Socks for Me :)

Meet Rainbow Over Lahaina, a feather and fan sock pattern. It feels like forever since I knit a pair of socks for me, which isn't really true, but there you go. I used the yarn that Kate dyed for the first installment of her sock yarn club, World Folk Tales.

I have finished a single sock in the pattern that I'm writing for her to send out in a later shipment. It's been an interesting process. When I started writing the pattern, most of my yarn stash is variegated, so the pattern doesn't show up as much. After finishing a pair of long-suffering cable socks, I decided to use what was left to knit up a single, large-size sock to photograph for the pattern.

It turned out rather nicely, and enabled me to see where I wanted to make adjustments to the final pattern instructions. I spent some time this weekend writing down the changes I've made, including an adjustment to the heel I'm using: the band heel.

This is an old-fashioned heel style, also known as the German heel. It's really simple to do, but the end result on my first attempts was a shallow heel cup and that worried me. I usually wear my socks with clogs anyway, so having the pattern come almost all the way to the floor is okay, but it can be an issue if one wears socks with enclosed shoes. To test a theory, I knit it a slighly different way on the Rainbow Over Lahaina socks and it was perfect! Yay! So that's the version that's going into the pattern.

Now I just need to write the story to go along with my pattern, and to make the little bookmarkers that Kate will include with the shipment when it goes out. Very exciting!

Strawberry Fields Forever!

Veronica and I got up early. That's not so unusual, except that it's Saturday. Our goal: strawberries!

As you might guess from the photo, we were successful. We drove up to Brown's Orchards and picked our own. It's been close to 30 years since I last picked strawberries, though I'm not sure why. We were pretty early, but there were already quite a few people in line to pay for what they'd gathered, or out in the fields.

I wish I'd brought my camera. When we finished picking, Veronica and I sat in the sun beside peach trees laden with tiny, fuzzy fruit. The skies were clear, and the hills spread out before us, farmland tucked up between them. The day was absolutely perfect for being outside and doing something fun with a friend!

After an exciting ride in the field van, we paid for our berries (and learned that there were three women named Tracy there today; I so rarely ever encounter any others), then headed to the Brown's store to get some lunch before heading home.

My goal is to make a little bit of strawberry freezer jam with some of my berries. I cleaned up half of them, froze those on sheet pans, and will cook them down later. And, of course, I had to have some immediately, too! Following Veronica's suggestion, I made a shortcake of one of my favorite Brown's cookies, whipped some cream, and voila! Dessert!

I took a nap after eating it. :) What a happy day!