Note: I wrote this entry Thursday and fully expected to get photos by Friday night, to illustrate.

I’m so sorry, guys… I had a very full day and will be gone this weekend for knitting events, a retreat with the Lansing guild and then Sunday a workshop with Lucy Neatby on advanced sock subjects… I feel so lucky! I guess the pictures will have to wait until I return home after the retreat and workshop. See you Sunday night!

I fulled/felted my Fuzzy Feet today. They really are attractive, and even Brian said so! With their shape and the eyelash yarn in the cuff, I think my skinny legs look like a bird in a Dr. Seuss book when I wear them, but I don’t mind that look. And they are very thick and will be extremely warm, for this grrrl who fights cold feet for about six months out of the year.

They turned out fine in the long run, but the process made me quite grumpy. Remind me to trust my good gut judgement, OK? They are the right length and the foot itself is a decent width, but the heel and cuff are very big, a bit too big even after felting. I think they will work fine with a pair of thin wool sox under them.

I put them in the washing machine with 2 pair of jeans for about 15-20 minutes. Then I could tell that if I continued, they were not going to be right. I then rubbed and rolled and wrung out and scrubbed on a washboard. They were still much too wide in the ankle and heel area.

I am an experienced felter, I’ve done a lot of felting. I was frustrated! I finally resorted to the ultimate felting tool: I threw “them puppies” over and over again into my tub. This shocked the fibers into felting faster. Then I put the slippers on my feet, still somewhat wet, and rubbed and fussed for a good long while to try to get them to fit properly. I got the foot part looking pretty good, but the cuff is very wide still.

If I do these again, I will no doubt reduce the cast-on number of stitches by 4 stitches (at least 2) in the cuff and definitely not do as many heel flap rows.

As I said, these are OK and if I had not made them myself I might not be this picky. However, I am almost obsessive about not having floppy, too-big sox. I have small feet, and I like my sox to be stretch-to-fit, to the point where I sometimes make my sox with measurements classified as child-sized. My mom has smaller feet than me, but she likes her sox bigger than mine.

I like my shoes roomy, though, so I thought maybe I would be OK with this. Well… I like my shoes roomy in the toes, not in the heel. Live and learn. I do love the color! And when I wear these with sox underneath, they don’t feel too big in the heel. I guess if they fit too closely above the heel, with the firm felted/fulled fabric, they wouldn’t stretch to allow the foot inside. I guess I’m just being grumpy today, sorry.

But they really do look cute. I love the eyelash yarn, and I adore the main color. Just imagine me as a character in “Green Eggs and Ham!”

Today I had a series of appointments which all required waiting. I took the opportunity to rip out 46 rows of the color-pooling legwarmer, decrease one stitch and start knitting again. It looks much better. I will enjoy wearing these.

I also knit a bit on the roll-edged purple alpaca sox I started yesterday. I have a few inches done on both feet. These are just fine, except the yarn splits much more than most yarns I’ve used.

Now I’m preparing to turn off this machine for the rest of the night and dye some wool! Rainbow happiness, here I come. Seeya later!

OK, I finally remembered to take pictures when Brian was home with the camera!

These fuzzy feet are so huge that I can wear them as a hat on my 22″ head. How they are going to fit my 8″ circumference feet, I can not imagine. Thank goodness I have done my share of felting from unspun fibers, and I have checked with others who have smallish feet about how their Fuzzy Feet went.

The verdict is that the length should be no trouble and if I shrink them in the machine they may be a bit too wide. I figure if they feel uncomfortably wide, I can hand-manipulate the shrinking as I do with handcrafted felt, and make them work out. Wish me the best.

I’m thinking I will probably put them in the washer for the first bit of shrinking. I have never used a machine to shrink something (at least not on purpose). I did full one beret and I did it by hand.

I am getting excited about these, though. Several of the folks at the guild knit in on Tuesday had already made some and been pleased.

I am letting the legwarmers sit for now. I’m still inclined to rip out the leg that is pooling and decrease by one, then pray I can duplicate the gauge I have used on the other legwarmer below the cuff. I don’t feel like ripping out right now, so I (of course) started a new project.

Last fall, I got some yarn from an individual online. The seller said it was alpaca, but it came without labels or ball bands. It is not as soft as the other alpaca yarns I have used recently, but soft enough. Perhaps it is a wool/alpaca blend, I’ll never know.

I got two skeins of “honey” which is a sort of tannish beige (I’m hoping this will dye to teal if I overdye with turquoise) and two skeins of purple. I started two cuffs with this yarn today, for myself. I hope I have enough for sox with the two purple skeins. If not, I can make the heels and toes with the overdyed honey colored yarn. This will be the third pair of alpaca sox for me, all purple, in 2003. I’m on a roll, I guess!

I’m bummed. I just realized this morning that my legwarmers don’t look the same at all. They are both from variegated yarn, beautiful colors. One legwarmer, the colors are “pooling” (in a nice way, but pooling) and the other one the colors are distributed pretty well… not exactly randomly but the turquoise doesn’t touch the next round of turquoise.

I have been knitting back and forth between them as I must, to keep a good even gauge balance between the two. I really want them to be something like the same look, and they are very different.

I figured it out: one has 60 stitches and one has 59. That’s all it takes, apparently. I know exactly where I lost my stitch… I did a K2tog, YO row to make it fold over at the cuff line, and I didn’t do one YO at the end of the round. Voila! Unmatched legwarmers. The one I like least has more knitting done on it, of course. Eight inches of 60 stitches a round, has to be pulled out.

Then I will decrease by one and go from there. And then I pray my knitting gauge is about the same when I reknit, as it was when I knit the one I want to keep as-is. If they don’t match after three inches, I will have to rip both back to the beginning of the leg and start over on both, back and forth, so my gauge on each is matching. Cross fingers for me, OK?

