Friday the 13th

Scheherazade, finished!

Dear Blog-

Did you ever have one of those days? This morning I got up at the butt-crack of dawn to ride into work with DH so that I could get the car to go to work myself later in the morning. Now let me just tell you, this has not been a good year for us financially. On New Year's weekend my husband went home sick from the Farmer's Market with his blood sugar out of whack (he is a diabetic). We were dropped from the Farmer's Market because of that. The man (term used VERY generously, not entirely certain he possesses a human heart) who runs the market told my husband that he didn't believe he was sick, that someone told him Graham was complaining of a back ache. Well, he may have done, after all, we find out, he has bilateral kidney stones. About a month later he was in the hospital having MORE cardiac stents put in, to go with the ones he had done last Memorial Day weekend. So yes, my husband wasn't feeling well that day. As a result, our income was cut by a third, instantly, on someone's whim.

That's a pretty big bite out of the family wallet, let me tell you, and life has been really skinny for the last six months. We have tried our best to muddle through, and had a long talk on July 4th, concluding that we would turn off the home phone, cancel the cable tv, and find a smaller house to live in. I mean, we can pay our housing, pay our bills, pay down our debt from having to close our shop due to my ill health, buy our medicines for the month (he has cardiac issues, hypertension, is a diabetic and has sleep apnea, I have asthma and hypertension, plus electrolyte issues), and then we have about $200 for the rest of the month to buy food & gas. A couple of months ago his car decided to break it's water pump, and has been sitting in the carport since, waiting for us to have extra money. Life is tight here at Casa Sorenson.

So, picture us: here we are on our way into DH's work this morning, and suddenly the car starts overheating. We manage to pull into an AutoZone parking lot about a half mile from his work, and open the hood to a great puff of steam. Yes, our radiator is shot, beyond repair. We bought radiator sealant and borrowed a bucket full of water, and got DH to work. Then I slowly drove home, praying all the while and with one eye on the temperature gauge, and just managed to baby the car into the driveway. AAA towed it to the repair station, and I got a call about an hour later with the estimate - $537.20. We don't have a spare $537.20. It sounds pathetic, I know. Believe me, I know. But that is the reality of it.

I eat breakfast, and go to put the margarine from my toast back in the fridge, and the fridge shelf collapsed. Go down the hall to take a shower, and in my shower stall is a giant sewer roach. We borrowed my Dad's truck so that we could get parts for DH to repair the car, and I won't even go into that story. But, as I get into the car so that we can go to one of those loan shark shops to borrow money to buy car parts, my skirt rips as I slide across the seat. I only have two skirts that fit me right now that can be worn in public. This was one of them.

Oh, did I tell you that when we got to the library to return our books and pick up the reserve books they were holding for me, we found out that the library closes two hours earlier on Fridays?

All I can say is that I have had far better days than this, and look forward to far better days coming round again.

But... I finished Schehrazade last night and blocked it. Isn't it gorgeous? It is now wrapped up for Xmas and tucked away.

I'm going to go make myself some tea, knit, and eat chocolate. Early to bed tonite, so that this day is done that much sooner.

Sigh,
Lynda

Will Write For Chocolate

Scheherazade, thiiiiiis close

Dear Blog-

Look! Look! I'm almost finished with the Scheherazade Stole! Last night I finished the final chart and began the edging. With a little knitting break before breakfast I now have two of the seven repeats completed for the final edge. Now how cool is that, I ask you? Ok, let's go back up to the top of the page and admire it for a bit... Isn't blocking amazing? The second half looks like something you'd yell at the cat for leaving behind the sofa. But impale it with sharp wires, pin it to a towel while stretching it mercilessly, spritz it with a little water and look what happens. Voila! You have lace!

Of course you know that I think that Melanie Gibbons is the dog's bullocks. And I mean that in the nicest way. (Yes, you, too, Yarn Harlot, I was just crowing over for once not being the last dork to find something or to figure something out. I love you, really. Please call off your goons. They are scaring the neighbors.) Not only does she design gorgeous stoles, but she is just a darned nice person, to boot. When I was working on getting my patterns into downloadable form so that I could sell them online, Melanie was incredibly helpful and patient with my several emails, pointing me in the right direction to payloadz. The LYSO where I work tells me that Melanie has been into the shop and that she is just as sweet in person as you would expect her to be. So it is wonderful to see the MS3 becoming a world-wide phenom, and to find that she has even been interviewed by USA Today! You rock, Melanie! Wave those needles over your head!

