Everybody Loves STR

There are so many good sock yarns out there these days (trust me on this, I've tried a few) but Socks That Rock is something special. I don't know what kind of mad chemistry the ladies over at Blue Moon use, but I hope they keep doing it. Just winding the skein of STR lightweight into a ball was enchanting - so soft and smooth and evenly spun.


The diffinition in this twisted rib is wonderful. I'm being selfish and starting a pair for myself, the first in months. The colour is actually slightly more lurid in real life that it appears here (if you can believe it) and has led these to be coined the slurm socks. The nerdy runs deep at our house.

There were no organized events here for World Wide Knit in Public Day, but I did manage a little on my own.
The knitting goddess smiled on us and it was nice to have a little sunshine for knitting in the park. Unfortunately the reprive was temporary and the rain is back today.

The vanilla cardi is ready for its bath and the greenwood blanket is less that 40 pattern rows from completion. After a couple of weeks of feeling like I've been knitting and knitting with no real progress it's nice that things are finally being wrapped up.

French shops, French Monks

An old friend has had a baby since I've been in France and I thought I'd whip up a quick little sweater to gift to her next month. I've got heaps of patterns for that sort of thing and figured it would be a nice, quick, fun project for odd moments and traveling. Normally a good stash-buster but I'm still many miles from my stash and so would need to buy yarn. Not exactly a hardship.

Well shouldn't be, at any rate. But I spent much of the afternoon questing about in search of 500m of worsted weight, machine washable yarn in nice colour for a red-headed little girl and was completely thwarted. To be fair one of the shops was in the midst of a going out of business sale and was pretty picked over, and I only received actively rude/hostile service at one of the three shops I tried (that counts as a good day here). But at the end of the day I came home not just without the yarn I wanted, but completely empty handed. I miss North American yarn shops and their variety.

Like so many things about France the yarn shops here aren't bad, necessarily, just different. I know that I came here and that it's up to me to adjust. Maybe I've not done a good job of that. I also miss fish and chips (with vinegar), saltines and Starbucks (heresy, I know). I could go on, but I won't.

So the baby sweater will have to wait and I'll knit from the ever-shrinking stash on hand. I carried this Socks That Rock lightweight here because the colour reminds me of Chartreuse and we live near the Chartreuse range (as well as the monastary where the legend began). Seems appropriate to begin to knit it here.


I know falling back on socks is hardly suprising for me.

In other news the knitting on the French Vanilla cardi is done! There are a few more ends to be woven (not many) and it need a good wash and block but the finish line is in sight on this one. I've had a few preliminary try-ons and I'm pretty happy with it. They'll be a real finished object post coming next week, but here's a little sneak peek.

mmmm, garter stitch goodness

Don't forget that Saturday, June 14 is World Wide Knit in Public Day. Please do so.

Lucky me

Adam has me figured out - no question. We had several hours last weekend in Lyon to wander around in the city center and do a little shopping. Adam likes to plan these things out and had googled and mapped and researched and was ready to go. He was on the hunt for board games - Europe does amazing board games and we're developing quite the collection. Clever boy that he is, he'd also printed off a list of yarn shops and after lunch our first stop was La Droguerie.

It's an amazing shop with all manner of goodies. The ribbons and trim section was literally unlike anything I'd ever seen. As you might imagine, there was also yarn. The cashmere and linens were lovely and tempting but (as usual) I ended up with some good, plain wool.


It's lovely soft and the colour (picked by Adam) is really rich. There's 300 grams of it here, I'd guess between 600 and 700 meters at a light worsted weight. Sometime in the coming months it will become a scarf.

So, with me on the slight high of stash acquisition, Adam was able to spend the next several hours wandering amongst the game shops of Lyon in peace. It was a wonderful afternoon and a I am so fortunate to be with someone who not only understands my craft but encourages it.

On Sunday afternoon we visited the Lyon Textile Museum. Lyon was once the center of the silk trade in France and still supports a significant textile industry. The museum only had a few knitted pieces (including a pair of silk stockings knit at a gauge that I truly do not care to attempt - about15sts/in) but the collection is remarkable. Weavers in particular will be interested in the completely accurate scale models of looms showing changes in fabric making technology over the centuries.

The sock visits the musee tissus,
Lyon

The greenwood blanket did not make the trip to Lyon, but I've been hard at work on it since we returned and it is growing steadily. I set myself a goal number of rows per day and usually manage to achieve it. The pattern has a 36 row repeat so there's no way I'm going to memorize it, but now that I'm into the third repeat it is at least beginning to become intuitive to some degree.

I can hardly believe that it's already June (the weather certainly seems to be stuck in April) and that in less than a month we'll be making our way to Canada. Best get knitting.

Merci bien

Careful readers will note that there has been a lot of fruitless waiting around here lately. Which made this little bit of mail an even more welcome surprise:


A care package from our friends John and Melissa back in Canada. I'll be teaching Melissa to knit this summer (see Mel, it's on the internet, it must be true) and clearly her taste in books is already excellent. I've been coveting this one for a while. And certainly young L. is showing a prodigal mastery of both the watercolour and pen and ink forms.

Thank you guys, so much. We miss you.

Fiddling

Winter is having a last gasp here in the Alps and the cold (really cold!) wind blowing down the mountain has pushed thoughts of cute summery sweaters right out of my mind. This week we were back to winter scarves and extra layers to keep warm and I was reminded that I had promised Adam a pair of thick hiking socks.

I have knit many pairs of these socks before. They use a worsted weight wool, so they usually work up really quickly but with this pair I have decided to take some time to tweak and properly record the pattern. When I first knit socks at this weight, I think I used Elizabeth Zimmermann's pattern for Woodsman's Socks. The number of stitches I cast on has remained the same, but little else.


Funny looking objects to be sure, but they really are warm and durable and they're meant to go inside one's hiking boots, where high fashion is (happily) not the primary concern.

I'm still knitting pretty socks too, having completed the heel on the first birthstone sock. Progress on these is steady but feels slow. I like working on them - the lace pattern is nicely absorbing and the yarn is lovely in every way - but after a few repeats I have to take a break. I can't get into a rhythm on them.


As a quick comparison of these photos might suggest, a couple of days ago both of these socks hit the fiddly heel bit at around the same time. In the future I must try to keep something at a non-fiddly stage at all times. I wouldn't usually have two pairs of socks on the go at once, but the knitting of these (fiddly heel bits aside) is completely different.

The cold weather here has given me the opportunity to observe the cold weather accessories of the locals (they're a well accessorised people, the French). Scarves are very big and I've spotted a number in the past few days that I'd swear were hand knit. Yet knitting is not very popular here at all, especially among younger women. Are there still French grannies out there somewhere knitting for their families? Or are these insanely pricey designer scarves that are being churned out in a factory somewhere? Even at designer prices hand knitting seems unlikely, is the new trend in machine knitting to look more like hand knitting? Curious. Knit hats are also very popular, though these seem to be machine made. I will never, ever be able to wear a knit hat (no matter the pattern) as chicly as a Frenchwoman. Oh well.

I am going to order yarn for a big project this weekend, so something other than socks should appear in this space fairly soon. And won't that make for a nice change?