I don’t often play this game, but it is Wednesday, and what I have to share is a WIP, so there you have it. I’m back to my socks, but they’re selfish socks now. I cast on with my Christmas sock yarn as soon as possible, my Biscotte Yarns Bis-sock in the Griffin colorway. 
I wanted the yarn to be the star of the show, so I’m doing a nice plain sock with a ribbed cuff and an Eye of Partridge heel. I actually cast on the day after Christmas but didn’t get too far before getting distracted by non-sock knitting. With lots of FOs behind me, this is my lunch break knitting at work now, and I’m loving it.
(Obviously the color is better in the first photo. This is a hasty lunch break photo. I do the best I can!) I’m on the gusset of the first sock and looking forward to knitting the second sock too. The yarn is delightfully soft and silky, and you can’t go wrong with self-striping yarn. It’s my favorite thing ever. The girl was admiring these with a covetous tone in her voice, but she’ll have to wait for her own pair; these are mine! And now I want to do a pair of these in every House color. I could wear them according to my mood. So if you ever spot Slytherin colors in my socks, watch out!
Tag Archive | sock knitting
Someone wants a hat!
I finally finished this pair of socks. I started them over six weeks ago, which is a really long time for me. But these got set aside for some gift knitting, so at least there’s a good reason. Still, it was a relief when I wove in that last end and called them done. They don’t quite match exactly, but I’m telling myself I’m okay with it.
So it has a longer section of gray at the toe, what’s the big deal, right? This way I didn’t have to get into the second skein of purple for two inches. The important thing is that the socks are soft and cozy, and they’re the same size. That’s pretty good!
With the socks done, I could move on to new projects without guilt. A friend asked for a hat for her husband, and I was delighted. I do love making hats, and I’ve overwhelmed the rest of my people with hats, so it’s a treat to have someone who actually wants me to make a hat! Within two days I’d whipped up this simple red and white striped hat, which could be considered festive but is secretly Huskers colors.
And that was so much fun that I decided not to stop there. Ask for one hat, get two, apparently! I pulled these out this morning and cast on with the navy already. 
(These are Seahawks colors, just in case you’re like me and don’t follow any sportsball stuff.) I’m improvising my own pattern again; casting on 88 with size 6 for the ribbing, then switching to 8s for the body. I’m doing a different stripe pattern; hopefully it comes out like I see it in my head.
I’ll close with two bits of good news: a while back I made pombe yeast hats for two new people in the lab at work, and they received them on Monday. Both of them seemed to be genuinely delighted, and they both wore them around most of the day at work yesterday. That really made my day; I work with such awesome people.
Finally, Grace is doing so much better. She’s clearly got more energy, isn’t sleeping as much during the day. She was even playing outside with Duncan this morning, which she hasn’t done in a few weeks. Her appetite is back and she wants to eat everything…except the kibble we’ve been feeding them for ages. But that’s fine, we’ll look for a different food at the store today and hopefully find something tasty that won’t break the bank. Feeding three big dogs gets expensive! We’re being pretty generous with her, giving her some chicken when we cook it, and extra treats here and there, so that she’ll gain back some of the weight she lost. It’s such a relief to not be so worried about her!
That’s all for now. We’re all taking a vacation day today and in a bit we’re going out for a Family Fun Day, at least as soon as I can get everyone motivated to get out of bed and shower. There’s probably a visit to a bookstore in my future, a trip downtown to see some Christmas lights, maybe a lovely dinner out. Here’s hoping your holidays are equally delightful!
Knitting as Distraction
This is why it’s hard to have puppers: one of my dogs is sick. Grace is lethargic and not eating and we don’t know why, and it breaks my heart. She was at the vet yesterday, no fever, no obvious answers, so she got some medicine and soft food. Today she’s refusing the soft food so she’s back to the vet today to get some blood work done. I’m kind of a mess, partly because I’m worried and partly because it brings back bad memories. We lost a very special dog at this time of year four years ago, and it feels too similar. I know it’s not; the symptoms are different. But it’s still triggering some powerful stuff, and I’m struggling, if I’m being honest. Winter is tough for me, emotionally, and it’s been a stressful few months for everyone in my house, so I think I’m already worn down. Thankfully, I have wonderful bosses who are understanding when I need time off, and lovely friends, and my knitting. Always my knitting! It can be a good distraction at times, and when not a distraction, a comfort.
I’ve been doing some Christmas knitting, though not as much as I wanted to be doing. I made some very cute mitts for my youngest nephew. The white glows in the dark, so maybe that will be a fun surprise for him.
These were so fast to make that I think I need to make some for my boss’s twins, who are even smaller than my nephew, so those mitts would take no time at all! And I could use up some leftover yarn bits too. Win for everyone, right?
I’m almost done with a pair of socks, too. These are my second pair of Petty Harbor socks, though this time I just did a stockinette foot rather than carry the pattern down.