Oh, double drat… I keep looking at them and changing my mind which I like best. That means I’m done with this project while my mind weighs the options. And I finished the Fuzzy Feet yesterday except for fulling/shrinking them.

So now I think I need a new project. Again. A brainless one, or I’ll stop once more. I did start to make Brian some sox out of Confetti a week or so ago, maybe I’ll take those out… or take the time to wind some fat yarn into balls so I can make more warm winter sox for myself. My feet just stay cold for months this time of year, it’s just awful!

I just got notice I’m in for the Fuzzy Feet knit-along, sponsored by Mama Kate who also has a great blog.

How great that I went ahead and knit. I did mine in Lambs Pride Worsted mohair/wool, a color that I call cherry but they call Lotus Pink. I added a strand of Peacock eyelash yarn in a hot pink color for six rows of the cuff, we’ll see how that works. It promises to look good.

I stayed up too late last night to finish the second slipper. All I have to do is finish the last 12 stitches. I did a 3-needle bindoff from the inside on the first one…

I just can not justify doing a Kitchener stitch on a felted project, where you can’t even tell you did it. I can do Kitchener fine, but it takes so much concentration and I am not doing it unless the results are worth my effort! I save it for gifts, mostly, because my feet are shaped so that they actually look best with running the tail of the yarn through the last 8 stitches or so, twice, and fastening the end. My middle toe is longer than the first toe and so a straight line at the toe closure just doesn’t make sense.

Anyway, I had only about 9-10 yards of yarn left. I did mine shorter than the pattern called for, so I worry others will run out. I worried *I* would run out until I was several rows into the toe decreases. Whew! I did have another skein (this was from stash) but I just had this idea I did not want to use it.

We’ll see when I felt them. I need pics of the big ones first. I can put mine on my head like a hat… my head is 22″ circumference. My foot is 8″ circumference. I’ve done felting enough (mostly with loose fiber, not knit items) to have faith this will work, but it is always nervewracking until it’s done.

I also am working a little on my legwarmers. They now look like legwarmers, a good sign. And yesterday I did a few more inches on the garter stitch hat for my CityKidz Knit! program. The pattern is from Melanie Falick’s Kids Knitting book, it promises to look great. I just find it hard to motivate to knit acrylic on straight needles, garter stitch or no. I love knitting wool (or mohair or alpaca) in tubes, it’s just my thing.

I have been reading food web pages lately. I first checked out Vegweb looking for tofu recipes (I like a lot of seasoned tofu main dishes that other people make but have not done well in my own kitchen yet). It’s an amazing site, even if you don’t care at all about tofu and are not a vegetarian.

I also found the King Arthur Flour website. This is the source for a wartime rations chocolate cake (They call it King Arthur Flour’s Original Cake-Pan Cake, sorry but I tried to make a link to it but it seems you have to search cakes to find it) that didn’t call for eggs or milk, which used Baking Soda and vinegar to make it rise. I substitute orange juice or lemon juice for the vinegar, and it works with all my food restrictions. It’s an easy and quick treat. You mix it in the pan, so there are fewer dishes. I also understand that if you use coffee as your liquid, it is wonderful. I make it with water or soy milk and add a half cup or so of nuts to it for more protein. My online friend, Mimi, told me about this recipe around the holidays. It was so nice to be able to make a treat for myself, when everyone else was eating all sorts of lovely treats I couldn’t touch.

Then today I was in heaven reading for a way-too-long time the Cook’s Thesaurus where they had wonderful information on all sorts of foods, and possible substitutes for most of them. This is wonderful information for someone like me who has to substitute all the time. There is hardly a recipe I can make without substituting something, and this site is going to be a wonderful resource.

I really love beans and lentils, and they had all sorts of information on some I didn’t know… such as the Indian dal (sometimes they are the same food but with a totally different name at an Indian market). I read everything they said on beans, lentils and nuts/seeds. It was fascinating to me, maybe it will be useful to someone else out there as well.

Speaking of substitutes, I found not long ago that after going 6 months without dairy, I was missing puddings quite a bit. I made a rice pudding by substituting soy milk, and that turned out well. Then I wanted to make tapioca pudding. Well, at about the same time I was given some incredible Mexican vanilla. I found myself on Vanilla.com and somehow in the midst of it all I found a recipe that used coconut milk for tapioca. Now, I couldn’t use a bunch of the other ingredients they suggested (or didn’t have them in hand) so I sort of looked at a few different tapioca pudding recipes and made up this one.

Warning: coconut milk has a good deal of saturated fat, and the brands you can get at a regular grocery store or even health food store, have a lot more fat in them than the brands at the asian markets (and the asian markets charge about a third as much). Don’t make this for anyone who has heart trouble, OK? But for those of us who don’t have high cholesterol and can’t have dairy, this is a wonderful treat.

LynnH’s Sinful Coconut/Vanilla Tapioca Pudding

1/4 c minute tapioca
2-1/4 c unsweetened soy milk (or rice milk or lowfat dairy milk)
1 can (13-14 oz/400ml) coconut milk (not coconut cream or coconut water)
1/2c white sugar
1 T good dark Mexican vanilla (if you have a Mexican market, they have the real thing for a wonderful price; if you can’t get the real stuff, use 1-1/2tsp of grocery store vanilla)

Mix all ingredients except vanilla well, let stand 5 minutes.
Cook to full boil while stirring constantly with wire whisk (medium heat).
Remove from heat, add vanilla, let cool at least 15 minutes.
Yum!!!!

Oh, on the knitting front, I started my second Fuzzy Feet slipper. I’m past the heel turn, so I’m in the final stretch.

