Sorta Wordless Birthday Socks

 This is the first new yarn  in maybe three years that I bought for myself for no other reason than I loved the color. A birthday present for me! Bookworm (note that the gray in my yarn is darker than shown in the website pic- I still love it) from Twisted Fiber Art, in the Playful yarn base (my favorite for socks- thick, soft, and cushy). I got the extra long skein, which has extra long repeats.

The sock pattern is my usual regular sock (2.75mm needles, 60 sts, short row heel, star toe). The Waffle pattern is so easy: *K 4 rnds, K2 P2 2rnds*, repeat.

Worsted Weight Yarn Blanks

I had a fantastic time at the North Country Spinners Fibre Fallout. I'll do a post just on the weekend later, but I wanted to show you all the worsted weight socks I dyed after my class (we had some extra time and a few extra blanks, so we played with color and design), using the blanks that Kim Haibeck (Yarnsanity) made specially for the weekend. I have another blank, dyed in just stripes that I will cast on soon. The dye pattern was inspired by Kim's sock blank, which I also worked on over the weekend (and finished at my motel in Newark the night before I flew home).

The blank was 100 gr of superwash worsted weight yarn, which is not quite enough to knit an entire pair of adult socks. I dyed a contrasting 50 gr ball of plain yarn for the cuff/heel/toe. These are size 8 1/2, with a couple of inches of blank left, and slightly less than half of the 50 gr ball left over. The combo would be enough to knit pretty much any size adult socks.

My generic worsted weight pattern uses 48 sts on size 5 needles.

Oh, I didn't really try to match the stripes (it was a single-strand blank), but man, they came out beautifully anyway.

Kim sent me one of her dyed fingering weight sock blanks (2-strand). Everyone was fascinated with the colors and style, and they all oohed and aahed all weekend (I did too- I absolutely love this).

I cast on the mate last night. Most of my knitted things end up as gifts, but these two pairs? Mine mine mine.

Wordless Beautiful Socks Made with a Retired Colorway (but you should totally check out the colorways that are available, they're all beautiful)

Twisted Fiber Art

Bits and pieces

Mostly non-related pictures and comments.

 I finished knitting the socks from the sock blank that I dyed in class at the Fibre Fallout in New Jersey. I love love love how they came out, and I doubt I'll be able to resist wearing them (usually, I save class samples for the next class... as, you know... samples). These are just too cool not to show off next week at SAFF.

I finished the water on the current needlepoint project, and learned to my dismay, that 20 year old DMC floss #415 is not the same shade as new DMC floss #415. I don't know if the floss darkened in storage (in a plastic tub, wrapped around a cardboard bobbin), or if the shades really are different, or (most likely) if I wrote the wrong number down on the bobbin. In any case, I used at least seven different grays in the water, so it doesn't matter a whole lot in the long run. I just have the sky left, which will be slightly darker than the water, and will fade to a purpley gray (all new floss, so I don't have to worry about shade differences).

Our leaves are gone now, but they sure were purty while they lasted. I have a feeling that the Asheville leaves will be gone by the time I get there too. Oh well, there is so much more to see and do than leaf peeping, so I'm not too distressed about it.

Speaking of SAFF, most of my classes still have some openings and it's not too late to sign up. There's a link to the left of this page.

These are the other yarns I dyed in the New Jersey classes. The two at the bottom are the same dye lot (graduated color band), just wound from opposite ends of the skein. The other ball will knit up in spiral stripes. I'm excited to knit them too.

 The corn harvest is in full swing here.

That's a whole lotta corn on the ground (and it's on the ground because the elevators are all full).

I just like the look of this corn fountain.

And finally, there was a moose spotted just outside my town. For the record, moose do not live in South Dakota, at least not in my part of the state. But by cracky, one passed through.

See? Proof.

Knitting, and a plea to passers by

... as in, you know, the whole two sticks and a string thing.

No, I have not forgotten how. I've just been busy, and with American Idol going to three nights a week for awhile, it's going to be some time before my output increases.

But in the meantime:

I'm making progress on the Not From Hell Doll Sweater (which goes with the Definitely From Hell Pleated Skirt). It's going to be lovely, if I ever get it done.

A dear friend requested purple socks, so purple it is. This isn't leftover yarn (though it will be when I finish this last foot), but it was in my stash. This is my plain vanilla pattern (60 sts, 15 rows K2P2, 6" to heel, short row heel, 6" to toe, star toe), livened a bit with alternating P and *K 2, YO, K2tog* rnds, every 7th rnd- just enough to add a little texture and interest without making them anything but mindless knitting.

