yarny, socky goodness

I finished my first sock club socks (but not in sock club yarn)! Actually, I finished them last week, but didn't get around to taking photographs. (Also? Taking photographs of one's feet is kind of weird. I'll never get used to it.) They are Cookie A.'s Haleakala socks, in Handmaiden Casbah. (Handmaiden doesn't list their colourways on the label, sadly, so officially I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure it's "Glacier.") My usual go-to Addi 2.25mm metal DPNs. The actual socks are a little bit lighter, and more turquoise, than the picture. The dark turquoise vein in the skein didn't come through as much as I'd hoped, but I still love these. In fact, I am wearing them right now! They are soft and cushy.

A close-up of the cable pattern:


These were surprisingly quick to knit up, which is not what I can say for all of Cookie A.'s patterns. These took just under two weeks of reasonably-paced knitting (and I don't knit socks when I'm at home, ironically — I knit on the big blanket projects that don't travel well).

I'm knitting a lightweight spring cardigan right now, which should tide me over until the next sock club installment.

It's going to all small projects, all the time for the next little while. Due to the whole baby needing stuff (like, oh, furniture) thing, I am going to knit primarily from stash for the next little while — sock club, having been already paid for, counts as stash, damn it — and what I have in the stash is individual skeins of sock yarn. (Mostly because I never know how much yarn I will need for a given sweater, so I almost always buy yarn at the start of a sweater project. Sock yarn is much more transferable.) The exception, though, is this:


A good friend brought three skeins of gigantic wool back from Chile and gave it to me for my birthday a couple of years ago. I've put a skein of Socks That Rock lightweight next to it for comparison. It's really very lovely — so soft, and so thick that it's practically felted — but I have no idea what to do with it. I don't even know where to start. I mean, what size needles do I even try with this?


The labels don't have any gauge information. My own needle stash goes up to size #15 (10mm), and that's not going to be nearly enough. I think I used those for some superbulky yarn which, ironically, is about a quarter the width of this stuff. I really want to use this yarn, though. It's really soft, the perfect shade of grey — I think it would make a lovely throw. But how? And with what?

starting anew

This book is code for "I mean business."
Pd and I had a conversation recently, about what sort of gardener I am. I was lamenting that I was such a bad gardener, and he said that no, I was a reasonably good gardener; the problem is that I have a problem with ... attention.

I, on the other hand, maintain that watering, not to mention weeding, are dead simple ideas, and if I can't remember to do that, good gardening is probably out of my league. Even reasonably decent, if a bit hapless, gardeners are probably able to focus for the mere four months that a garden in Toronto is in bloom, yes?

(We have both taken serious vows to pay more attention to the garden this year. Who knows if it's going to happen, but at least we have Intentions.)

Nonetheless, and despite all that, I do try — and never more than at the beginning of spring, when hope abounds and nothing has died. Yet.


I started some seeds, just like I said I was going to: basil, bunching onions, tomatoes. I'm a little unsure, looking back, why I thought I would need nine basil plants and only four tomatoes, but whatever. We'll see if any or all of it germinates first.

(The six holes in the middle are empty — it's a self-watering seed starter that works by wicking, so I wanted to make sure the weight was even on each side. It's a brilliant little device, actually. More expensive and less vinegar-and-brown-paper than the toilet roll tubes, but on the other hand, also less prone to mold. That's a definite plus.)

I also started two of the calla lily bulbs. (Technically they are rhizomes, but we're just going to go with the nontechnical at this time. They look like bulbs.)




I am hoping they won't become rootbound too quickly — they recommend a 6" pot, but I only had 4" and 10" on hand. Hopefully, if these germinate successfully, I'll be able to transplant them outside before too long. I started them because, from what I can find, calla lilies are not exactly hardy in zone 6 and should be started indoors if I want them to bloom by early summer (like they're supposed to.)

If they don't germinate, I'll just plant the other bulbs straight into the yard when I do the gladiolas.

They're sitting in front of the west-facing window right now — the east-facing one having run out of room. Looking at them makes me feel like spring might be coming, despite the fact that the windchill was -13 when I left the house this morning.

planning ahead

Yesterday I watched it snow horizontally from my office windows, and this morning the windchill was -16 Celsius when I left for work. So much for the warm and the little green buds of spring.

Winter, I hate you.

(Aside: I think it may be good that I don't live in Calgary. The annual Chinook would just kill me. It would just lull me into a false sense of security and then break my heart with 45 km/h winds.)

I am forging ahead with the garden planning, although by now I am impatient to be doing. I am thinking of starting some tomatoes, basil and bunching onions this weekend. And we've got so much work to do outside: there's the dethatching and general cleanup, all the dead ends I didn't bother dealing with in the fall, and we have to have get a new lawn in. I don't think the old one is coming back. I think we're going to go with seed, not sod. And then there's all those books to read, to tell me what I'm doing.

