Here is the Socks That Rock wool combined with the mohair/silk blend on the foot. I think it just looks like a pink mist over the wool. We'll see how it feels when the sock is done.

A birthday surprise for me!

My husband surprised me yesterday with a new digital camera! It's a Panasonic DMC-TZ1. I haven't even read the manual yet. As soon as the battery was charged I took it outside to try. These pics are not retouched and I have no idea what the camera settings were. Not bad, huh? Imagine how much better a photog I'll be when I know how to work it. Thank you, thank you, my sweet thoughtful Dan! It's hard to surprise a spouse of 28 years but you did it!

Fuzzy sock solution?

I decided that I would try knitting sock soles with the addition of a fuzzy yarn and see if that would make my feet happy without changing needle sizes or having to reverse stockinette the feet. I found this lovely Super Kid yarn that is 70% super kid mohair and 30% silk. It's very fine so shouldn't make the socks too thick. Expensive but it has a lot of mileage so should do many, many socks. I hope it works!

Here it is, my first sock! I like how it looks, I like how it fits, I like how it matches my jeans. However, I don't think I'll be able to wear it. It feels like I'm walking on mesh and it's going to bug my diabetic-sensitive foot. Oh well, it can be my learning sock. I'm going to try again with a new yarn, a tighter gauge, and do reverse stockinette on the sole so it's smoother.

Wednesday evening

Still alternating rain and sun. Now there's a large, bright rainbow. This is the view from my backyard overlooking the park. I love the way the light and shade alternate over the trees.

jeesh!

Can we all say "c-r-o-a-k" again? This is my first sock. I foolishly did not count my heel flap rows thinking that I could just count down the sides and that would tell me how many there were. Turns out that those lovely slip stitches only show up once for every two rows knitted. So I made a really long heel flap that was more a rectangle instead of a square. Yes, I read all the books about how the heel flap should be a square yet still I continued to knit. It wasn't until after I worked the heel turn and started picking up the side stitches that I realized something did not compute. I also learned that frogging back to the k2, p2 ribbing was easy but that picking up those itty bitty twisty stitches wasn't. This yarn is Sock It To Me! Collection, Puzzle from Elann.

Wednesday afternoon

I've been home from work all week with a sinus infection. Because of the diabetes, when I get an infection, I'm sick and don't get better until I get on antibiotics. Other than feeling like crap I rather enjoyed this afternoon. It's one of those sunny, warm days except for when heavy black clouds roll in and it pours. Then it's sunny again, usually while the rain continues to come down in sheets. The smell in the air is better than any perfume. Only a little lightning and thunder could make this better. I love storms as long as they're just show and don't do any damage.

They don't call Saskatchewan the "Land of Living Skies" for nothing! This picture is from my sunroom as the clouds roll in for the latest outburst.

Here is the Black Water Abbey wool (bluestack) washed, dried and ready to be wound. Just looking at it makes me happy.

I am now doing the FLAK sleeves in the round on two circulars. It's so much easier than doing it on one short circular and I won't have to seam it.

two parcels

I got two parcels yesterday - the Black Water Abbey wool from the States and the ball winder and swift from Camilla Valley Farms in Canada. Having never played with a winder and a swift, I think that these tools are fascinating! The wool is Bluestack and it is absolutely beautiful! I have the sample card for the Black Water Abbey wool but the small sample doesn't do it justice. There are so many subtle colors and shadings that I can now see in the skeins. I'm going to wash all of it before knitting it. That way I can play with my new toys (swift and winder) as well as eliminate shrinkage and soften it up before I try for gauge. The buttons are also from Black Water Abbey and they are lovely. The silver Celtic patterned ones are for the FLAK cardigan and the dragonfly ones will be for the Black Water Abbey cardigan. I haven't decided what pattern I will use for the Black Water Abbey yet.

I also, like a lemming, saw that Blue Moon Fiber Arts opened up some more memberships in their Sock Club so I joined. As if I need more yarn now! But the Socks That Rock yarn looks so beautiful that I couldn't resist.

Croak! again

I suddenly realized why I've been avoiding working on the FLAK cardigan lately. Since I switched to shorter circulars and joined the sleeve to work in the round my hands have been hurting. I think that it's because I'm holding the needles differently (fibromyalgia could be responsible for this phenomenon). Subconsciously, I've been avoiding that discomfort and couldn't face knitting the sleeves in the round for as long as it would take me to finish both sleeves. So I frogged several rows back to where the join is and will knit them flat instead.

