Kiwi and Wild Flower Fruit Salad

More flowers yum! Violets and Red Buds.



Organic Kiwis were on sale at my local market for 39 cents each as opposed to 69 cents each. So I bought a few. The green of the kiwis makes a great back drop for the pretty flowers.

Socks Pattern Smattern... Part I

I was tempted to enter Elinor's Sock contest but realized I don't follow sock patterns so how can I in good conscious write a pattern for someone else to follow? Yet, I will share my sock madness process because I love hand knit socks.

I only knit toe up socks, with magic loop, at the same time but on separate circs, most often with a fleegle heel.



See it makes it easier to try them on and see how they fit. Since I make them at the same time I don't suffer from second sock syndrome.

Right now I'm working on pair of socks with Knit Picks Felici.


It's a really soft springy yarn so I'm going to go with 2.00 mm needles because I shoot for a gauge around 9st/inch but I don't mind if it's 10sts/inch. If the yarn was a bit stiffer I'd go up a needle size or two. Since I plan to knit some very plain vanilla socks I'm going to use my Hiya Hiya needles. If I was going to do a pattern that needed lots of increases and decreases I'd use my fixed Knit Picks needles because they have long pointy tips.

Let's start with the toe. I start by casting on about 24 sts. I find this works for my foot. Less or more might work for you. If you have really pointy toes you might use less. So as I said I start by casting on 24 sts using my favorite toe up cast on, Judy's Magic Casts On, or look here for more Magic Cast on.

Knit one round even
[k2, right leaning inc, knit to the last 2 sts on the needle, left leaning inc, k2] x2 (On the first increase round I add an inc/dec marker so I can keep track of my rows)

I repeat the above rows until I get the number of stitches I need. Then end with knit one round even row.

See knifty inc/dec markers below: (inc/dec position on the left and knit even position on the right)






How do I know how many stitches I need? In general I know I need about 64-80sts using sock weight yarn depending on the gauge. So at about 60 sts I take a look at my gauge.

For this pair of Felici socks I'm getting 9st/inch. The ball of my foot is 9.5 inches. I like some negative ease in my socks so I strive between 15-20%. I say strive because I don't always get the perfect fit but I get a good enough fit. I figure the more socks I knit the better I will get at it. This particular pair of socks I'm trying to get a better fit so I'm going for 20% negative ease.

20% ease: sts/inch x ball of foot x .80 = number of stitches needed
15% ease: sts/inch x ball of foot x .85 = number of stitches needed
So for my foot I get 9 x 9.5 x .80 = 68.4 for 20% ease or 72.67 for 15% ease. Round the numbers up or down. If you don't want to crunch the numbers feel free to use this hand dandy spreadsheet here.

The pattern I have in mind, 3 by 1 seed stitch ribbing, is a multiple of 4 so it will work for both 68sts and for 72sts but I'm going down to 64sts because I don't think I need the extra 4 sts and this means I have the same number of stitches on both needles. If needed I can add some stitches later. I need to do that sometimes for my arch.

3 by 1 seed stitch ribbing pattern:
R1: knit 3, purl 1
R2: knit all
Repeat rows 1 and 2 to create pattern.

Note: I have a bit of an issue with balance so I like to frame the the pattern on top of the sock whenever possible. To make that work in this sock I knit or purl the last stitch in pattern on the sole so the pattern on the top of the sock is framed.



So far so good:



I'll knit until theses socks until they are both 3-4 inches long. Then take some more measurements. Stay tuned for further progress.

Flower Salad for Lunch

Food from the backyard some of it considered weeds!



Salad mix came from the farmers market. The flowers in the salad came from the backyard: wild violets are the blue white flowers and the pinkish ones are redbud flowers. Eat up it's good for you!



The rest of the lunch was leftover Slower Cooker Barbecued Beef Brisket in the Spring 2010 issue of Cooks illustrated. It was goooood! Finally roasted sweet potatoes. I cut the sweet potatoes up then tossed them with garlic powder, onion powder, cumin and salt then cooked them in a 400 deg oven for 20 or more min. I actually meant to add a wee bit of chipotle powder but forgot.

Ubiquitous Kitty Post

The boy kid has been volunteering at the animal shelter for some time. We finally found a kitty we all liked and adopted her. The shelter gave her the name of Candy and she is pretty sweet.







She is settling quite quickly and likes to sit in my lap when I'm yarning and doesn't mess with the yarn too much.

Chirp, Chirp, Chirp.....

I have lots of miscellaneous bits of handspun leftover from projects as well as the bits of unplied singles.



I decided to make some bookmarks inspired by the Birdie Decorations here

So you want to learn to Knit too....

Someone just asked on my blog for some advice on learning to knit after being a crocheter for a long time. So I thought I'd share a bit of my journey from crocheter to knitter too and the attitude I needed to take to bring on the needles.

Some of my fears were handling two needle instead of just one hook and all those stitches on the needles made me nervous. How did I do it? I was already adventurous with crochet then so brought the same mindset over to knitting.

I found knitting continental much easier than throwing because I was already used to tensioning my yarn in my left hand. When you need help knowing what to do I highly recommend the videos on Knitting Help.

So if you want to knit. What is is you want to knit? I wanted to knit socks. But knowing I like to have some skills under my belt I started with a scarf, a Harry Potter Scarf to be exact.



I really don't recommend making this scarf unless you enjoy knitting endless stockinette in the round. By the time I was done with this scarf I had essentially knit the body of 10 toddler sweaters. My husband does look very courageous though. Yet this was a great take with me project. If I were to do it over again I think making a some wool hot pads would have been a good idea. If the work was not to your liking you could felt them.

Because the scarf was so boring I started a Basket Weave scarf to learn to purl. You won't find that scarf here though because I didn't keep knitting it. So don't be afraid to bail. I came away from it feeling confident in my purling so I could do ribbing.

Anyway when I was maybe a fourth of the way done with the scarf and done about 4 inches on the basket weave scarf that no longer exists. I started my first pair of socks. I grabbed some baby weight yarn which was a sport weight in the stash. Yes it was acrylic but I was just learning and it did the job. I used double points even. I broke my first wood needles as well. So that was the last time I used wood needles to knit socks. I followed Silver's Sock Class as well as reading things on Knitting Help to understand the sock knitting process and made some socks.



I made footies because I wanted to get to the hard parts first: turning the heel and the gusset. It really is not that hard, seriously. The first few rows are the most fiddly. After that you get going it gets easier.

So I say go for it what ever you want to do. If you need help I recommend the Newer Knitters Group on Ravelry. Lots of great info and helpful fiber fiends to get you on your way to knitting glory;)

Tips and a few more in brief:

Knitting Help.com
If knitting English doesn't work try knitting Continental or start out that way.
Be fearless! Don't be afraid of making mistakes or need or rip things out. Actually I suggest you knit something then take out the needles then pick the stitches back up again. This way you learning how your stitches need to be mounted.
Use life lines even if you are knitting a dishcloth it will help learn to read your knitting.
Count, count and count your stitches at first.
Use stitch marker to keep track of patterns.
If you can't see the mistake riding on horse then you don't have to fix it.
Knit something you want.
Most of all have fun.

Yet another shawl...

I'm knitting yet another shawl. You can see more about it on Ravelry here



I've found I love knitting shawls. There is something inherently soothing of larger needles and finer yarns. The yarn overs and the decreases are meditative and relaxing.