As I was wrestling with finishing my Sockamania socks this month I thought a lot about my folks. My mom and dad were definitely different people – yin and yang, if you will. My dad was… how can I say this in a nice way? He was extremely organized, and very detail oriented. Yeah, all right, he was anal, and so am I. How else to explain that I ended up ripping back the heel turn and and of the flap on the second sock several times because there was a “bump”? I finally figured out why the bump was happening, and that there was little I could do about it. When I went to pick back up the stitches from the heel flap, it was obvious that my repeated ripping had taken its toll on the flap. Out it went! Time was running out, and so I knit like the wind …or at least like a light breeze. There was yarn and my knitterly reputation on the line. I had to finish in time.

Mom, on the other hand, is a more creative and free-flowing soul. Organization is not her forte, but give her some paper clips and a rubber band and she can MacGyver something together that does what you need. That woman also has a spatial sense like I’ve never seen before. If you ever need a car or a freezer packed to the brim, she’s your gal.

Where was I? Oh, socks! After knitting part of the gusset, I saw the flaw in my gusset pick-up. It was at least as big as the first heel flaw, but now time was getting short. Dad perched on one shoulder, whispering into my ear. “Frog it, honey. It’s going to bother you every time you think of it.” On the other shoulder sat Mom. “No one’s going to see that but you… it’ll be fine.” Now, usually Mom loses these arguments. I think Dad privately grins an “atta girl” at me every time I frog an item so that it will be just so. But this time the deadline, the yarn bet, and the fact that these socks were for me worked against him. Heck, I didn’t even rip when I flubbed a stitch kitchenering the second toe closed. I feared that I’d have to rip out the whole toe if I flubbed the fix. Besides, there’s only so much you can do when you’re as flipped out as I was yesterday. I desperately needed these socks finished. And so, finish I did. A pair of socks in just under two weeks; it’s good to know that I can do it if I have to.

The Lego swift from last week? The swift was pure Mom. The way that about half of our Lego collection is organized into little drawers by part type so I can find what I’m looking for? Yeah; that’s Dad. The way that only half the collection is organized instead of all of it? That’s me. Can you imagine making two seven year old boys organize every piece of the Lego collection? Actually, one of them would like it…

Details:

Started:	17 August 2007
Finished:	30 August 2007
Pattern:	Spiralling Socks by Anni Design (Sockamania)
Yarn:	Cherry Tree Hill Sockittome (80% superwash wool, 20% nylon) fingering weight.. River Run is the colorway.
Needles:	Size US 0 skakel for the ribbing; size US 1 for the sock.
Notes:	This sock is a little loose even after going down a needle size. Take out at least one repeat if you do it again.

There’s been more interest than I anticipated in the Lego swift; to think I almost didn’t post it! A quick refresher: my simple swift looks like this:

If you’re not sure how to go about it, show the photos to your local Lego aficionado. They’ll get right on it. The beams are approximately 21.5″ (54.5 cm) from end to end. For those of you that think in Lego dots, that’s 68 dots across, or 34 per arm. The center is two platforms, with the arms coming in between them. The spinning Lego man is optional, but highly entertaining. Here’s the view between the platforms.

The arms are a balance between sturdiness and weight. I used as many of the Technic 1 x whatever blocks that I could find, both because they have the holes in them (less weight) and because I think the locking mechanism with the little post-thingys* makes for a sturdier arm. I ran out, and used regular legos for the outside of the arms. The arms do bend a bit, especially when loaded with yarn, but it still spins.

At the end of the arms, build whatever sort of mechanism you can for holding the yarn so that it neither slips down over the arm end, nor up over the top of your “clip”. My favorite piece for this resembles an airplane strut.

Here’s my most cobbled-together clip:

Just keep the weight on the opposing arms close to the same, and you’ll be fine.

The swift can easily accommodate different skein sizes… just pop off your end clips and readjust them along the arm to fit. The only time I ‘broke’ the swift is when I was pulling a smaller diameter skein of yarn onto it, trying to get it to fit the last clip adjustment I had. The offending clip went flying, but the rest of the swift held together admirably.

Now that you have your center and arms built, it’s time to figure out how to get it to rotate. There are a lot of rotating Lego pieces, but the one I tried out first worked for me. It’s another Technic piece, and looks sort of like little helicopter rotors. I put it under my larger of the rotating platform pieces, and then balanced it on a rod from the same sort of set. If you don’t have these pieces, just look for something else that rotates.

The base is a piece that holds a rod, surrounded by some blocks to encourage it to stay in place.

That’s it!

I was at the toy store this week, and found a great tub of K’Nex for half off. I feel a K’Nex swift coming on.

