Post-vacation blues

I spent two weeks in Vancouver, Canada. Beautiful!!!!! Great scenery, great weather, great people, great food, lots of stuff to do and see... And best of all, vacation! Time to knit :). And time to do jigsaw puzzles. My sister-in-law and I have this tradition that I always bring a puzzle whenever we see each other. Since our time in Canada overlapped shorter than usual, I only brought a relatively easy puzzle. Turned out, I totally underestimated our abilities (or tenacity), and we had finished the puzzle within a few hours. So Sarah was kind enough to get us another one. And it was really hard!!! It's a beautiful picture, and even our girls had fun with it. In fact, they were the ones who finished it up:

Okay, so since I was afraid that airport security would take my knitting needles away from me, I only brought sock stuff, knitted with wooden needles. I finished one pair of short socks.

And mostly finished another pair of long socks. Did the rest on the commute to work after I got back from vacation. It's an easy thing for me to bring along. Not a lot of bulk, easy to stuff in your purse to take anywhere you go, and by now I know by heart how to knit my standard toe-up socks:

• Needles: size 0, 1, or 2 dpns, depending on needed sock size, yarn, etc.
• Cast on 24-28 sts with Magic Cast-on method
• Divide sts over 4 dpns (6 or 7 sts ea)
• Increase 4 sts every other round until you have a total of anywhere between 16-20 sts per needle
• Work this until you get to where you increase for the heel (your foot is about 2 - 2 1/2 inches shorter than you want it to be). Now, every other round, m1 st at the beginning of the first sole dpn and at the end of the second sole dpn until you have 30-33 sts on each sole dpn, like so:
• Work dpn 1 and 2 (instep dpns) per whatever pattern you might choose or just stockinette
• Work dpn 3 and 4 (sole dpns) as follows:
• dpn 3: k1, m1, k rem sts
• dpn 4: k to the last st, m1, k1
• (Remember to increase (m1) only every other round!)
• Repeat this until you have 30-33 sts ea on dpns 3 and 4.
• To turn the heel work dpns 3 and 4 as follows (the rest of the sts are resting during this):
• k3 more than you have on dpn 3, ssk, k1, turn
• sl1, p7, p2tog, p1, turn
• sl1, k8, ssk, k1, turn
• sl1, p9, p2tog, p1, turn
• sl1, k10, ssk, k1, turn
• sl1, p11, p2tog, p1, turn
• Continue this way until all sts are worked. Divide them up over 2 dpns again, combine with the 2 dpns from the instep needles, and continue working in the round again
• Work in whatever pattern you choose for as long as you want your cuff
• Prepare for bind-off:
• Second to last round: m1 after every 2 or 3 sts depending on how loose (and/or ruffle-ly) you want your bind-off to be/look.
• Last round: k
• Bind off any way you like. My preferred bind-off is:
• *Ssk, put st back from rhn to lhn, rep from * until all sts are gone.
• This makes for kind of a wavy bind-off. Use a different method, if you don't like this. If you have any great and easy bind-offs that allow for enough stretch to comfortably put socks on and take them off, without necessarily getting the ruffled look, I would love to hear about it!!!!
• And to make it even easier I knit both socks simultaneously, so I don't have to remember how I did the first sock when I start the second one.

Our niece Alisha got the monkey I finished just before the trip. I started another one after I got back home. I think my daughter has some friends who really like my knitted critters, and she wants to give some of them away. I made another baby monkey (like the one our exchange student Theresa got), including the safety pin for the punk look (Theresa's creation).

I am still working on the monstrous shawl... Haven't touched it in a while, until this week. I am really pretty close to being done, but it's all getting a big cumbersome. I guess I am learning that I am not very good with larger projects. Patience and stamina are not my strongest virtues. That's why I like socks and little toy animals :). It's good to know your strengths and weaknesses...

And before I sign off from this post, one more garden picture. The fruit of our labor... Actually, my husband planted all the tomatoes and peppers, but I harvested :).

Done, done, and done!!!

