I Love My Feet (for a change)

Recheck with the podiatrist today. He did a small miracle on my feet.

For several years, I've had a lot of foot pain, even at times enough to keep me from sleeping. I wrote it off to getting older and carrying too much weight. Recently, however, I found a podiatrist by getting a name from a colleague and went, hoping for a little relief. He examined them and asked me how moving them in certain ways felt, x-rayed them and then he told me that wearing othotic supports in my shoes is the treatment of choice for my foot problems.

He actually held my foot above a scanner - looked just like an Epson scanner with no lid, and was hooked up to a laptop, and then he ordered the custom orthotics. My insurance covered most of the cost, and it took a week or two to get them.

I've been wearing them a couple weeks. The pain stopped in the first few days. I also have a neuroma on one foot that gives me numbness and strange sensations, and that has stopped unless I go barefoot for a while.

Knit Club with Mildred & Barbara

Knit Club with just Mildred and Barbara. It happens sometimes, especially in the dead of summer, that just a few diehards attend.

Mildred Beeson brought a Mattel knitting machine and we all played around with it. It has needles arranged in a circle for maybe 15 or 16 stitches and makes tubes. It knits very well with furry or hairy yarn.

What fascinated me about the Mattel is that it isn’t the typical latch-hook knitting mechanism. The Mattel stabs the yarn through the loop of the stitch in the round above.

Capitol Area Council Boy Scouts Safari Dinner Fundraiser

This is a fun evening for me, work wise, a fundraiser for the Boy Scout Council where I work. It’s not my project, but John and I get to attend, meet the people, and see the exotic animals, and then we help with checkout.

The Safari Dinner and Auction fundraiser for Capitol Area Council, Boy Scouts of America is held at the Texas Disposal Systems Exotic Wildlife Ranch, an absolutely stunning facility on grassy grounds populated with dozens of exotic species. They even have log cabins that are designer-built and luxurious. The facility is used week in and out by a great many charities in Austin. The owners let charities use it free of charge.

Casino Night at Austin CPA Chapter

We just attended the fundraiser for the Austin CPA Chapter, the Casino Night. We do this once a year to raise money for scholarships for accounting students. We have a company come in that supplies the gaming tables, dealers, and the like, and we play for poker chips. We turn the poker chips in for raffle tickets, and there are always great raffle items. There is also a silent auction, and I try to donate something but didn’t this year.

The Scholarship Fund makes money on admissions and on the silent auction. There are usually enough sponsoring companies to cover the cost of the party.
This year we had it in a different place – not a hotel, as we have had in the past, but at the Saengerrunde Hall downtown. The Saengerrunde group is a German singing club, which has been operating in Austin for many, many years, and they have a terrific facility downtown. There’s a stage, tables, a dance floor, everything nice and well-kept but casual, and in the back there’s even a small bowling alley. John had a look through the door at the bowling lanes, and I wish I’d thought of having a look. There was a fellow there from the club who was very friendly, and John had a long talk with him about the Saengerrunde society and how it all works. This was absolutely the best place we’ve had our party, in my opinion, because we had lots of room to move around and it had such a relaxing, casual atmosphere.

This year’s theme was Western, and fajitas were catered by Sholtz’ beer hall next door. It was a terrific evening. John played craps, and I played a little while. There was so much space that it was easy to gossip with friends.

There are photos over at http://www.cpascount.org.

Volunteer Appreciation Party

This was the evening that the Austin CPA Chapter (http://www.cpascount.org/) puts on a party for our volunteers, and I can’t resist writing about this year’s Volunteer Appreciation Party, because while I’m President, this is my responsibility, and I had a heckuva lot of fun with it.

I wanted to put on a murder mystery evening. Because the murder mystery is something you can do yourself, you don’t have to spend very much. The Chapter staff had the great idea of having the party at the Zilker Clubhouse, which is inexpensive, so that left plenty of money to feed everyone a great meal and provide beer and margaritas.

The Zilker Clubhouse overlooks a huge park near downtown, sits on a hill and has a great view of downtown. It’s an old stone house with no a/c – just ceiling fans – but it’s pretty mild weather in April. There’s a great stone patio where you can enjoy the view.

