Today it was Butzbach

Military

And today it was Butzbach retiring their flag. Outdoors on a beautiful day, the clinic is located in Roman Way housing area. The clnic will actually cease operations end of June or so, but the commander and his family fly tomorrow. Since the PAO took only a few shots and I took a lot, I promised to send off a disk.
According to the Public Affairs officer for the area, there are two deactivation ceremonies a day on the line unit side for the next couple of weeks. The whole area will be Ammie Frei by August.
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Knitting

Besides riding with great people who actually have a sense of humor, the trip offered me almost 90 minutes each way of knitting time. That little bit of cuff turned into most of a sock, with little less than half the foot to go. I started the small size with 2,75 needles, then dropped down to 2,5mm when I hit the heel. The pattern is a really fun knit. Normally not a yellow or green person at all, I had this yarn in the stash. It just said “Spring leaves” to me.
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And then there is Shadow sock. I did the grafting. And if anyone is afraid of grafting, you will be a pro after doing 85 stitches (half of which had to be done in alternating knit and purl sections.
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From there, I picked up around the end and added in the toe, once again experiencing the thrill of grafting the end closed.
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Then, a partial sock, and an after thought heel. Und noch mal…
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And, as I am sure you noticed, I was running short of needles in the right size (due to MayDay on needles). This reminded me of how much I do not like to knit socks on circulars. The cord just drives me nuts. I know that it has some really great points, but just not my thing. Once I finished up the picot bind off, I had the first sock done.
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It fits fine.It was interesting to knit, but really fiddly. Lots of interupts on one of the colours meant numerous ends to be woven in. And I really don’t like afterthought heels. Now I have to decide among several choices: do I knit the second sock by the pattern anyway, or make a completely fraternal sock by changing the pattern to horizontal (allowing me to knit it in the round – I will just have to fiddle the foot), or do I still make the stripes vertical but knit in the round which means a faux fairisle and floats on the inside. I weighed the yarn and have enough for any of the options.

-Holly

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About Holly

fiber person - knitter, spinner, weaver who spent 33 years being a military officer to fund the above. And home. And family. Sewing and quilting projects are also in the stash. After living again in Heidelberg after retiring (finally) from the U.S. Army May 2011, we moved to the US ~ Dec 2015. Something about being over 65 and access to health care. It also might have had to do with finding a buyer for our house. Allegedly this will provide me a home base in the same country as our four adult children, all of whom I adore, so that I can drive them totally insane. Considerations of time to knit down the stash…(right, and if you believe that…) and spin and .... There is now actually enough time to do a bit of consulting, editing. Even more amazing - we have only one household again. As long as everyone understands that I still, 40 years into our marriage, don't do kitchens or bathrooms. For that matter, not being a golden retriever, I don't do slippers or newspapers either. I don’t miss either the military or full-time clinical practice. Limiting my public health/travel med/consulting and lecturing to “when I feel like it” has let me happily spend my pension cruising, stash enhancing (oops), arguing with the DH about where we are going to travel next and book buying. Life is good!
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3 Responses to Today it was Butzbach

  1. Jolene says:

    Hello. Interesting construction on that one! I say knit the leg of the sock in fair isle, do the heel you like, and then you could either break off and do the top of the sock in the flat fair isle and graft to the bottom, then toe. OR do fair isle on the leg, heel as you like and then just do the fair isle all around the foot of the sock down to the toe. It would look close to the other sock that way from afar.

  2. Pat says:

    That is one complicated method for knitting a sock!! The result is a very cool sock, but I think I would go with fraternal 2nd time around!

  3. amanda j says:

    I like the look of the sock, but if you aren’t enamoured with the pattern, do what you want to do. I haven’t ever done an afterthought heel, and I agree about circulars and socks. DPNs for me all the way – it just seems to go quicker!

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