Pattern: Blueberry Waffle Socks by Sandy Turner
Yarn: Knit Picks Stroll DK in Indigo, 3 skeins
Started: June 10, 2011
Finished: June 19, 2011
These socks are so delicious, I’m pretty excited for it to be cold so I can wear them.
I made them knee-length so they can stick out of boots.
Now I need to get a pair of rain boots. And knit about five more pairs of these.
Pattern: Demi by Kim Hargreaves
Yarn: Lion Brand Fisherman’s Wool, 2 skeins
Started: June 19, 2011
Finished: July 8, 2011
I know I’ve said it a thousand times by now, but holy crap this sweater knitted up so fast!
I’d been wanting to make it for ages but I’d never made a cabled sweater before and thought I should get some practice by working on a free pattern before spending money on something I might decide was too hard.
Yeah, in retrospect, that was a really backwards plan. Mostly because the free “practice” pattern turned out to be Beatnik, which was so much harder. And in the end, I got Vintage Knits from the library and didn’t pay a penny for the Demi pattern anyway.
This pattern though! I love it. It’s one of those patterns that’s just hard enough to not be monotonous but still doable without checking the charts every other row, which is a good thing because the charts in the book are tiny. Anyway, the point is I’m pretty sure this pattern is magical because every time I sat down to knit, I would suddenly look down and notice that I’d cranked out several inches in an impossibly short amount of time.
No, seriously. It’s like fairies jump out and knit for me while I’m not paying attention.
Things I’ve been meaning to do:
-post a finished project page for my Waffle socks
-ditto Beatnik
-post pictures of my Cozy Bolero
-write a blog post period
I blame the fact that I haven’t taken any of those photos yet, which makes it a bit difficult to post nonexistent photos. -snark-
As a peace offering, I leave you with an updated photo of my Demi sweater, which I’m pretty much ready to run away and have little sweater babies with.
Time to cross another item off the List of Things That Always Seemed Too Complicated For Me To Figure Out. (First item on that list was knitting cables!)
It’s PLIED!
I mean, not very well and you can see where some bits are much fatter than others but it’s PLIED!!
I spun about 50 grams of undyed roving last night (I tried dyeing some roving last week and I’m too afraid of accidentally felting it so I’m going to spin the rest of it before deciding if I want to dye it), and after watching a ton of youtube videos, I attempted the Andean plying method.
I was originally going to go with the Navajo method because it sounded so simple (just huge single crochet chains, right?) but everyone on the internet seemed to be think this method was easier so I tried this one first (it was really easy).
After I wound it all on to my hand, I wound a double stranded ball back onto the toilet paper roll thing and then all I did was spin that in the opposite direction of the original spin to get the ply. Then I measured a chair back (37″ all the way around) and started winding the yarn around the chair.
I forgot about the fact that I have a Turkish spindle and started winding the yarn on top. It worked fine until it started poofing up the top like the fluffy bits on the tips of corn.
After it was all wound, I tied it off in figure eights in two places on the front and two places in the back.
Happy fun soaking times. (In hot water.)
And now it’s hanging off of my door, waiting to dry. It’s hanging off of a hanger and weighted down by two other hangers, which are holding a towel between them to catch any dripping water. It kind of looks hilarious.
Ok, now back to spinning. I have 450 more grams of this stuff to spin. 🙂
For someone who hates to wear socks, I’ve developed quite the unnatural obsession with knitting them. Last week I made one Easy Peasy sock just to get a better grip on sock construction before trying the fancy stuff, and then finished one reindeer sock before deciding that my yarn is too thick and the whole sock is too big. Whoops. Oh well, I’m too in love with the pattern to care too much.
This weekend I’ve been playing with Socks a la Carte 2! And this morning I even went to the library to pick up two other goodies that are going to keep me busy for a while:
Seriously, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Anyone who knows me knows I hate wearing socks. I’ve been known to go through entire winters wearing nothing but flipflops (albeit this was when I lived in San Diego and could get away with that) just to avoid having to wear socks with real shoes.
I’ve already flipped through and found at least six patterns I want to do in the Joy of Sox book, and I pretty much want to knit everything Cookie A has ever designed.
But have I mentioned how cool Socks a la Carte is?? It’s like one of those animal flip books for kids where you put different animal heads with different bodies and feet, except with socks. I’m doing the Ripples n’ Waves body with the standard toe and origami heel*. Haven’t decided on a cuff yet.
*Sidenote: If you’re knitting from this book and haven’t already, check the website for errata on the origami heel or you’ll probably end up spending two hours cursing and muttering to yourself about toe up heel construction and why it’s an evil evil conspiracy.
Note to self: sskWLS does not equal SSK.
Anyway, this is how far I’ve gotten:
You can see in the middle photo where I got bored and decided to cast on the other sock. This pattern is kind of ridiculously easy, almost to the point of being slightly boring. I thought I’d change it up. It’s not helping that Cookie A’s cabley awesomeness are sitting there taunting me.