Japan Day 13 (July 9): Parasites, Chinese food, & Fujisan, Oh My!

The Yoda Building- seen on our travels today :)

We slept in a bit this morning, thanks to moving Brendan’s air bed into the bedroom we’re in, since the living room where he slept the first night has no curtains at all, & the sun rises these days at 4:30 am... After an absolutely decadent breakfast of Starbucks Via instant coffee (with soy milk), baumkuchen, & a belgian waffle pastry from the conbini, we headed out around 10:30 for the Meguro area of Tokyo. The main attraction of Meguro is something Charlie has been dying to see since we first came to Japan 4 years ago- the Meguro Parasitological Museum! All of the other times we’ve been in Tokyo we just weren’t staying in the right part of town to get there easily, but it happened to be just about 4 subway stops away from our nearby Shiba Koen station. Whee! Brendan & I were not interested in the parasitological museum (wonder why...) but we thought we might stop by a nearby shrine to hang out & wait for Charlie. 

Tein National Art Museum

There was another place that we’d wanted to visit on the way to the museum, the Teien National Art Museum, which is housed in a 1930’s era, Art Deco mansion of one of the Meiji -era princes. It wasn’t too hard to find, after getting off the subway, although it was very hot & sunny in Tokyo today, so the walking was tougher than usual. When we got to the Teien, it was unexpectedly closed :( Charlie looked later on the internet & discovered that they are in the middle of installing a new exhibition, so the closing wasn’t scheduled. We paid to visit the garden though & Charlie got some nice pictures of the house, so it was worth stopping by.

By now we’d been out in the hot sun for over half an hour, & after 10 more minutes walking toward the museum I was wiped out. We were close to the Meguro subway station, so Brendan & I decided to head home & look for some lunch on the way, while Charlie continued his pilgrimage :)

 My head was kind of fuzzy, & the very easy to follow signs became completely unhelpful once we got through the train gates, but I asked for directions & we finally found ourselves in the right place. We waited about 10 minutes for the right train & it was just another 10 minutes & we were out of the subway & looking for lunch at a nearby conbini. I found a tuna onigiri & pickles (Japanese ones are salty rather than vinegary, almost like a salad).

 Brendan found zaru soba (cold noodles that you dip in cold broth- yummy & summery). We went home & ate, & then just hung out & rested. 

Brendan's shirt says "Shoyu is Japanese Soul" & it gets him interesting looks from folks here...

Charlie came home & have his own conbini lunch about an hour later, very happy with his museum visit. He said the place was small, started by a physician about 100 years ago, & we didn’t let him go into any detail about the exhibits :) We all hung out & rested for the rest of the afternoon- played games, read our new manga, & I finished the socks I started the day before we left home (my airplane knitting project).

 Around 5:00 we headed out again to walk around our neighbourhood & visit the Zoujouji temple again to buy omamori. 

This tree, at the Zoujouji, was planted by Ulysses S. Grant in 1879!

We got there too late to buy omamori but in time to attend the last bit of the evening service. The chanting & incense were very beautiful & we felt really fortunate to have been there in time for it. Afterward, we walked around in search of dinner & found a Chinese place that looked like it had something everyone could eat. It did! It was mega-yummy & Brendan nearly licked his plate, he enjoyed his veggie dish so much. Charlie had fried scallops & I had a noodle soup with shrimp & veggies. 

(After taking a picture of my meal, Charlie commented that my blog should be renamed “Eating our way across Japan...). On the way home from the restaurant we hit the conbini for some bread so we can have toast & Momo’s home-made marmalade for breakfast tomorrow. The Tokyo Tower was all lit up & looked so pretty...

As we were riding up the elevator to our apartment, we looked out the window & saw what looked like an interesting cloud formation behind some tall buildings in the distance... then realised it wasn’t a cloud formation. It was Mt. Fuji!!! In 3 visits to Japan, this was the first time we’d seen Fuji-san with our own eyes. Serendipity, for sure. 

That lump in the middle is not a cloud! 

When we got back to the apartment there was an email from Momo with our meeting place for tomorrow’s adventure- we’re going to a kimono flea market at a temple near the Marunouchi area of Tokyo. Charlie & Brendan will probably visit a couple of art museums while we shop, then we’ll meet for lunch. I am psyched!

Some beginnings...

