Must... Stripe... Evenly

Hello friends! Last week I talked all about the socks that were being knit over here. This week I'd like the share the neckwear. I finally finished my last Christmas knit, the Deep Sea Wanderer cowl for my brother.

Connor was kind enough to model it for me, but then he started making sounds about how nice it was and that maybe he'd like to have one at some point. I have a feeling this isn't my last dance with the pattern.

I also finished up weaving a University of Kentucky themed scarf. I used the fibonacci sequence as a starting point, but didn't stick to it 100%.

Meanwhile, I still love socks. I started my Christmas socks...

And promptly abandoned them in favor of finishing my Denature socks. I'm not sure how everyone else decided to get things done, but I check things off the list by what is bothering me the most. The Denature Socks have been on the needles since July and I'm ready to have them finished.

Connor and I watched Stranger Things and I was able to power through much of the leg of the second sock. Just last night I got to the heel and realized that my stripes were not going to match. Mismatched stripes are too much for my little knitter's heart to take, so I ripped back, got some spare grey that I had wound off the ball earlier, and made the grey stripe before the heel longer.

Although.... now that I'm typing this, I'm thinking that I might rip back again and make the green stripe before the final grey stripe a little longer so I can hide how thick the grey stripe is.

Something tells me the saga of this sock is not over. Is anyone else out there as obsessive about their knitting as me? Or you you more of a "No one will see that mistake" kind of knitter?

I've Run Out Of Row Counters

For those of you who have followed this blog for a bit, you may know that I rarely let my WIP (work in progress) pile go above three projects. That seems to be the magic number for me. Any more than that, and I find that progress gets slowed to a snails pace. The other reason, I have discovered, is because I don't have enough round counters to maintain more than that. Despite the lack of round counters, I have found myself with six projects going. Four of those projects are socks. The bottom two are for the same test knit that needed two socks to test properly. The top left was my usual stockinette sock I like to have for car knitting. The top right is the Haleakala sock that I stalled out on.

Starting in the top left and going clockwise: Opal's Little Prince in Die Rose, Malabrigo Sock in Pocion, Canon Hand Dyes in Etude 120 and Yoga For Elephants

Beyond the socks, I've continued on with my sweater, which is inching closer to completion. When I last posted about it, I had finished four repeats of the leaf pattern. Now I only need four more repeats before going to the next section.

The wide bit at the end was blocked. The rest of the sweater will match once I block it all out.

And finally, I have a hat. It's an important hat with a deadline. I bumped into a knit worthy friend I hadn't seen in a decade. He no longer has the last hat I made him, so I offered to make a new one. It's got some writing on the inside of the turned brim that required intarsia in the round. Turns out intarsia in the round is a bit fiddly, so it took me a couple goes to get it right. Luckily for him, he is an intarsia-in-the-round-worthy friend. Now it's just smooth sailing with nine out of ten rounds of the repeat being in stockinette.

However, there is a deadline to finish it up before he sails to the next city. It's rather hard to mail a hat to someone when they work on a ship.

Even though I am excited to make the hat, I really am itching to get back to my sweater... and maybe a sock as well.

A Very Kiwi Christmas

I might have missed my Christmas deadline with these socks... luckily Christmas comes around every year. I really enjoyed knitting this pair. The pattern, Geek Socks, by Wei Siew is completely potato chip knitting. I just had to have another round, another stripe, another another another. 

I did make an edit to the pattern: I knit heel flaps rather than an afterthought heel as recommended in the pattern. I have gotten reasonably good at getting my stripes to look nice in heel flaps, so I went for it. I only had to rip once because I decided I didn't want the red stripe surrounding the heel.

This pair is so cozy, too! I bought Stray Cat Sock's Essential Deluxe base, which is a 80/10/10 Merino/Cashmere/Nylon base. And I'm just in love with the Kiwi Christmas color way. It reminds me of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

I'm pleased to report that I was able to enable friends at knit night. When I had ordered all my yarn, I'd offered to tack on anyone else's order to help save on shipping from New Zealand. No one took me up on it. But after I started knitting these socks... well. I'm pretty sure Stray Cat won't be going out of business any time soon.

I'm not the only one to have finished up some knitting. Connor knit me a pair of Lambing Mitts out of Stansborough's Mithril (also a New Zealand yarn) in the Kokako color way. 

When he knit himself a pair, he left out the extra bit that can fold up over the hands. I insisted on having that part added.

Connor even joined me in watching Netflix while knitting. We watched Versailles while he knit the second mitt and it ended up too small! The plot was pretty stressful at times; he must have been knitting much tighter. Connor ripped it out and knit a third one and that one fit just fine.

So now I have warm hands and feet. It's been pretty cold, so I'm sure they are both going to get lots of use.

