After a busy, fun week where work kept me from knitting more than a round or two, I was looking forward to a weekend of self-indulgent knitting. Unfortunately, a freak accident in yoga yesterday connected my left eye with my instructor's foot. I'm spending a fun morning in the eye clinic, with both eyes dilated, which leads me to wonder, is knitting cables without a cable needle on teeny-tiny dpns a good idea when you can't see? Answer to that one coming soon!
When our now teenaged daughter was born, I wanted to find a way of including her in my garden. We had just moved that year, and I spent much of my time on maternity leave planting while she napped. Although I am not an experienced Iris grower, I love them. My Grandmother always had a wide variety of Tall Bearded Iris in her garden, and a little bit of research on The Google informed me that the 1961 award winning Iris was named "Eleanor's Pride," which seemed perfect for my tiny Eleanor.
Tracking an older, obscure Iris down was another matter, but I managed to find an eclectic Iris fanatic in Tennessee, and I ended up with five rhizomes. They've flourished over the years and grown into two large patches. Although they bloom briefly, they are well worth the effort.
After a lot of experimentation, I managed to get a lovely representation of Eleanor's Pride on Seasilk yarn by layering on the color in repeated pale baths that seem to capture the fragility of the tint on the flower petals. Seasilk is a wonderful yarn to work with — part silk and part Seacell fiber from seaweed. It's perfect for shawls and scarves, as well as for light lacy sweaters. I haven't decide what this yarn will become yet, but I am really looking forward to knitting with it.
It's started again, but a little bit early. Every summer, my obsession with dyeing with herbs from my garden kicks in. I experiment, I over dye, I fall in love, I knit. Just a skein here and there as time and research on the best way to get the colors in my lovely plants leaves and roots to stick to my beloved yarn. It all started with black beans, and I return to dyeing with them every year. Plus, as a bonus, the beans themselves are discarded once you've soaked them for a day or two to extract their pigment, so you are free to use them for delicious soups or stews while dyeing your yarn.
This go round, I wanted to do two things, I wanted to replicate (as much as is possible with this very imprecise mode of dyeing) the very soft gray I was able to get on this silk blend yarn on an all wool yarn. I like how it's not quite white, but makes you think of snow and quiet woods. It's dyed on Bulky Blue Faced Leicester in the photo on the left. I also wanted to push the range of color I could extract from black beans. They yield a little more color on super wash yarn, so I used Elliebelly's Pixie for this experiment, and was finally able to achieve a soft brown, to add to the range of grays, blues, and greens I've dyed with black beans over the last few years.
I'm pretty sure you all got a sense of how happy I was about Silver Spoons while I was knitting it. Cables & Cashmere. That's pretty much all it takes for me to be head over heels about a project. The Plucky Knitter, who writes really sassy patterns that work perfectly with her yarn really outdid herself with this one.
Knit in a worsted weight yarn, this is a quick and easy project. Although I really like it in cashmere, and have worn it almost constantly since finishing it, I would also like to see it knit in a summer cotton/linen blend and I think it would knit up nicely in a variegated yarn.
It's been a busy few weeks here. Work has been crazy. Family has been crazy. Life has been crazy. All in a very good way, but still, CRAZY TOWN. So it only seemed appropriate when I got on the elevator for a meeting I was scheduled to attend late last week, and the floor where I was headed had been renamed.
That more or less summs up how my days have been going. So, with huge apologies for not blogging and doing a horrible job of staying in touch with all of my favorite knitters the past couple of weeks, I'm back. Back with my %$#@& KAL sock. I love this sock. Love the pattern. Love the way the colors are laying down. It practically knit itself with all of the flying I've been doing.
Is there some trauma associated with the Kitchener stitch and late nights? If there isn't, I must be cursed. I love knitting top down socks, and a big part of the reason is that I enjoy Kitchener stitch. It's like magic — you weave a little and the toes line up perfectly. There was no magic with this sock. It looked awful when I finished. I ripped it out, and you'll never guess, but that bad 1:00 am lighting in my living room combined with tiny size one needle stitches was really not a thing. I sort of got them back on the needles. I tried it again while driving (I was the passenger, not the driver — I'm not that close to the edge) on an overcast day with bad lighting, and it came out even worse. And ripping it out made me sad because, as you all know, sometimes, you're loose track of where you are when all those tiny size one stitches pop right off the needles as you go over a bump.
My stitches are on, but not in the right order or on the right needles. It's going to take some sorting out to figure when I am, so I'm going to gently and lovingly place this sock in time out, and cast on for its mate. I'm pretty sure my Kitchener mojo will come back, but it's going to require a serious combination of all of my favorite comfort foods — and some bright lighting.
While I was out of town and away from the blog, some really exciting things happened.
I visited my College, which I hadn't done in over a decade, and found out that all of the things I loved about it were still there, but even better. Sometimes, you actually can go back. Even better, on the return drive to the airport, I discovered a B&B/Alpaca Farm. I was concerned about being the crazy lady who stopped on the middle of the road to take pictures of the Alpacas, so you just get this one sneak peek, but it's definitely on my shortlist. The online reviews say to make sure you visit with Brutus, who is a very friendly Alpaca. Oh my heavens!
The sense that I was living in a surreal fantasy world where all of my dreams came true continued when I got home and realized that for my husband's birthday, I could order his favorite cake. It's a day long adventure to make it, so I was delighted to reduce it to a 15 minute pick up detail. Although we had friends over, there were leftovers. The cat with the cake is Bob. I was definitely much more restrained and lady like than that.
And finally, the square of concrete is my long awaited fire pit. We have a small, urban yard with a strong down hill slant, but as we've lived through our six months of hell deck reconstruction and landscaping, I've persistently insisted that we include a fire pit in the project. In anticipation, I dragged kids out to World Market, and snagged some fabulous outdoor chairs on sale last weekend. As soon as the pit is dry, I'm christening it with S'mores. But, I'll make sure I leave my socks and needles behind. Because It's been that kind of month!
As someone who occasionally shirks swatching before casting on to knit a pair of socks (TSA was complicit in this little misadventure, as one of their agents, trying to be helpful while searching my bag, mangled my swatch), I really appreciate the ability to try on top down socks while knitting them. This pair is for my daughter, and so far, they are a perfect fit.
The pattern is Zigzagular and the yarn is Elliebelly’s Juliet Sock.
The Adventurous April 2016 Knitalong started on Friday. Although I wasn’t quite done with Silver Spoons, I did cast on for my Zigzagular Sock. But then I set it aside to finish the shawl.
Now I’m sock knitting in earnest. I’m almost through with the flap on the first sock. I’m knitting them one at a time on double pointed needles.
If you want to KAL along with us, head on over to the Elliebelly Ravelry group. You’ve still got plenty of time and there are lots of beautiful socks in progress.