June roundup

As the hot weather kicked into full force, my knitting picked up pace also.

I made:

3 swiffer covers

Spruce Tree mittens and hat

Snowdrop socks

plain vanilla rose jacquard socks


The end

Ouch! my brain hurts.

I'm back to socks again. And this time, they're making my brain hurt.

Waying too much thinking going on.

Or rather, I'm in summertime mode and what might be an acceptable amount of thinking is now way beyond what my brain can handle.

I'm trying to make some summer socks. (I know, I know, it's almost July. Whatever. I'll still have all of August to wear them. And possibly September.)

These are made with Brown Sheep Cotton Fine.

But they're not fine. They're saggy.



I had the brilliant idea of using twisted ribbing for the cuff with the idea that it would hold it tighter. Which it doesn't.

Sigh. I'll have to rip it out and try again.

---------------

I've also started my first pair of beaded socks. Which hurts my head.

I really, really, really needed to concentrate on the beaded rows to get them counted right. I even sat at the dining room table with the beads in front of me to add them as needed.



The pattern is another one from 6SoxKAL; I believe it's called Faggoting Ribs. That's all the beading required until the next sock, so I might make it through.

Now...time for some mindless TV. And a nap.

A hat to match

I liked the pattern for the Spruce Tree mittens so much, that I made a hat to match.

I didn't have anymore Trekking XXL sock yarn, so I used a strand Knitpicks sock yarn in rust (that may not be the official name, but it's the color. And I'm too lazy to walk into the other room to check.)(Because it's not only in the other room, but I actually put it away in my sock bin, so that would require moving the stuff on top to look inside. And I'm definitely too lazy for that.)

DD#2 declined to be the model today. She had just put her hair into a ponytail and was on the way out the door for field hockey practice. That's not a real reason, is it? After all, it was only 95 degrees...



Notes on hat: (If you've made the mittens, this might make sense.)
Size 7 circs and dpns. 1 strand ww and 1 strand sock wt.
96 sts, 1x1 twisted rib, 9 rows. increase 6 sts. 102 sts.
6 spruce tree cable repeats with 8 sts inbetween. Total of 6.25". At brim, decrease in st st on each side of cable every other row, then decrease until small # of stitches (not that that's any help, I just did some "normal" hat decreases at the top while keeping the cable intact as long as I could.)

And, ta-da! A hat.

A plethora of finished objects

Plethora. That's what I have at my house, a plethora of FOs.

pleth·o·ra   /ˈplɛθərə/ [pleth-er-uh]–noun
1.overabundance; excess: a plethora of advice and a paucity of assistance.

It's one of my favorite words. I'm probably using it wrong, since it's definitely not an overabundance, just... a lot. But it sounds much better than "a lot" so I'm using it.

In related dictionary searches, here's paucity:

pau·ci·ty   /ˈpɔsɪti/ [paw-si-tee]–noun
1.smallness of quantity; scarcity; scantiness: a country with a paucity of resources.
2.smallness or insufficiency of number; fewness.

I'll have to remember that word, since usually I have a paucity of FOs.


Anyway, see what I mean?

First finished was this pair of plain vanilla socks that aren't really very plain, are they?



Size 1 dpns, 68 sts. This is Patons Kroy rose jaquard, 2 skeins. And I AGAIN ran out of yarn for the toes. Fortunately I had some striped Marathon yarn left over and it matches very well, don't you think?



You might notice that these pictures were taken outside. Today. In 98 degree heat. Because what else does one do in 98 degree heat than model wool socks (and mittens) outdoors. Right?

"Yes, DD#2, I will take you to the pool just as soon as you try on some wool socks. Don't forget the sunscreen!"

These socks are mine, and still I managed to do the picture taking and not the trying on.



The snowdrop socks are finished and I absolutely love them. (Even though I haven't tried both on yet. So they might be too tight. But I tried on the first one so it should be okay. Plus, there's no way I'm redoing them so I'll just have to hope for the best. And wait for a cooler day to try them on.)



The pattern is from 6SoxKAL yahoo group (so you have to join the group if you want the pattern. But it's totally worth it.) It's toe up which is not my favorite, but it's good for a change.




