Weekend Miscellany

A little about a lot of different things.

SOCKS

Today, I finished the "first" sock of the pair I was knitting for Tim. Now there are two.

I finished the knitting part last night. That just left stitching up the toes and weaving in the ends.

He reports that they are very warm. Well, they should be. Have you ever seen a cold alpaca? (I stole that. He said it first.)

I'd like to start another pair, because I really like knitting socks. But I should get back to my sweater instead.

GARDENING

Today, we planted the seeds for what we hope will be our summer garden. Two kinds of lettuce (red and green), zucchini, pumpkin, and leftover California poppy seeds.

I could have posted a photo, but there's nothing to see yet. Just potting soil in little planter cups.

I also have a bunch of sunflower seeds that I harvested last year, that I will just plant in the ground. And the raspberry canes are leafing out nicely. I hope their output is better than it was last year.

GREEN LAKE

After a week of mostly rain, it cleared up this afternoon. That prompted me to suggest that we head down to Green Lake for a walk.

The turtles have been out of hibernation for a few weeks now. I thought there would be more of them out sunning themselves, but only a few made an appearance.

However, on the other side of the lake, we did see something a little out of the ordinary.

 QUILTING

I managed to get out to the studio for an hour or two. The project I am currently planning involves using leftover strips of fabric that I have collected over the past several months. I am sewing them into longer strips and trimming them to various widths.

I have drafted a larger version of this block, as well as a diagonal version, and will sew the strips together to make a quilt of a size yet to be determined. It will be unplanned, spontaneous and random. Very different from what I usually do.

FLOWERS

This has been a good spring for flowers. It seems like there have been more crocuses and daffodils in our front yard than in years past.

The dark purple crocuses showed up first, followed by lighter purple and white crocuses.

Then came the daffodils.

  

Soon, there will be tulips.

Last weekend, we enjoyed the warmest day so far this year. It was a beautiful spring day — the warmest day so far this year with a high of about 65 degrees. We were out and about around Capitol Hill and took a stroll through Volunteer Park. Many flowers there to see.

Lastly, inspired by our visit to Vashon Island a couple weeks ago and the Seattle Distillery where we purchased a bottle of their coffee liqueur (scroll down), I found a recipe for homemade coffee liqueur which I will try out, with some adjustments.

Today, I prepared the cold brew coffee and purchased two vanilla beans and a bottle of vodka. Stay tuned . . .

Half a Pair of Socks

This is not an indication that I suffer from One-Sock Syndrome, also known as Second Sock Syndrome.

Rather, I offer it up as a cure for the condition.

I have knit the second sock of the pair, and will next knit the first one.

The yarn is alpaca yarn that my husband gave me for Christmas, the green yarn two years ago and the blue yarn this past Christmas. I made him a cap, and then got distracted with other projects.

But I decided it was time to use it. I had originally intended to have just the heel and toe in the blue, but ran out of the green . . . well, you can see where I ran out.

A Book Reading by a Favorite Author

An activity that my husband and I like to do from time to time is attend book readings, sometimes called "author events" on a bookstore's web site.

These can range in quality to really interesting to really dull. Sometimes, if an author we've seen once and enjoyed hearing comes out with a new book or a paperback edition, we'll go see him or her again.

Last night, I saw a particular author for the third (or was it the fourth?) time. My husband came with me; I believe it was the second time for him.

Were it not that I follow her blog, I might have missed it, because I don't regularly check the author events page at Third Place Books. Had that been the case, I would have been thoroughly bummed.

What I have always liked best about Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's presentations is that she gives a completely original talk. And it is always funny.

Last night, she departed somewhat from this format.

After her introduction, she took the customary photos of the audience with her current sock project in the foreground.

You can see what it looked like from her perspective here.

She then proceeded to talk about why she writes (it's a job where you don't necessarily have to wear a bra, particularly if you're a freelancer), the merits of wearing brown pants on airplanes (so they don't show the coffee stains that you habitually apply to them), and the advantages and disadvantages of being the only person writing humorous essays about knitters and knitting, getting many laughs from an audience that was admittedly predisposed to laughter.

