Socktoberfest progress

Pair 2 underway

It doesn't appear as if they'll match at all. The second one is taking on a variegated/stripe look.

DAMN!

I think it's called pooling when the colors swish around the sock in waves? I actually like that and was hoping for the second one to do it as well.

I grabbed up the unread weekend funnies to use as background to cut down on glare from the kitchen table. The Doonesbury cartoon tells of a new feature on their website - space offered to the Troops to voice what they think. Click on the Sandbox. Checked it out to see if it was real.

Libby's on the label, label, label?

Look under the lid, lid, lid!

Remember when the Libby's jingle went, "If [When] it says Libby's, Libby's, Libby's on the label, label, label - you will like it, like it, like it on the table, table, table."?

This critter, found attached to the inside of the lid was worth 2 free cans - so I'll keep looking for their Caterpillars in a Can, I guess?

Perhaps the level of sarcasm in my note, filled out on their "Contact us" form of the Seneca Foods website failed to convey a high enough level of customer concern.

The letter they sent along with 2 free can coupons called this their "goodwill" gesture.

Wasn't going to blog about it because now Steph will never eat peas again. But I couldn't help myself.

My "goodwill" gesture to them in this age of the blog: Sharing the news of their Goodwill with anyone who stops by. Free Advertising is priceless, no?

Comments:

RE/ Possible FAQ's not listed:

"Is the 2 inch caterpillar like worm
stuck to the top of Chicharos Sweet
Peas considered a source of fiber?"

"Does the 2 inch caterpillar like worm
stuck to the lid of Chicharos Sweet Peas
count towards the daily calorie intake?"

"Besides the gross out factor,
is my child's health in any danger since
her mom didn't see the 2 inch caterpillar
like worm stuck to the top of
Chicharos Sweet Peas until after the fact?"

You know. Because I checked with
your FAQ's first before trying
to make contact.

0  37100 04213  5
G5MJ172K 2054  4240  PEAS

As the only PEA EATER of our household, Stephani will be happy to know the following:

Thank you for your e-mail concerning the
problem you encountered with Libby Peas.
We sincerely apologize.  I will notify the
packing plant of this problem and a follow
up letter will be sent in approximately
10 days.  Once sealed, the can goes through
a thermal process of over 250 degrees for
at least 20 minutes which kills any bacteria.

Seneca Foods
Consumer Affairs

So the caterpillar was heated to 250 degrees after he swam to the top of the can, trying to get out?

YUM!

They can't figure out how the automatic color sorters, designed to remove anything not similar in color to the product, missed it. Not sure if they thought I was making it up. I can assure them this caterpillar was plump and just as green as the peas within when he was discovered.
It has since withered & dried.

Libby's collectible?

Socktoberfest - Week 1

First pair complete!


Birthday socks for my 6 year old nephew.

Called my brother long distance Monday to request he measure the boy's foot.

These socks would almost fit my 23 year old at 7 1/2" long.

(His army/guard socks - his mom is in the National Guard and 2 months pregnant. :)

Below is a Sock History Questionaire being answered by many of the 1500+ sockfest lovers:

When did you start making socks? Did you teach yourself or were you taught by a friend or relative? Class?
December 23, 2005 - grabbed up Mom's spare DPN's & dark blue skein of Red Heart yarn (too dark for her to see well enough to knit with anymore) as something to do while waiting for her at her eye doctor's appointment. Her vision is failing and I decided it was time I tried to learn how to make "Grammie Socks" as my kids call them. Mom's tried & true basic sock pattern.

She taught me mittens twenty years ago and I HATED doing the thumbs. Explaining my Blog's name when I took up with socks! Thanks to the internet, I have stretched my knitting needles to more complex sock patterns.
Designing my own now thanks to Barbara Walker books.

What was your first pair? How have they "held up" over time?
I actually started 3 pair in between the 3 lessons it took for me to "get" socks. I kept working on the parts I could figure out until my next visit with Mom. By the end of January 2006 I had 3 pair finished. First pair already has a hole in them, that's been darned - but not very well - because I discovered a nailhead sticking up in the old wooden floor of the kitchen.

What would you have done differently?
Nothing really... it's all a learning process. Even discovering Red Heart yarn will not be my first choice in sock yarn has been part of the learning curve. Still struggling to find a balance between quality sock yarn & just too darned expensive. There has to be a happy medium considering how fast I can put a hole in socks!

What yarns have you particularly enjoyed?
Still trying out yarn brands. Will not buy Red Heart yarn again for socks, having proved for myself the stuff is like teflon. So far I've knit socks form Bernat, Patons & a skein of Opal (too expensive!) although I did manage 2 pair from one skein. Once washed I can't tell much difference in the Opal & Bernat or Patons - except the cost. I do want to try Real Sock Yarn others talk about. But first I have to use up some of the stuff I stocked up on when a local LYS went out of business.

Do you like to crochet your socks? or knit them on DPNs, 2 circulars, or using the Magic Loop method?
I hate crocheting; it makes my pinky hurt! DPN's - cuff down; BOTH socks on a set of needles and knit at the same time. I know me too well and second sock syndrome will not be a problem so long as both are zipping along together.

Which kind of heel do you prefer? (flap? or short-row?)
Flap is all I know; but I still dread picking up the gusset stitches and never breathe a sigh of relief until it's done.

How many pairs have you made?
About 30, although I've lost count.

Socktoberfest - Day 1

Barbara Walker book 1 socks complete

My first Socktoberfest goal was to complete the socks I've been working on (little-by-little) since the end of July.

Before starting anything else!

Finished socks on September 25th.
(modeled by new owner Stephani)



Patterns from book 1 used:

Lace Diamond Chain (pg. 222), center stitch pattern.
Cloverleaf Eyelet Rib (pg. 170), on either side.


