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As previously mentioned, I finished my striped socks at the KIP event the other day. I’m pretty thrilled with how they came out and I do love socks.
Pattern: They’re cuff-down socks. Flap heel, wedge toe.
Yarn: Red Heart Heart and Sole (blue) and Lang Jawoll Solid (red)
Needles: US 1 Knit Picks circular for magic loop
They’re socks, and I like them. They’ll be toasty warm in the winter. Hell, they were toasty warm in the D’Art Center, where it was FREEZING. I was in my Green Leaves tank and I was SO COLD. So finishing the socks was lovely so I could warm up my feet.
There is not a whole lot to say about socks other than they are warm and comfortable and they fit well. I shall have to start another pair because as I’ve said before, I’m on something of a sock jag and I really enjoy knitting them. And filling my drawer with handmade socks. Yay!
In other news: Joe is here today! *dances* I am super excited that he is visiting, so forgive me if I am gone for about a week. (But I’ll probably still be around). Yay! Boyfriend!
Happy Memorial Day! I believe I mentioned these socks before. I used much of the left overs from the Ravenclaw-color socks I made.
Pattern: Made up as I went, heel-down this time.
Yarn: Knit Picks Stroll, Shoreline Twist (blue and brown)
Needles: US 1 circular, magic loop
These are a wee bit shallow, but in general, I like how they came out. I now have two pairs of hand-knit sockettes so I can give my Bugga! pair a rest and I get to wear handknit socks in June. Yay! I do need to get new flats though–the one pair I have left is beginning to wear thin.
As I believe I mentioned before, I really like Knit Picks Stroll. It’s a good, solid sock yarn and it’s super cheap. Plus, this is such a great color and I get to show off my geeky love for Harry Potter in a subtle way (but I’ll tell just about everyone they’re Ravenclaw colors)
There isn’t a tremendous amount to say about these socks; they were a pretty simple knit and they’re a simple, utilitarian object. In other craft news, I am working on some felted things for a swap, still working on the shorts, and I’ve done some dyeing I dyed up two skeins in a blue/purple mottled color and I currently have four skeins of cashmere in the crock pot hopefully taking on a teal color. I’ll show you pictures of those things when the cashmere is finished. : )
I finished the socks I started just the other day, possibly because I used a larger needle than I usually knit socks with.
Pattern: It’s a cuff-down sock. Regular toe, flap/gusset heel.
Yarn: Yarnbee Walk Away, colorway “For Kicks”
Needles: US *2*, a circular I bought at the Yarn Club, a new LYS in Virginia Beach
So these socks are knit a bit loose than I usually knit socks but the yarn is also very thick for sock yarn–it’s almost like a light sport weight. The socks are pretty comfortable and I suspect that once I toss them in the washing machine and dryer, they’ll tighten up a bit. They fit pretty well and the yarn is soft enough.
Knitting with the yarn was kind of a PITA though. It’s kind of like corespun–it’s wooly on the outside, but there’s a core thread of elastic/nylon and the two fibers stretch at different rates, so the wooly bit kept getting bunched up on the core thread. That was annoying. Also, the core shows through in a couple of spots.
On the whole, I’m pretty happy with the socks though. The color is quite lovely and I even got them to match! (Mostly–one is about a row ahead of the other.) I’m sure they will get lots of wear this winter when it is cool enough to wear mid-calf-high wool socks. Now I have three pairs like that!
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m on something of a sock kick lately. Currently I have another pair of footies (for flats) on the needles (from the Ravenclaw yarn). I’m also about halfway through a shrug I’m designing (and hoping to finish with 380 yards–it’s gonna be close). Got some real work done on grown-up things yesterday and tonight I’m off to a pedicure with my boyfriend’s mother and sister (which is lovelier than it might sound–I quite like them). Still have to figure out how I’m getting back to Virginia Beach next week, but right now, I’m just going to relax and try not to kick some poor woman in the face when she inevitably tickles my very ticklish feet.
As promised, here is an FO post!
Pattern: They’re toe-up socks. Short-row heel.
