PolarGrrlPurls

Summer of Socks, Redux

I think a year or two ago I announced a Summer of Socks. The summer was then largely eaten up by my decision to go to nursing school and the subsequent scramble to complete 12 credits of prerequisite study in the summer before the program started. Thus, I am declaring 2012 the Summer (and Spring, for that matter) of Socks, Redux. So there. To that end, I have knitting for the knitting blog. Fancy that!

The original goal was to knit 10 pairs of socks, but now I'm thinking that I'll knit socks until I get sick of them or until it's time to start knitting for the holidays and the winter inventory over at my new store, Gild The Lilies (more on that in an upcoming post.) Since the Ides of March, I have knit 5 (going on 6) pairs of socks and have 4 pairs photographed already to write about today. All socks were knit on 2.25mm circular needles using the ML method, slip stitch heel flap, and the rounder heel at socknitters.com, which seems suddenly defunct (which is making me panic slightly because it was a fabulous favorite resource.)

This first pair was knit in OnLinie Supersocke 100 in a simple plain stockinette. The color is Sierra 893. I CO 72 and knit until it fit! 

This pair was knit in Zitron Trekking Hand Art, color Atlantik (506). I knit them in the Blueberry Waffle (Rav link) pattern by Sandy Turner.

These socks were knit with my friend Cathy's go-to mistake rib pattern (very easy to memorize and just interesting enough to keep you cruising) and was knit in Cherry Tree Hill's Supersock in a variegated aqua (I think the color was just labeled "Blues".)

This last air was knit with French Twist hand dyed sock yarn in autumnal colors of yellow, red, orange, green, and gold with light green stripes and toes using Knitpicks Stroll solids.

Well Looky Here

More Knitting! And another blog post in less than 6 months. Imagine that.

This is a scarf (duh!) that I was originally planning to give to my older brother, but after I started knitting it I realized that the texture and overall style are far too rustic for his taste. Instead, I'm giving to my friend, Glenn. I have no idea of his taste in scarves, so I'm crossing my fingers that he likes it.

I've knit it in Debbie Bliss Luxury Donegal Tweed (85% Merino/15% Angora). It's a lovely yarn, for a heavy aran. It creates a suprisingly soft nubby fabric with a distinct rustic woodsy look to it. It appears at a glance to be a single ply but is actually 2-ply, as I found out when I went to spit splice two skeins together. There was only 1 knot in 3 skeins, which is very good for these kind of yarns. I used almost every scrap of 3 skeins and the final scarf measures 5" by 6'. The pattern is called The Bella Lana Reversible Scarf (free if you follow the link).

Gawddamnitalltohades!!!

Typepad is screwing up and has eaten 3 - count them! Three! - of my attempts to post these damn pictures. So, you're only getting the one that doesn't seem to cause the entire browser to freeze and shut down. It's a scarf I've knit for my brother's gf out of Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande in hot pink (her color choice, not mine). It's the "Ruffled" pattern by Vanessa Ewing and is made up of alternating wedges of short rows connected by 6-8 stitches in the center. The blocked scarf measures 51" x 7.5" and I used every scrap of 3 skeins.

Mmmmkay...I REALLY need to restart this bloggy-poo. So that's what I'm gonna do! There's been a decent amount of knitting going on, I just need to get up off my rear and photograph it. And there's a lot more knitting in the works. So, if there are any readers still for this thing (I doubt it, but if you're still around, thank you!), stay tuned!

16 (Again)

Well...not really, thank goodness. This hat is called 16 after the 8x8 cables used in the pattern. It was designed by Anette Peavey and published in Circe aux Belles Boucles. What with my gigantic head and loads of curls, I had to add a cable repeat to the pattern to ensure a good fit. It's knit in Malabrigo Azul Profundo and took a bit over 1 skein (it weighed in at 118g), though that's mainly because I added the cable repeat to the width and then knit an extra repeat length-wise to ensure that it had a little slouch.

 

Another Instant Gratification, A Hat, and Some Sewing

I liked the scarf I made for Kim so much that I ended up knitting another one for my mom, though I omitted the fringe this time. It's knit in 2 skeins of Malabrigo Rasta and the colorway is Zarzamora. I cast on 17 stitches and knit until I ran out of yarn but I forgot to measure it before I wrapped it. Suffice to say that it's very big.

 
 

I've also been knitting away at the holiday gifts on the list. Most recently, this has been a hat for an artist friend, Ric Haynes, and another for his lovely wife, Lorraine. Ric's hat was knit in Classic Elite Skye Tweed using the Claudiapattern written by MJ Kim and published at ExArtStudent. I made a few minor changes to the pattern as written, giving the hat a slightly longer ribbing band before the start of the lattice cable and I used a slip/knit/psso decrease in the prep row for the lattice cable and again for the first set of decreases for the crown, as I felt it made a much neater transition. The Skye Tweed was lovely to work with and I now wish I had much more of it.

 

I sewed a bunch of 9"x14" pillows filled with dried lavender buds and buckwheat hulls as holiday gifts and they came out very well considering 99% of my sewing skills have been gained through trial and error.

 

I'm particularly proud of the overlapping flap I used to keep the shells filled with the buckwheat inside the cases and yet avoid buttons and zippers. I even remembered to prewash/dry the fabric so that it can be washed and will not shrink later!

 

Aren't these batik fabrics beautiful? They were remnants!

