Sounds wrong doesn't it? But yes, you can knit a circular swatch flat. If you've ever knit I-cord, it's the same idea, only you don't pull the carried yarn tight. Knitting flat means you can work the swatch on fewer stitches than you would if you were trying to knit a tube to measure. But because you'll still be knitting every stitch, the result will be the same as if you had knit a tube.
You'll need double pointed needles or a circular needle (the ones you are using for your project, obviously). Cast on roughly 4 inches worth of stitches (look at the ball band and see how many stitches you should get in 4 inches and cast that many on). Now your stitches are all sitting on the right needle (in flat knitting you would turn and work back). I've knitted a few rows to make it easier to photograph, but this is approximately what you'll be looking at. Your last stitch and working yarn are at the tip of the right needle.
Slide your knitting back across the cable so that the work is on your left needle. The last stitch worked and working yarn will be at the cable end of your needle.
Now bring the yarn LOOSELY behind the work and knit the first stitch. Don't pull the stitch tight, you want a big loop of yarn on the back (this will ensure that your swatch will lay flat when it comes time to measure). Knit across the row as usual. The last stitch or 2 may be very loose because of the slack in the carried yarn. This is fine. Just knit the stitch as best you can. Continue in this manner until the swatch is big enough to measure. The back will look a mess...
And those end stitches will be sloppy, but you'll have a perfectly accurate gauge swatch for your circular project, without having to cast on enough stitches to knit a tube. These swatches are not usefully for anything else, as far as I can tell. Maybe some kind of punk rock bracelet. But I usually rip mine out anyway.
Well, it's not all bad news in the garden. We've got babies...
Two little mourning dove babies are nesting in my garden. 
They are the cutest little things. They just toddle around, nibbling at the clover. We had one last year, but only saw it once or twice. We've seen a lot of these two. They tend to just sit there and watch me work in the garden. If I get too close, the scurry away, or flap their wings and fly a few inches. But mostly they just sit there and stare at me. Too adorable. Some days I find them nestled in the straw around the onion plants, but I think they are nesting under the honeysuckle. I know birds and bunnies are all God's creatures, but it's so much easier to love the cute, non-destructive ones.
Here's a picture of the honeysuckle.
It was planted 6 years ago to mark where my first pet, Winston, was buried. We originally had it on a small metal trellis, but had to cut it way back a year or two ago and remove the trellis. It's filling out nicely again and we hope to put up a sturdier wooden trellis. It smells divine. Especially at night when we sit out on the deck and the scent is carried up on a breeze.
We grilled out over the weekend and it reminded me I have another Favorite Thing to talk about. Chimney Starters
If you like to grill with charcoal these contraptions are a godsend. You stuff some newspaper in the bottom and load your charcoal briquettes in the top. Then you light the paper and wait. Within no time, the coals are ignited. I believe I first saw these used by my uncles & male cousins at the Miller family reunions when I was a wee one. When I got my first grill and tried to start my first fire without, I realized it was not an easy task. I remembered these from my childhood and sought one out. I've had it for years and have never once had a problem getting a fire started since then.
And finally, here is the view out of my back door right now.
Storms are called for tonight, but so far they are staying west of us. Except just now, we had a brief rain shower and the sun setting in the west cast this rainbow do east. You could actually see the entire rainbow, side to side, if you looked real hard, but only the left arm was photographable. Hopefully this is a sign of cooler temperatures to come!
We have been fairly blessed this year with mild weather. We didn't have a lot of snow this winter, the spring has been relatively cool. We've only had a few days in the 80's all year. But that's about to change. They are calling for temps in the mid to upper 90's the next 4-5 days. Yuck. If it weren't for wanting a garden (which does do better with the warmer temperatures) I could happily live out my days in the upper 60's and not complain. But that's not how nature works and the heat is coming. I plan to spend the weekend in the coolest spot I can find. I hope to spin and knit if it's not to unbearable to handle the wool. I've got a book (The Dark is Rising) and a magazine (the new SpinOff came today) to keep me occupied should fiber crafting prove too warm, not to mention at least 10 other books and magazines waiting in the wings.
The garden is thriving now. 
We've had some rain lately and the bunnies have stopped visiting so I've removed the cans. The broccoli is doing pretty well.
I planted a cherry tomato plant there on the right where we lost one of the broccolis. You can't see it in this picture, but the 3rd broccoli that was just a stem that I didn't protect is starting to come back. Maybe we'll end up with 3 plants after all!
