FO Friday – Pink Mix Possums

Tags

cables, FO, FO Friday, knitting, socks, Socks with Sarah, toe-up, yarn

It’s far too warm for socks right now but I know I’ll enjoy wearing these pinky-red beauties in the winter. The pattern is Chain Drive Socks and it’s by Heather Sebastian (aka Joey’s House). It’s a little bit like Socks on a Plane but with a smaller cable twist down each side of the leg and foot. This means there’s no left nor right sock which will even out wear so they should last longer, too! The colour is Pink Mix and these socks mark the start of my plan to broaden my sock colour horizons for the year.

I knit socks with a fair bit of negative ease so they fit snuggly but not tightly. As a result, there’s always quite a bit left over. I think this yarn would be perfect for a pair of fingerless mitts!

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New Year’s resolutions – made to be broken?

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alpaca, merino, New Year's resolutions, New Zealand, possum, Ravelry, socks, Socks with Sarah, wool

I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions for 2014. Which was good, as I probably wouldn’t have kept them. I had started off the year by taking part in a minimal-commitment knitalong: Socks with Sarah, a KAL for 2014 but even then I fell by the wayside.

I certainly took the a “it doesn’t matter how little” to heart as according to Ravelry I needed three months to complete my first pair of socks! By the end of the year, I had knitted six pairs, (as well as various other things) but had definitely abandoned the idea of knit-a-bit-every-day, while other projects were given priority.

Many of the knitters in Knitting Sarah’s Ravelry group are keen to continue in 2015 and once again, I’m tempted. It really isn’t realistic to think I will actually knit part of a sock every day, particularly as I have other knitting and crafting objectives for the year. However, while my collection of hand-knit socks covers the green-blue-purple spectrum quite well…

…I think I need to broaden my colour horizons.

Funnily enough, I have been knitting on a sock nearly every day since Mr Soknitsome gave me this lovely New Zealand yarn for Christmas. He’d been in a wool shop in Auckland while on a business trip and had specifically asked for wool for socks. I was most impressed! (Amusingly, he’d been offered German yarn first!) This is Waikiwi Prints from Naturally and it is beautifully soft.

      

It’s made up of 55% New Zealand Merino, 20% nylon, 15% alpaca, and 10% possum. I’ve never knitted with such luxurious sock yarn before. The colour is fantastic too and, seemingly, just what I was needing. New Year’s resolutions anyone?

WIP Wednesday – getting back on track

Tags

aeroplane, bus, KAL, Knitalong, knitting, socks, Socks with Sarah, train, WIP, WIP Wednesday

At the beginning of the year I decided to join in with a very relaxed knitalong: KnittingSarah‘s KAL, “Socks with Sarah, a KAL for 2014“. Knit a bit of a sock every day for a year. Sounds easy? Yes. I could work on other projects at the same time so I always had something simple for chatty social knitting as well as a more challenging project on my needles.

Socks make wonderful projects when you’re traveling. Whether you’re crossing oceans by plane, the country by train or just the city by bus, knitting socks works well in a small space.

Because they are such portable projects I keep the sock and the wool in a little pouch ready to pack into other bags for travel. So of course at home this sock is not waving at me, nor jumping around begging to be knitted. It’s sitting there quietly waiting to go on a journey. Out of sight, out of mind? Kind of. We’re halfway through the year already and I’m determined to finish it as I began: knitting a bit of a sock every day.

Hermione upside-down

Tags

FO Friday, KAL, knitting, Ravelry, socks, Socks with Sarah, texture, toe-up

I knit socks toe-up. When I decided to master the art of sock-knitting I was drawn to the idea of being able to try them on as you go. This has turned out to be a good thing. I knit socks on skinny 2mm (US 0) needles and only need 60 stitches to get a snug but not tight sock. Sometimes I have to fiddle with a pattern but most of the time that works out alright. Knitting a pair of Hermione socks upside-down is no big challenge. At first I was going to knit this yarn as plain come-as-they-will stripes but there are plenty of patterned Hermiones on Ravelry. They are textured socks rather than lacy or cable-patterned socks – it’s a kind of expanded moss/seed stitch and I think it works well with these stripes. This time it was particularly serendipitous that I knit my socks starting at the toe. There was a knot in the second ball, so although my stripes began identically, they didn’t finish that way. You can see that my socks are different from the heels up.

Since I’m quite taken with my sock knitting abilities and love nothing more than showing them off wearing them with T-bar/Mary Jane style shoes I still appear to have a pair of identical socks!

These socks are part of the Socks with Sarah KAL

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Will I or won’t I?

Tags

clothing, jumper, KAL, knitting, patterns, pullover, Ravelry, socks, Socks with Sarah, Stitch 'n' Bitch, stripes, Zitron

On Tuesday last week my knitting looked like this:

I cast on this top-down jumper/pullover on Sunday and was raring to go at Stitch ‘n’ Bitch on Monday. But my purl m1 stitches were loose and the increases looked very ugly. So I focussed on being sociable and ripped it all back, knowing I’d get on better at home.

I got to spend the greater part of Saturday afternoon knitting and then on Sunday I briefly  wondered whether, if I knitted really fast, I could wear this in Brussels, mid-March! Now the idea won’t let go of me and I waver between wanting to give it a good go and knowing it won’t happen in a million years… So I’ve been knitting like one possessed.

My KAL socks (Socks with Sarah) have been demoted to the bare minimum: a-round-a-day.  And now there’s just a ‘bit’ of the body still to do before I move onto the sleeves. These will be slower; what with the stripes and shaping. After that I’ll just have to finish off the neck and deal with all the ends. Oh, and block it, of course!

Perhaps I’m in with a chance! What do you think?

 The pattern is Isabelle Kraemer’s ravello and the yarn is Zitron Patina

My kind of KAL

Tags

community, hand-knit, KAL, Knitalong, knitters, knitting, patterns, Ravelry, socks, Socks with Sarah, WIP

Last year I took part in the 2013 in 2013 Knitalong. This was a results-driven KAL to collectively knit 2013 pairs of socks in 2013. Every little bit helps and I felt quite pleased with my efforts (see this post). However, it was hard not to feel a little dispirited in the face of the super-fast knitters who were churning out knitting new socks by the day.

Full of good intentions to transform a couple of balls of stash into delicate lace shawls, as well as get started on the cardigan I was desperate to knit, I was going to leave off the sock-knitting for a while. Socks are ideal travel knitting but they were not going to be my main focus in 2014.

But suddenly there were sock knitters everywhere! KnittingSarah started a KAL and bloggers were posting pictures of their WIPs, all smitten by Socks with Sarah, a KAL for 2014. It’s dead simple. Knit socks. Every day. For a year. Well not literally whole socks every day, just parts of them! A few rounds, the heel, whatever. KnittingSarah has gone all out – there’s a Ravelry group with various threads for support and sharing and she has even started a series of video tutorials.

Like so many sock knitters before me, I’ve fallen in love with hand-knit socks: the more you wear them, the more you want to wear them. I no longer want to slum it in the shop-bought stuff. What better way could there be of slowly but surely filling my sock drawer? There’s more: this is a process-oriented knitalong so there are no prescribed patterns (although Sarah has suggestions), colours or pace; just a bit of sock every day. Now that does sound like my kind of KAL!