Thursday 1st June - knitting and reading, reading and knitting

Suddenly everything is growing at once in the garden. Even another pea has decided to germinate after I had given up all hope. I guess that's one lucky outcome from being so washed out all week, in that I hadn't got round to clearing out the apparently inert pots in the greenhouse. 

So there are upsides to feeling so sluggish at the moment! 

Every afternoon I've been able to sit outside for a while with a book and a cup of tea. Currently I'm reading an Anthony Trollope romantic 3-volume novel, 'Ayala's Angels'. Not at all what I was expecting from Anthony Trollope,  but good fun, light and easy. More like a Jane Austen in many ways. I wonder what set him to writing it? It poignantly sets out the very limited options available for young women - can they marry for love, or must they marry for money, to secure a future. For a woman without a husband or money has a desperate future ahead.

'The Real Mrs Miniver' and 'A Very Great Profession' have been put to one side until more brain cells are available...

So what do I do all day? I knit the sock; no brain cells required there, not even when it was time to do the forethought/afterthought heel placement at 7.5 inches, thanks to my paper ruler

which has the measurements for the various important moments all marked up.

I found some really contrasting yarn in my godmother's stash

 Now I just have to knit round and round and round...

And remember to stop eventually...

Knitting and reading seems to be the main way I'm spending my time at the moment. That's okay.... for now....!

 

Wednesday 14th June - Flowers, Sewing, Knitting

 I'm so pleased to be up and doing again. Maybe doing a bit much? I can feel my eyelids drooping a little... Ah well. That's what happens...

I spent an hour and a half this morning sewing the cross stitch project. Getting properly started and making some progress - and no unpicking - is a relief. I find getting started is always the hardest part. I've done enough to think that, barring serious mistakes, it is not as complex a design as I feared.

Then I had the usual zoom chat and piano lesson with a friend where we put our worlds to rights and incidentally do a bit of piano. 

Lunchtime! And because I had taken off my step counter wristband at the beginning of the lesson, it now recorded at mere 128 steps for half a day! I do try and take it off for playing the piano, as I can gain anything up to 1000 steps (teaching Scott Joplin Rags and any kind of 'oom cha cha' LH is particularly good, or bad, for step counting).

After lunch I answered a question about my work-in-progress sock that was bugging me; did I have enough yarn to finish the pair, or would I need to start the last ball for the second sock? I did all sorts of complicated weighings of sock (2 inches to go), needles (2 stuck in the sock, one free). In the end, if I had thought about it, all I had to do was weigh the sock, weigh the yarn, and think. (Never do anything the easy way, if you can make it more complicated somehow...?)

But in one way I am glad I did, because on the piece of paper I used is this;

'Apricity' the warmth of the sun in the winter'. What a lovely word.

Later in the afternoon I wandered into the garden and started transferring some of the little plants I've been growing on since they arrived as thimble-sized plugs. Of the 72 wee little babies - too young to have left their nursery, surely! - about 56 survived. The main casualties were busy lizzies and rudebeckias, but the petunias, nicotianas, lobelias, gazzinias, bacopas, begonias and pelargoniums are mostly doing well. I just hope the snails don't find the containers I planted today.

This was a nice cool place to set up a little workstation. In the window box are individual lettuce seeds, on in each pot. On the table; right at the back the latest arrivals, some coleus plugs, a re tray with a few remaining petunias and the nicotinas, in the pale tray the geraniums.

On the ground; a mniature Christmas tree - if it survives then 2023 will be its third year, some mint, a tub with petunias, bacopa, and some snapdragons (I think) self seeded from last year, two smaller tubs with petunias and lobelia. 

Here are the three cardoons, already about twice the size they were when they went in. I was thinking of stashing the nicotina plants in the spaces around them.
 

The sweet pea has some companions now, I am pleased to see.

Tuesday 30th May - knitty gritty - socks.

I'm blogging this to give me half a chance of not lising my notes!

This is how I made my toe-up, forethought, weird pointy heel socks.

They fit surprisingly well!

I used 2.5mm Addi Crasy Trio dpns (I strongly recommend these!) and enough sock yarn  - 100g - and some spare contrasting sock yarn. Instructions wre derived from  thespruce.com, louisetilbrook.net and also 'Arne & Carlos easiest socks' and other youtube tutorials. 

The addi crasy dpns come in a set of three, all having a length of bendiness in the middle like circular needles. Otherwise you might be better off using 5 dpns so you can spread your stitches across 4 needles, at least for the increasing and decreasing sections.

Here goes... this is what I do for my English shoe size 5 feet, about 9.5 inches long from hel to toe

cast on 16 stitches and divide between the 2 addi crazy needles or 4 dpns. You will be left with an opening to sew closed, so second time around I did a provisional cast on, and grafted the seam later. Much neater, and actually much easier!

