My current work in progress:

1. Modified Peace Socks knit from Alchemy Juniper in the "Dragon" colorway, on 2mm needles.
2. Various stealth projects.

Catnip Socks

The Catnip socks are finished. There is much rejoicing.

catnip061109

I am making the pattern available as a freebie and you can get it, in pdf format, here.

There is only one size — a medium. I love the stitch motif I used for it, but discovered that it does not lend itself to being either sized up or down for other sizes. I have a purl stitch in-between each repeat of the lace motif and I could  have resized by taking out one motif and adding purl stitches for a smaller size, and keeping the number of motifs just adding purl stitches for a larger size, but I didn’t like how that looked. So I’m sending the pattern out into the world in one size only.

I am still working on Finnian’s Gansey, in case you wondered. I have the front completely done.

gansey061109

The body is knit in the round and then split at the beginning of the armholes and the front and back knit separately. So I’m ready to knit the back.

So I have one of my two projects off the needles. You know what that means, don’t you?

I get to cast on Girasole.

Lucy is so excited she wore herself out jumping up and down and had to take a nap.

lucy061109

I Have No Formula

That is a blanket answer to the many questions I’ve been getting that all start with:

“Do you have a formula for [knitting pattern or technique]? ”

No, I do not.

Allow me to explain.

Many many many many (many) years ago, when I started high school, I took Algebra One. And just barely squeaked through it. Next year I took Geometry. That went marginally better.

Then came Algebra Two.

Sadly, our teacher died at the very beginning of the school year and we had a couple of months of a parade of substitute teachers who were little more than babysitters. By the time we got a permanent teacher, I was hopelessly lost.

(In retrospect, I wonder how I managed to pass Algebra Two. Because I did pass.)

Senior year of high school I took no math class.

Fast forward to my freshman year of college. In order to fulfill the requirements for my degree, I was required to take 3 credits of mathematics. I took a course called “Concepts of Mathematics” that was recommended for liberal arts students. There were pictures in the textbook. The professor who taught the course was, I believe, chosen for that duty by virtue of having drawn the short straw.

This is a long way of saying that I suck at anything that involves numbers and counting. The idea of creating a formula for something gives me a fit of the vapours and I have to lie in a darkened room with a cool cloth on my head until the mind-fugue passes. Like Mick Jagger, I have to turn my head until my darkness goes.

I know that other smarter and far less numbers-challenged people than I have come up with whizz-bang calculators for all sorts of knitting related stuff so I suggest you google for those. :-)

Lucy Sez

lucy061009

I can’t count, either.

A Heel Tip

In one of the sock classes I taught last weekend in Charlotte, I offered a tip to make life easier when you are doing the short rows on my slipstitch heel.

The pattern directs you to work some short rows with increases after you finish the gusset increases. This creates a little curve (with some added fullness) that hugs the back of the heel at the bottom of the heel flap. Here’s a heel with the short rows completed, before working the heel flap.

curve060909

If you are knitting the size medium, for example, you have gusset-increased until you have 55 stitches on the bottom of the foot. At this point you start working back and forth on the heel stitches while the instep stitches just hang out and wait.

On the first row, you knit across 37 stitches, knit in the front and back of the next stitch to increase 1, knit the next stitch, and then wrap the next (unworked) stitch and slip that unworked stitch back to the left needle.

On the second row, turn your work and purl 22, purl in the front and back of the next stitch to increase 1, purl 1, then wrap the next (unworked) stitch and slip that unworked stitch back to the left needle.

Those first two rows of the short row shaping are really the only ones where you need to count your stitches. When you turn your work again and work across, you are going to work until you have 6 stitches remaining  before the gap that is created by wrapping a stitch. Check out this photo:

stitches060809

If you click on the photo for the larger size, you can see that there are 6 stitches left on the left needle before the first gap, so you know it is now time to work the kf&b, K1, W&T.

This is true of each subsequent row in the shaping — you work until you have 6 stitches remaining on your needle before the gap. The pattern tells you how many stitches you work plain in each row, but if you put down your work and then forget which row you are on, this is a good thing to remember.

You are doing a total of 8 shaping rows, so you have 4 increases and wraps on each side of the heel. Here is one side of the heel.

You can see the shaping occurs in little clumps of 3, so if  you forget how many rows you have done, just count your clumps on each side!

wraps060809

I’ve circled each wrap in this photo of one side of the heel.

This spacing is true for all sizes of my slipstitch heel.

heel060909

Lucy Sez

lucy060909

“I heart the a/c!”

Home Again

I’ve spent the day resting up. :-)

I returned home last night from a fun and very busy weekend in Charlotte, NC. As is usually the case, I took no photos, but I was pretty busy the whole time I was there — classes, book-signings, informal get-togethers and meals, and even one radio interview. It all passed far too quickly, but I was pretty happy to return home to a happy purring kitty who has been doing her best not to let me out of her sight.

A big thank-you to Charlotte Yarn for hosting my events. This is a great shop staffed by a group of wonderful people who made me feel right at home. Another big thank you to my friend Aimee who not only invited me to stay at her house, but her two kitties Rozz and Eva did their best to make me feel at home.

And thanks to all the knitters who came out to see me. A bunch of you have been my online buddies for a while, so it was wonderful to see you guys in person, and it was wonderful to meet new friends.

I’ve got very little knitting progress to report. I’ve done a bit on the gansey.

gansey060809

And a bit on the second Catnip Sock.

sip060809

I did get my yarn for the Girasole KAL from The Loopy Ewe while I was gone:

yarn060809

Indigo Moon fingering weight merino. The colorway is MyroGreen Lite.

Doesn’t Lucy look happy now that her Momma is back home?

lucy060809

It Does Not Take Much

It does not take much to suck me into a new knitting project.

See, yesterday Sheri blogged about her Girasole project. She’s coming down the home stretch on hers, and is going to make another one. So she decided a Girasole Knit-Along would be fun.

So in the blink of an eye I had bought the pattern and ordered my yarn from The Loopy Ewe. A bonus in buying the yarn from The Loopy Ewe? Sheri is offering a 20% discount (good until June 15) on yarn purchased to make a Girasole in The Loopy Ewe Girasole-Along. Check out Sheri’s blog entry for details.

I’m gonna make mine from fingering weight yarn. What yarn did I buy? I’ll show you when it gets here.

Speaking of fingering weight yarn, I finally finished my first catnip sock.

catnipsock060409

A close-up:

catnipcloseup060409

And I am currently working the underarm gussets on Finnian’s Gansey.

gansey060409

Tomorrow morning I head for Charlotte North Carolina for a weekend of knitting fun and frivolity. I return home Sunday night, so there will be no Sunday blog post. See you Monday, unless you are planning on coming to one of the Charlotte events, in which case I’ll see you there!

Lucy Sez

lucy060409

“It’s raining hard. I love being an indoor kitty!”

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