Unexpected Gems

I'm a little behind on photo editing, and even further behind on posting to Flickr. Digging through photos taken over a year ago can bring some surprises. With it comes this Potato Abomination courtesy of Max.

P.S. - I know I hardly ever post anymore, but that's why they invented RSS feeds. Just forget about this blog until BAM surprise potato freaks.

Catching Up

I figured I better take the chance to get caught up on my knitting here at the blog, since we are once again between rounds. The last time I mentioned Sock Madness I believe that I had just finished Round 1. Well... we've done a bit more since then. Round 2 has come and gone, and we even did an optional round over the Easter/Passover holiday.

Round 2 was a devil of a sock, Frick n Frack by Jenny Lee. The right and left socks are as close to opposite of each other as she could manage. One is knit toe up and the other from the cuff down. The cables cross differently on the right and left sock and on top of all that difficulty they both feature an afterthought heel. The pattern had you knit a tube then open up a slit to knit in a heel. It was pretty cool and I wish I'd taken pictures of the process. Both times it made me laugh like a monster mouth opening in the sock.

The optional round was da' Treehouse by Adrienne Fong & Debi Woods is kind of an inside joke for the group. There is a thread in the forum called the Treehouse where knitters can hang out between rounds, or when they've been dropped from the competition but still want to chat. The stitches form a faux zipper (and zipper pull) and there is a decorative button flap at the top of the cuff. It was a fun knit even if the new stitches caused some of us a bit of confusion.

That gets us caught up on the Sock Madness front. Sometime in the next week they should drop the specs for the true Round 3.

Since I seem to be in sock knitting mode I actually joined up with yet another sock knitting group on Ravelry, Sock Knitters Anonymous (or SKA). Each month there is a set of challenge guide lines and you knit socks that fit into one of the categories. There is a random drawing for prizes among people who finish a pair of socks in the timeframe allowed and each pair you finish gets you another entry. I'm currently working on the second sock of my Achilles Heal for SKA's April challenge (literary theme).

I've also done some non-sock knitting this year, but this post is already getting a bit lengthy so I'll save that for another time.

Birthday Cake

One of Max's favorite things in the whole world is Birthday Cake. He has told me "Happy Birthday" out of the blue on occasion, and then asked for birthday cake. He's a funny guy.

If you want a really great birthday cake, might I suggest:
Make a Guinness chocolate cake
Make some buttercream icing
Make some cherry topping

Frost the cake with the icing and add some cherries upon serving. It is a tasty treat.

Herbing

I should be posting garden stuff, but the yard is so yuck I don't want to be out there much. Also, we seem to have another rush of ants, so that's a bit off putting. Still, the tomato plants seem to be taking off, and we're going to have a decent number of strawberries if I can remember to get some netting up to keep the birds away. I think the mild winter really helped them get established since they were planted in the fall, the strawberries that is, not the tomatoes, those are new.

I'm all about the herb gardening right now. I got several new plants to toss outside, and I think they're all doing well except the cilantro. Kind of shame that I managed to keep cilantro going all winter, but now that spring is here they are dying out. I've got few mint plants out front in the bed along side the house, bordered by concrete so that it doesn't take over the neighborhood. Looks like it's already starting to branch out and make itself at home, so that's happy. I've got another thyme plant, so that I don't fear so much when I harvest from the other plants, they've always been so tiny. I picked up a third chive plant, and some dill. Of course I've been chopping off chunks of parsley, rosemary, and oregano and chucking them over the fence because the plants are completely out of control.

Last time my mother in law was here, she wanted to grab some of the rosemary and try and grow it at her house, but it ended up left on the porch out back. I thought instead of chucking it over the fence I'd see if I could do anything with it. I've had 3 pieces of rosemary going for three weeks, but only one has started to root. I'm going to let it go another week before trying to plant it. The other two I've trimmed shorter and basically am starting over with them.

All the while I bought some basil at the supermarket for curry, but then managed to not make it until the basil was starting to turn. Since I already had the rosemary up there, I salvaged a few pieces of the basil and popped them in water on the windowsill too. After 2 weeks I have some nice roots, and I'm going to see if they will start to grow in pots. The basil has done so well that I'm keen to try some oregano too.

If these plants grow well in their pots then I may end up with some new rosemary and oregano plants to share with friends and family. That would be pretty cool, I think.

In Betweeners - 8 Bit iPhone Case

I needed something to keep my fingers busy while I wait for the next pattern in Sock Madness to come out. I have several things that I could do, but nothing that I wanted to do. Suddenly on Sunday I remembered that I had the black iPhone case hanging around waiting for a design. I dragged Jeff and Max into the stinkiest Michaels I've ever been in so that I could grab embroidery floss. A horrible fake cinnamon scent seemed to be haunting the building.

I worked on it a little bit on Sunday. Then on Monday I got right on it just after a cup of coffee. I'd managed to knit most of the goomba before Jeff left for work. I didn't get a lot of time for progress during the day, as I'm a little leery of sewing with Max climbing in and out of my lap.  When Jeff got home I was plugging away when I realized that I'd misplaced the pipe and the piranha plant wasn't going to fit. I had to pick out all of those stitches. That was a bit disheartening, and I put it aside until after Max went to bed.

