Happy Solstice

So Happy Solstice! Or at least I was thinking of blogging on the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. I missed posting on the 21st as I was working 14 hour days on the house. I was able to take pictures of these finished socks. Pictures taken at 11:30pm to midnight. I love the Midnight Sun!

Pattern: Snicket Socks by Sabine Riefler. Originally posted in MagKnits, but now a free pattern on Ravelry.

Yarn: Spunky Eclectic Super Sport in of all names for a colorway - MonkeyFarts.

Needles: addiTurbo size 2, 40" circ

Cast on: June 3rd Bind off: June 17

These socks are for Parker's 12th Birthday, which is actually tomorrow. I had him model for these socks and he ohh'd and ahh'd the whole time.
Each one of my 12 year olds modeled for the sock photoshoot. It seems to be a great honor to have your picture posted on the internet. I guess you have to be 12 to enjoy that.

I did a couple modifications of the pattern. I didnt like the sockinette stitch for the foot with a garter stitch and single line cable for the instep, so I maintained the stockinette on the foot. I p2tog for the decreases on both sides of the heel; finishing the toe with a purled star toe.

Yeah, I couldn't resist the MonkeyFart jokes. I had to grab some Legos and have fun. This is all after bribing one of three 12 year olds to dig through three huge Rubbermaid bins of these damned things to find the monkey two brown arms, cause the poor little monkey had two people arms (that are not brown) and it looked sadistic. Our farting monkey luckily had all brown limbs for the photoshoot. We had a lot of fun taking pictures and running around out of the deck at Midnight. Solstice is such a great time. The only unforunate side-effect of celebrating Solstice is now the days are getting progressively shorter. So sad to see the sunlight leave us; at a rate of 7 minutes a day less direct light.

With all this light, the house is progressing swiftly. The foundation is poured, the decking is finished. The foundation is half buried and the garage is compacted. The bituthene is wrapped around the entire foundation walls and the first floor walls are going in as I blog. Fortunately for me, our framing contractor completed all the decking and is erecting the walls. Mark, the boys, and I did all the dirt work this weekend. No downtown Midnight Sun Festival for me. No Midnight Sun Run (10K). No elephant ears, no funnel cake, no frozen bananas, no gyros. No nothing. Just work. Man, who knew sweat equity involved so much sweat!

foundation pads are in

The house is starting to look like the beginnings of a house. Here is the foundation pad. Ah, the joys of rebar.

One day later, we have forms for the foundation walls. Man, these guys worked!

More work on my Monkeyfart Snickets. I needed to post two pictures: the first for the pattern and the second for the color. I modified the foot of the pattern switching to purls from stst to emphasize the single row cabling on top. I am really starting to have fun. Just as they are about to end. My wish is to have these done before the 24th for Parker's birthday. Tomorrow I won't have much time to knit on these as it is Father's Day is tomorrow and we are grilling up burgers and steaks at Chena Lakes. His choice. I was thinking peaceful morning with lattes and scones. Silly me. It is beer, burgers, and babes (me).

Come look into my dirty hole

So yes, I do need to apologize for the dirty (tee hee) heading. but I'm not going to... I come back to the Dredge every night with dirt in my hair, coated in bug dope, muscles aching and belly aching (for pie). Because of the long-lighted days, I come home to jump directly in the shower to sit down to knit only to realize that it is 10:30pm. With it being full sunlight, it is so hard to guage {no knitting pun intended, or maybe intended unintensionally) how long I have been working in the evenings. It is not until I sit to work on my needles that I realize I only have a couple minutes until bed. Uh!

And since it is so painfully obvious that my birthday boy is not going to be receiving his Mitered Square Blanket for his very special day this 24th, I decided that my sock-loving son will instead become the proud new owner of Monkey Farts. Oh yes, you read that right. The sock yarn from Spunky Eclectic is so aptly named, "Monkey Farts". Perfect for a boy turning 12, who loves handknit socks. I never would have thunked it! He is my sock model extraordinaire and begs not to take them off after the pictures have been taken.

As if I wasn't busy knitting...

In the same span of time it takes one to sign their name, I went from 100% debt-free to 0% debt-free.

With that signature, our family welcomes in a new addition... We are now the proud parents of a bountiful construction loan. And being proud new parents to such a wonderful creature, nesting took effect and we made room for our new addition.

I was thinking that I had too much time to knit (okay, I was NOT thinking that, but maybe my husband was..) 'cause we went out Memorial Day weekend and cut down all these beautiful trees. Four days later, our 2 acre plot was cleared and the dirt work began.

We now have a foundation pad (read: BIG HOLE) and the contractor comes tomorrow morning to start laying the foundation blocks. Whoo hoo!


The driveway and pad took five days. We still need to lay the pitrun tomorrow so the rain slated for Wednesday does not wash out the driveway. It is so hard to believe the picture above is the same as the picture below. That was so much friggin work. I haven't physically exerted that much muscle power since I worked for a landscaping crew in high school. My thighs and biceps still ache from all that lifting. Those logs were excruciating! But all that firewood will keep our home warm for a full winter.


Those of you that read my blog, Beware! I will continue to knit and post all my knitting, but I have to shift some of my focus to building my home. And I get to decorate from the ground up. I wonder if I can knit siding? A nice felted merino?

I took these photos at 11:30pm

Pattern: Toe-Up Socks by Amy Swenson in Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Sock Book
Yarn: A Swell Shop's *MIDDY* handpainted superwash merino in Cinnamon Dulce
Needle: Size2 40"circular addiTurbo
Cast on: May 19 Bind off: May 31

This pattern is so easy. I like vanilla rib for a strongly dyed yarn and A Swell Shop does some of the best dyeing around. I have never seen a colorway I havent fallen in love with of theirs.