Thanks
I have received the nicest emails lately, both public comments here and private notes. Thank every one of you for visiting my weblog! Thank you for letting me know you are there, and that I am saying things that resonate for you as well. I am gratified to know that this is working so well, so soon.

Polymer Knitting
I was surfing today looking for instructions on how to knit I-cord (for someone who asked on the Knitlist) and found this: Knitted Polymer Clay! I spent about a decade obsessed with polymer (picture is a Pitcher Sculpture I did in 1996). I remember now that one of my best teachers was teaching others how to extrude polymer and brair or plait it. I might even remember that someone was knitting it, but I was not knitting then.

Here it is: The Random Acts of Craftiness Knitted Polymer Clay page! Amazing.

It looks as though the polymer would be difficult to control as yarn. Not only that, I have extruded polymer once or twice, and it is a painful thing to do with the tools typically used. I think I’ll let her do this herself. But she’s got a full-sized purse there, which appears to have been knit from two strands of a special type of elastic polymer. I salute her for the effort she went through, and it does seem to function properly. She says the watchband is wearing very well. Check it out!

My Knitting Projects
On the subject of my own knitting, I had planned to knit my legwarmers in reverse stockinette stitch (what is usually considered the “wrong side” of knitting, with the purl bumps showing). I like how this stitch blends colors with multicolored yarns.

However, I got going on this project and realized that with this colorway (jewel tones, a little darker than my normal colors) it was just mudding up the colors too much. The stockinette side had bits of brighter colors (turquoise and a berry) where there was enough yarn there to really shine, to show the light.

I ripped back both legwarmers, one 20 rows and one 12 rows. I wrapped the first stitch on what was to be the next round, and turned the legwarmers inside out, going back the other direction. I had to do it this way because I had knit in a crease so that I could fold down the cuff on the legwarmer. Since the cuff fold was not reversible, I reversed the leg instead. I’m going to like these a lot.

Since I am doing a folded cuff, I haven’t made a lot of progress yet but I’m at the “brainless knitting” part so they should go quickly this week. I think I am not going to decrease these until the bottom cuff, I think they will be warmer if they are baggier. I’m still praying I have enough yarn, though. If I need to decrease to make them longer, I’ll have to rip out again!

Oh, and last night after coming home from the musical night, I snuggled into my comforter on the couch and finished the toe of my first “Fuzzy Feet” slipper. I haven’t started the second yet. I know that when I start, I won’t want to stop until that pair is on my feet! I am afraid to start, I think.

Yesterday Evening
Last night our music gig at Altus was very fun. Unfortunately, Lansing got about 3-4 inches of snow from about 11am to 6pm, and so a lot of people stayed home. I can’t blame them.

The good thing was that the folks who did come, were a great audience for the Abbott Brothers’ style. We had a great time! It was actually nice for Altu, she got to sit down and listen to us for a short while. This is a luxury she does not get often… running a restaurant is a job which affords little down time.

I did line up five fine acts for the Saturdays in March. If this wonderful performance experiment works out, the Abbott Brothers will return and play again, hopefully during better weather!

By the time our gig was done, we ate a fabulous Ethiopian vegetarian meal, family-style, and then went over to Barbara and Larry’s house to play more tunes. I never did get to the Yarn for Ewe Knitters’ Night Out. I wonder how many braved the weather to go. It promised to be fun, but I just was overbooked.

Dance Event for the Dancer Called Morocco
I missed out on a dance event in the Detroit area as well. The workshop/performance honored Morocco, a dancer who has done a lifetime of historical research on the artforms of Middle-Eastern and North African dance. She and her troupe, The Casbah Dance Experience, have had difficult financial times in the wake of 9/11 and the event was to raise funds to help her studio in NYC. I’m sorry I had to miss that. She is a fine woman and I would have liked to be there.

It’s sometimes a drag to be human and only be in one place at one time, you know? I’m still making peace with that reality.

I may not have time for a long entry today. I teach at Foster Community Center this morning, followed by an afternoon computer lab there. Then our band, Abbott Brothers, will be playing music at Altu’s Restaurant. After the performance, if I’m lucky, I might be able to catch the tail end of the Knitters’ Night Out at Yarn for Ewe in Okemos. It should be a fun day!

Oh, I decided to just go for it on the legwarmers, and see how long they get with the original yarn I had planned. I weighed the yarn I had, on and off the needles, and it looks promising. We’ll see.

It has been a while since I’ve talked about knitting, partly because I was without an active project for a day or so (imagine that). I did have the CityKidz pick me a project for knitting when I am with them (in the moments between questions, anyway). That project stays in my computer/knitting room, though.

I almost started a pair of sox for Brian out of Confetti sockyarn in grays, cream and a dark taupe. However, I then remembered that I had some yarn purchased for legwarmers a while back. I even made the yarn into balls with my ballwinder, but this was during the crazy holiday time where I could not start anything new. So I cast on for a pair.

Except somehow I cast on 40 stitches for one leg and 60 for the other, whoops! I ripped out the 40 stitch one and started over yesterday. Now I have knit a 2-1/2″ or so cuff in K1P1 rib, and then made a ridge to allow turning the cuff over consistently. I knit something like 27 rows of stockinette under that cuff with the smaller needles (to help it stay up, hopefully without elastic) and then started knitting with my larger needles at a point before it can be seen under the turned cuff.

Now I’m kind of bummed. It looks like maybe since I chose to make a turned over cuff, that I may not have enough yarn for this project. Aaargh. I bought two skeins of 200g each, New Zeeland handpainted yarn, a sort of lightweight worsted. I thought for sure this was enough. Now I get to ponder what to do. I’m not sure if she has any more in stock (this was a yarn store over an hour away, too) and even if she does, do I want to buy more? Or shall I alternate, say 2 rows variegated and one row solid? I have a skein of similar yarn in dark purple. I just hate to think it might make the intensity of the jeweltoned handpaint, less intense.

