Oh, The Cleverness Of Me*

So, I’ve finished the first of these latest socks. I love the way the colors loop along here. They look sort of retro to me. 60-ish, maybe? Something about them reminds me of old Formica counter-top patterns.

I’m calling them my Dark Side of the Moon socks. Since I started them in the car on the way home last weekend, I had no access to a sock pattern book or a book of knitting stitches – nothing. So I started them out with a little 4x2 ribbing. Four knits, two purls, four knits, two purls and so forth. But when it came time to start the cuff, I realized that if I repeated that pattern on the back side I would have eight stockinette stitches on either side. Nothing really wrong with that. But I thought I would play with it a little, in a limited fashion.

So on the back side of these socks the rib pattern flips. It’s now four purls, two knits, four purls, two knits, etc. Oooh, ridgey. So, why Dark Side of the Moon? Well, the sock yarn is called Galaxy, so I was thinking of space-related names. And since the interesting thing about these is that the back is unexpectedly different from the front, though not seen as often, and since they have a lot of high relief going one, as the moon has craters…well, the name just seemed appropriate.

They aren’t hugely imaginative. I was thinking, as I knit away on this one, that I should have made the panels of eight knit stitches up each side and then done something interesting in those panels…a cable or some knit/purl design. Or arranged the ribs so that a wide panel ran up the back of the leg and put a cable or something there. Or put little cable twists at the top of each of the stockinette ribs. Oh well, maybe next time. I think we can rest assured that these won’t be the last socks I ever knit. (I counted them up...I've knit myself 16 pairs of socks so far. Well, 16 and a half. Woot!)

(See how much I love you? It's like a sauna here in Baltimore...hot and horribly humid...and I'm sitting outside wearing my wool socks so I can take pictures of them!)

But this is why I’m clever. In those first two shots you can see what I made this weekend. I typed up basic, basic instructions for simple toe-up socks (Thank you, Wendy Johnson, since I grabbed these from her sock books!) and had them laminated at Kinko’s this weekend so I can pop it into my knitting bag and have it at my fingertips. I had these written out on index cards but they wear out and tear…this will be permanent.

In other news...early this spring Mr. Pointy Sticks and I went over to Valley View (a big garden center not too far from us) and bought some new day lilies. Mr. Pointy Sticks is very fond of yellow lilies, so we carefully looked through all the pots and picked out two pretty yellow ones, one bright and one a softer yellow.

Well, they're in bloom!

This is what they look like:

Not yellow!

Also not yellow!!

Sorry that they look sort of ratty...it's been not only very hot, but very dry for over a week now. I think they're a little tired.

I’ll have to do a book write-up soon. I’ve read some good’uns over the past week or two.

_______

* Gratuitous Peter Pan reference.

Is It Just Me Or Is It Chilly In Here?

I stayed home today with some sort of little bug. Kept waking up last night with chills and felt cruddy this morning. More chills and lots of sleeping all morning and now I feel better. I did get some knitting done this afternoon, after I woke up. Bleah.

I am reading The Passage...about half way through this rather massive tome. Kaethe, you'd like this one!

Jiggity-Jig

We're home again. We made another run up to Massachusetts with a van-load of stuff. And we got some stuff done while we were there, which was good.

The trip up could have been better. We spent entirely too much time here:


Mr. Pointy Sticks wanted to try a new route and it involved crossing the Hudson at the Geo. Washington Bridge and rambling through the Bronx a bit. It was shorter and, if the traffic had been better, would have saved time, I think. But the traffic was horrendous! It felt as though it took us an hour just to cross the bridge. And I am not a happy bridge person. Some of them don't bother me too much, but this one is not one of my favorites. Of course, neither is the Tappan Zee which is our alternate way to cross. So what are you going to do? Actually I found an even worse bridge coming home on Monday...we heard there was a terrible back up at the Delaware Memorial Bridge so we crossed at the bridge that is a little up-river. Whoa...low sides and very high up. Really didn't like that one.

We did get to Northampton before Webs closed (the trip took about 8 1/2 hours instead of the usual 7) and I got a little something.


Want a closer look at the yarn?


All Online Supersocke. The bottom four in this picture are all Harlekin -- such pretty bright colors. The top three are, from left to right, from the Florida line, the Sierra line, and the Butterfly line.

And on the way up I finished these!


Huzzah for new socks!


The apartment is shaping up nicely. It was hot up there this weekend, though. We weren't expecting that. Saturday night we got dinner at A Taste of Amherst, an annual dealie where a lot of the Amherst restaurants serve food from tents on the Common. There were activities for the kids (Pony Rides! Face Painting!) and adults (Rock Wall Climbing! Beer and Wine Tent!) and live music. We heard a band called Joy Kills Sorrow that we liked a lot.

On Sunday we ran around and did chores and got items that Rachel needed. Not an exciting day, but an expensive one.

And Monday morning we drove over to Easthampton and Rachel took the exam for a learner's permit. She was not sanguine about her chances of passing as she had only been studying a week and that was from the Maryland driver's guide. But she passed! So now she has a learner's for two years and is going to arrange for driving lessons. Huzzah.

After that we spent hours putting her IKEA bed together. No major injuries, though I think Rachel may have a lulu of a bruise today.

The apartment complex is full of kids which gives it a nice feel. Rachel's next door neighbors have a little flower garden in front of the house and on Sunday morning I saw this flower bud:


Don't know what it is, though it looks a little Squashy to me. Later that day, the flower had opened, bright white and about as big across as my hand. I was going to take a picture, but when I remembered the next day it was limp and closed...all done.

Trip home was fairly uneventful, save for the bridge mentioned earlier. It took about 7 hours. And yes....


I started a new pair of socks. (This is yarn I took north with me, not any of the wool from Webs.)

The Entrepreneur

Well, look at this - Chaos Never Diets.

My daughter's gone all free-lance on us.

She does do nice cards...I'll vouch for those.

Almost (Half) Done

Look what's almost finished. The first sock. Of course, then there's the second sock to do...another trip to Massachusetts should do it! I thought about trying to finish it before I took the pictures and posted them, because I only have a couple of rows of ribbing and the bind off to do. But then it would have been too dark to take pictures...so you get almost done.

I love these colors!

We had quite the trip home on Sunday. Perhaps I'll write that up tomorrow.

Well, Lookie Here What I Got!

I don't have my camera with me, so I had to resort to my Webcam. But look at my newest sock...and excuse my still damp hair and sour-ish expression. It's just concentration, as I try to hold the sock and get myself as out of the picture as possible and watch what's on the screen and push the button to take the picture. Whew. I get tired just thinking about it.

Anyway, this is what seven hours in the car get you. And there will be another seven hours in the car going home tomorrow. And then we'll do the same thing next weekend. This pushing the baby birds out of the nest is tough, let me tell you!

This is an Online sock yarn. I fell in love with the happy-happy colors and decided to do another pair of Nanner socks. I like this pattern because even though it contains yarn overs and some purls, it works up almost as fast as a regular stockinette sock. And you end up with this neat dragon-scaley sort of design.

And look at the pretty striping on the sole.

I Think I'm A Little East Coast-Centric

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