We had a cold front come through last night. Yay! Yay! Yay!

Yesterday we had temperatures into the 70s and the temperature in my condo shot up to 78 degrees. So not cool. Today the high is supposed to be around 50 degrees with gusty winds. You know what that means . . .

Ahhhh . . . and it us supposed to get cold this week.

I finished the first half of the Midnight Lace Stole — see?

I’m working on the second half, though slowly. I seem to have hyper-extended a thumb somehow, so I’m taking it easy on the knitting right now. But I’m still loving this project. The pattern, while it looks complicated, is actually pretty easy to knit, and easy to memorize. And the Sea Silk is wonderful to knit. It’s so soft and drapey, with a gorgeous sheen. Yum.

Holiday Shopping

Should I tell you that I have most of my holiday shopping done already? This year I made an effort to shop handmade — made a bunch of purchases from Etsy shops. And speaking of Etsy, check out TinkerandPo. Lisa of TinkerandPo makes geeky stitch markers, and other things like fingerless gloves from repurposed wool sweaters.

From now until the end of the year TinkerAndPo is donating 10% of all sales to Autism Speaks. Lisa is the mother of an autistic son, so she think it’s an important issue and also thinks it’s important for independent artists, designers and crafters to become involved in those issues that affect the health and well-being of the communities they create in. We are all interconnected, especially in the current economic and social climate, and as we’ve proven on many occasions, we are powerful in our numbers.

I couldn’t agree with you more, Lisa.

Lucy Sez

As long as I have my Cozy Cushions, I think I’ll be okay this winter!

Yeah, sometimes I really crack myself up.

Hey, guess what? I’m working on the edging on the first side of the shawl.

I’m a bit further along than that, but you’ll have to wait until Sunday to see. By then (barring any unforeseen atrocities) I’ll have the first edge done and will have started on knitting the second half of the stole.

What you may or may not be able to see from the photo is that there are beads placed along the edging, which makes it very entertaining to knit, but also slows things down, as I have to stop and pull a bead up the yarn into place from time to time. The edging pattern is surprisingly easy to memorize as it is logical.

Sock Talk

There were some sock questions in the comments.

A couple of related questions:

Catspaw asked:

When you get to the cuff ribbing, do you change needle sizes or adjust the number of stitches at all or just continue on whatever you have for the ankle?

and Marion asked:

How many stitches do you end up with around the cuff of your socks?

The answer is . . . it depends.

I usually don’t change needle size or adjust the number of stitches when I get to the ribbing. What I do consider is the bind-off and make a conscious effort to make it as stretchy as possible. I do a stretchy sewn bind-off or a Russian bind-off to achieve this. (If you don’t know what either of these are, a Google search will tell you. Or, use the search box over in the sidebar to search my archives — I’ve discussed them at length in my blog in the past.)

Sometimes I will increase stitches or switch to a larger needle for the ribbing, if the sock recipient has larger than average calves.

Dana asked:

Will you ever enlighten us on how you “Cook up” your socks?

Well, that’s a tough one. The answer is: “a bunch of different ways.”

That was helpful, wasn’t it?

Book Giveaway

The Random Number Generator chose Mary the Digital Knitter to receive my copy of The Thirteenth Tale. Mary, I’ve emailed you. Again, thank you to everyone who left a comment!

Lucy and the Heat

Nope, I still haven’t turned on the heat. Yep, I’m still opening the windows. Even with opening the windows every night for a couple of hours and employing a fan to suck cold air into my condo, I cannot get the temperature in here to go below about 71 degrees. This is no doubt due to the combination of my condo building being very well-insulated and my neighbors having their heat turned on.

Because the Midnight Lace Stole is large enough now to be a bit unwieldy, I started a sock for the commute.

This is the lovely Kid Hollow Farm sock yarn I bought over the weekend, in the “Foggy Mountain” colorway. I’m doing a very simple sock because it doesn’t need a pattern to compete with the colorway. It’s just stockinette with a seed stitch placed at equal intervals to add a little interest. I love how this yarn is working up. I’m using my usual 2mm (U.S. size 0) needle and getting a nice firm fabric at 8st/inch. I have a feeling this sock will wear very well.

I am at the point on the Midnight Lace Stole where I am doing short rows at the end of the first side.

The short rows give the bottom edge a slant — very cool, no? After the short-rowing is done, I’ll knit the edging on, and that will be fun because there are more beads involved.

The Thirteenth Tale

I finished reading The Thirteenth Tale last week before going away for the weekend. I found it quite entertaining and even managed to guess part of the last plot twist.

Who’d like to read it next?

Leave a comment to this post by tomorrow (November 13) at 4:00pm EST, and I’ll randomly draw a winner who will receive my copy.

Lucy Sez

“Yes, she has the window open. No, I don’t want to talk about it.”

The Random Number Generator has spoken. The winner of the sock yarn pictured in yesterday’s post is Samina, who left comment number 583. Samina, I’ve emailed you.

Thank you to everyone who left a comment.

Today is a federal holiday, so I did not have to go to work today. I did a little cleaning up, and went out for my annual eye exam. I came home with a slightly altered prescription clutched in my hot little fist and new contacts in my eyes. So I’m seeing a bit clearer, which is always a good thing.

I did spend a little time working on my stole:

Miss Lucy thinks it looks nice on her.

There were some questions/comments about the brushed mohair I pictured yesterday:

As I said yesterday, it is 8 ounces and over 1000 yards. But I would not consider it laceweight. This type of brushed mohair is knit loosely on a large needle, probably at 3 or 3.5 stitches/inch for a sweater. Anything tighter and it would be too dense. You want the knitted fabric to be soft and airy.

I do think I’ll knit a shawl with this, but I haven’t decided on a pattern yet. It will be something very simple. I think.

And Lucy would like you to know that I have not turned the heat on yet. And I have the window open.

When L-B and I meet up with knitting friends at Graves Mountain in November, there is usually a field trip to someplace that involves yarn.

As you can see from yesterday’s blog entry, this year we visited Kid Hollow Farm. I showed you some of their beautiful animals yesterday, but saved the yarn haul for today. Some I did not photograph because it is destined to be a gift. but lookie here:

The top skein is sock yarn. It’s a fingering weight (4.3 ounces and 443 yards) and is a blend of 48% kid mohair, 30% merino wool, and 20% nylon. I can’t wait to knit with it — the yarn has a firm twist and just the slightest halo from the mohair. It looks like it will have great stitch definition. The color is caled “Foggy Mountain.”

The bottom skein is brushed mohair — 90% mohair and 10% nylon. This is 8.3 ounces and and 1038 yards. At the Kid Hollow Farm shop, Pat has a pattern for a simple pullover sweater that takes one skein of this yarn, but I plan to knit a shawl from mine.

I acquired some more yarn. gifts from L-B:

The top skein is Suffolk Sock, a new sportweight sock yarn, from Solitude Wool. It’s 70% Suffolk and Dorset wool, mixed with 30% nylon and is a 3.8 ounce skein with 275 yards. L-B got this at the Fall Fiber Festival in Montpelier, Va last month. That’s where she got the bottom skein, which is a new sock yarn from Carodan Farm.

Give-away!

I was so taken with the sck yarns at Kid Hollow Farm, that I purchased a skein to give away to a WendyKnits reader:

This is the same yarn composition as the skein pictured at the top of this entry. It is 4 ounces and 412 yards and the colorway is Brilliant Jewels. Would you like it?

Leave a comment to this entry by 4:00pm EST tomorrow (November 11) and I’ll pick a name at random from the comments to receive this lovely yarn.

Here is my progress on my stole:

And here is my sleepy little princess: