Knitting – Page 27 – Yarn, Books & Roses

The Art of Serendipitous Phenomenology

When I used to work in a medical research lab one of my co-workers described what we did as mastering the art of serendipitous phenomenology. I think that he meant that we (hoped to be) alert, observant, curious and reflective about events around us. Big discoveries can occur from chance observations if one pays attention; one of the famous ones is Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin. Another of my coworkers discovered an important immune system inhibitor (which led to a patent and eventually a drug. How cool is that?) Of course, there aren’t any big scientific discoveries in my life right now, but I have had a run of fun occurrences lately. It’s been making me think about serendipity, and that perhaps one of the secrets of finding joy in every day living is in mastering the art of serendipitous phenomenology.

So, here is my run of fun;

Starbuck's Card — I went into a strange Starbucks Sunday on an impulse while picking up Chinese takeout. I needed a new Starbuck’s card as I had just lost mine. Look at what I found!! The hard-to-read text on the left says, “Year of the Sheep”.

Book. — I was in a slump this weekend because I had just finished a good book. I forced myself to start reading the next book on my list, and it’s a science fiction with the title of WOOL!! It’s a really good book, too. How much fun is that?

I was already contemplating serendipity when I arrived at my favorite local yarn store yesterday. I had a hazy notion that I wanted to get a cashmere blend yarn that would look nice with grey to make another Hitchhiker (by Martina Behm). Going through the sock yarns with a friend a skein suddenly fell out of its cubby and landed on the floor at my feet. “Well, there’s your yarn”, said my friend. There it was indeed! This yarn is 20% cashmere. The color is perfect for me and my new grey sweater. After going through all the yarn we could not find one that was a better fit.

Hey, who am I to argue with the universe? This yarn is clearly destined to become a Hitchhiker. The answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. Obviously I needed to buy this yarn.

See what I did there? Even though this yarn was expensive I was able to absolutely justify buying it with my smoking post-Christmas credit card.

And that is the Art of Serendipitous Phenomenology, my friends.

February Socks are Done!

I know, I know. This is Wednesday and I should be writing a post about what I have on my needles. The truth of the matter is, yesterday I got up and realized that I had five different projects going right now. Naturally I responded by going directly to my favorite yarn store and indulging in some yummy cashmere blend yarn. Clearly I need to exercise some self restraint and get some knitting done before I cast on the newest project. Last night I really applied myself, and I am happy to announce: The February Socks are Done!!! (Ta-daa!!) (Sorry about that if you clicked on the link. Now you know what life was like in my biology classroom…)

So, without any further ado, here they are:

Socks — I decided to reverse the colors in the second sock. Fun, huh! You can also see that I sucked it up and knitted the entire twined topper on the second sock.

Heels of socks. — The heel construction of these socks allowed them to be worked stranded without cutting the yarn.

Well, they certainly are rustic looking, aren’t they? I am now referring to them as the Mongolian Boots. They are warm, warm, warm, however, and that is what I wanted. It is nice and sunny outside today, but as soon as the snow and cold come back I am ready.

I really learned a lot with these socks; here are some of the highlights of the adventure.

Swedish knitting genes aside, twining isn’t for everyone. Stranding was faster, easier, and I didn’t have to spend half my time untwisting the yarn. I twined only the tops of the socks, and stranded the rest.
I know how to knit with both hands so I can carry one color in each. Purl with both hands: not so much. My second heel (sock on the left) looks much better than the first one.
When making a decision about which color to call your MC, you should write that down. The increased stitches in the gusset look much better in sock #2 because I was following the directions. Duh!
If you can’t figure out complicated directions at some point (final join of heel to gusset) just make your best guess, knit a bunch of stitches together and move on. There are no sock police.

Whew! Time to finish up the other projects (get ready HItchhiker, here I come!) so I will be ready for the March socks. New Year’s resolutions are still a go. 🙂

Project Notes: the Basic Sock pattern in Knitting Scandinavian Slippers and Socks by Laura Farson. Yarn: Aran weight wool from my DIL’s trip to Ireland, dyed with Gaywool dyes.

WIP Wednesday: February Sock (AKA Mongolian Boots) Update

It snowed this weekend and I took advantage of the cold weather to work on my February New Year’s resolution socks. Here’s where I’m at:

Sock gusset. — How weird is this? This is not a two thumbed mitt, but the sock nearing the bottom of the heel. The center stitches are the heel flap, and the stitches added to each side are the gusset. The heel turn is next.

