Line Production

During the season of long lines, knitters may have recourse to a modest superpower unknown to Muggles, namely, sock knitting. It's a proven fact that sock knitting causes a long line to move faster, to the good of all. I've been benefiting humankind quite a bit this week. My latest line knitting is Birch Leaf Socks by Nancy Bush (in A Gathering of Lace) worked in Noro Kureyon Sock, colorway S40. (I love how the leaf motif pulls in, creating a socky décolleté edge and subtle chevron effect.) It's my December Sockdown sock.



It turns out that Kureyon Sock is very like Kureyon, except writ small. There are the same delightful color suprises, the occasional thick-n-thin soft spots, and even teeny bits of vegetable matter. (No knots so far.) The yarn is stiff in the skein, but softens when knit. I was concerned that knitting in the round might cause a single-ply sock yarn to bias, but that doesn't seem to be a problem. It's shaping to be a handsome sock.

Another spot of line knitting finished off the Country Christmas socks, which are based on a Cat Bordhi New Pathways architecture. I'm pleased with the way they turned out, although I still don't understand why the feet look so different from the legs.



Just in time for Festivus, a person unknown mounded clean snow around the poor little snowman, so he looks jaunty again. That must have been quite a feat of strength – last week's snow and ice have melted and re-frozen into a mass as hard and slick as a skating rink.

Autumn Leaves

Many of the trees roundabout Exit 151 have been late in turning, but they've made up for that by dropping their leaves all at once this weekend. In between Sisyphean leaf-raking sessions, I finally finished a pair of Embossed Leaves socks by Mona Schmidt (in IK Winter 2005, also in Favorite Socks) that was started during Socktoberfest [cough] last year.



There are mods, of course. I love a good leaf motif, so much so that I continued the leaves on the heel flap, working p2tog and ssp on the wrong side to correspond with k2tog and ssk on the right side. I didn't want to break the yarn, so the cuff has plain 1x1 ribbing and a conventional flap heel. I varied the pattern by a half drop on one sock, because knitters can. (The highly embossed pattern tends to close up, so the socks are on DIY blockers for their close ups.)



Usually I find spiral toes uncomfortable (my foot ends in a wedge, not a pencil point), plus I tend to think gathered toe stitches look unfinished, an ungainly recourse for those who don't know how to graft. But this sock has such a pretty variation on a spiral toe that I caved and used the specified toe on the first sock. Sure enough, it was a horrible fit. After consulting New Pathways, I re-knit that toe, then put a standard flat toe on the second sock for comparison purposes. We'll see if pretty can stand up with practical.



Overall, I enjoyed the pattern and the crazy marled yarn, Fortissima Colori Socka Color in colorway 2419. I plan to knit lots more – needless to add, the handsome stitch pattern would be more prominent in a solid, semi-solid, or heathered yarn.

The Bangles

An experiment: soft knit bangles inspired by Mimsie's. One was knit flat using Sirdar Harlequin, a discontinued variegated rayon tape and mohair yarn. The short edges were grafted and the long edges allowed to curl under.



The other was knit in the round using gray Rowan 4-ply, which is a fair stand-in for the original cashmere. The long edges were grafted and the resulting torus lightly stuffed with fiberfill. The fiberfill tends to clump in the knit areas and not in the purl areas, which initially made the top down view of the bangle look a bit like a gel teething bracelet.

Pictured with the bangles are a couple felted balls made from roving, which are easy to make, but tedious to make well – they form in under a minute, but require 7-10 minutes of steady rolling to look their best. Speaking of which, the light tent still needs tweaking, although I'm happy with the way the cables show up.

Overall, I'm undecided about the bangles. What do you think?


ETA: Talk about experimental – have a look at the nekkid knitted chicken that Jessica found.

Simple Pleasures

Inspired by Deborah's hat binge, I knit up a Bobble Hat Saturday while watching Godzilla Contra Mechagodzilla on Telefutura (original in Japanese, with dubbing in Spanish and random written words in English). It's worked in Kureyon 185, so I'm counting it toward Norovember.



On Sunday, I stopped at Stix-n-Stitches for [cough] more yarn – and met Deborah! It's so good to meet a fellow knitblogger IRL. She was wearing a hat, of course. (Alas, I left my digicam at home.)

