AYoT: Heel Turn ( July)

The fifth month of A Year of Techniques was for working on heel-turns in cuff-down socks and featured the Antirrhinum (snapdragon) Socks by Rachel Coopey in her eponymous CoopKnits Socks Yeah! yarn which was previously used to knit Alex the Mouse. I didn't buy the summer kit and, though I found Socks Yeah to be a beautiful yarn, soft and with subtly heathered colours, I worry that it's too soft for socks (I prefer my socks to err on the side of bulletproof - if you have socks in Socks Yeah! I would love to hear how they're holding up) so I did a little stash diving and came up with a skein of Ripplescrafts' reliable sock in Sweet Greens, a colour like iceberg lettuce, that I got years ago in a "waifs and strays" promotion. 

I started with the small size, reasoning that it was close in stitch count to my default vanilla sock, I was using an ever so slightly thicker yarn (Socks Yeah! is a 3-ply, most sock yarns are 4-ply) so I'd get a slightly bigger end project, and the pattern is lacy and lace opens up to be larger than plain knitting. Yeah, that didn't work. I turned the heel on the first sock and knit for about an inch, tried it on, and decided it was not going to fit comfortably so I had to frog and start again with the medium size recommend for my foot size. 

Between having to knit the first sock almost twice and July being a short month for AYoT, for the first time the following month's pattern was released before I finished that month's. But I finished and that's the important thing. 

Progress Report: Knitting FO

Since getting my knitting mojo back in September and being semi-bedrested by my puffy feet since December, I have managed to get a fair amount of knitting done.  On the completed front:

Vanilla Socks, Opal 

These are toe-up with an afterthought heel, based largely on the numbers for Flexor by Clare Devine. This is my third skein of Opal Happy Sparkle from winter 2014/15, colourway "Surprise". I actually managed to knit up all three skeins this year is vanilla hand-bag project socks. If the swelling in my feet ever goes down (come out, baby, come out!) I'll even get to wear them. Oh, I started these in September as my holiday project and finished them yesterday. I've not had a great need for handbag knitting this half of the year.

Lush, Cascade 220

Lush by Tin Can Knits in Cascade 220 superwash worsted. I knit one of these for Sleepy Orchid back in the spring in pink, having knit a stockinet swatch I liked and found my gauge matched this pattern in stitch and row counts. So when the heat broke at work (on a snowy day) in April, I ordered 6 skeins for myself in black (uniform policy) and, with long sleeves, it was just enough. I used smaller needles for the lace yoke after sleepy Orchid's was too big, and still had to rip back the lace a bit to get the correct blocked measurements. I finished the lace panel, picked up and knit the collar, and had just picked up and started knitting down from the yoke when "morning sickness" made knitting a thing of the past. It took me a bit into my renewed interest in knitting to pick this back up - mostly because I'd bought two sweater quantities of yarn in September and I really wanted to knit with them but felt I should probably finish this first, if only to reclaim the needles. Also, starting sweaters when very pregnant seems silly. I picked the size for my 50" full bust, going down a size for my shoulders, and then knitting the 50" size from the bust down. It buttons over my very large tummy, so this will have lots of positive ease come baby, though probably not in the bust. I made the button bands slightly wider with the buttons and holes slightly offset away from the middle to prevent gaping and Sleepy Orchid picked blue "orchid" buttons from my limited stash. They're not what I would pick if I had a button shop to choose from but they do the job. Started 1 May, finished 31 December.

Flat foot Floogies, Knit Picks Wool of the Andes

 

This pattern is by Barbara Prime and includes both the bunny and the sheep (and can be adapted to use any of her toy heads). I reversed my two colours of Wool of the Andes bulky and went down a needle size from the rabbit, which I knit first, to the lamb. The rabbit does have a face embroidered on, honest, the pink just doesn't show up as well. I knit them for 2.0 but Sleepy Orchid loves them and keeps "borrowing" them. They were really fast knits and a good size in bulky wool, which has a pleasingly Sheephaven quality even in superwash. Started and finished in November. 

Excursion slippers, WYS Aire Valley Aran

Hunter Hammersen created these Aran weight slippers to start with the heel cuff and knit down to the toes. Would the other way be easier? Probably, but if you trust the pattern these take shape as if by magic. I used West Yorkshire Spinners in Denim as part of the Great British (yarn) Sock KAL in October. The pattern specifies more yardage than one skein holds, so I bought two but then knit a small enough size that one would have sufficed. Oops. Again, a really fast knit, even faster for the second one when I didn't have to check the pattern as often. Started in October, finished in October. 

Zapote, Ripplecrafts Merino DK

Sleepy Orchid lived in this jumper for a few weeks after knitting it, but alas rarely while holding still. Zapote, but Carol Feller, is supposed to have a hood so I bought 4 skeins but she didn't want one so I only used 2.5. Oh well. It has integrated pockets and toggle buttons which I put on wrong so it doesn't stay closed. The yarn is a buttery soft merino superwash DK from Ripplescrafts which Sleepy Orchid picked in Slice of Lime when we saw Helen at the Loch Ness Knit Fest. It has unfortunately been discontinued but there's still a few colours, including this one, discounted on her website. Started and finished in October.

