The languid days of summer have quickly turned in to the action packed days approaching fall. Halcyon days spent at the beach, playing Boggle, and knitting while Seasons 1 and 2 of Mad Men have ended. The end of August heralds school, homework and for Erik, many appointments with doctors. Erik, who I had hoped would be a Navy enlistee, returned from his physical with a mysterious heart ailment. After a few tests and visits with a cardiologist it was determined that  the tachy heart was not the problem at all. Instead he has an overactive thyroid which supplies him with lavish quantities of tyrosine and triiodothronine. Treatment for this may involve killing the thyroid with radioactive iodine. Erik can take his secret identity, Glow Boy, into the night. Hopefully the cats will be able to keep their fur and the appliances won't begin to spark. Should the Navy take him, his added value could be in the reactor room of a sub.
My days at the beach were spent knitting and swimming or swimming in knitting. Lisa and I would leave early, coolers packed with cold drinks and fresh fruit, we would swing by the bagel shop, and have our butts in the deck chairs by 9 AM. Lisa caught up on her reading. I would listen to podcasts and knit. In between, we would catch a few waves or walk along the shore.

These were the fruits of my labor. Socks whose colors compliment the railroad vine that crawl along the dunes. The pattern, Wollmeise Poppies was knit using Blue Moon Fiber Arts Lightweight in Lemon Grass and Rhododendrite. Fair Isle is not my forte. I was happy to practice on a pair of socks in preparation for knitting a Damask Kauni. My initial attempt resulted in a three repeat cuff which just didn't fit. Fair Isle has very little give, no matter how springy the yarn.  Luckily for me, my trusty friends in the Thursday morning knitting circle frogged back the foot, heel, and a pattern repeat before I could change my mind. It was the right thing to do. A handy tip from another knit groupie is to knit the project while its turned inside out and keep the threads in the back loose. This results in less pull on the front side. I entered these socks in Ravelry's SKA contest. Hopefully, my lucky number comes up as the prizes are terrific.
My original Fair Isle project was an expensive mistake. I fell in love with the cute Spud and Cloe marketing blitz and purchased four skeins of Fine in various colors. The sock pattern was a Mystery Sock and upon knitting a few clues, the love affair quickly ended. Not only were the colors all wrong, the yarn is too thin, splitty, and limp for colorwork. Frogged again!

Next months SKA theme is to knit using yellow yarn. I only had one skein of yellow in my arsenal, knit into a scarf that would not remain flat. I couldn't let this yarn languish in a drawer so it was frogged and reskeined ready to be knit into a pair of socks. The pattern currently settled on is the Kansas Harvest sock from the Townsend Knitalong group.
Hopefully my frog days of summer are quickly coming to an end. I am looking to fall, new socks and a couple of great sweater in my future.

Dear Kate,

I have been lurking your blog since 2004 and while you were living in France. I journeyed with you through marriage, moves and children. You are the high priestess of the Clapotis, Sunrise Circle Jacket, Union Square Market, Peapod, Marina Piccola (I've knit this one), and my nemesis, Arwen. Clapotis has 5000+ hearts om Rav. Your patterns are known far and wide and come in such a wide variety; socks, tops, shawls, mittens, baby togs. The list goes on and on. Your patterns were some of the first that I fell in love with when I discovered knitting in the blogosphere.

All I ever wanted was to knit Arwen. I remember buying and downloading the pattern, searching for just the right color of the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran and investing in Addi Turbos, to allow the stitches to fly off the needles.


I swatched for the first time in my life! I colorcoded all the appropriate stitch numbers on the pattern with a yellow highlighter. My only concession was that I wanted to modify the hoodie and  change it to a middy collar. This fifty year old woman wasn't going to wear a hoodie, not in Florida anyway. I had scoured the library for books on how to miter a cabled corner and found just the perfect instructions in a book of Viking Knitting. I remember the day that I cast on my first stitch, a sultry July Saturday morning, after having chosen just the right size and I let the knitting begin. I have a love affair with cables and the sweater was progressing well. I was even memorizing the cable pattern. I knit both sides and plodded through the garter stitch square that was the back.

I seamed and all came to an abrupt halt when I realized the sides were uneven. I frogged both sides to beyond the sleeves and reknit. Again, failure. The jacket bits landed in a dark corner while I knit other things. Months later the bag was retrieved from its dusty corner. I revisited my Arwen but I just couldn't get thing to line up. After much trepidation, I took the plunge and ripped the whole thing out. Thats right, I enlisted the help of my son and ripped while he wound the many yards of Cashmerino into semi-fresh cakes. So, there I sat with hours and hours of knitting wasted. I read the Ravelry forums and notes in the completed Arwens, those successful and not. This sweater was just not to be.

I got over my sorrow and was determined to move on! I had the Ravelry search engine smoking with every variation of cardigan and sweater in Cashmerino Aran, searching, searching for the dream sweater that I knew this yarn could become.
After what seemed like hours and hundreds of sweater patterns later, despondency set in. Was there no sweater suited to my yarn, figure, climate and knitting talents? One more search. I can't remember what combination of words or tags I used or if I searched by yarn type...but there it was the sweater of my dreams staring at me on the body of a model leaning against a barren tree, sleeves that were much to long for her arms. Wisteria! Just the name was magic and those cables, wild and unpredictable. Sure, the sleeves could be shortened. This was it, the sweater that would be my knitting destiny. Then I glanced the designers name, it was you, Kate. I hesitated, just for a moment. I broke down, giving a sweater design of yours a second chance and bought the pattern that will consume me for the next few months. I cast on and have (hopefully) successfully completed the yoke. Did I mentioned that I love the cables? Please, wish me luck. While I will never knit a Clapotis, your other sweaters are in my queue-. Should I fail, I going over to Nora Gaughan!
All is fair in love and knitting.

