Socks, socks and more socks

The more socks I knit, the more I like the whole sock project concept. They're portable, relatively quick to finish and I discover that depending on the pattern you can learn all sorts of little techniques when you do socks to add to your knitting repertoire. Not to mention that putting on a pair of hand knit socks just makes you feel happy. I read somewhere it's like wearing expensive luxurious lingerie - perhaps no one sees it, but you do feel special having it on.

Bubble Wrap Socks
pattern by sockbug, (free on ravelry)
knit in cascade heritage
two at a time on magic loop

I fell in love with this yarn when Dee and I were baby girl yarn shopping. The yarn was soft and had a nice squish to it. The colors weren't something most people would put together right off the bat, but to me they just made sense

I've made socks that had a pattern in them before but often the yarn seemed to take over and the pattern itself got lost. This stitch pattern was a simple repeat and I could easily knit these two at a time. The bubble wrap pattern really showed up beautifully in the aqua that the foot was knit in.

These socks are warm and really comfortable.

Circle Socks
pattern by Anne Campbell, (free on ravelry)
knit in Chestnut Bay Fibers Sock yarn
two at a time on magic loop

Finding kindred sock knitters at our Taunton Stitch 'n Bitch was so easy - who am I kidding they're guilty of feeding my sock obsession to the point that I can't imagine not having a pair of socks on the needles at all times. We decided that we should start a sock KAL - after all addiction is at its best when shared with your friends. Wendy, Cheryl and I decided to take on the Circle socks - this pattern begged to be knit with a crazy variegated yarn. The green and purple just jumped at me on a trip to Black Sheep Knitting and it screamed so loudly it barely spent any time in my stash before it got on a pair of needles. The pattern itself looks much more complex than it really is and it was so much fun to see the different dimensions of the circles take shape.

Wendy, Cheryl and I were headed off on a yarn crawl one week
shortly after finishing our socks and discovered we were all proudly wearing them the same day - birds of a feather huh?!

Bosnian Toes & Turkish Heels
pattern by Lucy Neatby, Knitters Magazine Fall 2008 knit in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock

I went nuts when I saw this pattern in Knitters. I didnt care what it took I had to try them. Thankfully I convinced Wendy and Cheryl to join me on my journey into sock insanity. This was not an easy pattern at all. The holes are made by pulling several stitches over one stitch. It took a bit of work to figure out how to get them looking like holes instead of smushed up blobs. My other issue was with what size to make. This was also my first experience with size zero needles - a bit of a challeng in and of itself.

After a few false starts I was on my way and once I was on my way. While there was absolutely no possibility of knitting these two at a time, when I finally figured out the pattern it went pretty fast. Cheryl modified the pattern and added one more repeat of circles to add to the length - I did the same thing and am glad that I did. I adore the way they came out - but there is very little give to the yarn and getting the heel on is kind of a pain becuase they're tight - once on though they're super comfortable.


2009 Personal Sock Challenge
I've decided that I'm taking my love of sock knitting seriously for the new year. I'm going to shoot for a pair of socks a month. My Bosnian Toes and Turkish Heels put me in the mood as they were started and finished in the month of January - so off I go!

February begins our basic sock KAL for the Taunton SnB and I'm right on schedule with pair two for the year. Stay tuned!

So just what have I been knitting anyway

I have this grand idea that I can knit as fast as I can accumulate yarn in my stash. I look back and say to myself - gee look at all you've done over the past several months - and then I open the closet that is lovingly organized with all my yarns and realize I can't knit fast enough to support my stash building habit. Luckily I know enough knitters who share this affliction so the guilt is fleeting.

So just what have I been knitting (and finished) anyway?

Jag's Hat and Sweater
Realizing how much fun knitting small things was and hearing from a friend that her son didnt have a grandmother who knit for him I set out to knit a darling little hat for Jagger that his mom fell in love with from itty bitty hats. We had so much fun choosing the yarn. It didnt take very long at all which of course fed my love for immediate gratification. There was so much yarn left that I just had to mimic the stripes and make a scarf to match.