Armley Beret, RC Merino DK 

I started Woolly Wormhead's annual mystery KAL with a skein of tonal blue "Stormy Seas" merino DK from RipplesCrafts which I also acquired at the LKNF (like I said, I went off the rails - I also got a gradient pack and a skein of sock yarn) but I felt the cables were being lost in the tonal shifts. As the cables worked out to look like Christmas Trees, I decided to make an ever so slightly smaller one in some leftover Slice of Lime to match Sleepy Orchid's jumper. As you can see, it was a success (she's holding still and smiling here because she thought I was taking a picture of ice on the railing behind her). Started and finished in November. 

I also knit a little cat for Sleepy Orchid, from a Barbara Prime pattern and kit from Knit Now; a Rosewater beret by Tin Can Knits in the leftover Blend No. 1 that I appear to not have recorded in Ravelry or ever taken a picture of; and two little beanie Christmas ornaments from a Hunter Hammersen pattern. But I've lost the will to keep blogging. I appear to favour certain designers. 

So Much to Knit, So Little Time

One of the things about me being pregnant is that, for the first half of it, I can't knit. Three first trimesters now and three periods of time when the thought of knitting just leaves me cold. I can read and this time I watched a fair amount of Netflix 'cause I couldn't just lay in bed all day but I also wasn't up to getting up and doing anything. So no knitting for the first three months and, this time around, I could and did knit a little in the fourth month but my heart wasn't in it.

Imagine my delight, in September, when I got my knitting mojo back! Except I didn't particularly want to knit any of those boring projects I'd been working on before, no,I wanted shiny new knitting projects and bouncy new yarns to knit them in! I, uh, went way off the rails. For the most part I am aware that I have a bountiful stash with a huge variety of wools and colours, but in September that simply Would Not Do.

It started innocently enough, with the purchase of Ysolda Teague's Inglis mitts which were originally publish in the Edinburgh Yarn Festival magazine back in March, to showcase her new British wool, Blend no. 1. I loved the look of the pattern (and one other in the magazine) but it was only available in dead tree format, not digitally, and I really don't need more Stuff so I didn't buy it, nor did I buy the (small batch) yarn in the hope that I would find something to do with it. Well, having bought the pattern, when Ms Teague announced that she was getting another delivery of Bn1 and it would be available on her website as of this time and date, I was right there (on our holiday), ordering a skein. Chris wanted something to keep his hands warm when typing; I'll knit these for him, I told myself. 

Oh, my goodness! Blend no. 1 seems like a nice enough yarn in the skein and even the cake, but once I started to knit with it and had a few rows of ribbing....wow. Heavenly amounts of squish. I gave the just-started cuff to Chris to squish and he went online to see how many more skeins were available to purchase and started requesting intimate items I could knit for him so he could spend every waking minute figuratively rolling around naked in it. Me, I hoped the mitts would come out small and, darn it, I guess I'd just have to keep them. They didn't. 

The pattern is not overly complicated and has lovely details like the way the ribbing slants across the palm from the thumb gusset and the cuff that can be worn up or down depending on temperature and if you need to use your fingers. The only tricky bit is that, because the patten never repeats and is asymetrical you have to keep checking the charts for both mitts. I could knit while talking to people or watching telly -just glancing at the chart at the start of each round- but it wasn't suitable as a handbag project.

Then, right after I started the Inglis mitts, Ms Teague released the first pattern in her annual Knitworthy series, the Belyse fingerless gloves. It was love at first sight! Which unfortunately wasn't in time to get any of the kits she'd released to knit them in her wool and EasyKnit's Squidge, which is a similar blend of sheepies. I decided that, rather than order from two shops I'd just try to skeins of Squidge. My first several contrast colour choices were sold out (blue and silver again? Me?) but got one I liked and joined the mailing list...and the day my order arrived I got an email saying "wow, we had no idea our wool would be featured in this popular pattern, but we've restocked and even made kits!" Sigh. I still haven't started these, but looking at the pattern again, they're certainly top of the queue. 

I also bought a gradient set on the Big Boy base, as long as I was trying a new-to-me dyer, to make something from Carol Feller's new book "Knitting with Rainbows" which I also bought in September. Only I hadn't looked closely enough at the meterage and it's a bit short for what I had in mind but might work for a hat or mix with a contrast colour for an easy gradient colourwork project. I caked two of the colours together to start and I was surprised how course the yarn is. Will have to plan accordingly.

My other accomplishment in early September was finishing my vanilla, after-thought heel purple stripey socks. One sock appears to have two more stitches than the other as they start off at the same point in the colour sequence and they're the same length, but they end at a very different point. Oops. This is not my bothered face. I've not worn them much as I dropped a stitch picking up one of the heels and it's secured with a safety pin until I get around to sewing it down. They're knit in Opal's "happy" range, "sweet & spicy" colourway on a sparkle base which I ordered last year with two self-striping rainbow colours. I have a lot of sock yarn but I'd have to be dead to pass up sparkly, self-striping rainbows.