Sock in progress. — The heel is turned (little checks) and I have successfully connected the sole to all of the gusset stitches. Looks like it’s designed to fit a lumpy foot, doesn’t it.

Sock on foot. — It fits my foot! Now, be honest. Doesn’t this look warm? These are so thick and cushy I plan to wear them as indoor slippers or maybe inside my Ugg boots. My son told me they look like Mongolian boots.

Mongolian boots?! I wonder what those really look like? I wonder what patterns and colors they use? I have more of this Irish wool, and I have to say that it is not what you would wear against your skin. (The sheep that sourced this fiber actually had hair mixed in with their wool! I haven’t seen that since I since I spun some California Red that I got dirt cheap. Pokey, pokey, pokey!!) It is perfect, however, for over-socks/boots. It does dye well, is very lofty and warm, and I’m pretty sure it will felt like a charm. Hmmm…

Introducing the February 2015 Sock

My feet just hate the cold. Once they get cold, they stay cold for a long time. (Yep. It’s a Reynaud’s thing.) A few weeks ago I came home on a sub-zero night and ended up under the covers wearing layers of wool including socks and my Ugg boots trying to warm up. Seriously, this is ridiculous! Time to fight back!!

Sock and Book — I’m knitting the Basic Sock in the book Knitting Scandinavian Slippers and Socks by Laura Farson.

Say hello everyone to the February sock. <grin> This sock is stranded or twined every single row of knitting including the heels and toes. Doesn’t that sound warm? I’m knitting it in a rustic worsted weight wool (this is the same Irish wool that got dyed in my canning jars a couple of posts back) that is lofty and very warm. I’m using yarn that is heavier than what is called for in the pattern, so they will be larger and more dense. These are the kind of socks that I can use as slippers over lighter socks while indoors, or they can stay on my feet while I’m wearing my snow boots. They are going to be warm, warm, warm!!!

I am so motivated to have warm feet!!

Anyway, this pattern is very interesting and I am learning lots of new tricks. The cast on was “Two-Strand Twisted German Cast On” which seems a lot like Old Norwegian cast on, but with two colors.

Top of ock. — The blue yarn at the top shows the cast on and two rows of the twined garter stitch edging.

The edging continued with twined garter stitch, also new to me, and created so much twist in the working yarn that I abandoned it and moved on to the checker stitch without finishing the last two rows. Instead of twining I’m knitting the rest of the sock stranded. The twining is much stretchier than what would be traditional for a Scandinavian sock, but I want to get these socks done before the next bad cold snap.

Inside of sock. — All this stranding is going to make the socks cushy and warm. Warm is good.

Anyway, I’m happy with my stranding: look how plush and warm it looks!!

Gusset of sock. — The gusset is created by adding stitches to each side of 25 central stitches. Later they will be reduced in the construction of the bottom of the heel. There is no heel flap and picked-up stitches. All new to me!

The heel is worked in a way that I have never seen before, but it looks like it will be a good fit on my foot. I’m getting close to the bottom of the gusset now, and the heel looks pretty challenging, so this might be something of a learning curve. 🙂 I’m knitting with two cable needles instead of my usual double points, and I am finding out that this is easier for trying on the sock while it’s being knitted.

So here it is. The February sock is going to be fun, I’ll learn lots of new techniques, and I should end up with warm feet. Yeah!

WIP Wednesday: Another Hitchhiker and Mitts

It has been crazy weather time in Colorado. While the news is full of the huge snowstorm that hit New England, I have been outside in the sunshine with the cats reading and knitting. Yesterday we almost set a new record when we hit 75 degrees! Today is not as warm, but it was nice enough to give one of my cats a bath.

Within minutes of being released from the drying towels he was at the food bowl. Little does he know that the hair dryer is next... — Within minutes of being released from the drying towels Morgan was at the food bowl. Little did he know that the hair dryer was next…

Here he is tanking up on cat food after his traumatic ordeal. 🙂 Morgan is a (bob-tail) Maine Coon, which meant that a serious blow-dry and brush-out procedure was next in store for him. He actually likes the hair dryer, so it wasn’t as bad as it could be.

