Socks good enough to eat

Last night:

A bottomless glass of wine, MI-5 and Matthew Macfayden on the tele, and good progress on your second plummy Ripple Weave sock. That's what is called a Perfect Evening. Although, it is a bit of a mental challenge to keep up with the complicated plot, the complicated pattern, while just barely maintaining sobriety. So if you try this at home, proceed with caution!

I wish I had a British accent. I wish I were a spy.

This morning:

Pattern: Ripple Weave Socks from Vogue Knitting Fall 2006
Yarn: Sundara Somewhat Solid sock yarn in "Plum Over Slate", one 350 yd skein with yardage leftover
Needles: US1 dpns

Love the socks, love the yarn. I am all over this twisted ribbing stuff. Are there any more out there, aside from Pomatomus? Maybe I'll sit down one of these days and come up with a twisted rib pattern of my own. Maybe. Til then, I have to think very hard if I will give these away and to whom. Sigh. No one is worthy. No one.

Mods: I did 2.5 chart repeats for the leg. It turns out 350 yds is plenty to have done 3 full repeats. (I have enough leftover which I'll use for cuffs and heels on variegated socks in the future.) I reduced the length of the heel a little bit and therefore picked up fewer - 15 - stitches for the gusset. It was kind of loose on the first RW sock I made. This pair now fits perfectly. On me. So I guess I'll have to keep it.

Comments [18]
Filed Under: Completed Projects | Socks | Ripple Weave

Comparisons

It will be a miracle if I can one day manage to finish socks back-to-back for a matching pair, instead of jumping from one sock yarn to another.

Ripple Weave socks, one in blue Wildfoote and one in plummy Sundara Yarn. I think I know which I like better between the two...

But what about these?

Poma vs Ripple in the World Series of Sock

Ripple and Pomatomus are very similar in design. Both have accentuated patterns from the raised bumps of the twisted ribbed stitches, both are yummy squishy to wear.

But if I had to choose, I'd say Pomatomus wins feet down (ha ha. sorry. ok bye). I've finally had a chance to wear my little rose Poma's since finishing them this summer, and when I do I can't stop staring at my own feet. I can barely walk. My gnarly, Smeagol feet are gooorgeous in these things!

I do like the way the ribbing continues all the way through the toe on the Ripple sock. I'll have to replicate that in my next pair of Poma's.

New additions in el yarn stashio:

Two skeins of Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn from the littleknits.com sale. I can tell already that these babies are a home run. The yarn is soft, is wonderfully beady like Koigu and Sundara Yarn, except that it is oh so plump! So succulent! So US3 or US4 dpns!

So about to have another mismatched pair of socks in no time!

A new segment of Cultural Weekend is about to commence, once again. The weeks here are just flying by, so fast that before we know it the car will be packed and we'll be installed back East again. I've already convinced Duck that we need to stay in Santa Fe for an extra week. It wasn't hard sweet-talking him into another week of green chiles and carne adovada, but for whatever reason Duck was convinced we'd only want to be here for 6 weeks. Nuh uh! I haven't nearly had my fill of sopaipillas, chile hot chocolate, Tent Rocks, and of course the stunning, spectacular sunsets.

Since being here, blue and orange has become my favorite color combination.

So for this Cultural Weekend, we'll be experiencing some more fun and new things. First, we will get to see a lot of hot air balloons flying about in the sky over Albuquerque. I have only seen one balloon in the air at any given time, and even so that one was tethered to the ground.

Second, WE WILL BE GOING TO STRANGER'S HOUSE FOR BREAKFAST! This is a huge deal, being the jittery bug-eyed hermits that we are, so all-caps was necessary. Also I'm excited.

We haven't even stepped into her house and already she's all "Would you like another breakfast burrito?" and "One or two sugars with that coffee?" and "Stay as long as you'd like!" Scout is so super friendly I am in awe. It also highlights the fact that I'm super not. I mean I AM friendly. I mean I have POTENTIAL to be friendly,given enough sleep. And tequila shots. I know, too many parameters. So to be so naturally effervescent! To actively seek out people to befriend, while sober! That is something.

Let the weekend begin! Ooooo and happy Friday the 13th! Of October!

