FOs: Monkey Socks and Mitts

Monkey - Cookie A
Opal by by Zwerger Garn

I just realized that I have the yarn I used for my socks and the yarn I used for my husband's Swing Socks (HSS) mixed up in Ravelry. Oops. I blame the German labels, German being a language I don't read, and my uncertainty about what to enter as the brand vs name, coupled with my inability to take decent pictures which is why I added the pictures some time after stashing the yarn. When I started the projects, I selected the yarn based on the pictures and they're all mixed up. Bugger.

Anyhoo, these were knit with the Opal yarn which I love. The yarn for my husband's socks was a bit scratchy (though it softened amazingly when washed) and this yarn was much nicer to touch. I also like the stripes which worked out about each row. You can't see it in the lace section, but the heels, sole, and toes have really cute stripes. I think the pattern section would be wavy stripes if it weren't for all the purling. If I knit these again - I don't see myself doing so as there are so many sock patterns out there still to try, but I'm not opposed to the idea - I think I'll just knit the whole thing and skip the purling entirely.

They knit up quickly and easily once I had gauge* - I started off a little large on my 2.5mm circs and couldn't locate my 2.25mm ones (though I remembered where they were later that day) so I sized down to 2.0mm and they were a little small so it was the 2.5mm after all. I knit them together down through the instep and then one at a time for the toes so that, if it turned out to be the wrong length, I'd only have to rip back one sock. They use the same short-row heels as the HSS, but a different toe bind-off in the form of the Kitchner stitch which I'd used for the Corazon Mittens I made for my first winter in Inverness. I had to look it up again and accidentally purled a few stitches on one of the socks, but otherwise it went smoothly.

The socks only took 70g of the skein. The thing I don't like about top-down socks is the worry that I'll run out of yarn, so I didn't feel comfortable making the cuffs longer than specified. My preferences run to knee socks and I anticipate becoming one of those knitters who converts every pattern to be knit from the toe-up and continuing until I run out of yarn. As it is, I had 30g left so I divided it into two 15g hanks and knit myself a pair of matching mitts. To keep from having to rip out two mitts every time I tweaked something, I cast on one mitt and got it the right size (48 stitches, 2.5mm needles) and when I was sure it would fit, cast on the other, knit it up to the same point, and then finished them two-at-a-time. I used an afterthought thumb and knit them from the fingers up and they reach about 2" past my wrist - a good length.

* I use the term loosely here to mean "an appropriate size to fit comfortably" as opposed to the traditional "size to match original pattern"

FO: Husband Swing Socks

Sunday Swing Socks - Kristel Nyberg
Fortissima Colori, Socka Colori - 100g/420m - 75% superwash wool, 25% polyamide

I first cast these on back in June and knit up the first one fairly handily - and then ran into Trouble. Try though I might and I did try* I just couldn't get the second sock to match the first sock and we're talking a difference of gauge that would not "just block out".

So I started over. This is a learning experience, right? This second iteration knit up quickly and I finished them on August 30th and even let my husband wear them for an hour that evening and again later that week when we went to visit Aged Parent (his father). Aged Parent was fairly indifferent to the socks but when he noticed the beads on my Swallowtail Shawl he declared that I must have the patience of Job. Chris, OTOH, is completely enamoured of his socks and has even started a twitter account for them. Ah, geek love.

Look at the pretty ripples (and the white glow of my English husband's skin)! Oliver tried to photobomb these pictures as well, but eventually wandered off to harass his sister instead. The yarn was a little itchy as I knit with it, but post washing is as soft as a cotton cloud. I was terrified when I took them out of the wash (30C, gentle cycle, hung over the radiator to dry) that they'd stretched beyond fitting but as you can see, they're perfect.

* I decided I wasn't ready for the AutoPilot Socks yet as, without any socks under my belt, frogging and reknitting to get it right was going to break my heart. Also, while I love the yarn I hate the colour. Not a winning combination.

Knittery and Cookery

I don't have much to say about knitting at the moment mostly because, while I've been knitting and have even finished things, I haven't had a chance to take pictures of them and thus I'm not posting about it. Part of the problem is figuring out how to stage things. Now that I've discovered the un-occupied cat tree makes a wonderful drape for shawls (and that staging knitting leads to my cats saying, "no, that's fine, we were done napping here anyway. You go ahead." I really do have the best cats) I can take shawl pictures all day long, but socks need a little more help. My husband is the definition of GGG*, to coop a phrase, so I'm sure he'll agree to model knitwear in exchange for, you know, knitwear.

