Which is your favourite cigarette brand, doctor?

Hey kids!  I've been overwhelmed by knitting in the last few days, and not in the way that you probably think.  I've been thinking of all of the yarn I have sitting in my stash, and thinking of ways to use it, and being completed stuck on what to do next, even though I have at least 5 potential projects I could latch on to.  Potential projects include a shawl with my Viola Fibres lace weight in "Wild Rose", either a hat or fingerless mitts or small shawlette with my Viola Fibres fingering weight in "Bruised Plum", dishcloths out of plain-jane crochet cotton for G-ma's birthday in July, a french press cozy for Fuzzyhead (to keep is coffee toasty on WoW raiding nights), a camera case for Fuzzyhead's new camera, and a tablet cozy for me.  I don't know what to do first, I don't love any of the patterns I'm finding, and I'm strapped for cash right now, so paying for a pattern is out of the question.  I originally had both of the Viola yarns listed above pegged for specific projects, but I need to buy both of those patterns and simply can't afford it right now.  I don't really love any of the other patterns I'm coming across, so I'm tempted to leave it for a bit until I can. 

All of the other ho-hum potential projects don't catch my interest yet - they would be fine side projects to have alongside something more challenging, but I don't know what to do with that.  I want to work on everything and nothing at the same time, argh.

In the meantime, this is what I cast-on on Friday night over the long weekend, and this was my progress update picture a few hours ago:

This the the Laurel sock pattern from Wendy D. Johnson's Toe-Up Socks for Every Body (one of my favourites).  The yarn is The Black Lamb merino/nylon sock yarn, which came from my Woodstock Fleece Festival purchases in the fall.  The colour is called "Olive Drab" and it's a pretty close match for the colour used in the book.  It's a very cool green, with flecks of blue and an overall grey-ish tone to it, and the leaf-ish pattern works really nicely with the yarn. 

These socks will be for me, and I'm hoping I have enough yarn for the pair.  Unlike the last socks I made for Poppa (the Java socks from my last post), I weighed out the yarn and split it into two balls so I know exactly how much I have to work with for each sock.  The ball is a solid 104 grams, but according to the label, only has 350 yards.  It doesn't seem overly thick yarn to me, so I'm surprised at how little is supposedly there.  I've turned the heel on the first sock and things are looking OK for the leg (I weighed what was left of the ball and had about 30 grams to play with still).  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't have to settle for a short leg.

I also finished more yoga socks.  I'm down to my last ball of yoga-sock yarn, which is the other half of the very bright yellow yarn that Catherine gave me.  I'll probably start up another pair of yoga socks to keep on the go, although these pink pretties took 3 months to finish because I just wasn't motivated.  If people start buying them up in droves from the yoga studio, I'll think about caring more.

 Posie pattern running up the front of the sock

I made a little pair of something for me too recently, with the last scraps of the original yoga sock yarn, the green ones I made to match my yoga mat.  These are the Ballet School Dropout Sockettes, which were finished over a couple days last month.  

They're fairly loose on me by themselves, but when pair with my French Press slippers, they are a perfect liner:

I don't know about you, reader, but my feet sweat more than I would like, and felted slippers (or any slippers for that matter) without socks is a nightmare.  Thinking about wearing shoes without socks makes my skin crawl for the same reason.  Also, don't judge if your feet don't sweat, you're just not human and we can't all be as awesome as you.  In conclusion, I'm really loving these as a dainty liner for my slippers - my foot topsies are still exposed to get the most out of the ballet flat style shoes, and I can wash the sockettes without any trouble.  The designer originally made the socks for her ballet flat shoes, but when I tried these on with my flats, they made my feet to squished.  I'll stick with using them with my slippers, and I think they would make a fab gift for the gal-pals in your life.

And now a blast from the past - remember when I learned to spin?  Refresh your memory here, here, and here.

When we last left our hero, she was working on her final project from Kit's spinning class, where she was supposed to do something with all those sample skeins she spun.  Quick recap, she didn't do anything with them.  For two years. 

I turned the red and red-orange into balls, but the rest were waiting for a long time to be touched again, until my restless knitting mood took over and turned them all into balls in a week:

 These little pretties are stuffed with old plastic shopping bags (what's up 3 R's, re-use anyone?), and for now, they are back in the box where I had them for the last two years.  I will be turning them into a sheep wreath, as inspired by Not So Sleepy Sheep.  Each ball will get a little sheep face, and little sheep ears, and four little sheep feet, and I'll firmly attached them all to a wreath base of some kind.  Until I get my second wind on this project, they'll be in the box. 

Also, it's Easter weekend, did Break and Enter Rabbit visit your house last night?

G'night all!

Onward,

vrock

Even I just don't know

 Hello knitters, and people who don't knit but love knitters!  This week in my knitting world, I've finished some yoga socks, I'm finishing a pair of cabled socks for Poppa's birthday (which was a month ago, bad daughter, bad!), and I'm reading about sweater construction.  Let's dive right in, yah?

Yoga socks come up first, with two pairs I finished to bring to the studio.  Since my very first pair of yoga socks, I've always modeled them around an average-sized ladies foot, because 95% of the people who come to the studio are women, and because I'm fairly certain that a sock without a toe and a heel will fit most feet without even trying.  And then I was wrong.

