Marking the thirtieth anniversary of Torvill and Dean's gold-medal performance of their "Bolero" routine in the Sarajevo Olympics in 1984, the citizens of Nottingham honor their own. It's a wonderful, heart-warming tribute —
The original Nottingham Playhouse article about the Mass "Bolero" is here.
These toe-up school socks have taken me a while to knit, but I've enjoyed the knitting thereof, so I don't mind at all. While only the heel was actually a new-to-me technique, I used a number of unfamiliar ones, so it was also definitely a learning experience.
I started with a toe-up toe adapted from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks, which turns out looking very much like a top-down grafted toe and goes together fairly easily. It is also adaptable to a wide variety of sizes. I worked the first one according to the instructions, then thought that the 2 sts between the increases looked a little narrow, so I worked the second sock with 4 sts between the increases. I've done this toe a number of times, but rarely actually finished the socks, so now I can give full marks to the "school" part!
Here you can see the difference between the toe with 2 sts between the increases, and the one with 4 —
To be honest, I couldn't really feel a difference in the wearing, but I like the look of the wider toe, so that is what is in the pattern below.
I also used the justly-famous Widdershins heel, which worked perfectly and looks very nice. My heel is actually an adaptation of an adaptation, since for some reason I was a little anxious about the whole toe-up thing, and I'd heard around the knitting blogosphere that the original Widdershins was only for a certain number of stitches, so I ended up using a formula that allowed the knitter to calculate for more or fewer stitches. Despite this being a rather convoluted path, it all went very smoothly.
The heel turn of the Widdershins makes a very generous curve, wider than the standard top-down turning, but this is not necessarily a bad thing, and I expect it could be adapted for those who want a narrower turning at the bottom of the heel.
The third new-ish technique was the Russian lace bind-off, said to be excellent for toe-up socks that need to have a stretchy bind-off.
The Tosh Sock is really lovely to knit with, soft and silky, and the color is fabulous. The skein is very generous, and I made the legs quite long with still a golf-ball-sized length left over. On the down side, the yarn bled quite a lot when I blocked them (the red), and the socks are already starting to fuzz at the toes, after only one wearing.
On the whole, I like the socks very much, and I've finished and worn a pair of very nice toe-ups, but generally I think I prefer the top-down construction. Even though the bind-off is fairly stretchy, it just doesn't appeal to me as much as a good Old Norwegian cast-on. I also like the ability to make the length of the gusset longer without having to recalculate the distance between toe and the beginning of a toe-up gusset. The biggest plus that I can see in working a toe-up sock is still having the stitches in a pattern "right-side up"!
Here is my pattern in full:
"Black Velvet" School Socks
This sock uses a toe-up wedge-type toe adapted from the Easy Toe in Charlene Schurch’s Sensational Knitted Socks (Martingale, c2005), and a version of the "generic Widdershins heel" by Mel of Cabezalana, in turn adapted from Brooke Chenoweth Creel’s innovation of the classic round-heel, Sl1-K1 heel-flap heel worked toe-up. My version realigns Mel’s generic Widdershins to accommodate the round starting at the bottom center of the heel.
This sock is knitted in Madelinetosh Tosh Sock yarn (100% superwash merino wool, 395 yards/361 meters per 100+g skein) in the "Black Velvet" colorway, worked on 2mm needles at a gauge of about 32 sts per 4 in./10cm, and measures about 3 1/2 in. (18 cm) across the foot laid flat.
Toe
With waste yarn and provisional CO, cast on 12 sts. Change to sock yarn and P 1 row.
Work back and forth in st st for 6 rows. Remove provisional CO and place sts on a second needle. (12 sts on each of 2 needles.)
Beg working in the round.
Set-up rnd (RS): K 4; this needle will in a moment be needle 4. With another needle (needle 1), K 6 then pick up and K 2 sts from side edge. With needle 2, pick up and K 2 sts from side edge, then K 6 from CO edge. With needle 3, K remaining 6 from CO edge, then pick up and K 2 from side edge. With needle 4, pick up and K 2 sts from side edge, then K to end. Rnd now begins at center sole. (8 sts on each of 4 needles.)