Of course the best part of the project was getting this adorable photo.





Telullah Georgia's Baby Sweater
Next up on the active projects was a baby sweater for my friend Dee's baby due to arrive this winter. The day that Dee found out she was carrying a girl we ran to the yarn shop to pick out girl patterns and yarns. Despite Dee's obsession with all things pink, she selected this beautiful variegated lilac, mint and blue dreambaby dk. So soft. The pattern was a lovely cardigan with a peter pan collar - oh so proper don't you know - I mean Dee is British after all. While knitting this sweater, my internal battle of "is it too small", vs. "I want the baby to have an Auntie Heléne sweater right away" kept repeating in my head. I stuck to my size 0 - 3 months and found that all the pieces all knit up pretty fast. I loved working on it. Sewing it together however, was another story - Yikes how many freaking seams do you have to mattress stitch on this thing. It was totally endless - but not as endless as Dee's pregnancy started to feel to me (and to her of course!) - I was so excited for this little baby to get here. My finished sweater sat neatly in its little bag, waiting for me to sew the buttons on - that way it was still a work in progress don't you know.

Georgia Mae arrived earlier this month (formally changing her name from Telullah - her in-utero name). Showing me instantly that she shared her mothers obvious wit and sarcasm by mocking my inner voice that worried about sweater size and weighing in at a delightful 9 pounds 3 ounces and measuring 22 inches in length - now thats a baby! Immediately in love I couldnt wait to see it on her. Ok I admit to being very relieved too - she still has room to grow in it for a little while (very little I'm sure) - way too cute - there will be more knitting for this child!

Princess Mitts
While poking through my stash I came accorss the Freedom Spirit yarn I purchased last fall
promising to make myself some fingerless gloves. I loved the yarn, and the princess mitts pattern deciding it had been years since I did a cable and it was time to give it another shot. I admit that I am living in these things this year. I live that I can still have access to my fingers, I also admit to being just too damn lazy to even think about wanting to take on a pair of gloves.

Watchcaps and Fingerless Gloves
So Bruce is one of those men that doesnt wear sweaters - which made having to deal with that whole boyfriend sweater curse thing much easier (for those non knitters the curse says once you knit your boyfriend a sweater he'll break up with you). He does on the other hand wear hats. I always feel a bit badly that he never wants anything knit for him and constantly ask if he's sure there is othing he wants. Finally, he told me I could knit him a hat to keep in his truck. The Marsan watchcap was perfect, as was the ultra alpaca that I chose.

He proudly wears his hat over when we went for dinner at his kids - and his grandson, Tyler promptly swipes the hat deciding that it is the perfect costume accessory to be a ninja. It was clear Tyler had no intention of surrendering the hat, so I told him that if he promised to wear the hat to keep him warm, and not just for ninja acivities that he could keep it. I love this kid - his response which was, ok, but I need matching gloves like the ones you have too! I couldnt say no and found a great pattern for fingerless mitts to complete the set. I'm happy to say I see Tyler wearing everything all the time.

Of course I had to replace the hijacked (or would that be ninjajacked hat). I start out on Bruce's second hat. Mid cap, Bruce decides to propse and we run off and elope. The cap wasnt finished until he was my husband and therefore has interesting history attached to it. We have now totally eliminated the whole boyfriend knitting issue entirely - but he still doesnt wear sweaters.