2015 Knitting Round-Up: Selfish Knitting

I am, primarily, a selfish knitter. I knit for me and I'm not ashamed or embarrassed to admit it. I find things I want to knit or knit with much much faster than I finish knitting things. I knit a bunch of haps for other people because I wanted to knit haps and the colours I was knitting them in didn't suit me. I knit things for Chris and Little Djinn because I love them and spending my knitting time to make things for them is a way to demonstrate that love. But mostly I knit because I like to knit and I want lots of beautiful knit things to wear and show off.

Shawls
Byatt Shawl:I blogged about my Byatt shawl back in March after I wore it to EYF. I said it was starting a trend for two colour shawls but instead it was the start of a blue and silver trend in projects (some of which are still waiting to be knit). Pattern by Karie Westermann, yarn from Ripples Crafts.

Headwear
Baskerville Hat and Strada Headband
I blogged about these as well, waxing rhapsodic about the new-to-me superwash BFL from Old Maiden Aunt. I got two finished objects I love out one skein and wore them a lot in the spring, summer, and autumn.

Tryghed Hat: Another hat, another Karie Westermann pattern. I blogged about this back in October. I like the hat: the shape suits me and it's big enough. I never wear the hat: the colour is wrong. It's a beautiful colour and I picked it because it's beautiful, but you only see the beautiful highlights in the sun. The rest of the time it looks like a dark khaki green and that doesn't suit me. This is a hat in search of a new home.

Mithral Hat: I didn't blog about this project, I don't think. The pattern was offered as a chance to swatch the pattern for the sweater of the same name. I actually knit it twice, frogging the first go and reknitting it when, despite getting stitch gauge, it was way too short (row gauge). I've worn it a few times, but I haven't woven in the ends as the style doesn't much suit me and I may need the wool for the sweater in question.

Sweaters
Miette Cardigan: I don't think I ever blogged about this one, last year's big disappointment. The whole time I was knitting it I knew it wasn't going to fit but I knit it anyway and sure enough it didn't fit. If I knit it again, and I may very well do as Miette is a lovely pattern, I'll add another couple of inches across the bust as it fit in across the shoulders and through the arms, it just didn't close in the front. This is the second time I've knit a cardigan with J C Rennie's wool and both have been, ah, disappointing. This is coincidence as the wool is lovely. But my understanding of how to knit a jumper increases so third time will be the charm.

Scollay: This was the big success of the year, my Scollay cardigan. I wear it almost every day and still haven't gone back to re-knit the button bands to be wider. It's big enough - it'll stretch around me and Little Djinn in a pinch - but the button bands pull and I think part of that is being reverse stockingette and part of that is not being wide enough. At some point I will fix the button bands and then it'll be even more my favourite cardigan.

O W L S: I didn't have a chance to blog about O W L S. A friend was having a knitting slump so I went through her queue on Ravelry and found that the only thing we had queued in common is O W L S (there are two kinds of knitters - those who have knit O W L S and those who want to) so I proposed a KAL of our very own. We both ordered wool from New Lanark Mill, the same as my Scollay cardigan though a different weight - she chose "pebble" and I got "blueberry" and she had a number of problems getting started, like the wool not showing up and then not having the size needle she'd need and, um, I knit mine in about a week before she even had her wool. Oops. So I kinda kept quiet about finishing but here it is. I did the math for the number of stitches verses my hips and found the pattern had 9" of negative ease (smaller than my body) so I added 5" worth of stitches and...now I have about 5" of positive ease (larger than my body). Um, oops. Really not sure how that went wrong except, in this case I should have trusted the pattern. The extra increases I added for my sleeves was perfect though. Anyway, instead of being fitted (which I didn't want), it's quite baggy (which is more than I wanted) but still has curves and it's very comfy and I love it.

Socks
Cotton Brainless: I cast these on in April and finished them in August. They were my "follow Little Djinn around the Floral Hall" project and she went through a "Mama, carry me!" phase. Is still in it, actually. Cotton sock yarn from Opal in my then-default pattern, Brainless.

Pheasant in the Road: WYS socks in the colourway Pheasant with aferthought round heels. I love my autumnal rainbows. I bought a pair of their ready-made socks in this colourway for Chris and knit the leftovers into socks for Little Djinn. I think I'll like the round heels more than the wedge heels in the pair of socks I'm currently working on.

Hands
Skovtur Mitts: Another unblogged pattern by Karie Westermann. I knit these towards the end of October when I was poorly and watching Switched at Birth. These were the second of my blue and silver projects to get knit up (the third, with the leftovers from this was the Skelter Hat for Chris). I love them and I wear them a lot, but they're in a kinds of weird place for knitwear. They're very warm, which is great for cold days, but they're fingerless which is more of a transitional element. I probably should have gone with my first instinct, to turn them into mittens.

Lindgren Mittens: If these look a bit like the Skovtur Mitts, well, it's Karie Westerman again. I only just finished these this month but still haven't woven the ends in. Oops. They're actually not as warm as the Skovtur ones - thick Aran wool vs smooth DK wool/alpaca blend - but they do cover my fingers so that's a plus. The picture is from before I finished knitting them.

