Woolgathering

foot

Originally uploaded by demiurged

Not much progress yesterday, due to the time taken up with my committee servicing role (writing letters to MPs and councillors and writing up minutes) but the heel is now closed, the gusset knitted, and the foot is under way.

I have really enjoyed knitting this sock. I love the self-patterning aspect of the yarn, though I really dislike the harsh feel and suspect that I shall only wear these as boot socks, with an inner. But the mechanism of knitting a sock is fascinating and is really opening my eyes to the nature of knitting as technology - despite my oh-so-many yearsof knitting, this has not impinged on my consciousness previously.

Knitting Daily has gone live. It looks useful, with plenty of free patterns and help with techniques. Here is something that may well be useful later today, should I get my Minutes written up in time to get the knitting needles out and complete my sock.

The fifth bamboo DPN has been found. Cats were implicated. No, I am not being unfair or overly suspicious - the missing needle was found lying by the side of a cat food bowl! Somebody had carried it off… most likely: Treacle.

So… I reached the point at which I was ready to close the heel and knit the gusset. I required stitch markers and went off hot foot to search my knitting/sewing box for the beaded markers that had come with my original sock kit. That was when I found it… the second sock kit that I bought at the same time as the first. I had totally forgotten about its existence.

It isn’t good, is it? I shall be knitting socks until the cows come home. At least I found the stitch markers! And the other good news is that my sock is not quite as old as I had thought: the original invoice is dated 4th Jan 2005

But, can anybody tell me what happened to my fifth bamboo DPN? I have been carrying it around with me, safely stabbed into my yarn so that I would know where it was when the time came to use it. That time has come. Where’s the bloody needle? I had it with me yesterday!

I spent half the afternoon on my knees and searching under furniture and in bags. Not a sign of it anywhere. So now I am knitting with 4 bamboo needles and a longer aluminium one. It’s not ideal.

For the record: my picking up along the heel gusset is rubbish. It’s not a skill that I ever mastered, mainly because nobody ever showed me the proper way to do it. Being in need of new specs really did not help matters any either. What? You want to see? Maybe later, with a few more rounds done. I’m struggling with it just now. Tomorrow we shall have photographic evidence.

The sock is progressing. The leg is finished, with a mistaken added extra 5 rows, and today I knitted the heel flap:

So far it has been straightforward, albeit more than a little fiddly.

After the heel flap… forming the heel shaping. This is, I believe the bit that is known as “turning the heel.” Kind of dead easy but I did misunderstand the SsK2tog instruction, I think - and only got it right on the last two knit rows - so the whole thing might have been neater. But, just look, I turned a heel!

Please permit me to be a little excited about this… after all, it has taken me 54 years to get to this pinnacle of knitting achievement. Well, 50 years anyway -  as I didn’t learn to knit until I was 4.

I must say that I love the colour that this yarn is knitting up to. The camera does not show it well and in reality it has more of an aqua/slate/brown hue. I am truly thrilled at the way the colour fell on the heel turning part. It looks really neat.

The next part is foxing me. I think I shall have to try it rather than just read it but it may have to wait. I am committee servicing tonight. Every fibre of my being says “No!” but Minutes must be taken and they have to take precedence to socks -  even “first-ever,” milestone socks.

East 13 June 2007 Sock progress

Originally uploaded by demiurged

After spinning group this morning. Progress!

I’ve switched to bamboo DPNs. The combination of shorter needles and improved slipperiness has helped a great deal.

I am finding progress painfully slow, though and have no idea how to adapt my style to increase knitting speed to anything like (my) normal speed.

I should be down to the heel by tomorrow, depending on how long it takes me to freeze the rhubarb today.

East 13 June, 2007: Geriatric Knitting

Originally uploaded by demiurged

Long time Woolgathering readers will recognise this knitting. This is my first-ever sock, cast on around about 3 years ago (I think) This is where I left it, just past the top ribbing.

Now that the scarf is completed I think it’s time I learned to knit socks at last. So I dug this out to take to Spinning today. It fitted better in my bike than my wheel would have done

I tried a few rounds last night and was really struggling. I thought maybe G, the experienced sock knitter, might be able to give me some hints.

The scarf is off the needles. I wonder how long it will take me to get it washed and blocked and the ends sewn in?

Which shall I do next?

1. Finish the socks I began 3 years ago
2. Start new socks
3. Do more lace - the Kauni rainbow shawl, perhaps
4. Do the Blueface Leicester lace sampler scarf
5. Something else

East 12 June, 2007: Almost Done, originally uploaded by Windows Three.

This will be completed today, thank goodness. I am really bored with it now. Had completely forgotten how much I dislike un-shaped knitting. Socks next, I think.

Something of a day of disasters today. I have to go out this afternoon, and that always makes me unsettled. I feel that I cannot start anything.

Last night I made a small bid on a couple of “creative inspirations” bargain mixed boxes of fibres etc. on eBay. I accidentally won them, getting a £15 and a £20 box for about a fiver each. You know - you give it a nudge but fully expect to be outbid and will be relieved (kind of) when you are? Well, I wasn’t. It will be like Christmas when they arrive. All the same, I shouldn’t have spent that money. I could have put it towards a new wheel. That is, if I actually had the money in the first place, rather than an increasing overdraft

I have been watching a fleece on eBay. It finished this morning. I was sitting here, refreshing the page, and with 7+ minutes to go, decided to take something along to the kitchen. Of course I saw things that needed to be done and I did them, packing the car ready for this afternoon etc. …and totally forgot to bid on my fleece. It went for the starting price of £4.80. Ho hum. A nice Jacob/Icelandic cross it was.

I should be baking some cakes for teas this afternoon. But I’m not. They’d only go wrong, the way that today is going for me so far.

This afternoon I am taking my antiques along to the Sanday Sunday event. I may get a valuation but it’s really about filling the place up and making it look like an event. I shall sit by my porcelain and my copper and knit, I think. I do hope to get photographs - especially ones of vintage tractors. And cake. Even if I am not making any myself, I do hope for tea and buns.

Here’s a weed from my garden, to cheer me up

It’s called Silverweed (Potentilla anserina) and is very pretty indeed. Silverweed has edible and medicinal properties. It grows everywhere here!