Weekend Jacket
I havent only worked on smaller projects over the past few months. My biggest project completed so far has been a weekend jacket that I saw in Knit 'n Style this winter. I had finally found the perfect simple jacket to edge with the Prism Cool Stuff that I had spent a small fortune on over the summer. I discovered this awesome soft Berocco Cuzco yarn that I knew would be warm and best of all wouldnt even hint at itching. The obvious challenge was seeing all the stitches in the black yarn - the pattern was this modified seed stitch where every other row was just a purl row. Simple enough in theory but I swear this is the project that threw me over the edge into needing reading glasses on most of the time now when I knit (stupid 4o something eyes). I'm crazy over the edges with the cool stuff - although I still have a ton more of it and once again have to find the right pattern for it. I'm really happy with the way this came out and am anxiously waiting for the weather to be a bit warmer so I can put it to good use.

Well at least now I feel like I've caught up in preserving my projects for blog posterity as thats the recap of whats been on the needles...well not including socks. You see socks have become a a sub obsession of my general knitting obsession, so much so that they will require a post all thir own.

Back to Blogging

So here's a brief insight into the way a virgo mind works. You blog, you make it part of your routine. Then you travel, so you blog in a different place to cover that time. Then you return and life gets busy - and you start to think of how you are going to get back to your original blog to cover your travels and how they related to your yarn. You continue to ponder all the proper ways to get this done, all the while your life becomes increasingly insane. You jot down ideas for posts, take photos, and find other worthwhile ways to procrastinate. Then you start a blog for your knitting group and contemplate just blogging over there instead - but decide that's probably not the best thing either. Oh, and somewhere in those months, you and your long time significant other decide that being in our age range and using the boyfriend / girlfriend titles is just old and tired so you get married. Your virgo mind works overtime trying to figure out how to go back in time, remember what you were doing, and blog about it while backdating your posts and catching up on the 4 - 6 months that you stopped blogging. Finally you decide that its just not going to work - so you own up to the fact that life took over and you chose to do other things - assinging yourself the title of slacker and lazy (totally factoring out all of the things that DID get accomplished over the past 4-6 months).

So...I am now declaring my blog once again open for business - in case anyone missed me - and even if you didnt!

Fast Project Fun

Maybe it was the knit, frog and rekint of my last project that just put me craving a few fast projects. Maybe it was looking at all the new yarn purchases and what was in my stash but I hit a no attention span knitting stage.

First up was a hat for my daughter Nicki. She had found this yarn a few months ago with the intention of knitting a bag - but her love for knitting is far overshadowed by her love for photography (more info in the life and humor section of my website). There was no way that I could let this luscious sheep shop yarn just sit, especially since Nicki thought a Tam would be a perfect hat for her to have now that she is living in New York City. This was done in a few days and a joy to work on. I'm anxious to get a photo of her wearing it - but this will do for now.

At the same time I've been working on a little sailboat sweater for Maria's son Logan who is due this winter. I havent had too much experience with baby clothes and I'm really getting a fast appreciation for them. They're so cute, and fast because they're so little - talk about gratification. This is just about done (but I took this photo last week when I wasnt as far along), need to finish sewing and do the collar.

I would have been done with this but I got sidetracked with a pair of socks. I should remind myself to always have socks on the needles - they're such a great portable and quick project. I've had this sockotta in my stash for a while and was anxious to try it as I hadnt worked with self patterning yarn before. It didnt occur to me to try and match up the yarn before, probably because I didnt know how the stripes would knit up. After a few rows on the toe, I adjusted the yarn to get the colors to match up. I started out strong, took a bit of a break (getting that 5 or so inches on the foot done seemed to take forever) but once I got going again I didnt want to pick anything else up. Love the way they came out!
Now that they're done I'll finish Logan's sweater!

Last on the needles in the quick projects category is a Loopy and Luscious Scarf. On my last series of yarn crawls I fell in love with some Be Sweet Magic ball and mohair - the colors and feel were just soft and dreamy. I couldnt resist - and while I'm thrilled with the way this is coming out, I am reminded why I swore off of mohair after a kid silk haze experience several years ago. Uggh! thin thin yarn on big big needles - I'm insane but I really like it. It will just be one of those pick up when I really feel like it projects.
I have a ton more little projects in my sites - this quick gratification thing isnt to bad!