A Week of Experiments

That's what it has turned into, at any rate. As you've been reading, I've been working through the multidirectional tutorials. This morning, I tried casting on for a toe up sock. (Thanks, Leslie) I'm giving it a good go; here's what I have so far. I'm not sure I'll make this my sock of choice, generally speaking, but it's nice to know there's an alternative.

The yarn I'm using for this one is Lanett, 100% pure superwash wool on 2.5mm needles. I started with 12 stitches (I think I'd start out with more stitches next time; the toe's kind of pointy, don't you think?) and worked the increases to 60 stitches for the foot. I usually make a 64 stitch sock for myself, but that's on 2.25 mm needles. On the 2.5 mm needles, I decided to go 4 stitches less. Right now (since the picture was taken), I have about an inch knitted on the foot.

I'm alternating the sock with the baby's outfit today. I'm up to the decreases for the little hat, so it will be finished today. The jacket however... I'm pretty sure I won't have enough yarn to do the band around the sweater, so it will have to wait until tomorrow, when I go back to work. I can, and probably will, finish the sewing and pick up the required stitches. That way, it's just a matter of working the band.

It's a gorgeous day in the Okanagan today, sunny and warm (in the sunshine, at least). With all that sunshine streaming into the house this morning, the cobwebs became very apparent so John and I decided to tackle cleaning the shelf above the kitchen cabinets. We put all sorts of vases, teapots and antique kitchen tools up there when we moved in and left it. Today we got everything down, washed it all, dusted and washed the shelf and the walls... in other words, spring cleaning in the fall. Odd jobs like that tend to get John motivated and, since the inside was clean, the windows needed cleaning from the outside, too. So he's been doing that. He had an audience.

That's Tyson (the boxer... ok, he's not our dog, but I think it's a great name!), one of the neighbour's dogs. He was fascinated by the hose and just had to get a closer look.