Sunday, May 31, 2009

May roundup

I was looking at May to make my list and thought, "wow--I've been productive". Then, I looked at April and thought, "Oh, I finished several things in April and just didn't take pictures until May".

1. Baby brown and green Soc-a-Mocs that I forgot to take a picture of.

2. Summer socks from a blue variegated Paton's stretch sock yarn.

3. Brown and yellow socks for the Mittens_for_Akkol group.

4. Bag--picture coming.

That's it, I guess. Lots of sock knitting. It might be time for something else.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Green and blue

Why green shoes?





Because they went with the green necklace:





That completed the outfit that DD#2 wore to her 8th grade dance last night.



She's in the midst of winding up 8th grade activities. High school is looming around the corner!

---------------

While I planned to knit on these socks during Thursday night's baseball game, a rainstorm came down and once the rivers of water (aka puddles) had reached flood levels, the game was canceled.



So, it turned into knitting time at home, and I still got a lot done between that and a trip to the mall yesterday (no, I wasn't driving.)

Pattern: Basic vanilla, 64 sts on sz 1 dpns
Yarn: Wisedom Yarns Marathon Socks Maui Color 266.

The heel has been turned and the gusset was finished. Now, onto the foot!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Socks and running out of red

A week ago we bit the bullet and subscribed to a faster internet service. If we had more options we would've done it a long time ago. But, since we're out in "Never-neverland", the options are limited.

Since then, there's a lot of re-learning to do. The biggest is a change of my email address which in turns changes the vast majority of my logins, including the one for blogger. So, I just spent the last 5 minutes trying to remember what was my login/password. I tried several different combinations several times (....maybe I just typed it in wrong...). Finally the lightbulb went on and I looked at the paper that's sitting directly in front of me. Sigh.

Okay, moving on to knitterly things....

The socks are done. Here's a picture that shows the scale (that is, if you know how big my feet are.)



This picture proves that I finished both of them, including weaving in the ends.



Pattern: Basketweave Ribbing Socks Pattern
Yarn: Opal handpainted, brown/yellow with a bit of tan.
Needles: dpns size 1.
80 rows from heel to start of toe. (Why did I count? I guess I use counting as a my method to make sure the socks end up the same length.)
10" foot, 6.5" cuff.

Around the time of MDSW, not only was I pouting, but I also got the urge to get out my spinning wheel. I need to finish the yarn for my Cobblestone sweater so then I can finish knitting it, so then I can wear it. (That's right. I plan to finish knitting it before I wear it.)(I'm nothing if not logical.)

I've been dragging my heels for several reasons, one being this. I think I'm going to run out of red. So, I decided to spin up all the red and ply it with the purple. The body of the sweater is knit up to the armpits (or almost, I still have to try it on.) I'm going to start knitting the sleeves and see how far it takes me. If needed, I'll make a solid purple for the yoke. (I might do that anyway--I'm liking the idea more and more as I think of it.)

So, I spun the yarn, plied it, washed it, and....here's where I lost my mind for a short while....I spun it in the washer.

For knitted garments, this works well. For a hank of yarn, it creates a big ball of crazy.



For 4 hanks of yarn, it's even crazier.



What was I thinking? I know better. As awful as this looked to me, I was actually able to wind balls that DD#2 then wound into cakes.

Now, maybe I can get up the nerve to start knitting again. I seem to remember something about the gauge and stitch count was different and I'd have to figure out the sleeves when I got to them. That's right. I've been working on this project for two years and I haven't figured out all the steps yet. Maybe some more procrastination is in order.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Sock Obsession

Sock knitting has become a little bit of an obsession. First, it was just to have a couple of pairs of warm socks. Then, it became my goal to have enough socks to be able to wear a different pair every day of the week. After that, the goal was to have socks that match my shirts.

Now, it seems that I need socks to match the local high school colors.

DD#2 will be a freshman there next year, with DS#2 following in two years. That will end up being 6 years of one of my kids attending that school. (Just like it was with the older two, but I wasn't knitting socks at that time.) Between the two of them, they are bound to be on a sports team or two.

Hence, I needed socks in the team colors.

This presented a slight problem. It was hard to find any red and black sock yarn. That is, without any grey or pink. I had friends look for me at MDSW (while I pouted at home), but they didn't find any skeins that fit my needs.