I’m almost out of the purple, and I’m debating about just using the gray when I run out. Why not have a longer gray toe? I do have a second skein of the purple, but then I’d have more ends to weave in. And if I just use the gray, I can plan ahead and get a whole pair of short socks out of the second skein of purple. Really, I’m just kicking myself because if I’d done gray heels like I’d planned, I’d probably have plenty of purple to finish. Oh well, that’s kind of the nice thing about socks: they go into your shoes and it’s all right if they’re not perfectly matched. So I’m going to take my little sock and go sit with my sick pupper until it’s time to go to the vet, and cross my fingers that we get good news.
Two Finished Gifts
I feel like I’m running in place with my Christmas knitting. I finish projects but I still have ones waiting in the wings, so I don’t feel like I’m getting ahead. But still, I did finish two projects the other day, and that’s a relief. The first is the pair of Lightning McQueen mittens, the project where the first mitten came out too big and I had to frog it and reknit it. My second try was much more successful.
Hooray, two matching mittens! These are actually a birthday gift that I’ll give today, so here’s hoping they actually fit the little boy they’re for. Pattern is World’s Simplest Mittens by Tin Can Knits.
My second FO is a pair of Christmas-gift socks, the Strutting Peacock socks that I’ve had on the needles since mid-November. (Feels like longer.) This wasn’t a fun knit for me. I don’t think I like the Knit Picks Chroma for socks, at least not for socks with twisted stitches. The colors are pretty, and the final socks do feel dense and warm, but the yarn sticks to itself a lot, making tinking and frogging difficult. I bought more colors in the big sale, so I’ll try another pair with a simpler pattern and see if I like it better.
I do like the look of the pattern. It took a little while for me to memorize, but I was able to do the second sock mostly without the pattern. My only modification was to do a stockinette foot rather than carry the pattern down, to make for faster knitting. I think I’d like to try this pattern again with better yarn.
Last night was a band concert, the girl’s last District Band concert. She played beautifully, they sounded wonderful, and I had lots of knitting time. I chose the simplest of knitting so that I could watch her while I listened and knit, and made good progress on my Scrappy Cowl.
This is a pretty fun project. I think I’m going to like this cowl a lot! But for now I’ve set it aside because I need to focus on more gift knitting. The boy has a girlfriend, and he would like me to make a cowl for the girlfriend. I like the boy, so I will do my best to complete that along with the other two gift projects on my list! Are you done with your gift knitting yet?
Weekend Knitting, plus Yarn
Thanks to my girl and her band activities, I got to spend the entire day Saturday knitting. Well, at least as much as my hands could tolerate. I had to take breaks periodically, of course. But I was focused on one goal: finish this second sock, which is a Christmas gift. I got pretty close.
Since then I’ve gotten farther, and I only have about an inch left before starting the toe. This one will be a FO before you know it!
Her competition was out of town, which meant a LYS stop for me. We went to True Blewe Yarns in Columbia, MO and I found lots of really pretty yarns. Lots of yarns I appreciated, several I picked up and carried around, but it was the strangest thing: most of them weren’t calling my name. I didn’t feel like buying yarn just to buy pretty yarn. (GASP! Am I feverish??) I want more sock yarn, but I want self-striping, and I want more colors, not just purple. I have quite a bit of purplish fingering weight, waiting to be made into shawls, so I didn’t really want to get more. I don’t know, I guess I just wasn’t really feeling it that day.
Okay, that’s not completely true, because you KNOW I didn’t walk out empty handed. I thought about the pieces I’ve wished I had to wear, and chose these accordingly.
I’ve used the super bulky Spuntaneous and LOVE it, but hadn’t seen the worsted version before. I’ve wanted another neutral gray cowl, so I’ve got enough here to make a lovely long one to double.
I don’t have a lot of blue clothes in my closet. I don’t like blue things in my house, really. So why have I been drawn to this vivid royal blue lately?? No idea, but I decided to give in. This one is already on the needles and on its way to becoming a Squishy Soft Cowl, like the dark green one I just made.
I’ve bought this Wonder Woman yarn before. I made a gorgeous cowl, put it on Etsy as a showpiece, thinking it would never sell, and it sold! So I had to send it away, and that made me sad. Now I can make something for myself to keep.
I have one more new project on my needles. This is a Be Simple Variations with my new green Classic Elite Magnolia. I’m already loving it.
Hope your weekend was as productive as mine!
Knitting Injury
Let’s start with the good news: the long holiday weekend gave me so much knitting time that I was able to complete two socks! It was very satisfying, as I’m sure you can imagine. One is a plain vanilla sock in KnitPicks’ Felici Spaceman, and the other is a Strutting Peacock in KnitPicks’ Chroma in Lakefront.
Sadly, last night I noticed that the middle finger on my left hand was hurting, especially when I closed my fist. I picked up another sock project to see how I hold my fingers while I knit, and discovered that I keep that finger bent when I knit socks on little DPNs. So it would seem that I need to take a break from knitting. I’m hoping that if I rest it this week, I’ll be good to go on Saturday. We’ll be on a day-long road trip for the girl, for All-State Band Auditions, and I need to be able to knit that day, otherwise I might actually go crazy. For this week, then, my lunch break project is crochet, an Artfully Simple Angled Scarf in Zauberball. I chose it mostly so I could use my new Furls crochet hook.