Sock Mutiny

This post was supposed to be a success story. A story about how even though my socks had been acting up, I was able to tame them and able to blissfully wear them all. Instead this is a story of how all my socks mutinied against me.

It started off like any other day. After working hard to get my Concrete and Tulip knee high stripes to match perfectly, which included several rippings,  I was ready to debut them. Connor helped me get some lovely pictures.

Half a skein of Caterpillar Green Yarns in the Concrete and Tulips color way was used for each sock.

I even was going to have a bit of a victory lap by showing off the perfect calf shaping.

Look at that shaping. That slight negative ease. The socks were perfect.

Then disaster struck. After getting the pictures, Connor and I went for a walk. I thought to myself, I'll just wear these socks since I've got them on. I've re-fixed the color (Like I do with all my socks now), I've gotten the pictures... so now I can wear them. By the time we went down the driveway I felt the dreaded sag. By the end of the block it was like I had donuts around my ankles.

I've since reached out to people on instagram and have a vague plan involving elastic to make these wearable.

Fine, fine. I've had socks misbehave before. It's really disappointing, but that's how it goes. Just as I was finishing up the Concrete and Tulip socks and feeling smug, I thought I'd fix my Sheep May Safely Graze socks. They had been misbehaving for awhile, but the Concrete and Tulip socks were going so well (at the time), that I was convinced I could fix them "really quick."

The Sheep May Safely Graze socks are a tale full of woe. It was difficult to find the right white yarn for them. When I finally did, it turned out to not be well wearing. I wore them three times and had to mend the heels twice. Obviously, it would be a better use of my time to just rip out the heels and put new ones in. The socks sat on the mend pile for some time, but it was getting colder and I wanted to wear them. Carefully, I ripped out the heel, picked up the stitches, and started to replace them. I didn't have any sport weight yarn, so my plan was to hold some fingering weight double. The heels would be beefy and I'd never have to replace them again!

Except that I didn't realize that my plan would also make the heel so beefy that it would be uncomfortable in every pair of shoes I own. Look at that thing. It's huge! So the heel goes back to the frog pond... along with my patience.

So now I'm trying to finish my Christmas socks in time for Christmas. I started these on December 5th. Plenty of time, I thought. So much time, in fact, that I could finish up my knee highs and replace some heels. Well my friends, I'm getting a little nervous about finishing my Christmas socks on time.

Stray Cat Socks in the color Kiwi Christmas using the Geek Socks pattern.

Connor asked me after the knee high debacle, "You aren't going to let a pair of socks ruin your day?" I'm not proud of the answer... which was yes. I was a bit grumpy the rest of the day. Of course with three pairs of rogue socks, who knows what the rest of this week will be like.

Thou Shalt Buy Yarn

Ahem. I can explain.

I fell down hard. I was swearing up and down that I didn't need any more yarn and that no more yarn was going to enter the stash... but then the holiday themed yarn started to show up. I've been looking for the perfect Halloween self striping yarn and when I visited Wei Siew, I saw her knitting it (see the bottom image), and I broke the 10th commandment. But it was too late, the yarn wasn't on sale anymore. So I waited a year... and forgot about it until it was too late again! (We moved to a different apartment. After moving everything I was convinced that I didn't need to own any more things ever again.) This year the yarn showed up again.

The color formerly known as All Hallows Eve, now known as Trick Or Treat

Unfortunately for my wallet, so did a bunch of its friends. Shipping from New Zealand isn't cheap, so it made sense just to purchase all the yarn I could ever want in one go. And that is just what I did.

Center: Kiwi Christmas. Top center then moving clockwise: Trick Or Treat, Lilah, Joyeux Noel, Pohutukawa Tree, Goth Socks, Dusk

I also bought a complementary color for the Joyeux Noel ball. I want to recreate my Vintage Christmas socks. I still love those socks, but the red moved into the white and they don't look quite like they used to. Since I know how to fix the color better in my socks now, I'm hoping this pair's colors remains crisp. (There is something about our water that makes dye come out of socks. Especially yarns that have been dyed in the Pacific Northwest. I've had different yarn by different dyers all lose their color or bleed badly.) Plus, I've found Stray Cat Socks color stays quite bright after many washings.

I asked Tracy to dye up a good chocolatey brown to go with Joyeux Noel. I also sent her a picture of my Vintage Christmas socks. I think she did a lovely job.

I'm excited to cast on one of my 8 new wooly friends. Which which ball should I knit first?

Sweater, Sweater, Sock, Sock, Now I've Got The Knitting Shot

I have been dreaming of knitting sweaters, especially sweaters for me. The problem I've encountered is that my weight has been all over the place because of the mystery GI problems. In the last 8 months I've lost 20 pounds (9kg), but managed to gain back almost 5 (2kg). This has left me a little unsure as to where I'll ultimately land, so making an especially fitted sweater is out. I have, however, been eyeing the Iceland pattern from Rowan 42. I even started it once way back in 2010. (That yarn turned into the Fireside Sweater instead, which fit my wrong in the shoulders and now belongs to my Mum.) The only problem is that it either looks good on you or it doesn't. I checked out many different projects on ravelry, and I'm hoping that if I can make the waist hit higher, it will look flattering on me.

