Need My Knitting Mojo Back

For months I've been putting knitting catalogs in the recycling container without even opening them. Last week I opened one. I started thinking maybe a new project would bring my mojo back. I almost convinced myself buying something new rather than starting one of the new-still-in-their-packaging projects I have would really get me back to knitting. The culprit catalog is KnitPicks newest, Winter 2012. There's a garter stitch afghan, Viola Afghan Kit, that keeps calling my name.

My knitting guru (You remember who you are, right?) was on a garter stitch afghan knitting spree at one time. In fact she continues to do them in one form or another: log cabin, mitered entrelac, etc. I'm lumping them all together as garter stitch because they're all knit, knit, knit the whole afghan. I was tempted to jump on board then, but I know me, I would never finish it. My guru knitted them all of a piece and ones in squares that needed to be fashioned together. But I know me. Even if I finished all the squares, would I ever sew/knit/crochet them together? I hate projects that need further real work after the knitting is done. That's why I love knitting socks. When they're done, they're done. One day I'll take some pictures of a crocheted granny square coverlet I started when we were negotiating to buy this house . . . 43 years ago. Most of the squares are done, some are even sewn together. However, it's not finished . . . yet.

I have an afghan pattern given to me by my prolific guru a few years ago, Fiber Trends' Home Is Where the Heart Is. I bought the bulky red yarn to make it. In fact I made one false start at it which I prefer to call a gauge swatch. It could be a perfect entree back into knitting since we are coming up on Valentine's Day. (Afghan pattern has hearts, yarn is red, get it?) And it's knit in one piece. But something new into the house might be the answer . . . or not. Oh, I'm such a mess!

But the KnitPicks Viola afghan is 206 squares that have to be put together! And it even needs a backing!! Maybe I'll just finish *Beach Socks 2011.

Bona Fide Knitter

*Beach Socks, for those of you who wonder, are socks I knit while lounging on the beach. They usually have some cotton content and after a ribbed cuff they are plain stockinette stitch, simple enough to knit in my sleep. Beach Socks are usually summer socks, but not for wearing on the beach.

Knitting Short List

It's Saturday. Do you know where your knitting is? Ha! A better question is, do I know where my knitting is.

Okay, I'm forced to make a mental note. I needed a small tote bag the other day and dumped the contents of the one closest at hand. Out came the "perpetual shawl." You might remember it by some other names I've called it: "never ending" "shawl of shawls" "shawl of a lifetime" and even its official name,"Rings of Supersock." Ack! I had forgotten all about it. Yes, it's time for a mental inventory, just a short list of works in progress, current works in progress, not to be confused with unfinished objects.

Right now I am waaaaay into my summer sweater project which, if you remember, is the shrug from the summer issue of Knitter's Magazine, the Seaside Shrug. I got a lot accomplished (for me) while I was away. I even worked through the odd phenomenon of my KnitPicks nickle plated needles becoming tacky, loosing their shine and no longer knitting slick and fast. I think the weather was so damp they started to mold or something. Once the weather dried they returned to normal, but are still a little discolored. I wonder what's up with that. I need to pose the question to the KnitPicks Community. Anyway, I completed the whole body and one sleeve of the shrug. I was almost at the end of the ribbed cuff of the second sleeve before we came home.

I referred to the picture of the Seaside Shrug in the magazine as "butt ugly." Now karma has come around to bite me I need not tell you where. My rendition might be joining the Butt Ugly Club. I'm not too pleased with how the colors compliment each other. Buying yarn online without a color card does not always pan out. The golden mustard and hot coral/orange combination I loved in a knit suit I had many years ago did not meet expectations in the yarn color choices I made for my shrug. Ugly or not here it comes.

The plain vanilla socks knit in plain vanilla yarn are still languishing away in my GoKnit Pouch. I haven't had that much waiting room or nursing home visiting time recently. I think I might just go ahead and push through that heel flat here at home and hurry those socks off the needles.

Okay, that's my short list: (1) Seaside Shrug (2) plain vanilla socks (3) Beach Socks 2009. I will have all three finished before summer is over. You heard it here first, folks.

Bona Fide Knitter

PS--I'll get back to the shawl of shawls come fall.

A Beach Day!

I went to the beach yesterday. Can you believe it? I even started the beach socks. Now let me tell you the bad news. Going to the beach killed me!

I started the day with my usual routine: up by 5:30 a.m., let the dogs out for quick pee-pees, while I have a quick . . . TMI . . . They get a treat and a vitamin and I brush my teeth. Then we settle on the sofa to watch an inspirational TV program from 6:00 until 6:30. Back in the bathroom for me for morning ablutions after which I put the coffee on and the LWDs and I head off into the Forest for a morning walk. We are out for 45 minuets to an hour. After that I eat a light breakfast.

