Busy, Busy, Busy

My, how the days fly when the warm weather arrives. The longer days give the illusion of more time, but I feel the inevitable turn of the wheel and know that school will soon be over and the summer will begin before I have time to blink. Kaelyn is enjoying her last weeks of fifth grade, preparing to go off to middle school next year. Last Friday was Colonial Day, an annual event. Costumes were required, so she implored Grandma to make her a dress. Have you ever seen a cuter pilgrim?

The approach of summer definitely has an effect on my knitting. I've had a period of knitting ennui; nothing seems to satisfy. My couple of summer tops and Cutaway are all quite simple and I long for something more challenging even while my lack of time makes it impossible to focus on anything complex.

Pomatomus has been an interesting knit. The lace pattern made sense to me. It was the sizing that was the challenge. To accommodate the circumference of my calf above the ankle I added 24 stitches, two additions of the 12 st repeat. I worked only two 22-row repeats and then worked the heel flap over half the stitches, decreasing one st on each side of the heel flap on every 4th row, bringing the bottom of the heel flap to 36 sts. I turned the heel and then decreased every 3rd row for the gusset. I maintained one extra pattern repeat across the top of the foot. It all worked very well apart from the horrible fear of running short on yarn. I barely made it. I'd have been happier with an extra three rounds or so at the toe, but I knew I'd never make it, so I kitchenered with the last foot or so of yarn and felt very lucky to finish, having cut it so fine. True to my SSS abatement program I immediately cast on the second one - several times as my long tail was too long.

Monday morning I dyed yarn before I left for the store. I was in kind of a rush, so I didn't document the whole process. I had three hanks of Gems Pearl Merino to dye and I figured I'd do them all at the same time. I've seen other people in Blogland use Koolaid to marvelous effect and I figured I'd try it too. I mixed up a batch of Black Cherry (x3), Grape (x3) and Lemondade (x3) hoping for a muted brown as a base color. My dye pal likes earthtones, you see. Instead it ended up being a very pretty muted rose. Why not overdye it? I covered a jellyroll pan with plastic wrap, arranged the three hanks around the perimeter and mixed up some black cherry and grape in separate containers. A medicine dropper let me control where to drip and speckle the dye. I used a gloved hand to smush some grape into the section where the ties were and the dye hadn't taken as strongly. A couple trips through the microwave and voila! Hand-dyed yarn! I'm pretty happy with my first attempt. Now I'm waiting for my real dyes to come from Dharma Trading Co. Oh, what fun!

Speaking of hand-dyed.... Look what arrived from Scout! Rosalie! I saw this colorway on her blog last week and had to have some for my very own. She's such a lovely, obliging girl, she dyed it the next day and on its way to me it came. Isn't it gorgeous? I have big plans for this. It'll be paired with some black Gems Pearl for the Shadow Shawl that both Scout and Emy are making. I just ordered Maureen's pattern for the shop. I can't wait to get my hands on it!

Emy finished her Cedar Creek Socks just in time for the new Sock Club package to arrive. I caught her documenting her socks for her blog yesterday afternoon at the store. The things we do for the blog. Somehow Emy, queen of the fraternal socks, the girl who likes it when her socks don't match, got perfectly matching stripes on hers. I don't think she could've done it if she tried. She was very cute yesterday, walking around in her Birkenstocks with her Cedar Creeks poking out. I wore mine for a while in the evening when people started to arrive for Social Knitting and wanted to know what this sock club thing was all about.

My Sock Club installment arrived with Monday's mail. I was thrilled. Again, the colors are not ones that I'd generally choose for myself, but I think part of the excitement of the club is trying new colors and patterns than those you gravitate toward. I have to admit that the colors make me hungry though. I keep thinking of rainbow sherbet. I'm also loving that this is medium weight yarn. Something a little different on the needles. I was raring to cast on, but held myself in check, having made a deal with some of the local sock clubbers to cast on Wednesday night at the store. It gave me time to get that first Pomatomus finished at least.

There were five of us last night. From left to right: Sandi, Becky, me, Emy and Robin. People arrived at different times so we didn't have a simul-cast-on, but by the end of the evening all of us had our yarn wound, the cuff cast on and a few rows to show for it. Several people liked the wrong side of the cuff better than the flat right side. I think the linen stitch is very cool.

Here's where we were at close of business last night. Clockwise from the top left, Sandi's, Becky's, Emy's, Robin's and mine. I suspect these socks are going to fly on our needles. We're all greatly enamoured of the color and we made great progress in just the space of the evening. Thanks, ladies, for casting on with me!

Comments

[anmiryam]

Your dye experiment is spectacular. Someday I'll tell you what happened when I tried to dye some yarn, but first I'll have to wait until the radiation shields that have been protecting our eyes can be removed.

[Kelly]

Your P sock looks great.Love the colors that came in this kit. The yarn kind of reminds me of salt water taffy.

[CJ]

Great fun! Kaelyn is so cute in that get-up... =)

[Silvia]

Kaelyn is gorgeous--pilgrim or not! I'll bet she's got an ipod and cell phone in that basket.

[Laura]

Aw, I wish i had seen the announcment about Rock & Weave at the store before this morning. I started mine at home watching the Lost finale and I'm done with my first cuff. Hope it was as fun as it looked!!

[Jodi]

aww, Kaelyn is gorgeous as usual. and such yummy yarns! congratulations! great job on the dye!

[Jeni]

Rainbow Sherbet! That's my exact thought when I opened my Sock Club pkg on Monday. Thanks for the notes on the Pomotomus sock. I think I may try it again with your changes. Also, wish I could have made it last night to cast on with y'all...but soccer mom duties called. :)

[Scout]

I can not WAIT to see your Shadow Shawl with that! :) I'm glad you like it.

[Jessica]

It seems as if you are very busy! I agree with the days seeming longer in summer we just fill them with more stuff. The Pomatomous socks are great. It the next pattern I'm going to knit as soon as I finish the one I'm on.

[Liz]

I agree that Pomatomus took some finesse to get them to come out correctly. I made some mods to mine as well. I think the issue for is the long pattern repeat... it's hard to time it right at the toe, know what I mean?

[Juanita Harris]

Kaelyn looks adorable!! She really looks like she just jumped off the Mayflower!! I love the way those socks are knitting up. They all look great! Pomatomous is amazing, and holy crap!!...When do you have time to breathe nowadays??!!