And now let Socktoberfest begin!

3 sock patterns were cast-on and then ripped out before settling on my new design attempt. Either the number of stitches cast-on made the sock too big or the color of yarn was too striped.

(If a yarn label calls it's color "STRIPES" or "SASSY STRIPES" there's a pretty good chance the sock will look stripy. That I hate stripes tends to make me wonder WHAT WAS I THINKING? when I bought it. Half price at a Going-Out-Of-Business-Sale made it seem like a good idea at the time?)

I've chosen the Pierced Diamond Pattern (pg. 269) from Barbara Walker's book 2.

There's a design flaw at the back, where the rounds join.
The pattern is a "Multiple of 6 stitches plus 3" and I'm thinking now the "PLUS 3" should have been left off? It's not a continuous design all the way around the sock.
It sort of looks like, I don't know: Maybe there are 3 knit stitches too many down the back!

I've decided to leave it and call it a design element instead of a mistake.

Also cast-on yesterday are a pair of Army Socks for my nephew, who turns six October 15th.

SOCKTOBERFEST 2006

Yes, another Knit-a-long!

Socktoberfest has begun and I plan to knit socks all month.
Admittedly, I feel something of a fraud, as socks are about the only thing I do knit. This month will not appear to be very much different from the last 10 before it. This blog entry reminds me the exact date of my first sock attempt was December 23, 2005... waiting for mom at her eye doctor's appointment.

I've been looking through my Barbara Walker books 1 & 2, planning to design another pair. ANOTHER PAIR, because YES I finished my almost knee-hi's using book 1! I want to get a picture of Stephani wearing them so the lacey-ness shows. Was afraid they would be too tight and resemble support hose, but she says they feel perfect.

And the 3rd Annual Letter People Project has begun. This year's two Kindergarten classes at the 14th Street School combine for a total of 41 - highest enrollment in years - plus a new teacher to get one as well. Letter M & T have been sent to school; F's are underway. Further proof I may need my head examined.

Tuned in to last week's Sunday Talk shows for just a few minutes. Long enough for "OH.MY.GOD!" to be heard through the closed door 3 times. Shouted loud enough for family members on the other side to question what the problem was. Republican Senator Frist was explaining why our country's idiot president needs to keep us safe by torture. Screw the Geneva Conventions. Screw the right to a trial, a lawyer, that whole innocent until proven otherwise thing.

And now it seems Republican's have been covering for Florida's Representative pervert, who decided he could terrorize our nation's 16 year old Pages sent to Washington to learn up close how the government works. Not well, it seems.

I can't knit nearly fast enough to make this administration go away.

Tuesday Sky under lockdown

Teenage Trouble

What our Tuesday sky looked like.

Sunday afternoon was the first indication something was up in our neighborhood. I looked out our living room window just in time to see a State Trooper drive into the yard.

As he searched our property with automatic rifle drawn, we learned there was an intensive search going on for a local 16 year old boy who grew up in the subdivision across the street.
It became a little like whispering a secret into 2 cans connected with some string - the story grew with each telling. The kid was either Superman, flying from one County to the next - alluding police at every turn or common sense was in short supply. He's lucky to be alive and damn stupid.

It would seem my cousin Leland is lucky as well. I felt bad for the kid right up until he was said to have [taken the back on an axe to my cousin's head.] Jeesh.

Yeah. He'll be living at the Mountain View Youth Center for a while.
They used to call it jail.

Speak FRIEND and enter.

In explanation of that last blog entry:
I'm trying to win a prize (again!) here.

Yes. It has some very explicit instructions, including no explaining the big ass words I tried to use correctly and in knitting related sentences. At least, explanations could not be in the same blog entry. Full details can be found there!

Also, since my entry was supposed to be knitting related, most of the other links hidden within go to knitting patterns I like. Most of which will be impossible for me to knit unless I re-learn socks from the toe-up. Which I DON'T see me trying anytime soon!

Next up will probably be the RPM socks, although I've been ProcrastiKnitting a pair of basic quicky footies from a free skein of yarn I found at the bottom of a box of yarn I was given. It's the softest stuff I've knit with in a while. The Paton's Kroy pair I just finished was the scratchiest stuff ever, but it did wash up soft - in a regular wash load!

Yeah, because I will not be hand-washing socks anytime soon, either.

And as to my quick research on this Yarn Snobbery thing.
(Meant only as tongue-in-cheek commentary, I swear! Only bloggers who claimed not to be a yarn snob were linked for the purposes of my attempt to win a prize!)

A quick search through Google found about 8,000 hits where people said YES YARN SNOB. (Or used those words together on their blog...only visited a few dozen sites!) Google found about 300 who declared NOT YARN SNOB. (Or again, used those words together on their blog.)

For myself: too poor to be much of a yarn snob! But soft, quality yarn makes a world of difference, doesn't it? Years ago I made a sweater for myself from acrylic yarn, I would suppose. It melted to itself like velcro from the inside and was never wearable. My only other attempt at knitting a sweater was twenty years ago for my oldest daughter. The neck band was so tight it about tore her head off getting it on or off. It's actually amazing she wasn't scarred for life by the thought of anything knitted by her mom.

She's okay with my socks, though!

Knitting Ent's Dilemma

Sock Knitters Lament

Not idly do LEAVES FALL. Shall this noviciate knitter of socks wish perhaps this paradigm had never come to her? Wish none of this had happened? So would all who live to see such instruction begin knitting a sock from the TOE-UP. But that is not for her to decide. All that is left to decide is what to do with the prototype given to her.

