Return to Vinnland

After a month of no sock mojo and weird Anglo-Sox-on dreams, I've decided to get back to some sock knitting.

When we last left our frustrated sock knitter, he wasn't able to get a Vinnland Sock, which he had poured hours of work into, over his heel.

At the time, I blamed the pattern. I had this idea that it was written in women's sizes and that I had not done the translating. But this is absolutely not so -- the pattern is clearly written in inches of circumference. I had followed my usual circumference for my foot (10") and it was still too small. What was wrong? I'm sure the more experienced of you knitters out there have guessed already.

Gauge.

I hadn't closely paid attention to the suggested needles (Size 1), because I at some point made a decision which has since become gospel -- Thou shat knit socks on needles of size 0. I read 1, and immediately thought, "Hell no, I'm knitting these on size 0." And the hubris kind of went on from there.

My apologies to the designer of this lovely pattern, Becca Compton, for thinking cranky thoughts about her pattern. It really is a great pattern. I'm just an inattentive, and somewhat stubborn knitter.

So now I'm starting over with a new attitude and knitting one size up on the chart. I think it's already looking better than it did the first time. One thing I am doing differently is using Charlene Schurch's wrapped short row method for the toe (and later the heel) rather than Becca's method of using yarn-overs (yarns-over?). I'm only doing this because I'm more familiar with it.

Wait -- could be this be another initial assumption that will later torpedo the project?

Nah. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts...

The Hex Files

Where have I been? Working on this Hex Afghan.

Life has been awfully busy lately. My contract year at work is winding down and I'm trying to get a lot done in what little amount of time I've got left. We've been busy with chorus functions and trying to get some work done around the house -- both inside and out. Precious little time for knitting. And the best time of year for knitting big wads of warm toasty wool? -- not summer.

But I've been able to put some work into this afghan little by little, and I'm pleased with how it's turned out. It was a pretty uncomplicated pattern, yet it still looks cool. My favorite kind of thing to knit.

But not my favorite kind of thing to knot. Which is where I am these days. The instructions call for long fringe to be attached and then knotted in a kind of two-row lattice pattern. You can kind of see it on the cover of the book from which I got the pattern:



I think I've figure out how to do it, but I'm a little unclear on how to get the lattice even. I'm thinking of using a glass or some other object to knot the yarn around so that I maintain some kind of consistency. And there is still some blocking left to do. But since our spare bedroom -- the official blocking chamber -- is scattered with materials for fixing cracks in drywall, it may be a while before I get to that part of the project. I really do think I need to block it before I add the fringe. I want to jump the gun, but I'm sure I'd regret it.

Here's another closeup detail of the knitting so that you can see the bifurcated hex pattern.

I really want to get back to some sock knitting. I haven't knitted a stitch on a sock in over a month and I'm jonesin'.

Her Majesty's Socks

I've not been feeling well today and really should go to bed...but...I had the oddest, knitting-related dream last night and I just remembered it.

Jeff and I were part of a massive group of people fleeing some sort of natural catastrophe. I had the feeling that it was a swarming infestation or a type of contagion. I'm not sure which. But it felt more like small crawly insects were involved. We were in a car, driving down a road. People were on the road with us, most of them walking, carting their belongings in wooden wheelbarrows. The atmosphere was one of general confusion and fear. Oh, and Prince William was in the back seat of our car.

For some reason, we were responsible for getting him somewhere safely. We ended up in a small house. It had furniture from houses like old ladies lived in when I was a kid -- lots of blandly upholstered furniture with doilies on the headrests. The three of us, and my friend Tom from college who happened to be there, just sat around chit-chatting, waiting for something.

The door rang and it was Queen Elizabeth and a driver, arriving to pick up her grandson. As they left, I looked down at her ankles for some reason, and saw that she was wearing the ugliest handknitted socks I had ever seen. They were ankle-length, knitted on huge needles for socks, and made out of this swirly purple/green/blue yarn. The gauge was all over the place and they were very saggy. And she was wearing them with those royally comfortable shoes she always wears. It was all I could do to keep from laughing.

