Pennsic Projects, Finished

I've finished (or mostly finished) some of the lingering SCA projects recently!

First is the Gunnister Purse, finally done. I finished the knitting last week while we were in Illinois, but the drawstrings and tassels have taken awhile. The drawstrings are fingerloop braids, which require a period of uninterrupted time - and I wound up doing two sets because I thought the first (5 loops, with a red one) were too reminiscent of sock monkeys. This 3-loop braid of brown and white looks better, and uses up the last of my brown yarn.

I modified the design just a bit. The original has a single drawstring; I added the second and the tassels to make it look a bit older, since I'm most likely to use it in the SCA. The original was found with a coin from 1690, which puts it pretty far out of the SCA period, but it's a nice example of early knitting, and seems to resemble earlier work, at least to my untrained eye. (By the way, here's a really great list of pictures and pages on early pouches of all kinds.)

Now my current knitting plans involve finishing projects. First, finishing some things for my Secret Pal - then going on to knock off some of the many works in progress.

I also finished a strip of tablet weaving that I'd hoped to have done before war. It's supposed to be a copy of one of the Snartemo bands, although now that the war's over I have second thoughts. (The "Advanced Viking Tablet Weaving" instructor said that many bands which were thought to be two-hole patterns have proven to be four-hole patterns with two threads rotted away. So I'll have to look for recent thoughts on these bands.) But one way or another, it's a nice looking band and easy to weave. I've used Louet Gems here, and wound up with a band that's about an inch wide.

It's going to be a strap on the water bottle Aaron made for me. I just need to figure out how to attach it and how long it needs to be, and turn it over to Aaron for a cork. Then I'll have a lovely (and slightly scary, thanks to the dog) water bottle that will keep me well-hydrated at events.

All future textile projects may be on hold for awhile. Tomatoes are coming in like crazy, and I'm learning that they can be hard to give away - everyone at work has a plant or two of their own. I blanched and froze a bunch of sweet corn last night, and tonight my attention turns to cheese and peaches. But I need to get back to tablet weaving, soon.

Pasties Angel

Now I think I'm really, really done with all my obligation knitting. I volunteered to be a pasties angel for the Knit Girls' spring exchange, and finally finished my backup pasties.

These are Brittany Wilson's Burlesque Fan Pasties, made of Dale of Norway's Baby Ull yarn on size 2.5 needles. The original pattern uses a worsted weight and size 5 needles, but I hardly have any worsted weight yarn in the house - and my recipient likes lavender. So I made the XL sized pasties, hoping to fit a medium. Since they're pasties, I don't think the fit needs to be very precise, as long as they cover what they're supposed to cover.

The pattern is fairly simple to knit - you start at the long edge, and decrease down to the point. Getting the feathers in place is a more complicated process involving fabric glue, scrap yarn, and shaving down the tips of the feathers to have a nice stem. (Hint: do this part outside!) I think more and shorter feathers might look better, but I'm not sure. I'm also not sure if these will be as good for Christmas ornaments as my other pasties.

So that's one more project that wasn't even on the list to check off the list. The list isn't going so well.

I've made a little bit of progress on the Tour de Fleece spinning. I was actually feeling pretty good for a little bit - after some marathon spinning last night (thanks to the Greatest American Dog show) I finished all the red yarn I need to complete my project. Then I weighted it - I've spun 3/8 of an ounce of yarn so far. So that's still enough red yarn, but there's a long way to go before I'm ready to knit my bag. Maybe I shouldn't have taken the 15th as a rest day! I wonder if there are steroids that help knitters?

Tentacles!

Now that my Hogwarts pal has received her package, I can post about the bag I made for her!

The requirement for the swap is to send a kit for your pal to make something - it started with just socks, but it's expanded since some people have a lot of socks by now. Each kit has to include a handmade item for the recipient, and everything goes in a bag - or that seems to be the tradition, at least.

So I wanted a bag design that would be a little bit funky, in honor of the whole Harry Potter universe, and also thought it should be something I've been wanting to try. So I pulled out Cat Bordhi's Moebius Knitting book and made the Jester Tentacles bag for my pal.

The moebius cast-on was a bit funky to learn. It's a simple enough technique, but my needle was too long, and the stitches were stretched out at first. Too short is definitely better than too long for this project. But you only do a little bit of the moebius knitting before opening up slits to add the bag's pouches.

