Sockitude Part Deux- I must be nuts!

Dearest Darling Readers,
Foolishly I went to bed last night before reading my emails, and didn't think to cut off the sock requests in time.
THE ORDER DESK HAS CLOSED.
Now I have 18 people for whom I have promised to make socks. Yipes! But I WILL do it. And I will guard myself not to get a sore arm...so time will tell when this project will end.

In the meantime I am experimenting with Afterthought heels. As you may recall, these are knit last and are REPLACEABLE should the heel develop a hole, which sometimes happens even on the daintiest footsies. I wanted to make it easier to do this heel by knitting a place marker as the sock was being knit. I read somewhere about waste yarn and didn't quite know for sure if I was doing it right, so I brought my work to knitting where better more experienced knitters could hold my hand, so to speak.

Here's how this worked out. The place to make the heel is knitted with waste yarn, across half the stitches, and then PURLED back across the same waste yarn, leaving the ends dangling. Then the sock yarn is picked up again and the rest of the sock is knitted. Later or AFTERWARDS the waste yarn is unpicked and the live stitches are put on the needles to make the heel. Genius. I didn't invent this, but now I know how to do it and this will make all those future socks so much more durable.

This is my basic sock pattern, a tube with a toe, no frills, other than the use of multiple hand dyed yarns. Ultra Fussy because ends have to be knitted in as I go. I am already bored with this and will put it away and start in on the requests.
And now, your daily Dawg

OK it's finished...

A Moment of Sockitude

Recently I had to put away some new sock yarn and found I had already accumulated a good deal of sock yarn. Like this was a big surprise. Ha!

These practically match!! Shocking.

I made up my mind to knit down the stash a bit. Maybe a pair a week would make a dent. So I am back to offering socks to you at $20 a pair, because, let's face it...I have no more room in my sock drawer. I know warm woolen socks are not very Springtimey but then getting them now and then having them for the eventual need later is not a bad idea. This pair is already promised, but I am taking orders...email me.

PS. I will be in town all day today, so I will take your orders in the order received in my email. Thanks.

My Next Project

 
 
I can't leave well enough alone. But now that the gardens are looking so much better, it doesn't make sense to leave this weedy shade garden in such disarray.  Watching the show Curb Appeal on HGTV has given me ideas. I have plans for Dave and Mike. This is the area that one sees when driving up to the house. It has a certain unplanned look. I want to bring it up to the level of the rest of the house and garden. And that means starting over with a clean slate. Three trees need to go and lots of stumps and vines removed, not to mention the previous 'rustic' stone wall. The original owner used the word rustic often, referring to anything he was leaving as is. I'm thinking he was just not into garden design. Enter...Moi!
My plan includes building a much better wall along the walkway, and leveling off the remaining area so that we can have a flat spot to sit. Perhaps a water feature, a pergola or at least a trellis with clematis since this is a sunny spot for several hours each day. There is a really nice rhododendron that will be moved, and if it makes it to the new spot, great. If not, I will be replacing it with another.

It's a Small Wonderful World

I am so happy to report that Full Sails is on its way to its new home in New Mexico, purchased by the lovely and talented Susan, who just sold her home in another state, a chain of events that culminated in making the two of us very happy. As you may recall, this was a commission quilt that didn't meet the color or size requirements of the person who asked me to make it. I loved it just the way it turned out, learned my lesson (again) about doing commissions and thus endeth that part of the story. I blogged this episode and Susan began trying working out how to make it hers, and now she has. Woowoo!

A few days ago I blogged about not having a second ball of this yarn to make the second sock. A lovely and talented knitter, Deb from Ontario Canada, had a skein for me of exactly the right yarn!! I knew the blog would work this out for me. Thanks Deb. It is found here  She refused to take payment from me, but of course I have a plan...ha!

Since she was so nice I decided to pay it forward. I found this lovely and talented knitter Pomona on Ravelry and saw that she was knitting this blankie from leftover sock yarn. I have LOADS OF LEFTOVERS so I contacted her and I am sending her my scraps. making both of us happy. I get to empty SPACE in my stash, which money can not buy, plus I no longer have those scraps hanging over my head saying USE ME.

This is the work of a really lovely and talented knitter Marion from Germany. She is so amazing and productive and comes up with stuff only she can imagine. I drool at her designs. She has a blog too, and I got the translation that the internet provides, which was USELESS and didn't make much sense in English. I just wanted to know how some of her modules were made yet I dare not ask. Why? Well, she would have to tell me in English and since these are her originals, I figure her intellectual property is hers to keep.

