Enough with the socks already?

Not at all! Socks are just so necessary. It's cold out there, and a knitter needs warm feet. And a knitter also needs a little time on the playground, which is what having socks to knit is like sometimes. I have these three new yarns in my collection:


Yes, they are from Sundara. I've added a link in the sidebar to save myself a little time. I love handpainted yarns, love the stripes and the bold variations of yarns like Socks That Rock and Lorna's Laces, and the more subtle but still colorful Fleece Artist and Koigu. But Sundara has begun to take color to new heights (or depths) with her Somewhat Solid yarns.

I am so infatuated with Sundara's yarn that I sit at my computer on the afternoons she's scheduled to post an update, just so I can be ready in case there's a color I really have to have. Of course I don't really need more sock yarn, but I do need the steady stream of inspiration that her colors provide.


I've been holding on to this red from the Petals Collection, waiting for the inspiration to knit with it. Having those three new colors must have done it, because late yesterday afternoon I found the right pattern ("Embossed Leaves" from IK Winter 05), cast on, and by the time I was tired of watching the Grammy Awards I'd completed this much of a cuff.

We're expecting some real Winter weather here tomorrow and Wednesday. I am hoping for snow rather than the icy mix and mess that we might get. I like snow. Either way, Wednesday is my day off, so I'll get to stay home and knit socks. Red socks, blue socks, purple or green -- who knows?

:: :: ::

In the "In Case You Were Wondering" Department:

::The counter is still clear. I used it to stage a purge of my file cabinet yesterday. All that clear space came in handy!

::The Sock Hop yarn is still on the bobbin, though a certain four-footed someone decided to do a little carding or fluffing or rearranging of some of the fiber. "Just trying to help" is not a good excuse. What if she decides to go all Chaos and Mayhem on me and starts being "interested" in knitting?

Note to Self

I want to remember that it usually happens this way: when I finally get to sit down and spin, I'm a goner. Forget the world and the laundry, I'm busy. I want to remember this, so that it won't be so long before the next time.

I spent a few hours on Sunday, and a few more today, spinning sock yarn and getting to know Mister Reeves. I love this wheel. I just adore it. It makes me happy right down to my toes. It is the Wheel of My Dreams, and thanks to my friend K, it lives with me. I reached a point today when I knew I needed to move to the next fastest whorl, and that's when we clicked, the wheel and I. I'm making some nice yarn, though I still have a way to go before I'm completely satisfied.

More practice is needed, and it doesn't bother me to say that. I can do better, though I'm not going for Certificate-of-Excellence standards. My spinning on the Reeves lacks the certainty and control I have when I spin on my Sweet Ashford, and it's due simply to the fact that I have been spinning on that wheel for many, many years. The Ashford is predictable, while the Reeves still holds a few surprises.

The yarn is another delight. Teyani saw my wish when I posted this photograph, and she granted it in the form of a new Sock Hop colorway from Crown Mountain Farms called "Do You Wanna Dance." What a treat! If you spin, and you haven't tried her hand dyed superwash Merino roving, you're missing an amazing experience. It's not like any superwash Merino I've ever spun; it's light, lofty and very soft. I'm thrilled to have inspired Teyani's creativity, too.

I'm not yet tired of the cold weather, but then I don't have to spend much time in it. Yesterday I had on socks, a sweater, a scarf, and mitts -- all my own handknits. Getting to wear my work, and knowing that I made these things that keep me warm is a very good feeling. And that I can spin the yarn to make the warm things -- that's the cherry on top of the ice-cream sundae.

After the Sock Hop becomes sock yarn (I haven't even filled one bobbin yet) I have some more luxurious fibers to work with. Which will I turn to -- the Chasing Rainbows Cashmere/Tussah, or the Spirit Trail Baby Camel/Tussah? Life must be good, if these are the kinds of decisions I get to make. And if I keep spinning, I'll surely remain grounded throughout Getting Ready for Inventory, Doing Inventory, and Cleaning Up After Inventory at the bookstore!

Onward and Upward

If you know me at all, you'll know that this photograph represents a monumental achievement. I haven't seen this surface since some time last fall. I'm not kidding. This is what I did today.

Behind the newly-repotted Christmas cactus is a crockpot of tomato lentil soup, which was delicious. But the counter, people, the counter. Clean, clear -- no paper, no bags, no yarn, no little envelopes of buttons that came with shirts last October. No old pay stubs, no paperclips, no bits of ribbon, no broken size 9 circular needles from July. It was about time, and I'm happy. Onward, to the rest of the house!

After such success, what's left? Why not take the rest of the day off? Well, I wanted to get the Reeves wheel running smoothly, and I accomplished that goal, too. I managed to botch the drive band installation at least five times before I got it right, but I made sure that I didn't leave any of the too-short or too-thick string on the sparkling-clean counter. I spun a bit on some new fiber that I'll share with you soon. I'm not sure I've got it right yet.

~:~
I was moved by so many of the poems I read on Thursday's (Silent) Poetry Reading. Here are links to just a few:

::Athena Dreams::Woven Thoughts::
::Fillyjonk and Wool Over My Eyes had the same brilliant idea::
::Sandy made me long for Spring::
::and thanks to whoever it was who posted Diane Ackerman's "School Prayer"::
~:~

I had the strangest knitting week. I worked on all the socks that are almost finished, one after another, and after a couple of days I'd had enough. I haven't finished any of them yet, either. I'd rather start some new socks. Well, I did, but the pattern and the yarn aren't making music together so they're history. I'll find something, I'm sure. I'm dabbling, and it's all good.

(Silent) Poetry Reading

The Lover Pleads With His Friend For Old Friends

THOUGH you are in your shining days,
Voices among the crowd
And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think about old friends the most:
Time's bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but these eyes.

William Butler Yeats

~:~

This is a favorite poem of mine, mostly because I saw it every day as I was growing up. It was always hanging in our house – a woodblock print from the Yeats' Cuala Press that my father had ordered from a bookseller in England in the early 1950’s. Its mate, with the same simple hand-painted illumination, and framed in the same sort of dark oak frame, is a Yeats quotation:

“We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even a fiercer life because of our quiet.”

These Arts and Crafts style prints usually hung on the stairs, or in a hallway, but always where we passed many times each day. How many hundreds of times did I chant the lines of the poem, or ponder the quotation, as I went up and down the stairs or through the house?

I think my four siblings shared my fondness for these words, or at least the same deep familiarity with them. They wove in and around all our childhoods, and traveled with us from house to house (there were quite a few moves). I’m sure that to this day my brothers and sisters could, with a little prompting, breathe the words again, as I can. It’s one of the ways we love and honor our dad, and remember our childhoods.

~:~

Many thanks to Reya and Deborah.

Celebrate the day!