New sock

Next project: a sock for Ed, Kris’s and my Portland host.  We are each knitting one sock of the pair.  As you can see, this is a quite plain but manly sock in a very neutral color called “MASH Tent.”  The yarn is Plucky Knitter Primo Fingering (75/20/5 merino/cashmere/nylon) with 4 plies and a very tight twist.  It is round and bouncy and lovely to work with.

We’re knitting the Stepping Stones Socks from Clara Parkes’ forthcoming The Knitter’s Book of Socks – I got the pattern in a promotional thingie at Sock Summit.  It’s wonderfully simple.  After a 1x1 rib cuff, the stitch pattern alternates between one row of k1p1 and another row of k3p3.  You know I’m a sucker for rib variations.This photo is terrible (thank you, convention center lighting) but stands as proof that I actually have a pattern:

You know, after all the dozens of pairs of socks I’ve knit, this is the first time I’ve knit a man-sized sock.  It is BIG.  Because the stitch pattern repeats over 6 stitches, I wanted something that divided nicely into it.  We went with a 72-stitch cast-on.  And to make sure it’s roomy and stretchy enough at the top, I’m knitting on 2.25mm needles now.  I’ll transition to 2.0 mm at some point soon.

I also continue to work on Mom’s Pamuya shawl, but unless I move it onto waste yarn or a really long cable, you will not benefit from a new photo – so there is none today.  It gets 4 stitches bigger every other row, which means it gets slower and slower to knit.  Or at least, it seems so.

Kris, have you started the sock yet?  Bug me to send you the details so we can matchy matchy!

Phew!

It’s been a while since I posted and even longer since I had some actual knitting to show for it.  It’s the crazy time of year for us who work on college campuses – and kid schedules are completely wacko as summer day camps have ended but school has not yet begun (who is in charge of this stuff, anyway?!?).  But I finally finished this pair of Amelie socks. These socks are well-traveled.  I started them before going to Sock Summit and finished the first one on the plane back.  It’s taken me weeks to finish the second.

I toyed with mods.  On some pattern repeats, I knit the stitches to either side of the lacy dropped stitch area through the back loop, to neaten things up.  Can you tell?  The top repeat in the photo below has those twisted stitches, and the bottom one does not.  It’s neater in some ways, but doesn’t affect the overall look that much.  Plus, it’s way slower.  If I knit this again, I wouldn’t repeat that. I thought my lacy panels were much wider than the ones shown in the pattern photo:

The version that Kris is knitting (using Cascade Heritage) is more like the pattern photo than my sock.  I’ll take a picture and show you that another time.  I guess my 100% superwash BFL sock yarn is extra sproingy or something.  I don’t really have a satisfactory explanation for the difference. Another modification: I stopped doing the dropped stitches partway down the top of the foot.  I figure that even if I wear Mary Janes, it won’t show – and the plain ribbing will be much more durable than those ladders. All in all, a pretty pair of socks.  I don’t normally do lace, so this was a big change for me.

Vodka Gimlet?

Oh, boy.  We now have a serious frontrunner for “Sweater Janelle Will Actually Knit This Winter” – the Vodka Gimlet (Rav link).  I totally stole that photo from the designer’s blog and you should go read all about it and peruse the other photos. 

I spied this on The Plucky Knitter blog – she will offer a kit with her Primo Worsted yarn and the pattern.  I don’t know all the details.  Like.. does the kit only come with the yarn color shown (which is “Barely Birch” and completely lovely) or does one get to choose a colorway (which could take me weeks)?

When I apply what I learned last year from Amy Herzog’s Fit to Flatter course, I think this would be a flattering design on me.  There are some beautiful details, but it also looks like it won’t require 100% of my knitting brainpower (like some all-over cabled sweaters do).  This seems very knittable.

I should do a little homework tonight and figure out what size I would knit… just in case I fall for this when it goes on sale tomorrow morning.

[…like I don’t have enough in my knitting queue already.  A zillion socks I must knit, plus a hat for Knitters’ Day Out and two slouchy fun fall/winter hats for S1, plus finishing my mom’s Pamuya for Christmas and making a Different Lines shawl for myself…]

Thoughts?

Mea culpa

I fear the yarn fumes got to me a bit at the Sock Summit marketplace and I’m a little surprised at how much stuff I bought.  I’ve been putting off this post partly because the past two weeks have been incredibly busy, but also because I feel slightly embarrassed by this bounty.  So, please join me in the confessional booth.

Let’s just do it, shall we?  Here is what I got.  First, two really cute project bags.  First, this one from Dancing Sheep: You know how those blue and green combos draw me – and the flash of orange was irresistible. I think this was my very first purchase when the market opened to students Thursday night.  Much later, I spied this one: I have been eyeing this sock monkey fabric for years, just waiting until the right bag made from it came along.  The bag is made by good to be girl but I bought it at The Plucky Knitter booth.

