Suddenly around the middle of December this year, I decided I needed to make presents because sometimes I’m a little crazy/stupid.

No, I couldn’t buy them, I had to make them this year.  Pens and socks.  That’s what I would do.  It mattered not that I am a very new CSM sock knitter and I’d never turned a pen.  This is what I was going to do.  For Christmas.  Less than 2 weeks away.

See, the last few years, we haven’t really been in the holiday mood. Last year was particularly tough when we almost lost Bandit to pancreatitis/severe infection/necrotic tissue at the beginning of December. All of my energy last Christmas was dedicated to getting him eating on his own and recover. A large part of this year was getting him back to normal and Grey to recognize him.

He’s still on some meds and a really strict diet. He has days where he starts vomiting and we wonder if we’re having a relapse. Stress is high in this house. I don’t post pictures of either of them publicly anymore because I’m superstitious about it. I posted pics of him just before he got sick and of Shadow the week before she passed.

Woodturning is that thing I started learning just before Bandit’s pancreatitis crisis. There’s been little practice time. Turning pens is often considered a good beginner project but I skipped a lot of steps when I accidentally started turning support spindles and suspended spindle shafts.  There are some gaps in my skills – pen turning included. Nor did I have all of the equipment to turn pens.  Yet.  Luckily, I had been collecting some of the tools I would need because of other projects. I already had a pen vise and a set of live centers I hadn’t dug into yet.

As for the antique sock machine, I had made less than a dozen pairs of socks – mostly stockinette or mock rib socks with hung hems and maybe 2 pairs of ribbed socks – before I decided I was going to work to this really tight deadline. And why shouldn’t I make ribbed socks with lovely selvages despite the fact that it adds complexity and more chances to lose the socks and have to start over.

Nevermind the fact that I was still occasionally flubbing closing the toes either by missing stitches or by closing them inside out.  What? How?

Naturally, I had to dye the yarn first too because why not use up another 2 of the what was by then 7 days available.

So, 3 pairs of socks – custom dyed – and a half dozen pens.  What could go wrong?

See? Crazy. Stupid.

First was acquiring the pens, blanks, mandrel, bushings, etc. for the turning and learning which meant watching what felt like half of YouTube.

On Friday the 16th, I finally got into the space below the stairs (the 6’x6′ winter lathe room) and started cutting and gluing up the blanks. I made up 4 and left them to cure.

The next day, I turned the first blank in the afternoon and gifted it later that night.  I forgot to take a picture. This is a picture the giftee took.  My very first turned pen.  🙂

Sunday morning, we went to get a disk sander because I’d discovered that it was just too hard to square the blanks with the lathe or a non-stationary sander. 

When we got home, I cleaned up the lathe room and sharpened chisels again.  Then I turned 3 more pens and glued up 2 more blanks to make up the 5th and 6th pens I planned to turn.

I didn’t take any photos of this process at all. I think maybe that’s the sort of rush I felt like I was in. So here’s a completely staged pic of how this looks but with the pen blank I “lost” – I didn’t like that the brass tube showed through the turned acrylic.  It was a practice blank anyway and would have been for me if it had worked out.

These turned out to be relatively easy projects because the other turning I’ve done uses thinner stock than this and those pieces aren’t supported by a mandrel or a brass tube.  All of the shaping was done with a roughing gouge followed by a skew chisel.

Later that night, I wound the BFL/nylon yarn to skeins so I could dye it and put it in the pans to soak overnight so I could dye everything on the 19th.  Each skein weighed between 110 and 113g.

On Monday, the 19th, I contacted 2 recipients and asked their shoe sizes and top 2 favourite colours.  (Turquoise/yellow and turquoise/purple.) Ryan’s request of black got vetoed because I’d never see a run stitch in this house in the winter – day or night.  For him, I chose a grey and teal/blue.  Then I mixed the dyes and managed to get all 3 skeins dyed, rinsed and hung by the woodstove to dry. 

While the skeins were in the pans, I turned the last 2 pens and this part of the project was finished.

