Socks, Baby.

So last weekend was Sock Summit which by all reports was crazy and overwhelming and wonderful. I wasn't there. Sort of disappointing but realistically it was just too far to go. Of course had the summit taken place at this time last year I would have been a few hours away by car. Alas.

I did think of Tina and the Blue Moon ladies though while working on my socks. Blue Moon Socks that Rock (lightweight) in Garden Daze:


This was the yarn for the July shipment of the Rockin' Sock Club. It is very, very far outside of my usual colour family but I liked it as soon as I opened up the package. So far I have been letting my sock club yarn mellow in stash a bit, in fact a few earlier shipments have not yet been cast on. Not so this, I cast on a couple of days after it showed up. Unfortunately the club pattern and I were not seeing eye to eye. It's a lovely pattern, but I thought it obscured the colours and I was getting some unfortunate pooling. Sometimes a really pretty handpaint just want to be a plain vanilla sock. So it is (with a little picot cuff thrown in for variation). I am zooming through these, not least because I can't wait to wear them no doubt alarming my friends and co-workers.

Another reason it is probably best I did not make it to Sock Summit: I would almost certainly have bought sock yarn and I don't really need more sock yarn. Being in the sock club fills the hand-painted niche very nicely so I've bought some solid colours lately but not much else.

Working in a yarn shop is not without its hazards and going home with more yarn than pay is one of them. Now that I've been there for a while though the effect has changed. I'm at the yarn store all the time. I'm surrounded by the lovely yarn all the time. The yarn fumes have lost some of their power perhaps but mostly I have gotten over that feeling that "If I don't buy it right mow I might never see this yarn again" feeling. The yarn is always there and even if a particular yarn or colour goes away more yarn will come to fill its place.

All very nice and philosophical sounding. We'll see how well this has held up in October, after Rhinebeck.

Socks aside it's been all gift knitting lately. Which of course does not make for good blogging, as some of the recipients read here from time to time. The gift of the moment should be safe; another apple hat for another anticipated baby.

Adam is flying west this weekend for work and hopes to have a chance to visit friends who have just announced they are expecting their first in February. One apple hat coming up. Cast on at Pub knitting on Wednesday and should be done this afternoon (I need to burrow into the stash to find a few yards of brown for the stem).

Blogger tells me that this is the 100th post since I started this blog a little over two years ago, which doesn't sound like a very good pace. Just have to keep going, I guess.

Me? Blog?

Oh dear. More that six months without a post. To be honest I was ready to let this blog die. Posting had come to feel like an obligation and demands on my time had increased. It wasn't something I planned. When I wrote that last post, way back in January I didn't mean for it to be the last, it just sorted ended up that way and eventually I let myself stop feeling guilty for not posting. If it's any consolation it was not a good winter for me and most of you would not have wanted to read anything I had to write.



Now it is summer (or what passes for summer this year) and things are a little better and a little calmer. Both my mother and mother-in-law have pointed out that I should be blogging and now my lovely friend Jenn has started a blog of her own. All these little nudges add up. So here I am again. I don't know how often I'll post or for how long. Perhaps this is the blogs last stand.

Looking back through those 2008 posts it looks like the cutoff point for really regular posting coincides with my moving back from France. When I was away the blog felt more important to me as a way to keep in touch with my knitting friends back home. I still live nearly as far from my Vancouver Island knitting friends (Canada: it's a biiiig country) and I have knitting friends from France to keep in touch with too.

Despite the lack of blogging I have been knitting. That pink vest that has been sitting half done in my last post for 6 months did in fact get finished in February. I haven't worn in very much. It's a lovely item but I mis-estimated the effect of pink 2x2 ribbing on my tummy region. No photos of that one but perhaps I'll get brave and post one sometime.

I'm not really set up do a finished object report for everything I've finished. I also got a new laptop during the blog hiatus so photos are still in a few different places. I'll add a few here and if you want more info check my Ravelry project page or just ask!


There are more, of course. And I hope they'll all appear here in time.

Not Again

I had such high hopes for my twice-weekly blogging plan (which in itself should have been a warning sign ....) and it's fallen off the rails before it's even really begun. No time to moan about it though, better to just get back on track.

A number of things conspired to keep me away from the blog. One of our computers coughed quietly once or twice and then died unexpectedly the other day. This throws himself and I all out of whack: We're nerds (as you may have noticed by now) and being down to less than one computer/Internet portal per person is not a good plan. The whole things is made more vexing by the fact that the deceased machine was purchased less than a year ago. However it seems that the nice folks who made the overpriced brick are going to make good. We'll just see how that turns out.