Divide them between 2 addi crasy dpns and join in the round. 

Increasing; 

Round 1; K needle 1 and needle 2

Round 2; for needle 1, K1, K through back and front, K2 to last to stitches, K through back and front, K1. Do the same for needle 2.

If you are using 4 needles, then for needle 1 and 3, K1, Kthrough back and front, K to end, and for needles 2 and 4, K to last 2 stitches, K to last 2 stitches, K through back and front, K last stitch.

I now have 20 stitches!

Repeat rounds 1 and 2 until you have 60 stitches.

Then just knit round and round and round until it is 7.5 inches from cast on and it is time to mark the heel. I've read that generally this point is 2-2.5 less than the overall foot length.

Marking the heel

It is important that the line of the waste yarn is in the same plane as the line of the cast on! Otherwise you will end up with the heel sticking out from the side!

Using the waste yarn, knit across crasy needle 1, or needles 1 and 2 if you are using 4 dpns for your stitches. Leave decent tails. Pick up the real yarn LEAVING PLENTY OF SLACK FOR WEAVING IN LATER and carry on across remaining stitches as though nothing has happened. 

I've summarised the measurements and instructions for myself on a paper ruler that cane with one 9f my notebooks. This lives in the cloth bag along with the yarn and a 2.5mm crochet hook for grappling with dropped stitches!

Leg

Continue going round and round until leg is 1 inch short of required length, and do 2 x 2 or 1 x 1 rib for last bit. Use a stretchy bind off method. 

Heel

Pick up the stitches above and below the waste yarn, removing the yarn as you go, so you have 30 stitches above and 30 below.

Now reverse the process for the toe, doing K2tog instead of K through front and back, until you have 8 stitches left on each needle. Leave a long tail of yarn when you start.

 Graft together, or bind off and sew closed.

Finishing

Weave in the end at the cuff, and use the long tails of yarn at the heel to close the gaps at the join between heel and main part of the sock. 

Monday 8th May - In and out of the garden

It has been a grey day for most of the day, but I managed to get quite a bit done. I go out every day to encourage the broad beans. They give me a ridiculous amount of pleasure. I just stand and contemplate the little leaves bravely pushing up through the soil.

Not all the peas have come up, so I have planted another dozen or so in individual pots so that I haveca Plan B. And with the help of Himself, doing the heavy work of filling the bigger pots, the three tomato plants are now in their 'forever' homes.

Cross Stitching - 

it's always a big relief when I get to the point of starting to stitch. I spent an hour this morning, only unpicking about four times - not bad for getting back into the rhythm after a break of over a week.

Knitting - 

I've managed to unpick and reknit the cuff of one sock, and learned a stretchy bind off from youtube which is easy to do. So that sock is finished, and I have undone the cuff of the other sock, and picked up (most) of the stitches. Is the end in sight? We shall see.

Drawings - 

I copied this from a photograph, the idea being to draw a picture of this church on a card I wanted to send, This is the practice version,  which I drew in my diary which is why it is on dot paper. It's quite small, around three or four inches square.

Would it look better with a bit of colour added? I think so... (the first picture was taken in daylight, the second with the main light on)

In the end I scanned, printed and stuck a copy onto the card because I was running out of time.

Saturday 15th April - A Good Day for Doing Things

 First of all (and this was a tense twenty-five minutes) I have started the heel of my sock;

Step one was to watch the Arne and Carlos video on how to pick up the stitches for 'the easiest sock in the world' - they make it look so easy...

Like I said, it was a tense time, with many pauses to check a) I was doing it correctly b) that my jaw wasn't clenched c) that I had remembered to blink my eyes d) that I was still remembering to breathe. Eventually I managed to pick up all 60 stitches, 30 on each of my bendy needles as opposed to splitting it between four needles as they do. 

More tension, as I unravelled the contrast thread that I had knitted in where the heel was going to be all those weeks and weeks ago

Leaving the stitches (31 on one needle now - how did that happen? And should there have been 32? Oh well. I couldn't see any dropped stitches anywhere....)

The next problem was 'did I have enough blue sock yarn?' The knitted swatch was a trial for another project, on larger needles, and weighed 1.5g. The little nest of yarn that I had left for the heels was 3g, so not enough for one heel let alone two. The ball of multicoloured sock yarn weighs 24.5g, so that made the decision for me - contrasting heels!

And I'm off!

The heel is going to be the most peculiar shape, as you just follow the instructions for the toe in reverse.

 Arne, or is it Carlos?, assures us that it will sort of round itself out with wear. I believe every word he says, I think... 

I've also cleared another couple of overdue emails, prepared two more tubs for veg planting and done a good deal of cross stitching.

Now why is everything centred on the page, and refusing to left align?

