Socktoberfest socks #2

Child's First Sock
From Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush
Yarn: Nature Spun sport weight in N20 Arctic Moss
Needles: US 1
Modifications: Shortened the leg by two repeats, and a good thing because I may have run out of yarn otherwise. Also, slightly shortened the heel flap - just knit until it measured 2 1/4 inches, since that's what fits me best.

These are without a doubt the most beautiful socks I have ever knit for myself. I knit a lot of socks for other people, but up until last winter, I had never knit a pair for myself, and then when I did it was with generally inferior yarn. These are gorgeous. I love the texture and the friendly pale green color. And they fit like a dream. I couldn't be more pleased, especially in the wake of my recent knitting disappointments.

I finally got a library card yesterday and immediately Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road fell into my hands. I had no intentions of knitting any more socks just yet, but I fell hard for Conwy, Friday Harbor, and Traveler's Stockings. I'm still thinking about my last skein of Barefoot....

But my Dollar and a Half Cardi is still waiting for sleeves and it has finally cooled down enough around here so that I will be able to wear it soon!

edited to add: I'm having problems with the formatting on blogger. Why is the text on this post so scrunched together, and why wouldn't the spaces I added between paragraphs show up, and how come the italics suddenly disappeared? Anyone know?

A new reason to dislike my socks

I just discovered upon visiting my blog (you know, just to make sure it was still there) that there is a dropped stitch on my Flutter-by socks. You can see it in the photo - right there in the middle where there looks like some extra wings that didn't get picked up. GRRR! How did I manage that? And way up at the top too. I must rig some kind of fix, but I won't be happy about it.

So there.

New ball of yarn, new pooling pattern. Well, that's my first pair of Socktoberfest socks done, anyway. I think they're pretty ugly, so I'm not thinking they're going to get a lot of use. The pattern is Flutter-bys, which I would recommend, in Knit Picks Essential Multi, which I would not. I've got 2 balls in a different colorway that I was going to use for Anastasia but I decided that with my recent history of knitting disappointments, I wasn't going to take any chances on new techniques with iffy yarn.

Instead, I cast on for Child's French Sock (in Citron Pattern and Diaper Knitting) from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. Nancy is reliable, and the yarn is just a plain light green the name of which I have currently forgotten. It's a wonderful pattern and the subtitle makes me laugh. Neither "Citron Pattern" nor "Diaper Knitting" are every explained, which just makes it funnier to me. The pattern has obviously been sized for an adult, and the very moderate lace panels with the textured stitch should make a very cozy sock. I'm cruising along on them, and since this picture was taken, I've made it to the heel flap. I'm shortening them a bit, as I generally do, because I want them to sit nicely below my calf so they don't scrunch up or fall down.
I'm considering using my last skein of Bearfoot for Anastasia, but I think this pair will be my last for Socktoberfest. All this sock knitting has renewed my desire for my $1.50, so I'm ready to finish the sleeves!

There's good news and bad news

The good news is that Rusted Root is off the needles.

The bad news is it doesn't fit. Sigh. All of that trying on, all of the sensitive alterations, all of those hopes, all of the WORK! It doesn't fit. The armholes are too big. The sleeves aren't even puffy, just huge. And in spite of the trying on and the addition of shaping, I look like a sausage in a watermelon colored casing. The only good thing is the yarn, and that it's just the right length. A quick go round with the measuring tape brought some light to the matter.

My gauge is spot on. Let's just get that out there first. I knit the size with the 40-43 inch bust range. The finished bust measurement? 36 inches. 36 inches! I mean, I like negative ease, but honestly, who with a 43" bust is going to want to knit something 36" around? I have a 42" bust, and generally I make the 39" or 40" of a pattern and things work out. So I was feeling pretty good about my size choice. I considered the fact (in retrospect) that I eliminated the lace panel, which may have added a bit to the overall measurements, but even if it had increased the circumfrence by 2", I still wouldn't have been able to wear it. Here's the thing. I ran into these same problems on Ms. Marigold, as you might recall. The size ranges did not produce a garment with anything like the measurements they lead you to expect. Size discrepancies aside, I just don't have the body for trendy knits.

Of course, let's not overlook the fact that I am also dumb for not having seen these potential problems before binding off. In my defense, this was my first finished top-down garment, so I really didn't know what to expect. Now I do.

So, moral of the story, while I really like Zephyr Style patterns, they are not for me. Also, I'm not feeling the love for Rusted Root as a garment right now. Shortly after my rant about the weather, it got quite chilly and suddenly my Dollar and a Half Cardigan is looking like just the thing. I'm going to let Rusted Root chill in my closet until maybe February or March, when I'm desperate for a spring-y knit. Then I'll rip it and completely redo the pattern to fit my body. Unless I find another use for the yarn before then...

This is an accurate color representation, by the way. I guess there's nothing for a girl to do but go onward with my Socktoberfest knitting!

Enough already

I am wearing jean shorts and a white tank top that is so brief I wouldn't have even worn it today except I knew I wasn't going to be leaving the apartment. I tell you this because it was 88 degrees today. Tomorrow isn't looking much cooler. Let's have a date check for a second. Ah yes, October 7th. And so I say again: ENOUGH ALREADY!

