Thankful for Pie – Inevitable 2020 Bright-Side Edition

Well, we knew we’d be here soon, right? Trying to find the bright side of this utter garbage situation of a year?

I’ll be honest, I didn’t have high hopes going through my photos this year, thinking that there wasn’t going to be much for my to post. But, as usual, my inner grump was definitely overshadowing the brighter bits. And one of the brighter bits this year…as always…was pie.

I mean, could we even have doubted it?

Just baked goods in general, really.

There is no way that I am not honest enough with myself to admit that baking and cooking were a large part of my ability to make it through this year.

Because when everything seems completely out of your control, doing something, however small, that makes you feel slightly productive and useful and moderately talented? Well, that’s the best feeling you could hope for.

So, along with our own gardening, and a little assist from our favorite farm at Grow Dat, Dan and I scraped together the trappings of a normal life for ourselves when we could.

I even baked cookies and Express-mailed them to my best friend in California. Like you do.

We listened to so much vinyl, and mourned lost heroes.

We ate lots of dinners outside.

We grew flowers.

And obscenely large zucchini.

We played catch and watched a lot of sunsets.

We cooked more than we ever have before.

We puzzled.

We loved up on our precious cat babies.

And each other.

We wore masks. (Courtesy of the always amazing Carlaesthetics.)

We made friends.

I started myself on a minor stationery and fountain pen obsession.

I learned how to can, and started pickling nearly everything in sight.

Throughout all of this cooking and baking and canning and loving each other nonsense, there were two other things that I did. Number one?

I graduated with my Doctorate of Nursing Practice Degree, successfully defending my scholarly project on Zoom. I’ve also since presented my DNP project at two separate local nursing conferences, and I was accepted to do a poster presentation at the Society of Pediatric Nurses at their annual conference in April.

After graduating, I studied my ass off for one last time.

And I passed my AANP FNP exam with room to spare.

I’ve been working as an NP in a school-based clinic system since the end of October, so my days look a little bit more like this now. COVID testing has become a major life skill.

The other main storyline, you ask?

KNITTING.

Just kidding! I didn’t make these, but I did buy the pattern book because it was only $1.50, and it is GLORIOUS.

This has been, hands-down, the most productive knitting year of my entire life, and instead of analyzing the reasons for that too hard (depression, pandemic, unemployment, blah blah blah), let’s just revel in the good shit, yes? The Stacy Pullover, which I recently got a chance to wear for the first time around Christmas, and it was just as perfect as it could be.

Then came the Sockpocalypse! Here’s all ten pairs, right in a row: Waving Lace Socks.

Go with the Flow Socks.

Hot Tiki Flamingo Ribs (arguably the ones with the best name).

Shadow Braid Socks.

Mountain Retro Ribs.

Yarn Chicken Pomatomus (definitely the knitterliest, and the ones with the best story).

Mirkwood Socks.

Raspberry Latte Lace.

Earthbound (my first ever foray into toe-up sock knitting!).

And finally, the Finale Helix Socks.

And because my friends are some of the very best people in the world, I got sent back a lot of love and very sweet presents from Sockpocalypse recipients. I choose to interpret these as hugs from far away, and they definitely kept me going when seeing my friends was simply not an option.

But wait, the knitting’s not over yet! I finally finished up some long-forgotten UFOs from the past. The Scotland Silk Felt Scarf.

And the 776-Weekend Lace-Edge Pillowcases, which had eluded me for 12 and 15 years respectively.

I fixed a lot of things that needed fixing.

I stress-knitted a beret because a hurricane — actually, many hurricanes were coming.

I made myself the craft room of my dreams and tried to inhabit, however ineptly, my grandmother’s shadow.

I made the most adorable sweater and panda set for the best baby around.

And because I wasn’t nearly satisfied enough with the Sockpocalypse, apparently, I made SEVEN MORE PAIRS pairs of socks and slippers.

Because I am a maniac. (Honeycomb Socks and Holiday Family Mukluks, of course.)

I am being absolutely serious when I say that knitting saved my life this year. Whenever I felt like a completely useless human, which was pretty much always, I could at least tell myself that I was always making something. Maybe not the most important thing or the most beautiful thing, but I was making something that would be able to bring just a little bit of light and happiness and warmth into someone else’s life. And although those contributions were small, they made me feel like I had a purpose when I was adrift.

I’m not going to pretend that I don’t still feel that way. Even though school is done and I found a job, and I’m making my tiny mark in helping people during this utterly shit situation, I still feel empty and rudderless most of the time. I think that after so much death and loss of hope, it’s only normal to feel numb, isn’t it?

But, with that sentiment comes the very true and honest wish that I have that we will all take this time to build a new year for ourselves that’s filled with a little more kindness, a little more insight, a little more responsibility to each other. A little more light-bringing and a little less selfishness. And a whole lot more knitting.

Glass Jars and Mukluks for Everyone!

I really enjoy being able to hand-make presents, and this dumpster fire of a year didn’t make me feel any differently.

I struggled to find an NP job for a while, and Dan didn’t have as many hours as usual, so we decided early on that we’d try our best to keep things simple this year. Hand-making presents and giving each other useful things, rather than buying a bunch of crap that nobody needs.

Hands down, the thing that I am most thankful for this year is learning how to do proper boiling water canning.

So, it was just a given that one of my gifts to my family this Christmas had to involve canning, preferably with some extremely persnickety type of recipe, just for my own enjoyment.

Hell yeah. I don’t know about you, but spending an hour delicately scraping the pith off of orange peels in order to slice them into tiny delicate strips to make homemade marmalade was exactly what my soul needed.