Good thing I have another project! I also started a pair of Fuzzy Feet from Knitty (is anyone *not* doing this pattern? I tried to resist but it didn’t work). I added a strand of Peacock hot pink eyelash to the Lotus Pink Brown Sheep Lambs Pride worsted, for the first few inches of the cuff. (Did I mention this already?) The colors work great together. I started it on Wednesday and at dance rehearsal there was much ooing and aahing about the Peacock. It’s my favorite eyelash that I’ve tried so far. (The picture here is from Knitty… I’ll show you my pic when they are done.)

I think the Fuzzy Feet will go well, they are so much like regular sox that I can whip along on the 44 stitches very quickly. Unfortunately, I haven’t felt very well this week and so I read the instructions incorrectly and made my heel flap half the proper length, then turned the heel before realizing I had made a mistake. I just hate ripping out a turned heel! Her heel is a little different than any I’ve done before… just slightly. It seems sort of a mixture between a half-handkerchief and a Dutch heel, which makes a nice shape.

So now I’m at another stopping point. I have to decide what to do about the legwarmers (which I would LOVE to whip out quickly and start wearing very soon) or rip out the Fuzzy Feet, or both. Or go back and pick up my Peace Fleece rug (which I can only knit a few rows at a time because I’m allergic to the yarn for some reason)… or actually attempt to think and knit at the same time by starting up again on my two-strand Lamb’s Pride worsted sweater that needs only arms and a neck.

Or I could start those Confetti sox for Brian. I just love brainless knitting! This thinking stuff is for the birds! I think enough in the rest of my life, really.

I found a great quote from Martha Washington. It has a good lesson in it, about the determination one makes about whether or not to choose happiness. I found it inspiring. (Oh, it also is interesting in that it shows that fame might not actually be all fun, as our youth sometimes believe it might.)

I sometimes think the arrangement is not quite as it ought to have been; that I, who had much rather be at home, should occupy a place with which a great many younger and gayer women would be prodigiously pleased. . . . I know too much of the vanity of human affairs to expect felicity from the splendid scenes of public life. I am still determined to be cheerful and to be happy in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.
- Martha ‘Patsy’ Washington

That quote also reminds me of another from one of my favorite writers, Maya Angelou:

…living well is an art which can be developed. Of course, you will need the basic talents to build upon: They are a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings, an assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift. That people who may differ from you in political stance, sexual persuasion, and racial inheritance can be founts of fun, and if you are lucky, they can become even convivial comrades.”
- Maya Angelou
Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now

These both talk about taking life as it is, right now. Living in the present. Finding joy in the everyday bits of life, whether you be famous (by choice or by chance) or a fairly private person.

I think I got through some very difficult times by being an optimist. Some might say I was being unrealistic. I think if realism means we wallow in the troubles we have, I can not afford the luxury of realism. If we don’t focus on the bits of pleasure in each day, we will never get out of the muck. I focused on the things I did enjoy, the people I loved, the relationships and creativity in my life. And my life has just gotten better. Never perfect, of course, because perfection does not exist. But better.

And now I can say that I honestly am happy most of the time… a peaceful, quiet sort of happy, rather than the frenzied, adrenaline-rush happy of my youth.

My mother, Elizabeth Bakken Troldahl, is quite a woman. She spends her spare time teaching kids to read, a lifelong passion of hers. Even though she is now retired from teaching, she volunteers most weekdays to help those who are struggling with reading.

She had a hard time learning to read herself. It turns out now that she probably would have been diagnosed as dyslexic or with some other learning challenge. However, when she was growing up, it was assumed that if you could not spell easily, you must not be smart. Well, this woman is sharp as a tack! She just has trouble with some written-language skills.

Mom is also a creative person. I think she would have liked to be an artist at one time, but the supplies for art classes at college in the early 50’s cost more than she could afford, putting herself through school. So she has chosen to be creative in many ways other than being a full-time artist. She is always re-designing garments. She buys things that are “almost right” or she will buy them because the fabric is nice, then she sort of re-engineers them to work for her own needs and fit requirements. She loves to entertain and make a beautiful table. And she spends a lot of energy being creative in helping “her little guys” learn to read.

Mom recycles printed materials as teaching aids. She will cut out a picture and glue it to a page, often a piece of paper folded to resemble a card. Then she will put the word to go with that picture below it. She often works out ways that the kids can get physically involved with the paper, by writing one letter themselves, or coloring in something, or using a glue stick to stick the picture on the page.

Mom makes beautiful envelopes from magazines and old calendars, as well. She likes both the artful and the recycling aspect of the envelope project.

Well, today I received a valentine from my mother in the mail. She put together a card illustrated with pictures cut from various publications. It makes a sort of riddle (there is a word to describe this but I can’t remember it right now) with pictures, to figure out the message. I think it is very clever. How dare people act like spelling is the indicator of intelligence? This card proves in only one way how smart and clever my mother can be! Isn’t it just great???

(Oh, the translation of the card is: “No kiddin’, I can barely wait to be your valentine.”)

This week is turning out to be another busy one (do I have any other kind?) Monday I had a volunteer (a friend of a spinner acquaintance) who came and worked for five hours on my computers at Foster Community Center. For free! He put CD-ROM players in two machines and started analyzing a few computers that are not working as expected. He is coming back again next week! I’m so delighted, I could hug him!!! I do what I can to keep these machines working (they are all but one pre-Y2K machines, most running Windows 95), but I have to do it on days when the lab is not very busy. I also don’t do this kind of work very often, so it can take me a long time to figure things out if they do not go right the first time.

