Auditioning new sock yarn

I couldn't decide which of two yarny glamour shots was the most fetching, so you're getting two very similar ones in this post:

And now, an explanation. As part of my long weekend celebration negotiations I traded a visit to a tank museum for a visit to a yarn store. The tank museum came first and ended up being SUPER interesting, go figure, so I tossed the yarn store idea as being impractical and unnecessary since I still have loads of yarn stash despite having Stopped Buying Yarn (except for project-specific emergencies, ahem) some years ago. 

Of course as soon as I got home, I realized that sock yarn shopping is very, very necessary as I still have not found a substitute for my beloved 100% merino wool Vesper Sock, which stopped shipping to Canada years ago because our postal service kept misplacing parcels. 

(If you are reading this from the US, I highly recommend buying a great deal of this yarn. Like, more than you think you'll need. There's no nylon in it, so you may have to darn the heels and toes over time, but it will be worth it. Because there's no nylon to interfere with your enjoyment of knitting and then wearing 100% merino wool.)

Ready for the second glamour shot?

This. This Malabrigo Sock is the *only* yarn I could find, after nosing around online on returning from the tank museum, which is 100% merino wool, an equivalent weight (more on that in a moment) and reviewed well per our friends at Ravelry.  

These reviews all complained that the ensuing socks all wore out in the heels and toes because they have no nylon in them, but honestly, the twist looks a bit tighter even than this purple strand of Vesper, don't you think?

 

Or maybe it's just a bit thinner. I can't tell. The yardage runs a tiny bit longer over the length, I do know that.  

You also need to know that I did my sock yarn hunting online and ending up buying all three of these skeins from Granny Bird's Wool Shoppe, which has one of the most wonderful yarn store names I can imagine, and also, a great selection of yarn on top of fast shipping. Highly recommended!

 

Today's Hug includes a pop quiz.

Question One: which yarny glamour shot did you prefer, the neatly lined up one or the scattering?

Question Two: which bridge view do you like best, the quiet one or the rapids?

 

I can never get over how different these two sides of the bridge are, even if they're both 'water running between green stuff'. So brown, the day I took these... we've had lots of rain and it's stirred things up.

 

Okay this pretty much concludes today's discussion of Sock Yarn Auditions. In the absence of any other contenders, and please feel free to advise me of others available to this Canadian knitter if you know them, we're competing between colourways here. 

I'm betting heavily on the denimy blue Playa to be the yarn most likely to result in differently patterned socks, and Myths to be the yarn most likely to match the fall walking shoes I've got my eye on, and Pearl to be the yarn that looks even less like purple in sock form.

Which of these three categories will win my heart the hardest is what we're watching for, basically, and I doubt you'll wait long to find out because with fast dwindling supplies I'm scared to knit any more Vesper until I have a backup in view... while simultaneously re-hooked on sock knitting.

Thanks again for dropping by and also, for indulging me on my vacation weekend away looking at tanks. Please have a wonderful rest of the weekend! and I'll see you next Saturday.

 

Oh, and here's a picture I took post-tanks of a beautiful garden. Disclaimer: it's part of a cemetery. But it came out so bright and cheery, I just had to share and extend a hope that your day is as technicolour!

 

 

 

 

Treehouse Cottage

A couple of weeks ago when the heat was so bad we really had to stay inside, I moved all the furniture in our (air-conditioned) bedroom and renamed it Treehouse Cottage. Welcome!

The first edition was kind of stupid, with our tall headboard jutting out into the rest of the room and blocking the view of the window from the door, so I only intended it to last for a few days. Then I made this tweak, turning the bed to let more light through, and now I'm smitten! There are so many different places I can work in here now - two standing desk areas, a seated desk area, and a sofa to curl up on. 

But also, the bed converts into a tree-adjacent lounge and knitting area, complete with shifting sun patches as the leaves outside move in the breeze.

 

And how pretty will this view be, come autumn? 

Part of my motivation for this change was that my friend Caro's just bought her first house, and it's a stunning century home... I mean, so much swoon, and super inspiring to me to take a fresh look at our own place. It's fitting that I get to curl up today in my Cottage Nest (TM) and watch a bunch of her HIGHly recommended YouTube book videos while making some sock progress.

That strawberry mug on her side table was from me. So proud, ha!

I'll be going out later for more epic walking, which I've been doing tons of since the weather cooled down a bit again. Here are some random flower pix I caught on my travels:

 

Yellow and purple really are lovely together, aren't they. We also went further afield to the Toronto Islands this week, where I got a different look at the CN Tower than is possible from my usual vantage points. In case it's too subtle to register from here, it's the tiny vertical to the right of the setting sun that's beaming from the right of one of these heavy branches: 

I know, I know - more tree! I do love them.

Hard to believe our summer weather's getting close to halfway done. This year I intend to enjoy it a lot more than usual and do more of my writing at night. High time that outings got priority scheduling, right?

Hope you're getting in some fun outings and/or getting the most out of wherever you make your home. Thanks for spending this time with me and I'll see you again soon! 