Since we’re already on the topic of Plucky, let’s look at the yarn I bought there.  I was entranced by this booth – the yarn was all dyed in rich shades of semi-solids, and there were a LOT of neutrals.  I ended up getting 4 skeins of Primo Fingering, which is 75% merino, 20% cashmere, and 5% nylon.  I really hope that 5% holds up its end of the deal.  It is a 4-ply with a tight, springy twist, so I’m hopeful.  I got these colors (the green is Wonder Years and the blue is 2Cool4School) to make the now ubiquitous Different Lines shawl. Later, I went back to get yarn for Kris and me to make a pair of socks for Ed, our Portland host during Sock Summit.  Because he has big man feet, I got two skeins – just to be safe.  This is a neutral called M.A.S.H. Tent which somehow contains hues of green, brown, and grey all at the same time.  (Steven: breathe into a paper bag if you need to.) Next, here is Sincere Sheep’s Cushy Fine yarn – 80% superwash merino, 10% cashmere, and 10% nylon (this is a common base and while the cashmere is nice, it’s really the nylon I’m after).  The color is “Winter’s Night” and it is dyed with natural dyes – it is a moody blue-grey.  There is a generous 490 yards in this skein.  3 plies, medium twist: Next, let’s visit Huckleberry Knits.  I was completely overcome by the rich shades of this yarn – and I was eager to try the 80% Blue-Faced Leicester/20% nylon base which she calls “Willow.”  I couldn’t decide what to get so I ended up with FOUR skeins (in my own defense, I was also having a “hungry emergency” while in this booth): From the left, the color names are absinthe, browncoat (a reddish-brown), eucalyptus (it’s green – so hard to photograph), and creme brulee.  Willow is a 3-ply with medium-high twist.

I got this skein of Lucia yarn from Dirty Water Dyeworks – it’s 75% superwash merino/25% nylon and the color name is “Pixie” – this is a 4-ply light fingering that is fairly twisty.  It is also very green and a little more variegated than any other yarn I bought:While we’re doing the green yarn, this is watercolors sock yarn from Periwinkle Sheep.  The color is “juniper” and it’s also 75% superwash merino/25% nylon.  Like Lucia above, it has 4 plies and is fairly twisty.  I’ll bet these two skeins were dyed on the same base yarn.  You really can’t tell from the photo but I swear, this is green!

I picked a lot of sedate yarns.  This Anzula yarn is called Squishy and it’s 80% superwash merino, 10% cashmere, and 10% nylon in a 3-ply.  The yarn base sounds like that used by Sincere Sheep in Cushy Fine, but it feels a lot softer.  I’m guessing that’s the difference between superwash merino and regular merino.  The color is unnamed so I’ll just call it “brown”: Now, on to my WEBS purchases.  I wanted to try this new Lorna’s Laces sock yarn called Solemate – it’s 55% superwash merino, 15% nylon, and 30% Outlast. Outlast is a human-made fiber designed to regulate body temperature (used by NASA originally, I think?).  The yarn is a 3-ply light fingering with decent twist.  I got the colorway “Grand Street Ink,” which also has the Brooklyn Tweed logo stamped on it.  It is a moody purplish-grey: Also at the WEBS booth, I picked up two 50-gram skeins of their own Valley Yarns Huntington, which is a standard 4-ply 75% fine superwash merino/25% nylon with a medium twist.  The color is “mustand” but in my mind, it’s “school bus.”  This yarn is definitely destined for S1’s feet! And here is the only non-sock yarn I bought at the Summit – 8 ounces (665 yards) of a 3-ply DK weight 100% superfine alpaca in a heathery purple color: I plan to make some kind of infinity scarf out of this – for me.  It will be sooooo snuggly warm in the wintertime.  I got this at the Village Spinning & Weaving Shop booth.

I also got a pattern for the Achillea Socks by Kirsten Kapur.  A booth sample seduced me.

That’s it, folks.  I feel like I’ve just finished a huge Thanksgiving meal and I won’t want to eat again for days.  I’m going to try to not buy any new yarn for quite a while.  There are so many socks I’d like to make in a couple of books and this stash should keep me busy for quite some time.  I’ll tell you about those in a future post, though.

Signing off!  I feel so much better now that I’ve told you about this.  And I’m not even Catholic. :)

Alien takeover

Okay, maybe “takeover” is a strong word… but I did whip up another mini-alien / impalien for Joanna: It’s nestling in a hops vine that goes crazy out of control over part of our back fence/gate.  The vine came with the house.  Apparently birds like the berry thingies in the winter (the previous owner was a far better gardener than I!).

I’ve also been working on the Pamuya shawl for my mom.  This is probably a Christmas present – I’ll want to whip up something smaller for her September (yikes) birthday.  I know what you’re thinking, but she’s not really the alien type. :) The colors are washed out a bit here but I’ll get more accurate pictures when it’s off the needles.