Post-Holiday Knitting Ennui

I haven't even been home from our holiday for a day and already I'm finding it hard to remember what I was knitting before I left, let alone why I was enthusiastic about those projects.

I took my current pair of socks (the ones for me, not the Bullfinch Socks of Never Fitting for Chris), and made good progress on them, considering travel time is decidedly not knitting time when traveling just with a toddler). I was 2/3rds the way through the first sock and I'm currently 3/5ths the way through the sEconomic sock, which is almost one full sock knit. They're "vanilla" socks with an afterthought heel, like my partridge ones but toe-up and a wedge toe and heel rather than cuff-down with a round toe and heel. I don't know which heel I'll prefer, but I know I like toe-up socks and I think I like wedge toes, and I love rainbow stripes however they come, especially when they sparkle.

Chris wanted to visit the Apple Store in Glasgow on the way back, only to learn that they closed for refurbishment this week so we stopped by John Lewis instead (actually showing up before they opened!) so I took Little Djinn to the haberdashery and looked at fabric for a dress a few internet knitter friends and I want to sew up (LoveSewingMag Threadcount 1501/Butterick 5982) and wear to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival in March. They had a lot of clearance fabrics, but nothing - clearance or full price - that particularly appealed to me. I don't feel ready for a lot of pattern matching and pretty much everything was obvious patterns (I prefer solids and weaves) in colours that don't suit my complexion. I eventually picked a red fabric with pink heart/cherry clusters with green leaves and stems. The greens are wrong, but the red isn't too yellow for me and that's the main thing. 

Now, as it's the Edinbugh Yarn Festival, not the Edinburgh Sewing Festival, the other part of the goal is to make a coordinating cardigan to match. Green is the obvious choice for the fabric - assuming the dress is at least a wearable toile - but not something I have a lot of in my stash. I have a sweater quantity of New Lanark Wool Aran in "tartan", an emerald green, and Aran knits up quickly, but I already have two sweaters in NLW: my Scollay in the DK and my OWLS in chunky. It's not exactly a next-to-the-skin wool, nor would it be my first choice for a "transitional" garment. I'll look at patterns for crop/vintage cardigans in Aran or Worsted and see if anything seems suitable...

And I just realized that a green cardigan over a red dress would make me look like a Christmas Tree. Pants. White or pink then. Of course, black would match my shoes. (I love coordinating as much as the next gal but I've got one style of comfortable shoes in two colours - black or oxblood - and those are the ones I'll be wearing.)

Meanwhile, I have the baby sweater I mentioned in my 2015 Gift Knitting Roundup, which I started on NYE. I have one sleeve to finish, blocking, weaving in ends, and buttons to attach and that'll be finished. Easy-peasy, right?

The current issue of Knit Now magazine came with yarn to knit a selection of small items and Little Djinn and Chris both wanted the Owl from the cover (I was leaning towards the zebra, even though that one is crochet and I'm not good at crochet). I knit the body before we left, still need to block it, sew it up, stuff it, knit the beak, wings and eyes (crochet those?) and sew them on. Easy-peasy, right?

I need to weave the ends in on my Lindgren mitts and block them. They're otherwise done. And it's cold so I could really use a pair of stranded colourwork mittens. Easy-peasy, right?

Instead, between loads of laundry and being a climbing structure for a small child (who is very happy to be reunited with all her toys and intends to play with all of them first thing) I am knitting a bright pink cat-bobble hat for that child. We'll see if this is enough to keep her head covered.

Sock Setbacks

I mentioned back in October that Chris wanted a pair of West Yorkshire Spinners socks in Bullfinch with Cayanne contrast (toes, heels, cuffs), and I cast on and knit the first one in good time, except when he tried it on it didn't fit, it was too tight in the toes and he wanted more length, which would have been an easy fix in cuff-down socks but my preference is for toe-down socks so I basically put them in time-out while I considered my options and tried to find charitable feelings in my heart for these socks. That took a little over a month, and I recently picked up the second sock again -reasoning that if I make a second sock that fits I'll know what I need to do to the first - knit the foot a centimetre longer, worked the afterthought heel before knitting the leg, and got about an inch (notice how I switch between units of measurement? Yeah, this is my life) up the leg before he had the opportunity to try it on. The verdict? Length is better, but it's still too tight in the toe and needs to be wider. Which basically means ripping both socks back to their cast on toes and reknitting two whole socks.

Which is why the almost finished second sock got shoved in the back of my knitting cupboard and the circular needle has been cannibalise for a pair of sparkly stripy rainbow Opal socks for me. 

Merry Christmas.

October KALs: Status Update

As you may recall, I signed up for two Knit-a-longs (KALs) both of which started on 1 October: Carol Feller's Mithral pullover KAL, and the Great British Socksaway KAL. I thought that by now I'd be a gibbering ball of stress, knowing that I've failed them both and wanting to go knit stockingette cowls for the rest of my life. Surprisingly, I'm doing rather well.

Tarsi Toddler Socks
I really hit the ground running with these darling little socks, finishing them in 11 days. I used every last bit of wool, ending with only inches left so the fact that they're ever so slightly too short in the foot is just a crying shame. Little Djinn loves them, but they just shift right off her little feet and no amount of pulling them up can keep them on. Oh well. I tried and I will keep on trying.

