Yep, I am totally knitting on the wild side; I hit the stash last week and pulled out some Crazy Zauberball in the wildest, hottest colors I had. Sometimes you just need to have some zing in the knitting, you know.
It seems like forever since I made something for myself. I made mitts to give to scleroderma patients, I’m still working on the PuppyPaca yarn for my friend Deb, and I have several more alpaca projects to finish for Alta Vida Alpacas. Last week I kind of snapped, found the Crazy Zauberball, and decided to make some fun things for myself. Check out these little bed socks: fun!
This yarn is Crazy Zauberall, and it is so rewarding to knit with. It is pretty light weight and knit a little loosely in this pattern; perfect for bed socks. Then there is the lace… These Om Shanti socks are from the Socktopus book by Alice Yu.The heels and toes are knit with a short row technique that really made the toes strut their stuff. Ravelry notes are here.
I have enough yarn left over to make a pair of mitts to wear in bed too. The colors of this yarn just make me happy. I will have to make the mitts for sure.
Mostly the gardening has been on hold this week. It has really warmed up over the last few days and suddenly roses started blooming. Here are the first ones to open…
The Hot Cocoa roses by the front door are doing great. I covered them several times this spring with blankets supported by tomato cages between the rose plants. All the attention has paid off big time! As I was leaving for a doctor’s appointment I glanced at the front of the house and there was the bloom!My Home Run roses by the driveway are now almost 3 feet high and suddenly they also began blooming. These guys will bloom all summer!
The backyard gardens are still jungles, but it rained hard last night so I’m hoping to weed out another flower bed tomorrow morning. How lucky that plants are patient.
Kitty revenge can be quite a thing: MacKenzie still hasn’t gotten over the washing of his blanket. He spends very little time on it now, and has taken to sleeping on my “Waiting for Rain” shawl. He’s so sweet I’m letting him keep it for now.
One Crazy Zauberball project just isn’t enough right now. As soon as the bed socks were done I grabbed another ball and cast on another project just for myself.
May I present the yarn for a Solaris shawl by Melanie Berg. The shawl is supposed to use 5 different MadelineTosh Unicorn Tails (in five different colors), but I decided to use this wild Crazy Zauberball yarn for the colored sections. There are at least 5 different colors in there; I can always pull off yarn to get to another color if I need to as the colored sections are pretty short.
So why did I snap and start the crazy knitting for fun? The truth is, I’m somewhat miserable these days. For reasons I don’t understand June is the month when my illness decides to get particularity ugly on me. For the third year in a row I just feel pretty darn sick. My muscles and joints hurt, I’m dizzy, my gut is misbehaving, I’m running a fever, my arms and legs have developed edema… I got out of breath and had to use my inhaler while winding a ball of yarn last Wednesday at my knitting group. I’ve been in to visit doctors twice already this month, and really, there isn’t too much that they can do. I’m in a flare for sure. Mostly I don’t leave the house much, but I can still knit.
You see why I broke out the Crazy Zauberball? Bright happy colors that change quickly. How can I not smile while knitting lime green and deep rose? This month I totally need some knitted hugs of happiness, and Zauberball delivers big time.
Got to go. I’m at the part of the shawl where I start knitting in some crazy color. Bright purple! Woohoo!
This was such a fun week. I think that I’m just going to throw up some pictures of the main events because, well, don’t you just want to see what I’m making? Of course you do! Here we go. Hang onto your knitting needles and crochet hooks because I am moving fast!!
My Vanilla Dragon socks are done! These are knit from the toe up with an after-thought heel. The pattern is Vanilla Socks, and the yarn is MJ Yarns Simple Sock in the colorway Purple Dragon. Ravelry notes here. This is a free pattern guys!That Purple Dragon is fun stuff! I started a pair of Snowfling Mitts using the worsted-weight version of the MJ yarn with some black Malabrigo Rios. Hey, it is good practice before I knit these mittens out of my homespun yarn.I have finished weaving my first dish towel and started on a plaid version. . This towel is going to my cousin Ruth Ann. I need to have all the weaving done and off the loom by Easter so I can deliver her towels to her. My scleroderma support group meets tomorrow so I also got some more mitts finished to give away.On Wednesday I found the yarns that I needed to put together the kit to knit Exploration Station by Stephen West. The two yarns that aren’t wound yet (the newly found ones) are lace weight. I plan to just knit them double. How about that for a yarn hack!While I was at the yarn store one of my friends gave me a bag of Golden Retriever hair to spin for her. Hmmm… doggie yumminess. I’m going to try to convince her to blend the dog down with some soft wool to give the yarn a little bounce. This will be fun. Really.and look what appeared while I was knitting the Purple Dragon socks! I guess spring is on the way.OK, I know that this is a little over the top, but I was so anxious to see how this yarn would work up I cast on last night and started the Dream Club slippers. Fun! They are really cushy because of the Eye of Partridge stitch.