But you know how I love mysteries, so I decided to try and deduce some of the shapes she makes. This part is truly for knitters, so the rest of you may chat amongst yourselves.

I am using a sl1, k2tog, psso for the center double decrease to produce this shape. Two stitches are lost on every row with this decrease.

On this module I used a regular k2tog decrease which is made on the center stitches. Only one stitch is lost per right side row.












One stitch per row is lost and it ends up looking like a regular mitered square with this method.

It gets more and more complicated, as the variations of decreasing are almost endless. No wonder she doesn't explain how to do them. Even in English it is difficult to understand.
This one is a single decrease at the edges (after the first and before the last stitch on the row...wha?) on the right side only and then a single decrease over the center stitches on every row. I am blathering. But isn't it amazing how many shapes can be made like this? OK I am done.

Shared Spaces: Quilted

Shared Spaces

 hand dyed cottons, fused, machine quilted, 48x36" $500 Email me

 I chose channel quilting because this design looks formal to me, like it belongs in a cool modern office or a very contemporary living room setting. I lined it in a plain cotton, and faced it rather than binding or pillowcasing it.

A Chilly Morning in Spring

Yes we get up early here. This morning it was too chilly for some of us. Dave got in my bed with the lazy pup and we had our coffee upstairs. The clock says 5:42. It is only 42 degrees and raining. Too many 42's.
I think it will take two cups of coffee to get me going today.

Back to the Studio

Shared Spaces

50.5x37" unquilted hand dyed cottons, fused

After fooling around in the garden all week, studiously avoiding even entering the studio, I was forced by the weather and guilt to get back to work inside. The piece I had started some time ago (when was this?) was still waiting patiently for me to get it on the wall and decide what had to be done.

  
Here it is in the "way before" stage. O so wimpy. Nothing there to interest me. I took a picture or two and fooled around on the computer, cropping and switching postions and finally threw in the towel and began a major deconstruction.


These parts seemed to have something but lacked focus and drama. More removing of wimpiness and then filling in the emptiness with stronger more definite shapes and values. Finally I got to this arrangement and took a picture and in the computer I could see an area (white dashes )that needed tweaking and so I changed that and was satisfied.

What a good feeling to de-wimpify this composition.



UPDATE: On the one skein of red yellow and blue sock yarn...Deb from Ontario Canada found a skein for me of exactly the right yarn!! I knew the blog would work this out for me. Thanks Deb. It is found here http://www.yarnela.com/page/page/864430.htm

I gotta ask

I recently decided to knit some new socks, in an attempt to decrease my sock yarn stash. This is Regia 4-fadig yarn, 80% wool 20% nylon, or something like that. As I almost finished my first sock and went to get the second skein, and ...NO GOTS. Wha? So I am putting out a plea. Does anyone have a skein of this stuff that they would sell me? I searched the internet, on Ravelry, and asked at my knitting group. Apparently it is no longer a current color. Who knows when I bought this, and even if it was in this country. I do remember buying yarn in Switzerland in 2007. Geesh. Am I just now knitting it? Yup. If you have it please let me know, email me.


In the meantime I am keeping my needles busy with this pair, for which I have sufficient yarn, phew!
And I have to show you my friend Ellen's Knitters-Birkenstocks. Aren't they a hoot?


It rained like crazy last night which is just what the doctor ordered. I must stay out of the garden today.
I have plenty to keep me busy indoors.

The Little Cottage Garden

Our intrepid gnomes are on an expedition, conquering new lands and surveying the vast landscapes. Meanwhile back at the

Mexican Chalet II, we have a very impoverished landscape. Sad, sad, sad. I am going to lift the remaining plants and refill this box with the most luscious potting mix and put in new plants, surrounding the hacienda. Perhaps it will entice our gnomes to return. You will note the thriving Creeping Jenny in the adjacent box, and the sedum and clematis are going great guns.
  Here it is at the beginning of last season, before I painted the casita. Even tho things grew from this point, the voles have ravished the landscape and most of this stuff is gone.

Nothing like a blank canvas to stimulate new plantings. And I also plan to do something with that mound of black dirt in the birdbath. I don't know what yet...




Aha! I have cornered the pond skimmer net thief. He doesn't give up his loot easily.