Comments [8]
Filed Under: Socks | Ripple Weave | Travel | Santa Fe | Yarn Stash

Socks and bats

Plummy Ripple Weave sock in different lighting.
Left: taken outside Carlsbad Caverns
Right: Taken at the Bat Flight amphitheatre at dusk

Check out the plummy goodness. I'm making fast progress with this Ripple Weave sock, mainly because I can't put the yarn down. I'm at the toe right now, it will be finished today and I'll have a complete pair of non-matching Ripples, hooray.

Here is some small progress on the Capelet Sweater:

I don't know why the stitches look so uneven between rows, as if there were a couple of rows of twisted stitches thrown in. Maybe I had gotten so used to doing ktbl's from knitting the socks? Boo.

But here are my initial impressions on Rowan's Tapestry: it feels disconcertingly like human hair. Hair that's been shampooed and conditioned with Finesse for that shiny, silky soft touch-me bounce. I mean it's NICE. It's just a little too alive or something creepy. But it's nice.

For this here Capelet Sweater I am following the instructions loosely. Even after all my number crunching, the numbers on all the charts and illos still don't add up. There is definitely one typo and perhaps a few more but can't verify if this is so. All I know is that it's confusing. I mean if the Japanese readers themselves can't make heads or tails, what hope does one have I ask you? But whatever the construction isn't exactly rocket science, so I think I can wing it.

***

We had a fantastic weekend. We drove all up and down New Mexico. First stop of course was up an hour north to Taos for the wool festival, on Saturday. Can I say I wasn't exactly into it? I will say it quietly: I wasn't into the wool festival! Don't be mad! I think if I were a spinner I would have found all the stalls of raw wool much more interesting. Most everything was very raw and very scratchy. However I did go gaga at the Brooks Farms Yarn's booth, with its rainbow colors of beautiful wools. It was by far the most popular booth. The two skeins I bought is their Primero Yarn in 100% kid mohair.

After Taos we came back to Santa Fe, packed a small bag and headed south to Carlsbad - 4 to 5 hours drive - with an overnight stop in Roswell. I thought we could take in some alien sights in the morning but there wasn't much aliens to see unfortunately so we continued on to Carlsbad Caverns, and made it there in time for our guided tour.

This place is very, very cool. My bad blurry photos doesn't do the place justice. I deliberately tried not to include people in the shots, but now I wish I had, just to give the place a sense of scale. The caves and the decorations in them are just immense.

After several hours in the cave, we hung out back on land to wait for dusk, and the start of the Bat Flight, where the resident bats swarm out of the cave for their nightly insect feeding.

Oh you Bat Flight how I will never ever forget you! It is by far the COOLEST thing I have ever seen in my life.

You sit in this small amphitheatre constructed at the mouth of this cave where the bats dwell, a ranger gives a pre-flight talk about bats, first about bats in general - they are not evil blood-suckers, they are not mice, they are not birds, etc - and then about these bats here in particular. Mexican free-tail bats. From Mexico. And some other bats from Brazil. Or something.

I was looking forward to this part of the lecture; I wanted to know their history with this cave. Our ranger was about to go into all the details when she turned and suddenly lowered her voice and whispered, "Everyone shhhhh....they're coming..." and I swear all the hairs on my arms and neck stood up on end.

Not my picture! Taken from the NPS site, I give them FULL CREDIT!

A couple of bats fluttered out, then within seconds it was a small swarm, then it was a whirring CYCLONE of bats swirling around the mouth of the cave for like, one or two rotations before they shot off into the horizon. The sun was setting, the clouds were red, and this was the backdrop for the black, roiling stream of bats flying far into the distance. It was the most amazing and beautiful thing I've seen in my life. And the more bats that flew out, the longer and dense this stream grew, the faker it looked, like CGI rendering of locusts from a documentary of the biblical plague on the History Channel or something.  

We sat there for 40 minutes, or as long as there was enough light to see, and in that time the bats continued to swarm out of the cave unabated. In fact the tornado seemed to get bigger and bigger each minute. The exodus can last as long as 2 hours before the cave completely empties. Can you imagine?? How many bats were in there, that's what I wanted to know! The website says there are half a million bats living in the cave, but I'd say it was much much more than that. Bajillions! How much surface area do they cover when they're hanging upside down in their cave? Imagine that scene?!

