Cityscape socks

between dyeing a ton of scab (and other yarn), planning for Knitter Connection, running the shop and starting a new exercise routine, i've hardly had time to knit lately. BUT, i'm working on a new sock pattern/kit that i hope to have done before KC, so i can take kits along. what do you think so far????


this is the top. i had to rip it out once, and reknit a bit bigger around since colorwork takes up so much space.


But now i've made it through the skyline and am moving on the the reflection on the heel flap.

I'm not exactly certain how i'll proceed from here. I need the blue on top for the front reflection, but i'm not certain what i'm going to do with it across the sole of the foot. I'm thinking a really simple colorwork pattern, so i don't have to carry it so far. not sure how i'll deal with gussets... i might try Daria's theory so i can get through the gusset more quickly, and move on.

anyway... ready to turn the heel! HURRAY!!!!

it's PROM!

excuse the off-topic post...

it's prom night...

That's my oldest daughter. I feel a bit like that scene in Fiddler on the Roof. Where have the years gone? i don't feel old, but somehow, somewhere along the way, she is almost the age i still feel. What happened? She looks beautiful. I have yet to convince her that her make-up could be just a touch darker. i guess pale is in?

spoiler alert

so, while i've been madly designing the S&S and P&P socks, Daria has been working on the next project. It is LOVELY. I asked for a capelet because of Jane's comment about her cape making it home and here following the pattern for her lace. Unfortunately that was not a knitting pattern, so Daria designed this beautiful lace capelet.

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i love how the bottom has all the little falling flowers!

and i really love how the little fall lines and the increase lines echo each other! ok, i love the way it looks. everything is wonderful.

and snow it goes

Baby Bonnet for a sample

so i needed a sample of what SuperLamb knits up like and had bits left to play with. here's the little bonnet that i came up with. I LOVE it. I would have taken 5 when amanda was little. Brenden did not appreciate me trying to take a picture of him in it tho! hehe
Amanda and I decided that i needed to design a matching set of booties... and maybe even a baptismal gown.... too cute!

SPOILER ALERT sock... sleeve... one down, one to go!

clearly, i should have been a hand model! hehe

or perhaps Vanna White!

or perhaps i should be a foot model!

i just have such cute feet!

happy spring

i wandered out into my yarn this morning. it is grey and brown and in spite of the spring equinox... nothing much is happening. we had snow on the ground just last week...

i guess i shouldn't expect much... it's just too early in South Dakota to expect much else. i want there to be more... i planted several hundred bulbs and was hoping.

and then, i see it. a tiny bit of green. there.

and there

and then i see the flax... it's green too!

and i realize they're everywhere!

it truly is SPRING!!!!!

wool sleeves and socks (spoiler alert)

the wool sleeves are coming along well. Unfortunately at the expense of the Pride and Prejudice Socks, which MUST be done soon. so inspite of my new project i must go back to the old one and finish this pair of socks. MUST.

in the meantime i continue to look for evidence of purling used as decoration in knitting during the 12th or 13th century.

the first sleeve is coming along nicely. it is almost long enough now without any squish-down to create the lines. (almost)

so i figure if i add a couple inches after it is long enough i'll be good.

the shaping is coming along well. the sleeve isn't all the interesting looking as a flat item,

so i'm not quite sure how i'll put together the display for the A&S contest so that it is not utterly boring. i figure i'll keep a bit of the wool to show were i started, then show a bit of it on a spindle, and some plied and ready to knit. sort of "sheep to shawl, um sleeve" like. then show this sleeve, one with the "decorative purling" and a linen sleeve (not attatched to a garment) all of which can be tried on to show which looks closer to the illuminations. maybe i'll also include photographs of each "on" as well.

the socks do not look terribly much further along than last time, because i frogged and reknit all the foot that is done. I decided after some thought to add a decorative pattern on the top of the foot. so i starting doing the lattice work in knits and purls on the top. NOW, i'm not quite sure i like it well, actually pretty sure i don't. not because it's not interesting but because *I* like things to move along quickly without a lot of thought, and this does NOT allow for that. So, i'm going to suggest that the faster/easier pattern would just do garter stitch, but if one is interested in true fabulosity, they should try this. (the next sock will not have it) in my socks.

as you can see, the decorative top is really lovely, but perhaps not for me!

knitting history

a bit about the history of knitting and my little project.

there are some small pieces of knitting probably as early as 1000 AD, possibly earlier... much of the earliest pieces that were once identified as knitting are actually naalbinding. these socks, for example

were naalbound, a technique similar to knitting, but done with a single needle.

by the 10th century there are actual knit socks (altho many were done entirely with twisted stitches). Most were middle eastern, likely Egyptian and done with colored band (almost always indigo dyed) and cotton.

by the 16th century knitting was quite advanced and had spread all over Europe. From hats knitted and fulled in England

to tunic-y items knitted (likely on frames) in Italy

to gloves in Spain

knitting was everywhere.

