This should be about “life-sized”. The toe of the sock needed short rows which left a row of holes. This is how I closed them. I used a Size F crochet hook, I think.

Here’s a close-up of how I chained the spaces left by the increases. It seemed like the easiest method of dealing with them. Short-rowing leaves gaps and the stick-knitting method seemed an awkward (to say the least!) method of dealing with them on the knitting frame.

Randy called his supplier and discovered that the name is not Ida, it’s Ipe. The atrocious handwriting on our invoice was where this mistake came from! I found the information below on the internet. It is a lovely wood. Randy says he has both flat-sawn and quarter sawn. I think the picture I have is the flat sawn. It’s heavy and feels very smooth. All our wood comes from plantation grown trees.
Sorry about the confusion.
The Tree: Ipe is a large canopy tree, growing to a height of 120 feet in the natural rainforest, with trunk diameter up to 3 feet and a clear bole of 60 feet. Some specimens grow to 150 feet with a 6 foot diameter trunk.
The Wood: Ipe heartwood is light to dark olive brown, often with attractive lighter or darker striping and striking contrasts with the lighter color sapwood. It has a fine texture, medium luster, and a somewhat oily appearance. Ipe is very hard (two to three times as hard as oak), very strong and very heavy. It weighs approximately 70 pounds per cubic foot and sinks in water. Ipe is rated as extremely durable.
Uses: Ipe is prized for quality furniture and decorative veneers, and because of its strength and durability, is used in turnery, industrial flooring, and textile mill items.

I want to make a vest, if I have enough. I have some wool/Samoyed blend that I think i’ll spin up to match. This is a three ply, by the way. The colors in this don’t show up much, I guess I blended too well. 😛 So I’m thinking about dying the white Kool-aide orange. I thought I’d try weaving it on the 12″ or 14″ looms. Maybe combined with some knitting.

My sister Rosy spun some Cormo wool and her own angora and dyed it springtime colors to make a vest for Grandmother. I knitted it on the ISM (but the button bands are hand knit!) and added buttons that were given me by a elderly neighbor more than 30 years ago. They aren’t as old as my Grandmother-in-law, who will be 100 next August, but I thought them fitting!
She likes the vest and is tickled pink that Rosy thought to make this yarn for her. So am I.

This one gave me fits! It wasn’t the #@!*! knitting machine, I’m sure! 😉 But, anyway, I finally got it done yesterday. It’s a little too short for my preference and has quite a bit of duplicate stitch to cover mistakes but all in all not too bad. I’ll try charting the next one so’s to get the set in sleeves that i like. I just could not figure it out working from the back and doing this for the first time.
With square shoulders I look like I should be in the Super Bowl..the game not the half-time show!
I have some easter egg dyed handspun that I think I’ll weave a vest of next…

{{popup fairisle_detail.jpg fairisle_detail 428×322}}fairisle_detail
My little people had fat necks so I gave them ribbon bow ties.

Here's Robin denying that he had anything to do with destroying my roving while I ran next door for the camera. The rat! I spent most of today spinning the carder waste roving into tiny thread for a 3 plied yarn. Still have about half to go. Made a nice three ply yesterday from some unknown wool and some Samoyed. The wool is not as soft as I'd like, but the yarn turned out very well, I think.

This is where she like to nap. She can watch out the window (white spce behind her… yes, it’s all snow) in case a bird or squirrel comes to breakfast on the seeds and nuts I toss there. All the afghans are to keep the cat hair on my antique love seat at a minimum this winter.

This cap is one of the projects in the big book “Weaveing On Hazel Rose Looms”. Easy to make using your warm handspun bulky wool yarns. Or another bulky yarn at hand for that matter! No bulky? Use two strand of regular worsted.