Lizard Ridge

I think perhaps this blog can help reduce the ufo's. My lizard ridge afghan is starting to fall into that category. I am only a few squares short of having enough to assemble this blanket. But how to assemble? In retrospect I wish there had been enough selections to do the entire blanket in all different but similar hues.


If you have suggestions, I would love to hear them. I don't crochet - though of course I suppose I could learn to chain an edge if that is what is needed. My loose plan is to sew all pieces together invisibly to make columns, then sew the columns together. My Excel blanket? What edge treatment? Black or something else?

more goal socks

Clematis



This was a sock of the month from Blackberry Ridge Woolen Mill, a family owned spinnery in Wisconsin. The colors are handpainted spring meadow and hand painted checkers. They do custom spinning and carding of your fiber. I love supporting this home industry. http://www.blackberry-ridge.com/ They have a large selection of very cool and reasonably priced sock patterns. They have lots of patterns for just about everything. They have an open house coming up in November.


Rainbow Socks Sock Kit


This was my second pair of hand knit socks. I doubted I would be able to knit them as they looked so complicated. They are not. They were designed by Candance Eisner Strick of http://www.strickwear.com/
using Koigu handpainted yarn. I love these socks and it is very hard to keep them in the new pile.

As it happens this modest sock kit led to a major purchase of Koigu handpainted yarn and solids – to be paired together in original designs. The dark solid makes the colors pop. I confess, I have enough sock yarn for more than 2 dozen pairs.

fruity combed top

I’m anxious to spin up this shiny merino tencel fiber. First I need to decide that the ultimate use of the yarn will be. Oh – this must be progress in my spinning, because my usual practice was to just spin fibers that feel and look good with little thought to actual use of the yarn. The goods are from England by way of Woodland Woolworks www.woodlandwoolworks.com in Carlton, Oregon. I recently made a road trip from the San Francisco Bay Area to British Columbia to check out retirement cities. I’ve been a Woodland Woolworks customer since I bought my Lendrum wheel from them a dozen years ago, but had never actually visited the shop. It is more like a warehouse with several rooms – filled with wheels and tools and fibers and yarns, and such a welcoming staff. This rural area is not far from Portland and is quickly turning into a wine grape growing region.

This fiber has the look of silk merino with a slightly different feel.

Case in point about progress in spinning.

I am spinning up this silk with no thought to what the yarn will be. I mean who cares really? It is so beautiful and shiny - such a tease. These are my jewels.

blue cloud cable socks

The yarn is Lacewing Sock yarn in cloud. This yarn has a lovely feel and is more delicate than the Cherry Tree Hill tangerine sock yarn. I reinforced the heel and toe with a laceweight merino in a pale greyish green.

The pattern – Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch. I used a 3 by 3 cable with a moss pattern in between. This is a cool book since it allows you to modify your socks easily – to really customize them with both pattern and size.

I made ladders on one side of these socks...why? I knit tighter before and after this area (gusset area) to avoid spaces, but this didn’t work. I’m going to test another technique on sock two. I suspect the cause is was the way I stuck the purl needle in. My theory is that I should have stuck the purl needle in from behind and underneath the last right hand needle...I’ll report back on that.

tangerine socks

These lacy beauties are knit from Cherry Tree Hill, Supersock Solids – merino. This yarn is such a joy to work with. The pattern is waving lace by Evelyn Clark from her Favorite Socks book.

These socks were done except for the kitchener grafted toes. If you have enough how to books you can actually do this successfully. One book that helped me succeed at this was Getting Started Knitting Socks by Ann Budd. The photographs and instructions work.

If I live long enough to use up my stash, I will purchase this yarn again. http://www.cherryyarn.com/

big goals little goals sock goals

Sometimes you sit back and assess your goals. Big goals, little goals, clean the redwood branches out of eaves, level the back yarn, organize the studios, vacuum, weed, clean off my desk, go for daily walks, get skinny, become kinder, meditate regularly, live simply. A less esoteric goal of mine was to wear only hand knit socks in retirement. I thought perhaps 12 pairs was a good number. This is twelve new pairs, and does not count any currently in use. So I am up to about four and a half pairs. Six should be complete in the next few months. I am ready to retire from my consistently paying job and move on to my other endeavors full time. I am ready, but perhaps my financial planning isn’t ready, so I have some years to go.

I have more than enough socks-in-waiting or I should say sock yarn-in-waiting for at least two dozen pairs. I’ll save these yarns for another photo shoot - yarns from my visit to Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. Yarns from Woodland Woolworks including a lovely Welsh item called Jitterbug made by Colinette. Jitterbug doesn’t seem the right name. It is a tightly twisted, soft but durable sock yarn. Jitterbug sounds as if it should have things flying off of it – like Squiggles. The color I have is velvet damson, not listed on the colinnete.com website. Shades of my visit to the indigo dye master Kenichi Utsuki of Aizenkobo in Kyoto. Deep blue to black. This will be a fine pair of socks. And just coincidentally this could lead to another trip to Wales. Colinette conducts workshops and has affiliated bread and breakfasts and self catering cottages like the one below in Beudy Dolpebyll, Llangadfan.
Beudy means cowhouse by the way. This is in mid-Wales sort of midway between Shrewsbury and Snowdonia.