I keep forgetting to tell you about my current knitting. Monday I finished a pair of legwarmers in Charisma. They are very warm indeed, and very colorful! I’m quite happy with these. I got more than enough yarn so I was pleased when someone told me today that they had seen some beautiful felted/fulled slippers from this yarn. It’s a New Zealand 10 ply, which feels like a heavy worsted to me. A bag or slippers might be very nice out of this lovely stuff!

Also I’ve been complaining about cold feet, so luckily this morning I finished the bulky alpaca house sox. I made them on size 10 needles, just slightly too big a needle for the yarn… and I made them about an inch too long and only slightly too wide. I used the peasant/afterthought heel and it was plenty roomy, as well. I thought I might shrink them down just a little, not as much as the Fuzzy Feet.

I got impatient and threw them in a load of laundry today just about as soon as I finished knitting. I didn’t take pictures of “before” at all. They got slightly matted but didn’t shrink too much at first (in the machine), so I took them out of the wash and womanhandled them until they seemed about right. I shaped them on my bare feet and then left them to dry on a heat register. They felt reeeeally warm when I tried them on before washing. I just hope these will solve my sadness over winter.

A friend says I need to move around more so I won’t have cold feet, or at least I won’t notice. I did dance last night for three hours, but our dance room was significantly colder than 70 degrees, and we dance barefoot! Even dancing, my feet were cold. Thank goodness for wool legwarmers or I would have been in trouble for sure.

Late breaking news: Pictures added of the finished objects! (March 6, Midnight)

It snowed a lot yesterday, perhaps 5 inches. I did not go to the Knit In in Ann Arbor last night, because of the weather. That was a big disappointment, as I really love that group and can only go on the first Tuesday of the month.

I just do not do well in the winter weather, and it seems my feet have a very hard time keeping warm. Today, instead of posting here, I have been obsessed with knitting warm sox for myself. I am using bulky alpaca I got on the retreat last Saturday. I am making them too big so that I can shrink them slightly, to be more dense and more warm (and perhaps more long-wearing as well).

I am making this pair toe up with afterthought/turkish heels, because I did not know if I would have enough yarn. It seems the fatter the yarn, the more one needs. It appears that I will have plenty left over, because I made a short cuff. Right now I am just starting the heels. I should be able to wear these tomorrow!

I am so excited! The Spring issue of Heels and Toes Gazette by Dawn Brocco is out, and my Dancing Sox pattern is in it! I’m published!

Dawn was just wonderful throughout the process… she asked me to design a sock in two weights of yarn and several sizes. The periwinkle/butter version here is in Dale Freestyle washable worsted (this is an incredible yarn, you can machine wash and machine dry and it comes out shiny month after month). The melon/aqua version is in Regia solid colored fingering weight yarn.

I have been selling my own patterns from my LynnH site for about a year, but this is the first time someone else has published my work. I am very excited, I hope you don’t mind me bragging today.

If you have not checked out the Heels and Toes Gazette, it is a “zine” holding several sock patterns each issue, and technical articles as well. This is where I got the afterthought heel pattern I showed you on February 5. She also had a great article about a year ago on stitches that would be good for heel flaps, besides the normal “heel stitch.” I had been using Close Stitch for a while in my LynnH No-Purl Heel, but did not have a name for it. She did some good research there.

Yes, this sounds like an advertisement. I guess it is, but I would not advertise something I did not think was worthy. I have respected Dawn since I came to the socknitting community, and I’ve just loved her Gazette ever since I started subscribing. Dawn’s website is http://dawnbrocco.com

Someone on the Knitlist posted a link to the Knitting Together virtual museum, which appears to be part of a site commemorating commercial knitting in an area of the UK.

There are several stockings and one pair of “Gaiters” which appear to be a garment worn between the shoe and the stocking to extend wair. I’ve heard that word before but didn’t know what it might mean.

Other interesting items are a pair of lacy fingerless mitts made of rayon, from the 1930’s, and an interlock knit swimsuit from the 1920’s. It’s worth a peek.