After that, I had knitting with CityKidz Knit! and they were wonderful, as usual. One girl finished a purse, her first project ever. She is doing very well with making very evenly tensioned stitches, and is good at choosing colors that look nice together. I was proud of her. I have another girl trying her hand at a top-down hat on double pointed needles. She is coming right along, and has not minded ripping out when necessary.

I had left my house so quickly in the morning that I did not have any knitting with me (that tells you about my morning). I asked the kids to give me an assignment (there were only three girls because it was a long weekend for the President’s Day holiday). We had the Kids Knitting book by Melanie Falick (this is a fabulous book even for adults) and they chose a garter stitch hat which is something like a square jester hat with tassels.

I then asked them to pick my yarn colors. What joy they had, as a group, looking through all the yarn to pick the right colors. They chose a bright blue, a bright red and a clear gold/yellow. Primary colors, true kid choices. Lovely. It was fun to work on something different for a change. When I’m done I will probably draw a name for who gets to keep the hat, after I show it off a bit to inspire the kids.

Well, at long last here is a picture of one of the two pair I finished on January 24, en route to Florida. (The other pair were the purple alpaca I pictured on February 14th.)

The sox I actually started at a James Taylor concert, so I call them my Good-Karma Sox. They are super slouchy. I pictured just one sock here, as the pictures of two sox made it hard to see the shape of the cuff properly.

I really think I did the cuff on needles that were too big (I think they were size 3 Brittany Birch, maybe size 2-1/2) but those were the needles I had at the time. I switched to finer needles on the foot, I think 1-1/2’s, and maybe you can see that the pattern is much more satisfactory on the smaller needles.

I wear a lot of turquoise, and have very few sox that are turquoise. Since these slouch so well, they will work great with my favorite garb, snugly fitting leggings. I bet I wear these out!!!

Whee! I hit a milestone today. I knit my 70th pair of sox! They are sort of a teal/soft turquoise sweater yarn called “Roller” by Adriafil. It is a single-ply, perhaps worsted weight, of wool/nylon/acrylic/rayon. As far as I can tell, the wool and nylon mixed together are a teal, the blips of color are rayon and the fuzzies (you can’t see this very much but it’s very hairy) are white acrylic. Or so goes my theory!

Sometimes when I knit sox, I don’t wear them right away. In fact, I’ve worn neither the purple alpaca sox I showed you this week (finished two weeks ago) nor the afterthought-heel sox I showed you last week. I am the queen of “show-and-tell” and have to carry things around in my bag to show off to friends! Some things seem more wonderful to share than others, and those go in my bag for long stretches. However, it is very very cold here right now, these sox are very fat and warm, and I am wearing them already! Yum!

These I sort of made up as I went along. That means I had a lot of adjusting to do on the fly. I had to rip out the foot after decreasing for the gusset too far. It was worth it, because they fit well and are very warm. I’m quite pleased. The slouch worked well on this pair, too. I didn’t take notes as I knit, but if I’m lucky I can reconstruct what I did and write it down before I lose the formula.

This morning I had breakfast with three friends, one of whom (Krista) I met online. I just can’t find her weblog address right now, but I’ll be sure to share it with you when I find it again. It was a small group this time because it was a long weekend for schoolkids. It was the first time I’d called a “SmartGrrls/Strong Women” breakfast where we didn’t have at least one school-aged participant. I love their energy, and missed them. I’m sure they will come again next time.

Well, we had a nice time together yesterday. We made it simple, because everyday pleasures are what makes a relationship good.

I made Brian an oat-applesauce bread/cake and put almonds on it in a shape of a heart. He got me some carnations (again, he knows I love carnations) and five gorgeous bags of groceries from a produce market I love but never seem to visit. Beautiful food, including asparagus, broccoli, sweet onions, apples, oranges, parsnips, turnips, and several sorts of pasta. I think I will be making several vats of soup on Sunday. Real food, real gift, real love. Gotta love it.

We had dinner last night at my friend Altu’s restaurant. It was just plain hopping! We had to wait for a table, even with the newly expanded space. Tony Sills performed with his guitar, a very good match for the holiday. And the food… just as good as it gets.

Small pleasures really make life wonderful, don’t they? I don’t even “get it” these guilt advertisements telling men they need to “get with it” or they will be in trouble, making sure they buy flowers or candy or diamonds, for goodness sake! Diamonds? In many cases that means that someone is willing to go into debt to make their partner not be mad at them. This partner would be more impressed by debt avoidance than a sparkly thing. Of course, I don’t really like diamonds anyway… but I’m not into the impression-management thing that diamonds often signal. I just want someone to treat me right when nobody is looking.

One day a year is nothing. I can tell every day, by the little things, that I am loved. That’s the real stuff. My hubby lights up when I walk in the room. I vote for that sort of real stuff!

Hi, all. I’m checking in twice in a day to acknowledge that you all are wonderful, you all make me feel loved. I really appreciate you, even those who do not comment… just knowing you are there makes me smile.

Valentine’s Day is a very hard holiday for some people, and the press surely does not take that into consideration. Remember that even if you don’t have a sweetie, it does not mean you are not appreciated and loveable! I sure appreciate you. Please be your own best partner today, and do something special like a hot bath, a scented candle, a special meal, something you love.

I am very lucky to have Brian, and I know it. He is everything I could have wanted and more. But Brian found me when we were both in our late 30’s, and I sure have had other experiences on Valentines day besides what I am having today.

