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I was one of the lucky 2,000 who made it into the 2007 Rockin’ Sock Club from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. We received our first yarn pack at the beginning of March, and the club got off to a good start.

The yarn, STR Medium Weight in the custom colorway Monsoon, was absolutely gorgeous. I had been wanting to make some socks in a green colorway, and the greens, browns, and grays in this yarn were perfectly suited to the end of an Oregon winter. I liked the pattern a lot also, a reversible cable cuff with ribbed insteps and short-row garter toes and heels, knit toe-up.

The problem, though, was the fit. I started off knitting this pair of socks on #0s, thinking I’d make the pair for myself. However, it quickly became clear that they were coming out too large for my tiny feet, and the suggested to go down a needle size on the foot was complicated by the fact that I don’t want to have to use 8″ long #00 DPNs. Why in the world don’t they make shorter laceweight (00, 000, etc.) DPNs? At any rate, I decided to just go with the flow and gift these beautiful Monsoon socks to someone who’ll fit into them.

My second problem came when I started knitting the cabled cuffs of the socks. After 3 false starts for various reasons, I finally made it through the top of the cuff on my fourth attempt, and tried the sock on. I could get it on, but it felt awfully snug, and I hated the way the large cables made my ankles all lumpy and bumpy. I can’t even imagine how they’d feel if I wanted to wear them with boots that come up over the ankle. So I ripped out attempt #4 to the heel and did the socks with a half-sized cable instead. I still like how they look, though they sacrificed some reversibility, and the ankle is much less lumpy and tight, knit on #1 needles. I also added some ribbing for balance before casting off.

Our second kit was the gorgeous, and brand-new, Socks that Rock Silkie in the Walking on the Wild Tide colorway. The yarn is fantastically soft, and I was excited to make the pattern, a pair of lace knee-highs, to wear with skirts in the spring. Pretty soon, though, reports began coming in about sagging socks, and I got discouraged. I really want to do this yarn justice both pattern-wise and texture-wise, and I really was enamored of the lace knee-high idea, so I’ve been kicking around some ideas and not really making any decisions about what to do.

The June kit was less in my color palette, but that’s partly why I joined the club, right? STR lightweight in the Firebird colorway, lots of reds, oranges, yellows and pinks. The club pattern didn’t really do it for me either, but I’ve recently started a pair of socks using this yarn and the Fawkes pattern at Socktopia. Several other people in the club did so also, and I liked the results; plus, the colorway and pattern seem meant to go together.

It was the August kit, though, received just over a week ago, that really got me wanting to knit again. I’ve laid off almost entirely over the summer, in part because of the puppy, but when I saw this month’s kit, I pulled out the needles right away. The yarn is STR lightweight in a colorway called Flower Power, and the pattern, Summer of Love Lace, is an anklet with a cute little lace cuff.

I got the yarn on a Friday and had the first sock finished by Sunday evening, the second sock by mid-weed. Of course, it’s way too warm out here for me to cover my feet in wool. Even cotton socks are a bit much at the moment. But they’ll be darn cute a bit later in the fall and next spring.

I made the small size and didn’t need to make any adjustments at all for a perfect fit. My kind of pattern! In fact, I was so pleased with the outcome that I will definitely consider knitting this pattern again (and again).

Two more kits to go!

We’re having a beautiful warm spring day here in Salem (I have to gloat while I can; the rain comes back tonight), but I know much of the country is still locked in bitter cold. I was particularly concerned about the toes of my delightful cousin Heather in Ohio, so I sent her a little care package last week: two pairs of cozy wool socks. Maybe they’ll help usher in some relief from the deep freeze…

The reason I chose the yarn for the first pair of socks will be immediately apparent to anyone with Ohio ties: it’s Claudia sock yarn in the Buckeye colorway. This was my first experience with Claudia yarns, and I must say it was a pleasant one. The yarn was very soft and beautifully dyed. The skeins are a little on the skimpy side, however, so I took the precaution of knitting this pair of RPM socks toe-up. Other specs, mostly for my own benefit: I used the Easy Toe from Sensational Knitted Socks, starting with 12 sts, short-row heels; knit on #0 needles over 63 sts for the foot; worked the spirals in opposite directions for a matched pair.