Maybe it was a sign that I'm ready to get back to sock knitting? Or perhaps a sign I should stay away for a while longer?

Interpretations appreciated.

Hex Afghan

I got bad sock karma, people.

Let's just say that when I read "size 10.5" on the chart for the Vinnland socks I was working on, it never even crossed my mind to ask where this was a men's size 10.5 or a women's size 10.5. I can't get the sock over my heel. So I'm going to either frog it and start over, or find someone with a 10.5 foot to give this to. I'm not sure what the deal is, but both of my Kool-Aid-dyed sock projects are really sapping my knitting mojo.

To get it back, I decided to knit something from one of the myriad books I got for Christmas. I'm really intrigued by Nora Gaughan's Knitting Nature, but a lot of the sweaters are awfully complicated and let's face it -- my hips just can't rock a knit skirt. But there was this cool afghan project which is not awfully complicated, but looks quite elegant. Things will get complicated when I get to the lattice-knotted fringe at the end, but I'll cross that bridge later.

It's quite satisfying knitting. Just mindless enough to be able to knit while watching the tube, but still needing a bit of attention now and then. The pattern is made of alternating rows of hexagons in a 10-stitch pattern. Two rows of hexagons are 16 knitting rows tall, and then a 24 row pattern is thrown in, just to shake things up and keep it interesting.

The hexagons are divided down the middle with knit stitches on one side and purl stitches on the other. Two trapezoids are meeting up on their long sides to make the hexagrams. I see the trapezoids easily, but kind of have to squint to see the hexagons. I think the 2 5-stitch patterns make a kind of ribbing, so unless it's stretched out, it's hard to see.

I'd say I'm somewhere between 1/3 and halfway through -- and I've only used 3 of the 10 balls I bought in a lot on sale from Webs. I'm thinking I'll have enough left over to make a scarf. Gotta love Cascade 220.

Knitting Heritage

This weekend, I got to delve into the needle arts in my family. My mother never knit much. She and my aunts and grandmother were quilters. My grandmother, Granny, did a lot of needlepoint. But as far as I knew, knitting wasn't big in the family. We lived in Texas, after all. But in a phone conversation a while back, my Aunt June told me she had some things to show me the next time I came to visit. During the break between semesters, Jeff and I headed down to spend some time with her and her grandkids. She fixed us a wonderful lunch, complete with the family favorite, fig preserves. And, she brought out some treasure to share with me.

At the right is a picture of my great-grandmother, Grace Mae Adams Adkins, known to her grandchildren as MaMa (pronounced maw-maw). She was my mother's father's mother. Born in southern Iowa in 1889 and growing up mostly in central Nebraska, her family moved to the Texas coastal prairie in the spring of 1900. A few years later she met my great-grandfather, another mid-west transplant, and they married in 1907, about the time this picture was taken. She was 18.

Although she knew how to knit, she was more of a crocheter. She and her sister Gladys crocheted a lot. Although MaMa died some months before I was born, I have memories of Aunt Gladys in a nursing home. She and her roommate had covered nearly every surface in their room with crocheted cozies of all kinds. I don't remember her not crocheting.

When my aunt and mother were little girls, MaMa knitted them some sweaters. Aunt June still has hers. It's in a mustard-y yellow color and was probably knit sometime in either 1942 or 1943. It's cabled and has a little button at the side of the collar. It looks to me like the gauge of the body of the sweater and the arms is very different. The arms seemed abnormally long. Aunt June's theory is that they got stretched during cleaning. The sleeves are kind of cool. We tried the sweater on Aunt June's granddaughter, Sarah, and she looked like a little red-headed Joan Crawford -- very puffy shoulders! Aunt June remembers MaMa telling her that she couldn't remember how to do cables when she knit this sweater, so she had to go down the road to consult with a neighbor.

