What can I say. I started a shawl that I really, really was obsessing over. I had some nice variegated yarn that I struggled to match with another yarn. I finally settled on a beautiful grey and started knitting on it. But… I am a big sucking baby about struggling with the color changes. I mean, you have to cut the yarn and attach another one. There are ends to knit in. It is so interfering with my zen of knitting.
This is my Edith’s Secret shawl that was the Downton Abbey MKAL from Jimmy Bean’s Wools this year.
So, in a fit of “whatever” (did you read that with an internal “Valley Girl” voice? That’s the spirit!) I cast on two more projects that would be fast, portable, and involving NO yarn color changes. (See, I am being a baby about this). Here they are:
I’m making these simple finger-less mitts to match my latest Hitchhiker shawl. The cashmere blend yarn is the leftover from the shawl, and I’m using plain stockinette as I have learned it shows off the yarn well.The BFF socks that I made for the March New Year’s resolution turned out so cute that I cast on again with this cashmere blend yarn from MJ Yarns. March is Colorado’s snowiest month, and another pair of socks always comes in handy, right?
I now have three projects going and very little progress to show for any of them.
Whatever. It’s all about the zen, anyway. 🙂
Here are the links to my project notes for each of these.
I just couldn’t wait for the new season of House of Cards. Frank and Claire, it has been just too long without you! Luckily for me Netflix posted the new season just in time for me to cast on my New Year’s resolution March 2015 socks. Yeah! I knitted through all of the episodes over the last week and last night I finished off the toe of the last sock with some Kitchener stitch, put them on my feet and watched the end of the season (and all the big reveals) with about 30 minutes to spare. I don’t want to be a spoiler, so I’m not going to say anything about the show other than to say that Claire definitively needs some knitwear. Good grief, don’t you think that it would be nice to let the First Lady wear a nice cardigan or even a pair of knitted socks on occasion? Isn’t she entitled to some cushy joy in the breaks between campaign stops? Just saying…
Here are my socks. These are definitely cushy joy on the hoof. 🙂
Look at those cables. These are socks that you can love for a long time.and here’s the flat view. I wasn’t sure I would like the cables on my foot, but they are really comfy in my shoes. There is a lot of stretch and give in the socks which makes them really non-restrictive.
It’s March! It’s March! That means that if I’m going to remain true to my New Year’s resolution I need to pick a new book out of my stack of sock knitting books, select a yarn from my stash, and cast on. Yesterday was the 1st of March, and I did exactly that.
This yarn is Shibui Sock in the colorway Peony. Doesn’t it look yummy?
February was the snowiest month on record this year, and since March in Colorado can usually be counted on to deliver several snow storms (starting with the one coming tomorrow that the weather lady says will ruin my rush hour drive…), I was looking for a sock that would be fast, easy, comfy and warm. I decided to make Cookie A’s sock called “BFF” from the book knit. sock. love. Here’s how far I got with the sock after knitting on it yesterday and today while binge watching House of Cards and Downton Abbey.
As usual my cat MacKenzie is thrilled to model a knitted item for me.Here’s the sock on me. Don’t those cables look cute?
This sock is fast and easy, but the details are great. The increases and decreases are hidden in the cables using a technique that I’ve never seen before. The heel was turned using a different stitch number from the one I usually see: the heel fits great! The decreases at the gusset are set up so that they fit right into the pattern. The pattern is written for four different sizes of sock; the one that I’m modeling is the small size. I’m really liking the sock, and may make another pair out of a raspberry colored cashmere blend that was the runner-up when I was making my yarn selection. The way the snow keeps falling here, I bet that they will get some use too.
Well, back to knitting. Snow is coming tomorrow after all.
I know, I know. This is Wednesday and I should be writing a post about what I have on my needles. The truth of the matter is, yesterday I got up and realized that I had five different projects going right now. Naturally I responded by going directly to my favorite yarn store and indulging in some yummy cashmere blend yarn. Clearly I need to exercise some self restraint and get some knitting done before I cast on the newest project. Last night I really applied myself, and I am happy to announce: The February Socks are Done!!! (Ta-daa!!) (Sorry about that if you clicked on the link. Now you know what life was like in my biology classroom…)
So, without any further ado, here they are:
I decided to reverse the colors in the second sock. Fun, huh! You can also see that I sucked it up and knitted the entire twined topper on the second sock.The heel construction of these socks allowed them to be worked stranded without cutting the yarn.
Well, they certainly are rustic looking, aren’t they? I am now referring to them as the Mongolian Boots. They are warm, warm, warm, however, and that is what I wanted. It is nice and sunny outside today, but as soon as the snow and cold come back I am ready.
