the Soxophone Player

I knit up the last two balls in my stash of Snake – # 1611 from the Opal Rainforest series.

The dyes are pretty intense in this colourway, which makes for a little stiffer cranking, so I loosed my tension 1/8 turn for the the top pair – size Large, on the 72 cylinder, and 1/4 turn for the bottom pair – size Medium, on the 54 needle cylinder.

The two balls I had of this yarn started at different places in the pattern so I didn’t try and line up the two socks. When I have a whole bag of a colourway I’ll often wind them all at once, then pair them off in groups that start at close to the same point in the pattern, and then trim one ball back so the two start at exactly the same point.

Of course it often happens that I get two balls starting at the same point only to find a knot/shift in the pattern after 10 rows into the second sock. I hate when that happens!

I didn’t try to match these two pair up…I just started the second sock where the first sock left off. With this kind of stripe and fairly short repeat, I think it works fine.

I’m not sure how I feel about wearing snakes on my feet.  Snakes have pretty much grossed me out since I was  – when my pet snake Willie bit me.

But I do like this pattern, and the socks have no teeth….

My postpersonman’s name, and nationality, is Scotty.  He’s great! He often delivers parcels to me, instead of delivering the ‘notice of parcel’ that requires me to drive into town to get it. So when he brings me a parcel it saves me $ in gas, and an hour of my time.

And sometimes it’s just nice to see a human face, and to know that he would investigate if something looked amiss.

But after my recent, and ongoing, computer wars I was especially happy to see Scotty this time, when he delivered:

a 30 skein stash of Cashmara from Pat at Fly Designs.

Cashmara is 80% Merino 10% Cashmere 10% Nylon; 390 yds/4 oz; Machine wash and dry, (!)

You know, if I could knit underwear on my sock machine….

I’ve been licking my computer-wounds by diving into my stash of Koigu Mori.

Here are some samples:

The bottom two pair are size Medium +, knit with the 72 needle cylinder on the Verdun 47, while the rest of the pairs are size Medium, knit with the 54 needle cylinder on the Legare 400.

Koigu Mori is 50% Merino and 50% Mulberry Silk. It is definitely a ‘premium sock yarn’, retailing for ~CAN$25. per 50 grams (185 yards).

I was able to easily get a pair of Medium + from two skeins. There would not be enough for my size Large with two skeins though.

Mulberry silk is supposed to be a higher quality silk. I’m not an expert on this, but will attest that it is a fine feeling yarn!

Because silk is less elastic than wool, I loosened my tension 1/4 turn.

The kolours are koigulicious. Really, anyone who wears these socks should clamp Ott Lights to their knees, so that  – when they are trucking around – folks can fully realize their beauty!

My sock machines are 1800′s technology.

I swear that’s an era I’d prefer, with all the computer issues I’m having!

I got the old “…it’s the mother board…” call from the repair shop. I think that is computer speak for “…I can’t figure out what’s wrong with it…”, but in either event it boils down to “…it ain’t gonna be cheap…”

So here I am trying to blog on a new laptop. I decided to go that route. I had been planning to add a notebook to my desktop setup, but with the desktop dead, I’ll do the laptop thing. I’ve got a docking station on order which will allow me to have all my peripherals hooked up, while letting me un-dock easily to take the ‘puter to craft sales and such.

My biggest struggle at the moment is the ##$$^**%#@* mouse pad on the laptop. I keep bumping it while typing which moves my text all over the $@$#$^&*( screen.  Thankfully I’ll be able to hook up a real mouse (not in the farm sense ‘real’) with the docking station.

I think I’ve got my camera speaking to the laptop, and will see how that works out…

Computer died!

Be back soon …

I should know better than to knit Noro Silk Garden Sock as a ‘first sock of the morning’.

But what better opportunity for a little TIP on how to deal with skipped stitches ;o)

Here you can see two stitches to the right of the yellow hash mark did not knit (while doing a heel and suddenly hit thicker yarn).