That’s it! That was the week. I also got some beads in the mail to make stitch markers, but you don’t really want to see an envelope from China, do you? I’ll just save that piece of cuteness for the post about those stitch markers. I also had a surge of energy/empowerment that led me to drive two hours in the middle of the week to a hospital up north so that I could get my medical records from all the lung and heart testing I’ve gone through the last two years. I sent an email to one of my doctors that set off a series of phone calls and now some new tests are ordered and I have a referral to a pulmonary specialist. As soon as I go to the clinic this afternoon I can pick up a shiny new inhaler to help me breath. Empowerment is a good thing!
Have a great week everyone. If you find yourself knitting at midnight, think of me.
Here we are again: not even one little finished object for the dang exhausting week. Every day was a whirlwind of activity, however, so once again I’ve decided to share the journey with all of you with pictures of the highlights.
I kept knitting on the Dueling Gradients Mitts that I started the week before, but the colors are changing really slowly in the yarn and I started to get bored. I played with the color placements and am thinking about doing a little Fair Isle somewhere in the mitt. I have more balls of this yarn and can introduce another color (or two) earlier in the mitt. I’m still thinking things over, so the project got parked. I’m considering a little rippage for this baby. Maybe I’ll put a band of Fair Isle above the thumb on this mitt and below the thumb on the next one. Hmmm…
This is my own simple pattern. Here it is on Ravelry.
While the Dueling Gradients are hibernating and growing up some new ideas I pulled out some Zen Yarn Garden Serenity 20 to make some mitts for the Scleroderma bin. These are the mitts that I sell to other patients in my support group for the cost of the yarn. Simple, lightweight, warm and absolutely mindless knitting.
Tuesday was Super Tuesday here in the United States. Along with 150,000 other people I went to caucus for my candidate that night, Yowza! What a night!
Purple Dragons for my feet. Take that Raynaud’s!!
On Wednesday I go to my knitting group at a local yarn shop and for some reason I wanted a little wild color along with simple knitting to take to that. Hello Vanilla Socks! These socks are toe up and have an afterthought heel. I keep seeing other people making these socks in their blogs and decided that I should jump on that bandwagon too. Look at how cute they are turning out! This yarn is from MJ Yarns and is Simple Sock Fingering Weight. This colorway is Purple Dragon and I absolutely love it! I bought some Purple Dragon to make some mittens too, but that is for another week’s post.
My son tells me that this is a self-propelled Howitzer
Yesterday I hit the road to return the materials from the Project Learning Tree workshop I facilitated for the school district I live in. How fun! I had to drive across town to historic Camp George West near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The old buildings of the base are now used by many Colorado State agencies, but they still have old armaments out on display.
It sure does fill like Spring, although March is traditionally our snowiest month. The plants in my garden are starting to come back to life. The prairie dogs are barking and playing in open lots across town. We’ll be seeing baby dogs before long; I always think that I should bring leftover veggies to these little guys but it is probably best to leave wild critters be, 🙂
How could I resist the cute floral tote and some flowers from the nursery! The rose will have to stay indoors with me but the pansies are the type that can survive snow so they go into the ground next week. Oh, yeah. I almost forgot! The major activity of the week has been weaving. I’ve been binge watching Shades of Blue and throwing my shuttle to make dishtowels. This towel is using a white weft, but the next towel will be plaid with the weft in the same colors as the warp. I just love this process; throwing the shuttle, creating the fabric and winding it onto the cloth roller is just a source of joy to me. It is a little hard on my hands so I only weave an hour or so at a time, Still, I should have the whole set of towels before long.
See: lots done, nothing finished! Even as I write this I am thinking about going upstairs to wind some more yarn and am fighting an urge to play in the stash to find yarns/colors for shawls. A whole set of shawls!!
These are the Om Shanti Bed Socks by Alice Yu. That cool yarn is Serenity 20 by Zen Yarn Garden. They are extremely comfy and the snug little ankles keep them on my feet overnight. Perfect for the sleeper with cold feet. (Yep, that’s me. Thanks Raynaud’s!) Here are the project notes on Ravelry.
