Tag Archives: socks yeah!

Saturday (mostly) at Home

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Saturday, August 3, 2024

We had a rainy and gray morning today. I went out on the porch to take a video of the sound of the rain falling on the water and just at that minute a family of Canada Geese swam by. I love the sound of the rain on the water. The weather report said that it would be gray and rainy and HOT today and they were right about most of it … it sure is hot.

I had to run into town this morning to make a bank deposit and to the store to “fix” what we thought was a credit card machine problem. Last night we couldn’t print our reports. This morning, however, they printed. So, I messed with making it work on WIFI so we can move the machine around and it seems to have worked all day. Woo! Hoo!

I’ve been inside since I got home getting MY “work” done: laundry is done, banana nut muffins are baked – the bananas were getting pretty gross – and I’ve spent some time at my desk getting the store newsletter written, my calendar ready for August and catching up on some YouTube channels while I did some knitting. My friend Barbara says that there’s scientific proof that knitting lowers your blood pressure and mine’s a bit high so I wanted to knit a little bit extra today. LOL

After not getting much if any knitting done while my family was here, I’m trying to get some projects moved from the WIP column to the FO column. Today I’ve managed to move two!!!

First project finished is a pair of socks that I started in MAY! These are a gift for a special person. I used an amalgam of two patterns but the texture and most of the pattern is from The Crazy Sock Lady’s Hermione’s Everyday Socks but the toe is Yankee Knitters’ sock pattern that I have memorized. Laziness drove that mix because I don’t always have my Knit Companion/iPad close enough. The yarn is Coop Knits Sock Yeah! and I love love love this yarn. This is the second pair of socks that I’ve made with it and it’s wonderful to work with, the stitch definition is amazing and it’s so soft! I’m so happy to have these finished. I have one more pair of socks for another special person to knit before Christmas … no worries.

The second project that I finished today was the Lattice Have Pie cotton towel. This is another gift. I used some Takhi Cotton yarn and it was a fun knit. I love the towel … I changed the main color after two of the three designs and I might not do that in the future. I think I’d like the main color to remain throughout the project. I was worried that I’d run out of yarn … and I may have had I continued. It will work for drying hands and dishes. I just have to wash and dry it and it will be ready to go to its new home. This is an easy peasy pattern using slipped stitches (aka Mosaic knitting.) It looks so fancy but it’s not. Each row uses only one color.

I have two WIPs left in my knitting bag and a bunch of babies to knit for. My sister’s got a beautiful grandson and two women that I know are having babies, too. I have a couple more sweaters to make for my great-nephew Noah and for Sylvie. And as I mentioned before, one more pair of sock for a special person. So much knitting and so little time! I hope I can finish my Christmas stocking this weekend – tomorrow? – and then I have my River cowl. I’ve been plugging along on it and I’ve been enjoying the knitting. I bought some pink Remix Light and I really want to make another Lane’s Island Pullover with it. I love the one that I have. I have several other WIPs on my shelf waiting for attention … I’ll get there. No worries.

Gone knitting

PS – The sun came out this afternoon. It was a lovely day!

Hermione’s Everyday Socks and a Full Moon

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Sunday, 2/25/2024

I’m hoping that now that the full moon has passed that I can sleep a little better and a little longer. Living close to the land, we seem to go to bed and wake up with the sun. We don’t have a lot of curtains and blinds and those that we do have aren’t usually closed. So … the sunrise is at around 6:30am and we are almost always up before that. The moon last night and tonight was absolutely gorgeous, though.

I have another FO! I finished my Hermione’s Everyday Socks tonight. I stayed up late (it’s after 9pm, all!) I loved this pattern. I loved knitting a different sock pattern (but I do still adore the Yankee Knitter pattern) and I loved knitting a different heel pattern. I did make a little mistake on the first heel – I lost my rhythm for a few rows but I let it go – but the second sock has a perfect heel. I think I’m going to have to wear these socks tomorrow and see how my feet like the texture of the socks.

The first picture is the textured leg. This is a simple four round pattern that you can memorize without any issues. I promise. The heel is a slip stitch heel but the slipped stitches aren’t stacked and so there’s some extra thickness where you need it BUT it’s not as visible as the more traditional slip stitch heel flap.

