Kim is the Best!

My Knitters Tea Swap partner Kim is the BEST!!! She sent me not one, not two, not three, but FOUR skeins of yarn and the most delicious brownies (four!! of them too). But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s the story.

I put this package together for her:

Then this came up for a night or two:

And another view:

You can see why they call this mountain range the Sangre de Cristos, or Blood of Christ. The early Spanish settlers were taken in by the red glow of these mountains as the sun sets. It is a lovely site, especially when moonrise conincides with sunset as it did this month. But, back to the story.

I couldn’t get to the post office on Saturday, even though I knew the package was there waiting for me. Finally, yesterday, Monday, the resident non-knitter was able to swing by after work. He brought home this incredible combination of treats and goodies:

The tea is quite nice. I am especially fond of the Viva en Verde, but, I haven’t tried all three yet. The little dark object in front is a tin of green tea mints! Very tasty. And in addition to the 2 fantastic skeins of yarn that Kim hand dyed her self, she sent two skeins of Shibui Knits in Wasabi (the color that I most wanted–how did she know??) which is enough to make a very tall pair of socks. Best of all, me being a brownie fanatic, are incredible brownies from a bakery that is located close to where she works. They are SO GOOD!

Plus, there are two boxes of cookies and a pattern that I really like for the swirling lace anklets. Can’t wait to cast those babies on! (however, next socks on the needles are for the resident non-knitter, and I’m pretty certain that he doesn’t want swirling lace anklets so these will have to wait.) To top it off, she sent the cutest little card wtih a green knitter on the front. This card is a keeper for sure. Green is my favorite color. Everything was wrapped in green tissue paper the same color as the Wasabi yarn. How did she know?!

Kim, you ROCK! Did I mention not one, not two, not three, but FOUR skeins of yarn? And brownies!!!

Mum’s the Word

No pictures today. That’s because the big “knitting” event had to do with mailing the package to my swap partner in the Knitter’s Tea Swap. I did take some pictures of the box getting ready to go to the Post Office; but, I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise by showing anything to do with the package, yet.

I will say this about KTS4:

• It was a huge amount of fun.
• I met a really cool person that I would have otherwise never known.
• Kim is a fantastic kntter as evidenced by the pictures of her finished projects on Ravelry. I can’t wat to see the magnificent creations (SOCKS!!!) she makes from the yarn I sent her as part of the swap.
• This may be my one and only swap just because of the time committment. It takes a lot of time to put a package together! If you look back even a post or two you will realize that finding time to knit seems to be an issue for me. Swap? Knit? I have to go with Knit.
• If I decide not to ever participate in a swap again, I’m glad I got Kim as a swap partner!

The resident non-knitter is also threatened by the term “swap.” Does this mean you are having an affair? he keeps asking. He’s joking of course.

The Ever-Expanding Stash

The stash continues to grow. Exponentially when you factor in the rate at which yarn arrives and the rate at which I knit.

For example, this is what arrived yesterday in the mail:

And a few days before that:

The current socks on needles (SON) grew on Saturday, went backwards on Sunday morning, and on Sunday night, finally went forwards to reach the point where they had been on Saturday again. Later that evening, they finally saw some forward progress when I actually completed the heel on one sock and began on the leg. Last night I got the heel started on other sock.

I like the Eye of the Patridge look. Substantial. Sturdy. But, no pictures on the blog until I get both heels done. Right now, they don’t look that much different than the last picture. I find it embarassing. How long do other people take to finish a pair of socks?

Meanwhile, to spur me on, I have placed all stash in a basket that I hold on my lap and pet in the evenings.

If that wasn’t enough to make you drool, here’s another angle:

If my counting was correct last night, I think I am set for about 1 1/2 to 2 years if I pick up the knitting pace a bit. Of course, there are just a few more skeins on the way here . . .

Still swamped with work

Emphasis on swamp, because there have been a lot of froggy things happening here lately. The frog theme keeps resurfacing. Not that I’ve gotten around to frogging any of my “big swatches.”

But, friend Chris in Germany is publishing her first sock pattern. Addorable socks she named “Frogprince Socks.” Even the resident non-knitter liked them. He came up and looked at the computer to see what I was doing–which was building a .pdf for her with the pattern and photos she sent. He missed out on my contribution to the pattern though:

Got to go–swamped!

