WIP’s and FO’s

2 socks! Count 'em, 1-2!

Yesterday I finished my second nutty sock. I will hang my head in shame, because while I was bitching and moaning about the cast on, I ended up just doing it about half an hour after I posted. After that, yes, I knitted a sock in less than a day. It just flew off of the needles! I’m blaming the combo of the malabrigo sock and the nutkin pattern, which was so KNITTABLE and luscious. I literally finished ALL of the yarn, which was pretty fantastic. No left-overs, no nothing.

I have no idea why my camera is having such troubles with these socks...

I spent a couple of hours knitting outside of our college bookstore. I was actually listening to a very awesome podcast that I found online. No, no, it is not about knitting. Almost a year ago, the British National Museum started putting together a series of radio shows on the History of the World in 100 Objects. Each object gets a 14 min. show, and they posted them online for FREE! Of course, they’re also publishing a book to go along with it, and that’s totally going on my wish list.

Heel detail

The other podcast I listened to while knitting my socks is the Playful Day Podcast. I first started listening to knitting podcasts a really long time- I have listened to the eminent Cast On almost since it first started airing. Along the way, I picked up a couple of other podcasts that I listened to fairly regularly, but around the time I left for college, I fell out of the podcast-listening bug. I’m not quite sure where I found Playful Day, but I decided to give it a listen while I was working on the first sock. Obviously, I liked it. There’s something soothing about actually listening to someone talk about their knitting successes and failures, especially when you are succeeding…or failing. I’d forgotten that feeling. Plus, she has a perfect British accent that I can listen to all day and she has a great storytelling talent.

artsy unfocused upside-down/ looking down the side of the sock shot...

So, now that I think I’ve gotten rid of the sock bug, I’m starting to work on my mother’s new scarf. It’s the one I talked about last time, using my new Plymouth Yarn Happy Feet. Sometime soon, I’ll devote a whole post just to this scarf…at least one whole post.

swatch blocking. Yes, I realize you can't see the pattern very well...it's a problem in person, too

Plus, the other day I suffered* through a trip to the local Jo-Anne’s for some T-Pins, and now the scarf/hat design duo are lightly blocking on my floor. Hopefully they’ll be dry by the time my room mate comes back, and I can have them unpinned and photo-ready in time for me to get some great pictures on my back deck!

the scarf stretches over 7 1ft. blocks...this may be a problem...

*Yes, suffered. First, the only package of T-Pins I could find was not on the right hanger, so I had no idea what the price was. Luckily, they turned out to only be $3.50, and I had a half off coupon. Once I got to the register, the ONE cashier was helping this lady who had about five questions about her fabric and eventually made her go back and check the price. There were about 5 people in line before the lady behind me went to find someone else to help us. Eventually, the manager came up with two more cashiers. I think the original lady got chewed out, which she should have…

Nutty Socks

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently cast on for what I affectionately call my nutty socks. The pattern is nutkin, and I’m using some Malabrigo sock in a delightful purple and green colorway that is completely entrancing. ENTRANCING.

At least, I think it’s the colorway that’s entrancing. It could be the stitch pattern- which is simple and short enough to easily memorize, but complex enough to keep me interested and ready FOR THAT NEXT ROW.

I just want to talk a little bit about the wonky cast on that this pattern calls for. First, you knit five rows stockinette, then a purl row, and then another six rows stockinette. After that you sorta double up the fabric by using the purl row as a sort of hinge, picking up a stitch from the cast on row and knitting it together with the corresponding stitch on the needle. I guess this makes a really thick sock, but it is SO FIDDLY. Of course, I used my second color to do this, and the dark green really isn’t easy to see. As a result, my doubled edge looks a little strange, but it IS on the inside, so who really cares. If I ever knit this pattern again, I would probably just do some sort of ribbing instead to make my life a little easier.

I don't think you're supposed to see that bit of green purl down there...right?

I’ve used about half of my malabrigo skein already for a lace shawlette pattern, so I used my trusty little yarn scale to half that again, so that hopefully I can use almost all of that up. I pulled out some Knit Picks Stroll to use as a contrast color on the heels and toes- it’s a little thicker, and that stuff is scarily strong. Of course, the nutkin pattern is for top-down socks, and I was too lazy to actually convert the pattern into toe-up, which would have made using all of my yarn much, much easier. As it is, I ended up getting about 2/3 of the way down the foot before I realized that I would have a bunch of yarn left over, so I ended up ripping all the way back to the leg and adding another repeat. I bet if I hadn’t done that I would be finished with my first sock by now…oh well.

mini-skein! and it's even with my other mini-skein! go me!

Finally, I did end up changing the heel, too. I tried doing it as the pattern called for, but I must have messed something up along the way. It didn’t really look like much of a heel, and it had lacey holes in it…something that I don’t really favor in my sturdy heels. I used the Yarn Harlot’s basic slip-stitch heel, which I actually have in my copy of Knitting Rules. Unfortunately, my copy is also on my shelf at home, so I found it online here. Magically, it had the exact same number of stitches as my sock/heel does, so that worked out very well. In the end, I think it looks pretty awesome, and it’ll fit my foot. Probably.

most of the way down the foot...oh yeah!

