A Sprint to the Finish

I meant to post yesterday, but an unfortunate stomach bug sent me home from work early and I was not in a very chatty mood. This was not an illness on the level of some, meaning I was still able to knit, and all that time in bed with my yarn meant that I finished the second one of these up in no time.


Pattern: my basic stockinette (2x2 ribbed cuff, slip-stitch heel flap and gusset, wide toe), worked over 64 stitches
Yarn: Online Linie 3 Supersocke (75% superwash wool, 25% nylon), color 838, one skein
Needles: two 12" US 1 (2.5 mm) Addi Turbo circs
Started/Completed: August 25/August 29

This yarn had been marinating in the stash for a long time and seemed best suited to a plain sock when I went stash diving. It's not by any means a luxurious yarn; in all honesty, it's a bit scratchy, but it also feels like it will wear quite well. I did a reasonably good job of matching up the stripes, though I didn't intend them to match initially -- in fact, I wasn't even aware that the yarn would stripe at all but expected it to behave more like the yarn I used for these socks.

You can imagine my shock when, upon showing him the first completed sock, The Mister announced that he'd wear "something like that" -- provided it was in relatively muted shades, of course. So, if I can find this yarn in a black/gray colorway, I may have some more socks like this in my future.

As this weekend is Labor Day, these will be my last socks entered in the Natural Stitches Summer of Socks contest. I don't think I'm going to win, but I'm hoping for a close second or third.

For the time being, sock knitting has bored me a bit, so I don't know that I'll be churning them out as quickly as I have in the past few months. However, I've decided that I'm going to be embarking on a project to knit my way through New Pathways. Care to join me?

Goody Goody Gumdrops!

I realize that last night's photo of my most recent socks was pretty awful; I didn't get the chance to photograph them until after the sun had just about gone down. So tonight I made sure to take advantage of the natural light, and here are a few more shots for your viewing pleasure.

Can you tell I love them?

How I Spent My Summer Vacation*

I got up at 5:30 a.m. on Friday to spend the vast majority of the day in the car, knitting almost the whole way (so I guess it wasn't that bad).

I finished a pair of socks.

Pattern: Gumdrop Socks by JC Briar
Yarn: BFMA Socks That Rock lightweight (100% superwash merino), colorway Goody Goody, one skein
Needles: two 12" US 1 (2.5 mm) Addi Turbo circs
Started/Completed: August 16/August 22
Mods: none

I spent time with my favorite cousin, who gets cuter by the day.

I finished the first part of my secret project and started on the second part (sorry, no pictures of that!).

I saw a license plate on the Ohio Turnpike that made me think of Amy.

I missed my wheel. (We're now getting reacquainted.)



*If you can call it that; does one day off spent in the car count? At least we have a holiday weekend coming up.

Don't Get All Excited

I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of knitting to show you. After finishing up all that lace, I'm back to only one pair of socks and a secret project I can't show you because its recipient might stop by the blog from time to time. We are leaving super early in the morning (6 a.m.!) for Michigan for our third-annual family reunion, however, so that means lots of car knitting time and, I hope, finished objects to show you upon our return.

I hate to leave you without a little something pretty to look at, so why don't you take a gander at the most recent additions to my fiber stash?

Two BMFA Sheep to Shoe kits, in -- I believe; they're not marked -- Fire on the Mountain on the left and Jailhouse Rock on the Right. (Apologies for the reflection of the plastic bags in the picture; I didn't want to risk taking the fiber out of the bags and then being unable to get it back in.) I bought these with my sock club 10% off coupon right after I heard that the prices were going to be going up, only to discover that the price of the kit seems to not have been affect. Oh well.

This arrived today from Kristin at All Spun Up. I'd seen this about a week ago and drooled over it, but clicked away in my Must. Not. Buy. More. Fiber. moment of strength. Then, of course, I couldn't stop thinking about it, so when I looked again on Monday and saw it was still there, I was entering my credit card number before I knew it. It's a 70% superwash merino/30% alpaca blend, and it's actually a lot darker in person than it appears in the picture. I think it would make a lovely laceweight.

I'll do my best to make my next post an FO post, and perhaps if I play my cards right I'll have Michigan fiber acquisitions to show you as well! Have a great weekend!

