FO: Socks and More Socks.

Holy flying cows, man, another month has passed without me blogging! Oopsies!! I will just do a quickie post today about some more finished socks. Fear not, I will do my utmost to find the time to change the record and write about something other than finished socks.

 To recap, I set myself the challenge of knitting 12 pairs of socks in 2012, and now this is well under way. After last month's slight 'where is this going?' dilemma, this month has been more 'who the hell cares where this is going?' and I've cracked on. And so, dear reader, I have not one but two pairs of shiny new socks to show you.

First up are my Jazzy Jaywalkers. I do love it when a pattern and yarn come together so well.

Yarn: Regia 4ply Ombre Stripe by Kaffe Fassett in Shade 4483 from Hobbycraft, Aberdeen.
Pattern: Jaywalker, a free pattern on ravelry (which is free to join if you haven't already!). The rav link is here.
Mods: Made the smaller size longer as I have long skinny feet. Also made on dpns (magic loop is recommended in the pattern), but the change was straightforward and and I just put one patters repeat on each needle.
Ravelry project page here.

All in all a pretty easy sock, good as a second pair. Top-down, slip-stitch heel flap, short row heel, and then decreasing symmetrically for the toes before grafting.

Next!

The second pair of socks are named 'Helter Skelter', as there are purl stitches that twist around the entire thing. The toe is a twisted toe and the heel is a short row heel - the first time I've done this on top-down socks - involved yarn overs instead of wraps, and I'm not sure I'd do it again as it's turned out a bit holey. I do feel like the yarn and the pattern are not getting on as well as with the Jaywalkers, but such luck doesn't strike twice in a month!

Also, you may notice that they are not matching socks, and this is the first time I've really done this. All down to the first ball of yarn having a couple of knots in it that meant the stripes went out of order, and I am pragmatic enough to decide that hacking up the second one to create the same effect was out.

Pattern: RPM by Aija Goto, free from knitty and on ravelry.
Yarn: Regia Design Line by Kaffe Fassett in Shade 4453, 'Exotic Pool'. Also from Hobbycraft in Aberdeen.
Mods: Not one, but if I had my time again I would do a standard slip-stitch heel and would rethink the twisted toe decreases.
Ravelry project page here.

In conclusion, I'm back in love with sock knitting and clearly loving Kaffe Fassett's colours. See you next time for something that isn't socks. Promise!

Mischief Managed

Today , dear reader, I have more socks for you. There has been a lot of sock knitting while I was away.

Yarn: The Yarn Yard's Bonny in Making Mischief

Pattern: Leyburn Socks by Minty Fresh [rav link]

My project page on Ravelry is here.

These are quite an achievement for me. I bought the yarn on a bit of an impulse, in the sale, months and months ago. Since then, I have tried to make them into Wanidas, which they did not suit, and to make them vanilla socks, which I felt the yarn was better than.

The butterfly stitch pattern is easy to remember, and shows of the yarn really well. It also tends to break up any bits of pooling that appear now and again. I feel I have managed difficulties with a randomly variegated yarn. I am pretty chuffed!

This brings me to a small review of my sock progress for 2012. So far, I have knitted 10 pairs of socks, though two were cast on in 2011 and one of those I forgot to photograph before posting them. This means I have 9 pairs with evidence of their existence, and 8 pairs that are totally 2012 socks.

Therefore, I am not sure how to measure the number of socks I've managed to knit in 2012; by the number cast on, cast off or photographed? My plan is to knit socks as much as possible, and see where we are with numbers in another month or so. Any thoughts on that?

Skew Socks, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Embrace my Foibles

Morning all! I promise I have not fallen off the face of the planet; it's just been a busy few weeks. Since last I wrote, I have helped getting the University knitting society back into full swing, had my PhD annual monitoring, bought a wedding dress, and checked out a few venues. Knitted quite a lot, though have not had the opportunity to tell you all about it!

So, we shall begin with the Skew socks, Pattern: Skew socks, a free download on ravelry [link]. Yarn: Regia 4ply Colour in Clown, from Hobbycraft in Aberdeen

These I knitted mostly while I was away at two conferences, in the first half of September. Broadly speaking, a really enjoyable knit. However, it did make my realise one of my no doubt many knitting foibles.

I wanted them to be exactly the same, so I made sure I started them the same, same number of stitches round, same needle size, doing the same stages of the pattern after the same number of stripes. 'This is a foolproof was to get identical socks', thought I. Not so, decided the Knitting Gods, or Gauge Karma, or somebody. They are in face different lengths, in both foot and leg.

Though I'm not sure I care now - it is only a very minor difference, after all - but I definitely did. In my rage at myself, I managed to mess up the grafting on the heel three times and needed the ever-patient Jo from Stitch & Bitch to set me right. However, they are now beautiful to me, and I have (hopefully) learned something about needing to look at the big picture while knitting.