K 1 rnd.
Rnd 1: K to last 2 sts of needle 1, M1R, K2; K2, M1L, K to end of needle 2; K to last 2 sts of needle 3, M1R, K2; on needle 4, K2, M1L, K to end.
Rnd 2: K.
Rep Rnds 1 and 2 until there are 56 sts total.
Continue until foot measures 3" (7.6 cm) less than desired length.
Gusset
Rnd 1: K to last st of needle 1, M1R, K1; K across needles 2 and 3; on needle 4, K1, M1L, K to end.
Rnd 2: K.
Rep these 2 rnds 9 times more. (10 sts inc on both needles 1 and 4).
Turn Heel
On needle 1, K8, M1L, K1, w&t.
P10 on needle 1, P8 on needle 4, M1P, P1, w&t.
K10 on needle 4, K6 on needle 1, M1L, K1, w&t.
P8 on needle 1, P6 on needle 4, M1P, P1, w&t.
K8 on needle 4, K4 on needle 1, M1L, K1, w&t.
P6 on needle 1, P4 on needle 4, M1P, P1, w&t.
K6 on needle 4, K2 on needle 1, M1L, K1, w&t.
P4 on needle 1, P2 on needle 4, M1P, P1, w&t.
K4 (to end of needle 4).
K one round across all needles, picking up wraps and knitting them with the wrapped sts as you come to them.
Heel flap
K 13 sts on needle 1, SSK, turn work without wrapping.
Sl1, P to end of needle 1, P 13 sts on needle 4, P2tog, turn work without wrapping.
(Sl1, K1) to end of needle 4 and on across needle 1 until there are 13 sts on needle 1, SSK, turn without wrapping.
Sl first st, P across needle 1 and needle 4 to 1 st before the previous SSK, P this st tog with the next st, bridging the "gap" formed by the decrease.
Rep these last 2 rows until all of the gusset and heel sts have been worked except for 1 remaining gusset st on each of needles 1 and 4. (Sl1, K1) to the gap, then SSK across the gap as before, but do not turn. K across needles 2 and 3; on needle 4, P2tog across the gap, P to end. (14 sts on each needle, 56 total).
Leg
Work in st st until leg is desired length. Work 15 rnds in K3, P1 rib. BO using Russian lace bind-off as follows:
*Purl 2 sts tog. Loosen up st on right needle, and return it to left needle. Rep from * until all sts have been bound off. Cut yarn and draw through last st. Weave in ends.
I thought this corner of the kitchen in No.16 looked very bare even with the new sink, so the other day I made a tile backsplash using a wonderfully simple tutorial from Eliza at Wasting Gold Paper. You print out on watercolor paper the appropriately resized pictures of the tiles you want, cut them out, apply artists' gloss medium, then install where you want them. The hardest part was just getting my printer to feed the watercolor paper through!
I was thinking Delft, of course, then saw this Mexican Talavera tile somewhere and kept coming back to it. I did lighten the color about ten percent, to keep it from jarring too much, but one of the reasons I like it is that I think it cuts the sweetness of the rest of the house a bit. It's easy to get too cute with all of that Victorian pink.
I didn't make a dedicated gluing board like Eliza did, but used a long 5/16×5/16 inch piece of scrap wood which I stuck to the kitchen table with reusable putty, then stuck the tiles-to-be onto the stick with a small ball of putty each. This worked perfectly, holding everything firmly then went back into the jar/scrap bin for another time.
At 0.67 inch, these tiles are slightly larger than true 1/12 scale, but this way they fit the space perfectly. I cut a piece of watercolor paper to size — made sure that it fit — then glued the tiles to the paper, before "installing" it above the sink.
You can see how the watercolor paper adds a bit of texture to the tiles. I was a little worried at first that they would be perfectly smooth, since when I brushed it on, the medium self-levelled after a few moments — you can see this starting to happen in the photo of the tiles on the stick — but as it dried, the medium took on some of the texture of the watercolor paper.
This was so fun and worked so perfectly that I want to make hundreds — thousands! — of tiles now.