And I had promised myself that I wouldn't start any new projects while knitting the MS3, I was going to finish any UFOs first that happened to be languishing about in various baskets next to assorted seating, all over the house. And only then - when those were all finished - would I think about new projects. (Husband, reading this from the next room, shouts a loud, HA!) I mean, what better opportunity? Knit the next clue of MS3 on the weekend, then work during the week on clearing up my UFOs. Maybe, since I already have the jump on Christmas knitting, I should start my next Xmas project! Have one going all the time! Wrap them as I go! Heck, I'd be done before you know it. And then I could sit back and be smug. Or smugger, really. Yes, well, we all know what that particular road to hell is paved with.

The problem, really is my sister. Alright, maybe it started elsewhere. On a day that I was hunting through various craft and bookstores for the much desired Craft magazine. (We'll talk about books later.) Two people in two different shops went wild for my Summer Ivy bag, and I decided, on thinking about it later, that I really needed to start my own etsy store. But I was having a hard time deciding what to put there, thinking first that I would make a whole bunch of creative versions of my sock project bag, and then sell those. And I may do that yet. Yet what I really wanted was to come up with a basic bag pattern that I could do in a million different ways, each one unique and magically delicious. But I didn't yet know what that shape might be. Then it hit me yesterday, exactly what I need: the shape, the design, everything. Now I can't wait to make the first one. I can already see it. But, the problem is my sister. If she hadn't emailed me and asked if I had anything in my etsy store yet, I would still be living a tranquil life where I thought blissful thoughts of Xmas knitting that I would have finished in September, all wrapped and tagged and stored away neatly on a closet shelf, just like Martha Stewart. Note to self: Call lawyers in the morning, cut sister out of will. Leave all yarn to a home for wayward cats.

So now I must rave about new books - Craft magazine, which I love, love, love! I want the two back editions. I want a subscription. I told the above-mentioned sister that say the word 'craft' around me and I picture plant-holders made out of pop-sickle sticks, or those Xmas decorations that were made of hundreds of clear plastic medicine cups with their edges dipped in white glue and then glitter, and pinned all over a big styrofoam ball with a ribbon hanger at the top. Those kind of thoughts can give one hives. This magazine is not about that. At all. Think about artists - both formal and folk - and the craft of making their art. Lots of amazing ideas and how-to's. Then you get the idea.

The new Interweave Felting magazine. Great articles. The Lock Nest hat is pretty scary, but there you go.

And Nicky Epstien, who is one of my Knitting Goddesses, has a new book out - Knitting Never Felt Better. You need this book. Trust me. She is very inspirational, again.

Well, I can't write about knitting and do it at the same time. So off I go...

OH! Take a moment, if you would, and go check out the blog I am doing for the LYS where I teach, Kiwi Knits. Thanks!

Lynda

The Sherman Heel

Dear Blog

Sing it with me!
I hate Tucson in the summer!
I hate Tucson in the fall,
I like Tucson in the winter, when it drizzles,
I hate Tucson in the summer, when it sizzles.

I hate Tucson, oh why, oh why, am I in Tucson?

Yes, Blog, summer has arrived with a vengeance these past few weeks. Yesterday was the 4th, and it was predicted to be so hot (113 degrees) that no one wanted to go anywhere or do anything. At 9 p.m., as we were standing in the backyard looking out over the city to watch the fireworks, a hot wind was blowing and it was nasty out there! I finally came back inside to our lovely air-conditioning and watched them through the window. I must have done something awful in my last life to have to live in hell like this. The bright spot on our horizon is that we should have the monsoon rains starting in the next few days, and that makes a big difference in our climate. The afternoon storms can be pretty violent, with tornados, micro-bursts, hail, lightening-caused wildfires, tarantulas, etc., but at the same time, they can drop the temps by about 25 degrees in half an hour. If I don't post here for a while it will be because I was arrested for dancing naked out in the backyard during the first rain that we have seen in months. Please donate to any efforts to raise bail for me. Although I cannot in all truth and honesty promise that I would never do it again. Much more of this hellish heat and I will not be held accountable or responsible for my actions. Just so you know.

So let's talk about knitting, because that will soothe us, won't it? Yes it will!