Still, what with one thing and another I didn’t settle down to knit until late this afternoon. I’m working on another Hitchhiker, this time in Noro Taiyo sock yarn (which is cotton, wool, nylon and silk). The colors are cool, but it isn’t as squishy as the last Hitchhiker that I made out of wool. It will be nice for summer. I keep thinking of ways to make a Hitchhiker-shaped scarf with gathered lace along one edge instead of points. Hmmm…

Yep. No thumb. This yarn is Baah! La Jolla sock yarn in the colorway “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”

I’m also making some vine lace mitts that still don’t have their thumbs knitted on. As usual, I’m going to have a little stack of thumb-less mitts piled up before I force myself to finish them. Then there is the matter of the pattern for these mitts which I need to write out a little better before I forget what I’m doing. Here’s the project page on Ravelry for the mitts with kind of a half pattern.

Maybe I’ll save the mitt thumbs for the snow day that is bound to come. March and April are the big snow-makers here. You never know. 🙂

Canning Jar Dye Job

I’m trying to stick to my New Year’s resolution: knit a sock each month using a pattern from one of my (many, many, what was I thinking of when I bought them…) sock knitting books and yarn already in my stash. I will not buy any more sock yarn! (but if I do, I won’t use it for the resolution socks… Hello! Need to be a little realistic here…)

So, I have a pattern picked out for the February sock (which is a secret since it isn’t February yet!), but there wasn’t really suitable yarn in the stash. I did find a kilo of Irish wool that my daughter-in-law gave me almost 20 years ago. Guess it would be OK to use that, but it is all white. Dye day!!

Skein of white yarn. — Look at this 200g skein of yarn! Wow! I think that I will try to rainbow dye it all in one pot!

Smaller Skeins — Seriously?! The skein is sub-divided into four 50 gram smaller skeins. Forget the rainbow dyeing.

New idea. I can get those little skeins into wide-mouth canning jars. I just happen to have some of those in the garage.

Little skeins. Well, that is different. Each skein will need to be tied several times to keep them from tangling. I decided to dye the four smaller skeins of yarn at the same time in my canning pot with each skein in it’s own jar. I used Gaywool Dyes in Indigo and Raspberry and added one tsp of dye to each jar and filled it halfway with warm water while the yarn was soaking. I decided to make two of the skeins raspberry colored, and the other two indigo colored.

Dye jars in the water bath. — Once the water bath was hot I added the jars of dye, crammed the wool into the jars, and then added more hot water to get the maximum volume of liquid in the jars. I used wooden skewers to stir my wool around. It was a tight fit, but do-able.

Dyed yarn in jars. — Ta-daa! Dyed yarn. You can kind of see in the picture that the exhaust water is almost clear around the now dyed yarn.

Once the water bath was up to the simmer I removed those skewers, covered the pot and let things simmer for about 30 minutes. I just love dyeing! It feels like magic when the dye bites and enters the wool; the raspberry happened first, and then by the end of the 30 minutes the indigo had also made its move. I let the bath cool for an hour and then pulled the jars out.

Dyed yarn. — Here’s the dried (mostly) yarn. Yeah! February sock, you are so happening!!

By the way, I feel that I should mention that I don’t use this canning apparatus any longer for food; it is only for dyeing yarn and making candles. I have a whole crate of dye-only stuff and I even have a wool-only microwave. Best to be safe. 🙂

FO: January Socks are Done!

There is a whole week of January to go, and I have the first 2015 Resolution sock done. Isn’t this a sock that will make the most dreary of days seem happier and brighter? As usual, it has been approved by my cat MacKenzie who loves all things wool.

Finished Socks — The pattern on the bottom of this sock makes it pull in against the arch of my foot which is a detail that I like. The heel seems a little large, but it works on my foot, so it’s a win!

Socks on feet. — The tile pattern kind of fades in and out because of the hand-painted yarn, but I can see enough to make me happy.

I’ve already decided on the pattern for the February sock, but when I dug through the stash I found that I didn’t have worsted-weight yarn in the colors that I wanted. Actually, I hardly have any worsted weight yarn at all. I do have some white wool that my DIL brought back to me from her trip to Ireland. I don’t want to give anything away, but are you all up for some yarn dyeing?

Woohoo! Indigo and raspberry wool dyes, here we come!! Really, it will be fun.

Sock Information: Riot of Color from Around the World in Knitted Socks by Stephanie van der Linden. The yarn is Baah! Yarn La Jolla (the darker color) and Done Roving Yarns Frolicking Feet (lighter color)

FO: One Yummy Shawl

It’s done, it’s done, it is done! I knitted on this all yesterday afternoon while binge watching this season’s Parenthood episodes, and finally finished it around dinner time. It was wet blocked this morning and dried outside in the breeze.