The Table Treat squash seems to have recovered.
Although the butternut squash is only just sprouting so I'm not sure if it's going to give us much of a harvest.
We've got a few little tomatoes forming.
I can't wait for those to start coming in.
I pre-ordered my Harry Potter Opal yarns from The Knitter. The cost is insane, $22.95 a ball, but I don't care. A lot of folks over on Ravelry are bitching the colors don't represent the characters, that Opal just slapped Harry Potter names on the yarns for marketing to sell yarn. Again, I don't care. I think they are gorgeous yarns and the ones I ordered do put me in mind of the characters. I ordered Hedwig, Draco and Dumbledore. The yarns are set to ship in October. I hold no hopes of getting socks knit in time for the movie, but who knows, maybe it will happen.
I also ordered some cotton sock yarn. I adore the lo-rider socks I made last year and want to get a few more pairs made for this summer.
This is Catania Color from Schachenmayr nomotta in color 11. It is 100% cotton and has a fabulous sheen to it.
This is Fortissima Cotton Colori from Schoeller Esslinger in a retired (I think) colorway 7. This is a 75% cotton/25% nylon blend which will probably make a more durable sock than the plain cotton. Yeah I know, I hate knitting with cotton. But I'm hoping little ankle socks that don't take very long will be doable. I fear I may not finish Milan before fall if the weather turns hot. The acrylic yarn tends to be a bit sticky in hot sweaty fingers. I'm 3/4 done with the second sleeve. Then it's the front band, which isn't such a big piece of knitting to hold in your lap, but the last bit is the collar which is knitted on. There's no way I'm going to hold a whole sweater in my lap when it's 80 degrees out. This is also quite bad news for Flyingdales. But at least I'll have these treasures to look forward to for cooler days.
The biggest news in my knitting world this week??? SOCK BLANKS! KnitPicks has announced they are now carrying sock blanks. A sock blank is a tube of knitted fabric that you hand dye and then unravel to knit the socks. Theirs are double stranded so you end up with matching socks. You can also get slightly more predictable results than with painting yarn in skein. For example if you want a striping yarn, you need to skein your yarn really long, but with the knitted fabric, you can paint the stripes where you want them without needing miles of space. I've restrained myself thus far from ordering, but know my resolve will break any day now. The only thing that is holding me back is the double strand thing. Yeah, it's great that you get matching socks, but the downside is you have to knit them 2 at a time. I'm not sure I really desire to do that. I did get the 2 at a Time Socks book, but I never really intended to knit the socks two at a time. One could unravel the fabric into 2 separate balls, but this requires 2 people to be done effectively and I'm not sure I can sweet talk hubby into winding yarn with me. I'm thinking I'm just going to go for it. Order the sock blanks and a 40" needle and give this 2 at a time thing a try.
Ugh, what is it with some people that think it's just ok to let domestic pets go free when they get tired of caring for them? We noticed a few weeks back that our neighbor a few houses up had taken down their bunny pen. Then a week or so ago we thought be saw a black rabbit in another neighbor's yard. Strange. Never seen a black wild rabbit before. Yesterday, I looked at my garden as I walked by to go to my car and noticed that a bunny had eaten up my broccoli plants. When I got home last night and took a better look at the damage I found the bunny had also dug a big hole in my onion bed and another in the yard. I fixed up the hole in the onion bed hoping to not lose those plants, but just look at what they did...
There's a leaf left on 2 of the broccoli plants, so I put cans around them in hopes they will survive. Thankfully the rabbits haven't developed a taste for any of our other garden plants. I happened to see the neighbor in question out today and mentioned I thought his rabbits might have gotten loose. He had the nerve to say, and I quote "Oh yeah, we know. We've been trying to catch them, but they're just so darn fast. We've even got a kid trying to help us catch them." These neighbors are not old and feeble. They are in their 20s, 30s at most and have 2 kids and a dog they keep up with. They had the rabbits penned all the years they've lived here and never had a problem. I doubt very highly they "got loose" and just can't be caught. But I'm not the confrontational type and didn't want to accuse the guy of lieing, so I just said I'd let him know if I see the rabbits again. I suppose hubby and I can try to catch them and present them to the neighbor. Think he'll give us a reward for the safe return of his bunnies?
Let's have some knitting to lift our spirits, shall we? Here's the body of Milan blocking on a towel.