Here's what the bag looks like with the inner pouch finished, and the outer pouch mostly finished. The moebius band forms the top of the two pouches and holds them together. The purple and blue parts are waste yarn, marking where the tentacles and straps will be inserted.

Getting to this step took a lot longer than I expected. Finishing the main part doesn't mean the bag is anywhere close to finished - the straps and tentacles involved a lot of knitting. Bordhi has you go to two circular needles for knitting the pouches and the tentacles, but I didn't want to go buy another circular needle in a size I rarely used, so I tried to magic loop the whole thing. This worked fine for the pouches, but made the tentacles take even longer - I wound up buying a set of DPNs, which made things much easier.

Here's the bag post-felting. Felting Cascade 220 is a bit scary; for a long time there's no change, and then it seizes up all at once. If I'd paid closer attention I might have had a slightly larger bag in the end, but I'm content with the result. I stuffed it with plastic grocery bags to help it dry in the shape I wanted.

The straps didn't felt down short enough - usually I have the opposite problem, so I'd made them extra long. I felted them by hand to get a more reasonable length.

I'd thought about adding something to the end of the tentacles - eyeballs, charms, or bells - but nothing quite worked out for me. In the end, I don't think it needs anything else to help it look weird.

Winter Knitting Revisited

There's been a decent amount of sunshine, the 500 is over, and I sincerely hope we've seen the last of the snow. That probably means it's time for me to go over my list of winter knitting goals, and see how I did. This is not going to be pretty.

Edit: Ali, of Skeins Her Way, has brought back the "Summer Knitting Goals" contest that inspired me to do this in the first place. So if I'm really lucky, I'll be adding to the to-do list!

Out of the original list of 13 things to knit, I've finished exactly one - the Christmas Socks - and I didn't finish those until after 12th Night. A handful of other projects sneaked onto the list a bit later:

1. Silk toe socks
2. Norwegian Socks
3. Fiber Fish Mittens
4. Killer Hat
5. Lickety Split Socks
6. Jacobean Socks

Of those, I've finished half: the toe socks, the Jacobean socks, and the Killer Hat. I'm going to give myself extra credit on the hat, since I've knitted five of the darned things. Even counting each hat as a finished object that negates something else on the list, I'm at 50%. If I just average in all the hats, I'm at 38%. I'm not really improving performance, here.

There were, I should note, a few other projects that never made it to the list. The Zombie socks are the only notable one, although I'm also quite pleased with my Obama hat. If I try to bring all the undeclared projects into the list, the dishcloths for the Yarn Harlot are really going to hurt me in the completing-things department. And I only finished half the set of Sock Wars socks before I died, so that doesn't look so good, either.

The non-knitting list isn't much better.

I cleaned the apartment, but only the visible parts. It's still a mess. I haven't done any work on photo albums. My dead computer has gone untouched. I sold my old car and replaced it with a new one, so that sort of counts as "fixing," but the person who got the old one has a "to-do" list that keeps growing.

The one thing I managed was to work for the Obama campaign - having the still-going primary helped there. I didn't do as much as I'd like, but I've discovered that I really hate knocking on doors and making phone calls to strangers, so it's been a learning experience.

Now it's time for the new list. When I started it, I didn't know I'd be planning a wedding.

1. Amanda's Sockday Socks
2. Finish the Dog Sweaters
3. Travelling Socks, if I can figure out how to knit them
4. Reversai Socks
5. Lickety Split socks (in time for my birthday, although I probably won't need them then)
6. The Red Scarf
7. Finish the Kauni Cardigan in time to wear next fall
8. Avoid the temptation to cast on "Isabella" until I've finished the Kauni Cardigan
9. "Hope" socks, in time for November
10. Preemie caps for any remaining primaries
    
11. Deliver the IN preemie caps
12. Other Obama charity knitting
13. My Hogwarts kit, for the swap
14. Join the SP12 swap
15. My Wedding Shawl
16. Fiber Fish mittens
    
17. Bavarian Strolling socks
18. Sidewinders socks
19. Bulgarian Rose socks
20. Cotton socks
21. Coriolis socks
22. The "Walkies" pattern
23. Nordic Socks
24. March/April Sock Club socks
25. May/June Sock Club socks
26. Something fun - preferably with a fish!
    