It looks like fall, if you don't go outside. The leaves are falling off the trees. The acorns are littering the ground. The squirrels are freaking out. And it's 88 degrees. We have NAKED TREES, people. NAKED.

I will not speculate as to why it was snowing on Easter and now it's blistering in October. That will just upset me more, but I have given serious consideration to the idea that Daylight Saving time has somehow messed with our seasons, skewing the seasons over time so now all of the seasons start later than they "should." Or maybe we missed a couple of Leap Years. Come to think of it, we haven't had one in a while, have we?

Well, if fall won't come to me, I must come to fall. Baked apples:

Pumpkin bread with raisins and a shmear of butter and hot spiced cider:
Butternut and Shiitake Ragu and an oatmeal stout:
Although, instead of making me feel all fall-y and stuff, all this fall inspired cooking is just making me sweaty.

Rusted Root is coming along nicely. This was the progress last night before my evening knitting session so it's a few inches longer now. Thank you Sense and Sensibility. This picture is crappy, and I wouldn't have even put it up, except that I've been putting up so many pictures of food lately, you'd think this was turning into a food blog! So, crappy, unfocused pic of me in my bathroom mirror, wearing a half-finished sweater. The color is nothing like this, by the way. It's not orange at all, but a pink-y orange-y red. Watermelon, just like the color is named. This is after I finished the waist shaping, so I'm pretty pleased with the fit so far. The only thing is that the sleeves are quite big. Luckily they don't look it in the pic. I think it will all work out. I may try to do some more decreases before I finish the ribbing on them, but I don't want the sleeves to be too long. The length looks good right now, so maybe not. We'll have to wait and see.

Socktoberfest!

Woohoo! I'm so excited about Socktoberfest! It's my first event/KAL ever! I always seem to be too late to join in any swaps or KALs.

And here's my first Socktoberfest sock done just minutes before this picture was taken:

They're Flutter-bys in some Knit Picks Essential Multi I got on clearance. The colorway is Peacock.
Unfortunately, the pattern is a bit obscured by the colors. I didn' know that this was a self-striping yarn, or I would have chosen something else for this pattern. Actually, maybe it's not self-striping, just massively pool-y. Anyway, I'm going to finish off the other sock and then choose something else for Anastasia, which is next on my list of Socktoberfest socks. My first socks from the toe up! Originally, I had planned to use this same yarn in a different colorway (also bought on clearance) but I think that the spiraly pool-y nature of the yarn would not be good for the spiral eyelets.
You can really see the pooling on the bottom. Anyway, they're not pretty enough to gift, so I'll just have to wear them around the house.

Also, you really really really need to see this. I have a need to go make some ramen now...

In which I divulge some great campfire recipes

I went camping this weekend with my family. There a few things I love more than being outside - hiking, camping, canoeing, swimming, whatever you've got as long as I'm out of doors. We went to Yankee Springs State Park, which was lovely. There were lots of hiking trails and a lake to go fishing. Also, there were lots of acorns.

I love acorns. I can't really tell you why. Maybe its their shiny roundness. Maybe it's their sweet little caps, or their thousands of variations, or all the different colors of rich brown. I found my pockets stuffed with them by the end of Sunday. I'm particularly enamoured of the stripy ones. I've never seen stripy acorns before.

I call this one "Acorns on White and Yellow Table Cloth."

One of the things we like to cook while we're camping is foil packs, also known as Hobo Stew. You need some kind of meat, onions, canned potatos, other vegetables as you like and then some kind of liquid. We were doing a tribute to Oktoberfest, so ours had sausage, potatos, onions, apples, sauerkraut, and for liquid potato juice from the can, sauerkraut juice, or beer. Other variations include hamburgers, potatos, onions, canned mushrooms, and canned gravy. It's important that the potatos be canned, because raw ones would take both too much time to cook and too much liquid.

Then you wrap the whole thing up in foil and toss it on the coals that you have carefully constructed in your fire pit. Half and hour, forty five minutes later, you've got some seriously good food.
We fished a bit off the fishing dock. I mostly just fed worms to the fishes, but my brother caught some itty bitty little fish after he figured out that the hooks were too big.

Even mom tossed a hook into the water.

The other thing we really like to cook outside is Doughboys. Doughboys are basically biscuit cooked on a stick. First you've got to find a stick in the woods that's long and straight and is about as big around as a broom handle. Then you mix up some Bisquick into a playdough like consistency with milk and form them into palm sized balls. You will, of course, have skinned a good six inches of the bark off of one end of your stick, and on this you will apply your biscuit dough, firmly impaling the ball of dough and squeezing it down the sides. Do not form a pancake and wrap the stick. This will cause the Doughboy to crack a lot while cooking and it may not stay on the stick. Cook over coals.

Cook until everything is golden brown. Your Doughboy will probably crack anyway, even if you have followed my directions. This is how you know the inside is cooking. When everything seems done (or the outside is charred to just this side of edible), pull off the stick with a paper towel and stuff with butter and jam. Or peanut butter and raisins. Or blueberries. Or bananas. Or, if you've got some lying around from last night's dinner, maybe some bratwurst or hot dogs. Enjoy.

Oh, and the name Doughboys? They're called that because if you're a less experienced campfire cook, you're likely to char the outside long before the inside is done, giving you a doughy, half-cooked biscuit which is still delightful, but which may sit like a hockey puck in your stomach.