Aunt June gave me a bunch of old needles and crochet hooks that used to belong to MaMa and Aunt Gladys. They're kind of a mish-mash of sizes and conditions. I really like the large wooden knitting needle, although there is only one. One of the wooden crochet hooks looks quite old and has a whittled-looking end. The small white one looks like it might be made from ivory. You can also see a set of Boye aluminum knitting needles that got crunched at some point! I'm going to put these together in some sort of shadow box. Aunt June also gave me a set of interchangeable circular needles that she had back in the early 1970s. It's not complete, but each size is a different color of anodized aluminum. Really cool.

What a treasure. Thanks, Aunt June!

The Vinnland Saga

All this sock yarn isn't going to knit itself...

I saw this pattern, Vinnland, in the Beltane 2007 issue of The Anticraft. What an awesomely quirky thing this is. It's not all about knitting, and I can't claim to get everything it offers, but it's always worth a look. Not for the faint of heart. These socks caught my eye. Since they needed to be green, and since I had my Kool-Aid-dyed Absinthe yarn sitting around, it seemed like a match made in, er, Valhalla.

The pattern is complicated and I haven't quite figured out how to read it so that I'm not constantly glancing at the chart. But I like how the ribs seem to weave and intertwine in a Norse-ish pattern. When I first saw this I thought it was cabled, but everything is done with increases and decreases. The most difficult thing is that the increases don't seem to follow a logical pattern as to whether they're made purl-wise or knit-wise. I'm sure there is some sort of rhyme and reason to it, but I'm not seeing it.

Not sure what's up with these pictures. I wanted to skip the flash so that the images weren't washed out, but they seem washed out anyway. Later pictures should show the green-ness better.

I like these already.

Skol!

Pair Some Wine With This Pair

I'm not sure what wine should be paired with Gorgonzola. Probably something sweet, which isn't the sort of thing I would usually reach for. But the Gorgonzola Socks are done. I seem to be tearing through the languishing projects this week.

This was a pattern that I took from the opening chapters of Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. The pattern called for casting on 60 stitches, resulting in a sock for a woman's size 8 foot. I knew that the number of cast on stitches had to be a multiple of four, so I cast on 76 (close to my ideal circumference of 78) and ran with it. Everything worked well, except for the special toe, which was highly prescriptive. I just did a regular flat toe and left it at that.

The Welsh heel was also interesting. It pairs decreases at either side of the center heel with decreases at either end of the row -- with a few yarnovers thrown in to keep things from shrinking too quickly. I don't know that I'd ever do this again. Because of the variegation in the yarn, the yarnover holes are all but invisible. If I could see them easily, they would drive me nuts.

So, most everything is tidily taken care of, knittingwise. I think I'm going over to Hill Country Weavers this afternoon. You know, just to look...

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah!

Wonderful feeling, wonderful day! The ZimmerZipper Cardigan sweater is officially finished. Here's a little trivia for those of you playing at home: It took me 15 days to knit this thing. It took me 90 days to figure out how to sew and cut the steek, get a zipper and install it.

You may recall my frustration at trying to get someone to put in a zipper for this sweater. I have zero (or, one might say, "zip") sewing skills. My mother was a former home economics teacher who taught me the importance of attractive plate presentation and making sure that all cookies were uniform in size. However, when it came to sewing, I didn't ask and she didn't tell.

So I ordered a custom-made zipper, which took several weeks to arrive. It got here on Friday and I started in on installing the zipper myself this weekend. Since I'm off for a bit between semesters, I've been able to devote a LOT of time to this. Lots of dark brown thread on dark brown zipper tape. I basted it twice before I got it too look pretty good. If I say so myself, and I do, it doesn't look half bad. It zips up fine and the fabric lies flat like it should. Everything is satisfactual.

I had a little problem with the bottom part of the zipper, which is kind of leathery. How are you supposed to hand sew into that? I'll ask at the knitting meetup this weekend. Thanks to all who helped me with this, especially the knitters at the meetup and my sister, Susan, for machine-sewing the steek. I couldn't have done it without you.

As I finished this afternoon, the temperature was 91 degrees Fahrenheit. Time to pack the sweater away until January...