She always liked knitting socks CUFF-DOWN. Somehow it feels like going downhill. Shall she be forced to CAST this magnum opus aside for one more suited to her proficiency stratum? What is this PIQUANT they speak of? We have heard of it before. This exemplar written in secret code: A CHART! Never have we seen such days turn to weeks; weeks to month before the culmination of one doublet of socks. Baffled and befuddled by a chart, never before having knit from one. Shall she so soon attempt another?

And in her endless quest for the perfect sock template she stumbles into a new kind of war. What fiber content do you choose? Are you a flaxen thread braggart? Not a yarn snob? Would you look poorly upon those knitting from that which you deem tawdry & wretched? Perhaps like me, you choose to circumnavigate this disputation. It is not our hostility. But how can that be your decision...You're a part of this knitting world aren't you?

Whatever the determination, a new configuration must be chosen expeditiously for my first ever pair of socks...

wait for it...

HAS A HOLE IN ONE!

Every yarn must have it's moral?
Bequeath as proportionate as you anticipate to acquire. ;)
And probably time to knit along with a different DVD.

Stop the MADNESS!

"These would make great knee-hi's!"

Yes. That is the madness that came out of Stephani's mouth upon trying on her new Pomatomus.

Sara's first impression of my working Pomatomus was "They might make a good conversation piece" - causing me to keep knitting past her size 5 feet (meaning I could have been done sooner if she had showed just a bit more enthusiasm!) to the bigger size 8's of the rest of us.
Steph pulled them on her first morning home, declared them a gorgeous color and a perfect fit.
That would be when the madness fell from her mouth.

The actual madness is probably that my mind wandered off for a moment several times this week to wonder where one might add stitches to the pattern, keeping the design and yet allowing for some widening up the leg? Hmmmm........

I've slapped myself upside the head, so the wondering has stopped.
For the moment.

My 3rd felted bag is finished! I made it up as I knit along, but I'm not sure that the strap is sturdy enough. If much weight is put in I fear it will stretch long enough to drag to the ground. I knit it extra long to make up for the shrinking factor and it had the nerve to not shrink much?

I believe Steph has claimed this one for herself, as well? Although the strap design followed her suggestion of perhaps being a bit longer than the last one. So technically it was meant for her all along.

I'm finishing up my works in progress, sure but steady. By my next entry Sara's special requested Old Shale one color socks should be done. I'm just now turning the heel of the second sock, so it will catch up with the first. First sock is an inch or so down into the nothing but straight and (nearly) mindless knitting! A relief I can tell you after the K1, P1 pattern for the entire length of the pair of Pomatomus'!

I actually wound off the second skein of yarn for Sara's socks into 2 half balls so I could work on both socks at the same time. And then rewound the first ball so the color design was heading in the same direction. I may have the Knitting Sickness, but good? I'm almost ashamed to admit the number of sets of size 1 DPN's I now own. But if you have 3 pair of socks on the needles all at the same time and you continue to insist both socks of each set be started, so they might inch along together. Well you need a lot of needles. So it's a perfectly justified equipment stash enhancement?

I came across Eye Candy Friday photos recently here. Was so inspired by her Star Crust pie I went in search of star shape cookie cutters I could use for my own pie crust. Mine didn't come out quite as pretty as hers - but it was apple & it tasted good!

AND I WON AMAZING LACE CHALLENGE 5!!
Thanks to everyone who voted for me. :)

For the hell of it I may upload a recent rainbow photo - a couple of weeks old now!

Um. Ta-dah?*

Summer of Amazing Lace Socks!
Pomatomus:
FINISHED!
(Plus Saturday Skies on the coast of Maine.)

There's a month of my life I'm never getting back.
So why am I having Pomatomus withdrawal?

OMG! I should have 3 pair of these socks done for as many times as they were ripped out, started again; ripped back. Where do I begin again?

(Helpful note: when ripping out all 3 needles to tear back stitches, it would be HELPFUL if one takes NOTE of how many rows are being ripped out. Because one who can barely count rows, let alone recognize where they belong in the pattern - really needs to keep just as careful track of her UNKNITTING.)

Pattern is clearly marked

A little something for the seasoned knitter.
Daring but not exhausting.

Clearly, there were other words of warning, written right at the start of the pattern:

"somewhat vicious ... Stay alert..."

What pattern does NOT say:

Haven't knit in 15 years? THAT'S OKAY. A beginner could do this pattern!
Never read a chart before? No problem! Learn right here and now.
Had to google YARNOVER in May because you suspected you were doing it wrong? Well, you do it right now...most of the time. Right?

(Updated with less hideous picture of Pomatomus...along with my summer collection of "lace" socks. Plus ran spell checker just for the heck of it!)

Note * in subject title: Um. Ta-dah? was a subject title (still cracks me up!) of a blog I found recently - Dog Lovin' Knitter. Um. Ta-dah? deserves to be the new "Finished" standard for completed projects. Especially if outcome was uncertain right up until the end, previous skill level is admittedly lacking and you "like nothing more than a challenge (which may render me a bit unstable) to keep me off the streets." To quote a crazy chick with a goddamn hammer!!

Amazing Lace Challenge 6 entry posted here; didn't link it right on their sign-in page and now it has scrolled down several entries.

New Rule.

Let's just clear up any misunderstanding HERE and NOW:

By the time I get to the end of this sorry little tale and fully explain NEW RULE, most of you will declare this is not a new rule. It's a GIVEN. Unless you have a broken male X chromosome (they call it a Y?) you know this.

This would be understood without restating it clearly or even writing it down for all time.

Apparently not. So here it is:

If someone - for the sake of argument let's say husband or as I like to call him: Spousal Unit 2 - of 26 plus years, gets up to let the dawg in at 10:38 p.m. and the dawg takes so long to cross the living room threshold that a neighborhood BAT decides to come along inside and fly from one end of the house to the other, proceed with the following steps:

COVER Spousal Unit 1's head with the blankets. (Genetically X speaking, this would be my preferred "there's a bat in the house" position of choice.)
Get a broom and towel/trash bag for possible trapping needs.
Dispose of creature by whatever means necessary.
Let me know when it's over.

