A triple 'ta-dah!'

Oh boy, don't I have things to show you!  I've been knitting like a demon recently and I have a small pile of Finished Objects to present.  Well ok, maybe two pairs of socks and a shawl don't exactly constitute a pile, but still - considering I've knit them within a week or so, it's decent results, no?

Number 1 - Vestigial Socks by Beata Jezek

Nice, eh?  I loved the pattern, so straightforward, so quick to knit up, so lovely.  Highly recommended.  In fact, I HAVE recommended it to my newly found knitting friends and one of them already has a Vestigial Sock on her needles :)

Number 2 - Aylesbury Shawl

Lo and behold, another shawl done and dusted.  To be honest, it's a shawlette rather than a shawl, it eats up around 400m of yarn and can be knit in three days from start to finish, average knitting speed.

A lovely little pattern;  I was halfway through before I realised it was designed by Aisling M. Doonan, whose Ardrum Scarf I've knit a while back.  A quick browse through Ravelry revealed that there are quite a few knitworthy (and free!) designs in her collection so if you're into lace, do check her out. 

It's lace on garter stitch background, therefore details of the pattern can be a little hard to make out.  On the plus side, it stays flat.  Really, really flat, without the slightest inclination to curl anywhere and you have no idea how much I appreciate this.  Hatred of curling edges in knitting is one of my (completely irrational) quirks. 

Number 3 - Foot Ovens, or my variation on the theme

A simple design by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (known also as the Yarn Harlot - in the unlikely event of anyone not recognising the name).  Originally written for chunky alpaca, I made my pair out of aran weight acrylic and it worked just fine.  I had to fiddle with the numbers a bit of course, but there are few patterns where I don't.

The best part?  A pair can be whipped up in a day or two.  That's size large, too.

So, what do you think?  Not too shabby for a week of work? 

Let's hope the productive stretch continues for another while.  I have Owlies on the needles now - I saw the pattern yesterday evening and could hardly sleep at night from the desire to cast them on.  It's my first time beading, too.  By a total coincidence (synchronicity???), I found a teeny tiny crochet hook in my hardware tin, so I'm all ready to go. 

I'll keep you posted.
 

Giant's socks and garden sheep

Remember my latest pair of socks?  They were little on the large side, but now...  guys, my socks GREW in washing.  They grew a lot.  As in - they are some giant's socks now, not mine. 

Look, here's the Giant Sock pictured together with a fitting handmade sock and a commercial sock in my size (just for the joke):

As much as I hate the idea of knitting them anew, I see no other option than frogging the whole thing and re-working them with severely reduced stitch counts.  To start with, I'm going to work on 56 rather than 64 stitches.  I'll probably make them shorter, too... hell, I think I'll change pretty much all there is to change because in hindsight, the pattern does not really work that well with this particular yarn.  I'll use Rebecca's pattern as a springboard, but what I'll end up with, only time can tell.    

I'm also going to start soon because I know that if I leave them be for now they'll remain untouched for years, lurking in some dark corner of my stash. 

That's the Plan.  The Plan may be influenced by two things:

1) suddenly I'm flooded by a shitload of work (you know, work, the nasty stuff that keeps the bills paid and gets you all that yarn.  I don't like it either)

2) deadlines for Oceanspray (end of July) and one more - unbloggable - knit gift (three days from today?  I'll need a Tardis for that one...) are approaching fast. 

I'll keep you posted.

By the way, did I ever mention that my neighbourhood is full of sheep?  Look what I saw through my window this morning:

Apologies for the crappy picture, I had to be very sneaky because I didn't want my SHEEPdog to notice and chase the visitors away.  The more grass they eat, the less there's left to mow for us :) 

Could anyone tell me what breed sheep are they?  I strongly suspect that only meat breeds are kept on my mountain but you never know... 

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!

Mission (almost) accomplished

Sometimes I am almost willing to admit that I do not lack self-discipline*.  Remember my three WIPs from recent entries?

NO. 1 - FINISHED!!!!!!**

Finished, blocked, done, almost forgotten about.  Not my favourite project in the world, although I'm reasonably satisfied as to how it turned out in the end. 

Lace-up sides result solely from my impeccable fashion sense and have nothing to do with any sizing problems, nothing what-so-ever.

They DO look nice though, don't they? 

PATTERN: my own improvisation, 100% cotton, +/- 300g, 3 mm crochet hook.  I don't like it enough to give it a proper name. 

NO. 2 - FINISHED

Believe it or not, my knitting mojo held and I finished Iris a good few days ago.  It's stretched for blocking now, waiting for any half-decent weather that would allow me to snap some pics. 

BTW, I almost ruined the shawl at the very last step.  A new (to me) bind off technique, described in a tutorial as stretchy and perfect for lace, turned out to create an edge that is very beautiful and...  completely inelastic.  It is also impossible to undo without destroying the yarn so now it's either some very complicated knitting surgery on lace yarn or ignoring the problem and letting it stay as is.  Bound off edge in this particular project is short, so it doesn't look quite so bad.  I think it will pass muster, but only just.  In the end, no harm done, but my joy at finishing the knit is tainted. 

NO. 3 - 90% done. 

On hold for 24-48 hours.  Not my fault.  Too boring to explain. 

Anyway, I'm damn proud of myself.  I really, really, really felt like ditching all those WIPs and starting something new.  I deserve a medal.  Or a cake.