So yes, I have been knitting (finished the Husband Swing Socks and a "helmet" style hat for Chris, spent two nights trying to work out my own double-knit mitten patterns to coordinate with the hat before giving up because this yarn is not agreeable to frogging and reknitting and therefore less than ideal from a design PoV, and I've turned the heels and am decreasing the gusset on the Monkeys for me. Knitting things, things that can actually be used and have a function, a purpose, is simply amazing.

I've also been cooking. I mentioned that I picked up a cookery magazine for my husband and that he made a Mysterious List of Recipes to Try which he's dribbled out to me day by day so I could go to the grocery store and purchase ingredients. On Monday I made a Sausage Bake with onions, butternut squash, garlic, and carrots which was quite nommy and then on Tuesday we boiled some pasta, and mixed it with the leftover sausage bake, some créme fraiche, a chilli, and some parsley and OMG was that delicious. Wednesday was a Roast Chicken (again with onions and garlic) and a scrummy gravy which tonight becomes chicken pot pies with broccoli. Chris and I had a small fight about who gets to make dinner** and I played the "but dinner takes an hour to prep and an hour to bake and if we wait for you to make it, we won't eat till 8 or 9o'clock" which I played yesterday when he wanted to go with me to buy the ingredients and then make dinner. Because I'm a good and magnanimous wife I suggested that he make the pudding (apple tarts made with the leftover puff pastry from the pies) which I had originally planned on making as a surprise. I try to be GGG too. Speaking of dinner, I should go do that now.

* Good, Giving, Game

** Seriously, we both want to do it. Chris also likes it when we cook together but I want to Do All The Things which isn't exactly in the spirit of cooperation. If neither of us feels like making dinner we either defrost something (if we notice the ennui early in the day) or order take-away (if we give up around dinner time).

Almost Finished: Husband Swing Socks

I have turned the heel and am almost done with the gusset decreases for the Husband Swing Socks (modelled above, by yours truly as my husband's feet seem to have walked off). I've taken to reading knitting blogs, that being my inspiration to start one, and I keep adding more and more as I find them. I could - and sometimes do! - spend hours reading my RSS feed. One of the best parts of this, aside from inspiration both as a knitter and a writer (and hopefully someday a woman who can take decent photographs), has been reading about techniques and how to properly execute them. Most of it I glance over, taking in the barest details as they don't pertain to current knitting projects. But then, having turned the heel, I remember I read something about different ways to "pick-up and knit", which is what I'm going to do now, and it looked nothing like how I've been doing it* so I googled "pick-up and knit" and found a tutorial on Knitty which explained how to pick up sock gussets and away I went!

I finished my Glasgow-trip shawl last week and finally got my office cleared out enough that I could block it so it's stretched out upstairs thinking decreasingly damp and increasingly stretched thoughts. My husband said, "oh, wow!" a lot and declared it to be his favourite shawl yet. I'll try and stage some decent pictures once it's dry and do a proper write up then (hence neither pictures nor details here, though I've done a few "sneak peeks" on Twitter and Plus.

Speaking of Plus, I've read about knitter communities there and I am eager to wade my toes in that pool. The problem of course is that I don't know who any of the bloggers are (darn "real name" policy) and I feel weird about "following" people who don't know me from Adam. I guess I'll just have to put myself forward and hope for the best.

In other news, because this whole "only working on one project" thing was very bizarre, I've cast on the Monkey Socks in my blue/purple Opal wool for me. Now I'm going to have to force myself to finish Chris' socks sooner rather than later!

*I'm mostly self-taught as a knitter. A friend of a friend showed me how but she is allergic to the wool yarn I was learning with and took a decidedly "hands-off" approach. She showed me "knit" and "purl" and everything else I figured out on my own, trying to make patterns "work". No wonder I've been afraid to make fitted garments!

Sockrifice*

I have made good progress on Chris' Sunday Swing Socks, having done four repeats of the "lace" pattern (one yarn-over every quarter the way 'round doesn't really qualify as lace but I don't know what else to call it - YOs = lace, right?) and I'm now working on the heel flaps (boring!). I switched from Magic Loop to two circs, though still knitting two-at-a-time, for convenience. Mind you it would be more convenient if I owned a 2.5mm circ that's less than 100cm, but I'd rather my needles be too long than too short.

