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Happy New Year! Jason and Measure and I welcomed in the new year in Tokyo. Since we were really tired after a long day of traveling, we didn't go out, but we could see the Tokyo tower from our hotel room, and heard a lot of cheering at midnight.
Now, we need to hunt up some breakfast -- I'm still a little jet lagged, and starving!
A few days ago, I posted about a pair of socks I knit for Jason -- each with a different style of heel, because I stupidly forgot to double-check what I'd done on the first one when I began doing the heel for the second. One was a stockinette stitch short-row heel, the other a garter stitch short-row heel. Because I didn't want to rip out the whole leg of the sock (having only discovered the problem when I was a few rows away from finishing) I decided to let Jason try them on, and decide which heel he liked best. Then, I would perform surgery on the less-favored heel.
Are you surprised to hear that he favored the garter-stitch heel? I was! The texture of garter stitch seems like it might not be as comfortable as stockinette on the foot, but it actually wasn't a problem. And the great thing about garter stitch (well, not always a good thing, if you've ever knit a garter-stitch scarf and had it grow like the Blob) is that it stretches lengthwise pretty well, so it cupped his heel more snugly for a better fit. Therefore, the stockinette stitch heel had to go!
Here it is, awaiting its fate. I decided to snip at the top of the heel, unravel it -- picking up the newly live stitches -- reknit it to match the other one, and graft to join. Want to see how I did it?
I picked out a good-looking spot at the top of the heel, and snipped a stitch in half. I didn't want to end up accidentally unraveling around the entire leg, so I tried to err on the side of caution. Luckily I hadn't bothered knitting the wraps together with the wrapped stitches on this heel, so I had the wraps as a kind of guide to where the heel rows began and ended. Then, I began unpicking the row one stitch at a time, picking up the stitches on the leg side as I went along, as you can see in the photo above.
Once all of those stitches were on the needle, it was time to unravel the heel. I tried to be fairly gentle, since I didn't want to cause any of the stitches at the starting row to drop. That would have been a pain.
That done, I picked up all of the stitches from the sole side of the heel with my other needle, wound up the unraveled yarn into a little ball, and started re-knitting the heel.
Sorry for the lousy flash photograph, I didn't get a chance to finish knitting the heel until later in the evening. In this photo, the leg of the sock is in the lower part of the photo, the sole and toe in the upper part. You can see the garter stitch heel on the needles -- this is right before I began grafting. I used the usual kitchener stitch to graft the long row of stitches together. I would show you a picture of the finished socks, but I haven't had a change to get Jason to model them for the camera yet. He started wearing them almost immediately after I finished weaving in the ends, though, so I would say this operation was a complete success!
I know I said in my last post that I'd follow up on what happened with Jason's mismatched sock heels, but hey, I'm easily distracted by shiny objects.
I've been seeing these yarn ball wreaths popping up at Starbucks, Joanne.com, on Ravelry and blogs, and since we have virtually no holiday decorations in or around the house, I figured it would be fun to put one together, to make things look a little more festive around here.
At first I was planning on doing a lot of yarn balls and attaching them to a wire frame, which is how I think the Starbucks-type ones are constructed, but the craft store was all out of those. Luckily, they had some unadorned fake evergreen wreaths on sale, and they were the perfect size, so I picked up a few. I could have used stash yarn, but I wasn't sure I had any appropriate red in the stash, and all of the green yarn is yarn I want to use for projects, so I picked up a little bit of the Vanna's Choice acrylic. I also grabbed a couple of packs of ornaments -- frosted red and gold globes -- and some packs of styrofoam balls.
To construct the wreath, I began by wrapping the balls with the yarn until the styrofoam was completely covered. I started off each ball with a little bit of glue to tack down the ends of the yarn, but to be honest that probably isn't even necessary.
Next, I arranged the yarn balls on the wreath to decide how I wanted to place them. At this point, I fluffed up the fake evergreen "branches" to make hollow spots to place the yarn balls. I thought about trying to glue the yarn balls to the wreath, but then I realized that I could just use a tapestry needle and lengths of the green yarn to sew the yarn balls onto the wire frame of the wreath. That worked really well -- I just made sure to go around the wire and catch the ball at least twice, and to knot it securely.
Then it was time to place the ornaments. At first I started to sew those down too, but it was easier just to shove them onto the branches. Each ornament had a loop of wire where a hanging hook would normally be placed, so I just shoved the little branches through those loops, then adjusted the branch so it wouldn't come off. Finally, to hang the wreath, I did a short chain of single crochet, drew it through the wreath's frame, and tied it off securely. Then, it was all ready to hang on the door. All in all, the project took less than an hour, and now I've got a cute custom wreath!
As we were driving around Sonoma last Sunday, I pulled out the socks I've been working on for Jason. I knew I was almost ready to start the ribbing for the cuff of the second sock (these were knit toe-up) and was extremely pleased with myself for actually remembering to bring the first sock so I could compare and make sure that both legs and cuffs would turn out the same length.
