Yarn Along - Scrappy Striped Toddler Socks

Joining Ginny's Yarn Along again this week.  Lots of great knitting and reading ideas over there.

I've been knitting a pair of socks for Lil One out of some sock yarn left over from a pair I made for me and a pair for the husband.  The red-purple-blue stripes on the legs actually made a pair of socks for me and a simple hat for Lil One before I used up the last of it here.  Since I knew I would run out of that, I'm knitting these two-at-a-time so the socks will match.  I don't have a long circular needle in the right size, and I prefer double pointed needles for socks, so I'm using this technique from an old Knitty article to make one sock inside the other on dpns.  The blue-brown-black yarn is the leftover from the husband's favorite pair of socks.  Those were actually the first socks I made two-at-a-time on double points. I think it'll just be enough to finish these socks.  I'm hoping to finish them today and turn them in for Detention points in the HPKCHC.  Gryffindors try to "WIP the First" and turn in a Detention project on the first of every month.

The husband and I have been listening to the final book in Robert Jordan's (help from Brandon Sanderson) Wheel of Time mega-series.  I love these books, and love the audio versions.  We laugh all the way through the Matrim sections.  I may just have to start the series over when we finish this book.

Yarn Along - Tall Socks

Joining in with Ginny's Yarn Along a day late, but hey the linky widget hasn't expired, so it's not really late, right?
Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs.  I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading? 
Check out Ginny's blog for more knitting and reading.

The first thing I cast on after recuperating from the last surge of Christmas knitting was the first of a pair of long-promised socks for my mother-in-law.  The yarn is Plymouth's Happy Feet, a 90/10 Superwash Merino/Nylon sock yarn in mottled purple and black.  If the cuff in the picture looks awfully large to be a normal sock cuff, it should.  These are going to be thigh-high socks to wear with her witchy and/or Renaissance Fair outfits.  I'm using Deborah Newton's Thigh-High Stripes pattern in Sock Knitting Master Class (edited by Ann Budd) as a guide, modifying for MIL's measurements.  I expect these to be my mobile/mindless knitting for a long while.

The computer in the picture is a stand-in for my reading.  The husband and I have just started listening to A Memory of Light the final book in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time Series (14 or 15 in all).  It'll be very strange to finish this saga.

Finish all the things and start a game

I finished Dad's vest in time to give it to him on his birthday! and it fits! and he likes it!

My apologies for using so many exclamation points, but this project has been weighing on me for almost three years and now it's done and all is well!  I have to find a new project to promote into the drawer it has been occupying.  Probably this year's Christmas stocking knitting.

Finishing this project, and having been monogamous to it for about three weeks, seems to have inspired me to finish up several other things.

2012 Washcloths May edition:

 Ribbed chevron pattern, April 27 from my pattern-a-day calendar.  This was a hard pattern to "read" - I had to keep the pattern on hand for a long time instead of just being able to follow the knitting.  It used my regular dishcloth yarn of Sugar 'n Cream.
Purse socks:

 Universal toe-up formula with 2x2 ribbed legs.  I started these sometime last fall, which may mean that my purse sock speed is increasing.  My brother gave me the yarn for Christmas a few years ago.  I've already cast on the next pair of purse socks.  These will be top-down and for the husband.  A nice dark green yarn that seems to be a single ply.

Baby socks for the Lil One:

The pattern for these was Toddler Socks from the blog Creating a Family Home.  I used the yarn left over from the pair of socks I knit several years ago to learn the two-at-a-time technique (on dpns).

 I have recently discovered the Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup group on Ravelry.  I had heard about it in passing before, but this past month I listened to a description of it on an older episode of The Well-Knitted Life podcast, and checked it out.  It's a game where knitters join in, are sorted into houses as in Hogwarts, and earn points for their houses by knitting or crocheting.  Each term is three months long, and each month there are eight classes offered; each class gives a homework assignment, usually with several options.  You have to knit (or crochet) something within that month and make an argument that it meets the homework requirements.  The idea is that each student turns in at least one class assignment per month to qualify to get sorted and keep playing next term.  There are also Quidditch teams, challenges, WIPs can be turned in to detention, and so on and so on.  After getting sucked in and wandering around all the discussion threads and links for quite some time, I joined the group.  Because I joined after term started, I didn't get sorted into a house and my status is "Not Quite a First-Year" -- points I earn don't count toward any house's total, but they could help me earn priority for sorting next term.

