Fiber Fool

Pattern: Coyote Ridge Anklets, available in the shop or below
Designer: Myself, Kristi Schueler
Size: Women’s US 9.5 Shoe Size
Yarn: 2 Skeins Crystal Palace Panda Wool, 1 ea of Basil Curry (0443) and Saffron (2209)
Recipient: Me :-)
Dates Worked: Late June, I’m not sure of the exact dates.

This spring I was at one of the LYS in the area and fell in love with the Panda Wool and Panda Cotton. It had such fun colors and was nice and shiny and just looked like it would work up well. I love the basil curry colorway but there wasn’t a second ball in a matching dyelot so I picked up a solid ball of saffron to go along with it. Originally I had intended to knit most of the sock with the solid color and the heels and toes with the varigated, but I decided to go out on the limb and use the multicolored one for the main color. I’m glad I did. It obscures the stitch pattern slightly, but the texture is the important element in the design, not the individual stitches. It also didn’t pool in a bad way which made me jump for joy. I’ve had some bad luck with pooling yarns lately.

The Panda Wool was great to work with and I’m looking forward to working with the Panda Cotton soon. They both have a fair bit of stretch so the one size should fit most adult women’s feet when knit in the yarn called for. Some guidance is provided to adjust the size and to length the leg to a more traditional sock if desired.

While Chris was visiting after EPWM we went on a hike at Coyote Ridge and because Chris is a more experienced hiker I stopped at the cabin part way up and let her continue on the hike. While at the cabin, besides taking copious pics of prairie dogs and other flora and fauna I knit on the last sock of the pair and nearly finished it there. It struck me as I sat on the porch making each stitch as I heard the birds and prairie dogs chirping that the colors in the sock were not unlike the colors of the nature area - warm peachy tones resembled the shale that dots the tops of the ridges and the stitch pattern gave the socks the illusion of repeating ridges of their own. In honor of the hike with Chris and the color and beauty of the Coyote Ridge Natural Area I decided to dub these anklets with the same name.

I know people have different definitions for anklets vs peds etc so call these fun short socks what you will, but either way they were a blast to knit. Despite the rather long stitch pattern, the lace was easy to memorize and quick to knit too, but provided enough interest to keep me knitting at a good clip. The pattern is written from the top down on two circs, but it is easily converted to DPNs or magic loop. A bit more work should allow for toe-up construction as well. The heel is a reversed wrap short row heel that highlights the wraps rather than hides them, but makes for a very smooth interior of the sock - perfect for those with more sensitive feet. I also snugged up the arch area as I know short socks have a greater tendency to slip or rotate on the foot and a snugger arch helps reduce that. It should be trivial to swap out your preferred heel or toe if you wish.

• Skill Level: Intermediate
• Sizes: 1 sizes for 8-9 inch ankle circumferences, with guidance for other sizes
• Yarn Requirements: Crystal Palace Panda Wool, 1 each, Basil Curry and Saffron
  46% Bamboo, 43% Wool, 11% Nylong, 170 yds/50 gms

• Needles: 2 - US 1.5 (2.5 mm) Circular Needles of 16 inches or greater length or size needed to obtain gauge of 9 st/in in St st

$5.50

As with all DK patterns, delivery is managed through Payloadz with payment through PayPal. With a credit card, no PayPal account is required. Pattern delivery may take up to 5 business days depending on method of payment. The pattern is nearly 1Mb, so please be sure you are able to download a file of that size and have the latest version of Acrobat Reader. There are no refunds for knitting patterns.

Well, if you’re new around here you may not know that DH and I are fairly recent Mac owners (January and February respectively). We have a great printer, but unfortunately the manufacturer does not support Mac OSX. So we’ve been putting files on the file server and printing from my old Windows2000 machine. I had planned to release another sock pattern this morning, but between charting on the desktop at about 10pm and wishing to print a copy of the completed pattern to double check for any necessary edits it seems the desktop machine that works with the printer is dead.

