Knitting 40 shades of green

sisterly love

I have promised my sister a pair of socks.  I knit her these socks:

They were much too small so I finished them and gave them to someone at late night who had never had a pair of hand knit socks (and of course they fit her).  I never even took a completed picture. 

I started again with my first ball of trekking.  I cast on more stitches and had my sister give me a few more measurements.  They were going along nicely, the foot seemed to fit and it was time to turn the heel which I was almost through when I discovered this dropped stitch.

I had no choice but to take the heel back out and soon the sock looked like this:

Well, I turned the heel again, changed needle sizes and added stitches to better fit the ankle.  Now I am worried about running out of yarn.  The socks look so big (when compared to the ones I make for my freakishly small feet) so without further ado I started knitting the second sock from the other end of yarn.

I sure hope they fit this time.

Chickens

Jessie over at What Housework is moving.  She had put a bid on a house and was greatly stressed out over a snafu in the contract (which has been worked out), so she did what any self respecting transplant to Vermont would do she took a poultry break. 

I don't claim to understand the chicken thing, but here is my experience with it.  My sister moved out to the middle of nowhere to have room, that includes room for chickens.  I take all the blame.  When I was living in Vermont, my sister took the train up from Maryland to visit me.  Since we had grown up in the city, I thought a visit to the Chittenden County Fair would be in order during her visit.  She fell in love with a chicken.  I had to convince her that the Amtrak people weren't going to be happy with her.  She left the chicken at the fair but it was my first clue of her love for chickens. 

A few years later she moved out to 15 acres in the country and finally got her chickens.  She is fond of less commercial and rare breeds so she has chickens with feathers on their feet that look like they are wearing bedroom slippers.  She has chickens with tufts on their heads that look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, and she has little chickens and big chickens.  She also had two lovely little girls. 

My mother, having retired and deciding that she hated traffic, bought some land down the road from my sister to be close to the grandchildren.  Along with owning land, apparently comes the desire for chickens. Here are a few of my mother's chickens.   She recently hatched out 19 eggs and has a broody chicken who is working on hatching out a few  the old fashioned way.  But most importantly, is the style the chickens live in.  My mother made them a stained glass window for the hen house.

Tempted

I found myself with a few hours to spend after checking out of my hotel room and before I needed to be at the airport to check in for my flight on Saturday. Christy had left a comment that Knit 'n' Knibble would be having there end of the season sale that day -- was there any question where I should spend the hours?

As you enter the store the sock yarn is the first thing you come to.  Seeing Regia Country Colors, I had hoped to find green, white and orange to knit up Irish flag socks.  This was the closest that I found.  Having done a web search I am not sure that it exists but I bought these two skeins which seem to be the pre Taliban flag of Afghanistan.  Add in some red and you have a few other countries (Palestine, UAE, Jordan, or Western Sahara).  You can see them here.  But it would seem that no country currently has a flag that consists of green, white and black.  I did find out in my research that green and black are the colors of Islam and there is an interesting article on the new Iraqi flag.  I think it will make lovely socks.

I had never seen this cotton/wool blend sock yarn and thought I had best pick some up.  It is Socketta in blue, green, brown, yellow and white.  I will be interested in how it knits up and compares to all wool socks as it might be nice to have some lighter socks for spring.

Finally, after considerable restraint I made it past the sock yarns and to the sale yarns.  I picked up these 6 balls of Queensland Collection Aran weight yarn.  No idea what will become of it but it was on sale and so, so soft with both silk and cashmere fiber.

Additionally, I picked up a few patterns and a longer US 3 needles so that I could start the yolk of the Olympic sweater without feeling overly crowded on my 24" circular.

I went out back and met the friendliest knitters ever.  They were very welcoming and wonderful to knit with.  They said next time I come down to bring my luggage with me and someone will be able to drop me off at the airport.  Who can beat that southern hospitality?  Stop by if you find yourself in Tampa -- the cookies aren't bad either.

Finally Cast On for...