Diane and Kaira at the Chapter found a company that sells murder mystery kits, and we chose “The Pink Lace Diamond,” which is designed for a large group. I think we maybe had 75 people with volunteers and spouses.

When the kit arrived a couple of weeks ago, Kaira called me to figure out a cast of characters, and we assigned parts to the Executive Board members. I picked out someone to be the millionaire, the millionaire’s wife, the playboy, the playgirl…you get the drift. There was one part left, the hotel maid, so I took that.

Later, when I read the script, I realized I was supposed to scream and run on the “stage,” in our case, a clear spot on one side of the diners. I had been roaming around the crowd with a pocket apron, feather duster and mop during the evening to set the mood. I was supposed to scream because I had seen the “dead guy” in my janitor’s closet, you see. I was quite worried about my job of screaming, because I am a very soft-spoken person and often have trouble being loud enough for people to hear me clearly. Anyway, I screamed my brains out and startled the heck out of the crowd. They knew we were playing a murder mystery game and yet they thought something was really wrong. Then I had to faint. I was, however, a terrible actress, much too inclined to giggle while dead.

My friend Jesse had the big part – he played Inspector Clueless. Everybody ad-libs and works loosely through the script, making all kinds of mistakes, which are also funny. I died in the play – the maid is poisoned because she knows too much.

It was a complete hoot. My friends were so darn funny that I kept giggling when I was supposed to be dead. Everyone had a great time, and I was euphoric because we managed to give my friends, who are hard-working volunteers a great party.

First Model A Road Trip

Today I took my first “big” trip in the Model A. The only trip I’ve ever had in it before was once around the block.

Christopher Robin is a 1930 Cabriolet, in rough shape (well, very rough, but we've seen rougher), dark green and black with a rumble seat.

Here's the story of Christopher Robin, our Model A: John and his dad restored two Model As when he was in high school. One went to John, one to John's sister Laura, and they actually drove them to school and all over town. John's was eventually wrecked (not John driving, gotta get that in there), and Laura's went to Canada with hers, which she named Christopher Robin, then back to the States. This is Laura's - she eventually gave it to John for some reason or other. It didn't run for maybe 25 years, and one day, Steven pointed out that we had a car in the garage that was pretty cool and it could be made to run. So, John and his son got Christopher Robin running again.

John wanted to go with the Model A club (an excellent Model A Club meets in Georgetown, and another terrific group in Austin. John is somehow more involved with the Georgetown, Texas group) in the Model A today to lunch and then to the horse race track at Manor Downs.

We had 45 minutes or an hour’s drive to the Texas Roadhouse Grill. There was a great deal of noise and rattling. John stopped once to get gasoline, which he buys just a gallon or two at a time and pumps into the tank, which is right in front of the windshield. He said the tank had a leak that he thought he fixed, but it leaked a tiny bit into the car where the gas gauge is (in front of, and between driver and passenger), and I was assigned the job of dabbing at it with a paper towel. He said that he’d just have to fill the tank halfway only to keep the level below the leak.

After an excellent meal at the café, everyone caravanned to Manor Downs, yet a longer drive. I got some pictures. We watched horse races, didn’t bet much, and then had a very long drive home. The Model A goes about 45 MPH maximum, and John stays off the freeways as much as possible.

It was fun, and John was really pleased to get to take the A to an actual club outing. Check out his buddies' Model As - many of them are showroom gorgeous, plus they've modified them in various ways to make them more comfortable.

Valentine's Day Party at Crew 513 Fundraiser

Our son Steven is an Eagle Scout, and he's still involved with the Venture Crew. The kids do a fundraiser for Valentine's Day, a dinner and dance for parents and supports. Nice job this year! Here's John and I being photographed in their beach chair/cruise theme set.

Knit Club Today

Photos from Knit Club - first, Tiffany, Barbara's grandaughter, holding the handknit hedgehog that Pat Tittizer made. It's felted so that it's plump back with the furry yarn is super furry.

