Knitting on Impulse

Summer Days

I've come to the realization that the only way to be productive over the summer holidays is to get up... first.  Six AM on the patio looks like this:

And this:

Round about 08:00, the munchkins stumble out for sleepy morning kisses, and the day begins to gather momentum. I try to remember that this time is precious rather than unproductive:

As the afternoon slips away, we turn our imaginations to the remaining farm market produce:

 

Patio suppers are an exquisite summer pleasure, sometimes accompanied by just a wee bit more wine than is technically necessary.  Rob and I linger at the table while the kids run wild in the garden, and a wee bit of knitting gets done:

Then the flurry of baths and bedtime, cleanup and last minute tasks for tomorrow....  it's invariably late, but sleep is postponed just a bit for a cup of tea and a half hour of mindless knitting.

Small steps, incremental progress - summer is a good exercise in choosing to live in the moment.

Bee and Thistle

It only took me... what... three months?  The beta version is ready to go and test knitting will commence shortly.

Mine

You know that worsted weight superwash merino I mentioned at the end of the last post?  I was seized with inspiration, and my daughter was seized with enthusiasm, so it looks like it will stay here.

Anthropometry

Before I get into the topic of todays post though, I wanted to mention that I have begun to tidy, update, and republish my colour series as freestanding pages for easier reference - there were four posts in all, and the first one is now in the right hand sidebar under Tutorials.  (Look down by the Free Patterns.)  I'll try to republish one a week, and then perhaps move on to some of the topics I never got around to last year.

One of my goals with this dyeing venture is to be able to give folk a reasonably accurate idea of what to expect from their hand dyed yarn, ie. the colour intervals and the effects they are likely to produce in a given type of project, because few things are more disappointing than a spectacular skein that looks like a dog's breakfast knitted up.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course, and some knitters love certain effects while others hate them, but I think it would be nice to be able to predict how a given skein is likely to behave.  (Note I said likely - nothing is ever certain, especially when knitting in the round, but some effects are much more probable than others from a particular skein.)

To that end, I've concluded that a bit of anthropometric data would be helpful.  It also seems like a good time to run my first ever contest!

Here's what I want to know: the length of yarn required to knit exactly one round of a sock: firstly the cuff or foot, and secondly, the largest circumference of the heel gusset.  Doesn't matter what pattern - the only constraints are that it be fingering weight yarn and some sort of standard sock construction (ie. no sidewinders.) One way to do this would be to tie a small slipknot in the yarn, tink back exactly one round and measure.  You could also measure and mark a specific interval - say, 40 inches - knit exactly one round and subtract what was left to arrive at the measurement.  Oh - and your shoe size.  All sizes are welcome, particularly plus sizes.

To summarize: send me an email at ruth AT impulse-of-delight DOT com (make the obvious substitutions) with:

1. Length of yarn in one cuff or foot round (feel free to make a note if these are different)
2. Length of yarn in one round at the widest part of the heel gusset
3. Shoe size
4. Any other comments

and I will put your name into the pot for a random draw for a skein of sock yarn custom dyed in the colourway of your choosing.  If I get lots of responses, I will draw for more than one.  If you are knitting socks for other people (preferably adults), feel free to include data for them too - each set of data counts as an entry, and another chance to win!  I'm tentatively thinking of collecting responses for a month? a couple of weeks?, but I honestly haven't the faintest idea what, if any, response there will be, so I'll play the specifics of that by ear.

And since I can't bear to have a picture-less post:

Taken from our patio early this morning, with the mists still swirling around the mountain.  This time of year, the crows and ravens argue over the sturdy topped cedars, while the songbirds secure the tippy tops of the wobblier trees, and their joyful cacophony echoes up and down the valley.

Fragmented

It's always nice to start Monday's blog with something eloquent and meaningful, isn't it?  Sets the tone for the week, projects the illusion (to myself, anyway) that life is proceeding graciously and efficiently. 

Not going to happen today.  Instead of ticking off a tidy To Do list, I am running interference between the bored 5 year old and his too-sick-for-school older sister.  (Also trying to remember that this was the whole point of choosing this lifestyle, so that I am not locked into a schedule, and am therefore free to drop everything on a moment's notice to be Supermom.  Repeat to self - this is a Good Thing.)  Thankfully, running interference is at least marginally compatible with knitting, so I am trying to work up a hat design with this stuff (50/50 wool/silk - very yummy):

It is destined (eventually) to be another notecard/knitting kit, based on this photo:

Speaking of getting stuff done, I put Friday's sock yarn (two lots remaining) into a photo album in the right hand sidebar, complete with fully functional Paypal shopping cart.  (I worked out that bit before the kids got up this morning.)  In future, that is where current stock of yarn for sale may be found, though I will continue to blog the inspiration and details of the project of the week on Fridays.

