Wayward Knitting

Finished for May!

Fifth pair of socks for the year:

Monkey by Cookie A. in Fleece Artist Hercules colorway on size 1 circs.

I loved how the colorway is shown off by the pattern.  My first pair of Monkeys had chaotic pooling in the STR carbon dating colorway. 

Finding the Stash

My stash is not in one place.  I feel like I have failed to adhere to the primary tenet of organization.  Deciding to start with baby steps, I tried to put all the sock yarn in one place.  It was nice to visit with the sock yarn and take it out of the ziplocks.

I even had a big container for all my sock yarn.

Then as I continued with my spring cleaning, I found some more sock yarn in the office, then some in the living room...some in the guest room and so on. 

Turns out the container was not as big as I thought...or I had more sock yarn than I thought.

It's a good thing that I really like knitting socks. 

Here are the socks from Sock Madness 2.  Though benched with an injury, I did at least finish them within a month but not in time to qualify for Round 2.

They are Socks That Rock in Tiger Eye.  Once I added decreases, the sock yarn stopped pooling and started striping. 

 

Moon River Socks - Finished!

After using leap day to make my Feb. quota, I revved up the engine and finished a pair of socks for March with time to spare.

Pattern by Jeni  and yarn is Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in a custom colorway for Bobbin's Nest in Santa Clara, CA.

Not a wine bottle cosy.

I'm done with one of the Moon River socks.   Jeni's pattern is great and the Hazel Knits artisan sock yarn is delicious.

Also, it looks a lot less like a wine cosy if I pull the sock farther down the bottle!

I cast on for the second and am sailing through it.  Woo!

On track for March

Here's the Moon River sock so far (75 row chart).  The pattern is great, fun and fast.  The Hazel Knits yarn base is lovely, very smooth and tightly twisted. 

I'm about to divide for the heel, but first, a photo shoot. 

My husband watched this photo shoot and then asked me if I'd ever made a wine cosy. 

2nd pair of socks for 2008

Thank goodness for leap year.  It bought me an extra day to finish my 2nd pair of socks for 2008.

The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill in the African Grey colorway, purchased from my LYS, Full Thread Ahead.

The first pair of 2008 were socks I started back in October for socktoberfest but totally lagged on.  These are the Cedar Creek Socks by Kaci Kyler Hayes.

Pattern purchased from Blue Moon Fiber Arts and yarn is Socks That Rock in Mist, on size 1.

What's next? The lovely Moon River socks by Jeni, knit of the fancy sock yarn dyed by Hazel Knits.

Manos makes silk??!!

Ok, when my Brittany Birch needles snapped, I ran to Purlescence to buy replacements.  I ended up getting the Hiya Hiya needles, and very shortly after I emailed the folks at Brittany, they sent me replacements.  Way to go with that warranty!!!

Anyway, I only went for needles but then I saw that they had Manos silk---Manos makes silk?!

Isn't it purdy? It's very soft too.

Anyway but I digress.  I have been on a serious hat knitting kick--but not my usual one of kiddy hats.  I am pretty much obsessed with kiddy hats but hey, after reading Crazy Aunt Purl, I realized my standard kiddy hat recipe would work for adults too if I used bulky yarn.  Genius!!!

Since I think 64 is the magic number for hat knitting (and makes such pretty decrease spirals), I was pretty tickled when I realized the Brangelina hat that Crazy Aunt Purl cooked up is 64 stitches as well.  Hey, I can do that. 

So I put two strands of Merino Gold together with one strand of mohair and Voila, my first Brangelina hat.  Cost--somewhere around $30...or it would have been if it werent' the fabu FullThreadAhead new year's sale!!!

The merino gold is firm and not especially soft, but holds its shape perfectly for a hat and gives just a bit of glamour.  The mohair strand gives the perfect bit of fuzzy halo.  I loved that hat.  It was gorgeous.  Apparently my mom thought so too since she snagged it last week.  Here's the one photo I have it -- me in La Jolla at Torrey Pines waiting to see Jim Furyck tee off.

