Happy Friday, Again! Birds and Socks

Since retirement, I've learned to really appreciate Fridays.  No longer the day when I have to sit on a two hour conference call, listening to the pluses and minuses of life in the engineering business, it is now the restful, slow starting last day of the work week for everyone else.

It's also going to the dump day for my hubby and his buds.  So sometimes I get a nice quiet hour where nothing's moving (the eleven year old has turned into a late sleeper) and I can sit on the patio with my tea and a book.  Or I can just listen to the birds calling and watch them at the feeders.

Blue Jays are loud and very scrappy; also
they love peanuts in the shell* and are fun
to watch.  (*No salt please!)

Cardinals make a nice sound.  We
have a couple of pairs who come
to our feeders.

 

Finch feeders are also fun to watch.  Finches
invented the term 'flitting'.

Of course, we have a ton of our State bird, the
Robin...

OK, so much for ornithology (thank you, Jeopardy!)...

Today I spent the morning reading a book I checked out of the local library on Wednesday, a new J.A. Jance Joanna Brady 'novel of suspense', at least according to the book jacket.  The heroine is I guess a thirty-something County Sheriff in Arizona; I'm assuming her age as it's not given in the book.  In earlier novels her back story says she was married young and had a baby right away, then was widowed and elected to her then-husband's job, which is how she became a sheriff.  In this book she's send her oldest daughter to college, has a five year old son with her second husband, and author, and is pregnant again with a second daughter.

Sometimes imagining the life that would be is exhausting!  But the books are fun reads, and they go fast.  I also picked up another of Jance's novels in CD form so I can listen while I sew.  Multitasking!

Tomorrow I want to go to the farmers' market before I go to the quilt shop.  I've been longing for a tomato that was just picked today, rather than the ones picked a week ago and shipped in from wherever they come from these days.  I want tomatoes on toast with butter and melted mozzarella cheese!  And fresh asparagus, I mean really fresh, just picked. 

Sock progress is being made... slowly but surely.  (I signed up for a class -- Sock Tool Box, Cream City Yarn Shop, Brookfield WI).  From Session 1: Cast on and ribbing, my homework was to try different types of casts on, and different rib patterns.  I have enough needles, so why not make multiple socks, right?  I cast on three socks, and did various ribbings, two by two, one by one, and even tried twisted rib, which is putzy but looks nice.

Session 2: Legs, Legs, Legs! homework was to continue the sock in pattern to the point of the heel, which I did on two of the three socks, thanks to recorded Midsomer Murders and Masterpiece Mysteries. 

This sock has two by two rib and an easy
pattern.  It's called Hermoine's Every Day
socks, the pattern is free on Ravelry.com.

This sock is also two by two rib, and the pattern
is knit three, purl one.  This yarn isn't sock yarn,
no nylon content, so the heels and toes will
be a contrast color using sock yarn, I chose red.

The third sock is out of a bamboo/cotton yarn mix, and it knit up so big that the cuff was almost an inch larger than the other two, so that one got torn down and restarted using fewer stitches and a smaller needle size.  It's crazy because the other two were on 2.5 mm needles and that is very much smaller than I'm used to, so going down to 2.25 mm seems like knitting on toothpicks, especially since I love wood needles!  

Session 3 was on heels.  I had three different heel versions in my patterns, and Lindsay taught us how to do each one in a big overview.  I was the only one in class who had the "Fish Lips Kiss" heel pattern (cost is $1 on ravelry.com, it's really more of a sock 'recipe' than a pattern, and the designer didn't write up how to do the special stitch, although there is a YouTube video) so I stayed a few minutes after class ended to get some tips on that one.

By the time I got home I had forgotten what Lindsay told me.  I knit on anyway... and the heel looked OK, but after watching the video I realized I'd done it wrong, I added an extra step that wasn't needed.  It looks fine so I'm calling it good and leaving it in...

The side you're seeing is the good side, the other side is pulled a little and looks a bit like a gather.  But there is some give, so I'm hoping once I get it on my foot it won't show.

The last session is on toes, and finishing, probably to include blocking.  I hope I get at least one sock to that point, so I can learn the Kitchener stitch once and for all!

Knit on...