Sockerly, Potterly questions....

I sort of ran away with myself yesterday and made sample stitch markers. They are for my Hufflepuff Hogwarts-sock-swap secret pal, and my original intention was to make a bunch to decide which one I liked best, and then go back and make 5 more of that one. I made twelve total, six from Hematite beads, which have a metallic sheen, and six from black stone.

Here are the ones from Hematite. You can't really see the color - it is a silvery/gunmetal/black metallic.




And here are the ones from Black stone:




So, now, the questions.

1. They are hanging on a size one needle. The metal loops are big enough for up to about a size 5 needle, making them basically for socks to DK weight sweaters. Is that big enough, or would people really prefer larger ones?

2. If I were just going to choose one of these twelve and make five more to go with it, which one would you say I should pick to replicate?

3. If I am going to give one of these two sets, as a set of coordinating rather than perfectly matching markers, which set do you think is the nicest?


On to the Swatches...

Here are some slip-stitch patterns I swatched. I am thinking of picking three of these to combine (They tell a story.)




Here is a lace pattern that reminded me of the moving staircases at Hogwarts.



All of these are from Barbara Walkers Second Treasury. I have a few more questions...


4. Have you ever made a sock where you knit the top of the foot first, then knit the bottom, attaching as you go with K2tog at that end of each row?

5. If you did, did you find the place where the "Seam" occurs irritating?

6. Which do you think is the preferable sock - one with color patterns, or one with lace?

I thank you folks for any and all answers to these troubling questions...(Horror movie chord, sound of Voldemort's henchmen using the reductor curse on the door, scream....)

Quick post answering questions

People asked a bunch of nice questions, so I want to respond...

LISA - Thanks! I don't know if any of these will be a Wren Closure for two reasons. One is that they are the sorts of shapes that catch on things, and I am the sort of person who has run-ins with her local environs, so that if there is something that CAN get caught, it will. The other is that my Wren is made of the Brilliant, which has a snaggable nylon element that is going to show wear, I think, so I am going to proceed cautiously there. When it gets big enough to actually try something out on I may do that though! And I have one or two other designs which are more likely candidates...

GRACE - you are so sweet! I am not ready to set up bookeeping just yet, and have to develop my own designs more - these are from books and therefore mine to use for self and gifts but not to sell - same as knitting patterns. However, you will be among the very first to know if and when I get that far. Oh, and I dreamed about your scarf last night. I was somewhere and there were a bunch knitted up, in a pale pale green similar to the perle cotton green we had last week, but wool. Oh, and Harry Potter was there. That scarf is getting around!

SMARIEK...yeah, I am busy - and totally ADD. See how little Wren is! The price I pay for messing around with too many things at once, LOL!

LES and all other Wrenners - I think I MAY have some understanding of why the bottom is flipping.

First of all, I think it may have something to do with decreasing from the ribbing in the last row there. That pulls in, and may be giving that hem area naughty ideas.

Next, I think it may have to do with how tightly the yarn is being knitted up. Getting guage on the Brilliant, which is supposed to knit at that guage, yields a very soft and drapable fabric. (I would say "floppy" but that does not sound nice) I am wondering if it flips up more on yarns that are being knit more firmly? I am going to do a little experiment with my zodiac when I get a chance. I will report back....

and JOAN HA! Now I know who will be getting the plaintive e-mails wailing "How do I..." It is a very expnsive hobby - I did some in HS but never owned the tools myself, especially a soldering set up. Back there we had everything, including a mill to make our sheet metal thinner... and here I have a few pair of cheap pliers, a hammer and a bench block I had to order from some place that will also sell you your own smelting equipment, which would be handy if I had a silver mine on the property but which, as things stand, I am quite certain I will never need!

So far I am practicing with copper wire and beads I had around from the LAST time I tried to sell jewelry, and so it has not been a major investment yet, but clearly, if I want to be able to anneal and re-work, or start needing a real bench and stakes to hammer with, this is going to quickly spiral right out of control. I am intrigued by the idea of making spoons, but it is really the expense of the equipment which has stopped me. That and only having one mouth. How many spoons can I use at once....

Fiddlesticks Friday!

People liked the last pins I posted, so here are a few more.
This one here is just another version of the one with the blue bead. I think I may redo the top part, which looks a little - open. What say you folks?





These three I made from the same pattern. For the one with the dangle, I ran out of wire, so the pin is smaller but if you look carefully you can see what part of the design I did use.


For the one with the beads, well, I put beads as I bent the wire. The original in the book had beads. They were different beads, and it looked much better than this. Ah well, you have to try to learn.





This one follows the pattern pretty well, except that the pattern had some beads on it, which this does not, and this one has been textured with the hammer, which the original had not.





I bent all of these on a jig. What I did was take my jig, which is cheap and plastic and from the local craft store, and put a paper with the traced design over it. Then I tried to put pins in at appropriate places to make the bends. I could only get close, but still, they're OK.


