Wednesday, March 31, 2010

March roundup

One pair of plain vanilla socks.

That's all that was finished.

Several things were started, though, so I look forward to having LOTS of finished items by the end of April. (That is, if I get over my startitis and instead get finishitis.)

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Since I last blogged...

Since I last blogged, I did a thing or two.

I finished Murat's socks.




They started out being "misc. plain socks to knit while reading", but about halfway through, I found out that Murat (from the Mittens for Akkol group) needed blue thin socks that were 10.5 inches long. Since these blue socks are 10.5 inches long, then they must be Murat's. And they are and they're done.

Pattern: Plain vanilla, size 2 dpns 68 sts long. Marathon Boston sock yarn, color 212.


The biggest news? It's a two-parter. DS#2 had his birthday and turned 13! Not only that, but he has finally surpassed me in height. And I'm 5'9.5" so I'm not just a shortie. (Happy St. Patrick's Day--we're both wearing our green.)(That is, I'm wearing green and we have a disagreement over DS's shirt. He calls it green while I call it neon yellow.)



He's only slightly taller than me, but his arm span?



Crazy!


That same night, we went to the winter sports "banquet", that again had not a morsel of food, but insists on calling itself a banquet.

I took sock knitting this time, and only managed to knit the brown stripe and the blue stripe, and most of that was during the opening awards before the sports split up.



That's it. We were out of there in under an hour. The basketball coach may become my new favorite coach. (DD#2 got an award for Most Improved Player. Yeah!) I missed a picture, but the coach's mom had crocheted scarves in school colors for the whole varsity team! What a nice thought, and what a lot of work!


My Myrtille cardigan made a bit of progress. As I made progress, the purl rows didn't seem as bad. Now I'm up to the pattern stitch.




However, this needs to go on the back burner because I've taken on a couple of Akkol projects.


I started a pair of thick socks for Diana. I wanted to do something besides just plain vanilla but had trouble finding a pattern. So I'm making it up. It's turning out well (as I say so myself but shouldn't) and I'm trying to write down the pattern at the same time and may post it.



It has a cable on each side that works up nice and fast. It also goes quickly as it's on size 6 needles with worsted wt and sock wt yarns held together.



In a weak moment, I also took on Elena's sweater. I resisted for awhile since I didn't have the right color yarn, but when I realized I could dye yarn the right color, I gave in.



These are two skeins of Fisherman's wool dyed in bright yellow and green. I figure I'll do another hoodie, and if I knit with two strands held together it'll go quickly. But first, I have to wind the yarn.

This is yarn that I dyed earlier. It'll be used for socks and hopefully matches some odd balls so that I can make stripes.




We went to the library's annual book sale and I found some knitting patterns!



So, nothing earth-shattering happening around here, but still lots of knitting!

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The problem with knitting cardigans....

The problem with knitting cardigans is that after every knit row is a PURL row. And not only that, but since I decided to knit the fronts and back together at the same time, then I have a reeeeeeeaaaaaaalllllllly long purl row.

And I don't like purl rows.

I'm on day 4 of my sweater and I'm already telling myself that if I can knit one inch per day, then it will only take 9 days until I can do the pattern stitch.




That's sad. I should still be in the "I'm so excited to be doing this project" phase, not the "I may be able to make it through if I try really hard" phase.

At least the sleeves are done in the round, so if I can just make it that far I should be okay.

Fancy that, me looking forward to sleeves. These are not gargantuan-long sleeves either, these are 3/4 length sleeves that should be a breeze to knit.

That is, unless I run into that ever present danger and start to fear about running out of yarn.

Back to knitting--I have 3/4 inch to go for the day.

Monday, March 08, 2010

Blue

I guess it's been awhile, hasn't it? And, from looking at my pictures, the color blue must be on my mind.

Right after finishing the hoodie, I decided that I needed something to knit besides stockinette, so I started these Snowdrop Socks from 6SoxKAL. I haven't done one of their patterns for awhile, but these looked fun.


And they are fun!

They're knitted toe-up and I'm just past the heel on the first sock. Actually, I've reached there twice. The first time, they were too short. That's the thing that I find about toe-up--even though I follow the pattern it still feels too short. I did the foot until it was two inches shorter than necessary, and I like mine 10 inches long, so I did them to 8 inches. Then I did the heel and tried them on and they were too short. I do this all the time so should automatically add 1/2 an inch or so, but I don't.

That's why I prefer knitting socks from the top down. If they're too short when I'm done I just have to rip out the toe and not the heel which is much easier.

Anyway, it's a very pretty pattern and I'm using Arucania sock yarn which feels very tough (in a good way) and not at all splitty.

Then, since I needed some plain knitting, I started these socks. They're moving along fast since I've been doing the knitting-while-reading thing.




And then, as you all know, I had some new blue yarn hanging around and begging to be made into a sweater. So I picked a pattern and began.




This is the Myrtille Cardigan and can be found here on Ravelry. It had all the elements I was looking for: a cardigan that has cropped sleeves with not too much pattern, but a little bit for interest. I was looking for a top down version with raglan sleeves, but I hope that sewing in the sleeves won't do me in. I used to do that all the time, and while it's been awhile, I should be able to remember how.

This is the hem. I'm doing the front and back pieces in one piece and am hemming it with knitting it together rather than sewing at the end.