Knitting at a Crossroads

The creative process of knitting socks can be fraught with emotion.

I have found the beginning of a new pair of socks, or any project, that I feel a certain anxiety, one that is part dread at worrying if it will work, and part excited anticipation of making something new and wonderful.

I finished these socks recently and
was disappointed that they were a
shade too long for me to wear.

Then towards the middle  part of the project, I find tiredness, an ennui, a boredom related to the repetition of stitches and/or color.

The end of a pair of socks can be filled with closure and pride in a  job well done.  It can also be filled with sadness and lost at the ending of a relationship with this work.  And if there is no other project waiting to be done, anxiety at having nothing to look forward to.

I have felt all this in the socks projects I have done.  I have felt them in other projects, even non-knitting ones.

Right now, I am in between sock projects.  I have finished a pair of blender socks and have no idea of what to knit next.

Another blender sock?

Perhaps a new pattern found in a book or on a website? 

And which yarn will I use?

I feel like I'm stuck at a knitting crossroads.  Do I sell my needles to the Knitting Crossroads Demon?

What do you do when you are creatively stuck?  Or have you never been?  Do you have any comments on what I should knit next?

The Second Stash Exchange & The Color Yellow

I participated in another sock yarn exchange.  

This time we did a blind exchange.  As we entered we placed our donated yarn into a brown paper bag.  That was set aside as we had a wonderful lunch that Sue had prepared.  Karla brought dessert, a plum cake.

We adjourned to the living room and discussed our first blender project.  Socks were displayed.  Socks were touched.  Socks were tried on.

We are not all at the same place in our blended sock journey.  Karla had one sock completed.  Sue shared her pair.  And I showed both of mine.  I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of all of them.

After a while, Sue retrieved the brown bag from hiding and we reached into the mystery.

I pulled a lovely ball of dark purples, greens and browns with a sparkle first.  It was right in my favorite palette of colors.  My next pull was purples and blues, still in my color palette.  The third ball was greens and blues, a yarn of spring colors.

Abby surrounded by the yarn from our second stash exchange.

 I stared at my stash for a long time.  This included the gifted mini-skeins from Karla.  Something seemed to be missing and I could not find it in my stash.  I messaged Karla with my plea for help.  She arrived at my door bearing more yarn gifts.  This time a bright yellow and a lighter purple and green yarn.

The improved second stash.  Note the big ball of yellow and the purple with no sparkle.  And take a look at Abby!  She has new "clothes."

I am still working on the socks from this stash.  

Start of the sock from the second stash exchange.

I am waiting until I am done before deciding whether or not I like them.  The lighting in my knitting den is not the best for color.   I did take them near a window and saw that they did not look as bad as I thought.

 While I travel this journey of color, I find myself working with colors I am not comfortable with, colors I have avoided for one reason or another.  Yellow is that color which is in this pair of socks.

Yellow is not one of my favorite colors.  Which is strange because my bedrooms curtains are flowers on a yellow background.  My quilt is yellow.

You have a favorite color, we all do.  But have you ever thought about that color, or colors, you do not care for, may even dislike?  What is it?  Leave a brief comment.

Thank you!

The Blender Sock Experiment Continues

Did you notice that my sock look a bit, well, um, big?  

At least, for my feet they are.  Then there is the problem of the owl cable.  Like any knitted cable there is not much stretch.  Let's just say it as it is, it narrows the leg.  You can see it in the photograph.

So left with the idea that no one would be able to wear the socks, I made a drastic decision to remove the owl cable.  So here's what I did:

First, I threaded in some lifelines.  The lifelines (I used crochet cotton thread for mine) keep the yarn from completely unraveling.  It acts as "stop raveling here" device.

 Next, I took the scissors to my owl cables.

Then, I carefully unraveled the beige yarn and threw it away.  It was on sale cheap when I bought it, so no worries there.  I grabbed the neutral autumnal yarn I had used in the foot and blendered it in.  That was followed by Flame thrower, the same yarn as the very top.

And after I grafted the new leg body to the cuff this is what I had:

You might be able to tell that they are a little long for my feet.  But now, when I find someone with longer feet, they will be able to get their foot into the sock.

I finally decided to declare the socks done.  Recently, while looking at them, I realized that one cuff was inside out.  I decided I could live with it.

This is not the end of the blender sock adventure.  I blended another sock, this time using yarns from my own stash and a pattern I knew fit my feet.  But that's a tale for another time.

All That Yarn Around Abby Scroni

Abby Scroni surrounded by yarn.

I posted this picture at the end of my last entry and promised to tell you what I made of the yarn.

First, let me tell you about how I came into possession of this collection of yarn.