Mithral
At the same time, I knit the first clue of Mithral, which was for the front and back of the shoulders, from the neckline down to the bottom of the armholes (Clue 2 starts with joining the two pieces in the round - the picture above was a few rows into Clue 2). The wool is deliciously soft in my hands but, as I anticipated, that doesn't mean it's easy to work with. It's not difficult, I'm not fighting it, but I am having to check from time to time that I've got the actual stitch and not just fluff and it's very slippy on my needles. Between that and the eternal worry that the finished sweater won't fit or make me happy, and working on it has kind of become duty knitting - I want to finish and wear my lovely new sweater, but I can't be disappointed with the finished object if I never, you know, finish it. The good news is that I thought this KAL ran for the same length as the GBSocksawayKal, 6 weeks, but it actually goes into December! So as long as I do a little work on it here and there, I shouldn't fall too far behind. And, while I like wining, I don't need prizes.

Pheasant Socks
Remember how I said I had two suitable sock yarns for the wool from British sheep qualification for the GBSocksawayKAL? I was wrong. My other wool is, as I said, from the Faeroe Islands. Faeroe. Denmark. Somehow despite typing the word "Faeroe" my brain was still thinking "Orkney". Um, oops. I was faced with two problems here - I like to always have a pair of socks on the needle as "handbag knitting", eg something small enough to be portable and easy enough to be picked up and put down a lot, and I was feeling a lot of envy for the self-striping Pheasant colourway from West Yorkshire Spinner's Birds range. So when my friend Miss Morgan was visiting and short one ball of yarn for a hat she was knitting, I ordered a skein of Pheasant at the same time. Then there was a problem with placing the order, Miss Morgan got sick and left early, and it didn't show up until after she left. Oops. But the WYS pheasant, at least, is as wonderful as I hope.

For whatever reason, WYS doesn't have any publicity shots of the skeins knit up, just in the ball, and when I'd seen people's probjects they all seemed to be like the Blue Tit colourway - stripes but a a lot of mottling of colour between the stripes in the way that Opal does self-striping yarns. Opal is (was?) my default sock yarn, but I mostly thought of picking a colour as getting the least annoying one. Pheasant isn't like that: Pheasant has five tonal colours (rust, pumpkin, goldenrod, navy, and petrol (dark teal)) in clear stripes with a small stripe of grey between each colour. For me that works out as five rows of a colour, two rows of grey, five rows of the next colour. They are stunning. I decided to do a pair of very plain, vanilla socks with an afterthought heel, neither of which I've actually knit before.

I don't know how much is the stripes ("just one more!") and how much is the vanilla sock so it's just round and round, but I have never knit a sock that quickly. I kept making myself work on other things and I still knit one sock in four days. Remember how happy I was above to knit a pair of toddler socks in 11 days? 5.5 days each sock? I just knit a full size sock in 4 days. I put off starting the second one to work on Mithral. And then knit a hat and half a mitt instead - then I checked the timeline for the Mithral KAL and realized I could finish my socks like I want to do anyway. Someone please tell me I'm not the only person who won't let myself do A because I have to do B and so I do C instead?

This is my first time working an afterthought heel, though the pattern I picked, Fork in the Road Socks by Laura Neel, has you work the afterthought heel in the same order as if you were doing a heel-flap and gusset, after the leg and before the foot. I'm not sure I like it from a construction esthetic - and please note this is a critique of the style, not the pattern which is clear and results in a correctly sized sock - the unworn socks look...weird. They don't lie flat. There's a fair argument to be made that because feet are not flat, socks shouldn't be either, and I'll have to see how comfortable they are to wear before deciding if I'd knit them for a non-stripy yarn. For stripy yarns the afterthought heel is perfect as it keeps the stripes in perfect order.

And Chris looked at my beautiful Pheasant socks and requested a pair for himself. I showed him the colourways available and he picked Bullfinch with Cayenne (from their solid "spice rack" range) for contrast cuffs, heels, and toes. I also picked up Blue Tit for when I've knit those, with contrast Blueberry Bonbon ("sweet shop" range) and the limited edition Christmas colour Cherry Drop.

Hotel for the Hopelessly Overcommitted (October WIPs)

Hello and welcome to the hotel for the hopelessly overcommitted. Like Hotel California, you can check in but, well, you know. Except at the HftHO there's wool, lots and lots of wool, and you wouldn't believe all the beautiful patterns scattered about and friendly groups of knitters hoping you'll join them in making wonderful things. I have a nice suite towards the top with a great view of all the shiny things I want to be knitting right now. This is the list of things I am currently working on:

Mithral by Carol Feller
A laceweight fuzzy pullover doesn't sound like the best project for someone who is relatively new to sweaters: fuzzy yarn isn't the easiest to knit with (it certainly isn't easy to frog if you make a mistake as the hat proved!) and laceweight yarn, being thin, takes more stitches and rows to cover a given space than a larger, heavier weight like aran would. But the pattern looks lovely and, as I may have previously mentioned, I really like KALs, so high on yarn fumes I bought the pattern and yarn. It starts today so I'm listing it in my Works in Progress (WIPs) but the instructions haven't actually been released, so there's nothing to show.

