You can't knit just two!

In my experience, creation falls into two categories: quick and slow.  Whether one is writing a story or building a piece of furniture, some things come together in a flash of frenzied inspiration, while others must cook for a long, long time.  This sock pattern falls into the latter category.  I have noodled out and knit up versions of it since December 2008 when it made it’s debut as a multicolor striped slipper sock for my brother’s girlfriend.

The organizing principle: what tiny balls of leftover yarn are in the bottom of my Wool-Ease basket?

Although I love the funky multicolor stripey-ness, this early sock needed to be knit at a tighter gauge to be more durable.

First I had a detour into some Harry Potter themed House Socks, which gave me the name, but were still too loose.

Slytherin or Gryffindor?

A few years later, I got around to reworking the numbers and quickly had these!

This combo of green and blue makes my eyes happy.

Before giving them over to the whole wide world, I had some friends test it out.  Thank you, friends!

Alison Denomme

Allison Phelps

Casey Braun -- her first socks ever! Wow!

Melissa White

Heidi Lemon

Abbey Buckley

More views and more socks are available on the pattern’s Ravelry page!  It is with great pleasure that I give you House Socks!  Enjoy! Please be in touch if you have any questions.  Via Ravelry is best way to contact me.

Just...one...more...stripe...tonight...

Today I went to the yarn shop — with my preschooler — thinking to indulge myself in a single beautiful skein of something to make something with.  (I was deliberately keeping my options open.)  And there she was, being such a good girl in such a grown up store, skipping down all the aisles, pointing out every single pink skein and squealing with delight over them all.

The conclusion was obvious and I am really enjoying this diversion knit.  I thought I was busy last year, with a husband in grad school, both of us working, a kid at home, and a kid in school, but we have managed to take it up a notch this year.  Oy.

I have been reduced to hiding in my bedroom on a Friday afternoon, knitting pink yarn, and watching Downton Abbey.

Of course when I write it down it doesn’t sound bad at all.  Perhaps I do have a sense of self preservation.

The yarn is Plymouth Encore Colorspun in the poetically named color #7722.  Now, if you don’t mind, the blue stripe is waiting…

Piedra del sol (Sunstone) by Octavio Paz

I want to go on, to go further, and cannot:

as each moment was dropping into another

I dreamt the dreams of dreamless stones,

and there at the end of the years like stones

I heard my blood, singing in its prison,

and the sea sang with a murmur of light,

one by one the walls gave way,

all of the doors were broken down,

and the sun came bursting through my forehead,

it tore apart my closed lids,

cut loose my being from its wrappers,

and pulled me out of myself to wake me

from this animal sleep and its centuries of stone,

and the sun’s magic of mirrors revived

a crystal willow, a poplar of water,

a tall fountain the wind arches over,

a tree deep-rooted yet dancing still,

a course of a river that turns, moves on,

doubles back, and comes full circle,

forever arriving:

New sweater just in time for spring!

Goooooood morning!

What a nice way to wake up in the morning!

If you’re here for the knitting, rest assured I have good news.  Spiral Yoke is DONE, has been donned and found worthy, and took a trip to the spa.  After a lavender-scented bubble bath, she is now resting (and drying) on the dining room table.  Photos to follow.

The cover art does not suck, eh?

The Native Star is M.K. Hobson‘s debut novel, published by Ballantine Spectra in August 2010.  I know Hobson’s name from my volunteer work with BroadUniverse, an organization that promotes women writers & editors within the field of science fiction, fantasy, and horror publishing.  (Is that a disclosure?  I do not know the author at all.)  So when I saw this book on the shelf at my local indy bookshop, I read the blurb and said, “Heck yeah! This sounds like fun.”

Set in an alternate 1880s United States, Hobson’s novel follows a backwoods witch and an urbane warlock who must race across the country just ahead of government-funded, ultra-menacing blood sorcerers.  The action is exciting, the magic has meaning, the romance is not sappy or heavy-handed, and Hobson’s language is precise.  She also sets us up for a sequel (The Hidden Goddess, released eight months ago) that did not leave me feeling irritated and oversold.  Instead, I was running to my computer to look up the deets.

My one beef — because no review is complete unless the reviewer complains about something, right? — is that the subplot about Dag was kind of left hanging.  Maybe Hobson covers this in the second book, but that seems unlikely.

Not a fan of fantasy?  I promise you, if you can manage the Lord of the Rings trilogy or Harry Potter heptalogy (the books, NOT the movies!) then this will not be too weird.  And it would make a good film.

