Busy

These are some of the socks that I've been working on since my last blog post---wow, back in January. I've been busy knitting, trying to focus on pattern writing(not succeeding), homeschooling(we're ahead of schedule!), and family stuff(good stuff). Spring is here and that means vacation and camping plans will be made soon.

I've tried some new yarns from different sellers on etsy. Great yarn, very pretty colors, and good prices too.

I've tried out different circular needles. Addi lace---like them. Hiya Hiya circulars--like them too. Robyn's Nest circulars--like them also! Those are very different. I'll have to take a picture of the different needles for comparison. I also tried the 5" Knit Picks Harmony dpns. I like those too, but I still favor magic loop for socks. It is nice to have a lot of options now.

Back to knitting!

Quality

Or longevity. I know that the socks I knit will someday have holes worn through them. I'm okay with that. At the rate that I knit socks, it's probably good. My mom likes to wear one pair constantly (wear, wash, repeat as soon as it's out of the wash) until it gets a hole in it and then moves onto another pair. My kids will wear holes in any yarn that doesn't have nylon in it and then even some that do.

But when it comes to knitting needles, I do not expect them to wear out. The ones that I've used lately seem to have some sort of expiration date. I know that the company will replace them, but I've already had several replaced. I just don't like the waste of the needles that came apart. Their average life is about a year. One year for me is around 40-50 pairs of socks. Not all of those are knit on the same sized needle. I don't think needles should wear out that quickly or ever.

Right now, I'm on the look out for new needles. I've even started and finished a sock on dpns! Can you believe that? I can't show those socks since they're for a sock club. It was fun knitting with dpns again. That's how I learned to knit socks. I'm also using my 9 inch needle again. Those take a while for my hands to get used to them.

These socks are tentatively named Tessellating sock #2. Wonderful name, right? These were a lot of fun and quick to knit. I like the little linked bubbles. This one would be a great way to use up a lot of little bits of leftover yarn. I think it would look great in more than 3 colors too. I don't like repeating patterns, but I want to see what this one looks like with a lot of leftovers. This sock was like the previous pair and used about 20gms of yarn of each color.

Details:
Pattern: Tessellating sock #2
Yarn: Knit Picks Stroll Kettle Dyed in Timber, Bordeaux, and Spruce
Needle: size 0 (2mm)
Method: magic loop, 1 at a time, toe-up, Turkish cast-on, short row heel
Start: December 28, 2009
Finish: January 13, 2010

This shows that cute socks don't have to be made out of expensive yarn. I picked up this Red Heart sock yarn and it was only $7 for 2 skeins(50 gms each). I used about 60gms for this pair. I think I'll make my daughter some cute ankle socks with the rest. The yarn has aloe in it and it did feel nice while knitting. I would compare this to Regia or even Opal, but it did seem a bit hairier than those brands.

Yarn: Red Heart -heart and sole in Spring Stripe
Needle: size 0 (2mm)
Method: magic loop, 2 at once, toe-up, Turkish cast-on, short row heel, twisted rib cuff
Start: Thanksgiving 2009
Finish: January 18, 2010

I'll close with a mention about patterns. Many designers are donating a portion or all of their proceeds to many charities that will help the people in Haiti. Here's a link that will take you to the patterns that are participating. If that doesn't work, just go to the patterns area and click on the "Help for Haiti" link at the top of that page. Every little bit counts. We've made our donations, but I've also bought a few patterns too.

1st pair of the year

I finished my first pair of tessellating socks. I'll think of a snazzier name if I ever write up the pattern. These socks used about 60 gms of yarn total. So, that's around 20gms of yarn for each color. I balanced that out by doing the toe, heel, and ribbing in different colors. I like knitting tessellating patterns because they seem to fly by quickly. Each color section doesn't take that long and I keep wanting to knit until the next color change before putting it down.

Details:
Tessellating sock #1
Yarn: leftovers of Knit Picks Stroll Kettle Dyed in wine, gold, and eggplant
Needle: size 1 (2.25mm)
Method: magic loop, 1 at a time, toe-up, Turkish cast-on, short row heel
Start: December 28, 2009
Finish: January 6, 2010

I've finished one sock and I'm up to the heel on the 2nd sock of my other tessellating pattern. I tried to match up a few variegated yarns to tessellate, but that just hid all of that stranding. My stranding technique still needs some work. I'm holding both yarns in my left hand. I tried doing the one color in each hand thing, but can't get a decent tension or rhythm with the one in my right hand.