It's all very complex, but also a lot of fun.  If you like the Harry Potter stories and might like to use that world as a framework for some knitting challenges, I encourage you to check out the group.  They do a much better job of explaining things than my little outline, and everyone is happy to answer questions and help newbies get started.

So anyhow, I joined and I'm really enjoying it.  I turned in the squishies for the assignment in Care of Magical Creatures.  May's prompt was about studying thestrals and abraxan (two kinds of flying horses), so one of the options was to knit something using a worsted weight "workhorse" yarn.  The squishes were knit out of worsted weight, and I knit them entirely within the month of May, so they qualified.  The toddler socks met the Mini-sock Challenge for Quidditch -- no more than four inches tall and long, and knit between May 18-28 -- so I turned those in as well.

Hopefully this trend of knitting efficiently and finishing things will continue!

Yarn Along

Back to participating in Ginny's Yarn Along this week.

"What to Expect the First Year" is another of the books I've been reading bit by bit over the last year. Not my favorite baby info book, but very helpful. I didn't really read "What to Expect When You're Expecting" very much, but I did read this one thoroughly.

These socks have been my traveling socks since January, and I just finished them on Labor Day weekend. They've ridden around with me, mostly in the diaper bag, growing by a round here, an inch there. Now, with hardly any concentrated effort, I have a new pair of socks for me! The pattern is the Universal Toe-Up Sock Formula by Amy Swenson from the Summer 2006 edition of Knitty. I did a 2x2 ribbing for the entire leg, switching to a 1x1 ribbing for a one-inch cuff. I believe I have enough left to make a hat for my Lil One.

I think now I'm all caught up on finished objects. Good thing I cast on something new at Knit Night this week!

Second Finished Object - Socks

I've been motoring right along on my projects this month. The second finished project for 2011 is a pair of socks for my mom.

These were made using the Universal Toe-Up Sock Formula by Amy Swenson from Knitty Summer 2006. The yarn is Regia Bamboo in a many-shades-of-blue-with-some-brown colorway. I bought it and started the socks early last year, but when I picked them up again at the end of the 2010 Christmas knitting they fairly flew off the needles. It helps that my mom has small feet - the first skein lasted me past the heel of the second sock. So, as with 2011's first finished project, I'm looking for something to do with the rest of yarn. I'm thinking matching fingerless mitts for this, too. I'm mulling over a design idea, so we'll see if anything comes of that.

I used Jeny's Surprisingly Stretching Bind-Off, which I now absolutely love, and anticipate using it for many things in the future.

Catching up Part the Last

Finally, well not quite finally, but for now, I made duckie-themed baby clothes for the first baby of my college RA. He'll be arriving anytime in the next month, and the shower was the second Saturday in June. The duck theme has a little story behind it: The first few weeks of school the first-year students tend to follow the RA everywhere - to dinner, community events, etc. - and someone joked that we were all following Marta around like her baby ducklings. The idea stuck and she got called Momma-Duck Marta. So now that she's having a baby it only seemed right to my roommate and me that our gifts be duckie-themed.

I don't have any completed pictures of these items because this was one of those finish-at-the-last-minute projects. I'm very glad it was a surprise shower and we got there a while before Greg and Marta got home, because I was sitting on their living room floor sewing on buttons and weaving in ends!

I'm also glad that I had just read and followed the Yarn Harlot's advice on blocking sweaters before sewing them up -- otherwise I might not have any pictures of this little sweater at all.


Here is the Puddle Ducks cardigan in the process of blocking on my Sun Room floor. This pattern is from the Knitting for Babies and Kids book by Jeanne Stauffer, as so many of my recent baby projects have been. This is an very good and useful book; maybe I'll review it sometime soon.


