Terrapin Station

The Whole Truth about the Sock Heel

I realized, reading the comments to the previous, that I sort of lied.  No, I didn't just "read the instructions."  That way, for me, lies madness.  First, I did something else.  And second.  And probably five times throughout the process.

As a VERY visual learner, I really need to see something kinetic be done to understand it.  That is why knitting is something you really should do with your Mamma or your Aunts or your Songbird right next to you.  But if they inconveniently live far away, and your knitting Meetup group is not for three weeks, well then you turn to your friend at KnittingHelp.com.  

Amy Finlay is the knitter, the hands and voice at KnittingHelp.  When the sock cast-on made me want to cry, I went and watched her hands do it on a snazzy little video.  Ditto for turning the heel.  Annoyingly, she was not doing the EXACT sock pattern I was, but it gave me enough of an idea that when I did this bizarre thing with my handwork that I had never seen done before, I had confidence that the knitting and I were not going to slide right off the face of the earth into a pool of bubbling lava.   

She has little videos for all sorts of things: different cast-ons, stitches like SSK, (what is THAT!?), increases and decreases, a glossary, etc.  She is my sistah.

I cannot commend it highly enough. KnittingHelp.com.  Go visit!

That Sock

 

Ah, aren't you nice...you asked to see the sock.  Well, here you go.  :)  The heel appeareth! 

Update on the Weekend Update

 

Tina and Amy want you to know that my weekend got significantly better after Saturday night!  Thanks for asking.  The problems early on involved some bad sushi (shudder) and therefore missing a campout with motorcycle friends. 

Subsequently, eating a bunch of other stuff to try to feel better from feeling sick (yeah, I know, I'm jest not right). 

But Sunday I sat outside with the doggies to knit.  It was beautiful, sunny and breezy.  Oak flowers (pollen thingies) fell on me, on them, and into my drink.   

  Everything is now covered with the yellow pollen.  Cars, driveways, windows, my eyeballs.  I can't sit outside again for about a week, due to the allergicalness of it all.  And the dogs are like dust mops anyway; you should see them with this stuff stuck all over them.  Yuck. 

My sock is progressing fantastically.  Turning the heel was SO not a big deal and I feel like a big goop for putting it off so long.  Let me of course say that I had to frog it at least once, and there is a wonky place where I purled when I should have knit for about 8 stitches - which part I DID NOT frog!  So now there's a "design element" in my sock heel.  Hey, that's cool! 

Picking up the stitches to make the gusset was very annoying.  However, I'm working down the foot and life will go on!  Tried to give you a picture but the tech is not cooperating. 

Weekend Update

(which I watched on SNL last night...it was a re-run from January.  Until I got to the part where they made fun of NY Gov. Patterson's limited vision.  NOW I remember why I stopped watching SNL!)

Bad night Friday, bad day Saturday.  Today is looking better.  Have re-loaded the repaired antique china cabinet, put a roast in the tiny crock pot, repotted two plants, worked on sock heel. 

Sigh.

Finishing...

I have a bad habit, which I will now confess:  I do not finish knitting projects. 

Scarves, yes.  I have finished scarves.  But  in my UFO (Unfinished Fiber Objects) list, I have a sweater (got too big, disgusted, quit it); a sock which I began in August - stuck on the heel - scared of  messing it up - plus 4 complete kits with yarn and notions that I dare not start. 

As I am a very extreme INFP, this makes sense.  From a website description of INFP challenges: "INFP's are perfectionists. They may be self-critical. They feel there is never enough time to do the job right. They must recognize when to quit, and live with a less than perfect product." 

Seems kind of profound, no?  Could it possibly be a metaphor for other things in my life?  Hmmm!

I have so many friends who produce gorgeous knitted items.  Whole garments!!  And you should have SEEN all the hand-knit socks with Birkenstocks and clogs at this weekend's gathering!  To say nothing of sweaters...but if I could just finish the socks...it would be so great. 

I tried last night, but the place where I was going to knit didn't have good light.  The other place (my library chaise lounge, space designed for quiet reading and knitting) was full of blankets that Ken put there.  I gave up.  Self sabotage, anyone?  I could have moved the blankets...

Edited to add, per Jan's comment below:

Righthand (female): free enneagram test

Sunday

Great sermon on Sunday by our intern, Mary, on the Gospel.  She really called us out on the times we SAY yes to Jesus, but do not do what we have said we would do.  Like the second son in the parable. 

We sang an anthem that I was NOT ready for, and our soprano section was minimal in rehearsal.  Yikes.  Fortunately the amazing Duchess showed up and we pulled it off.  Somehow. 

I worked on the sock heel flap, then went to afternoon Jazzercise.  Afterward, Ken and I drove to Dallas for a motorcycle ride, but the group was going faster than he was comfortable with on Central Expressway, so we dropped out early on and took our own ride.  (He is a very good and prudent motorcyclist.)

We drove by the Chevron station where we had our first "date" - I watched him paint it when it was the only (new) thing on Hwy 121 for miles.  Now it's one of many, many commercial locations.  No more farm fields out there. 

Stopped at Red Neck Heaven for some beers and had dinner at Red Lobster.  Now I have a headache, but it was worth it! 

Today - the plan

• Early exercise class. 

• Stop at pond.  Listen to birds.  Watch red-ear slider turtles watch me, then disappear, then come back to watch some more. 

 

• Laundry, lots of it

• Dishes

• Kitchen cleanup

• Clean out bedroom closet - whatever I can accomplish in an hour with breaks. 

• Work on the sock heel while listening to the Compline CD Sarah laid on us (awesome!)

• Listen to NPR

• Study music for Choral Evensong next weekend. 