It's too bad we were not allowed to take photos. They banned cameras this year, fearing "interference" with the bats' "echolocation." Waaaah. Poor bats. I wanted to take a photo, many photos, SO BADLY. I thought maybe I could turn off the flash and take a shot surreptitiously from under my arm, but there was a second ranger there playing the role of BADASSED BAT BOUNCER who stood with her sunglasses on and shoulders and jaws squared at various points around the amphitheatre, watching us. She was scary. So I didn't dare.

But you can see pretty cool pictures of the bat flight here.

Comments [7]
Filed Under: Socks | Ripple Weave | Travel | Santa Fe

Socktoberfesting!

Finished one Ripple Weave sock using Wildfoote. First time with this yarn, first time with the pattern. Wildfoote is not bad. Not the softest but definitely not the itchiest I've used. The fit of the sock is great save for the gusset. It's the first time I've knitted a sock where the gusset was too big. Will pick up fewer stitches next time.

The sock yarn stash continues to grow...

Sundara's Somewhat Solid in "Plum over Slate." I am head over heels. She ought to name her yarns Somewhat Edible. I wound it myself into a center-pull ball using a toilet paper roll. Worked great! I've already started knitting with it - another Ripple Weave sock on the way!

The yarn stash grows some more...littleknits.com is having a sale on Cherry Tree Hill supersock yarn, plus another 10% off on top of that, and as soon as I received the notification email this morning, I was ON IT. Two skeins in Purple Rain and Emerald City. Why not?! I gather more sock yarn in the spirit of Socktoberfest, and in this case, I am trying NEW sock yarns, for my own sock edification. Good thing I nabbed these colorways; within minutes they were gone.

Will try to post more again and more often. It's been a busy busy week. Can't believe it's October already. We've been in Santa Fe for nearly a month!

PS Backstory on the drunken post from last week (which was 100% authentic by the way). I don't know what possessed me to blog in that state except that I'm a loser or I was just in the really happy giddy drunken haze that I wanted to talk. I'm a fast typer, no looking at keyboard, but I was typing even faster when tipsy. Like wheeeee! Type type type type! There was no stopping me!

As soon as I logged off, a horrible "oooooOHluuurrAAACK" issued from the bathroom. My Duck, he got sick. In all the years I've been with him I've only seen him sick twice before, and that second time was earlier in the month. Fruitful month, September. Anyway, I myself did not get sick. The trick is to not let yourself lay down, no matter how dizzy or groggy or tired you get. DO NOT LAY DOWN! It increases the dizzy factor one million percent! Stay upright, drink water! I sat up half the night propped with pillows.  

Despite the sickiness, that stuff we drank was so effective and so good that there was no hangover the next morning, at all, that we went right back the next evening. But only one drink per person this time...:)

Comments [6]
Filed Under: Socks | Ripple Weave | Yarn Stash

An entry dedicated to knitting ONLY

Left: Rowan Tapestry for the Japanese Cape Sweater. Ordered from yarn.com. I'm back into neutrals again. The color is "Country" with bands of the softest greens and browns. Beautiful.

Middle: Brown Sheep's Wildfoote sock yarn. Purchased from a yarn store in Taos this past weekend. It had teeny tiny selection, but this is the first time I've heard or seen this sock yarn. Two different colored yarn plied together. Cheap too! 200+ yards of superwash wool and nylon for just over $6. I couldn't resist. Like the name too. So old English. I'm going to name my next cat or child Wildfoote. Whichever comes first.

Right: Trekking XXL also from yarn.com. I ordered this before I came upon the Wildefoot. They look kind of similar, but there are more colors in Trekking, and it's softer. I've never worked with it before so I'm curious. It's destined to become a pair of man socks.

The pottery mug: It's Duck's handsome new coffee mug, handmade and handpainted at Rainbow Gate. We found this beautiful store over the weekend and my mom went beserk. She looooves pottery. Turns out, I do too. We were there for over an hour and she bought a very nice dinner set for six in all the colors of the rainbow. Duck picked out the goose mug, I picked out a few things as gifts, but nothing for myself because I couldn't make up my mind, mesmerized into indecision by all the different combinations of colors and paintings. There were a few mugs with cats on them, you'd think that would be a no-brainer, but I am more into REAL cats than I am into painted cats or cat whatever knick-knacks. Just so you know.

