Pat's Knitting and Quilting
March 28, 2009 The inspiration for this wonderful and unusual sock pattern was William Blake's "The Tiger". Lisa is amazing with her creative designs and beautifully executed patterns.
I learned SO much making these socks - what an adventure!!!
Pattern: Fearful Symmetry (Rav link) by Lisa Grossman the Tsarina of Tsocks- 1st sock club kit of 2009
The kitty yarn is dyed the exact color of our beautiful silver tabby cat, Rascal, who died 2 months ago at the age of 17. Very cool tiger face....
back to reality....
But at this moment, the boys have left on their skateboards, Dave is at the NCAA hockey playoffs in NH, and it is a warm and sunny spring morning - SO....I'm headed outside to clean up the flower beds so that we can get a beautiful view of the new little snow irises poking up through the ground!
March 23 , 2009 Dave has been asking for more socks - consistently enough that I actually believe he REALLY wants them! SO....I showed him lots and lots of sock yarn at The Loopy Ewe and WEBS and told him to pick out any 5 skeins for his upcoming socks. The shipment just arrived... It is ALL rather dark, but in good taste and quite beautiful!
His favorite was the Lang Jawoll Silk in dark blue/gray so that will be the 1st pair. Look at the little surprise hidden inside the skein... reinforcement for toes/heel.
It feels soft but strong - a very satisfying yarn to knit with - as long as there is bright light! My plan is to always have a pair of "man socks" on my needles as my take-along project, so that slowly and steadily I will churn out 5 pairs of socks. This pair (and probably all the rest of them) will be 70 stitch, wide rib (6X1) socks, inspired by the many pairs of Marguerite's (Stitches of Violet) plain wide rib socks. I had to do a little math to get the cuff ribbing to match with a 7 stitch repeat.
In other dark knitting news...
Here is my all scrunched up lace project - Alpine Knit Scarf from Victorian Lace Today. I find that I am best at knitting lace in the early morning, so I am going to try to knit at least a few rows on this shawl before the kids get up each morning. I just did some calculations - There are a total of 400 rows - I have completed 136 which leaves 264 to completion. SOOOOO if I knit 4 rows/day which seems doable, I will be done on May 29 :-)
March 16, 2009 I had so much fun making these socks! It is VERY easy to spit splice any Noro yarn - I did it for a Noro Silk Garden pullover once upon a time, so the front, back and arm stripes would all match - I'm definitely a striping perfectionist - it adds a fun little challenge to these projects.
As for Noro Sock yarn itself...The colors couldn't be more vibrant and beautiful, BUT it felt like I was knitting with spun sandpaper - very crispy/crunchy/scratchy yarn! The good news is I will probably have the softest feet in town after they've been exfoliated with these socks all day!
Pattern: Annetrelac (download from IK) by Sandy Beadle from IK Holiday 2007
My Fearful Symmetry socks are progressing fantastically - I have learned SO much making these socks (it's been like a mini knitting class), from the Turkish cast on (have always done Judy's Magic), to an amazingly clever transition from flames to feline, and the best short row heel I've ever made. I love the way the chevron flames wrap part way around to the sole of the foot too - no line of demarcation visible from the top or side of the socks. Now I'm knitting the easy section, watching the tiger face develop - my biggest challenge at this point is - where to put the paw prints!
March 5, 2009 SO....to make a long story short, you'll notice none of these pictures were taken in the beautiful Napa Valley - nope! Just a few hours before we should have been winging our way across the USA, Kate got very sick....flu/fever/chills/aches/pains - couldn't even get out of bed - too sick to travel, without any question. I spent several hours on the phone trying to cancel everything without getting financially burned, and since it was a medical issue, all airlines/hotels were very accommodating. I adjusted to the change in plans quickly and ended up having a wonderful 10 day vacation at home (because I didn't tell my employer what happened) and Kate was so sick she didn't even care. She is now better and in hindsight we made the right choice since she was sick for what would have been most of our trip. So instead of wine tasting/redwood hiking/sourdough eating.....
Pattern: Acer by Kirsten Kapur for Through the Loops
Here's what ALWAYS happens when I ask him to take a picture from the back...
other things I worked on during the past 10 days...
and then when I didn't think things could get any better..... I received my 1st
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