Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas One and All!


My Christmas Cactus (cacti) bloom merrily in the kitchen window in honor of the season. Unfortunately their biological clocks have been out of sync for years. They bloom every year in November. The photo was taken on Thanksgiving.

How much are these doggies in the window?
Left to right: Icecream and Snowball modeling velveteen ruffs

The ones with the waggly tails . . .


How much are these doggies in the window? My sweet Bichons are not for sale!
Left to right: Icecream and Snowball modeling taffeta ruffs



Left to right: Snowball and Icecream outside looking for Santa on Christmas Eve
Back to knitting content soon.
Bona Fide Knitter

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Sockatastrophe!

It's a catastrophe, a sock catastrophe, a sockatastrophe. My Italy Socks are ruined!

I call them my "Italy Socks" because I had planned to knit them while in Italy in 2008. However, I had another sock on the needles at the time and didn't actually begin the Italy Socks until on my way home, literally. I cast on for the first sock while in the van on my way to the airport in Rome for the return trip to the US. Oddly, they were a problem from the beginning. I had to frog and cast on twice more on the flight home before I got that first sock going.

The Socks:




The Sockatastrophe:



One sock turned into spaghetti in the washing machine. What's up with that?


Evidently something started feasting on my socks and only got as far as one.



From the frayed and wispy strands of wool and the places where it is severed completely, something had a very good meal.


The yarn is Colinette Jitterbug Sock Yarn, expensive and ruined! What to do? My first thought yesterday when this happened was to frog and reknit. Then I remembered I have most of another hank of this yarn because another of the problems with this pair of socks was I ran out of yarn, a first! Although it was supposed to be 110 grams, 318 yards I ran out of yarn at the toe of the second sock and had to buy more. making them aa $45 pair of socks!

Using my basic pattern that works perfectly every time for Lorna's Laces, Opal, Regia, Trekking XXL, etc., the completed socks were big (wide). I finally wore them after two years and afterwards decided to wash them in the washer and maybe get some shrinkage. They didn't shrink, but one certainly shredded! There were no holes when I wore them. I didn't notice their condition when I loaded them into the washer with my delicates a week or so later. I can see in what is left of the one sock that there are stitches that are eaten through. Thus the shredding from the agitation in the washer.

I've located the leftover yarn cake made from the second hank I had to buy and will knit the sock again then wash it with another load of delicates and have a matching pair of Italy Socks once again. I will store them more carefully this time. No more Colinette Jitterbug for me!

Of other knitting news there is none. Volt continues the grow at the polar opposite of leaps and bounds. (tiny steps and little bounces?) BTW, Volt appears in the Holiday 2010 issue of Vogue Knitting. Perhaps mine will be completed by January 15, 2011, 10 months late.

Bona Fide Knitter

P.S. I had a charming and witty Sockatastrophe blog entry written and signed. Somehow it disappeared off the face of the earth before I published it. You get this instead.