In the week leading up to Clara’s birth and, with slightly reduced progress, in the two weeks since, there has been a lot of knitting around here. A lot of knitting of teeny stitches on tiny needles, to be exact–but not all of it has been for teeny tiny Clara.

I originally intended this yarn (Universal Yarn Ditto, now discontinued) to be socks for Erik, but he requested gloves instead, so I pulled out my dogeared Winter ‘03 copy of Interweave Knits for their excellent glove formula. I had the first glove knit half way up the hand before deciding it was too big (my own mathematical error) and frogging all the way back. Take two turned out just right. I spent most of my labor with Clara working on these, and nearly finished the first glove before she was born. I finished the pair a few days later, between naps and nursing.

“Hark! Does Clara call for me?”

You can see this project on Ravelry here.

Yes, over three years ago I started knitting this sweater for my mother. (I had the yarn for two years before that, but you know stash must be aged prior to use… right?) It required so much concentration and counting, that I only worked on it for fits and spurts and insanely long car rides when the kids were asleep.

There was a time when I thought child-rearing and knitting intricate patterns might be mutually exclusive, but I kept at it, and did most of my knitting at night, when nobody would bother me. And I’ll admit, there were times when I just put it away for months at a time, when it was just too much work to try to figure out where I had left off.

But as the kids got bigger I found more time to knit, and I even got them trained to not try to rip my needles out of my hands or out of my knitting when my back was turned.

Last week I met one of my neighbors who is a spinner, seamstress, knitter, and weaver (and probably more than that) and also happens to be the superintendent of the fiber arts division at our County Fair. She encouraged me to enter something in the Fair, but I didn’t think I had anything ready. Then I remembered the sweater.

I had finished the actually knitting of the sweater a couple months ago, but the daunting task of blocking, weaving in yarn ends, and seaming still lay ahead. (For you non-knitters, weaving in yarn ends is like fingernails on a chalkboard). It took three days to dry the sweater after wet blocking, and I finally resorted to turning on the baseboard heater near the knitting to speed things up.

And then there were yarn ends. O M G. It took me five hours just to weave in yarn ends, and I am not kidding. Seaming everything up was the real test, and thank goodness my knitting gauge stayed consistent over the years, because everything fit together the way it was supposed to. I did have to run to our local fabric store (thank goodness we have one!) to find buttons for the sweater. I found lovely pewter buttons for all of $4. Score!

I finished everything today by noon and walked it over to the fairgrounds. So here it is, Mama. The Swedish Thora that was five years in the making is finished, and it has turned out every bit as lovely as I had hoped.

P.S. I’m holding it for ransom until you come visit me.

Here is the knit in hem, as viewed from the front.

Here is the knit in hem, as viewed from the back.

Now to set up for the sewn-in version, knit your garment to the desired length, knit your turning row to match your knit-in hem (if you have one), and knit your hem to the desired length LESS ONE ROW. You will be sewing your final knit row. Finally, cut your yarn with a very generous tail–at least long enough to go around your work four times. Better to be safe, than too short. Thread your tail onto a blunt needle, and proceed as follows:

Step One: Pass needle through first stitch as if to knit. Take the stitch off the knitting needle, and pull yarn all the way through.

Next, fold up hem and stitch up through back of matching stitch.

Third, stitch down through adjacent stitch to the left, and purlwise back through first knit stitch that you removed from the knitting needle. Pull yarn all the way through, and repeat from first step, moving one stitch to the left.

Tada!

It looks identical, because structurally it IS identical. Yay for twins!

Even though most of my fun stuff is packed away already, I do have a couple little projects stashed around the house to work on. Erik wanted a new beanie and neck warmer thingie (I don’t know if it is spelled gaitor or gaiter, so thingie it is). I love a man who can’t go to war without some tactical hand knits. I’m using Wool-Ease yarn, because it’s so perfectly suited to the harsh abuse I know it will get. It is easy to wash, and the wool helps the garments maintain their shape and loft (fluffiness) much better than acrylic alone. It is also less sweaty than all-acrylic.

I tried something new for the top of the beanie. Instead of fastening it off like normal, by drawing yarn threw the last few knit stitches, then drawing it up and weaving in the end, I grafted the last 12 stitches together using Kitchener stitch. It made a nice flat secure top. It will be comfortable under a helmet, and I don’t have to worry that a hole will form.