T-Shirts for Tortillas

The 2007 T-Shirts for Tortilla exchange is complete!

Last week, our good friends and Sharon and Janelle attended the 34th annual Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. They braved long lines and spent precious fiber fondling time to get us t-shirts from this year's festival. Thanks, girlfriends!

Jeff and I went to Sheep and Wool with Sharon, Janelle, Kristina and the Natter family two years ago. I had just started knitting then and found the whole thing a bit overwhelming. I can't wait until the college's academic calendar and the festival calendar align once again so we can head back. My fondest memories:

• "Stalking" the Yarn Harlot -- which meant just getting a picture of me with her in the background -- I was too shy to try actually speaking to her.
  
  
• Having people ask me the age of Sharon & Janelle's son (whom I was carrying around) and not knowing. The shocked looks!
  
  
• Janelle helping me buy my first hanks of sock yarn and helping me cast on for my first pair of socks.
  

It was a great time and these t-shirts really make me nostalgic for that wonderful weekend.

In exchange, we send them a boxload of HEB flour tortillas. Their boys love them, and the ones they got when they were down this winter have already disappeared. For good measure, we threw in a care package of bootlegged Knitty Gritty episodes.

Enjoy!

Baste Not, Want

Finally, my zipper from ZipperSource arrived. I ordered this thing nearly three weeks ago. It's perfect.

So I spent the afternoon trying to get started on it. I'm following these instructions from Claudia's Blog. I pinned the zipper in about how I wanted it, and then I basted along a column of stitches, trying to get both sides pinned straight without causing bunching and gapping, and generally getting everything to line up. It was a bit of a challenge, because when I basted the steek stitches under the selvedge edge several weeks ago, I ended up with the left edge being a column of knit stitches, and the right edge being the gutter between two rows of knit stitches. You can't see it unless you're squinting, but it meant basting was different on each side and that threw me off until I figured it out.

After I got it all basted, I tried it on. I was mostly happy with it. Everything was lined up, but a little too much of the zipper tape was showing. I want to be happier with this, so tomorrow I'll start over. A little disappointing, but also encouraging, because now I can see this is doable. The end is in sight. Which is good, because it's starting to get too hot to even imagine wearing a sweater.

Still working on the Gorgonzola socks. I finished the heel flap and turned the heel while at the knitting meetup this morning. It was my first time there in nearly a month, and it was good to see everyone. I wore my new Sheep & Wool t-shirt which arrived in the mail yesterday. Thanks, Sharon & Janelle!

Who Moved My Cheese?

Long time no post.

The usual reasons apply -- busy end-of-the-semester work stuff, evenings taken up with extra chorus rehearsals, and a general spring knitting ennui.

I'm pretty proud of myself for adapting a pattern to fit. The first sock fits great. The Welsh heel was fine, although it has weird little yarnovers in it. They don't show in this yarn, so they don't bug me too much.

I did a cable cast on, which I probably won't do for a sock ever again, and, which I indeed did not do on the second sock -- it was cast on with the tried and true long tail. I was wanting a different cast on, figured out how to do a cable, which I thought would be great because I wouldn't need to measure out a bunch of yarn -- which I always get wrong. I read the word "firm" as "super stretchy and elastic" in some instructions I had, and ended up with a combination sock/tourniquet. It's not that bad, but it is, shall we say, snug.

My new Knitpicks size 0 dpns are disappointing me. While knitting one evening, I saw all kinds of glittery sparkles on my tshirt. The coating is flaking off and now, instead of being all shiny and semi-surgical, they look like chunks of old coat hangers. Ick. And they're all bent. This, of course, is from my too-tight knitting. This could be genetic -- more about that later.

And the ZimmerZipper sweater still languishes. I ordered a zipper nearly three weeks ago and I've heard nothing. I need to follow up.

Cyfrgoll

Cyfrgoll is a Welsh word meaning damnation, loss, or perdition.