Just…the finickier, the better, really.

This recipe for Brandied Cranberry-Orange Marmalade (found in the awesome book You Can Can by Better Homes and Gardens) was everything I needed it to be.

Lots of tiny details in the prep, but the actual cooking and canning were a breeze. And the recipe itself is so brightly colored and smells absolutely amazing while it’s boiling away.

The magic of heat, sugar, and pectin turns this soupy, weird mess…

…into jellied magenta gorgeousness.

And there’s alcohol in it, just to make it properly festive.

No joke, but Dan and I (mostly me, though) managed to eat nearly an entire jar of it in one day, so I’m thinking that this one is a keeper. I seriously don’t even think I’ve ever eaten marmalade before that I can recall, and now I can’t imagine wanting anything else on a biscuit for the foreseeable future. It’s amazing.

Now, since everyone was going to get little glass jars of this beautiful stuff, it only made sense that everything else should fit the theme, right?

Martha Stewart’s Hot Chocolate Mix.

With some fun additions, of course.

Can’t forget the directions.

Want another jarred holiday treat?

Yes, please! Bakerella’s Cowboy Cookie Jars are just so much fun to look at, and the cookies that they make are simple and perfect.

I would never in a million years fancy myself as good a baker or decorator or food stylist as Bakerella, but for some reason, by making all of these little jarred treats, I felt like she was my little good fairy of inspiration.

But wait, we’re not done yet.

I spent just one entire day making cookies and brownies, and let me tell you, it is very hard to not quit my nursing jobs altogether when I have days like this. I was on my feet for nearly 8 hours straight with a hot oven and stove in my face, and it felt amazing.

These tins were packed with treats for my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, our next-door neighbors, and there were plenty extra leftover to give to my fellow nurses who were working on Christmas.

I know you’re curious about the recipes, so here we go. As you’re looking at the front tin, the top cookies are Joy the Baker’s Vanilla Bean Confetti Cookies (with both jimmies and nonpareils for added sugary crunch), then going clockwise we have Moosewood Fudge Brownies (jazzed up with some walnuts and powdered sugar) and Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies with raspberry jam from Everybody Likes Sandwiches, and then Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (made from the famous Quaker Oats Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies recipe, just exchanging chocolate chips for the raisins). Make every single one of them. You’ll be happier, I swear.

And, of course, no Christmas would be complete without something to keep your feet warm.

These crazy stripey beauties were made with the Knitting Pure & Simple pattern #116 Mukluk Slippers by Diane Soucy, and they are the perfect project if you want something super fast that looks so much more complicated than it actually is.

The boxy toe construction that makes these socks look like mukluks or moccasins all comes from cleverly placed short rows and slipped stitches.

You actually start on the center bottom of the foot and work your way up from there, making the entire instep out of short rows, rather than the reverse which is more standard for socks and slippers. That way, each directional change leads to a structural element, which is extremely pleasing to me.

The riot of color here is brought to you by Universal Yarns Classic Shades Frenzy, in the colorways 909 Attic Light, 910 Thrill Ride, 912 Creekside, and 914 Botanica. (Even the names are good! It’s an acrylic/wool blend that knits up super soft and squishy, the perfect yarn for sliding around in your socks on the cold tile floor to make hot chocolate in, while also being able to throw them in the washing machine.  You can get a whole pair out of just one skein, in both the medium and large lo-top sizes, so it’s definitely a great deal, too.

I hope that all of you had a lovely Christmas, and that, if you wanted to, you were able to craft some things for the people you love. Handmade is love, regardless of the reasons. Handmade shows that you care enough to put something of yourself into the gift-giving process. I hope that the people you love are worthy of this special consideration, and that they recognize your hard work and your intentions, not just for Christmas, but every day of the year.

The Craft Room

In August, Dan and I decided to tackle a project that has lingered for years undone in this house, mostly because of various nursing school insanity, but also because of general laziness and a fear of the sadness surrounding the task that I wasn’t really ready for.

My grandmother died five years ago of Alzheimer’s. This August, without realizing it was the 5-year anniversary of her death, Dan and I decided that we needed to finally get to work cleaning up this beautiful Singer sewing machine that was left for me and going through all of the treasures left inside her desk.

First, the drawers!

There was so much stuff in here. It just seemed never-ending.

Thread in every color imaginable.

Including this beautiful stuff, which it looks like she never got to use, that I’m going to have to save for something special.

So many little treasures. I’ve been wanting to really learn how to sew, like really learn for a long time, and going through all of these tiny useful items that she used to use every day really touched something inside of me. Especially when I found things that were obviously deeply personal.

A tiny plastic canvas pouch made for my grandfather in 1976, which was never used, but obviously made with love.

A box of cough drops from Indonesia (she loved to travel), filled with…

…sewing machine feet! Which reminded me of my own little candy tin…

…filled with knitting notions.

And the notes!

She was doodling quilt blocks and pattern ideas up until she couldn’t anymore.

It was really wonderful seeing how she kept all of the measurements of our family’s bed sizes (and somehow skirt and pant sizes) so that she could make us something whenever we needed it.

And seeing her write my mother’s name with their nearly-identical handwriting… I wish I wrote like them.

She kept amazing care of her sewing machine, too. On the backs of these business cards shows the dates and prices for all of the regular maintenance that she had done, every two years like clockwork, since she bought it in 1969.

Now here’s where the real heartbreak comes in.

