Pomato-what?

Now that I’ve had a chance to get a little bit past the cast-on rounds on the Pomatomus Socks, I’m finding them kind of interesting to knit. The colours I dyed are turning out really pretty! There are a few issues with this pattern though. It takes a bit of remembering to knit through the back loop on the knit stitches. I’ve modified the pattern slightly so that I don’t twist the stitches that are knitted into the yarn-overs because I think it looks better and lies neater. The pattern isn’t as bad as it looks, though there are no plain knit resting rounds between the “action” rounds. Row 12 is kind of tricky getting the needle into the back of the yo and the next stitch to work the k2togtbl, all without losing the last yo from the needle before. And I will have to remember to readjust stitches before starting over at round 1. When I get that far. I also hate working off 3 needles because that triangle is just so much less flexible than the 4 needle square. I know why Cookie did it that way — because it works logically with the pattern — but I was getting cranky so I divided the first needle onto 2 and now I’m happy again. It’s more of a trapezoid than a square but it’s more comfortable than the triangle. I’m betting that those who are pickers (aka knit Continental) are happier with this pattern than the throwers (aka English) due to all the twisted ribbing that this sock is made of. It’s much easier to switch from knit to purl with the picking style. It does take concentration (i.e. actually looking at it) to knit this sock so I can’t do other things at the same time except listen to podcasts.

I’m not going to mention all the podcasts I’ve been listening to recently — not in this post anyway. There are too many! This is just a taster. If you go here you can get links to some of the other podcasts you might like to try out. Told you there were lots! You can vote for your favourite on Podcast Alley too.

Cast-On with Brenda Dayne is now the reigning queen of the knitting podcasts. This one is literate and very entertaining to listen to. Brenda has the perfect broadcast voice! I love her theme series. She just finished up one on the Knitting Muses. We’ll wait to see what she comes up with next!

CraftSanity is another one I really love. Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood has great in-depth conversations with different craft people every week. As a journalist she’s able to get their stories out along with lots of laughs and information on the why as well as the how of their work.

CraftBorg with Rosemary & Julie is an excellent podcast (though the sound quality is a little iffy on occasion — they’re working on it). I love the banter between the two friends (who don’t live anywhere near each other BTW, which is why the sound quality varies) and how they express some well-thought-out opinions on craft and the people who do it. They include projects that you can do with them.

Math4Knitters is a fairly new podcast that I’ve just started listening to. Let’s face it, I’m a geek and I love the technical stuff — even though I’m also a math-phobe (or calculexic as my son refers to it). Lara is very gentle and non-threatening and can make complex things seem much simpler.

Insubordiknit, Knit2BTied, and BritKnitCast are some new ones I just found. I’ll have to have a listen and get back to you on them.

Now for the scary technical stuff. (Told you I was a geek!) It’s really easy to listen to podcasts. You don’t need an iPod, iTunes on your computer, or anything fancy. You just need a program on your computer that can play MP3 files and speakers to hear it with. Go to the podcast’s website, click on the episode link, your player should come up automagically, and there ya go! If you want to save the file to your computer first, right-click, choose Save Target As (or something similar, depending on your browser) and save it somewhere you will be able to find it again. Now if you do have iTunes (free download) it’s even easier because you can subscribe to the podcasts. That means the program will automatically look for new episodes and download them for you all by itself. There are other ways to subscribe too but iTunes is the one I use. Did I mention that podcasts are free?

Now I can either play my podcasts directly through my computer or I use my Palm T/X for portable listening. I copy the MP3 files over to the SD card that fits in my Palm. Of course it helps that my computer (an HP) has a built-in reader for a bunch of different cards, including the ones for my camera which are different than the ones for my Palm. Hah! Anyway I like the sound from the Palm better and it’s more portable, but sometimes I don’t like having the earbuds in. If I play the podcasts on my computer then I have to stay in my study, but that’s where my work desk and my spinning wheel are located so it’s not usually a problem.