Even More Lace

But don't worry -- this lace is in a pair of socks:

Pattern: Merino Lace Socks by Anne Woodbury (summer 2003 Interweave Knits/Favorite Socks)
Yarn: Araucania Rancho Solid (75% superwash wool, 25% nylon), color 119, one skein
Needles: two 16" US 0 (2.0 mm) Addi Turbo circs
Started/Completed: July 31/August 15
Mods: omitted one pattern repeat on leg, substituted my regular toe

I liked these socks, although by the end the pattern got a bit tedious. I don't blame this on the pattern; the fault was entirely on the size 0 needles I had to use to get gauge. Normally small needles don't bother me one bit, but in this case doing all the k2togs and ssks in the pattern made my hands ache.

I did enjoy working with the yarn, which jumped into my hands at Natural Stitches a few weeks ago and begged to be knitted almost right away. It's not the softest of wools, but it's a sturdy, well spun sock yarn. I love the semisolid colorway and its subtle almost-pooling effect -- enough to give a little interest to the knit fabric but not so much that it disguises the pattern.

My favorite thing about these socks has to be the way the stitch pattern carries down the back of the leg all the way through the heel flap. This isn't likely to hold up as well as a traditional slip-stitch pattern, but it sure looks pretty.

A word of warning to those of you considering knitting this pattern out of Favorite Socks: There's a mistake in the foot chart. You'd probably notice it right away, but the purl stitches appear as knits. It's pretty apparent if you compare it to the leg and heel flap charts, but, doubting myself as I often do, I had to look it up to see if there were errata. Just something to keep in mind!

Tomorrow: Hurricane Knitters, 7 p.m., Waterworks Barnes and Noble. I'll be there, (new) sock in hand.

My Piece of the Pi

It seems this was my week for finishing lace.

Pattern: Goddess Knits Anniversary Mystery Shawl by Renee Leverington, clues 1D, 2C, 3A, 4C
Yarn: Knit Picks Gossamer (100% merino; discontinued), colorway Caribbean, approximately 3.16 skeins (1,390 yards)
Needles: US 5 (3.75 mm) 32" Addi Turbo circs and Crystal Palace bamboo dpns
Started/Completed: June 13/August 15
Mods: none

Based on the principle of Elizabeth Zimmerman's pi shawl, this shawl is knit in the round and separated into four sections. For each section, we had four charted clues from which to choose, followed by an increase round after the first three sections. It is finished with a simple border knit perpedicularly around the entire outside.

This is the first time I'd ever knit a shawl in the round, and it was an enjoyable experience. The beginning is a bit awkward, but it's very pleasant once those first few rows are past. I really liked that the "even" rows were knit rather than purled, which allowed me to knit more in the same amount of time because there was no turning the shawl back and forth.

This also was the first time I'd knit on a border perpendicular to the rest of the knitting. After one false start (caused entirely by my skimming the directions rather than reading them properly), I found it to be very easy albeit a bit time consuming. By the time I reached the end of the fourth clue, I had 576 stitches on my needle. Because the border is attached by purling a border stitch with a body stitch at the end of every wrong-side row, that means there are twice as many rows of border as there are stitches in the body. Needless to say, the border clue took me longer than any other.

My only concern about this shawl is that perhaps the colorway of the yarn I selected (because I had enough of it in stash) obscures the pattern a bit. I think that if I knit another version of this shawl -- using different clues, of course -- I'll choose a solid or mostly solid colorway.

I took this to Natural Stitches yesterday to show it off, guessing that other knitters would appreciate it more than The Mister did, and I was "forced" to enter it in the Summer of Lace contest. I certainly won't win, but I'm proud of the accomplishment even so.

I've definitely been bitten by the mystery lace bug: Before this shawl was even finished, I signed up for Mystery Stole 4 and picked out my yarn:


Aisling Yarns superwash merino laceweight, colorway Perfect Storm. Now to find the perfect beads!

Back to the Status Quo

Now that the shawl is off the needles (and thank you all for your very nice comments!), I am back to working on the usual: a pair of socks, which I hope to have finished up by this weekend, and the mystery shawl, which is not very much different from the last time you saw it. I am anxious to finish it up in the next few days, too, in part because I'm more than ready to be done, but also because I need the needles for another project.

I pulled my spinning wheel out again on Monday (it'd gone into hiding in my fiber room for a bit to stay safe and clean while we had a new sliding glass door installed right next to where I usually spin). I'm trying to spin at least half an hour every day, and it's definitely helping that I using some dreamy fiber.