Knitters' Club

So far, I've taught about a dozen kids to knit. It gets easier as the first students to learn help the rest of them (kind of like big families where the older kids help look after the little ones, I guess). I've learned that if you want to improve your own knitting skills, especially fixing mistakes and untangling yarn, teach a group of kids to knit. Just kidding! It's been a lot of fun. When other people come into the classroom these days they are amazed and impressed that so many students are knitting. It's nice to watch the children encouraging and helping each other too.

Aren't they cute? This group of girls happened to be in for recess with me when I took the camera to school yesterday. They're the really eager ones who would rather knit than go outside! From left, meet Dawn, Vanessa, Danielle, Kenda, and Kevina. I have several nice pictures of these children so parents, if you email me privately (there's a link on this blog when you click 'View my complete profile'), I'll be happy to send you the ones with your child in them; and I apologize in advance if I have created fibre monsters in your families who are addicted to knitting and buying yarn. I promise that I won't introduce them to silk and cashmere yet....

Croak!

Frog it I did. Thank you Roxanne Richardson for suggesting that I do the math using my swatches and measurements to more accurately calculate the ratio for picking up stitches. I told my husband the math teacher that, if his students ever question why they are learning math and how they will ever really use it in the real world, he should tell them that they will need it if they ever want to design sweaters that fit!

My sock yarn (Sock It To Me) arrived yesterday from Elann. I can't wait to start swatching and see what cool patterns develop.

I have another kid-bit (as my cousin Terry describes them) to share. This one falls into the 'might as well give it a shot' category. I have two deaf students in my class, both in grade 3. One has had a cochlear implant (inside the head, very fascinating) and can hear me through a broadcast system that also sends my voice right inside his head. My mike is the same kind that the Secret Service wear when guarding the president. I sometimes have an overwhelming urge to mutter into my mike things like "Jelly Belly to Ugly Swan. Code Sister. I repeat, Code Sister..." but I digress. The other child has limited hearing but wears hearing aids to help him. Both boys know some sign language but the goal is to help stop them from relying on sign and to increase their receptive language and communication skills.

Kids being kids, these two boys have developed a special bond and will often sign to each other in a pigeon mix of sign language and their own invented signs. We have them seated across the room from each other in class as they get silly together and have a hard time staying on task. During a recent spelling dictation, my teaching partner noticed that one of the boys kept turning around and looking at the other. When she casually walked around so that she could see what he was doing, she saw that he was surreptitiously signing the letters of each word to his buddy. Hey, worth a shot, right? From a teacher's point-of-view, this is not something that was covered in those education classes at the University.

We have been studying Heritage in Social Studies for the last few weeks and have been discussing how the pioneers made their own clothes. I told the kids that if anyone wanted to learn to knit I would help them during afternoon recesses. I sent notes home on Tuesday asking their parents to provide a pair of 6mm needles and a skein of worsted weight yarn. I had two kids bring their supplies yesterday already so we started. By the end of the recess I was wondering what I had done to myself! The kids were all thumbs and it seemed like this was a serious mistake. However, I called them over to me when they were done their work at the end of the afternoon and sat with them for another few minutes and they both caught on and were knitting! I don't know who was more thrilled - me or them! They both excitedly took their knitting home to continue practicing. I suspect that the other interested kids (10 of them or so) watched this happen and will show up with their knitting supplies today. How I'm going to get that many of them started at once I have no idea. But we'll have fun anyway.

And, ending on a sad note, condolences to my sister and her family on the loss of their Bichon buddy Meemo in the wee hours of this morning. His health had been failing and he just couldn't go on any more so was helped to a more peaceful place to join his Bichon friends, my Murphy and Ceilidh. Rest well, dear old dogs.

Do I need to visit the frog pond?

I have done about 2 inches of the sleeve and I'm a bit worried that I might have to frog it as it's flaring out too far. I picked up the conventional 3 stitches for every 4 rows. If I have to start again I will pick up one stitch in every other row. Oh well, better to find out now than after I've knit more of the sleeve. I'll set it aside for now and gladly accept opinions before I 'rip-it, rip-it'.

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted here! We had spring break this past week and have been very busy trying to do all of the things that we haven't had time to do at other times like going to appointments and shopping. I think I need a holiday to rest from my holiday.