Oh yeah, I do have a blog . . .

not that anyone could tell by the frequency with which I post. In my defense, the third week of every month is spent working on the newsletter I create for our local electric cooperative. That’s what I’ve been working on this week. No excuse what-so-ever for missing last Friday. None. Just didn’t do it.

In terms of the title of this blog, I have been consumed with the middle item. Tink. I got the heel turned on one of the Shibui bark socks. Several rows into the Eye of the Partridge, I realized that I dropped a stitch in the second row. Because of the slipping between rows, it seemed easier to just pull out the heel needles and rip back, pick up again, and proceed on.

However, once I got that baby off two needles, and I realized that this was THE sock with the mysterious bump in the gusset increase about halfway up the gusset, out came the other needles. Bump gone. Progress forward is painfully slow.

There was a poll on Knitting Daily about UFOs. How many? Should I count the sweater I started in the early 80’s that I finally assembled last winter? I even blocked it. It fits, amazingly enough. I do need to hem the bottom and the sleeves and I need to knit and insert the I-cord drawstrings for both–or come up with some other delightful solution. It’s so close. It is “off the needles.” It is wearable. It is not done.

Besides the socks, three other UFOs that I have no intention of finishing. All shawls. Kerry Blue–hate the yarn. Will try again in something different, maybe. MS3–just not my thing; although, I went ahead and bought the pattern to support Melanie. This Zephyr is destined for something else. And finally, the shawl I started in Myrna Stayman class. It’s OK. But the yarn doesn’t look right with this pattern. It just does not please me.

I tend to think of all of these as swatches rather than UFOs. I made a tiny start, didn’t like, abandoned, and am ready to move on. Did move on. Socks. Socks. And more socks.

Lots of socks planned. See:

The colors of the Wollmeise are absolutly radiant. I love this yarn. Claudia, who is a dear to do business with, tells me that the colors are even better in the superwash merino sock yarn. It’s hard to imagine. See:

And on the other side of the spectrum as far as color brightness goes–lest you think I am all one-sided–I got some lovely muted shades perfect for lacey socks from Lime&Violet as well as some lace yarn with long colorpaths from Yarn Place. Both were also very pleasant to do business with. I mentioned Fleegle’s blog at Yarn Place and they upgraded my shipping. Very cool.

I miss her

On July 13, my dachshund Smoki died at age 14. There hasn’t been a day since that I haven’t thought of her and missed her. She was the best friend a person could ever have.

I decided to write about her today because I just “met” my KTS4 partner, Kim. And in our introductory emails, Kim sent me this cute video of another dachshund who had the same trim wasteline as our girl Smoki.

Smoki wasn’t always shaped like this. She had gotten a little plumper the last couple of years. The vet diagnosed her with Cushings Disease; but, before we could start treatment she succumbed to the cancer that probably had created the Cushings via a tumor on her kidneys or pituitary gland.

She loved being covered. She loved snuggling in laundry, like this pile of dog blankets and old curtains. She would self-cover when she could. In this photo though, I helped out a bit with a bit of crocheted lace that needed to have the dust washed out of it. Smoki stayed put after I covered her, looking very much like a much-beloved toy hippo I had as a child. Grandma had helped me crochet a sweater for my toy hippo and when Smoki was laying there on those lace curtains the parallell was irrisistable. I simply had to cover her with a crocheted doily. Of course, she didn’t mind.

Her good buddy Jakob survived her. He misses her too. Sometimes we walk together to visit her grave. We check the perennials I planted there. I got plants with names and characteristics that reminded me of her: Campanula rotundifolia, the Jacob Cline variety of mondara, tall phlox because she loved hunting grasshoppers in the tall phlox that grew in front of a house I lived in once, and then even more Campanula sp. because that’s really what she was–my companion.

She loved to sing. She would put her head back and belt her little heart out. She loved being with people. She loved sweets and pastry and chocolate. She once climbed on the kitchen table and ate an entire pound of chocolate truffles and 13 Mexican wedding cookies covered in chocolate and caramel. The vet laughed when I called in a panic. We changed vets after that. She climbed four shelves up in the pantry to eat our Christmas morning coffee cake one year. She scaled the dining room table to attack three donuts. Our little German pastry hound. I really miss her.

Sometime, take a look at my Ravelry or my WordPress image. That singing little dachshund isn’t just any dachsund. That’s Smoki, serenading us with a song.

Ravelry

I’m in. Just call me PenCraft.