The second pair of socks was knit because Heather is a big Harry Potter fan; of course she needed to have a pair of Gryffindor socks! I decided to do a stripe more along the lines of the scarves from later movies for this pair, and carried the yarn inside to avoid weaving in a bazillion ends. I used more of my lovely Lang Jawoll yarn for this, and I couldn’t be happier with the colors. Since I knew I had plenty of yarn, I knit these top down. And some specs: #0 needles, 64 sts cast on, modified long-tail CO from Nancy Bush; 2” of 2/2 ribbing for the cuff in red; traveling jogless jog; stripe pattern: 5 rounds yellow, 3 red, 5 yellow, 11 red; short-row heels and standard toes in red.

Enjoy them, Heather, and stay warm!

Looks like 2007 is shaping up to be the Year of the Sock, Part 2, and I finally have pictures to prove it. I got off to a cracking start by finishing up the Conwy Socks I was knitting in December.

As I mentioned previously, these socks are knit from Socks that Rock Lightweight, in the Downpour colorway, perfect for a wet Oregon winter. They came out nicely, and this is definitely a pattern I’ll use again, not least because they needed no adjustment to fit my tiny feet. As for the yarn, I love the colors and the way they striped without too much flashing; the wool is warm and squishy without being too itchy.

Next I whipped out a very quick little pair of anklets from a leftover skein of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Vera. I tried out several different pattens with this yarn and ended up doing a simple checkerboard/basketweave pattern. I think the came out really cute, and will make good spring socks.

While making the anklets, I also started (and finished) a pair of Chain Link Socks. This pattern was from the SixSox Knitalong, and I used my leftover Trekking #67 and some white Lang Jawoll, and didn’t come close to using up either one. A visually interesting pattern, but verrrry simple to knit, and I was shocked to note that the stripes in the Trekking came *this* close to matching up, without any intentions on my part.

Finally, I finished my first pair of Trekking knee socks, to be worn with skirts and/or boots. I used a traveling clock pattern from Folk Knitting in Estonia for some visual interest on the sides, and did them plain otherwise. They were knit toe-up so that I could make the most effective use of the yarn, and I ended up with a tiny bit leftover, so I think I did pretty well.

Over the weekend, I started a new pair of socks for Jeremy, still pending his approval. No pics yet. They are Spey Valley Socks in Trekking XXL #90, which is coming out much more green and gray than brown, oddly. I like how they look, though, and because Jeremy said the last pair, also made from Trekking, felt bumpy under his feet, I’m doing these with a reverse stockinette sole.

So between all the driving around in the snow, what did we do while visiting Littleton? I’ll break it down into a few categories, ‘cause that’s just how my brain works…

1. Animal watching

We had great fun watching the flocks of sparrows, house finches and juncos swarming over the bird feeder out the back windows. They persisted in coming throughout both of the storms, and after the first few hours of the first blizzard, my mom went outside to refill the feeder and put out a new one (read: old perch of my parrot, Pogo’s) so even more birds could get in on the fun. You can see some of them in most of Jeremy’s bird feeder photos. We also had visits from several blue jays on several occasions, always readily apparent because they shrieked out warning calls to the little birds to get out of their way just prior to arrival. After the second blizzard, there were flickers hanging out both in the backyard ash tree and on the feeder, and even a little downy woodpecker, who incited a lot of photographic action in the house.

The other stars of the backyard show were the squirrels. We watched them in fascination, as, every time it stopped snowing, they would forge a path through the snow in a brave effort to reach the feeders. We think they were staying in the big evergreen tree in the back corner of the yard, and would virtually swim at top speed through the surface of the snow to the ash tree, after which they had a big decision to make: drop down from the branches of the tree to the roof of the feeder or wade through more snow and climb up? We saw them go both routes, though the former was more entertaining, especially with several feet of snow on the feeder’s roof. It took us a while to realize what had caused the big hole in the middle of that pile of snow.

And I can’t talk about animal watching without mentioning my parents’ cats, Addie and TooCute. They were just as fascinated by the birds and squirrels as we were, and when there was a lull in the wildlife activity, we entertained the cats. TooCute really hated Jeremy and me, and would hiss at us and strike at us whenever we tried to pet her, but she was also constantly hanging around and sometimes even rubbing up against our legs, strangely. The most we could do with her was dangle a gold string in front of her to play, but that was good for hours of entertainment for both cats. I guess we were all easily amused.