Well, I've had a lot of ideas lately, & they've added up to starting three different projects, but as my crafting time is divided between these three projects, I have no idea when they'll be done! (Not to mention that there's a new set of Guild Wars over at Ravelry's Ankh-Morpork Knitter's Guild...) So I thought I'd share the works in progress.

At top is my lately-much-used basket of KnitPicks Swish DK superwash wool. I was inspired by Alice's Do You Dare to Wear Granny Square post to start my own granny square cowl. I decided to use her Grandala Square instead of a regular granny, though, extending it a bit to be the right size. (On a side note, my 9th-grader son has been studying geometry in school & decided to work-out the area of the whole Grandala, & then the areas of the circle in the middle & the square on the outside, just for fun. I wish I could do that...) I made green, blue, & purple squares, but have decided to wait on the rest (Alice used 7 squares for her cowl) until an order of additional colours of yarn comes in.

Also in the basket are one completed & one half-finished Bunny Nugget, which I found from following a link on Alice's blog to this blog.

These bunny nuggets are so cute, I just had to start making a rainbow of them for myself!

I did change the pattern, which has you make it on 3 double-pointed needles, bind-off the top of the head, knit the ears separately, then sew them on. I am a relentless fusser, & prefer to knit as much all at once as I can, rather than sew things up. So here's the orange one with the first ear still on the needle. First I made it on 2 circular needles because I prefer this technique (I used size 1 needles because I knit very loosely & this pattern calls for a firm gauge). I basically stopped where she has you bind-off, knit the first 3 stitches of the next round, put them & the last 3 from the other needle on a piece of yarn (you can see it there), do a 3-needle bind-off on the middle stitches, fudge the last bind-off so there are 3 stitches remaining on each needle, then continue around on 6 stitches for 15 rounds. After finishing the first ear, I pick up the 3 on each side on the 2 circular needles, plus one along the bound-off edge (which I knit together with the first stitch in the round) & knit the second ear the same.
Then I added button eyes,embroidered the nose, made the pom-pom tail, stuffed it, & sewed an overcast seam on the bottom. The bunny sits up because of the tail. I think I'll make the eyes with different buttons, so they have some personality :)

The third project is my next pair of lacy socks!

I am very psyched about these. I plugged the Vine Lace pattern from Barbara Walker's 2nd pattern treasury into my basic sock template (mentioned here) & I really like how it's coming out. One thing I'm discovering is how difficult it is to photograph lace knitting. When I got close (to see the pattern) with my flash camera, the flash made the picture washed-out, so I tried to use my iphone camera, but it's kind of dark. I'll keep experimenting, because this lace is so pretty! I'm using KnitPicks Stroll Tonal sock wool in Gypsy (which is on sale right now!) & I just really like it.

So much to do. I'll keep you posted as to my progress :) 

Lacy Socks: My Own Design!

While I was recovering from my back surgery in January & February I rediscovered my love of knitting lacy socks (as detailed in this post), & was particularly intrigued by cookie a's lace sock designs. This inspired me to design my own lacy socks again (I was particularly into this back in the early 90's when I first began to teach knitting & began spinning my own yarns). So I worked my way through Barbara Walker's A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns and charted-out on graph paper any lace patterns that looked likely. Since I usually knit my socks on 2, size 0 circular needles, with 64 stitches around, for a gauge of ~6.5-7 stitches per inch (my foot is a pretty standard women's size 7), I was looking for anything with a repeat of less than 16 stitches.

One of the hurdles I face as a lace knitter is that I'm left-handed. I learned a long time ago that I have to reverse the decreases in any lace pattern or the lace won't turn out right. Also, although following charts is a bit easier (since the decreases are indicated by way the decreased stitches slant), I still have to decide which way I'm going to follow them- from right to left (as intended) or left to right. It gets very confusing, although I was able to work almost all of cookie a's charts by working them right to left (which made her left sock my right sock). So, in some ways, it's a lot easier to just design my own, with charts that read left to right. (This has led me to put some thought into making charts that can be read from both directions- stay tuned for this...).

One lace pattern that seemed very promising was the "Japanese Feather" pattern, on pages 285-286 of The Second Treasury. I really liked the way that the lace makes wavy selvedges & thought it would look really neat in the round. It wasn't very difficult to plug the pattern into what I think of as my sock template & I was very psyched to get knitting once it was all charted.

