Knits

 

Hooray! I’ve managed to finish something thanks to lots of time sitting on trains this past week. Okay so they don’t match, but it’s still a pair, no? That’s Anastasia on the left in Knit Picks Memories in Pansy and Charade on the right in Piece of Beauty in Dark Matter. I gave up with trying to use up all the Knit Picks on that sock because I was getting tremendously bored and I still have another sock to do. They’re still rather tall (9″ from the floor) and I have 11 grams of yarn left. Charade are also tall, 7.5″ from the floor, and I wasn’t sure how much yarn I’d need for the ribbing so I stopped the pattern and did the ribbing to find that I could’ve probably added another half-inch. Oh well.

When I finished casting off the Charade, I was so eager to cast off Anastasia that I got right to it. When I had 10 stitches left I realised I’d actually forgotten to do the ribbing hahaha. Ooops. So I ripped out the cast off and finished it off correctly. I can’t find a name for the bind off I used, but it is definitely very good and stretchy for toe-up socks. You k2 as usual, slip those two stitches back to the other needle, k2tog, k1, slip the two stitches back to the other needles, k2tog… rinse and repeat. When the sock isn’t on your foot it flares a bit, but it looks neat and tidy and fits great. Enough details since they’re not really done, heh.

Both of these socks fit really well - they’re snug, but not tight. I now realise that I knit my Saucy socks too loose and I’m somewhat tempted to rip them out and reknit them on a slightly larger needle so I can follow the pattern and have 3 repeats of the pattern horizontally instead of four and not have mismatched toes. Maybe some day.

Other projects? I’m doing a test knit for a cabled hat. I hope to get it done this weekend. I only started this morning and I forgot that cable patterns mean lots of purling - bah. I hate purling so much I might try to figure out backwards knitting.

 
Jaeger extra fine merino aran in peacock — Rowan all seasons cotton in native (it looks tea-dyed and I love that) — RYC bamboo soft in pompadour — Rowan calmer in kiwi (I’m not a yarn sniffer, but Trigger is)
 

I still haven’t finished uploading my pictures from Paris. There aren’t even that many. Hmm. I’ll do that today and post about Paris tomorrow.

I do have a funny story to share. Last weekend my ex-pat friend K came up to Oxford. The plan was to eat, drink, knit, and whinge as needed. We set out to a pub near the river. After walking about 2 miles, we get to the pub to find out it’s burnt down. I don’t know where I’ve been because it’s one of the more famous/popular pubs and it burnt down in May hahaha. Oops. So off we went for another mile or so to this other famous/popular pub that K went to often when she was a student in Oxford about 10 years ago. They’ve done it all up and it’s kind of sad that it’s lost it’s old pub feel — dark, low ceilings, exposed beams, small rooms — it’s now very open and bright.

We had a drink and two women stopped to comment on how unusual it was to see two young people knitting. K said “It’s the new smoking”. I was knitting Charade and they said they couldn’t believe what tiny needles I was using. It was nice to have people stop and compliment us. We then ate and set off back to the city centre. We decided to cut across Port Meadow in an attempt to cut the time it took to get back to town since the next stop was to be the QI Vodka bar for a delicious girly drink.

As we’re about 2/3 across the meadow, the ground started getting a bit squishy. You may have heard about parts of Oxford getting flooded about a month ago. Well this was part of it since it is sort of like an island between the River Thames/Isis and the canal. Now, K and I weren’t really prepared for this type of walk. She was more prepared than me since she had on sneakers and jeans while I was in a just-below-the-knee skirt and mary janes. Water started pouring into my shoes. A bit ick at first since it was smelly and dirty water (there are cows, horses, sheep, all matter of bird life that reside in this meadow). Then the land started looking deceptively solid. We’d take a step and sink to our ankles in mucky water and mud. And then midway up our shins.

I was getting covered in mud. And suddenly, I take a step, and I sink… up to my knees. And I’m stuck. I can’t pull my foot out of the ground. I panic for a moment (I wasn’t afraid of sinking any further really, but of getting further stuck as the mud packed itself back around my feet). I knew I had to move quickly. As I hold my skirt up to my crotch with one hand, I yank my leg up. No shoe. My shoe (only a week old, $80 soft leather mary janes) is in the muck. I reach down and yank it up. As I try to yank my other foot up, I fall forward. Now my jacket is covered in muck. I get my other foot out and take off my other shoe as it’s no use. I’m now walking barefoot through this nasty, smelly water. (It smelt like the creek where I grew up so it was kind of nice in the memory making sense.)

The whole time K and I are laughing our arses off at the situation. She’s worried about her knitting and David Tennant magazine getting wet as she’s got a tote bag. I’m a bit worried about my knitting as Charade doesn’t call for wet blocking as the Yarn Harlot’s sock did, and my camera. K keeps saying that she’s laughing so hard she’s about to pee her pants. Remember we’ve just had beer which goes right through you. There’s a man on the path we’re trying to reach watching us through binoculars.

We keep trying to get across what is a creek only to find that it’s way too deep. We finally find a place where it seems to be a bit shallower and narrow and we hold our breath and cross. Neither of us like squishy bottom rivers and lakes to swim in so me in barefeet, well I’m having to suck it up and let all the horrible squishy stuff come up between my toes. We reach the shore and now have to get over a barbed wire fence. I’m not joking.

We find a place we can get over it. But what’s on the other side? Waist high Stinging Nettle. I have to put my shoes on for sure except first I have to stick my hand in the toes and pull out a couple of handfuls of mud. I still don’t get all of it out, but enough that I can get my feet in them. We get over the fence and the stinging starts on my leg immediately. I rub mud into it — well I was covered in mud. Then I start worrying that I’ve now caused myself to become infected with flesh-eating bacteria ’cause who knows what’s in that water and mud. And then I think “shit, we’re gonna get hoof and mouth disease“.

We’re still laughing our arses off and thanking the stars that both of us are tomboys therefore able to cope with such a situation even though it wasn’t planned. We make our way into town reeking of “swamp”, me caked in mud on my legs, arm, and under my fingernails. We get to the vodka bar to find out the whole place shuts up at 4pm on Sunday’s. ARGH. We go to another pub, get a drink, use the bathroom to sort of wash our hands, and leave. K heads back to London and I head home.

Once home I immediately go sit on the side of the tub with my feet, still in the shoes, and the shower head aimed at them (it’s removable so I get it as close as I can). It took me FIFTEEN minutes to get the water to run nearly clear from rinsing my shoes out. I couldn’t get the mud off my feet however. I had to go get the potato scrubber. Not joking. I had to scrub my feet with a potato scrubber and I still couldn’t get all the mud out from under my toenails. I didn’t take pictures of this part.

We decided that despite this unplanned adventure it was not only hilarious, but people often pay hundreds of dollars to get covered in such mud so it’s like we had free spa treatments. I had an allergic reaction to the stinging nettle — not a bad one, but the stinging didn’t go away for several days and I had to put this stuff on called Germolene which smells EXACTLY like the paste we used in school.

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