I love my new hat, although it's still a bit too warm for wool (if you watched coverage of the NYC Marathon, you know that Central Park is still mostly green). But some Bike Helmet Ear Warmers would be nice on morning and evening rides.

The New Jersey General Election is tomorrow – polls are open from from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. The entire state legislature is up for election and there are four ballot questions. One of the ballot questions is so controversial, it's been tied up in court. If you're in NJ and don't know what I'm referencing, better read up and vote – the matter is far too important to be decided by motivated fringe voters.

Fear of Felting 2

Pilopoiiaphobia.* It's a manageable condition, not a problem, sez I, and here's proof: my felted backpack for Rhinebeck. At least from the outside, with Blogger Bingo, Jersey Represent!, and CROP Walk buttons.



The finishing touches involved a bit of machine sewing and a lot of hand sewing, including the interminable I-cord, which forms the decorative bottom piping, top drawstring, and straps of the backpack. I added a lining, basically a rectangle of fabric that was folded in half and seamed, folded to form a bottom, and hemmed at the top like an inside-out tote bag. Simple enough, except post factum I decided slip pockets and a top drawstring would be nice, and took it out. Many contortions followed [cough], with the result that the inside is still not ready for its close up, Mr. DeMille.

Alas, the Tagliatelli sweater will not be making an appearance at Rhinebeck or indeed any time soon. The Not Enough Yarn Banshee got the better of me – she's been chortling and reminding me about other UFOs, the biotch. Better judgment would suggest calling it quits. But I can be mulish at times. (DH would heartily agree, if he dared.)



I wonder what the clinical term for "unreasoning determination to have a new sweater for Rhinebeck" is. (Something-mania, I suppose.) At least this is intentionally a vest, Tikru's GreenDay Vest (so apropos given the last post). I'm loving the big and little cables and the weskit-y notch, and am looking forward to the Suomi finish.

Speaking of the last post, trek commented that fluorescent lighting gives her headaches. Some people may find it helpful to use "daylight" compact fluorescents (those with a color temperature of 6500 K, which mimics sunlight) or a combination of fluorescent and incandescent lighting. Or perhaps one could replace a porch light with a CF, which come in regular and yellow "bug" colors. It's not an all-or-none proposition. Environmental problems tend to accumulate by tiny increments; conversely, even small positive efforts can and do multiply into substantive improvements.

A case in point (and thinking about Rhinebeck again): another easy thing one can do to help save the planet is to make proper use of public recycling bins (home recycling is different matter). Public Works coordinators report that many people don't separate their trash when separate, clearly labeled containers are provided, which defeats their purpose. I like to think it's a matter of education and mindfulness and the formation of good habits. We'll see if Rhinebeck offers separate bins; if not, why not; and if so, whether fiber folk use them properly.


*Pilopoiiaphobia is the unreasoning fear of f-f-felting. With thanks to Fyberduck for the crafty etymology.

Not So Canny

The weekend past was intended for experiments in putting up food, but I scrapped canning after getting advice from canny knitters blogless Kelli and Kim at MY SnB. There's nothing like consulting group wisdom. Apparently only a well-regulated pressure canner will kill botulism bacteria and I don't have access to one. So I oven-dried and froze stuff instead, which is easy and safe, but not as photogenic as pints full of garden goodness.



See what I mean? These cherry tomatoes might as well be raisins. I made the mistake of drying some of them until they were crisp as potato chips. Blech. About the moistness of a prune seems to taste best. Even only partially dried, it's amazing how the former superabundance now fits neatly into a small corner of the freezer.

While the tomatoes dried, I finished Sockapalooza angel socks for D; they jumped in the mail today. They're BRIGHT, to amuse her patients. I hope they fit and D wears them in good health!



These Cedar architecture socks may be the handsomest socks I've ever made. I can't get over how the sear-your-eyeballs Fire on the Mountain colorway knit up so nicely in plain old stockinette stitch. The STR also washed beautifully – the wash water was perfectly clear (excellent dye job!). I used Soak in the limited edition A Scent for Celebration fragrance, which is pleasantly cinnamon-y.