I really learned a lot with these socks; here are some of the highlights of the adventure.
Swedish knitting genes aside, twining isn’t for everyone. Stranding was faster, easier, and I didn’t have to spend half my time untwisting the yarn. I twined only the tops of the socks, and stranded the rest.
I know how to knit with both hands so I can carry one color in each. Purl with both hands: not so much. My second heel (sock on the left) looks much better than the first one.
When making a decision about which color to call your MC, you should write that down. The increased stitches in the gusset look much better in sock #2 because I was following the directions. Duh!
If you can’t figure out complicated directions at some point (final join of heel to gusset) just make your best guess, knit a bunch of stitches together and move on. There are no sock police.
Whew! Time to finish up the other projects (get ready HItchhiker, here I come!) so I will be ready for the March socks. New Year’s resolutions are still a go. 🙂
Project Notes: the Basic Sock pattern in Knitting Scandinavian Slippers and Socks by Laura Farson. Yarn: Aran weight wool from my DIL’s trip to Ireland, dyed with Gaywool dyes.
It snowed this weekend and I took advantage of the cold weather to work on my February New Year’s resolution socks. Here’s where I’m at:
How weird is this? This is not a two thumbed mitt, but the sock nearing the bottom of the heel. The center stitches are the heel flap, and the stitches added to each side are the gusset. The heel turn is next.The heel is turned (little checks) and I have successfully connected the sole to all of the gusset stitches. Looks like it’s designed to fit a lumpy foot, doesn’t it.It fits my foot! Now, be honest. Doesn’t this look warm? These are so thick and cushy I plan to wear them as indoor slippers or maybe inside my Ugg boots. My son told me they look like Mongolian boots.
Mongolian boots?! I wonder what those really look like? I wonder what patterns and colors they use? I have more of this Irish wool, and I have to say that it is not what you would wear against your skin. (The sheep that sourced this fiber actually had hair mixed in with their wool! I haven’t seen that since I since I spun some California Red that I got dirt cheap. Pokey, pokey, pokey!!) It is perfect, however, for over-socks/boots. It does dye well, is very lofty and warm, and I’m pretty sure it will felt like a charm. Hmmm…
My feet just hate the cold. Once they get cold, they stay cold for a long time. (Yep. It’s a Reynaud’s thing.) A few weeks ago I came home on a sub-zero night and ended up under the covers wearing layers of wool including socks and my Ugg boots trying to warm up. Seriously, this is ridiculous! Time to fight back!!
Say hello everyone to the February sock. <grin> This sock is stranded or twined every single row of knitting including the heels and toes. Doesn’t that sound warm? I’m knitting it in a rustic worsted weight wool (this is the same Irish wool that got dyed in my canning jars a couple of posts back) that is lofty and very warm. I’m using yarn that is heavier than what is called for in the pattern, so they will be larger and more dense. These are the kind of socks that I can use as slippers over lighter socks while indoors, or they can stay on my feet while I’m wearing my snow boots. They are going to be warm, warm, warm!!!
I am so motivated to have warm feet!!
Anyway, this pattern is very interesting and I am learning lots of new tricks. The cast on was “Two-Strand Twisted German Cast On” which seems a lot like Old Norwegian cast on, but with two colors.
The blue yarn at the top shows the cast on and two rows of the twined garter stitch edging.
The edging continued with twined garter stitch, also new to me, and created so much twist in the working yarn that I abandoned it and moved on to the checker stitch without finishing the last two rows. Instead of twining I’m knitting the rest of the sock stranded. The twining is much stretchier than what would be traditional for a Scandinavian sock, but I want to get these socks done before the next bad cold snap.
All this stranding is going to make the socks cushy and warm. Warm is good.
Anyway, I’m happy with my stranding: look how plush and warm it looks!!
The gusset is created by adding stitches to each side of 25 central stitches. Later they will be reduced in the construction of the bottom of the heel. There is no heel flap and picked-up stitches. All new to me!
The heel is worked in a way that I have never seen before, but it looks like it will be a good fit on my foot. I’m getting close to the bottom of the gusset now, and the heel looks pretty challenging, so this might be something of a learning curve. 🙂 I’m knitting with two cable needles instead of my usual double points, and I am finding out that this is easier for trying on the sock while it’s being knitted.
So here it is. The February sock is going to be fun, I’ll learn lots of new techniques, and I should end up with warm feet. Yeah!
There is a whole week of January to go, and I have the first 2015 Resolution sock done. Isn’t this a sock that will make the most dreary of days seem happier and brighter? As usual, it has been approved by my cat MacKenzie who loves all things wool.