(Not next Saturday though - it's a long weekend, and I might be kicking up my heels - but I'll definitely be here to share something crafty or otherwise fun on August 8.)

Meanwhile... doesn't this sock look perfect for summer? Or very early fall, when it's cool enough to wear them, but nobody's ready to let go of those lazy hours. Not that I have my eye on a pair of bright green walking shoes that would totally go with, or anything... 

 

 

 

 

Inside and out

This past week involved a lot of Inside Time (weather issues) and no knitting (who picked Jurassic Park for movie night? Nobody can knit with sweaty hands!) 

Thankfully the inside of our house is full of nice things to look at. These paintings are by my friend Wrona, and they are teeny tiny compared to her usual huge cloudscape canvases which she paints with her hands while sitting on top of them. There's a video of her at work, at the link!

Anyway: we had a fleeting few hours yesterday that were super nice out, so Pete and I grabbed our chance for a big walk into the ravine, and I took pictures for you.

This is a shared path for cyclist, dog-walkers, runners, walkers, and people who just want to be around a lot of trees. (me, waving both hands.)

There are often some really interesting species of fungi to look at!

From the edge of the path you can see it's quite a drop to the more groomed gardeny part of the park. It might not show in this picture, but I thought you might love it anyway. I do, especially from this safe distance, heh.

By contrast, this is the view looking up:

Forests: they are such classics, all over the world.

When you get to the bottom of the trail the bike path goes on into this meadow. It's different in every season but summer lush greenery is my fave... I'm always surprised by those tall buildings in the distance.

 

In reality, the ravine is bordered by busy roads with traffic you can trick yourself into believing is running water. Isn't it wild that in the heart of a big city, you can just wander into all this green space? I feel so, so lucky to be near enough to walk to it.

 

Water runs through the whole ravine, and the paths twist and cross over it in a bunch of different places. Those last two pictures are the view from either side of a bridge. I can never decide which I like best! Do you have a favourite?

Queen Anne's Lace dots so much of the path in this part of the park. They're super elegant. 

Here's another little section I love. These two trees that look like they're somehow dancing together!

Or maybe just talking.

Today the weather is terrible again so I'll be staying in and revising yet another manuscript. After all this time, I still love writing more than anything, which is saying something, isn't it? 

Hope your day is wonderful, whether you're stuck in or otherwise. Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you next Saturday! 

 

Flower power

Sooo... I was sick all week. Too sick for knitting or sewing or anything crafty, really. Instead of our usual Hugs fare, let's look at some gorgeous flowers!

A super talented friend arranged these wildflowers in dollar-store drinking glasses for centrepieces at a 50th wedding anniversary party and I absolutely loved them. 

Some of these petals are so tiny!

 

While I was sick I moved from sleeping, to listening to podcasts and falling asleep during them, to streaming shows and sleeping on breaks from them, until finally I was well enough to read a book. 

My pick: Rosemary's Baby. Not that I'm a horror girl, but I'd heard it was well written and I cannot argue that point whatsoever. It is FABULOUS. I might have to stop when it gets to the really scary bits but the opening chapters I've consumed so far are just so easy to read and hard to put down. Lucky I slept so much the last few days, amiright?

 

Ira Levin, who wrote it, also wrote The Stepford Wives which I had not known was a book. Definitely a theme there, for me and for him. But his first, A Kiss Before Dying, was such a fantastic film I am pretty sure I'll have to read that too. How did I miss all these greats? Probably because I was on the Classic English Lit track. Anyway: gifts for my future self, as I always think of them. If you read everything at once, what's left for later?

Since this subject is less Hug than Boa Constrictor, let's move on. The good news is, I'm mostly all mended now, and have celebrated by cleaning and dusting and washing my sheets and pyjamas for a fresh start that doesn't involve lying in or near the bed all day. 

And with luck, next week will include something craftable you'll enjoy more than my horror movie musings. Until then (and please note that I am not at all mentioning the tiny caterpillar I found on this desk a couple of days after bringing in these arrangements aiiiieeeeee don't worry we ushered it safely back outside) thanks for coming by and I hope you have a great weekend!

 

 

 

Knit n natter

Ugh the heat! You cannot work with heavy textiles in the heat. Not a big blanket, and not a mohair blend sock either. 

This one's up to the chompy stage and can't manage so much as a nip. Just limpness and a plea for water. 

So instead (after cooling and watering that poor blue sock), I've done work on a stripy, having been reminded by last week's photoshoot how much I love Vesper sock yarn.

Still haven't found a new sock yarn source. Really need to work on that. But it's so easy to distract myself from that problem by binge-watching some new series, or one I missed when it first came out. After I finished almost all of The X-Files, which wasn't quite the way I remembered it, I started in on The Mentalist. I hadn't seen a single episode of that and I wasn't especially interested to start, but whoa: loved it! Loved every season. Loved the series finale too, when I finally got to see it last night. 

And now I need something else to watch while I finish this sock. I'm thinking about the new season of Enola Holmes, or a re-watch of the last few episodes of Person of Interest, or a good sit-down with The Boroughs, from the Duffer Brothers. 