Yesterday after breakfast I headed out to the drugstore and supermarket in Orleans. On the way, since I was passing it anyway, I stopped at the Brewster Town Office to buy a beach parking permit for the season. After picking up prescriptions and shopping for fresh fish and a few grocery items, it was lunch time and the beautiful, warm day gave me the marvelous idea to make a sandwich and have lunch on the beach. After all I had my parking permit now, didn’t I?

So, when I got home, I changed from tank top and Capris to bathing suit and “beach" pajamas with matching flip flops and hat. I made a sandwich and filled a few sandwich bags with snacks–potato chips, pretzels, cookies. You can never have too many snacks at the beach. I quick-chilled a couple of bottles of water and packed it all in insulated keeper bags and put those into my beach tote. As you might have gathered by now I am very big on bags and totes of various responsibilities. Then I gathered sun lotion, bug spray, lip balm, PDA, iPod, earbuds, cell phone, ID, money, sunglasses and towels and added those to the tote. From the shed, my husband got a beach chair, umbrella and screw-into-the-sand base and loaded those into the minivan for me. Just in case I felt particularly ambitious when I got there, I also had him load the beach lounge chair, bigger umbrella and the heavy duty screw-in base. Then off I went with new parking sticker affixed to bumper, loaded for bear.

In the five minutes it took to drive to Breakwater Beach I felt my energy start to flag. Going to the beach for the first time in a season is a lot of work! Luckily I got a parking spot a few steps from the sand. The tide was out so there was no thought of even getting my feet wet. When the tide goes out in Brewster it goes way out.

I unloaded in two trips. I had no energy for he heavy duty beach stuff. I unloaded the smaller umbrella and set that up. Screw, screw, screw the base into the sand. Insert the pole. Unfurl the umbrella and put it in the pole. Aaah, a little spot of shade. I went back for the chair and my tote, set them up, stripped down to swimsuit, plopped down in the chair. Whew, I was worn out! I sat for awhile just relishing the mostly sky view, heavily breathing the salt air and wondering if I would ever be able to get up out of the low, butt-almost-in-the-sand chair.


I sprayed myself with Off because the flying beach bugs were already gathering for a chocolate feast. Mosquitoes and sand flies find me very appetizing. I realized it was HOT Even in the shade of my umbrella . . . umbrella . . . umbrella. Off with the hat, tie back the hair. Better. Maybe some food . . . I ate the sandwich and drank a bottle of water. Yes, much better. I was cooler and stronger. After a few potato chips, a couple of pretzels and a cookie, I cleaned my hands and broke out my too cute flip flop print bag containing the sock yarn and US 1 needles. Onto my KnitPicks Harmony 32 circular I cast on 60 sts and knit two rows of k2, p2 of ribbing during my time on the beach.

I will be making one sock at a time. Two socks on one circular does not float my boat. (A beach appropriate analogy, no?) I prefer my socks knit one at a time no matter how many times I try to like the two at once on one circular needle method. I do not suffer from second sock syndrome. In fact I actually enjoy casting on for the second sock and watching the miracle happen all over again and become an identical twin.

However, my strength and energy ebbed as the tide came in. I drank more water, ate more pretzels and another cookie and spent close to three rather pleasant hours on the beach, having to change chair to umbrella orientation only once before deciding it was time to make the effort to close it all down and schlep it back to the minivan.

The after-beach therapeutic shower that is normally so reviving didn’t work its wonders. After I was all clean and in fresh PJs I collapsed on the sofa and took a nap. I was wiped out for the rest of the evening and night. I roused once for pie and ice cream and again to go to bed at midnight. I am so totally out of shape! I need a healthier diet and a personal trainer!! Horror of horrors, I might need to join a gym!!!

However, I will remind you, I did make a paltry start on Beach Socks 2009.



Bona Fide Knitter

Beach Socks? Not Happenin'!

Written July 16, 2009 ~

Beach socks are not happening. Laziness is. Or maybe it could be called contentedness. Is that a word? Anyway, I have not been to the beach yet even though the weather has been good for going. Yesterday evening we went to the beach to watch the sunset. This is where the sunset picture would be inserted if I had remembered to bring my camera to the beach. I took a picture with my PDA, but didn't bring the hot synch connection with me on vacay therefore I cannot download the picture to my computer in order to upload to Blogger. Du-uh!

The tide was in. The water was beautiful and inviting although I noticed the few remaining people on the beach were not in the water. We didn’t get out of the minivan. We left and stopped for ice cream instead. That seems to be our modus operandi these days. The Little White Dogs (LWDs) were a little disapointed.