I think that's it. I hope that's it. I'll be resisting the temptation to do hand-knit attendant gifts, I think.

In the non-knitting activities, I have

1. Book a wedding location and date
2. Go over my new car to make sure everything works
3. Clean the apartment. Seriously.
4. Empty one box of papers a month, including putting away all the stuff I keep.
5. Finish that silk dress from last year
6. Write an article for the Indiana Historical Society
   
7. Finish my Munich/Greece photo album
8. Put together an Oldenburg album
9. Make new SCA garb
10. Finish my Viking shoes
11. Make beads again.
    

Let's see how productive the summer can be!

March Madness

Traditionally "March Madness" referrs to the NCAA basketball tourney - which may be something we at Purdue get to care about this year - but there's also all sorts of other exciting stuff going on this March.

For a start, this is Tornado Season Kickoff Week, and we had our first tornado siren drill of the year. But it's not really the most exciting week for severe summer weather, since we're still getting more than our share of severe winter weather - the umpteenth snowfall/blizzard of the year last night. We just thawed out from the last several batches yesterday, and here it is again.


More importantly, March Madness means Sock Madness - which is just eight days away! So while I haven't developed my Severe Weather Preparadness Plan, I'm working hard on my Sock Preparadness Plan. The first step is to check all my equipment, and make sure it's ready to use. So I've done that by finishing my toe socks, thus freeing a set of Size 1 needles for other uses. I've also finished these before Aaron returns, which I'd hoped to do, so I'm right on track for my sock schedule. Practice is good. I'll be wearing these socks tomorrow, for MY SOCKDAY!!!!!!


Supplies are the next step. I'd hoped to go to River Knits last night to lay in a store of emergency supplies, but, ironically, they were closed because of the bad weather. At least I was still able to buy milk and bread. But I conducted a further review (with the able assistance of my would-be Sock Service Dog) and found that I may have enough supplies already. Except for the Misti Alpaca (which I know will be needed for Sock Madness), this is all sock yarn. The good news is that I think this is all of my sock yarn. I think that's good.

I'm also gathering supplies for a second project, which I want to have finished before the Yarn Harlot comes to town. I still need to find some blue and green Sugar 'n' Cream yarn, and figure out exactly how to do an entrelac square with a nice border. Can you guess what it's going to be?

Audacity

I had a moment of terror the other day when Aaron delivered a squishy package to me at work. Was I going to die from a Hat Attack, right in the middle of the library? The return address offered no clues or reassurance, so I very delicately opened the envelope.

And found this. My new "Audacity" Yarn, from Black Bunny Fibers. It's a delightfully soft superwash merino, hand-dyed in gold, brown, and rust. I hope it will be perfect for one of the upcoming Sock Madness socks, or maybe a Sock Pentathlon sock, or maybe just a sock I design for fun. And it's special yarn, because Carol, the dyer, is donating $15 for each skein sold to the Obama campaign. So I'm doing a good deed by buying yarn - it's hard to beat that.


Here's the skein in a ball, so it's all ready to go if I decide to use it for one of the upcoming sock challenges. I have a feeling I'm going to be buying a lot of yarn soon - Sock Madness goes through 8 rounds, and Sock Pentathlon 5 - and since I don't know what the patterns will look like, I'll need to have a wide selection of yarns available. I don't want to use yarn I really love for a pattern that doesn't excite me, but if I'm going to go to the trouble of knitting a weird pattern I want to use yarn I like. It's a good thing I'm not trying a yarn diet right now - although if I were, yarn for a good cause wouldn't count.


And although I've cut back on knitting this week to enjoy Aaron's visit, I couldn't resist finishing this - my "Yes, We Can" hat. Giant Stuffed Catfish like Barack Obama, too. March is coming in like a lamb for the next couple of days, but the local weather guy is predicting a colder than normal month, so finishing the hat is kind of an important project. I want to wear it now while there's still some need to drum up excitement - and I hope it will be much too warm for wool hats by our May primary. I wasn't sure how it would work out, but I'm pleased to report that the hat fits. It's 120 stitches around, on size 5 needles, made from Cascade 220. I've duplicate stitched on the Obama logo, following Jeneanw's chart.


Incidentally an afghan made from the same chart, and all sorts of other fabulous fibery prizes, are available in the Ravelry Knitters for Obama raffle. Check out their page at my.barackobama.com for details!

