Saturday, September 24, 2011

Done!

I finally found time to turn the heel, and now the Indulgence socks are done.
68 sts, size 1 square needles, Indulgence yarn. They are 10.5"-- and are surprisingly enough the size I was shooting for. They'll be going to the children of Kaz for their annual sock challenge this November.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Indulgence

I"ve been working on a pair of Indulgence socks. They're not really indulgent, since they're just plain vanilla socks knit with 68 sts on size 1 square needles. However, Indulgence is the name of the yarn and it is super super sooooft. It's made up of 75% extrafine merino wool and 25% nylon which explains both the softness, and the fact that it should be durable considering the nylon.


With all the sporting events that I've been to, I'm finding that I need to have 2 socks on the needles at all times. I didn't have time to finish the heel before the next game so I had to start a new one.


It works pretty well since the other pair is using Patons Kroy on size 2s and I won't have to swap out needles. I might try to keep this up during the fall season, although I feel the sweater urge coming on...

Friday, September 16, 2011

Screaming UFOs

I tend to not have a lot of UFOs for this simple reason:

I can't stand them screaming at me.

They sit in their basket, or their bag, or in their corner on the coffee table and scream at me, "Hey, remember me? How about working on me today? Or, better yet, how about FINISHING me sometime, ok?"

The last time, to my recollection, that I worked on these gloves was Oct. 2009. At that time they were looking like gloves could fit the Jolly Green Giant. Two years (and much screaming) later, and they are done.

They.

Are.

Done.

Done.

DONE!


I used a different pattern and smaller needles and completely reknit them.

Now they don't fit a Jolly Green Giant, they fit me!


The variegated yarn was specially dyed by Ray from Knitivity. The pattern is Knotty, but I didn't do any of the cabling since I figured they wouldn't show up anyway.

Check out the weird white pooling, and the stripes on the fingers.


I still have leftovers, enough to do another pair of socks, if I wished. Also, all the old i-cord fingers are casualities. I might be able to use them in something (and you know how I hate to waste yarn.)


One less UFO to scream at me, and one old UFO to go.

P.S. Is the scrolling down (or up) of this blog particularly slow to you? Or is it just me?

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Arrrgh

Blogger updated their program and I decided to do it too. 

Let's just say that the older I get, the less I like change...

Longies

It's been a busy time since I last blogged... There are now 2 of our kids in high school, and both made their sports teams. DS#2 is on JV soccer and DD#2 is on V Field Hockey. There have been many, many practices already, plus the start of school with all their new assignments.

Plus, our weather has been rather unstable at best. We've have an earthquake, a tornado or two, a HURRICANE, several thunderstorms, and a torrential downpour. We were without power for 90 hours with the hurricane and lost a couple of trees, but no other damage. Today is sunny, and hopefully tomorrow will be also.

With all that, I haven't been knitting as much as you'd think, but I have been knitting. Awhile ago I decided to try dyeing yarn using Wilton's Icing Colors in black. It was supposed to fracture and create a multi-colored yarn as the colors struck at different heating points. And it did. Here it is in the beginning. I hung the yarn out the side so that it would dye just part of the yarn first. The problem?


The yarn was wet when it went in the crockpot and then leaked all over the floor. Lesson learned.
 


I stuffed the rest of the yarn in the crockpot and let it simmer for an hour or two and here's the result:


Definitely no black, although plenty of other colors. 


I made two skeins of the "black" yarn and used them to make a pair of longies.  Even though I dyed the yarn in the same dyebath, one skein definitely turned out darker as you can see below by comparing the two legs.  Next time maybe I need to stir more.

The longies knitted up quickly on my knitting machine, so I decided to make 2 more pair.   Actually, the easy knitting worked up quickly, and all the finishing work was still done by hand. 



All three pairs are a size 3T which is still needed in the baby house in Kaz.  The middle pair is using Patons Classic wool in Cognac heather, and the right pair is using green Patons Classic and brown Fisherman's wool.