Crochet Potholder Swap

I’m back! And with good reason. Remember that crochet potholder swap I mentioned a while ago? I got my act together and made five potholders to send out. Check it out:

Mmmm, crochet-y goodness. I waffled between a bunch of different patterns, wanting to show off my crochet skillz, and finally settled to play with color instead of pattern. I grabbed myself about ten colors of mercerized cotton — cool colors, how predictable am I? — and made double-sided potholders. All double crochet, all different stripe patterns with complementary sides.

Behold:

Side One

Side Two

I had a lot of fun figuring out a new stripe pattern for each side. They’re basic circles crocheted together around the edges, but also with a secret perk: I started the second side from the same center circle of the first, so they’re held together in the middle. I figured I didn’t want two layers of cotton slipping across each other when there’s a hot pan involved.

I sent my babies in the mail last week, and can’t wait until my swaps arrive! I’ve had a lot of fun checking out the new completed potholders every day (potholderswap.blogspot.com if you’re curious). I’ve also been enjoying making some potholders to keep with the leftover yarn — inspired by patterns others used, of course.

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Signs of Life

I like that my nail polish matches the sock yarn.

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Farmers’ Markets Make My Weekends Happy

Alarm clock goes off. 6 AM on a Saturday. Gross. I flop out of bed and manage to grab a hoodie and my keys through the fog of slumber. There are a few cats meandering the streets, but that’s about it. It’s early. It’s dark. I’m tired.

But I’m happy. Or I will be. Early Saturday morning can only mean one thing: I’m working the farmers’ market again!

This is a real tea towel that we had around, so we hung it up today. Love it. I feel almost as happy as they look. After some coffee and an apple.

Today was a great day at the farmers’ market. We had insanely sweet Gala apples, lots of our organic dry farmed Early Girl tomatoes (our main focus), giant Walla Walla onions easily six inches in diameter, and some beautiful purple bell peppers and Anaheim peppers:

Will someone get on it and make me some sock yarn in those colors? I love all the purple we ended up having today at the stand; between the bell peppers, our cabbage, the red Italian Torpedo onions, and our purple flowers, I’m in color heaven.

So, as I was saying, it was a great day to be selling at the farmers’ market. The sun came out about 7:30, and there were a lot of happy people walking around, looking for the last remnants of summer’s stone fruit, getting serious about beets (so many beautiful beet greens!), buying up summer squash and zucchini flowers… the vendor two stalls down brought his mandolin, so we even had lovely tunes intermittently throughout the day.

One of the best parts about the market is the kids. One kid came up to the stand with his mom, who was buying tomatoes. He told me and my co-worker we “looked funny with our aprons on.” “Oh?” I asked, “And what do we look like?” He thought a bit, and responded, “Tomatoheads!”

You know, there are worse things to be.

Check out these conjoined tomatoes! We usually snag the funny-looking tomatoes and put them on display near our scale. I thought these were just too cute, being joined at the stem and all.

I’m always impressed by how red our tomatoes are. And part of the reason they taste SO GOOD (and why any fresh tomato will taste way better than conventional tomatoes) is because they’re allowed to ripen on the plant. According to my hero Alton Brown of Good Eats (from whom I get much of my food knowledge), industrial tomatoes — those sold in big grocery stores, even if they are organic — are picked when they’re just starting to blush. They’re then put in a room with chemicals that make them redden. Now, they may get red… but their ripening, or sugar development, stops the moment they’re picked. They may get prettier, but they’ll never get tastier.

And that’s why tomatoes from your garden or local farmer are downright yummier — because they’re actually ripe. I thought I didn’t like tomatoes until this summer. What I realized was I do like tomatoes. Real tomatoes.

Speaking of tomatoes… and tea towels:

I’m not going to get into details right now, but I will tell you that the stains are from tomatoes, and that this probably saved us half a roll of paper towels today! Stay tuned for total crafty and veggie dorkiness.

P.S. Obtained new Mason-Dixon book. Overcome with sudden urge to add to my kitchen cotton yarn stash. Predict I will not be able to resist the appeal of more knit objects in my kitchen.

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I Love Purple (Or, Hello New Koigu Socks)

For the first time in a long time, I’ve finished a complete pair of socks.

These are totally going to be the socks I wear almost daily for a while, and probably with the shoes you see pictured here, too*. Don’t they look great together?

I bought this yarn while I was on vacation in New York, at Purl Soho. It’s Koigu KPPPM, color is 805 (I think), and the pattern is Anastasia.

When choosing a pattern, I wanted something that would showcase all the colors of the Koigu — the gorgeous mix of intense purple, lavender, black, and grey that I just had to have. I chose Anastasia because it would keep me interested and add some visual interest to the socks without obscuring the colors (or the colors obscuring the pattern). I chose to make the socks symmetrical, with yo k2tog on one side and yo ssk on the other. I love how the above picture shows their symmetry!

I knit these socks using the Magic Loop method on size 1 Addi Turbos. I have been choosing this method more lately because I don’t have to worry about stitches falling off my dpns or snapping them in two by accident. I love using the Addis because I can be finicky about the way metal sounds when it slides against itself, and these are lovely and smooth.

Another thing I love about this pattern is how one spiral gets to swoop near the heel before winding around the leg. There’s something very elegant and graceful about it and the way the yo’s open up more on the inside of my ankle. And check out that short row heel! I’ve been getting a lot better — the secret is just to pull a little tighter than you think you need to when you’re wrapping, and on the stitch after the wrap.

Perfect socks to start Autumn with, don’t you think?

*These are my lovely red Earth Vegan shoes. I love that they’re totally vegetarian and are shoes that look really cute with knit socks. They have a low heel in the back, too, so I can show off my worksmanship! A little more than I might justify spending normally on shoes, but they’ve been around for years and I love them.

ETA: It appears Earth doesn’t sell these shoes anymore, but I have a pair of their black Mary Janes that show off my knit socks well, also. Great company for shoes to wear with handknit socks!

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