2. Knitting

I got in some knitting time over the course of the two weeks we were in Littleton. I was knitting myself a pair of socks from STR Lightweight in the lovely Downpour colorway, using the famous Conwy pattern from Nancy Bush’s Knitting on the Road. The first night there I started the cuff of my second Conwy sock, but after that I concentrated on Christmas knitting. I had ordered a skein of STR Lightweight in Petrified Wood to make socks for my dad (and maybe a skein of the Meteorite colorway for myself, down the line), and it arrived just before we flew out. So I wound up the skein and set myself to knit those socks in the week before Christmas. I didn’t bring any sock knitting books with me due to space constraints, but I had been happy with how Jeremy’s Gentleman’s Fancy Socks came out, so I decided to go with that. The pattern was fairly easy to remember, aside from calf shaping, which I made up to no detriment. I used #1 needles and started with 84 stitches, eventually decreasing to 72 to accommodate my dad’s petite ankles. The colorway received fatherly approval and held up beautifully against the texture pattern and the changes in circumference with no flashing. I used a short row heel and a standard toe, and used up virtually every scrap of the skein, down to the last yard. It was a little nervewracking there at the end, but they came out perfectly, and seem to fit Dad well. I finished them up by the Friday before Christmas, no sweat.

While doing some of our Christmas shopping the Tuesday before the first storm, we just happened to go in a yarn store in downtown Littleton, A Knitted Peace. My mom got a pattern and some needles to make hats, and a little kit for me to knit her a pretty scarf, along with a bagful of Rowan Silk & Wool DK in a gorgeous silver color they call clay, earmarked for the Ogee Tunic in Norah Gaughan’s Knitting Nature. I worked up the scarf, which uses a strand of Kid Silk Haze and a strand of Katia Sevilla held together and worked in a simple garter/drop stitch pattern, after I finished my dad’s socks. That took all of a few hours to polish off in an evening. Then I went back to my Conwy socks, and got the second one finished off the night before we left for Oregon. Not a bad way to bookend the trip, though I had a skein of purple Trekking all lined up to (hopefully) do a pair of knee socks for myself. I’m working on those now with #0 needles and a simple clock pattern from Folk Knitting in Estonia for some visual interest.

3. Cooking and eating

We made some lovely meals over the course of the trip, including both old standbys and some new recipes on the menu. I didn’t write everything down, but here are a few mentionables:

• Our favorite pork loin with leeks from Cooking Light: We’ve made this many times and it came out great, as always.
• Braised lamb shanks with porcini: This was a meal just for me and Jeremy, as my parents had a Christmas party to attend.
• Zinfandel-braised pot roast with glazed carrots from All About Braising: The meat was very tasty but the carrots were awesome and we didn’t make nearly enough of them (this coming from someone who doesn’t care for cooked carrots under normal circumstances).
• Rice-asparagus soup with pancetta and pepper from Zuni Café Cookbook: This was a light, tasty soup that we served with a grating of parmesan and slices of fresh bread.
• Vietnamese braised scallops from All About Braising, served with a whole grain asparagus salad with soy-ginger vinaigrette from Once Upon a Tart: I’ve made the scallops once before, and made them here at my dad’s request. My fish-wary mom bravely ate a scallop and didn’t think it was too bad. The barley-wild rice salad with asparagus went well as a side for the scallops, though the amount of dressing called for was excessive, in my opinion. This was our Christmas Eve meal.
• Leg of lamb stuffed with feta and chard: This was our Christmas dinner. It came out so well the first time we made it that Jeremy and I both really wanted my parents to try it, and I think it was a success. We had a beautiful fresh piece of lamb, and leftovers for days. We kept the sides simple and went with mashed potatoes, fresh steamed broccoli, and the red wine jus from the lamb.