Tarsi Socks by Clare Devine
I may have previously mentioned that I have a serious weakness for Knit-A-Longs (KALs), well, signing up for the Great British Socks Away KAL is surely proof. I had already signed up for the Mithral KAL when this KAL was announced, to knit foot coverings using yarn from sheep living in the UK (or local to the knitter). I actually had two yarns suitable, four skeins of Navia's DK sock yarn in natural black from The Island Wool company for a pair of winter knee socks which I started but only got about two inches up the first toe before realizing the pattern wasn't ideal, and the leftovers from my Narcissus Socks finished back in 2012, Old Maiden Aunt's now discontinued 100% British BFL in the also discontinued colour Emerald City, to knit a pair of socks for Little Djinn.

I actually already knit a tiny pair of socks in this yarn from Sock Anatomy, Clare Devine's collection of sock techniques in baby and toddler sizes, but the largest size was too small for her little feet. Which you'd think I'd have figured out before knitting both of them, but I was pregnant at the time and figured that if they didn't fit her they'd fit another pair of feet soon enough. Fortunately, Ms Devine has since updated the pattern collection to include children and adult sizes so I picked another pattern (for variety) and a larger size, frogged the first pair, and cast on this morning.

The KAL goes into November, so hopefully I can finish a small pair of socks in the time allowed, whilst also knitting a laceweight pullover. It could happen. And if there's time I'll restart my big warm socks. Yes, my delusional world of knitting I churn out knitting like I'm Yarn Harlot or something.

Wee Meelia by Ysolda Teague

Look, I've made progress! Back in July, between the Hap-alongs and the Scollay-along, I said I was hoping to finish the hood (which is, frankly, huge) but it turns out I was nearly done, and I actually made it several inches bellow the arms. Little Djinn is lanky, so I'm knitting the size for her chest and I'll add length to the body and arms. Her last two cardigans actually still fit her, though the one from two years ago is starting to have cropped sleeves, so there's no hurry on this one.

Half Hansel (hap) by Gudrun Johnston
This one is going to be a gift so no pictures, and I talked about it in the last post, but it belongs in the list of things I'm working on. I've got five or six of the triangles for the border done, which means I've only got another 40 or 50 to go. I've been spit-splicing the ends together as I go so there will only be two ends to weave in at the end.

Those are the projects I am currently working on.

September and August Finished Objects

Finished Objects!

Scollay Cardigan by Karie Westermann

Love love love love this cardigan! I knit it in the suggested wool, New Lanark Mill DK which is wool tweed with silk slubs, in the colour Milano (I keep forgetting if it's Milano or Verona - both are lovely, I got the pinker one). I knit the XL size, my gauge was a tiny bit larger than the pattern recommends which I accounted for in the length but not the width as I wanted a smidge more room than the XL but not as much as the XXL. I also knit the sleeves flat, rather than have to figure out if my gauge was different in the round (hint, it almost always is). I bought several sets of buttons trying to find the right ones for the cardigan. One set was the right colour but the wrong size and the others were all the right size but the shade of pink. I picked coconut flowers that had been glazed pink on the front and attached them wrong side up so the pink is against the wool. It works surprisingly well.

Full Hap by Gudrun Johnston

I finished this back in July before the end of the Hapalong (hap knit-a-long) but it was a gift so I couldn't share a picture. I bought the pattern along with the craftsy class and I loved everything about it. I loved participating in the Hapalong, I loved watching the craftsy class and listening to Ms Johnston - it was very soothing and interesting if that makes sense, and I loved knitting the pattern and seeing all the different colour combinations people came up with. Three of my colours are from Judith Glue a little tourist tat shop in town except instead of tat they largely stock things made in Orkney. The yellow, green, and light blue were each £10 and described only as "100g 100% lambswool". The blue is mystery wool from my stash, described only as "£4.00" on what looks like a charity shop tag. The bright blue was heavier than the others, but worked well enough and, I think, largely made the shawl. I'm sad to say that I don't have a great feeling that the woman I gifted the shawl to will love it in the way we hope any knitted gift will be loved, but such is the nature of life, right?

I'm using the three Orkney colours to knit a half hap in between other projects (it started as my travel project to Amsterdam but despite the four hour delay leaving, I only got about 20 sts knit the whole trip). The half-hap is so much faster to knit than the full size one that I'm ready to accuse everyone who knit one in the KAL of cheating or witch craft or something. I'm on the edging now and I've decided to knit back and forth, rather than turn it around every 8-15 stitches. It's not really fast yet, but it may get there as my left to right knitting improves. I may have enough wool left over to knit another half hap with the third colour as the centre.

Brainless by Yarnissima

These are "brainless" socks, one of my two default toe-up sock patterns, in a cotton-blend Opal sock yarn. I started them before Easter and finished them in time for Autumn. That's how long it takes me to knit a pair of socks, for a value of knitting that mostly involves knitting while following Little Djinn around the floral hall. I'm proud of myself for getting the stripes to match up, though I seem to have done the heels differently and the second way doesn't fit as well. Also, the stripes somehow got off on the second cuff. I don't care enough to redo them. I wore them yesterday when it was really hot (20C/70F) and my feet were too hot even with the cotton, so I doubt I'll bother with cotton blend wool socks again, especially as I didn't really like any of the colours, these are just the ones I disliked the least.