On the Twenty-Fourth Day of Christmas...

I finished my Christmas socks.

They're a little bit late, but they're done - a heavily-modified variant of the Shimmer Socks from MagKnits, made from Crystal Palace Panda Wool.

This is a beautiful yarn, but it's more than a little tricky to work with. It's frail and prone to splitting, but it's delightfully soft and has a lovely shimmer. This colorway was rather more enchanting in the ball than it is in the sock, so I think I'm still looking for the perfect Panda Wool pattern - and the perfect Christmas Sock.

The finished socks had their first picture taken with Purdue Pete, in a campus cafeteria. The cafe is a project for hospitality management students, and this semester, it's my office. I've been knitting during my officially scheduled office hours, and today Alsatia joined me, so we're very near to forming a daytime knitting circle. It turns out there's a group of about 15 knitters from the Consumer & Family Sciences department who get together regularly, so I'll have to keep an eye out for them.

Now I'm on to finishing other projects - starting with my new toe socks. And I've picked up a replacement needle for Oscar's last chew toy, so I can resume work on my Kauni Cardigan. The next challenge will be trying to avoid starting too many projects - I just bought the Fiber Fish pattern, so now I'm searching for the perfect fish-colored yarn. Anyone know what color wool fish are supposed to be?

I don't like ol' Sneaky Snake

I'm convinced that Elizabeth Zimmerman's Moccasin Socks are named more for the poisonous reptile than for the shoe. Never has so promising a pattern been so disappointing for me.

Knitting the cuff was a pure pleasure, if a quick one. I loved the Lorna's Laces yarn, and began to see the benefits of worsted weight socks - I'd made serious progress on my first sock in no time at all. But then I had to knit most of it twice - because it's hard to measure how long the instep portion of the foot should be. You can't just put it on and check the fit, and the "as long as you want it" measurements aren't much help. So after finishing one sock, I had to rip the whole sole out and re-do the foot to lengthen it. It needs to be longer than you think, since the toe wraps around the bottom of your foot - for my 9.25" long foot, I have nearly 8" of instep before beginning the toe shaping (this includes about an inch of plain stockinette knitting).


The length was the easy problem - once figured out, it's easily avoided. Not so with the HOLES. Holes are the bane of this sock's existence. Holes transform it from a fun and easy pattern to a never-again nightmare. Look at all the holes:

There are holes along the foot from picking up the stitches along the instep. I tried every trick for avoiding holes, and none worked. If I had it to do over I wouldn't slip the first stitch of each row, and the I'd pick up the stitches 2 at a time and knit them together. That's the only other thing I can think of to try - and it means ignoring all the "slip the first stitch" advice in the instructions.


The there are more holes around the heel, no doubt a consequence of the heel shaping. They're worse on one side than on the other. I can't think of any sort of workaround for these.


Holes, holes, holes. I hate holes in my socks. The whole purpose of this design is so that you can easily fix the socks if they get holey - but what's the point if it starts out full of holes?

So I sat down with a darning needle and some extra yarn, and went all around both soles, fixing all the holes. That sort of removes the socks' main benefit, since now it will be much more difficult to remove and replace the soles if they become worn. But it's better than having holey socks.

They look kind of funny on their own....


but are much more normal when worn. I still don't know if I like them. They feel kind of funny, since the drawn-up heel makes the sock feel like it's slipping off my foot. So far they seem to have stayed in place, and they're reasonably warm. I don't know how well they work with shoes, but I'm a bit worried that the weird sole construction could lead to blisters.


What I do know is that the leftover yarn isn't going to become another pair. So if I ever want to knit Christmas presents for everyone I know, I'm going to have to come up with another project.

November December it's all over

I really shouldn't have tried to knit today. After Michelle's sockday party I began to feel pain in both wrists - pain that spread up both arms until it felt like I'd been laying bricks for two days.

Of course I hadn't - but apparently knitting for two days straight is as bad an idea as letting me build a brick wall would be. I spent last night too sore to knit - too sore to write - too sore to even wrestle with the child-proof bottle of ibuprofen (doesn't that seem like a cruel joke?), but I worked through the pain for that one.

This does not mean that I developed any sense about pacing my knitting, especially when lured by the prospect of a second finished object in as many days. So I finished my second Hurricane Sock, which had been languishing for days with a nearly-finished toe. Just a few rows later, I have a new pair of socks!

