It rained All Day. And I am Not Kidding. Rain and wind blowing the rain onto the porch so we had to keep the roll-downs in the down position all day so that every thing wouldn’t be soaking wet. I spent the day listening to an Agatha Christie tape (The Body in the Library) from the library and working on socks from Michael’s leftovers. His Wildfoote socks, that I finished in the car yesterday, are pictured on the left with his feet inside them. Michael proclaims these socks to be the most comfortable socks he has ever worn. Since he has said that about many of the socks I’ve made for him, I quizzed him carefully to see if this were true. When I woke up this morning I saw that he had slept in them. Which just proved his point. You can’t see it, but the socks have a graduated diamond pattern on the sides of the legs. The picture on the right is the leg and heel of my leftover socks: the off-white is leftover from Cast On’s “Popcorn and Lace” socks and the green, of course, is the aforementioned Wildfoote.

I started my sock knitting on DPNs and really love them. I only learned to use circulars when I talked Great Gran into taking a circular needles sock class with me a couple of months ago (the beginning of the Sock Frenzy). The circulars have been very practical since I like to have a sock going to take in the car or to meetings or whatever; when you drop one of your needles, it doesn’t end up under the seat of the car where lots of other icky things are or clatter on the floor and make everyone look at you. The other advantage is being able to switch to a smaller size needle to do the bottoms of socks. Supposedly this strengthens the bottom and makes it wear more slowly. I will keep you posted about that last bit. I am not sure if I buy it. But it is a nice idea and certainly beats duplicate stitching the heels to reinforce them.

I don’t think that I will be buying more sets of circulars just to knit socks, though. If I need sizes other than #1 or #3, I will probably just stick with my DPNs.

SO. After I finished the sleeve of my diamond sweater, I got a little queasy about the amount of yarn it took to make it. But I said to myself, “Self, just start on the back and see how far you get with one ball.” Not nearly far enough. I knit a little farther with a new ball and decided that if the Suggested Yardage was enough for the sweater it was JUST enough and that was cutting it WAY too close for my comfort. In a moment of panic, I anxiously unraveled my swatches but there wasn’t enough yarn in them to make me feel any better. So I emailed Jean at Lorien to see if there was any chance she had some of my dyelot left. And she did. Just one shiny sweater saving ball! Talk about a yarn miracle. It is coming in the mail very soon, Jean is my Best Friend and the many hours with those tiny needles aren’t wasted. I have never done the “Arguh! I don’t have enough yarn!” thing before. Let me tell you, it is not a good feeling.

I may have to make another sweater for Great Gran; she is enamoured with it. I will know how much yarn to get next time.

Michael had to get a new mobile phone and all of the new ones now have cameras. So I said: Can I take pictures and put them in my blog? And he said: Sure! So here you are. The finished sleeve of my diamond stitch sweater. Not a bad picture for a little telephone camera. And what a nice way to solve my technological incompatibility. The back of the sweater has about 7″ on it.

By the way, I ordered a Rowan handknit DK color card and it convinced me. I am ordering the yarn the striped sweater pattern calls for as soon as the next paycheck comes in. I am very excited.

So I bet you’re thinking, “That Emily! There is nothing going on over there!” Not true! It is just that here at the Beach Cabana there is only the laptop and Michael insists upon using it for something he calls “work.”

The Yarn Fairy has come to visit us several times cleverly disguised as Ronnie the Mail Carrier. He brought Great Gran some more sock yarn (when you are in a Frenzy, the Fixation goes FAST), a ball of Chinchila for a Chemo Care Cap (Have you ever made one of those things? It is like knitting a muppet.), and we got a Scarf Kit thinking that it was going to be a bunch of cool odds and ends but no! Just four skeins of Cotton Twist in loud loud turquoise. If anybody knows something to make out of four skeins of Cotton Twist that isn’t a six foot long scarf, I would love to hear about it. And to me, Ronnie/The Yarn Fairy brought Cotton Fine in Prarie Lupine to make the “Short-Sleeved Diamond Stitch Sweater” in Vintage Knits, some Cotton Fleece in Harvest (both from Lorien) to make a quick vest for me (it is good to have a few things in the ole stash), and the best present of all Denise Interchangeable Needles! Oh how they rock. They are an early Christmas present from Great Gran who needed a #8 circular and I needed a #7 and a #9 and so we decided it was much more economical to just go ahead and get the set. Joy. They are so cool, I spent a long time taking them apart and putting them together and seeing how long of a cord I could make.

The Diamond Stitch sweater is coming along sloooowly. It is on #0s and 1#s with about a million stitches so it will take a while. I have finished a sleeve. I think it will be nice if I ever get finished. Fortunately, I now live in a Hot Climate and short sleeved sweaters will get me well into October.

The purse stitch scarf is all finished. And so is “Remembering Honey” from this summer’s Interweave Knits. Unfortunately, I have followed Great Gran to the beach: Mom had to go back to Atlanta but Great Gran said she wasn’t coming home – possibly ever – so Michael, the dog and I have all come down to Mary Esther to be with her. This is only unfortunate (the beach itself is great – nice breeze off the water, the Sock Frenzy, “I Dream of Jeannie” every afternoon) because the digital camera doen’t work with M’s laptop and there is no scanner even if I DID do one-hour processing on my photos. So you will just have to wait to see how they turned out. Great Gran has let me start her scarf (her color is Strawberry Patch) so that does dull the pain of no visuals a little bit.

Also, I have a quandry. I want to make the “Short-sleeved striped cotton sweater” in Vintage Knits (actually, I want to make just about everything in that entire book) but I can’t decide on colors. I would love love love to make it in the Rowan handknit dk cotton that the pattern calls for, it just looks like dreamy yarn AND machine washable to boot, but it is a little pricey. I have discovered that Brown Sheep’s Cotton Fleece is a great (and economical) substitute – despite it being handwash only and dry clean for anything involving more than one color – but I can’t decide on colors. If anybody has any brilliant ideas, please let me know.

Mom and Great Gran discovered a new yarn store. They found it when they were in desperate need of more Fixation – you know, for the Sock Frenzy that has seized the two of them since they went to Mary Esther for the summer. The “Yarn Garden” doesn’t carry Fixation, but they did get some of Brown Sheep’s Handpaint Originals to make scarves (Great Gran was making her own and Mom was making one for me).

Mom neglected to check the label (70% Mohair and 30% Wool) and started itching the minute she cast on. So I get to make my own scarf and Hooray for wool allergies!

This yarn is scrumptious, and so nice and shiny and fuzzy and bright! Lorien carries it in about a million colorways (and at such a great price!). My scarf is in “Sunbaked Earth” which has olive, orange, bright blue, maroon and brown. I feel the yarn deserves more than a boring old garter stitch, so I am making the whole thing in a purse stitch (*YO, K2tog, rep from * on all rows) that really shows off the yarn. I think I need a matching hat.

This scarf would go much faster if I would stop spreading it out to look at the colors.

mmm…pretty colors

I couldn’t stand it, M wouldn’t get out the digital camera so I threw it on the scanner. The orange makes me happy every time it comes around.

PS The needles are Bakelite. Wish they still made ’em like they used to.