Posts filed under 'Socktoberfest'
Another week and I only got to the turning-of-the-heel. sigh. Well, at least I managed to cast on the second sock. Hopefully before the end of the day I will have the instep decreases done. When the work week starts I don’t get a whole lot of knitting done. It’s as if my projects crawl to a snail’s pace. While on the weekend I can devote hours to knitting and things seem to zip by. I do love the way these socks are turning out. They are so pretty! I love the book the pattern came from “knitting vintage socks.” Love it! The pattern for this sock is so well-written, and I am assuming the other patterns are the same. I so want to knit every sock pattern in this book. But, admittedly, I’m kind of growing tired of socks at the moment.
Here is the Artyarns shawl after a week. The pattern is “starburst shawl” from the book “Modular Knits.” I love the way this is turning out, also. There is much less of a pooling issue when things are knitted up in this modular manner. And I like that. This pattern is kind of tedious, too, though. Not at all a take-along knit. Because if somebody talks to you while you are knitting this and you lose track of where you are it is not pretty. There has been much ripping and re-knitting going on with this shawl, let me tell you.
What I would really like to do is get started playing with this Rowan Plaid. I am going to use it to knit the Lace Leaf Pullover. I’m totally biting Winnie’s idea of using Rowan Plaid 
. I hope she doesn’t mind. At least I chose a different color. But I can’t wait to start it! I’ve come so close to casting on…And I might just do that tonight! I’m trying to restrain myself because I would like to at least finish my sock first.
I’ve got a horrible headache today. I’ve had it all day. I woke up with it. It seems to be part of this awful flu I’ve had all week. But I think I’m at the tail end of it right now (knocks on wood).
Hope you all have a spooooky halloween evening!
October 31st, 2005
Let’s get into the socks first, since it is, after all, Socktober.
Actually, let’s make that sock. As in singular. Yep, I spent the whole week on this one sock. Well, I did get a tiny bit distracted with something else, that I will show you in a moment. I’m finished with it and, really, kind of proud of myself because it turned out so fancy. But, dude. I have to knit ANOTHER ONE. sigh. Regardless, I love the way the pattern turned out with this solid color. So much better than the attempt with the Claudia’s Hand Painted hank I tried last weekend. Oh, and since this is JaWol, there is a little tiny spool of nylon thread hiding inside the ball of yarn, as I’m sure you are all familiar with. I actually did use it for the heel and toe of this sock. Hopefully it will help it to wear a little longer. My koigu sock already has a little hole in the toe where my toenail cut through.
So this is what distracted me from the sock for a couple of days. I was getting bored with the shawl pattern that I started last week and decided to try one of the diamond shawl patterns. So far I like how it is turning out. I think this pattern will take.
I got some goodies this week! Mostly of the Rowan variety. I ordered Rowan 36 because I think I’m going to knit Bay, the pattern on the cover. I have three balls of Kidsilk Haze in Nighly and am waiting for some in the cream or pearl color. I also signed up for a Rowan membership and finally got my package in the mail! I can’t wait to start on the pretty Kidsilk Haze scarf. I also have a non-Rowan goodie. That cream Alpaca yarn there in the picture. Oh my god. it is sooooo soft. seriously. I wish you could feel it. It will be a nice cozy scarf for this winter. My mom picked it up for me at a new yarn store in town called Holy Threads. It’s only been open for about a week. My mom and I tried to go there on Sunday but they were closed (Damn it!) But the husband of the owner was there raking leaves and opened up the store to let us have a look! It was so incredibly nice of him to do that. He probably would have sold us some yarn but he didn’t know how to work the computer 
. The store is beautiful. It’s an old mansion that was converted years ago into a retail space. There’s yarn tucked away in all of these little rooms, so you get to wander through the house as you browse the yarn selection. I think it’s the most beautiful yarn store I’ve ever been in! better, even, than Communknity, and that is saying a lot because Communknity is a gorgeous yarn store! Communknity does still have the best selection I’ve ever seen, though. sigh. I miss going there on my lunch hour.
well, i’ve gotta jet. Happy Monday!
October 24th, 2005
I’ve had a frustrating week of sock knitting. But I will get to that later. First I want to show you the knitty reading material I bought this week! Last weekend I bought Modular Knits at Barnes and Noble. As I hinted in my last post, I’m not really feeling the Lacy Kerchief Scarf. It’s not doing much for me. So I went to ArtYarn’s website for some ideas on what I could knit with this yarn, and I decided that I should buy Modular Knits. I’m very happy with my purchase! There are so many beautiful patterns in this book. I’m really fascinated with modular knitting so I couldn’t wait to get started on something from this book.
I cast on for the Sheer One Piece Shawl and knitted a bit of it. So far I really like it! There is a bit of pooling but it’s not too bad. I’ll keep going with what I have left of my pink and green ArtYarns supermerino and see how I like it. If I like it better than my lacy kerchief scarf I will frog and use it for the shawl.
Okay, now on to Socktoberfest!
