Fiber Fool

I hate to disappoint you all, but the review of New Pathways for Sock Knitters by Cat Bordhi will not be appearing here on the blog. It is for publication. I can tell you though that I bought my own copy this week even though the review copy has not yet been returned. I just couldn’t bear the thought of not having this book nearby whenever the urge might strike to learn a new sock construction. The first printing is sold out so your best bet of finding a copy before October is at an LYS.

To the left is a pair of the Little Sky Learning Socks from the book. These are knit top down with the gusset spreading out centrally over the front of the leg and star toe - no kitchnering for those who dislike grafting! I think these are just adorable and already my mind is whirling in circles with ideas of things to do with this sort of construction.

The other adorable pair of socks is the second learning sock - Little Coriolis. Note how the spiral of the socks go in opposite directions! *sigh* Ah, I love mirrored symmetry! As with Little Sky I have ideas rushing around in my head for this construction as well. There are not enough hours in the day for sock knitting and my back/neck can’t handle the hours of sock knitting I wish I were doing right now.

Pattern: Little Sky and Little Coriolis Learning Socks
Designer: Cat Bordhi, from New Pathways for Sock Knitters
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton Ease, 113 Cherry Red
Needles: US 5 Brittany Birch DPNs
Mods: These are slightly smaller as my gauge was 6 sts/in rather than the samples in the book which were 5.5 sts/in. Other than that, no mods as the point was to learn new techniques.

Notes: I really, really suck at the figure-8 cast-on called for in the Little Coriolis pattern. For toe-ups using sock weight yarn where I am set up to knit the socks on 2 circs I think I’ll stick to my handy dandy Turkish cast-on. The second Little Coriolis has a slightly improved toe, but I still knit it twice and it still isn’t quite right.

I also love this heel. It appears to give the fit of a heel flap and gusset, but there is no picking up of stitches, just decreasing the extra “wing” stitches away. It is interesting though because the top down socks look like a traditional toe-up heel flap and gusset and vice versa for the top-down version. I can’t wait until I knit some of these in my size so I can see what the fit of these unusual constructions feel like. However, the Panda Cotton socks and Fountain of Youth socks need finished up first. It’s so hard to not cast on though!

Chris started a monster when she visited back in June. Not only did she get me haunting the swap-bot web site and signing up for photo swaps, but she got me making mixed CDs like a mad woman! She also got me checking out eMusic (I got 50 free non-DRM’d downloads in 30 days to check them out, and she got 50 too when I signed up - let me know if you want to check it out and I can send you an e-mail) and listening to the stream of The Current (Minnesota Public Radio). I’ve had so much new music in my world since and it has been a blast. My music listening had gotten pretty stale.

Participating in these swaps have also given me an excuse to play around with digital art once again. For the cover art in this post I used digital scrapbooking elements from various free kits at Two Peas in a Bucket and built the inserts in Photoshop CS.

If you click on the images it should be a bit easier to read the track listings. If you like what you see and would be interested in a personal swap, just let me know. I am also wrapping up a mix of local indie groups (not all still together, but…) and I have a CD mix ready that is very eclectic but all the songs are about breakfast foods. Sounds odd, but it is a fun mix!

There has been a definite lean of my new music towards contemporary folk and indie music. Neither are a real stretch for my musical tastes, but it has been great to add some new stuff to my iPod. Among my favorites?

• Editors - The Back Room (An End Has A Start is on my wishlist)
• Great Northern - Trading Twilight for Daylight
• Great Lake Swimmers - Great Lake Swimmers (I’m definitely going to be looking into their other albums)
• Joshua James - The Sun Is Always Brighter
• Romantica - America
• The Wailin’ Jennys - 40 Days

Also, don’t forget - tomorrow is that last day to sign up for the Fiber Art Photography ATC swap!