My aunt and uncle visited from Manitoba for Easter. It's always nice to have a visit with them. I hosted Easter dinner and had the family over here, even my 93 year old grandmother in her wheelchair. We had an absolutely beautiful day! It felt like summer (without all of the bugs). We were able to eat out in the sun room and the kids ran in and out all day without their shoes. We nicely got into summer mode and then, blam, winter hit again early in the week. We had a lot of rain and some slushy snow. Luckily it only lasted a couple of days.

I haven't done much knitting but I have read a lot of books about knitting! Janet Szabo's new book Aran Sweater Design is wonderful! I'm sure that I'll be referring to it a lot. I did manage to start the sleeve on the FLAK sweater (the top part of the photo above). I played around with the hue on this picture so that the wool looks more like its true color.

I discovered that it is very difficult to knit in my old Lazy Boy rocker that's in the sun room as it tips me too far back to be comfortable looking down at my hands. So of course that meant a shopping trip for a glider rocker to replace it. It's so soothing to glide back and forth while knitting. I'm telling myself that it must burn a lot of calories at the same time so that counts as a workout, right?

I also read Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's 'Yarn Harlot' and 'At Knit's End'. Absolutely hilarious!! For some reason, I've had an irresistable urge to go yarn shopping after reading these books. She rationalizes doing it so well. I never thought that I would knit socks but after reading these books I've ordered self-patterning sock yarn and an instruction/pattern book from Elann. Of course that meant that I had to order several sets of double pointed needles too. And if you have funky hand-knit socks you don't want to hide them in runners. I happened across a new pair of Birkenstocks that would show them off nicely so needed to buy those too. If I finish the socks they will be worth their weight in gold! Way to go, Yarn Harlot, you enabler you. Stephanie has a new book, 'Knitting Rules', but it's sold out everywhere I've looked. If you're a knitter and haven't yet discovered Yarn Harlot, go get these books now and check out her popular and entertaining blog.

It's Spring!

Here's how we know that Spring has really arrived in Saskatchewan - the ruby shoots of the hardy rhubarb. The ice in this part of the garden only melted a couple of days ago. You haven't lived until you've tasted the first bright stalks of rhubarb baked into crisps or loaves or muffins!

It was such a lovely morning that I decided to take some pictures in the backyard...

Pocus is maintaining his innocence about digging in the muddy spots but evidence to the contrary is on his nose and nails.

The shelties were romping as usual. I think this picture is hilarious. Look - Robbie's back feet aren't touching the ground.

Robbie will be one year old on Sunday!

FLAK update

As you can see, I decided to make the FLAK sweater a cardigan after all. I thought I would be able to wear it more in the spring and fall as well as winter. I have finished the right front to the sleeve depth and have picked up stitches for the left front. I took the picture in the evening light (instead of in the morning light as I usually do). It looks much too red in this light.

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

Okay, here's one of those "huh?" moments. The kids at school were talking about the really big puddles on the roads now that the snow is seriously melting. I told them that some of the street drains weren't allowing the melted water to flow through as they were still plugged with ice. One of the kids asked me if that was called "sewercide". After some questioning from me to determine what he was really wanting to know, he told me that when it rains really hard in a summer storm and water comes into the basement, he thought it was sewercide. The best I can conclude is that this boy thinks that sewer back-up is called sewercide. And, you know, if you've ever had sewer back-up in your basement, his word is a pretty accurate way to describe what you're feeling ; ) I assured the class that the puddles that they were playing in now were not the result of sewer back-up, just muddy water.

I have heard that the word "google" has now been added as a verb to the new dictionaries. Maybe "sewercide" (noun) should be the next addition.

I washed the FLAK back using the products that I have for my shelties, Bark 2 Basics shampoo and D-Mat conditioner, and it has softened up beautifully! I think that I'll be able to wear it as a pullover after all, mostly because of this great conditioner. Yay! I have a friend who breeds llamas and I know that she uses the D-Mat before grooming them for show so I figured that sheep's wool couldn't be that much different from llama fibre and dog hair.

The FLAK back is done! I will use the helpful advice from the FLAK listmates and wash and block this piece before deciding whether to make the front for a pullover or cardigan. It's a little scratchy for me now but a wash and rinse in high quality dog shampoo and conditioner might make it soft enough to wear next to the skin.