the Soxophone Player

It never fails to amuse me how Jesse sits ‘at attention’. Whether he’s he’s watching some serious action on tv, or cornering some fearless wildlife, the intensity of his interest is demonstrated by the seriousness of his posture.

He usually runs ahead of me when we go for our walks out the back forty. And today I heard some very loud, sharp barks and I knew he had something cornered.

(This is the point at which I always say, “ Please God, let it not be a skunk!“)

And for today, it wasn’t a skunk.

Such excitement for a plain ol’ squirrel.

Although it is a Black Squirrel, and I think its the first time Jesse’s encountered one. They’ve normally been a ‘town critter’ and over the past few years they’ve been expanding their territory out into the country. This has chased the Red Squirrels out to the farm stead from the back bush. And now the reds and the Chipmunks are fighting over dibs on the woodpile.

Santa arrived at the farm.

You can see that lovely big sac in his sleigh and you just know it is full of sock yarn!

And more, he brought me the patience to work though my flickr problem!

It turns out I couldn’t upload photos because Microsoft Internet Explorer was set to ‘work offline’ and that prevents uploading to flickr.

I don’t use IE so I have no idea why it was set that way, or how that came about, but that was indeed the culprit.

Just so you know, in case it happens to you!

It seems I am unable to load pictures on flickr today. Not directly, and not via their loading software.

Maybe they are overwhelmed.

Or under attack.

Or maybe its something to do with @!@#$#&&#!^&* Windows 7.

You’ll have to imagine your own photos today.

Maybe let yourself drift off to a ‘safer place‘.

Like lying neck-ed in a massive pile of Koigu or Cashmara or Qiviut (or all of the above) with a glass of champagne in one hand, and a magic wand in the other.

Who needs flickr!

And have yourself a Merry Christmas if that’s what you celebrate.  Or have yourself a Merry Whatever Else, if that’s what you do.

I knit this pair of socks for DS’s FiL.

They are Fly Designs Cashmara – 80% Superwash Merino 10% Cashmere 10% Nylon.

My main colour is Ebony and the accent colour is Stonewash.

Knit to size Large with the 72 needle cylinder on the Verdun 47.

I can think of no better way to make a new ‘wool convert’!

I found these buttons at the Toronto One of a Kind show.

They are all solid wood, made by AB Originals. He doesn’t apply a finish to the buttons, but rather puts them in a tumbler with very fine sand and lets them polish themselves.

I’m not sure what I’ll use these one…. but I thought they were beautiful and wanted to have them. DW makes purses, so maybe some will end up there.  And I have cardigans and vests hand knit from time to time, so maybe some will end up there.

But you just know that some will show up on a pair of socks!

I used to get amazing buttons from a local lady who used only twigs found on her own property. Sadly, she was badly and permanently injured in a car accident and no longer makes them. She used tung oil as a finish which made them machine washable.  It was a specific type of tung oil (Pure, but not boiled as I recall) that was also non toxic, so safe should a little one decide to chew on them.

I was thinking I might add that finish to the buttons to seal them for washablity.  Or… another idea I heard for pure wood buttons is to wrap them in tin foil before washing. And, of course, there is the cut them off and re-attach them method.

Hmmm.

I knit this pair of socks for one of the grand kids.

Can you guess which one?

A while back I blogged about Opal Hundertwasser #650….and how I was looking for a few balls of it.

Thanks to a tip from reader, I found some at Fuzzy Mabel’s in South Carolina.

It arrived the other day, so Birgit will have her knee socks for Christmas.

I had become disenamoured with Opal after knitting bags and bags of it. It seems I couldn’t knit 10 rows without hitting a knot and, frequently, a change in pattern resulting from the knot. But Birgit really loves this colourway!

To my delight,I didn’t encounter a single knot in the two balls I used to knit these Knee Socks. Not only that, but Fuzzy Mabel obliged my request to send balls that started around the same place in the pattern.

I’m very pleased with the result, and newly re-enamoured with Opal!

Opal’s Hunderwasser series was right up there with my favourites (like Regia’s first Kaffe Fassett series).

The series was based on colours used in paintings by the Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser and this particular colourway, #650 is named der Blaue Mond (Blue Moon) after his painting of the same name.

Lana Grossa Meilenweit Mega Boots,  Stretch Soft Color # 504.

This is a ragg yarn – two strands of yarn that are independently space dyed, then plied together.  In this case, the same colours are used in both strands, but at different times, so you get a very interesting sequence of blends coming and going. I’ve never seen both strands change colour at the same time so there is an interesting cohesion effect that comes from one colour carrying on while another changes.