The shelves are from instructions in Venus and Martin Dodge's The New Dolls' House Do-It-Yourself book, where the house itself is from. The one above the sink is obviously very simple, a piece of wood the right size and two pieces of the cornice moulding left over from building the house. (A lot of things in the dollhouse fell over in the earthquake we had a few weeks ago, and now I'm a little heavy-handed with the museum putty, I see!)
The second is a little hanging shelf, which I'm pleased to say that I cut all myself, except for the curve which David did on the bandsaw, free hand. I stained the plank shelf with some very ancient Minwax I found in a corner of the garage, and painted the hanging shelf with FolkArt acrylic paint in Sterling Blue.
The preserves are from Timeless Minis, which I got through KitKraft a few years ago.
Here is the sitting room, now with some things I got in Hong Kong — two large jars and a folding screen — and a few more pieces of furniture, with the Anne Shirley doll from Avonlea Traditions —
Will would have enjoyed this, I think. Always good to see the Beatles larking about, too!
(I'm pretty sure that Peter Quince doing the prologue is Trevor Peacock.)
Elizabeth H. send me a photo of her "Sophie" scarf, which she worked in Malabrigo Silky Merino. It looks lovely! Thanks, Elizabeth!
She found an omission in the pattern, which is now corrected and can be found here.
This is my first-ever polymer clay project, a sink for Laura's dollhouse. I started it probably in 2007 (!) when we were building the house, according to the photograph in the book — which is Venus Dodge's The New Dolls' House Do-It-Yourself Book. I wasn't at all happy with it at the time, with my inability to get a truly smooth surface on either the brick pillars or the sink, and so after I baked the Sculpey, I put it away and left it until just the other day, when deep in the delightful throes of planning a Tudor house, I poked through the box of leftover bits and bobs, and found the sink.
Obviously the kitchen needs a sink, so the choice was to start again from the beginning, or to put together the pieces I had and see how it turned out. I did consider starting over again, but luckily talked myself out of that within a day. I glued together two pieces of thin wood from David's scrap box, cut it to roughly the size I thought the drainboard should be, and sanded it — he showed me how to score the lines in it with an awl, and helped me to glue it all together with epoxy, using a temporary jig measured to the size of the opening beside the kitchen fireplace.
I've never actually seen a real sink like this, only in Victorian-cottage dollhouses, so I wasn't sure of the proportions, and still think the sink part is a bit too small, probably in both directions. I'm also a little embarrassed at my lousy paint job on the brick pointing, but I'll blame that on the brush for now, as it was a cheap and ill-used watercolor one from the girls' art bin. On the other hand, I'm delighted with the drain board, which turned out exactly the way I'd pictured it in my mind, especially after I brushed a little wood oil on it this morning.
It's very wonky, I know, but I'm telling myself that this house isn't meant to be especially realistic, but dolly-friendly. Of course this doesn't preclude making a better one some time in the future, but for now, wonkiness is part of the charm! And it isn't so obvious once the other furniture is back in place.
I still have a piece of fine brass rod, apparently meant for "plumbing", so perhaps I'll put that in eventually, along with a tile splashback, as it still looks quite bare in the corner!
I had forgotten that the book has instructions for a kitchen dresser, so perhaps I might do that next.
As for the "sock" part in the title of this post, I've been slowly but steadily working on a toe-up school sock in MadeleineTosh Tosh Sock in the lovely "Black Velvet" colorway, greys and purply-reds. I was dragging my feet for nothing, as the Widdershins heel worked like a charm. I am almost halfway through the skein, so in a day or two I'll be starting the second sock…
A text-message conversation this morning:
Is it snowing yet?
Yes and im freezing i didnt wear enough socks
— (Dad) I hope she has the boots and jacket on
Are the mitts warm?
Yes but my fingers are still freezing
Are you wearing the snow jacket?
It wont fit over my other jackets [sweatshirts]
— (Dad) Arrrgggh
Instead, instead!
But but but….merp
You funny. And cold huh?