We also did quite a bit of baking, though we had planned to do more, and got cut short a bit by the abruptness of our flight on Saturday. Mostly we did Christmas cookies, but a few other items as well:

• Chocolate chip cookies: I used my favorite recipe, which tweaks David Lebovitz’s fantastic cookies with the addition of toffee bits for a subtle extra hit of flavor. These didn’t last long.
• Sugar cookies: These came from a can, but sugar cookies are really just a vehicle for frosting anyway, right?
• Pumpkin cookies: These are one of my favorite cookies of all time, and we made them partly because we had a partial can of pumpkin left from a batch of pumpkin waffles (very tasty, served with maple pecan syrup). They have chocolate chips and almonds in them, and an almost cakey texture from the moistness of the pumpkin.
• Buckwheat cookies: I’ve made these a bunch of times at home, and they are one of my favorites with tea. This was the first time I’ve made them with a mixer instead of a food processor, though.
• Harvest squash bread: My mom had a butternut squash on the counter when we arrived, waiting to be made into bread. We tried it out with this recipe from Macrina Bakery and Cafe Cookbook, and it came out well, after burning a batch of walnuts and pecans based on the amount of time indicated in the book for toasting them. If I made this again, I’d used hulled pepitas instead of the whole pumpkinseeds we had on hand, as the hulls were not the greatest eating, though a good source of fiber, I’m sure.

I haven’t posted much on the blog of late, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. Besides all the cooking I’ve been doing (trying to take advantage of the last few farmer’s markets of the season–they end in October around here), I’ve been occupied with coordinating a printmaking exchange for Baren Forum and finishing up my Tweedy Aran Cardi, which is virtually complete.

I signed up for Baren Exchange #29 back in April. It was an oban-sized themed exchange centering on The Nude, a venerable, rich—and sometimes imposing— subject for artists, evocative of heroism, vulnerability, and everything in between. As you might guess, I signed on hoping Jeremy would collaborate with me on this exchange, and he did so, to the extent that he let me use some of his life drawings and oil sketches as the basis for my designs. Because of the popularity of this particular subject with artists, there were enough participants for two exchanges, the official Baren exchange #29, and a Baren salon de refuse, #29a. I signed up to participate in both exchanges, so I did two different prints.

The first one, entitled “Neapolitan Man” is based on an oil sketch Jeremy did for a class and did not have an opportunity to complete. You may remember it from this post. My version is a 4-color reductive woodcut; I tried to keep the feel of this print loose and painterly to evoke the tone of Jeremy’s original sketch. Sorry for the bad photo…

For the second print, I wanted another standing figure to complement the first one, so I chose a female figure done in a very linear black-and-white woodcut with a bit of chine colle for color and a sense of space. Again, the figure is based on one of Jeremy’s old drawings, here. At Jeremy’s suggestion, I called this print “Veiled Reference” because the chine colle background serendipitously reminded me of women changing clothes behind a screen or curtain, like the “walls of Jericho” in It Happened One Night. I am participating in one more nude figure print exchange, and I think I am going to expand on that idea for that print.

Somewhere along the way, I also found myself agreeing to be the coordinator for the official Baren exchange, which just means that all the participating artists mailed their sets of prints to me, and I collated the sets so that everyone got one of everyone else’s prints, and mailed them back to each artist. It was a lot of work, and our house was full of partially collated sets of prints and packing materials for over a month while I waited for stragglers to turn in their prints, but the experience was certainly a worthwhile one. Besides getting to see all the prints sooner than everyone else, it was really great to feel that I was contributing something back to the forum, which has been such a useful resource for me (not to mention a source of many wonderful print exchanges that I have been honored to participate in). Everyone that participates in a print exchange should be a coordinator at least once, for the sake of empathy, if nothing else.

Moving on to knitting content, despite my sorry lack of progress photos, I have been working steadily away at my Tweedy Aran Cardigan, and am very happy with how it is coming out. As I mentioned earlier, it’s a bit of a slow knit due to the slubby yarn and proliferation of twisted and cabled stitches. Since my last post, I completed both fronts, worked the shoulder seams with a three-needle bind-off, and knit the collar. I finished off the sleeves after what seemed like an eternity of twisted rib, and completed the seaming. All it needs to be complete are some good buttons (and maybe a grograin ribbon band, since the front edges are very flippy). Since we’re renting a car this weekend to take the ferrets to the vet for their annual exams and booster shots, I’m hoping to talk Jeremy into stopping by a fabric store or something. Photos forthcoming once I get those buttons…

You probably think this post is going to be about the fall TV schedule, especially since we now have Dish and can record two shows at once. Of the new shows, Heroes seems promising, Jericho sounded like a neat idea but the premiere wasn’t so great, and we’re watching Studio 60 and Kidnapped for the time being also.