A year or so ago, I realized that I had filled my sock drawer with hand knit socks. But most of my socks were patterned and there were no plain ones. (Ha! Ha! Plain! There’s nothing plain about even a solid color pair of hand knit socks.) I have now made three pairs of solid color socks for myself and two of them are in this yarn. I really like the CoopKnits Sock Yeah! yarn. It’s a 75/35 merino/nylon blend in a fingering weight. I bought this yarn in a collection when I invested in learning more about knitting with A Year of Techniques. I’ve written about it here before. It was a great investment and I loved trying yarns that I wouldn’t have easy access to here in Maine. Since the yarns all came from the UK, they were different than most that we have at MY LYS.

These socks will be a good addition to my sock drawer and I hope that I love them as much as I love the vanilla socks that I made in the light gray colorway. I’m going to cast on another pair of socks tomorrow to take with us on our travels to my nephew’s wedding this week. They’re so easy to travel with. I just have to decide which pattern I am going to try. Maybe the Crazy Sock Lady’s pattern? Not sure which one … yet!

It’s late so I’m signing off but no more knitting tonight!

Pink Mittens

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November 7, 2023

When I worked as a clinic assistant an elementary school in Florida being sick was, at least the first year, de rigueur. Not to say that I have ever been fashionable but those little ones carry a lot of germs and I got them all! So today, rather than collecting signatures to get lake funding on the local Belgrade ballot, I’m home in my studio drinking plenty of fluids and resting.

On Saturday we planted our garlic and tulips and daffodils. There was a spot in our perennial garden where we lost a hydrangea bush this year after doing everything we could think to do. When we (the royal we; my dear husband) dug the hole to put in the new bush to replace it, we found a rock. Not just a little rock, a rock big enough that we stopped digging and put the new bush in another location. It’s all good, we wanted to build out our buffer to protect the lake anyway. The semi-dug hole sat just as we’d left it for a month or so until Saturday. It’ll be really pretty in the spring!

Tulips and Daffodils planted

On Sunday I read the rest of my book. I was up super early because of the time change and brought my book out of the bedroom when I sneaked away. This is a highly unusual activity for me at any time other than bedtime so I knew something was coming on … I read into the early afternoon and then I started knitting. (The book is The Yankee Widow by Linda Lael Miller. I liked it!)

I’ve got two, make that three, projects actively on my needles. I’m working on a pair of vanilla socks using the Yankee Knitter sock pattern #29 in a light gray. I’ve had some Socks Yeah! by Coop Knits yarn all wound into cakes when I frogged another pair of socks that I didn’t like working on ages ago. When I went to NC, this was my back-up project to the pink mittens because you always have to have a back-up project. Just. In. Case. And I am grateful that I did because I got the pair of socks I was working on finished and didn’t like the yarn I had planned for the mittens which left me starting the gray socks – at least until I found a LYS in Pinehurst!

Vanilla Socks in gray
Perfect Pink Mittens
Using my tools
Success! I’m past the thumb gusset
progress to date

While the color is best in the first several photos, this is where I am this morning with my perfect pink mittens. They’re growing! The pattern is a bit fiddly because the cables are right on the “edge” of the thumb gusset increases but with a little bit of old fashioned charting, I’ve figured it out.

Paper and Pencil tool

The knitter is asked to follow a 4-round cable pattern and at the same time asked to increase every third round. Ugh! A knitter’s nightmare. I had to be consciously aware of the two directions and my brain doesn’t calculate this stuff without tools. Fortunately, we have tools. I decided this time, to write a chart for myself noting the 4-round cable pattern and the every third round increase. It worked like a charm. Sometimes a paper and pencil are just what you need.

Nancy’s Vest a couple of days ago in Manos’ Milo

I’ve worked a bit on my Nancy’s Vest, too. I’ve reached the point where I need to start some shaping and have made the first buttonhole. I think it’s too small, however, and will likely frog back two rows and start again. I’m not sure if it’s me or the method that the designer uses that makes the button hole so small. I probably should have tried it in a swatch first … but it’s only a couple of rows. I love the yarn, though, and the drape is lovely. This will be a great vest … one that I thought would be so simple and straight forward but is turning out to teach me a few lessons (yet again!)

I’ve decided to have a shelf cleaning sale on facebook and instagram to see if I can sell some of the creations that I have made and seldom worn (some I’ve never worn). Any that don’t sell will be donated to the soup kitchen or homeless shelter or our local school or PD to give out as they see fit. I can’t keep knitting if I don’t “thin the herd” so to speak. That’ll be coming soon. I hope. I’ve photographed all of the pieces but now I have to measure them and get them written up. It’s more work than I care to do today.

Gone knitting.