First of all: this balmy “winter” made it possible for me to finish bagging my 58th through 65th bags of leaves in mid-December, long after the yard waste truck stopped trundling through on trash day.  (I dumped them on the sleeping vegetable garden.  The worms will thank me later.)  The unseasonably warm weather makes me think I should get a jump on the spring cleaning.  For example, herding the pots of probably-dead plants tucked throughout the garden, terminally waiting to be planted.  Or picking toys out of the sandbox.  The ones that haven’t filled with water, frozen, and burst, that is.  Those can stay and provide some color to our brown winter.

Second of all: I received my first SERIOUS garden tool as a gift from my husband this year: Felco hand pruners.  This is the kind of tool you wipe clean after every use and even oil and sharpen occasionally.  I got a cool leather sheath for it and even a tiny tool that is supposed to help take it apart (it’s rather wee; I am in doubt).  Monster thistle, you watch out!  Now I’m cooking with gas!

Speaking of gas, my husband got a flame-thrower thingy from a friend who understands his manly need to torch offending vegetation.  Why bend over and pull a weed when one can simply push a button…?  No I am not sneering.  My inner villan is rubbing her hands together with glee!

Thirdly: I renewed my Mother Earth News subscription today.  I freakin’ love that magazine.  When I discovered it several years ago, I was floored.  Here it was, the magazine of my people!  I didn’t realize so many other people thought like me — all DIY and loving the planet and homesteading and more liberal than the liberals — and I live in a college town.

Just goes to show… we aren’t alone.  Ever.  We aren’t even all that unique (having kids made this really clear).  If you have a thought, someone somewhere is thinking the same thing.  And we haven’t even touched on the multiverse.

It is amazing to realize how many friends are out there that you haven’t met yet.

my stitches are a travelin'

another crappy, "oops, where went my daylight?" photo

I could be done (this is a theme, no?) if I weren’t distracted with some quickie knits here and there.

For example, I made warmish socks for my skinny boy:

worsted weight on little feet makes quick work

These are knit in leftover bits of Lion Brand Wool-Ease for washability and warmth.  They may be only 20% wool but that’s 20% more than all of his other socks.  The couple of handknit pair he has are in intense rotation so I decided to help a boy out.  These made a good traveling project for the month of December now that I am done knitting sleeves (ahem) for my sweater.  I think I could make a pair in 2-3 evenings of knitting if I weren’t busy with a sweater.  And I don’t sit still much while I knit.

I have been abstaining from resolutions and major project declarations so far this new year.  Not because I think it’s a useless exercise.  I am seeking clarity.  December was too busy for inward reflection.  I am a gal who appreciates a little naval-gazing, so I am at least glad to have finished December and begun January.

Now, back to my sweater and my Harry Potter movie marathon. (I’m halfway through.  The movies, that is.)

For the self-employed, I cannot recommend this method of supply management.

I really hope I don’t regret my new business card design in the morning.

Now that it is after midnight and I am buzzed on caffeine (another bottle of new year’s champagne rests warm and unopened atop my fridge), I figure I have some time to burn before I will be able to sleep … and you know what I want to do?

This will mark me as a giant yarn nerd if nothing has so far.

I want to make a big pile of sock yarn on my dining room table.  I want to look at it all at once and dream about the things I will make in 2012.

Who’s with me?

I am thinking, for the first time ever, that maybe all my sock yarn won’t become socks.  Hmmm… hmmmm!

The big question is: Will it be ready for Hanukkah/Solstice/Christmas?  Stay tuned for further developments.

My drawstring, lined bag sewing continues.  A few nights ago I cut up some old button-down shirts to use as fabric (saving the buttons, of course).  It’s an experiment.  Pros: cheap to free and I get bonus buttons! (I have a thing for buttons.)  Cons: Butchering a blouse is more work than a roaster for dinner.

I should use my rotary cutter.

Where did I put that thing?

On a completely unrelated note, I am still searching for the perfect productivity app for my phone.  I suspect that “perfect” does not exist.  I am currently enjoying Remember the Milk but am irritated by some of the limitations that are only available to pro members.  While I don’t mind paying for something useful, RTM’s terms are steeper than what other apps charge: $25 per year as opposed to a one-time fee of a few dollars that most apps that cost anything charge.

Nevertheless.

I may be sadly widget-less, but RTM is my favorite so far.

Back to knitting!

One such famous person was Robin McKinley, beloved author of fine books like The Blue Sword and Deerskin and Door in the Hedge and The Outlaws of Sherwood.  I’ve been reading her books since I was a young adult and, like most authors, she was mostly a name on a cover.  A name I was always happy to see and an assurance that good things lay within. Of course, I have small children (plus husband) and at least two jobs additionally so I am not at all current with her oeuvre.  Or anyone’s oeuvre.

Quite unexpectedly, amidst all the knitting tweets, came a tweet from McKinley… about knitting.

Just like in her books, she is so funny!  So real!  Read it here:

Frelling Knitting

You know what this means, don’t you?

Coolest. Author. Ever.