Simple. Obvious?

Instead the following incident took place: I watched 2 back-to-back episodes of The Gilmore Girls (I believe we're nearing last year's Season Finally, gearing up for the new Season Premiere) and went to bed at approximately 10 p.m. At which time I seem to have fallen into a deep and immediate R.E.M. state of sleep. I believe there was a full length feature film running through my dreams by 10:38. I know this was the time the film ended from the digital numbers in red on the nightstand that came into focus, just as someone flooded the room with overhead search lights. For all I knew in my still incoherent state these were the lights I was supposed to follow and heaven help me: I was being beaten with a broom?

Yes, Lord help me. Someone chose instead the following BAT elimination procedure:

Throw on every light in the house.
Grab a broom.
Yank every blanket off Spousal Unit 1 and shout: GET A TOWEL!

Slam the broom onto the middle of the bed. (*)
Trap BAT against ...Or very near... My arse!

I'm am not kidding nor making any of this up!

I should mention at this point the humidity factor is hovering at near 100% and I'm wearing very little. My dream movie theatre has just been evacuated for some unknown reason and Spousal Unit 2 has trapped a bat against my ass. From here on he will be known as the fool - even though it's been done here. I think I will have earned some slight copyright infringement hereafter?

Now Sara and Will had arrived home at approximately 9 pm as Prince William is leaving on Friday for his post graduate school in Minnesota. She has at least one more year of UMaine Grad school commitment left. There is most likely going to be a Time of Great Sadness for the next year of long distance relationships, but we'll deal with it as it comes. They were moving his computer desk & chair into Sara's room, rather than storing it in his family's attic. For all I knew they had settled into the living room to watch more Battlestar Galactica DVD or something. And the fool wants me to get him a towel?

William had actually left by then and Sara was aware of the BAT as it had circled down to her room multiple times. She had pulled the blankets over her head by now in the Genetically X preferred "there's a bat in the house" position of choice.

(*) She does note this morning that she knows now what my ear splitting scream will sound like should our town ever be invaded by actual hostiles.

Generation (knitting) Gap

My youngest Next Generation is feeling a little left out of the Knitting Hands 3 Generation photo moment on Sunday. She'll be home from her summer Internship with Scholastic books in a few weeks for her Senior fall semester at UMaine.

Not to be ignored nor left out, she has sent me a picture of her creative use of the idle subway knitting needles. Since the practice ball of yarn is the same size as it was when it left many months ago, I'll assume it's safe to say I have not corrupted another knitting hopeful with my wonky style of knitting?

Miss you kid :) Will be happy to have you back home for a while. Soon!!

Amazing Lace Challenge #6

Challenge #6: Unlikely Model

The last Amazing Lace Challenge of the summer has been posted:

"You’ve laced all summer. Many of you have finished. Many are on the home stretch. It is time for your lace to be seen in all its glory; to be shown off to its best effect, to be unleashed upon the world, to be modeled by…well, by the least likely model you can think of.

Your challenge — your final challenge — is to post a photo of your lace being proudly worn or displayed by the strangest, funniest, or most unlikely model you can find. Maybe your model is alive; maybe it is an inanimate object. Maybe it is human; maybe it isn’t. It just needs to be clever and unexpected."

I give to you my first ever pair of blue lace socks, humble offerings laid at the feet of Lumberjack Paul Bunyan from Bangor, Maine.

This Cinderfella could not quite get my first pair of lace socks to fit. And the base Paul stands on is out of my reach so I asked a visiting (tall) tourist type gentleman if he would place my socks at the lumberjack's feet. He did it with a grin and then got them down afterwards!
(Blue socks are at the tip of that giant looking pencil/log roller thing.)

AND I'M A CONTENDER!
Go vote for my Garden of Gladiolia's & Lace Socks from Challenge 5...won't you?
Oh, seriously! Grinning ear-to-ear just to be a finalist. But I need some votes, too!

Knitting hands

Three Generations of knitting hands

Antics with the Menagerie have put out a random contest call for photos of knitting hands. 

Not sure what they're looking for in the quest of perfect knitting hands, but pretty sure mine aren't it!  Continental style knitters are most wanted over there. I'm definitely not. We only have the action shots. If they see anything that really catches their attention, perhaps one of us will get a call back for the hands only photo shot. Yeah...okay. NOT! 

 Top picture is Mom; she explained that her mother tried to teach her to knit when she was very young, but mom is left handed and it didn't go that well. She taught herself later in life.

 Middle picture is me. I will admit to having a funky knitting style (probably) all of my own. I've decide to blame it on the fact that a left hander taught me to knit. There is NO wrapping of yarn around fingers for me...ever. I pinch yarn between finger & thumb and it runs down into my palm, where I keep it tightly held for tension. Too tight, probably. Did I mention I knit tight? ;) I let go of the working needle completely while wrapping the yarn and then I push needles with tips of fingers while completing the stitches. Middle picture is the What NOT TO DO While Knitting example, sure to be in the next Knitting for Dummies booklet. 

 I tried teaching both my daughters the basics of knitting and Sara is currently working on what she claims will be a scarf. Around 2010. 

P.S. That yarn wrapped around Sara's finger of bottom photo is her pretending she knits that way.

 I tried teaching Stephani when she was home on a break from NY once. She thought it would be really cool if she could knit on the subway. Didn't work out all that well. (I can still hear her long ago hissing pre-teen voice, "You are such a terrible teacher!" whenever I tried to teach some craft of the moment.) 