Or a teeny, tiny, super quick sock...

* Do not ask me about cleaning, though.  Or sweets.  Somehow my self-discipline never stretches that far.
** Relief directly proportional to the number of exclamation marks

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...

Socks No. 3 and Knitting Block

Remember the Hermione's Everyday Socks I wrote about in the last post?  Well, they are all done and have been done for a couple of weeks now.

The lace shawl is almost finished too.  I only have to knit up the edging at the end and graft the remaining stitches.  Normally I would estimate this to be a 1-2 day job, but the world got a bit crazy and now I suspect it might be a while before I'm done with the thing. 

You see, I'm suffering from a stress-related knitting block.  There's a housing revolution on the horizon.  My 'lovely' landlord renewed our lease for another year, then three weeks later announced that he's selling the place and we will have to move out at some unspecified date.  Just after I finished planting all the flower bulbs for the spring!  We're having crowds of strangers 'viewing' the place and the whole situation plays merry hell with my sense of privacy and security.  I'm a total worrier and my mind keeps tormenting me with all kinds of scary scenarios.  As a result, I found myself unable to even touch knitting needles since the bomb dropped.  It's funny, knitting is supposed to relax people but I feel almost physical repulsion when I as much as think of sitting down with some yarn.  Do you guys ever react this way or is it just me? 

I suppose I will be able to get back to some straightforward projects as I get accustomed to the situation but my creativity is dead and buried until things get sorted out.  I'm truly pissed off about this because I was just about to start designing an aran sweater.

Life, eh? 

Knitting on two fronts

Contrary to my usual habit, I'm working on two projects at the moment.

The first is the result of my recent obsession with Shetland lace.  I saw this video...

...and fell in love both with the northern accent and the fine knitting.

I don't wear scarves or shawls but luckily, my sister does.  The pattern I chose - Ardrum Scarf - may not be 100% authentic Shetland but it's free and it's close enough to what I wanted.  I forked some serious cash out (I could have two sweaters' worth of acrylic for the price of two lace skeins) and ordered this beauty:

It's a lace weight mixture of wool and silk and it will be a bitch to wash but my oh my, isn't it smooth!

I'm some 1/10th into the scarf.  It knits nicely and requires no particular skill, although it DOES require constant attention.  I mean it, brain on 100% focus all the time.  I still have a premonition that I will make a mistake at some stage, focus or not.

Anyway, here's my progress so far:

Of course it looks all crumpled up at the moment, lace needs blocking to reveal all its glory.  A picture against the light shows some of the lacy texture, but even so there's not much to show off with, not yet.

With such a complicated knit on the needles, I needed something simple for mindless knitting when there are too many distractions around.  I still have oodles of sock yarn so I cast on for Everyday Hermione's Socks.  I'm resizing for 60 stitches - I did start with specified 64 but the sock looked huge and I had to rip it all up - but even with the mods it is a very straightforward knit.  I'll be starting the heel flap any minute now.

I'm itching to finish those projects as soon as I can because I want to make a nice, warm sweater and I'm NOT going to cast on a third project to be worked simultaneously.  Realistically though, it will be some more weeks before the scarf is done so I'll probably have my sweater in December, if that.  Oh well...

Socks happen

I'm proud to announce that my first ever pair of socks is finished!

So is the second, actually, and the third pair is already on the needles - it seems that knitting socks really is addictive.

The first pair I did was for myself - I figured that if sock knitting turns out trickier than expected, I should be the one to wear the imperfect results of my efforts.  No need to worry, really.  The first few rounds on DPNs were a bit awkward, but after ten minutes or so I got back up to my usual speed.  A week later I had this:

Rather nice, don't you think?

And I DID knit two of them - here's proof:

I knitted from a pattern (see details at the end of this post), and a very simple one, too.  I needed to understand how a sock is constructed so I could design my own in the future.  I think I cracked it, but I am yet to test this theory. 

My second pair of socks was destined for my Other Half, and as per his request, I used the same pattern again, only somewhat bigger and in more manly colours. 

While he was quite happy with the socks, at first he flatly refused to model for images so I thought I'll be reduced to rather crappy photos on the washing line...

In the end, though, he relented and let me borrow one of his feet for a photo shoot.

Much better!

I had some problems with the second sock syndrome, mainly because both yarns were cut and knotted - a disaster in self-striping yarn!  It's almost impossible to accurately estimate where exactly the thread has been cut and to rejoin it so colour progression is not disturbed.  In consequence, neither pair is exactly identical.  I don't much care with household knitting, but if this was a commission or a gift, I would have been seriously pissed.  It wasn't the cheapest yarn, too, which only proves to me once again that more expensive does not always mean better. 

I will update soon with my works in progress (yes, works!  I finally broke the old habit and cast on two projects at once!): the aforementioned socks no. 3 and a gorgeous lace shawl I've decided to tackle as a result of my recent obsession with Shetland lace.  Also, there is a bagful of new, beautiful yarn waiting to be photographed and bragged about, and a new FO that was gifted away but the new owner promised to produce some nice pictures for me.  Check back soon!

PATTERN:

Nice Ribbed Socks by Glenna C.  A simple yet effective knitting pattern, it is very well written, easy to follow and FREE.  Glenna's blog, by the way, is also worth recommending - my knitting-related reading list is relatively short, but she's made the selection.