…and in other knitting news – as in Other People’s Knitting News – my friend Nathalie has made her third hat!  She learned to knit as a child and still had that knit/purl muscle memory, and declared a desire to knit a slouchy hat last winter.  We trekked to The Mannings and found a fun yarn, as well as a slightly cheesy looking (but very serviceable) booklet of patterns called Celebrity Slouchy Beanies for the Family (Leisure Arts #75358).  She made a very plain hat from her multi/mottled yarn and wore it all winter, and then she made a smaller men’s beanie cap out of the leftovers.  Before going on a long trip overseas this summer, she professed a desire to make a cabled hat – but ran out of time to return to Mannings.  So she shopped in my stash.  The only worsted weight yarn I KNEW I had enough yardage of for a slouchy cabled hat was left over from my Must Have Cardi, a heathered colorway called Lake Ice.  She sent photos from France (the hat hasn’t returned stateside yet) and look how great the hat came out! And here’s the best part: next, she wants to learn socks.  Be still my heart.  I bought a skein of sock yarn at the Summit with her in mind – and promised to knit her a pair myself to spur her on.  Stay tuned for future chapters of Nathalie’s Knitting Story.

I know I still haven’t flashed my SS Stash, but the weather hasn’t been conducive to photography (as witnessed by those lamish photos I took this morning).  I’m happy to report that it rained a lot yesterday, which we sorely needed.  I’ll keep waiting for the photography window.

Impaliens, Phone Sox, and a Good Sign

I have been meaning to knit these adorable mini aliens for a while… and when S1’s birthday loomed, I decided it was time.  Aren’t they cute?  I’m calling them “impaliens” because I had to impale them on spare dpns to pose the photo (they don’t stand up on their own).  I’m sure you can think of a ruder name, but let’s stick with “impaliens” for now, eh?

Here they are walking in a line (the pink one is losing focus):

And here they are at band practice – Blue is Lead Singer and the others are the backup singers:

These were so quick and fun to knit.  I used scraps from my worsted weight feltable wool stash, and I ordered the safety eyes (7.5 mm) from 6060.etsy.com.  They are super easy to use and come in a variety of colors and sizes.  The pattern gives directions for knitting these either flat or in the round – I chose to knit flat, which I think made it easier to apply the eyes and mouth.

S1 also wanted a phone sock of her own, and she liked the honeycomb pattern from Boy 1’s Socks-to-be-Electrified, so I whipped this up: It is just enough to keep a phone from getting banged up when it’s inside a larger bag.  I used Knit Picks Stroll Tonal left over from these socks.Those small items were secret knitting, unveiled on the day I returned from Sock Summit.  I couldn’t put them on the blog or Flickr or the secret would be out.

So that covers the impaliens and the phone sock.  Now for the Good Sign.  Yesterday we got news that the boys’ favorite babysitter has mono plus a bacterial infection and more.  She’s really sick.  She’s supposed to leave for a year abroad in Turkey in 2-3 weeks.  And if she looks as sick as she is now, they won’t let her on the airplane.  So we want her to get well fast.  Boy 2 made her this card (symmetry is very important right now):Note that he includes some temporary tattoos – just what every sick teenage girl wants!  But the inside is the best part – read this: “We’ll make something out of yarn.”  It’s not a good sign that Joanna is sick, but I’m taking it as a very good sign that Boy 2 thinks making her something out of yarn will help her get better.

So… we are going to make another impalien tonight.  

One Sock, No Scarf

This was a little surprising to me, but I didn’t have much time to knit while I was in Portland – either in the tourist-y part of the trip or while at Sock Summit.  The bulk of my knitting was completed on the plane.

On the way home yesterday, I finished the first sock of the pair I started just before I left:I think it will look a little nicer after blocking.  The dropped stitch sections (the part with ladders) are a little sloppy, but I expect the yarn to settle down a bit after a bath.  Then again, this 100% superwash BFL is quite lively and springy as it is.  Maybe the floats WON’T settle down.  We shall see.

I decided to discontinue the dropped stitch pattern partway down the instep because those sections are going to be weaker than anyplace else.  I figure there’s no reason to subject them to the friction of a shoe.  I kept going long enough that you’ll be able to see the pattern through a Mary Jane strap, but not all the way to the toe decrease.

Also on this trip, I learned that I really don’t care for knitting laceweight yarn.  I spent the longest time getting through one repeat of this lace pattern, and I just don’t like it! There’s nothing wrong with the pattern and the scarf will be lovely (the yarn is 100% cashmere), but I don’t like knitting it.  Does anyone else want to finish it?  I’ll give you the yarn if you take this project off my hands!  I think I would happily knit the pattern on heavier yarn, but not this thin stuff.  Look how thick it is next to my lifeline (which is dental floss).  It’s super thin.

I know I still need to show you the goodies I got at the Sock Summit marketplace… but I haven’t photographed them yet.  This is just a quick update.  Oh, I have to show you the birthday aliens, too!