I have been putting off these socks because I needed to cast on with a provisional cast on and I don't like them much.  There must be an easier provisional cast on than the ones I try to use.  However now that I think about it -- and the first one is cast on, I could have just started toe up.  I think this would have put me at the same place as starting knitting the cuff up and then adding the foot on the provisional.  Anyway, being unable to make my notes make sense (I know I need to cast on 1extra stitch for the provisional but not wanting to work on the resulting odd number stitches) I decided to start with the foot of the sock and will work the cuff after finishing the first part.  I do hope these work as they are a grand experiment on my part.

I have been pulling balls of yarn out of this great pile and adding then into the sock. This yarn is coned singles from Green Mountain Spinney in Vermont (they are a green mill-- maybe one of the only ones in the US?)  It was dyed with Lanocet dyes under the direction of Kathryn Alexander who feels the more colors available the better.  These socks will be a multitude of color when they are done.  I have not decided yet if they should match or not.  The only direction that I received from my sock pal was "I prefer natural fibers. I'm pretty flexible on color and design.  Something fun!!"  These will definitely be fun.

Here is where I am so far -- the orange and the pink are part of the provisional cast on but I am sure that I will use the orange in the cuff.   The chocolate are left over from the bag I had to buy since there was no chocolate in my hotel room.  I had no choice then to find a drug store and buy a huge bag of peanut butter cups (some of which seem to have dumped out into my knitting bag).  Here is another view with some of the other yarns to be used (but the photo is no better).

This will be a very busy week with little time for knitting due to work obligations every evening until 9 or so.  But maybe I can show you the yarn I bought at the yarn store in Tampa.

Have you seen the new Vogue Knitting?

It has some nice knitting stuff and a book review or two and a lovely article about Ryan's Dulaan Project.  But that is about it.  Oh there is an article on lace, but on first perusal there isn't a single pattern that I want to knit.  OK, if I had to knit something there is an OK striped V neck seen here in the second row.  There are lots of skirts and dresses -- don't these end up stretching and sagging?  Oh well, they can't all be great, right?

We are all Irish on St. Patrick's Day

May St. Patrick guard you wherever
you go and guide you in whatever you
do--and may his loving protection be
a blessing to you always.

My ties to Irish heritage are somewhat circumspect.  I grew up in a household that was fiercely aware and celebrated its Scottish Heritage.  There were kilts and tartans and bag pipes.  There was the occasional Caeli dance to watch and the annual Scottish Walk with Clan Lindsay.  There was the kirkin'  (or blessing) of the tartans at the National Cathedral.  Clan motto:  Endure Fort (Endure Boldly).  Scottish -- thistle not shamrock.  This is the story of my father's people. 

My grandfather (on my mother's side) died when I was just a wee bairn of 5 months.  It was reported to me that he always talked of his Irish relatives (his was an Old Virginia family) and my grandmother was English enough to deny they existed.  This is the story I grew up believing at least.  I never gave it too much thought.  A colleague and good friend popped her head in my room one day as the work day was winding up and said "you're Irish , aren't you?"  I told her my story and she invited me to come to a meeting with her "Beer would be served".  This meeting was a planning meeting for our local St. Patrick's Celebration Parade (I'd say St Pat's Day but it is held the first weekend in March).  I joined up.

I asked my elderly grandmother (the same one who taught me to knit) to tell me about my Irish relatives, referring to her husbands kin.  She pipes up with "you mean your great great great grandmother O'Neil?"  That would be the Lords and Kings of Ireland for those of you not familiar with Irish history.  Her great grandmother was an O'Neil.  I rest my case.

travel day

I sat next to the cutest couple from Essex Junction, Vermont on the flight from DC to Tampa.  They were coming down here to visit their 2 month old great grand daughter.  They couldn't have been more pleasant seat partners.  We talked about Vermont and their family and knitting and then they were OK not talking too.  The other significant group of passengers was the baseball team from some PA college.  Their coach made them dress up to travel so it was nice to see so many bright young faces in coat and tie and they were well behaved -- I am not sure most of them were awake yet.

I got quite a bit of the second sleeve to the Olympic sweater done -- just 37 rows left before I can join the parts and begin the yolk.  I then fell into the knitting black hole as I worked on the sister sock -- I knit, and ripped and knit and ripped and tinked, somehow the heel was giving me problems.  I have pictures when I get back.  I have now finished the heel.  It was made more tollerable by listening to Cast On.

