Second Sock Syndrome

...or this is how I overcame Second Sock Syndrome. Have two sets of matching needles: start the second sock right after finishing most of the cuff of sock #1. This helps me tremendously since I often have too many other projects going at the same time, and it is easy to lose (or rather, fail to take along) the instructions if doing a new-to-me sock (like the time I finished a picayune rib at Christmastime and I was in Minnesota, not Michigan. The book with the Vickel braid, which was the next detail, was at home.)

These are coming along pretty quickly, given that I started them on Easter Sunday. Both cuffs are now done, and the rest is mindless rib 'til I get to the heel, and this pattern is firmly ensconced in my mind. It has become a take-a-long, or something to knit whilst watching tv.

Sampling

Alice,
Since the weekend has passed I have made significant progress on the 'It's spring Alice!' warp, and begun sampling. I have put 9 yards of warp on the loom with plans to be able to use at least 1 yard for sampling. Yesterday I tried several of the wefts that I had planned, cut it off, wet-finished my piece and looked, evaluated, and looked some more. I asked DH for his critique. I phoned Mary U and asked for hers. We looked at the sample piece in different lights, close-up and at a distance, hanging and flat. I think in the end we all agreed on the same one for the proposed jacket (I badly need something that says 'Spring' and yet is still warm enough when Spring is slow to come).

However, Mary and I also thought that the bit with a black cotton warp was also interesting and potentially stunning as a fabric. I had only used the black to even up the warp bundles that were tied on, and to help me see if there were any threading mistakes. Ah, happenstance! The black weft has the potential to become a shawl with a different sett, and we thought that it would kick it up a notch to have a beautiful, heavier weft accent throughout.

So! as soon as I have put the linen warp on Little Alice (the Macomber) I will try more samples. I'm going to use a very nice black wool that was in the stash (from your stash, Alice, and I will try a dark green wool, too.) Before I do that, though, there are a couple of areas that need to have the warp threads mixed up a bit more, and now is the time to fix that. This fabric measures 24 inches wide after shrinkage, and there would be only one way to lay pattern pieces out, so I don't need any stray stripe-y looking areas lurking there. Here is the full sample piece...with a photo of the Chanel jacket that was the inspiration.

Too Pretty To Complain

Hammamelis vernalis (Spring Witchhazel)

Late yesterday brought us a change from a cold Spring rain to a mix of rain and snow, and to many lovely scenes this morning. It is, indeed, too pretty to complain, and I know it will soon warm and melt away, and once again the Snowdrops will be revealed.

28 March

If you see this young woman today, wish her a Happy Birthday! More than likely, she will not be at this corner. When she and her dear husband had traveled to Virginia last summer, and I discovered on a map where she was, I told her she was too close to this point to not visit it—then she could say she had been there! Julie and I (of course, all my siblings and double cousins!) are direct-line descendents of Col. John Catlett, who came to Virginia in the 1650's. A few years ago Patrick, a long-time friend who is now working in Virginia, sent me a photo of this intersection and suggested that I come to visit before it is all gone...developed...lost.

Happy Birthday, Julie! and now you can see that the "top secret project" for the past month has been posted under 25 March.

Jumping for Joy!

Yippeeee! Alice! I can finally start the colorful, happy sox that I promised myself, oh, about a month ago, to create for my cousin. I finished up the top secret project early Sunday morning, so Sunday afternoon I was able to cast on the R. S. Fair Isle sox. They got the royal treatment with a two color braid at the top, and the top 5 inches or so of the cuff will be a Fair Isle pattern from the sleeves of an Annabelle Fox sweater I knitted a few years ago. It was such fun that I tried it on a pair of sox that eventually Courtney received for her birthday one year.

It is hard to put down because I love to see the colors coming together. Here is the pattern and how I set up the yarns:


Monday, I was a little under-the-weather, but I could sit and knit, so I made a bit of progress. The silky knit is the base, background color, and below the cuff of his trousers, all should look conservative and staid. (Though I am thinking about putting hearts on the soles...should I?)




...and, oh. Whose knitting chair is this anyway?

Birthday Sox!

Whew, Alice! I finished just before my drop dead date! Sunday morning at 4:30 I was wont for sleep, and I knew if I got up and knitted for a bit that before long I would have to go back to bed. I did it! Finished up sock no. 2, so that they were ready for washing and blocking on Easter Sunday (Julie will be pleased that they have the Lord's Prayer knitted into many, many of the stitches).

These started more than a year ago when Julie sent to me a couple of black fleeces from the shearing floor where they helped with shearing in Nebraska. I went through the bags and...well, much of it became compost. I sent her a lovely thank-you note and a sample of the Shetland I had been spinning...it, too, was filled with vegetable matter, but, darn! a much nicer fleece...one worth spinning! Not long after, a package showed up again at the doorstep and lo! this is what it held (photographed after washing)!
This beautiful fleece came from friends of hers, Cory's Lincoln Longwools in Montana, and honestly, it was so beautiful, glossy, and loopy, that it made me think it was an angora fleece (mohair)! The finally-(and yes, finely) spun yarn acts in much the same way as mohair. There is no stretch, it has a halo, and the strong, long fiber length will definitely hold up well as sox. After much rumination, I decided that sox were one of the best uses for it. That, or a nice pair of outer mittens, a hat that has a soft yarn lining band at the forehead, or woven into a scrumptious coat fabric. There is MORE! I used only approx. 300 yards on sz. US#2 needles.

The Fourniers' book, In Sheep's Clothing, a Handspinner's Guide to Wool says about Lincoln wool: "Commercial uses are upholstery and wig making. Its luster and relatively soft handle for a strong wool make it very desirable for blending with mohair to create a yarn with less than 100 percent mohair but with the same or similar characteristics."

The pattern is Vining Lace from the Socks-Socks-Socks book from XRX Books. A lace knitter I am not. This yarn begged to be lace, however, in that I had spun it so fine I would have had to create a pair of sox on sz.#0 needles, and I knew they wouldn't be completed until 2009 were that the case. Ah, lace! says I.

I am happy to be moving on to the happy, colorful sox planned for my dear cousin! Usually by the time I finish knitting a pair of socks that have a lacey pattern, I am finally familiar enough that I think I could do another pair. That is not happening for some time now. ;)



Stewart popped them in the post for me yesterday. Now we shall see if they arrive in South Dakota by the 28th day of March!


Hope you are hanging in there!
Your Chick

Snails?

Hi Alice!

About a week ago I was able to pick up my weaving/hanging after the Power Center Show where the AAFG selects several works to hang in the lobby of the Power Center for the month of February every year. I don't know that this is 'art', but I sure had fun playing and weaving! I had been itching to do something with Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) ever since I came back from our visit to Sweden in 2004, when we had the opportunity to visit Säterglantan. I watched intently as a woman who was in the weaving class sat stripping the leaves from the straw that she was planning to weave with. In the school's shop there were mats constructed with birch branches. What an inspiring visit!

Back to Michigan. Here is a detail showing the snails that were collected along the shore at Lake Ann. All scrubbed and with a small hole drilled into the spiral in order to attach it in the fringe.



What I found most interesting was that the stems of the Big Bluestem are not hollow at all, and therefore, I think they would hold up really well as a mat at the door. We shall see as I find more time to experiment more with this beautiful, Tall Prairie grass.

For now, though, I am focused on getting the "It's Spring Alice!" warp on the loom...I hope to be weaving yardage by this weekend. And after that, I need to dress the little Macomber with linen for Jason Collingwood's workshop the first weekend of April.

For now, I hope you are getting out as the days warm to get a bit of sunshine. Be well! Nancy