It Is Supposed to Be the Summer of Socks

Well, I started out strong. My first pair of socks done in just under two weeks. A second pair started right away and going strong. Then I got side tracked.

My cousin is expecting her first baby in October. In June, her husband was offered a position in one of his company's foreign offices. Offered is a polite term. There really isn't a choice if he wants his career to keep moving. So this moved up the baby shower time line to mid-August (Dad-to-Be is moving this weekend, New Mama is staying here to have the baby).


Two little hats for the new little one. The blue is the Pea Pod hat from IK. What a great pattern. And I even made it from the recommended yarn. When one of my local shops closed, she had a going out of business sale and I bought up all she had of Debbie Bliss Cotton Cashmere in this color.

The bumble bee hat is based on my favorite baby hat, made with Plymouth Wildflower. There's not real pattern. Just random striping. My cousin really liked it because it turns out black and yellow are her college colors. I just picked them because she's not finding out if she's having a boy or a girl.

Speaking of which, here's my new entry for Summer of Socks.


(Pardon the kinda crappy picture...these are someone else's design, and I was trying to get the color of the yarn, without giving away the pattern, which is a really great pattern...look for it in the SoS Design Contest.) A pair of socks, one pink, one blue, for the New Mama to wear at the hospital. These (obviously) were not ready for the shower. But I'll be seeing her this weekend, right after Dad-to-Be leaves for foreign shores. So, even if she doesn't want to wear mismatched socks, hopefully they will make her smile.

The yarn is the Knit Picks Color Your Own that I dyed while reading Harry Potter. I'm really excited about how it came out. If I didn't already have so much sock yarn, I'd get some more and stock up on Kool-Aid. And I have enough left to make a pair of baby Jaywalkers in each color.

After these are done, I'm going to try and go gangbusters on some socks for me again. After the cool weather last week, I'm really feeling the need to have at least 5 pairs of handknit socks for the approaching cooler seasons.

Learning to Think Like a Blogger

I'm still relatively new to this blogging thing. This blog has been around for a year, but not until Summer of Socks started did I get down to really posting on a somewhat regular basis. So, I don't think in terms of an event's blogability.

For instance, Geek Boy and I like our beer places and beer events. So we were quite excited to see a Session Beer class at Tria, given by Lew Bryson. After a winter of big beers, we've been enjoying some quaffing beers, such as Booklyn Brewery's Summer Ale and Saranac's Beers of Summer. So, we were all over this class.

Tria puts on a nice class. The room is cozy, without being crowded. And the "tasty snacks," were indeed, quite tasty (can't wait to try and make my own fennel almonds). Lew Bryson was a riot. And is very devoted to session beers. The definitions offered of session beers always came down to drinking between 6 and 10 beers in an outing. I can't fathom that. But then again, I have slightly less body mass than Mr. Bryson.

Anyway, there were seven beers offered throughout the class. Some were okay. Nothing terribly exciting. Some were "old hat" to us, like Troeg's Summer Pils. Two were stand outs for me. The first was "1809." A little sour, but in the way that I really like a beer to be. Geek Boy noted that it is similar to my favorite beer, Monk's Sour Flemish Ale. The other was LindemansGueuze, an unfruited lambic, made by combining old and young lambics. Even without the fruit, it's still a rather sweet beer, but not in a cloying way.

Best of all, it was a nice evening, weather wise, so we walked from Penn's campus to the Fermentation School.

Before the class started, we were noticing all the beer geeks with their cell phones out, geeking away, including one iPhone...my first spotting of one in the wild. Even Geek Boy was in on it, playing his favorite cell phone game. Me? I had knitting in my bag, and worked on that while waiting for class to begin. I also happened to have Geek Boy's digital camera with me (still in my bag from Monday's outing with a friend from college and her twins, Thing One and Thing Two). Only after we left, did I think what a great location shot I could have had for Summer of Socks. Either the sock enjoying being surrounded by beers, enjoying fennel almonds, or, if I was really brave, Cable Rib Sock meets Beer Guy.

Oh, well. Maybe next time.

Knitting, Winding, Splitting and Dyeing

Progress is moving along on the cable rib socks. I think I have about one more cable repeat to go before starting the toe.



I apologize for blinding you with the whiteness of my leg. Yes, I am that pale (my personal theme song is Procol Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale). I like this pattern. It's easy to work, interesting, and the rib makes it very stretchy.

Lesson learned...if you need to hobble around the house to find your camera while wearing a sock with 4 dpns sticking out of it, and all of your floors are hard wood, walk on your tip toes, not on your heel. There's no graceful way to explain the head injury when you slip and fall in that state.

