Wool For Brains

It took three days, two glasses of wine and one Wallace and Gromit Christmas special before I picked up the needles and finished off Dan’s socks. By then my fingers had stopped feeling as if they’d been stood on and everything seemed to be working as it should. On Boxing Day I made the mistake of handing the socks over before I photographed them and I’ve had trouble trying to get them to stay still for long enough to take a picture. It’s Tuesday and he’s still wearing them, he stashes them somewhere at night so I can’t take them away for washing. Sensible foot shots seem to be out of the question so this will have to do. Take it from me that there is one on the other foot as well. This is some variety of Opal, 64 stitches, flap and gusset heel and the toe finished at 10 stitches top and bottom. There will be another pair coming along shortly as David has asked for a pair just the same (but bigger obviously).

Big Jake video I also finished the York and Lancaster socks, well they are finished but we could debate the extent to which they are really York and Lancaster socks. There should be one red and one white but after long and careful consideration I made a matching pair. I’m not going to wear a pair where one is red and one is white so there was little point in making them that way. They should be longer than this with another rose on the other side of the ankle but I wasn’t sure that I had the yarn for that given that I was making two socks from the yarn intended for one. I changed the heel because I reached that point just as I needed mindless knitting and it wasn’t a good time to be following a pattern. So other than changing the colour, shortening the leg and changing the heel I followed the pattern.

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I finished those just in time to start the new Tsock Flock kit (I’m still a Margarita sock behind but I’ll catch that one later). This is the most interesting kit yet and I cannot put it down. It starts with icord just above the heel and you work downwards and upwards from there. My next step is an applied icord edging around the top, then a bootstrap and some embroidery to make it fully into a cowboy boot. Who knew you could have so much fun and still end up with a functional sock?

Since I posted last I’ve seen off four rolls of wrapping paper and one of sticky tape, endured the horrible moment of my son dragging out his Christmas list (there’s a reason for sending it up the chimney, last minute revisions are not to be contemplated) and listened to the microwave making new and interesting noises. When your porridge then emerges stone cold it’s a sign that something isn’t right. The good news is that while I’ve been away no-one was ill, Dan didn’t feel the need to add to his list and my annual nightmare of a national turkey shortage didn’t come true.

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El Greco movies I was hoping that these might have been finished in time to pop in a stocking. They’re not Christmas knitting as such, I’ve been quite open about knitting them but no-one has asked me who they are for. Daniel has probably forgotten that he picked the yarn out a few months ago and because he didn’t try the first one on he hasn’t caught on that they are for him. This is the second but it won’t be finished, I was derailed with this by having a “come now” appointment at the hospital (there are some benefits to everyone else having flu) on Monday during which I had several injections in the naughty hand resulting in knitting being off the menu for a while. It’s not that I can’t but I don’t want to.

That meant that these didn’t get finished either although I did eventually get started on the rose. I’ve been putting this to one side because there was never enough time to sort out where it was that I’d left off. It took all of five minutes to work out where I was, read up on where I wanted to be and check fourteen times that I was placing the rose on the other side to the first sock. The real motivator is that the next sock in the club has been shipped while I still have two of the previous kits on the needles. I have made a deal with myself that I won’t start the next one until I’ve finished this one. I may negotiate my way out of this when the kit arrives but with the delays of Christmas post I probably won’t need to.

I have been spinning in odd moments, the naughty hand doesn’t have to do a deal so I could carry on with this even when my fingers weren’t up to knitting. The skein on the left is superwash merino and nylon, I have to say that it’s not my dream spin but I knew that I didn’t like superwash merino when I bought it. It’s hopefully going to be hardwearing and easy to wash and seeing that it’s probably not for me that is important. This is the first half, 50g and 212 yards, navajo plied for the pretty stripes. It would have been educational to show it next to the scabby looking roving that it started from but that will have to wait for another day because I’ve now done my ruthless clearing of the dining table and all fluffy stuff has been packed away. The skein on the right is the result of a “let’s play with the drum carder” moment, I came across the bag of unloved fibre and mixed some of it together. The last time I carded this bag of reds and browns I blended it more thoroughly but this time I stopped at two passes and I like the result better. I can’t remember how much there is, it was an easy to remember number so I didn’t write it down…

There was a time when I would have made the jam, mincemeat and lemon curd for these. I would have made the stuffing for the turkey starting from sausage meat and breadcrumbs, the Christmas cake and the Christmas pudding. Over the years I’m buying in more and more items that once I would have made. I still make my own bread sauce, cranberry sauce and pigs in blankets because they have a big impact for little effort. The rest falls under the heading of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. Merry Christmas to one and all or Happy Thursday, pick whichever is most appropriate.