If you are interested in the history of these socks, here are the related posts:
I am almost caught up with the resolution socks; last night I shopped the stash to pick the yarn for the November Socks and am torn between two different patterns. Next week I’ll make the decision, wind the yarn and cast on. Here’s the problem: I found a wonderful blue yarn, but there is also this gold/purple/brown yarn that looks like the perfect color for November… The blue yarn works for the pattern I planned to knit, but the autumn colored yarn is so perfect that perhaps I should give it and a cute lace patterned sock a try… Maybe I should make two pairs of socks this month. 🙂
I worked like a maniac this week on the bed socks because it has suddenly become cold outside. We had a nice snowfall Thursday, and the last two nights have gone well below freezing. That was it; I had to bring some of the outdoor plants into the house for the winter. I went to the local Home Depot store and bought some plant grow lights for them, and with some care and rotation under the lights I hope to keep them going until next spring. Here’s the winners in the survive the winter plant lottery:
The pink daisy-like plant moved into the bedroom by a window. Looks happy, doesn’t it.The geranium is also getting parked in front of the bedroom window where it will hopefully get enough light. I plan to let both plants visit the plant lights in my craft room a few days a week for a light boost.I pruned this plant back to about half its height and put it in front of the window in the craft room. The orchids have been doing pretty well in this location: both orchid plants bloomed for me last year. The (very cheap) wood shelf unit actually has three shelves; I bought clip-on grow lights that I can move around to give the plants light from different directions this winter to supplement the natural light.
I have more plants shoved onto the two shelves below this one but they are just too messy to show off right now. I need at least one more plant grow light to make things work, and the lower shelf plants still need to be pruned back. I’m pretty sure that the plants will drop a lot of leaves as they adjust to the lower light levels, but they should all make it and hopefully will manage to produce some winter blooms. One of the plants on the lower shelf is a rose bush that has survived indoors for three years in a row. I know he’ll make it! The pink flowering plants are also producing a lot of scent which makes me just happy. It’s like having a little piece of summer all year long.
I would love to do a Wordless Wednesday. It would be so cool. I think that I should set a goal for myself to work up to it slowly and to capture the best picture that displays the struggles/successes of the week. Since I didn’t do that here is an almost wordless Wednesday update of my current projects.
Om Shanti Bed Socks socks by Alice Yu. Here are the Ravelry project details.Strips pulled from the long edge of the giant batt and rolled up ready to spin. The spinning wheel rattled his double treadles in excitement the whole time I was doing this…Singles spun using a supported long draw that will eventually make a fluffy 2 ply worsted weight yarn. Happy spinning wheel.You wanted to spin? Whatever…
It’s raining outside and will change to snow overnight. I have the flowering plants that I want to keep inside and I am ready to ply this yarn tomorrow. Sure wish my bed socks were done. Have a great rest-of-the-week everyone.
Halloween! It is also the last day of the month and I’ve been busy. Pumpkins, decorating, candy all ready to do for the trick-or-treaters, and projects. One project is done and two more are getting started. (What did you expect? It is always best to have many more WIPs than FOs…). Here’s everything in pictures.
The September socks are done!! OK, they are only a month late. Don’t they look great? Here are the project notes on Ravelry if you want the details. Introducing the October 2015 socks. Say hello to the Om Shanti Bed Socks by Alice Yu. I found the pattern in my copy of the book Socktopus (by Alice Yu). As you can see they are knit from the toe up. I’m using some Zen Yarn Garden Serenity 20 yarn that I found in the stash (no idea what the colorway was called…) and here are the starts of the notes on Ravelry.Finally, today is my spinning wheel’s birthday. That’s right! He was born on October 31, 1996, the 10th wheel born on that day. He is a Schacht Matchless double-treadle wheel and he is just in the prime of his life. and here is his birthday present: a giant batt that I bought last spring at the Interweave Yarn Fest. Don’t those colors look perfect for a Halloween baby?Here is the batt unrolled. This thing is huge: 8 ounces of wool. I cannot wait to get spinning on it. I have agonized about how to approach the project and have finally decided to pull off strips of fiber the length of the batt to spin semi-worsted (long draw) and will then Navajo ply to create a round three ply yarn that maintains the color changes. I’m hoping for a light worsted weight (DK) type yarn. I want to either make a Brickless shawl or will weave a small wall hanging from it. The wheel is pretty excited about this project. Well, he should be; it’s his birthday! 🙂
That’s it. Hope you all have a great weekend. This is the end of daylight savings time here so get an extra hour to sleep and knit. Woohoo!!