This is some of the Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino I scored in their summer sale. It's incredibly soft and so well prepped that I didn't need to predraft at all. I'm doing a traditional three ply, aiming for fingering weight, with this fiber. I can't wait to see how this turns out when it's plied.

I don't have much else in the way of fibery stuff, but perhaps you'd like to see the visitor I had in my garden today. Notice how carefully he's checking me out to make sure I photograph him from his good side.

I Made It!

I am so, so proud of this shawl, so I hope you'll all forgive my indulging in a photo-heavy post.

Pattern: Shetland Triangle by Evelyn Clark in Wrap Style
Yarn: my own handspun (merino/corriedale), approximately 400 yards
Needles: 32" US 6 (4.0 mm) Addi Turbo circular
Started/Completed: August 8, 8 a.m. est/August 10, 4 p.m. est
Mods: added one body chart repeat, for a total of nine repeats
Dimensions: 57" x 29"

Knitting with my own handspun was truly an incredible experience. On the one hand, I got a very good look at how inconsistent my spinning was (this yarn was only, I think, the third I finished on my wheel), but I love the rustic look it has knitted up. There was definitely a different feeling to the process of knitting this shawl knowing that I made not only the finished garment but the yarn I was using. I can see why spinners often wind up knitting with nothing but their own handspun.

And yes, this is the fastest I've ever knit a shawl -- although keep in mind that (a) it's a very easy pattern, (b) it's a smaller shawl than others I've knit, and (c) I did knit for about eight solid hours on Saturday. Had the Olympics started on a Monday, it would have taken me much longer. Still, I'm thrilled with the results and kind of amazed that I was the third person to finish in my Ravelympics event, the Shawl Relay. (I guess that makes me a bronze medalist?)

Miscalculation

I may have overestimated the time it would take me to knit my Shetland Triangle.

Yep, just a bit.

Blocked pictures soon.

Bordering on Obsession

With approximately 12 hours to go until the Ravelympics begin, I am in a mad dash to get as much as I can get done on the border of my mystery shawl. Here it is after a couple hours of work last night (yes, I knit lace at the meeting of the Hurricane Knitters!):

It's really starting to look huge, but the sad thing is that I'm not even halfway done yet. I'm under no illusions that I will finish this tonight, so this shawl will go into hibernation starting at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning, when I will be casting on for my Olympic project.

Speaking of the Shetland Triangle, it looks like I'm not going to be the only one knitting it -- Jen cast on for hers (in a gorgeous color of DIC Smooshy) at knit night last night. I'm trying to convince her that it's easier to knit lace from a chart than from written directions (at least I find it to be so). I was getting quite jealous and wanted to cast on my own last night, in spite of the fact that I had a lap full of lace already. In any case, I have everything ready to go, and I will be casting on at 8 a.m. sharp tomorrow.

Those of you who did not make it to Hurricane Knitting last night missed a visit from a special guest: Rufus the wonder dog! He's a lot bigger in person than I thought he'd be. I wish I'd had the foresight to get out my camera and take some pictures with something for scale, but I was too busy giving him scritches. Thank you to The MWP for facilitating the canine visit!

Pr0n

Finally, Blogger is cooperating and I can share my latest yarns with you. Make no mistake, this post is all about the pr0n.

On Saturday, I was on a mission to find sweater yarn, and I visited not one but two LYSes. First up was Natural Stitches, where I hoped to find a good bulky-weight yarn for the Big Thaw Pullover. Miraculously, I was able to convince The Mister to let me knit him a sweater in a color that wasn't some shade of gray or black; knowing that he had several store-bought sweaters in a taupe-y oatmeal-y color, that was what I suggested. This Cascade Eco Wool got his seal of approval:

In reality, it's a little lighter; in my excitement to photograph it, I did not get the best lighting for the job. In any case, I know this will be a winner for him, as he's quite used to wearing Cascade 220. I'm not really looking forward to winding center-pull balls, though -- 478 yards per skein is going to take quite a while.

Next, I was off to Knit One to attempt to use up my remaining gift card on a sweater's worth of yarn for my father (of the EZ seamless variety, to be completed for his birthday in October). I decided to go with the tried-and-true Cascade 220, and a very man-friendly shade of navy blue.