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It’s not as if I didn’t have a spare Christmas stocking or two that I could have hung up when we worked out that we would be one short this year. This project came about because I needed a diversion when my son decided that for his second knitting project he would like to knit a pair of socks. As he is eight and has the attention span appropriate for his age this was always going to be a non starter but I had the idea that he could knit a single sock in chunky yarn, it would knit up quickly and I could do the tricky bits that he hasn’t learned yet (casting on, casting off, knitting two together, purl).

The deal was that he knitted all of the brown yarn into a tube and then I’d magically turn it into a sock for him. He chose the colours, they happen to be dog coloured because this is the dog’s Christmas stocking. He did have a bit of help on the last stretch when interest was flagging, his dad added the last few inches of brown when it looked like we wouldn’t be finished in time. There was a bit of an issue with the needles, I started it off and the needles I’d chosen were fine for me but when I handed it over to the junior team things went a bit slack. By the time we reached the toe I’d misplaced the long cord for my Denise set so couldn’t do the magic loop that I’d planned. I seem to have managed all my life without a set of 10mm dpns and I wasn’t buying them now now so the heel and toe were done with the biggest dpns I had. Looking back I would have probably been better knitting with some chunky colouring pens.

If you want to make one for your very own (I can’t think why you would but you still have the time) you will need all of two balls of chunky yarn (we used King Cole Magnum Chunky). Cast on 40 odd stitches onto a US15 (10mm) circular needle, plod along until one ball is gone, join contrast ball, knit a few rows, make toe. This is a star toe because I didn’t want to commit myself to where I was going to place the heel. In an ideal world I’d have had a lovely flat surface of stockinette to go at, the reality was odd yarnover increases and garter accent rows (caused by the knitters picking up their knitting the wrong way around). Once the toe was there I looked for a round that was accent free, snipped a stitch and made an opening for an afterthought heel. I did it on less than half of the stitches because I wanted it done quickly and it’s not as if it’s going to affect the fit in any way. Make a length of icord for the hanger then pick up from the cast on edge and knit and purl alternate rows until you nearly run out of yarn. Cast off.

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I didn’t mind whether this was finished for Christmas or not, not until last Sunday when it became clear that if it wasn’t there on Christmas Eve then the dog’s treats were going to end up in my stocking. It’s not everyone that gets a pig’s ear in their sock on Christmas morning and personally I’d rather stick with the traditional chocolate coin and satsuma. (Before anyone calls child protection – no he isn’t allowed long pointy pins like that, he sensibly stuck the note to the dresser with a freezer label)

I can’t believe that it’s been nearly a week since I posted. You would think that would have been long enough for me to have knitted a few inches of sock cuff with a rose on it but I think I managed about half an inch with no rose before my good intentions went out of the window again. I promised myself that I’d finish the rose sock before starting another cowl, this seemed to be a good motivational tool as at the time the thing I wanted to knit most in the world was a second cowl. I was resolute with my new line of “no socks, no cowl” so I found where I was in the pattern and picked up the second sock. What I hadn’t foreseen was that it was the week of the new Knitty and although I can be firm with me there is no holding out against family requests.

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This is where my knitting time went at the end of last week, quite definitely not socks but certainly not a cowl so I didn’t exactly cheat on my promise to myself. This is the fish hat from the new Knitty which was quick, fun and made full use of the scrap yarn bag. Between the two hats I used up five small balls of handspun yarn and two small balls of commercial yarn. It didn’t make a huge dent in the leftover yarn bag but every little helps. The blue hat was supersized with bigger yarn and needles to fit a 24″ head, the green one wasn’t and it only just fits the junior big head. I’m not bothered about that, by the time he’s grown out of it something else will have come along for him and then I’ll get this one because my head is 1″ smaller than his.

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The dog has found a new place to sleep, he’s really happy with this new blanket where he likes to take his bones and other chewing things. Fortunately he seems to have no interest in the tree itself, he just likes hanging out on the tree skirt. He doesn’t want me to knit him anything and I think everyone else is good now so I can go back to the socks. It would be good to have them finished before the next kit arrives, then I’ll only be one sock behind rather than a sock and a half. It’s just that there’s a small matter of having a Christmas stocking to finish and as there’s a more well defined deadline for that (please don’t tell me that it’s fast approaching, I don’t want to know) the sock will be getting bumped yet again.

