06.17.09
Sock it to me
I’m on a “kick” with knitting socks at the moment. I finished up the carnival colored socks last Thursday and wore them before I got to take any pics on Friday. Immediately cast on another pair.
This time it’s Sockotta yarn, size 2 Addi Turbo circular needle, doing the pair from the toe up, magic loop technique. The yan is basically a washed out denim base color with stripes of pale yellow, light brown, light blue and light green. The colors always alternate with the base color and sometimes there’s 2 of the contrast color and sometimes 3. They started at different places in the repeat, so this pair will definitely be fraternal not nearly identical.
I understand the basics of the heel and now that I got through one set on my own, I went back to Wendy Johnson’s site to see how she does the heel turn/flap on a toe up sock and will mingle what I did with what she does on this pair. I’m soon ready to work on turning the heel on this new pair.
In the garden - I planted the lettuce and squash last weekend. Dang, those lettuce seeds are small and there’s a LOT in a package. They look pretty funny and definitely too many in the planter, but we’ll see how big I can get them before I start thinning them out - add at least a few of those tiny leaves to a salad. The squash is coming up just fine and 1/2 of the cukes didn’t revive themselves after they were transplanted. I still didn’t put in the mint, but I know that’ll grow like a weed, so I’m not stressed about that. The herbs have all come up but look a little too tender to put outside in their planters yet. Tomatoes look great and need some stakes very soon. It’s kinda exciting to know that I’ve gotten these things in and I look forward to picking from the back porch.
The other day I got the first few quarts of fresh from the field strawberries. Wilberts, on Rt 350 in Macedon? Walworth? is right on the way to the dump. I had to take the trash on Sunday and was very excited to see they were open. Those strawberries didn’t last very long. They have U-Pick at some point, and I’d like to pick some to make jam this year, but we’ll see if I can get it together to make that happen.
I also found a place that had fresh asparagus - YUM. Usually when I go by this place, they are all out by the time I get through there. Chuck doesn’t much like asparagus, but I do, so I sneak a little in during the very short season.
I have very fond memories of going out to pick the asparagus at my grandmother’s house when I was little. We’d bring it all in, clean it and put it in bunches that she’d put out by the road. My brothers and I would hide under the big pine tree and watch people come by to buy it - we were certain that people were going to steal the money and we (aged 8, 6 and 3) weren’t going to let that happen. I wish her house was still there so I could see how big it REALLY was. As a kid, it was HUGE, and the asparagus field went on forever, and there was a huge field for catching lightening bugs. The walk-in basement had so much fun stuff. I’m sure now I’d be shocked at how small it really was.