Go With the Flow socks by Evelyn A. Clark
Interweave Knits, Summer 2005
yarn: German sock yarn
started: April 29, 2006
completed: October 4, 2007

These definitely weren’t started in October but Socktoberfest inspired me to sew up the toe last night. They’ve been sitting in my basket for about three weeks just needing kitchener stitching for the toe. Now on to another pair of socks for Socktoberfest.

I’m going to settle on this blog template for now since it is fall. When I have more time, I’ll put one together that I really like. Don’t be surprised if the template changes regularly just because I can’t make up my mind.

It’s been a rough week or so. My aunt is not doing well but we were able to travel to Kansas to see her this past weekend. It’s very hard saying goodbye.

**I just noticed my sidebar isn’t working. I’ll get it fixed later today. –Saturday, October 6

Time seems to be in a bit of a time warp around here. Thank you all for your kind words about my blog. Since I wrote my “not sure” post I feel a bit less stressed about the blog. Before I felt like I had to post something so people would read and thought there was almost no one reading. Then all of your comments and emails started to pour in and it made me realize I’m not just writing things and posting them in the great beyond that no one reads and no one cares about. It’s sort of the blog version of Sally Field’s “you like me, you really like me.” There have been times in the last few weeks where I’ve thought, I should post this on the blog but honestly do you really want to see each block of the Moderne Baby blanket finished? I think not.

In the last few weeks, Bryan has graduated and earned his MLS. Last Monday, it hit him he’d finally earned this degree that for so long had been so far away.

I’m enjoying my last summer of freedom for a few years. I’ve been knitting exclusively on the Moderne Baby blanket since I finished the Cat’s Paw shawl a few weeks ago. The shawl is beautiful and I wore it to Bryan’s graduation. Unfortunately, I think I’ll be ripping out the bound-off edge and knitting at least another inch or two onto it since it feels a bit short when I wear it. An easily fixed problem, thank goodness. I will post a better photo of the shawl soon. Back to the blanket, it’s amazing how much knitting you get done on one project when it’s your only project. I don’t remember the last time I had only one project in progress, I’m not counting the single sock that needs to be finished. I’m hoping to finish the blanket before the June heat rolls in. My goal for the blanket is to finish knitting it by June 1, that doesn’t include sewing in the ends.

The Moderne Baby blanket is coming along fabulously, it’s turning out beautifully and the Lorna’s Laces solid colors all have slight variations in color that are just magnificent.

The Cat’s Paw shawl is nearly complete, it just needs a border around the bottom.

My original intentions for May for my Knitting Almanac were to work on American Aran afghan squares, instead I’ve decided to focus on the various baby projects that need attention. I might even throw in another shawl too.

I’ve done a bit of spinning in the last few weeks and I just noticed that the yarn I’m spinning is very much in the same color family as the baby blanket.

The last week or so, I’ve been really struggling with whether or not I want to continue to write a blog. I don’t know if it was the five year mark or seeing that I’ve written over 620 posts or if it’s just spring fever? Part of it is feeling like I’m putting myself out there and getting very little response. Are people getting tired of reading blogs? Recently I read in American Libraries, a magazine put out by the American Library Association, that there are about 250,000 abandoned blogs. My original reason for blogging was to share what I was working on with other knitters, then it became a personal journal and recently it’s again become more of a place to share my projects. It’s a time of transition around here and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking anyway as I’m preparing to go to graduate school and have accepted an assistantship at a library on campus. It’s a very exciting time and also a bit scary as Bryan and I embark on another chapter in our lives.

Last Wednesday, I finished knitting the body of the Lace Nightie. With a severe case of startitis, I almost immediately set forth into figuring out which shawl to make for my April knitting almanac project. I liked the Flower Basket Shawl but was having a bit of a case of “everyone else has made that shawl,” the Diamond Fantasy shawl and Little Arrowhead shawl weren’t screaming to be worked on. Bryan told me on Wednesday before he left for class that I should design my own. As I poured through my Barbara Walker Treasury books, the cat’s paw pattern kept catching my eye. Finally, I realized exactly what I was going to do. After three hours of charting it all out in Excel, I printed out my chart. At knit night, I cast on and knit a “swatch” which then turned in to the shawl.