I was really humming along, having turned the Welsh heel last night. And then, while picking up the stitches on the heel flap, I felt a strange slackness. As the picture shows, I had somehow missed one of the selvedge edge stitches on the way up the heel flap, and the whole thing started coming loose. Two evening's worth of work down the tubes.

On the upside, I'll get to practice the Welsh heel again. It's a really cool way to do a heel -- it looks almost completely rounded, like a little cup. I have to admit that the fault lies solely with me. What I can't figure out is why it didn't start unraveling earlier.

Cyfrgoll!

Gorgonzola

I'm thinking I need to rename this blog, considering since I've started it, I've knit 3.5 pairs of socks for each sweater. Unfortunately, Sondheim never wrote any snappy lyrics about sock knitting, so here we are.

I started knitting some new socks last night. It's this great mottled Opal ZwergerGarn in a colorway called Mosaic. It's a bluish gray with ivory. It knits up in a very raggy pattern, which is a little difficult to see for tiny stitches. I told Kathleen at the knitting meetup that it looked like cheese, and she said, "Yes, Stilton." I thought that was spot on.

Because cheese was mentioned, I felt the need to browse the cheese section at Central Market while shopping this afternoon -- the power of positive suggestion and all that. All the Stiltons were white with mangoes and cranberries and other Frankencheese combinations. But then some Gorgonzola caught my eye, and I thought that it looked exactly like my sock. So they have been dubbed the Gorgonzola Socks.

Why just look at cheese when you can buy it and eat it? As I type, I've just had a couple of schmeers on some crackers. Now, I've had Gorgonzola in sauces, but I've never eaten it straight up. My tongue is numb.

This is some yarn that I picked up when I was in Pennsylvania last summer. I got it at this little place called The Mannings, which is out in the country. They seem to focus on weaving, but they have a great yarn shop in the front. I've bought stuff from them online, and they're great -- very friendly and very fast.

There's been movement on the ZimmerZipper front. In my head, anyways. Julia (Yarn Maven in the Blogs I Follow section on the right) talked me through the ins and outs of zipper installation this morning. She really convinced me that this is something I could do. She also suggested I use Zippersource to order a zipper online. They will make zippers to custom lengths for you, down to the 1/2 inch.

Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive during my zipper frustrations. Wish me luck.

Unzipped

So, this morning, whilst on personal leave to take care of some family business, I decided to take my ZimmerZipper Cardigan by a fabric store to get a zipper, which I would then take by a tailor to have it put in. Hilarity ensued.

The nice saleswoman at Hancock Fabrics took one look at the sweater and told me that there was no way they would have a zipper that long in the store. I need what I figure is a 28" zipper. This does not seem extravagantly long. I asked her if they had patterns for coats and jackets there at the fabric store, and, if so, how did her customers get zippers to put in them? She just shrugged. She suggested that they tailor might have a better supply of zippers.

Off to the tailors. The woman behind the counter actually popped her eyes when I mentioned that I had knit this sweater. She took the sweater to the back where she apparently consulted with someone, because when she came back, she said, "He says no." I asked if it was "no -- we don't have a zipper for this," or "no -- we can't put this in." The answer? Both.

She said that they couldn't put zippers in knit fabrics. I said, politely, that I was aware of the existence of zippers in knit fabrics. I pointed to the sweater the woman behind the counter was wearing, zipper and all. Another woman came over and took a look, expressed amazement at my ability to do such a thing ("Look! That chimpanzee is roller skating!") and took it to the back. I heard Conan the Tailor grunt something at her, and she came back, shaking her head.

I explained that while I could knit, I didn't know anything about sewing. She said that sewing a zipper into a knit garment would be too difficult. I patiently replied that yes, I'm sure it is difficult, which is why I'm willing to pay someone else to do this. She shrugged. When I asked if she could recommend someone who might be able to do this, she suggested an embroidery shop that she thought used to be at one of the local malls, but might not be anymore.

Thanks.

She did tell me that I'd done a good job on the sweater as I left the shop.