However, all was not lost. I contacted Ray from Knitivity and he thought it could be done. (It's same place where I got the You Nork Mets yarn so I knew it was good yarn).

It came in the mail this week, and I cannot tell you how pleased I am!



The colors are just right with no shades of grey or pink. I splurged and got a double hank. I now have enough for gloves, also. I may have to do those first!

It's been a busy week, but I've managed to finish the first basketweave sock and have started the second.



I probably should've picked a more solid color for this pattern, but it's fun to do even if it doesn't show up as well.



By the way, I found the ball band and it's Opal handpainted. I knew I liked the feel of this yarn!

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Yarn!

If you happened to notice that I didn't blog about this year's MD Sheep and Wool Festival, it's because I didn't go. Things just didn't work out right for the weekend so I stayed at home and pouted for a couple of days.

Part of the reason was that I don't really need any more yarn.

I didn't keep that thought in my head for very long, though, as I've since made a couple of purchases.

First, some Sugar'n Cream in the Summer Prints colorway. Just because.



Also, The Mittens for Akkol yahoo group got an excellent deal on wool, both sock yarn and otherwise. It's finally here and is beautiful.

Here's the chunky weight:


10 skeins of a green that is almost grey and will be enough for a sweater.

Here's the sock yarn:


10 skeins of sock yarn will make 10 warm pairs of feet. (I'm eyeballing the purple/orange skein and might need to swap it out with one from my stash. I figure as long as I use 10 skeins to make socks then it should be even.)

Just that same morning I had cast on for a new pair of socks, so I'll finish these first.



I had cast on on Friday and am this far by tonight.



It's an easy pattern that works up quickly.

Pattern: Basketweave Ribbing Socks Pattern
Yarn: brown/yellow with a bit of tan. Unknown maker that I got on ebay.
Needles: dpns size 1.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Show and Tell

It's time to show off a few FOs.

First, this is the newborn jacket that was knit for my newborn niece. It was never mailed (delay, delay, find buttons, sew on buttons, delay, delay, too small).



It's another Baby Surprise Jacket in You Nork Mets sock yarn. Even though it was for a girl, the dad is a diehard Mets fan so it would've worked. Now, I'll save it for child #2.

This is what I ended up sending:


Sorry for the crazily brilliant picture. It sounded like a good idea at the time, and I mailed it about 10 minutes after it was taken, so no photo redos.

Pattern: Knitting Pure and Simple Easy baby Cardigan
Needles: size 7's
Yarn: Laines Du Nord Maxi
Colorway: PINK!
Size: 6-9 months, where there is a good chance it's still too big for her. I was aiming for fall and I think it'll be good.

Now that it's finally stopped raining, at least for today, here are a couple of more pictures of the Lucy bag.


It has a long strap and a short strap and are threaded together for the closure.


Pattern: The Lucy Bag from http://www.twooldbagspatterns.com/
Needles: size 8 circs and dpns
Yarn: Patons Classic Merino 1 skein grey and 1.5 skeins pink.
Notes: This is the taller bag size using a Fibonacci sequence with the stripes. Bottom is grey, then the rows are:
5G, 1P, 13G, 2P, 8G, 3P, 5G, 5P, 3G, 8P, 2G, 13P, 1G, 13P.

A couple of days after I finished it, I noticed a person walking through my store (not that I own it, but I work at it) with a bag made from the same pattern.

"Hey, I just made the exact same bag!"

She was looking for a skein of pink wool for her mom to make another one, and we didn't have any.

"Er, um, that's because it was on clearance and I bought it all. But I have extra, would you like it?" And she did, and met me another day, and was most grateful. (Not exactly common business practice, but still fun.)

Haven't brought myself to use it yet (it might get wet, it's been raining a lot, you know), but I love it!

Also, I have a new pair of summer socks.


They are made with Paton's stretch sock yarn, using just a little more than one skein. 64 sts, size 2 dpns. Plain vanilla sock pattern.


(Don't look too closely, I didn't shave my legs and there's only so much cropping that I could do.)

Monday, May 11, 2009

Booties

Last week I made a cute pair of Soc-a-moc (or is it Moc-a-soc?) booties. Alas, there's no picture for this post. I gave them away too quickly. Just thought I'd let ya'll know that I'm still knitting!