I love a good thick novel, but I also have recently found that I love a good thick book of letters. A few weeks ago I finished My Faraway One, the first collection of letters exchanged between Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Steiglitz from 1915 to 1933. There are well over 800 pages in this fascinating doorstop of a book which took me exactly six months to read. The letters begin early in the relationship of Steiglitz and O’Keeffe and include the letters sent during O’Keeffe’s first few visits to New Mexico.

There were times I felt much like a voyeur reading these very personal letters. They provide a good insight into a complex relationship and marriage with corresponding ups and downs, closeness and betrayal, from the participants themselves. What the book also does is offer the reader insight into of the art world and the couple’s interaction with influential figures such as Marsden Hartley, Paul Strand, Diego Rivera, D.H. Lawrence and Mabel Dodge Luhan. And I enjoyed O’Keeffe’s descriptions of what was going on in her life as she worked on pieces that I’ve seen in museums from New York to Santa Fe.

I’ve been a fan of O’Keeffe’s work for some time. My visit to Taos and Abiquiu years ago tremendously impacted my life. This book is the first volume, and there is no doubt I’ll collect the other volumes as they are published.

Currently on my nightstand is Lonesome Dove, another thick book (960 pages in a mass market edition). Like many people I have associated Lonesome Dove primarily with the mini-series of 1989. This association is common but the mini-series does not do justice to the Pulitzer Prize winning novel. My copy is old, its cover a bit brittle, and now tattered as well from being shoved into my purse on overnight trips. Lonesome Dove is a classic tale of aging and longing for one last adventure. Both Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae were Texas Rangers in the days when being a Texas Ranger meant fighting Indians, visiting whores, and saving settlers. It’s also a tale of love, friendship and the end of the era of wild buffalo herds.

This epic novel is incredibly well crafted. The sentences are beautiful and drew me to savor and reread descriptions of prairies and rivers. The insights into the personal relationships between Call, Gus, Lorie, Newt the youngster, and the rest of the Hat Creek Company as well as descriptions of the fears and bravado of the cowboys moving the herd of cattle from Texas to Montana are what make this novel worth reading – even if you aren’t a fan of westerns.

With all of the reading I’ve been doing the past few months it feels as if I’ve gotten less knitting done this winter than in winters past. I’ll finish Lonesome Dove this week and the books waiting on the night stand are slimmer volumes.

I’m having such a great time dyeing the new PathWays Sock Yarn that yesterday I cast on not one but two new socks. Below is the very beginnings of Cookie A.’s Stalagmites in colorway Pot Bellied Stove. If you have not flipped through the new Cookie A. book Knit.Sock.Love be sure to pick one up at your LYS or local bookseller. The photography alone is worth the cost of the book, and you’re sure to enjoy the patterns which range from quite simple to more complex patterns. My Hederas were simple, but Stalagmite’s going to be one of those complex patterns with numerous charts and a different sequence of charts for each foot. This one is great for people who are construction geeks!

Because Stalagmite is complex I’ve also cast on one of my simple DVD socks. If you’ve read this blog for a while you’ll know that we don’t have television reception, but we do enjoy Netflix DVDs. I call my basic toe up socks DVD socks because they’re so mindless I can knit on them while watching DVDs in the evening. Here we have the toe of my first sock in colorway Bittersweet, named for the berries that are often used as autumn decoration. I love the ranges between orange, rust and red.

The Random Generator over at Random.org picked Colleen from the entries in our Facebook contest.

Several years ago when Christopher and I were planning a vacation to Canyonlands and Arches in Utah with a swing through Santa Fe, and Taos, New Mexico I posted a query about yarn shops on a Utah Ravelry Forum. Colleen piped up with information about the Moab area and we struck up a conversation following her post. Several weeks later Chris and I had the pleasure of meeting Colleen and her husband Butch at the Moab Micro Brewery.

Colleen is just one of the lovely people I’ve met through knitting and Ravelry. There have been many and I am continually thankful for the friends I’ve met through the knitting community!

For those who entered and aren’t Colleen, there’s are two more opportunities to win a skein of PathWays Sock Yarn.

This 100% merino superwash fingering weight is exactly what I want from a sock yarn. It’s squishy soft, has bounce and twist, and comes in a good size skein of 385 yards and over 100grams. The colors are rich and vibrant, as the yarn takes dyes very well. The colorway pictured below is Cerrillos, named for the New Mexico town where the sacred gem turquoise is still mined.

I think you’re going to love PathWays as much as I do. In fact, I invite you to send a photo of the socks (or shawls, scarves, or sweaters) you knit in PathWays yarn and we’ll share them on the website for everyone to envy.

 

 

Great for hanging out and enjoying the breeze.

It was a tough choice, but I finally decided that my Torreyana will be knit using Lost City Silk in colorway Extra Virgin, which is a rich olive green. I will also incorporate clear silver-lined beads, which have become my go-to bead for almost all beaded projects. While I have numerous others, for me the simple, clear, silver-lined beads pick up the sheen of silk like nothing else.