In happier news actual knitting has been keeping me away from the blog somewhat too. As you may recall I dodged the holiday knitting bullet and now the knitting goddess is, predictably, exacting revenge. Since the holidays I've always had at least one "obligatory" knit on the needles. Now it could be worse, certainly, and I'd still rather knit for all of these occasions than just buy something, but my selfish inner knitter wants to hide away and work on things for memememe. And there is one thing for me, the as-yet-un-named pink vest. I was making good progress on it for a while but now it's semi-stalled right in the middle of the bust-darts.

those stitch markers look like rather odd nipple rings in this photo, sorry

I like working on it and I like how it's coming out, but other things have been pushing themselves to the top of the pile lately.

I finished the boot socks for Dad (who reminds me he never reads my blog anyway, so I can post pictures). Pretty standard stuff, but my Dad is not one for interesting foot coverings.


My husband, on the other hand (or should it be foot) has no such constraints. He needed more heavy socks and we had this worsted weight self-patterning stuff in at the shop. I had to buy a couple of balls just to see. You can just see a few of his board-game boxes in the back there, he calls these his Spiele Socken.


Vivid no? The repeat is super-long so I didn't bother trying to start them in the same place or anything. I actually sort of like that they don't match, it seems like they shouldn't, somehow.

With those done I'm zipping through a birthday gift with another to follow closely behind. Those are secret though, so no pics yet. None of this is tedious knitting or anything, I just want to work on my vest again! Whine whine.

Also crimping things a little is the fact that my energy has been kind of low lately. As I write Kingston is in the grips of it's umpteenth serious snow storm of the season, with about 20 cm (that's 7.8 inches for you imperial hold-outs) falling today. It's kind of pretty and fun the first few times it happens but when it's on a Wednesday at the end of January and you have to go to work...well the thrill is gone. It is cold and dark and nasty and everything that winters in Canada predictably are but I'm just tired of it.

However it is good knitting weather and I have lots of that to get through. And lots to look forward to including some experiments in different fibery-arts and planning a knitting retreat in the spring. Which can't come soon enough.

Back To It

Things are still looking a little messy here at consolations, but it's time to get back to it I think. As well as spiffing up the blog there has been knitting going on.

I finished off Adam's latest pair of socks last week. They actually worked up more quickly than I anticipated, what with the legs being knit on 2.0 mm needles. But ultimately they didn't take any longer than other textured patterns. I really like the pattern, and I'm looking forward to working more of Anne's patterns very soon.

Tears of Offler socks
raveled here

At the same time that I've been refreshing the blog , I've been weeding through my Ravelry queue with a firm hand. Both taste and circumstance change and I had to come to grips with the fact that there were items on there which, no matter how lovely, were never going to be knit by me. Some things stand the test of queue time and I have cast on for the vest which had been sitting in the number one spot for some time. No photos yet, as there isn't much to show, but I'm glad to be working on a garment again.

Also waiting for a photo session is the Thermis cowl. It is done and since this shot has even had its buttons sewn on. A very enjoyable knit as well as a timely finished object, since we are in the midst of a deep freeze here in Ontario at the moment. However it is possible that I am not as elegantly long-necked as some; when I wear this it comes up around the bottom of my ears. I like it though, and can see knitting more of these, even if only as gifts.


Speaking of gifts, the Winter Apple baby did indeed arrive shortly after the knitting was complete and is a little boy. I'm sure he'll be sweet in his little apple hat.

Most of the knitting this month seems destined to be foot coverings for the men in my life. I've just finished a pair of boot socks for my Dad (sorry, no photos till they're in the mail) and cast on a pair for my husband. These heavy-weight socks do go quickly, which is a nice change. Another, more secret, project needs to be done by the end of the month as well.

It was nice to have a bit of a break from regular blogging, but it will be good to get back to it as well. I am hoping to post at least twice a week, but I won't make any promises just yet. There have been so many changes in the last four months and I'm not all that resilient to changes. But things seem to be leveling out (knock wood) and calming down and the pace of things is becoming familiar. I just need to figure out what to slot back into the schedule and what might be better left out. I probably won't get this right on the first try, but I'm working on it.

Done

The Winter Apple baby set is done, and not before time. I spoke to the soon-to-be Mom on Christmas Day and she's feeling ready to go too, though she's not a knitter herself, and seemed slightly unsure that the bairn was in fact waiting for it's knitting to be done.


The sweater is adapted from F. Pea's Super Natural Stripes, the hat is my usual fruit shaped infant hat. Because I was working on this during late December I was a little concerned that it was looking too Christmasy, but I think it has all come together nicely. The green really is more of an apple green that a Christmas green and the little details are (I hope) cute without being twee.

Click for bigger

The Scotch Mist hat is also done. It's actually been done for a while but it took me a bit too long to get around to the washing and blocking. My photographer is at work today though, so only the 'hat-on-bowl' shot for now.


