Mystery Socks and Baby Cardi

 As you can tell by the uninspired title, I'm not feeling the creative juice today. But, since I'm hiding inside today after snorting gallons of pollen and spores while gardening, I thought I'd share some projects.

Warning: if you don't want to see any WIPs of the Mystery Sock, don't look!

My ghostly feet blend into the floor

Clue #3 is complete for both socks, and I'm pleased with the results! I also realized that I'm using 11" circular needles, not 9" ones. That's why I mistakenly thought using 9" circs were easier the 2nd time around! I found my 9" needles and knit a couple of inches, and my hands ended up cramping, so back to the 11". Only having one circular needle to deal with does speed up the knitting process, but I do wish the Hiyahiyas came with pointer tips (it's supposed to happen by the end of 2011).

Socks aren't the only things I've been knitting. There has been a plethora of baby cardigan activity due to fertile friends. Oy, 2 more friends even told me that they're "not not trying", which means this wave of baby activity won't see an end in 2012. My first baby cardigan is off the needles and in the recipients' hands.

The pattern is Hannah Fettig's Yoked Cardigan (Rav link to my project). I have two more pink cardigans almost complete, and a blue and pale green one that need to be started. Since I'll have loads of yarn leftover, I'm excited to make some stripey baby hats!

I don't have any pictures as evidence, but I've been making boatloads of cashew milk. My last batch had a few dates thrown in for sweetener, and my first batch had maple syrup (dangerously good). My morning coffee has been greatly enhanced with the addition of cashew milk and sucanat. I just have to be careful to not swig down gallons of the stuff since it would be easy to do - I'm not a calorie counter, but drinking 1/2 a gallon of cashew milk in one sitting doesn't sound prudent. Cashew milk ice cream with vanilla and maple syrup is a project in my queue, after I make hand pulled noodles.

They Fit!

No muffin tops on these puppies! They sweaters fit! And in my opinion, they look much better on the dogs than on my cats. After all, they were custom knit for Moxie (blue) and Quinn (lavender).

It's a huge relief. Now, the puppies won't be cold. Just in time for the 100 degree temperatures of summer? It's a good thing the sweaters are cotton...

Palate Cleansers

My saffron is here! So far, I have 9 stamens from three flowers. A paella's worth of saffron it is not, but hopefully more of the crocuses will flower soon.

This is one of two measly garlic bulbs that we planted who knows how long ago - it never separated into multiple cloves. The garlic bulb has been curing on my counter for the past 3 weeks, and I chopped it up last night to add with some Marin Sun Farm chuck roast. Next time, we'll buy garlic intended for planting in this climate. I'm pretty sure that the boy just stuck two cloves of garlic into a pot after I told him about how envious I was of Pam Pierce growing a 6 pounds of garlic on a small 3x3' plot.


Since I'm between sweaters right now and I want to reduce my yarn stash of single balls, I'm knocking out some small projects as palate cleansers. The hats featured above, true color being the brownish red in the second picture, are for a friend and his son who recently moved to Chicago. The pattern is The Boyfriend Hat from Stephanie Likes to Knit.

And since I'm actually posting about knitting, let's revisit an old topic: Irish Cottage Knitting. I am exclusively knitting lever-action style now, and it has improved my pace and reduced wrist pain. To switch, I had to go cold turkey and not knit in my old English style, which pained me since I had so many big projects I wanted to start but couldn't due to lack of reliable gauge. Purling was a challenge, and what I finally figured out was that I had to keep the angle needles obtuse (wider than 90 degrees) when I purl, and acute (smaller than 90 degrees) when I knit. If you take a look at this video, she actually does change the angle of her needles for a knit and purl stitches. Wider for purl, narrower for knit.

It Takes a Village to Knit a Blanket

Last year on September 11th, a good friend of mine suffered a stroke. She couldn't talk, she couldn't move half of her body, she couldn't eat without a feeding tube... But that was then, and now she is kicking some serious ass by working her ass off in therapy! A group of us wanted to knit her something to show that we are so proud of the progress she has made, and to keep up all the hard work.

We decided to knit blanket squares in blue. The only requirements were that the yarn be mercerized cotton (so it is easy to wash and dry), and the finished squares measure 8x8-inches. The squares were delivered to me, and the boy helped me come up with a suitable layout. I seamed the suckers together and knit an i-cord border on it.

Behold! The Kick More Ass blanket!





This blanket took up the majority of my knitting time for the past couple of months. It was worth every stitch!

Irish Cottage Knitting

Last week, I watched this video featuring the Yarn Harlot knitting. Yes, she's like the wind! Since I'm working on a project right now that is just oodles and oodles of garter stitch (it's a super secret project, which is why there hasn't been much knitting content posted), I needed to do something to make my garter stitch time seem less like detention. So, I thought, why not learn a new technique? It wouldn't hurt for me to speed up my needles, plus, this seems like something an English knitter like myself can pick up easier than Continental because the yarn is held in the right hand.

Easier said than done. My tension is atrocious as if I am a fumbly beginning knitter. I had to switch off of the super secret project and start a practice swatch because my garter stitch looked wonky.

My biggest obstacle is that I normally tension my yarn by winding it around my right pinky twice, and then drape it off of my index finger. If I string my yarn the same way on my right hand as I try to lever action knit, my tension is too loose. I need to find a new way to hold my yarn. Also, I usually use circular needles for everything, but I had to switch to straights so I could hold the needle in my right hand like a pencil. I am so irritated now that I have to beat this! Thankfully (or unfortunately), being stubborn is a wildtomato specialty.

A little bit o' Internet time showed that "Irish cottage knitting" is also known as "Peruvian knitting" and "lever action knitting." So using these search terms, I found this video with a very clear explanation. The video is more than 9 minutes long, and the camera is focused on her hands the whole time. I also found pictures of lever action knitting here. The pictures are useful, but the videos are helping me more.

If anyone has mastered Irish cottage knitting and can point me to more tutorials or has tidbits of knowledge for a struggling newbie, please do share!

Onwards!