FO: and all at once summer collapsed into fall

I finished up a pair of socks yesterday.  I knit these pretty much everywhere I went for about two weeks - during lunch breaks, on conference calls, on the couch after work, in the car (when I wasn't driving - don't freak out).  If I was sitting down and near these socks, odds are I was working on them.

I've been experimenting with my basic sock recipe lately.  Something (stress) has tightened my gauge back up.  This summer I frogged the better part of a sock knit on my standard US 1.5/2.5 mm needles and a 64 stitch CO.  I felt sorry for myself and my fat ankles for about ten minutes until it occurred to me to check my gauge.  I was clocking 9 sts/inch, and no dang wonder 64 stitches was too small.

Anyway, rather than go up a needle size, since I like a sock to have a firm fabric (I mean, not kevlar-firm, just regular sock firm) I decided to add a few stitches to see what would happen.   And then I thought, let's get really crazy and get a new heel up in here.  Yeah, I know when you experiment you should only change one variable at a time, but I do what I want.

So, 68 stitches cast on and a Fish Lips Kiss Heel later, and I have a perfect fitting sock.  Four perfect fitting socks, actually, since this is the second time I've tried this recipe.

I know, I know, how have I knit so many pairs of socks but I'm just now getting around to the FLK heel?  I have two reasons, neither of which, in retrospect, were really worth the delay.

1) The pattern is a million pages long and has you trace your foot onto cardboard.  That sounded like a lot of commitment.  (I solved for this by knitting top down and skipping to the good parts.  The foot model is actually probably really helpful for a toe-up sock--I'm not casting aspersions, I just never got around to it.)

2) My previous short-row heel experiences had all been disappointing.  The didn't fit and they looked like butt.   This one fits, and it looks fine, so go figure.   Now, I will grant you my previous short-row heels were knit back in, what, 2011?  I'm a better knitter now, so that's probably a factor.  But this pattern is also pretty darned cool, so props to the designer.

Anyway, I'm a convert.  It won't be the last new heel I ever try, and it probably won't be my forever-default heel, but for right now, I'm digging it.

Seriously, these things are so comfortable.  I'm still wearing them.

The name of the project, "and all at once summer collapsed into fall" is a quote from Oscar Wilde.  I'm working on making my project names more interesting.  More interesting than "Autumn colored socks, #16" would have been anyway.

Project Notes

Pattern:  Regular old socks + Fish Lips Kiss Heel

Yarn: ONline Supersocke 4-fach City Color, colorway "1486" (it was an excellent vintage)

Total Yardage: 354 yards

Needles: US 1.5/2.5 mm 32" Knitters Pride circulars, magic loop

Started: September 14, 2018

Completed: September 28, 2018

Ravelry Project Page: here

Ruminations on Planning

My dear friend recently started a blog post series on planning.   This is not an unboxing/which-system-is-best/here's-my-weekly-spread kind of series, though I wouldn't be surprised if she got to that later.

No, this first blog post of hers is an introspective piece that asks the question:

Why is it that some of us spend lots of money, time, and energy on the act of planning, on planning for planning, and on planners themselves?  

 And then she said "tag, you're it!" so here I am to take a stab at answering the same question.

Currently using a Panda Planner, though I'm apt to shift at a moment's notice.  I'm ever changing, like the moon.

I have a number of answers, and here they are in no particular order.