Tuesday morning rolled around and the yarn wasn’t yet dry.  Each skein was still about 3-5g overweight. By the evening though, everyone was within about 1-2g of dry so I wound them all onto cones to get ready for the sock making.

The test sock I tried to make that night showed me that this was where I was going to struggle to make the deadline.  A few tries in and I still hadn’t managed to get a good gauge tube with this yarn that I’d never used before.  I was close though, so I started a sock and dropped a ton of stitches shortly after the ribber went on.  After another try, I gave up for the night.  After a full day, I didn’t have a single sock to show for my efforts let alone the pair I’d been hoping to have finished.  I tossed and turned, sure I wasn’t going to make the deadline I’d set for myself.

By midway through Wednesday, I was still dropping socks off the machine by forgetting to watch the stem weight.  I’d set a deadline of Friday but then found out Ryan was off on Friday so the deadline had moved to Thursday night and I still didn’t have a single giftable sock.

Wednesday became marathon day.  I spent the better part of 16 hours in front of the machine.

By the end of the night – around 4am, I had 4 nearly completed socks. I’d washed and dried one and gotten a sock I was happy with. That gave me gauge I could use for calculations for the various sizes of socks I planned to make.  The other three awaited having their toes closed. Thursday looked like it might actually be a reasonable day.  The pens were done.  2 pairs of socks were mostly finished.  I had only one pair left.

Thursday came and I got to work on the final pair of socks.  Naturally, I had to lose one sock – because I average 3 socks per pair at this stage where I can operate the machine but still forget things sometimes because the list of things to remember is staggeringly long when you’re new to machine knitting socks. 

By the time Ryan got home, I was mostly finished even the closing of the toes.

Then as I was photographing them for this post, I realized that the last sock I’d made, I’d forgotten to put the heel spring on and the cuff was way looser than the other sock.  I had to redo it. I went to bed a little discouraged but resolved to fix the problem the next day rather than fight through that night.

Friday, we went out to drop off a gift and pick up pen cases for the pens. When we got home, I redid that last sock. I forgot to take pictures of it.

In the end, I opted to wait to send the 2 pairs of socks and 2 pens because of the miserable weather that’s been hammering the country.  I didn’t want the pens to freeze and crack. The package has finally been sent West and was supposed to arrive Friday, December 30th but Canada Post has delayed it and it will hopefully arrive on Tuesday (which is likely the soonest you’ll be reading this because I don’t want to spoil the surprise.)

I didn’t have to do the marathon making session after all! If I’d stopped to think it through, I would have realized this and adjusted the schedule. Still, it was nice to have the break for Christmas and not have anything hanging over my head.

So this is what 2 weeks worth of obsession looks like.

The pens are:

Top row: acrylic (blue for Ryan),  Acacia (A wood found in Hawaii – for my aunt whose favourite place in the world is Hawaii and she even managed to live there twice.)

Bottom Row: Walnut, Olivewood (for my uncle who’s lived in Hawaii with my aunt), and Beech (grows in Switzerland) for a very good Swiss friend.

The socks (left to right) are for Ryan, my uncle, and my aunt.

I don’t think I’ll try a marathon like that again. It was super stressful. That said, there would be a lot less learning and fewer “first times” next time.

Yeah, I‘ll probably do a marathon like that again.

For the rest of the holidays, all I’m committing to is learning how to make toe up socks so I can make a pair of Frankensocks with the leftovers from the 3 pairs above. That and cuddling two kitties.

Wait! Where’d the holidays go?

OK, back to work , I guess.

“Bravery and Stupidity are the same thing, the outcome determines your label.”― Hayden Sixx

Today’s Post title: Brave and Crazy from Melissa Etheridge –

If I could have my way
I’d be runnin’ with the circus
I would be taming all the lions
There’d be no denying I was brave and crazy

“Courage: Knowing it might hurt and doing it anyways. Stupidity: Knowing it might hurt and doing it anyways. And that’s why life is hard.” – Jeremy Goldberg.

Definitely still crazy though.

I’ve gotten word, the socks and pens both were loved and well appreciated. 🙂 It’s always wonderful when your family is knit and woodturning worthy.