We also have this lovely old patio set that Pd's father gave us. Unfortunately, it had spent untold years in the back garden at the farm — he literally cut it out from the weeds — and now it needs a little bit of intense scrubbing with steel brush and Dremmel to get the rust off before we paint it a glossy black. (I floated the idea of yellow, or bright blue. Pd wasn't impressed.) That needs to take place outside, because our house does not have a well-ventilated anything, and I would like to begin soon so we can make as much use of it as possible this summer.

There's a lot of stuff inside, too. I didn't realise how anxious I had been for winter to be over until it started warming up and my mind starting going through all of the plans for Reno 2.0. We want to insulate the addition/sun room/library, which means ripping everything out, putting insulation (and a better window) in, and then patching it all up again. There was actual permafrost on the window this winter, and it was cold enough that even Pd — who is much hardier than I am — consented to buy a small electric heater. In the summer, it's unbearable except for in the early morning. And we are hoping to put in air conditioning, because last year it was 28 degrees Celsius downstairs, before the humidity, and Pd and I both got heat stroke last year (although mine was not at home), and I can't do that again. But there's no point in putting in air conditioning if it's all going to escape onto the porch.

That's the major renovation this year. After that it's majorish redecorating — I'm not sick of what we've got, but we're going to switch the current bedroom and den around. That means painting when it's warm enough to throw the windows open, and possibly some Towers of Hanoi-type maneuvres involving the furniture and the currently empty second bedroom. (The library is full of bookshelves, which are themselves full of books. You can see where this is going.)

I think we'll be able to do it all by the beginning of July. We'll have to, really, because the second bedroom is going to have to be decorated — or, at the very least, populated with furniture — and that has a fairly firm deadline of late August or early September. I know that seems like a long time for mere decoration, but the family reunion is going to eat up my mid-to-late July, and I want more than two weekends to build/move in all the furniture, put up the curtains and all that, and I don't anticipate I'm going to be moving very quickly by then.

It's going to be the baby's room.

early progress report

These pictures are a bit of a bait-and-switch; I'm sorry. The actual tulips aren't out yet, but I think we're getting there. Until we do, though, these pictures from the Canada Blooms show will have to do.

(Sorry about the quality of the pictures. I was very lazy and decided to only bring my dinky little point-and-click — now dinkier than ever, especially since something is wrong with the lens and it makes this awful grinding noise whenever it opens. I don't think it's long for this world, but it's only about a year old, and I'm too stubborn and too broke to buy a new one.)

I went with the intention of being very, very good, and I succeeded for the most part — although it was a bit touch and go at the Urban Harvest booth. (I nearly bought edamame seeds, until I realised that they're vines. I don't have space for vines. Or, I do, but I'd have to root out the rhubarb.) In the end, all I bought were some basil seeds to start, and a little pot of winter heather:


I thought it would be nice to have something in early spring, when I'm just craving colour. I'll start hardening it off in a week or two, but right now it's hanging out with the African violet and the herbs.

(The African violet is doing fine. It's dormant right now, though, so not very interesting. Huge, though.)

Now, in the garden itself:


This is a really lousy picture; I took it in the bright glare of the sun, and everything looks horribly dried and washed out. It's nowhere near as bad as that, really, and the shoots are actually a lovely green. (And I just fed it some kelp tea, which should help.) This is actually the garlic I planted in October, and all six of the cloves have shoots! This is better than I was hoping for. We'll see if they manage to survive until harvest.

And these are the peonies:


Which are definitely budding; whee! They may not flower this year — apparently, often peonies don't in their first year — but as long as the shrub gets established, I am happy. I have no idea if these are the pink ones or the white ones, though — I've planted two, but I'm not sure if I got roots from both or just one of the plants.


I also found my first tulip bud this weekend. I don't think this is one of the bulbs I planted last fall — I hope not, actually, since I planted 18 and this is the only one I've found so far. I'm thinking it's probably one of the ones that was left over from the previous owner. I never bothered digging the bulbs up; I'm happy to let them propagate as they please. You really never can have too many tulips.

And in the surest sign of spring ...


The chives are back.

Spring(ish)!

Now it feels like spring. I'm probably jinxing it, but honestly, I couldn't take the cold any more. And also I discovered that my non-winter suede boots are not what you would call "waterproof." Or even "water resistant," really. They see water and they run and hide, leaving nothing between the water and my socks. Which are lovely, woolly and warm, but are also not waterproof. (This is more forgiveable, as waterproof socks would be sort of strange.)

This is something that is less than exciting to discover when the forecast is calling for 10mm of rain and the weather is feeling like an overachiever.

In another sign of spring, the sage in my strawberry pot is flowering. I didn't even know that potted herbs flower, but there you go. They're rather pretty:


They're about to die, though. There is way more sage in that pot than I could ever use — I don't use much herbs to begin with, but the sage has killed the renewed tarragon and is holding its own with the invasive oregano for dominance. It is now so large that it has turned into a vine. Pd and I even had the following conversation last night:

Pd: You really have to do something about that sage.
Me: I know. I'm thinking clippers.
Pd: I don't know if clippers will be enough. I think we'll have to be napalm it from the air. It's the only way to be sure.

