Taking Sock Stock

Behold the Singleton Socks of Shame on this surprisingly mild New Year's Eve. Don't they look uncrowded compared with years past (year end 2010, 2009, 2008)!

Left to right: Meadowlands, Scar, Fawkes, Julesokker, Love Me Knot, Clouds, Chain Link.

During a year that included freak storms, severe drought, flooding, and fires, freak earthquakes and tsunami, the ravages of pox, considerable local and global micro- and macroeconomic instability, frequent destructive gridlock in U.S. politics, the rise of grassroots movements and the decline of AstroTurfed ones, some major anniversaries, and even a failed Judgment Day or two, somehow three singleton socks came down, zero went up for a total of seven on the clothesline at year end. It's been a record year.

So for the record, three fibery highlights from 2011:

§ I knit my first pair of socks from my own handspun, Supporter's Socks by Linda Pankhurst, the qualifying pattern for Sock Madness V. I was promptly eliminated, and (surprise) didn't really mind.



§ My little DIPper pattern Summer Spirals was one of the selected patterns for Summer of Socks 2011. The sample sock is a singleton in the photo, but (happily) it didn't stay that way.



It was deeply rewarding to write and submit the pattern and to serve as the authorial resource to the KAL. And I gotta admit the Ravelry badge is pretty nifty.



§ During the month-long Free Up Your Needles knit-along I finished eight pairs of socks in progress, enough to fill a small drawer, and indeed freed up a lotta needles.

Top row: carbon footprint, traffic cone orange cycling socks, blue Green Merino Socks (a former Sock of Shame), happy Horcrux Socks for Molly. Bottom row: Summer Spirals, Meadowlands Socks (another former Sock of Shame), Tokena, Snow Queen (yet anther former Sock of Shame).

For all that fiber happiness, I confess I'm ready for 2011 to recede into history. So best wishes for a Happy New Year to all, and see you on the other side.

Churn a Square

Santa's workshop, casa Jersey Knitter location, is churning out Turn A Square hats! This batch is non-striped, which seems to be better-received than the Noro-striped original style, at least by many non-knitters roundabout Exit 151. I'm surprised, but compliant.

      

So much busyness calls for a festive new box bag... to hold still more small projects. I was a little out of it when I bought this fabric, thinking only, "Ooh! Socks!" The recognition they're Christmas stockings came later. Ah. I was a little out of it making the bag, too. I didn't fussy cut the fabric, but the print aligned along the zipper rather nicely anyway.



Meanwhile, I'm searching for a replacement for my trusty old Tupperware pastry rolling sheet, which after years of faithful service is finally showing excessive wear. I've been considering this one. Although it's been so long since I was in the market, I'm suffering sticker shock. But Santa's workshop must work on!

Small Things

Three weeks after the freak Halloween snowstorm and some 60 leaf bags later, things are finally more or less back to normal at casa Jersey Knitter. The giant brushy debris piles are picked up, the hanging branches are chopped down, and the Great Wall o' Leaf Bags was whisked away. Now there's just the usual fall clean up to manage. I'm very thankful for that – by contrast, I hear some of my neighbors have been indulging in rather un-thankful screaming fits at township employees and utility workers. Yeesh.

Were I the screaming type, what would make me want to scream in terror and frustration is the concern that extreme weather events are the new normal (terror!), yet various vested interests have blocked implementation of climate-adaptive policies and programs (frustration!). Roundabout Exit 151 the most casual of gardeners knows what many lawmakers deny – the frost-free dates are rolling back, it's hotter, rainier, windier, buggier, and snowier – global warming is real.

Which leaves me grateful for small things. The last time I was in Portland, I spotted a VAWT, or egg beater style wind turbine on the waterfront. I'd read about them but had never seen one. This one was, as advertised, quiet – quieter than the ambient noise of the wind, passing pedestrians, and mewling gulls – which raises my hopes for small scale and even residential applications. I took a short video of it, turning the camera because it's tall, forgetting that for videos orientation is more important and harder to correct than for still images. Oops.



After some tweaking, that's all fixed – plus there's a title and modest special effects.



Wonderful to relate, there are wind installations in the U.S. that at times generate so much power it becomes necessary to completely shut down fossil fuel plants and steeply cut back on nuclear power generation to prevent damage to the grid. Power storage rather than power generation is the issue – happily, innovative solutions are available. Why is this not being talked about more?

However that may be, I have another pair of carbon footprint socks to show off. These are mansocks, Father & Son Socks by Mona Schmidt, worked in Opal solid and sized for me. Although the fancy stitchwork shows well to the human eye, it's a challenge to capture it in a photo.



It'll be interesting to see the patterns these socks impress into my feet, one more small thing for which I'm grateful.

