Knitting Again

I can almost feel the knitting mojo coming back. I have been sewing for months and months with no real desire to knit much, but now that the weather is finally cooling off I am looking at the knitting machine with interest again. In the meantime, I did finish another pair of socks for A.


This yarn is Berroco Sox in Color 1477. The photo shows the colors almost exactly as they are, and I did manage to match the socks to each other pretty well. I used a size 2 needle and 64 stitches for a plain sock, but if I were to start over again, I would use a size 1 and 72 stitches for a firmer sock fabric.

I had put aside the aqua sweater I was making because I was too busy sewing, but now I am gathering up the various pieces and thinking about hanging them on the machine and finishing that sweater. I had knit the body and sleeve borders in a lace pattern.

My birthday was this month, and my daughter, M, is knitting me a shawlette in the most beautiful orangey/yellow yarn, so I am looking forward to using that this winter.

Never Forget

This flag was issued the day after 9-11, and hung in our window for years afterwards. It only came down when we had the windows replaced. It may be old and faded, but we still remember.

New Socks

I finally got started on some toe-up socks using some sock yarn from my daughter. She recently had creative differences with her stash and got rid of some of her sock yarn. I knit a lot of socks for the other daughter, so I added her rejects to my stash. Here's my freebie yarn:

I am using the Wendy Knits book for the pattern for these socks. I decided to learn new things so tried Judy's Magic Cast-On. I really couldn't figure out the instructions in the book so I looked on the internet, and there are several places where you can see a video showing how to do it. It took three tries before I could get the stitches the way I wanted them to be, but now I am almost to the heel.This Yarn is Knit One Crochet Too Ty-Dy Socks in Color 1767. I'm using size 1 needles with a sock circumference of 72 stitches. I'm not really a fan of the short-row heel so am going to try one of the other kinds. When I use a new kind of sock yarn that I haven't tried before, I keep a record of the number of stitches cast on, size of needles, and number of rows to heel and toe. This way, when I use the yarn again in the future, I have an idea of what works and what doesn't.

A Completed Knitting Project!

I finally finished those Deborah Norville Serenity socks. For some reason these just dragged on and on, but they are done at last. This is the color 'Sapphire'. I liked the feel of this yarn, but I guess my knitting mojo has been gone for a long while now and I had to force myself to finish these up. I think I am just soooo tired of knitting socks from the top to the toe, so I am going to get started right away on a toe-up pair. I have both Wendy Knits books so I just have to choose a pattern and get started.

I have been busy with the harvesting and putting by for the winter. So far I have made pickle relish, jams, applesauce, and hot pepper jellies. The garden did, and is still doing, great this year:

A forest of volunteer zinnias came up in the middle of one garden patch, hiding the beets and carrots, but I just left them there. The butterflies love our yard and so far we've seen tiger swallowtails, monarchs, and of course, those blasted white cabbage butterflies. We planted extra this year because it is such a bad economy, and our daughter was out of work, and other family members were feeling the pinch. The good news is that our daughter found another job, as did my nephew and his wife, so we are feeling very thankful. I wasn't sure how those hot pepper jellies would taste since I tried some new varieties, but I took several jars to my brother's birthday party last Saturday, served them over cream cheese in the usual way with crackers, and since there were only empty serving plates left in a short time, I would have to say they were acceptable. I made regular green hot pepper jelly, apricot/cranberry/jalapeno jello, and pineapple jalapeno jelly.

Here's an August view of 'The Back Forty' which has changed quite a bit since last month. There are very many winter squashes hiding under those leaves. It's amazing how much you can grow in a small suburban yard.

I know that most of the eastern and middle portions of the country are having a blazing hot summer, but here in the west we had a mild summer with only a few patches of really hot weather. Most of the time the nights have been nice and cool. We got a really late start on the yardwork this year because we had to go back to the Midwest in May for my inlaw's anniversary party, so that set us back weeks (though it was well worth it). I was surprised how fast the garden got with the program and started producing. Makes me wonder if the effort of trying to start the seeds in the cold spring is necessary.

Right after we got back from the trip, I found a new stash of vintage knitting pamphlets, so I'll have to get started again with Retro Knit Friday. Just not today.

Garden Progress

We are well and truly into the hot weather now, and the plants are growing. Sometimes they grow several inches overnight. The beans are climbing the trellis, and the apples are already falling from the tree, which means I will be in the kitchen putting up applesauce pretty soon. I already put up the golden plums, and will get the puree out of the freezer and make jam when the weather is cooler.Here's a view of what the spouse calls 'The Back Forty'. It was an unused area in back of the playhouse that used to have a woodpile on it. It gets a lot of sun so we are growing winter squashes back there. I am trying tomatoes in a new location, right up against the white wall of the playhouse, and so far they are doing fine:

We went to the fireworks in Benicia last night and it was great fun. We asked the policeman if it was ok to set up our chairs right on the sidewalk next to the Bay, and it was. We soon found out why there weren't many people in that location yet : the wind off the Bay was freezing and included spray. Oh well, we endured and enjoyed it. The fireworks were right over our head, really huge bursts of fabulous color. I love sitting right under the blast, because the sparks fall down around you and it is like that scene inside the alien ship in Independence Day - a big empty sphere with sparkles all around. The crowd was friendly and funny. After one particularly huge fireball of firework beauty, some guy in a group of young people next to us shouted, "Up yours, England!!" Ah, the Glorious 4th!

Busy Summer

I have finished all the hand knitting lace parts of the aqua sweater and need to hang it on the machine. Other than that, we have been busy working in the garden and harvesting the unexpectedly early crop of golden plums. I remember back to when I was a kid and we had to sit at a table chopping fruit up by hand for jams, but now we just cut the fruit away from the seeds and throw it into the food processor. I package the prepared fruit up and freeze it to make into jam later, because nobody wants to be slaving over a stove canning when it is 104 degrees out there.

This seems to be a slow year for knitting so far, but at least I am sewing a lot.

Victory Garden

The photo above shows our garden at this time last year. Below is our garden this year:

This year the spring was long, cold, and rainy and we got a very late start. Things are shaping up, though. I always wanted to have a fall garden because you are supposed to escape most of the trouble with bugs, but what I thought would happen was that I would harvest the spring stuff and then plant another crop for fall. This year we are only getting the fall part, but that's OK. We aren't growing a wide variety of stuff, just the old regulars: beets, carrots, radishes, onions, chard, beans, cucumbers, squashes (winter and summer), and basil. I did buy a few tomato plants to try, but I usually don't have much luck with those because of some disease in the soil, but hope springs eternal in the garden.

In knitting news, I am still working on the aqua sweater in fits and starts, and just need to finish the lace edging on the sleeves before I hang it on the machine and do the stockinette part.