They're a little overdue. I misremembered the Hurricane poem, so I thought the sock-knitting season wouldn't be "all over" until November. Even then, I missed my erroneously-set deadline by a few days, so neither Hurricane Noel nor the "I thought we were talking about Barbados" excuse could have my socks finished on time. And my slowness is even more pathetic than it sounds, because I only had to make one sock - the other one was completed long before the Hurricane Season Kickoff by my fabulous Hurricane Sock Party pal, Darlene.

But now there are two socks - socks which had their only on-the-road adventure in Talladega, but which kept me good, solid company in many 10-minute increments before classes. They'll make their debut on Wednesday, so the classmates who've watched them progress all semester can see the finished product before we all go home for Christmas.

And speaking of sock adventures, the socks and I have a new hero: Tracy, who, at the risk of being hauled off by the Secret Service, got Barack Obama to hold her sock. And she got the Yarn Harlot to write about it. The bar has been set, folks - now I'm hoping for a chance to get President Obama to hold my socks!

Off My Back

No monkey business here! The socks are finished, thanks to yesterday's long drive home.

So just before leaving for Talladega, I took a Yarn Abstinence Vow. After buying the yarn to complete my red scarf, I promised I would not buy any more yarn, at all - not for gifts, not on sale - for one full month. That's until November 4. If I keep this vow, I can buy up to two skeins of Socks that Rock (and the Rock 'n' Weave pattern) in time to make stuff for Christmas. But temptation comes so quickly.

I had a Plan for these socks. A practical, stash-busting Plan. They would be made with Leftovers...leftovers from my Entrelac Socks, stretched out with leftovers from my Braided Rice Socks. It seemed like a good Plan.

The first challenge to the Plan came when it turned out that the lovely cables of the Braided Rice Socks don't leave many leftovers. But that wasn't a real setback, since I can always use more Gems. And buying one small skein of yarn to make a new pair of socks didn't seem unreasonable. I'd weighed my leftover Cherry Tree Hill, and had more than enough, it seemed, to complete a pair of socks even without the extra yarn.

But as I knit those last repeats, I watched my ball of yarn getting smaller and smaller. Knitting faster doesn't help you finish before the yarn runs out.

And here I'd taken a Yarn Vow. And the colorway - Life's a Beach - turned out to be a no-longer -available special edition. I could have called Aaron and sent him off to beg at River Knits, but that seemed to be asking alot, especially in light of the Yarn Vow.

So I frogged. Pulled out the toe of the first finished sock, and very gently cannibalized it for the second. This is the main reason the Nile socks became my track socks - I hadn't brought any extra needles, and didn't think the loose stitches could stand up to being carried around in my knitting bag. It's a good thing I bought that whole ball of Gems.

So I don't have a good excuse to buy more yarn, but I think I need a new yarn kitchen scale.


And here are the finished socks. The long-dreaded cold snap will come any day now, and they'll go out for their debut. Aren't they great?

Like so many people, I've fallen in love with this pattern. It's easy to memorize, and it seems to knit up really quickly. A second set of Monkeys may be in the works once I knock off some UFOs.

I had to step down to Size 1, and then to Size 0 needles, but other than that the pattern worked perfectly. After the frogging I deliberately made the toes a little short, so the pattern will stretch nicely. Nothing will make me look forward to cold weather, but these should ease the pain!

Two Finished Things!

I suppose the first one isn't exactly a finished object, but after yesterday I can cross two things off the "knitting goals" list. I've taught three people how to needle felt, although I'm not sure if I made three new needle felters - one person didn't enjoy it nearly as much as she'd expected. But I did what I could for the needle felting cause, and I think everyone learned what they wanted to learn. One of the little rock pouches is well on its way to becoming a fish, part of the "how to attach things to other things" lesson. Maybe the finished fish will go to River Knits as an enticing example for others.


And I have a genuine finished object - the Tidal Wave socks from Tofutsies. This takes care of the May/June Sock Club sock, which means that I only have two outstanding - January/February's Fascine Braid socks, and the cotton socks from last summer. I have a huge amount of yarn left over, so I'll have to find something to do with it. And I'll have to work really hard to resist buying more Tofutsies.