Our conclusion of the day was this: ANYONE who knits as queer as I do, has no business teaching others how to knit. They deserve to learn from a qualified instructor. (And I should do no further damage to the knitting world. ;)

I have built a great wall!

A Choka wall.

Choka: The Latest 35 Couplets

Turtle War? Wonder who won.
Just give peace a chance?

Turtle trek'd through my garden
Perhaps just to mock?

Trekking Yarn makes hiking socks
Something to knit next

Trek bikes in the Tour de France
Floyd won. Didn't he?

I'm a big fan of Star Trek
Next Generation

My favorite Floyd is Pink
Will I build a Wall?

Reagan said 'tear this wall down'
Will we build our own?

New Homeland Security
Terror alert RED

Fair and Balanced News blames me
War on Democrats

I'm doing 12-step program
Crazy politics

Watch less news.Learn to knit socks!
2 dozen pairs made

Learned to knit socks 12/05
Program working well

Pomatomus socks underway
Bang my head on wall!

How many socks does it take?
Get socks in word wall.

Not even halfway there yet
Until now that is?

What good is half of a wall?
Harder than it looks ;)

Should I go back to my socks?
Choka Wall virgin

How fast must I think couplets
Before duck awakes

Knitting socks might be faster
but I knit slow, too

Would a socks wall gain some fame
How about Red Socks :)

Baseball's red socks make men cry
Lost 5 in a row

There's NO CRYING in baseball!
Watch a Field of Dreams

Watch Kevin Costner movies
Water World is near?

What are we doing to Earth?
It's our only one.

Greenhouse gas effects us all
Unless science lies

Bury heads in desert sand
Just to steal their oil

Renewable Energy
Patriotic war?

What would John Lennon sing now?
Imagine a dream

The REAL night our music died
12-08-80

Googled John Lennon and socks
And there was a hit!

"...gonna be sellin' my socks
like Judy Garland...

...I hope that they get a good price."
More socks for the wall!

Will my wall be defeated
Submission Failure?

Are there knitters, knitting socks
Waiting for my wall

Laurie

At last! My wall is complete.
UNLESS? The Lorax. ;)

All me :) Now go write one with the word socks in it if you can. Remember it has to fit!!
Ha! Socks that fit!!! I slay me.

Treasury of Knitting Patterns

And other things

SCORE!

I had serious relinquishing issues with the library's copy of Barbara Walker's Treasury book 1.
I suspect the fine for losing a Library Interloan program book is steep - in addition to replacement costs. Well it should be. It was WRONG of me to consider even for a moment what it might cost if I ...er...lost their book. Even for a nano second. Even if I would never in a million years really do such a thing. Just reading the fine print to see how much it would cost: WRONG.

I now own used copies of Barbara Walker's Treasury of Knitting Patterns - Books 1 & 2!
I put in a bid on Ebay and then gave up. That hardcover copy of book 1 went above $36. I googled "used books" and found this Fetch search engine. I paid $15 & $17. Smug grin here.

Both came in the mail on Monday (different sellers through Amazon). Opened the packages and Book 1 was HARDCOPY! Listed as a paperback when I bought it. Seriously happy, whatever the reason! Shown with the library copy - both marked @1968. Different covers?
Book 2 cover has a little more damage than indicated in seller's description, but pages look like they've hardly ever even been opened in either book.

Happy, Happy with my Knitting Library acquisitions. Even if I can't try any of the patterns out until a couple sock projects get finished.

And another thing:
The STUPID KNITTER fairy must be watching over me. I cast on 64 stitches for my second Pomatomus sock while waiting for mom at one of two doctors appointments she needed me to take her to yesterday. Forgot the pattern print out, so sat in the second waiting room with nothing to do after 3 rows of p1, ktbl rib.

Only problem is, there was supposed to be 72 stitches cast on. The entire 10 rows have been ripped out and done over. Guess it was a good thing I didn't have the pattern with me at the doctor's office. They may have tried to have me committed when I realized the error of my ways.

I apparently can neither count, read or follow directions when I do read them. I deserve to have my knitting needles & yarn taken away, as unworthy. I will fight the one who tries it though!

Out of control

How did I end up with 3 different sock projects underway?

There were to be NO knitting UFO's in my Knitting Bucket! My pledge for finishing one knitting project before starting another was working out pretty well.

Socks were being done in pairs. Being that everyone I know has two feet and generally wear socks on both of them. At the same time. Most of us even try to match them up, although there was the trend setting kid in fifth grade who dared to be different. The Punky Phase.

Longest on the needles currently are my design-a-sock pair, using Barbara Walker's Treasury book #1. Both are growing at a good pace, but they're not exactly traveling socks. There's no knitting these while riding in the passenger seat of the Wrangler. No bumpy roads while trying to keep two 6-repeat patterns & a 16-repeat pattern in correct order.

Then I decided to try the Pomatomus while spending a day at the lake, but it turns out that's not a pattern I can take my eyes off of for even a moment, either. No traveling knitting project there at least until I've gotten used to this pattern. It's now been Unknit 4 times. Not sure what pattern I was following, but turns out my glorious lake day knitting sock only had about 8 rows of the 22 that I did that followed the actual pattern?

I'm blaming it on the CHART! Once I typed up the instructions long form and stopped looking at the chart, things went a little better. And it's not as if the long form took up much more space than the chart. I may never be a chart knitter - without translation!

On Thursday we went for a rainy day ride. Visited an elderly Aunt in Unity and then poked around used book stores and thrift shops along the way to Waterville. So I shoved a set of needles and yarn for another Old Shale 2 Yarn Socks project into a totebag. Just in case!

3 sock projects - plus a felted bag that just needs half again as much strap as I've managed. Ran out of yarn with so little left to do and had to buy another skein. Really need to finish that before starting anything else!!