So, you see. Also, I feel that the primary function of my strawberry pot is to be decorative (see "don't cook with many herbs" comment, above), and it's really moved from that to territorial. Besides, I am going to have to make more room soon so I can put in new basil, which never did grow back and which I actually do use. Maybe the red kind.

In related news, I picked these up from our local big box store over the weekend:


I didn't mean to; it just sort of ... happened. I hadn't done any research whatsoever into bulbs (I hadn't actually planned on putting anything in this year, aside from the tulips that were planted last October — and I understand tulips, at least somewhat), but I love these as cut flowers, so I thought — why not? Of course, "why not" turns out to be because they're not really terribly hardy for zone 6, even a warmish zone 6, and if I want them to even pretend to be perennial I'm going to have to dig them up in the fall and overwinter the bulbs inside ... and honestly, I can't even remember where I planted the majority of those 18 tulips any more, so how am I going to remember this?

I'm going to plant them anyway, though, just to see. Because the worst thing that could happen, at this point, is for them not to come up at all, and I can deal with that.

I am trying, very hard, to hold myself back from utter gardening fever this year, and to remind myself of what happened last year. (Answer: a big lot of nothing. And dead grass.) The thing is, though, my family — my entire, extended family — is going to be visiting this summer — my big, successful, persnickety family with the perfectionist streak (hey, I got it from somewhere), who are going to be seeing my house, and my garden, for the first time. They're kind of judge-y (likewise), and I already feel a bit like a black sheep in this family — I'm the only only child, the only introvert, the only artsy. Possibly the only tree-hugger. (Also the only one with a graduate degree, but it's in arts, so it doesn't count.) They love me, and I love them, but I as sure as hell better be impressive come this July.

the beginning of something good

Look what came in the mail for me!


Yes, sock yarn. But it's special sock yarn, because it's the first (of six) installments in the Cookie A sock club! Pd gave me a membership for my birthday, and it really is a gift that keeps on giving. For the rest of the year, anyway. (Sock Club, for non-knitters: you pay a certain amount of money, and they send you sock yarn and a pattern to go with it on a bi-monthly basis. Like any other kind of club, really.)

I had been considering other sock clubs, but I chose this one in the end. Most other sock clubs are run by dyers, not designers, so they emphasize exclusive colours on (generally) the same yarn base, with surprise designers. On the other hand, this one is run by a designer, and the accompanying yarn is a surprise (we were promised "good" yarn, though). Since something like half of all the socks I've ever knit were designed by Cookie A, and the idea of discovering new indie sock yarn is exciting, this one won out in the end. Also, this one comes with cookie recipes. I'm serious! And I like cookies.

Anyway, no regrets so far, except that the yarn took a long time to get here (and that wasn't her fault; that was Canada Post. The yarn was shipped in the middle of February). I like the pattern (like I said, I like practically all her patterns), and it really is good yarn. This one is really nice and snuggly — there's 10% cashmere in it, so there's a nice loft and I anticipate the stitch definition will be good, too. I'm not knitting with it yet, though — I noticed the other day that I had barely touched the sock yarn I acquired at the Frolic last year, and that my skein of cushy Handmaiden Casbah (also 10% cashmere — even when I don't pick the yarn, I'm predictable) had started to come undone.


Handmaiden Casbah, back when it was still tightly skeined.
It was like a sign from the universe that it was time to ball it up and knit. So I did. It's making me very happy — even if it's likely that the weather will be warmish before I finish.

Another sign: I finally finished my German stockings! These were started, I kid you not, in October 2008. They are so old that they predate my flickr account. I think they were something like my second pair of socks, and they were seriously cursed: I broke two bamboo needles (I think this is when I switched to Addis, because at least it's harder to break metal), I kept reading the pattern wrong — twice! On both feet! — and it was just a mess. I neglected to get a finished object picture, but here's a progress shot of the second sock:


Come to think of it, these were designed by Cookie A, too
Sitting on my Icarus shawl at the lacrosse game we went to last week.

Oh! Yes! We went to a lacross game. I don't really know anything about lacrosse, but I thought it was interesting that they kept the music playing throughout the game (and not just during breaks). The atmosphere is very different from a Leafs game. For one thing, the seats were a lot better (and a lot cheaper). For another, we actually expected the Toronto team to win.


(I am a total Leafs fangirl, but come on. I'm not stupid. Just a sucker for disappointment.)

(Oh, and yes. We did win. It was touch-and-go when the other team evened it up in the third quarter, but then we stormed back in the fourth and took the game. And at some point the goalie took it in the nuts, which ... I know it's horrible, but it's actually kind of funny when it happens to pro athletes. All I can say is that he took it like a man — he went straight down.)

climbing update quickie

Just wanted to record for posterity (such as it is) that last night I climbed a 5.11d. No rope assist; no cheats; just me and the wall (and an incredibly rude and frustrating climber on my right, but that's another story.) It was green. It was crimpy. It was, in short, glorious.

That is all. You may move on, now.