More free patterns on Knit Natters Site

Last night, I tried out some stretchy yarn I bought from Webs and found that the 72-needle cylinder just won’t take it. This stuff is too thick, but it sure is lovely. I think it will do well on the Gearhart 30/60 machine. That’ll be interesting.

I also knitted a pair of Knit Picks in their hot pink. I have tried a great many sock yarns, but I like Knit Picks wool/nylon the best.

Yesterday’s big accomplishment was redoing the home page on the website (http://knitnatters.com/) and then putting up Pat Tittizer’s patterns for the wheelchair blanket and the hexagon afghan, plus her techniques for thread lace and Swedish weaving. The wheelchair blanket is practical, just the right size, with a pocket in the middle, and as I recall, made from any worsted weight yarn.
The Swedish weaving is very pretty. I must have missed that demo, but looking at the photo, I just love the way it looks. I haven’t decided what I might make with it yet. Everything Pat teaches is very intelligently planned. Her thread lace demo was great; she brought along quite a few projects where she’d used it.

John Grady got me a copy of Microsoft Front Page. Using MS Word to do website was not an easy thing, and I shared with him my frustration with the project, so this was his solution. I can’t seem to get hits from the search sites with my Word pages.

Front Page is easy to use! I got the new home page for http://www.knitnatters.com/ done very quickly, and then started converting Pat’s patterns from Word to web pages. It loads much faster. It looks about the same. I didn’t want a new look. I wanted to clean up the home page so it loads faster and be able to update the site efficiently.

One of these days, I’d like to make Pat’s hexagon afghan. Wouldn’t it be cute kid-sized in leftover sock yarn? Gosh, I have a great many colors of leftover sock yarn…

Knit Finishing

I’ve been sitting in the den in the evenings sewing up everything in the basket. It’s mostly socks from my various experiments, but if I take my time, pick up dropped stitches and the like, they’re fine. I sit there and keep John Grady company . It keeps me from snacking, too.

Baby Blankets

I made some baby blankets for the local hospital. Although I was promised some emailed specifications for baby blankets from them, that didn’t happen. I had to make the blankets, though, because the ideas were popping out of my head.

These are ribber blankets, about 24” x 30” on the size because that’s a good bassinette size. These come out narrow but just a little steaming makes them wider. I had to crochet around one of them to give it a better-looking edge, but for the other one, I devised a built-in border. Free pattern to come soon.
Now I have to bug the hospital again about specifications.

Fighting the Yarn Mess

My accomplishment of the weekend was cleaning up the den where I knit socks. A big part of this was going through all the odds and ends of yarn.
Unless I make knee-length socks, each sock uses less than a 50-gram ball, so no matter what size I make, I have just a little yarn left from each ball. I spent some time sorting out all the interesting color schemes to try to make some composite socks from the leftovers. Then I made a pile of leftovers where there obviously isn’t enough to make socks, which I will use for baby socks, hats, hair scrunchies and the like.

I also filled a basket with things to sew up.

Short Butt Ribber Needles for Sock Machine

I tried the short butt ribber needles in my Legare (they’re actually shorter overall, therefore, don’t pop out as far and pull back closer to the center). They worked okay, but not as well as the regular ones. So I set them aside to try in a different machine.

After much fiddling with the rivet, I decided it just didn’t make enough difference so that ribbing stitches consistently did not drop. I changed out the cylinder needles and put in large-eyed needles. I will stick with the them; it ribs flawlessly with them.

Last night I spent some time winding my new sock yarn so I can start knitting it. I have found that the circular sock machines work much better if the yarn is very loosely wound in a pull ball and put on the floor.

I heard a very interesting idea for Christmas. My co-worker’s grandma gives each person $100 for her gift, in advance of Thanksgiving so they can hit the sales. Then she has them over for a Christmas meal (actually before Christmas) and they are supposed to bring whatever their gift choice was, wrapped, and open it in front of everyone. Grandma gets to see what she got the family, and they have a very good time at the party.

January Knit Club Meeting

Knit Natters Saturday was wonderful. Barbara, Pat, Mary, Rose, Sylvia, and Mildred were there. Everybody liked the lace scarf, and I think the demo was easy enough. We showed Sylvia some things – it’s so encouraging that she’s already knitted so many good swatches and a nice scarf (lined, with fair isle on each end).

