Socks

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A bad case of startitis

Startitis is a recognised condition in knitters (and other people like that) who start loads of projects all at once. I had some vouchers for Christmas and I am really itching to make a nice brown cardi with some wool that has been out of stock since the middle of December so instead this week I have started a crocheted goblin, started a different jumper that isn’t a brown cardi, finished a goblin and I still have two pairs of socks on the needles from about October.

Here is the goblin. The pattern says his name is George and normally I like thinking of my own names for things but he does look like a George to me. He is going to play merry havoc with my obsessively alphabetical books when I am not looking. I really like his belly button and his curly ears. What a strange thing to say…

The jumper is a top down one (top down jumpers are great because you can try them on as you go.) called Kjerstin (which is a free pattern). 

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And here are the socks looking thoroughly unfinished:

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I’m supposed to be sanding the skirting boards, can you tell?

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Plum soup, roast plum, steamed plum, braised plum in plum sauce, plum in the basket with sauted plums, plum meringue pie, plum sorbet…

We have plums.

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So far we have eaten loads of them just as they are, the caterpillars have eaten a fair proportion too, I have made at least ten pounds of plum jam, a huge plum crumble and a large soggy plum cake. And the tree still looks like this. And that is only one side of it. If anybody would like a bag a of plums and a cup of tea just invite yourself round so I can inflict some on you too.

I have been learning to take deliberately blurry pictures so I can show you this without giving too much away:

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That’s my excuse anyway. It’s the secret baby knitting for my friend. I am nearly halfway through it which means I have to work out how to make the colours match going the other way soon. I don’t know whether they will like it but I love the colours, I’m really enjoying knitting it, I’ve got a thing for rainbow colours and the wool is gorgeous. The sheepy smell is starting to wear off now too which is good, either that or I’ve got immune to it. I would be getting on quicker with it except I keep stopping to make other things in between. I did finally finish these socks which I began in March.

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The single best thing that I am finally getting better at after twelve years of knitting is unravelling (although I still haven’t worked out how to get a decent picture of my own socks). I restarted these at least twice and had to do various bits of serious tinking (to tink is to knit backwards i.e. unknit, if you haven’t come across that word before) and drop various sections of stitches to fix cables that were the wrong way round but the result is socks that fit me properly. I did get past the heel at one point being in complete denial that they were too small before I caved in and ripped them back but I did it rather than wear them wrong so that is definitely progress. The next thing I need to learn is that stripy wool doesn’t really show off cool cables properly. The pattern is Circinus (except I worked out how to do it backwards so I could make them from the toe up) it has loads of little twisty cables that made me think of waves on a beach and the colour of the wool made me think of the sea which is why I put them together.

Right. Back to the secret knitting. Although I have just seen this on Ravelry. Oooh!

In which things are growing
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In which things are growing

I love this time of year when everything is in bud and starting to grow and you can see all the potential of what will be (slugs and hose pipe bans permitting).

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It still amazes me every year that I poke these little, brown, dead looking things into some mud and then more or less neglect them for a few weeks and they turn into plants and flowers and vegetables all by themselves. I have never understood about being green fingered – plants want to grow and they don’t take much encouragement.

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Even our magnolia twig which has been in four or five years has decided to produce one single solitary flower this year:IMG_0227

And the knitting is growing too, jumper number two has reached the interesting bit, it’s not so easy to photograph because the are 232 stitches crammed on the needle so I can’t spread it flat very well but you get the idea.

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I tried joining the armpits with a three needle cast off this time. I’ve used kitchener stitch before which makes it lovely and smooth underneath but you get a whopping great hole at either end of the seam which has to be sewn up anyway and I never get it very tidy, (I’m not sure why it bugs me because who walks around examining people’s armpits, but it does) so this time I cast off the two lots of stitches together at the point that I joined the sleeve which gave a much smaller gap at the end of the seam and I could just pick up an extra stitch to fill it and then lose it again in the row above, much tidier, I think.

Also I appear to have accidentally cast on another pair of socks, (this is getting to be a habit!) which were much longer but the cumulative irritation of about three things wrong with them was building to the point where I ripped them back to the start of the patterned section and began again from there. They are behaving much better this time round (so far) .IMG_0229