The thingie is just a simple tube. It can’t be tight, or it will be uncomfortable, and the edges need to have a bit of stability or they’ll curl and be bulky. A knit in hem seemed to be the best answer. I have a few more inches to knit on this, then it will get crammed into Erik’s sea bag with the rest of his couple hundred pounds of gear.

Yesterday really was a glorious day. The pictures yesterday didn’t come close to capturing it. We ended up with a little cloud cover, so it got easier on the eyes to knit in the afternoon. I finished Erik’s socks just in time for him to wear them to bed. He’s wearing them today, too. It’s hard to get a man to model his feet, so I’ll keep trying to get a good shot of the finished socks today.

I’ll give you the quick pattern now, then I’ll write up a proper pattern for you this evening.

Cast on 60 stitches, work k3, p2 ribbing for 40 rounds, then k2tog, p2 around (now you’re down to 48 stitches). Continue in k2, p2 ribbing for 30 rounds, switch to k around for 10 rounds. Work short-row heel down to 8 working stitches, then k around for 50 rounds. Work wedge toe down to 10 live stitches, graft. (I was getting a gauge of about 5 stitches/inch using size 2 (2.75 mm. dpns.)

And now a little something for all you would-be sock-knitters. Ann Budd has written a book for you! I haven’t been in the knitting book market for a while, so I didn’t notice when this book came out in the fall, but it looks like a wonderful introduction to sock knitting. It has gotten many excellent reviews. In general, you can trust anything written by Ann Budd or published by Interweave Press to rock your… socks. Just click on the picture to get to get to the Amazon page.

One sock down… I haven’t grafted the toe stitches together yet (that is something best done after the children are in bed so I can finish without losing my mind–I mean rhythm). It’s always a little bit tricky to fit Erik’s socks. I can calculate my gauge and take measurements all day long, but it really comes down to trial and error and personal preference. Erik wears a size 13 shoe, and likes his socks to be very snug. Luckily for me, the first sock fits him great. But I also tried it on, and it fits ME great… I wear a size 10 ladies shoe, but I like my socks to fit exactly, or be slightly long. How convenient that we’ll get to share!

Olga is already asking me to make her a new pair of socks, too, but she wants *red* ones (or rojo as she now says). So it looks like I’ll be doing a little bit of wool dyeing in the near future. Erik’s socks will have to be black or green if he’s going to wear them for work, and I’d really like to have an orange pair myself… Gavin could probably care less what color his socks are… maybe I’ll knit him a pair with all of the multi-colored scraps we end up with.

I just couldn’t hold out any longer. I’ve already started knitting socks for Erik out of the freshly spun wool. It is so nice to work with that I’m having trouble putting my needles down long enough to take pictures. I am very happy with the texture, which despite it’s slightly thick and thinness, is evening itself out nicely in the knitting. I’m sort of making up the pattern as I go along, but when I finish I’ll be sure to write down the whole thing and share it with you. I’ll tell you what I’ve done so far: I started with 60 stitches using a long tail cast on. I worked knit 3 purl 2 ribbing for 40 rounds, then I knit 1, knit 2 together, purl 2 around, (so now you’re down to 48 stitches) and continued on in knit 2 purl 2 ribbing for 30 more rounds. I switched to plain (stockinette) knitting for 10 rounds, then I took the picture. Next I’ll work a heel. I usually do an hourglass heel, but I think I might try something a little new this time… maybe.

On Friday I noticed that one of the heels in my hand spun socks was starting to wear thin. Today I mended it using duplicate stitch, and I took a bunch of pictures so you can see just what I did. During the hour that I worked on the sock (including photography and interruptions from the children) I slipped into memories of the time when I first knit these socks. It was in the autumn of 2003; Erik had just come back from the war in June, and I was a couple months pregnant with our baby. The whole season was like another honeymoon. I wasn’t a widow, and I was going to be a mama. Life was bliss.

The original socks are knit with plain wool, so I’m repairing them with plain wool (no nylon). Always mend like with like. It is one of the basics of restoration that you never use a stronger material to mend a weaker one, because eventually the repair may actually damage the original. Below are the tools I used for the repair: a blunt yarn needle, scissors, and something to use as a darning egg. I’m using a hand blown glass vase, made by Monte Gennai, my mother-in-law’s mate. He, unfortunately, doesn’t have a website, but he does sell some of his incredible work, so if you’re interested in contacting him, drop me a line. *Note, normally I use the vase as a vase… but it’s the only thing I could find around the house that would work for darning. A light bulb would work, too.*

This is a very picture heavy post, so please click below to see the rest.

