The shoemakers wife~the sockmakers husband

       As an old school feminist, the terms "husband and wife" leave me a little uneasy, but hey, when you are searching for a title, sometimes you have to stretch.
      But the point is still valid, even if convoluted. In this household, we are experiencing a serious sock deficit. ( insert horrified soap opera music here)
       Some winters in sunny Tennessee, just a few pairs of warm wool "home knit" (hand or machine) socks will get you through...this winter has been a frigid exception. Need---more---socks! feet are cold, socks are dirty.
        Will get on to that, as soon as I get these current spindolyn orders done, locate some more hay for the sheep and goats, find some dry firewood,etc, but in the meantime, will share some photos of socks that were kindly forwarded to me from a customer, Kay, (EarthKat) Thanks Kay for sharing!



Great job! her first Machine knit socks. The colors really move me.
She knit them using the pattern in my book Sock Options for Machine Knitters, and wrote some nice and head swelling stuff about trying other patterns and really liking the book but (blushing) I wont go in to that, other than to say it really makes me happy to think of happy feet,and inspires me to get cracking on some socks for my poor cold feet.

it’s not so bad out, if you are wearing wool..

business first…if you are waiting for an order from me, be assured it will go out first of the week. there is just simply no way that my tools can operate in temperatures below 18. even if they could, our roads are treacherous with ice and snow and I could not go out to the post office, early next week I will be all caught up with shipments.

Ok, back to the subject at hand…cold.

Notice the stance on these two? the sort of hunched over, “gee I am cold, but this is cool” sort of body language?

That is because they are wearing “fake” hats, people in my own family not wearing hand knit hats…blaspheme!

Anyway, If they were wearing a hat like mine (which you will not see a photo of me in, because I am taking these pictures, and no one ever thinks to photograph me, thank goodness.)
Anyway, if they were wearing wool…they would be much warmer.

Wool socks! wool hats! wherever you wear it, wool rocks!

Rosemary here is demonstrating how warm and toasty she looks this morning at 9 degrees.

Ok, Back to the hat, this wind bonnet with the fold forward brim is the warmest hat I have ever worn, my wool version of it is all ratty and hay encrusted and not worthy of a photograph, but here is a picture of the original pattern, worn by my friend Lucinda on her farm in Indiana. It is a machine knit wind bonnet, that appeared in “Mid Gauge Hats on CD” but I have revised it and have re-released it as a pdf on my website. (yay for me, it is the little computer tasks, like figuring out how to get digital downloads in shopping carts that really slow me down )

Anyway, Lucinda’s version is in woolease, which is, of course, not all wool, but it is better than all acrylic, and still quite warm!

Peach "sweatette" done

I finally finished this before the last visit to mom's, she loves the color and it is nice and warm but not suffocating. It was fun figuring out a way to make a button that goes with the band, and am now inspired to work on more knitted closures.

You may or may not remember that this is the "hybrid" sweater that is partly hand knit, partly knit on the LK 150, out of Peruvian highland.

Hybrid Knitting (or, how necessity names a style of knitting)

This peach bolero has been off the machine and on to the needles, off the needles and back on to the machine so many times that I decided to coin a phrase for this technique. I shall call it

....."hybrid knitting" a term for the use of both hand knitting needles and "hand knitting machine" needles in the construction of a single knitted item.

Last post I mentioned that I had picked up the neckline and the hem (of the reconstituted peach bolero) onto circular needles. So for a couple of evenings I knit along on the hem needle, making it up as I went. I didn't like it, it was too bland, and my arthritis in my forefinger is really bothering me and I don't want to waste my knitting time on something bland.

Meantime, my shoulders are cold, I have other shrugs, but I need this one, now.

Then as life has a way of doing, everything changed with a phone call, and Momma's news from her doctor visit was unexpected, so I am hustling to get the shop work done and will be gone to west tenn to be with her the first part of the week.

During the long hours of the procedure, I would like to have my knitting to hold my hand. I would like the hem to be done, so that I only have the one needle dangling and tangling around the knitting bag.

(ok, I am getting to the point here, really)

I slid the peach thing back onto the lk-150 needle bed by pushing each machine needle into the row below the current row on the hk needle. When every stitch was thusly stabbed, I removed the circular needle, ripped back the top row, threaded the carriage and commenced knitting several rows of basket weave stitch (3st x 3rows) Stopping every 3 rows to hand reform the purl blocks with the adjustable multiple latch tool, and the single latchet tool on the center purl stitch. It went pretty quick, finished it with some rows of stockinette, and took it off the machine back onto the double pointed needle for binding off.

This part is now finished, I will be able to concentrate on hand knitting the rest of the neckband in the hospital, without the dangly second needle, and hopefully it will be ready in time to show to Momma.

This is the beauty of hybrid knitting.