And just so you know I'm not at all consistent in my poor photography, these skeins are actually a lot darker in person!

I couldn't leave without a little something for myself, and these two lonely skeins of Rown 4-ply in a steely gray just begged for me to rescue them from the sale bin. At 15% off, it didn't take much convincing. Would you believe this is my first Rowan? Don't worry, I don't plan to make a habit out of it.

My last new yarn for the weekend is probably my favorite, and I'm sure you won't be surprised at all that it's because it's my latest handspun.

I had intended this for Spinning Sunday, but this darn skein took so long to ply that I didn't get around to finishing it until about 9:30 Sunday night. This is 4 oz. of DragonFibers BFL (here's what it looked like as fiber, if you need a reminder) turned into a laceweight two ply. At approximately 485 yards, it's less yardage than I was hoping for, but it still should be enough for a Swallowtail Shawl [Ravelry link], which is what I'd been intending it for.

The colors blended just as I'd hoped -- very subtle barberpoling in some areas, nearly solid in others.

I'm off to post this before Blogger decides to get fussy again. Tomorrow night: Hurricane Knitters, 7 p.m., Waterworks Barnes & Noble, where I will attempt to knit lace while at the S&B.

Technical Difficulties

I had a blog post full of yummy yarn pr0n ready for you this evening, but Blogger is not cooperating. It's refusing to upload my pictures due to "internal error," whatever that might be. So watch this space for a real post, I hope within the next day.

But Will He Like the Flecks?*

These really got to be a slog in the end, but it's good to know that some of my holiday knitting is finished before the end of July.

Pattern: a variation on my regular stockinette
Yarn: Knit Picks Essential Tweed (65% superwash merino, 25% nylon, 10% donegal), colorway Flint, two skeins
Needles: two 12" US 1 (2.5 mm) Addi Turbo circs
Started/Completed: July 23/July 31
Recipient: my father-in-law

Mixed feelings about these, really. They were easy to knit and therefore fast (heck, almost the entire foot of the first sock was completed during a screening of Mamma Mia!), and as I said, it's nice to be able to get some obligation knitting done early.

That said, I wasn't wild about the yarn. The yarn base itself is nice enough, but the donegal "flecks" drove me a little batty. This yarn is basically the normal Essential, but it looks like little bits of loose fiber were thrown in as it was being spun, and very few of them were well spun in. Many are loose enough that they can be pulled out, and I did just that frequently as I was knitting. Had these flecks been a little longer and been really spun into the yarn, I might not have minded as much.

I really think that calling this yarn a tweed is a misnomer; it's not a true tweed, and it doesn't have that wonderful sense of dimensions that you get with a yarn that is a real tweed. I'm really not sure why I bought this yarn in the first place -- worse, I have two more skeins of it in the stash! I'm hoping that it's not too far out there for my father in law, who's a little more adventurous in his choice of color in clothing than some men I know. (The Mister has already nixed the idea of using the two remaining skeins for socks for him; he doesn't do flecks.)

The good sock-knitting news is that, having done the two pairs for the dads, I've cast on another pair for me, in some yummy cranberry-colored Araucania Rancho.

Delicious, no? This is the beginning of some Merino Lace Socks from IK/Favorite Socks. In spite of the fact that I'm knitting on size 0 (2.0 mm) needles, it's a lot of fun -- I suspect it has to do with the fact that I'm knitting something other than stockinette for a change.


*At last night's bonus fifth-Wednesday Hurricane Knitters knit night, some of us had a discussion about men's preferences when it comes to yarn and how very few men seem to care for tweeds. All the men we know prefer solids (or even heathers, in some instances) to anything with "flecks." If only we had a man like Jared to knit for!

Good Things Come in Small Packages

This evening, I arrived home to find a rather small box waiting for me at my front door. Now, I guess you couldn't objectively call it small, but it looked small to me considering I knew there was a full pound of fiber inside -- my order from Crown Mountain Farms. I fully blame the ladies over at Lime and Violet for alerting me to their big summer sale (psst! it's on until the end of July!), although to be fair, I had been wanting to try the famous CMF sw merino for quite some time. The sale proved to be just the impetus I needed to break out the credit card. So, after patiently waiting about a week and a half, here are the latest additions to my stash:

"San Francisco" (above) and "In the Skies" (below)

Each of these bumps is 8.5 ounces of extremely soft superwash merino. I haven't pulled them apart yet, but they look like they will require very little predrafting before spinning. I'm going to try a traditional three-ply sock yarn with at least one of these, and I'm anxious to get going on that, so I'm going to be working to finish up the BFL you saw yesterday by the end of the week (so far, spinning about half an hour every day seems to be working well).