I know, I know, radio silence for eons at a time and then suddenly three posts in less than a month. I have been knitting because I know that when school is back in session, needles and yarn will have to take a holiday.


These are my Ravelry Sock Knitters Anonymous entry for the month of June. We had a choice to design our own or use any Nancy Bush creation. I chose a sock from her Vintage Socks book. It has some crazy long name, Silk Socks for a Five or Six-year Old Child. I liked the lace pattern. It shines using Blue Moon Fiber Arts Medium Weight Spirits yarn. All yarn in this collection are lightly tinted, this one being blue. The more I look at it, the more green it seems to be. The results are pleasing, to me anyway.

I took too many pictures and Dorrit became weary and wanted a play mate. He decided to chew on my ankles mid shoot. He is a hellion and snatches yarn out of my stash basket every chance he gets. These sock have a few joins thanks to Dorrit chewing the unguarded sock in progress.

I am spending my Mother's Day in pajamas reflecting what my mother meant to me. I was adopted and as my mother loved to say, "Selected, not expected."  I suppose that this was said to elevate my self-esteem. My mother had high expectations and while she did her best, nature often defied nurture. She struggled with who I evolved into, just as I  struggle with my son's personality. I left the family nest at the unripe age of 16 and left the country at age 19. Our relationship improved across continents. We spoke on the phone almost every week and we visited one another about every other year. 
I lost my mother in 2001 and no day goes by without a flicker of a memory. Although we said many things to one another, many things were left unspoken.  Now that I am the mother of a teen, her frustrations are more salient. I wish I could tell her that I finally understand. Here she is in pre-Pischi days with our schnauzer, Purtzel.
Summer is quickly approaching and my spring term has finally ended. I earned high marks in all my classes and that included a well deserved "C" in algebra, a grade that I am most proud of. I was thankful for Susan and David always there to tutor my way through chapter after chapter of math problems. While spending last few weeks  with my nose in the books and a pencil in hand, I was also able to work the phlebotomy clinicals in the lab at our local hospital. Of course knitting has taken a back seat but I have managed to turn out a couple of projects and I look forward to casting on several items while enjoying my freedom until the fall semester begins.
I knit the Shetland Triangle using a skein of Brooks Farm Primero scored through Ravelry. This is the second project that I have made using one of Evelyn Clark's patterns. This shawl is already on its way to Germany and will grace my aunt's shoulders during the chilly evenings. Carloyn was bribed with wine in exchange for modeling duty. See, it fits!
Also complete are the No Purl Monkey socks using Impulse of Delights merino/silk sock yarn. The colorway is called Lost Lake and evoked memories of Lake Louis in Alberta. The socks are on my feet as I write and then on their way into the wash and my sock drawer. As you can see, Dorritt is quite at home now. He rules the roost and is the first cat I owned where yarn vigilance is mandatory.

 
A wonderful surprise that the three items that I entered into out county fair took all the blue ribbons including Best of Show and Best of Division. The prize included a check that will help pay for a new iPod and there should be some leftover to splurge on yarn. I miss listing to podcasts since my old faithful black Nano died.
I am now ready to trade my jammies in for something motherly to attend Erik's baccalaureate. Happy Mother's Day!

The little visitor that walked into our life a few weeks ago has taken up permanent residence. Little Dorrit, as I've named him, had  taking refuge in our courtyard under the porch glider. He smelled and was fairly thin, but his playful personality was not affected. After a 13th hour trip to the SPCA for shots, deworming, and neutering, he is now part of the family. Our other two cats still haven't warmed to the idea. His life here has been full of challenges. A further vet visit uncovered an upper respiratory infection and one of our girls took a nip out of his left flank. In spite of these deterrents, he is holding his own and will soon assert himself. He loves to lounge in the sun and play with errant shoelaces.

Since flinging Arwen into a corner I had to reaffirm my ability to knit a satisfactory project. Digging deep into the yarn basket out came an oatmeal skein of Fleece Artist Sea Wool. A second plunge yielded a rich skein of silk and merino in shades of turquoise and celery from indie dyer Impulse of Delight. I was on my way to knitting a pair of Cookies. The Sea Wool is one sock away to a lacy pair of Hedera. The yarn is subtly shaded strands of grey and the lace pattern is easy to remember. I will wear these often. Kathleen from Threads of Time, Ormond Beach challenged the Knead to Knit group to a Monkey KAL. I am the absentee knitter of an undetermined amount of participants. I have only seen Kathleen's in the forum. My Monkey's are no purl and I now understand the popularity of this method. It makes the pattern easy to memorize. No shlepping papers around.

In the spirit of knitting affirmations, another project quickly sprang to life. I had seen a scarf at the local Cocoa LYS. It turns out to be a free pattern on Ravelry. Its a faux braid and the look really appealed too me. It called for a type of mohair, yarn that I did not have. After a brief search on Ravelry, I came across a great deal on Primero from Brooks Farm. Funny, I had visited SAFF twice and always passed up the Brooks Farm booth in favor of other vendors. The skein was a bargain and I had it on my doorstep the same week. I cast on and started cabling long runs of 20 stitches and quickly became impatient with the lack of shape. Out came the needles and the yarn was quickly a large ball of mohair again. Not to be deterred, I poured over possible patterns and settled on Evelyn Clark's Shetland Triangle. This is another easy project that flies off the needles. The body pattern is easy to memorize and the project is small enough to transport. I love the topography that appeared of the back side.

Will I get back to Arwen and sweater knitting? I don't know. It doesn't seem to be something that I have a proclivity for. For now, finishing a couple of Cookies are on my menu.