Socks and such

Early this month, I got a shipping notice from Cookie A -- the first 2012 sock club shipment would be arriving soon. I decided that I should try to finish a pair of socks before the yarn came & I would want to start the new socks. So I rummaged around and found these:

Sock Hop Free Bird

The first sock was finished, and the second sock was about an inch long. The safety pins along the foot of the first sock are placed every 10th round, to make counting easier.  I'm finding some satisfying symmetry in knitting the same number of rounds for the leg and foot as I have stitches on the needles. In other words, a 64-stitch sock gets a leg that is 64 rounds long, and a foot that is 64 rounds from the end of heel shaping to the start of toe shaping. Oddly, it seems to work out that the foot is just the right length for me. These are just a generic sock, k2p2 rib on the legs, a short-row heel (my favorite is from the Queen Kahuna Crazy Toes & Heels book), and a stockinette foot.

The yarn is Sock Hop, from Crown Mountain Farms, colorway is Free Bird. It was a sock club selection, and I really wasn't too sure I liked it when it arrived. In fact, when I started these socks, I planned to give them as a gift. Then the magic happened, and I love the way the striping looks, and the sock is so cushy and soft. So I'll keep them for myself.


Valentine's Day was a snow day, so no school (2nd snow day we've had this winter -- the first was the day before).  My husband went to get the mail and told me when he got home that I hadn't been knitting fast enough. Sure enough, the yarn from the Cookie A sock club had arrived.  It is a gorgeous, soft Merino/Cashmere/Silk blend, from Alisha Goes Around, a yarn company with which I am completely unfamiliar.  The patterns arrived in my Ravelry library -- 2 sock patterns and 2 cookie recipes!  I have decided which of the sock patterns to make, but I do need to finish this Sock Hop sock. I want the needles out of this project to use in the new sock. They're Kollage square dpns, purchased at the Loopy Ewe a couple of years ago.

Richness (of Martens) Fingering in
Genevieve

This is a long weekend, so maybe I'll get one pair of socks finished and the other started. This will be the first time I can remember not having to use Presidents' Day as a make-up day for snow days. Yes, we do have days to make up, but since they happened just last week, we were surveyed for our opinion on whether to use Monday as a make-up day or not, and the overwhelming majority voted not!

Two steps forward, one step back

I finished the first L-shaped section of my garter stitch blanket, and weighed it to get an idea of how much yarn I had used. It weighs 15.9 oz., according to my handy digital kitchen scale. Just a smidge under a pound. And this piece represents about 1/8 of the blanket. This is going to be an 8-pound blanket!

I was scanning the pattern to put it on my ipad (a new trick I learned this past week -- knitting patterns on my ipad do not get crinkled or lost like paper patterns do!) and my eyes caught a note at the bottom of the page. This pattern was originally written in 1962 (older than me!), and the note at the bottom of the page (in The Opinionated Knitter, where the pattern is reprinted in its original form) says that the yarn used in the pattern used to have 30 more yards per 4 oz skein than it does now. It currently has 85 yards per skein, so as used in the original pattern, it would have been 115 yards, which means the Sheepsdown is actually very close in size to the Brunswick Aspen that I am using, that there isn't enough of to make the blanket with the yarn doubled.  I found a size 15 circular needle and cast on 24 stitches to see what gauge I would get. It wasn't quite 2 stitches per inch, so I started calculating how many stitches I would need to cast on to get a 12" wide strip. Then I measured the bed, to see how big a blanket I would need to cover the mattress. I cast on 32 stitches, which would make about a 15" wide strip, but would have made a 5' x 7.5' blanket. Too long. My husband says, "well, you need enough to tuck under the mattress." No, we are not tucking a hand-knit blanket under the mattress.

The proportions of this blanket do not match any mattress, so I decided just to go back to the original 24 stitch cast-on and follow the pattern. If I want the blanket to be wider (more square), I can add a strip along one or both of the long edges. By this time, after much knitting and ripping, reading, calculating, and dithering, I realized that the gauge I'm getting with this yarn on size 15 needles is probably very close to the original pattern's gauge, based on the width of the piece so far, and the dimensions of the finished blanket in the pattern. So I'll have enough yarn to make the blanket, maybe even 2 of them! That is, if I can find the other 11 skeins. I looked yesterday, and I have 13 of what I'm fairly certain was 24 skeins.  But I still like the two-tone idea. So ... we'll see.

Here's the new start, using a single strand of the yarn on size 15 needles, laid on top of the piece knit with doubled yarn on size 17 needles. Not much narrower, but it is not as thick. Still, I think it will make a nice, warm blanket.

It's been awhile

Oh, goodness. It's been a very long while since I've been here.

I finished my Diamond Fantasy Shawl. It's beautiful, and I haven't worn it yet. Hmm... need to find something to put together with it. It is unblocked in this photo (sorry).

Also completed all 3 Camp Loopy projects last summer, and earned the completion prize, a skein of Wollmeise Sockenwolle 80/20 Twin, in Blaue Tinte (blue).

The first Camp Loopy project was a 2-color project to wear around your neck or shoulders, and mine was Clockwork by Stephen West, in the 2 colors I mentioned in my previous post. I gave it to my sister for Christmas, as she's a purple girl.