• I love office supplies.  I love papers, and journals, and pens, and stickers, and washi tape, and post-its.  They fill me with glee.  The way to my heart is through stationary, pure and simple.  Well, stationary or yarn, but that's a different blog post.
• I am incredibly privileged in that I have disposable income that I can spend on planning supplies.  But I'd use a 70 cent spiral bound notebook and a number 2 pencil if I had to.
• When I was a kid I had a full-on sticker collection.  When I discovered that adults could have stickers too (stickers that are nominally functional even) I about plotzed.
• I am a really visual person.  Seeing something makes it real for me.  I get some mileage out of virtual tools like Trello's kanban board (especially since I am working with a virtual team), but I vastly prefer old-school paper planning.
• As visual as I am, I am even more kinesthetic.  The physical act of writing something down does something in my brain.  I enjoy the sensation of pencil or pen on paper (and let me tell you how much I do not enjoy it when the pen or the paper isn't right.  Makes me picky like whoa.)   Not only that, but writing things down triggers them into my memory.    When I was in school, I could recall a piece of information by remembering where in my notes I wrote it.  Bottom quarter of the left-hand page...got it!
• I thrive on to-do lists.  Sometimes they are more like "to-done" lists, because I am not ashamed to write something down and cross it off after I've already done it, but in principle, I work better off of lists.
• It alleviates my stress, and helps me to think more clearly to see the plan written down.  To know what the steps are, and to have it off-loaded out of my brain and onto paper makes a huge difference in how productive I am.  Brains are processors, not hard-drives...so writing things down frees up my RAM.

So basically, the TL;DR answer is:  I like it and it helps.  Digital planners are much less useful for me (though as noted above, digital project management tools have their time and place).  

Did I mention I really dig stickers?

VH1's "Where Are They Now?" 2018 February is for Finishing Edition

Last year I started a new tradition (you can tell it's a tradition, cuz now I'm doing it for the second time - that's totally how tradition works) of checking in to share where I am with the projects that were on my "February is for Finishing" list. 

So let's do that!   This past February I had seven projects on my list.  Six "real" projects, and one "doesn't count" project that I keep counting.

1.  Let's start with Schrodinger's Blanket (until you open the box it is in a constant state of either being a WIP or not being a WIP... geddit?).  It's official name is my Hogwarts Studies Blanket, and I'm really not much farther than I was in February.  We're in it for the long haul with this guy.



I think I might have added one or maybe two more squares since this was taken, but this is pretty much where we're at.

2. Frisson.  June 23, 2017 - February 10, 2018.   This was one of my February is for Finishing victories.   I love this thing - I knit it out of Miss Babs Keira, which is a heavy fingering (almost sport weight) yarn.  I wore the heck out of it last winter, but apparently didn't ever take any modeled shots.



3. Caramel.  August 2, 2017 - August 7, 2018.  This baby only saw action during "break months" in the Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup.    Turns out if you only work on a sweater one month out of every four, it takes a minute to get done.  It was August in Tennessee when I finished this beauty, so most of my attempts at a modeled shot were sweaty and disappointing (rather like some of my early attempts at dating, actually).

4. ROYGBV.  August 5, 2017 - March 28, 2017.   I successfully made toe-up knee-high socks, using a the Double Gusset on Bottom Toe Up Sock by Carrie Ramirez as a start, and then just winging it on the calf increases.  I love them, and I used up all but a tiny smidge of the yarn.

 

5. Charms OWL: Torquata.  January 1, 2018 - March 25, 2018.  This is another shawl (wrap? stole?) that I wear all the time.  I have a cute tank top that goes with it perfectly, and it makes for the perfect summer outfit when you want a cover-up for over air-conditioned buildings.



6. Big Magic.  January 1, 2018 - February 18, 2018.   Hey! Another February Finishing victory!  These socks were a test knit of the Non-Euclidean heel for a designer friend of mine (I met her at SSK, and I think she's swell).  The heel is clever and comfortable.  A++ would knit again. In fact, I did.



7. Dappled Sunlight.  January 21, 2018 - March 7, 2018.   Another really wearable piece.  This was a lot of fun to knit, and I really like the Cloudborn Fibers Highland Fingering.  It's toothy without being unbearably scratchy.   It's a wool's wool, ya know?




So there you have it.   The scrap yarn blanket is the same as it ever was (more or less) but everything else from last February's list is done like dinner.

Which begs the question... does February is for Finishing still make sense for me?   I currently have two blankets in progress, a sweater, a shawl, and a pair of socks.  The socks and the shawl are both on track to be done within a week or two, and the sweater is this Term's OWL.   I don't really have UFOs anymore.

Am I cured?

(Immediately looks around for lightening to strike).