--The video of the LWDs returning from the beach trip I tried to insert here keeps failing.--

The lovely yarn I brought along to knit socks on the beach is laying untouched in my beach tote. To appease my conscience for being such a do-nothing all these weeks, I bought a “sock bag.” It is a tiny bag to keep my sock project in as I work on it. Of course another knitting bag is just what I needed.

A few days ago we drove to Hyannis to the dock area from which the ferry, fishing and excursion boats leave. There is a little shopping area there, little buildings where artists sell their crafts. As I passed one shop the cutest little cotton bag attracted my attention, twisted my arm and made me buy it.

How could I resist? It is the perfect size to hold a ball of yarn and a pair of socks in progress. It also has my newest favorite thing depicted--flip flops.

This summer I have traded in my omnipresent Birkenstocks for pairs of Fit Flops, the shoes in which I was able to walk for miles and hours in Italy last September, and Vera Bradley flip flops to match three pairs of my VB pajamas. I’ll go back to Birks in the winter when I have to wear socks, but I digress.

Beach socks might not get started this trip, but at least the yarn has a cute keeping place until next month’s return trip to the Cape. I plan to spend many hours on the beach next trip. You heard it here first folks.

So that’s my beach sock story and I’m sticking to it.

Bona Fide Knitter

Beach Socks

It's that time again. It was time to pick yarn and plan to knit on the beach. I shopped my stash and came up with this sock yarn procured from my favorite LYS, Woolbearers of Mount Holly, NJ. However, I bought the yarn from them all the way down in Baltimore, MD, at Stitches East in 2007. The colorway drew me in. It reminded me of sea, sand, seagulls and rocks. It's superwash wool dyed by Woolbearers and although my Beach Socks* usually have some cotton content, these colors are begging to become my 2009 Beach Socks.



Sooooo, here is my last cake for awhile . . . a yarn cake!

This picture, taken with a little daylight filtering through the kitchen window, brings out the blue better than last night's picture taken in complete artificial light. Yes, it's the colors of Breakwater Beach in Brewster, MA, on the bay side of Cape Cod where I'll be knitting.

Bona Fide Knitter

*Beach Socks are not socks to wear on the beach. They are socks to knit on the beach.

Thirty Days Hath November

Gee, that means tomorrow is December. I reached another age milestone in the two weeks since last I wrote. Where did 2008 go? Is time moving in fast forward since I got old? There is only one month left to knit all those UFOs I'd planned to finish. It ain't happenin'! Not only will I not finish the earlier ones, I added more in 2008!

I promised you knitting wows and woes. UFOs are my woes. Hmmm, "UFOs Are My Woes." Should write a song about it. No, should knit or rip them. Anyway, here is one of my woes which occurred through no fault of my own:



These are "Italy Socks," so named because the slightly feminized camouflage color yarn caught my eye just shortly before the trip and I'd planned to knit socks from it in Italy. However, I had "Beach Socks 2008" left over from summer on the needles and they were finished during the trip. I didn't cast on the Italy Socks until the ride from Hotel Villa Pina, Frescati, to Rome Fumicino Airport for the return trip home.

For the first time in my sock-knitting-by-hand life, I ran out of yarn. It was a 100 gram skein of sock weight yarn, Colinette Jitterbug, 128. Using a US 1 (2.5 mm) as usual and doing my usual two inch, 1x1 rib cuff and six inch leg, scant 2-1/4 inch EoP heel flap and 7-1/2 inch foot before toe decreases, I had only the small amount of yarn left (shown above) when I reached that point on the second sock. I have a long foot and short toes, but not that short. Aaaaack! What to do? I went back to my favorite yarn shop, Woolbearers in New Jersey, where I bought it. The cupboard was bare. Myra ordered another skein for me last week and it's there now. These will be my most expensive socks to date, if I don't count my $3,000 first pair of sock machine socks. These will be $45 socks! I will mitigate the cost by knitting another pair, toe up, two at once, with feet long enough for my spouse and legs as long as I have yarn for.

I noticed that the first sock was wider around than usual. The yarn has a different twist than most and is quite springy. Did I swatch? Of course not! Sock yarn? What's to swatch? I can knit socks in my sleep, for goodness sake! Sock yarn weight doesn't vary that much. Famous last words. Will I swatch before the next pair? Of course not. I'll be using Opal or the like. I know what that does. More famous last words.

I need to come up with a knitting wow to end on a high note. Hmmmmm, let's see. Oh! I went to Stitches East in October and didn't break the bank. Driving down I-95 to Baltimore the Fall colors were at their peak and I thought some yarn in those colors would be beautiful. The first thing I saw at the Market Preview Thursday night was wide nylon variegated ribbon in the exact colors at Judy Ditmore's Interlacements. I had to buy it.

I wish I could start and finish the shawl before Fall is over. And if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

Stay tuned.

Bona Fide Knitter