Yarn: Knit Picks Stroll, Shoreline Twist (blue and brown)
Needles: US 1
There isn’t a tremendous amount to say about these socks. They fit pretty well and used surprisingly little yarn–I have about 40g left over, which is enough to make an entire pair of anklets at least. This is possibly because I didn’t make them as tall as I could have, but there comes a point where I get tired of knitting the legs of socks and decide they’re done. This is why I should knit socks cuff down–In the beginning of the socks, my knitting mojo isn’t spent knitting the foot and I can knit plain round rows longer. Then there’s the heel (fun) and then the foot has to be so long so my foot fits in it–there’s no halfway.
So that’s my sock philosophy, so to speak. Plus I haven’t quite figured out the toe-up flap/gusset heel, which I think fits a lot better than the short row heel I put into toe-up socks. Clearly I need to make more of Wendy Johnson’s patterns, which are usually toe-up and include a flap heel.
I’ve just recently started another pair of plain socks, this time cuff-down. More on that later. And in case you were wondering, I’ve made it to DC and to my boyfriend’s and have successfully packed most of the things away in my house in Virginia Beach. Still have to find a job and an apartment so I can get the hell out of dodge, but I’m working on that. Sort of. : )
Let me tell you guys, I am having a hell of a week. I’ve been out of college for less than a week and I have a ton of stuff to get rid of, to put away until I move out of my house, and a job to find PLUS I came back to Virginia Beach to find I had jury duty for June despite that I have no car, the court house is on the other side of town, and I’m planning to move out sometime in June. So yeah. It’s been a hell of a week.
Anyway, I’m going back out of town on Saturday (back up to DC where my boyfriend lives to look for apartments and jobs and other stuff), so I have to get everything out of the cars and the living room and into the attic and my bedroom PLUS pack for my week or two out of town.
All this to say (besides that like, I like to tell you guys about my life) that I have been doing some very very simple knitting:
Just a pair of vanilla socks in Knit Picks Stroll (blue and brown, like Ravenclaw colors). Nice and simple so I don’t kill anyone while I’m doing all of my packing and stuff. I also frogged the chunky cashmere sweater but I have to rewash the yarn, so I can’t use it yet. It is nice though. I think it’ll be a scarf or something.
Anyway, I’ll be back in a couple of days with an update if I haven’t been crushed by all of my stuff.
(insert high kick)
Anyway, yes I’ve been doing some knitting, as I mentioned. I started a small project to have on me and I finished it up in just a couple of days.
Pattern: I made them up as I went. The second is better fitting that the first. They’re toe up and a short row heel.
Yarn: The Sanguine Gryphon Bugga! left over from a batch of WWFY knitting.
Needles: US 1, the same sock needles I use for all socks.
Like I said, the second one fits way better than the first, which is a touch too long and a touch too wide–I accidentally did too many toe increases. I’m pretty happy with the fit, though I did have to sew the ends of the back of the heel to the border on the foot so they’d be tight enough.
I’m not really sure how to remedy that without the sewing. I wanted to do a flap/gusset heel but I also was feeling iffy about the stripes (I had very little of the green to work with, so that’s why they don’t match) and I like toe up socks, so I just did them that way. I think this sort of sock is a great way to use up sock yarn scraps (and in fact, I’m planning another pair from the remainder of the Manly Aran socks) as well as being very functional–I wear open topped flats a lot and my commercially knit socks for them are wearing a bit thin. Plus I only have like, three pairs anyway.
Since finishing these, I’ve started working on a shorter version off my Leah vest to work out the shaping (and cause I wanted a shorter one). I’m using Reynold’s Tiara, a rayon/silk blend I’ve had in my stash basically since I learned to crochet (I got it at a yard sale). Glad to have a purpose for it (or some of it at least). But more on that later.
So I finished knitting the second pair of Manly Arans which means I can MAIL THESE SUCKERS OFF AND KNIT FOR ME ME ME ME!!!!!! (Okay, I have some OWS stuff, but it’s little things.)
Ahem. I’m pleased, in case you couldn’t tell.
Pattern: Manly Aran Socks by Wendy Johnson
Yarn: Cascade Heritage Paints
Needles: US 1, 40″ (for magic loop)
Mods: None.