As far as I know, my grandmother hadn’t really used her machine much in the ten-ish years before she died, and Hurricane Katrina had dumped a significant amount of rain that flooded their house back in 2005, so this lovely old thing had been exposed to a whole lot of humidity and then seriously neglected for at least 15 years.

With a lot of older sewing machines, this wouldn’t have been a problem. However, during the 1960s, Singer came up with the Touch ‘n’ Sew machine, which certainly seemed innovative at the time.

In the place of a plain zig-zag stitch function, it has these plastic pattern wheels that you can drop into the top of the machine to make all of these very cool decorative stitches.

I was super excited to try them out and see what kind of cool stitches the machine could do. But, when I threaded everything up (with some assistance from the extremely helpful Singer site where you can download original manuals and look up serial numbers to find your exact machine and year of manufacture), the bobbin wouldn’t move. I tried every setting, tried hand-turning the needle, and nothing.

Turns out that when Singer had the genius idea to make the replaceable decorative pattern wheels out of plastic…

…they decided to make all of the gears out of plastic, too.

Plastic that, over the years and the extreme temperature shifts, had nearly completely rotted away. When I took the bottom off of the machine to try to diagnosis the problem, a pile of black plastic gear teeth fell out into my hands and all over the floor. Singer themselves admit that the company did this to save on manufacturing costs at the time, but it still boggles the mind that you’d replace the most important part of the goddamn machine with plastic. Right?

Even the freaking bobbins are made of plastic. Whyyyyyy?

Luckily, there are companies that make replacement gears for these old silly machines, so I was able to order some and attempt to fix it myself.

Or maybe just have a good excuse to wear a headlamp in my own house.

I bought all of the impossibly tiny tools and got to work. And everything was going fine until I got to the very last screw to take out the very last gear, which would allow a bar to be removed so that every gear shaft could be disassembled, cleaned, and replaced. And that very last screw…is stripped.

This is the moment where I finally cried.

I had been working on this goddamn thing for weeks, carefully researching the machine and all of the parts and instructions I’d need, buying the exact perfect tools and the special repair guide, and oiling and cleaning every part during each step, being so careful to keep each tiny screw and plate and spring and gear organized. And this happens. The last piece just destroyed me.

I sat on the floor and cried over my grandmother and how she never got to use her talents during the last years of her life, how she’d forgotten that she even had them. I cried about how the stupid fucking pandemic robbed me of my last year of grad school, of presenting my scholarly project in-person, and of walking across the stage in the proper doctoral regalia that I worked my ass off for. I cried about how finding an NP job seemed impossible since no one was hiring. And I cried because the stupid fucking machine was so broken that it couldn’t be fixed.

And then I got up off the floor, carefully put all of the pieces to the side, and decided that I just had to make do with what I had left of her, even if I couldn’t learn to sew with her machine.

I cleaned and trimmed up and organized all of the thread.

I sorted out all of her sewing notions and combined them with my own tools, making the drawers usable again.

I took the best parts of what she had left me and combined them with what I had to work with.

And I made myself a craft room.

It may not look like much, but I see her everywhere in it.

(It doesn’t hurt that that’s her couch, too.)

More than anything, it just really helped to finally have a home for all of these crafty supplies and things that had been spread out over multiple rooms and acquired over many, many years.

It helped bring a sense of order to the chaos of this horrible year.

And I’m not the only fan, it seems.

I spend an awful lot of time in there now, and so does the broken sewing machine, sitting in the corner until I can figure out what to do. I think we’ll figure it out eventually, together.

———-

Bonus content that didn’t fit into my tidy little narrative:

Did you guys know that Fruit of the Loom used to make sewing notions?

I had no idea.

And what the heck is this?

And this? Please someone help me because right now I can only think medieval torture device.

Trip in a sunbeam.

And lastly, a wonderful lap/wall-hanging quilt made by my grandmother. Aren’t you glad you stayed for the bonus content?

The 776-Weekend Lace-Edged Pillowcases

Lest you think that the Scotland Silk Felt Scarf was the oldest unfinished (unstarted, even) project in the depths of my yarn stash, today we’re talking about something even more ridiculous.

As I was going through my yarn stash, I found this plastic drawstring bag with plain white pillowcases in it, plus some mystery knitting all rolled up in the bottom. When I opened it up, I suddenly had a moment of revelation that I had somehow opened up a portal to the past.

Way back in October 2005, when I had only been knitting for real (rather than just making travesties that didn’t fit any humans) for about a year, I bought this lovely book, Weekend Knitting.

It’s full of good projects for beginners, but not boring enough that you wouldn’t return to it later in your knitting career. I saw this pattern, Lace-Edged Pillowcases by Alissa Baptista and figured that it was something I could definitely do that would increase my lace confidence, plus I needed something pretty for my first apartment in Colorado after fleeing New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina. I bought up a few balls of Omega Sinfonia Mercerized Cotton (available at certain big box craft stores) and a pair of size 3 needles (as I wasn’t yet a crazy needle-hoarder as I am now) and got started right away.

This was before Ravelry existed, so I even posted a little entry about it in my Stitch ‘n Bitch project journal. How cute was I?

I got all the way to the end of the knitting portion for both inserts, put my stitches on holders, bought some blank white pillowcases…and then promptly forgot about it for 15 years. When I found it again during this stupid, stupid year, it coordinated perfectly with Dan and I messing around with guest room stuff in our house, as well as with me finally taking the time to go through all of my grandmother’s amazing old sewing and quilting stuff in order to add it all to our new craft room. What better time than a continuing nightmare hellscape of pandemic + hurricanes to do a whole boatload of hand-sewing?