• Check the Preacher Party-consider the scriptures on my own.

• Check blogs

• DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION! in the office at the Vicar's Great News!!!  I had lunch with her yesterday beforehand, and may I say, she went into it with the awesomest of attitudes...and got the awesomest of news!   God is good all the time. 

• Shopping:  Buy new speakers for my computer (finally!) because the old ones really are blown. 

• Buy teeth cleaning equipment for the little boy dog.  We - shall - see - how well that activity works at home.  Unfortunate:  he hates to have his teeth touched, looked at, considered in any way.  In my favor:  he only weighs 10 lbs, so it's  fairly easy to impose my will upon him. 

• Finish reading An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison, a clinical psychologist psychiatrist (Thanks, Zorra!) who has bipolar illness. 

• Consider Halloween costumes for a party on All Saints (Nov. 1) to which we have been invited.  Ken already knows what he wants to be, so now I just need a costume that goes with.  Or, maybe not!

Sock Blogging #4

I am ready to start the heel on the sock.  I am nervous about it!  I have an insane desire to just keep going round and round with what is working so well!  But no socks ever got made that way...just loooong tubes.  Updates as they occur.

+++

When morning gilds the skies,

My heart, awaking, cries,

May Jesus Christ be praised!

• Looking out the window next to my desk and seeing the first light, not yet pink but almost a gilding of the day.  Brings this hymn to mind and tears to my eyes.

• I am feeling so much better. 

• Can it be only a week since that hurricane?  Unbelievable.

• Can it really be that Galveston has sustained the damage it did?  (I hear that there is no building in the city that did not have water inside.)  That Bolivar and Crystal Beach are...erased?  That large areas are still without power?

• Holley and TJ are back (they spent a few days in Little Rock with TJ's mom).  We spent a good day together yesterday and they will go to church with me today (yay!) before heading home.  They still don't have power in their house.  TJ's workplace is running on a generator. 

• Ken loves his Rocket.  This is a good thing. 

• We went to Babe's for dinner last night.  Mmmm.  The big chicken is still there, still big.  If you have your birthday party there, they bring you a dessert of your choice, but you have to stand up and wave your bent arms as if you are doing The Chicken Dance while they sing you a special song.  Oh, and you have to wear a stuffed chicken on your head.  Remind me to go to Simply Fondue for my birthday, please.  Because that...is Simply...Fondue.  Cheese, chocolate...all good. 

• All those bowdarks that I put around the foundation of the house to repel bugs, per your great suggestions?  Gone.  Squirrels done took 'em.

Wide Awake and remembering Houston TV past

It's been a busy day and I can't seem to get my mind and body to shut down. 

I've done the following toward that end:

1. watched the "That 70's Show" marathon until I couldn't stand it anymore...

2. read a weird library book

3. tried another book, no dice

4. drunk herbal tea

5. Knitted part of a dishcloth (can't find the sock, ACK!  Domestic Goddess must have...stashed it somewhere.  I was cursing this and Ken reminded me that, um, I pay her to do that.)

6. paced around the house

7. taken dogs for moonlight walk

...no luck...

so of course I ended up at computer.  Checking blogs I found Deb's post where she refers to a local Cleveland kids' show from her childhood...and BLAM!  I remembered 

KITIRIK!

Pronounced "KIT-ir-ik"

She was this lady who had a kids' show in Houston on Channel 13 (call letters KTRK), and I was on it once for my birthday!    You rode around on this carousel and she would ask you how old you were when it was your turn to see her.  I remember being very sad because we had planned to take her a flower from our yard, but we forgot.  It was my birthday party, and all the guests got to sit in these bleachers and watch it.  I'm sure that was a real thrill!  My poor parents...I had just gotten over chicken pox and my little sister had it that day.  My Gramma Beth went to stay with her.   Nancy didn't get to see Kitirik.  I'm sure she is irreparably scarred...

I think it was 1970 or 71.  I hadn't thought of it in years, and now, friends, teh Internets are here to help me research it. 

Sure enough, I found references to it...a news story on Channel 13's website,

and this site, which reviews Kitirik and a number of other local shows I had forgotten, including "Don Mahoney and Jeanna Claire," which my brother Bill always called "Don Baloney and Jean the Bear."  I thought that was tremendously witty...

and even a Flickr! photo of Bunny Orsak, who played Kitirik:

Oh, she was the COOLEST.  I don't know why.  But she was. 

I know you are all tremendously excited about this.  I'm going to go try again for the sleeping...wish me luck.  I may be back.

Little updates everywhere

My parents are getting better...mom had an eye problem last week following her cataract surgery, which turned out to have been caused by eye dryness from her Sjögren's syndrome.   Now woudn't you think the cataract doctor would have checked that out in advance?  Sigh.  In the meantime, my dad took her to the urgent care doctor to get the eye checked out, and on the way out he fainted, fell over, and broke his proximal fibula (aka "the leg bone.")  Man.  So now they are the blind leading the lame, or vice versa.  Fortunately they have lots of friends to support them, and my sister and her family are there. 

It's been a stoppy, starty week.  A random affirmation might help, no?  So I go here and all I can think is, "My lord!  That woman needs to pull her pants up!"  My grandmother lives on....

Next week has a holiday in it, and that's got to be good, right?  Woohoo! 

I am meeting with my two new mentees (new freshmen) and that is very fun. 

And I've been nominated to the board of Canterbury Denton, which is the Episcopal Student Association here for the two local universities.  My time at Canterbury Texas A&M was very formative, and I look forward to helping this important ministry to grow. 

Knitting on the sock is good for the breathing.  I have knit a lot of scarves, but the sock looks like A REAL THING coming out of my hands.  WOW!  That's cool.