I decided against steaming since it's acrylic and steam sometimes does weird things to acrylic. I just pinned it out as flat as possible on a towel and gave it a good misting with water. I'm getting a bit nervous about the sleeve, I fear my row gauge may be off (I never check my row gauge by the way). But my sleeve seems to be almost as long as my arm and I've got at least 24 rows to go to finish my increases. I'm going to have to sit down with a tape measure and calculator this afternoon and figure out what I need to do to not end up with sleeves that touch my kneecaps!
The yarn came for Flyingdales this week. Here's just a small sampling of the NaturallyCaron.com Country yarn.
I bought 10 balls in all in the colorway Plum Pudding. The color is gorgeous. The yarn itself is quite soft, though not as soft as pure merino wool. But there is only around 20% merino in this yarn. The suggested needle size is US 9 to get 4 st/inch.
I had to go up to a US 10.5. Of course, that is the one and only needle size I'm missing from my Knit Picks Options set. But I was thinking about placing an order anyway. I'm quite excited to work on this sweater. It's probably a good thing I don't have the right needles or I'd be casting on already!
I FINALLY got back to dying some yarn this week. And oh baby am I ever pleased! I tried a new technique with these and I think the results are stunning.
I've not had much luck with darks in the past, but this time I hit the nail on the head for what I'm after. They are even more beautiful in person. They appear almost iridescent. These should be going up on Etsy in the next few days, if I can bear to part with them.
New on my bookshelf this week is 2-at-a-Time Socks by Melissa Morgan-Oaks. I'm not a huge fan of patterned socks, as we've seen with my failure to complete the last 2 patterned socks I started. But these patterns look pretty appealing. I like the Twilight socks and love Socks for Aidan. The Aidan socks are written for a child's size, but I think I might be able to size them up for me. Spice is another favorite. My only disappointment was that many of the socks are in child sizes. But, again, the patterns should be easy enough to size up, so I'm sure I'll get some use out of this book.
Another favorite thing to report this week. And this one is a direct result of listening to Miss Favorite Thing, Meghan's podcast. It is Henna. I am a woman, reaching "a certain age", and have begun the vane pursuit of keeping the grey hairs at bay. Now, I love dyeing yarn. Dyeing my hair on the other hand, not so much. Chemicals are smelly and leave my hair dry and heaven knows what they do to the environment. So when Meghan mentioned she uses henna to color her hair, I thought I'd give it a try. She recommended the Henna for Hair website. There is a metric ton of information on this site. If you are at all interested in hennaing your hair, go hear and read up on it. I used henna from Rainbow Research. Their's is pure henna, but the henna's are preblended so you can achieve the level of red you want without having to blend your own henna. I chose Mahogany. The process is messy, but there is no bad smell. It's very herbal. The stuff was very hard to rinse out, it's kind of like packing your hair with mud and trying to rinse it out. However, it was really worth it. The color is absolutely even. I've never had that result with chemical dye. It's a lovely old penny color, not too bright coppery but not brown either. My hair is soft and manageable. No pictures, sorry, I'm not so good with the self portraits of the back of my head. But take my word for it, it's definitely worth a try if you are looking for a natural alternative to coloring your hair.
PS...title comes from the fantabulous film "Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit".
No, I'm not going around taking potshots at the romantically unattached. I am, however, showing my yarn who's boss. There has been a lot of talk lately on Ravelry, in Spin Off, on Yahoo groups, etc about setting twist in your handspun by whacking your wet yarn against a table or some such to help distribute the twist and energy more evenly throughout the yarn. Jen finally convinced me to give it a try. I'm still on my quest to learn to spin a decent singles yarn. Here is my latest attempt with some corriedale roving I hand dyed. 
As you can see, the yarn is quite energized. There are kinks and coils and the yarn doesn't even begin to hang straight.
Into a sink of very warm water with a bit of shampoo for a half hour soak. By then the water had cooled so I drained the sink and gently rinsed in cool water. I squeezed as much water from the yarn as possible (this helps to minimize mess in the next step). Then I held the skein by one end and smacked it against the shower wall. I did this a few times, then turned the skein and did it again. I believe I did about 8 or 9 whacks in all. Just be sure to get as much water out as possible or you'll get a face full of water! I've heard of people twirling their skein of yarn airplane-style over their head (outside of course) to use centrifugal force to help remove water. I'm going to have to try this one day (when the neighbors aren't out of course!) I hung the skein to dry and here's the end result.
Oh yeah, BIG difference! I am quite surprised and impressed. The twist definitely redistributed itself and the yarn is much more balanced.