Before I could do that, I had to block the lace panels, as they had been rolled up and crumpled for so long, and mercerized cotton loves to look as angry as possible unless you treat it nicely. The panels got a soak in some wool wash and then threaded onto some blocking wires.

I stretched them out to the absolute limit, just to make sure that all of those lovely lace eyelets opened up fully and the fabric was more drapey, rather than stiff, another potential hazard of mercerized cotton.

This is the “love braid” lace option from the pattern, by the way, as the other was much more boring.

The original pattern just recommends cutting your pillowcase edge off and then putting in the lace panel, but with the length of the ones that I had, simply inserting the lace would have resulted in the lace just getting folded under the pillow on the bed and not really getting seen. That seemed very silly, so I cut a 3″ panel out instead (after washing and ironing the cases, of course), keeping the pillowcase roughly the same length after finishing.

The pattern stated to fold over a 1/4″ hem, but I am super inept at hand-sewing and did 1/2″ instead so that I wasn’t aiming for such a tiny target with my giant sausage fingers. Also, if raw edges still existing after sewing bother you, please close your eyes for a little while because I just couldn’t be bothered to care.

But please still keep reading. Somehow.

I did my running stitch to hem the sides about 1/8″ from the edge so that I had a straight line to aim for when stitching the knitting on, since it needed to line up straight and not have any fabric showing through the holes.

This means that you only have just 1 tiny edge stitch to work with on either side when you get sewing. I’m sure that people who sew a lot are wondering why that is such a big deal, but sewing of all kinds (except when it involves yarn) feels like such an unnatural action to me that every challenge feels so, so very big.

After the panels are pinned in place, lined up with the seam of the pillowcase, you have to unwind the excess knitting to get it to line up properly.

Such a fun mess.

Then, when the panel is the correct size to line up with the cast-on edge, you bind it off and sew them together.

The lace will not line up properly, but you are just going to have to let that shit go. It’s been 15 years already.

Then, the sewing!

I had no idea of the proper way to do this, but it seemed like the easiest way to make sure that the stitches were relatively invisible, but visible enough for my hesitant self to see what I was doing, was to whipstitch the panels in place.

This took seventy-billion years, so I needed some hand-stitching motivation in the form of a several-day Bernadette Banner deep dive. I am by no means a historical fashion wearer (or remotely good at sewing, as we can all see), but I find her videos completely fascinating and wonderful company for all types of project making. Do go check her out.

After all of that stitching was done, I pressed the seams down on the inside and then pressed the whole thing from the outside, just to make sure there were no residual fabric wrinkles, since there is no way to make the fabrics match up perfectly.

And then I danced around, whooping and fist-pumping because I finally finished my “weekend knitting” project.

Although it took me approximately 776 weekends instead.

I mean, look at those tiny stitches. Can you blame me?

I am beyond happy with how these came out. Our guests, if we ever have any again in the post-plague times, will lay their heads on these lovelies, and I will be so stoked.

Here’s a hint of the next post to come. Peg board and a mysterious sewing machine? Oooooooh.

Stabbing and Boiling the Scotland Silk Felt Scarf

And now for something completely different.

In the interim between knitting a boatload of socks and the world attempting to right itself, Dan and I decided to take on a little project where we changed over one of our empty rooms (previously masquerading as a guest room but unfortunately serving as a lazy storage room) into a craft room. Pictures of that process later, I promise, as I am beyond elated at how it turned out.

As a part of that process, I made myself go through my knitting books and my yarn and tool stash to give away things I didn’t use anymore and to organize things better. During that process, I found this.

Back when I lived in Colorado, I used to work at a yarn store with some truly amazing coworkers and a horrible monster as a boss. (That fact is unrelated, but I just felt the need to reiterate just how awful of a person she was.) While I was there, we had a really interesting day when a representative from Skacel Yarns, of Addi Needle fame, came and demonstrated their new (at the time) product called Artfelt. It was a system for needle/machine felting that included some really vibrantly-dyed pencil and standard roving, which is normally used to spin yarn. However, with this special sort of paper, kind of similar to dryer sheets, you could needle-felt your own designs, and shrink them in the dryer, ending up with thin, delicate sheets of felted wool fabric that you could drape or sew with, rather than the big bulky felt purses and bags that were popular at the time.  Like Shrinky Dinks for yarn!

I helped the instructor demo the project and really enjoyed myself, so I made sure that I bought a kit. And then, in true crafty-person fashion, I stuffed it in a basket and forgot about it for 12-ish years.

This age became very apparent when I tried to take the directions out and they ended up being permanently fused to the plastic kit bag, due to multiple housing moves and now nearly 10 years in New Orleans humidity.

I was determined to take this horrible continuing pandemic and hurricane-filled month of August and make this damn thing, so I pieced together what I could and went with it.

There, much better.

The kit that I had was called the Silk Scarf Kit, in the colorway Scotland. Of course, this kit no longer seems to be available on the Skacel Artfelt website, but if you wanted to put together something similar, they still seem to have all of the elements available. You’d just need the Artfelt paper, felting needles, the tack board (or any kind of protective squishy surface), any kind of ribbon you want (the actual skein is pictured below), and the multicolored standard roving and pencil roving in the colorway Cobblestone.

Onto the making. First things first, the paper was behaving as though it had been crumpled up in a tube for 12 years (funny, that), so it needed a day to flatten out.

After the paper was behaving properly, I marked out 1.5″ intervals until I got to 72″ long and drew out straight lines at the marks, copying them later with permanent marker because they get very difficult to see once there’s a bunch of wool on top of them.