But that’s not what this post is really about: more knitting content!

I got a surprise phone call from one of my aunts a few weekends ago, inviting me to come along with her and my cousin to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival in Canby. Of course I was delighted to accept, no less because I hadn’t seen either of them for several years (they have just moved back to Portland from John Day, which is way out in eastern Oregon—quite a long drive). Also there was the little matter of the Blue Moon booth I knew would be at the festival….

It was a lot of fun. I’d never been to it before, due to Jeremy’s fiber and knitting aversions. I got to spin a few feet of yarn on a drop spindle for the first time: it all went so quickly, and I was really horrible at it. Still, I could have been tempted to purchase a kit if it weren’t for that Blue Moon booth just waiting somewhere to take all my money. Not to mention the fact that Jeremy would have about keeled over if I started making yarn in addition to buying and stashing it. So we moved on to the barn, and petted all the adorable little alpacas and pygora goats and llamas and sheep and angora bunnies. I had a male albino English angora rabbit named Baron Von Fluff when I was in high school, and the angora bunnies really made me miss him. We got him for his sweet and gentle personality, not for his incredibly soft fur, and carried him around on his back like a baby. Guess I know where to go now if I ever have an irresistible urge to get a rabbit…
I think we touched practically everything in all the booths, and I restrained myself admirably from making any purchases. After several hours of wandering around, I started to get a little nervous about finding the Blue Moon booth, but of course it was in exactly the last spot we visited, and it was packed. I had been hoping to get a rock-themed colorway of STR to make another pair of socks for my father the geologist, but nothing was exactly appropriate. I am tempted to try to order the Petrified Wood colorway, because, from photos, I think that would be perfect. That small disappointment didn’t stop me from filling up my arms with sock yarn, though, as witness:

From left: STR Lightweight in Rooster Rock (the one I couldn’t resist winding instantly), Covelite, and Downpour (Dad, is that close enough to “Wet Mud” for you?), and Sock Candy in Madder and Borage (in front).

I got one skein each of the STR Lightweight, and two each of the Sock Candy, though there was only one left in Borage by the time we found their booth; they kindly offered to send me a second skein free of shipping, so I happily took them up on it. Jeremy approved the color, so that will be a pair of socks for him, I think.

Other than the surprise excitement of the festival, I’ve finally gotten back around to sweater knitting. I ordered enough yarn last month to knit up two cardigans to wear at work this winter, and am already a good way into the first project, the Tweedy Aran Cardigan from Norah Gaughan in the Winter 2001/02 issue of Interweave Knits. I didn’t have that issue when I fell in love with the sweater’s photo, but I was able to track down a copy. I’m using Kathmandu Aran Tweed in the color Twig, a caramelly tan that I think will go really well with the vast majority of my wardrobe, but which Jeremy claims looks like burlap when knit up. I don’t quite see that, and the yarn is soft and warm, so I’m rather pleased with it.

The pattern is an interesting one, but a bit hard on the hands, thanks to the volume of twisted stitches. I have finished the back, and am currently working on the fronts, both at the same time. So far, so good. (And photos when I get the chance…)

I am planning on making the other cardigan from Cashmerino Aran in a natural white color, and at this point I am considering the Sienna Cardigan from this fall’s IK. I think the gauge is different, though, so the jury is still out on that one.

So keep it tuned right here all fall for more rockin’ socks and cuddly cardigans. Over and out. Hm, that’s more 50’s radio than TV. Let’s try that again… Well, I can’t think of a good sign-off; maybe I should hold a contest like Katie Couric did?

Here comes the long anticipated knitting post. Since Fall has officially started, here are the finished summer sock projects to show you at long last. It was a busy summer (actually I’m not sure where it went), and I really don’t have much knitting to show for it. But here’s the tally: I knit three pairs of socks. They are show below being modeled on my etching press, mostly just because the back room where the press is has the most daylight in the afternoon, and the colors came out pretty accurately on these images.