This actually relates to my Hogwarts sock project as well. We have to send stitch markers with the sock. I was thinking...look at the one with the dangle. Is that dangle not, pretty much, a stitch marker? Couldn't I make a pin like this, and hang the stitch markers from it, so that she could either use them as decoration or just whip them off the pin and use them while she was knitting? Patternworks sold a pin like that years ago, but much simpler...rings on a big safety pin idea...

And this is Fiddlesticks Friday because it is actually yesterday's post. The camera software was being strange and not letting me find things, and other junk. This is not to be confused with Shawl Saturday, which will be up later...

Oh - picture of my Wren -- also on Junior Godess's blog...

Think-About-It Thursday

I will admit that unless you are willing to draw a long and circuitous line from the socks found in the tomb of Eleanor de Toledo and this post, it is entirely off topic. However, reading won't take but a minute, and if you decided to help that will cost you nothing and also take but a minute, so here I am in my bully pulpit, asking you to help get some people back in the ground. I have checked all this out with the woman running effort, actually speaking to her on the phone, so we know it is not a garbled internet story.

I am asking you all to take a moment and write a brief letter stating your support for the re-internment of human remains currently being held in storage in Brooklyn, NY.

The remains come from the cemetery of the former Quarantine Hospital on Staten Island used for immigrants as well as administering to anyone in the NYC metropolitan area with an infectious disease. The burials are from 1799-1858. At some point this cemetary had been paved over as a parking lot. In 2006, it was torn up and the bodies removed to a storage facility,

There is a cemetery which is willing to take these bodies, but the position of NYS is that "No one cares." Therefore they are doing nothing.

We have seen in recent years that when people do express support for the dignified treatment of human remains, the state is eventually forced to respond in some way. I ask that you do as I have done - just send a brief letter of support to the Staten Island Cemetery, email address SICemetery@aol.com, stating that you support the reinternment of these remains in a proper burial ground.

Staten Island Cemetery was once a burial ground of the Native American people, first recorded burial 1802. There are hundreds of veteran's from the Revolutionary war through WW1 interred at this historic location.

I have checked the facts with the woman who is chairing this effort, and have been assured that they are correct. The local genealogical community has been called upon to send letters of support, and we have. The more people who do so, not just locally but nationally and internationally, the more likely we are to get these people decently reburied.

I hope you will send a letter of support to SICemetery@aol.com, and thank you for your support of this effort. Regular mail address: Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries, Inc. S.I., 115 Lathrop Avenue, Staten Island, New York 10301, phone #917-545-3309

Way-it-Was Wednesday

I made these socks from that same book, after I made the pair from last Wednesday. This was one of those projects where I used what I had in the house, and some of it is doubled sport weight. There is Lamb's Pride worsted in there along with some Patons and who knows what else.

Socker liked these too, but not as much as last week's.

Mad-It-Myself Monday, in which I discourse of various FO's

I have been thinking about other nice things I can put in with my secret pal's socks...(Why do I keep thinking of this knitter as my victim?) I also make jewelry as one of my hobbies.

Grumperina (No idea what her URL is, followed a link) gave a little prezzie of a nice shawl pin to whoever posted the 700th pair of Jaywalker socks. I liked the pin, and have been working with things like that, so between that pin, and the latest volume of a magazine I get every now and then, I made up the following pins. This first one did not photograph very well. I am pretty happy with it, but next time I would use slightly thicker wire, and hammer it more.

This next piece is based loosely on the one in the magazine. I did not have the right guage of wire, and I think I did hammer it too much on the left side there, but I like the way it looks in general, and will probably work on variations of this.



The very last one is actually the same design pin you just saw, made with a different bead. The second wire did not fit through the hole, so I just made the top part. It is actually kind of cute all on its own...




What do people think? So far I think the one in the middle with the green bead is nicest, so I am going to work with variations of that design for now... especially since I think with a bead that has a slightly larger hole, and just slightly larger wire, that one will work nicely, whereas for the other wire may have to be gotten from I am not sure where...

Hogwarts-sock-swap progress

Well, I got an e-mail from my secret pal, and have to e-mail her back. She got specially dyed yarn for my socks, and is talking about casting on already.

Yikes!

I have been dithering because first, I wanted to find out some things about what my person would like. I am probably over-thinking this, because I have never been in a sock swap before and of course want to make the most marvelous socks EVER for this gal, the socks that will just make her swoon with delight. Now I don't particularly like eating my own cooking because I am always sure everyone else's is better, but even I will take socks knitted by me - any old pair, even the RHSS ones. So I am pretty sure this woman will like whatever nice pair of socks I send. If I just get variegated yarn and make one of the pretty patterns that other people have posted links to, and which they are probably using...But NO, I feel I ought to transcend all former socks and create - the socks of all socks! The socks de resistance! The mastersocks!!!

So, someone save me from myself. Is combining cables in a particularly meaningful Hogwarts shape, a panel of lace with a contrasting solid panel behind it, and some color work too much for one sock to take?

*wanders off muttering "must check stitch dictionary, must check stitch dictionary, must check...