The good news is that, while I was knitting these, I found out that my favourite yarn dyer uses Opal's regular sock yarn as the base of one of her sock yarns so I can get the wool I like in colours I love instead of just being okay with!

Fudge by Barbara Prime

Fudge the Dog was a kit from Knit Now magazine and as soon as it arrived in late May Little Djinn insisted I knit it. I mentioned her a few months ago, but I don't think I ever posted a picture, so here she is in all her glory. The kit included the yarn and eyes and Little Djinn loves her. The current issue of Knit Now magazine has a kit for Puss in Boots by the same designer so if you think she's cute you can knit something very similar and get a very nice magazine not very much. I knit everything but Fudge's body in the round instead of flat to save seaming up, and as Puss doesn't have the spots I'll probably knit her entirely in the round.

Mithral Hat by Carol Feller

In preparation for her next pullover KAL, Carol Feller released a hat pattern using the same stitch pattern which was a bonus pattern for buying the pullover pattern in advance and can be used as a swatch for the sweater. High from the yarn fumes after finishing my Scollay, I bought the pattern and ordered the yarn (also discounted in September from Purlescence) and quickly knit it up. Then I blocked it and realized it's a disaster, so I frogged it (the knitters out there all gasped in shared pain at frogging a brushed yarn) and re-knit it on larger needles. I just cast off the second attempt today, blocked it over a balloon in front of the space heater, and took a picture. I still need to measure to get my gauge so I'll be ready when the first part of instructions (it's not really a "clue" when we know what the finished garment will look like) are released tomorrow. And, yes, Mithral is a LotR reference.

Beanies and their longer cousin slouchies don't do anything for me, but the hat has already been claimed by my little knitwear model (protip: don't hire a model who wants to do a photo-shoot whilst bouncing on the bed unless you have a much better camera than the one in my phone).

July WIPs

Here are the things I am currently working on:

"Wee Melia" by Ysolda Teague in RipplesCrafts Merino DK "Gunther's Seat"

I bought the wool for this at the Highland Wool Festival in Dingwall in May. Helen pulled out the colour to show me as soon as I walked into her booth, then clinched the deal by having a shop sample knit up in warm gold for Little Djinn to try on. It's like she knows me or something. I cast it on as soon as we got home, but Little Djinn spotted the then-latest issue of Knit Now magazine that arrived that morning with a kit to knit a little doggy and she insisted I knit that post haste. Wee Melia was ignored for the Hapalong and MKAL but I have a few days before the Scollay-along starts so maybe I can finish the hood.

"Brainless Socks" by Yarnissima in Opal Cotton Premium "Ozean"

I started these back before Easter time. They're 30% cotton which will make them better for warm spring days although it's July and I'm either wearing my wool socks or going barefoot with a lot more of the former. This is my walking around project and I am almost done with the gusset increases on the second sock. Let's all please take a moment to admire the fact that my stripes line up. Mad skills, yo. Obviously this could all go to pot when I turn the heel.

In the languishing pile we have "Harringbone Rib Socks" by Kristi Schueler in RipplesCrafts BFL Sock "Ola"

These are for Chris and, yes, he picked the colour. The pattern is a two row repeat and I keep forgetting which row I'm on, usually mid row. The yarn is also really skinny, making progress almost as slow when I work on them as when I don't. They're not watching Telly knitting, which is currently as much attention as I can spare a knitting project. I'm on the second sock so I really don't want to frog them and start over with a different pattern :-/

"Terry's Pullover" by Carol Feller in Jamieson & Smith Aran "Olive"

This one keeps losing out to shinier projects. I knit to the armholes and started on the sleeves before admitting my fabric would stop bullets and it would never fit. I frogged it, went up on both the needles and pattern, and started again. I started with the sleeves, two at a time, to check my gauge, and then couldn't find them when it was time to join them to the body so I figured I'd graft them on at the end, which is where I am now. The first sleeve went on easy enough, but the second on wasn't lining up for the 2x2 rib racing stripes. After two days of trying I put it in time out and there it sits. 

Meanwhile I am swatching for the Scollay-along. I usually have to go down on the needles so I started with 3.75mm needles and my unblocked swatch is 20x28 with a blocked target of 22x30 so I'm close. I'm swatching on the recommended 4.0mm needles as well and I'll block them at the same time to see what I get. CO is Sunday, which is a work day for me.

The World's Slowest Knitter

The esteemed Yarn Harlot recently asked Twitter how long it takes (the rest of us) to knit a pair of socks. This is a woman who is known to be a very fast knitter and can knit a pair of socks in a day which is, um, yeah. BLD (Before Little Djinn) I could knit a pair of socks in two or three weeks which means if I knit nothing but socks I could have, say, 14 pairs a year. That's not a lot of socks. ALD (After Little Djinn), well, my mother bought me a skein of Opal 6-ply (sportweight) sock yarn and Hiya Hiya needles for my birthday when I was in California in June. I started them on the 16th and finished them last weekend. This was not exclusive knitting, but they were my handbag project, the one that went with me to knit night ever week, the ones I worked on when I finished a ball of yarn for my red cardigan and didn't want to wind another ball just yet, or when Little Djinn and I were playing at the Floral Hall and I would knit as I trailed after her. They weren't exclusive but I did work on them a lot. And 6-ply yarn is thicker so it knits up quicker than the usual 4-ply sock yarn. I am the world's slowest knitter.