This is the first sock finished & (as you can see from the top photo) I don't have much more to do for the second. I was really surprised by how easy it was to memorise this pattern, as it's 28 rounds for a full repeat.

You can see how the waves in the pattern turned-out- I really like it!

I used KnitPicks Stroll Tonal in the "Queen Anne" colour.

I tried to get a close-up of the lace but the camera flash made it kind of washed-out :(

Anyhow, I am very pleased, & have 2 more pairs of socks designed, which I can't wait to try out. If all goes well, I'll probably post the patterns for free on Ravelry. 

Naturally-Dyed Gallery

Hot on the heels of my recent natural-dyeing adventure posts, I thought I'd put up a gallery of things I've made from yarns that I've naturally dyed over the past few years. It was kind of like a treasure hunt, looking around the house, in the winter woolies basket, & on the bodies of my son & husband for things to photograph.

The photo at the top is of some Latvian-style mittens (patterns from Lizbeth Upitis' Latvian Mittens book) that I made about 7 years ago. Most of them were given as gifts or to charity knitting projects. They are a mix of indigo, cochenille, & yarrow-dyed yarns, & naturally brown & white yarns. (On a side note, I'm really glad that I have been photographing things on-and-off over the years, because I absolutely don't remember making these. I remember getting the book & getting all fired-up about making stuff, but have no real memory of making this many pairs of mittens...)

Another of the older photos that I found is this one, taken on a beach in California during a 2004 family trip to San Francisco. It's my version of the Mobi-Q Shawl, designed by Margo Carr, from Handwoven's Design Collection 19. I wove it on my Mighty Wolf loom from all handspun & naturally-dyed yarns & it's one of the crowning glories of my fibre-life. I had always wanted to weave something useful like this from my handspun, & the natural dyeing was just icing on the cake. I used all of my usual plant-based dyes and most of the wool is Corriedale spun on my Lendrum double-treadle wheel over a few years.  I took the shawl apart after a few years because it wasn't as functional as I'd hoped & is sitting in lavender-soaked cotton balls, waiting for an idea to strike for it's next incarnation.

This is the last of the real oldies, & the only photo I have of the Gansey sweater I designed & made for Brendan when he was 8 years old, specifically for this sailing vacation around Cape Cod. I indigo-dyed Lion Brand Fisherman Wool yarn & put Gansey patterns Brendan chose from a book on the front. When he outgrew it 3-4 years later, my mom wanted it (it fit her :) so she has it now.

Here's the vest I made for Charlie for our 20th anniversary in 2008. Many of the yarns are from the experimental dye pots from the summer of 2007, including birch bark, rhubarb leaves, & alkanet. He has a list at work of which stripe is which plant material because some folks like to know :) Also, I decided that just striping it would be boring, hence the patterned edges on each stripe.

The year before I made the anniversary vest, decided I wanted to make him a red vest (I usually make Charlie a vest for our anniversary because it's in early December, right when he needs warm clothes :). So I dyed Knitpicks merino worsted yarn with brazilwood (all skeins in the same dye bath) to get the heathered red of this vest. (A side note on the vest pattern: it's adapted from a WW2 Red Cross pattern that I found in Charlie's grandmother's things. I made it longer (he's a tall guy) & adapted it to knit in the round. I love it because the armhole & neck edgings are knit at the same time in garter stitch, so there's no pickup afterward. It's about the only vest pattern I use these days.)

Here are Charlie's snow-shoveling gloves, made from Elizabeth Zimmermann's "Winter Spruce" pattern, from Knitting Around.

And here are this year's winter gloves, made from shibori-dyed Knitpick's Gloss fingering weight yarn, dyed with yarrow & indigo, to get shades of yellow, blue, & green. The pattern is from Ann Budd's the knitter's handy book of patterns. I've placed them in the photo so you can't see the mends :( These gloves are destined to be felted & recycled as something else, as about 4 fingers have either mends or holes in them...

And, last of the photos of Charlie's stuff, a pair of shibori-dyed socks from Knitpicks' fingering-weight sock wool. The plants I used were birch bark & Rose of Sharon. Pattern- my own.

