december

December brought a number of things.

things got knit

Things I've knit since the Paris trip. At least, the things that I both knit and photographed... Actually, some were knit prior to Paris, but got photographed after. And some things have been knit without being photographed.

Links under each photo to more pictures and description of each project.

socks

coin lace stole

small towel

sweet pea socks

revontuli

big tease socks

mad color weave socks

julissa sweater

cadence socks

catkin shawl

elementary watson socks

artichoke socks

soleil tank top

leventry shawl

green things

1.  It takes a remarkable amount of dirt to fill a pot.

bricks

I have joined a Ravelry sock knitting group.  Every two months, they have a "knit-along" - where people choose a pattern based on a theme, and attempt to complete a pair of socks in that pattern within the specified time frame.

one of those knitters

It appears that I have become one of those knitters.

As best as I can tell, there are more or less three kinds of knitters.  I started out as the first, was comfortably one of the second, but seem to have become one of the third.

adding colour to the city

Alerted to what might be a memorable event by someone on Ravelry, G and I hied off to the Place de la Trinité this afternoon.

As part of the festivities for the Toulouse Carnival, a group of intrepid sewers and others decorated the square with large quantities of fabric.

points

A while ago, I made a beautiful purple shawl (a couple photos in this post). I've been wearing it a lot as a scarf, just kind of bunched up (which doesn't show off the lace well, but it's warm, if a touch scratchy). I've been thinking, pretty much from when I first blocked the shawl, that I should have blocked it so there were double the number of points - but when I looked at the photos provided with the pattern, only the points below the hearts (though they look like tulips to me) were pointy. So that's how I blocked it. However, it really looked to me like there was enough fabric to bring down intermediate points as well.

public knitting

Knitting in public, it turns out, is a variable thing. Most of the times I've knit in public have gone apparently unnoticed. Today, while waiting for my doctor's appointment and later' for my blood draw, I had at least four or five people ask about it or conment on it. I got to hear about makinh afghans (blankets), sweaters, sewing projects, and reminiscences of relatives working needlecrafts. It certainly made the 2-3 hours I spent waiting pass much quicker!

catchup

Well.  Since I procrastinated so hard on finishing the road trip blogs, I more or less failed to make any new posts between then and now.  Stuff has happened.  Knitting.  Thanksgiving.  Christmas.   New Year's.  Sending my cats to France.  I think this is where I post a whole bunch of pictures and pretend that I wrote some fun, interesting posts.

tasty crepes

I took another trip down into Arcata today, and among other things, ate some very tasty crepes. I got to sit at the counter of Renata's Creperie, where I could watch them making the crepes. The Crepe Normandy was yummy tastiness, and the dessert crepe, involving pears and blackberries and strawberries was also fantastic. Mmmmmm.

mmmm gyoza

I started the shawl last night, and worked a fair bit on it today.  It starts in the middle, and works out in a half-circle from there.  The lace pattern is not too difficult and the shawl is starting to take shape.  Yay.

We made gyoza today.  Gyoza are so much more fun to make when one has access to a food processor.  The finer you chop the various ingredients, the better they are.  This is a somewhat slow and tedious process when using a knife and a cutting board, but it's not bad using a food processor.  Then comes the wrapping - which is also a bit slow, but more fun if there's a movie and other people to help.  We used square wonton wrappers instead of round gyoza wrappers... one must make do with what's available :)  And then we cooked them, and then we ate them.  There was much tastiness, and it turns out that 1 1/2 year old boys also like them.  Yay.

cable hat

I bought more yarn at Knitter's Lane.  I seem to have been doing that a lot.  This is a light purple brushed suri fingering weight yarn... I saw it and wanted it, and decided I was going to make a shawl.  It's fuzzy and soft.  Which is sort of the point of brushed suri yarn.  It turns out that suri is a breed of alpaca that has a finer hair than regular alpacas.

We got home and made my first hat ever using a super soft alpaca yarn from yesterday's shopping trip.  Cables are fun.  And hats, it turns out, are also fun.

cotton musings

I have been knitting an inordinate number of dishcloths recently. This means that periodically, I'll do pictures of too many dishcloths :-) Boring post, but hey, it gives me something to put here :P

monkeying around

A few days ago, I finished my Monkey Socks.  They were quite fun to make, and I rather like the way the colors worked out.  These happen to be the socks I wore while sailing - and while my feet and legs got damp, my feet were never cold, so I consider them to be a triumph.  These are the same socks I was working on in the post about heels.

Perry helped.

blocks and turns

Tube pre-turn (i.e., the leg of the sock)

The heel turn is one of the niftiest parts of a sock.

The outside of the heel turn

A sock is essentially two tubes that go around a corner with one end closed off.  The tricky part, when knitting a sock, is how to get around that corner.

the new purple sock

Well. I have been encouraged to start a blog about my newest hobby, knitting. I am currently working on a pair of purple socks, and since I like purple, and I like making socks (except for the fact that one has to make TWO matching socks...), I figured that was a good place to start.