Currently, I’m about 172 rows into the pattern with another 60 or so rows to go to get to my goal length. At that point, I’ll measure and see if it’s as long as I’d like it and will start the edging. It feels like such a great sense of accomplishment to chart out the lace pattern and make it all work as a shawl with the help of Interweave Knits and other shawl patterns.

This weekend, we headed out to Bryan’s sister’s house to visit the niece and nephew. On the way, I knew that I couldn’t just knit on the shawl the entire time and wanted something a bit more mindless. I started the Moderne Baby Blanket from Mason-Dixon Knitting in Lorna’s Laces Worsted Weight Shepherd Sock yarn. The middle square is beautiful and the other “solid” colors are wonderful with their subtle hand-dyed varigations. The baby was born in February, so I’m a bit behind schedule but I’ve been waiting on the yarn since January.

First of all, thank you all for your wonderful comments and emails about my acceptance into library grad school. I’m so excited to start and see what the library world may have in store for us.

February was a very cold month, we had snow and more snow. We still have snow on the ground despite a few warmer (over 35°F) days this past week. I’m so happy March is finally here. February was a great month for reading and I read an amazing book that I’m recommending called Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I’d seen it at the library and had meant to read it but kept putting it off. This was a wonderful book and it’s on my personal top ten list now. When I was a child if there was one animal that I wanted to be, if I had to choose one, it was the elephant. Why? Because it was big, something I definitely wasn’t and it started with an E. Silly reasoning, I know but I was about 5 or 6 when I thought about this.

February had been designated sock month for my knitting almanac project but for some reason my excitement for socks just wasn’t there until about February 26. I did knit a pair of baby socks knit, Bryan’s alpaca scarf, a pair of fingerless gloves and made quite a bit of progress on Martha.

A former co-worker of mine is having a baby in a few weeks and when I received the invitation to the baby shower, I knew I had to knit her a pair of socks. I missed the shower because I had to work that day, but she loves the socks. These were experimental socks for me in that I decided to try the after-thought heel. I had started out with a short-row heel but had holes and decided that it was time to try the after-thought heel, which worked quite well.

During the cold of the last six or so weeks, I’d thought many times about knitting myself some fingerless gloves but didn’t wanted to buy any new yarn for them. Around Feburary 8, the idea hit me, spin some yarn from fiber that I received from Wendy, my secret pal back in July 2005. I started spinning it quite bulky and after two days of spinning and plying, I had about 45 yards plied. I wasn’t sure how far that would get me so I decided to just knit until I ran out of yarn. Fortunately, 44 yards got me quite far. February 16, I knit one of the gloves and on February 19, I knit just past half of the second one before I ran out of yarn. Immediately after I ran out of yarn, I sat down, spun and plied another 18 yards, which was plenty to finish the top of the second glove. (Pattern from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.) Of course, as soon as I finished them it started to warm up slightly but they’ve been perfect for those chilly mornings and evenings.

In the last five days my excitement about the Go With the Flow socks seems to have exploded. The idea of wearing them really appeals to me now (why they didn’t before I don’t know) and when I set a goal of knitting 20 rows a day, I’ve seen some amazing progress. Now I’m about 16 rows from the toe decreases on the second sock. Then I have the fun of ripping out the foot of the first sock and reknitting it. In wearing several pairs of my handknit socks recently, I’ve realized that those knit on the size 2 Addi’s aren’t wearing well on the bottom. So I’ve decided that the only solution I have is to rip out the feet and reknit the bottom of the socks on size 1 Knit Picks circulars, while knitting the top of the instep on the Addi’s. I’m fine with this, especially since it means that I won’t worry about wearing my socks out as quickly and having to repair them sooner than later.