While the socks dried, DH and I saw Elizabeth: The Golden Age. The movie owes more to fiction than history, but was cheesy fun, with able actors, sumptuous costumes, and great locations (including The Escorial and the white cliffs of Dover). The spectacle is definitely worth seeing in a theater. On the downside, the story is hackneyed, the pace is ponderous, some camera movements are annoyingly intrusive, and I spent 'way too much time over-thinking the title... which wasn't canny.

Stranded

And I don't mean knitting.

I'm traveling – scratch that, trying to get from Point A to Point B to Point C and back again, but my flight was canceled. But only after we sat on the tarmac for four hours. Now it's well past midnight and I'm at the airport with a planeload of angry people, one hapless gate agent, and three policemen. The gate agent has just announced there will be no vouchers for anything. All the airport vendors and transportation have shut down for the night. Gah.

On the bright side, before I left I had the forethought to upload photos of the Kureyon felted mug I made for Melissa, my Knit One, Tea Too swap pal. (My mobile gadgets can manage blog posts, but not photo uploads.) Here it is before f-f-felting, with a bit of crochet cotton around the top to help the rim felt evenly.



Here it is after. I love how the Kureyon felted down to look like stoneware.



The mug is a modification of Jane's brilliant felted teacup and saucer pattern. She also has patterns for a felted bowl and a felted teapot!

I'm becoming incoherent, so will respond to blog comments and email when I'm back at Point A. Hope your weekend is happy!

Excelsior Not So Much

On one of the rainy days we spent in Acadia National Park, everyone pulled on rain gear and rambled along Homans Path to gawp at damage from a rare 3.8 magnitude earthquake last October. This granite boulder had a piece sheared off (notice the fresh, lichen-free rock surface). It takes quite a bit of force to split granite.



The socks are the third pair from last year's Trek-along, which I finally finished somewhere on the road. They also got to return to Acadia Mountain and pose hanging off the second summit. As hoped, they are excellent hiking socks and I'm as delighted with their performance as their appearance.



DH and I also rented bicycles and pedaled around on the all-weather carriage roads. Originally built for John D. Rockefeller, today they're a gift to cyclists and less-able or weary hikers, as well as continuing to serve their original purpose, only these days the carriages haul all kinds of tourists, not just millionaires. (I don't understand why one guy is staring at the pasture patties instead of the scenery.)



Last year, DH and I started climbing Day Mountain, but had to turn back before reaching the top because the shades of night were falling fast our rentals needed returning. This year, DH was determined to summit. (DH is camera shy, but the Tofutsies sock dangling out of my rack trunk is not.)



Our motto was "Conquer Day Mountain!" Some lines from Excelsior by Maine author Henry Wadsworth Longfellow may have been declaimed too. But when we got to the summit, it turned out its height isn't all that impressive. Elevation 583 feet (180 m)? One sock length??? Now that's a bit embarrassing.



So we pedaled around a couple small lakes and up and down a nubble for good measure. While heading back to the rental place, we noticed that ducks really do line up.



I assume they're an aquatic paceline. Amazing.

Rockin' Girl Bloggers et al

I'm finally catching up on a passel of postponed posts. First up, I'm a Rockin' Girl Blogger, thanks to a tag from MissyJoon! Thank you, thank you, three times thank you – I shall endeavor to prove worthy of the nomination.



Roberta Ferguson started the Rockin' Girl Blogger memetag on June 18 as a way to recognize fellow girl bloggers and to counter the sneering claim that girls aren't power bloggers. In her original post and updates, Roberta tagged five others and encouraged readers – nominated or not – to do the same. There are no barriers, just the pretty pink button and the conviction that blogging matters.

I did the math [waves hands] – ten weeks later, there could easily be over 12 million of us (doncha love math?), but there would seem to be fewer than 3,400. Hm. Even given the attenuation of multiple nominations, say, if 20,000 people all nominated the mighty Yarn Harlot, there still could be a LOT more Rockin' Girl Bloggers. So I'm going to think globally and act locally – and tag the Jersey knitbloggers in MY SnB and invite others (nominated or not) to grab the badge and nominate their faves (just save the button to your own server).