I don’t know what was going on that I couldn’t figure out the Sherman heel. It really is quite easy and I hope I didn’t scare anyone away from trying it. I have to say it is my favorite short row heel technique so far. Since you aren’t wrapping stitches except at the very beginning of the heel it goes faster. Picking up the encroachment stitches goes more smoothly and faster for me than picking up wraps as well. At least once I was clear on what made up the “encroachment stitches.” The inside of the heel is also very smooth. You actually see more texture than you can really feel.

I know I’ll be using this technique again. I am still a big fan of the traditional flap and gusset. Perhaps because that was what I first learned. It also fits me quite well. However, I enjoy making contrasting heels and toes and I don’t care for the look of contrasted flap and gusset heels. I also enjoy learning new things and being able to do such is what keeps me interested in something.

Now, if only I could move a little faster on these socks! They aren’t in time out or anything. They are getting a few rounds of attention here and there, but nothing to make me zoom along quickly. The handspun project last week has divided my attention, as has the arrival of the new Cat Bordhi sock book that I need to review. I can tell you now that this book will become a part of my fiber arts library, without a doubt!

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Now an update the health of our household - Emma is doing well. She is her normal self and hasn’t had any seizures since coming home on Sunday morning. We did finally leave her home alone for a bit last night, but it was only a touch more than an hour. As for me and my back, yesterday I thought my back was doing quite well but it started acting up again during the night. It is frustrating, but it is nothing unusual for me so I have ways of dealing with it. It does slow down my creative pursuits though. I thank all of you for your kind words for Emma and myself.

While in Colorado Springs before the wedding we did no tourist stuff as we had originally planned. I had increasing back spasms giving me trouble so we decided to just lay low for the most part. We were staying at a B&B in Old Colorado City, just 1/2 block off of the main shopping and dining area there. So Thursday we just wandered out for dinner at Gertrude’s, a nice restaurant that is especially vegetarian friendly.

On Friday morning after our breakfast we wandered the shopping and dining area more. I also popped into two different fiber shops in the area - Green Valley Weavers and Holly Berry House. At the top of the post is a look at 1 ounce of the 3 ounces of angora I bought at Green Valley Weavers. It is from Woodlake Woolies (contact me if you’d like contact info) out of Elbert, CO. I’m excited to give this a try!

At Holly Berry House I picked up a skein of sock yarn. I have worked with Araucania yarn before and loved it. I was excited to see sock yarn from them. It was a hard pick on what color I wanted. There was a semi-solid orange/rust that I really liked and a few multi-colored ones I liked as well. But I held strong and just came home with color 108. I think it might match close enough to my linen skirt I made last year.

Even though we didn’t ride the cograil or visit any of the museums it was a very nice and relaxing mini vacation anyway. The hot tub on the balcony of our room was very helpful to my back such that I withstood the wedding festivities without too much trouble. Now we’ll just have to plan another trip down that way to be tourists.

It was a wonderful day for a wedding and the wedding was quite beautiful. It was held at a wedding and event garden center called The Secret Garden. It was just the right size and the setting was fantastic. A slightly larger selection of photos from the day (only about 1/8 of what I took in total) can be seen in the photo set at Flickr.

We came home to some bad news. It seems Emma was having seizures while at the kennel. We dropped her off mid-afternoon on Thursday and she had one Friday night, one Saturday morning and one Sunday morning. We picked her up on Sunday and took her to the vet. They had done a blood panel on her a month ago and everything was normal so they checked her electrolytes and they were also fine. So far she has had no more seizures so the vet said to just keep an eye on her for a while. If she doesn’t have any at home it was probably stress. It’s still frustrating though to not know what the problem is/was and how to fix it. Plus, we were looking at a two week get-a-way in early October, but I’m scared to even go to the grocery store so that I have something to eat for lunch today let alone be a 1000 miles away for two weeks!

1. The Happy Couple Arrives at Edelweiss, 2. The Staging Area, 3. Teddy, 4. Julie and Ken Walking Down the “Aisle”, 5. Flowers, 6. The Ring Ceremony, 7. Greg’s Girls, 8. Shane and Theresa, 9. Julie and Family, 10. Sand Ceremony, 11. The Cake, 12. First Bite of Cake, 13. Mark