It's 2-weeks of vacation time now so there's been a little traveling. Price of gas is a crock; oil companies just make stuff up since the hurricane season is taking it easy this year.
Goddess help us when one does hit. ;)

Reading Da Vinci Code - a must read for women in defense of the Sacred Feminine. I have to say it's reading very believable and the religious call to boycott it sort of proves his point the Church will do anything to retain their male dominated control of power?

And did you know that our knitting goddess of patterns wrote feminist books as well? I just got Barbara Walker's book, Feminist Fairy Tales through the library interloan project!

Amazing Lace Challenge # 5

Where's Waldo?

The next Challenge for the Amazing Lace is posted:

"In honor of that slightly crazed I see lace everywhere mental state that'’s a symptom of obsessive lace knitting, your challenge is to post one photo on your blog in which your lace is a hidden or unexpected part of the picture."

Can you find all of Waldo's Lace Socks?
(5 pair finished since Memorial Day!)

For the longest time I could not stand to look at a Gladiolia. My only sister was killed by a drunk driver in July of 1983 and Glad's must have been the funeral florist's flower of choice; it seemed as if they were everywhere.

I hated them.

Several years ago I put a rock garden out beyond my kitchen window. An angel was placed on a stone bench next to a sun dial type arrangement of rocks.

And then I made peace with the humble Gladiolia.

When I dug up the ground for my new vegetable garden there were a lot of rocks! Big, heavy rocks just crying out to be important enough for their own garden space. The idea was this was to be an asparagus patch and the flowers would pretty it up. The asparagus were a miserable failure . . . but look at my pretty flowers!

The blue ones are quite exceptional this year, don't you think?

Sunday Sky

Attempting my first Pomatomus!

On Sunday I got up at 2 a.m. to put on a pot of coffee. The plan for the day was to wake up and get on the road for a two and a half hour drive to the lake where mom & dad were camping. It was to be their last day on Seboomook Lake and if we wanted to get there before they packed it up and left early, we needed to get started really early ourselves.

We were on the road by 3:30 a.m. and got there at 6. Just in time for a breakfast of bacon & eggs, which was already cooking.

This was to be a sit in the sun at the side of the lake day and knit. While the men went off fishing Mom and I would take a walk or two along the causeway and then sit and knit some more. She worked on a Grammie Sock and I decided to attempt the Pomatomus.

That's right. I have no clue how to read a knitting chart, but this pattern (written only in chart form) . . . This is the one I decide to try. I didn't want to take the library's copy of the Treasury of Knitting Patterns on the road so I loaded my totebag with 2 sets of different sized needles and a couple of sock patterns I've been wanting to try. (Printed out from Knitty.) I figured I would probably just start another pair of Old Shale socks because I can do them without the pattern and even traveling down bumpy roads. (5 pair completed since Memorial Day!) But I packed to cover several choices rather than decide ahead of time.

It was COLD. If you can believe it!

I cast on and did the 10 rows of Knit 1, Purl 1 rib wearing Dad's THICK flannel lined jacket. Sleeves rolled up so the needles would stop getting hung up on the cuffs. The wind was coming in off the lake and it was freezing until after 10 in the morning. By the time the winter coat came off I was ready to try to interpret a knitting chart. I wrote out each line of the chart in long form and painstakingly went from line to line.

Thankfully mom had a clue what to do when the very first sentence said to [YO, k2tog, (p1, k1 tbl) five times] WHICH PART happens five times? She concluded it was the (p1, k1 tbl) part that repeats 5 times. But she had no idea what tbl meant. Luckily I had consulted Knitty's definition section and knew it was THE BACK LOOP. Whatever that meant as I had never actually tried it. Until now.

Let me just say knitting in the back loop did not come easily at first! Some of my Yarn Overs may have been a little too long. But by the time the guys got back with a few fish and it was time to pack it in I had completed 2 inches of my first Pomatomus!

Mom nearly finished an entire Grammie Sock. Only about 2 inches left to do.

NOTE: Sunrise photo is over Moosehead Lake. Mt Kineo on the right, taken from the road on the way to King's High Landing. Which is where the traveling sock photo is gazing out over.

UPDATE: I'm stuck on my Pomatomus so have posted this in designer's comment section of her blog. If anyone happens by that can help me out, I would be ever so grateful!
I need a support group for my Pomatomus.

Row 12 of the first 1-22 repeat ends in a YO? How do you YO on the end of a row?

There's an * that says to move stitches around on the needles but I'm not sure when?

UPDATE 2: I'll be starting over now. The knit in the back loop instruction actually started with the very first stitch of the Ribbing. NOT 10 rows later as I did the cuff.

What CAN be fixed MUST be fixed. More UNknitting ahead.
I believe it's back to the drawing board with my Sunday creation by the lake. Most of it being wrong.

At least one of my faithful readers will now utter phrase, "You're such a... ?" in that tone of voice.

Mixed & Random

SHAKE WELL!

I found the Barbara Walker 1st Treasury of Patterns book. So I'm pretending I might be able to design holy socks. Socks with lace holes. Holes on purpose!

I'm trying the Diamond Lace Chain with a Cloverleaf Eyelet Rib on either side. Sara thinks it needs to be put down so the Yikes yellow socks get finished first. Silly child doesn't understand the difference between "I'm working on them" and UFO. Not sure how long an item has to go untouched before it qualifies as a UFO but these are WIP - work in progress baby!