A day or two ago I sat down in the evening with my silk, my beads, and a size 5US needle to swatch.

The Torreyana Shawl has an unusual construction in that you cast on over 300 stitches – in the middle of the shawl. It’s going to be fun – geeky lace knitter fun! I’ll be reading the pattern several times over the next couple of days. I’m very excited. New lace!

I’m not a newbie anymore and I’ll share with you my tip for increasing, or Making One, in a way that results in no gaping hole.

(In the following photos the increased stitches are in orange for better visibility).

Knit to the place where you want to Increase, Make One,  or M1 in knitting shorthand.

Knit into the bar of the row below to increase one stitch.

Place that newly created stitch back on the left hand needle.

Knit into the back of the loop of your new stitch and move it to the right hand needle just as you would with any stitch.

What you’ve added are two stitches vertically but only increased the number of stitches your row by one. The first vertical stitch (the one that you knitted into the bar below) fills your gap while the second vertical stitch (knit into the back of the loop of the first stitch) will be in line with the row you’re working on. I call this method – a Stacked Increase.

Next time you need to Make 1, give my Stacked Increase a whirl and let me know what you think. I like it, and think you might too.

A purse with sections and pockets will give me delight as I tuck my phone here, my reading glasses there, ink pens lined up in just the right place. Odd little tins of stitch markers and notions provide tremendous pleasure too.

The same goes for my knitting. My winter purse has plenty of room for not just my glasses, billfold, and a small journal but a small knitting project. If we’re not going to be gone from the farm more than a day, one small project is all I need – not my entire big knitting bag.

For years I’ve tucked just an open project bag into my purse but I’ve been seeing the bright colorful fabric bags that zip all over for some time now. Not long ago I bought my first one from MissMisoCrafty. This is your basic box bag design measuring 5x8x4 and is fully lined with a handle. It’s beautifully made, the inside has no exposed raw edges and the walls are gently reinforced to keep their shape. There’s plenty of room inside for my Bridgewater Shawl which is still in the garter stitch stage – but steadily decreasing to the point that I’ll be picking up stitches and adding the lace border before long.

 

I liked my first box bag so much that when I saw this one from Lazy Sock Monkey (on Ravelry) at the Arkansas Fiber Arts Extravaganza I decided a second bag was a reasonable purchase so I wouldn’t need to switch whatever project I wanted to carry into the one bag I owned. The color on this one is what sold me. I love a good brown – but the bright green interior of this one made the choice easy. The side walls aren’t quite as firm as the first bag, which makes it easy to squish into my purse. As with the Miso bag this one is a good size for a medium project – like a colorwork mitten with three balls of yarn attached. My handy all-in-one Knit Kit slides right under the yarn – just in case I need it.

The most recent addition to my bag collection was found at the Alliday Show. This quilted triangle bag from Lone Chimney caught my eye. I love the shape on this one! It’s perfect for a smaller project – like my DVD socks. The ball sits nicely at one end of the bag and my project at the other. Sitting on a table beside me – this one allow the yarn to feed nicely to the project in my lap. The Lone Chimney team is a mother-daughter trio and I had the privilege to meet two of the three ladies at the show. Incredibly nice women with a flair for fabric.

As winter and the holidays arrive, I send each of you warm holiday wishes

for a new year full of fine health, good friends, and the joy that comes from leading a creative life.

When I’m knitting colorwork I usually ask myself why I don’t do more. I love the process, but colorwork is not terribly portable like lace and socks are.

Just to satisfy my “more colorwork” craving I cast on the project that has been Number 1 in my main Ravelry Queue for a very long time. The Latvian Fingerless Mittens were on the cover of the Knitting Traditions magazine a year ago. I pulled some yarn from the “Remainder Bin”. This bin has the stragglers of discontinued yarn lines or odd sized skeins. When there aren’t enough skeins left to make a nice display they go into the Remainder Bin. There were just a few skeins of the Merino Lambswool Angora that I had milled several years ago. The pattern called for five different colors. There was just enough.

When I first cast on the main color, Salsa Dancing, and began knitting up the wrist I’ve got to admit they looked a bit ummm — bright! (okay I said garish originally but I’m recanting to call them bright)

Because I have scrawny narrow petite wrists I began with size 3US  dpns instead of the suggested 4US. At the beginning of the palm and thumb I switched to the 4US to make sure there was enough width to stretch across my hand without feeling tight. With the blue and teal boxes on the hand the mittens began to loose their eye popping quality (which was a very good thing!). The mitten is a very quick knit and after a few days I was at the end of the colorwork chart and ready to knit the last few rows and bind off, then knit the thumb, which will be a snap.

