I finished the purple bag

(well all except weaving in the ends), and now I'm making a cord for the drawstring.

There are lots of ways to make a cord (twisted, braided, crochet, I-cord), this one just struck me as the quickest and easiest. Cast on a number of stitches (in this case 130). Turn around and bind them off.

A short time passes..... et voila!

Now to weave in those ends....

This was improvisational knitting all the way. I cast on a few stitches using the "figure 8" cast on, kept increasing every other round or so until I figured it was big enough, worked straight for a way throwing in some simple slip stitch patterns now and then, worked a round of eyelet holes, worked even for a bit more and bound off.

Some re-connections

On Friday I went to Madison to take my Mom for lunch for her birthday. My nephew drove up from Chicago to join us, a treat for both of us gals. I think it's been almost a year since I had seen Nick (he's working on a PhD out in California) so it was fun to catch up. His field (physics/nanotechnology) is way out of my league, but I gather that he's trying to make molecules bump into each other and form clusters, and that his research equipment consists of something like a very fancy thermos bottle.

On Saturday, the daughter, Mom and I drove to Minnesota for a family reunion (well, the daughter, bless her, did all of the actual driving). It was a long haul there and back in one day, but we had a good time. I was able to see some cousins and their families that I hadn't seen in years.

Tomorrow I'm going to reconnect with Mr S. He's been in California for a few days, and darn it, I'm starting to miss him.

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During the car ride to MN I got some work done on this

Just a little bag/purse using yarn that's been in the stash forever.

Yesterday I Spent an Absolutely

ridiculous amount of time knitting this



It's the first little sample sock in Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters. I got through the leg just fine, no problem shaping the heel cup with short rows. But when I got to the part of the heel that runs at the bottom of the foot, Blam!, it was like hitting a brick wall. I could not get my rearranged stitches to match the diagram in the book (or more accurately, I could not conceptualize the relationship of the diagram to the stitches I was slipping onto different needles.) When I forged ahead and completed something like a heel I ended up two stitches short, with loose sloppy edges and gaping holes where the "wing" stitches met up with the instep. It was a mess.

I don't think there was anything wrong with the directions. I think it had to do with the way I assimilate information, at least knitting information.

First off, I think that what I already know got in the way of what I was trying to learn, I have a very clear grasp of the construction of a traditional heel flap and "French" heel turn.

I mean, by this point I understand it at some gut level that is deeper than words or numbers. Hand me any sock leg with any number of stitches on it and I can work that heel, because I can visualize how it is all supposed to come together, and how the proportions of the different sections work, and how a change to one dimension (say length of heel flap), will affect the other dimensions. And I think some of these "deeper than conscious thought" assumptions were bumping into the printed directions on the page and jangling things up. Because this heel is "sorta like, but not really" the heels I already know. Call it cognitive dissonance.

Secondly, I could not yet visualize how the parts of this new construction were supposed to work together. And if I didn't have a mental picture of what I was aiming for, and how it all worked together, I got confused. I'm good at visualizing something once I've seen an example - not so much from a written description. (Maybe that's why I like working from charts so much.) After I had my first somewhat bungled attempt done, I could turn it over in my hands and run my fingers along the places the different parts came together, internalizing how it all fit together.

It was at least close enough to what the designer intended that a little light bulb went on. "Aha! This is sort of, almost, like a Dutch Heel, only instead of using up stitches of the heel flap you are using up those "wing" stitches that are sort of the equivalent to a gusset." I ripped back, rearranged the stitches on the needles in a way that now made sense to me and sailed through the second go around.

I don't know that there is any moral to this story except maybe that it's really hard to write directions that can be clear to all "learning styles". I had no problem with Cat's instructions for her way of working short row wraps, or her favorite "Judy's Magic Cast On." But then, I'd watched her YouTube videos of those first. I was already seeing in my mind where to go and how to get there.

Hey, a FO!

That blue bit of knitting from two posts back has turned into a scarf and is drying now. It's not a very long scarf, just barely 40 inches, but it should be fine under a jacket/coat. If I'd had more yarn it would have been longer, but I didn't so it isn't.

It's blocking on some interlocking foam tiles I recently acquired from Knit Picks. It's a pretty slick system, but I wish they came in packages of 16 instead of 12. I don't think 12 will give a large enough surface for a big square shawl or a long stole. I could have ordered two boxes, but 24 tiles would probably be more than I'd ever use at one time.

It's a bit of a lonesome feeling

to putter around the yard without a little cat following. Our scrappy girl Gato is gone now, too. She'd been slowing down for a long time, experiencing more difficulties in more areas of life. On Friday we came to the hard realization that it was time for us to let go. So now St. Francis has a new spot under the apple tree.


I think this is the first time in 27 years that we haven't had a fur person in the house. I expect we will have one again, probably before too very long. But right now, I miss the blue and white water dish that was always in the kitchen, and seeing someone on the doorstep when I pull in the driveway after work. And even cranky as she sometimes was, I miss the company.

Common sense would say

that a textured pattern stitch isn't going to show up very well in a somewhat "busy" variegated fingering. Common sense has proven to be correct, at least with this yarn.

A bolder texture might have worked, maybe a largish cable, but much as I wanted it to, this one just doesn't cut it.

So I switched to a heavier weight (worsted) and a solid color.

I do seem to spend an awful lot of time relearning the obvious.