A SUNDAY SKY IN MAINE!
Mt. Katahdin

And that plant in the sugar bowl? Meet Dolly Dimples.
In May, this african violet came cross-country from California to Maine in a box. I've craved owning this variety for 2 years, since I first saw a black & white picture of her sitting in an antique sugar bowl, in a very old AV book A wonderful lady sent it to me and I want her to do well. Her outer leaves are looking a little peckish, so if anyone from the forums I've asked for help stop by with advice. PLEASE! Leave a comment. :)

The Pine Tree Quilters Guild newsletter I volunteer to edit 6 times a year is nearly done; 28 pages this issue and the reason not much knitting has taken place for the last couple of days. Deadline! Waiting on one last item before I can pronounce it done.

Some progress has been made on the Plant Pot Cozy Socks.

One grew by three inches waiting for VIP to adjust the headlight on the Wrangler. Thought while the fool and I had traded jeeps for the day I could have a spare key made. Perhaps have a CD player installed - because the cassette radio sucks! And have the headlight that points straight down in the dark ...Fixed.

Another one of those things repaired by the Spousal Unit.
6 months ago: headlight is crooked, son!

No CD player because VIP took forever with the headlight. My appointment was for 11 am.
So at 1 pm - when a dozen others had come and gone - I thought perhaps I might see where I was in their rotation. I'm next? Yeah, sure! Another 15 minutes went by before I said give me my key back and I'll just go.

NO REALLY... YOU'RE NEXT! I stayed.
It cost way too much, so we won't speak of it again. Light's fixed.

The HOME DEPOT incident.

I have a new kitchen stove! Finally.

The deal was: Tom splurges on a plane ticket to Florida to visit his brother and I stay home. I spend the money my ticket would have cost to replace the 22 year old electric range. Yes. This would make me happy. DEAL!

Should probably admit it's a bit of a FALSE DEAL, as I will never fly and the only way I might suffer death by aircraft is when one falls on me. What with our house being under a direct flight path to Bangor International Airport, this can not be ruled out.

Except the bargain was struck a couple of years ago and there have been 2 flights to Florida now. And then things kept coming up that pushed my desire for a new stove to the back shelf. Like college tuition payments, broken septic system, worn out Jeep pickup replaced by a loan for a Wrangler. (Which I LOVE driving. Every other Wrangler driver waves to each other as they pass in the street. It seems to be an actual rule that every Wrangler driver knows.)

But, you know? More important things than replacing a crappy stove that still works.

ENOUGH. Off to Home Depot I go on the last day of their recent 10% off sale on ALL Appliances. Yes. I would have my new stove. This day. Screw the list of things trying to push my new appliance to the back of the line again.

Of course there were none in stock. No problem. I can wait a little longer. It took about a week and a half before the call to came to pick it up. The "free shipping" actually costs $60 and they rebate only $55 of it in 6-8 weeks. No thanks! Dad has a truck.

Dad also has a golf match, but says to take the truck and go get it yourself if you want. I want. Mom tags along for the ride.

So we wait. And wait. For someone from Appliances to fetch my new appliance. Finally out strolls a tall skinny man of retirement age pulling a trolley with a very large box marked RANGE. (And a number of other foreign words, which causes me to reflect that once again I have unthinkingly purchased a GE appliance, probably made in a third world country. By slave labor. I'm sorry. But not sorry enough to send it back and search for American made. If there is such a thing any more?)

For the record: The first words out of my mouth to the tall skinny man of retirement age pulling a trolley with a very large box marked RANGE was, "You ARE going to get some help?"

I think he may have said something like "I'll see" as I lead the way to dad's very tall truck. The next thing I knew the tall skinny man of retirement age pretends he's Superman and can lift really heavy stoves over his head.

All by himself.

As the trolley rolls and the box lists to the left I THROW MYSELF under the really heavy box to prevent it from hitting the ground. Too hard. One corner kind of clunks to the ground with a thud. I am NOT a happy shopper of appliances this day! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? I thought job safety was number one with this company. I've seen them wearing back braces for lifting watering the freaking plants for crying out loud.

Young buff man (who could have been hiding an S under his street clothes) witnesses the near destruction of my precious cargo. Talking on a cell phone, he tells his party to hold on a minute and helps put the box in the truck. He probably could have done it himself. I thanked him as he returned to his conversation about too much drama last weekend. Tall skinny man of retirement age assures me stove should be fine; just bring it back if there's a problem. Drama is not the half of it, if when I get home there is even one scratch on this sucker.

It's been two days now cooking on my wonderful new appliance. I think I've cooled off enough to have a little conversation about lifting/job safety with the manager now.

Oh, for goodness sakes...

CALL A PLUMBER!

I should start by pointing out that our house was built in 1951 or there abouts and many of it's working parts are originals. As soon as one thing gets replaced another is waiting in line to go downhill next. The fates are generally kind enough to spread things out and not to let everything go bad at once. We cope.

The water pressure had been a bit wonky for a few days. This usually means the lines need to be opened on the water pump and flushed clean.

I'm not sure what inspired the builders of this old house to drive the Water Well into a small hole at the far end of the basement. Inside the basement. Flooding during any rainy spell has been pretty consistent. It can be controlled with the sump pump. Usually.

When it's plugged in.

So when Spousal Unit declares we probably need a plumber I should know by now to call one. Immediately. Before he has time to take things apart, pretending a new occupation.

He is NOT a plumber.

7 pm on a Thursday night is not a good time to realize the fool has been missing for an hour or two and I have no idea what he's up to. A little like a toddler that's been quiet for way too long. It's not going to be good.

It wasn't.

"I'm fucked. There's water everywhere...(unintelligible utterings) ...well...broken..."

Yeah, not good.

Thank goodness we have wonderful neighbors. I bolt across street - speak to the wife, who opens door and yells: "Tom's in trouble." (again is left unsaid. It doesn't need to be ;)

Several hours later and a trip to town for more parts and all is back to normal. A new shut off valve has been installed at the source. Perhaps the cause for all the rainy-season flooding has been found, as there was a hole worn in the pipe going into the well big enough to fit a drinking straw through.