New Socks

Just in time for Sock Club, I've finished a pair of socks. Here are my Braided Rice Socks, made with Louet Gems. I love these socks, and I'm sure I'd love them even if they weren't designed by my friend Michelle.

The bits of leftover yarn will joint the leftover Cherry Tree Hill from my Entrelac Socks to become Monkey. I already cast on, while I was waiting for my pictures to upload.

Secret Pal 10 Reveal

There was something waiting for me when I got home last night....

Hey, it's the reveal package from Secret Pal 10! Wonder what's inside?


All kinds of goodies, as it turns out. Four different yarns, some tourist goodies from Oklahoma, a lovely picture frame for dog pictures, a handy gauge gadget, two knitting bags, and a beautiful little potpourri pouch. Wow!

Notice that the potpourri pouch is so beautiful that the dogs want to check it out, even if that means risking smelling good.


Here are a couple highlights. This cute little fish-shaped massager didn't make the group picture, because I was so excited by the other goodies that I didn't notice the dogs had carried off one bag. The bag was marked 'For tired "knitters shoulders,"' and it definitely falls into the "Just what I needed!" category. I've already put it to good use. And it's fish shaped. How cool is that?


Then there's the yarn. These two skeins are destined for something special, although it make take me a long time to figure out what. The brown one is from JR Alpacs, "raised, sheared & spun in Oklahoma!" The multicolored one is a wool-and-silk blend from Mystical Creations Yarn.

I know what will happen to the other two - they're destined to be socks! The beige ball is from Yarn Art, and the blue one is Opal's "Frosch" (frog) color. I don't see much frogginess in the color, but I love the pattern pictures. It's going to get stashed away to be my emergency project the next time I have to travel suddenly. Going on a trip without enough knitting is not something I ever want to experience again.

(Yes, there's space for an aside here. This happened to me once - I went on a 3-week trip with so little notice (and so little stash) that I only had one work-in-progress with me, and I finished it in the first few days. So there I was with nothing to do on long bus rides. The flight home was even worse....no knitting, I'd read all my books, and my teaching responsibilites were over. For the first time I can remember, I had about 12 hours - one very long afternoon - with nothing to do....and nothing I should have been doing. It was weird. I didn't like it. This yarn will prevent that. I feel secure.)

But the bigger question is, "who's in the package?" Or at least who's revealing her identity - no actual Secret Pals were shipped. My fabulous SP10 pal is Mimi of mimiwontonknits. She's a retired realtor, a grandmother, President of her local knitting guild, and a wonderful Secret Pal! And yes, she lives in Oklahoma, which explains the cards, the toothpick holder, and the red knitting bag from her newest Local Yarn Store. She even sent a picture of herself, a really great idea and something I wish I'd thought to do for my pal.

Thank you, Mimi! I've felt wonderfully spoiled this summer.

Going the other direction, I'm getting ready to send the final reveal package to my own pal. My latest FO will be part of it - this little crocheted bead bracelet. And what's that beautiful blue background? It's the heel of my Braided Rice Sock, which will have a mate any day now!

Elizabeth's Sockday

Today was Elizabeth's sockday, and I finished her socks just in time! These Turkish socks are made with Dale of Norway's Falk yarn, using my own pattern. I'm toying with these diamond motifs for Turkish socks, hoping to come up with a system that gives a lot of flexibility for pattern design, but cuts back on the need for swatching and charting. This time, I knit both socks at once, so I wouldn't run out of yarn. I'm really happy with the way the colors worked together, especially since I'm not even sure why I had some of the colors here.

We gathered for the sockday at O'Bryan's Nine Irish Brothers, a new bar in Lafayette. The restaurant was kind of disappointing - if I think the food portions are too small, that's a bad sign. I might go back, just because there was a dessert I would have tried had it been better described - a mint chocolate pie that came across more like one of those disgusting "death-by-sweet-cheap-chocolate" concoctions in the waitress's description.

There were 7 pairs of exciting socks there, plus the ones everyone was working on. I'm sure pictures will appear soon.

And, as promised, I cast on Sidewinders as soon as I got home. This project started with a swatch - only the third one I've ever made. I'm a little concerned, though, that it won't do much good...this doesn't really look like it's meant to go 1/4 of the way around my foot, does it?