Most of my sock knitting this week was for one of the little baby sockies from the summer issue of Interweave knits. I’d been working on the Braided Cable sockies. It were going okay, except that the size looked weird. The cuff seemed too tall for baby socks so I frogged and started over, doing fewer repeats of the braided cable pattern the second time. Got through the turning of the heel just fine, then I got to the toe shaping. I took a good look and, agian, it seemed like it was turning out too big. At this point I just said, “f- it” and put it down to start something else. I couldn’t wait to knit some socks with my pretty Claudia’s Handpainted Yarn.
As you can see in the picture of my books, I also got Knitting Vintage Socks in the Mail. Love it! I highly recommend it if you love knitting socks. She gives a litlte history of sock knitting in the begining, which is really interesting. The patterns are really nice, too. There are several that I want to knit. So I cast on for some pretty shell patterned socks with my Claudia’s Handpainted. The ones with the pretty pearly colors.
Well, look at it! Just look at it! Claudia’s Handpainted looks beautiful on the hank and wound into a ball, but she does pool something fierce, doesn’t she? humph! I’m so incredably bummed out and dissappointed! I had such high hopes for this pretty yarn! But I can’t continue to knit this sock if the colors are going to pool this badly. I mean, this is ugly, don’t you think?
What would be perfect is if I could find some sock yarn in any one of these pretty pearly colors. Just a nice, simple solid-colored yarn in one of these colors.
Damn.
I do love this pattern, so I will probably re-do it in the light blue JaWool that I have. So stay tuned
Oh, I almost forgot about Vogue Knitting.. Pickted that up last night, so I haven’t had much of a chance to look through it. I do love the fair-isle yoke sweater, though. I’m loving the neckline on that.
October 16th, 2005
Today marks the first of my Socktoberfest posts (see Lolly’s blog for more info). It’s gonna be all socks all the time this month, girlfriends!
My first finished pair of the month are my Opal socks. I finished them last night, promptly put them on to take a photo, and haven’t taken them off since! Nice and cozy. I love the colors in this colorway. If your wondering, this is from the Inspiration line. I can’t read German, but I’m thinking that the colorway is #5022. It’s really pretty with shades of salmon, pink, blue and black on a white background. I started these probably about 4 times because I didn’t feel that I was getting the correct pattern. The pattern still looks wonky in some places but oh well. I think you are supposed to get a checkerboard pattern between the stripes.
I found a pattern for Opal sock yarn on the internet and followed it. I can’t find the exact pattern that I used at the moment, but here is another one . For mine, I cast on 60 on size 1 double pointed needles, divided the stitches on four needles (15 stitches per needle), k1p1 for 24 rows, and then knit around in stockinette stitch until my cuff was 6 inches. I then put 30 stitches on one needle and knit the heel until it was as long as it was wide. I used a stitch that I also used for my Koigu socks. On the knit side you slip 1, knit 1 all the way across. Then you purl all of the stitches on the purl side.
The pattern I used gave instructions for a “half hankerchief heel.” It creates a cute little point. The directions were a little fuzzy so I also refered to E.Z.’s “knitting without tears” to fill in the blanks a bit.
The rest of the sock was pretty standard. I used the Three Needle Bind-off instead of Kitchener’s stitch because I just think it’s easier.
One thing I thought I would do is take a picture of all of my sock yarn. This doesn’t include yarn that is technically sock yarn but is slated to be used for other, non-sock, projects. On the left of the picture are my three pairs of Claudia’s Handpainted (I swear I hand another pair of that laying around somewhere but I didn’t find it). I love the colors of this yarn. The orange is just fantastic! I also love the muted shaded pair, too. I think I might knit up some lacy socks with those. My Lorna’s Laces is on the right. I only have two pairs of that at the moment. The pair on top right is the colorway Jeans, and the pair on the far right is the colorway Forest. The pink and blue is also Lorna’s Laces. Currently I am using that for some baby sockies. The yarn in the middle is that horrendous Knitpicks sock garden in Morning Glory, and then I have some light blue Jawool that I won in Almost Felted Lauren’s “guess what date I finish Rouge” contest.
Oh, one more thing. I also just ordered Nancy Bush’s Knitting Vintage Socks, too! I am so set for Socktoberfest.
Happy Monday!
October 10th, 2005
Next Posts
Another week and I only got to the turning-of-the-heel. sigh. Well, at least I managed to cast on the second sock. Hopefully before the end of the day I will have the instep decreases done. When the work week starts I don’t get a whole lot of knitting done. It’s as if my projects crawl to a snail’s pace. While on the weekend I can devote hours to knitting and things seem to zip by. I do love the way these socks are turning out. They are so pretty! I love the book the pattern came from “knitting vintage socks.” Love it! The pattern for this sock is so well-written, and I am assuming the other patterns are the same. I so want to knit every sock pattern in this book. But, admittedly, I’m kind of growing tired of socks at the moment.
Here is the Artyarns shawl after a week. The pattern is “starburst shawl” from the book “Modular Knits.” I love the way this is turning out, also. There is much less of a pooling issue when things are knitted up in this modular manner. And I like that. This pattern is kind of tedious, too, though. Not at all a take-along knit. Because if somebody talks to you while you are knitting this and you lose track of where you are it is not pretty. There has been much ripping and re-knitting going on with this shawl, let me tell you.
What I would really like to do is get started playing with this Rowan Plaid. I am going to use it to knit the Lace Leaf Pullover. I’m totally biting Winnie’s idea of using Rowan Plaid 