Then, I had to cut 96 pieces of pencil roving 10″ long. I ended up doing a few more than that because I wanted a bunch of color variation throughout the whole thing, and you end up with plenty of pencil roving left over.

Then, you lay out those pencil roving strips onto the lines you created, place the whole thing on the tack board (or any kind of thick piece of foam, felt, or towel so that you don’t stab yourself or your floor because felting needles are the sharpest things on the planet), and stab it repeatedly.

Just so much stabbing.

Really, you are just trying to get the wool to stay in place on the paper. If you can lift the paper and the wool roving stays put, you’re good, so no need to overstab.

After all of that stabbing is done, you get to mess around with this beautiful stuff.  Seta-Moda is a 100% silk ribbon with gorgeous shine and saturated colors.

Really, you can use any ribbon or accent yarn that you want, just as long as it doesn’t have wool in it, so it won’t felt together and blend into the background.

I cut 11 long strips of the silk, and laid 6 of them across the top of the work, pinned in place on the tack board so that they wouldn’t slide around too much.

Now here comes the meat of the scarf. (Gross.) You take your standard roving and pull it apart, giving yourself light and transparent handfuls of wool.

Then, you sort of…paint with it, covering the lines with broad swathes of color.

After that, you add the remaining 5 pieces of silk in the same manner, in-between the ones you did before so they aren’t right on top of each other.

Then, you put pencil roving pieces down right exactly on top of the previous row, and the stabbing begins again!

It’s kind of hard to see here, but those little tufts poking through the back of the paper are the result of the stabbings, keeping the whole thing together on the paper. When you pull it off of the tack board, it also makes this extremely delightful soft and sticky sound that made my ASMR-loving self super happy.

Part of the goal is to keep the entire thing covered with wool, but still transparent enough to see all of the layers underneath, because you do not want to stab the silk ribbons in all of your stabbing adventures.

I definitely got better at this as I went along, as it took some practice.

Unfortunately, as soon as I felt like I knew what I was doing, it was all done.

All of that make sense? Great. Now comes the really wild stuff.

After the stabbings are complete, you throw the whole thing in the bathtub and wet it thoroughly. It needs to be saturated.

Then, you lay it out on this giant piece of plastic that comes with the paper…

…you roll it up into a strange wool-silk-dryer sheet-plastic hot dog…

…you shove it into an old pair of stockings or leggings (bright turquoise is best, of course), and then you put it by itself into a pre-heated dryer.

Mine clanged around in there for nearly 30 minutes until this came out.

Looking slightly smaller, wrinklier, and…feltier? You basically just want it to felt enough to make sure that the layers are stuck to each other, not dense enough to get something that feels like a hockey puck.

The instructions said that if it was done correctly, the paper would be wrinkled in the back, so I think we were perfect.

Now for the boiling. You’d think that after I complained so much about my fingers hurting after making all of those socks, I’d be less inclined to do a project that exclusively involves fingertip-mangling sharp needles and boiling water. Nope.

You boil a whole bunch of water and then try to transfer it to your bathroom without giving yourself 3rd degree burns.

Then, you pour it all over the scarf, paper-side up I assumed, and the magic Artfelt paper magically dissolves away. It was actually pretty cool.

I did end up with a few leftover bits, so I needed to hit it again strategically with the boiling water, but otherwise it went pretty smoothly.

Then, I squeezed out all of the water and gave it a very quick once-over with an iron on low heat, just to make sure everything was sticking down properly.

And here she is.

And I am underwhelmed.

It really is very cool that you can get such a delicate, thin woolen fabric using this technique, as it drapes very nicely and feels very soft.

However, I feel like the colors that were so rich and vibrant, in both the silk and the wool, are now sort of flat and dull in their felted state. And the wrinkling?

After seeing how lovely it was in its pre-felted state, the wrinkling just detracts so much from the original geometric pattern. Why on earth did I need to be so careful and exact with my lines and my stabbings if it was just going to wiggle out of shape as it shrank?

Nevertheless, it was really fun to make and it was wonderful learning a new technique (that I might never do again, but oh well), plus the colors do look nice even though they are a shadow of their former selves. I’m not sure if I should keep this for myself or if I should give it to my mom or some other other older-type lady who might really love it.

I’m torn. But at least I got to spend a good chunk of time where I wasn’t alone with my thoughts of this broken world, which was a plus.

Stay tuned for another long-overdue project completion, coming soon.

Sockpocalypse Summer, part 10 – Finale Helix Socks

Well, ladies and gents and non-binary friends, we’ve come to the end.

A rather beautifully stripey end, if I do say so myself.

As I described long ago at the beginning of this self-induced Sockpocalypse, way back in May (good lord, it seems like years ago), I originally posted a photo of eight different sock yarn skeins and had people choose for themselves. I added a pair of socks at the beginning for myself, which brought the grand total up to 9. Minutes after the last skein was claimed, my college friend Polly saw the post and lamented the fact that she wasn’t able to snag one in time.

Now, if you have been a reader of this blog for a while, you know that I save all of my odds and ends, especially of sock yarns, for two important reasons. One, to make tiny little garter bias squares for a blanket that won’t be finished until I am geriatric. Two, to make helix socks!

Helix socks, described here in detail by the great Grumperina, whose recipe served as the framework here, are a super fun way to use up sock yarn leftovers. You can combine disparate colors and patterns and turn them into the truly gorgeous random stripe patterns of your dreams. (If you want to see me truly geek out over this in a deeply embarrassing way, read all about my first helical sock experience here with my Hurricane Helix socks.)