My mother was widowed at 38 years old, my brother widowed at 30. My dear friend Diane is having her second Valentine’s Day without her husband, with whom she spent decades. Some of us wisely choose to be alone rather than choose a partner who is not healthy for us. There are many reasons why someone might be alone today…

I remember maybe a dozen years ago, standing in the card store, reading every card and trying to find one that just said “Happy Valentine’s Day.” Anything more flowery than that would have been a lie. Even those of us in relationships are not necessarily happy.

I get pretty upset with the media for leaving out a big portion of the population on holidays like this. Here is my valentine to all of you!

I feel bad that I did not give you a picture yesterday. I was so tired, I posted briefly, crashed early and slept a very long time. What a luxury that was!

So here is a picture for your viewing entertainment: Purple alpaca slouch sox, the same yarn as the cropped-finger gloves I posted two days ago. These are warm and soft, and a total luxury!!! Yum.

I actually finished these sox on the same trip to Florida as the gloves, but I finished the sox first. On that trip, I also finished a pair of turquoise Opal jacquard slouch sox. You will see the picture of those soon.

Off to dye some wool. See you later!

It was a long day, but a good one. I had to get up earlier than usual to go to a computer client and install the first test version of a new database I designed for them. That went well. Then I met a volunteer, a man who I met through a spinner, who wants to help me get my computer lab’s ailing computers up and running well again.

After that I taught two classes. It was a sad day there, because many of my students said goodbye today. I love my students and it’s hard to see them go. (This is community education, basic computer usage/comfort training.)

Between all that, I lucked out and got to knit a bit on my super-slouch, thick wool sox. Unfortunately, I think I decreased too many times. Now when I try them on, I really feel I need to rip them out about two inches on each sock, to make them slightly bigger around. It’s nice stuff, but the thick wool is teasing me. I want to wear them now, to get warmer feet, and instead I have to rip them out.

If I liked knitting the sox, I’ll like knitting them again. Right? Right.

Tomorrow is a studio day for me, and I’m excited. I’m planning to dye some wool yarns and some wool rovings. Yippee!!!

Finally, I had some time to take pictures. Here is a photo of the alpaca cropped-finger gloves I made on vacation in Florida. Nearly the whole pair was knit in one car or another during our five-day visit to relatives. These are very warm and toasty.

I used Ann Budd’s The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns: Basic Designs in Multiple Sizes and Gauges, by Interweave Press. I had to adjust some (I ended up knitting a child’s size because I did not want any bulk), but that is my style anyway.

I do wish I had knit the cuff ribbing on smaller needles than the body of the gloves. I also chose to make the fingers so that more stitches were on the back than the palm, so that there would be less bunching up of fabric in the palm. I really wanted to be able to knit wearing these (I knit continental style, with the yarn wrapped all around my left-hand fingers). I needed to make the palms less bulky in order to do it, and it worked out just fine. It did make the knitted columns look a bit twisted from the back, but I am OK with that.

Oh, for the fingers, I just knit until they were a length that seemed about right (less 4 rows) and then knit 4 rows of K1P1 ribbing, then I cast off loosely in rib. It worked great, although the ribbed finger part looks a little bulkier than the rest of the gloves. They stay put, though, and don’t roll down. Each finger I knit a different length. They looked funny all the same, believe it or not!

Because the back and palm are different, I also did some purple-on-purple embroidery on the backs (simple cross stitch) so that I could identify the back side. These are sooo warm and cozy. This alpaca has no brand name on the ball, believe it or not. It is a sort of burly sportweight which is slightly thick and thin, and I like that texture once knit. It looks handspun at first glance.

Today I also turned both heels on a sweater-weight pair of slouch sox I’m doing as waiting-in-line knitting. These should be finished in no time, now. They are a sort of turquoise tweed. This color I can wear with everything I own! I will just plain wear them out! Good thing the yarn is a washable wool blend.

I also tried to start a hat with Brown Sheep Naturespun Sportweight, by doing a single crochet. I could not remember how to crochet, at least not the official way (I was making a fabric, but my friend Arlyn tells me it was some slip stitch and not true single crochet). I only made a piece about the size of a 50-cent piece, not even two inches across, and I will probably have to rip it out and try again. It’s nice yarn, though, and I bet it will survive the ripping out just fine.

Hi, all. I had a wicked-busy day yesterday with two clients, so no posting. Today I’m trying to rest, although I have two short obligations. Fortunately, one of those obligations is my computer lab. I may get to do some knitting there!

I’m sharing with you a picture of some minisox I made which became Christmas tree ornaments as gifts to my friends in Abbott Brothers (our band). The pic is somewhat timely, because I gave Dick his Christmas gift just over a week ago, and his was one of the two pictured here. I also showed you the one I made for Barbara, back in December.

I heard today from a reader of this blog. We found many things in common, but one thing she does that I don’t, is crochet. I have known how to make a crocheted chain for years, and it is a very handy thing to know. However, other than that I haven’t really pursued it.

The truth is, I don’t like lace, and that seems to translate to the fact that I don’t like the “holes” in most crocheted fabrics. I just don’t like that look. I also like the drape one gets from knitting. Knitting is made with loops which connect to one another, and crochet is made of knots which are self-sufficient, which means that knitting has more inherent give and drape. For most things I do, the drape is desireable.

However, you all here know how much I have been frustrated by trying to make wearable berets. I wear a beret almost all the time I’m awake (I have a tendency to get cold most of the time, but even in the summer I am protecting my hair from the sun). I have purchased several cotton berets which were crocheted. Over a year ago I read a little how-to and figured out the basics of single crochet (which has very few lacey holes in its fabric and is how my purchased berets were created). I made one beret by starting in the center and increasing whenever it seemed the fabric needed it. The shape turned out well and the edge of the hat was firm enough to actually fit well. Unfortunately, I made it out of white kitchen cotton so it is most unattractive. I left it at that and went back to knitting hats, with mixed success.