I couldn’t get over how nice Barbara’s project – a notebook of charity patterns for each of us – turned out. I had a few more to bring, and we added those. She had additional plastic sleeves. Rose and Mary from Marble Falls talked about their church’s charity knitting. They are very prolific knitters - once they get a pattern that works for their charities, they knit it dozens of times.

I talked to a friend at church about donating baby blankets to the hospital where she works. Because people have donated blankets that didn’t work, they give out a pattern now and even the yarn. Of course, the problem is that we want to do machine knit ones, which are not going to be out of the thick yarn they give volunteers. I’ll have to get some patterns cleared with them, and maybe another hospital or two. It sounds like I need about 24” x 30” blankets for the samples – they say bassinette size, and not crib size, but I can’t be sure until I talk to them.

The current “to do” list for my knitting:
1. Try short-butt needles in my Legare ribber (why not try them?)
2. Organize the book mess
3. Organize the yarn mess from my sock knitting leftovers
4. Wind my newest sock yarn acquisitions into balls, ready to go
5. Work on our website
6. Get my DAK cable working with the 970
7. Figure out more baby blankets and knit samples to show hospital.
8. Make the shawl out of the turquoise laceweight baby alpaca
9. Another lace scarf out of the other hank of hand-dyed baby alpaca

Greet Charity Knitting Patterns

I am active in the Austin, Texas machine knitting guild The Knit Natters, http://knitnatters.com. A few of us take care of the program, and Barbara Deike does the hostess work, as well as doing almost all the Passap programs. We decided that charity knitting will be the Knit Natters club theme this year.

Barbara made a notebook for each of our regular Knit Natters with plastic sleeves and charity knitting patterns. I have put a bunch of my free patterns for charity knitting up at the club website. She also asked us to find favorites of ours and make copies for the notebooks.

I have found that quite a few other people write free charity patterns and post them on the web. There are terrific preemie patterns available at www.bbc.co.uk/stoke/my_pages/babywear/
Lots of fun patterns at our neighboring knit club (Dallas/Ft. Worth)
see http://mkdfw.homestead.com/Patterns

Sock Roundup

I am still tweaking the Legare to make it rib better on the 72 cylinder. I played a little with the Stretch from Regia. It behaves a little differently because it is so springy.

I took some pictures of recently made socks:

Made with Bare yarn, dyed with Kool-Aid. To get these stripes, which are about two rounds on the 72-stitch cylinder, I wrapped the yarn around the lip of my 6-foot kitchen counter and made a giant hank, then dyed half blue and half green. It was tedious, and then extra work to wind into a ball from which I could knit, but I got my stripes. These socks have no ribbing on the top of the foot.

The dark blue pair is the regular Knit Picks 75/25 sock yarn, in their teal color. I made a short cuff, ribbed through the ankle, so these are lowtops.

The red and light blue socks were dyed with Kool Aid. I tie-dyed the hank in three places. Yes, there’s a second blue sock.

These have the 1 x 3 on top of the foot, as described on January 7.

The pink, gray, hot pink and brown socks are Paton’s Kroy that I found at Michael’s on sale. It’s a much heavier sock. It knitted quite well, though, with my regular gym sock crew style and the ribs down the top of the foot. I got a pretty good color match by starting the second one part way into the skein.

None of these socks were blocked. The heels and toes are not flat, but the plump, springy feel of the knitting is retained. I don’t wash socks before I give them away.

Rivet, Rivet

I still want to use only small hook cylinder needles with the 72/36 combination on the Legare. I had found that the yarn comes out a little outside the hook and was thinking about a way to pad the yarn feeder so the yarn pathway would move in just a tiny bit.

Last night, John and I found an ordinary sewer’s rivet in my sewing things and he pushed it into the Legare yarn carrier.

The red rivet makes the yarn come out just a millimeter or two closer to the cylinder needles. The photo shows the small hook cylinder needles (vertical needles) and how they now have the turquoise yarn feeding exactly into them.
It wasn’t deep enough to crimp around the Legare yarn feeder, so it’s on there with a drop of Super Glue. We can get it off if we need to.