My SnB meets Thursday evenings at Modern Yarn and therefore is MY SnB. All of the knitters in my SnB are pretty fabulous individually; as a group they make me LMAO on a regular basis. While the ass-reduction effect may be ephemeral (sadly), the benefits of time regularly spent with kindred spirits are beyond calculation. It's the highlight of the week for many participants. Only the bloggers are listed, but all are rockin':

Kim who blogs like Athena from the head of Zeus;

Rockin' Katie;

Dorre of the encyclopedic memory;

Eileene who is overhauling her blog (please enable comments!);

Risa and her dashcam;

and Christina and Paige who mind the store (and blogless Kristen and amazing Kristine, of course).

I trust MY SnB will propagate the pink button – indeed, more widely and [cough] more promptly than I have.

Next, here's proof of socks for Sockapalooza 4. My downstream pal stopped responding to queries back in May – I just hope her socks have arrived and they fit and she enjoys them in good health. There's a pal-specific narrative that goes with them, which I'll post if I hear from her.



I never quite know what to make of an noncommunicative secret pal – I find it a bit disquieting. However that may be, I do want to thank the true blue hostess of Sockapalooza, Alison, and the many participants who enlivened the exchange, notably Danielle, who created a great Sockapalooza 4 label. I've volunteered to knit angel socks, should the need arise, because every Sockapaloozer should get made-to-measure socks.

B Strings

The string bag is finished and it's like a monster from a B-movie. It could kick those skinny eco-fashionista bags from Exit 151 to Tokyo Bay. You should hear it roar. It easily swallowed an entire sweater's worth of yarn. (Er, when it comes to yarn, I'm not wholly immune to the power of the label.)



The bag was crocheted and knit from Aunt Lydia's Double Strand crochet cotton (two intertwined No. 10 threads, equivalent to No. 3 thread) in colorway 0443 Victory Red/Mexicana. One 300-yd (274 m) ball was exactly enough. I'm pleased with the results and want to make more, although the handle may need re-thinking. A single handle needs to be long enough so that it does not hinder stuffing the bag, whereas double handles can be short or long as desired. Hm.



That's an 18-inch volleyball, a 16-inch softball, a glove, two regulation Frisbees, and s'mores fixings poised to be bagged. The chocolate started melting, so I moved it out of the sun, but everything did fit.

For those who asked for a pattern, sorry, the bag is a chimera whose parts are already published – the base is from Meta Thompson's crocheted bag in Spin-Off Summer 2006, the sides are a mod of Judy's Turkish Stitch String Bag, and the handle is a mod of Erin's The String Bag. I like the drawstring and toggle on Amy Singer's Everlasting Bagstopper and may add them, too. There are even more patterns at Erin's String It Along KAL.

Meanwhile, the string beans are finally starting to come in – a trickle at first, soon a flood. This year I planted green and yellow varieties (the haricots jaunes are actually various shades of pale lime green). The mere notion of yellow green beans disturbs my neighbor mightily. Happily, the plants don't care about the gardening police.



My downstream Sockapalooza pal's socks are ready to jump in the mail – all will be revealed next week. Now that the TdF KAL and Sockapalooza are in the bag, I'm going to volunteer to knit socks for a 'loozer whose pal bails. Just keeping up that B string.

It's a Wash

Yesterday my DSL went out (again), so I'm back on dialup (again). I don't think it was Friday the 13th bad luck juju, more like Verizon installing FiOS in town and messing up DSL and POTS juju. ETA: Nope, that was the last time. Several hours on the phone with several help desks confirmed that this time the real problem was my anti-virus program was protecting me by shutting down all Internet activity. [Eyeroll] But an excellent package arrived from Lucy, the prize for her 100th post contest, so on balance it was a pretty good day.



Inside there was Tofutsies (made from crabs!), pretty beads and beading wire, a Chibi with elegant bent-tip needles, and yummy chocolate coins. Thank you, Lucy! One of my goals for the Summer of Socks is to knit with new-to-me yarns and Tofutsies is on my list (however did you know???).

While I totally get knitting socks, I've never quite seen the appeal of knitting washcloths – until I saw this pattern. I made mine in Jersey orange, of course.



It's easy-peasy, fun, and strangely satisfying. I'm going to treasure it forever. Find your (U.S.) state here.

Finally, and especially for new-to-the-Garden-State Bezzie, who decidedly did not have a good Friday, here's a bit of Weird NJ, a famous rebus, the South Orange south orange.