I picked up the phone and called across the street to thank them.

And to ask Marcia for joint custody of her husband.

When they first moved across the street (about 16 years ago) before a week was out, she had convinced me to babysit her boys: an 8 month old & a 4 year old. They also had a dog - part husky/shepard. It got in the habit of coming across with the boys; whenever the boys were here so was the dog. Eventually the boys grew up and stopped coming over. But not the dog :)

I got shared custody of their dog for most it's life, as she was left outside when nobody was home there. Whenever there was bad weather she knew that all she had to do was whine at my door to come in. Safe Haven. Often I would walk her home so she would remember where she really lived. Other times they would call and ask us to let their dog out, so they could call her home.

About the joint custody request: Marcia has agreed.
And she promises not to call and ask that he be let out.

A Super-Hero Day

Having a 5 year old nephew exhausts keeps me young. My brother lives an hour away so I don't get to see my boy more than a few times a month. Sunday Dinner or the occasional Kyle Day. Kyle Days with Aunt Laudie start at 7:45 am and last until well after 5 pm. By 2 pm I'm generally reminded how happy relieved I am that I get to spoil him rotten with adoring aunt-like attention he deserves . . . And then give him back!

Our latest day together thankfully landed on a day the sun decided to shine, allowing us to go outside and play. One of the many toys (most of them pink!) left over from the days when his cousins were young is a Pink Wand. Originally designed to spew velcro-backed Gems to the hair of a Princess (Gem?) Doll, it has now transformed itself into a magic wand to fight evil Shadow Villains. The villains our Super-Hero fought this day all lived in the Shadows and we Super Hero's lived only in the Sun.

So we ran from shade tree to shade tree slaying the bad guys.
Followed by Super-Dog sidekick and digital camera toting blogger/aunt. (I was told NO photo allowed on the swing but our hero relented with "Just one" when told how sad it would make Steph if she couldn't see pictures from home.

Yeah, playing the Steph card works every time and I'm not ashamed to use it!!

As a mom with two daughters 21 & 23, I fully understand the hard part is over. They are now wonderful additions to Womankind and I'm pretty proud to have had a hand in how they turned out!

And as for Sunday dinner at Gram's, it's a tradition my mother holds onto fiercely.
She cooks. We should come eat it. This has never been a problem:
A) I don't have to cook.
B) When the girls were little, they got to visit their Grandparents.
C) Their Dad gets the house to himself for a little while.

Sunday Lunch at Gram's has always worked out well.
A) being the overwhelming number-one reason I see for going . . . But there you go.

Lunch is pretty much always followed by a hard fought game of Scrabble.
Oldest daughter Sara tends to win the most these days, what with 4 years of high school Latin & a Chemical Engineering degree (suma cum laude, thank you very much! Currently working on the UMaine ethanol Research project to help save the world :) She's a self-confessed cut throat Scrabble player. (Consults with the official dictionary a little too often, if we don't keep our eye on her.)

Recent game:
Having just given away the fact that my 4 letters that were left spelled GETS - as in the person who goes out GETS a one-hundred point bonus! - she offered a little help. (I would be known for often trying to make up Laurie Rules to increase my score, but they never seem to go for it?) Sara not only pointed out a word I could make but where to put it in order to go out.
She confessed afterwards her help was based entirely on the desire to keep her Grandmother from having one last turn and possibly getting enough points to go ahead in the game. I told her she was going to hell for this latest and most extreme cut throat behavior.
Her grandmother didn't hear this confession, but what with our rolling on the floor laughing our asses off, explanations were due. The truth is out!

Steph is off following her dream to be writer/editor, Interning with Scholastic Books this summer in NY. This blog actually is (mostly) about keeping in touch with my youngest kid while she's away- so we call it the Mom Blog. She pointed out in a recent comment that to actually qualify as a Mom Blog (by her new Scholastic standards) I need to post embarrassing pictures of my children as tots and describe outrageous comments they may have made in public.

I could point out that most embarrassing or outrageous moments would have been Steph's doing as a child! She'll be back home for a last year of college at UMaine in the fall.
(And to help kick butt at Scrabble as well :)

Amazing Lace Challenge 4

Are there points for being first? ;)
Double duty photo op!!

I knit this cuff up Sunday afternoon so I could enter it in the MSN Group Violet Voice virtual African Violet Show.

My actual entry shows the cuff holding a plant pot with a single leaf of the AV variety Rob's Argyle Socks rooting. (Some day mine might look like that, but for now it's one leaf trying very hard to reproduce!)

Since the sock is in it's early stage, as is the rooting leaf, I titled my entry: Propagating Socks!

And now the next Amazing Lace challenge has been posted:

Challenge #4:
Is your camera feeling abandoned, neglected, and ignored after the poetry challenge? Do you find bad pictures of yourself showing up all over the internet and wonder how they got there? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, Challenge #4 has just the answer. Get ready to take some photos!

Your question: If you bound off your lace RIGHT NOW - what could it be used for?

Your challenge: One photo of your lace in a reasonable approximation of its potential use at this very moment posted to your blog (or photohosting account) by midnight EDT (UTC -4:00), July 16. Post a comment on this entry with the link to officially enter.

Behold the Plant Pot Cozy!

I'm willing to buy another set of DPN's and sacrifice these as an artistic statement. Plant pictured is officially named a Persian Prince.
(The plant pot is making a lovely lace blocking tool!)

I'm NOT willing so much to rip them out/bind off the tiny little stitches.
Besides, Sara has already called dibs on this, my 5th pair of Amazing Lace Socks!
(Started before the 4th are quite finished, but there were photographic challenges to be met!!)