First Pair of Toe Up Socks

So here are my purple rose socks. They fit fairly nicely, but I don't think I'm a toe up convert. I ended up modifying this pattern to fit my design desires and my foot shaping. I seem to do that a lot with Wendy Knits socks designs. I love her designs but I can't seem to help myself from tweaking them just a little bit (or sometimes a lot to better suit my needs.)


Here is a close up of the heel. I realized after I had totally completed it that I still have the same two lines, but the one up the back of the heel isn't as straight as normal. This is because the heel shaping I would normally do for the bottom of the foot, ends up on the back of the heel in this pattern. As it was I ended up having to start the gusset for the foot at 3.5 inches instead of the 2.25 inches the pattern called for. This meant that after every M1 round, I did two straight stitch rounds to get enough rows in before I hit my total gusset count. It also meant I had to change the other half of the heel shaping using fewer stitches to begin with on the heel shaping, to ultimately create enough length in the heels.


My final change to the pattern was the fact I made a two inch 1x1 ribbing versus the one inch it called for. I still don't think there was enough ribbing to hold the sock up, but I was trying to follow the pattern.

Note: The picture about makes it appear that the design goes down the side of the foot, but I've actually turned the sock sideways on the sock blocker to better show the pattern.

I will say I do like working with the Hand Maiden Casbah sock yarn. It's 81% merino, 9% cashmere, and 10% acrylic. Although it's labeled as fingering weight, it's heavier than most fingering weight yarn I knit with. The one downfall might be my ankles. I wore the socks for an hour this morning and my ankles itched most of the time. Not as badly as with other yarn, but enough to notice. I'm going to try washing them to see if it helps. If not, I'll be gifting them to someone else because I can't handle my ankles itching.

-Myrtle, who is hoping the ground starts drying outside over the next several days so I can finish planting in my garden.

Knitting Update

I finally finished my Wanida socks. Yes, I've completed two other projects in between because I grew to dread knitting on these socks. I finally told myself either finish them or frog them and because I like the design and the yarn and the fact I was 3/4ths of the way done with them any way, I finished them.



I also finished my Estonian Lace Scarf that I knit to go with my classic lines cardigan. (I need to really retake this photo.)




Now I've started my Purple Rose of Loopy socks out of Hand Maiden Yarn in the W(h)ine the Rose colorway (which I received as part of the consulation package for those of us who didn't get into the Loopy Ewe's sock club). I used the Turkish cast on, because it was the only thing that looked like the Kitchener stitch when I finished it. But I'm not sure I like the square looking toe or toe up socks. We'll see if I actually complete the socks. I've never completed a pair of toe up socks. I always end up frogging them. But we'll see. I seem to be on a roll of trying new things and making myself complete them.

-Myrtle

It's Spring on the Homestead

These are the newest members of our homestead they are just a few days old. There are 4 black australorps, 4 sliver laced wyandottes, and 4 rhode island reds. We picked them up at the feed store today. We also are now the owners of a incubator and will be trying to incubate some eggs since neither the hens or the guineas stayed with their nests long enough to actually hatch anything. I'm hoping that with the incubator we'll actually hatch a cluck of chickens and a clutch of guineas. They'll have to be done as two separate groups since chickens take 21 days to hatch, while guineas take 28.

My onions are growing nicely, but I really need to weed that area and finish planting salad type things in it as well. My main garden is 2/3rds weeded, has part of the compost spread and still needs to be turned into the soil before planting. I have lots of tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, and broccoli plants to go in, but the weather doesn't seem to want to cooperate. We've had lots of rain and it keeping the ground very soggy.

I have also finally planted all but one on my mother's day plants. I received a plum, peach, and pear trees along with a blue berry, raspberry, and grape vines. I'm looking forward to having my own fruit along with all of our wild black berries.

On the knitting side of things I finished my classic lines cardigan and have started an Estonian lace scarf out of the accent color to go with it. My socks are still 3/4ths of the way finished and I really need to finish them. I'm not sure what I'll be knitting next, but I have to say I've enjoyed some bigger projects which I haven't wanted to do in the past. I guess I'll see what other big project I want to do since I don't seem motivated at the moment to do socks.

Have a great day all.

-Myrtle

A Successful Walk for Breast Cancer

Mavis and Myrtle,

I had a very successful Walk for Breast Cancer. My feet are still a bit tired, but all in all I had a great weekend. Saturday we walked a full marathon in very good, not too hot weather. The crowds and support teams were great so that even when we were getting tired there was some very positive encouragement to keep us going. And when I got to the Wellness Village where we were camping, there was a "tent angel" who carried my bag and the tent to the tent site and set up the tent for me. It was a good thing since my body and brain were out of it and I am not sure how long it would have taken me to do it on my own.

On Sunday we walked another half marathon in the rain. Inspite of the weather I really enjoyed that walk.

The upper photo is of me with my co-workers Latoya and Nancy who also did the walk as part of Team MOB. The lower picture is me with the other members of the K Street Team, Robbie and Maureen.

Maude