Meanwhile, since Connor is remaining the same size (and also I love him), I've also been wanting to make him a sweater. Wei Siew generously gifted me 5 balls of Mythral I needed when I was in New Zealand last. I wanted to do my best to honor her by not letting the yarn sit in stash for too long. I had envisioned a Walter Mitty style sweater, but something kept me from recreating it. I just didn't like how there were cables on the arms, but none on the body. It just seemed unbalanced. But recently Christina Danaee made a sweater that looked much more like what I wanted to make. And what do you know, she was also inspired by Walter Mitty.

I very conveniently own the same magazine that she used to make the sweater

As I agonize over sweater decisions, I have been plodding along on my socks. The Concrete and Tulip socks have gone pretty well so far, but still have some decisions attached to them. I got to the top of the cuff of the first sock and realized that I might want to make the ribbing a bit longer. Also, I've never done a tubular bind off, but that might be more appropriate for these socks since they are knee-high. I haven't quite worked out what I want to do, so I went ahead and started the second sock. I think I'll knit the second sock with the adjustments I want to make. If it doesn't work out, then I only have to rip out one sock to make them match... in theory.

The Hieroglyphic Socks are also being knit at a good pace. I find doing two handed color makes my hands sore after a certain number of rounds, so I just make sure to put a few rounds into them every day. They will get done slowly and steadily.

Perfect Toes On My Jaffa Socks

I just finished my Jaffa Socks! I bought the yarn while I was in New Zealand from Stray Cat Socks.

I used the Jaffa color way. But man, oh man, I could just keep knitting with all her yarn. It wears well, the color sticks, and it isn't splitty. There are so many colors I am tempted by. (Mostly the Halloween colors that are up at the moment. Le sigh.)

Also, after getting some excellent feedback from you all as well as my knit night friends, I went ahead and kept the orange stripe on the tip of the toe. I was able to get the second sock to match by knitting an extra half a round. It really was too perfect to rip out.

So what am I knitting now? Well, I've finally gotten back to working on Equatorial Nights for my Mum. She is leaving on a trip and I was hoping to finish it in time for her to take.

Of course I thought I had until next week, but actually she is leaving this week. Connor called this the "When you have one week to finish a two week project" face.

I'm making good progress, but it is going to be a close one.

Sock Life

I've been catching up on reading a bunch of blogs and I was impressed with all the socks that have been finished and blogged about recently. Angela at Pans & Needles has two pair: one pair for herself and one secret pair for her beloved's Christmas gift this year. Monica at Sweet Purls has just finished a fun purple pair of socks. And Tahnee over at Woollen Wilderness has finished not just one, but two pairs of socks in just the last month: Pixel Socks and Spring Fern Socks. And those are just the finished ones. Andi at My Sister's Knitter has a cute pair on the needles while Wei Siew at Kiwiyarns is knitting a party for her feet. (She also just finished her Southern Skies... so you should all go "ooo and ahh" it.)

I have not been as successful in the knitting arena. I had hoped to have a finished something to show off by now, but it just hasn't worked out.

What I do have is one almost finished first sock and a second sock that is almost ready for its heel to be put in. Why an "almost finished first sock" you ask. Well, I am a perfectionist, especially in the self-striping sock arena. They joke about it at knit night. Not only do I need my socks to match perfectly... apparently I have a thing about having a tiny bit of a new stripe showing up on the toe. This almost happened on my Geographer socks, but there was more than one row of the hot pink on the toe, so I let it go. But just one tiny row of orange on a sea of purple? No thank-you!

I got halfway through grafting the first sock before deciding that I was going to knit the second sock to see if the orange showed up in the exact same spot. "What if the orange shows up in the exact same spot and matches perfectly?" you wonder. Good question. I don't care if it matches perfectly. It is still the same orange problem and I'm going to remove it one way or another.

In other knitting news, I've completely abandoned Mum's cowl for now (sorry Mum) in favor of working on a wedding gift and baby shower gift. But in between that, it's all about these socks.

Socks Of Betrayal

I had really hoped that I would be knitting a new pair of socks in October also known as Socktober. I had grand visions of using orange yarn. Perhaps my skein of Miss Babs Yummy 2-ply in the Biker Chick color or maybe my skein of Baah! La Jolla in the California Poppy color. I was making such great progress on the Sock Lover's Socks that there was no reason not to believe that I could be casting on fresh socks by the first week of October. We are just about done with the 2nd week of October and I am still knitting these wretched socks. Let it be known that the pattern is fine. It's the yarn that is the problem, specifically the dark grey yarn I paired with the self striping. It is a black hole of disappointment. A vortex of woe. It has betrayed me.