I still have a ways to go at achieving the lofty soft twist single I'm aiming for. But this technique transformed a pretty rough looking skein into a lovely bit of quite usable yarn. Thanks Jen for pushing me to try this!!
Since my last post, I have finished the Spa Slippers.
They have been sent on to the one who requested them and thankfully they fit her well. One of
these days I must make myself a pair of these.
I finished spinning and plying the Gryffindor yarn.
I loves it! The picture doesn't do it justice. The burgundy and gold subtly change throughout and the dark brown/black really sets it off. This yarn is destined to be fingerless mitts.
One stash acquisition to show:
This is Pigeonroof Studios superwash BFL roving in Nightshade purchased from a fellow Raveler who is destashing. I adore the colors in this and can't wait to see how it spins up.
On my needles: Jack socks, I'm almost to the heel of sock #1; Darvoset socks, finished sock #1 and just past the toe on sock #2; Milan cardigan, finished both fronts and back, seamed the shoulders and half way up the first sleeve.Although I've got at least a few weeks of knitting left on Milan, I broke down and ordered yarn for Flyingdales. I was going to go with Valley Yarns Sugarloaf, but ended up ordering a new yarn called Country by NaturallyCaron. This yarn looks and sounds very interesting, a microfiber/merino blend. I ordered it from a place with a good return policy, just in case, but I've been happy with most everything I've tried from Caron so I'm confident this will be a worthwhile purchase.
A new podcast to check out...The Knitmore Girls. This is a mother and daughter team who podcast about their knitting. They are delightful.
I've gotten the garden all planted for the year. I changed the layout this year and we removed some ornamental grasses from one bed that we can now use for vegetables, so we are trying some new stuff this year. Here we have onions, peppers, cucumbers and (eventually) acorn squash with a cherry tomato plant in the pot.
This long bed has eggplant, basil, tomatoes and zucchini.
And this little bed has butternut squash and broccoli. 
There's still some work to be done on the beds, the little bed needs edging and more grass patch around the perimeter and I want to get straw down on everything, but for the most part it's done and we need only wait for mother nature to do her thing.
So a few weeks back I was helping Jen turn her first sock heel via Yahoo Messenger (since we live a continent apart and couldn't meet face to face). This worked well enough, especially since she did indeed complete that heel successfully and has gone on to do the second heel un-aided (HOORAY FOR JEN!!) But at the time, I so wished I had pictures to show her what I was trying to explain. So tonight I turned the heel on a pair of slippers I'm making and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get those pictures. I'm still trying to learn how to use this new camera, so the pictures aren't the best, but I think they show the steps pretty well. And bonus, the new camera software lets me put little text blurbs right on the pictures, how cool is that?
So these pictures show how I pick up my gusset stitches and get back into working my sock in the round on magic loop after I have turned the heel. You start by working across what ever heel stitches you have.
Now use the same right needle to knit up one stitch in every long stitch along the side of the heel flap (making note of how many stitches you pick up). Now all my heel stitches and the first half of the gusset stitches are on the right needle. Slide these up onto the cable and prepare to knit the instep stitches that have been hanging out on the back end of the cable while you knitted the heel. The instep stitches are now slid on to the left needle and the right needle is ready to knit them.
Knit across the instep stitches. The instep stitches are now on the right needle. Carefully slide them on to the cable keeping the loop between the end of the first gusset and the start of the instep. It may be helpful to slide the heel stitches onto the left needle at this point, just don't bring them all the way to the tip until after you pick up the 2nd gusset so they don't slide off.
Now using the right needle, pickup one stitch in each long stitch along the 2nd side of the heel flap. You want to aim to get the same number of stitches you picked up on the first side. However, if you don't, you'll just do an extra decrease on whichever side had more stitches. Now you are back to where your heel stitches start. 
Continue knitting across the heel and first gusset without pulling the loop through in between. Your goal is to have your loops at the intersections between the heel and the instep. I find this by far the easiest way to knit a sock, always keeping the heel stitches on one half of the magic loop and the instep on the other. Knit across the instep stitches. Now you are back to the beginning of the heel side. There are way more stitches on this side of the needle than the instep side. Decrease at the beginning and end of every other row on the heel side only until you have the same number of stitches on the heel as on the instep. And that's all there is to working the gussets on a sock. Easy-peasy.
