FO: Wharfe Socks

Just a quick post today to report on the socks I finished before I went on holiday. These guys just flew off the needles, mainly due to that excellently just-addictive-enough lace pattern. I really enjoyed watching them grow, and thinking about the little stream in my parents' garden.

When I was little, I enjoyed imagining where the water in our garden flowed. Our little stream (or beck) flows off the moors, through our village and into the River Wharfe. The Wharfe flows through many picturesque towns and villages, and through Tadcaster where the water is used for brewing beer, and no doubt past some former wool and cotton mills. It then joins with the waters from all over Yorkshire to travel through York, passing millennia of history. From there it flows south to join the Humber, go under the Humber bridge and out to the big blue sea.

Lovely socks, though knitting them may have made me a bit sentimental!

Pattern: Kalajoki by Tiina Seppälä [rav link]
Yarn: Toddy by The Yarn Yard in Haar [sea mist that comes over the north east coast of the UK]

Holiday Knitting Plans

Dear readers, I have a quandary. I am going away for a few days but none of my projects are ideal. Let me review for you:

First up, Skelf. This is on hiatus until this warm weather ends - it's just too hot to sit with most of a worsted-weight jumper on your lap! [Yes I will keep thinking of excuses not to knit it.] Even if it were cooler, it is not sensible to take an entire jumper away for a week - unless I'd have a lot of knitting time. We're flying to a city break. Next!

The gloves I'm knitting for OH are also on a go-slow. I'm not enjoying these at all at the moment; scared of running out of yarn and keep having to rip back every time I knitted a finger, he tried it on and it was too small. Lost the loving feeling, but at least OH will be on the holiday to keep trying them on - though as I said, it is quite warm at the moment and whether he will want to try them on is another matter!

My blue criss-cross socks are definitely in time-out. I was doing so well and going great guns...

...and then, disaster struck:

Oh yes, that is how much yarn I have left to finish the second sock. A real moment for curse words. Shoved them into time-out until I work out what to do with them.


So what am I actually knitting at the moment, since everything is too rubbish / too hard / too big? The answer is some lovely socks, in a pattern called Kalajoki [rav pattern link] in Yarn Yard Yarn I bought two years ago. The colour is called Haar, named after the sea mist that affects the east coast of Scotland [according to Wikipedia] and it is beautiful to knit with. I'm racing through these with their just-addictive-enough pattern and slightly-larger-than-normal needles.

So now I need to decide whether to start something for the holiday. It's times like these I am glad of my approach to Knitting The Queue this year; to have a selection of projects I can choose from. I've narrowed it down to two options:

First, vorticity. This pattern and this yarn (from Wharfedale Woolworks) have been wedded together for some time. Things have been holding me back, sadly: the pattern is on 2mm needles (teeny tiny!); plus, I've mostly been going down one needle size on the sock body and two for the ribbing, which I don't own. However, now my gauge seems to have evened itself out a bit more, and so I could probably knit the body on 2mm and just slightly reduce the number of stitches in the ribbing. Ready to go!

Second, daffodil. I will admit that this yarn has been giving my pause for thought when looking at my queue. I thought I would make a classic, symmetric triangular shawl but then the pooling bugged me; it was random and chaotic (good) then pooled for ~12 rows (fine), but the two together were a bit funny-looking. Instead, we're going to try knitting a cowl with it, and hope that it doesn't flip between pooling and not, but at least picks one and sticks with it! I've got a slightly odd yardage (339yds/310m) so I've gone with the Irish Mesh Cowl [rav link], which takes 220yds/201m. So this one is ready to go, too!

What say you? Should I take two new projects away with me? Or should I be a good girl and take an old project to finish? 

Woolfest 2013

The morning of Woolfest dawned yesterday, and of course it was raining. Sadly not the best weather for a trip to the Lakes, but perfect weather for yarn purchasing. It was a fabulous day out, despite the weather. I am incredibly greatful to eweniq for all her hard work driving and excellent company.

After an awful drive over (including a debate about where the fog lights might be on our hire car), the day was quickly brightened by colourful yarn...

... beautiful spinning equipment....

... and of course, cute sheep!

But what did I buy? Well, I did stick to form....