Protosock

Not exactly what I was going for, but a good object lesson in the perils of ignoring hue and value in the starry eyed pursuit of "ooh, pretty":

V 2.0 is drying as I type.

Bee and Thistle Socks V. 1.0

The inspiration:

 

I elected to go with just the bee and the thistle, leaving out the foliage:

The yarn:

The bees are.... lurking a little too effectively. Just because they do it in real life doesn't mean they ought to get away with it on the sock.

 

In V 2.0, I shall use the magic power of colour theory to bring the little buggers (ha ha) out of hiding.

First Day of Spring

Yup, we popped up the hill again this morning. 

It's hard to resist all that fresh powder - 14 cm of it by day's end!  We packed it in at noon, as the kids were getting tired.

The afternoon was for creative pursuits:

This was entirely my daughter's idea - she presented me with a template which she had drawn and carefully cut out of card stock.  I helped with the transfer to fabric - she did the sewing.  I'll let you know how the turning and stuffing works out.

I managed a bit of pattern writing, mixed up some stock solutions for dyeing, and did some knitting:

It appears I do have a learning curve: I am writing this pattern as I go (on the computer, in actual words, as opposed to scribbled calculations on the nearest scrap of paper) so that if/when it turns out well I won't have to go through the agonizingly tedious job of reverse engineering my own design.  (And if it doesn't, I won't have to guess what went wrong!)  Speaking of reverse engineering, that bit is...blush... coming along.  I'm about 3/4 done both the Little Knight and the Mystery patterns. 

Third Time Lucky

I have been obsessed with this design idea for nearly two months now.  The finished garment has been strutting triumphantly about my brain (which never usually happens - I tend to design on the needles), but has proved inordinately fussy to create in real life.  And I don't like fussy.  I like garment design best when it is mathematically elegant, when the flow of the pattern up (or down) the body makes intuitive sense.  Third time around, I think this iteration has a chance to be that.

The first big issue was creating a firm, textured, slightly-but-not-overly elastic lower border to flow into and precisely match the gauge of a funky, deeply cabled stitch pattern.

Actually that's not quite true, the very first issue was accurately measuring the gauge of said pattern.  In my defence, I was feverish and stoned on Sudafed first time around, though not too delirious to recognize after a couple of days that 10 inches of positive ease was not the look I was going for.

I think this might be it:

I'll let you know in another couple of days.  I know, it's black, you can't really tell anything.  That's why I have to keep knitting to be sure.  I am sure I love the integrated I-cord border, though.  That bit was there from the beginning.

Laying in Supplies

The kids are still miserably sick, and I can feel the telltale beginnings myself.  Though I haven't given up on beating this thing, as I lay awake coughing early this morning, all I could think was: What if I am laid up for a week (as all the adult sufferers I know have been) and run out of things to knit?  Could there be a worse fate than lying on the couch, too befuddled to crunch numbers, too weak to get up and rummage in the stash, having already finished all my WIP's?  (I am studiously ignoring the looming fact that on Sunday I am supposed to spend 12 hours in the lobby of the Chateau Fairmont smiling enthusiastically at strangers over a table of jewellery.)

There's the Little Knight pullover, which is just a few rounds away from starting the yoke - it won't last the week.  There's the second January mitten, but it is already half done, and besides, if my eyes hurt as much as the kids are complaining of, I might not want to read charts.  Cedar Serenade is stalled and awaiting inspiration to strike regarding the bodice, Tree of Life still needs some fiddly frogging and picking up. 

There's this:

Elann's Peruvian wool answer to Lopi, which is utterly scrumptious, and which I recently bought to make a small version of Mystery for my daughter, so as to be sure to accurately recall all the neat little finishing touches.  I picked up some in Cream too, which I plan to hand dye for the contrast - perhaps in shades of lime green and sunshine yellow.  There's the rub, I'd have to do the dyeing before I could start the cardigan.

Or this:

Same stuff, for a design that I am very excited about (and will therefore write up as I go along), but still needs to be swatched and calculated prior to casting on.  Might be do-able.

This one's a long shot:

Superwash wool/bamboo for February's sweet little-girl mittens and quite possibly a matching hat.  I think the design will be more stylized than January's Man Mittens, but still based on my some of my favorite winter-graphic days:

Unlikely that I would get these satisfactorily worked out on paper in time to start the mindless knitting bit.

I suppose if all else fails, there's always socks!