Well I an off to the conference with a bag full of knitting.

Some days are better than others

I had low expectations for this day.  Lots of work, not enough time, too many meetings.  It went much better than I expected.  I had some time free up at work that allowed me to get ready to leave for the next four days to go to Tampa.   This meant I didn't have to return to work after the city's public hearing on the budget. I didn't have to speak at the public hearing just support my colleagues who were speaking so instead of getting nervous I  instead got two hours of knitting time on my sister's sock which is now at the heel.  I was also able to make it to my twice monthly knitting group.  While there I had a chocolate chip cookie and milk, as this is my current comfort food.  All in all, a pretty good day although I still need to pack for the above mentioned trip to Tampa.  I am stalled because I am under the impression that the conference will provide ample knitting time and I don't know what knitting to take.  Since I don't know how much room my knitting will take up, I am unsure of how much space I have for clothes.  Hmm, looks like the evenings are cool I guess I need a few long sleeves.

Well after  throwing some clothes in the bag, I packed the half finished back and yarn for the front of Ronnie (although I am not sure I have the smaller needle for the beginning of the front-- or I do and it is in Olympic Boogie).  I packed the Olympic Boogie (it takes up a certain amount of room but I hope to finish it soon).  I chose ten colors of the hand dyed yarn for the socks for my Sockapaloooza pal.  I have my sister's socks and a random ball of sock yarn.  I also have the address of a yarn store just two and a half miles from my hotel and they may even serve chocolate chip cookies and milk there. 

I will be taking the computer so there may be blogging but I am unsure if I will be able to figure out something for downloading pictures so they may have to wait.  Now to call the cab for the morning and go over my list.  What was I thinking making plane reservations for 8:30 when the conference doesn't start until Tuesday night?

stashing

I often buy yarn without any real plan for it, or maybe I had a plan for it but I soon forget because I have so many projects at any one time, so it sits around in boxes and bags waiting for me to cast on with it.  Soon, something else comes along and I have completely forgotten about the previous purchase.  Additionally, yarn is one of the few things I don't mind shopping for.  I don't like shopping for clothes or appliances or house wares or electronics, the only things I don't mind shopping for are yarn and food.  While going through a hard time two years ago -- I bought yarn and yarn and more yarn.  Elann was mailing me boxes at least twice a week and often I could barely remember what was in them.  The boxes piled up and you could barely make it to the computer in the guest room as every inch was filled with boxes and bags and piles of yarn.

Last week Christine commented that I needed dog pictures.  Well, after receiving her comment I made my way to her blog and came across this. And decided this request could benefit from my abundance of yarn and I started knitting squares.

I looked around to see what blue yarn I had and sitting on top of a box of baggies of yarn was my gift for joining the Debbie Bliss club.  4 skeins of Alpaca Silk in color 04 which is a light blue.  I decided on a mitered square.  Not wanting to make a four inch swatch for what is basically a swatch I cast on a rough number of stitches based on the stated gauge of the yarn and soon had a 10 inch square forming so I frogged and cast on somewhat less and here is the square in progress:

I have finished it now and decide to start on another one.  I am fascinated how mitered squares work.  I just think they are the coolest thing (I get the same way about short row shaping as well).   I have lots of yarn.

And the winner for best supporting dog is...

I did a bit of knitting today, a few rounds on the sister sock which is starting to look lovely.  This is my first experience with Trekking XXL.  I had spent some time coveting its striping on other socks seen on blogs but had not bought any.  I had not found it for sale locally. While in a LYS buying a set of needles that I know I have somewhere but can't find and hadn't found at any other of the LYS, I came across this lone ball in color 71.  As I knit the toe, I thought "well it certainly is subtle in its striping."  But as I continued to knit it has come out quite lovely.  I need to get more of this yarn.  Here is where I am so far.

I worked on the Olympic sweater cuff after making dinner.  This is where I was yesterday and I have since finished the green details and have started adding the white in to the patterning.  While my pace has slowed considerably, I have not yet shoved this in the closet.  I do think it will be a lovely sweater.

Christine asked for a picture of the dog who has yet to make his blog debut.  So without further ado, may I present Tigger. (yes, he bounces)