I wove a few more scarves. My 12 dent heddles arrived on last Monday and I was off weaving with sock yarns almost right away. These three are made from non-superwash yarns, so they're probably better off as scarves instead of socks. The scarf at the bottom is Knit Picks Sock Landscape yarn in Mesa. I really like the plaid that came out of it. The top ones are Jojoland yarns when you could only find it on ebay. They're both a merino/cashmere blend. The left one has a springy feel to it and the right one is really fuzzy and soft.

I learned how different yarns can really mess with your tension. These three yarns were very different from each other and each behaved differently on the loom. I liked the Mesa one the best. It was the smoothest and easiest to weave. I also learned how to hem stitch the ends. I'm not confident that it will hold, but it looks good for now.

These were all made on my Cricket using a 12 dent heddle. From left to right and top to bottom, there were 92, 104, and 104 warp ends. The scarves measure 7x60, 8x62, and 8x62 inches.

I'll go work on the second tessellating sock while everyone else is sledding. Ah, it's quiet in here. ;-)

Left hanging...ouch

That's how I felt after finishing Diana Gabaldon's Echo in the Bone. It is around 800 pages long and so many things were still left unfinished. Her books are usually very long, but I read through them quickly. The story flies by and I just need to know what's going to happen to the characters. And now I'm left waiting for another 4 years. That's about how long it takes her to publish another one in this series. In the meantime, I've picked up King's Under the Dome. Yes, it's another huge book. I tend to gravitate towards books of this length.

There has been plenty of knitting too. I knit my daughter a few shawls. She's asked for a shawl a few times lately. I'm hesitant to give her anything in laceweight that will easily snag. She's still 8 and likely to use it to tie around herself, her dolls, to some railing, etc. I picked out a few pretty skeins of sock yarn and set out to find suitable patterns. What made this easy is that The Loopy Ewe's 4th quarter challenge is to knit a shawl. Many knitters have found patterns that will use only a skein of sock yarn. Perfect!

I started out with a free garter stitch based shawl pattern called Multnomah. I'm not a big fan of garter stitch, but this shawl is very soft and squishy. So far, my daughter loves it.




Pattern: Multnomah
Yarn: Perchance to Knit in Fleur
Needle: size 4
Blocked size: 56 inches across and 16 inches down the center back
Start: November 7, 2009
Finish: November 11, 2009

Next, I wanted something a bit more like the lace I knit for myself. For this yarn, I picked the Traveling Woman pattern. It starts with stockinette and ends with lace at the bottom edge. This pattern was very fast to knit. I think that I knit stockinette faster than I can knit garter stitch. I like the nicely rounded back to this one. I might make this one in a larger size for myself.


Pattern: Traveling Woman
Yarn: Hazel Knits in Sailor's Delight (90 gms used)
Needle: size 4
Blocked size: 58 inches across and 15 inches down the center back
Start: November 10, 2009
Finish: November 11, 2009

I'm still knitting socks. I started this one to go with the Solid Socks group color for November. It's brown this month and I've had this yarn in my stash for long enough. I used this cable stitch that reminds me of pretzels. yummy. This yarn is thicker than usual sock yarn, so this pattern went by quickly too. Right now, I'm using the leftovers from this skein to knit socks for my son in a basic knit/purl stitch pattern.


Pattern: by me
Yarn: Opal 6-ply solid (90gms used)
Needle: 2.5mm
Method: magic loop, 2 at once, Turkish cast-on, short row heel
Start: 11/4/09
Finish: 11/9/09

And I just finished this shawl yesterday! The sun was really harsh when I tried to take some photos, so I tried some indoor photography. Once again, Anne's pattern was flawless and easy to knit. I like how this is a knit until you run out of yarn type of pattern. I didn't knit that far, but it's good to keep in mind when I have a limited amount of yarn.

This was knit with one of the giant skeins of Nyoni that I bought last year. I had enough yarn to probably knit 2 more repeats, but I didn't need the shawl to be that big.