THE SHERMAN HEEL, SIMPLIFIED

We all like to talk about our favorite spot for knitting in the house. It may be your comfy couch, it may be a chair that is specially purchased and dubbed 'The Knitting Chair' and meant to be sat in by no other, surrounded on all sides by half-full baskets containing half-finished projects. You may even be lucky enough to have a Knitting Room, for God's sake! But let's face it, sooner or later, we all find ourselves having to knit in front of the computer. And that is what I found myself doing last week.

There has been a lot of chat on some of the knitting lists lately about the Sherman Heel. So I had to go investigate. I always keep my Sock-Project Bag on a peg by the door, ready and waiting for me whenever I know I have to go endure a period of pointless waiting in a setting over which I have no control. Like the Dr.'s office, for example. If I can be there on time, if I could run a career of appointments for twenty years pretty much ALWAYS on time, how is it that someone who has so much more education than I do that they feel they are entitled to condescend to me, cannot be competent enough to keep to a schedule? Can someone explain this to me? (Ok, Lynda, breathe deep, think thoughts of winter and yarn.) Phew! Ok, so I keep that little bag by the door to grab and take with me, and I always have a sock going that only gets worked on on those occasions. And I find that I can get quite a bit done without giving it much thought.

So once I get my pattern figured out and have cast on, I take that little puppy along and work on it til the leg is finished. Then I'll make a point of working the heel at home where I can lay out the heel pattern before me, and after the heel is turned it goes back into the bag for working the foot when I next need it. I was at the heel-working point with my current sock, and so I thought I would give the Sherman Heel a go. Now, you can google for Sherman Heel, as I did, and find lots of references to complicated explanations of how to do a Sherman Heel. Or you can stay here with me, and I'll lay it out for you in a few easy-peasy steps. Your choice. Still here? Ok.

You might be asking yourself, who is the Sherman Heel when he is at home? And that is a good question, really. The vague but fairly accurate answer is that the Sherman Heel is a method of working a short-row heel that is named for the inventor's father, Sherman, because he apparently was a clever and practical guy. I think.

The beauty of the Sherman Heel is that it is a short-row heel worked with only two wrapped stitches, one on either side, and no holes! So grab your sock and let's dive in. What? You don't know how to do short rows? Oh, yes you do! You've been doing them for years. You know all those times you have put your knitting down in the middle of the row, and when you picked it up again, you discovered 6 inches later that you started off in the wrong direction mid-row? You did a short row, albeit unintentional. My sister used to be the Queen of Inadvertent Short Rows. Oh, hi, Sis!

Set-up:

1- At the bottom of your sock leg, work stockinette stitch rows that are equal in number to 1/10th of your cast-on sts. I have 64 sts on my needle, so I knit 6 Stockinette stitch rows.

2- Divide your total number of sts in half, must be an even number - for me this is 32. These are your heel sts. Plus a wrapped stitch on either side, that remain instep stitches, really. At the end of your last Ss row, knit 1/4 of your total sts (half your heel sts) past your beginning-of-round marker, then wrap your next st and turn. For me, I knit 16 sts past my marker, wrapped the next st, and turned.

3- Slip the first st on your needle, purl to 1/4 of your total cast-on sts past your marker again, wrap your next st, and turn. On my sock, it was Sl 1, P 15, slip my marker, p 16 (total of p 31), w&t.

4- Now, ignore those wrapped stitches as you work the heel, you won't need them again until the very end. Don't count them in the following directions, they magically go back to being instep sts now. Poof!

Heel, Part One:

1- Sl 1, Knit to one stitch before the slipped st that began the previous row, turn. For me this was- Sl 1, K 30, turn.

2- Sl 1, Purl to one stitch before the slipped st that began the previous row, turn. On my socks this was Sl 1, P 29, turn.

3- Repeat the two previous rows, working one less st on each row, until you arrive at your magic turning number, which is 1/5th of your original cast-on number, and again, it must be an even number. For me this is 12 - 6 sts on either side of my marker. End ready to begin a purl row. Your last (knit) row is sometimes called the pivot row.

Now you can do this whole process the way I did the first time - by moving those ignored sts at the end of each row over to a spare dpn. This helps for beginners to understand which sts you can still play with, and which are out of bounds for the moment. After you have worked the heel once, you can probably leave those sts on your working needles, understanding which are the ones to ignore til the next stage. So here I have 10 slipped sts held on the needle to the left, 6 sts remaining on my center needle, and 10 slipped sts held on the needle on the right.

