Everyday Socks (and a book conundrum)

How much is there to say about another pair of knit socks?

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Well, not too much this time, although it is possible to extol  at length the pleasures of simple projects and custom-made footwear. I was worried that the pattern wouldn’t work with the multi-coloured yarn.  Usually I refuse to combine texture and colour variation; I have seen so many nice patterns spoiled by splotchy yarns. But  I was really needing something beyond plain knitting and I think the combination worked.  The texture is mostly lost in many lights, but isn’t ugly in any of them.

Hermoine Everyday Socks (also available as a tidy pdf through Ravelry)

Regia Galaxy Saturn, 1582

These socks are a great project, simple yet interesting.  And  I was suckered in by the designer’s description of her inspiration: ” Hermione, as described in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series, is a rather smart and practical heroine. While she can dress up with the best of them, these socks remind me of something she might wear while practicing charms or transfiguration or reading up on Arithromancy in the Gryffindor Common Room.”

(I didn’t do the heel, ‘though I wanted to.  It would have been lost in the colours.  I’m tempted to knit this again in a more solid, paler yarn.)

This puts me on track for my 12 in 12 sock goal.  5th pair done in the 5th month.  The fourth pair are a sad failure, having felted during the first (gentle) washing.  Arg.

As for my other 12 in 12 goals, I phoned and wrote to my grandparents.  I’m overcoming my phear of the phone, at least when it comes to these beloved people.

But I’m conflicted about the 3rd goal – the one about reading.  I read “The Inimitable Jeeves” while also reading “Emperor of the North: Sir George Simpson and the Remarkable Story of the Hudson’s Bay Company”.  I’m conflicted.  Does P.G. Wodehouse count toward the goal? I have long wanted to read a Jeeves and Wooster book, but I did pick it up to have a lighter companion to the biography.  Do I count it or do I wait the 100 pages left in “Emperor” and call that my book?

I went back to the original 12 in 12 post for guidance.  I wrote: “Parenting, crafting, and  homeschooling books don’t count.  Neither do fluffy reads.”  Hmmm.  Is this a fluffy read?  It was delightful fun.  Oh, I don’t know.  Wade in and give me advice.

don’t make the performers cry

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Sign of Awesome

Backstage at the Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium. It made me smile every time I rushed past it as I worked backstage wrangling dancers.

It was Dance Week. Two rehearsals, two recitals.

This morning we’re taking it easy.

But…seeing your daughter get on stage and glow… I mean glow…Wow.

usual and unusual

usual: tea, art, yarn on shelves, colour

unusual: both working simultaneously at the table

literary travels

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Travel to plan. Trip to university to plan. The World Cup to enjoy. A Grand Tour to take.

I’m particularly excited about my plan to use “Africa United: Soccer, Passion, Politics and the First World Cup” as a daily read aloud during the World Cup.  In my mind (you know, the one where everything is shiny and amazing) we’ll enhance our love of soccer while I cunningly teach us all geography & geo-politics. We’ll become better world citizens.  Possibly the children will weep and thank me for my genius.

“College Without High School“ is meant to stop me staying awake nights worrying, and then I’ll hand it over to Sandra so she can grasp her future warmly by the hand.

petal snow

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I’m still reading and knitting and drinking tea beneath the tree. We’ve switched from clouds of petals to showers of petals to a few blossoms still polka-dotting the branches.

brief glory

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From pink buds to white clouds to showers of petals. A few days of extraordinary energy and beauty.

What luck that this hot spring has meant we can sit outside under this brief glory nearly every waking moment. The weather is July weather: +10 overnight and +28 during the day. This means that it is warm enough to sit under the tree, which wraps around the south corner of our deck, even in the early morning. And it means that it is blessedly cool to sit under the shade of it at the height of the day’s heat. Often this early spring display is something we have to enjoy as best we can, wrapping up a bit against the breeze and determining to get the most from a short spell under the spreading branches.

This week, however, I have read in post-dawn sunlight; had my tea; breakfasted on porridge and eggs with Rainer; knit; homeschooled; lunched; suppered; snacked; laughed and played under the tree. The sound of the bees in the first days made it sound as though the whole deck was only moments away from lift-off. The shower of petals by which we have been tickled these past few days has made us feel like fairy kings and queens.

Apple trees work on two year cycles. Plentiful/meager. Last year was the worst year for blooms we’ve ever had.  There might have been 50-100 on the whole tree. Walking past the yard, you never would have noticed that it was an apple tree. This year is the best year for blooms we’ve ever had.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to sniff some of the blossoms, eyes closed, cares thrown to the winds.

a quote and a question

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“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What is your pace today?

Question

George Lucas revealed, to the astonishment of many, that the classic Star Wars trilogy was actually about the redemption of Darth Vader and not so much about Luke as we had all assumed.

In a similar line of thought, does this mean that the seven volumes of Harry Potter were actually about the redemption of Severus Snape?

Hat Love

A wonderful thing happened to me this week: a favourite designer needed a spot filled for her online book tour.  This meant I had a perfect excuse to take time out of the whirlwind of life this week and peruse  “Twisted Woolly Toppers” in detail with a cup of tea.  As a test knitter for Woolly Wormhead (but not for these hats), I saw each pattern in its initial form, but hadn’t had a chance to see it all put together: the attractive layout, the photos of the architecture that inspired the hats, all the little details so carefully assembled.