After all of the initial Sockpocalypse Socks were finished, I took pictures of all of the potential sock leftover candidates that I had available, and had Polly choose a base color and three stripe colors. Pictured above, her choices were (clockwise from the top) Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in Mountain Pass (last seen in Sockpocalypse Summer, part 5), Pagewood Farms Denali in Woodsy (last seen in Drachenschwingen and as the much-beloved yarn chicken toe cap fix in Sockpocalypse Summer, part 6), and Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Mountain Twilight (last seen long ago in my Kai-Mei socks).

For the base color she chose Valley Yarns Huntington in Grey, the perfect neutral background for all of this crazy color. I was initially a little bit worried that with the predominant purple, green, and gold tones that we were going to get something a little…Mardi Gras-y. I needn’t have worried, though, since the helical knitting structure and the natural variegation in the yarns made for some really lovely color randomization.

I mean, look at that. You’ve got purples, greens, and golds, yes, but also white, cream, silver, teal…

…royal blue, amber, chocolate, and turquoise in there. So many colors in such seemingly unassuming yarn.

And admittedly, the wrong side of socks rarely ever gets much love, but look at how gorgeous this is! The purl bumps disperse the color out for an even more lovely effect. I want a whole sweater of it.

Because the original sock recipe is more of a guide than a pattern, here are some specifics, if you’re so inclined to stash-bust and make some for yourself. I cast on 64 sts (which works for a US size 8-8.5 foot) with US size 2/2.75mm needles, did 12 rows of 2×2 ribbing with the main color, and then knit 40 rows of helix stripes, stopping before the end of the 40th row on needle 4. At that point, you’ll have your main color, and you can do the heel of your choice.

This heel is Laura Chau’s fabulous short-row heel, the only short-row heel tutorial you’ll ever need.

After the heel, the main color ends up right where you need it again, and you knit more helical stripes until you’re 2″ less than the foot length, which was 64 rows in this case. If you’ve stopped on a multiple of 4 (which, if you’re following along, you absolutely should), your main color is again right where you need it for the toe of your choice. I just did a flat toe cap, but you can do whatever pleases you.

And then you can put them on and ogle those stripes some more.

As Polly pointed out when I sent her an in-progress picture, the stripes are super witchy in the best way, perfect for the upcoming fall in Portland, where they’re headed as we speak.

—–

And that’s it! The finale of my Sockpocalypse Summer! Thanks to all of you who actually sat and read through these deranged sock-based musings for three months. It’s definitely not just the knitting I love, but the documentation of the process, and those of you who read and look at the pictures and enjoy it really make my day.

Needless to say, it’ll probably be a little while before I get back on the tiny-needled sock train, if only to give my fingertips and my brain a break. I honestly thought, when I started this project, that there was no way the pandemic would still be going by the time I hand-knit 10 pairs of custom socks, but here we are. Stay tuned for more craft-based foolishness while I attempt to entertain myself while looking for an FNP job (oh right, I forgot to tell everyone that I graduated from grad school with my doctorate and passed my FNP certification exam…whoops) and trying not to lose my mind.

Sockpocalypse Summer, part 9 – Earthbound

It’s our second-to-last installment of the Sockpocalypse, and here’s a very special pair of socks for a very special friend.

I’ve talked at length before about how you have to be prepared to get out the big guns for a fellow knitter. You don’t make them something that they could have made for themselves. You push yourself.

Amanda was one of my very first knitting friends. She was a customer at the yarn shop in Colorado where I used to work, and after helping her with a few projects, she started coming to my weekly project class, where customers all got together to work on big projects and get ongoing help from yours truly. Not like she really needed my help, of course. I think we were all just excited to form a new group of crafty people, far from the watchful eye of the horrible owner of the store. She is super fun, a wonderful listener, endlessly kind and accepting, and always game for some first-rate silliness.

After I left the store, the group still got together every week, alternately at a cool witchy community center and an ice cream parlor, knitting and chatting about our lives. When I got really sick, Amanda kept the group together until my mandated bedrest was over. Over 10 years later, we continue to share our lives, knitting projects, silly pictures of our dinner, and Monty Python quotes, and I am so happy she is part of my life.

So, when Amanda chose this beautiful skein of chocolately browns for her Sockpocalypse socks, I knew I had to make her something special. (Knit Picks Tonal in Nature Walk, and yes, of course, it’s discontinued! Why wouldn’t it be!) Together, we decided on Earthbound, a very clever bit of toe-up socking.

Only one problem. I’ve never made toe-up socks before. I am a cuff-down, DPN, one at a time sock girl. I was excited, but terrified to really fuck it all up royally.

Luckily, Knitty provides links to both of the special techniques needed for this project. Firstly? Judy’s Magic Cast-On, a perfectly seamless cast-on for the perfect toes. I seriously danced around on the couch the first time I completed it, however I kept a vise grip on those needles because I was terrified that the whole thing would fall apart if I
accidentally looked at it wrong.

Having a perfect seamless toe was particularly important here, since the patterning goes all the way down to the tip of the toe. Not something you see very often, but something that made me inordinately excited.

Secondly? Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off!

One of my initial trepidations in making toe-up socks in the first place was the fact that I tend to bind-off really tightly. I have to intentionally size-up my needles on bind-offs all the time to make sure that I don’t ruin projects all in the last row. I was worried that my bind-off would make it so that the socks wouldn’t even fit on a foot.

This stretchy bind-off is a freaking revelation. You basically add yarnovers into the stitches as you bind off, but it never makes it weird or loose or wavy. It stretches out with the established ribbing and lays perfectly flat. It’s definitely part of my knitting toolbox now.

