I can’t bear to look at them today. Tomorrow will be soon enough.
I did a lot of knitting on vacation, partly because I had a dreadful cold the first couple of days, and there was an amazing storm for a couple of days. I finished the holey socks, and am ~75% finished with the other pair:
side view of the holey socks
holey socks, accompli!
- Pattern: Holes in my socks! By Nicole Okun
- Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock Multi (Colorway: Beverly 209) – 2 skeins were more than enough
side view of the monkeys
looking down on the monkeys
- Pattern: Monkey, by Cookie A
- Yarn: Knit One Crochet Too Ty-Dy Socks (Colorway Meadow 1518)
I’m going to try to knock out the rest of sock #2 and get them both out in the mail to Katie asap, then I need to return all my knitting time to the wedding shawl.
While we were gone, spring seems to have arrived in full force here in Manhattan! It’s sunny and gorgeous outdoors, and people seem refreshed. Today is the post-vacation normalizing for us – piles of laundry, straightening up and putting everything away, getting ready for the week.
One thing that makes it better, coming home from vacation, is that we always start planning the next one. Our current idea is to go to Laos, with a trip to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat and maybe a side journey into Thailand, avoiding Bangkok if at all possible. Or to the degree possible, anyway. The child sex trade there is too horrifying to bear, and I don’t want to give a penny to the country that supports it. Every country supports horrors of one kind or another, and there’s little gradation between things at that far end of the spectrum, but that one in particular is unbearable for me. So we’re focusing on Laos, and trying to figure out how best to get there at a reasonable price. We loved Vietnam so much, and especially enjoyed Hanoi, so we may just make a stop there, too. Fun fun fun, anticipating and planning. It makes the coming home a bit easier.
socks for Katie, plus a lesson in stress and the immune system.
sock #1
The second sock is nearly at the heel part, so I will finish it when I’m in Honduras next week. I’ll mail them to you when I get home! It has made me so happy to make them for you, and I look forward to making the next pair, too. I’ll use a different pattern, of course.
As immune systems will do, mine crashes after a prolonged period of stress. It’s been working and working, carrying me through the stress, and when the stress backs off just a little bit, crash. It’s kind of fascinating, if you ask me. My stress is still very intense; I woke up at 4:45am this morning so I could get to work early. But I guess the relief is coming, so crash. So just in time for my beach vacation: a cold, thankyouverymuch. Still, I’d rather be there with a cold than at my desk with a cold. If I have to have one.
Off to have a steaming bowl of tomato soup and an intense regimen of ColdCalm. And early to bed, so I can early to rise again tomorrow.
whinging about stress, plus socks
Yesterday is done for the year, so moving on! Today I’m going in search of a new bathroom light fixture, and I’ll take a trip down to Chinatown for some eating of Thai food – I think that’s the current plan. I’ll take my camera along, so I may have photos later.
My weeks fly by in a blur of stress – my best intentions to post more regularly are just paving the road. A week from today I’ll be flying back to Roatan – I hope you’ll drop in on that blog now and then while I’m gone. I’ll leave a note here when we leave, so the link as at the top.
Sock knitting is about all I’m getting done, a couple of rows on the subway to work, and a couple more on the way home. Still, a row here and a row there, pretty soon you’ve got a sock! Here’s where I am now:
going down the foot toward the toe!
spread flat, with the heel underneath: a bit of green pooling at the top of the foot
I’m kind of brain dead – do you know how that goes? Too much stress at work, consuming all the ATP molecules and all the attention, leaving a drained little husk of a mind. Maybe the weekend will energize me…..possible, since we have SUN!! Hallelujah!
love, socks, and a snowball
The wedding shawl knitting is ongoing, of course, but I’ve just cast on a pair of socks for my first daughter, who lives in Texas. She’s a pretty Irish girl, and so I wasn’t that surprised when the two yarns she chose contained different shades of green. This first pair I’m making for her is a combination of blues and greens – jewel tones, more or less, very beautiful:
"Holes in my Socks" in Lorna's Lace Shepherd Sock, Beverly colorway
the colors are spiraling!
I finished the new couch cushions, very squishy and beautiful. They look nice on the brown leather couch, and complement the oriental rug, too. But I was sitting at my sewing table with the window open – I can’t control the heat in our apartment except by opening the windows – and suddenly there was a loud noise and a snowball came through the opening. Scared the living daylights out of me!
eating snow and knitting socks – a good day I don’t care who you are!
Finally, I finished the Hedera socks I’ve been knitting all month, just in time for the daughter to arrive home for spring break:
Hedera, in KP Felici, colorway cochineal
a pair of socks for a cold dorm room floor
The snow has been really amazing here in Manhattan – yesterday we got just shy of 21″ of snow in Central Park! We’re knocking on the top 10 list of biggest snowfalls since 1869 or something like that. Here are some newer shots from my neighborhood…..
CLICK to continue reading socks and snow... Continue reading »
what’s on YOUR needles? I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours!
If you’re in the know, WOTN means what’s on the needles? Maybe I just made that up. Anyway, now you’re in the know too, so feel free to adopt WOTN Mondays for your own use, if you think you might be lazy on Mondays and need a guaranteed post. Ha. Not that I’m lazy today…..
So, WOTN! Item #1, the wedding shawl. Nupps are “fun.” I won’t show the shawl in its entirety, to preserve the surprise, but little bits here and there seem ok. Case in point: nupps.
nupps (unblocked, of course)
Next up on the needles: socks for my youngest daughter (nonrav link), whose dorm floors are very cold. I want to finish them by the time she comes home for spring break in a couple of weeks, so I’m alternating these with the shawl. (Doesn’t that gusset look mighty huge to you? It does to me.)
A's socks
While not technically on the needles, these are destined to be on the needles very soon – sock yarns chosen by my oldest daughter. Katie, which one do you want me to use first?
Lorna's Lace Shepherd Sock: Beverly
Knit One Crochet Too: Meadow
And finally, in this brief period between snows, I walked over to Riverside Park – my back yard, kind of – and I took a picture I take over and over, in all seasons. Here it is today:
winter view
And here it is a few months ago, and a few before that:
November
May
Seeing the park blanketed with snow, and ice in the Hudson River, made me think about Lent. I didn’t grow up in a church that focused on Lent (ours focused on the fun combination of both fire and brimstone), and I’m not religious in that way, but the idea of it struck me. There’s a longing for life to come – the life that’s pent up in the trees and plant life buried under the snow. The wheel turns, it’s bleak now, but rejuvenation is coming. It’s coming. The world will begin again, as it always does.
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