So now I'm bound and determined to sew a zipper on myself, by hand. If I can just figure out where to get one. Did I give up to easily on the fabric stores? Anyone have an idea of where I can get a brown, 28" separating zipper -- perhaps from an online source? I'm going to put it on myself and wear it to the tailor shop, even if it's July.

Here Is My Spout

This has been quite the weekend for knitting up loose ends. Yesterday, I managed to weave in the ends and block my cardigan sweater. And today, after a delicious Easter meal at my sisters, I started looking around for something to stick a needle in. And there was my victim, sitting on the kitchen counter.

While cooking dinner one night last week, I'd noticed that the tea cozy I'd knit back in December was looking kind of sloppy. So I grabbed it this afternoon, and added a three round 1x1 ribbing to the steek holes that I'd just left flopping around. To get an idea of what it looked like before, click on the Tea Cozy link under "Off Needles" on the right. I think it looks much better now.

I must have reached a new level of personal growth, because I jumped right into picking up and knitting without an increase in pulse, perspiration or blood pressure.

Cardigan Spa

What do you know? I got motivated!

This afternoon I wove in all the loose ends, which weren't all that many, considering this sweater was knit in the round. Most of them were around the armpits, which allowed me to use the weaving-in process to help with those inevitable small holes that accompany the joining of different directions of knitting. I also tacked the down the collar, a task I'd been dreading. Turns it out it took 10 minutes.

I got out the extra thick beach towel which should really be renamed. It's never been to a beach, much less a swimming pool. It's used mostly to handle sopping up minor floods and blocking knitting. Anyway, it has assumed the usual position on the guest room floor. I've used blocking wires and pins to get this into the shape I want, including stretching the sleeves out a bit. I wish I'd knit them maybe an inch or two longer and I'm hoping blocking will take care of this.

Rather than wet block this as I've done with items in the past, I decided to steam block it, for several reasons:

• I'm lazy
  
• I saw Lily Chin do this on Knitty Gritty this week and it looked easy
  
• I'm lazy
  

So I got out my trusty Black & Decker iron -- which cracks me up. I love that I have a clothes iron which is made by Black & Decker. I just haven't figured out why it's not black. Have I ever seen black irons in stores? We used to have a Black & Decker coffee maker that was black. How can you market steam irons to men unless they're black? I digress...

I'm a little concerned that the steam blocking method isn't going to get through to the back of the sweater. But I'm only a little concerned, since I don't think that this sweater needs all that much blocking. It's basically the size I want (except for the sleeves). Since I'm going to be taking it to a tailor to get a zipper put in, I thought I'd make sure everything was just so.

Now that its pores are open, toxins have been flushed, and the sweater is all relaxed, I just have to wait for it to dry, buy a zipper, and take it to a tailor.

The end is in sight. Freakishly, it's sleeting outside as I type this, quite a rarity for this part of the world in April. Too bad it isn't already done!

Model Railways

Hope everyone enjoyed the previous April Fool's Day post. Rest assured I didn't knit any more of these, although with a light freeze expected tonight, maybe I should have. It's too wet and miserable to be out harvesting the loquat "crop" today, so they might be a loss. On the upside, I still have lots of jam left over from last year.

I finished the Gentleman's Sock(s) in Railway Stitch this morning. I had to redo the toe on the second sock. I was fiddling with the stitches after completing the Kitchener grafting, when the yarn got snagged. I couldn't do anything with it -- there was this random 2" loop of yarn right on the toe of the sock! Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I took a pair of scissors to one corner of the toe, unraveled a few rounds, spliced the yarn, and tried it again. Much better the second time around.

It's such a gray and miserable day today that I couldn't get a good picture of these. They fit well, and they're definitely outside the box labeled "Dark Colors that Steven Likes and Wears All the Time." There are a lot of socks in that box.

If I can get motivated about it, I may tack down the collar on the ZimmerZipper Cardigan and get that blocked this weekend. I hadn't bothered finishing it, thinking that I wouldn't have a chance to wear it for at least another 7 months. It sure would have come in handy today.

Lo, 'Quats!