It really makes all of those twisted stitches look so damn good.

And speaking of twisted stitches? There are so goddamn many of them.

Twisted stitches in the heel. Twisted stitches in the ribbing. Twisted stitches hidden in the lace that make all of the increases nearly invisible.

Twisted stitches spread out over three separate charts to make this gorgeous front lace panel, just as fiddly and persnickety as I like it.

Admittedly, I was a little skeptical even after putting in all that work because, when the sock comes off the needles, it looks…deflated and boxy and sad. But block those babies and put them on a foot, and they become something really special, which is the only thing acceptable for a project for Amanda.

Coming soon? The very last Sockpocalypse Summer installment. I know, I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself either.

Sockpocalypse Summer, part 8 – Raspberry Latte Lace

I just confessed to my friend Kelli, for whom these socks were made, that I had a really hard time bringing them to the post office today.

Not just because I was rushing to make it there before the torrential rain started (hurricane season in New Orleans, you guys), although that was a factor.

No, they were just too goddamn beautiful, and I didn’t want to give them away. I had to overcome my natural sock-based selfishness to put those socks in the mail because I wanted them to be miiiiiiiiine.

(Maybe I just need to make another pair?)

I did my duty and sent them off because Kelli is one of the greatest people ever put on this earth, and if anyone deserves something this lovely, it’s certainly her. If you’re an avid reader of this blog (hello to all three of you!), you know that I adore her to the point of making her a baby blanket and a sweater for her tiny dog. If that’s not true friend-love, I don’t know what is.

She chose this beautiful skein of Mountain Colors Crazyfoot in Wild Raspberry (again, tragically discontinued because it was just too beautiful to live) for her custom socks, and as I was winding it, I couldn’t get over just how much color was packed into the colorway.

In addition to the shifting reds and magentas that lend it its namesake, there are royal and navy blues, purpley grays, olive green, brown, and flashes of orange. And even though it has all of that riotous color, it still manages to not overshadow the lace somehow.

Speaking of lace, the pattern is Latte Lace Socks by Diane Mulholland, a very clever little knit.

There are so many details I enjoy here. First, the socks have a front and back panel, rather than a circular multi-paneled repeat. The front, seen above, has a sort of fishtail/leaf vibe going on, with some purl sections to make it seem a bit like undulating waves.

The back panel repeats the mock-cable braids from the front panel, with mirror-imaged pairs and lots of negative space.

Second, the flow from ribbing to pattern is really delightful. Lots of patterns, both sock and sweater-related, will have ribbed cuffs in order to keep tension to keep the garment in place, but then just go into the pattern itself with no rhyme or reason. Through one row of tiny one-stitch cables, the panels grow out of the ribbing organically, rather than abruptly.

Third, I’m a real sucker for heel detailing. Those same braids from the back panel continue down the edges of the heel panel, extending the lace while also keeping the main heel section in slip-stitch for added strength.

It extends the length of the cuff of the sock in a really pleasing way, making for some elegant long lines. Plus, I’m just really tickled by how the purl bumps on the edge add another little architectural detail.

And last, not certainly not least, the tiny detail that extends the front panel patterning into a tiny point at the beginning of the toe section, rather than a blunt squared-off ending? *chef’s kiss*

It really ties the room together.

However, a word of warning to anyone who might want to follow along and make a pair for themselves: this pattern is not for a beginner sock knitter. You definitely need to be comfortable with your top-down sock anatomy to even begin to decipher what is going on with this one. Not that the instructions themselves are not clearly written or that the charts aren’t excellent, but it’s really lacking in the little touches that make patterns easy-to-read. There are some spacing issues and a lot of cramped text. There are no indicators that help you follow along, like notes about how many stitches you should have at the end of certain pattern sections (which can be invaluable when you’re new at socks) or where exactly you are in relation to the sock itself when starting a new pattern round or placing markers. I would have been seriously lost if I hadn’t been the seasoned, embittered, maker of countless socks you see before you.

But, when you’ve boned up on the skills, go for it. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you when you won’t want to give them away.

Next time, my first foray into toe-up socks! Made for the only person that I’d ever dare venture into that new undiscovered territory for! Stay tuned!

Sockpocalypse Summer, part 7 – Mirkwood Socks

You would not believe how many sock patterns are named after characters and locations from Lord of the Rings. In searching for patterns for this past project and other socks, I found Bombadil socks, Rivendell socks, Faramir socks, Treebeard socks…and so many more that I can’t even hope to list them all here. However, the simplest and loveliest of all of them were these.

Rebecca Wilder‘s Mirkwood Socks.

Although I am a proven die-hard fan of Knit Picks sock yarns (which I have been working with a lot during this project), my yarn snob side was starting to get antsy to work with something a little more…special.

My friend Adrienne, as part of my self-imposed Sockpocalypse Summer, chose this exquisite skein of Mountain Colors Crazyfoot in Harmony Lake for her custom pair. When I saw the pattern’s simple mirror-image cable design, I knew the combo of yarn and pattern would be absolutely perfect. Mountain Colors is often some pricey stuff, but the deep color saturation and inventive colorways make for one-of-a-kind long-lasting garments.

Crazyfoot is a tightly-spun multi-ply that’s mostly superwash wool, which provides for unmatched stitch definition, often causing me to step back and just gaze adoringly at long expanses of plain stockinette stitch.

Speaking of plain stockinette stitch, there was one point where I deviated from the pattern as written, just to take advantage of that precise stitch definition and to not detract from the simple, elegant cable. I did the heel flaps as plain stockinette, slipping one stitch at the start of each row to help with picking up the gusset, rather than the published garter stitch or eye of partridge options.