2012 Plan: Books update

It has been way too long since I spoke about these resolutions. In fact, it has been too long since I blogged full stop; conference season gets in the way of all sort of things. To give this a good go, I'm going to split it up by resolution category,starting with the one I am most proud of:

Apologies for the slightly crappy photo, I was so excited when I realised that put together with the three classics I read earlier this year I have read TEN of the twelve classics I was thinking would take me all year. Do you know what this means? I can read some other books before the year is out! Though sadly I am still not allowed to buy any books, as my 'inshelf' is totally full (to the point where books fall of it if you walk past too quickly).

Of this stack, I think Love in a Cold Climate and the Sherlock Holmes were my favourites, though for different reasons; there is always something happening in the Sherlock Holmes, but Love in a Cold Climate is all about people and I love that too. Frankenstein I did also really enjoy, but I was a little underwhelmed having been told it is the best thing ever, and so I might come back to that one another day; the same pretty much goes for Dorian Gray, though I've at least had mixed reviews of that one from friends. The Twain and D.H.Lawrence did prove a bit of a slog but were worth it in the end; Twain I tried to read while I was in the US and that utterly failed, which may be why that one dragged along. Mrs Dalloway was somehow compelling stuff, despite it being entirely in internal monologue, but once I got used to it I was flying. All good so far though, big plans to just keep cracking on.

Until next time....

Misadventures in Knitting

People, last weekend was a good one for many things, but not for knitting. Well, there was a LOT of knitting, and I did crack on with my vanilla sock very effectively but it just felt a bit like everything I touched turned to crumbs last week. And it continued with the knitting.

First off, I decided to try out some awesome new yarn from The Yarn Yard. I bought this shortly before my epic trip to the US so it's pretty new to me, and I'm always a one for seeing the yarn and then letting ideas ferment in my head before casting on. Except this one, it's just too pretty. I thought it would just be a vanilla sock, toe-up to showcase the yarn, and then I started.

Things began promisingly,  I loved the toe part, but when I looked at the full width part I thought, 'this could be so much better than just a vanilla sock'. Also, call me crazy but I see pooling. Or at least some kind of regular organisation to the stripes...

...though maybe I am losing my marbles. In short, it got frogged. Though it did look cute in the process.

Though my biggest misadvanture in knitting by a country mile this week has been Skelf, a bottom up jumper. I did the ribbing, knitted though the tree, waist and bust shaping and got it as far as my armpits before working out it was too big (36" size). I took it with me when I went to see Steph and she gave me enough wine that I could face the frogging. And boy was it a lot of frogging....

I plan to try one size down (34"), double-check my gauge, keep trying it on, and try to rack my brains to see if I remember what size the sample was, as I have a nasty feeling it was the 32" and it fit OK.

Of course, there will also be a lot of finger-crossing this week.

Adventures in Suffolk

Last weekend, I went to visit Steph in Aldeburgh. After the train and car rides, I arrived at Steph's lovely little house (Steph has promise to blog about that herself). It is in the grounds of a much bigger house, and we had a little potter around them (Steph has actually blogged about the grounds, with a lot more photos that I took!). It is a beautiful and peaceful place, just what I needed after a hectic few weekends!  On the Saturday we pottered into town and I bought a few bits and bobs, and had a yummy Cream Tea in the sunshine.

After tea, we had a potter on the beach, which is pebbles but there is this view back towards the town.

Also, there is a sculpture memorial to composer Benjamin Britten, who lived and worked in the town and has left quite a legacy behind him.

[If you want to try a little Britten, a good place to start is The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. He is also known for operas - like Peter Grimes, from which the quote on the sculpture is taken, and which is coming up at the Proms if you're in London.]

I did also have a little fun with my camera...

...including this stunning back-lit cumulonimbus cloud.

The next day we went to Orford, a nearby village full of pretty cottages, and an impressive castle with some incredible views. 

We did also surprise some sheep in the church's graveyard; we were not expecting to hear a startled 'baaa!' as we were walking through such a peaceful place!

Overall, it was a chilled weekend of pottering, chatting, drinking tea and most importantly knitting (more on that later though!). Thanks for having me Steph :) xx

FO: Cubist Socks

It has been a good month for socks. More specifically, a good month for Cookie A free patterns, since I made the Pomatomas ones not long ago. These were also partially knitted in America - indeed a little knitted on the plane home, which I felt very brave about!

Not exactly sock wearing weather here this week but I really enjoyed making them, fairly straightforward pattern (with 'breaks' i.e. plain knit rows between the patterned rows, unlike pomatomas). I love the yarn, the colour screamed at me very loudly indeed when we went to The Yarn Cake in Glasgow all that time ago. Like much of the awesome yarn I buy, I have to wait for a pattern that will do it justice. I think this is a pretty good combination, if I do say so myself!

Pattern: Cubist Socks by Cookie A [rav link], no mods.
Yarn: The Yarn Yard Bonny in Purple