Saturday 25th February - a day for looking at the weather from indoors

 There's a word for enjoying the weather from inside the house. 

Aha, I found it (thank you Internet) 

Gluggaveður - an Icelandic term anglicised as 'gluggavedur' - which means 'window-weather'. It's the kind of weather that is nice to look at through the window but not nice to be out in.

And exactly describes the weather today. It looked lovely and sunny, quite a lot of the time, but the wind was cruel, like icy knives. Yesterday I managed to get into the garden and do some tidying. Today I got no further than the front door step.

Ang's stitching arrived through the front door this morning. Would you just look at that!

From a photo that she took as well. Impressive. 

Now, what about March?

...

I've finished the first sock, apart from the heel. It weighs 29g, and I have 30g left... I should be able to do the same again, and, in theory have 1g left for the heels. Now, here's the thing; for this pattern, the heels are knit in exactly the same way as the toes. It makes them a bit pointy,  but Arne & Carlos (youtube knitting gurus) assure me that it will be fine when I wear the sock. So, in another 24 rows I will finish knitting this toe, and can find out how much it weighs, and also what the fit is like. Then I can decide whether to knit contrast heels, and if A & C are right in their opinion.

.....

Crockpottery 

I've decanted the lamb garam masala that was gently cooking all afternoon.  One double portion for tomorrow, and one for the freezer. It smells wonderful. So far, apart from the leek and potato soup, 'Bored of Lunch' has been quite a success. 

Monday 13th February - decisions, decisions...

I didn't spend three years at university studying maths (and music) for nothing;

I spent a few fruitful minutes with my bag of knitting and the kitchen scales and have come to the conclusion that I might possibly have almost nearly enough wool for both socks. 

That won't be a problem, as I have some similar wool in a contrasting colour.  If I knit the cuffs and heels in the contrast I will have enough to complete the socks,  and hopefully they won't look too weird! 

I have finished the book club book, 'Unsettled Ground' by Clare Fuller. What do I think? I'm not sure... I think I did enjoy it. I can imagine all the people and places from the descriptions; I think it would make a brilliant film.

I've just started reading 'Old Filth' by Jane Gardham. I'm still trying to settle on my recommendations for next month's read as it is my turn to pick. It is making me surprisingly nervous in case nobody likes any of them!

'Old Filth' is the story of a lawyer, nicknamed Old Filth, now widowed and retired in Somerset after a life living and working in Hong Kong. 'Filth' means 'failed in London, try Hong Kong'. 

So far the books on my list are

Nightingale Wood - Stella Gibbons

Ghost Music - An Yu

One Fine Day - Mollie Panter-Downes

The Running Hare - John Lewis-Stempel (not quite finished this one)

The Art of Invisible Detection - Robert Goddard

Ghost Wall - Sarah Moss

Wintering - Katherine May

I may add 'Old Filth' as well...

From which I need to select 3 or 4.

I have read them all; but I do want to read them again anyway.

I'll post more about them tomorrow. 

Sunday 5th February

I have had a happy weekend of online shopping - I am still not comfortable visiting shops due to my lung condition, so online shopping has been my way going about things.

Back in the old pre-internet shopping I used catalogues at Christmas time, as much for the joy of having parcels arriving at my home as for sourcing unusual presents. Now I enjoy online shopping for the same reason.

I've downloaded a number of free cross stitch patterns, so I have these already in my sweaty fingers. I also ordered a couple of small kits, when I was having a crisis of confidence on Friday night. What else? A a posy of flowers, some knitting needles, a packet of variegated embroidery threads... I'm looking forward to the post arriving this week! 

I spent most of today drawing out my plan for February's Cross Countyr Collaboration. Unfortunately, when I looked back from my chart to my chosen section on the fabric I discovered my chart was landscape orientation and the section is portrait orientation.  How did that happen?  

I have now photocopied the fabric on the printer, enlarging it to 140%, so that I can draw the chart directly on the copy. Much easier.

The forethought afterthought sock....

Here's how... when I the sock was 7 1/2 inches long, I used a contrast yarn to knit across the sole. That's the forethought bit.

I will complete the sock, and then use one needle to pick up the stitches on one side of the contrast row, and another needle for the stitches on the other side. Then I will carefully snip away the contrast yarn and start making the heel. That's the afterthought bit. 

I've been studying videos and it looks plausible. Possible even...

I'm reading 'The Running Hare, The Secret Life of Farmland' by John Lewis-Stempel. I tripped across the book while looking for pictures of running hares (no, there aren't any in my CCC crosstitch!). I started reading it on the amazon 'look inside' pages, and was hooked.

A possible contender for the book club list. I think I've got my selection sorted now; one weird and modern, one set in the 1940s, this one and maybe a Stella Gibbons.