Then I looked down at the heels D'oh! One is a stockinette short row heel...the second is a garter stitch short-row heel. I could have sworn I knit a garter stitch heel on the first one. Instead I just ended up swearing.
Jason suggested I rip back the second one. "You like knitting," was his reasoning. Good point, but somehow re-knitting just isn't the same. Especially when it's a big stockinette tube on size 0 needles. So, I finished the second sock, and told Jason he'd just have to try them both on. This way, he can decide which heel he likes better. The one he doesn't like is going to go through surgery! Stay tuned to find out which heel won out, and which one is going to get the snip and rip treatment.
This Sunday, we went up to Sonoma to go wine tasting with some friends. Their daughter is just a few months older than Measure, so the two kids had fun playing while we adults had fun tasting.
The weather was what you might call gloomy -- gray skies, intermittent rain showers -- but it had its own kind of beauty, with clouds wreathing the hills, and the gold and rust and blood red shades of the vine leaves providing a painterly contrast to the more muted tones of the sky.
At Unti Vineyards, we startled a fox -- or possibly a small coyote -- in its pursuit of a jackrabbit. He wandered around for a little bit, occasionally looking back at us reproachfully. If you look closely, you can see him in the center of this photo, although his coat makes him blend in with the colors of the furrows very well.
We were more successful in our hunt than he was in his -- we came home with a nice little bundle of new wines. Unti was probably my favorite spot, as I liked pretty much everything they were pouring, but Seghesio had some zinfandels I liked (and I don't like a lot of zinfandels), and Frick had a nice selection of more esoteric varietals. I think our cellar is nicely stocked up for a while now.
Despite a pile of Christmas knitting to do, despite final projects and final essays and plain old finals to study for, I somehow found myself casting on with some of this lovely Sundara yarn.
I'd tried telling myself that this would be a good project to bring on vacation, I'd tried telling myself that I have no time for personal projects -- and even if I did, I've got a couple of sweaters already on the needles waiting to be finished. But I am weak. The yarn sang to me its siren song, and I did not have the willpower to resist.
The only justification I have, the shred of dignity that I cling to, is that this is my own design, and a prototype for a pattern idea I've had kicking around for a while. It's just a top-down raglan construction, so it will be a breeze to knit to a custom fit, but it's going to be spiced up with cute details. And since it's knit with sock yarn (which knits up faster than you think, because although there are more stitches, you can knit more of them per minute) it's going to be really fun to use as a canvas for all the wonderful handpainted yarn-art out there.
La la la la la laaaa...and so on and so forth.
The other day I got my Sundara Artist's Choice sock yarn in the mail. It was a good day. Although they were all beautiful yarns, I was "meh" about the Citrus Twist, so it found a happy new home with a fellow Raveler.
See what I mean? It's pretty, it's just not my style.
I also got two skeins of Roman Toga, one of which is pictured here with a skein of Roasted Persimmon over Green Papaya from the Seasons mailing a couple of months back. They've got similar combinations of colors, but in different proportions. I like the Roman Toga well enough, but I am trading it for things which suit me even better. (Roman Toga is on the left in the photo.)
What sort of things suit me even better? Why, rich, decadent, opulent shades of brown. I was happily able to swap one of my Roman Togas for a gorgeous skein of Arabian Nights (left) with a fellow Raveler who happens to live just about 15 minutes away. The third set of skeins in my package was Royal Touch, the gold-and-brown skein on the right. I'm really hoping I can trade for or purchase a third skein; I'd love to be able to make a sweater out of it. If not, I might be able to combine it with the Arabian Nights or another yarn. Decisions, decisions. Right now, though, I'm just enjoying it as the lovely bit of artwork that it is.
It seems like I'm rapidly approaching SABLE status (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy) and I'm not even 30. Of course, I justify my stash (especially the sooper special sock stash) by reasoning that some skeins will eventually become gifts for my friends and relatives who knit. For some reason, some of the most beautiful skeins are also the most difficult to photograph, so I can also justify their existence by virtue of the challenge they pose, pushing me to improve my skills. And of course they are great inspiration for design. I even knit with them occasionally! The ultimate justification, of course, is that beauty is its own excuse.
I have a cold, and I'm tired, but I'm making a ragu tonight. Perhaps not the best choice, since it requires at least some attention over the course of the couple of hours it takes to work its alchemical magic. I made the mistake of leaving the tube of tomato paste (love the tube -- who ever uses a whole can of tomato paste? tubes are awesome) on the counter. Guess who snagged it when I wasn't looking? And got the cap off? And is now sucking tomato paste out of a tube?
On the one hand, the tube was mostly empty anyway. But still, I am a bad mommy. I am letting my kid suck tomato paste out of a tube, because it seems to be keeping him entertained.