Then I couldn't get sleepy. Then Max kept waking up screaming, only sleeping for 45 minutes to an hour, and then I was so close to done that I just stayed up to finish it. I didn't go to sleep until 5 in the morning, and I'm not at all sure how I am awake right now. I'm a bit of a butter finger, but other than that I'm hanging in there.

I'm extremely happy with the outcome. It's already been pressed into service, and no, you can't have it.

Dicey

I'm officially IN the Sock Madness competition this year. Our first pattern of the year was for Dicey, by Colleen Miller. (Note the pattern won't be available for the general public until the competition is over.) In general the sock was a toe up pattern with a heel flap and cables. That accurately describes what happened, but completely misses out on the fun. The trick to Dicey is that you roll dice to determine where your cables go. It's completely stupid how this made the sock so much more fun to knit than just following a prescribed list of where to cable.

My socks are warm and cushy, made from Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in the Thunderhead color. I knit them on US 1 1/2 (2.5 mm) needles and got a gauge of 8.75 sts and 12 rows per inch.

We have to knit to a certain width and length to keep things fair in the competition, so these are a little big on me. The cables draw things in enough that they aren't uncomfortably large, just not quite a snug fit. I am a little hopeful that after a trip through the washing machine they might be a little closer to my size. Regardless I will be keeping them and wearing them as much as possible. They are super cozy house socks if nothing else, and are serving me well this weekend during a cold snap.

I had two weeks to complete a pair, and was done in 7 and a half days. I didn't really buckle down and focus on finishing as fast as possible. In future rounds I will have to beat a certain number of people to progress, but this time I just had to beat the calendar. I took my time to keep from injuring myself. I know my wrist will hurt before I am done, but there is no reason to start off that way.

We had around 300 people sign up to compete this year and at the halfway mark there are only 66 who have completed their pair of socks. I'm curious how many more will come in over the next week. This weekend has seen a lot of completed 1st socks, and the 2nd does tend to go faster. I would guess that there should be near 200 people who finish, but only time will tell.

Meanwhile it is time to sit back and relax. I'm going to watch some Game of Thrones, and have a glass of wine.

Hickory Dickory Doctor

Image from Knit Picks Catalog

When Knit Picks released the colorway Time Traveler in their Felici sock yarn, I knew that I wanted it. I also knew that I needed to use it to make socks for Jeff. If someone loves Doctor Who enough to knit a scarf for ages, they are surely deserving of a modest pair of socks in similar colors, yes?

Choosing a pattern was tricky, because we didn't want to screw with the striping of the yarn, but Jeff doesn't seem to like the idea of me knitting a plain old ribbed sock for ages and ages. After looking at some pattern ideas on Ravelry, and then picking through my growing collection of pattern books we finally narrowed it down to some almost plain socks from The Knitter's Book of Socks, by Clara Parkes. The final two contenders were Hickory and Stepping Stones, and after some deliberation we settled on Hickory, designed by Jane Cochran. (I still think that Elm might have been pretty cool looking too.)

I had never used this yarn before so I actually did proper swatching, testing out different needle sizes and getting measurements before casting on. I wish I had thought to take a picture of that test swatch. The difference between the fabric knit with a 2.5 mm needle, and a 2 mm needle was dramatic. The larger needle made fabric that was loose and the stitches were uneven. When I changed to the smaller needle the stitches looked nicer and the fabric while still supple felt sturdier, which will hopefully help it stand up to the wear and tear a sock takes.

From start to finish the socks took about 3 weeks. Since I was adjusting a pattern to be larger there were some mathy bits to figure out between cast on, heel turn and toe decreases, but nothing too troubling. I did end up having to restart after knitting the cuff and a bit of the leg when I found it would end up far too big, even for Jeff. The first sock took longer since when I wanted to check the fit I would have to stop knitting and wait for Jeff to get home. [Insert funny pic of Jeff's toes poking out of unfinished sock.] With the second sock I just had to follow my notes and make it the same, so there were fewer long interruptions.

The other tricky part of this pattern was the colorway that I chose. Normally I don't worry about where the stripes fall, and if I want to make matching socks I just make sure that I start my cast on from the same place in each skein. However this time I had a few challenges. I used the cable cast-on so that I'd be able to start at the beginning of one color, and be consistent with the second sock. When I finished the heel and started to work across the top of the foot I realized that I had a choice to make. I could either have the color sequence uninterrupted on the bottom of the sock where no one would see it, and the top would skip from red to purple, or I could chop up my yarn. I decided that it was important to me that the top of the sock continue the color pattern, so I broke the yarn off and started with the red again as I knit across the top. I ended up having to chop it a second time on the first sock because there was a knot in it from manufacturing that left me missing a white section. So this is what I have left from three skeins after making the two socks.

Not much to speak of, but perhaps enough to mend the socks if/when they develop holes.

I've made further notes on my Ravelry page if anyone else is looking to modify the pattern to fit a man's foot, since the pattern is only in one lady size. If you have the pattern you should easily be able to follow my notes and get a larger sock without much trouble.

Aside from the one knot the yarn was quite pleasant to work with, and the pattern was easy to follow. It has charted and written instructions, and I didn't find any errors as I worked it.