Knitting Iris

Bizzare Blizzard

This afternoon, I drove out of town wearing sunglasses to keep the glare out of my eyes from the sun shining off the snow.  Ten minutes later, now just a mile from home, the boys and I were starting to comment about how pretty it was the way the little breezes that were picking up were causing the snow to tumble softly off the tree branches to the ground.  Then E asked why the sky was so grey up ahead.  At home, this is what we pulled in to find, and it just got crazier and crazier by the minute.  When the wind turns and blows from the north or east, from the direction of Canada and Glacier Park, we know we're in for it and this was just one of those times. The snow was blowing horizontally: it's visible blowing off the rooftops of the house and shop above.   The pic of the woodshed is from about 50 feet away.

The other end of the shop building has a new addition in progress and C and a few other guys were frantically trying to keep some of the new metal trim pieces from flying off and to fix a new tarp over the opening where the garage door will be installed, after the first tarp ripped off in the wind.

As there were no major catastrophes, and inside the house it was cozy and warm by the fire with a hearty stew cooking on the stove, it was all really quite fun.  There was a bit of a Little House on the Prairie feel to the evening.  By dinner time it looked as if Jack Frost had personally come by to paint the windows.  It's good to know that the weather can still do this. 

I was, of course, traipsing around in it snapping pictures, and at one point decided to turn the camera on myself.  That hat is a goofy one that I whipped out of some neon orange polarfleece in a few minutes during hunting season using a pattern I found in a back issue of Readymade magazine.  Let's face it.  In this sort of weather, fleece wins out over woolen handknits, and that is what I grabbed for, ugly as it is.  What you can't see is the blue handknit wool sweater I was wearing which soon looked white with all the snow sticking to it, and the woolen socks inside my boots, keeping my toes toasty warm!

Speaking of socks and snow, I realized that I never showed this pair of finished socks, the last of the Socktoberfest socks that I finished on the way to Seattle in the car about a month ago.  I photographed them last week but, as it's too dark inside for decent pictures most days and I didn't want to lay them directly out in the snow, I put an old piece of clear plexiglass onto the snow and laid the socks on top of it (same as with the Rainbow Socks in a recent post).  It worked quite nicely except when I went to bang the plexiglass against my leg to get the snow off, it shattered into a few pieces, maybe because it got too cold?  Oops.

L and G: Aren't you sorry you're missing out on all this?   

Final Socktoberfest socks

Socktoberfest is coming to a close and somehow I managed to rather madly get all the yarn I had hoped to either knitted up or on the needles.  It was a great challenge.  My whole stash of fall sock yarn (read: has orange in it) has been used, even the one's I didn't care for much.  Now, I'll be free to knit up the hand dyed yarns from this year during next year's Socktoberfest, as rumour has it there will be another one.   There are so many other socks to check out from the list of participants on the sidebar over at Lolly's site, it's going to take all of November to see them all.  Thank you for the motivation and all the kind words from everyone, and to Lolly for such a great idea.

The vintage Halloween postcard was found here.

MUST go finish costumes NOW. Thank goodness fleece is forgiving.

Witchy Woman

 

This has been the super-duper-secret-behind-the-scenes-sock-knitting going on this month.  I really wanted to get these done for Halloween but wasn't sure if I would so I didn't mention them.  They were going to be over-the-knee socks for warmth's sake, but I think that those don't really stay up due to all the knee bending when you walk.  I even bought some matching red elastic to sew into the top of the sock if necessary, but I don't think they'll need it.

They are knit with only two 50 gram balls of Regia Nation Stripe, the toes and heels from doubled Elann Sock It To Me solid colors.  This is where the magic of 3 knit x 1 purl ribbing really shows:  They fit nicely at the ankle over 56 stitches and stretch all the way up and over my (inherited from my Dad) calves... with no shaping what so ever.  The cast off was done extra loose with needles several sizes larger than the 2's used for the rest.

I can't wait to wear these tonight.  We have two Halloween parties to go to, one with kids and one without.  These are going to be fun to wear whenever, but they'll be so versatile (and warm) as a costume element.  They can be used for a witch, an elf, for Pippi Longstocking, etc.  Plus, I still have two balls of the same in blue and white, and one more of the red and white.  Maybe short peppermint striped socks?  And, don't you think that new patch of psoriasis on my knee adds a little something to the witchiness of the costume?  I didn't even notice it until I saw the picture.

That's a pileated woodpecker that stopped by for a visit last week.  It's the kind this fellow was modelled after, I'm sure.  It was pecking so fast at that tree stump that it was difficult to get a clear picture of it.

Couldn't help but add on the bottom pic.  These are one of C's favorites.  I usually try to pick up on a few bags this time of year to stock a stash for him in a drawer at the shop but this year I got the one last bag on the shelf.  Yum!

October Socks

We may not have the hardwood forests of the midwest and the east, or even west coast, but some of those trees are hardy enough to be planted in parks and gardens.  They really do make the most fabulous leaves for playing in.  E and I went to town together in search of googly eyes to use on our Halloween crafts and stopped to play in the park where we found one good tree to play under and a "web" to play spider on top of. (I was never that brave when I was that little.)

We do, however, have a sort of secondary fall.  When the deciduous trees are finishing dropping their leaves, that's when the larch trees on the northern slopes of the mountains start to turn yellow and drop their needles.  I didn't catch any pictures of them at the height of their color due to the fog.  It drove me crazy knowing they were out there turning color and that we just couldn't see them. When the clouds lifted, there was snow on top of the mountains, too.  Traipsing out with me to get the picture of the larch, E called out, "Mama, I found a flower for you!"  I expected a dried out flower head, but our blue-eyed boy walked up with a bluebell, still blooming on October 27th!