I am not a process knitter. I mean, I knit because I enjoy the process of knitting, but I'm not knitting for the sake of knitting, I'm knitting because I want to make things. I want to have a stable of toys for Little Djinn, a closet full of hats and scarves/cowls and gloves/mitts/mittens. I want all three of us to have a closet full of sweaters for any mood and weather. I want to wear hand knit socks every day and twice on Tuesday, and slippers for around the house. Heck, when I have knit all the things I may turn my hand to charity knitting (the kind where you make actual things for actual people, not "raise awareness" on behalf of global corporations), and things for the house like blankets, cushions, and bathmats. Heck, when I knit all the things I'll even have time for sewing because I wouldn't be thinking "if I take an afternoon to sew that toybox together I'll never finish my knitting!"

I'm already dedicating as many hours a day as I can to knitting so clearly I need to knit faster. Any way you hold your yarn and needles and get stitches is the correct way to do it, but clearly some ways are more efficient than others and my way isn't high on that list. A fellow knitter posted a review of a Craftsy course that improved her knitting, helpfully titled "Improve Your Knitting: Alternate Methods and Styles". Ms Lyons (a Lion Brand scion) talks about different ways to hold your yarn and needles (English, Continental, Portuguese) and different ways of mounting the stitches and situations where one method or another (or switching between them - two handed colourwork, knitting back and forth for short-rows rather than turning the work) can make knitting easier.

I've already noticed an improvement in my knitting, though I've only been able to practice the "new" techniques on new projects, not my previously cast on ones as my gauge has changed dramatically. One of the knitters at knit night asked if it might be faster to frog some of my extant projects and start over with the faster method and I almost had to go for a lie-down. Give up on hours and hours of work? Can't do it. I am making a big push to finish off projects so I can just switch and wipe my bad habits from muscle memory.

As a note about Craftsy, I'm a big proponent of TV;DW* and for most things I prefer to learn by reading and looking at some pictures (and doing). I've signed up for a few Craftsy classes, both free and paid-for and I don't think I've watched all of any of them. But knitting - how to make the basic knit or purl stitch - is fundamentally a movement and as a movement it helps to see the motion. So while I'm not particularly a fan of Craftsy, I found this class to be useful. Yes, you can probably look up all the different techniques as free youtube videos but you have to know to look for them and sort out your own pros and cons list for each. In the Craftsy class Ms Lyons has collated it all for me and I can concentrate on figuring out what works for me.

And now if you'll excuse me, I need to pick my next handbag sock project.

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* Too Video; Didn't Watch, a play on TL;DR - Too Long; Didn't Read.

New Year's Resolutions

Last year, I set for myself two goals: acquire more sock construction techniques and knit two (adult) sweaters. Then, as is often the case, life got in the way. I did fairly well on the socks, trying out several different heel and toe techniques, of which the most recent was short-row heel and toe for a pair of baby socks that will sadly be frogged as I ran out of yarn. Oops. My favourite techniques are most likely the Dutch or square heel and Kitchener stitching a wedge toe. That said, I like toe-up socks best.

I did less well on the sweater front, at least as far as adult sweaters go. My husband's sweater is maybe 70% finished - I've knit the body up to the arms and am working on the sleeves. I bought my husband a pullover for Christmas. My own jumper got exactly nowhere for obvious reasons. I'll take measurements again some point in the future, at least three months post-partum. As far as baby sweaters go I knit 4.5 sweaters, one of which was a pattern I'd done before (teal). Most were knit top down in one piece, one was knit flat in one piece and then seamed up the sides and under the arms (green). As baby sweaters, especially for a theoretical baby, aren't expected to fit the same way adult sweaters need to, I don't count them for my NYR.

I have 22 finished projects for 2012, 4 still in progress, 1 frogged, and 2 hibernating. Oddly, both of the hibernating ones use the same yarn. Most types of projects goes to cowls of which I knit 9 (three using the same pattern) thanks almost entirely to the Great Cowl KAL last February and March. Second most projects was socks, with 5 finished in 2012 (two started in 2011) and another two on the needles. One pair is maybe an hour's work from being finished so I may make it to 6 finished pairs of socks yet.

I am not setting any resolutions for next year although I suppose "finish the things I currently have on needles plus the nursing cardigan" count as goals. That would be 5 projects: husband sweater (70% finished), socks for my mother (almost done with first one), baby blanket/shawl for Little Djinn and the Wishbone socks for me that I mentioned were close to finished, and the just mentioned cardigan for nursing. They're all also things I'd like to have before Little Djinn arrives in 3 maybe three weeks which no doubt explains why I started a new cross-stitch project today.