All Work and No Play...

(Warning! Year of Lace Spoiler Alert)

We had a busy weekend catching up on some outside house and yard work. The truth of it is that most of the actual work was done by my husband, Cameron—I mainly acted as his assistant (and sometimes his supervisor!). Of course, we reserved the two hottest days of the year for all of this activity—summer has arrived with a blast. The good news is we are now sporting some colour instead of our pallid, winter white; the bad news is, the colour is pink. However, neither of us is burned too badly and we will soon fade to a light tan.

I did manage to get some knitting done in the evenings, sitting in the living room in front of the fan. I cast on for my new shawl Friday evening and by last night had completed the edging set up and the first 20-row pattern repeat.

The rectangular shawl is knit in two pieces, then grafted together in the middle. Joan Schrouder designed an ingenious and interesting way to join the edging without having to knit it on afterwards.

Once the edging is in place you begin with the main body of the shawl. There are five different pattern sections plus the edgings to work across on each row, so there's plenty to keep your interest.
It’s hard to get good shots of lace-in-progress but these photos give you a bit of an idea.

Now that the work is out of the way it’s time to play. Cameron and I are heading to the US for three days . I know, it’s not very patriotic to be out of country on Canada Day but we are going to the Toronto Blue Jays-Seattle Mariners game tonight to cheer on our national team. After that, we will have a couple of days to relax at my sister’s trailer before Cameron heads back to work on Thursday. A well deserved break for him, that's for sure.

Happy Canada Day, everyone!

Happy Friday!

(Warning! Year of Lace Spoiler Alert)

And a happy Friday it is indeed. The sun is shining, I have the house to myself, and I’ve finished my Friday Harbor Socks.

It’s amazing how quickly you can knit a pair of socks from DK weight yarn, even when you redo half of one foot three times. That’s how many attempts it took to figure out where to begin working the final chart so that the last motif would end just before the toe shaping. I really like the Cherry Tree Hill Supersock DK and am pleased with how these socks came out. I’ve wanted to make them for a long time.

What could possibly make my day better? Why, receiving the second Year of Lace kit, of course!

The latest project is a rectangular shawl designed by Joan Shrouder. It’s made from a beautiful shade of Helen’s Lace (a yarn I’ve been dying to try), a heathery, denim blue with purple tones, called Blue-tiful Berry. As much as I want to dive right into this new project I am practicing the discipline of delayed gratification and finishing off a scarf for my sister first. She bought the yarn a couple of weeks ago when we visited Apple Yarns in Bellingham (great shop) and even though it’s not scarf weather right now (at least not today) I’d like to finish it sooner rather than later so it is no longer on my conscience. Thankfully, my gratification will only be briefly delayed since the scarf is being knit on 6mm needles and is already about ¾ done. You see, I’m all for character building but I have no aspiration to become a saint.

Fall Back, Spring Forward

Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt. Or so I've heard.

When knitting socks for myself out of fingering weight yarn I find that casting on 64 stitches on a 2mm needle gives me a perfect fit, with a tight, firm fabric. So when I saw that the Spring Forward socks suggested using a 2.25mm needle to cast on 66 stitches I made an educated decision to drop my needle size to a 2mm. After all, I am a loose knitter and almost always use a size smaller than suggested.

As I worked my way through the first sock I tried it on several times to check its fit, as is my usual habit. Although I was able to get it on over my heel there was a nagging voice in the back of my head that said it should be knit just a little looser. And so I did whatever I do when I hear a nagging voice—I ignored it.

After I completed the gusset and a few more rows of the foot I tried the sock on again. This time there was no denying it—the sock was too tight. What’s a girl to do?

Rip the whole thing back and start over, that’s what.

Now, 1 ¾ of a sock later, with only one to show for it, I feel a bad case of SSS coming on.

Send meds.

Or better yet, yarn.

TGIF

Or maybe that should read TGIS: Thank God it's sunny!

I admired the scenery on our deck this afternoon

while I worked on my latest project, aptly named "Friday Harbor Socks".

Have a great weekend!

Three Cheers!

Hip! Hip! Hooray!

I can not express how happy I am to have finished these three pairs of socks.

"Brigit" started out well enough. I had admired several pairs knit for Ravelry's May Sockdown and decided to make some myself. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before I found the solid colour boring and the two-stitch cables tedious but I decided to persevere because I knew how nice the finished product would be. And I was determined to meet the challenge of knitting a second pair of socks for Sockdown.