The October Socks are for C and are Meilenweit Safari #2070 knit on #2 dpns over 60 stitches.

Three for the price of one

Three pair:

The light has been rather strange the last three days.  We're fogged in and clouded over all day until about 2 hours before the sun goes down when, the sky turns clear blue in what seems to be only a matter of minutes.  It makes for difficult picture taking AND gloomy moods.  So these are the best that I have.

So, although the length of these socks fell shorter than my usual ones, the sock yarn itself ended up not falling short at all.  This turned into a bit of an experiment and as you can see, it ended up making not one, but three pairs of short socks.  On the right are the first pair sized for C.  He ended up preferring the ankles to be a bit longer, so I extended them with a bit of solid colored Elann Sock It To Me yarn, and they're reinforced with a green sock reinforcing yarn.  On the right is another pair that fits me, with a bit of the same solid yarn used at the ankle and also as the heel and toe reinforcement.  There was even enough to make a tiny almost matching baby pair that will probably get kicked off the recipient's tiny feet quicker than the sky turns blue.

When I went to weave in the ends, turning the socks inside out, I noticed that the insides look a bit like a truck seat cover. 

I just couldn't pass up the speckled squash and the goofy gooseneck gourd at the fruit and veggie stand last week.  The squash is destined for our tummies soon and the gourd will hopefully dry well and become a birdhouse or, if we're lucky, maybe even a gnome home in the spring.

Fall Short socks

This colorway fell short of my expectations.  It is Meilenweit Multieffect #3110.  I liked it in the ball, but knitted up it's just a bit too much for me.  C, however, likes it, and since he mostly wears cheap Hanes low rise socks like these that start falling apart after a few months, I decided this pair is for him.  They'll hardly even show much over the tops of his shoes, anyway.

The bouquet of asters and chrysanthemums is from a friend. They're still blooming in her garden, which is unusual for here, and the rowan tree in our yard is finally turning color, after almost all the leaves on the surrounding trees are on the ground.

Autumn socks, finished

Goodies from the fruit/veggie stands this week:

Winter squash:  many kinds to sample.  One was called Sweet Mama.  I put chunks of the bluish one in the right front, a Sweet Meat, I think, in Chicken Soup With Rice last night.  Yum.

Mackintosh apples:  It's not fall until I've sunk my teeth into one of these.

Indian corn:  After we're done with these as decoration, we have a couple of crafts lined out for them.  Use pieces of them dipped into paint and then roll across paper.  Break off the kernels, soak them in water overnight, then string them onto necklaces, and let them dry (this one's is pretty hard for little kids to do).

Several people have asked if I have a favorite sock pattern. Yes.

I usually knit a pretty basic sock with self-patterning yarns.  I used to make a lot of socks even when I used a top down pattern, but when I found Wendy's Toe-Up Sock Pattern, well, that's when it started getting a bit out of hand.  I was skeptical at first, but found several benefits to knitting them this way. 

1. Toe-up socks with short-row toes and heels are so much faster!  The heel shaping requires no picking up of stitches along the sides and there is no decreasing rows after turning the heel.  There is no kitchener stitching to do when the sock is done, only weaving in a handful of ends. 

2. I think they fit considerably better.  The heel flap on a top down sock always seems to ride up out of the back of my shoe, while these heels hug the heel better. 

3.  There is no wondering if you're going to run out of yarn before reaching the toe  (I did this with Koigu one time, and had to rip it all the way out).  With 50 gram balls, you just knit the sock until you either like the length or until you run out of yarn.  With 100 gram balls you do the same as long as you don't use more than half of the ball.

After knitting by this pattern a couple of times, I had the pattern memorized and started modifying it just a bit.  For your typical sock yarns (Regia, Meilenweit, Trekking, Online, Schoeller-Stahl) I usually use five US #2 dpns over a total of 56 stitches for an average women's size foot and 64 for an average men's size foot.  I'm still experimenting with thinner yarns, but I made a women's pair out of Opal over 64 on US #1 needles that fit well.  Typically I will add in a reinforcing yarn for the toe and the heel.   As for the leg portion of the sock, I either start immediately with a k3 x p1 ribbing or do a little stockinette first so that the patterning of the sock yarn will show best from under the bottom hem of a pant leg.

Oh, and the fraternal Autumn Socks are Meilenweit Multiringel #5020.

Socktoberfest 2005

O.K. I guess it's time to find a good German beer and settle in for some serious (and fun!) sock knitting.  The Sockapal2za exchange excitement was so great that I was feeling a little bit of let down after it was done, even after receiving such beautiful socks.  So, Lolly's Socktoberfest 2005 knitalong came to the rescue  just in time.  Now, we'll have more of eachother's socks to look at and be inspired by for awhile.

The sock above practically knit itself and fell from the sky, I swear.  I worked on it's match last night at a new knitting group (Shannon and Jessica in Portland: your Mom and I worked on our socks together last night.  So fun!).  There were only two of us this time, but others have said they'd like to come next time.

O.K.  So I'm scheming how to get the most out of this Socktoberfest thing.  If we get all our sock needles filled with at least the beginnings of socks before the end of October, then technically ALL of them are in the Socktober knitalong, right?  Too bad I don't have enough needles to get those 3 other colorways going at once.

Yeah, I know, that's not German beer, but Jubelale, Deschutes Brewery's Winter Ale is already out this year, so that means I get to enjoy it (in moderation, of course!) from now until early into next year. 

That's last year's label on the left.  I'm not so thrilled with their label this year, but the contents are still good.

Cheers, Socktoberfest knitters!

ADDED:  Help! Does anybody have a really good, basic source for how to add buttons to my typelist?  I can't remember how to do it and I've searched and can't seem to find one.  I'd like to add one of the great Socktoberfest buttons!