In faster than out

I’ve been making good progress on my current socks, but somehow the yarn keeps coming into my house faster than it’s turning into socks.  Motivated by an impending visit to a little girl who loves pink, I wanted to order the new Felici colorway called “positively pink.”  And then several other colorways came along with it:

Positively pink will be fast knitting, I think – probably just a simple ribbed cuff edge and the rest stockinette.  Round and round and round…

I finished the first Retro Rib sock in Bearfoot.  This isn’t a great photo, but it’s proof that it’s done (and look! spring plants!): I’m about 2/3 down the leg of sock #2 now.

And since I finished the possum socks, I needed another office knitting project.  There was only one left in my personal sock club basket, the Diagonal Rib Socks (free pattern!).  I’ve had 5 hours of webinar and 5 hours of workshop this week so far.  That doesn’t equal 10 hours of knitting, but it equals a fair amount.  So now I have this:This sock alternates the same type of diagonal rib stitch I used in Night Gulls with a 7-stitch panel of 1x1 rib.  Easy breezy.

Positively Pink will be another good office/travel knitting project, but I need to line up some more patterns for subsequent office knitting.

And that’s it for now!

Fuzzy possum sock

This is my current office knitting project, the “Contemporary Brewster Socks” from a recent issue of Piecework.  It’s a very simple stitch pattern that is mostly stockinette with a moving purl stitch.  I find it pleasantly swirly.  I’m planning to modify the pattern slightly on the second sock so that the purls swirl in the other direction.

In keeping with the symmetrical swirl idea, I made the toe decrease lines lean left on this sock to match the leftward swirl in the main stitch pattern (normally my standard star-style toe swirls rightward).  [Thanks, Steven, for suggesting this!]  I usually use a SSK if I want a decrease to lean left, but this time I tried a K2togtbl (knit two together through back loop).  I’m not sure I love it, but I’m glad I tried it.  And it is easier and faster to work than SSK, I think.  Can you see it here? It’s difficult to see, I know.  I’ve been surprised how much the slight halo that the possum fiber brings to this yarn obscures the stitch definition.  I had a devil of a time picking up the gusset stitches because I just couldn’t distinguish one stitch from the next.  Maybe this was partly because of the yarn’s color, which is a bit more like charcoal than what you see here.  Still, I think the halo caused most of the challenge.

These socks will be great in next year’s Fall/Winter wardrobe.  They seem out of place given the outburst of spring here, though.  I think my next sock project will need to be COLORFUL!

Beginnings…

It’s spring in a very big way here, which is simultaneously delightful and a bit alarming (if you have pollen issues like I do).  This morning’s newspaper said that tree pollen is the worst it’s been in at least 6 years here on the East Coast.  My neti pot is my friend…

In the spirit of spring, I have 2 new socks to share.  I started these Retro Rib socks recently, thinking they were office socks.  But the pattern requires a bit more attention, so they became my home knitting project.  Of course, you never know when a home knitting project might turn into office knitting by the time you get to sock #2!  The yarn is Mountain Colors Bearfoot in a Loopy Ewe Club exclusive colorway called Montana Chokecherry – it’s gorgeous.  Autumnal (so I’m out of season) but gorgeous nonetheless.  I love this yarn, a wool/mohair blend.  I’ve knit one other pair from it, but they are a little big on me.  I knit them very early in my sock days and I think I used a size 2 (gasp!) needle.  I know better now…

Once Retro Rib came home, I started another office sock.  This one is a pattern from the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of Piecework called Contemporary Brewster Socks.  They are based on a 17th century stocking in the collection of the Pilgrim Society in Plymouth, Massachusetts.  Kinda cool.  They are mostly stockinette with a spiraling purl stitch.  The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill Possum Sock, which is an 80/20 blend of merino and New Zealand possum (really).  The possum gives it a fuzzy halo.  The color is called Slate and it’s pretty gray.  I’m not sure why my springtime knitting looks so fall/wintry, but there you have it.Both of these projects came out of my personal sock club basket.