These are the front & back of my Adult Babies & Bears' Sweater from Cottage Creations. I used lots of odds & ends of the usual dyes & combos, & made sure that no 2 colours were next to each other for the whole sweater :)

This mitten & leg-warmer set were made from some yarn I dyed back in 2002. A friend had brought me some skeins of single-ply dk-weight yarn from New Zealand & I dyed them in golden marguerite, onion skins, brazilwood, indigo, & marguerite in indigo for green. These are the mittens I've used this winter, warm but light.

Here's another pic of my big flowers shawl, made with the popular motif from Nihon Vogue's motif book & Lion Brand Fisherman Wool, in lots of natural colours, after the 2007 dyeing. Among the plant dyes used were alkanet, indigo, yarrow, onionskins, brazilwood, rhubarb leaves, birch bark, & safflower.

I posted this bag back in September. I made it from Knitpick's bulky weight yarns from dye pots I ran the summer of 2008. I noted that the yarrow dyepot lasted 3 full dyebaths before exhausting, giving very nice golds-to-yellows. The pale red is brazilwood exhaust, with the rusty-red being from the first dye bath. The purple & green were brazilwood & yarrow over-dyed in indigo.

For some other finished examples from naturally-dyed yarns, please see my Shibori 1 & Shibori 2 posts. Let me know if you're inspired to try natural dyeing!

Sock Weight for Physical Therapy

Just a quick post today! (I'm collecting & photographing things for a naturally-dyed gallery post, so stay tuned...) Until then, my son suggested that I post today's little project. I am now in physical therapy post reconstructive back surgery (last January) & needed a weight at home for exercising. I knew instinctively that I wouldn't need to go out & purchase weights because there's so much stuff laying around...

Like Brendan's old, felty socks from 3 winters ago, which I then adopted (because, even felted, they were much bigger & fit over my socks). I found some fish-gravel in the basement, usually used for the bottoms of flower pots (we haven't had fish for some years) & was able to fit a kilo into one sock, a kilo being my target weight (for now). I just sewed it shut with some size 10 crochet cotton & voila!

We're nothing if not resourceful around these parts :)

A side note, regarding the felty socks. These socks were made from regular, superwash sock wool (from Knitpicks's Bare line- the fingering-weight sock wool) that I shibori-dyed in indigo. Now, Brendan is known for his ability to felt wool by just looking at it (in a sweaty-footed, growing-kid way) but he's never felted superwash sock wool before this. It's not the only time that indigo-dyed superwash socks have felted, & I've come to the conclusion that the alkalinity of the indigo bath does something to the superwash process (ie: removes it). Good thing we have uses for felty socks around here, huh? 

The Journey to Crocheted Socks

You could say that my first love, crafting-wise, was crochet. My grandmother taught me to crochet when I was 8 years old, and even though she also taught me to knit at age 10 I don't think I was without a crochet project until I was in my early 20's. Mostly I crocheted rectangular things- doll blankets, potholders, and in my teens, scarves for everyone I knew. My family teased me about crocheting a garage for the car... I learned early that variegated yarn (romantically called "ombre" on the yarn wrappers of the 1970's) could make strange, repeating patterns, & that if you needed 2 skeins to finish a project, you would have 2, non-matching strange patterns on the finished item. Ah- nostalgia!

At some point I became frustrated with crochet. I couldn't put it into words then, but there were limitations I couldn't overcome, even by going smaller. I learned to crochet lace & loved what I could make with it, but there were still limitations. I couldn't make anything big from fine lace unless I wanted to spend the rest of my life making it... I did make all of the decorative lace for my wedding gown, from the crocheted motifs along the neckline & fine edging for the sleeves, to millions (it seemed...) of 3-D Irish crochet flowers that made up the head piece, all in size 30 cream & ecru thread. It was the first project that I finished on time, & it nearly burnt me out on crochet for the rest of my life. I can still imagine myself, 23 years ago, just getting started on that project...

But I digress. Some time before wedding dresses were relevant, I found my self hungering to make sweaters & socks & mittens, but when I tried to crochet them, they just didn't work. They were like cardboard, even though I was crocheting to gauge. So I turned to knitting, & sometime in the early 1980's began cranking out the sweaters & socks & mittens & more that I'd always wanted to make. My crochet hooks ended up in a cigar box in a drawer filled with knitting swatches. I pulled out the steel hooks to assist with fixing snags, & when I learned to weave I found a small hook essential for various loom fixes.