Now I’m thinking maybe I’ll try another crocheted hat (one of these days, when the to-do list is a little shorter for my gainful employment). My best purchased berets were knit of a very small gauge wool yarn and then felted so that they are pretty rigid and firm. It seems that maybe I could accomplish a similar texture with a fine yarn single crocheted. And working from the center/top out, lets me adjust as I work rather than having faith that a general process laid out in a book or pattern will work with the yarn and gauge I am working in at the moment.

I have some nice coned wool yarns I picked up at two different stores, that might work well. They are nice and thin and in colors I wear well. Hmmm…

Oh, the picture is a photo my brother took of me (very close up indeed) with his new digital camera. It has not been cropped at all, this is exactly as he took the shot.

Off to do some computer work. Have a great Sunday.

What a lovely day I had. I spent the morning with my friend Tony, going to the Spinners Flock guild meeting. It’s about an hour from Lansing one way, so we get a lot of talking time. I just love talking with Tony, he is so enthusiastic. It’s so great to have a mutual admiration society, you know?

After Spinners Flock I went to work at the community center’s computer lab (where I also teach knitting). I just love my CityKidz Knit! program, the kids are wonderful, and they are so capable of thinking for themselves. A lot of my kids are 6th graders and they are so ready to learn and grow, everything seems interesting to them.

Two of the knitters came today to my computer lab, and they were very excited about the packages we have been receiving lately from members of the socknitters@yahoogroups.com email list. We were running short on needles in medium sizes, and those are coming in as well as well as some yarns that are delightful. (There are several new yarns in purple, and one skein of handspun… how in the world will I decide who can have that prize?) The girls have all these ideas of what yarn might look good in this or that project, or which person might like those colors. I love their enthusiasm.

Today I started teaching one girl to knit a hat from the top down, on circular needles. She will make a hat for her stuffed owl first, to understand the technique. Her owl is going to end up with quite a wardrobe by the time she is done! He already has a Harry Potter scarf she made during the holiday season.

Tonight Brian and I sang (as The Fabulous Heftones) at my friend Altu’s restaurant, Altu’s Ethiopian Cuisine in East Lansing, Michigan. What a wonderful time we had! It was hopping, the scene was jumpin’ as they say. There were sixteen people there between the two sets we sang, who came because I let them know we would be there. How great that was! I love performing for people I know.

Even though the restaurant usually closes at 9pm, tonight we left at 9:20 and we were not the last to go. There is a certain sound that happens in rooms full of people enjoying each other, and tonight the restaurant had that sound. It made me smile. (The photo today is a detail of a handcrafted basket Altu got for me when she went to Ethiopia a few years ago. She has similar baskets now in her restaurant, as some of the dining tables.)

I lucked out today. One of the other Habibi dancers got ill, and could not dance at the New Aladdin’s restaurant tonight. Well, there can not be anyone who loves dancing there as much as I do. She called me to see if I could substitute for her. You bet I could! I got to play Eudora (my stage name) again tonight!!!

I love everything about this gig. I get to dance at a restaurant I really respect, which has great food and good people working there. I get to dance for an audience which has a good percentage of folks I know personally. I get to dance up next to folks, to talk with them as I dance if I choose, rather than on a stage.

I get to dance indoors (some of our gigs are outdoors and I am decidedly not an outdoor grrl). I get to dance at a reasonable time of day (shows 6:30 and 8pm) in my own town, in a non-smoking, non-drinking environment. And the people who work there truly enjoy my dancing. It can not get better than this! I had a wonderful time.

Tomorrow will be busy! I am going to Spinners Flock (spinning guild, about an hour away), hopefully with my friend Tony. I have not seen him in a month and I am looking forward to his company again. Then I rush home to work for two hours in my computer lab, and then get out and get ready to perform at Altu’s with Brian, as “Lynn Heftone” of The Fabulous Heftones. It will be a busy weekend!!!

My friend Elizabeth sent me a poem today. I love poetry, yet don’t read near enough of it. (Picture today is a soft-block print I made of Elizabeth’s cabin in VT, a few years ago).

“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver
published by Atlantic Monthly Press
© Mary Oliver

Hey, somebody… remind me next time not to wait to finish the ends on one pair of sox before finishing a second pair. Ugh. I got so excited that there was a lot of yarn left over from Brian’s Regia Jacquard sox, that I started a pair for myself right away. Brian, being the patient soul that he is, did not mind if his pair would take a little longer because I had not finished the ends yet. Well…

If you use one color for cuff and foot, and another color for heel and toe, you have eight (8) ends to work in, for ONE sock. Sixteen for a pair. And that means that if you have two pair both needing ends finished, you have thirty-two ends.

I don’t mind finishing ends, really, except that I can not read my emails (or other blogs, for that matter) and finish ends at the same time. It would be the perfect task for waiting at the Allergist’s office, except I wanted to take pictures for you folks tonight, and I don’t go to the Allergist until tomorrow.

As I type this, I have three of four sox finished and the fourth is just barely started… that is, the end-finishing of those sox anyway. Funny how we finish them (the knitting) and then we finish them (the ends) a second time, before we can wear them.

I’m pleased with my afterthought heels. They LOOK funny, sort of, as if the heel were stretched out of proportion when I wear them. They look as though I should have snipped the stitches a little closer to the heel than I did. Yet I like my sox to fit snugly in the foot and loose in the cuff (slouchy) and these are good that way. I think if I had gone any looser in the foot, perhaps the sock would have slipped down into the shoe easily. Oh, I did actually make the heel smaller than Dawn’s pattern indicated… I was tired and made a calculation mistake so started decreasing faster maybe 6 rows or so before I “should.” You can see that the part where there normally would be a “heel flap” is much shorter than is typical. It worked anyway, no doubt because I love snug-snug-snug sox.