It does seem better! However, I have cranked a few feet of ribbing and it isn’t perfect. Especially with some yarns, it drops a cylinder stitch once in a while. Not all fingering weight sock yarn is alike, and it looks like the fatter ones need a bigger stitch size, higher ribber plate, and a waxing. I plan to adjust and knit with it a little more and see if I can actually use only the small eye needles.

A box from Webs arrived yesterday! I’d ordered at their year-end sale. I snagged some Regia Stretch sock yarn, some Trellis yarn for handknitting scarves, and some stretchy cotton sock yarn.

My Best Sock Ever

I started making socks with the 72/36 combination on the Legare and have made my best socks ever. They have ribbing across the top of the foot and ankle and a long 1x1 cuff. I’m using Kool Aid dyed Knit Picks Bare sock yarn, 75% wool and 25% nylon. It’s silky soft and the easiest yarn I have ever used on these old machines.

I have knitted many, many socks with a long ribbed cuff and a stockinet foot. I really have to think differently to make that ribbed foot top. When you get to the heel shaping, the drive pin for the ribber comes OUT and the ribber cam gets parked over the center mark.

We were watching TV while I knitted and John surfed the Net. I don’t think I multitask well, but TV isn’t all that interesting with all the long commercial breaks. John got sick of the dumb program I was listening to and put on an interesting, recorded Cold Case.

My concentration went right away, and I forgot to pull out the drive pin at the beginning of the heel shaping. I pulled the back needles up for short rows, turned to the right, and took the ribber cams with the yarn carrier. It dropped the ribber stitches across the top of the foot. What a mess – first the needles have to come out, anything that didn’t drop has to be put on a cylinder needle, the ribber has to come off, all the dropped stitches have to be latched up with a little ribber needle, knitting has to be ripped back, ribber has to be put back on and stitches put back on ribber needles. That took me about 30 minutes, but I did it and finished my sock with very pretty yarn.

That was very interesting episode of Cold Case. In fact, on the second sock, I got all the way to the toe shaping and DID IT AGAIN! When I lifted the ribber dial this time, it was such a mess with so many stitches dropped and such unravelling that I took everything off and unraveled the sock. John suggested I stop for the evening. I took that excellent suggestion and walked away.
It’s almost like a curse, being punished by making the same idiotic and frustrating mistake over and over.

Last night after supper, I told John I had to go break a curse. I went in the den and managed to knit the second sock just perfectly.

Lace Alpaca Scarf

For months now, I’ve had some baby alpaca, hand-dyed, fingering weight, given to me by Mary Page. Mary lives in San Angelo now but drives to our Knit Natter meetings anyway (God bless her). In San Angelo, she’s met some local folks who have alpacas and other fiber critters and they are spinning this dream yarn. She gave me some as a gift-for-no-reason, and I’ve puzzled over what to make with it.

Mary’s charming, positive, and an encourager. Many times once I’ve seen her make a stranger’s day with kind, appropriate, and sincere words.

Last night, New Year’s Eve, I set up the garter carriage and knitted a scarf using this hank of yarn. It’s only 2.2 ounces, but there’s a lot of yardage. The next morning, I bound off the finished scarf and tried it on. What a shame – it’s not really long enough (I let the g-carriage run until it ran out) and it’s not soft like it ought to be. I used too much bumpy little seed stitch. I unraveled the whole thing and began again with an idea of how to make the yarn go much farther by knitting lace.

This is the finished lace scarf done on the 965i (on my brown comforter, maybe not the best background).

I got a nice 5-foot scarf out of my little 2.2 ounce hank! And, it’s silky and soft.
The scalloped edges are not all that difficult, and one of my favorite things to do with lace knitting. One of these days, I’d like to write a lace instruction book.

This is my demo for January’s Knit Natters’s meeting, Saturday 1/10/09. Blocking it was necessary to make the scalloped edges show up and to get it not to roll. I pinned it on the ironing board, because it’s long, steamed it like crazy, and left it to dry. I worked quickly, didn’t measure as I pinned, and that was fine for this project. Also, here’s a close-up shot of the finished scarf.