Today is open garden for a bunch of organic gardeners roundabout Exit 151 and there's a farmer's market I want to check out, so I'm off on a bike ramble. It's a gorgeous summer's day – and Happy Bastille Day to Francophiles everywhere!

Expecto Harry

In anticipation of a very Harry weekend, I transfigured my HP bookscarves into wristbands. They're a bit easier to wear in this weather than most HP finery and also less likely to provoke stares of uncomprehending hostility. Although while I was struggling to take this picture (with my digicam, photographing one's own wrist requires about as many contortions as photographing one's own feet) my neighbor actually came out on her deck to gawp. Muggles.



That wisp about my wand needle is not a corporeal Patronus, it's something from the Department of Mysteries. More on that later.



Two-thirds of participants in the bean poll favored waiting to see what the bean arch would do. Alas, gentle readers, it started rotting (DH: "See, I said you should have helped it!").



I usually plant pole beans at two-week intervals, so I had some good-sized replacements ready.



The odd thing is this year it takes a discerning eye to distinguish between the beans I planted six weeks ago, four weeks ago, and two weeks ago. Usually it's obvious. Dunno what's going on.



My humble thanks to everyone who commented on the last post. It would seem that for many people who experienced them, the 1967 Newark riots were more deeply and lastingly traumatic than even the September 11 attacks. Ground Zero almost immediately became a place of pilgrimage; 40 years later the Central Ward remains a place of fear. That in part may explain the long silence. It's no small thing to confront the painful past and break that silence.

Church Wedding with Crafting

With the addition of a simple border on the swatch, a bit of handstitching, and some [cough] calligraphy, the wedding card for my pastor was finished. The inspiration for the project was Ann Budd's Knit Your Own Greeting Cards but the intertwined trees motif was taken from the Enchanted Forest Aran Sweater (VK Fall 1992, also P701). ETA: I just noticed the pattern is called Twin Trees II in Barbara G. Walker's A Third Treasury.

The wedding service was on an auspicious date (7/7/07) and beautiful. Or perhaps I should say complete, in both the earthly and the spiritual senses. Church of the Improv was full of family, friends, and church members of all ages, races, cultures, genders. The guest preacher crafted a liturgy that allowed for laughter, tears, joy, and solemnity and that was inclusive of wedding guests unfamiliar with Christian traditions. The happy couple was radiant. In the wedding party, the women wore satin, the girls innumerable crinolines, the men and boys barongs. The soloist and string quartet were superb and the organist played the Widor Toccata "a little faster than the metronome marking." There were bubbles (more fun than rice or birdseed) and a reception in a big tent on the parsonage lawn and thoughtful favors, fans (it was hot) and flipflops (for those who wore heels).

Afterward, there were fireworks. It was the annual township display, postponed from July 4 because of the rain, but it seemed like a fitting end to a very happy day.

Vacuum Abhorred

While my telcom service was in the dark zone last week, the international space station came uncomfortably close to being lost in space, which put my computer troubles in perspective. Untroubled as I was by the vacuum of cyber-space, I finished my first Jaywalkers, modified for cycling. It was cool enough (45° F or 7° C) to want to wear them, which was nice.



I love the bright colors and similar-but-not-quite-the- same pattern repeats. The yarn is Lion Brand Magic Stripes in Jelly Bean Stripe, a hard-wearing yarn in an inspired colorway. Having cycled and also gardened in this pair, I'd like to have more Jaywalkers in Jelly Bean and in the Regatta colorway, too. Wouldncha know it, now that I've finally figured out what to do with the yarn and the pattern, Kim tells me LB is discontinuing the line. [ETA: Oops, it was blogless Nancy, not Kim!] Nuts.

Also, I finished the body of my half-hexagon shawl, but as per usual got stuck finding the right beads for the edging. I joined the Mystery Stole 3 KAL, which has 2,000+ participants and another beady pattern. Destash re-organized. The new Knitty came out and I felt deprived, but after viewing, perhaps I didn't miss too much. Deer browsed on the tomato plants (they'll recover) and a woodchuck munched the cauliflower plants down to the ground (they won't). There are more tiny pests (see the sidebar) in the vegetable patch than I've ever seen before, too.