For the past two years, I've used the fruit from my front yard loquat tree to make loquat jam under my own Black Dog label. Last year's was a cinnamon-loquat variety, liked by at least one Pennsylvania four-and-a-half-year old. The year before that, I submitted a couple of jars in the category of Jam-Tropical Fruit-Any to the State Fair of Texas. I got a not-quite-respectable 10th place. What color ribbon would you get if they handed out ribbons for 10th place? Probably "loquat."

I had all but written off this year's crop due to the dry winter we've had. What few loquats there were on the tree had a scrawniness to them that did not bode well. Then, in the last few weeks, we've had rain. And the loquats have responded. Looks like I know what I'll be doing next weekend. Loquats are delicate things that don't store well, so I pretty much have to pick, peel, cook and jar them all on the same day.

Loquats, being semi-tropical, are some of the first tree fruit to ripen during the calendar year and are subject to the vagaries of central Texas winter weather. So, in order to protect next year's crop, I've decided to knit individual cozies that could be slipped over each delicate fruit as it emerges. The one here is a prototype. If I used leftover sock yarn from all of my projects, I should have a head start on next year. To get an idea of the scope of this project, see the second picture -- the loquat cozy is circled in red.

Better get to knitting...

Where to Begin?

I should have photographed these sticking out from the edge of my house's foundation. I'm afraid they're starting to look like something the Wicked Witch of the East might have worn.

I took this picture in our backyard, which, due to extreme effort on my part, is way less jungly than it was at the start of the weekend. I seriously considered re-zoning some of the weeds as hedges, but thought better of it. It was crazy overgrown back there. It still is in patches, but at least the bits of lawn have been reclaimed. The roses are starting their spring blooming period and the yard smells quite nice -- if you ignore the organic turkey poop fertilizer I just put on the grass.

I hope I can walk tomorrow.

Yesterday I mentioned that this heel has a French heel and that it was all mysterious, with the stitches for the heel divided between two needles. I don't know what I was thinking, but socks knit on DPNs usually do have the stitches divided between two needles. I've just re-read some of the front matter in Nancy Bush's book, and realize that just about every heel I've ever knit has been a French heel -- as opposed to Dutch, German or Welsh. So, no reason to panic. There is one odd thing about the heel...

Rather than the beginning of the gusset round starting at the middle of the heel (where the two needles cross at the top of the heel) and moving onto the right gusset, this pattern calls for the gusset decrease rounds to begin at the beginning of the left heel flap (where you can see the working yarn trailing off in the picture). The only reason I can see to do this is because one can -- the heel has just been turned in the contrasting color, and since the pattern calls to start working with the main color, why not start wherever you want to?

The main problem I'm going to have is remembering to do the left slanting decrease (Sl1, K1, PSSO) first in the round, and the right-slanting decrease (K2T), second.

All Aboard!

Okay -- the Bomb Pop Socks didn't hold my interest as long as I thought they would. Looking forward to this morning's knitters' meetup, and dreading the thought that my fellow knitters might think that I don't ever knit anything else, I decided to start another pair of socks.

I had some KnitPicks Essentials yarn that I'd had for a while and that I thought might work well with another pattern in Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. The pattern is called Gentleman's Sock in Railway Stitch. Although the other pair I just finished from this book was called "fancy," I fancy that this sock is the fancier of the two patterns. It uses two colors of yarn after all. The two colors I'm using are called Pumpkin and Fawn. I'd originally gotten the Fawn to knit a stranded knitting pattern from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks, but that didn't work out so well. The Fawn yarn can be seen in a round ball at the top of the picture. I'm thinking these colors will play nicely with each other.

Among the interesting features of this pattern are the railroad stitch and again, the shaping of the leg. If you look closely, you can see where the decreases brought a 5-stitch pattern down together, forming a "Y" on the leg. Also, the instructions say that rather than have all the heel stitches held on one needle, half the stitches are on one needle and half on another. This heel is called a French heel. I'm sure it will make more sense once I get to that part of the pattern.