This is a very easy fix, whether one stitch or twenty!

With your pick-tool, and BELOW the wayward bit of yarn that did not knit, grab the loop of the stitch from the needle, and pull it outward

and then upward, over the wayward yarn, and back onto the needle (trapping that wayward sucker of a piece of yarn and turning it into a stitch).

LESSONS LEARNED:

1. Saving a skipped stitch is easy.

 2. Don’t knit Noro in the morning.

I finished knitting my stash of Schaeffer Anne a few weeks ago. Of course I didn’t finish closing the toes and blocking them, which I’ve now done.  Here are some of the results:

The top pair is size Small, and the other three are all size Medium. All are knit with the 54 needle cylinder on the Legare 400.

Schaeffer Anne is 60% Merino Superwash 25% Mohair and 15% Nylon and the skeins have a generous 550 yards/4 oz.

When I started knitting with Anne we had a few spats.

 To begin with, the skeins are tied a little differently than most other skeins I buy. Eventually, I sorted that out and now find them easy to wind.

My bigger battle was getting a result that pleased me with a 54 stitch sock. I loved how the yarn performed on the 72 needle cylinder, but had one froggit after another on the 54. I’m a slow learner with a lot of things, and this is one case where it took me quite a while to figure out how to knit Anne in a 54 stitch sock and get a result that pleases me.

As with most things knitting, it’s all about tension. After too many froggits at my normal base tension, I started increasing until I hit a point that did what I want with the yarn. Now, at a quarter turn tighter, I get a pooling of colours that is more or less replicated in the two socks, and doesn’t look like I spilled the dye.

That mastered, Anne is now one of my favs.

This is a pair of size Large; Austermann Step colourway 0027, knit with the 72 needle cylinder on the Verdun 47.

I like the colours in this sock yarn, and I’ve always loved the feel of the Aloe Vera and Joboba Oil that Austermann infuses into the series.

The yardage, 420 m/ 100g is comparable to many/most of the commercial sock yarns I knit, but I find it knits a little finer (even though I don’t find it knits any further!) – so I tighten my tension just a wee bit – like 1/8 turn.

If exact matching socks are your thing, I’d steer clear of this particular colourway. Out of 10 x 100g balls in the bag, 9 of them had a knot that interrupted the pattern, and one of the nine actually had the pattern change direction. Overall, 9 knots in a kilo of yarn isn’t a bad batting average. But with stripes that are all (meant to be) the same size… well if you’re oc like me…..

In the pair shown, you can see I got as far as the heels before the patterns went off in their own direction.

I’ll keep (buying and) knitting the Step series. They really do feel lovely. But I think I’ll steer clear of the colourways that are equal stripes, in favour of the ones that are more visually forgiving in the event of a dreaded knot ;o)

Yesterday was the beginning of the Tara craft show. Officially known as the Tara Festival of Crafts.

Tara is a very small town, but it is close to Owen Sound – the largest city in the area – and draws a good crowd.

The Soxophone Player was excited about the weather forecast – cold and no rain – great weather for purveyors of the woollies ;o)

I’m doing a bit of a colour theme for this show.

That’s if you don’t count the orange toque and fingerless-gloves with flap over mitten tops. I have quite a few hunter customers who come to me for their ‘heavy hunting socks’ – and with deer season but a few weeks away (run bambi, run) I figured I should have the bright orange goodies out, theme or no theme.

And if you look closely at the photo, you’ll notice that something is missing…

I lit a match on Sep 15 2009.

I’ve managed to keep the fire going non-stop since then. I top the fire up first thing in the morning, lunch time, supper time, and bed time. (Hmmmm – the fire eats when I do!)

This morning I couldn’t jam another log in the fireplace because my ashes were too deep. So I let the fire die down, and cleaned out the ashes (and put them on the vegetable garden).

I couldn’t believe how deep the ashes were, and how much of the base was still glowing red hot coals.

I left a few scoops of the coals and tossed on a few new logs, and presto:

The fire lives on!