Something Wicked

By the pricking of my thumbs
The weather took a wild turn this week and a winter storm with snow! in October! is forecast for tomorrow. We could have a white Halloween roundabout Exit 151 – all part of living in the Anthropocene. I like to be prepared for French toast emergencies, so began knitting Turn A Square hats, because in my world the journey from Shakespeare to Halloween to severe weather to food to knitting is a short one. Here's the first one done.



It's not for him, but DH could not forbear to grumble, "It's girly." I beg to differ. This is girly.



It's an old Six Sox Knit-along pattern, Amble, worked in Forbidden Woolery Footloose, colorway Cherry Blossom Festival.



I wanted a gansey sock for October Sockdown, something light-colored to show off the stitch work. Having used Footloose before, I knew it would have good stitch definition – I'm very pleased so far.

Apropos

Over the weekend while I was hauling out another (!) FO or Go project for the Free Up Your Needles knit-along, I noticed the NY Times review of the new Mark Morris ballet "Renard" (and an article about the troubled Folk Art Museum). The worlds of dance and knitting may seem disparate, yet the photo seemed strangely spot on. Perhaps it's emblematic that the dancer's left hand extends beyond the frame of the photo.



Some in the knit-along have expressed concern that not all UFOs are real. Erm, there is so much that might be said on the topic... but I'll content myself with taking proof of SIP pix. Better yet, I now have two, count 'em, two pairs of sample socks to show off, Meadowlands and Summer Spirals.

   

Curiously, over the lapse of time between the first Meadowlands sock (August 2007) and the second (August 2011), my gauge seems to have become ever-so-slightly different. Stitch gauge is very slightly bigger; row gauge is very slightly smaller. The cumulative impact became noticeable at the toe of the sock – both feet were knit to the same place in the stitch pattern, yet the first sock has a round toe and the second sock needed a longer wedge toe to fit. Could it be that my knitting is changing similarly to my body, becoming ::cough:: rounder and shorter over time? Ayah.

Another thing I've noticed thanks to the knit-along is many participants have fewer UFOs yet a lot more project bags than I do. What has been seen cannot be unseen – I simply do not have enough project bags, I know that now. When the KAL is over, I'm going to address the imbalance in the ratio of UFOs to project bags and stitch some up. Which means I'm looking at fabric now. I think I've found something suitable.

Sigh

Yesterday's monsoonal rains set records around the region and caused some flooding, so everyone stayed indoors at mi casa. I knitknitknitknit on UFO socks. Even the grayest skies couldn't dampen the brilliant blue of my Green Merino Socks.



Alas, as the day wore, everyone began getting on each other's nerves. By the time I finished these modified Horcrux Socks for Molly, there was as much lightning inside the house as up in the sky or on the socks!



It may be that more than one person was thinking about how Horcruxes are made; happily, murder is not required to make Horcrux Socks.

We Are Not Alone

Usually after a bout of speed knitting I lose interest in knitting for a while, a classic rebound effect. Not so this time – right now I have an unaccountable desire to knitknitknitknit. Even more surprising, I've been surveying the numerous UFOs buzzing around Exit 151 with a stern eye. It's FO or go time at casa Jersey Knitter!

The first UFO revived from hibernation was Running with Scissors by Phyll Lagerman, last seen as a partial leg in April 2009. I turned the heel, tried it on, discovered it is 'way too tight (how had I not noticed before?), and sent it to the frog pond. I still love the pattern and plan to knit it later, probably in a different yarn. From bitter experience I know this yarn f-f-felts very readily, perhaps not the best of attributes for socks.



Next up, Green Merino Socks by Tuulia Salmela, which progressed rapidly to singleton stage in November 2008 but subsequently has been a fixture on the annual Socks of Shame lineup. After a bit of knitting, it became apparent the second sock was knitting up at a significantly different gauge than the first – a hazard for any second sock, but especially as the time elapsed between socks increases. This iteration of the second sock is off to the frog pond, and I'll try again for a closer gauge match with the first sock.



Finally, my traffic cone orange cycling socks, which have been languishing as a singleton since May, need languish no more. The second sock is done!



There's no telling how long this knitting jag will last, but I'm going with the flow. By happy coincidence (???) the unofficial SKA August knit-along is to finish UFOs. Judging from the ample photographic evidence in the KAL thread, it would seem there are UFOs and Second Sock Syndrome sufferers everywhere. We are not alone!

Crochety

I'm back from a somewhat draining conference. The speakers were excellent and the other attendees congenial, but I'm really tired and crabby. At least during the plenary sessions I managed to do a bit of crocheting in public and thus have something to show off to gentle readers, a bunch of whimisical Slippah Luggage Tags.



My luggage looked pretty much like everybody else's until I added a pair of Slippahs. I thought about making the cord maybe 20% longer than specified in the pattern, but will see how these hold up. They're so quick, easy, and thrifty – these are bits of Sugar 'n Cream left over from divers washcloths – that it's no trouble to make more impossible to make just one pair.