I haven’t had much time to explore; but, what I have seen looks great. It does seem like a bit of work to put information about all my projects/yarn online. And although I read that some people have abandoned their knitting notebooks, I’m not so sure I’m ready to do that just yet.

For one thing, in my notebook, I tape in the band label of the yarn complete with washing instructions and notes on problems/frustrations I had as I go along (why would I ever want to type in information on all my knitting problems??). Yes, I do include some of the “good” parts too. But more important than any of that, I tape a small sample of the yarn inside the label so I know exactly what I started with. Seems important in the case of yarns that fade. Seems important in the event of a hole or similar disaster.

Mostly I haven’t spent much time on Ravelry though, because I’ve been preoccupied with Australia. More on this topic later. But for now, some eye candy from our trip to New South Wales and Queensland this past April/May.

Daily Posting

Well, I think’s fair to discount weekends. I don’t work on my computer on the weekends because I am glued to the screen during all normal work hours. My eyes need a rest.

I also think it’s fair to discount holidays. With the post office and the bank being closed yesterday, I think we can officially count Columbus Day as a holiday. Not that anyone else gets the day off.

So, I am going to consider daily posting a promise well-kept at this point. Besides, it’s been horribly busy here with all the things we have going on, not the least of which is the home improvement work. Richard has been putting in new windows. To give you an idea, here are the upstairs windows.
Good side:

Bad side:

Knitting has progressed ever-so-slowly:

The pattern is brainless and extremely stretchy. This is good because I knit while I’m waiting to hear which tool/object I am to fetch next. They fit well so far. I’m about halfway through the gusset on one sock and just starting it on the other.

I did come across a very nice blog that will be a resource when I get to my lace afghan:
The Doily Underground. Check it out!

Row Counting Trick

Last night as I was knitting, I got so embarrassed about posting pictures of my work in a blog. Who am I kidding! Actually, I wasn’t knitting and perhaps that was the problem. I was using a crochet hook to work back and fix stitches that had an errant strand sticking out and to change the column on which I had started the Bamboo Rib pattern. Fixing problems is always a disheartening activity until it’s done. Then, things look up a bit.

While I was working up and down each column of knitting, I thought perhaps my row counting trick might be valuable to some other sock knitters. Although, I am sure that most other people have already figured this out!

When I have to set my knitting down, I insert an empty needle into the pattern repeat that corresponds to the row I’m on. If I’ve completed all the repeats and am ready to start the next pattern, then I place it horizontally in the sock.

In the photo below, the smaller sock, the one that’s on magic loop, all four main pattern rows are complete. I’m ready to start the two pattern rows so the needle is horizontal. This pattern is so simple I don’t count for these rows; although, I suppose I could. It’s just easier to indicate that this is where I am. In the larger of the two socks, the one on DPN, I’m ready to start row 1, so the needle is in the first pattern repeat–in this case the first column of the Bamboo Rib.

I’m not sure if I’m explaining this well, so I added numbers that show how I count across. Each number corresponds to the row number I’ll be on when I place the needle to set the work down.

Obviously, on these socks, I am using a really, really simple pattern. But, this trick works with “more complex” patterns too. I stared using it on my Wendy’s Cabletini Toe-up Socks. I don’t see it wouldn’t work on many other patterns too.

Now, a short advertisement

DHC. That’s the word for today. Actually, it’s the brand for today. Here in Colorado, things get pretty dry. Among one of the drier things around right now are my hands. This can be a problem for knitting. It gets worse when we run the woodstove full time instead of just occasionally like we are now.

Last year I found a remedy that works surprisingly well: DHC UR Cream. DHC makes some pretty nice products; but, this has to be among my favorites.

In the winter, the skin near my thumbnails will split. I can completely prevent this if I use the UR cream at night before I go to bed, with a coating of a heavier hand cream over the top. My current favorite “top-coat” is Camille Beckman Coronet Cream–laden with lanolin. Use just a small dab of each. Too much of the UR Cream and it starts to ball up as you rub it in.

DHC has a referral program. I think if you give them my name, Ruth Carapella, and customer number (1564177) we both get a discount. But, I would recommend their products even without the program. They are just a nice company to do busines with and their products are good. Camille Beckman does not have such a program that I know of. You can usually find their hand creams in drugstores or gift shops. I think you can buy online too.

If dry hands are a problem for you, maybe this rememdy could help you out too.