Knitting at the computer

My Sherman Heel at the End of Part One

Heel, Part Two:

Now you are ready to turn the corner and work back in the other direction, picking up the slipped sts that you have saved, one at a time. This process uses a technique I have not seen before for short-rows (ok, maybe for Japanese short rows) called the encroachment. Don't be frightened by the word, this is easy to do. To work a knit encroachment (ke): With the tip of your right needle, pick up the purl bump below the next st on your left needle. Lift this purl bump up onto the needle next to its stitch. Knit the two together through the back of the loop (tbl). To work a purl encroachment (pe): With the tip of your right needle, pick up the purl bump below the next st on your left needle. Lift this purl bump onto your left needle, right next to its stitch. Purl the two together.

1- Sl 1, purl to last stitch before the slipped stitch that began the previous row. Slip this last st, and work a pe on the next stitch. Turn. For me this was: Sl 1, p10, sl 1, pe.

2- Sl 1, knit to last stitch before the slipped stitch that was worked at the beginning of the previous row. Slip this last st, and work a ke on the next stitch. Turn. On my sock this was: Sl 1, k 11, sl 1, ke.

Continue in this manner - slipping the first stitch of every row, working across to just before the first st slipped in the previous row, slipping that stitch, and working an encroachment in the next stitch - until you have worked in all of your previously slipped sts from Part One ending after a knit row. Turn.

3- Sl 1, purl across to wrapped st from set up, lift the wrap up onto your needle, and purl it together with its stitch, much like working a pe, but with the wrap rather than with the purl bump. Turn.

4- Knit across to your second wrapped stitch, and lift the wrap up onto your left needle, knit it and the stitch tbl.

You are done! Continue by working across your instep sts and go on your merry way, working the foot of your sock. You can look for extra info at the two sites that I parsed out to condense into the above - here, and here.

My Completed Sherman Heel


Mystery Stole 3

I'm sure by now that you can't help remembering that we got the first clue in the MS3 a week ago tomorrow, so in 24 hours, and along with about 4500 other people from all over the world I'll be working on Clue 2. Of course you remember, this has been haunting your dreams, and has been the first thing you think of when you awakened for the last month or so.

Obviously the entire point of this, aside from the whole 'making a gorgeous lace stole' thing, is that it is a MYSTERY! We have absolutely no idea what it will look like when finished, although considering Melanie's previous patterns, we know it will be gorgeous. We don't know what the theme is. And it is driving everyone on the list crazy. They are guessing right and left. It is like watching one of those scenes in a Three Stooges movie, where they are all running in circles like maniacs, babbling, bumping into each other and just generally not knowing where they are going. Only multiplied by 1500. Don't get me wrong, they all seem like perfectly nice people, but I don't think half of them have read what few and tiny crumbs of hints that Melanie has so far tossed out regarding the theme.

Alright, I have made two guesses myself, Odile and Odette from Swan Lake, and Persephone. But I'm preserving my dignity and stopping there, I swear it!

Below are photos of my finished Clue 1 blocking, after blocking, and a detail with beads.

Finished Clue 1 blocking

Finished Clue 1 after blocking

Finished Clue 1 detail with beads

No, I have no earthly idea what the darned thing will be. Mystery.

And finally, the other project I worked on last week, a pair of felted baby booties. Ok, they were supposed to be a pair of felted baby booties. The pattern is from the Interweave Knits website, and I admit I am too lazy to look for the link right now. It is written to be worked with Paton's Classic Merino on size US 2 needles. Yes, folks, that is correct. Knitting for felting on a size 2 needle. But unlike you, I had to actually knit the danged things just to prove that knitting done on size 2 needles at a gauge of something like 5.5 sts/in just doesn't felt. Take a look...

pre-felt

post felt

Not a lot of difference, except for maybe a bit more fuzziness. Ah, well.

I had better close this now. One doesn't wake up in the morning saying, You know, today I think I will spend my entire day, off and on, posting about the Sherman Heel. Cause if you did say that, you would immediately recognize the pure insanity of planning such a day, and roll over and go back to sleep.

Which means it must be time for a nap.

Lynda

P.S. I have set up my own etsy shop. Now I need to put something in it!