I am happy to report that, flying to London and back, security didn't blink at my knitting needles. They did, however, need to search the coarse-ground oatmeal (as in ground oats, not porridge) that I was bringing for Tonnvane. I also had no trouble knitting on the tube, using my drawstring bag from The Yarn Cake looped over one wrist and both yarn sources (the skein and the unraveling sock) inside. Easier than knitting on the sofa with a quantity of yarn to either side of me, even.

Chris gamely went to three yarn shops with me (two LYS and one department store with a haberdashery). I bought three skeins of a bulky Rowan for a multi-coloured hat with ear flaps for Chris at the haberdashery and one skein of a gorgeous blue Wollemeise sock yarn, another project bag, and some special "safety pin" stitch markers for me from one of the LYS. The other one had some beautiful wool, but the internet was full of bad reviews (confirmed later by a local knitter)) and I'm a little tired of buying a beautiful skein of something and then not knowing what to do with it. That always seems to end in shawls and, as previously discussed, I don't need 400 shawls. So I decided to not buy yarn for the sake of buying yarn from a shop with a bad reputation.

Speaking of buying yarn for the sake of buying yarn, I showed Chris the "Happy Birthday, Dear Knitter" video from Franklin of The Panopticon and he kept guffawing. He says that even a year ago he wouldn't have found it funny, but now it's hilarious and he beseeched me to share it, so here you go.


I caught Oliver playing with my yarn. He said he could explain, but so far nothing:


* Credit for the pun goes to Tonnvane who was quite amused at the unraveling of one sock to knit another. She may have been inspired by margaritas.

Sock It to Me, Baby

Well, I haven't run out of sock puns yet. I also haven't managed to finish my first pair of socks yet. I frogged my husband's Sunday Swing Sock when he wasn't looking and cast on 80 stitches based on my gauge when trying to knit the second sock (much, much smaller than the first sock) but my gauge seems to have loosened up again. This probably means I could have not frogged the first sock and managed to get the second one to be the same size, but this way I'm not taking any chances.

Anyway, I CO 80 stitches (twice, since I'm doing them two-at-a-time now) and suspected they were too big but wanted to knit a few inches to be sure so I did two repeats of the pattern and if I'd finished them they'd just have been huge, slouchy socks. I was tempted to just finish the darn things to be done but while I figure my husband could comfortably wear them if the calf is slouchy, he wouldn't want to if the heel and foot were too big around and I really do want to knit something he can wear so, again when he wasn't looking, I forgged them and CO 72 stitches - the next smaller size. I spent the whole evening working on them only to realize that somewhere along the way I'd gotten off on the 1x1 ribbing and the easiest thing was just to frog them again.

That was last night. Today I cast them on again and have completed the inch of ribbing and am halfway through the first repeat of the pattern and I think *knock on/touch wood* that this time I will knit a pair of socks.

And then I can revel in the new yarn I bought in Glasgow. Mmmm, yarn.

New Socks

Remember the Sunday Swing Socks? Well, they're not going well. As, no doubt some of you predicted, sizing up my needles got my gauge right horizontally, but messed it up vertically. Two repeats of the lace in and Second Sock is approximately the same width as First Sock but at least half an inch longer than where it should be. Bugger. Chris doesn't want me to frog the first sock and redo both of them and I'm pretty fed up with them, so I've decided to go with Plan B which is Completely Different Socks.

I bought Amy S. Singer (of Knitty fame)'s Autopilot Sock Recipe which is a how-to-customize-a-pair-of-socks guide, from the toe up. I'm also knitting them two-at-a-time using the Magic Loop method so from one-at-a-time, top-down, pattern socks, this is quite a change. I bought Wendy's Happy sock-yarn, a bamboo/nylon blend in "zebra" which is white/blue/grey/green, again fairly different from the darker blues wool/nylon yarn I was using. I really wanted to do toe-up socks so I could knit until I run out of yarn and make custom knee-high socks. I have two skeins, so I'm not pulling from both ends of the same ball and I have plenty of yarn to work with.

I think I've talked Chris around to the frog-and-reknit-both-at-the-same-time school of thought. I may just have to frog First Sock when he's not looking and present it fait accompli.