Another One Down

There are times when it pays to have a dash of obsessiveness in your nature, and when faced with a ridiculous amount of Christmas knitting is definitely one of those times:


Feather and Fan socks, done. Sock number 2 was cast on late on Friday night, turned the heel Saturday night, knit the last row Sunday night, and cast it off and wove in ends Monday morning. (Okay, okay. Maybe it's a little more than a dash of obsessiveness.)

And now I'm on to the next project on my list, which must I fear be wreathed in mists of secrecy for the time being. Not even Cookie is allowed to peek:


But it's okay- it's a quick one. I'm past the halfway point already, and should be able to cast on something I can show you tomorrow!

Detente

I made three attempts to get gauge for the Monkey socks. My conclusion is...the designer used No. 1.5 needles and so should I. Unfortunately I don't own any and there were no yarn stores open Sunday evening when I bowed to the inevitable (I've since been to several yarn stores and not found any. So I'm glad I wasn't counting on finding them.) I frogged and cast on for a basic toe up sock, knit a toe, and increased until it was the right size...and found that I had 68 stitches, which, since 68 factors to 2 x 2 x 17, isn't the most useful stitch count. I considered things like ribbing, and various 4-stitch patterns, without finding anything I really liked and finally started the foot with the lacy rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks. (It's a 5-stitch pattern, but I figured I could do five repetitions centered across the instep and pick up two more stitches at the top of the heel to get to 70 stitches for the leg.)

Unfortunately, I hated it. I'm sure it's charming in some yarns, but not in this one. This stripes just enough horizontally that vertical patterns just don't look good...something I remembered from an early attempt to do Diamond Lace from the same book in this same yarn, but should have taken more seriously.

I contemplated the yarn. Considered changing yarn...but I really wanted to use this yarn for these socks...it's beautifully soft and quite pretty all by itself. Then I ripped out all the ribbing (I really hadn't gotten that far) and just knit the foot plain. When I got to the leg, I added four stitches (getting me to a total of 72, a nicely factorable number) and changed over to an old standby for self-striping yarns, feather and fan. It's looking quite charming.


The sock and I have now reached a truce, wherein it shall be knit, in a size that fits the recipient and a pattern that suits the yarn and it is giving me no more trouble. And so long as that continues to be true, no one will have to do anything hasty involving...scissors.

Gadabout

I'm happy to report that the Rocky Mountains are still rocky.


Also that the air is decidedly thin for sea-level-adapted creatures like myself. I spent a lot of time pausing to rest while doing things I wouldn't think twice about at home. Like hiking. Walking up stairs. Carrying luggage.

We stayed in Denver, but did a bunch of day trips- in addition to Rocky Mountain National Park, we rode the Georgetown Loop Railroad:

(I should mention here that it's taken me a week or so to get photos downloaded and such, so we were in and out before the place was invaded by Democrats.)

Toured a silver mine (if you go to Georgetown, the silver mine tour is excellent- the interpreters were knowledgeable and interesting):


Visited the Garden of the Gods:


Visited the Cave of the Winds (the Lantern tour):


Went to Seven Falls and climbed the 200+ steps to the top:


Hiked around the canyon rim:


And generally had a good time. With frequent breaks to catch our breath.

And there was a certain amount of knitting around the edges. I finished the feather and fan socks:


Note the lace ribbing, which I swiped from the Fools Rush In sock pattern by Cassiana of Too Much Wool, which I am planning to knit sometime soon. (In typical knitter fashion I totally packed way too much yarn. Enough for another two pairs of socks which I didn't even get to start. Fortunately I confined myself to socks- two extra balls of sock yarn wasn't a huge burden. Note the learning behavior! I was strongly tempted to take yarn to start another sweater, but I have Learned My Lesson since the Hawaii trip last year.)

And, I finished off the New Day socks in the post-trip brain-fog over the weekend! Yay, me!


And I have been reunited with the Optic Waves scarf- when I got back from my trip, I decided that two pattern repeats wasn't enough. So I ripped it all back and started over with the number of repeats that I'd originally cast on! Now I'm back to wondering if I'm going to have enough yarn. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode.

Unpalatable Truths

It turned out to be a slow knitting week. I discovered that when the temperature is 96°F with 100% humidity, even the most enticing project does not inspire me with the desire to rise from my puddle of sweat and knit. I quickly gave up on pretty much everything, in fact, except for cleaning the pool and submerging in it to the fullest extent possible. (I did consider standing in the pool and knitting, but chlorine wouldn't be good for the yarn. At all.) When the weather broke, I eagerly pulled out the red socks for their FO photo shoot.

Now, when people talk about project monogamy, they talk about the joy of finishing, the gratification of a project moving quickly, or possibly the difficulty of not being distracted by the next shiny mohair that shimmies in the stash. They should have also mentioned the utter chagrin of finishing a sock, only to find that the four-day-weekend you went on with another skein of yarn? Can result in you forgetting what you did on the first sock.

Yes, the Basket-Weave socks have gotten their revenge for being abandoned. And I need to remember to try on the finished socks before I weave in the ends. These apparently finished socks? Need to have one leg ripped back to the heel and be reknitted with the same extra stitches that I put in the first sock to loosen up the fit around the ankle.


Also, I should maybe consider keeping a project notebook, so I can write down these little improvisations for future reference.

Fortunately, not all the knitting is taunting me this week. After some initial dubiosity, I've decided I like the first attempt at re-knitting the formerly Garter-Rib socks, henceforth to be known as the Feather and Fan socks. The pattern does what I wanted- it breaks up the horizontal line of the striping, and takes advantage of it to add emphasis to the texture of the knitting.


I couldn't get the normal 18 inch stitch repeat of the Feather and Fan pattern into anything close to the number of stitches I wanted for the socks. (Not without radical changes of needles size that would have had undesirable effects on the density of the fabric.) So instead I messed with the pattern. This is a 14 stitch repeat version- 5 YOs, 5 K2tog. To account for the odd number of decreases, I'm doing the tops of the socks with a K2tog 3 times on one side and 2 times on the other, so the pattern will be offset by two stitches. It's not really obvious to look at it- but just out of general persnicketiness, I'll be reversing the order on the second sock, so they mirror.

And speaking of rude awakenings, this month, my passport expires. I went looking for the information on how to renew it. I don't recall it being terribly complex the last time- just filled out the form from the post orifice, got some pictures and sent it off. Nowadays, the form comes with four pages of instructions (some of which tell you to go look at the website, which has even more stuff on it). But I painstakingly read through it all several times, filled out the forms, addressed the envelope. The real moment of truth occurred when I held up the old passport next to the new pictures.

Now, you don't actually expect passport pictures to be any good. But I kind of liked the one on my old passport. It made me look like the cool kind of person who would go to Paris for the weekend, or be found strolling into Covent Garden in search of a Cornish pasty. The new photo? Makes me look like the kind of person who taunts TSA agents and is thrown out of airports. Positively surly. (That's not me, really it's not.) However, it's done, it's clear, it meets the government requirements, and I don't want to mess with it.

But the *mumble-mumble* pounds I've put on in the last ten years? Those have got to go.