My wrists are behaving again: every day it seems that I can knit a little longer. Since I got the queue organized and a lot of projects lined up I have been on fire. Since it is Wednesday I thought that I would just show off all of the knitting WIPs.
September Socks
Oh yeah. I was making a pair of socks each month this year as my New Year’s Resolution. I remember now. It is now almost the end of October, and the last time I made a sock was… July. My favorite yarn store received a big shipment of Malabrigo Rios last week and I found this:
Isn’t this the perfect color for September? This is 100% superwash merino and the color is so rich and wonderful… I decided to make the Stepping Stones socks from the Book of Socks by Clara Parkes. The pattern is also free on Ravlery. My copy of the pattern says to use size 2 needles (with worsted yarn? Not with these wrists! I decided to use size 4 needles and the sock came out springy, wonderful, and has a good fit on my foot.This happened while I was trying to take pictures today for this post…To get the shot I had to put the sock onto my foot. Ta-daa! Here it is. The pattern was designed to change on the instep but I kept the same stitch pattern down the whole sock because I kind of liked it. 🙂 It’s nice how the colors in the yarn are broken up in the sock: no pooling allowed!!
The sock knit up really fast. I should have the second one done by the end of the week. I already have the October Socks ready to go. Catch-up time. 🙂
Daelyn Sweater
I bought this Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in August while doing Yarn Along the Rockies. It is soft, cushy, and fabulous.Here it is as a growing Daelyn Sweater by Isabell Kraemer. It is knitted from the top down with NO SEAMS!! The back is garter stitch which is kind of fun, and there is short row shaping at the bottom of the back so the sweater will have a slight tail. I want this baby done before serious snow arrives.
Mitts!!
I can’t stand it; I always have an urge to knit more mitts. It is kind of irrational as no one could possibly wear all of these, but they are just so cool and a great way to try out yarns and patterns. I’m going to have enough left over yarn from the September socks to make some mitts in the same stitch pattern. I have some exceptionally yummy cashmere blend yarn that nags at me, and then there is this hand spun that I pulled out today for another mitt project I’m dying to do (but I’m not going to talk about it now as, seriously, I think that it deserves it’s own post). Here is the yarn teaser…
Handspun alpaca yarns. Don’t they just look like they want to be striped mitts?
Tonight is the first frost warning of the year so I brought as many of my potted flowers into the garage as I could. I know that they are running out of time, but I hate to let them die. I think that next week I will hang indoor grow lights and get some of them indoors. The first snow can’t be that far off now.
The last leaves are falling off of my trees and it is definitely getting colder, but this potted plant is still blooming its heart out. I moved this one into the garage for sure and may try to save it for indoor color this winter. Maybe it will be easier to capture the seeds once it’s inside. Another project!!
This is all Sharon’s fault! I’m referring to Sharon of Creativity and Family. Yesterday I woke up to find that she had posted a long, chatty list of all of her WIPs and projects for the coming winter months. Oh, my goodness! The woman has big dreams and a diverse (and endless) number of projects all lined up. She quilts, knits, crochets, sews, is doing something mysterious with scrabble pieces, and even makes her own yarn from tee-shirts. If you don’t already follow her you should check out her post.
The other thing that I discovered when I woke up was that my wrists, ankles and knees hurt. Like the tendons. Like there is no way that I am going to be knitting anytime in the near future.
This is so not fair! I am just entering the final pattern section and bind-off of the Drachenfels. One more day (or two) and it would be done. I want it, I want it, I want it now!!! <snif>
Whatever. It’s getting warm again outside and I won’t be wearing a shawl for the next 10 days or so. Lots of time to get it finished. What I decided to do was to channel Sharon, go play in the craft room and shop the stash. If I can’t actually knit, I certainly can organize things, match patterns to yarn/projects and try to create a queue of my future crafting for the coming cold weather months. Yeah. That’s the ticket.
I already had yarn organized into types and weight. I just had to start pulling out yarn and reorganizing it in the bins with the patterns for my coming projects into some of my spare bins.
