Fifteen Random Thoughts and Things

Today is the fifteenth, the middle of January 2011 already! I've set some goals and made some plans. Always a bad move. Just ask Murphy. But first, another apple cake coming out of the oven:

I love this Italian apple cake recipe. It's more apples than cake and light on the sugar. Perfecto!



Okay, so on this day int the middle of January in the new year, I have decided I will finish the replacement Italy sock next week then devote my full attention to finishing Volt, including the i-cord edging and blocking it by March 15. Yep, you read it here first folks! That will be one year from the date started. Why would it possibly take a year to do this easy knit? Don't ask.

After the replacement sock is finished I will start a marathon pair: Ladies Useful Stockings from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. I've had three balls of purple Opal waiting for years to become these socks. Now is the time. The goal is to have them off the needles before it's time to start this year's beach socks. (July!)

Between projects from The Fine Line I will make the entrelac hot water bottle cover. I've already gotten the bottle itself. Check it out:


It's a Fashy bottle, made in Germany. I went for the clear version. I can see how much water I'm putting in. Then I will cover it in Noro entrelac. I want to use it before this winter is over.

We've had another snow storm and I was able to use the snow thrower. Oh happy day! It wasn't fun, but it beat the heck out of shoveling. It's just a little Snow Joe, enough for my walk, driveway and poop/pee lanes in the backyard for the Little White Dogs (LWDs). They prefer grass rather than making yellow snow.

My Backyard Winter Wonderland

One of the bloggers I admire and follow made a statement the other day that got me thinking and determined to change my ways. She wrote, "I really am a one-project-at-a-time kinda girl." That is sooooo not me! But I want it to be!!! So, ONE project at a time . . . errr . . . one stay-at-home and one portable . . . So, TWO projects at a time is what I will work on in 2011. I have to have a pair of socks on the needles at all times. I learned that lesson knitting Volt. Socks help me stay focused. Without them I slack off or scatter to the four winds. I've been knitting using the shotgun approach. As of today, I'm moving to the rifle approach. Maybe for 2011 I can get at least (AT LEAST!) 12 hand knitting projects completed. Stay tuned.

That's about 15 thoughts and things. I'd better get knitting before I lose my bona fides.

Bona Fide Knitter

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.

Italy Socks

The additional skein of Colinette Jitterbug arrived and I finished the Italy Socks.

I took the picture with them folded differently. At the top of the sock on the left you can see the Eye of Partridge heel flap. On the sock on the right you can see the wider toe I like. I end my socks with 32 stitches to Kitchener instead of the usual 16.

Then I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for a toe-up pattern that wouldn't tax this old brain too much. I've never done toe-up socks because, quite frankly, provisional casts-on are my undoing. No pun intended. I've decided to try Judy Becker's Magic Cast-On for Toe-up Socks. I've even watched Cat Bordhi demonstrate it on YouTube and I'm set to give it a go . . . I think.

Aside from the ubiquitous socks on the needles, I'll be ready to cast on something else this week. No, I'm not ready to tackle any of the UFOs right now. They are for 2009. Perhaps if I start my latest project and work my way back, when I start doing UFOs in January 2009 and work forward, by December 2010 I will have knit up everything! That gives me two years and does not allow for starting anything that isn't already in house. What do you think? Can I do it? It's a two-edged sword. Can I knit that much AND can I not buy anything else? Check with me this time, 2010.

Bona Fide Knitter

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