I finished the mitten using the technique in the pattern. Apparently not only are my wrists abnormally scrawny narrow petite but so must my fingers be. There was a distinct gap where cold wind could whip down inside the mitten to chill the hand. Not good. The finished mitten sat on the coffee table for a day while I decided what to do about it. Finally I picked it up and frogged back to where the colorwork ended and knit a simple 2×2 rib for just over half an inch.

It looks pretty good and all I have left to do now is review Jeny’s Stretchy Bind Off in Knitty (I’m not sure why I can’t commit this method to memory). The tails are all woven in already. There were a lot. This is the pile of tails that I cut after weaving them in.

All this knitting and not a word about the DVD socks? The second DVD sock is almost finished. All that’s left on it is the ribbed cuff. And then, hopefully, my memory will have retained the stretchy bind off in Knitty.

The past few days I haven’t been feeling well so yesterday I drove into Tulsa to see the doctor. Because the DVD socks are close to being finished I took a ball of yarn and needles for the next pair of DVD socks. This was made easy because when I wound the yarn for the current DVD socks I wound about four other skeins of sock yarn that were in my stash. I didn’t really look – I just grabbed.

Generally I don’t wind yarn into a ball until I’m ready to knit with it. I like to think I can see more of the colors in the skein form. Which brings up a topic I’ve tried to explain to people several times. Some yarns are prettier as skeins than they are in a ball and/or knit. When you knit socks for instance there can be color casualties. Just a few more or less stitches on the needles can alter how the color repeat in a yarn knits up – whether it will pool or stripe or even be altogether random. The same thing with needle size. And changes in gauge due to stress or other life influences will alter your color sequence while knitting.

People ask me in the booth if a particular yarn will pool or stripe. It’s impossible to tell them exactly what they want to know. If I knit a sock 44 stitches around (before mentioned petite hands match petite feet) on a size 3US needle – I might get striping. If by mistake (like in the first DVD socks) I turn the heel and because I’m distracted (watching a particularly good movie on DVD) I knit up the ankle with 46 stitches on the needle I get a bit of pooling. You’ll see a lot of evidence of this in Ravelry – and if you’re a sock knitter you’ve likely experienced it yourself. One sock pools, one sock stripes.

My friend Linda in OKC will likely back me up and say I’m not telling tall tales. She’s taught classes in pooling at her LYS and is an avid sock knitter.

Here’s the next DVD sock. The stash yarn is Collinette Jitterbug in colorway Bright Charcoal. As far as I can tell there is no rhythm to the color changes. They’re bright and colorful. When I looked this colorway up in Ravelry (after casting on) I was a bit dubious on whether I’d like them. But so far I’m satisfied with the randomness of of the bright color bits scattered among the gray and black.

A quick photo and email to Jan, a self-proclaimed Gourdphile over at Hungry Holler Art Refuge, and we had our answer – Buffalo Gourds!

I think Jan was maybe jealous. She called us “lucky ducks” and told me she wildcrafts for them in Arizona but hasn’t been able to get them to grow at the Holler.

Of course, I had to go back to where Chris found these beauties and pick up a bag full. Tess joined me and nosed around. Down by the creek in the gravel the exposed gourds had turned light brown but under the desiccated vines it was like Easter egg hunting. There were bright yellow and green ovals about the size of extra large eggs. The trick was to avoid getting cockle burrs in my gloves. Not an easy task (which means I really should go easy on the dogs for getting them).

I came back to the house and polished the gourds with a dry towel. I had no idea what I would do with them, but I liked how they looked. Jan recommends stringing them by piercing them with a sharp wire. Once dried, she said, they’re quite fragile and seeds scatter like crazy, which is a treat for the birds.

Several years ago a friend noticed a large bowl of pine cones in the center of the dining table at the old farmhouse. she laughed and said that her daughter-in-law had bought some on ebay, but of course she knew I’d just picked them up under the tree for a quick center piece. With this memory in mind I loaded up the same walnut bowl.

Of course, I didn’t stop there. I googled Buffalo Gourds. Cucurbita foetidissima has edible seeds and a long history of use by Native Americans especially in the Southwest. They contain saponins which is an important part of soap making. The root (which can be quite large) is/was used for ritual and healing purposes as well. Here’s a link to more information about the Buffalo Gourd – and a staggering photo of the root – which made my eyes bulge a little. Imagine – these pretty little gourds came from that freakishly big root.

I’m going to enjoy the Buffalo Gourds in the bowl and try to ignore that I saw the root photo – it looks entirely too much like someone half buried.

These local yarns from happy sheep that live at Cordero Farm near Stillwater, Oklahoma are perfect for socks and hats. Two of our lines are on sale – both have been selling for $25 but are now $20. There is sock yarn HERE and worsted weight, which would be good for hats, HERE. Quantities are limited to what is currently in stock, so if you see something you like you should go for it before someone else does.

Here are my DVD socks, knit from Lost City Knits sock yarn. I just turned the second heel, so I figure I have two more DVDs worth of knitting before I finish.