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.

The Socks Are Marching One By One, Hurrah, Hurrah

I am getting so close to finishing my Concrete And Tulip socks, I can taste it. I'm about to put the cuff into the second sock. Once that is done, I'm going to rip out the cuff on the first sock and re-knit it with two more stripes included in the ribbing. I'm also thinking that I want to try a tubular cast off for these socks. I've never done one and I'm obsessive about how the stripes land, so it may take a few goes. Does anyone have a favorite tutorial for that style of cast off? I'm partial to step by steps with pictures.

As soon as the knee high socks are done, one of these three balls of Stray Cat Sock yarn will be knit. I'm thinking either knitting a pair of Geek Socks with Kiwi Christmas or perhaps a pair of Vanilla Lattes with Pahutukawa Tree. I might hold off on the Joyeux Noel ball for now.

Left to right: Kiwi Christmas, Pohutukawa Tree, Joyeux Noel

Meanwhile, the poor Hieroglyphic Socks have been in time out. I had to reknit the cuff three times before it matched the gauge on the first sock. Not sure what happened, but I ended up having to go up a needle size. 

And that is all that is on the needles! I have all sorts of yarn sitting out with patterns printed and ready to go, but for some reason, I find it difficult to cast on. Probably because everything I want to make needs a gauge swatch... ugh.

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?