Give me some hope: who else has had minor knitting injuries that healed quickly?
More Socks
Sometimes being a knitter comes in handy in unusual ways! We did Senior Photos for the girl over the weekend, and for one photo she needed a conductor’s baton. We didn’t have one of those, but guess what? A 14″ straight knitting needle fits the bill in a pinch! Fortunately we were close enough to home for me to go fetch one, since I didn’t have one on hand. All the other photos went smoothly and I can’t wait to see the official photos.
I managed to fit in a bit of knitting as we drove between locations, and during the kids’ concert on Sunday, so I made good progress on one of my socks. This will be a plain vanilla sock, my first Felici sock, and so far I’m pretty happy with it.I’m trying the baby circs again, and while I still don’t love them for socks, I am getting more used to them, and I can tolerate them when I need so many socks on the needles.
This pair is another gift, and my first sock with Knit Picks Chroma. I love the colors in the Chroma, but the yarn isn’t as nice for me as the Felici. It’s fuzzier, more sticky, so when I have to tink, it’s a bit tricky. (Haha! I made a little rhyme!) I probably should have done a plain sock for these too, but I have a vision in my head, and I really want them to be Strutting Peacock socks. And once I get into the rhythm of the pattern, it’ll be fine.
I have one more set of sock needles available; I just need to decide what pair to cast on, and who they’ll be for!
Socks, Finished and Unfinished
I have a new FO: I finished my Basket Weave Rib socks last night and I love them quite a lot. They are delightfully thick and squishy and soft, and the rib pattern is unusual without overpowering the yarn. These are for my gift pile, and I really hope they fit the recipient!
But yesterday I also got new sock yarn, thanks to the big sale at Knit Picks. I want to make some Christmas socks, but didn’t have a lot of sock yarn to choose from, and definitely not much in colors other than purple. I came home to a lovely box full of yarn:
Who doesn’t love those mail days, right? I dug right in, excited because I’m trying some Felici for the first time. I’ve seen socks made with it, and I love how it looks and feels. One color is for a gift, the other is for me (but mine will probably have to wait until after Christmas).
Now my challenge is to figure out how many sets of sock needles I’ve got, so I can cast on as many socks as possible. I know I have at least three, maybe four. Hm, maybe I should add more sock yarn needles to my Christmas wish list!
Sock Fixation
It’s so weird how my knitting changes. Like, what I want to knit changes based on what’s happening in my life. Right now, things feel hectic and overwhelming and stressful, and all I’ve been knitting is socks. I have two socks on my needles, and they’re making me so happy. I even have fancy yarn picked out for fancy shawls, and it’s beautiful yarn and I can’t wait to knit with it…but I’m not ready yet. I just need socks right now. My current obsession is this Basket Weave Rib Sock.
The yarn is Schaefer Yarn Nichole, which is labeled fingering, but it feels like a heavy fingering. So when I knit it up with my size 1 needles, it’s all thick and squishy and I can tell these socks are going to be heaven to wear. I love the look of the pattern too; it’s a great design for a variegated yarn, letting both the stitches and the colors play nicely together. This is also the first time I’ve made socks for someone else, so I’m really hoping I estimate well on the foot length.
My other sock is another pair of Petty Harbor socks. These are for me, in Knit Picks Stroll Glimmer in “foxglove and kestrel”, AKA purple and gray.
Obviously it’s been taking a backseat to the blue sock. This is like my backup sock. But that’s okay, it’s perfectly happy waiting patiently for its turn.
It’s a gray, rainy Sunday here, and my errands are few and short, so I see plenty of knitting in the forecast. Hope your Sunday is equally pleasant!
Back to Knitting
My socks and I have reunited, but our relationship isn’t quite as obsessive as it was a while back. I do still work on it when I’m on my lunch break at work, or if I need an easy travel project, but I’m on the same pair I started almost a month ago, and I’m not even halfway through the second sock. That’s slow for me. Still, I’m making progress, and I’m quite happy with how they’re turning out. 
Unfortunately, I’ve discovered something sad: some wool socks make my feet itchy. Especially when it gets warm in the afternoon and my feet get too warm. There were a couple of days when I had to get them off as soon as I got home from work because I couldn’t stand the itchiness anymore. A couple of pairs are worse than others, so I’ll probably give those to the girl. And otherwise I’ll just save the wool socks for the coldest days and hope for the best. I don’t want to stop knitting socks forever, and I do like wearing the fun yarn on my feet.
My other current project is just about as mindless, it’s the Chocolate Diamonds Cowl with my Fiber Arts Expression purple silk/wool. This is my luxurious knitting, all soft and squishy and…well, silky. 
It’s about halfway done and growing quickly. I’m hoping that I’ll have some time in the evenings this week to get back to my Wonder Woman Wrap. I want to wear it soon, now that it’s getting colder. Plus it would be the perfect thing to wear on Halloween night, while I greet trick-or-treaters!
bonnyknits 