Pattern: Boxleaf Triangle by Anne Hanson
Yarn: Fleece Artist Nyoni in Moss (180 gms used)
Needle: size 5
Mods: Knit something between the medium and large size.
Blocked size: 74 inches across the top and 36 inches down the center back
Start: 11/12/09
Finish: 11/16/09

Up next, I have two more lace projects that I've just started today. The socks for my son that need to be finished. After that, I need to knit him a few more pairs of sport weight socks for this winter. He's grown out of most of his socks from last winter.

Focus

I'm lacking focus these days. I'm usually a one, maybe two project person. That's one easy one to carry around and one more complicated. Right now, I have 4 different socks on the needles sitting on my desk. One was a vacation knit that I'm not sure that I like. One is a test swatch for a pattern I'm trying to design. That was started and ripped multiple times on vacation. Two are colorwork patterns. I want to write the pattern while knitting the second sock of those pairs.

When I look at a new book, it's always the stranded patterns that stick with me. I rarely knit them because I have tension issues and have a hard time fitting the sock to my legs. But I'm determined to get it and that means practice.

Let me back up and talk about my finished projects from the past few weeks. Over on Sock Knitter's Anonymous (SKA), one of the challenges of September was to knit a Wendy Johnson pattern. I decided to challenge myself and knit knee highs. I've finally accomplished that. I wasn't happy with my yarn choice, but it was the only yarn that I had on hand with enough yardage for knee highs. Now I have ideas of designing my own knee highs.

Details:
Pattern: Catriona Knee Socks by Wendy Johnson
Yarn: Knit Picks Essential/Stroll Tweed in Black (3)
Needle: size 0 (2mm) circular
Mods: increased a lot more than the pattern states to accommodate my calves
Start: September 19, 2009
Finish: September 28, 2009

When we go on vacation, I usually like to take a lace project with me. On this trip, I took some Wollmeise sock yarn and knit Trevi. Those two are a great combination. Trevi really stretches a single skein of sock yarn into a good sized shawl. I like lace patterns with strong geometric lines like this one.

Pattern: Trevi by Anne Hanson
Yarn: Wollmeise 100% sockenwolle in Merlot
Needle: size 4 (3.5mm) for the main part and size 3 (3.25mm) for the knit on edge
Notes: I knit 6 repeats of chart B and had 15 gms of yarn leftover
Start: October 4, 2009
Finish: October 10, 2009

And when I came back from vacation, I was fed up with the socks that I took with me. I was trying to design a sock pattern for self striping yarn. I had a few good ideas on paper that I took with me, but didn't like the way they looked on the actual sock. bleh. Those are still sitting on my desk and I started this pattern. I'm calling it my H.F.V.B. socks--that stands for: home from vacation blues. ;-)

Pattern: H.F.V.B by me
Yarn: Opal uni 4-ply solid
Needle: size 0 (2mm) for the foot and heel and size 1 (2.25mm) for the leg
Start: October 14, 2009
Finish: October 21, 2009

Even with all of these projects going, I'm itching to knit another shawl. It must be the cold weather. Well it's back to knitting, I'll leave you with these pictures from my part of the world...

Cough, knit, cough, design, repeat

Ugh. I have a cold right now. I hope that I'm just getting it out of the way and will be relatively healthy for the rest of fall. I usually love this time of year when the temperature starts to drop, but I haven't been able to enjoy it because of this cold. I have been knitting a lot lately. I have new designs, more designs being written, and more socks being completed.

The first one is Decorated Diamonds. It's not written up yet, but probably will be. I have the different sizes all charted out and just need to write up the pattern with the correct numbers. You would think that after writing so many patterns that the numbers would coincide with something already done, but there's always something different.

Details:
Pattern: Decorated Diamonds by me
Yarn: Opal solid
Needle: size 0 (2mm) Knit Picks Classic Circular
Method: magic loop, 2 at once, toe-up, Turkish cast-on, short row heel
Start: August 13, 2009
Finish: August 24, 2009

This sock was knit for the Solid Socks group on ravelry. September's color is red and I love red! I had to knit some socks for this month. This sock is called 12 Legs. It was going to be something along the lines of spider until I counted out the "legs" correctly. ;-) I see this sock as one that I would wear inside of a mary jane type shoe, so the toe was done with more stockinette.