This time around, however, she also read two essays from her book.

I'm not saying the selections she read weren't interesting and humorous, because they were. But it was not what I have come to expect, and I hate to say it, but I felt a little disappointed. It was so . . . conventional. And unnecessary, given Stephanie's dedicated following (as indicated by the SRO crowd and the fact that if you want to get a good seat, best to arrive as early as possible).

I had already bought the book, as undoubtedly many other attendees had. I expect that when I read it, it will amuse me. I don't need to have it read to me to sell me on it.

Making Progress

It's funny sometimes how, after you've been working on something for a really really really long time, all of a sudden, it's done!

That's kind of how I feel about the Maple Leaf quilt. Just one month ago, it looked like this. It had taken me a year to get to that point.

Once I had all the blocks arranged, I started sewing them into pairs, then sewing pairs to pairs, small set to small set to bigger set. Saturday afternoon, there were four or five large sections done. What remained weren't simple rectangular sections. Because of the way I had rearranged the individual maple leaf blocks, I ended up having to sew several partial seams.

That's what I did yesterday.

  

The finished top measures about 70" x 90". I didn't make it with a particular finished size in mind, but those dimensions should work well enough for a twin size bed.

I'm thinking that I may get this top machine quilted. I've never sent one of my quilts out for machine quilting, but I think this is a good candidate. There are so many seams and so few wide open spaces, that I don't think I would enjoy hand quilting it.

I'm not sure what my next quilting project will be, but I have some ideas kicking around in my head.

I'm also making good progress on my sweater. Yesterday, I finished the front.

Once I started shaping the neck, and I was working on fewer stitches, it went pretty quick, especially after I had done all the decreases on both the neck and armhole and was just knitting on 12 stitches.

One Back Down, a Front and Two Sleeves to Go

 A few days ago, I finished knitting the back for this sweater from The Yarn Girls' Guide to Knits for All Seasons, all except the bind off.

When my mother attempted to teach me to knit when I was about ten, she showed me one way to cast on and one way to bind off.

A few years ago, I was one of two illustrators for this book. I did all the illustrations for the cast on section; the other staff illustrator at the time did the bind off section. Before then, I would never have guessed there were so many ways to cast on and bind off. Admittedly, a fair number are largely similar except for maybe a step or two. But still. . . .

Now, my preferred method for casting on is the German Twisted Cast On.

For this sweater, I wanted to find a bind off that was more elastic than the Standard Bind Off my mother had taught me. A quick look at the index led me to the Decrease Bind Off.

I am very pleased with the result.

 

Warm and Toasty Feet

Last night I finished my latest pair of socks. They are soft and warm, and give my feet the happy feeling.

The yarn is Poems Socks from Universal Yarn, 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon, color 958. Size 0 needles, 9.5 sts/inch. Nothing fancy, just a simple K2P2 rib.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have finished them for another week or two. But last week, I came down with a bit of a cold, and spent most of Thursday taking it easy — among other things (such as napping), sitting in my chair and watching some shows off the DVR and, of course, knitting.

One technique I've used on the last few pairs of socks I've made is to start off with the German Twisted Cast On, which is a bit more stretchy than the basic long-tail cast on that my mom taught me.

Tonight I will swatch for the sweater shown at the end of this post.

First Sweater (Size Very Small)

Yay me! I finished something today!

I started it last September, and finished knitting the pieces — oh, a month or two ago. I blocked the pieces in preparation for seaming them together, but then they sat for awhile.

In the meantime, I knit Dave's socks, a larger version of the same baby sweater,

one and one-quarter socks,

finished the front of one hand pillow, started the next,

bought the yarn for a full-size sweater,

and purchased fabric and notions to make a shirt for Tim.

What can I say— I get bored easily!

An Accidental Discovery

Yesterday, I accidentally learned about a feature of my point-and-shoot digital camera.

It happened while Tim and I were taking a Stairway Walk through the Maple Leaf/Thornton Creek area of north Seattle. A signature feature of the walk is Thornton Creek itself, which has undergone daylighting over the last 15 years or so.