I’ve been thinking ahead to some of the stranded colorwork socks in my queue that aren’t yet in the basket because I don’t have appropriate yarn.  I think I will use the Simply Socks Yarn Company solid sock yarn.  I saw it at Sock Summit and it’s quite nice.  But the real bonus is how many colors it comes in: 65.  I splurged and bought the color cards so I can plan.  These look more springy, yes? I also got another set of Addi Turbo Lace needles in size 2.0 (I really like the ones I have but often have 2 pairs of socks on that size at the same time) and a set in 2.25 mm.  I’ve been having more and more trouble with my Knit Picks circular needles and decided to invest in more Addis.  The tip on the Addi lace needle isn’t as pointy as the Knit Picks needle, but it’s pointier than the regular Addi Turbos (which are blunt and also have inflexible cables).

And because it’s so beautiful here, the boys and I took our bikes to the local park to try out the paved fitness trail, a nice safe loop to ride with kids.  My Skylark did great.  The bike shop got her in riding order, and now I just need to take steel wool to the rust to shine her up.  I spent some time today on that project but will need to do some more. Have a great weekend!

Progress report: needs work

I don’t know how grades were reported where you went to school, but my junior high and high school years were divided into six 6-week marking periods.  We also got progress reports sent home in the middle of each 6-week unit if we weren’t doing so well.  I feel like if I were in knitting school, I’d be getting one of those reports this term.

On the one hand, my office sock is zooming along okay.  I finished the first one in a week: I just put a stitch dictionary stitch pattern on my standard sock to get this.  It worked great.  I even adjusted the slip stitch pattern on the heel flap to flow more seamlessly out of the cuff pattern (I did slip-slip-knit rather than slip-knit):These will be comfortable socks that will go with a lot of things.

Once I stopped bringing this project home to work on in the evenings, though, things went south.  I purposely left it at work because I wanted to get started on another home sock.  And it’s not like I had to think really hard about what to knit next.  I had 8 more projects lined up in my personal sock club basket.  first, I grabbed the Cauchy pattern by Cookie A and some beautiful semisolid yellow BFL sock yarn I got at Sock Summit.

Two issues arose:

1. This sock has a picot edge, though the pattern encourages the knitter to substitute a 1x1 or 2x2 rib for a different look.  I asked S1 which she preferred, sure that she wouldn’t want the picot (it is a bit girly).  But she said “Have you ever done a picot cuff before? No? Then do that!”  Okay.  But that edge begins with a provisional cast-on that I haven’t done before, and I couldn’t get it started while watching a subtitled movie.  I put it off a few days.  When I finally was ready, I still couldn’t figure out the cast-on – even when I turned the TV off.  Foiled!  I guess I need to check YouTube for help.
2. So I switched to 2x2 rib just to get out of the starting gate.  But… I’m certain this sock will be too narrow.  It calls for only 60 stitches to be cast-on.  Normally that’s fine.  60, 64, something like that… but this BFL base just seems a bit skinnier than other sock yarn.  I stopped about 3 rounds in.

The next day, I was determined to begin another sock.  I went back to the basket to see which yarn was wound (only 4 or 5 yarns are wound up at this point).  I decided to work on Nancy Bush’s Little Child’s Sock in my Toots LeBlanc Jacob/Alpaca/Mohair.  A serious yarn and a serious pattern.  This time, I had the opposite issue.  Nancy’s sock calls for 72 stitches to be cast on over a doubled strand of yarn (you break the second strand after the cast-on and continue with just one).  Even though I knit on a 2.0mm needle, this sock looks WAY WAY too big.  I slipped it on over my ankle, which was shod in a thick sock already, and it was still too big.  Rrrrrrrrrip.  I need to look at the pattern more closely to see if I can size it down from 72 stitches to something more like 64.

Here are the 3 yarns together:The top yarn is the charcoal merino that I’m using with great success for the Yum Yum Waffle Socks.  The yellow is the skinny BFL.  The bottom is the Toots blend, which seems a little heftier than typical sock yarn.  Maybe it’s just the weight.  It is a heavy yarn – 450 yards in 7 oz (normally I would expect that yardage in about 4 oz).