Knitting Retreat
We did have a fun time Saturday, but four yarn shops in one day is definitely too many for me. Two is my max, really. I did buy stuff at all four stores but I really slowed down after the second place… thank goodness.

I think it’s funny… the word Retreat implies a spiritual, prayerful weekend. For us it was a shopping spree, two great meals and a slumber party. Lovely, really, but not prayerful in a conventional sense. I do feel that touching wool can be a spiritual experience, though, and we did plenty of that!

The last place we went had bulky alpaca, which makes me very happy. My feet are sooooo cold, all the time. So I”m going to do toe-up short fat sox a little too big so I can felt/full them… from two largish balls of bulky alpaca. When I sit at my computer desk (that is, most of the time I’m at home… and I work at home a lot of the time) my feet are only 4 feet from an un-insulated floor and thus are always cold. I’m not sure I want to do another pair of fuzzy feet, but I can at least make fat warm sox in other ways.

I also got some washable fat yarns (DK & worsted) for four pair of sox for ME ME ME. I was delighted to find “Buttons” yarn (a washable DK wool/synthetic) in a very bright turquoise and bright purple. My first pair of handknit sox were a raspberry-colored Buttons yarn, and the third pair were a very dark purple Buttons. They wash well and feel great, so I’m very happy to make a few more pair in colors more my style.

You can tell my feet are cold a lot these days. I have noticed for years that when I get cold, I buy wool (sweaters and socks before I was knitting, yarn now that I knit). It makes me feel safer somehow. Being cold actually makes me feel a bit life-threatened. Wool helps me deal with that feeling.

I don’t typically buy yarn like I did this weekend (I usually buy enough for one or two pair of sox when I go to a yarn store, and I try not to go very often…it had been a couple weeks since I’d been in any yarn store). I got enough Saturday to knit obsessively for many weeks, and I already had a few projects going.

Yet I am one who will actually wear fat sox two months from now! I knit because I love wool. And I keep reminding myself how cheap yarn is per hour of entertainment value. You knit it for a long while, and even if you never wear the thing, you still got your money’s worth! If you wear the garment, it’s just a bonus after that pleasure of fondling it and then knitting it.

Lucy Neatby Advanced Sock Technique Workshop
Lucy Neatby was just great. What a creative woman! You can tell that she sits with her knitting and ponders the great question: “What if…?” Her designs are well designed although not simple to knit. But visually they are so well-conceived… well, I have much respect for her in both the structural and artful realms of knitting.

She is gentle and clear when she explains, and corrects sweetly but well. It was great, I loved every minute. We learned a long list of techniques: the channel island cast on, a way to do a provisional cast on with a crochet hook (I’ve done this before but it is way cool), a turkish sock heel using a waste yarn to reserve space for the heel is inserted, kitchener stitch to close a toe using a waste yarn “chimney,” a garter-stitch “short row” heel, a special way of binding off… the same result as a normal bind off but different procedure to do it, and double knitting for reinforcing the foot of a two-color sock. The picture here is the sock chimney for easy Kitchener stitching (it really was easier for me) and if you click on the picture, you will go to her page which explains the technique.

The workshop was a long, busy day! I actually finished everything we did, a first for me in a workshop. I did finish a small bit of the double knitting when I got home and practiced the new bind off procedure to end that project.

Current Projects
It was so great to knit, knit, knit, knit for two whole days. My arms and hands/wrists definitely tell me to stretch them more often than usual but I’m keeping up with the strecthing enough to not hurt. I’m knitting more than usual and it is great.

I’m on the final ribbing on my Charisma legwarmers. I hope to finish them tonight. I would love to wear them tomorrow, it’s supposed to really be cooooold tonight!

Tomorrow I teach CityKidz Knit! and Tuesday I go to the Ann Arbor Borders knit group… I love that group so much! There are so many people I want to talk to, I can’t do it! Last time I stayed till they closed the place at 11. If I am lucky, I will do it again in a few days.

You know your blog owns you when the bath you drew sits there cooling off and you are writing an entry before leaving town for two days. I’m a crazy one sometimes!

Here’s the pic of my fuzzy feet shrunk on me. I think they will be warm.

Seeya Sunday night!