The first pair was for Jeremy, though because of the warm weather, he hasn’t had the opportunity to wear them yet. They are made with Trekking #102, my first randomly variegated Trekking, in lovely shades of gray. The pattern is the Gentleman’s Fancy Socks from Nancy Bush’s Knitting Vintage Socks, knit on #0 needles.

The second pair is for my aunt, who is so busy that I’m betting she doesn’t read this blog, and can therefore show you this photo. They are the Estonian Socks from Nancy Bush’s Folk Socks (another great sock-knitting book—Nancy Bush is the best), knit with natural white Lang Jawoll for the main color, and Trekking #67 for the Fair Isle cuff. The Trekking was absolutely perfect for this: colorwork is not my favorite type of knitting, and the color changes in the Trekking emulated a more complicated Fair isle color pattern with less work for me. Excellent! I was really pleased with how these came out, despite how tiny they look in the photo, they really should fit my aunt, who has the same size tiny feet as me–see?

I used #1 needles, cut the Fair Isle pattern down from 3 repeats to 2, and made the socks a bit shorter to make up for that smaller circumference.

The third pair of socks is for my Grandma Ford. These are Jaywalkers done in Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in the Vera colorway on #1 needles. Because of some of the issues with tightness, and the tendency of grandmas to have somewhat swollen ankles, I decided to start out with the larger size (84 sts) and decrease back down to 76 after several inches for a bit of calf shaping. I also ended up having to do a really extensive gusset to get the foot circumference down to the right size. If anything, these socks might be a bit loose, but Grandma should not have trouble getting them over her heels. I hope. I have enough yarn left over from this pair to make myself another short pair of socks, or maybe some fingerless mittens. Hmmm….

So here is my belated update, seven posts with one blow… ready for an awful lot of photos and rambling?

1. Parisian Flan

Week before last, the day before the plague struck the library, we had a potluck to celebrate the departure of our graduating student workers. In retrospect, we really just threw a party for the flu bug, but we had all the best intentions going in. My contribution was a Parisian flan, a lovely custard pie with deceptively few ingredients that come together in 8 or 9 short hours. It set beautifully, and tasted pretty good, but other than the wonderful (if a bit temperamental) crust, it is probably not something I would make again.

2. Happy little basil plant

Three weeks ago there was a plant sale at Bush Park, and I brought home a hardy lavender plant, a tri-colored sage, and a little basil plant. The first two went right in the herb garden, but the basil made me paranoid, because although I purchased two or three basil plants last summer, I was unable to get them to do anything but wilt and die. I decided to keep my new basil indoors for the time being, living on my narrow kitchen windowsill (so I would remember to water it) and going outside on the front porch on warm, sunny days. Miracle of miracles, it grew and thrived, and is now twice the size it was when I brought it home. I am so happy with its progress that I named it Presto the Happy Basil Plant (because its growth is magical and it will one day turn into pesto), and talk to it every day as I move it in and out of doors. I think this means it is time for Jeremy to come home so I can start holding two-sided conversations again.

3. Printed bookmarks

My mom commissioned a printed bookmark to give as gifts to folks at her school, and here is the finished product. It is just a simple little linocut, about 2.5×9″, printed in black oil-based ink on Rives lightweight paper, and handpainted with watercolors for a little additional visual interest.

4. Curlicue

I finished the Curlicue coverlet while I was recovering from the scourge; even knitting was almost too exhausting, but I drew upon unforeseen reservoirs of strength and knit up the last two sections. Sorry about the folded photo; I need to come up with a good place to photograph it where I can get high up enough to capture the whole thing. Plus, it still needs blocking and ends woven in. I doubt it will block out perfectly, but I am still quite happy with the way it turned out, and also the fact that I have at least a third of the last skein leftover to make an accompanying baby hat or something.

5. Socks and more socks

I finished two pairs of socks since my last knitting post: the Spey Valley socks for my grandpa, and the pair of socks for my aunt. I’m quite pleased with both. The Trekking tweed is lovely and entirely camera-proof; I ended up abandoning the Chutes-N-Ladders pattern and doing a simple garter rib on #1 needles, and I like the effect, simple but elegant. The Spey Valley pattern is a nice one that I would certainly consider doing again, perhaps in a solid color to better show off the textured band at the top. Each sock used just shy of 1 skein of the Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock, which did some funky pooling stuff, but not entirely to its detriment, I think.