My knitting was on a bit of hiatus this weekend in order to plow through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I was so worried about having the ending spoiled that I did almost nothing but read. I didn't watch TV, go on line or listen to the radio (except for Car Talk, which was a rerun). I did take time out for the Harry Potter party at the library. And for my friend's party celebrating the 6th anniversary of her 29th birthday.

On Sunday I did take a reading break to wind up some yarn (using the Tinkertoy swift that Geek boy hunted down for me back around Valentine's Day...some women get jewelry, some get Tinkertoys),



split it into two balls,


and make my first attempt at dyeing my own yarn.


The yarn is Knit Picks Color Your Own, half dyed with pink lemonade and half with ice blue raspberry lemonade Kool-Aid. This will become a pair of footies for my cousin who is expecting her first baby in October. She and her husband have decided not to find out whether the baby is a boy or a girl, so, for the hospital, a pink sock and a blue sock.

I bought this yarn a few years ago, but never got around to doing anything with it. And when I thought about making the socks for my cousin, I was torn, because I didn't want to go buy new yarn. Then I remembered, I had dyeable yarn in my stash. I used the tutorial on Knitty. What fun! Although it did disturb Geek Boy a bit when he came down for dinner, which was salmon coated with creole mustard, and found pink and blue bowls of yarn in front of the microwave. It was almost as disconcerting to him as when he found mohair chilling in the freezer.

As for Harry Potter (no spoilers here, I promise), I finished Monday morning. On the whole, I was impressed with how Rowling pulled everything together. I'm sad that it's over, but glad I went along for the ride.

Next...how I fail to think like a Blogger until after the fact.

Weekend Fun

Lots of fun stuff this weekend.

Friday

Geek Boy and I escaped from work early with the intention of taking part in Friday the Fikenteenth at the Grey Lodge. We had gone years ago, before the Grey Lodge was so firmly established as a beer bar. It's been a really long time, apparently, because the crowd was out on the sidewalk. When we turned the corner and saw the crowd, we decided to go with Plan B. (Geek Boy and I do not do crowds.)

So, we did a weird loop and got back on 95. Luckily, shore traffic in our direction wasn't that bad. And we got off downtown and headed in the direction of our favorite Blegian bar, Eulogy. However, Triumph Brew Pub had recently opened a new location just across the street. So, we decided to head to Triumph for appetizers and sampler, and then to Eulogy for dinner.

Triumph's calamari is great. Their beer, like the beer in New Hope, is okay. We first found Triumph at a brew fest a few years ago, where they had brought their Jolie Blonde. And that was fabulous. They have never had it on tap when we've been there, and the rest of their beers just don't live up to the hype in my mind. I will say this, though. This was the first restaurant I've been to that has a unisex restroom.

Eulogy, however, never disappoints. The waiter did not laugh at me when I told him I couldn't remember the real name of the beer I wanted, but it translated to "Mad Bitch." Dulle Teve. And it was just as wonderful as I remembered. Their food is great too.

Saturday

I have started a new Saturday morning routine. I sit on the front porch listen to Car Talk and knit. This is he most relaxing part of my weekend. And I've been getting lots of progress done on my Cable Ribbed Socks from Favorite Socks. This was last Saturday's sock

Fret likes to help

And here's where it is this week.



This is my second pair for the summer of socks. I'm not setting any records, but it's good progress for me. I'm just four rows away from turning the heel. Unfortunately, the color does not allow good pictures of the cables. I did start this using Grumperina's method of cabling without a needle, in keeping with my attempt to try something new with each pair of Summer of Socks socks. However, this cable is a little different, in that you don't knit the held stitches in the normal order, so the new technique did not save any time. But the next pair of cabled socks will definitely use it. It's not as scary as other techniques I've seen.

Our niece, Chickpea, turns four this week. So we had her birthday party yesterday. Her mom invested in a slip 'n' slide for the occasion. But four year olds don't really grasp the "running start to slide head first" concept. The girls very dantily walked through the spray of water. Except Chickpea. She ran, and often slipped to fall on her butt at the end. It was very fun to watch.

Meanwhile, our nephew Geek Boy, Jr. (because he looks like a little version of his uncle) just gets cuter every time we see him. His new thing is the "boy growl." Everything he does is accompanied by a gutteral roar. I nearly fell over laughing while he carried his little bike up a hill and grunted with every step.

After the party we headed to Franklin Fountain for an ice cream party with some friends. I'm not a big ice cream person, so I didn't have anything, but, oh my goodness, the concoctions are amazing. If you're in the Philadelphia area and want a good ice cream experience, head down to Market Street.
Sunday

Today is the big day. We're going to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I can't wait. It's all leading up to next Saturday.

