Blubarb crisp

A friend who came to visit and knit yesterday remarked that the blubarb crisp I served her went well with the flowers in the vase. It later occurred to me that the sock I am working on fit the color scheme as well! I think there is a pattern emerging here.

I knit the sock using the tutorial on yarnover short rows http://alison.knitsmiths.us/shortrow_tutorial.html

Yarnover short rows seemed easier than the wrap short rows. The plum yarn is wool from my sheep processed and pin drafted at Loch’s Fiber Mill in Springville, PA. Jamie does a great job!
The turquoise blue blend in the heel and toe is a combination of my wool and mohair for strength carded at home.

SPECIES ROSES

The white rose, (R. spinosissima or pimpinellifoli) Double White Burnet or Scotchbriar,
came to me from the friend who taught me to spin. I went to her with a bag of wool that came with the grade Suffolk ewe who was our first sheep. The wool was full of hay and burs. I asked her what I could do with it and she told me to burn it. She didn’t bandy words or suffer fools. But she got me spinning on a drop spindle and I spun wool from that sheep and knit a hat from it. Eventually through her good graces, I got an Ashford traditional and really started spinning.

The vegetable garden in the background is just over 16’ x 16’ and is way more organized looking than usual. The tomato plants close to the fence are Black Pear tomatoes and further out are Riesen Traube and Yellow Pear tomatoes from my friend Cyndy (http://riverrim.blogspot.com)

The pink rose is R. glauca that I grew from seed. I ordered the seed and did the stratification thing and then waited and waited and nothing happened. So I tossed it out in a flower bed and was surprised to find seedlings months later. The rose’s foliage is not as dark as another one I grew and gave to a friend, but that is possibly because it is in shade. The eglantine rose with its green-apple-smelling foliage grows right next to the glauca.

When good socks go bad.........

After the first sock was finished with few difficulties, you would think that the second sock would be a breeze. But no. I had already knit the ribbing for both socks while searching for instructions for short rows that I could understand. When it came time to knit the second sock, I found the ribbing had four more stitches than the first sock and was in danger of being too large. Okay, pull up my socks, frog and knit the ribbing again.

Then I made mistakes with the short rows on the heel and had to frog it at our spinning/knitting group and in front of everyone made the mistake of strangling the sock.

The sock *appeared* to be chastened and I was admiring the fact that both socks looked so similar right past the heel. I should have suspected something when I ran out of yarn when it came time to short row the toe. But I innocently spun a bit more yarn.

When the sock was finished it was about half an inch too short and didn’t fit me. Apparently I had spun a thinner yarn.

So rather than undoing the toe, I snipped a stitch and plan to knit more in the middle and then Kitchener the whole sock together afterwards. I ran a lifeline above and below the points where the sock will be opened up and marked one row above and below so I canput it back together correctly afterwards.