Were inside now but soon out again so yah
K mom says instead next time. You wont have fun with bronchitis trust me. Love
Laura was off on her trip this morning at four a.m. The weather forecast is a bit more optimistic than it has been for a while, but still with a drop of twenty degrees (twenty!) after the mild weekend. I made her a Three-Rib Beret at Christmas, in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in "Blackberry", modifying the pattern to make the child-sized hat a bit larger. She has worn the hat quite a lot already, even when I would have thought our sorry-excuse-for-winter didn't warrant it, so that's nice — I think it's an incredibly cute hat.
The purple isn't quite true in the photo, but Laura has taken the good camera with her so I can't try again. Jimmy Beans' photo seems to me more accurate, though on the other hand it doesn't show those subtle gradations of color that make it so luscious —
And of course I've been working on the Norwegianish mitts for a while now — cough! — and was still not entirely happy with them, but things were getting down to the wire. I discovered a mistake late in the pattern just the other day, long after blocking it and weaving in the ends, where I'd worked a purple stitch instead of a white one — David couldn't find it, and when I pointed it out said, "Just leave it", but it was actually a simple matter to work a darning stitch over it to at least disguise it. (That was I think mitt #5!)
I was stubbornly determined to work the thumb in ribbing, since unlike a mitten — which would be worked in more stockinette — the mitt thumb would be open at the top, and therefore curl unless it was in ribbing. I wasn't entirely satisfied with my method of catching down the long floats across the thumb of my first stranded mitts, so I thought I'd try the corrugated rib, which worked pretty well in itself, but the contrasting colors just seemed really loud to me, so I ripped it out and did it again with the thumb all-white, and simply tacked down the (very) long floats with the end of the yarn left nearby when I finished off the thumb. This method was mostly successful, though I was better at making the catching-down less visible the second time around, when instead of simply laddering through the backs of the purl stitches, I made a sort of spiral along one of the knit colums (on the inside), in the same manner that I usually weave in the ends on a ribbed sock. I'm still not sure if there is a really good way of going about this, but I'm happy to keep experimenting, and of course there is — admire my cunning plan! — enough yarn left for at least one more pair of mitts, this time to be mainly purple with a white pattern.
I still get a kick out of how alarmingly wobbly two-color knitting looks until it's blocked. The yarn is Shepherd Sock in "Blackberry" and "Natural", really lovely separately and together. Laura, I regret to say, received the mitts with rather wilting indifference, but they are wonderfully soft, and I'm sure will be pleasantly warm in cold weather.
I also made a luggage-identification thingy, in one of the most vivid colors to be had at Michael's, Red Heart Super Saver's "Bright Yellow" worsted. I've used big homemade pompoms for luggage tags in the past, which are all right for a journey or two but tend to moult after a while. This is spool knitting, on a six-peg spool so the strand came out about as thick as my finger. I decided that a loop of about seven inches was a decent size, and just worked the strand until it was about twelve or thirteen times that, then folded the strand one loop at a time and sewed each loop down, to itself and the previous one, making this flower shape. I left the two ends unlooped for tying it to the duffle bag. It's pretty sturdy, so as long as it doesn't actually come untied (I might sew the knot later), it should last a long time!
Yeah, the plain column of purple should be on the inside of the thumb, and the dotted column on the outside.
What's that sound? Ripping?
Laura has been saving and fund-raising for the past two years for the 8th-grade school trip to Washington DC, which is at last upon the horizon, at the end of this month. Washington DC in March! Brr! Luckily, there has been a lot of time to prepare. I knitted her a hat in her favorite color, and decided to make some Norwegian-style mitts to nearly-match — because at fourteen, we are not about matchy-matchy — with the same lovely Lorna's Laces "Blackberry".
I am not entirely happy with my design, having found it a little awkard to fit in the date and initials so that they stand out yet do not leave great stretches of background color where the contrast floats must be caught down. But the yarn is wonderfully soft, and I like the two colors together, and I think they'll be pleasantly warm and useful too.
Well, if only I had paid a little more attention —
I think I may have to go and console myself with a little something this morning — not drink, I suppose, as my tendencies do not lie in that direction, but perhaps …
Knitting, reading, other stuff.
A Bluestocking Knits 