I tried getting my cat MacKenzie to model it for me with less than satisfactory results. At least you can see how nicely the grey and black in his coat goes with the shawl’s colors. 🙂 My fallback model is the maple tree, which does let you see the rows of eyelets pretty well.

Shawl in Tree — I used an online random number generator set with the digits 2 and 8 as the limits to determine the number of garter stitch ridges between rows of eyelet.

This is what it looks like on me. The color is really rich looking, and the 20% cashmere makes it nice around my neck.

Author wearing shawl. — Soft, warm and looking forward to the next cold snap. The reds, browns and grey in this yarn will make it a real work horse for me.

I know that I shouldn’t have done it, but I also cast on TWO new Hitchhiker shawls this afternoon. Really, I just wanted to see what the yarns would look like in the bias knitted fabric…

Shawl Information: 3S Shawl by Amy Meade. Yarn is Serenity 20 from Zen Yarn Garden.

WIP Wednesday: My January Resolution Sock, a Yummy Shawl and a Mitt

The sun is out today and the meltdown is in full swing. Yeah! Sunshine! It is supposed to be fairly warm for the rest of the week and I am rocking the knitting because my hands are so much happier when they don’t have to deal with single digit weather.

So, I got a lot done, but nothing is finished. I’m still working on three projects (and am resisting casting on another pair of socks. Darn it, there is a pink cashmere blend yarn that is calling to me…) Here’s where I am.

Knitting this sock is quite a production. I’m following the pattern chart, tracking the decreases for the pattern and fighting with the cats for space at the same time.

The January sock is still just chugging along, a few rows at a time. The problem is that I need to use the chart to do the pattern, and the cats have decided that they want to sit in on my legs while I knit. They dislike cold snowy days even more than I do! Today I threw them outside because it was warm and I got through the heel on the first sock and am now working my way down the gusset. Looking good!

The cashmere blend 3S Shawl is almost done! I have only another 20g left on the ball. This is easy knitting and I am doing it while watching television in the evenings. Maybe, maybe, maybe it will be done Friday. 🙂

Knitted Shawl — It’s starting to look like a shawl! I’m using an online random number generator to determine how many rows of garter to put between the eyelet rows. Geeks are Us!

Finally, I am working on the little lace mitt using 2 small cable needles. I have finally adjusted to the cables (instead of using double pointed needles) and really like how I can carry this small project in my purse without the danger of stitches coming off the needles. Looks like this project is the one that is coming in last as I’m spending most of my time working on the other two.

Garter Lace Handwarmer Mitts — Knitting on 2 cable needles. Why has it taken me so long to try this?

Project Information

Sock: Riot of Color from Around the World in Knitted Socks by Stephanie van der Linden. The yarn is Baah! Yarn La Jolla

Shawl: 3S Shawl by Amy Meade. Yarn is Serenity 20 from Zen Yarn Garden.

MItt: I heavily modified the pattern for the Sweat Pea MItts that I found in Lace One-Skein Wonders.

Introducing the January 2015 Sock

On New Year’s Eve I made some resolutions for myself. What was I thinking of? Obviously a moment of weakness! One resolution was the promise to select sock patterns from my collection of sock books, and to then knit one sock a month using only the yarn in my stash. Hey that’s a good resolution, right? I end up with at least 12 new socks and make a dent in the stash at the same time. Happy feet!! Sad wool moths. It’s all good!

I had a lot of fun the first week of the year digging through books to select patterns, but decided to finish some of the projects I already had going before I started the resolution socks. Friday I finally went digging in my yarn stash to see if I could find some fun yarn combinations to make a Fair Isle type sock. I had in mind to make the “Riot of Color” sock in Around the World in Knitted Socks by Stephanie van der Linden. I settled on two hand painted sock yarns with the idea that they had enough contrast to show the pattern, but there would be enough overlap in colors that the pattern would fade in and out a little.

Pattern book ad yarns. — Don’t these two yarns look like they will go together well?

Perfect! I wound the yarn into balls while visiting one of my sons Saturday, and today I settled down to knit. This is what I had produced by dinnertime,

Knitted Sock — Here it is tonight. I changed the top of the sock as I was anxious to see how well the colors contrasted in a pattern.

Sweet! It looks warm, doesn’t it? My little feet have been really cold this week, so that is a big bonus right now. Oh yeah, I will be knitting away on this baby pretty steadily for the next couple of weeks. Here’s my project page for this sock if you would like to get more information about the yarn colors and needle size.

Stay tuned everyone. I hope to have these done long before the end of the month. 🙂