Okay, so I live at the end of a 1/2 mile township road. It's a dead end, and there are no other houses, so I tend to think of it as my driveway. Unfortunately, a percentage of passing motorists think of it as a bathroom.

I swear, someday, I'm going to put up this sign.

An NaCl Kind of Holiday

So, did you survive?
We had a wonderful, noisy, busy, delicious, love/laughter/family filled Christmas Eve.

 It's not that we like banishing the kids to a different table, it's just that our antique dining room table has no leaves, and can only sit six (maybe eight if we squeeze real tight). So the grownups sat at The Big Table. The centerpiece is a pewter Santa that The Hub smuggled back from Cannon Beach one year after I'd admired it there. He managed to keep it a secret not only on the trip home, but for the months between then and Christmas. It's been our Holiday Centerpiece ever since.

The girls' table was right next to ours (at least they weren't relegated to the basement). Everyone got an ornament, and I love getting out the Christmas Dishes.

The girls were wildly excited, and they absolutely loved their Totem Spindles from Halla, and their American Girl Doll Boots. And for a year in which I had absolutely no gift expectations (we're going to SoCal late in January, that's enough), we made out like bandits.

 The hub got this upside down, inside out, insulated beer glass. It works.

 My youngest sister made me a bracelet and earrings using pennies from 1952, though why she thought that year had anything to do with my year of birth is beyond me. Really, it's just a lovely bracelet featuring a random year. I'm not that old... heh...

 Sorry about the fuzzy pic- but this is a light-up wine stopper. Honest, it pulsates and glows red. I love it!

Several gifts came by mail, and as they arrived, I just put them in their Amazon boxes under the tree, so it wasn't until Christmas morning, after I'd opened the Quick Knits book (edited by my own editor at Taunton) which was a gift from a good friend, that I remembered that I actually ordered the Metal Clay Jewelry book myself. Merry Christmas to me!

Another sister gave me these gorgeous earrings. I can wear wire and dangle and hoop earrings now, and I'm enjoying every bit of the bling.

My friend Jane sent me these wonderful knitting socks. Are you jealous?

And, oh the sodium chloride. The Trader Joe's salt grinders are fantastic (the chili & garlic smoked sea salt is wonderful on leftover turkey). I used gift money to order the Lidded Salt Bowl from The Meadow, in Portland, OR, which is my absolute favorite salt store. Okay, it's the only salt store I know of, but it would be my favorite even if they were on every street corner. The bowl is carved from solid Himalayan Rock Salt, with a lid that fits perfectly. It weighs about 4lbs and it'll be perfect for serving cherry tomato halves, or as a salt cellar, or as a dish for unsalted butter. The two little bottles in front are specialty salts- one made from Oregon Pacific seawater, and the other from Alaskan waters. The Oregon salt is mild and crunchy, the Alaskan salt is wonderfully strong. Who knew that I would end up being a salt connoisseur?

But the best gift of all was the personal calendar that Matt and Cassy made for us. Every month has a picture of our family and friends, many from the wedding in July. Eyes were a little teary, I can tell you.

 And look! I'm a Calendar Girl!

FOs

I finished the handspun hat and mittens:

 I'm extremely pleased with how well the mittens match each other, and how they match the striping on the hat. Eagle-eyed readers might notice that the thumb of the first mitten was a little... shall we say... pale... in this earlier picture.

When I finished the pair and saw that the other thumb had far more visible red flecks, I remedied the situation in a way that will not surprise those who have taken my Little Tips and Tricks Workshop: I dug out my trusty red Sharpie, and I colored the thumb a bit. No, I'm not kidding.

You wouldn't have known that if I hadn't told you, right? Well, not only do I believe in Full Disclosure, I'm not in the least ashamed. Sharpies have saved many a project, and it's a tip that I pass along happily in my classes.

This yarn was spun thick 'n thin on purpose, and that texture shows up beautifully in these pieces.

As I was snapping away, I remembered that I'd spun a previous bump of the same self-striping roving as sock yarn. I tucked the finished socks away in the Big Tub 'O Knitted Things and forgot about them. Luckily, they hadn't found a home yet so I was able to get a shot of all the pieces together. The colors are much more subtle in the socks, but you can still see the progression.

 Amazing the difference that yarn size makes.

It was a little panic-ful here toward the end. The above is all the yarn I had left- maybe 4 yards (with no more of this roving to spin). Happily, I knitted really really fast, and I finished the last mitten before the yarn ran out. That trick, unfortunately, isn't part of my workshop, since it doesn't always work...