Phinally Phinished Phelted Clogs (and other stuff)

Yea! They're finished! I got George's Phelted Clogs felted and they did beautifully. That's entirely by the Grace of God because I put them in the washing machine and forgot about them while I got interested in scrapbooking.  Yikes! I'm amazed they didn't turn out small enough for our youngest grandchild. But when I finally yanked them out of the washing machine, I shaped them just a bit and put them on George's feet. He's a brave man and wore them wet for almost eight hours. Although he had prune feet by the end, the clogs formed to fit his feet perfectly, and he's very happy with them. So am I!

The Once and Future Socks
I got another pair of socks finished. These poor things have been in progress for years - probably since 2006 or so. They're in Mountain Colors' Yellowstone colorway, which I adore. I started making them in the Diana's Trail Sock pattern, also by Mountain Colors. I've made lots of pairs of these socks, some for me, some for George and some for friends. They fit me fairly well, but always seeem a bit too big. I made one pair on 2.25mm needles instead of 3.0, which seemed to fix quite a few problems. However, the heel seemed too big or something, but I figured I'd just have to live with the heel. I started these one sock at a time on five double-pointed needles. Somewhere along the way, I learned to knit on two circular needles instead of the double-points. Then I discovered the joys of knitting both socks at the same time so that when I finish, I'm done. THEN I discovered Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters book and made a pair from the first pattern. Hmm.... Then I got to thinking what would happen if I did the cuff from the Diana pattern, the arch expansion and heel from the New Pathways book, ribbed the instep as I learned from somewhere, but I can't even remember where now, and finally, did both socks at the same time!  So I ripped the heel back on the one sock, then set it aside while I knitted the second sock up to the end of the cuff, did the arch expansion and heel in both socks according to the New Pathways pattern and started down the foot. Somewhere about halfway down the foot I learned to knit socks by the Magic Loop method, so I put the socks on a longer 2.25 needle and finally, finally finished them this past weekend! They fit like a dream and the combined pattern is a winner. I just might have to do another pair the same way!

Celtic Braid Socks
I settled on the Riverbed Sockitecture from the New Pathways book for the arch expansion of the upside down (toe-up) Celtic Braid socks. I started the expansion today and we'll see how it goes. At the moment, they are one boring pair of socks, but if I can only get the foot and heel done, they'll get exciting soon enough.

Gale-Force Winds
We survived the huge storm last week. We were without power for several hours, but nothing like many people in town who had no power for almost 24 hours. There are leaves and small tree-bits down all over the yard, but I don't think we suffered much damage. At least I didn't think so. We've had the most interesting thing happen since. We've had an invasion of flies in the house. I've never seen such a thing. They arrived after the storm and we've spent quite a bit of energy removing them without using nasty chemicals. I think we may finally have the upper hand, but how strange!

Serious Nerd Mode, Booties, and the Celtic Braid socks

Bleh! I am so down! But I know it comes from going full-tilt at learning to code webapps for iPhones and the iPad. For a Windows girl, making the trasition is hard, but ultimately rewarding. I watched myself tackle it this time. First I tried coding a version of the corporate website in Dashcode, Apple's web development tool. It's awesome for designing the screen and for almost nothing else. I tried designing the screen in Dashcode, importing it into Visual Studio and coding it there.  Eventually, I might could have made it work, but it certainly didn't want to at first. I got on the internet, looking for help. Wow! If I Google something about .NET code problems, I get pages of answers. If I search for an Apple-related code problem, I get ads for DVD tutorials. I suppose the developer base just isn't out there. Finally, I ran across a book by a developer who 1) knows what he's doing and 2) has a good sense of humor about it. As of this afternoon, after a hard week of work, I have a viable iPhone/iPad website developed on the Mac... sort of. It was developed on the Mac, but the .Net code builds the page fragments which are volatile. It's probably a strange way to work, but it does work and works very well.  I, however, am not working all that well. I'm tired, drained, depressed, cranky and the whole bit. I think the term is "burned out."

When I'm going full-tilt like this, I don't balance anything well.  I don't take care of myself, the family, the house, nothing.  Everything tends to go to rack and ruin. I should probably work on that, although George is wonderful at picking up the slack. The up side is that I do learn and learn quickly so I have a viable skill pretty much at my fingertips. No, I don't learn quickly. I probably take as long as anybody else - I just do it all at once and get it over with!

But whether all this work will pay off is another matter. Is what I'm doing all that vital to the company? I don't know. Sometimes I think so. Sometimes not.  I guess we'll see.

Christine Bourquin's Stay-On Booties
I did manage to get a pair of booties knitted for some dear friends who are expecting their first. I adore this pattern. It was sent to Threads magazine in the late 80's by Christine Bourquin, 95-years-old at the time. She didn't want her pattern to die with her, so she freely shared it with the Threads community. I've made booties from it for years, but have always been afraid I'd lose the pattern.  I have two photocopies and the original cut from the magazine, but... I thought that I'd post it on Ravelry, just to be safe.  When I entered the project I thought, what the heck, I'd search for the pattern in their database.  Only a thousand other folks have made this pattern! Duh!  I guess I don't need to be afraid of losing it! I think Christine Bourquin is living on! I have made a few changes in the pattern.  I do a provisional cast-on and then pick up the provisional stitches when I'm picking up around the sole to knit in the round. I still knit these booties on 5 double-point needles.  One of these days, I'm going to try knitting them Magic Loop.  Today wasn't the day.

I'm not totally in love with the yarn as it snags too easily, but it is soft and pretty for little footies. In looking for more information about the booties, I ran across a blog where the knitter chose to make i-cord ties instead of the crocheted ties suggested in the pattern.  Much better!  Also, since the horizontal ribs on the foot hold the bootie on, the cuffs above the ties can be anything. I've seen them done in ribbing, but I didn't like it much. I think I'll try doing them in lace.  It should be pretty. Oooooo, or maybe cables and braid for Celtic babies! (Or maybe I'll just leave the pattern alone.)

Celtic Braid Socks
I'm making some progress on the Celtic Braid socks, but they're still boring.  The foot section is pretty much ribbing on the instep and plain on the sole. The fun doesn't start until after the heel.  Of course, the pattern was originally written cuff-down.  I'm knitting them toe-up so I'm having to re-engineer them a bit. I have great faith in them, though. I'll choose one of the arch expansions in Cat Bordhi's book, do the heel and then get to start the braid on the legs.

Maybe I'll spend some time this weekend warping the 4-harness loom. I'd like to get finished with it, so I can start the weaving. Handwoven has great articles on double-weave this month.  Oh no!  More projects!!