When the bold branches
Bid farewell to rainbow leaves—
Welcome wool sweaters.
[B. Cybrill]
Frost loosened the leaves last night. This morning, the sky is blue and the sun is bright but it is raining—it is raining red leaves from the maple and golden from the oak. I’ll wait until the leaf storm has passed and the branches are bare. Then I’ll vacuum my yard with the leaf eater—the best invention since the lawn mower. My nose will run. My fingers will ache with the cold. My reward will be a hot cup of coffee. I love coffee but sometimes it tastes even better. The first cup in the morning and after coming in from the cold are the best.
The swatch in the photo is a variation of the leaf pattern in my October sock (scroll down the page to see it). This is knit with ten colors of Shetland wool—five light colors and five dark. Although the overall effect is brown, no browns were used.
Marilyn Buster finished a red version of our workshop sock. Here it is. She knit it with worsted weight Chaco (Cascade 220) on size 2 Inox needles. It is prettier in real life than in this photo—I had to tweak the photo to make the texture show since red is hard to photograph. She reports that the Inox needles worked great and the heel fits well.
Ten years ago, I self-published a book of sock patterns that I’d designed for handknitters. I sold two printing runs but the binding was complicated so the book has been out of print for a number of years. I’ve received so many requests for the book that I’ve been adapting it to an e-book format that would be packaged and sold on CD.
Knitting, writing and other joys 