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I think there is evidence to point to me being in a brown phase. This could be due to:

a) me channelling the Yarn Harlot a week or so ago,

b) opening a new colour of dye,

c) seeing nothing but brown out of the window

Evil Bong move I think it’s a combination of b and c, we didn’t see any of the snow that was forecast for the end of last week, not that I’m particularly upset by that. I’ve only just got rid of the bruises from going tobogganing a few weeks ago. From bottom right, clockwise, this is the three ply bfl and kid mohair sock yarn that I haven’t got around to putting away yet, a small skein of cashmere silk (the sorry looking one that was in this line up), 200g of oatmeal bfl and a Harmonia’s Rings Cowl in Elsebeth Lavold’s Classic AL.

When I said that I’d be back with something finished I had in mind that it would be the second York and Lancaster sock. It was the front runner because I’m well past the heel on the second sock so there is only a rose and a crenellated edging to do. This plan was totally derailed when I came across a pattern on Wednesday morning that had “knit me” written all over it in big letters. Even better, it would knit up from yarn that was living in the wardrobe which had previously had a brief excursion as a top down cardigan before being ripped for excessive hugeness. I’d been splicing the balls together so this meant that I had a big 270g ball of baby alpaca and merino that would knit to tension. The teeny issue was that I didn’t like the original colour so then I had to wait a day for the yarn to dry.

I think that I’ve got the official front somewhere off around my ear but I’ve struggled with the self timer once so this is all that you’re getting. I don’t think that it is intended that it go all the way up over your head but it will, with the next one I think I’ll add two inches to the cast on/beaded picot bind off which will make it a bit floppier when worn down but give it that bit more ease when worn up. This was ideal tv knitting apart from the cast on which was a bit of a pain. I reached the beaded row before the beads that I ordered had arrived so I went for some clear ones that are good enough but don’t really add anything to that cast off edge. I’m hoping that when the beads do turn up they’ll go with that fibre in the first photo, if so that will be a second twisty cowl. Yes, it was so much fun that I want to knit it again, immediately, if not sooner.
It’s still December, so far I’ve had John Lewis, Lakeland and Amazon deliver, the outside lights are up but the tree is in the loft. This week is the week I start wrapping things, I’ve reached the stage where I can’t cram any more in my wardrobe and what usually happens after that is that I start coming up with inventive hiding places for unwrapped gifts. This is a bad thing because I invariably forget my cunning hiding places and then end up playing hunt the present. Once wrapped they can be hidden in the garage and then I can get at my socks again.

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(Abrupt ending due to arrival of plumber to fix leak in ceiling. I bet Santa’s elves don’t have this problem in the grotto)

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, today you’ll be getting the picture and rather fewer words than that. I have voluntarily given up the electric spinner until Christmas. This is because he knows if you’ve been good or bad so be good for goodness sake. I think I’ve come off the spinning jag now anyway so it seems like a good time to surrender it. I mostly used it for plying, I did spin some merino on it but that is still on the bobbin, it looked as I’d expect it to and hadn’t caused me any problems so that will be the first thing to play with after Christmas. Left to right this is two scarves, a pair of socks (or maybe shop stock), a gift, a Christmas stocking (for 2009, I’m not that daft) and a hat. The scarf yarn was the first thing through the new wheel, it’s balanced but would stand a deal more plying and I might yet ply it again after I’ve dyed it. It’s good enough for what I want it for so there again I might not bother. The bfl and kid mohair sock yarn was the second thing through the new wheel and I can’t pick fault with it now. When I originally skeined it up there were brief sections that were underplied so I made it into a ball and plied it again. I made the next three skeins after I’d boxed up the spinner, there is 50g of 50:50 cashmere/silk, rather a lot of black and white shetland and some camel/silk. The other skein of camel/silk is missing from the line up because it had a brief incarnation as a hat but after I’d ripped it twice (once was my error, the second was because of the pattern being hopeless) I’d had enough of that. My third attempt at a hat I ripped this morning, it was perfectly good but all the fun had gone out of it.

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Future absences can be put down to Christmas shopping and shovelling things around the house so the tree can go up. I turned over the calendar this morning and found that it was December, I knew that it was coming seeing as it follows November every year so I don’t know why it was a shock. I feel the need for an all encompassing list, the one that lets you feel in control and on top of things and I’m not sure that “blog” will feature anywhere near the top of it. I’ll be back when I have something finished to show and seeing as it’s still all new starts all of the time around here that may be a week or so.

Do not send a search party unless they bring their own dusters and wrapping paper.

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