With the remaining skein and two bits of LL, I dared myself to knit a pair of socks for me. Since I have such small feet, I thought I could at least squeeze a pair of ankle socks from it. I carefully divided the skein into two equal balls (no mean feat for someone lacking swift, ball winder, and scale; guess we’ll see how well I managed it soon…), and cast on for a toe-up sock. Here is what I ended up with from one half-skein ball:

A perfect little ankle sock based on the Child’s French Sock pattern in Knitting Vintage Socks. I needed the socks to be toe-up rather than cuff-down to allow the maximum cuff length for my yardage. Although I immediately considered my standard short-row non-pattern, I really preferred the way the sock looked with the side lace motifs flowing into the gusset; so, I opted for the reverse heel-flap method in Sensational Knitted Socks, adjusting for my stitch count. It was a nice change of pace, and I think came out well, though I’ll still use the short-row method as my default pattern. I decided to put the lace motifs (which are of course reversed) only on the sides, leaving the more simple texture pattern on the instep. I turned out to have just enough for a nice little ankle sock, with a bit left over to assuage my paranoia for its mate. Altogether a success… now if I can just remember what I did for the second sock…

6. Fancy clothes

In preparation for the upcoming event, I did a bit of shopping these past few weeks. The weekend before I got sick, I spent something like 8 hours trekking around Salem from Value Village to the mall, most of that time with a backpack full of library books on my back (don’t ask). I had great success, and spent more money than I probably should have, partly because I had to keep returning to the mall… really, I HAD to!

The first image is the beautiful dress I am going to wear to Jeremy’s graduation, barring blizzard conditions. It was part of the reason I had to keep coming back to the mall, because Nordstrom’s didn’t have it in my size and had to order it in for me. The second pic is the skirt I got just in case the smaller size dress didn’t fit me after all, and which turned out to cost more than the dress. The shell with it is another reason I kept coming back to the mall: it cost $50 the day I bought the skirt, so I refused to even try it on, but when I went back to pick up my dress, it was 50% off so I had to get it. A few days later I went back and got the matching cardigan, which turned out to be 65% off by that point. It’s so nice to see clothes that fit my (pear-shaped) body type at last!

7. NYC this week

Finally, as if y’all didn’t know, I will be going to New York later this week for Jeremy’s graduation and diploma show. I can hardly wait to bring him back home and know he won’t be going anywhere in a few months. So if the blog is quiet, that is probably why.

As always, I have lots of sock knitting to report. But you’re in luck! I went on a bit of a forced sock knitting hiatus while waiting for pretty new yarn to arrive, and have made some progress on a few non-socky projects in the past week or so. Case in point:

Ok, fine…yes, those are socks. But see how tiny they are? Each baby sock used exactly one color pattern repeat of my leftover Opal Ladybug yarn; and I made a matching hat, so it wasn’t just socks. These were gifted to my co-worker who is expecting his first baby later this month, and I think they came out really cute. It’s good to know I can squeeze a pair of adult women’s socks, as well as a baby hat and pair of socks from one ball of Opal; the leftover bits of sock yarn are starting to accumulate…

In other non-sock news, the Curlicue coverlet continues to curl:

This photo was taken after I used up the second skein of yarn, and as you can see, I am partway through the 6th section of the pattern. So far, so good.

Had enough of non-sock content? Oh good! Your reward is a look at my new stash of Trekking and Lorna’s Laces beauty. First of all is the Trekking:

From left to right: Trekking 66, 90, 102, and 67

They are incredibly beautiful, much more so than the photo shows. I knew this would be the case, which was why I wanted to be able to see the options in person rather than ordering blindly off the Web, but Salem is an insufferable pit when it comes to pretty sock yarn. I think I chose well, despite this setback: The 90 and 102, being interesting yet neutral, are reserved for Jeremy, should he find them acceptable; the 67 will soon be socks for my Aunt Stacy, who requested light socks to go with her nursing uniform. I chose the 66 because I couldn’t really tell what it would look like; it arrived with wonderfully subtle navy and green and violet tones that of course didn’t make it into my photo, and I may well make a pair of socks for myself with that skein.