These feel wonderful. I will have to get used to how they look. I did love knitting them. The idea that I could just knit and knit a tube until I ran out of yarn, and not have to figure out when to start the heel (even most toe-up sox you have to fuss with this detail) until the end…. well, I really enjoyed that. And they fit much better than I would have expected.
(more…)

I tried to finish my afterthought-heel sox today. I did snip and pick out the stitches where the heel should go, picked up and knitted. The first try did not work (it would help if I had actually read the instructions Dawn Brocco had written about picking up extra stitches in the corner). The second try seems to be going OK but I am not ready for wearing them, or taking pictures yet.

My friend, Susan Hensel, writes that she has updated her website. She says:

Two movies have been added on the installations page…a movie for What if… and for Coming Home. These will run on Internet Explorer or Netscape 6 or higher. I usually run an older version of Netscape and only the sound comes through on that.

I have added a News and Musings page as well. I gotta’ write! My plan is to periodically add small essays and news updates on this page.

So, go have a look.

The musings page has several entries, including a thoughtful column on the marginalization of art books. If you have seen her work, you know that “book” is not literal in the sense of what we buy at a bookstore, but a starting point.

Susan makes sculptures that are based on word-ideas, she writes books and makes hand printed illustrations, binding the books by hand… she uses words and visuals in many combinations, some called collage but her sense of collage is much larger than just pasting things on a page (although it includes that as well). In making her art books, she is a sculptor, a writer, a printmaker, a typesetter, a storyteller, and more! The picture here is of her piece “The Easter Box.”

Sue’s musings page is: http://www.susanhenseldesign.com/suesmusing.html

Today I worked with my knitting club at the Community Center (where I also have a computer classroom/lab). We had seven kids today, three new knitters. Two of my regulars are starting hats on large double-pointed needles, preparing to knit sox.

After they left, the computer lab was slow. I knit more on my afterthought-heel sox, finishing the body of both socks. When I got home, I made contrasting round toes a la Dawn Brocco. Now all I need to do is choose where the heel goes, snip a stitch (cringe), pick out stitches for half a round at the snip, pick up stitches and add a heel (I’ll knit another round toe as my heel). I expect to have some pictures tomorrow.

Tonight we rehearsed with Abbott Brothers, our band that will be playing at Altu’s restaurant on the 22nd. It is so fun to prepare! We don’t play out much anymore, although they had regular weekly gigs about 20 years ago. Imagine that, 20 years ago…

I also got to knit at my brother’s house and in the car to and from rehearsal. I had decided to see how far I could get with the leftovers from Brian’s sox (the ones I finished a few days ago). I knit a rib for just over an inch and then I’m knitting a tube until I run out of yarn. I’m doing both sox at the same time on different sets of needles.

There is less yarn than I thought, but I am sure I can make it work. When I run out of yarn I will knit toes from contrasting solid yarn (long ones, longer than usual to make these a reasonable length) and then I will use Elizabeth Zimmerman’s method of adding a heel later, which she calls an afterthought heel. You snip a stitch where the heel belongs, pick out the stitches (she uses something like 60% of the stitches if I remember right. Then you pick up the stitches on double pointed needles and knit what essentially is a toe, as a heel which is replaceable.

Dawn Brocco of Heels and Toes Gazette has a version of this heel using a round toe, with something like 6 decreases in one round and then several even rounds before another decrease round. Dawn has a pattern for this (all sizes, worsted and DK weight yarns) in the Spring 2001 Gazette, called “Truly Simple Beginner’s Re-heelable Socks.” I think it’s the Summer 2001 which has the same pattern, zillion sizes again for sport and fingering weight. You can order old issues if this interests you.

Dawn’s version uses waste yarn for about half a round where the heel will go, rather than knitting the tube fully and then snipping. I guess you end up with one more row in the body of the sock that way but I doubt it will show, and I really need to knit every last bit of yarn I can in my pair. I think these will maybe end up with tiny little cuffs.

I stopped by Altu’s restaurant today. She has finished the cuff of her first sock ever, and I spent time teaching her how to make a heel flap and turn a heel. She also tells me her two girls really enjoy spinning with drop spindles. It is such a joy to share what I love, with people I love.

We are gearing up for her restaurant to have live music once a week. I am lining up some musicians for her. I’m pretty excited, because a week from today, Brian and I get to perform there. And our other band, Abbott Brothers, is performing there on the 22nd as well. This will be a fun month for music!

At work today, Mandy (my friend who bought me yarn for Christmas) told me that her beau won a trip at his new job, to Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. They leave next week for five days, and are staying in an area I have visited twice (and totally adore). They will be on the Caribbean coast, south of Cancun and north of Tulum. I have driven that stretch twice and you just can not believe how beautiful it is.

Tulum is perhaps the only place in the world where I have nothing to say. I just shut up and drink it all in. It is an ancient Maya city, once a civilized holy place (it still feels holy, but now nobody lives there). What is unique about Tulum is that there are limestone cliffs right up to the water, so they put a temple where there was an amazing view, unlike any I’ve seen. The architecture there is not important, but the location is unbeatable. Notice in the photo here that I took in 1996, there is a temple pyramid on the cliff.

My soul is at home in Tulum, it is my favorite place on this planet. I was so inspired by a trip there that I wrote a poem titled La Playa Hermosa (the Beautiful Beach). The poem is part of the first website I ever made, a travelogue about the trip Brian and I took in 1996 to this marvelous place, the Yucatan peninsula. The site looks a bit dated now, but the story remains.

We hope to return to Mexico ourselves, next year. I truly miss it.