This is Part I, with a beginning of the toe shaping in Part II. The toe shaping doesn't show because it's being held down by the yarn, since the whole sock really wants to curl. I'm using a Regia 4-ply sock yarn (Brazil Color) that was a Secret Pal gift from Elizabeth - how's that for a way to celebrate her sockday?

Goal #8, and a bonus FO

Just in time to mail off my Hurricane Sock Pal's package, I've finished another project - pouches for my Hurricane pal and my SP10 pal. If you're absolutely sure you're not one of these people, click here to see the finished project.

Both pouches are from Kumiko Sudo's Omiyage: Handmade Gifts from Fabric in the Japanese Tradition. I love this book, and I've made many of the projects over and over. My own knitting accessories travel in a fish pouch, as does my jewelry. I have flowers for jewelry and other stuff, too. My sewing kit is shaped like a cicada - a handmade souvenir of our 17-year cicada summer of 2004. And just about everyone who's received a handwork-themed gift from me has one of these pouches.

Part of the fun of having a Hurricane Pal with very different interests is that I get to try something new. I've always wanted to make one of the "Village Girl" doll-shaped pouches, but I couldn't think of anyone who would want one. My pal, however, is really into kid-oriented stuff, so I hope that means this pouch will suit her well. It was fun to make, and it's one of the larger desighns, which is probably more useful.

I even completed a project that wasn't on the "to do" list - this felted box from Mason-Dixon Knitting. I started it some time ago, in an attempt to use up leftover yarn. It's the 20-stitch box, but made with worsted instead of bulky, so it's not very big - about 8" on a side. It turns out to be exactly the size of one of the Glad disposable containers, so it could be a handy insulator or a fuzzy snack bowl. It always feels good to finish something, even if it's not on the list.

Broadripple

I wanted my Hurricane Sock Pal's sock to see something of the village it was named for - and I wanted her to see where the sock was from - before it heads off to its new home. So yesterday Karen & I took the sock out for a night on the town, and showed it around Broad Ripple village, a neighborhood on the north side of Indianapolis.



The Central Canal runs through Broad Ripple. It was originally intended to be a significant link in a nationwide chain of canals, and advertisers boasted that one could make the trip from Indianapolis to the then-independent city of Broad Ripple, and back (all of six miles each way), in a single day! Now it provides a nice place to walk, and to see some wildlife. So the sock helped feed ducks, a traditional kids' pastime...



and geese. I think the goslings are really cute, but packs of geese can be pretty scary.



Broad Ripple used to have a railroad, the Monon line, running through the middle of it. By the time I was a kid, there was just one train a day, except when the Fair Train was running. Then we'd keep a close eye on the train schedule so we could go smash pennies on the tracks. There are just a few hints of the railroad left - I remember when someone lived in this caboose, but now it looks deserted.



Eventually, the railroad tracks were torn up and sold for scrap. I spent my high school and college years playing on an abandonded trestle, which probably should have been included in the "Bad Things I Did" post. After much debate, the old rail corridor became a hiking trail, and it's very popular. I still miss the old trestle, and the blackberries that grew along the tracks. The Monon trail joins up with the Central Canal towpath; two obsolete forms of transportation providing recreation.



I had some important shopping to do, so we stopped by the Three Dog Bakery, and the sock pretended to be a dog, enjoying all the treats. I could not believe how good the place smelled. And it turns out that the Oreo dog treats are just the sort of thing Max needs, so he was very grateful to us and the sock!



We gave the sock a chance to check out the canal...




...and some of the weird artwork. The city has designated Broad Ripple as a "cultural district," which seems to require the installation of weird art.



Broad Ripple is best known for its nightlife. The main drag, Broad Ripple Avenue, is mostly restaurants and clubs. There's a funny story about the time my brother, when he was about 10, rode into the village with his best friend and wound up in a long conversation with a woman of dubious reputation, and perhaps profession. Once it was well after dark and they still hadn't returned, my father was dispatched to find them. He couldn't escape the conversation either, so it was long past midnight before everyone was home. I don't know if she was chatting on the clock, or if prime earning hours for these ladies are really more late night than evening.



Our last stop was at one of my favorite hangouts, the Broadripple Brewpub. It's in a neat old house, just off the trail. So the sock bellied up to the bar...



....checked out the tanks....



...and had a beer (I helped with this part). Thus fortified, it's ready to head south, looking for a new home - and maybe even a mate!