I had knit the entire sock all the way to the toe. I counted my stitches as I usually do before I cut the yarn. 16-17-18, good. 18 stitches on the top. 16-17.... 17?!? I was prepared to let go of my usual need for sock perfection, but I just had to know where that missing stitch went. I could have sworn that completed the gusset without any trouble with the right number of stitches. (There was loads of trouble with some mysterious section that kept being lumpy and tight which switched locations three times in between fixings... but that is besides the point.) And then I saw it... the dropped stitch. I know it is possible to mend a dropped stitch, but this one was on a wear point on the bottom of the foot and it was so very far down.

The marker on the bottom of the foot is holding the dropped stitch

So I ripped and reknit.... only to have the yarn betray me a second time! Another dropped stitch. I have no idea how this keeps happening, but I have just about had it. If both sets of my sock needles weren't taken up, I would have revenge cast on a sock already! As it stands, I'm trying to be disciplined and finish, but it sure is stressful knitting.

Can you see the stitches? Neither can I.

Meanwhile I am busy designing. Of course the project has been ripped even more than the socks. Each rip leads me to a better version of the pattern, but I would be lying if I didn't say that I am looking forward to knitting something entirely different.

All Hail

Hypnotoad has erased my memory of buying any yarn at Stitches West, so clearly I needed this skein of "All Glory to the Hypnotoad" from White Birch Fiber Arts. 

After purchasing the yarn, I texted Connor, "The hypnotoad yarn was available. I bought it because hypnotoad commanded it." To which Connor replied, "But of course. All hail."

One Blade Of Grass

Since March 1st, this is the culmination of all the knitting I've done. I had hoped to wear this pair of socks by March 17th for Saint Patrick's Day. Today is March 18th and that is the first sock.

Turns out getting married and moving into a new place really cuts into one's knitting time. Ah well. I got the yarn from someone's destash on ravelry. It is Canon Hand Dyes on the Arthur BFL base in the colorway, "An Irishman is never drunk as long as he can hold onto one blade of grass and not fall off the face of the earth."

Pomme de Pin Will Be Mine. That And Socks.

Now that the Skews are all done, I've cast on for All The Things. Let the record stand that "All the things" means 2 new projects. I had wound up this skein of Canon Hand Dyes Charles in the Fall Leaves color way awhile ago. Somehow a bunch of deadlines got in the way, so the cake of yarn stared at me... until now. It is going to be a pair of vanilla socks. 

Fun fact: this was the first skein of Canon Hand Dyes that I ever bought. We won't talk about how many skeins I have now...

Then I cast on for a Pomme de Pin out of Cephalopod Yarns Bugga! in the Nebraska Conehead color way. I've been knitting and knitting on this, and feels like growth is pretty slow. Don't get me wrong, it is an addictive knit. But I've forgotten how long a sport weight all-over lace sweater can take to knit. Also, it is one of those patterns where it looks much smaller before blocking.

It is really tough to trust a swatch, but in the case of this cardi, I'm going to have to. Once it blocks, it is going to be gorgeous!

I've decided not to cast on anything else until this sweater is done because I want to wear it now! 

Operation Sock Drawer

I've been listening to the Knitmore Girls Podcast and was inspired by their series called Operation Sock Drawer. The idea is to pump up your sock drawer with more socks. I don't actually have my socks in a drawer. I have them out in the open so I can enjoy them. They usually reside in my book case next to my sock pattern books.

From left to right, on the top row are 3 pairs of Velomeisters, Sleepy Hollow Socks, 2 pairs of Leyburns

Middle Row has TARDIS socks, Denature, Smaug socks, Free Bees, and 2 pairs of Any Gauge Ribbed Socks

Bottom row has Vanilla Latte, Skyp, Pomatomas, and the last two were knit for me by Tyler. They are Skew and Rivendell

It's taken me so long to post about the socks that I've actually finished another pair. Here is my We're All Mad In Here vanilla socks. I took extra care to get the stripes to line up well around the heel. (It required a lot of ripping and some really good notes to myself.)

Scooter decided to help out when I was taking pictures. He has an uncanny ability to walk into the frame when you are trying to take a picture.

I had brought out a little Cheshire Cat to add to the photo. Scooter decided that it was a comfy pillow. He's pretty silly. At the moment, he is asleep with his head on my foot and he is snoring.

I've already started my next pair of socks. This yarn is Vintage Christmas from Canon Hand Dyes. It will be another pair of vanilla socks. I'm hoping that I'll be able to finish the pair in time to wear on the 24th. It could happen, if I could stop being such a perfectionist about everything. I plan on wearing my Smaug socks on the 25th when we go see the second Hobbit movie.

Is anyone else working on their Operation Sock Drawer?