To fulfill a promise made in a moment of weakness, I started an Alpine Knit Scarf (which is stole-sized) from Victorian Lace Today (p. 36) in Habu XS-45, 20/3 bamboo in colorway 9 lavender. I only have yarn pix (I'm still catching up), but a progress photo may be seen on the Modern Yarn blog.



The yarn is beautiful, with a lovely sheen. It's almost as slinky as rayon – in this extreme fineness, at times a bit frustrating to knit, even for an experienced knitter. The knit fabric is ethereally soft and light, with a fabulous drape and excellent next-to-skin feel. The digicam seems to like this yarn – its color looks true (it's very like the color of chive blossoms), without the radioactive flash that silk or rayon can sometimes have in pix. Now that it's turned hot (90°+ F or 32°+ C) again, it's my first choice among projects while I cower in the basement.

Flutterby

Saturday night I finished Evelyn A. Clark's Swallowtail Shawl while watching The Ten Commandments for the umpteenth time. The shawl is pictured so freshly blocked that I hadn't yet trimmed the yarn tails. She's beating her wings against the storm door despite intermittent snow showers.



Sunday morning I woke up with a headache and fever; the room, while not spinning, began listing ever more noticeably. I'll spare gentle readers what happened next. Suffice to say the shawl is dressed, but has yet to make her public début.

Swallowtail blocked to pattern measurements, small shoulder shawl size. Before blocking she was decidedly rumpled; after blocking her graceful floral motifs opened up like a butterfly from a chrysalis. I especially like the way the texture of the top edge, nupps, and bind off form a visual counterpoint to the gossamer lace.

   

Blocking also seems to have subdued the strange tensile quality of the Cherry Tree Hill Suri Alpaca while bringing out its soap bubble translucency. I'm tickled that most sets of nupps are different colors.



Today I'm feeling better and starting to plan for the Five Boro Bike Tour. (Sigh. Some years I've managed both the bike tour and MDS&W, but this year they conflict.) As long as I'm home today, I'm going to rummage through my old pix and put together a short guide to the Fiboro, the largest bicycle tour in the U.S.

S2K Short, Not Stealthy

More crafting time than initially anticipated became available, so I spun up the second S2K orphan swap skein for my nonsecret pal, Crystal. This one started life as Merino roving that was Kool-Aid dyed for the Twisted Knitters DSK-along, from my first foray into dyeing fiber. I spindle-spun it into laceweight singles. Crystal mentioned she likes beady bling, so I added beads and plied up 36 yds (33 m) to fulfill the orphan swap specs.

   

Stringing the beads was, as always, tedious. I'm inordinately pleased that my handspun singles held up well to abuse beads sliding along its entire length. I find fine singles tend to pigtail; the beads added extra weight which greatly reduced that annoyance and did not impede plying. All told, this was the fussiest spinning I've ever attempted, an interesting exercise.

Both the beady skein and the blue skein are now on their way to Crystal – I hope she enjoys them and am curious to see what she'll do with them.

Ooh, Shiny!

Happy Flash Your Stash Day! In honor of the day, here's some flash from my bead stash.



When I saw Rosemary Hill's Bauble (ooh, shiny!), I couldn't resist. Her Designs by Romi shawl pins (featured in VK Spring/Summer 2007) are so much fun that it was a no-brainer to join the Baubles and Beads group she started. I strung some a lot of beads and started baubling.



It took about 4 hours spread over a few sessions to string the approximately 1,800 beads required. Have I mentioned how much I loathe stringing beads? In between sessions, I kept the beaded strand wrapped around the usual storage system to prevent tangling. The jelly coil needle keepers that I didn't like as needle keepers worked well as bead stops.

It took about half an hour to knit, graft, and finish Bauble. The beaded strand (ditto the finished cuff) was surprisingly heavy – it was helpful to keep both yarn and fabric supported on a table. Knitting was similar to working with a novelty yarn, except heavier. It's important to leave the shortest tail possible when casting on because the beaded strand is grafted to itself at the end. I used the knotted finish rather than a crimp bead because crimp beads contain lead, which is not healthy for children and other living things.

I'm pleased with the results and now am thinking happy beady thoughts. This Bauble is an SP gift; a pearly version or a tortie and ivory (faux, of course) version would be nice. While I love its vintage style, for me the best thing about Bauble is its sheer newness. I've knit with beads before, but never quite like this. In traditional knit beadwork, the yarn and the beads are separate design elements; here, the beads are the yarn, the yarn is the beads. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," form and function. Wow. Thanks, Rosemary, for a fun, innovative design!