Along the way, even before I started weaving, I started to think differently about the things I was making from yarn- instead of creating sweaters, socks, mittens, etc., I was creating fabric. (I talk a bit more about the fabric thing in this post.) I understand these days that the frustration I was feeling with crochet was a struggle with the types of fabric that I could make with crochet versus what I wanted to be making. The nature of a crocheted stitch is to be thicker, in most cases, than knitted stitches. To make supple, drapey fabrics, especially with thicker yarns, knitting (or weaving), for me, was the way to go.

The other difficulty I've found with crochet is the look, or design of crocheted items. Being from the very end of the Baby Boom (& having a grandma who crocheted), I was surrounded by granny squares for much of my young life. The 60's & 70's fashions were full of granny square crochet vests, ponchos, coats, kerchiefs, as well as afghans. It had an unfortunate legacy in that anything remotely "granny square" just looks "square" to me, & to many others. Heck, my first major crocheted project post-revival was declared "too granny" by my husband (hey, it was from groovy, naturally-dyed yarns darn it!), but I persevered because others described it as "retro" instead...

I feel very fortunate to have had the just-mentioned crochet revival, just about 2 years ago, thanks to some friends & a trip to Japan. I had been meeting with two friends from Japan every week to knit, crochet, & cook Japanese food for lunch. We did this for about a year & a half, calling it our Tuesday "amimonobu" or "needlework club". One friend, Momo, already knew how to crochet & wanted to learn to knit, & the other friend, Shizuka, wanted to learn how to do both. I mentored them in amimono (needlework) & they mentored me in Japanese cooking, & many wonderful things were created. So, when my family planned it's every-other-year trip to Japan to co-incide with Shizuka & her husband visiting her family in Japan, we decided to spend a day together, & part of the day was spent in the Tokyo crafting mega-store Yuzawaya. Shizuka printed adverts from Yuzawaya from the internet & I used them to learn the Japanese vocabulary for all the cool things I could buy there :) Plus to drool over  all the cool things they had. Since Momo was staying behind in the US while were were in Japan, I decided to bring her back something from Yuzawaya.

To tell the truth, I was completely overwhelmed when the big day came. We'd spent the morning with Shizuka & Jon at the Gibli mo Mori, the studio Gibli museum in Tokyo, & it was fabulous.

Then we had a wonderful lunch together, meeting some of Shizuka's friends, Kai-asn & Mami-san, who came along to Yuzawaya with us. Along with wanting to get something for Momo, I also wanted to find some character fabric from one of my son Brendan's favourite Japanese tv shows, Kamen Rider, to make a quilt for his bed. Kai-san kindly helped me navigate the 2 floors of fabrics to find what I wanted, & then I could spend time looking at yarn, & books, and the many other floors of stuff. OMG. It was my great fortune to find a book of cute crochet patterns for the home for Momo, & then another book caught my eye, full of, well, granny-esque motifs, but very fashionably designed. (It just happens to be the same book that Lucy is making her Japanese flower scarf from, & the same motif as in my "granny" shawl.) I decided to get it for me & see if the crochet bug would bite.

officially-declared Granny shawl

And it did, as you can see from the "granny" shawl :)  I've used the book mainly as inspiration, lifting motifs & using them in various projects.

And, Momo returned the favour when she went home to Japan for a visit 6 months later. She brought back my first amigurumi book which led to the little guys on my blog header, & so much crochet enjoyment (thanks Momo!!).

And all this long-windedness leads me to my first (2) pair of crocheted socks. Back to the beginning, nearly!

Basically, in my fabric-imagination, I just couldn't wrap my head around the idea of functional crocheted socks. The fabric would be too thick, even in a very fine yarn (or take forever to make) or too holey, if you were trying for a flexible fabric. I have looked at crochet sock patterns & not been inspired... until I pick up a copy of Interweave Crochet Special Issue 2010 for holiday project inspiration. I found a lot of inspiration in that magazine, for sure, & am still working through it, but first in the queue were the very intriguing "Sidney's Sideways Socks" by Brenda K.B. Anderson. They are made, not round & round, but from cuff to toe vertically. I had just picked up some purply-blue Zino from Halcyon Yarn and thought it would be a good match.

