Autumn meanderings

I feel like I’ve done a lot of meandering this week.  According to the Cambridge Dictionary, it means “moving slowly in no particular direction or with no clear purpose” and I wouldn’t say that’s quite true as I have had both direction and purpose this week, but I’ve also taken more time to just be and that’s where the meandering has come in.

I’ve just been in the garden, and out in the woods with the dog and I’ve breathed in the autumn air and the scent of change as I’ve kicked up leaves and squelched on muddy paths.  It’s been a lovely week, actually, although Bonfire Night started the day after Hallowe’en and is still going on and I’m a bit fed up of hearing fireworks every night now.  Our dog isn’t bothered but next door’s is terrified and they’ve had quite the week with her.

Hattie the cat is also fed up of the fireworks as she hasn’t been allowed out.  I made the mistake of letting her out last Saturday (1 November) thinking that it was a “normal” Saturday, but it turned out to be start of the week-long Bonfire Night and I was worried sick when she was out and the fireworks started.  Fortunately, she strolled in around 10.30pm as if it were any other day but I’ve not let her out once it’s gone dark since – and she has made her displeasure very well known!

She has also provided her own Hallowe’en decoration (I noticed this after the day but thought I’d show you anyway) with her collection of feathers stuffed under the sofa, along with anything else that she could flick off a surface to join them.

I’m sure it’s not been that long since the last time I upended the sofa to get to her stash – I don’t know how she gets them into the house as I’m pretty certain she’s not brought this many in past me!  In other news, I found a few stitch markers that I didn’t know I’d lost and a couple of pens, so that was good.  The feathery collection is now gone and under the sofa is clear again … until next time.

Thank you so much for all your comments on my Monthly Musing about the swede carving, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about your memories of it too!  I liked how you’d used different vegetables depending on where you lived as well, and it made me realise that the names “swede” and “turnip” seem to be interchangeable although they are two different vegetables.  Swedes or rutabagas (on the left) are also known as “yellow turnips” in the US as they have yellow flesh whereas turnips have white flesh – but you know, at the end of the day they both taste really good mashed up with carrots for Sunday dinner and I am not about to become the vegetable police over what they’re called!

Rosemary wrote to me from the Isle of Man after reading my post and told me about “Hop tu Naa” (pronounced Hop tu Nay) which is the island’s version of Hallowe’en, and has many songs and traditions associated with it.  I mentioned in my post that my brother and I had only ever carved basic faces into our swedes but Rosemary sent me a link to show much more intricate patterns carved into those rock hard vegetables.  It’s here if you’d like to see for yourself:  Hop tu Naa | Culture Vannin | Isle of Man.

Nancy sent me a link to an article about why people traditionally carved spooky faces onto vegetables (and now pumpkins) and if you’d like to read that, the link is here.  Do be warned, though, the faces are quite spooky!

Moving on from vegetables and Hallowe’en, the garden has been in full autumn garb this week and it’s been lovely to see all the colours.

We’ve had a big crop of apples this year too.  We don’t tend to eat these apples as they’re often a bit scabby and quite small, but the birds enjoy them so we leave them on the ground as a gift.

I treated myself to a new rose and the bare root arrived this week.  It’s called Queen of Sweden from David Austen Roses and it’s a beautiful pink/peach colour (I fell in love with it at the Chelsea Flower Show) – and look at the name label!  It’s nearly my name and that’s made me very happy; growing up, there were never any personalised items with “Christine” on them (unless we went to see relatives in Scotland, for some reason) so anything that has my name on it always makes me smile.  “Christina” isn’t quite right, but it’s not far off 🙂

Back indoors, there’s been plenty of sock activity for me to tell you this week.

Jenny from Laughing Hens got in touch a short while ago to ask if I’d like to try out their new yarn called, appropriately enough, “Super Sock” (affiliate link).  Well, how could I not with that name?!

It’s a 75% Superwash Wool/25% Nylon blend and comes in 100g balls in range of 22 colours.  There are 11 striped yarns and 11 long-repeat yarns to choose from a wide selection of colours, all designed to make a pair of matching socks.  I couldn’t decide which colour I might like so asked Jenny to choose for me, with the only stipulation being that it needed to photograph well so that I could show you the pictures.

Jenny chose this one, it’s shade 21 and it’s in glorious autumn colours so just right to go in a post about the autumn garden!

