Category: socks

distracted and bemused

March 11, 2012

three circles and a pair of socks

I must admit to feeling like Edward Lear’s old man with a beard, because it is just as I feared – while I have no birds in my beard I am watching the snow melt under the (lovely lovely warm) weather and the strong contrasts are vanishing and flowing downstream.

The lower right is Friday, when Alice and I went to see the high school musical Grease, and came home too late to post anything. It shows the small patches of snow left in the shade of the pine woods.

The lower left is a pair of socks, finished Saturday and included because the palette is similar.

Saturday had no post because Alice and I got up waaay too early and drove to Cambridge with friends so she could go to a bunch of interesting and distinctly offbeat classes with other extraordinay middle and high schoolers. She took classes in Greek and Roman mythology, Maxwell’s equations for middle schoolers, introduction to soldering and explosions in chemistry. By the time we were done and home, it was well after everyone’s bedtime. I did finish the socks, and a circle. The circle is the one top right – it looks different because MIT has no sewing machines, so I used some black and gray markers to sketch in what I was thinking about.

The last one is from today, another reflecting tree, with the snows of yesterday upon it. The snows of yesterday are melting like crazy, and I’m going to have to work from memory or modify my point of view.

inches left

April 20, 2009


April 20
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

In a successful lsock completion exercise, I finished these fabulous objects with about eight inches to spare. Those dangling strings are all that was left… I broke it in the center and kitchenered the toes (with a certain amount of wailing and knashing of teeth) and now they are on, and quite, quite lovely. No one will inspect my toes. I figure if I keep throwing myself at the kitchenering, eventually I will attain proficiency. The second sock was better than the first, but I seem to forget how to do it with astonishing speed in between finished socks. 

Technical notes: Socks that Rock yarn, unremembered colorway from 2007 Sock of the Month Club, pattern is Spring Forward at Knitty, on 2mm needles because when I use them I am happy and the socks come out fine.

In depressing news, I realized that running hurts, and the only way to get better at it seems to be to really push my body to ugly desperate places and then do it again. I can hardly bear to think about it. So I am thinking about my socks instead, and going to bed.

Nice news is that my mother is house sitting the house next door, so she gets a small vacation and to visit us and sleep in a Real Bed (which she doesn't get to do at our house – we are very bad with guests) and come over for dinner and retreat to read in bed and brush her teeth in peace. Plus her dog gets to come too, to keep the neighbor dog company. It is win-win-win all around. I am looking forward to having her here for a couple days (Hi Mom!).

grumpy socks, joyful socks, soldering lessons

January 6, 2008

STR first sock as far as I got
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

The Other Kate told me to pack up these bad puppies and send them to
her. So I did. They are gone. I feel much lighter and happier, at
least in the knitting department, and I have been roaring along on these, which are making me happy. The yarn is a silk/merino single ply which is fabulously smooth but has no spring and is kind of splitty. The pattern is one I made up, and continue to make up as I go along. They are toe up even though I prefer top down because I have one more skein of yarn and I will need 1/2 for each sock, and I want to Use it All Up.


joyful socks
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Raising kids, you never know exactly what milestone is going to be big. Alice has been growing smarter and stronger pretty fast over the last couple months, and she has taken up knitting, teaching herself how to go back and forth, and learning how to use dpns to go around in circles, figuring out decreases… That was big, but she kind of snuck it past me.

The one that flattened me today was soldering lessons. She and Al, sharing the same great thought, each bought a robot kit for the other for Christmas, to share. So there are two different purple robot kits ready to go. They started one yesterday and realized there was a fair amount of soldering involved, and we decided to call in Dr Bill. Because Al is the ugliest solderer ever. Ever, and still have the object work, and sometimes it doesn’t, on account of bad soldering. So Bill came over this afternoon with family in tow, and he carefully showed Alice and Aerin how to do it properly, and they did nicely, and then floated off to play with their virtual cousin. Bill tried to help Al too, but it didn’t take.
So both girls can solder now, and put together robot kits. Alice still needs help and oversight, but Aerin can start working on the backlog we have lying around the house. After she finishes her T-Rex automaton.

We have good lives.

weaving in the ends

January 2, 2008

At the end of every knitting pattern I have ignored to date, there is the instruction at the end. It says "Weave in loose ends."  There is generally some nonsense about blocking as well, but for socks, well, I have block shaped feet so I figure that works fine for me. I wear all my handmade socks with the strings sticking out like this:
Green_jitterbug_socks_2

It is a personal failing that I have acknowledged, and care about insufficiently to modify. But now the ends of my art are sticking out and it feels untidy and unfinished.

I am not sure how to describe what I want to do next.

It occurred to me in the middle of last year that I am creating for myself a giant, self directed art curriculum. I spent the first year making simple things over and over again, varying the constraints and trying to find a style and voice that is authentically mine.

I think this year I want to explore different media. My shelves and drawers are full of paints and inks and markers and more of all of these that I purchased thinking they would be good to use. Now is the time to use them. What I want to do is spend time every day noodling with a particular medium. The aim is to explore what I can do with it when I come at it again and again and again. How far can I push one particular idea? How flexible is it? How much control do I get, and how much serendipity do I have to accept? It should take at least a month of daily effort to begin to get a grip on these things, and I am actually thinking about six weeks each. Or until I run out of stuff. At the end of each media  exploration, I need to be able to do a final project using that stuff. It may be some kind of piece using the samples I have made, or it may be a final report kind of thing. I will probably write a brief review of what I liked and hated, and what I might use it for in the future, if I ever want to touch it again….

I am starting with transfer paints, but also allowed to use the transfer crayons and transfer pencil that I have squirreled away.

This is going to be a more boring blog for a while. I will document the process as much as I can, but I am not sure how useful it will be once posted.