I am participating in a yarn exchange with three friends:  Karla, Karen, and Sue.

The idea is that we each contribute yarn to each other and make socks using the Blender Method.  For a detailed description of the Blender Sock Method please check out Blender Socks on Ravelry.

In short, the Blender Method is a way of combining colors to make the transition between seem natural.  this is done by alternating rows of different yarns in a specified sequence.

We met at a local coffee shop and were suppose to bring four balls of yarn, each of about 100 yards.  Being overachievers and conscious of others opinions, we brought 12 + balls each to the table.  There was no lack of yarn that day.

We each worried about what the others would think.  Would they like our yarns?  What is they didn't like what we each chose to bring?

Such angst was needless.

We were all excited to see and touch the yarn, to talk and explore color and technique, that it didn't matter what we brought.  We found joy in talking with someone who knitted and loved yarn.

Only three of us could meet, as Karen is participating via long distance.  We bundled up our contributions to her and waited for her contributions to us to arrive.  No one wanted to start knitting until they had all their yarn at hand.

Now as for my yarn choices which you can see surrounding Abby Scroni....

I tend to gravitate towards purples, greens and blues.  And I can honestly say that I do not pick solid colors.  I like multi-colored yarn; the more colors, the merrier.

The yarns I chose are not on my usual color palette.

From Sue, I picked the big cake of yarn you see to right of Abby.  It has an autumnal feel, with its reddish browns and beige.  It has a sparkly thread running through it and that is what grabbed my attention at first.  Also from Sue comes the orange and black yarn (to the left of Abby) that is in my high school colors.  Go Bobcats!

From Karla, I just held out my hand and closed my eyes.  "Just put something in my hand," I said.  She placed two mini-skeins in a lovely cashmere blend turquoise.

Karen, our long distant knitter, package up our yarn in little baggies and sent me the blazing orange/red/yellow yarn that's directly in front of Abby.  It's a lace weight yarn, thinner than than fingering weight normally used for socks.  Also, that bluesy ball of yarn sitting behind the orange and black.  This was regular fingering weight.

And believe it or not, all those colors, along with a beige I had in my stash, appeared in my first pair of Blender Socks.

This is more of a sampler sock.
I am working on a second pair of Blender Socks that are different from this one.

Let's get a little technical about this sock.  If this sounds boring to you, just go on about your day.  You really need to learn how to knit.

I started with a star toe in Karen's bluesy yarn.  This was blendered with Sue sparkly autumnal yarn.  Then Sue's orange and black was followed by more of the autumnal mix.  Then for the modified eye of partridge heel I used Karen's bluesy yarn again.  Then the orange and black was blendered in on the leg.  The beige part is an owl cable motif.  On top of that is the turquoise  in a sort of broken ribbing followed by the flaming frill of the yarn we have come to call Flame Thrower.

As any knitter will tell you, that it not a technical explanation of my sock.  And yes, there is a matched mate to it.  If you want something approaching a pattern, please let me know.  I will gladly share with you what I can.

This post is getting long so I will wait until next time to tell you about the trials and tribulations of knitting these socks.

The Story of Abby Scroni

This past Christmas I received a gift of original artwork from my cousin Rhonda.

This figure is about 6" tall and stands on a base of floral foam covered by ribbon.  the head is a hand painted plastic lemon from the dollar store.  The eyes were purchase while the nose and lips are molded from clay.  The pigtails are fake hair extensions from the dollar store.

The main feature, Rhonda's inspiration for the piece sits on top of the lemon.  It's the "hair" on top of the head.

Before I tell you what it is, here's a little yarn, the back story.

Rhonda lives on a ranch in Northern California, in the area where the Happy Cows of California live.  She enjoys it and, at times, seems to have been born in the wrong century.  She has the pioneering spirit of our great grandmother who chopped wood well into her 80's and was well known for chopping the heads off of snakes with a hoe.

Anyway, Rhonda enjoys helping out on the ranch.  She willing holds the heads of calves when they need tended to.  This includes castration.

The ranchers in that area have been known to take the scrotal sack, dry and cure it for use as a cover on a gear shift knob of their tractor and trucks.

Rhonda took some home and stretched them over some handy pine cones to dry.  She thought they looked cute and could envision facial features on the pine cones.

She named them "Scroni's" and laughingly says they will be the next pet rock craze.

Her first batch became play toys for the ranch dogs one day while she was away at work.

The latest batch, she hauled home to Pennsylvania and created gifts for her family.  Unfortunately, Pennsylvanian pine cones are not the same shape as Californian ones.  The closest she could come in shape was plastic lemons from the dollar store.