For one friend I couldn't decide on a color and so I put purple velvet on one side and teal on the other and made the overlapping flap at the end instead of in the middle.

 

Now to wrap them all up and get them in the mail....

Stash Enhancement

One of the few upsides to a down economy is that pretty much every retail store is having fabulous sales and local yarn stores are no exception. I haven't bought any significant amounts of yarn in about 3 years - a skein or two here or there for a particular project, but nothing more. Last week, however, I stumbled upon some gems in the 50% off clearance bins at Snow Goose Yarns and then this week (starting yesterday), everything in the store not already on sale is 20% off. The result has been a lot of yarn added to the stash as well as the necessity of reorganizing the stash, putting some forgotten yarns up for sale and ditching random odds and ends that have lost their provenance and are too small to be of any real use.

From the clearance bins I picked up 24 skeins (a sweater's worth, plus) of Rowan Felted Tweed in various complementary colors:

 

As well as 5 skeins of Jo Sharp Silk Road DK:

 

And 2 skeins of Classic Elite Skye Tweed in a lovely color called Upland Green:

 

From the 20% off sale, I picked up 4 skeins of Malabrigo Worsted in Azul Profundo and Black.

 

I also bought 2 skeins of Debbie Bliss Aran Tweed (below) and Noro Kureon color #188 (not pictured and for the Dizzy Squares Afgan) for a song from a couple fellow Ravelers:

 

Needless to say, I should be very happily knitting for quite some time. :)

More Knitting!

Fancy that...I knit something, finished it, blocked it, photographed it, and it's actually made it onto the bog. I can hardly believe I did it. :)

I finally got around to blocking and sewing on the buttons for the February Baby Sweater (Elizabeth Zimmerman "recipe") using OnLine Linie 38 Kaschmerino. I chose plastic (resin?) buttons with images from the Beatrix Potter stories on them. The yarn was a lighter gauge than what was called for and the result is a somewhat smaller sweater, though I hold out hope that it will still fit a small human - at least in the first few weeks of life. I followed the pattern pretty closely otherwise and have ended up with a baby sweater measuring 19" in body circumference, 10" from shoulder to bottom edge, with sleeves 6" in circumference and 7.25" from the end of the garter stitch yoke/beginning of the raglan sleeve increases to the cuff edge. I made a matching hat and a pair of booties, though I seem to have misplaced the booties at the moment and so I have no photo at the moment.

 
        
 
I also knit another scarf this time using Malabrigo Aquarella, a luscious thick and thin single-ply yarn in lovely water color aquas, greens, and blues with a little brown/gold mixed in. I was originally making it for myself, but have decided to go in another direction for my 2010 scarf and give this one to my friend Kim's daughter, Dominique. It took 3 skeins and after blocking measures 6.5" wide and 73" long.

 

Summer of Socks FOs and The Start of Holiday Knitting

I have not finished as many pairs of socks this summer as I wanted to, but I hve two complete pairs, a third almost ready to cast off, and three singles awaiting mates.

This first sock is just a plain knit in Trekking with a Meilenweit solid colored toe:

 

The next pair is the Escalator Socks pattern published in Penguine Purls and designed by Sara Amoroso. It was knit in Ball and Skein Super Sock with a plain toe in Knit Picks Stroll Solids. I love this yarn and the color is so rich and works beautifully in the pattern.

 


lastly, I present the start of the Holiday 2010 knitting. This is a scarf made for a friend of ours named Kim in Califoornia (north, where it gets cold). The pattern is Instant Gratification and I knit it in Malabrigo Rasta. The colorway is Piedras. I used 2 skeins and knit it on size 15 (10.00 mm) needles and it ended up 84" long, not including the fringe.

 

(Iabsolutely love this scarf and if it doesn't work for Kim, I'll gladly knit something else for and take this one back! ;) )

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I realize that this blog has been woefully neglected for months and I have been having serious discussions with myself as to whether I should continue on, or take it down. Having at Typepad means that I pay a modest fee for it, but since the fee includes my cooking blog (which I have no intention of taking down any time soon), it seems like the fee for this one is pretty much a non-issue. I also was thinking that this blog is a handy way of referencing where/when I obtain new yarns and what I end up knitting with them, as well as the end results and who winds up with the finished objects, and so I guess it would not be such a terrible thing to keep on blogging. And who knows? There may still be the 1 or 2 straggling devoted readers who are aware of my tenuous foothold in the knit-blog world...and they may find my ramblings and commentary useful, entertaining, or enlightening. Maybe. Maybe not. *shrug*

By way of a very brief recap of the past several months:

In early July I graduated from nursing school and passed my licensing exam and am now a Licensed Practical Nurse. An unemployed one, at that. Needless to say, I'm job hunting, which is in and of itself a job - a job I hate, come to think of it.

Marikal and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary in June and the 6th anniversary of our first date this past weekend.

I still don't have my driving license, but I've been practicing and Marikal agrees with me that I am much improved and not away from taking my road test.

I have spent thhe last half of the summer (in addition to job hunting) knitting socks for myself (I'm up to 3 complete pairs and 3 singles awaiting mates) and contemplating the possibility of a few quick gifts for the winter holidays and baby stuff as one of my colsest and longest friends has been trying to concieve and may have been recently successful...shhhh! No one is supposed to know yet! ;)

Tomorrow I will upload a bunch of pictures and you can see the progress of the most recent knit blanket and the socks and the summer's additions to the stash.