I pulled out several boxes of yarn into the main craft room and then discovered that it hurt my wrists to snap open and shut the latches on the boxes. Well, isn’t that special! Lucky for me I’m an old pro with wrist tendinitis. Years ago I had carpal tunnel surgery and spent months in braces. For a few years after that I still wore my braces when doing wrist challenging activities like moving books in my classroom or organizing boxes in the garage. I had to go on a hunt to find them, but eventually my wrist braces were located in a drawer of my desk in the office. I just needed to create some padding to go under them because I have edema in my arms these days (thank you scleroderma!!)
Well, look at these incredibly ugly hospital socks I got during my last health adventure. Just the ticket.I cut off the toes…Cut a slit in the side to make an opening for my thumb…and I had the perfect padding mitts to go under the braces. 🙂Add the braces and I attackd the bins! These braces look awful but as soon as they are on my wrist feels wonderful. I think I may sleep in them tonight.Here is the finished stack of knitting projects. Good grief!!
This was just fun to do. I moved yarn around and got things reorganized to create the project bins. I copied patterns from books and magazines with my printer/scanner so that I could slip the pattern into the bin with the yarn. The big bins contain the yarn and patterns for two sweaters, and the smaller bins have 1-3 projects each. I sat down (on the floor!) with my stack of boxes and the laptop computer and then entered everything into Ravelry to create this queue. In addition to the two sweaters I have 5 shawls, 2 long mitts, 3 socks and 2 hats. I thought about trying to put everything into the actual order that I will do the projects, but that is just crazy thinking. At least I have things into the queue and can move items around as I actually get started. Check out my queue if you want to see what I have lined up. 🙂
Since I was working in the craft room with the sewing machine it was a little hard to ignore the stack of projects on the shelf next to it. I pulled them down and discovered more to do. I had actually forgotten some of this…
Look! This is an autumn themed quilt that I started a year ago and never finished. I just need to get the batting, sandwich the layers and then do the quilting. I’m not showing the whole thing now because… reasons. If I hurry it will be done before Thanksgiving! Stay tuned.This is a special edition Colorado themed batik that I bought to sew a Professional Tote Bag with compartments and all the room I need to drag around knitting. The pink fabric and the blue with the small dots to the left is for the linings.Unfinished Christmas place mats. I just have to do the quilting and put on the edging. These guys need to get done!!While I’m talking about Christmas, I also organized this idea for Christmas dishtowels. A few years ago I made everyone towels in a plaid design. When I got to the end of the warp I made this scrap with a natural colored weft. I kind of like it, and am thinking that if I get the warp back onto the loom it will make fast towels to give everyone with some of the other things I have planned.
Well, that’s it for now. I have organized and pulled to the front of the pile lots of projects and ideas. I’ve been wearing the braces for two days and my wrists are feeling better. I think that if I protect and rest them for another couple of days I will be good to go with the Drachenfels and hopefully it will be done by the end of next week.
If not I guess I’ll keep the braces on and get the garage cleaned out!
It’s here! It’s here! The most wonderful time of the autoimmune disease year. Fall colors, cooler (but not cold) temperatures, sunshine levels that won’t make me sick, pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks, and wood smoke. Pumpkins and autumn squash soup. New yarns at the yarn store and patterns for warm sweaters. Ugg boots!! Without fail I have a surge of joy and energy at this time of year. Just like the golden hour in photography, that time in the evening when everything is softened and has a glow of light to it, this is my golden hour of the year.
Look at this sunset! I took the picture while sitting at the stoplight. Doesn’t it make you happy? The golden hour is the hour before this as the sun was just dipping down towards the mountains in the west. Here is Colorado it makes the Rocky Mountains look softer and plush; there are sunbeams and everything looks wonderful.
What’s wrong with the rest of the year you ask? Well, let me tell you: winter is a beautiful time of year, but for a person with systemic sclerosis and Raynaud’s disease, it is a miserable battle to keep extremities warm an opportunity to rock the wool socks, shawls and fingerless mitts. This year I plan to roll out some exceptionally warm longish sweaters; I have the yarn all ready to go. I have patterns for fingerless mitts that will go up to my elbows. I bought fleece Cuddle Duds. I am really going to try to handle the cold better this year; last year I rolled out of winter with more severe symptoms than I had in the fall.
Look how great this rose looked last spring. It should be a wonderful time of year for me, but…
Spring is a time of gardening, hope and struggle for me as I try to get the garden’s flowers (and roses!!) going while slowly accepting that new debilitating symptoms that I thought were related to the war against cold, but which remained in the balmy days of April and May, were actually real things. Darn! No wool sock or hand warmer will fix my problems… by the time I make appointments or call for help it is already summer.