And then, DD#1 came home and liked my swiffer covers. (Not like my other children who were all haters. But then DD#1 always was my favorite.)(Just kidding.)(Or not, she also cleans up my counters.)

I started making her one then ran out of time, so she took my blue green one and I'm mailing this one to her.




(No, I couldn't manage to take this on a more neutral background. You'll just have to get your sunglasses if you want a closer look.) I've used the blue/green one and it worked good. The larger one hasn't been used yet, but I don't think it will scratch my floor as the swiffer itself isn't scratchy.

Then, because wool socks weren't enough, I also finished some wool mittens.



These are the spruce tree mittens from the other day. They're made with Patons Classic wool in sesame and a strand of Trekking XXL sock yarn on size 7 dpns. The pattern was followed as written. They fit me well. (Again, you can't tell because I'm not trying mittens on in 98 degree heat. That's DD#2's job.) I have large hands, so if you're making them, you might want them a tad shorter.



Nice mittens and a nice pattern. I might have to make a green pair.

My goal for the rest of the month?

To have a plethora of FOs and a paucity of UFOs.

Straying from socks

I've been working on socks, as always, and UFOs that somehow never become FOs.

Needing a break, I decided to make a swiffer cover.

Yes, really, a swiffer cover. (For those out of the country this means YOU, Valeria!, a swiffer is like a floor mop where you can attach a disposable cloth to scrub and then throw away. I bet you already knew that, didn't you? )

I did this pattern as written and it turned out like this:




Pretty, and hopefully functional. My family thinks it's weird and gross and why not use the disposables anyway? And this is too pretty to get dirty, etc.

Anyway....

Ignoring them, I decided to make another one.

This is a bigger size that fits my duster mop.




I'm hoping it will work okay, even if it's saggy in the middle.

It gave me something different to do, anyway, which was one of the main points of making them. So there.

Then, someone on M4A pointed out these Spruce Tree mittens. The thumb gusset only increases on one side and not both to make left and right mittens and not one-kind-fits-all. I thought I'd give them a try.



These are using Patons Classic wool in sesame and a strand of Trekking XXL sock yarn on size 7 dpns. So far, so good.

The whole driveway

During the snowstorm in February, we had a tree that tried to hold onto every snowflake that it could until the weight just got too heavy and it bent over like this.




As you might imagine, we were fearful of our cars' safety, moved them out of the way, and tried to shake off the snow as best we could. (At the beginning we could touch one of the branches so we shook it until snow came off and then it bounced up some. Then, the boys tied a baseball with a piece of string, threw it up until it caught on a branch, and shook it that way.)

The tree recovered somewhat, but continued to have a bendy look to it all these months later. We continued to park at the end of the driveway for the next several months as an added precaution.

Today it looks like this:



Some friends came over and chopped it up and carted away the wood. (Thank you!)

Now we can use the whole driveway for parking.

The end.

A sock week

Since last blogging, I decided to work on my Snowdrop socks, which reminded me how much I love these socks! The combination of pattern plus Aruncania yarn is really delighting me.

This sock was even working on during a baseball game. For some events this pattern would be too complicated to work on, but baseball has so much down time that it turned out okay. It's 2 repeats short of starting the heel, and then it'll be halfway done.

While examining the first sock, though, I discovered this error, on the foot of the sock. (The tiny white words say "right here" and point to an error on the decreasing slant.)



There is no way I'm going to fix this on an already completed sock, and I'm sure I'll forget about it very quickly. (At least, I hope it's not something that I'll look at each time I put them on and wonder why I didn't take the time to fix it.)

I also decided I needed a plain pair in progress, so I got out a teal skein of cotton fleece and proceeded to make this mess.



For some reason I couldn't find the end and wound it up around the skein and then had the bright idea of slipping the wound-up part off and pulling it back that way. (That makes no sense, so in short... I did it to myself.)

It stayed that way in my living room for a day or so, but finally it looks like this:



And since it looks just like my snowdrop yarn, here's a picture of both skeins of yarn to show that I didn't just throw away the mess and pretend that the one skein was the other.



But, in the meantime, I still needed a plain pair of socks to knit, so here's the start.



As always, watching the stripes happen makes the knitting goes about twice as fast as normal.

It's been quite a sock week, with predictions of more of the same for next week.