* see, I’m such the enthusiast, I have all the jargon down cold

I happily joined up with Sockamania several months ago. Each month, something unexpected has kept me from finishing the socks on time. On time? Truth be told, I haven’t finished any of the pairs to date. This month, true to form, I got a late start on my Sockamania socks, but I am determined to finish them on time. My husband, who has now heard a version of this song for three months in a row, took it upon himself to motivate me.

“You think I’ll make it this month?” I asked him last night. I had cast on a week ago, but got stuck waiting for some new size 0 needles to arrive in the mail. They arrived Friday, and I was part way down the cuff of my first sock. I glanced over at him, waiting for his gentle encouragement.

Apparently, gentle wasn’t going to cut it this time. “Nope,” he said in an off-hand fashion. When I jerked my head up to stare at him, he gleefully started the taunting. “You’re not KNITTER enough to finish by the end of the month. Are you KIDDING? You’ve only got 15 days! HA!”

A few minutes later, coming by for his next taunting pass, he cinched the deal. Apparently, the stick may not be quite enough – he went for the carrot, too. If I finish the socks on time, he’s buying me a skein of sock yarn. Not knitter enough?! Game on.

P.S. – I love my hubby. Does he know me, or what? Now, if I could only figure out how to replicate this deal for next month, I’ll be all set. P.P.S – All you Lego swift enthusiasts, I’ll take it apart and do a photo essay for y’all later in the week. After, you know, I have at least one sock complete.

How is my new swift like Serenity?

Lego police swift dude courtesy of Tweedledee. He holds the yarn end if it starts to drop and wind around the axle. Apparently, he also enjoys twirling around with the yarn, if the running commentary around here is any indication.

Ahhh… ready for swatching.

After the debacle that was the “simple” knit sock for my hubby, I needed something with some complexity to sink my brain into. This little braid fit the bill. As a bonus, it’s relatively simple after the first few cable rows – the cables reliably “weave” over and under, so you can just look to see where you’re at when you go to cross your stitches. I did have to check the chart for the outside loopy cables to see when they swooped back in, but all in all it’s a fun pattern. I may have to play about with incorporating this into a sock pattern.

Oh, and if you haven’t seen it yet, go check out the Walker Treasury Project. It’s neat!

Started:	August 2007
Finished:	August 2007
Pattern:	Saxon Braid in Barbara Walker’s Third Treasury
Yarn:	Mission Falls 1824 Wool – 100% superwash wool in worsted weight.
Needles:	Size US 8, funky old pink aluminums

I finally took my Hogwarts Sock Swap (1) goodies outside for photographing today, so here’s a little show-and-tell. Behold the gorgeous Fawkes Socks Mel of Knit Frog Repeat made me. I think the colors and pattern represent Fawkes perfectly. I also received these cute Gryffindor stitch markers:

A Ravenclaw eagle, yarn and needles, an owl, and a Gryffindor lion. Cute, no? They’re hanging from my new lovely Crystal Palace bamboo needles. I hope the needles and I get along; they’re so pretty I’d hate to snap them with my… erm… enthusiastic knitting style.

Also in the package was this yummy yarn from Tempted Hand Painted Yarns in the ‘Sundance’ colorway. I’m thinking some colorwork against a black background is in store for this skein.

So, that’s the recap for Hogwarts Sock Swap 1. Thanks again, Mel, for the lovely package.

Oh! It’s Saturday. Today’s sky was leaden gray. Here’s a sky from about a week ago…

Happy Weekend, everyone.

A lot of any craft is learned by trial and error; y’all know that. Today I bottled my third batch of beer. This is what I learned:

250º F in an oven for 10 minutes does more than sterilize a self-capping beer bottle. It Dali-izes the plastic cap. Oops.

There’s still a bit of knitting going on here, but most of my energy has been spent toward regular ol’ life stuff lately. I hope you all are doing well. Oh! Before I forget, a Saturday Sky for you all…

Take care.

Truer words were never spoken, and I was oh-so-relieved when I picked up the Yarn Harlot’s latest book last night, and read that phrase a mere minute after my loving husband tried on The Sock that Ate Manhattan.

I’ve been toiling on this sock forever; it’s in a rather blah beige, but I kept telling myself that’s a GOOD thing because he’ll wear it. It’s from rather inexpensive yarn that I turned out not to like, but I told myself that’s a GOOD thing because if he never wears it, that’s not a bunch of money out the window. It’s ugly. And, now that I finally finished it, we found that it’s WAAAAY too big. You know what? That, too, is a GOOD thing because now I don’t have to make its mate.

Seriously. This sock? Crap. I’m not even wasting the energy to frog it. Not sure I can throw it out just yet; maybe it shall stand as a reminder that stuff happens, despite our best intentions, swatching, and careful knitting.

Now I shall buy or dye the perfect yarn, something that I shall LOVE working in, and make my deserving husband something that is not crap.