Mia Culpa

Over the summer I worked out instructions for toe-up socks that look just like top-down socks. The pattern was made available on the Quince & Co website a couple of weeks ago. Problem is, I failed to specify the type of cast-on to use. I am such an idiot!
You should use a method that casts on stitches for working in the round such as Judy's Magic Cast-On or the Turkish/Eastern Cast-on. You can find instructions for these methods online through a Google search.

Making Progress

I managed to finish the scarf I've been working on for the last few weeks in between hospital and nursing home visits. I used Quince & Co Tern in a lovely grape color (I'm sure it has an inspired name but I can't find the label). I used size US 5 needles and about 1 1/2 skeins of yarn. This yarn contains 25% tussah silk, which gives the yarn a marvelous heathery appearance. I still need to write up the instructions, then the pattern (and yarn) will be available through Quince & Co soon.
Next up is a triangular shawl in my favorite olive green color.

Check it Out

Even though I’m not knitting much these days, the multi-size, multi-gauge toe-up sock pattern that I worked on earlier this summer got posted on the Quince & Co website yesterday. It's included with the patterns for each of the five Quince yarns. Buy the pattern—I’m buying a lot of gas these days to visit my parents.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your good wishes where my parents are concerned. Both and stable and on the road to recovery. We’ve arranged for my mother to visit my father today—it will do them both a world of good.

Still Not Knitting

It’s been three weeks since my mother broke her hip and things had just started to settle down so that I felt able to knit again. I'm about half way done with a lace scarf. But the fates have other plans. Monday my 89-year-old father was taking his daily 20-mile bike ride when a woman passed him on the right and caused him to lose his balance and fall. He’s now in the hospital indefinitely with 7 broken ribs and a punctured lung. Obviously, I’m having trouble knitting again. Between visiting my dad in the hospital and my mom in the rehab nursing home, I wonder if I should change careers and become a health-care provider

Not Knitting

My 81-year-old mother broke her hip a couple of weeks ago (when in bed, no less) and the surgery and recovery have been a roller-coaster ride of emotions. In the past, I’ve turned to my knitting in times of stress, so I am surprised that I’ve had little desire to knit. Because I feared she might not survive the surgery, my fingers wouldn’t hold the needles while I kept my father company in the waiting room. As she drifted in and out of awareness in the days that followed, I was too distracted and on edge. In retrospect, I think that I was afraid that I might not keep on top of her early recovery if I let myself drift into a knitting calm. It may also be that knitting is too closely related to work for me and I needed a complete break.

Thankfully, my mother is now settled in a nursing home and I’ve at least partially settled back into knitting—there are still times when my mind wanders and my fingers forget to form the stitches. But I did finish a simple triangular shawl out my spindle-spun yarn (the fleece was a gift from Anne in Reading, PA). I didn’t have enough yarn to include a lace pattern across the top edge, but I was lucky to end with a complete pattern repeat and 6” of yarn to spare.

I’ve also swatched another lace pattern (shown below) with Quince & Co Tern for either a scarf or shawl. I’ll ponder the possibilities when I visit my dear sweet mum today.

Words I Thought I'd Never Say

I am finally tired of knitting socks. In the past two weeks I’ve knitted five pairs of adult medium socks and sample feet for four other sizes. I’m sure my saturation with sock knitting won’t last, but if I find time to knit today after I clean my desk, I’ll bypass my double-points in favor of circulars and cast on stitches for a triangular shawl (if I can find a suitably mindless pattern).

The first photo below shows socks with an 8" foot circumference in Quince yarns at gauges of (from left to right) 4.5 (Puffin), 5.5 (Osprey), 6.5 (Lark), 7.5 (Chickadee), and 8.5 (Tern) stitches to the inch. The second photo shows the feet only in Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted at 5.5 stitches/inch in size (from left to right) 9.5", 9", 7.5", and 6.5" foot circumferences.

Why have I been knitting socks like a fanatic? I’ve been under a self-imposed deadline to generate a toe-up sock pattern for multiple sizes (five) and multiple gauges (ten) for Quince & Co. Unlike the toe-up sock pattern (Working Socks from the Toe Up) I wrote for the Spring 2007 issue of Interweave Knits that features a short-row heel, this pattern looks like a “normal” top-down sock with a padded flap along the back of the heel and gussets along the sides of the instep. This pattern also includes stitch gauges in one-half-stitch-per-inch increments from 4.5 stitches/inch to 10 stitches/inch that gives enormous freedom for working with a variety of yarn weights and needle sizes. I plan to send the socks and pattern to the tech editor today so she can correct all my errors before the pattern is posted on the Quince & Co website. Stay tuned.

Red-Letter Day

Today my Abbey Road Socks got posted on the Quince and Company website, along with their new sock yarn Tern (a delightful mixture of 80% wool and 20% silk) and I turned in the manuscript for my next book: Sock Knitting Master Class: Innovative Techniques + Patterns from Top Designers. You can get the sock pattern right now from Quince and Co, but the book still needs to go through all the editing, design, and layout stages and won’t be available until next summer (in time for Sock Summit 2011). I’ll let you know exactly when.

Care to help me celebrate?