Summer Swatch Me Week 7!

Happy August to everyone. I am pleased to report that the weather here in New York is much more comfortable this week, improving the quality of my knitting time immensely! I hope the same is true for all of you. Our Summer Swatch Me stitch pattern this week is Reverse Pod. You'd think I could some up with a better name for this lovely pattern, eh? I figure some of you are ready to add this right on to your samplers...so the chart has been posted to our group.

Before I introduce our "side Pattern" this week I will share a seasonal cooking tip. I am a fiend for fresh beets, and on the east coast of the USA it is beet season. Here is what I do: Trim and scrub the beets. Scrape them with a sharp paring knife. Rub them with olive oil, salt and fresh black pepper. Toss some herbs in if you have them. Wrap the whole group of beets in foil, sealing the package by folding the foil over, to make it as air-tight as possible. Bake for two hour at 400F. Let them cool, slice and enjoy! Be sure you drizzle any juices from cooking over the beets. You can also serve them in a sweet vinaigrette dressing...

All right then. This week we have Reverse Pod Socks. I used our week 7 Summer Swatch Me pattern, but I took a few liberties. First, I enlarged the pattern from 14 to 16 stitches. Group members can compare our stitch pattern chart with the sock chart to see what I did. Second, I used twisted knit stitches for the waves in the pattern which give an embossed look, especially in the yarn I used. These socks are worked with a finer weight yarn than our last socks and with more stitches cast-on. They use classic sock construction and a different but classic heal stitch pattern, called Eye of Partridge. The yarn that I selected for this pattern is from Lorna's Laces and called Shepherd Sock Yarn (in Periwinkle.) It is a delight to work with. It has wonderful stitch definition, really lets the twisted knit stitches pop, and makes a really elegant sock. Apologies for the photo sans model, but I just finished the second sock and my lovely model is still away! The two socks are mirror images of each other, which I like to do. Once you get the idea of manipulating our charts to do this, it is just a short jump to using the same trick to design a larger piece. More on that in a few weeks!

For those of you working on bookmarks, here is our Reverse Pod Bookmark, using another of my handspun FiberOptics yarns, made from their lovely pencil roving.

Our week 7 pattern can be used to make a scarf and would also be a really nice hat. Come to think of it, it would make some killer mitts too! I can't wait to see what our group comes up with. If you like what you see you can still join us at the Summer Swatch Me group! Read all about it here. I'll be back next week with even more. Until then, knit on!