There, I feel better now.

Scofflaw Socks

One of my aunts is an avid royals watcher; me, not so much. Alas, neither of us received an invitation to this Friday's wedding of the century (a phrase that makes her sigh and me gag). I briefly thought about knitting her some corgi slippers to mark the day, but no. At least I have newly finished handspun socks in colorway Royal Platypus, modeled on my pasty spring legs with some pale spring flowers – the New Jersey state flower, wild violets.



I'm inordinately pleased with these socks, which are mine from spun fiber to FO (as much of the process I want to own, at least for now) and with the way the pix capture the richly saturated figgy colors of the Into the Whirled BFL.



The excellent sock pattern, Supporter's Socks by Linda Pankhurst, was the qualifying round in this year's Sock Madness. I was eliminated, but in some respects, losing was liberating. Sock Madness patterns tend to be a bit short in the leg, a bit long in the foot for my taste, and for competition one must knit the pattern as written or larger. My socks are taller than pattern in the leg, shorter than pattern in the foot. Then there's mystery variation between the legs – the stitch gauge is more or less the same, but the row gauge is 'way off. Can you see it?



Part of the leg variation is due to the vagaries of handspun, but most is because I finished one sock, contracted a pox, and tried to knit on while medicated. I thought about frogging the second sock and re-knitting, but decided a pox on that! The socks differ from pattern and from each other – if that bugs the knitting police, all I have to say to them is Pbbt.

Also today, I got the long-awaited Nook Color software update to Android 2.2, or Froyo. There be Flash and apps! I'm enjoying the toys, although demanding creature that I am, I liked the speed of the old non-Flash-y browser and I'm not sure why there needs to be a paid app for functions (such as a calculator) that seem like they oughta be native to a computing machine. But not to criticize – the app store is only a day old and I'm still exploring the update.

Early Thaw

Roundabout Exit 151 the big thaw is on in earnest. Welcome as that may be after all the snow, it feels early... too early. I'd be quite happy if the BMSBs (brown marmorated stink bugs) invading casa Jersey Knitter slept a little longer. Jersey gardeners will recall that spring sprang a good two weeks ahead of normal last year – 2010 is officially tied with 2005 for the hottest year on record. A hotter year = more BMSBs, more of the time.

For the record, here's the current view out my front window. The new leaves belong to Spring Thaw Shawl by Cheri McEwan, showing off before jumping in the mail to my downstream secret pal in the Knit Girllls shawl swap. I enjoyed knitting it – I hope my pal enjoys wearing it.



This was my first time knitting with the yarn, New England Shetland. It's lovely stuff with great stitch definition, more "sticky" than traditional Shetland yarn, with less of a halo after blocking – perfect for Shetland lace or colorwork with steeks. I'd gladly use it again.



My upstream swap pal, Jessica, sent me this beautiful Hamamelis Shawl and a taste from her hometown, genuine Kansas City barbecue sauce. Thank you, Jessica! The excellent swap package remedies two regrets of mine: I have never made a Kirsten Kapur shawl (and thus have none to flaunt on those occasions that call for shawl-flaunting) and, although I visited KC once, I never got to sample their famous barbecue (long story involving the obnoxious, but Constitutionally protected, Westboro Baptist Church).



Next Wednesday is the start of Lent, a seven-week period preceding the Christian holiday Easter. Some people party hard the day before Lent starts, then give up booze or bread or chocolate for the duration. Neither extreme self-indulgence nor extreme self-abnegation has much appeal for me, so I'm planning to explore a carbon fast. As the chart borrowed from 350.org indicates, it's past time to stop the madness. What that means on the fiber front is there will be knitting and contemplation of my carbon footprint and the good hope that the only madness will be Sock Madness.

Jellicle Socks!

There was a period in my life when every blessèd visitor to the casa Jersey Knitter B&B wanted to do just one thing roundabout Exit 151: see Cats. Once was enough for me, but some visitors wanted to compare the London and Broadway casts, particularly Elaine Paige and Betty Buckley... and I had to tag along. Ah, Memory! I developed such a case of earworm (click if ye dare) whilst working on Helical Socks, my first FO of 2011.


It may look like there's no snow on the ground, but there is. Lots. I just shovel well.

Helical stripes are rather magical. The technique is an easy-peasy introduction to colorwork and a nice way to use leftovers, not to mention it yields a beguiling answer to the vexing question, If they mated?

   

Following Misa's suggestion, one sock has green as the MC and red as the CC and the other is t'other 'way 'round. Despite appearances, technically they are neither identical nor sororal, but rather are complementary. I guessed the original stripe sequences would be discernable, but didn't anticipate the sprightly way the stripes would play off each other. A contrasting 2x2 rib cuff, eye of partridge flap heel, and round toe set off the pencil stripes.



Color me one happy cat.