The pattern on the bottom of this sock makes it pull in against the arch of my foot which is a detail that I like. The heel seems a little large, but it works on my foot, so it’s a win!The tile pattern kind of fades in and out because of the hand-painted yarn, but I can see enough to make me happy.
I’ve already decided on the pattern for the February sock, but when I dug through the stash I found that I didn’t have worsted-weight yarn in the colors that I wanted. Actually, I hardly have any worsted weight yarn at all. I do have some white wool that my DIL brought back to me from her trip to Ireland. I don’t want to give anything away, but are you all up for some yarn dyeing?
Woohoo! Indigo and raspberry wool dyes, here we come!! Really, it will be fun.
On New Year’s Eve I made some resolutions for myself. What was I thinking of? Obviously a moment of weakness! One resolution was the promise to select sock patterns from my collection of sock books, and to then knit one sock a month using only the yarn in my stash. Hey that’s a good resolution, right? I end up with at least 12 new socks and make a dent in the stash at the same time. Happy feet!! Sad wool moths. It’s all good!
I had a lot of fun the first week of the year digging through books to select patterns, but decided to finish some of the projects I already had going before I started the resolution socks. Friday I finally went digging in my yarn stash to see if I could find some fun yarn combinations to make a Fair Isle type sock. I had in mind to make the “Riot of Color” sock in Around the World in Knitted Socks by Stephanie van der Linden. I settled on two hand painted sock yarns with the idea that they had enough contrast to show the pattern, but there would be enough overlap in colors that the pattern would fade in and out a little.
Don’t these two yarns look like they will go together well?
This is what the yarns look like when opened up. There is some color overlap but the contrast looks pretty good.
Perfect! I wound the yarn into balls while visiting one of my sons Saturday, and today I settled down to knit. This is what I had produced by dinnertime,
Here it is tonight. I changed the top of the sock as I was anxious to see how well the colors contrasted in a pattern.
Sweet! It looks warm, doesn’t it? My little feet have been really cold this week, so that is a big bonus right now. Oh yeah, I will be knitting away on this baby pretty steadily for the next couple of weeks. Here’s my project page for this sock if you would like to get more information about the yarn colors and needle size.
Stay tuned everyone. I hope to have these done long before the end of the month. 🙂
Yep, you got that right. These socks are knitted in a pattern called Chouwa, which evidently means “Harmony” in Japanese. The colorway of this yarn is “Malice”. Huh. The year is starting out in an interesting way. Anyway, my feet are happy, and that is all that matters since this is another ice-encrusted day in Colorado. I’m looking forward to the big warm-up tomorrow, but I’ll still be wearing these socks. I might even sleep in them.
They are done and my feet are happy.
Happy Friday everyone! If you’re a crazy midnight knitter like me, remember its the second star to the right and knit on till morning.
Yep, it is cold out there. I was thrilled that the driveway finally melted dry yesterday only to discover it covered with an inch of snow on top of a bulletproof layer of ice this morning. The trees had inch long hoar frost! Beautiful, but a little dicey taking the trash cans to the bottom of that driveway.
What a great day to knit. I decided that I absolutely needed to try to make a lace mitt on cable needles, so risking my life on the driveway I headed out to the LYS briefly to get two 2.25 mm red lace ChiaoGoo cable needles. I scored 16″ needles and headed home (with a side trip to IKEA on the way back to score some cinnamon rolls…) to cast on.
It’s a start! I am tired of my mitts falling off the double pointed needles so I am going to try to make a pair using 2 small cable needles. Right now it is really confusing…
OK, it’s only the start, but they make me happy. The yarn is La Jolla by Baah Yarn. I once lived and worked in La Jolla (California), so it makes me really happy to knit this yarn. To make it even better, the colorway, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is a special dye job for the owner of Colorful Yarns. Can you tell Tiffany’s favorite color is purple?
The end is in sight. I need to stop going on knitting detours and get these done!
Now that I have cast on a mitt and gotten far enough along to see how to do it, I need to get back to the socks that I am working on right now. I’m almost down to the heel flap on the second sock, so I really do need to buckle down and get them done over the next couple of days as there is more snow coming at the end of the week. Woo-hoo! Knitting weather!
This yarn is 20% cashmere. It sure would be nice and warm to wear.
There is one more project that is slowly chugging along. It is a small shawl that I started during a trip in the car over the holidays. It’s mostly garter stitch, so it is an easy knit. Now that the new season has started on television perhaps I will get it cranked out in the next two weeks, too. No promises, as I am also itching to get started on my New Year’s resolution January sock. I’m looking at a skein of red yarn in my stash and thinking how nice it would look on my knitting needles… The red would go really nicely with my fabulous Hitchhiker shawl…
Yarn, Books & Roses 