I loved this hat pattern so much that I went to Knitting in La Jolla on Prospect and purchased 1 hank of Berroco Ultra Alpaca, and 1 hank of Colinette Shimmer mohair (50% off!!!) to make a second hat.  I double stranded the Alpaca too which gave a nice firm, warm fabric.

oh, and I'm still working on the socks for 2008.  I have even been using stash.  Feeling pretty virtuous about that.  Here is the first of my Lorna's Laces, Argyle colorway in sportweight.  I used the Ann Budd recipe in IK with an eastern cast on toe for the toe up, and then a simple ribbing pattern until I got over the calf.  Oh, short row heel which I suck at, used Cosmic Pluto's tutorial which has good pics.

Went up one needles size over the last bit of ribbing and then did a very very very loose i-cord bindoff.  I think it's looser than the EZ sewn cast off.

Have already cast on the 2nd one, so no SSS for me.  I hope.

Very hard to take a photo of one's own leg.  Is this photo gruesome? Maybe I should wait next time and only take photos when I've completed a pair.

2008 - The Year of 12 Socks

or more accurately, the year of 12 pairs of socks, or perhaps, the year of 24 socks. That's my new year's resolution (that, along with taking vitamins).  Anyway, I tried to finish the tofutsies socks from hell, but I was distracted by the loveliness of Maui.

Of course, before we flew out for Maui, we left some pretty chilly Northern Californian weather (I know, midwesterners think I'm a wimp) and so I was furiously knitting toddler socks.

Incidentally, I never realized it was so hard to buy wool socks for children until I had a toddler with cold feet.  All the storebought socks here are cotton/nylon. 

Artyarns from Full Thread Ahead to the rescue:

Toddler socks go quickly.  So quickly that if you get distracted, you might do this:

Whoops.

Or even better, you resolve to make both socks longer and then you discover it comes down to this:

Doh!  Had to kitchener the toe with some random stash yarn. 

Of course, I did manage to finish these in Maui--not that we needed them in the 79 Degrees F weather.

This is the lovely Lorna's laces in rainbow in shepherd sport on size 4 needles, pattern from Ann Budd's Handy book of patterns.

Then I started some socks for myself but got too vigorous.

I have written to Brittany Birch so hopefully I will have some replacement needles soon.  In the meantime, I picked up some Hiyahiya needles from my LYS to keep going. 

btw, very proud to share that this is my oldest sock yarn from stash.  It's Cherry Tree Hill in African Grey and Kristi and Cookie were the only reason I bought it.  Now I'm glad I did, it's beautiful and it's the reason I was motivated to learn how to knit a sock in the first place.  Go sock evangelists!

Socktoberfest

Dinner last night was sausages, potatoes and Hefeweisen from an Oregon brewery.  Just trying to get in the spirit of Octoberfest!

And of course, the Socks That Rock Mist is on the needles now--Cedar Creek.  I'm thrilled with the pattern and yarn, no pooling so far:

The picot trim was fun, but seems to flare out a bit.

Flair was sidetracked a bit, but thanks to a lovely knitter sending over some more Rowan ASC in orkney for me to finish, we're back in action.  She is getting a little STR love in the now discontinued Foo Foo.  As you may have guessed from my knitting, I like the pink. 

Candy Floss Twist Socks

Finished doidlin' and finally finished these.  I started these in *ahem* March, so at this rate, I might finish all my sock yarn by the time my son graduates from college.

The Pattern - adapted from HelloYarn's Cable Twist pattern as modified by Grumperina and Annypurls.

Yarn - Shelridge Farms, purchased at Stitches West.

Size 2 needles.

The yarn was lovely , soft, not splitty and very springy.  I had a lot of trouble mastering the Left Twist stitch but I love the way it looks.  These are my 2nd pair of the Cable Twist socks.  The first pair went to my MIL for Mother's Day, and in Artyarns worsted--too last minute to take a photo for the blog.