The model, by the way, is the Spa Socks from the Spring 2007 issue of Knit-1 magazine. The yarn is K1C2 2nd Time Cotton (one of the only cottons I can stand to knit with). The needle is a 32" US 8 Susan Bates Silverado. Unfortunately, my US 8 Options are being used for Milan so I had to settle for the Bates. I do like my Bates needles very much, but the cable is far less pliable than the Options and I've become very spoiled these last few months. I think it's time to order some second sets of points in my favorite sizes!
We're back in business with photos. First up, the lovely Gryffindor singles. 
on bobbin. 3 oz nearly fills the bobbin up.
and plyed with dark brown and silver singles. Which do you like? Chuck and I are both leaning towards the dark. He said it makes a nice Halloween yarn. I'm thinking fingerless mitts to wear to hand out treats for trick or treat. At a distance the red and yellow do look rather orange, but up close you see how subtly the colors blend. So pretty.
I'm motoring right along on Milan. Left front done and half way up the right side. 
This yarn is nearly impossible to photograph, though. It's so shiny it just wants to glare, but you get a general idea. It's really pretty in person. The yarn is ever so slightly mottled shades of pale brown.
Finally, a favorite thing. If you listen to Meghan's podcast over at Stitch It, you'll know she includes a favorite thing in every episode. I adore this. It's such a happy positive thing to do. So today, I'm listing one of my favorite things. My Chamilia bracelet. 
Last year I was at the local jewelry store getting my watch battery replaced and started looking around while I waited. Now, I'm not much of a jewelry hound. I've got my few pieces I wear all the time and a few special things I'll pull out for nice, but I don't have boxes full or change my earrings to match my outfit kind of thing. But I was feeling like I wanted to treat myself that day and thought these bracelets were really neat. You start out with the bracelet and can add charms as you go along. I've had charm bracelets before, in fact have a gorgeous one mom had made for me years back. But being a computer worker, regular charm bracelets were constantly catching on stuff or digging into my wrist. But these are different, since the charms are beads, they are comfortable to wear and don't catch on things. I love each charm on my bracelet and they all mean something special to me. Unfortunately, they don't have knitting or spinning charms yet. Pandora, who's charms also fit Chamila, has a ram that is pretty close to looking like a sheep, so that one's on my list.
The Simply Soft yarn came from Knitting-Warehouse on Thursday and I started swatching as soon as I got home from work. I was unable to get gauge for the Flyingdales sweater, but the gauge is perfect for Milan. So Milan it is. The knitting is going very quickly so far. I've finished the left front panel and am a quarter done with the right. The yarn color is perfect, a soft light brown. The yarn tends to want to knot up on itself, I found rewinding the skeins into center pull balls helped with this problem. The yarn is soft and not at all plasticy like some acrylics. Unfortunately, we are having camera problems so no pictures today.I finished spinning the Gryffindor batt from Hanks in the Hood. I spun the whole 3 oz onto one bobbin. I want to ply it with a solid and spun a bit of coffee bean merino and a bit of a pale silver merino to see which I liked better. I think I'm going to go with the darker color. Pictures of the samples as soon as possible. I must say, it felt so good to spin. I've only been able to squeeze in a few minutes here and there the last few weeks. I got in HOURS of spinning this weekend and it was WONDERFUL.Major news this week: Opal, the fantastic German sock yarn company, has announced they will be putting out a line of Harry Potter sock yarns to coincide with the theatrical release of Half Blood Prince this fall. SQUEE!!! Here's an early photo (and there are more pictures here)
I've read the labels may be different here in the states, which would be a shame. But I'm really loving these colors. I HAVE to have Hedwig (2352), Malfoy (2356), and Dumbledore (2357) for sure. At at least $20 a pop, I better start saving my pennies now! More details here.
Slide your knitting back across the cable so that the work is on your left needle. The last stitch worked and working yarn will be at the cable end of your needle.
Now bring the yarn LOOSELY behind the work and knit the first stitch. Don't pull the stitch tight, you want a big loop of yarn on the back (this will ensure that your swatch will lay flat when it comes time to measure). Knit across the row as usual. The last stitch or 2 may be very loose because of the slack in the carried yarn. This is fine. Just knit the stitch as best you can. Continue in this manner until the swatch is big enough to measure. The back will look a mess...
And those end stitches will be sloppy, but you'll have a perfectly accurate gauge swatch for your circular project, without having to cast on enough stitches to knit a tube. These swatches are not usefully for anything else, as far as I can tell. Maybe some kind of punk rock bracelet. But I usually rip mine out anyway.