Doing a gauge swatch was essential, because I found I had to go a size up to get gauge. I found the lack of charted instructions (the Japanese books have really spoiled me that way) to be a pain, but soldiered on, using my Stitch Minder app to keep track of rows, since there's a lot of counting in this pattern. After the first sock, which took just 2 days to complete, I found I understood the construction of the sock well enough to come up with a system of markers to delineate the increases, decreases, & changes in stitches. That made things go so much faster, & I would have finished the pair in 4 days, but I ran out of yarn with just 3 rows to go! Just part of the unexplored territory of crocheting socks, I guess. I ordered more & was able to finish up less than a week later. The socks, although on the short side for my tastes, fit very well, The fabric is stretchy by a clever design strategy of using "crochet through front back loop only" for the leg & top of foot, & the gussets are made from well-placed increases & decreases lifted by half-double crochet stitches. I'm not sure I'd have made another pair if I hadn't figured out my own system of markers for keeping track of it all, because the pattern has you count every stitch of every row... But with my adaptation I was psyched to make another pair.

I decided that Knitpicks Chroma (the rainbow colourway, of course!) would look really neat, with the vertical striping, so I ordered 2, 100g balls for this project. Good thing, too, since I really wanted to maintain the rainbow striping... but both balls had interruptions where the yarn just broke off & was tied at another place in the colourway :(  I was able to sort it out & re-join at the right place, but what a pain in the butt! Not impressive, Knitpicks folks! Whew, Got that off my chest... This second pair took just 4 days to crochet, making them at least a fast to make a knitted socks.

I was really glad to finally enjoy (in & around the learning experiences) making crocheted socks. As my blog shows, I'm also very glad that the crochet bug did bite again, leading to new & wonderful explorations into making all kinds of fabric!

Seven weeks, seven pairs of socks...

Hello! Sorry it's been so long since I've been around. First the Holidays hit- we celebrate Hannukah & Christmas, and Oshougatsu (Japanese New Year) so it was really busy. I hope to catch the blog up on the holiday crafting in time... And then, seven weeks ago I had surgery- a total reconstruction of my lower back (L4-S1)- and I've spent the time since surgery in recovery. My initial recovery went very fast & very well, (for a middle-aged chick who turned 53 in the middle of it all... :) but now I'm in a slump & looking around for amusement. So, I thought I'd finally update the blog & get some of what I've been working on into the blogosphere.

Before I went into the hospital I thought about what I'd like to do during recovery. I designed two adult Surprise Jackets, based on Elizabeth Zimmermann's pattern (which I purchased from Halcyon) and found the wool I'd need to make them (just laying around the house, you know :). I also thought that small projects would be a good idea, so I purchased both of cookie a's sock books and stocked-up on sock wool (knitpicks was having a kit sale, so that helped a lot :). I also cast-on a pair of socks for Brendan, since he needed an extra pair & I figured having them already worked for an inch or two would give me incentive. I've gotten to the point where plain sock knitting is pretty boring, hence the cookie a books (very intricate patterns), so making socks for Brendan, even though they may be from fair-isle striped yarn, & he really needs them, can be a chore. Plus his socks are BIG. He's only 2 sizes away from my husband Charlie's feet (Charlie is 6'2") and I can only just get Brendan's socks from 100g of sock wool any more (adding to the excitement, let me tell you).

OK, so I went to the hospital & 5 days later came out with a new back. I also came home with a walker, a commode seat with arms for our downstairs toilet, and the inability to walk up stairs (completely unexpected). Charlie, bless him, was able to deal with this ably (with just one day's notice!) and set up the only extra bed we had in the living room. This extra bed happened to be a Victorian monster & you can see the cosy fit in our small living room :)

It all worked out very well, though, & a week later I was doing stairs, & the bed came down, & we got our first floor back. I was very glad for the projects planned and started ahead of time. It takes some time for anaesthetic to wear off, and add to that the pain medicine (which I only used for about 9 days- yay!) and what you get is a googly me. My hands were also pretty swollen from the IV's (one in each hand, plus numerous pokes from failed attempts) so about all I could handle, literally, was sock knitting. Brendan's socks became rather a blessing- bland knitting just when I needed it :)