Meanwhile, I've started listening to The Book Thief. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite books of all times. The writing is just incredible. I find myself rewinding to listen to paragraphs over and over. When he describes the foster father and "the sheer brute force of his gentleness," I fell in love. Ive only just started, and hope that the author sustains this beauty through the end. This is also one of those books that I think is enhanced by listening to it. The narrator, Allan Corduner, brings the whole thing to life.

One Pair Down...More to Go

So, my first Summer of Socks socks are done and have been delivered to their recipient. This is the quickest pair of socks I have knit.

Started: 6/21/07
Finished: 7/2/07
Yarn: Zen String Serendipity in colorway Ben
Pattern: Wendy's generic toe-up socks

Not only did I finish these in less than two weeks, I also knit other stuff during the same time (the Pea Pod hat for The Trendy One's new baby...pictures of that when the whole new baby package is finished).

And I took Bendy out on the town.

Posing with my bouquet at my sister's wedding. I did not knit during the reception, although somewhere there is a picture of me knitting while we were all getting our hair done. If you want to get strange looks from your dearest friends, pull out a sock in progress at a wedding where you're the matron of honor and pose it for a picture.

Since one of my goals for doing Summer of Socks is to try new techniques, I cast on my second pair. I used Judy's magic cast-on, and cast on two at once on one circular needle. I love the cast on. My problem when doing toe-up socks is that I always seem to lose one stitch when I take out the crochet chain. And then there's closing up the holes. This way avoids all of those issues. However, I found the two-at-once-on-one-circ method too fiddly for me. It probably didn't help that the pattern I was using had lots of M1s and SSKs, and there's a reason Grumperina uses the term "Stubbi Bluntos. "

So, tonight I ripped and rewound the yarn. I love this yarn. It's Sundara's sock yarn. And I really want this to become something. I have now cast on for Cable Rib Socks from Favorite Socks.

But before I ripped out, Santa did some posing with the ill-fated two-at-once socks.

Diving In

So, the summer of socks has begun. And I've discovered that sport weight sock yarn moves fast. Thursday morning I had a meeting first thing. So, I didn't go into work first. That gave me an extra 45 minutes in the morning. I settled into the couch, put on MSNBC and grabbed some sock yarn.

The appeal of the Summer of Socks is that I have so much sock yarn, and yet I rarely make time to make socks. There's always something else more pressing to be made. For instance,
my best friend, The Trendy One, and her husband just adopted a little boy. So, here's a baby to knit for that came with no warning. (None for them either, they got the call Thursday as the birth mother was in labor, and brought him home on Saturday.) This little guys is so special to his new parents that he needs some extra special knits. And then there's my cousin's baby who is due in October. I thought I had plenty of time to get some projects together for him or her, but now my cousin and her husband are being transferred to London in August, and my aunt wants to have the shower before they leave. And without a commute on public transit or anything resembling a real lunch hour, socks get left in the "eventually" pile.

Now, I have no delusions that I will even come close to having the highest sock count (especially not with Wendy as a co-participant). But, I have a personal goal of getting at least a few socks stored up for winter.

My first pair, I'm calling Bendy:

Yarn: Zen String sport weight in the "Ben" colorway
Pattern: Wendy's generic toe-up sock pattern
(Wendy + Ben = Bendy...I'm quite the clever one, aren't I?)

I bought this yarn shortly after Wendy posted about it. I ordered directly from Angelina, and the service was fabulous (as are the stitch markers). The socks are intended as a belated birthday present for my sister-in-law, whose son is the cutest boy in the world...named Ben.

I'm just doing these in plain stockinette stitch. I tend to prefer socks with stitch patterns; it makes it easier to make sure they come out even. But the color seemed to just want to speak for itself.

Knitting socks in sport weight just flies! I can't believe how much I've accomplished in just a few days. I think it's a definite possibility that I will have these done in time for the 4th of July picnic with Geek Boy's family.

Do you like the Santa? I think he's going to be the sock model for the summer. Geek Boy has a thing for animatronic Christmas decorations. So, a few years ago, my folks got him this Santa. We didn't want to haul him up and down from the attic every year. To avoid this, we just decided to we would deck him out in seasonally appropriate wear. Each summer he sports a different Hawaiian shirt. This year he's wearing the "hops" pattern, when Geek Boy isn't wearing it. The Shrek ears are in honor of the fact that we just went with The Sisters (my cousins and sister) to see Shrek the Third, a tradition that continues despite the fact that"the kids" are now in their twenties.