Oh my!  Look at this collection of yarn.
 Stay tuned to find out what I made from it.

While showing my original Scroni figure to one of my uncles, he made the commented that it looked like a certain forensic scientist on a tv show.

Thus the name Abby Scroni.

Be sure to look for Abby Scroni in my photographs of my knitting.  She will be posing frequently this year.

A Resolution of Sorts?

It's New Year's Eve as I write this.  2013 will soon be done.

With the changing of the year comes a time for reflection, for assessing the past.  That is followed b y a time for planning, for making resolutions for the future.

But the past is gone.  Lessons, learned, I hope.  And the future will always be out of grasp.  The present is all we have.

Maybe that's why most resolutions are doomed to fail.  We promise ourselves something, we resolve to do something in the future which is never now.

Maybe that's why by the end of January we forget the resolution to lose weight, to go to the gym more often, to call on our friends.

It makes resolutions seem nothing more than empty promises we make to ourselves.

So why make them?

Never let the future disturb you.
You will meet it, if you have to,
with the same weapons of reason
which today arm you against the present.
~Marcus Aurelius

I decided long ago not to.  I do not like people who break promises, especially with me, so why would I do that to myself?

This year, I've decided to do something different.

Recently, I read Debbie Macomber's One Perfect Word.  Pick it up at your local library.  If they don't have it they can get it for you through interlibrary loan.  Or better yet, but it, read it and then donate it!

In brief, Ms. Macomber selects w word and spend time with it throughout the year.  she devotes a journal to the word and explores its meaning and uses.  She looks for it in her scripture and other readings, and watches to see how it plays out in her life.

It is a lovely idea that intrigues me.

She writes how her chosen word is one she it moved to take on.

I have noticed certain words or ideas that crop up in my own life.  They seem to demand my attention.  I usually just brush them off with a quick "oh, there's that word again" and don't go beyond that.

I am going to change that in the new year.  

For the past month a certain word has been asking for my attention.  I feel drawn to it.  And I think it's high time I listen and spent the time it's demanding of me.  There is no telling where it might lead.

This idea of spending time with a word seems to hold more possibilities than the empty promise of a resolution.

And, no, I am not going to tell you what the word is that is demanding my attention.  You need to find one of your own.

I hope that the new year is a safe and happy one for you.  May you find all the joy and love your heart can stand and then some more.

Happy 2014!!!!!!

Giving

The holiday season is upon us.  I know this because the holiday decorations are up in the stores, the bell ringers are standing near their kettles at the entrances, and a neighbor has his tree up on the front porch.

I have just finished knitting my twelfth Christmas stocking.

I made these three stockings for a friend.

The first three stockings were gifts to a friend who had posted she needed decorations.  Reading her request I knew I could knit something up.

That is why I knitted the stockings you see here.

But I wasn't done.  I thought there should be more than just stockings.

Then I found three Styrofoam bells that I had stuck away for one reason or another.  I got out my crochet hooks and this is the result:

Ding dong these bells don't ring!

I thought they were rather cute.

As I had my hooks out and my crochet thread, it was a short step to doing snowflakes!

My kind of snow!  It doesn't need shoveling.

A few are from patterns but most are just improvised.

I think they will look lovely on her tree.

I felt so happy that I was able to do this for her.

A few days later, I was in the local big chain store for a quick stop.  I noticed an older couple trying to use one of those price scanners.  They were waving their big tin of popcorn in front of the screen.

I went into an aisle, got my gallon of iced tea, and they were still there when I came out of the aisle.

No one, not even those in the blue vests seemed to notice.

So I walked over and waved my hand under the scanner so they could see the red light.

"Try putting it down here," I told them.

They did and the machine beeped.  They were glad that someone had shown them how to use it.  I'm not sure if they were happy with the price.

At first, I was a bit peeved at those who did not take the 30 seconds to show this couple how to use the price scanner.  It wasn't that hard for me to do.  But then, I noticed the feeling I had from helping them.  It echoed the feeling I had knowing that I had done something for my friend.

It was a good feeling.  One worth repeating.  And I wondered why I didn't seek it out more.

It is so easy to make that donation into a kettle or write a check and think we have done enough.  Monetary donations can touch those who are far away.

But the feeling you get from giving money does not compare to that you get when you give of yourself.  A bit of your time, your knowledge.

I am going to try to do this more often.  Give someone a smile, perhaps reach for the item on the top shelf, or push their cart back to the store.  Just a little something nice.

I am realizing that in order to feel the good you must share it rather than hoard it.

Have you?

P.S.  The other Christmas stockings are for another friend who saw the first three.  She will get seven so that leaves me with two.  Wonder what I will do with those?