The second was something to wear on your hands or feet, that had to include cables.  I chose Cookie A's BFF Socks in madelinetosh tosh sock, in Ink. They're perfect with blue jeans.

The third and final project could be anything, as long as it used at least 800 yards of yarn and was completed by September 15th. This one was a big challenge, as we couldn't start until August 15th, and my district went back to school just a couple of days later.  My project was Amy Herzog's February Fitted Pullover in Dream in Color Classy, in "Don't Be Blue". I really like the way this sweater fits, and am looking forward to knitting more of Amy Herzog's designs.

My daughter received a GAP-tastic cowl for Christmas, which I made with Malabrigo Yarn Chunky, 3 skeins of Continental Blue. I used just about every last inch of the yarn. And I don't have a picture.

My most recently (re-)started project is the Elizabeth Zimmerman Garter Stitch Blanket. I discovered a partially-completed block "A" (the L-shaped pieces toward the center) in KnitPicks Cadena. It had been hibernating so long that I couldn't even remember the plan. I did recall that I was going to use the 24 skeins of Brunswick Aspen I had acquired many years ago at a going-out-of-business yarn store sale. And that I had decided to supplement that with another yarn so that I could make a big blanket. But I took a look at the beautiful version created by Jared Flood (brooklyntweed), and read through his blog post on it. I realized that I have just over 2500 yards of the Brunswick Aspen, and that I should be able to knit with it doubled and approximate the 2-stitches-per-inch gauge from the original pattern. So I ripped out what I had started, and began again with doubled yarn and bigger needles, and I am nearly finished with the first "A" block. The math teacher in me is constantly calculating, however, and I have a mystery. I have about 1250 yards of doubled yarn, and the original pattern was made with 850 yards of yarn. I am getting approximately the same gauge, but I have no doubt that I will run out of yarn long before I finish knitting this. So my current debate is whether to turn my "A" block into a "B" block, and hope I can make both of them with the yarn I have, and get the closest possible color match in another yarn to finish the blanket, or a contrast color, or just a lighter shade of a similar color. Or continue with the "A" block, and make a "B" block with the remainder of the yarn I have, then use new yarn for another "A" & "B". Hmm... yes, I think I like this last idea. Then I'll put them together with each "A" block inside the other color "B" block.

And a little Christmas special: the kids & their cousins raided Grandma's closet so they could have an "Ugly Christmas sweater" group photo. Much merriment ensued. The next-to-last one on the right is possibly handmade (crocheted) but she can only move her arms out about 6" from her sides in it -- a strange garment.

Reflection Shawl & Camp Loopy

I have been doing some knitting!  I have finished a small shawl called the Reflection Shawl (Ravelry link). The yarn is Fleece Artist BFL sock yarn. More details on my Ravelry project page.

Fiber friends: if you're not on Ravelry, please join! It's a wonderful place to share projects, get ideas, keep track of your stash & what's going on in the fiber world. You can spend as much or as little time there as suits you.

Today I decided that I'm going to participate in Camp Loopy this summer.  To that end, I have just ordered 2 skeins of Enchanted Knoll Farm fingering weight yarn, in Araucana (greens) & Tia Dalma (purples). I am going to use it to make either Clockwork or Daybreak.  You have until June 10th to order and get the Camp Loopy discount.

Camp knitting starts on June 15th. In the meantime, I have dug an older UFO out and I'm going to try to get it finished this time! It's the Diamond Fantasy Shawl by Sivia Harding. Seems I started it 5 years ago *cough*.  I am currently on the 8th of 10 repeats of the 20-row chart. The rows get longer by 2 stitches every other row. It's just a little bigger than it was in this picture on Ravelry.

There's a First Time for Everything

I have been married to this man for almost 29 years. He is retired from the Army and is teaching JROTC (high school).

He does this with his students several times a year. Today, he invited his family to join in the fun.  Our son has done this before, but this was the first time for both of the female members of the household.
The kids are ready to go: 

I thought about chickening out, but they wouldn't let me.

The boy child went first.

Then the girl.

And then it was my turn. The hardest part was stepping off the top of the tower onto a tiny little ledge about 2 feet down the wall. The actual coming down part wasn't too bad. I decided once was enough for today, though.

Both kids went down more than once. I'll give it a go again sometime.

Knitting content:
I worked on a pair of olive drab socks for Socks for Soldiers on the drive there & back. Got about 30 rounds done (72 sts per round on size 0 needles). Pics maybe tomorrow. 

It's a universal truth ;-)

Combat Knitters

Another link I wanted to share -- a Washington Post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/09/AR2011030905233.html

A good deed

Hello again!
This blog has been long-neglected, and I have to admit I haven't been reading anyone else's blogs regularly. There are only so many hours in a day, and many of the things I would like to do just don't get done.
Teaching -- creating lessons, grading student work, trying to figure out yet another way to present the lesson as the first (second, third...) try didn't quite work -- takes up the vast majority of my time.  It's frustrating. There are enough bright spots to keep me coming back to it, though.

At any rate, I wanted to post this so that the few people who do visit this blog will know about this raffle for a good cause:
http://www.knitalk.com/Community/entry.php?143-The-Great-American-Afghan-for-Sue

Spread the word!