The fifth skein of Trekking I bought was color 115, described on one site as “grey owl”. It looks like black and white tweed in all the photos I found online, but in real life it has quite a bit of purple mixed in as well. I still like it, but decided it would not go in the stash of Jeremy-friendly sock yarn, so I am making a pair of socks for my aunt with it:

The pattern, which shows up fine in person but dreadfully in this photo, is Chutes-n-Ladders from the Six Sox Knitalong. I like how it looks, but am concerned about whether it is making the cuff too tight, even though I increased from #0 DPNs to #1s. I’m a little annoyed with it, truth to tell, so it has been marinating for a few days while I try to decide whether to rip back to the heel and try out another pattern or an increased number of stitches. Never fear, though, I already have another sock going, thanks to these superheroes:

Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Vera and Aslan

I bought my very first skeins of Lorna’s Laces (also sight unseen) along with the Trekking, and was very happy with the arrivals. I immediately wound up a skein of the Aslan colorway to begin a pair of socks for my grandpa:

These are the Spey Valley socks from Knitting on the Road. I increased the stitch count to 84 (it was 63 in the book) for a manly-sized sock, and then decreased by 6 sts after 4″ in a nod to leg shaping. You can probably tell right where the decrease happened because the yarn started pooling differently, but so far I am very happy with both the look and feel of the sock. This yarn is lovely, soft, and smooth, and I will be interested to find out how it handles washing. As you can see above, I got three skeins of each color, and am hoping to knit a pair of ankle socks for my small feet from the yarn remaining from this pair.

Well, that’s all for the time being. Tune in tomorrow for an action shot of cream of asparagus soup, and a recipe too (fancy that!).

I was lucky last week to have my parents visiting me from Colorado, during their spring break. We had a great time, even though I was only able to take one day off (gotta conserve my vacation time for going to Jeremy’s graduation!): We drove to the coast last Sunday for a visit to Florence and the Sea Lion Caves, and dinner at the superb (and seemingly very popular) Tidal Raves in Depoe Bay. Monday we took Rocky for a bloodwork check-up to find out whether his medication was helping to improve his glucose levels; the vet seemed very pleased with the result, so he’ll be continuing his meds for now. We went to see Inside Man on Tuesday, and Thursday we went up to Oregon City for a lovely dinner at Flambe with my aunt Stacy’s family. The Harlequin socks were gifted:

The photo shows the finished socks modeled on my own feet; Aunt Stacy wears my (rather small) shoe size, so I knew they would fit her nicely. She liked them so well after putting them through the gauntlet of nursing rounds and a visit to the gym that she called me back the next day and asked me to make her some more. Glad to oblige; there is already yarn on the way to make a few more pairs of socks for her.

To complete the knitting update, I started work on my cousin’s Curlicue yesterday, and am making good progress. One skein of the Cotton Fleece came out to equal nearly 3 wedges of the blanket, so I should be safe as far as yardage. The pattern is an interesting one, but entirely managable with the line-by-line checklist I wrote out for keeping track of where I am in the pattern, and I’ve been having fun watching Netflix movies (The Constant Gardener and A History of Violence) while working on it.

In other news, my incredibly generous, wonderful parents made some major improvements in our kitchen, besides the other maintenance jobs that kept them busy while I was working during the week. They found me a perfectly sized wooden kitchen island (at Walmart, no less) to give me much-needed counter space next to the stove:

My dad put it together on Friday night and did a great job, even though it took rather longer than the 30 minutes claimed in the manual. Just ask my mom, who waited very patiently for us to be done:

If you have ever been in our kitchen before, you may have noticed another new addition to my kitchen family in the above photo, a beautiful shiny new Cuisinart. Jeremy, take a good look at it, because it is your graduation present. We tested it out on a batch of pate brisee dough in what must have been less than two minutes from start to finish, and made a gorgeous cherry crumb tart:

We also made a very tasty, but less than photogenic rhubarb meringue tart (let’s just say there were blind-baking issues), as well as a batch of asparagus-leek risotto with prosciutto and Dijon chicken stew (a Cooking Light recipe from January), both of which were fantastic and well worth repeating. The cherry tart was cobbled together from a variety of sources, and I’ll write up a recipe for it if I have a chance.