Here is a close up of the little puddle ducks. There're also supposed to be embroidered raindrops around the ducks, but that didn't happen. The sweater got buttons instead.

This was made in the six-month size out of DreamBaby DK and Dale Baby Ull. I'm collecting quite a little stash of DK/baby weight machine washable colors. I intend to make good use of them if I ever get through this summer's slate of projects.

To go with this sweater I also made the duck socks from the recent Spring/Summer issue of Knitty. No pictures of those at all, but hopefully Marta will send me some later, when they are being worn. I'd include a link, but the Early Fall issue just went up today so the Knitty site is too slow at the moment. I must be a pretty ambitious knitter because here are all the new techniques I learned just for these little baby socks: (1) toe-up socks (2) Magic Loop (3) Judy's Magic Cast-On (4) Turkish Cast-On (5) applied I-cord and (6) Jenny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off. I think I just don't let my lack of knowledge and experience get in the way when I find exactly the right pattern. Also, other people figured out how to do all these things - reading and following their directions doesn't seem to me to be the hard part.

I just realized at this very minute that I forgot all about the knitting guild meeting that was last night. Shoot. I really wanted to make that little beaded Christmas stocking, too. Bummer. Well, it was probably for the best - we're going camping this weekend and had tons to do last night.

So now we're all caught up with the news of my early-summer baby knitting. Next, there'll be an update on what I knitted on vacation, and probably more baby knitting.

Fall Yarn Acquisition

Over my two weeks of vacation -- one at Leadership School, and one truly on vacation -- I have done quite a good bit of knitting. But before I show that, I'm going to give the details of the yarn I bought in my fall yarn binge. This binge missed my LYS's fall sale by two weeks (note to self: plan a little more next year), but I was seriously low on projects going into vacation weeks, and that just couldn't be allowed.

First, the yarn for the 2009 Christmas Surprise Project:

Plymouth Yarn Encore, worsted weight, 75% acrylic, 25% wool. I needed to pick a machine-washable yarn, and on the only day I had allotted for shopping for this, there happened to be not a huge selection at the LYS. I am, however, very happy with this yarn, and probably would have chosen it even from a much larger selection. The color is named 0668 and is a wonderful heather green with lots of light orange, and little hints of blue.

I swatched for this project on Vacation Week 1, going back and forth between size 8 and size 9 needles. I forget now what I decided and Leadership School took enough of my mental energy that I neglected to write it down at the time. I believe size 8 will be what works best. I have yet to sneak satisfactory measurements for this project, so work has not yet begun in earnest. The picture may or may not show all of the yarn - I'm trying to keep even the size of the project secret. Last year's secret went very well and I'm hoping to repeat that performance.

Next, the yarn for the Guitar George Strap and for my socks:

On the left is Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy (designer's choice), approximately sock weight, and 34% hemp, 41% cotton, and 25% modal. This color of orange (named 015), is just the right shade for my brother. I'm significantly modifying a belt pattern to turn it into a guitar strap, so the amount of yarn was a bit of a stab, but I think it will work well.

One skein of this has already transformed into the beginnings of a strap. That brought me to a point where I needed more information on guitar straps and it looked like I was nearing some decision points, and it felt easier to start my socks.

On the right above, Malabrigo sock yarn, 100% Superwash Merino Wool, in color 204 "Velvet Grapes." On my monitor, this picture looks significantly darker than the yarn. I absolutely love this yarn. I spent a long time choosing it and I'm very pleased. I'm making knee socks, so I needed to buy two skeins, making them quite the most expensive socks I've ever owned, but they are definitely going to be worth it! I finished the first sock on Vacation Week 2, and am almost at the end of the calf decreases on the second sock.

Also in this fall's acquisition I bought a set of 6 Brittany double pointed needles - size 1 and 5 inches long. These are the right size for both the guitar stap and the socks, so my brohter's gift is being pushed back a little more while the socks are on the needles.