The darning egg, or whatever you use, is placed inside the area to be repaired and helps you see the stitches more clearly. It’s other purpose is to ensure that you only sew through one layer of sock, and that the tension of your new stitches remains fairly even. I’m not stretching the sock at all, I’m just holding it gently around the vase. Stretching at this point might break what remains of the original stitches, and this repair works best if they’re still intact.

Start your repair where the knit fabric is still good. You’ll work a couple rows of duplicate stitch before you get to the thin spot to ensure that your repair is well anchored in “healthy” cloth. I started with about three feet of yarn on my needle, and left a tail of about three inches. To start the repair, insert the needle anywhere, but come up at the point of a “V”.

This technique is called duplicate stitch, and it’s often used to add patterns to already knit garments. All you’re doing is following the path of the existing yarn. It’s quite simple.

Work back and forth. Moving up to the next row of stitches involves a bit of clever fudging. Just try to make the jump as smooth as possible on the inside, so you won’t feel it. You can see I’m getting close to the very thin stitches, now. It’s very important at this point to be gentle, or the delicate stitches might just pop.

Continue until you’ve patched the entire area. I went on for several more rows in both directions. Add more yarn as needed, and just leave the tails hanging free.

From the inside, the repair is very smooth and almost invisible. To finish off the repair, pull the yarn tails to the inside of the sock, and snip off. You could weave in the ends a little, if it makes you feel better, but since I made sure to extend my repair into stronger stitches and since weaving in tail ends is pretty much the same as duplicate stitch, but worked from the inside, I feel just fine about snipping the tails off. I left about 1 cm of yarn, and I’m counting on it to fuzz up and felt a little bit as I wear the socks.

The repaired heel next to the mate.

And now they’re on my feet, where they belong. I can’t feel the repair at all, so it was a success. And look, now they finally match!

(I posted several times about his socks here, here, here, here, and here.)

Daddy, I will shame you into washing your socks if I have to.

Step One: Fill the sink with hot water.

Step Two: Add a little dish soap when the sink is almost full, so it doesn’t get too sudsy.

Step Three: Add socks, and allow to sink into water on their own.

Step Four: Gently swish and squeeze socks as needed to remove dirt. Usually just soaking is enough, unless you’ve been running around in the mud with just your socks on. (And if that’s the case, then I don’t want to know about it, because it will just make me crazy.)

Step Five: Gently squeeze out the socks, drain the sink, and refill with same temperature water.

Step Six: Allow socks to briefly soak in rinse water, swish gently to remove detergent.

Step Seven: Gently squeeze out as much water as you can. You can roll the socks up in a towel and stand on it for a few seconds to get a lot of water out.

Step Eight: Reshape and lay flat on a towel to dry.

(PS, these are the leftover yarn baby socks I mentioned in yesterday’s post.)

Since I’m all caught up with the regular (machine-washable) laundry, I figured I’d tackle the huge pile of woolens I have let languish in the laundry room A: for a few weeks, B: for a few months, C: forever. I have a fairly small drying rack, so I can only wash a few things at a time, but I do have a couple pairs of really cool adjustable sock blockers which I use all the time.

The pair of socks drying in front were knit from my first hand spun yarn. I had only had my wheel for about a month. I was pregnant with Olga at the time, and I knit the socks during an unexpectedly long trip flying from Palm Springs, California to North Bend, Oregon, to visit the ol’ family in Gold Beach. Washing them today I see that one of the heels is just about to wear through, so it’s time for a little repair work as soon as they dry. I’ll show you how I do it when I get to it (which, going by my attention span, might be a while).

The other pair of socks are knit from Trekking XXL, made for the husbandperson shortly after Olga was born. (I think… possibly before… mommy brain.) There was just a tiny bit of this yarn leftover when I finished his Neanderthalian-sized socks, so I made a tiny pair of baby socks out of the last bit. And in fact I ran out of yarn while finishing the second toe of the baby socks and had to substitute with bright orange. Nice.

(To see a larger version of the photo above, click it, then on the next screen above the picture click "all sizes.")