Details:
Pattern: 12 Legs by me
Yarn: Knit Picks Stroll Kettle Dyed in Wine
Needle: 2mm for the foot, 2.5mm for the leg
Method: magic loop, 2 at once, toe-up, short row heel
Start: September 1, 2009
Finish: September 14, 2009

And this is the sock that is keeping me busy right now. Yellow was September's challenge for the Sock Knitter's Anonymous (SKA) group on ravelry. I've had this neon yellow yarn in my stash for a while just waiting for the right pattern. I found one! These twisted stitches show up really well with the brightness of the yarn.

There was a huge response to this sock and I started writing out the pattern right away. The pattern is finished and it's being test knitted. I was overwhelmed and surprised at the number of people that offered to test knit! I've sent out the pattern to those that said they could start right away, instead of waiting for October. Why October? Because that's I'm the designer of that month at SKA. I want this pattern to be ready by then and October is coming soon.

Organizing test knitters isn't as easy as I thought it would be. I've tried setting up the pattern on ravelry and then sending out free links to it. But that gets complicated when I have to send out new links for the updated pattern. ugh. I think that I might have to set up a yahoo group. I wanted to keep everything on ravelry since that's where everyone is.

Back to the yellow sock. I'm calling it Everything's Connected. My husband and I have been watching the season 2 dvds for the now canceled Life show. We enjoyed it and it's sad that it won't be back this fall. The main character is trying to be all zen and "everything's connected" is something that he says often.

Details:
Pattern: Everything's Connected by me
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill solid in yellow
Needle: size 2.25mm for the leg and heel, 2mm for the foot
Method: magic loop, cuff down, heel flap with picked up stitches, grafted toe
Start: September 15, 2009
Finish: September 20, 2009

I need a pool

A testing pool, that is. But that's jumping ahead. Let's catch up from where we left off in June (!). Yikes, I can't believe it's been that long.

This is Whirligig Cables. It's a fun cable pattern that reminds me of whirligigs or candy. This was knit with Opal 4-ply solid yarn. I used a 2.0mm needle for the foot and a 2.25mm needle for the leg. This pattern does draw in a lot from the wide cables. It was done in my usual magic loop, toe-up, 2 at a time, and short row heel fashion.

This one is Tangled Woods. I seem to be fond of the cable and lace combination lately. The cables and lace seem to balance each other out with the drawing in and opening up. The yarn is Knit Picks Essential/Stroll Kettle Dyed yarn in Timber. Very pretty color, but a bit hard to photograph. This pattern was also knit on a magic loop, 2 at a time, and toe-up.

This one is unnamed and the pattern needs to be written and tested. But before that, I need to figure out how to resize it. I don't like releasing patterns with one size only. I really like this sock. The pattern was easy to memorize, but wasn't at all boring. The yarn is Knit Picks Essential/Stroll Kettle Dyed yarn in Spruce. I used a 2m needle. It's also done in my typical magic loop, toe-up, short row heel formula.

This is another unnamed pattern that I need to write up and have tested. I think the pattern works with the variegated yarn. The yarn is Enchanted Knoll Farm in Wood Elves.

And this is why I need a pool. I think that I need to start a testing pool because it will drive me batty if I put a call out for testers separately for each pattern. Beyond these two, I still have about 8(!) other patterns that need to be written and tested. Wow, have I let things stack up. sigh... The pattern writing part slows me down. I would so much rather be knitting a new design than glued to my computer making charts or writing. I'm not sure how I'll do a testing pool. I've done two separate ones on yahoo groups, but those were secret. All of my socks that I've mentioned are already on my ravelry projects page. No secrecy there, so I may just start a ravelry group. Decisions...

Other than knitting, we had a good camping trip. I took a shawl and two lace scarves with me and finished them. They're still not blocked. sigh again... My parents came to visit for a week and I thought that I would get a lot of knitting done, but I didn't.

I did get a lot of reading done. I bought a set of Harry Potter books and read 1-7 in two weeks. Great books!! I'm so glad that I didn't read them when they first came out. I find it very hard to be patient while waiting for the next book in a series to come out. I'm still waiting for the next book in Gabaldon's Outlander series. I think that's supposed to come out this fall? I might have to re-read through that series.

I also need to start planning the next school year. My son is already asking to start now. That's a great sign that he's excited about it and still likes it! My daughter apparently has my reading obsession gene. She's been reading a lot this summer and is recently stuck with Nancy Drew books.