Thursday, July 23, 2015

felici socks

Today I was thinking about summer and why I feel like it is just kicking my butt. I mean what's not to like about summer--it is finally warm enough that exposed skin won't freeze, you get to wear sandals, and you don't have to make your kids do homework or get up and get ready early. Summer has the best foods, with tomatoes and sweetcorn and fresh green beans. I love my kids being home, and not having to deal with the after school crankies (although now it is after pool crankies--but I don't have to make them do math in the midst of it). But MAN does it ever take forever for me to get anything done in the summer. It may be because stuff gets piled on. Currently I'm soaking lettuce and broccoli from the farm share, and I've made a year's worth of strawberry and sour cherry jam. The girls want to blueberry pick etc.

Case in point, I've been trying to write this entry for DAYS, before this sock picture got too out of date

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I finished the first sock in the car on the way home from vacation and started the second. I even pulled out yarn so they could start close--and then had trouble casting on. Judy's magic cast on is a bear to do on a bumpy interstate. And so I ended up not being able to start exactly where I thought I should, but not bad matchup eh? I turned the first heel at a baseball game, ripped it out, knit more and turned it again at another that went into extra innings and it looks like that I may actually be turning the second sock's heel at another baseball game. I do love summer.

I wish I could tell you that I finished darning the last "socks of the week" and started a new pair, but alas that didn't happen. One sock is done, but the other still needs heel and some swiss darning.

I should also do an update on the caterpillars. I'll try to get a new picture for next time, as they look totally different now.

Friday, July 10, 2015

bright socks done!

Should I start every entry with: the Summer of Socks continues? Because it does!

The sock I started as a sort of emergency "trip" sock continues to travel, more locally. It has gone to two minor league baseball games. In face, I turned the heel in the 7th inning in the first one (on July 3) and then decided to rip out the heel and knit more foot length at the game last night. I did get the heel all finished, even though I had to stop knitting in the 9th inning because I was making a lot of mistakes and it was getting late. The game went 15 innings with the hometown heroes losing and with us getting in at midnight. At any rate, here is a pre heel rip out picture.

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I also decided to try some swiss darning (or duplicate stitch) on this week's sock. I ended up having to go back to my tried and true weaving a patch for the heel because the stitches were so stretched out. One heel is done. I'll do the other soon and try duplicate stitch on the foot area. Might be next week though as I seem to be running out of week! I knit these in July of 2012 after taking them on vacation. They actually have worn pretty well for having an obviously too narrow heel.

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I also finished the leftover socks, finally! All I really had to do was a few more rows and bindoff. I'm not sure why I need to look at instructions for the bindoff--Jenny's surprisingly Stretchy bindoff is incredibly easy once you have the process in your head. It has been a little hot to wear them but the things I do for this blog.

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And last, but certainly not least, we adopted a few more pets this week. I do a lot of volunteering and it puts me in touch with a wide variety of people. One person that I especially like is an entomologist for a public garden. She is very cool and always is doing something fun and buggy. This summer she managed to breed a few wild moths and ended up with an abundance of caterpillars. Now some knitters might actually be horrified with this but this summer I am helping her raise moths. Many people think of moths as eating sweaters, but really it is larva both of moths and carpet beetles. These moths however are Cecropia and while they do eat a lot, they don't eat wool. In fact my nine eat birch, while my daughters each have 3 eating lilac. They are native to my area, and so releasing them in the spring wouldn't be an issue. In fact, I doubt these would survive if they were outside. Heck, they may not survive being raised by us. they are cute though:
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They like to hang out together which is fun. And I love watching them. I don't actually have a birch tree though so I am roaming the neighborhood and knocking on doors. Well and hitting playgrounds--a surprising number of playgrounds have birch trees.

Thursday, July 02, 2015

car knitting

The only problem with taking a long weekend is that it kind of killed both weeks. We left for a trip "up north" after a busy week and got back mid-week this week. About halfway through last week, I realized I had not started darning the socks of the week, and then I got a comment from Daisy that reminded me about swiss darning, and honestly that would be perfect for last week's socks. I need to dig out my magazine that explains it well and do some research. All of this is a long way of saying I took a two week break on the darning, but I'll be back to it next week.

And so yes, we took a trip which meant car knitting. And I had a slight problem, the socks I had been knitting were almost done and I had not planned another project.
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And I kind of wanted to use the needles I had been using in this project. As you can see I am only like 5 rows away from the bind off. And since I've been using a bind off I rarely use (but should use more often--Jenny's surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off), I needed to have my cheat sheet along. So I decided to put in some yarn to hold stitches and take the needles with me, and finish the socks later.

This did not however, help when deciding, what do I knit on this trip!? The answer, I was sure was maybe a scrap yarn sock. I was thinking a purple pattern with solid purple toes and heels maybe? But purples are super hard to match. I was sure I had a solid purple that would go with ONE of these purples.
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Alas, I could not find it.

I also tried seeing if any of my greens would go together (no), before deciding just to give up. I dug out my last knit Picks Felci and took it along.

I hesitated with this because I have several pairs of socks made from this yarn, and it doesn't hold up as well as many others (proof--I'm darning almost all of the ones I have already knit). But in the end, it was probably the best choice as it doesn't require much beyond a simple toe up sock.

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Now to change needles again just long enough to finish off the other socks.....