ANYway...

Ripple Weave Socks and Correction
Tell me the truth. Can you discern the ripple pattern in this sock?

I've used the Wildefoot for the Ripple Weave sock from Fall 06 Vogue Knitting. It might be a bad choice. :(

By the way, there's an error in the chart, which I haven't seen a correction for on the website yet. The 3rd row should look like this:

 

Capelet Sweater, or A Lot of Number Crunching That May Not Interest You
Thanks to Japanese reader Izumi for helping me to further make heads or tails of the Cape Sweater pattern. It is the total antithesis of Debbie Bliss patterns which are all words and no charts. This is all charts and even though I can pick out the basic words, the numbers still don't add up...

The top image are instructions for decreases the cape portion, worked bottom-up. According to Izumi, 31~1 for example means, "On row 31, decreases 1 stitch once."

But there are 4 numbers total. Bear with me here as I think while I type:

31 ~ 1 ~ 10 ~ 1

First number (31) indicates row, second number (1) indicates stitch, fourth number (1) indicates how many times. What I don't know is what the third number (10) is for. Is it stitch position? If so...

The chart below is the charted version (I believe) of the decrease instructions. Green portion is for my particular pattern. If 10 means 10th position, on the chart it looks like you do a decrease after knitting 16 stitches. And then there is a little note that I think says you repeat the *k16, dec* pattern 9 times.

The numbers aren't adding up.

OH WAIT!!!!!!!! Epiphany as I'm typing this! The numbers do add up! That 3rd number tell you how many times to repeat the decrease. You are really repeating that decrease on Row 31 10 times in all! The chart illustrates the first K16, dec. Then another K16, dec and that is where it says to repeat that 9 times. So 10 in all. OK so that is what the 10 means.

YES? Hmm I'm still not 100% sure....Like if the 2nd number tells you how many stitches to decrease, and 3rd number tells you how many times to do it, what's the point of the 4th number now?

And, why does the second dec. instruction say

24 ~ 1 ~ 11 ~ 1

while on the chart the second repeat row begins on Row 55?

But 79 rows in all MINUS 55 = 24.  So 24 on the chart means 24th from the top? But 31 doesn't mean 31st from the top...Whut.  

And what's with the multiple dec instructions for Row 8? (Or is that 8th row from the top?) (ERGH)

Heh, are you even following me at this point?

OH WAIT ANOTHER EPIPHANY! The math also works out this way: 31 + 24 = 55. The first number is the number of rows to work AFTER THE LAST ROW YOU DECREASED. So after row 31, work 23 more rows straight, then decrease on the next (24th) row. Or in other words, decrease on row 55 as illustrated in the chart.

YES!

Dang. I'm spent. Too many ways to write the same thing. Might have been easier for me to ignore the words and just follow the chart.

Just like it's better for you to ignore the words here and just stick to the photos. That's what I would've done anyway.

I LOVE NEW MEXICO
OK I lied about keeping this entry to knitting. Just look at these bizarre rock formations.

We took my parents to the Kasha Katuwe Tent Rocks. It was an AWESOME surprise, and is now my favorite U.S. park. Better than Bandelier (which is just next to it), better than Zion, and possibly better even than the Grand Canyon!? Maybe it's apples and oranges. I say that only because Tent Rocks is accessible, small, but still incredible. And not overrun with other tourists. 

I've never seen such rock formations. It is ODD. We were able to hike into it, at some points the foot trail was no wider than your foot, rock walls soared and closed in all around you, it was intimate and breathtaking. It takes a lot of effort to actually go into and especially to hike the Grand Canyon. With the Tent Rocks, you drive a few miles from the city and BAM you're right into the thick of it. We're going to make this regular, after-work hike.

Man. I can tell it's going to be hard to leave when the time comes. I'm working on convincing Duck we need to stay an extra week than he thinks we do.

Comments [14]
Filed Under: Japanese knits | Socks | Ripple Weave | Travel | Santa Fe