(They really are Purple. Dark Purple in fact. I just can’t seem to get a good pic of the color to save my life though.)

Pattern: Yarn Over Cable on p.43 of Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch.

Yarn: Cascade Fixation

Needles: Size 3 addi turbos

Knit: 7/11-7/19/2006

Specs: Short row toe and heel from the same book. 7 stitches to the inch using 50 stitches total.

Three words. So. Freekin’. Cute. I don’t know why but I am just totally enamored by these little cables on these oh so stretchy socks! This combination of yarn and pattern worked out really well in my opinion. I thought several times while knitting this that doing this pattern with regular yarn could have been a real pain (you have to psso over two stitches) but with the amazing stretch of fixation it wasn’t a problem. I also decided to give the short row toe and heel another go with these. I think the toe is just fine but I also think the only reason why the short row heel is comfortable on these is because of the nature of the yarn. Expect to see more combinations of short row toe and traditional heel flap on my socks in the future.

I am planning my next pair to be from this same book. I may just spend the whole summer doing socks from one book from the looks of things. I’m definitely going to get my money’s worth out of this one. You should also expect to see more Fixation type socks on the needles. It was such a nice change from Regia to knit with this yarn. So soft and easy feeling through the fingers! I have been reading a lot about Elann’s Esprit being very similar. Anyone care to share your experiences? I’ve heard many good things about Elann in general but I’ve never ordered anything from them myself.

By the way, I’ve updated my Finished Objects 2006 page if you care to have a look.
We have another farmer’s market run and a short trip planned this weekend. Hope you have a great one!

Those of you who know a thing or two about web 2.0 are groaning at the title, but I really feel like I’m living a new version of my life. Take yesterday for example. This is the first weekend that I haven’t had to move boxes or go somewhere 3 hours or more away since the end of May. That’s right I said May people. Craziness.

So since HWJF had to work and I decided to drive him we finally got over to our local farmer’s market first thing in the morning. It was so cool! They hold it in a parking lot at the train station (which I can actually find on my own now) and they had all sorts of produce, jewelry, hand-made soaps and lip balm, flowers and artisan bread all represented. We ended up coming home with this:

Lettuce, tomatoes, corn, squash, blueberries, blackberries, peaches, basil and parsley all for under 20 bucks! All of that would have been insanely more expensive in the supermarket and not nearly as fresh. I absolutely love this time of year for the fresh fruits and vegetables. It just makes cooking so much more appealing.

So after dropping off HWJF at work and running a couple of errands I spent my afternoon making tabbouleh salad, cutting up toppings for pizza, and figuring out what to do with all those fresh herbs so that they wouldn’t get wasted (since we couldn’t possibly use them all up in time). After talking to my Mom and looking around on the internet I found instructions for drying herbs in the oven and ended up with this:

From top to bottom there is basil, parsley and some mint that I got at the supermarket. I found that the mint dried the fastest of them all. I’ve done several additional batches since this picture and I now fully understand why dried spices are so expensive. It takes a long time and you end up with a lot less than you started with! The only thing that bothers me is that the stems aren’t used. Anyone have any ideas for ways to use them instead of throwing them away? It seems like such a waste. I also made a really nice iced tea by pouring boiling water over some cut up lemon, some of the mint leaves and a healthy squeeze of agave nectar. I even surprised myself with how well that worked out!

By the time I got done with all that and some picking up around the apartment it was time to throw the pizza dough fixings in the bread machine (I may be enjoying this but I’m not crazy enough to make pizza dough be hand!) and head out to get HWJF. We didn’t get a pic of this week’s pizza, but here’s one from last weekend:

We now have a proper pizza pan and a cutter since we think this pizza thing is going to make a good weekend meal on many occasions. It’s so nice to be able to control what your food is made with too. The dough I’m using is now half bread flour and half whole wheat which make it a bit better for me considering my hypoglycemia. And I even baked fresh herbs right into the crust. Heaven! This week we did more veggies and less meat (which makes me a bit happier) and it was just too tasty! And the leftover veggies got thrown in a casserole pan this morning with some eggs and bread and made a great breakfast casserole courtesy of some smart thinking by HWJF.

So what’s the big deal about all this you ask? What’s so unusual about cooking some food and making pizza? People do it all the time. Well that’s just it. People do it all the time. We have not been “people” for months. Commuting 5 hours a day didn’t leave energy leftover for silly things like cooking a meal and sitting down at a table and eating it like normal people. It also didn’t leave energy for silly things like going to an Opera on a Friday night after work. All it left energy for was being tired, eating food out of a microwave and trying to get the things that needed to be done, done. It really is the little things in life that make it special.

So yesterday was about getting things done. Today is about doing things I want to do. Like finishing a sock:

And maybe even starting the second one. Or maybe starting something completely different. Who knows what the day will bring?!

This life 2.0 thing might actually be worth the hype!

… I never will! This is the post I’ve been trying to write for almost two weeks now! Yikes time flies when you are moving and running a sockalong!

Anyway, after my first very speedy pair for the Summer of Socks I cast on for a fourth pair for HWJF. He decided that a skein of Regia would be next and I decided to go with size 1 needles again. This time, however I wanted to use a different technique than I have for his socks before I since I had seen this pair that Lauren made, I wanted something toe up but with a more traditional heel flap rather than the type of heel I’ve been doing from the Queen Kahuna book. I also wanted to give the short row toe that I have read so much about a try. So Eklectica turned me on to this pattern and I decided to give it a try at my last SnB in CT while I had two of my knitting gurus handy.

Once I got through the provisional cast on, it was pretty easy. The only thing that was confusing was which way to slip the stitches to wrap them when. Apparently the pattern isn’t *quite* correct since it has you wrapping each side the same way. At the end of the toe after I started working in the round I realized there was a little error.

See how the “seam” is on the outside of the sock. Yeah. Not pretty. By this time I wasn’t going back to fix it so I just let it go. I figure for a first try, it wasn’t all that bad. Since then I’ve done the short row toe twice more. Once on the damn cute purple cable socks:

(Btw, sorry that pic didn’t quite come through on the last post. Not sure what happened there.) And once again for the second green sock for HWJF. I cast on for the second sock at my new SnB Wednesday night (which was a ton of fun by the way! I’m really glad I decided to check that group out in person. I’ll definitely be there on this coming Wednesday night.) Unfortunately I didn’t *quite* get the striping to match up right:

But I also decided to let that go too. And all that progress you see beyond the toe on that sock is because it went on a little outing last night:

That’s right. I take socks to the opera now. How geeky cool am I?

And lest I forget, here is the raining Saturday sky:

I’ll tell you more about my adventures today in the next post!

Cute cables!

Originally uploaded by summerofsocks2006.

Thanks for all the comments on my little situation the other day. I know it was kind of silly to get so upset, but it really bothered me. I think I will take the suggestion that many of you had and make up some squares for Heartmade Blessings this weekend and send them to my Mom. That should give me a little karmic balance!

There are two reasons for this post. The first is I’m trying out posting via Flickr. The second is I just have to share a quick pic of my latest sock. This isn’t the one I’ve been wanting to blog about, but I just think it is so freeking cute I can hardly stand it! Don’t you agree? The color is much more purple than the pic shows if that helps. I’m using cascade fixation on size 3 needles at 7 stitches per inch. It is a nice change from Regia on size 1s.

I’m off to my first NJ stitch ‘n bitch tonight. I’m looking forward to it. The funniest thing is that they meet at Panera which was where my Thursday night SnB used to meet, so I keep thinking it’s Thursday. I guess I’m just a creature of habit.