Peach progress

Perfecting my invisible seaming technique while working on this peach bolero. I thought I was one of those knitters who didn't like "finishing". But I am found myself actually looking forward to snatching some time to put together the panels into the sleeves, then the raglan sleeves onto the back. It is relaxing and enjoyable to run the smooth chibi in and out joining the hand knit edges to the machine knit edges, which don't really look any different from one another....only the fronts left to seam..

Well, not exactly, there will still be hand knit cable hem to attach..and the button band and neckline...I still haven't decided on them, plain or cabled? hand or machine?

rustica-cata sock

I am a dog person, so cat lives here only because I try to be compassionate and fair minded towards all creatures. She does have an uncanny knack for being right where I planned on being next....she lays on the computer desk, my spot on the couch (note Southern Exposure Seed Catalogue, one of my identifying placemarkers this time of year) and even on the needle beds of the knitting (gasp!) machines. I have found that aggravating her is the most entertaining way of removing her from where I want to place my derriere next and "draping" something upon her person is a good cat aggravating technique. Here we find exhibit "A" one sock of the rustica pair, in need of washing to settle the color repeat and soften the stiff romney wool.

I might be using cat as a sidetrack from the real issue. The chart on the sock did not turn out like I wanted..the tree rides right up into the chickens butt, and the chickens beak is snorting the evergreen. Back to the charting board.

rustica sock chart

I hear tell they are giving cold and snow after the weekend...still have some windows to put plastic on, but me and the monkey

are working on these socks for my cold feet (priorities) I'm a fixin' to put the chart in the free charts portion of my website..it is not what I would call "classic content" (a chicken and two trees) but it is for me, so....!

or the black and white version

you know...seeing it shrunk down like this make me think maybe I need to reverse the trees, like this....
yea, that's more balanced...guess blogs are good for something.

Testing the bag

got so excited about my turkeytime socks that I forgot to mention that the MK fulled bag is done..

I dropped one of those removable, compartmentalized stiff purse liners in, dropped in my camera, my palm and my knitting and took it for a test drive to Nashville the other night (a "locals only" showcase). Clubs are not my "thing" but live music is, and if you are involved in the music business, surviving an evening at a club, in order to hear good music, while aging gracefully is part of the deal.

It is always an "iffy" thing to knit in a club, as surprisingly enough it does offend some people. (jeesh! can you believe that!) I never knit while the act is on stage, only between sets, while waiting, etc, which is certainly more polite than all the loud mouth drunk chicks that talk all through the solo's...but I digress.

I am very, very happy with how this bag functions in this situation...it blobs down on your lap like a beanbag, securely and discreetly staying in place and feeding the yarn nicely!

Socks on my feet

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Yea! the turkey time yarn socks are done and were on my feet (till last night, when I spilled a glass of wine on them, which is ok, because today it is 70' out (how odd is that for december) and I wanted to wash them anyway....
So, the final update on the socks...knit on LK 150 T 1.5, with merino sock weight yarn from painted tiger in the colorway "turkey time" the pattern is the standard toe with round heel from the book"Sock Options for Machine Knitters"
Next...I need some boot weight socks, so stash diving is in the plans for this evening...

unborn socks are not a pretty thing

unborn socks are not necessarily pretty thing, This is the turkeytime, knit on the LK 150 T 1.5 with the round knit heel pattern from "Sock Options for Machine Knitters"

They are at the place of seaming and doing the ipso facto ribbing...but I keep dropping the dpn..need more coffee..

bag beginnings

"we take the time to do it right the third time"
was a favorite motto of my late friend Fuzzy. He would snort if he knew how many times I have to resorted to that quote of late, he always warned me...when you get as old as me, you will ****-up a lot, too. I would always reply "I will never get as old as you"
Jokes on me.

Yea, so all of my knitting projects these days take 3 starts to get them going in the right direction. So it is with my latest attempt at reproducing in knitting a winter bag to replace my worn out summer rattan bag...
it is just the right size and shape to hold my knitting, my camera, my palm, and still not look like I am a bag lady carrying around my attachments. The shape holds things secure.
So, the concept was to have it be felted for stiffness, but mix it with stripes of non felting yarn to give it textural interest.
First error, forgot to change the tension on the lk 150 to the larger tension to accomodate for fulling, second error, miscalculated stitch and row count (inverted them twice) because I decided at the last minute that the stripes would look cooler vertical. And third error, ran out of wool when making the handle, bottom and sides in one piece. So have to rip that out to make sure there is enough yarn for the bottom and sides, and use the acrylic for the handle.
Will the nightmare end?

springtime free chart

So I had this chart ready to post before Easter, but got busy trying to cope with the cold weather (let me tell you children, it is miserable in the shop making spindolyns because I had already taken the plastic down off of the back wall, and danged if it didn't snow(!!!) this morning!)
Anyhoo, I thought it was going to be for a sock top, but am wearing wristers alot right now for the old arthritis, and so am knitting this pattern into the wristers, instead, will post the pic when done, and hopefully have the dangling threads snipped off.
haven't gotten to that point yet, but plan on having three color on the middle rows of the chart, three color is easier for me on the machine than by hand.