Incidentally, to get the infinity background in the first photo, I just draped a piece of tracing paper over a bare lightbulb to diffuse the light. The method needs a little tweaking, but seems to be a reasonable and inexpensive alternative to a lightbox. Teehee.

Host of Problems

Minnie and Risa have advised that my RSS feed has gone nuts. Thanks for the heads up – I think the fault lies with one of my image hosts. [Sigh] I've been wanting to do some blog renovation anyway. I hope the tinkering will be largely invisible, but before things improve there may temporarily be even more nuttiness for readers using aggregators or feed readers. Sorry about that – you can see what kind of "under construction" guy I have.

Meanwhile, it turned out what was left of the Yarn Harlot goody bag yarn, Patons SWS, was indeed sufficient for a small pair of mitts, with about 7 yds (6.4 m) left over.



The long color runs pretty well precluded any hope of getting a matched pair from one ball, let alone from the remainder of one ball. But I'm enjoying bluepoint mitt and collegiate mitt – they're the perfect thing for early spring.

S2K Wipeout

Seen Sunday at Jenks, Point Pleasant Beach. Notice fullsuit with hood, gloves, and booties on dude (it's cold out there!), tri-fins on board.



For those who don't know surfing, in surfer culture the best surfers are the ones having the most fun, not necessarily the most highly skilled. This dude is catching air because he is in the process of falling off his board. Wipeout! His board shot straight up and he went under (his buddies were spotting him), yet he came up smiling and eager to continue. It was a good wipeout.

Spin to Knit swap moderator Jaime Guthals confirmed that both my upstream pal in Las Vegas and my angel in Baltimore went incommunicado and are presumed dropped out, a thing that seems unfortunately... common. So Jaime organized a secret-optional consolation swap among S2K orphans. My new downstream pal is Crystal (please visit her and encourage her to GO FOR IT!!!); my new upstream pal is the mysterious Al. Both are definitely communicating [waving hi]!

For Crystal's first skein, I spindle-spun some blue Wensleydale from another beauteous Grafton Fibers batt. Like the others, it produced a delightfully marled skein. This one is 57 yds (52.5 m) of sportweight, shown with a new penny for scale. As usual, my digicam is playing the eccentric; colors are truer in the skein photo than in the batt photo.

   

I'm collecting some extras to keep the skein company, then will send it along with hopes for a good wipeout. Cowabunga!

Anguipede

Star-gazers may be familiar with Serpens Caput, the snake's head, and Serpens Cauda, the snake's tail; gamblers know about snake eyes. Thanks to Susan Lawrence, now there are snake feet (??) as well.



I love these socks, knit from Susan's clever Horcrux Socks pattern. They're a lot of fun for HP fans and lace knitters. I particularly like the S-shaped lightning bolts (Z-shaped bolts just wouldn't do!). The 3x2 ribbing at the ankle and modest gusset give the socks an excellent, no-bag fit, and the square heel looks handsomer with the strongly linear lightning bolts and ribbing than a wedge heel. I used a finer weight yarn than suggested, so added a few extra repeats to give more width and length to the sock.



Untenanted, the ribbing on the sock draws in, making the cuff and leg look a bit like pineapple-shaped shortbread. (Surely Prof. Slughorn would approve.) The yarn is Crystal Palace Panda Wool (46% bamboo, 43% wool, 11% nylon), bought at the tiny Whitney Avenue Yarn LLC store in New Haven. The new-fangled stuff knits up somewhat like cotton, with outstanding stitch definition and a bigger gauge than might be expected, yet the resulting fabric is both cushier and much lighter than cotton. This colorway, 4108 Vine Green, has marled green and sage-blue-gray strands that sometimes look solid, sometimes look stippled, and sometimes gleam slightly – an appropriately Slytherine mutability.

Taking pix of one's own feet is quite a task – I fell over more than once, as neatly as if tripped. Which leads me to leave the reader with a question: What do you suppose would happen if one tried Impedimenta on Nagini?

ETA: To view more socks, see the Horcrux Socks Flickr group. Susan is currently adapting the pattern for sockweight yarn.