I went to go print and the hard drive light was on solid and there was a slightly high pitched regular noise coming from the CPU. I tried ctrl+alt+del and when that didn’t work I did a hard reboot and I got a boot error. The anal retentive person in me wants to run out to the 24 hour copy place in town with my jump drive and get a print out I can edit and then finish adding the sock to the shop before bed. However, I’ve already messed around with the desktop for about 30 minutes and driving to the only 24 hour printing place in town will take at least an hour to get there, print, and get back home. Seeing as it is 12:30 am I am going to try to put the critic in my head who wants to meet my personal goal of a sock pattern a week to bed and deal with this in the morning. For one, I don’t trust my editing skills at 1:30 am!

So, if you find yourself needing to cool off at a coffeeshop this weekend with your laptop or inclement weather keeps you indoors stop on by and check out the new pattern offering. I’ll post here as soon as I have it proofed and added to the shop! And, it’ll still be here on Monday should you keep yourself occupied away from the computer this weekend.

*sigh* Technology! Grrrr!

Have a great weekend!

Drew worked very hard finishing the rock moving while Chris was still here. On Friday he finished up cutting the landscape timbers that needed cutting and got them put into place. On Saturday we then had a patio and belated solstice celebration with lots of goodies cooked on the grill. There were veggies and pizza and salad - much of which came from the farmer’s markets and a little from our own garden such as the rosemary and basil. Anne and Rod once again brought a selection of their home brewed beers. We ate a bunch and drank a bit and ended the evening with a nice fire in our fire pit.

We did have to eat inside as we did not yet have a patio set. But we found something we both could live with on Sunday and it was delivered on Monday. It allowed me to have a nice start to my Tuesday morning.

Over the weekend we had noticed some new birds we hadn’t seen around before and I saw them about the same time on Monday morning as well so I was all ready with DSLR as I sat outside, waiting to capture it so I could see if Cathy could identify it, but so far no luck! I haven’t seen them again. I think I might have heard them Wednesday morning though. One of these days I’ll get a photo! I swear!

Just to the east of I-25 on the Harmony Road exit for Fort Collins is an oft overlooked little roadside attraction called Swetsville Zoo. It isn’t a zoo in the traditional sense of the word, with a wide variety of animals to feed and clean up after. Rather, Swetsville Zoo is a zoo of mostly prehistoric and fantasy animals and people made of discarded metal by “zoo keeper” Bill Swet. There are over 150 sculptures scattered along a slightly wooded trail on the west bank of Poudre river, many with a fun sense of humor.

I have lived in Fort Collins since the spring of 1999 and had never been, so Chris and I stopped last Tuesday during our yarn crawl on our way from visiting Interweave and Woolen Treasures to the new yarn shop in Wellington, Nanytutu’s. Admission is by donation so I’m not sure why we had never stopped before. We drive past it semi-regularly when we visit our friends who live in Severance. I had a blast taking photos - at least until my batteries died.

I hope you enjoyed your virtual visit to the Swetsville zoo!

Chris visited Fort Collins and stayed with us for a few days after the market. On Monday morning we liberally applied sunscreen, each missing a spot or two and hiked at Coyote Ridge Natural Area on the west side of town between Loveland and Fort Collins. It’s a three mile hike round trip if you don’t take any of the county loops up at the top of the ridge.

I hiked there last year with Cathy as part of the Trek Along. Last year we got to the cabin, a mile in and returned back down. I was not doing too well after the market and with the heat so I opted to stay at the cabin while Chris continued on. There is a wrap around porch with lots of benches either in the sun or the shade (in the morning you had your pick anyway).

There was much wildlife about the open space - especially prairie dogs. But I managed to capture some birds and some insects as well. I also did a bit of knitting (Debi, those fingernails are for you - though it isn’t OPI, I couldn’t locate any here).

There were also picturesque views and myriad of flora to be seen and photographed.

I eventually started to make my way up to the top of the ridge and met up with Chris part way there and then we continued on down. After showers we then headed to a great little coffee shop in Old Town Fort Collins called Starry Night and had a late lunch and then it was on to Stitch ‘n Bitch. A jam packed, yet laid back in some ways sort of day. I know I enjoyed myself.