This is a book to make knitters happy.  Both beautiful and practical, it’s jammed with gorgeous photos and instructions in both written and charted formats. ‘Twisted’ refers to all the cabling in it and not to the way you will feel all twisted up with that sort of tail-wagging, puppy-like enthusiasm as you try to choose a pattern to start.

Because I’m a last-minute addition, I didn’t get to do an interview with Woolly Wormhead and satisfy my curiosity.  I didn’t get to ask her about living in a bus in Italy.  Or about what it’s like to design for people’s heads all over the world.  Or what a day is like designing, cleaning the bus, playing with a toddler, grocery shopping in Italian. Or which her favourite of the designs is, or where she manages to store all the hats she’s knit over the years – are they jammed into a box somewhere on the bus, just waiting to burst out like confetti the moment her son opens the lid?

So what I’ll do instead is share a little hat love.

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Hats = Awesome

To begin, general waxing poetic on the topic of hats and their inherent fabulousity. They are:

~Quick.

~Potato-chip knitting. (Can you finish one and not think about starting another right away?)

~As portable as socks, but faster and there’s only one to make.

~One-skein projects for the most part.

~Great gifts.  (Heads, everyone’s got one.)

~Clever projects to try new skills.

~Warm.  Or just stylish.  Or both.

~Charity knitting that makes you smile.

In other words, all the things we like about knitting are all the things you can find in hats. Simple or complicated, functional or fashionable, but always custom-made.  And all those community things we like to do as knitters work so well with hats: swaps, knit-alongs, charity drives.  Sometimes it seems like knitters are skipping through the world, happily tossing hats around them like petals from a basket.

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These Hats = Awesome.

Now to a more specific praise of hats.  These 10 hats in particular. There is a multitude of styles from berets to beanies to ear-wrapping warmth. It is a joy to find a designer who can take something good and elevate it with clever designs and well-written patterns. These are hats that make you feel smart while you’re knitting them, and then flatter you while you wear them.

Our lives are full of all sorts of people: toddlers, urban sophisticates, snowboarders, whimsical art students, fashion-conscious teens…there are more ways to be a person than I’d like to spend my precious time counting.  And yet I’m fairly confident that no matter whose noggin needs a cover, you’ll find something here.  Don’t forget to see beyond the photo; many of these are far more multi-purpose than your brain will initially think.  Sure Tinker is on a toddler in a bright teal, but think of it in espresso brown and then imagine it on that snowboarder in your life. Duuuude.

Tinker

Chevron walks that fine line of being interesting to knit while still being something someone with a more conservative style will wear.  On the other hand, knit in an intriguing yarn, perhaps one with long colour transitions, this becomes a wild-child full of fun and energy.

Chevron

Brownie would rock the charity auction scene.  The thick cabled band is balanced with a sweet, spiraling top and then finished with a little band of stitches just right for keeping ears warm.   I am getting a real urge to make it for the raffle at our annual  family fun day.  There’s usually wind and a chill in the air, and I bet people would love to win it.

Brownie

This cable-within-a-cable hat seems to walk a perfect line in terms of the fashion I’m seeing around here. My teenage daughter (can you believe she’s 13 already?) thinks Slable hat is super, and I think a lot of other girls and women would agree:

Slable

It’s even knit in fingering weight – a yarn we all have in our stashes that is great for multi-season use.

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This book makes me want to knit in series: I dream of knitting all of them in a row, or knitting one in multiple sizes (a Mama Bear, Papa Bear, Baby Bear sort of gift), and knitting another in multiple yarns to see what will happen.  It makes me itch to explore the designs in many ways.

I just love cables.  They are so impressive-looking yet you need only do the simple trick of knitting stitches out of order.  “Twisted Woolly Toppers” makes use of all sorts of cables, from the thin structural look of twisted stitch cables to the think cushy warmth of a heavily crossed cable.

The instructions are available in both chart-form and written.  The sizes stretch all the way from newborn to adult large. As one of her test-knitters, I can assure you that multiple knitters have tested multiple sizes for accuracy.  Another neat feature: with so many sizes, changing yarn weights becomes simple.  Try a bulky weight yarn by knitting up the numbers for the smallest size, perhaps.  Just do a gauge swatch and see which size gets you the right circumference.  There’s also information in the back on sizing for all different ages to help you if you can’t measure your recipient.

This book is such a treat, it’s like Christmas in July…er, May.  You can buy it in a gorgeous PDF to print yourself if you can’t wait, or you can order a bound copy and haunt your mail box waiting for this sweet treat to arrive.  At 9 pounds, it’s just over $13 (both Canadian and US) at current exchange rates.  And speaking of Christmas, it’s a perfect time to start knitting little projects that don’t puddle wool on your lap.  Oooh, I just had a brainwave: wouldn’t it be a great present for knitting friends to knit a hat from the book and give it along with a copy?

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(To see the rest of the book tour entries so far, which include the story of how her publisher became a publisher and some interesting interviews and other bits and bobs, click here and then scroll down to the bottom.)

zoom in, zoom out

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My ‘photo studio’. Indirect sunlight in our bedroom plus two sheets of white paper, and I call it good. It’s not so simple and uncluttered without the zoom of the macro, eh?

I’ve wanted to do this for a while. I am attracted to the tension inherent in the change between zoomed photos and wider shots.

I also wanted to encourage people who don’t have fancy set-ups. It doesn’t have to be extraordinary. Light and background determine so much in photos. I don’t have a big, bad camera. It’s a simple point-and-shoot selected by my father, who is a photographer of considerable talent. (It’s a Panasonic DMC TZ1.)