Meanwhile, the knitting continues on my mystery shawl; I think I have about 12 rows of the fourth chart left to knit before I can start the edging. We had a rather crazy, but fun, weekend, so I didn't get in as much time on it as I would have liked. I'm going to focus on the shawl this week and this weekend, however, so that I can finish up if at all possible by next Friday, when the Olympics start and I cast on for my Shetland Triangle.

I *Heart* BFL

One of these days, I will have yarn!

Old Yarn, Green Socks

As much as I love the color green, these were starting to get just the tiniest bit on my nerves. But they're done (albeit unblocked):

Pattern: Gentleman's Plain Winter Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush
Yarn: Knit Picks Essential (75% superwash wool, 25% nylon), colorway Grass, two skeins
Needles: two 12" US 1 (2.5 mm) Addi Turbo circs
Started/Completed: July 16/July 23
Recipient: my father (but not until the holidays!)
Mods: changed the last few rows of the toe so I could kitchener (you know how I love to graft)

I'm pretty much completely certain that, excluding scraps and leftovers, this yarn was the oldest sock yarn in my stash. Now, I know what many of you are thinking: I've been knitting approximately 20 years, so how is it that my oldest sock yarn was only about two years old? Remember that for the vast majority of my knitting life, I was knitting garter stitch or ribbed scarves out of acrylic. It was only a little more than two years ago that I knit my first pair of socks. Shortly thereafter, I discovered Knit Picks and stashed my first KP sock yarns.

Because this yarn was so old, it was a bit more rustic, shall we say, than Essential has been in the last year to year and a half. This is still the generic wool instead of superwash merino, so it's not as soft, but I hardly think my father will know the difference. Socks knit from the same order of yarn were successfully tested by The Mister, the pickiest knitwear critic I know. The fabric will soften up with a wash, and I'm hoping a dip will cut down on the hairiness as well.

As long as I'm doing Christmas/Hannukah knitting in July, I cast on for some socks for my father-in-law in a much newer (and softer) batch of Essential Tweed in Flint. I'm sticking with a variation of my regular stockinette sock recipe for these so that I have to think even less while knitting.

There will be some more thoughtful sock knitting in my future, though -- my latest STR arrived today, with not one but two patterns!

Best-Laid Plans

I've been meaning to write this (or any, really) blog post for quite a few days. First I meant to write it over the weekend, but partying with my now-legally-able-to-drink brother and entertaining my aunt got in the way. Then I meant to blog last night, but some sort of stomach bug sent me home early from work and directly into bed. So this post is, by necessity, a bit of a catch up. I hope you'll forgive the bullet-point style; I promise to get back to my verbose self in the next post.

Just what have I been up to since last we talked? Well, I finished a quick-and-easy pair of baby socks:

(The usual pattern, using the leftovers from these socks, on size 1/2.25 mm dpns.)

Then, I started some very plain socks for my father (long-term planning) in what may very well be the oldest sock yarn in my stash.

Here's sock #1 done; sock #2 is part way through the foot and should be completed in the next day or so.

I'm still plodding slowly through the mystery shawl, which has grown to the point where it's taking me 20-30 minutes to knit a round; needless to say, it will not be finished any time soon.

I'm almost halfway through clue 4, and then clue 5, the edging, will be very long and tedious. (It's knitted on perpendicularly, so the number of rows will be twice the number of stitches I have in each round right now. I don't even want to think about how many rows that is.)

I've also been trying to spin at least a little every day, and I'm halfway through the Dragonfibers BFL. Here's the second half, ready to be fluffed and then spun:

Finally, I signed up for the 2008 Ravelympics. I'm going to attempt to knit the Shetland Triangle (Rav link) with this handspun. I think that's doable, considering last summer's lace knitting, but I'd really like to be done with the mystery shawl before I cast on another, so maybe this will be the kick in the pants I need to get moving on that particular WIP.

What about you? Are you signed up for the Ravelympics? What is your challenge?