The "Ann Sock"

This weekend, I made my first pair of "Ann Socks," so named in honor of the very kind lady who told me HOW to make them. Ann attributed this sock to at least two other people, but she did admit to having changed what they had done, so, therefore, these are "Ann Socks" to me. If I get around to making substantive changes, I might start calling them "my" socks...

They are knitting toe-up, in the round using the ribber, with a short-rowed heel (the short-rowing is done on the main bed). The tops of the legs do not have ribbing on them, as you can't rib in the round (boo!), but instead roll down. I have an idea for how to attach ribbing while the socks are on the machine, but if it doesn't work, I'll probably take off any that need ribbing (such as those for Danny, who isn't a fan of the roll-down look) and do the ribbing by hand. (Ouch. I don't like to hand knit, I really don't, so I hope my idea for the machine-knit ribbing works!)

If/when I find the label from the yarn, I'll put a note here about what yarn this is, but I think it's a Bernat Sox or something similar.

Anyway...here is the first (note, I did say FIRST) pair! For me! The first pair of socks, by the way, that I have knitted for myself! The pink color doesn't really show up in this photo - but they are a lovely shade of pink with darker pink and some gray/green highlights. Love, love, love 'em!

Oh, and by the way - these socks represent the first project that I've made on the Knitmaster 700 that I bought myself for a graduation present! It only took me three months to get around to using it...and I have to give kudos where kudos are due, actually: another kind lady, Jo, from my knitting group was kind enough to spend a couple of hours at my house, giving me some tips on assembling the ribber correctly and walking me through my first sample of ribbed fabric. That sample was made of the yarn that is now one of the socks in the photo above.

So...to wrap up this post: THANK YOU, Ann and Jo!

Happier Walking

I've engaged on a rigorous program of walking: every day for an hour. As of today, I've walked 37 miles - despite getting blisters on my toes and having a problem with the nail of one toe cutting into the side of another toe. Yesterday, it was so bad that I only could manage a half hour of walking - boo! I needed a solution.

Danny had been indicating interest for a few months in the latest "thing" in shoes - shoes with individual spots for the toes. We went out yesterday and were delighted to find that not only did our local sporting goods store carry them - in our sizes, even - but that they were on sale AND it was the annual "tax holiday weekend," meaning that we didn't have to pay the sales tax!

I have just walked the first hour in my new shoes (yes, I also bought some marvelous toe socks to wear with them). It was terrific: I walked a full three miles today, which is the first time I've reached that milestone. My existing hurts were not aggravated and no new injuries occurred! Hurrah!!!

Here are some photos of my shoes.

Side view, taken at the store

Top view

From my perspective. They look odd!

A Hodgepodge

School is over. I got all As in my classes this past term, putting me on the school's President's List for the term and making my overall GPA 3.7. My diploma is supposed to be mailed next week.

Since I didn't complete college immediately after high school, getting a diploma was something that I always hankered to do but never had time for until these past few years. Getting my "education" was quite an eye opener into the whole business of higher learning. It was fairly disappointing to find the focus less on education than on making money, from the latest edition textbooks being required despite being nearly identical to the previous version to the kinds of classes required. Yes, I'm glad I did it, but the comment of a director years ago to me when I mentioned wanting to get a degree has been resonating as she was right: "Why do you want to do that? It will make no difference to how well you do your job." Well, it won't, but hopefully it will make a positive difference to how my resume is received - meaning I hope it helps me get a job even though it won't help me do the job.

We have a treadmill, bought last year in a fit of optimism and mostly ignored since then. I started walking last week and have now walked for one hour every day since then. Two days ago, my total miles walked exceeded 26, and Danny pointed out that I had walked - with 23 hour breaks - a marathon. A marathon. I don't know that I would ever do an actual marathon...but I am being consistent with the exercise. We'll just have to see where it leads.

I made a pair of socks for my mom for her birthday. She chose the yarn, which is Red Heart Fiesta, and I made them up on my Brother KX-350. They seemed to come out fairly well, and today she said that she loves them. Hurrah!

Mom's Socks

 Yesterday was an amazing experience. A knitter who lives about an hour from me wanted to get rid of her Singer 560 and various other bits - free if you could come get them. So I went. And she is the most amazing lady, a woman who used to be a knitting machine dealer. She showed me some of her work, which I seek to emulate, and kept giving me things! I got home and set up the tilt stand, cleaned the main bed, put a new needle pressed bar in it, and knitted a swatch. Then I got out the lace carriage and cleaned it, hooked up the electric, put in a card, and knitted my first piece of machine lace. Today, I am going to clean and set up the ribber and try it out. Then I need to go through the stack of books and magazines. She bought this equipment new in 1983, making it the newest metal bed machine that I have. I am still stunned by her kindness and generosity.

Machine Lace!

The garden is nearly done for the year. The peppers have been doing fantastic - and here are some pictures of some of that bounty.

That's all from me for today! Cheers!

Lemon Balm Tea

A few years ago, we accidentally acquired a lemon balm plant when purchasing our garden plants. Upon discovering that it makes a wonderful and soothing tea, we bought a couple more plants and encouraged new starts. Today, we have quite a lot of lemon balm out in the garden on the west end of the house.

When the leaves are dried, the lemon balm makes a better tea than when the leaves are fresh. Either way, once the leaves have been used they go out into the compost bin. As I was cleaning the tea pots this morning, I was struck by the circle of our tea: it starts out on the west end of the house, comes inside, goes into the compost bin on the east end of the yard, and then is spread about wherever needed. A perfect cycle would have the compost going back to the tea plants in the garden.

Good Eats Tonight

I made two loaves of bread today. One is a pesto wheat bread for tomorrow night's dinner with the Jessicas. The other is an oat bread for us. We had slices of it tonight for dinner with some of Danny's pesto and our tomatoes on top. He added slices of fresh cayenne pepper to his but I am not into spicy...no!

I also baked two of the small spaghetti squash and we had those topped with the leftovers from yesterday.

Homegrown and homemade...gotta love it!

Dinner Tonight? Lots of Homegrown Goodies

We harvested the first of the spaghetti squash today - eleven beautiful yellow squash! These are easy to cook - slice in half, remove the seeds, place face down on a baking sheet and bake for an hour. Let cool for few minutes after removing from the oven, and then use a fork (or a spoon - your choice) - to pull out all the strands. Tonight's dinner featured one of our fresh squash topped with Danny's homemade meat-and-veggie loaf and a side dish of homebaked wheat bread topped with homemade pesto (from our basil, of course) and diced homegrown tomatoes. Yes, I should have taken a picture. But I was hungry.

I do have a picture of some of the squash bounty:

as well as other pictures from today:

Closeup of the cayennes turning red - pretty!

The peppers...yes, that is a basil in the "odd" pot.

The basils are still looking great despite the near-constant harvesting!

We've eaten lots of these tomatoes so far.

I'm not posting a picture of the squash garden as it's clearly nearing the end of its lifecycle and looks rather pathetic. We'll be getting a few more squash, but then that will be that. Interestingly, when this squash experiment first started, I read all over the Internet about how to grow them, and one constant was that it takes "90 days" for the squash to ripen. Nowhere does anyone say 90 days from WHAT. Based on this experiment, it seems that the 90 days is from the time of germination, since our seeds were started in April and here we are, chowing down on ripe fruit about 90 days later.

Another Knitted Item

This afghan and matching pillow were made on the USM from Caron One Pound (the pink and cream) and Red Heart regular worsted (the multicolor). The pattern is in the "learning book" that comes with a new USM. They were completed...oh...probably in April.