I still love this yarn, the Topsy Farms 2 ply I talked about here. It softened up some after a good Euculan soak but it's pretty rustic. I like that but I know some won't. The colour is great though and there is so much going on in it. In fact I have picked up a ball of the natural colour and started a cowl, of which more later.

The first of the Tesserae socks is done and yesterday I turned the heel on the second one. The feet go faster than the leg so these should be complete soon. This is going to be the last pair of light-weight socks I knit for a while though. The reality of winter is really setting in and thicker socks are required around here.

So done, done and nearly done. To be frank I'm feeling about done too. Work, the holidays, the weather and a nasty virus brought home by Himself have conspired to wear me down and make me thoughtful. I've been neglecting my blog for a while now and while there have been reasons big and small more than anything else I think I lost the groove of blogging and lost sight of why I started.

I'm going to take some time to make some changes around here. Partly just to freshen and tidy but also to figure out what it's going to take to get me to the keyboard more often. My big (non-knitting) project for the New Year is to finally get my studio/office set up. The room has been full of unpacked boxes and mess and finding anything (even a set of DPNs) has become a pain. Also with no bookshelves all of my books and patterns are packed away, not out to inspire me and with no desk I have been blogging from the dining room table. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to having my fiber space and I really do hope that it will give me a creativity kick-start for both writing and designing.

So I'll be quiet for a little while, though perhaps it won't be a noticeable difference from my spotty posts of late, and things may look a little messy around here but it'll get better. And I'll still be knitting, and will likely have stuff to show.


The cowl seems to be a big accessory this year - which from a knitters perspective is great, they're usually worked in the round, don't take much yarn and are over much sooner than a scarf. This is a cowl of necessity for me. Having been in a warmer climate for a few years I don't have a lot of hand knit scarves and none of those I do have has turned up here yet (I still don't have all of my stuff here). I have several of the enormous, woven euro-scarves that I always wore while living in France but every time I try to wear one here I feel rather self-conscious and affected. I am hoping this is going to be a good solution and finished before it gets ridiculous cold again (it has been both ridiculously cold and unseasonably warm in the past week).

Thank you all for visiting still, I hope that you'll bear with me. I wish everyone a joyous and knitty New Year.

Rockin

Despite the blog silence there has been a lot of knitting going on around here. Even though I'm not knitting for Xmas this year I'm still pushing to get things finished (mostly so I can start new things...you know).

I've been working away on this wee baby cardigan which is going quickly thanks to it's tiny size and clever top down raglan construction.


It's actually even further along that this now, but it was at this stage that daylight and my being at home actually came together for long enough to allow for photography. The bairn it is being knit for is due soon (and will, I suspect, be early) so this, and the little hat to go with it are a top priority.

The socks are coming along too. The pattern looks really complex but is really just a sort-of offset rib so as long as I can remember what row I'm on it's pretty simple and not as slow as i had feared. The first one is nearly to the toe and I'm hoping to make good progress on the second no with a few days off over the holidays.


In other sock news I've signed up for the Rockin Sock Club for 2009. I hummed and hawed about it for a while but Himself and I came to an agreement - he got a new PSP and I signed up for the Sock Club (and he gets at least one pair of the resultant socks). Marriage is all about compromise I'm told.

The paper whites also are making a sprint for the finish. After doing nothing at all for a couple of weeks they suddenly decided to go for height. Curious. There are a couple of little flower spikes on there though, so it looks like we should have a couple of blossoms in time for Christmas.

Happy Solstice Everyone!

NaKniSweMo Success

I feel a little sheepish for posting about it nearly a week after the fact, but I did indeed finish my NaKniSweMo sweater within the month of November. I had minutes to spare!

Klatchinan Cobbleston Complete

I am so happy with the way it turned out. The pattern is great, the yarn lovely and the knitting was very simple, yet with enough changes to hold the attention, it fits and he likes it. I think that's the making of a successful project, deadline or not.

This has really helped spark my interest in knitting larger things again. That and the fact that the temperature hasn't risen above freezing all week. We are entering that season in Canada where woolly things are not a matter of fashion, but of necessity. There will be more sweaters from me this winter for certain and I'm feeling excited about it.

I have, of course, cast on for a pair of socks for carrying-around knitting. I'm using Anne Hanson's Tesserae pattern and some Sisu in a gorgeous dark teal colour. It's a brilliant stitch pattern (so many of Anne's patterns grow out of these) and easily memorized but to get a nice looking result I've had to go down to a size 0 needle so these are going to take a bit of time. I'm also starting a baby item which will be the first of several in coming months as this whole baby things seems to be going 'round.

Though I'm not at all regretting my decision not to knit gifts for the holidays this year it feels somehow slightly wrong not to be frantically trying to finish things up now. So far, I'm coping.

For those wondering why Klatchian: I refer you to the works of one T. Pratchett, particularlyJingo.