Ugh! Summer! I was a teacher, and summer was that wonderful time of renewal and rebuilding that kept me going year after year. Now summers are so fraught that they seem to pass in a blur of lawn watering and visits to Kaiser. Really, I am just a mess all summer long. Here’s the highlights of this year:
Summer started with me just a few weeks into the drug methotrexate (which I got after making a call for help in early May…) I was losing hair and taking it easy two days a week because of the drug’s side effects. Still, by juggling the drug schedule I was able to work a summer camp teaching kids how to spin and felt fiber. So fun. The camp was only 2.5 hours a day so it was perfect.
In July I developed rare bone complications from the drug (well, don’t I feel special!) and ended up at an acute diagnostic facility. That was the end of the methotrexate.
Icky symptoms reappeared with a vengeance. I had to wait a few weeks before I could start the new drug. It’s called purgatory drug holiday .
UTI strikes. Seriously!! Antibiotics, barfing and yogurt happened.
Rheumatology appointment: he starts me on CellCept with some reservations about whether my gut (which basically hates me…) can handle it.
I start the pills. Woohoo! No problems except after two days…
…UTI strikes again. Oops! I stopped the CellCept, gobbled antibiotics and yogurt, and skipped the barfing. Take that you ill-behaved gut!!
Started CellCept again the next week. Hello heartburn, my old friend. Middle of the night vomiting and belly pain? Nope, nope, nope. My gut has definitely vetoed this drug! I didn’t even make it a week before I emailed my rheumatologist to ask for something else from the land of pharmacological wonders.
Well, what do you know. There is another version of the CellCept that is a time release version that I should be able to stomach (see what I did there?). My rheumatologist and I had an email chat and he ordered it up for me.
…and the insurance declined to approve it. What?!! I wanted to send my gut on over to have a chat with them. Two visits to the pharmacy, two phone calls and an invocation of the gastroenterologist did the trick. I scored the pills on the last Friday in September. Yep. That was the end of summer and it is now time for the golden hour.
I started the time-released version of CellCept 10 days ago. You know, I think that I feel better already. My knees have stopped hurting! I seem to have more energy. I think that there is less edema in my arms. I have started cleaning out cupboards and stuff. I am happy.
Look at these leaves! This is the maple tree in my back yard.
This is my year of systemic sclerosis (scleroderma): cold, pain, hope, struggle, persistence, and wonder. And this, my friends, is the best part of the whole dang year. I am full of joy with every red leaf and pumpkin that I see. I know that the snow is coming, but what the heck.
August! This is my favorite part of summer. The flowers are blooming like crazy, the monsoon is cranking moisture up to Colorado for afternoon showers, and the hummingbirds and butterflies are cruising through the backyard every morning. The cats and I have been outside too for knitting and bug chasing.
I finished my August socks while sitting out in the garden this morning. Since the cats have been hanging out with me the entire time I was knitting these socks I thought MacKenzie might enjoy posing with them.
MacKenzie is my good boy. Usually if I just slowly ease my knitted items into his personal space he’s OK with things. Today that back foot came right up…He flashed his “this is completely unauthorized and you are now in trouble” look,and there was a chomp. Luckily he wasn’t very serious in his protest and I was able to extract the socks (and my foot) without any damage. Don’t you just love cats? It would have been nice if he had given a little warning noise first, but no, he had to go right to the claws and teeth!
OK. Message received. Having been denied assistance by the cat most likely to cooperate I decided to pose the socks on one of the garden tables. (I know; very boring but no teeth!!) Look at how great the Seafoam Stitch shows off the yarn!!
I decided to stop the seafoam pattern at the top of the foot because I usually wear socks inside of lace-up shoes or boots during the winter. I lightly steamed the seafoam portion of the sock with my steam iron to set the stitches which really calmed the knitting down.The stockinette fits my fat little foot better too. I’m really happy with the way these came out.
These socks are the Galvez Socks by Debbie Haymark. The pattern is in my copy of Lace One-Skein Wonders edited by Judith Durant. Here are the project notes on Ravelry.
Gosh, I finished those fast. There’s lots of August left before I need to think about socks again. I promised a friend to help out during Alpaca Farm Days next month. I feel an urge to knit lots of little fingerless mitts (out of alpaca of course!!) to show off (and sell!) to visitors to the farm… 🙂
Yarn, Books & Roses 