And YES, the finished sock pictures were taken at 11:30pm. As I am posting now, midnight-thirty, it is still light out and the boys are still playing outside. Sunday night, won't be getting any sleep until 1:30a and back up at 6:30a. There is truly no real need for hours upon hours of sleep when we are getting so much daylight. My body just tells me "time to party!" I love summer in Fairbanks. It rocks!

Mr Greenjeans

Pattern: MrGreenjeans from knitty.com, size small

Yarn: Dream in Color - Classy "Chinatown Apple"

Needles: Size8 knitpicks circulars (did not decrease to the size7s for the cabling

Cast on: March 30 Bind off: May 22

Okay, since cast off, I have not taken this sweater off! I love it! It is so amazingly comfortable, and soft, and gorgeous. This is the most perfect cardigan EVER! The yarn is amazingly soft. And yes it grows. The sweater grew even more than my gauge swatch did. Before blocking, I tried it on and it was overly snug, but blocking completely turned this around.

The pattern is very easy to follow. I did not find a single error. A few modifications: 1) I lengthened the sleeves. I believe (from other's pictures) that the shorter sleeves make it look like the sweater was knit too small. I lengthened the sleeves far to long, as seen in the second picture here. I might have to go back and frog a repeat or two.


Mod#2) I did not decrease needle size to make the cabling tighter; my hips are big enough, I don't need the cables to pull back anymore accentuating this. Mod#3) I added two rows on both sides of the buttonhole to make the buttonband a bit wider. I was thinking that I wanted the cardigan to close a bit and I really like the result. My only complaint is the glass button that I chose is too heavy. It pulls on the front and makes the buttonhole gape. I plan on leaving it on because it is stunning, but I might not be using them on my Central Park Hoodie, which I get to start next. I bought enough Dream in Color - Classy in November Muse during the LoopyEwe's Knit Along discounting on DiC.

Check out my Raverly notes here on this sweater if you would like further info.

The Cabo Wabo hit my Jaywalkers...

Pattern: Toe-Up Jaywalkers by Natalia Marek from Raverly. An adaptation of Jaywalkers on knitty.com edited for toe-up.

Yarn: Cameleon Colorworks Dyeworks & Fiber Studio Footsie in "Taos" made of 75% superwash wool and 25% nylon. 400yds, 3.5oz

Needle: Addi Turbos, size1, 40" circ, two socks on the one circular

Cast on: April 8th Bind off: May 17th


I got the yarn from MorseCode as a super nice "thank you" donation for sending her my unloved s(p)in club yarn. She was kind enough to send this wonderfully dyed yarn. I love the color, it is so "up" my alley! The texture is questionable, but getting better after consecutive washings. Most suprising of all was the pattern. That was a beast all of its own. I did not realize until I was ON THE PLANE that the toe-up version was not complete. Natalia refers several times to "follow the original directions" in which I did not print off before boarding. Who has time to pack, clean the house, make certain the kids will be fed, the dog will get let out, AND the pattern you just printed off has all the directions? Now don't get me wrong, I do not mean to b!tch so much for I LOVE traveling with a new sock pattern, or even a new technique. I love it because if I get frustrated, I can't just throw it into the UFO basket on the office floor and walk downstairs to get a beer. I am forced to sit in that ultra-swank, super-roomy excuse for a seat the airlines are go generous to seat us in and fester until my brains liquify. Once I calm enough to re-attempt to continue the knit, I figure it out and work on. Well, there was not a lot of calming, soothing feelings I had when I realized that I was 30K feet above any form of internet and the airlines no longer host $5/minute phones in the back of seats. At this moment of "brick wall knitting" my husband surely wouldn't care how much a phone call eats into our travel budget. "For the love of all things holy, Krista, calm yourself. You will find the rest of the pattern when we land." As if that would calm any knitter down! The only saving grace was Brenda Dayne and Cast-On on the Zune soothing the savage knitter within and guiding me safely and sanely into Seattle.

We did land in Seattle, home of all things Starbuck and wi-fi so that I could find the original pattern. I read the whole toe-up version several times over just to make 100% certain that I wouldn't run into any more of these special moments in Mexico. The next flight to Cabo San Lucas was a much smoother flight, for my knitting, as well as for my husband.
If you click on the photo to the left, it should bring you to flickr where you can see my lovely, smart-assed comments on the mistakes that I made in the jaywalking. I left them in (even after the first rip back) because the tequila made me do it. I love Baja California: dry air, high heat, perfect weather, with nothing to do but relax, drink tequila and knit on the balcony of the hotel. I only achieved mid-foot on the Baja. We were busy swimming in the pool, playing on the beach and recovering from the nights.


Mostly, I was just relaxing before the hectic tourist season started. This was the last time I can leave the town of Fairbanks without permission until October. Tourism keeps me busy.

Currently: Dredge property is open for business; start-up has come and gone. (I live on company property, so when you hear people say, "I live at work," well I really do. I live at work. I eat Dredge, I sleep Dredge. I wake up to tours going on outside my window on the weekends and I go to sleep listening to the frogs croak in the Dredge pond, the trumpet swans flying over, and the seagulls establishing their nesting territory.) Needless to say, I have been working 16 hour days, sleeping 4 hours a night with barely enough time to take a shower every other day or so. Both blogging and knitting have been neglected. This is the starting of the second week of Tourist Season. I was luck enought to get five hours to myself and finished off my Cabos. I miss Mexico, but more than Mexico, I miss "Winter Krista". The girl who is perpetually relaxed, continually knitting, and planning my next vacation. I now have "Summer Krista" who is ready to party as hard as she works. And let me tell you, "This Krista really knows how to work." wink, wink