Observe the size difference in the two socks below:

I don't recall if they were done on the same size needles, but I can guarantee I either used 2.0mm or 2.25mm.  Both are made from KnitPicks yarn, the purple sock is made with Stroll in Duchess Heather, and the red sock is Stroll Tonal in Gypsy.  Yoga Mike even switched out one of the pairs he bought before Christmas for a slightly larger pair because the ones he grabbed were a little snug for his wife.  I figure some people will have smaller feet than others, but I can now safely say that the socks are not "one size fits all".
 

 The Twisty River yoga socks.  For both of my most recent pairs, I went with off-centre designs, ya know, just to keep it interesting. These purple socks are still on the board at the studio, and I'm slowly working away at a pair to sit next to them.

These socks feature the Blackrose pattern from Knitty, and these socks have already been sold.  I was in such a hurry to bring them to the studio that they almost didn't get a proper picture taken.  I know you love and appreciate the kitchen lighting for the sock photo shoot. 

So I've been working on a pair of socks for Poppa's birthday, and I started them the night before his birthday, which was a month ago.  Oops.  Knitting gift fail all the way on that one.  But my bigger problem has been that I will totally run out of yarn before I finish the second sock.  Oops again.  I decided to use some of the sock yarn I bought at the Woodstock Fleece Festival in the fall.  If you recall, I bought two hanks of sock yarn, one in "Mocho Chino", and the other in "Olive Drab".  My gift for Poppa was somewhat of a last minute thing, so I used sock yarn I had on hand that would make a handsome pair of man-socks.  The hank was 100g grams, just about 400 yards, and should have been fine for any pair of socks I normally make.  I forgot to account for the man-size of the socks I would be making, as well as the many many many tiny cables in the pattern.  I chose "Java" from Knitty Winter 2011, and as you can see from the picture, they are loaded to the brim with cables.

This realization left me about 5 grams short of enough yarn to finish the pair.  I was in denial for about half of the second sock, and I didn't waddle over to the yarn scale until last weekend to see that I would indeed be coming up short.  My first thought was to go out and buy another hank, but on further investigation, the shop that sells the yarn is way far away.  "Would another shop carry the yarn?" you ask.  Nope.  It's a store brand sock yarn, and I don't know why any other shop would carry The Black Lamb brand merino/nylon sock yarn in Mocho Chino.  I spent about 20 minutes on Ravelry trying to see if someone might have some in their stash, and then maybe, just maybe, they would sell it to me.  I couldn't find anyone who had stashed it, and only one person who had identified it as a yarn she used in a project.  I figured I'd bite the bullet and travel out to the store, maybe have a little knitting field trip, and pick up a hank to finish the socks.  I emailed the shop first to make sure they had the colour in stock, and Laurie wrote back saying she would gladly send me a little extra to finish the project.  I was totally blown away!  I was not expecting such a generous offer, and that was exactly what I needed to get it done.  Thank you Laurie and The Black Lamb!

By the end of the week, I received a package in the mail with a teeny little hank to finish my project.

Look how cute!  I totally twisted it up like that, it actually arrived as the loop you see in the picture above.

The colourway is certainly different, but I'll only need it for the the toe, which will almost always be hidden by shoe.

I'm currently working on the foot portion of the second sock.  I finished all of my heel turning and patterned gusseting yesterday, and made a shocking discovery.  Before I reveal what I learned, I should tell you that I've been reading Little Red in the City.

I borrowed it from the Knitters Guild library after waiting for months and months for my turn.  I asked for it for Christmas as well, but my family doesn't respond well to my detailed Christmas lists (which include appropriate yarn stores to shop at and exact titles of books).  I am on a mission to make a sweater of my very own, one that fits beautifully.  This book seemed like the perfect place to lay down some guidelines, since the entire first half of the book is all about how to properly adjust a pattern to fit YOU, not the imaginary model or dressform the pattern will actually fit.  I sat down and read page after page yesterday afternoon, and two things happened.  One, I'm totally excited to knit a sweater, and it will happen this year.  Two, I am a Western-style purler, which means that when I am working a rib pattern, the knit stitch on the end is loose and sloppy.  I didn't even realize there was a different way to purl!  An Eastern style purl wraps clockwise around the needle, which uses slightly less yarn than my counter-clockwise Western purl, and holds all the stitches a little closer and neater.  Epiphany!

While I was devouring this section of the book, I was also working on Poppa's socks, and everything came together.  "Hold the phone a minute!" I said.  "If that tiny shift in wrapping the yarn for a purl stitch makes all the difference, then maybe that's why my ssk's are always so jagged and not-smooth!"  I've been doing my ssk's by slipping the yarn needle point to needle point, so the stitches don't twist.  THIS IS WRONG!  I have never liked my ssk's and now I know why!  I immediately made the change to slipping the stitches as if I was knitting them, and voila!

A little blurry and perhaps hard to make out, but when looking at the slanted stitches near my thumb, the bottom section is very jagged, and the upper 3 or 4 rows look a lot smoother.  I win!

That's all I've got, happy knitting!

Onward,

vrock