My first purchase was Laal Bear Lush Hand-dyed Sock Yarn 75% merino, 25% nylon. The colourway is Beltaine, which is the festival that marks the beginning of summer at the start of May. The colours are more teal and magenta than my photography skills let on. This is destined to be socks, but what pattern depends on what happens when I ball it up.

Next up, a little quality time at the Sparkleduck booth. I really enjoyed knitting socks with their yarn after getting it from Woolfest 2011, so I was determined to go back, and this colour just spoke to me! It's Spirit yarn (75% superwash merino wool, 25% nylon) in Sea-quine. Also destined to be socks, probably in a pattern from Socktopus but not deciding what yet.

I was also determined to visit Ripples Crafts after finding her on Twitter and often nearly purchasing her yarn. I got myself Hand Dyed Sock Yarn in Violet Ombre 75% wool, 25% nylon. And yes, you guessed it, probably more socks....

The Easy Knits stand in the photo above had so many beautiful colours, but the one that really spoke to me was this Deeply Wicked (100% superwash merino) 4ply in Crystal Blue - more turquoise and less green than the photo lets on. However, in a shocking turn of events, this is probably going to be a shawl.

On our way out, we ran into Knit.Spin.Cake., who suggested we visit one stall that we had kinda missed as it was right in the corner, up a dead end.The reason?

Ten of these for £10 - they are Woolyknit 100% superwash merino wool DK in navy. Destined to be some jumper, sometime, after I've knitted the queue!

Le Weekend avec le Barf de Unicorn.

Reading over my last post, it sounds a bit like I'm heading into some kind of Knitting Dark Place - sorry about that (though thanks for the lovely comment, it did help me gain a little perspective). I read it a few times after posting and decided that what I needed was to assuage my guilt.

I could not find a pattern good enough for this yarn. There were several false starts. I tried socks with different patterns, but they looked way too chaotic no matter what. I was not happy, stamped, stomped, shouted at the yarn a bit (particularly 'too much entropy!' and 'stupid unicorn barf!'). I then shoved it to the bottom of my knitting in tray and tried to forget about it.

Then I started to get guilty about everything under the sun, including that I'd not managed to find a project to do justice to this beautiful yarn. At some point, I was moaning about this to my lovely housemate, who is both a knitter and one of life's 'doers'. So she did the leg work, found me a fabulous pattern* and I just had to cast on.
*actually, she found me half a dozen patterns, but we decided that this one was the best.

Pattern: Le Weekend [rav link]
Yarn: Toddy in colourway Spectrum, by The Yarn Yard.
Needles: KnitPro interchangeables in 4.5mm (5.5mm for cast on and cast off). 

I knitted all the way up to Aberdeen and all the way back, and basically finished the whole thing then - but then I spent a week thinking about how I could possibly use up the rest of the yarn and then deciding, with the beautiful shape and all the short-row shaping I'd just done, that it would be best just as it is. SuperHousemate has solved this one too, and suggested I knit a few sets of baby booties out of what's left - after all, they don't care how crazy the colours are!

Knit the Queue 2013

Back in January, I decided to try to knit my ravelry queue this year. We were at 25 projects, and when I realised I only knitted 19 things in 2012 my heart did sink somewhat. Given that I have quite a busy year going on, I more or less decided that it would be a great way of quickly choosing what to knit next without doing research on ravelry.

First the progress so far: currently in my queue are 13 items. "Great news!", I hear you cry; "it's still May and you're past halfway". I too did this, before the sinking feeling began in my stomach. I've only finished 8 things this year, and extrapolating that means you end up with 19.2 finished items for this year. More than a little short of the target.

I'm trying to comfort myself with the fact that these 8 finished objects include 5 pairs of socks (plus 2 pairs of gloves and 1 hat), and socks are labour-intensive. Plus, all of the 4 things* on the needles (all in the photographs) are more than half finished. Some so very nearly finished, like the purple mittens. However, this is on shaky ground too; I still have two jumpers to finish, one to start, and 5 pairs of socks still in that queue.

Too short - you can see my watch strap :(

This means that the guilt rolls in. I am prone to this, and it takes a lot for me to separate guilt from knitting. After all, it's my hobby, and your hobby should be something you enjoy doing. My coping strategy is going to be to keep my head down, carry on knitting as much as I possibly can, and have another look at the big picture in a few months.