And then I found a glob of some sticky sap-like substance in the bottom of my knitting bag.  It didn’t befoul any yarn, but it was close.  I spent quite a bit of time cleaning that up.  How in the world did it get in there? 

So that’s my story.

I finished the Night Gulls socks a while back but haven’t gotten good photos yet.  I’ll report back.

Did you get your WEBS 36th Anniversary Sale mailing?  I have my eye on the Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine and Classic Elite Alpaca Sock, perhaps in some solids/heathers for some colorwork socks.  Maybe.  Sale begins April 1.

I have registered for some classes at MDSW but am not yet sure which ones I got into.  The registration is pretty retro.  You snail mail in a form with a separate check written for each class.  Then they mail the checks back to you for classes you didn’t get into.

This is long enough!  If you have suggestions to get me out of my knitting hole, do send them along.

Personal Sock Club – phase 1

What is in that enticing basket?  The first phase of my personal sock club.  Herein are 9 patterns and the yarn to go with them.  The patterns have been printed or photocopied or whatever so they are ready to go.  Want to peek inside? These 9 projects are all easy enough for office knitting or kind of medium-level difficulty.  Nothing super hard.  Patterns include some of these (I couldn’t find images of all I felt okay about using):And the yarns are these: I don’t have any colorwork or knee socks in the basket yet.  It turns out that I never buy sock yarn in amounts over 100 g, which isn’t enough for socks.  And none of my handpaints go with my solids (which are few and far between), which delayed those projects.

Still, these 9 should keep me busy for a while!

Steven, that’s my black Toots LeBlanc yarn in the upper right. 

sock club + librarian = TT825/746.43

I’ve been ruminating on the idea of a personal sock club for a while.  Nearly a year ago, Kristina pointed me to a blogger (sorry, can’t remember which) who dived into her own sock yarn stash, matched up skeins with patterns, and packaged them together in brown paper bags.  Each month, she planned to pick one at random and be surprised by stuff she already owned and loved.  (By the way, it turns out this was a huge trend in 2009 – I found a lot about it on blogs and Flickr.)

I sort of liked the idea, but the brown paper bag was a dealbreaker for me.  I have my sock yarn in a glass-fronted cabinet in the living room, and I love seeing it all the time.  I back-burnered the idea.

Then the Harlot revisited the idea just last month, and what she said made so much sense to me.  I have yarn I love.  I have patterns I’ve been meaning to knit but haven’t gotten to.  Why not put it all together?

But because I’m a librarian, a system can always be improved upon (and I’m not even a cataloger, people!). I have now tidied up my Ravelry queue and am using the tags.  Every sock in the queue has the tag “socks” (duh).  In addition, it has one or more of these tags:

• office – this means dead-easy knitting, appropriate for the office
• medium – this means start the sock at home, and it may become office knitting (or not)
• challenge – this means it will be knit at home with minimal distractions (complicated charts, for ex)
• stranded – self-explanatory
• knee – self-explanatory

I also used the tag “sock yarn” for other things that might be made with sock yarn besides socks.  Of course, Ravelry reads that as “sock” and “yarn,” which is really annoying to one who wants to “bind the phrase” (sorry about the librarian jargon here, non-librarians), but that’s why the sock patterns use the tag “socks” instead of “sock.”

Now I’m at the point of prioritizing patterns and either matching them with yarn I already own, or obtaining yarn that will work with them.  I do have many patterns queued for which I do not have appropriate yarn (gasp).  I think Phase 1 of this mania should deal with projects for which I already own the yarn.  Acquisitions for Phase 2 can be spread out into Festival Season (peaking May 1-2 at MDSW).

I think I will proceed by selecting one project each from the “knee” and “stranded” categories, and two projects each from “office,” “medium,” and “challenge.”  If you have any suggestions, feel free to send them my way.  Otherwise, I will report back soon!