Most of the cactus garden is done. Gravel is spread (mostly), cacti are planted (mostly), edges are put in place (mostly)... Well, you know the saying: 90% of the work take 10% of the time and the remaining 10% of the work take 90% of the time. For now, though, I am enjoying the fruits of the 90% work and try not to think about the odds and ends that still need to be finished.



Here, again, is the front part of the yard:

As you can see, I desperately need the plants to grow :).

This is the side of the house where the truck had dumped the 12 yards of gravel. You can still see a tiny little elevation with a little extra gravel (for those remaining 10% of the work, remember?). But I am done working on the yard for now and wanted to leave it looking somewhat "done."

This, apparently, is a sago palm. I bought this one a little while ago at a school plant sale.

 

I also received a few "pups" from another kind freecycler. And they look like this:

 

Okay, last gardening picture (I promise). I could not resist this one. It is our very first red tomato. I will give it one more day. It is beautiful, big, and will be delicious! Too bad my husband is missing out (he is out of town).

Okay, enough with the garden and yard. Back to knitting...

I finished the shawl/vest. It came out nicely, but the front parts could have been a little wider. I was afraid that I would run out of yarn.

Now I just need some cold weather to be able to wear it. But that's gonna take a while :). Maybe I will take it to the office, where the A/C sometimes gets quite cold.

Oh, and I forgot that I also finished "Ellie Elephant." I don't like it quite as much as the baby monkey before, but it came out okay in the end, I guess. My daughter has not seen it yet, so she will be the ultimate judge.

And just in case "Ellie" will not pass her judgment, I quickly started another monkey. Hopefully, I will get it finished before my daughter comes back home.

As you can see, still monkey-ing around :)...

Too sore to knit!

Wow, the drainage ditch and the cactus gardens are done! Well almost... I still need to add some cacti. But all the digging and shoveling is done. All the drainage pipes and all the gravel are in place. And I even planted some Agave plants already.

It felt good to do all this manual labor! But both hubby and I are sore all over! Name a body part... it hurts! The pain will subside, though, and the lovely front yard will stay. Now if we could just get the neighbor cats to stop using is as a litter box :).

Due to nightly pain recovery sessions, knitting took a bit of a back seat.

"Ellie Elephant" is still a work in progress... My vest thingy is still a work in progress... The good news is that the buses I take to work have started running again (after a short summer break), so I have more time to knit again. Though neither of these two projects lend themselves for commute knitting at this point.

SOOOOO, I had to start a new project... I got a huge load of yarn from a very nice person on Freecycle.I just can't believe my luck! All kinds of designer yarns and different kinds of sock yarns! Must of been a few hundred dollars worth of yarn in that box I got! Here is just a very small excerpt:

Among my loot were 14 skeins of ON Line Trend Setters' LINIE 78 VEGA (it appears to be a line from 2002). Color is purple with a metallic thread woven into an inconsistently bulky wool. Very nice!

I saw this nice vest/shawl at Coldwater Creek and am trying to use the yarn to make something similar.

Stay tuned...

Mayfest, time to work in the garden

Okay, so I missed my April post. Just barely, though. It was a busy month. Hubby and I have been doing all kinds of projects around the house (repaired kitchen drawers and added pull-out trays to most of the lower cabinets, changed some lighting fixtures and fans, etc.) and garden (got a compost pile and rain-collection containers, installed an herb garden, started working on a drainage ditch in the front yard--using the excavated soil to turn the sand box, which we no longer need, into a vegetable garden patch, repot some plants, etc.). As you can see, we were quite busy. Well, okay, so my husband did most of it. But, hey, I had to supervise, right?!

Anyway, I did knit, too! No really! I have been working on this really cool vest/shawl.

The original inspiration as

96-13 Loosely knitted top in Puddel.

I found the pattern on Ravelry. But it is available for free at the above link. However, I completely changed the yarn from the original pattern . Instead of the suggested

DROPS Puddel from Garnstudio
400-450-500 g colour no 07, medium grey,

I used Julia's Vinca (sock yarn), color 810 (some kind of purple/plum and blue). The color between skeins varies a lot, but, hey, it's inexpensive. I like it so far; but since the yarn is rather thin, it takes a while.