Much of the walk meandered through residential neighborhoods (not very interesting), but the walk led us by a pond with a beaver dam and through a small wetland oasis.

Beaver dam

Pond next to beaver dam. You can see steam rising from the water.

Wetland

Buds

Mossy log

Our route, following the guidebook, also took us through the area by the Thornton Creek Water Quality Channel. While I considered it pleasant to walk through, it is not without its critics.

Thornton Creek Water Quality Channel

In addition to the environmental aspect, there was some fun public art to look at.

Spires

Glass mosaic circles in the pavement

Floaty things

Globes

Anyway, back to my accidental discovery. At some point, in taking a picture, I hit a button on my camera which caused a display called "Exposure compensation" to pop up on my screen. It took me only a minute or two to figure out that it was controlled by pressing on the wheel control on the back of my camera next to this symbol.

Intrigued, I took a series of test photos this morning of this is the pile o’ yarn.

Its the intended destiny is to become this sweater, called “Better Than the Real Deal” from The Yarn Girls' Guide to Knits for All Seasons.

Here are the test photos. The only difference is in the shutter speed. I can see where this feature might be handy when taking a picture where the subject is against a window and the light outside is too bright.

The yarn is not as pink as it appears here. It's actually more of a brick-y red.

Dave's Sox

If this year has been any indication, it can take anywhere from two or three weeks to a couple months to knit up a pair of socks. Granted, they're never the only project in progress, and I have been known to set them aside to work more exclusively on something else.

However, I am happy to say that it took me less than a year to make good on last year's Christmas gift to the members of my sister's family, as reported here and here and here.

This included one false start, where I got nearly to the end of one sock originally intended for Elaine, before concluding that it simply would not fit her. Not sure what went awry — I had made a swatch. In any event, I had to start over.

Earlier this week, I mailed off the last pair to my brother-in-law Dave. And this morning I received this:

Before I sent them, I took a photo of them flat — or sort of flat anyway. I couldn't find my sock blocker inserts.

Swatching

Sometimes I knit a gauge swatch before a project.

I didn't knit one before starting the baby wrap I wrote about a couple weeks ago.

Later this month, I'll be getting on a plane to Houston and I decided I wanted to take a new project with me to work on.

It will be the same baby wrap pattern, but this time I thought I would try to get the gauge right. Also, last night I just wanted to do something easy and repetitive that didn't require any thinking.

Yesterday, I had gone out and bought two skeins of Cotton Soft Silk in tangerine. It feels so nice!

You can't see this in the photo on their web page, but the yarn has a sort of "heathery" look. It's three ply, and each ply consists of two strands — one thinner and slightly darker than the other.

 

As it turns out, my gauge is too large, so I'll have to start over tonight with smaller needles.

Sock Darning

Suddenly, I needed to finish the scarf mentioned in my last post.

I needed the yarn to darn a hole and a soon-to-be hole in the warm woolly socks (Malabrigo worsted) I wear around the house, now that the weather has turned.

 

I understand the theory behind darning, as imparted by my mom. My technique may be somewhat lacking, but I hope it will hold up.

I could have matched the color better, but it's not a high priority with these socks.

"Car Knitting"

As part of my preparation for our trip to Oregon earlier this month, I needed a knitting project that was suitable to work on in the car.

The socks I'm working on weren't a good candidate. I have to keep close count of the rounds, and there would be the risk of dropping the stitch marker or the cable needle.

I could have started another scarf, but I wanted something a little more interesting. And besides, I haven't finished the last one.

So I looked through the patterns I have collected over the past several years, and selected an easy baby sweater.

The back couldn't have been any easier to knit — just a simple stockinette rectangle. The front pieces have a simple decrease. I should be done with the right front, but I've had to rip it back a couple of times to fix errors that required more than just picking up a dropped stitch.

The yarn is Cascade 220 Superwash Sport, 1967 (Wisteria). I skipped doing a gauge swatch. I cast on for the 12-month size, but the measurements from my gauge matched the 6-month size, so it's ending up being sort of a conflation of the two.