Fiber Fool

I must confess, the socks are currently in time out. You need to be in a certain mood or frame of mind to handle ripping back on socks knit on US0s I think. At least if you didn’t have the foresight to put in a lifeline before trying a new-to-you heel technique. With the heat I just was not there yesterday. So, I diverted myself with the project I cast-on at SnB on Monday night. I ripped it out and started it two more times since then. There have also been points where I have ripped back about 12 rows on this. But, that is part of designing on the fly so I was okay with that. Plus, it is on US2 and wool so ripping back and picking back up isn’t nearly as daunting.

When I spun this yarn I did an experiment. One of the yarn cakes had the singles spun just from the pre-drafted roving. The other cake was spun from the roving (in the same direction) split in two and then pre-drafted. Both were Navajo plied with subtle color changes. Do you see the difference in the cakes? I *love* when you can see the color shifts in the balls like this.

I am also really loving the circular knitting with this ombre striping yarn. Of course it helps that it is my own hand dyed and spun yarn :-) For the observant, yes, that is the remainder of the roving which was used in the Spin-Off Spring 07 photoshoot for the Queen of Diamond socks. This part of the roving is much brighter than the part that I used to spin and knit QoD. The random 2-ply of the QoD yarn muted the colors some, whereas the Navajo Plying let them stay fairly true and unmixed.

It is rather interesting to knit with this yarn. It is the same fiber, same dyeing method, all dyed at the same time. But, this yarn is definitely better than what I used for QoD. What a difference 6 months can make in one’s spinning skills! This yarn has more spring, it is thinner (despite being 3-ply rather than 2-ply), and is fairly consistent. I do see how Navajo plying can highlight inconsistencies though. Where I am inconsistent, I’m really inconsistent! Those of you out there who spin - knit with your hand spun on at least a semi-regular basis. It can help guide you in building your spinning skills and repertoire as well as help you decide what types of hand spun you prefer to knit with - woolen, worsted, 2-ply, 3-ply, cabled etc. It has made a big difference for my skills.

Over the weekend we spent a fair bit of time hiding in the basement trying to keep cool. There was much DVD watching - movies and TV series. If I wasn’t asleep due to the drowsiness of muscle relaxers I was knitting. I got the latest socks up to the heel and started Sherman heel attempt number one. However, there were two problems and at 3/4 of heel number one I realized the glaring error and decided it needed ripped out. Anyone know what is going wrong? I’ll admit the one error you can’t really see in this photo and the other isn’t as obvious as it could be if I had kept the entire sock in the shot.

The obvious problem that it should not have taken me 3/4 of a heel to notice is that I forgot to switch to the contrasting yarn for the heel as originally planned. Oooops! Let’s just blame that on heat brain and muscle relaxers, shall we? The other problem will be more evident below…

Holes in my short-rows! There will always be small holes in short rows. Some yarns will disguise them better than others. A mostly cotton blend would not be one of them. Even so, these are pretty bad holes and not ones that I expect will minimize with washing. I believe I’m picking up and executing the “purl encroachment” stitch incorrectly. Seeing as how this 3/4 of a heel is knit in the wrong yarn, it isn’t a big deal. I’ll just rip and re-do in the proper yarn and hopefully this second time it’ll go better. I haven’t ripped yet though as I’m not looking forward to picking up those tiny stitches in this rather splitty yarn (typical of cotton, and this is the best cotton sock yarn I’ve worked with so far). I’m hoping to find the patience to do so today. Wish me luck! ;-)

If you’re thinking about trying a different short row heel sometime, I am using a combination of the following three sites to guide me:

• Hipknitistm.com - Lesson 4 Sherman Heel
• The Original Pattern that Described the Technique
• Cabezalana’s Pictorial Tour of the Sherman Short Row

I can hardly believe it has been a year since Grandma left us. I still feel her with me frequently, though it still just isn’t the same has one of her hugs and her “secret.”

This was our first strawberry off of one of the everbearing strawberries. There were a few early on in the season right after we planted them, but they got nabbed by something. I’m always amazed by how much better the locally grown ones taste and how they are red throughout rather than just on the outside. DH and I have been splitting the berries as they become ripe. I think we’ll have a quiet time here for a bit, but there are more set and working towards ripening.

It is to be a real scorcher this weekend. Thankfully, the forecasted lows have been higher than reality and we’ve been able to get the house down to about 65 degrees overnight so we aren’t exceeding about 77 or 78 in the house (and that was with canning both days). We aren’t reaching those temps until it is very nearly cool enough to open up and turn the fans on again so the 90+ degrees have been bearable. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to say the same for the nearly 100 degrees, but we’ll see! Stay cool and have a good weekend!

ETA: After hitting “publish” I went to stretch and caused a terrible spasm in my upper back on the side that usually doesn’t have any problems. Trying to wash my hair or get dressed is pure agony, calling forth tears. I’m laying flat on a heating pad and can read blogs, but typing is rather uncomfortable, so please excuse my lack of commenting at the moment or replying to comments left here.

Despite the heat, the gardening, the canning and all the other craziness of summer stuff there has been a bit of knitting going on. I finally settled on a stitch pattern for the Panda Cotton toes I had done. The color combined with the stitch pattern had me thinking of a half of a ruby red grapefruit so I was thinking I’d call them ruby red, but the gals at SnB didn’t think it fit. Plus, I kind of hate to be married so closely to a specific color with the name. They thought it looked like a crystal structure. What does it look like to you?

There hasn’t been a ton of progress on this one. Partially because I’m knitting them two at a time. Partly because I still need to consult a chart and until we had printing working here I had to work out of my knitting journal which isn’t portable or TV watching friendly (not enough contrast).

I’m thinking I’m going to be trying out a new heel on these. I’m not yet sure what, but I’m feeling a bit in a rut on the heel front. I suspect the heel flap and gusset will always be near and dear to me. I have mixed it up and done some short row heels this summer, but I’m feeling like branching out :-) Do you have a favorite toe-up (or direction indifferent) heel?