Settled at Netherfield

If I could have but both of my feet settled happily in Netherfield, and everyone else's feet covered equally well, I should have nothing else to wish for...

Hand-dyed self-striping yarns are notoriously variable as to their repeats (I know, I wrote a book about it once), so though I'm just a tad bit anal about my toes matching, I don't quibble when it comes to Twisted Fiber Arts yarns- even gloriously mis-matching is beautiful (and this is just a minor difference, and since I don't wear open-toe shoes with socks, it truly doesn't matter).

I had no problem knitting a pair of my generic socks from the Playful base (which is a bit heavier than usual fingering weight,  with a skein weighing in at 120 gr, and 360 yards). In fact, I have a nice size ball of leftover yarn.There would have been plenty for larger feet as well (I'm a size 7-8). 

I'm going to wear them today. I have a skein of Netherfield Arial, which is a true fingering weight, which I will probably use to make a pair of lace socks.

For my next take-along project (not that I'm going anywhere, any time soon), I started a leftover Twisted Playful Mitered Square Hat. I have a few more squares to add to the first row, and I plan to make each row of squares with completely different colorways (I knew that there was a reason that I never threw away even little amounts of this yarn- that it would come in handy sometime). I think I'll pick up and knit a few garter stitch rows along the bottom edge, to even it out, and I plan to sew the tube together, and then pick up stitches to knit the crown decreases in random stripes of whatever yarn I have left. It should be pretty cool.

In closing, I am going to say this very very quietly, lest I jinx myself: not only am I feeling better this morning, but I think... I think that I might finish the first draft of the YA on time. Maybe.

Charlie Hearse

See what I did up there? These leg cramps are killers. Get it? I crack myself up sometimes.

Anyway, thanks everyone for the suggestions for dealing with the cramps. I am going to follow Kate's advice and consult with the doctor (if for no other reason than to give her an anecdotal connection between Symbicort and the cramping), and then I'll try several of the suggested remedies. I put a bar of soap under the sheets (hey- in my house, we buy warts from each other to get rid of them, and it works. I'm not above using magic), and I'm drinking a Tonic and Sam's Choice Water right now. If the Dr says it's okay, I'll take a potassium supplement (bananas are forbidden fruit in our version of Diabetesville).

Speaking of Tonic Water- I am new to the ways of tonic, and had no idea that there was such a thing as Diet Tonic Water, though I'm glad it exists (90 calories and 24 gr of carb per serving of the regular? I think not). I would not be able to drink this unadulterated (and I'm not in the mood for Gin at the moment), so mixing it with the Sam's Choice helps. There's still a bitter aftertaste, sort of like the white pulp under the skin of a grapefruit, but otherwise, it's palatable. And if it'll help lessen the cramps, I'll drink it straight.

In the meantime, work progresses apace on the YA Fantasy, and I'm down to the foot on the second Netherfield sock.

And Shopko, a local discount store, has the coolest linkable letter Christmas ornaments in stock this year.

You buy the pieces individually, and then assemble them to make words and phrases. I picked up enough to make everyone's name (though it took multiple trips, since in my fuzzy-brain stage, I managed to forget several vowels, and a couple of consonants, entirely). Are these fun, or what?

And as a carrot (per Mary), this book (all signed and inscribed and everything) is waiting for me when I finish the YA. I dare not crack the spine until I write The End. However, it is calling me... I am trying to be strong...



I do not cough for my own amusement

I would be a very different sort of person if knitting with yarn called Netherfield did not make me think of P&P. The above header is one of my absolute favorite quotes from the book, and it almost never makes it to the filmed versions (which are but pale imitations of the written, Colin Firth notwithstanding)(and I can barely watch the Kiera Knightley installment, though I think the dirt and mud, and pigs in the courtyard ,are probably very much proper).


As you can see, I finished the first Netherfield sock, and it's as gorgeous as its namesake (okay, so maybe you have to be an Austen Sock Knitter to believe that a hand knit sock can be rightly compared to an iconic fictional location, but there you are). I cast on the mate, and will work on it in the evenings when I'm not writing. For whatever reason (and I am not about to examine it too closely, lest it disappear), work on the YA Fantasy is going extremely well at the moment, and that takes precedence over all things, including knitting. And cooking. And bathing.


I'm not much for the whole NaNoWriMo thing- I'm not nearly as concerned with getting a certain number of words written in a given amount of time, as I am with getting the right words written when they're ready. But I have a deadline, and miraculously, given the iffy state of my lungs (and the fuzzy state of my brain), I've been cranking out 1,000+ words a day lately. So even though I'm not officially participating, my goal is the same as the WriMo folks: to finish this book by the end of the month. I still don't know if I'll make it, but the chances are better this week, than they were last week.


In the meantime, I'm improving slowly. I learned on Friday that driving 40 miles and sitting with good friends for 3 hours was all it took to drain my reserves, so I'm cutting back on activity for a bit longer (lordy- I'll have to start from scratch when I can finally start racking up the miles again). Mr Bennet has not yet authorised to cough as much as I chuse (which is not at all), but I'm getting there.

Traveling Woman, and Netherfield has been let at last

I had a lovely time at knitting yesterday, but was distressed to find that sitting and talking for 3 hours with great friends, surrounded by good coffee and yarn fumes, left me shaky and exhausted. I guess I have a ways to go before I can call myself recovered.

I did finish knitting the Traveling Woman Shawl on Thursday night, so I could show it off yesterday.

As with all unblocked lace, it looked pretty pitiful, all wrinkles and blobs.

Ah, that's much better. Though I discovered the drawback to knitting lace with a totally inelastic yarn- it doesn't stretch (duh). I really wanted to block the edges into scallopy points (as I've seen in many of the bazillion finished Traveling Woman photos on Ravelry), but even though I bound off with needles 2 sizes larger than what I used for the knitting, I simply could not shape the edge into anything but a straight line (not that those are straight edges, but you know what I mean). It's certainly pretty, but not what I had envisioned. Final dimenions: 52"x 19"- a perfect little neck warmer for chilly mornings, and it's light enough to wear as a scarf over a nice sweater indoors.

I also learned what most lace knitters already know- brushed mohair is not ideally suited to lace. It's gorgeous, don't get me wrong, but I lost a whole lot of stitch definition by using a fuzzy yarn for this project.

On the other hand, a little fuzz is a good thing. Since this was a very fast project, I think I'll knit it again, with a wool yarn, just to see the difference (maybe with some beads along the edge).

But even when I'm healthy, I can't knit anything that requires concentration (and even easy lace has to be paid attenion to) while I'm at my knitting group. So I dug through my Twisted Fiber Arts Stash Box (yes, it has, and deserves, its own box) and finally decided to wind up my skein of Netherfield (in the Playful base- a heavy fingering weight, my absolute favorite yarn for socks). Netherfield is the colorway that I coveted the most, back when Twisted consistently sold out their entire stock 15 minutes after opening up sales. It took me several months to score a skein, and it's been sitting in the box, waiting for inspiration ever since. I finally realized that this yarn doesn't want fancy stitches, or patterning. A plain vanilla sock is the perfect display for the amazing dye work of Meg from Twisted. Look at those colors! Worthy of the name, no? Can you not see Jane and Bingley cavorting among the flowers? (and at least on my monitor- those colors are exactly what the yarn looks like in person).

And as a special treat, after knitting, I stopped at the Starbucks in the Target store and had a Salty Caramel Hot Chocolate. I am not given to initials in all caps often, but OMG!

(side note: it's just as well that I didn't see the nutritional info on that little cuppa until just now... again OMG!)