There's something about creepy crimey shows that's always appealed to me. Surely not as an outcropping of my childhood love of Nancy Drew mysteries... but maybe.

Oh, and by the way: did I ever give my black handknit cat her closeup?

She has a fish purse! (We're in my air-conditioned office for these pix, which I've renamed The Treehouse for the summer.  I love working at my desk here, with my fish-purse cat for company.)

Speaking of Nancy Drew, I reread The Secret of the Old Clock not too long ago and it held up so much better than expected. It was a 1950s tweed cover edition, so I got the whole tactile appeal of holding a real book that opens up easily to each page.

Sorry, just had to interrupt myself with a closeup of my beloved coaster from the gift shop at the (truly excellent) London Transport Museum. The 'm' uses the actual typeface from the Tube!

Usually when I'm reading these days, it's ebooks on my new Kobo Libra Colour. This week I finished Mary Stewart's Touch Not The Cat, from 1976, which now that I think of it is another creepy crimey story. She wrote so lyrically, I just sink into her work. I think only John Berendt, writing Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil, affects me the same way. 

That book, I read in a trade paperback I deeply regret loaning out or else packing into a box in the garage when we renovated, only to be lost to raccoons. The new editions either don't appeal to me or have a huge sticker over the otherwise fabulous cover. Ugh, amiright?

 

Anyhoo.... I've been knitting again, while watching things, and it's been really nice, and I didn't appreciate how much I've missed it. Do you find you have ebbs and flows with your knitting?

Either way: hope you have a fabulous weekend! Thanks for spending this bit of it with me and I look forward to seeing you again next Saturday. In the meantime, I'll no doubt be dipping into this second sock, and trying to grow it to the chompy stage. It'd be fun to have one of the pair face off with Mr. Mohair, don't you think? 

 

 

 

Just like the old days

Finishing up those handknit socks on the porch a couple of weeks ago, I remembered how I used to take all my Hugs photos out there, twisting around to get a good pic on our shabby steps. So that's what this week's Hug is gonna be.

Boy did I love wearing these merino wool socks with a pair of Blundstone boots, just a bit of stripe showing at the top.

Taking pictures on the porch steps was fun too. Seems to me I was doing that every week or two, because I was knitting socks so fast! Inevitably a neighbour would walk past and I'd feel like an idjit, but it was worth it... felt like a whole lifestyle thing. And then I put on shoes to protect the socks from holes.

I've been on a real Birkenstock jag lately, trying to fix an orthotic issue, dagnabbit. But they *do* fix it, and they last a long time, so I can't complain. Especially since I have blue suede shoes now.

I'm also deeply in love with these clunky white ones. The back strap means they don't fall off on a long walk, and the straps are so soft I haven't had any issues on the breaking-in front either. 

In these pix I'm wearing a pair of wide-leg jeans folded up to into crop mode, which is a bold choice for the shoe/sock combo. Probably works better from a distance, with the whole ensemble showing, but around here we work with what we have! And what we have is not Mary Jane shoes, which I used to buy on purpose to show off the stripes. Those were good days.

Still, it could be worse, right? 

Hope you have fun plans for the day, and the week that's coming! We're expecting a big heatwave in Toronto so mine mostly involve doing a lot of cleaning while it's still cool enough to face it, and then drinking lots of ice water on our breezy shady porch. I cannot imagine knitting being involved, but stranger things have happened when I've got time on my hands... you probably live that storyline, yourself.

Thanks again for stopping by and I'll see you next Saturday!

 

Quiet Time

I might gift myself a quiet day today. It's delicious-looking outside... not hot, with a gentle breeze... and nobody wants to do any deep cleaning on a day like that, or work to a deadline, or even fuss over supper, amiright?

Much nicer to sit and do some gentle work on a blanket so it's ready for the cool winds of autumn.  

Surprisingly (to me) I did make progress on this blanket over the course of the week, with two new stripes done!

 

There are ten stripes in each repeat, each made from three repeats of the same pattern I used in single repeats for the last, very very busy-looking, blanket. And I plan to do six repeats in total before I start the border, because I am a glutton for excess hot-weather crochet apparently. 

So far, I have two full repeats plus the two new stripes, which I have decided is pretty good going into July, even though there is much evidence to the contrary. Sometimes it's important to look at the positives, or else manufacture some. 

For example: it only takes me about two hours to do three repeats of the base pattern, which means it's quite plausible I can get through an entire 10-stripe repeat in two weeks, just watching a movie every day, something I definitely deserve to be allowed to do. And really, I only have three more 10-stripe repeats outstanding, which adds up to six weeks, which has me finished before we even hit September.

I barely have to try to make that make sense. All I have to do is ignore all the heatwaves coming in those particular six weeks, ha! And focus on how gorgeous it's going to look with our drapes, when it's done.

Today, though... I think I will focus on all the trailing ends I need to take care of before it's any fun to go on. 

 

And that means taking some quiet time with the blanket on my lap and a darning needle in my hand, out in the shade of the porch, listening to the birds and the insects and any passers-by enjoying the day a little more actively than that.

Hope your day is lovely however you spend it, and thanks so much for spending this bit with me. See you next Saturday!