Hey, do you want to see a sock?

My wee orange socks are all done.  Let me present socks no. 5:

Pattern:  Simply Sweet Toe-Up Socks by Rebecca Bailey.  They are sweet indeed, and simple, even if you're attempting any of the techniques involved for the very first time.  Oh yeah, I learned a bunch of stuff with this project.  Let's see.  These are my first toe-up socks, also first time using magic loop method. 

The pattern is written out for 64 and 72 stitches and I went for the former.  If I ever knit this design again, though, I'll resize to 60 because...

That's where my toe is if I stretch the sock ever so slightly.  Despite going down from 2.75mm to 2.25mm needles, using thinnish yarn and frogging quite a lot, I ended up with socks that are simply too big.  They're wearable, but definitely not perfect.  Perhaps as an extra, to put on top of another pair? 

I'd give them away but I know neither a man who would wear those colours nor a woman with feet this large.  See, I'm size 41 so I'm guessing you'd need a foot size 43-44 to have these fit comfortably.  Oh well, lesson learned.  If your sock looks massive when you're knitting it, it will most likely stay this way when you're done and NOT FIT YOU.  Who would've thought...

On needles these days - Oceanspray.  I've barely begun and already had to frog a day's worth of knitting because I spotted a forgotten yarnover 20 rows on.  Depending on how you want to view it (glass half-full of half-empty kind of choice), this either doesn't bode well for the future or used up my quota of mistakes for this project and guarantees success.

Luckily, I'm loving the yarn.  Silk and baby alpaca, what's not to love?  It'll probably be a nightmare to care for but my goodness, isn't that thing soft! 

Stay tuned for updates!

Happy days

Happy days are those when there's a lot of yarn coming in. 

My postman (postlady, actually) was busy recently, delivering load after load of woolly goodness.  Let's take a look at my haul.

This pretty thing...

is a mixture of alpaca, merino and mohair, with a tiny bit of synthetic thrown in for durability.  It's very thin, somewhere between lace and fingering, and the jury is still out on whether it's scratchy or not.  I bought it for next to nothing, together with this fiery baby:

It's just as thin, but less fancy - half wool, half synthetic.  The best part?

I have plenty of both!

Seriously, that's a lot of yarn in there.  Both red and cream clock some 350-400m per ball, so we're talking of kilometres of yarn here.  Now, what to make?  A shawl (or five)?  A light sweater?  Decisions, decisions...  Maybe I'll ask my Puppy for help.  She seems interested:

The second package is a belated birthday present from my Mum and I smile at the very thought of its contents.  Look at this gorgeous mountain of sock yarn:

There's enough for 9 pairs in there.  9!  Plain colours are destined to become Fireweeds - the pattern has been haunting me for almost a year now.  One colour is chosen by and booked for my Other Half (guess which...) and one will become socks for my purple-loving sister.  The rest?  The rest is all mine, mine, my precioussssss.  For now. 


BTW, you may have noticed how I don't mention specific brand names when talking yarn.  I do this on purpose.  I don't mind sharing fibre content, weight and other details, but I have this thing against brands in general.  If you recognise the make from the picture alone, good for you.  If you don't, but you really really want to know, send me a quick email and I'll tell you.  But I'll let people do their own advertising.  Unless, of course, they persuade me otherwise :)

Socks no. 4

What is it about socks that you want to count them as each pair gets off the needles?  Ok, maybe you don't, but I certainly get the urge.  I'm not sure how many pullovers I've knit in my yarny career, same with shawls and all other types of garment but socks?  I've done four.  Not a shadow of a doubt about it. 

Pretty, eh?

These are Show off Stranded Socks by Anne Campbell and they are gorgeous indeed (if I say so myself).

The only not-so-great thing about them is the colour of yarn, which I'm not exactly in love with.  Well, it happens sometimes if you buy online...  I went for thrifty this time, I bought the yarn from a Polish online retailer at about a quarter of what I would have to pay here and while quality-wise it delivers 100%, colours are - let's be frank - awful.  No need to add that on the website they looked quite different.  I have another two self-striping skeins, almost as bad (but I'm still hoping to be surprised;  perhaps when knit up they will magically transform into something beautiful?  That's likely, isn't it?), and one more in red.  There's some good news.  You can't screw up red.

I always like to try out something new, so I dug up a new cast on for these.  Here, have a look yourself.  It is exactly as stretchy as it says on the box, I think I'm going to use it a lot from now on.

I'm totally in love with how these socks are constructed, too.  You don't need to knit up a single stitch, there's no separately knit heel flap, you do the gusset in the round, quickly turn the heel and knit in the round again.  With all that, they are really, really simple and quick to make.  It took me about a week to finish them but it COULD HAVE taken three days.

While not exactly identical...

I think I can live with this much variation.

Sorry about the pics, by the way.  I may constantly get better as a knitter but I'm still a crappy photographer.  Besides, the weather is not on my side.  While the spring is definitely inching closer day by day, I haven't seen really good light for weeks. 

I have one more FO to to show you (any day now) and a decision to make - what to knit next?  So many patterns, so little time...

Sock Yarn Bonanza

Over the last 6 months or so, I had been dying for sock yarn.  I've never made socks in my life but I so wanted to learn!  Besides, I was tired of DK weight yarn and eager to try something new. 

Unfortunately, no matter how strong the need, facts were against me:

- I was going through a tight spell financially, and sock yarn tends to be rather costly

- even if I had the money, the selection in my  LYS is rather poor.

To get around these obstacles, I first tried to recruit my Mum's help.  She lives in Poland, so she has access to some rather attractively priced fibres.  After a few weeks, my package arrived:

This is cotton/polyester blend.  It should be great for warm weather lacy socks.  I'm also tempted to turn the coral red skeins (I've got three) into a little pullover...  We'll see how it goes.

Some more time passed and I finally had extra money for yarn shopping.  I raced to my LYS and bought this lovely thing:

As you can see, I'm already swatching for gauge.  The yarn is a very posh mixture of superwash wool with a tiny bit of synthetic fibre added for durability.  It costs almost 10 euros/100 g, so it's pretty expensive in my book, but this is what you can usually expect to pay for sock yarn around here. 

Unless, of course, you find a yarn sale.  Sometimes I have to travel for work and when I do, I never miss the chance to check out local craft shops.  This baby...

...was a steal at 5 euros/100g and it's destined to become socks for my Better Half.  He's not particularly enthusiastic about the idea, but I bet I'll be able to turn him around.  Or else...

Anyway, soon after that trip I found even better bargain.  A discounter in my area got some yarn in stock and after seeing their rock bottom prices (2.50 euros/100g) I went haywire and bought a kilogram of delicious, fingering weight wool/polyamide mix:

AND I might acquire some more - if only there's anything left...

I can definitely say that my hunger for sock yarn is temporarily satisfied.  I am a proud owner of 1.7 kg of suitable fibre.  Now the only thing left is to knit all those socks...