Kilt Hose Mostly Done On One

Kilt Hose Mostly Done
Originally uploaded by Liralen Li.

I've been trying to make traditional Scottish kilt hose for John. A friend of ours said, "You know, you can *buy* those."

Not ones that were specifically made to fit John's leg. He has a huge calf (106 stitches) and really slender ankles (just 60 stitches!) and feet for the length of his feet. Usually it's only down to 80% of the beginning stitches. The cuff is traditional Scottish cuff for a pair of kilt hose. I made up the cable along the leg as I like cables, and I liked the idea of two cables kind of intertwining for a while and then going out and curling on their own.

It was more interesting than the straight cable in the example hose anyway... so I did that. John loves how it fits him. But these socks are nearly as much knitting as a sweater for Jet... yeesh... Still, the color is just about perfect against the postman blue Utilikilt that John has. And I'm pretty happy with how they look on him, and John really, really likes how they feel on him. So I'm pretty happy with something I just pretty much made up out of guidelines that were in the Kilt Hose and Knickerbocker book. Yay!

Kilt Hose Mostly Done On One

Kilt Hose Mostly Done
Originally uploaded by Liralen Li.

I've been trying to make traditional Scottish kilt hose for John. A friend of ours said, "You know, you can *buy* those."

Not ones that were specifically made to fit John's leg. He has a huge calf (106 stitches) and really slender ankles (just 60 stitches!) and feet for the length of his feet. Usually it's only down to 80% of the beginning stitches. The cuff is traditional Scottish cuff for a pair of kilt hose. I made up the cable along the leg as I like cables, and I liked the idea of two cables kind of intertwining for a while and then going out and curling on their own.

It was more interesting than the straight cable in the example hose anyway... so I did that. John loves how it fits him. But these socks are nearly as much knitting as a sweater for Jet... yeesh... Still, the color is just about perfect against the postman blue Utilikilt that John has. And I'm pretty happy with how they look on him, and John really, really likes how they feel on him. So I'm pretty happy with something I just pretty much made up out of guidelines that were in the Kilt Hose and Knickerbocker book. Yay!

Nearly Winter

It's supposed to snow this coming weekend.

So I brought in all the basil and made a huge batch of pesto to freeze. I pulled the big onions and let them dry a couple of days and then cleaned them off a bit and put them in the basement. I cut what zucchini I could, and peered at the sweet potatoes who were an experiment. I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose them. I cut all the garlic chives and sent them to Mei, but for a single bundle for us.

I also pulled all the pearl onions and some of the random green onions I'd planted from the root ends of grocery store green onions. They'd all done pretty spectacularly well over the summer and I've had free green onions all summer.

I spaded the sides of four of the tomato plants, and I've turned off the watering systems. They'll get by for a bit and harden off better without extra water. The baby spinach is all peeking out of the ground, now, and the seedlings are growing like mad. I still remember the huge spinach in the garden this spring and how a hard frost in the morning had frozen all the leaves but by mid-afternoon, the leaves were all flexible and tender again. Weird plants, spinach...

The tree leaves are starting to swirl down. The trees starting to alight with the fire colors of fall, oranges, red, and yellow. I wish my Phoenix sweater was done... but so it is. It's hard to watch sub-titled anime while knitting on *that*, so I just wade through John's kilt hose quite happily instead. Even the cables aren't deterring me from watching the text...

The mushroom box Jet and I planted yesterday smells wonderful... like earth and must and mushrooms... Jet loved wetting the stuff down this afternoon. It's amazing how much of it dried in just the day in the house.

It's fun getting ready for winter. I'm so glad that it's just about here and I won't have to do a thing to the OUR Center garden for a few months. There's going to be two clean up crews coming in October, and hopefully they'll lay the beds to rest for the winter. They've asked me to manage the groups and I'll be happy to. It'll be good to be done for a while. I'm pretty tired from this summer's work, and I'm not exactly sure I'm going to do it *all* again... giving up that much time every week has made me mildly cranky in some ways, as there's so *much* work and I wasn't getting it all done. *sigh*

Nearly Winter

It's supposed to snow this coming weekend.

So I brought in all the basil and made a huge batch of pesto to freeze. I pulled the big onions and let them dry a couple of days and then cleaned them off a bit and put them in the basement. I cut what zucchini I could, and peered at the sweet potatoes who were an experiment. I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose them. I cut all the garlic chives and sent them to Mei, but for a single bundle for us.

I also pulled all the pearl onions and some of the random green onions I'd planted from the root ends of grocery store green onions. They'd all done pretty spectacularly well over the summer and I've had free green onions all summer.

I spaded the sides of four of the tomato plants, and I've turned off the watering systems. They'll get by for a bit and harden off better without extra water. The baby spinach is all peeking out of the ground, now, and the seedlings are growing like mad. I still remember the huge spinach in the garden this spring and how a hard frost in the morning had frozen all the leaves but by mid-afternoon, the leaves were all flexible and tender again. Weird plants, spinach...

The tree leaves are starting to swirl down. The trees starting to alight with the fire colors of fall, oranges, red, and yellow. I wish my Phoenix sweater was done... but so it is. It's hard to watch sub-titled anime while knitting on *that*, so I just wade through John's kilt hose quite happily instead. Even the cables aren't deterring me from watching the text...

The mushroom box Jet and I planted yesterday smells wonderful... like earth and must and mushrooms... Jet loved wetting the stuff down this afternoon. It's amazing how much of it dried in just the day in the house.

It's fun getting ready for winter. I'm so glad that it's just about here and I won't have to do a thing to the OUR Center garden for a few months. There's going to be two clean up crews coming in October, and hopefully they'll lay the beds to rest for the winter. They've asked me to manage the groups and I'll be happy to. It'll be good to be done for a while. I'm pretty tired from this summer's work, and I'm not exactly sure I'm going to do it *all* again... giving up that much time every week has made me mildly cranky in some ways, as there's so *much* work and I wasn't getting it all done. *sigh*