March is lace month, here are my planned knitting almanac projects:

• I’m planning to graft together the two pieces of the lace sampler scarf that I’ve already knitted. Easy-peasy lace project to finish.
• Finish the Go With the Flow socks.
• Swatch and knit the lace doily from A Gathering of Lace by Meg Swanson
• Swatch for the shawl to be knitted in April
• Knit more swatches for the Walker Treasury Project

So this week has been a weird week. Weird in a good way, of course but I can’t really explain how it’s been weird, it just feels that way. I guess because Tuesday and Wednesday were busy and then Thursday and Friday were busy in a different way but everything feels a bit disjointed. Monday was a day to regroup from the weekend and run errands. Tuesday evening, my mom arrived for a short visit. She rode the train down from Chicago and stayed with us Tuesday night. Wednesday, Mom and I accomplished a lot. We went out for the obligatory breakfast and then walked around downtown Champaign. We stopped into a cute vintage shop where they also sell fun stuff. For Bryan, Mom picked up the Deluxe Librarian Action Figure, which comes complete with reference desk, book cart and computer. It’s sure to be the hit of any party or get-together we’ll have with Bryan’s library school classmates.

Then Mom and I went shopping for curtains for our living room. We currently have the standard white plastic blinds that are so lovely with the white walls and the white woodwork. We need to inject a bit of color into our living room. So we set out with a swatch of our couch fabric to find some curtains that will look nice in the room. Unfortunately, the only thing we found that looked good with the couch was fabric for curtains that were about the same color, but I felt like the curtains would be big blocks of dark blueish-green against all of the white and it wouldn’t look good. So then we went to Lowe’s and found some neat greenish bamboo shades, then we picked out a great paint color for the two walls that I plan to paint. (I’ll be using the color on the left, it’s called “Ancient Olive.”) After lunch, we picked up Bryan from school and drove around campus a bit to show Mom the library school and the library where Bryan works. Then it was time to head home for one of Bryan’s famous homemade pizzas with homemade pesto, marinara and spinach on a whole wheat crust. After dinner, I took Mom to the train station and headed to my knitting group.

Thursday and Friday were training days at work. And today was my first day on the salesfloor. I even fulfilled one of the incentives today. :)

In knitting news, I finished the pair of socks that I’ve been working on. They are a gift, so you’ll have to see them using the link. Yay, I finished a pair of socks during Lolly’s Socktober! Now to start another pair using the Lorna’s Laces yarn that I bought last week.

I’ve also been plugging away on Fleurette which is coming along beautifully. I haven’t gotten around to finishing the plying of the Lemondrop yarn. I’m sure I’ll finish it within the next few days. I’m ready to get it washed and ready to knit, not that I’ll knit anything with it for a while. I just want to get it off the bobbins. I’ve been very much in a knitting mood so my spinning has taken a bit of a break. It’s one of those things, I’m either in the mood for one or the other and sometimes I’m in the mood to do both and I have to decide - knitting has been winning lately. I think the knitting group and the gifts I’m knitting are putting me in a knitting mood.

Have a happy Halloween! I leave you with one of the many gorgeous trees around our neighborhood. A walk was in order just to snap a few photos of the leaves this afternoon.

I just have to brag, my Barbara Shawl is fabulous! I love it and it’s beautiful.
Here are a few photos of it on (click image for larger photo).
The back view.

From the side.

It feels wonderful on. For those of you who missed seeing Bear model the shawl, there is a photo for you. :)
I wore it tonight for the first time to the local spinning guild meeting and got tons of compliments on it. I felt like a million bucks. There are definitely more lace shawls in my future. My next planned shawl is Summer in Kansas. Being a former Kansas girl, I couldn’t resist it. And I don’t even need to buy the yarn, I already have Henry’s Attic Fingering Weight Wool yarn in natural white. It’s gorgeous and I bought it to make any shawl and now I have one picked out.

It’s killing me to have to wait until I get a job to start anything new. I’ve joined Lolly’s Socktober and really want to start my next pair of socks, but I can’t. I’m sure within the next week or so, I’ll just cave and start something new. You’d think from the way I’m talking that I don’t have any projects to work on. I have three projects right now (Hobo, Crazy Green sweater and the secret cranberry lace) that need to be worked on but the urge to start something new is overwhelming. I’ve reworked a bit of the Hobo sweater, so I have been knitting. I think this will be a good week for me, I’ve been very anxious the last two days, so something has to come through. Even if it’s a temp job, it’s something!