The yarn is 70% wool 23% nylon and 7% elite (as in elastic), and runs ~ 430 y/100g.

I easily knit the pair of XL socks with one ball.

Knit with the 72 needle cylinder on my Verdun 47.

Because of the elastic content, I loosened my tension 1/4 turn.

Jesse and I went schussing today.

More accurately, I was schussing and Jesse was sniffing, trotting, galavanting, bolting, and, from time to time, sauntering.

We are on the new trail than Dan carved for us with his big ol’ dozer. This section of the trail follows along the crest of the steep hill (on the right side of photo) and works its way over to the south-west corner of the farm.

You can see that the ground isn’t frozen yet so I had to navigate my skis through post-constuction puddles that remain. And the warmish snow wanted to kling a little to my skis, requiring a little more trudge and a little less glide.

The trail is still a little rough in places and Dan will come back with his smaller trim dozer in the spring to smooth over those areas. Once the grass grows over the trail it will be an excellent walking trail as well as a skiing, snow shoeing and skidooing trail.

Now….to stoke up the fire….and a latte for the the Soxophone Player….and a bone for his dog…

Carrying on with the Fingerless Glove Project: in the last tutorial we knit a pico hem top.  The next step is to knit the tube/body. In this case I am making ‘under the elbow’ length, so I knit 90 rows.  To prepare for knitting the thumb, I stop the yarn carrier at 6 o’clock and raise out of work the needles I won’t be using.

I start by raising the 4th needle behind the left red hash mark, and raising all the way around to the right yellow hash mark. That leaves 22 needles down and ready to knit.  Then knit/move the yarn carrier to the 12 o’clock position.

So this is just like preparing to knit a heel or toe, except we’ve raised  different needles out of work.

Raise the main weights and then put on heel fork and weight as for a heel or toe. But for a thumb I put on TWO heel forks, each with a single weight. You can see the forks stitcking through the knitting – this is approximately where I put them. If you have those heel weights made with old forks, those would probably be even better. You can probably also get by with a single heel fork and weight if that’s all you have, but in that case I think you will need to move the weight more frequently as you knit.

With the two forks and weights I can knit 10 rows before moving the forks up.

In a heel or two, we take one more needle out of work with each pass to make our decrease. But to knit a thumb, we are going to knit a rectangular ‘flap’, so there will be no decreases, and hence the need for extra weights/hooks.

As I start to knit back and forth, I find it works best to put a finger against the first stitch I will pass. This keeps that stitch from loosening (getting big) and makes for a tidy selvedge. As soon as that stitch is knit, I move my free hand down to the heel weights where I apply a gentle pressure as I finish knitting the pass.

This may seem awkward at first, but soon you get a nice rhythmn going of touch the stitch-touch the weights.

After 10 rows (5 back, 5 forth) I raise my heel weights and carry on until I knit a total of 28 rows. (This is for an open thumb.)

Watchpoint: keep an eye on the first and last stitch of each pass. It is easy to have a stitch not knit, especially if your weight placement isn’t just tickety boo.

Finish with the yarn carrier at 12 o’clock having just knit counterclockwise. If you change the number of rows in your thumb, keep it to an even number so that you end up with the yarn carrier finishing with a counter clockwise knit (passing from left to right).

Cut the yarn, leaving a tail of 18″ or so. (This is probably too long, but better than being too short!)

As an extra step, I thread the tail through a darning needle and put it through the loop of the final stitch, pull it snug, then pull that through and park it inside the cylinder. This is optional, but I like to do it because it keeps the knitting snug and I don’t have sloppy stitches to sort out later.

Now, we’ll knit a few rows of scrap yarn….I’m using bright red for high contrast.

I hold the leading tail of the scrap yarn inside the cylinder, a few needles back of the first needle that will knit. Be careful that the very important first stitch catches!

Another little optional twist….on the second row I grab that leading tail of scrap yarn and lay it under the second to last needle to bind that scrap in nice and snug – again, so I don’t end up with loosey goosey stitches to deal with when finishing.

I knit a dozen rows of scrap yarn. You can probably do with fewer but I like a little extra.  And remember to move the heel forks and weights up as necessary.

I snip the scrap yarn and with a darning needle pull it through the loop of the final stitch as I did with the tail of the good yarn.

And now, remove the heel forks and weights and run the work off the needles. When doing this I push very gently against the work from the top of the cylinder – just enough downward pressure to make sure the stitches slip off their needles as the empty yarn carrier passes by.

Summary

Knit thumb strip – 28 rows

Knit scrap rows, and run strip off the machine.

Next time…..completing the gusset and thumb.