*that 13 in the queue + 8 finished + 4 on the needles = 25 is miraculous. Total fluke though; I suspect some things were deleted from the original 25-item long queue, as I had a couple of things on the needles at the start of the year. Oh well, we will never know what they were and they will not be missed.

Addicted to Socks

Well, I may not have got back in with the jumpers, but I have actually finished some things. And yes, they're all socks.

Last year I set myself the challenge of knitting twelve pairs of socks in the year, and I did it. This year, I look like I'm pretty much on the same track. And despite my opening thoughts for knitting the queue's ten pairs, I never thought I would end up at the one pair a month rate again.

Socks fill a gap in my life. Twice a month I go see my OH in Aberdeen, which is a six-hour train ride each way. I try to do this on minimal luggage because it's train that goes a long way, which means there isn't a lot of available suitcase space, so I take a bag that can go on the rack above my head or under the seat in front. In short, there ain't space to do the journey with a half-knitted bulky jumper in tow.

Also, you can do a lot of knitting in twelve hours (there and back). A few years ago, I took a single DK hat project for fourteen hours' worth of train ride. Turns out that isn't enough knitting.

For me, socks provide the most potential knitting time for the smallest volume. This is compounded by the fact I have a knack for spotting patterns that become highly addictive, in that 'just one more row' way that I'm sure all knitters are familiar with. A cable or lace pattern that follows logic, easily learnt and not too fiddly, makes me want to get another repeat done - or half done, or two-thirds, or any tiny landmark you could possibly conjure up.

For that reason, sock knitting goes particularly well with train rides too. At this time of year, most of the ride is in the daylight so I can watch the world slide by the window, measuring my progress in miles and rows.

(1) Purple socks [project link].
Pattern: Shurtugal from Socktopus by Alice Yu
Yarn: Sparkleduck Socka in Double Trouble, from Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show 2012

(2) Socks for Grandma [project link]
Pattern: Anastasia Socks by MintyFresh
Yarn: Kind Cole Zig Zag in Aqua, from Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show 2011

(3) Magenta Socks [project link]
Pattern: 2luvcrew, also from Socktopus
Yarn: from The Yarn Yard
Actually knitted in February for a friend's birthday, but now that has passed I can show them to you.

I didn't know how lost I was

As I'm sure you know, that last was a bit of a gap between blog posts. This time, with good reason; I've been thwarted in my knitting. It just keeps going wrong. There was a point last week when every time I picked up a project, it needed fixing, tinking or ripping back (or at least it felt like that). I was going to tell you all about it, started composing a post, and then decided that nobody wanted to read my whinging. And more to the point, I didn't want to write it.

Of course, time has passed and things have improved, and I although could happily soliloquize as to whether this is luck, hard work or merely reversion to mean, I won't; I don't want to make you suffer, and I have good news. This week, I have finished two socks, hoorah! Although not a pair.

As I've said before, these are a slow-burning project. To get to this point, I have survived a lot of cabling and mostly enjoyed it; it has one of those pattern repeats that is short enough to be memorable and long enough to mean you've made significant progress after each one, that I find highly addictive. These socks are top down, but the heel construction is new and interesting to me, and gives a really lovely fit without having to pick up stitches.

Pattern: Mince Pie Mayhem from Socktopus
Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug in Adonis Blue, bought at Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show

As I had a slow-burning project, I needed something quicker and easier for the long train ride north (and for some finishing stuff vibes, which I was in dire need of last week!). So I cast a little something on....

Though apologies for the slightly odd lighting in that photo, there is no colour grading ankle to toe - though the yarn is beautifully semisolid, in a way that seems impossible to capture on camera! The pattern is also an ideal-length pattern repeat, but with much less cabling so I can knit them for hours and hours with few ill effects.

Pattern: Shur'tugal, also from Socktopus
Yarn: Sparkleduck Socka in Double Trouble, also from Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show

These projects so seem to share a lot - yarn bought on the same day, patterns from the same book. Though to me, their major common feature is that they've seen me through the wilderness and back on the right track with my knitting.

Who knows? Maybe I will even tackle one of the jumpers on haitus before this week is out ;)