The weekend has been good in some ways but hard in others; after a memorial service for someone special on Saturday, we spent yesterday driving to LA to visit my grandmother. Each time I see her, I think it's the last visit. She is tenaciously hanging on to life, but she's fairly weak, now. I did a lot of knitting on the way up and back. Though this grandmother doesn't do crafts, she likes to see me doing them.
It's been cold for SoCal, going well below freezing at night and either damaging or killing some of the plants I didn't manage to cover. I am kitted out in hand-knits, with my baby camel Fetching fingerless mitts and thick wool socks on my feet. I decided to try to use up some of my stash, and I needed a new pair of leg warmers — I sleep in them on nights I sense a calf cramp coming on, and it successfully prevents them. My old pair is a threadbare grey acrylic pair from the '80s, and I felt I really deserved some wool ones.
I had a bunch of Peruvian Collection Highland Wool in my stash, in a somewhat unpleasant yellow-pea green (the color looks far better in these photos than in reality!), that I'd bought off deStash from a woman who had thought it was going to be a different shade of green than it was. So did I. However, it's soft and warm, and no one sees my leg warmers (well, except on here) but Rob, and he does not care.
My own pattern, i.e. measure your leg, 2x2 rib for a while, then some stockinette, than various ribs to keep from getting bored and to make the warmer cling to the thinner part of the calf approaching the ankle. I used #5 DPNs for the rib, #7 DPNs for the stockinette. Started Friday night, finished Sunday. For a 40-cm/15.75" calf at largest point I cast on 64 stitches with 4.5 spi. This was, however, too big:
so if you have a slightly larger calf than mine, this would likely be perfect. These are comfy but don't stay up, so I'll probably pick up and knit a tighter rib around the top.
I am also working on a mitten pattern for some SoHo in my stash (plus some more of the Highland Wool).
(And also some Broad Street Gloves/Mittens, but more about them in the next post. Gotta save something for Tuesday!)
4 comments:
I know traffic can be bad, in LA, but still, I hope you weren't driving
Greens are so hard and picking them via a computer monitor would be impossible. (I remember something in the LOTR bonus features that the costume designer needed 150 swatches of green before she found the right one for Arwen's dress.)
Thinking it's the last time with a beloved person is so difficult. My dear mother/life mentor Mary and I picked an actual time to say our goodbyes and I still tear up thinking about it. An amazing woman and still deeply missed so many years later. Do take care.
I'm sorry to hear about Grandma. I hope she surprises you all and is around for many years to come.
Yeah, I remember once ordering some yarn that I thought was blue that turned out to be purple. It's all in the settings...
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