They are more or less exactly like the other pair. I knit the cuff as long as I thought I could (turns out I was a little off and I have a tiny bit left over). They are too big on my feet (obviously), but they are DONE DONE DONE. They just have to be mailed off.
I have since cast on for a pair of sockettes (socks for wearing inside flats) and see it as a marker of self control that I haven’t cast on approximately a billion things.
So this post is a little less than thrilling. Sorry about that.
I am knitting socks. Manly Aran socks, to be specific (from Wendy Johnson’s second book). This is what they look like so far:
(I futzed around with the image a little but it’s dreary and grey today so not much light)
They are the second pair to the first I finished last week for a WWFY swap on Ravelry. I am quite ready for them to be done, though they are progressing pretty smoothly. I am a couple of rows into the gusset.
I think I’m going to start another project this evening though so I don’t get so bored knitting the second pair of gigantic socks I flings them across the room. It’s going to be a vest of my own design knit in a cotton/linen blend yarn I frogged from a thrift store sweater.
Whatever happened to your __________?
Write about the fate of a past knitting project. Whether it be something that you crocheted or knitted for yourself or to give to another person. An item that lives with you or something which you sent off to charity.
There are a lot of different aspects to look at when looking back at a knitting project and it can make for interesting blogging, as much of the time we blog about items recently completed, new and freshly completed. It is not so often that we look back at what has happened to these items after they have been around for a while.
How has one of your past knits lived up to wear. Maybe an item has become lost. Maybe you spent weeks knitting your giant-footed dad a pair of socks in bright pink and green stripes which the then ‘lost’. If you have knit items to donate to a good cause, you could reflect on the was in which you hope that item is still doing good for it’s owner or the cause it was made to support.
Let me tell you a story. It’s a story about a sock. These socks in particular:
They are my only pair of woolen, hand-knit mid-calf high socks. I ADORE THEM. I’m still not crazy about the colors, but they are delightfully warm. Except there was a problem. If you recall the original FO post for these socks, I mentioned one of the legs was too small because I accidentally decreased too many after the heel. I wore the socks a few times; I really had to work to get that one on.
And then disaster struck.
Where I pulled the leg of the sock over my heel stressed the stitches so much that they popped! This was in December, right at the beginning of winter.
I put them in a basket and ignored them for a couple of months.
A couple days ago, when the weather was lovely and I was sick of knitting gigantic man socks, I pulled them out and thought, “Y’know, I might like to wear these socks. I think I’ll reknit the leg.” And so I did.
They fit much better now and I’m very glad I fixed them.
Look back over your last year of projects and compare where you are in terms of skill and knowledge of your craft to this time last year. Have you learned any new skills or forms of knitting/crochet (can you crochet cable stitches now where you didn’t even know such things existed last year? Have you recently put a foot in the tiled world of entrelac? Had you even picked up a pair of needles or crochet hook this time last year?
So over the last couple of weeks, I knit these socks:
(sorry this pictures is so bad, IDEK)
Pattern: Manly Aran Socks by Wendy Johnson from Knitted Socks for Everybody
Yarn: Cascade Heritage Paints
Needles: US 1s
Mods: None
Recipient: WWFY swap, presumably to go to a gigantic man. I knit the large size upon request and these are BIG SOCKS. And they TOOK FOREVER. And I have to KNIT ANOTHER PAIR.
So I knit these socks. And they were possibly the most complicated cabling thing I’ve done to date. Lots of twisting, lots of chart-following, lots of complicated little cables. But here’s the thing: I understand how cables work. I know how to get them to turn left and right and over and under. After I figured out how to do a basic open cable, I suddenly got cables. Which means once I’d finished a whole repeat of the cable pattern for these socks (I knit them two at a time like a boss), I pretty much had the pattern memorized. YES.
WHICH MEANS that the socks I mentioned during last years Blog Week (The Viper Pilots of complication and DOOM? TOTALLY DOABLE NO PROBLEMS AT ALL. Cable patterns, top down, heel flap, and all.
LIKE A BOSS.
Stitch, Brinn, Stitch! 