From start to finish I have never really been happy with my Noro "Kureyon" socks. As you might remember, I initially started a pair of plain, top-down socks for myself but frogged them because of colour and gauge issues. I thought my sister-in-law might like the muted, earthy tones of the yarn so decided to make a pair for her instead. Because she has long, wide feet I was worried about having enough yarn to make a matched set so I decided that a toe-up sock was my safest bet. That way I wouldn't have to guess about how long to make the leg before shaping the heel. Althought technically-speaking the socks turned out fine and I had plenty of yarn to make the legs a decent length I really didn't enjoy knitting them very much. Although I feel proud to have finally knit a complete pair of toe-up socks after so many failed attempts I really don't see myself attempting another any time soon.

In all fairness, I mostly enjoyed knitting "Cranberry Biscotti". I love the colours and the slip stitch pattern and the yarn. However, about halfway through I started daydreaming about other sock projects and found myself dissatisfied with this one. In an effort to avoid the dreaded Second Sock Syndrome I made myself finish the three pairs I had on the go before beginning a new pair (ahem, pairs). Sadly, this took some of the joy out of knitting the second "Biscotti" because it started to feel like a chore. Now that the pair is done, though, I am pleased with how they turned out.

After putting myself through this hell I couldn't wait to get up this morning and cast on some new socks. While I was still half asleep I began a pair of plain socks in Regia Cotton, intended as a gift for my eldest sister. When I was more awake I cast on for "Spring Forward" in Oceanwind Knits Hand-Dyed Merino (colourway Tuscany) and managed to complete two pattern repeats.

So far, I love them.

Looking back, the past couple of weeks--especially the last couple of days--have been all about delayed gratification, about discipline, about payoff. All very character-building, I'm sure, but I'm glad to get back to just plain fun.

Looking for a Mate

Not for me. I'm perfectly happy with the mate I have and look forward to celebrating our 24th anniversary next month. I'm talking about my socks:

One Brigit for May Sockdown

and one Cranberry Biscotti. This pair is for my sister but I love them so much I am going to make a pair for myself.

I've also finished the first of my toe-up Noro socks for my sister-in-law but at this stage it's not photo-worthy. You'll have to settle for this shot, taken a couple of weeks ago:

I'll take a picture of the pair when they've been blocked. I'm still not crazy about knitting socks from the toe up but as they say, every cloud has a silver lining. In this case it was learning a new and improved way to do a short row heel from On Your Toes Socks.

Since I have deadlines for two of the above pairs they will need mates soon. I'm anxious to get them finished because I have about three more pairs I'm itching to cast on (like these from the new Knitty).

But woman can not live on socks alone; she also needs sweaters and shawls and scarves to feed her soul. And so I have been working on Norah Gaughan's Cabled Coat from Vogue Knitting Fall 2007. I knit the back and godet last fall but since then this project has been hibernating. Even though I'm not convinced that spring has yet arrived (let alone that summer is imminent) I have revived it from the dark and cozy interior of the knitting trunk. Here is a photo of the first front, if you can believe it (I'm sure it will look much better once it is blocked). I can't wait to start sewing everything together and see the magic take place.

Besides putting up the railing we have also been doing a lot of work on the outside of the house, including washing the siding and replacing the light fixtures, mailbox, and house numbers. When (if) the weather improves I will be giving the trim and doors a new coat of paint. Meanwhile, I have reimmersed myself in my other passion, genealogy, after a long absence and am enjoying it immensely. Between that and listening to Voyager on my iPod I feel like a time-traveller, having spent many an hour this week in 18th-century Scotland. Now, if only I could flash forward into next week and find my socks a few mates...

This Day in History

Exactly twenty-one years ago I produced one of my greatest works.

He grew up healthy and strong, alongside his siblings, Jessica and Colin.

Happy Birthday, dear Matthew!

How I Spent My Sunday

Last year when the cat broke through a spot on the deck we knew it was time to rebuild it. Well, we had actually already planned to redo it, the cat incident just confirmed how desperately it needed to be done (or how much the cat needed to go on a diet). Luckily, the basic structure was sound so we just had to replace the plywood surface and vinyl deck covering but we did need to rebuild the stairs entirely. Although we started the project in mid-summer, we ran out of time and good weather so we had to put off installing the new railing until this year. And that's how I spent my Sunday:

We're not quite finished. The stair railing has yet to be done and there are some finishing touches to take care of but we are happy to see it all come together at last.

And the new railing came in handy for photographing Phoenix Rising.