It's really quite an easy design:

I
Instead of stocking stitch, as the pattern suggests, I used the pattern stitch called "Crocus Buds" from the stitch library in "Now you're knitting - super how-to handbook and design treasure."

Row 1 of Pattern: K1, *YO, K2* Repeat from * across needle.
Row 2 of Pattern: *P4, with left needle bring the third st on right needle over the first 2 sts and off the needle (P3SO). *P3, with left needle bring the third st on right needs over the first 2 sts and off the needle. Repeat from * across.
Row 3 of Pattern: *K2, YO. Repeat from * to last stitch, K1.
Row 4 of Pattern: P3SO, repeat to the last st, P1.

It took me a little while to figure out the pattern (I am still not very good at following instructions), but eventually I got it right. I really like the pattern. It makes for a very light vest. However, it's not the kind of pattern that is easily done without looking, so it's harder to knit while doing something else like watching TV, or on the bus without getting nauseous from looking down all the time. Also, as I progress, it's a bit bulky to take along...

So I needed another project for my commute to work. And what easier project than socks, right?! I had bought a whole bunch of different sock (and other) yarns on eBay. So I started a pair of plain ol' toe-up socks with Opal, color NEON, 1931. Each skein I bought came with a small skein of accent color, which I am using for the toes and heels.

Since I like to knit both pairs of socks simultaneously, I decided that I really don't like 100 g skeins. I always seem to get into a big mess with I start the skein from both ends :).

Socks on the road...

During the holidays, we took a road trip through West Texas. If you have ever been to West Texas, you know that it is vast. This means a lot of driving... My husband drove, my daughter listened to music or watched movies on her portable DVD player - except for those times when I pointed out scenaries to her, such as windmill farms, mountains, cacti (lots of cacti - in all kinds of colors: green, gray, purple, pink, with and without spines), dessert, nothing (lots of nothing - in all kinds of colors: brown, tan, beige, light brown, dark brown, with or without vegetation), small and not quite so small towns. We had fun, and saw lots of little gems in between, like the McDonald Observatory, Alpine (a quaint little town), different museums with all kinds of funky stuff, a meteor crater in Odessa, an old (but still active) movie setting, the Marfa lights, and much more (well, maybe not much more, but more).

So, while DH drove and DD watched movies, yours truly knitted, of course!! I finished a pair of really cool socks.


They are called "circle socks." I found the original design on Ravelry. It is by Anne Campbell. Her website has the pattern.


The yarn is by Patons, called Kroy Socks Stripes, color Bronzed Berry Stripes. Quite possibly my new favorite (inexpensive) sock yarn. I bought a whole bunch, in all kinds of different colors. Not sure how it wears yet, but it knits nicely.

The Kroy is a new sock yarn they carry at our local Michaels. I am so glad. They did not used to have any sock yarns. Now they also carry Patons Stretch Socks. I also knitted my first pair of socks with that yarn.


I liked the feel during knitting. Now I am curious to see how it wears and washes.

Here is my finished pair. Oh, yeah, I saw these "screwball socks" on Ravelry, which sort of inspired my own screwy version. My usual toe-up socks with the "screw" pattern for the instep and leg parts.

Instep:
Let's say, ndls 3 and 4 are your instep ndls.
After you are done with the toe increases and are getting ready for a pattern:
k ndls 1 and 2 throughout all this
ndls 3 and 4 are worked as follows:
p6, k the rest of ndl 3 and 4
k3, p6, k the rest of ndl 3 and 4
k6, p6, k the rest of ndl 3 and 4
k9, p6, k the rest of ndl 3 and 4
keep doing this, moving your 6p by 3 sts on needles 3 and 4
until you are at a point where the last 6 sts on ndl 4 are purls
next row:
k ndls 3 and 4 to the last 3 sts on ndl 4, p3
start ndl 3 on the next round with 3p, k the rest of ndl 3 and 4
and start the next tread of your screw socks.

Once you worked your heel and start the leg part you want your tread to go all the way around the socks, so:
work your 6 purls on opposite needles:
if you start ndl 3 with 6 purls, also start ndl 1 with 6 purls and work as before, winding your purls around your socks, if you will.

And here is the final product: