Ta-da! A sock comes out of another sock! And except for weaving in the cast-on tail, they’re ready to go right on your feet! (Okay, I did have to weave in the inner sock’s toe tail after the fact. And I could have done the cast-on tails before I separated them, but I didn’t.) Sure enough, the ankles are really baggy, but I wisely decreased the gussets down to a foot circumference I knew would work, and the deep ribbed cuffs are quite comfy and the socks don’t sag when you’re wearing them. Plus if I ever suffer swollen ankles from, say, pregnancy or unguarded cavorting over the Devonshire countryside á la Marianne in Sense and Sensibility, I’ll have just the socks for the occasion. (I must tell you these circumstances look equally unlikely at the moment, but it never hurts a girl to be prepared.)

Will I knit two socks together in this manner again? Probably not, as it’s simpler to knit them side by side on two circulars. One has more freedom to work interesting stitch motifs (or ANY stitch motifs) that way, and not having so many stitches crammed onto my favored 5″ dpns is easier on the hands. I found ladders at the needle joins were unavoidable. But for a utilitarian pair of vanilla socks, these will serve quite well. The Koigu was happy on the US #1.5 needles, and I’m glad to have finally knit up these two pretty skeins, given to me by Formerly Abundant Lisa in New York many years ago. (Lisa still possesses an abundance of many fine qualities… she just doesn’t blog anymore, and I miss her. Also, it is her birthday today. Happy birthday, Lisa!) I’ll wear these often.

Hey, anybody out there familiar with the landscape of eastern Oregon or in possession of a fine atlas? These pictures were taken just off I-84 where it follows the Oregon Trail northwest of Ontario in Malheur County. We were about to drive into some beautiful, chalky, rumpled hills. They reminded me of oddly of Yorkshire, were it hot and dessicated and its heather replaced with sagebrush. These pictures don’t show the segment of golden, folded, heat-hazed landscape I liked best, as there weren’t any turnouts and I didn’t fancy the Camry’s modest acceleration abilities against the flotilla of heavily laden trucks that accompanied most of our drive to Idaho. I cannot find out whether these hills have a name. Tub Mountain is marked as their high point, but none of my maps, paper or Google, is specific enough to tell me more.

Come to think of it, I don’t believe we’ve rewarded good research on this blog since I wanted to know how the Shetland wool called mooskit came by its name. It’s time we did so again. And I feel knowledge of geography is frankly undervalued now that your cell phone can direct you absolutely anywhere and rob you of the adventure of exploring. Be the first to find me the name of these hills and I’ll send you a little something from ye olde yarn stash (which I am reorganizing at last). Or some chocolate, if you don’t knit. (I hope there’s some romance in the name. I’ll be disappointed if it’s dull… but the reward will stand.)

2 September: I think I’ve set you an impossible task. I’ve looked at a zillion different maps and I just can’t find that those hills have a name. I’m going to declare Molly the winner of the contest since she found Pine Tree Ridge, one of the only two named topographical features in the area. (The other is Moore’s Hollow, which I think is sort of visible as a cleft in the distant background of these photos.) Pine Tree Ridge is just at the edge of the region I’m speaking of. I can’t say I saw a single tree of any kind there, but perhaps there was once a pine tree and that’s why that particular ridge was notable. Anyway, we’ll try to have an easier contest again before year’s end!

Our Sock Summit homework for Meg Swansen’s Arch-Shaped Stockings class was to work the leg of a child’s sock in Guernsey wool over 44 stitches. I had no Guernsey wool and felt I’d better not even try to order just one skein from Schoolhouse Press, because who’s ever been able to justify paying the full shipping rate for one skein of yarn? We all know what road that leads down, and since I haven’t knit up all the wool I bought from them last year at Knitting Camp, I decided I’d just pull something from the stash. I thought it should still be something from Schoolhouse, and I had lots of Satakieli left over from a hat. It would be quite a bit lighter than Guernsey, but I figured I’d knit it on 2’s or 3’s and it would be okay.

No dice. My 3 dpns were in the second Islander Sweater. My 2’s were in a baby bootie and a mitten. My 1.5’s were in the Makarovna socks. This is what happens when you start too many projects and don’t finish them in a timely manner, kids. So I cast on with my 1’s. (Luckily I have two sets. The other was in a glove.) And I have a very small sock to show for it.

I really should have put something in this photograph for scale. You’ll just have to believe me that the sole of this sock is about 3″ long. Oh well. It will make a charming Christmas tree ornament, don’t you think? Possibly it could go on quite a small baby, although since babies’ feet don’t really have arches I think the clever shaping is probably moot.

This is only one version of seven possible arch-shaped stockings you get with Meg’s pattern. This twisted-stitch sock is the most basic; there’s another lovely Bavarian-style twisted-stitch one, an Aran style patterned after the original knee socks Elizabeth knit for Meg in the ’60s, and several gorgeous colorwork versions. They’re fun to knit, and I loved trying on the Aran knee socks. There might be a pair of those in my future.

The class itself was marvelous, of course. It turned out a friend’s mother from my hometown was in the same session, so we sat together. Meg and Amy recognized me from Camp (and I think it’s amazing how they can do that… all those campers, and they remember our faces!) and said lovely things about Daisy Daisy, which I was glad to have brought to the chilly Convention Center. It’s such a treat to spend time in their presence; if you ever get the chance of a class with them or an opportunity to go up to Wisconsin for Camp or one of their other events, you should leap at it.

In other sock news:

That is a sock inside another sock, both ready for grafting. In fact, they are now grafted. The inside sock I did first (the only option if you don’t want to separate them at this point, and believe me, I want the full magical value of pulling a finished sock out at the end), in the usual way. Then I had to stop and scratch my head. Oh, right. The outside sock is inside out. It has to be grafted inside out. So instead of knit purl, purl knit… purl knit, knit purl? Yep. But you’d be amazed how difficult it is to train yourself out of a little mantra and set of motions you know so well. I accomplished it, though, and along the way I made a realization that ought to serve me well in tackling more difficult grafting… non-stockinet grafting, for instance. Each stitch requires first its opposite, then its own. So a purl stitch must be purled on the first pass, then knit on the second pass. I knew this in a vague way, of course, but once I started thinking about it that way I saw that I could now become a master graftswoman. Bring on hoods with fancy cable patterns!

So the Makarovna socks are grafted, but I decided I had to wait for an audience other than the cat for the moment of truth. We’re off for a few days of family reunion, so the amazing sock trick can be performed in front of all my husband’s relations!

After spending July fussing over details and intricacies and sheer frippery in my knitting, I came home from New York wanting a project that wouldn’t require a lick of forethought, measuring, or planning… an avenue for my fingers to take over and let the piece just form itself with very little input from my brain. I wanted to freewheel for a little while. And I had just the thing in my suitcase.

I bought no yarn while I was Back East, but I did nip into Purl Patchwork. Ostensibly I was there to grab a wee giftie for my mother-in-law in thanks for puppy care while we were out of town, but naturally I couldn’t resist a little birthday present to myself. (How often does a girl turn 30, after all? You can still think of yourself as a girl after you’re 30, right?) I spent a long while sorting through all the tidy little fat quarter bundles looking for colors that reminded me of Alice, and along the way I set aside about five of them that were calling my name. They were all similar: quiet neutrals with just a shot of something brighter. I finally picked a favorite, and my heart was already hanging out a seductive vision of what it would become: a simple log cabin baby blanket with brights from my scrap bag for the “hearths.” With a hot and sticky weekend to myself when I arrived home, I quickly set to work.

I didn’t measure. I cut with scissors, willy-nilly, and didn’t even try very hard to make my strips straight. I cut each one plumper or skinnier on whim. If the squares came out a little cock-eyed, I smiled. And soon I had six. They were more or less equal in size; I added a little extra strip to a couple of them when I realized their neighbors would easily square up to 12″. Then I did pull out the rotary cutter to true them up. A nice woman at Bolt helped me find the perfect sashing, and two more evenings of sewing brought me here:

A quilt top! I just need to procure some flannel for the batting (I want this to be a very lightweight quilt, good for summer, easy to fold up and pack anywhere) and I’ll be ready to make the sandwich. It’s small enough I think I may be able to do some simple machine quilting myself. I’m thinking of eight-point stars radiating from the “hearths” out to the edges of the squares, and if you’ve got suggestions for the borders I’d like to hear them. My trusty little Husqvarna Emerald (she’s called Signy) doesn’t have any special features for quilting, but I don’t see any reason she can’t stitch some basic shapes through three layers of fabric.

The overall result isn’t nearly so quiet as I imagined it would be when I looked at that tidy little stack of beigey fabrics. It has gumption and unexpected vigor. Because I like to name things, I’m calling this quilt Satsuki, after the elder girl in Hayao Miyazaki’s “My Neighbor Totoro,” which remains near the top of my list of favorite movies. I don’t speak Japanese and don’t like to trust the Internet for these things, but what I’ve found is that Satsuki is a traditional name for the month of May and means (depending how you write it) something like “blooming moon” or “happiness/rare/hope.” I like that. I want all that for the baby this quilt will warm.

“Just as the bird’s wing evolved to fly, the human hand evolved to manipulate. An idle hand is not a happy hand.”

— Barbara Walker, 9 August 2009

“You have to put on your own oxygen mask.”

— Deborah Robson  on tending one’s craft, body and soul while meeting the demands of motherhood and a career, 9 August 2009

“Julia Child used to say you needed a well-stocked pantry in case company came by and you needed to prepare a fabulous dinner. I think you need to stock your pantry in case a good idea comes by.”

— Judith MacKenzie McCuin, whose stash weighs 6,000 pounds, on avoiding yarn-accumulation guilt, 9 August 2009

*All quotes filtered through my brain and pencil as fast as I could scribble. They may not be verbatim, but they’re pretty close.