Another unexpected twist that affected my knitting life was the addition of an "afo" (ankle-foot orthotic) at my 4-week check-up. My right foot had "dropped" from some pre-existing nerve issues combined with the stress on the nerves from the surgery, so they recommended a brace to support it while the nerve recovers. The orthotic guy told me I'd want to wear knee socks with the afo, which is a plastic thingy that slips into my shoe, runs up the back of my leg, & then fastens with velcro right under the knee. He was right- it feels really clammy without a sock between me & the top of the thing. But I had only 2 pairs of knee socks when I arrived home from that appointment... My initial response was to start wearing mis-matched socks, since this eked out my knee sock supply. I also found that tights or leg warmers (thanks, Momo!) under regular socks help with this.

mis-matched me

I then looked for some knee sock patterns &, since I wanted to knit them quickly from sport-weight wool, ordered some more yarn. Knitpicks has a sport-weight sock wool in their Felici line, so I went with that. I also ordered some solid-coloured sport-weight wool, only to discover that this wool was heavier in weight (less yards per grams) & not appropriate for the pattern I'd put together for my socks. Of my existing knee socks, 1 pair were made from a Nancy Bush pattern (from her Folk Socks book, not unreservedly recommended as she is rather a ditz- I've met her- and I find there are errors & other monstrosities in her patterns that editors miss). As for the other pair, I looked high & low for the pattern, remembering them as Elizabeth Zimmermann's sheepfold socks. I finally found them in Meg Swansen's Knitting, a book I'd rather forgotten I had. I think I now have all my Elizabeths & Megs in one place, thanks to that little search! At any rate, looking at the charts for the socks (& blanching), I decided to make a short-cut, for the sake of quickly-knit knee socks. I will confess that, at some point in this process, it occurred to me that most people go out & buy knee socks... Anyway, one thing I dislike about knee sock patterns is the point that, if you decrease in the back, forms when you decrease from the upper leg to the ankle.

Brendan's sock at top, plus new knee socks

 Meg's socks elegantly deal with this by decreasing on the sides, by making the sheepfold smaller each pattern repeat. What I did was lift the rate of decrease from her pattern, then put a double-decrease at this rate on either side of a cable running down the sides of the socks. Whew! I kept track of my decreases & cable pattern repeats using a nifty little app on my iphone called Stitch Minder. I was able to knit a pair of knee socks in 4 days, with minimal messing up, thanks to that app.

My version of Kai Mei, with Momo's leg warmers buffering the afo zone :)

In and around making knee socks, I've managed to make 4 other pairs of socks, 3 from cookie a and one, my second pair of crocheted socks, that I will feature in a future blog post. My first foray into cookie a was from her book Knit. Sock. Love. I really liked (& still do) the look of the Pointelle socks, partly because they're so beautiful & partly because they're knitted mirror-image for each foot. The charts weren't too hard to read, but, as always when dealing with charts, I ran into an impediment. I am left-handed & must reverse all shaping in order to get the lace to come out right. I usually just read charts from left to right, but that was difficult with these charts, as they're slanted & not numbered on the left & tiny. So I just read from right to left, reversed all the shaping, & it all turned out just fine.

Pointelle is the pink sock...

Her right sock was my left, & vice-versa, but what the heck, & I love the socks. Encouraged by this, I decided to take-on the Kai Mei socks from sock innovation. I decided to use the new sock yarn from Knitpicks, Chroma fingering, in Pool Party. (I actually started the Wedge sock from K.S.L but they didn't really turn me on, so I ripped.) I love how the lace pattern starts in the arch & moves over the foot so gracefully. Unfortunately, when I got to the lace, I ran into a big snag. The pattern, as charted, just didn't work :( No way could I get her instructions to make the pretty-heart-shaped lace- maybe a lefty issue. No idea. So, I went looking for another lace pattern to plug in & came up with one that was narrower, requiring more ribs between it & the rest of the sock.

It's not nearly as nice as the original lace, since it kind of gets lost in the general ribbiness of the pattern, plus the Chroma is a bit fuzzy, as it turns out, for lace, so it obscures things as well. But I survived & learned along the way.

The next cookie project was much nicer, cookie's Monkey socks from K.S.L. I could read the chart from the left & it was easy to memorise, & I really enjoyed making them.

What next? I have a gorgeous ball of red sock wool waiting for a willing pattern... I have also taken on some other recovery-time knitting projects, to be detailed in a future post. My sock population is certainly benefitting from my recovery  :) I have doubled the number of knee socks I own, & hopefully, within a month or so, I'll no longer be wearing mis-matched socks at all. I'll keep you posted!