It just felt like this created a more streamlined, smoother appearance, which would call more attention to the mirror-image construction than the nuts and bots of sock pattern writing.

However, this project wasn’t without its own tiny drama, although not as dramatic as last time.

As I was humming along on the second sock, I got nearly all three 18-row repeats into the “leg” portion and suddenly had a horrible realization. There was no row 15.

I went back and looked at the directions for the right sock, and yes, there was a row 15. But no row 15 on the left sock. So…my brain exploded as a I realized I’d been knitting each cable pass 1 row shorter than the previous sock, resulting in a sock that was three rows shorter overall and cables that visibly (at least to me) didn’t match. There was absolutely no way that my brain was going to let that slide.

So, I ripped out nearly the entire thing and counted back to start over the whole section, now with row 15 intact. I sent a message to the designer through Ravelry, and she was very gracious about it, so hopefully it gets fixed soon. I just couldn’t have lived with myself knowing that the other sock wasn’t a perfect match.

And just look at how beautiful those cables are in the Crazyfoot. So simple, but so elegant.

We’re in the home stretch now, as I just cast on for the third-to-last pair of Sockpocalypse Socks on Saturday. There might be a bit of a delay as I study up for my NP certification test next week and attempt to not panic every single day. We’ll see how that goes.

Sockpocalypse Summer, part 6 – Yarn Chicken Pomatomus

We are just now over the hill of our Sockpocalypse Summer (confused? Here are parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5), and my fingers are getting tired as well as my brains. And it’s all the fault of this gorgeous pair of socks.

I mean, beautiful, right?

When my knitting friend Leslie from Colorado requested this particular skein of Knit Picks Hawthorne in Irvington (not discontinued for once, but on back order…foreshaaaaaaadowing…), I knew I had to pull out the big guns. When you knit things for other knitters, you better make sure you got game. Otherwise, why wouldn’t they just make it for themselves?

Seriously, this is a real concern.

I knew that Cookie A. would save me by providing a pattern with lots of wonderful fiddly bits, and I was right. Enter Cookie A.’s infamous-in-the-knitting-world (and should be famous in the real world) Pomatomus Socks. When these socks hit the scene, people lost their minds. There are over 5000 pairs of Pomatomus socks on Ravelry, even though Ravelry wasn’t developed for another two years after its publication in 2005.

At the yarn shop where I worked for several years, I helped people pick out hundreds of skeins of sock yarn for this very sock pattern, plus the multitude of variations that other knitters have created over the years, like hats, fingerless gloves, and shawls with that instantly recognizable twisted stitch fish scale lace.

I even knit a pair myself, for my friend Tillie, back in 2009. It’s got a boatload of twisted stitches, patterning every single row, and non-rectangular charts with mysterious stitch-shifting to get the pattern to line up correctly.

It has this brilliant heel section where the scales morph into the heel and continue the all-over pattern without disrupting the construction somehow. It’s a Cookie A. nightmare-dreamscape of knitting, and I absolutely love it. It’s definitely the kind of big swing that one experienced knitter takes for another.

However, this time, things took an unexpected turn.

As soon as I had finished the first sock, I knew something was off. The amount that I had left over definitely didn’t feel right. I took it to my scale to see if I could figure it out.

Standard sock yarn skeins come in 50g and 100g weights. This first sock, made to accommodate Leslie’s perfectly normal size US 9 feet, weighed in at 51g. Meaning that I only had 49g left to make the second one. No matter, I thought. Maybe there’s a tiny extra bit in this skein, just to make me happy.

The bit of cuff that I had knit, plus the remainder of the ball also came to 51g, BUT that was including the 3 sock needles currently in use. I knew that this was a losing battle. (However, I did feel pretty chuffed that I could tell the 2g difference completely with my special knitting-based mind powers.)

Now, yarn chicken is a game that I have played before many times. When it works out perfectly, and you have only a tiny bit of yarn left but the project is complete, it is the greatest feeling in the world. When you lose…you just feel like a crazy person.

The entire second half of the second sock I felt like I was knitting through molasses, my fingers slowly prodding through those twisted stitches just in case knitting slower might make the yarn last longer. I just kept praying that it didn’t end in a weird spot, right in the middle of those glorious fish scales. Luckily, this is what I had left over when I got to the toe shaping.

However, it didn’t last very long. A few minutes later, the yarn was all gone, and I still had 18 rounds left to go.

I looked online to see if Knit Picks still had the Irvington colorway, but it was listed as on back order until July, meaning that there was no way on Earth I’d be able to get the same colorway or any yarn at all until August. I checked on Ravelry to see if anyone was willing to sell or trade a skein with me, but there was nothing available. I had to admit defeat and that I had lost this terrible round of yarn chicken and resign myself to the fact that these were not going to be the perfect Pomatomus socks that I had planned.

Fortunately, I keep all of my sock yarn odds and ends, so I had plenty of options to give to Leslie as to the yarn that would finish off this second toe.

Leslie chose this beautiful bit of yarn, which some of you may remember as the stunningly beautiful Pagewood Farms Denali from my Drachenschwingen socks a few years ago.

I have to admit, the gold, purple, and blue tones in the yarn really do look lovely in there.

So, even though I played yarn chicken and lost, I still managed to make something unique and so-very knitterly for a fellow knitter. She can wear these with pride, showing off those fish scales…

…while always having a special secret toe hidden inside her shoes that no one else has to know about.

It doesn’t get any better than that.