This is one of the long repeat yarns rather than stripes so whereas with obvious stripes you would just start your second sock at the same place as you started the first one (remembering to start your first sock at the second colour into the ball as you don’t know where the first one was cut in the mill), a long repeat involves a bit more effort to see what the colours are doing …

Now, this is some people’s idea of a Sunday afternoon ruined, but I love taking balls of yarn apart to see what the colours are doing.  If you look closely, the yellow and red stripes sit next to each other in a few places so I could see that there was a repeat going on, and all I had to do was find a point where I could start and then I would know that I’d be able to match the socks.  If you can see in the bottom left hand corner of the photo there’s a length of white, just after that the white started to get coloured spots and that was where I knew I could match.  If you’re brand new to matching socks like this, there’s a tutorial and video on yarn matching in the Winwick Mum Sockalong tutorials which you can find here: Matching yarn

I was keen to make a start and this is where I’ve got up to.  That’s quite a big expanse of dark green but it is speckled so it’s not a solid colour, and I’m waiting for the next colour to start.  This is the joy of a new yarn, isn’t it?  You don’t know how it’s going to work up until you knit it … this is what makes sock knitting so addictive!

The pumpkin candles in these photos came from Aldi a couple of months ago – I saw them and whizzed them straight into my trolley because I know that things don’t always stay for long in those special buy baskets!

I’ve also been getting on with my husband’s black sock and I’m up to the toes …

I’m doing OK with my Continental knitting – I decided to start using this method again after I hurt my right shoulder a few months ago and it definitely helps my shoulder, but my left hand aches after a while and I’m not sure if that’s because I need to take more breaks or because I’m doing something that’s not quite right.  In any case, taking regular breaks is not a bad idea and I’ll just keep practicing and hopefully it will all get better!

Now, you might have spotted that this is not my usual way of knitting socks and there’s a row of white stitches where the heel should be.  That’s because for this pair, I am doing something different and I’m going to use an afterthought heel so that’s my waste yarn where I’m going to pick up the stitches later.  I’ll show you what I’m doing as I go along, but if you want to investigate now this is the video I’m using by The Chilly Dog: click here

Honestly, just look at all the cat hairs I’ve picked up on this sock already – you can’t have anything dark-coloured in this house!  I’ve made socks with an afterthought heel before and I didn’t love the heel, but my husband likes socks with short row-type heels and there is also another reason why I wanted to give it another go …

He noticed the other day that the heel on one of his socks was wearing through and then took his other sock off …

Well!  That’s a bit of a hole!  I made these socks in 2020 and they’ve seen a lot of wear so I am not surprised that they need repairing – but I do wish he’d spotted this one wearing thin before it wore out completely!

I had a good look at this heel and I think I could mend it with duplicate stitch (I’ve watched a lot of Alexandra Brinck videos! 🙂 ).  I’m not really a fan of patching although that’s another option.  The other heel is relatively easily mended, but I’m thinking it might just be easier to take the heels off them both and re-knit them so that there won’t be any risk of lumps under my husband’s foot.  Hence the afterthought heel … I was going to use my usual no-wrap, no-gap short row heel and graft the stitches at the end, but then I thought, “Why not take the opportunity to try something new?”  I’m always telling people it’s the right time to start knitting socks or to learn something new, so why not take my own advice?

Anyway, I’ll try it out on the black socks first and see how it goes, and then make a decision about these purple socks.  My husband had lots of pairs of hand knits in his sock drawer but all of a sudden, they’ve started to wear out at the same time so I think I’ll need to get him stocked up again – he can’t afford to be losing pairs to worn out heels!

The last sock for today is this one …

This is the progress on my new sock design for the Winter Haven KAL (Knit-along) in January.  This will be a free pattern for the KAL and I’m doing my best to be ahead of the game by working on it now, because I know that I’ll run out of time if I leave it till December.  I’m not going to show you the pattern until it’s released, but I can tell you that it’ll be suitable for adventurous beginners (and by that I mean that even if you’re new to socks, if you like the pattern enough then I’m going to tell you to give it a go!) and there are contrast cuffs, heels and toes, but you can knit the socks in one colour if you’d prefer.

This year’s colours are West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply in Summer Sunset (one of the Winwick Mum colours) and the contrast is Mulberry, a new shade brought out for Christmas this year.  The only requirements to join in with the Winter Haven KAL is to use a Winwick Mum pattern and/or Winwick Mum yarn (you can see the colourways here) and I’ve written lots of patterns now so there’ll be lots of choice 🙂  The KAL will start on Friday 9 January 2026 and run for the 4 remaining weeks of January, although there’s no deadline to get your knitting finished in that time.  You can read more about previous Winter Haven KALs here, and I’ll remind you about it again nearer the time.

And that’s me done for today!  It’s Sunday dinner time so I’m off to mash those carrots and swedes up, and I’ll see you next week! xx