Socks and flowers

That's no good. If you think I might live with that by kind of mooshing it into my shoe because it'll kind of meld in eventually, you are wrong. A good blog name occurred to me whilst working on these, The Frog Blog.

Ahh, that's better! Once again, I've lost track on how many times I've knit the heel on a pair of socks. I used short rows every time, but not the same short rows. Here is the tutorial for my new favorite as seen below: Naked short row heels (unwrapped)

Of course now the trick will be to make the shaft fit properly. As a means to that end, I've knit the several rows after the heel without any increases or decreases. I used knits and purls to simulate the pattern. I've also decided to only knit 5 pattern repeats around and knit what would have been the center back repeat in 1x1 ribbing. I'm still undecided about which size needle to use. I'll probably compromise and choose the 2.25 which is the middle size of all the sizes in this sock.

Here is the last pair of socks I knit. I don't have Second Sock Syndrome. Really. I have everything else, but not that. Incidentally, the red ones have the naked short row heel that I linked above.

And for the gardeners: There are some very unusual flowers blooming on my little hill even though I haven't seen any dandelions yet. What are these? The purple ones look like some kind of mum, judging by the leaves, but they're drastically out of season if that is true. I wasn't thinking and I cropped out most of the leaves, but you can see one peeking out from behind a brown leaf at that right of the picture. The flower's closed in the picture, but when they open they are daisy-like and about 1 inch across with a bright yellow center. The white flower is a little closed. It has a bell shape and a large yellow center. The bloom is about 1.25 to 1.5 inches long and 1.5 inches wide. The foliage is fuzzy and you can just see a second stem beginning on the right.

Quick!! Look before I frog

Top view

It's just plain too tight where leg meets foot. It fits ok, but the material gets too strained going over the heel in the putting on and removal. It wouldn't last long enough. Therefore I will frog past the heel, redo that (5th time for that pesky heel. The last time I knit the heel was the only time I forgot to put some extra stitches in.) and then the leg. I can't promise I'll keep the same stitch pattern, even though I think it looks pretty nifty, the way the ribs stand out make my leg look octagonal. I guess that doesn't show as much in the pictures, but it's quite prominent. I wouldn't put it past myself to frog all the way, because the toe doesn't fit right. I don't want to do that, but I just might. Now that I think about it, I could frog the foot rather than the leg and knit down. I wonder if that will play havoc with the pattern.

The innards are pretty groovy, too. (I'm out of superlatives. That's a clue that I might not be an optimist.)

In this picture you can see one of the 2-stitch stockinette ribs where I added a center purl to expand the leg a touch. I also went up a needle size. Overall, the fabric is pretty stiff. I did try to knit the toe more tightly on purpose. It was a mistake. I have the belief that the sock will last longer if you do. On the other hand, the fabric does not want to conform to my foot because it's too dense and rigid. I've started the second sock with a different stitch pattern and the fabric is much more malleable. (My best picture of knitting ever. Not retouched at all.)

I like this sock too much to not rip out and reknit.

Exlanations

of revious ost. Um, the p key is sticky. Nevermind that!
The black camera bag is from my original digital camera. I don't know where that one is now, but it took great ictures. Some of the pictures in the earliest blog posts were taken with it. The big roblem it had was that it ate batteries. I was recharging them, but that didn't work very well. This may be why someone gave me the camera for free, along with the case & other accoutrements. So I had the case lying around (hoing that the beginning of this sentence has the camera case lounging and not me) and I decided to kee my new camera in it. Hence, losing the camera.

icture number two: the blue thing. I got the darker blue yarn at my lys closing sale and was insired to make a skirt. (The lighter blue is stash cotton I used just for the waist band in order to conserve yarn). I'd like something breezy that I can wear all summer long. I also got this pattern at the sale. This is called Ashley and it's actually made with two colors of sport weight linen and my yarn is worsted cotton. That can't stop me! The blue yarn is fairly slipery. I love the skirt, but I'm not sure I want to make that one. There are other nice ones on Ravelry. I may not make the skirt at all. The problem of what to wear under it remains and that could cancel out the breeze anyhow. This may merely have been simly a minor brush with startitis.

Great. Now Blogger isn't accepting ictures. I'd better ublish this before I lose it also.

Lost a lot of text, posting anyway

1. How to lose your new camera

That's easy! Put it in one of these:

?). And in the interests of equal time, the Passover Seders I attended were great. The 2nd night, the whole group re-enacted the exodus from Egypt with scripts and costumes as written by a 10-year old. It was tremendous.

Be Careful What You Ask for

Here I am on a plain ol' Sunday not knitting very much because I have clown thumb,* when I saw this post on Batty's blog. I have stolen it nearly word for word.

Paying it Forward
Today, I saw something on Batty's blog who saw it on That Crafty Bitch's blog, and I really like the idea. Check this out... a chance to win something handcrafted... by me! The first five (cinq) (cinco) (fu:nf)(5) people to respond to this post will get something made by me.This offer does have some restrictions and limitations so please read carefully:


1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make. (No refunds… no exchanges!!!!)


2. What I create will be just for you, with love from me.

3. It'll be done this year (2009) and stands a good chance of being mailed this year.


4. I will not give you any clue what it's going to be. It will be something made in the real world and not something cyber. It may be weird or beautiful. It may be cheap and crappy or costly and exquisite. I may even create something totally unbelievable and surprise you!! Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!


5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange. (Moss-covered, three-handled, family gredunza, Morty Moot Mope, or bacon anyone?)


6. In return, all you need to do is post this text into a note/post of your own and make 5 things for the first 5 to respond to it. If fewer than 5 respond, I'll do it anyway. If zero respond, I'm not doing it.


7. I'll contact you for your mailing address, so we don't all get spammed. No spam! It'll be fun!

**Clown Thumb=a mostly unexplained swelling of the thumb, analogous to Clown Tongue
P.S. You don't really have to make a blog post and make 5 things, too. I'm not that strict.