My little experiment will be somewhat like armwarmers. scoggers and knitted sleeves were ( i believe) both separate items that were not connected to a garment. I'm researching the history of purling, because i think perhaps the lines that can be seen on the arms in the illuminations and statuary are actually purl lines. My plan is to make this set, another one with the purl rows and a linen sleeve. just experimentally, which will look the closest? i'm not sure... i guess i'll find out.

busy busy!

well, it's been productive and good, but i've been uber-busy and haven't blogged lately. I'm about 3/4 done with the first P&P sock. i keep pluggging along. I started a project for the A&S throw down. (for those who don't know i belong to a medieval reenactment group SCA). It's at the end of this month, and i'm working on wool sleeves. I am positting the idea that the tight sleeves seen under the big bell sleeves in Bliaut's were knitted. check out these images for example:

although it's hard to see, all show the under sleeves very wrinkled. the wrinkles are always horizontal (if the arm is up and down) and very tight. This is a very difficult look to produce with woven material. I've tried all kinds of things, but without very careful cutting and fitting (which wasn't done much in this time period --12th century) the sleeves don't fit this snugly and wrinkle this way. they just don't. So, a while back while wearing knitted wrist warmers that were very long, i noticed that these sideways wrinkles happen all the time. and making a knitted item really fitted and snug is easy. in this time period in spain and the middle east there were unquestionably socks and such that fit very tightly on legs. not so very long afterward scoggers and silk sleeves were not uncommon in both Spain and England. so, it's not an unreasonable theory. i think.

i've started knitting a pair in a lovely brown handspun (with flecks of yellow, blue and red) the brown is the natural color of the wool, and the bits of silk were blended in on combs and then it was all spindle spun and plied. it's lovely soft stuff! YUM.

anyway... we'll see how it turns out. it even occured to me that perhaps the illuminations and statuary are not showing rucking, but perhaps the sleeves were knitted with occasional rows of purling creating the little regular lines shown. I'm not doing that with these sleeves but i may try it on the next ones.

silliness...

my son, a very talented artist, drew this... we thought it was darned funny! hope you do too...

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fun fun fun!

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Total Spoiler

So, I'm loving the shaft of these. BUT, i cannot decide what to do with the heel. I've played with a variety of things from vertical stripes (interesting) to some other things that failed pretty big, to these horizontal stripes. I'm not sure i LOVE them. I'm just not sure. Someone suggested just green. I've been considering just the dark color. Oh dear, i see more frogging in my future. :-(

I guess i'm sort of hoping someone will chime in and say either: Oh, i like it, it's good, OR What the hell are you thinking, that doesn't fit at all. So, what DO you think???

fresh from the dye pot

I've been playing again. after all that RED, i needed to see some other colors, and green is always my come back to color. so this morning, after finished more SCAB yarn, i threw two skeins in the dye pot just. for. fun. I hardly do that anymore, it seems. I think i'll call it Forest Canopy. it is lovely dappled greens and browns. the sun shining through deep forest canopy.It reminds me of a song a sang in college "...from deep in the forest, concealed by the trees..."

I'm shipping the first few skeins of SCAB yarn today. not all of the yarn is dry yet, but i want to ship as quickly as i can.

Things are moving right along with our yarn shop. we've ordered our first yarn and are going to be ordering more today! purchased some shelving. it's just so darned exciting.

let me just share... and a spoiler!

with you for a moment how unreal my life occassionally seems. I suppose that sounds silly. and it is. a bit.

Years ago, i wanted desperately to make a living as a musician. I went to college, i practiced, i worked at music. i tried very hard. somewhere around my first marriage i made contact with a guy who said he knew a guy that might be interested in my music. My (now ex) husband threw a tantrum (insecurities suck) and i passed up the chance... and had a baby instead. it was hard, it made me resent my (now ex) husband, whom was already a problem because he was abusive.

i finally left when my (now ex) husband quit the last in a long trail of jobs and we got an eviction notice. i came home to South Dakota. wrecked. Eventually i went back to college, back to music. I still had dreams. But i was older and had two little babies at home, so my dreams were a bit smaller. I wanted to teach and spend my summers traveling to arts festivals selling my CDs (not made yet) of celtic music. I met my now husband while in college, but he was going to law school and told me he wasn't going to get married until law school was done. so i ran off to Alaska for a year. I'd always wanted to go and i taught in Unalakleet for a year. Fabulous. Then my now husband decided it was pretty lonely on his own and said he didn't want to wait afterall. I came home. we got married. i taught another two years. i had Brenden. i made a CD. I loved it.

I started traveling. Gigs were hard to come by, and money was slow going at the beginning of his law career, but i got paid enough to afford to go. MOSTLY. But i was barely breaking even.

All this time, i'd learned to spin and was spinning little bits and bobs of yarn. they sat around in baskets in my house. I didn't knit. Crocheting hurt my hands (i had the beginnings of arthritis even then) and spinning was just a hobby. I was going to make my job playing music.

I did a couple more things to help me make a living as a musician... and none of them really seemed to make it possible to even make it a reasonable second income. I made a second CD. I traveled. I got lots of good reviews. everyone said i should be able to make it. BUT, i could not.

Then, while i was away on a weekend gig, i was sitting around spinning and someone bought a bunch of handspun yarn. I made almost as much selling a little bit of handspun as i had made playing a bunch of times in a weekend.

And a new career was born... the thing that i thought was a career, has turned into a hobby. and the thing that was strictly a hobby... is now a career. And i'm happier now, than i was when i was a musician. isn't life odd?

Pictures of yesterday in my life!

Dyeing scab yarn and Forest Primeval!


progress on the pride and prejudice sock!

deep bruise! and a spoiler

I dyed this up and debated about the name... Black eye? Shiner? in the end... i decided that Deep Bruise, was the most appropriate... and in spite of the yucky name... it is DARNED PRETTY!

On another note, i have 25 skeins ready to be SCAB yarn soaking! YEEHAW! I can't wait for it to be dyed, dry and shipped. I had to order new shipping boxes. I guess that's a good thing... I've used up all the ones i had!

i bought a couple new colors of dye that i really love... can't wait to play!

I've cast on the pride and prejudice colorwork sock! it is fun. a friend designed the colorwork part, and now i'm decided where to go from there... it beautiful!

the latice work is simple and fun. the colors are nice... i'm going to have to do more to see how i think it suits!