And for those of you who are wondering what happened to my design project, the actual knitting part is completely finished. I have absolutely no idea what happened to my blocking pins, so I’m gonna need to find them/buy new ones before I can do anything like having finished object pictures. And although I have written about half of the pattern, I don’t want to put it out in the world before I can put in some pretty pretty pictures. I absolutely promise that, at the very latest, it will be out in two weeks, right after thanksgiving.

Scarfing it out

First of all, I wanted to thank everyone for all of the lovely comments about the hat in Araucania Panguipulli. It really makes me feel awesome that you guys are as charmed by it as I am!

huge and pretty impossible to photography pre-blocking...great

Because the stitch pattern is so simple and addictive, I’ve basically knocked the scarf out in a couple of days. The most tedious part was re-winding my yarn in smaller, even skeins so that I would be able to figure out how to do the chunky-stripe style repeats (to mix the skeins that are so radically different, even though they are the same color-way and dye lot). I did it with the help of my brand-new scale. It’s really small, but it was also only $7 on amazon INCLUDING shipping, so I think that it was a win.

I think I'm going to name him Leopold

In the end, I decided to divide my untouched 100g skein into four 25g mini-skeins, which I learned is about 13 inches of knitted up scarf. I had used a little over half of my other skein for my hat, leaving me with 42g. To stripe it with the other skein, I made three little 14g mini-skeins, each knitting up to about 10 inches of scarf. Something about the thrill of striping, and probably the quickness that a skein of 14g gets used up made me finish this scarf very, very quickly. Like, hardly ever put it down quickly. Luckily, I was finished before it could REALLY become a problem.

design sketch...

Here’s my completely knit scarf. The skein changes aren’t really that noticeable unless you know what to look for. When you don’t, it just looks like the yarn is especially variegated. All in all, I think this was a pretty big success! Of course, the scarf has a bunch of ends that still need weaving in, and I can’t find my blocking pins for the life of me (not under my bed, not in my desk, maybe they’re hiding in my dresser??), so it’s a long way to go until I can declare this an official FO and write up the pattern, but that hasn’t stopped me from casting on another project.

moving along surprisingly quickly!

Here’s nutkin, using Malabrigo Sock. You’ll probably recognize the pattern from when I talked about it in the sock patter round-up a couple of weeks ago. Here it is, proof that I actually DO knit projects from my ravelry quene! Anyway, this pattern has a really interesting cuff construction, and I’m sure I’ll have plenty to talk about in the next blog entry.

Sock Pattern Round-Up

Since all I’ve done since we last spoke is cast on a pair of boring, plain-jane socks, I thought I would take a look at a couple of sock patterns that I’ve recently added to my ravelry quene- and maybe show you the yarns that I plan to use with them!

snagged from the ravelry page (link above)

duchess, unskeined

First up is Sunday Swing from Knitty Summer 2009. This pattern really just looks like a simple sock with a very simple lace pattern, which is just what I need for some of the more…eclectic…sock yarns ruminating in my stash. Right now I’m thinking about my Twilight Knits Superwash Merino Fingering Weight in the duchess colorway. I picked this up from her etsy shop well over a year ago. Pretty quickly, I knocked out a pair of Dead Simple Lace Socks, and it came out pretty awesomely. The mix of the pinks/purple, shocking blue, and golden yellow is gorgeous together- but you really can’t add much else without basically killing your eyes. Whoops. The one thing I’m not too happy about with this yarn is the amount of fading it’s taken in the past year of heavy wear, but is that really going to stop me from finishing the rest of the skein? NOPE!

snagged from the ravelry page (link above)

overexposed, so the colors are a little deeper than that, but I'm sure you get the idea...

Next, lets take a look at the Blackrose Socks from Knitty Winter 2008 designed by Suzi. At first I thought this was just a sort of standard sock with a little lace panel…and then I looked a little closer. The lace panel doesn’t run down the center of the leg like most do. Instead, it covers the side of the leg and foot, creating a really, really cool effect. I’m considering using my Araucania Ranco Multy, purchased at In Stitches Needlework for this project. I have actually already made a pair from this yarn, and I was really turned off that, despite the fact that it is 25% nylon, the sock still felted a little in the wash. Non-machine washable socks are not something I really desire, but I figure I’ll work something out- I can always just wash them in my sink and lay them out on a towel to dry. I think I have some wool-lite at home- I should totally pick that up. Anyway- Ranco Multy, greens, brown, a little bit of blue…cute. Hopefully, solid enough to fit with this pattern. I think it’ll work…

snagged from the ravelry page (link above)

once again, overexposed...sorry

Finally, the only pattern not from knitty! Here is Nutkin from Knitzi.com and designed by Betty. Nutkin uses yo’s and decreases to create a cable look without any cables. As a result, you don’t get the gaps and thickening that you can get from big cables, which is totally a plus for a sock! Despite the fact that its a free pattern there’s some really cute and professional touches throughout the pattern, and I think it’ll look great with the rest of my Malabrigo Sock, which I picked up at the then brand-new Yarn Lounge. I fell in love with the purple, and the little golden touches fit surprisingly well with the yarn (hey, those are the same colors as my tallis…trend?). Browsing through the pictures of other people who used the same yarn makes me think it will come out perfectly!