Summer's end

A phrase commonly heard at this time of year..."where did summer go?" Summer's almost at the end and the school year is about to begin. I've installed software on my daughter's laptop. My son's lessons are organized on the shelf and ready to go. This summer has been filled with camping, house renovation, and reorganization. In between, I'm still knitting and working on patterns. Test knitting for two of my patterns ended a few days ago.

This is my Technical sock. I named it after what my husband calls difficult sections of mountain biking trails. This pattern throws everything at you--cables, lace, and twisted stitches. Some might think that would be a bit much for one sock, but I think it works in this case. This pattern is toe-up and has a patterned heel flap.

I used Lorna's Laces new Solemate sock yarn. This yarn has pretty cool heat regulating fibers in it. It's a blend of merino, nylon, and Outlast. It's the Outlast part that does the climate control thing. I thought lace would be a good fit for this yarn. Between the temperature regulating and the lace, these should make good warm weather socks.

This is my Not Connected sock pattern. I came up with the idea for this pattern right after I designed my Everything's Connected pattern. I wanted a similar look, but with the stitch pattern occurring in staggered columns. Then I threw in some lace on every row within those cells. Not Connect is also a toe-up pattern with a ribbed heel flap.

I have a mystery sock in the Solid Socks group on ravelry. We're up to clue #2 and there's still time to join the fun. This pattern, like my other mystery knits, will remain free. This sock is knit cuff down and is cabled.

I'm working on another cuff down pattern. I hope to get a good mix of cuff down vs. toe-up sock patterns in my store. I initially knit this pattern years ago toe-up. Writing the math for the toe-up version was getting complicated and that's why I switched this one to cuff down.

After that, I'll be working on project #3 for Camp Loopy. I'll be using Bugga to knit a shawl. I thought I had decided which shawl, but I've changed my mind. Again... Cast-on isn't until August 15th. I have plenty of time to change my mind and hopefully settle on a pattern.

Go...

I feel like I've been on the go since summer started. So many things to do and no time to blog about it. A quick recap:

-I finished writing out the patterns for the Tangled Woods and Whirligig Cable socks. Those can be found in my ravelry store.

-I finished writing patterns for two different items for a place that can't be named. ;-)

-I've finished knitting two more sock designs, but still need to work on the patterns. I'm calling one Divided and the lace one is still nameless.

-I'm almost finished knitting another new sock design. It's another pattern that seems to work with variegated yarns. I'm using Enchanted Knoll Farm in Wood Elves.

-We just got back from a camping trip. Laundry is done. Yay. I got a lot of knitting and reading done. Yay again.

-I started reading the Twilight saga books, got sucked into them, read them all, and now I want to re-read them.

-Watched the Twilight movie too. The movie is only good if you've read the book. Otherwise, it looks like the actors go around making weird facial expressions all the time. My husband found it amusing.

-I also read a book titled The Thirteenth Tale. Good book with a strange twisted story.

-I need to get a meal plan down for our next camping trip. I don't like the planning and packing part. bleh.

-The SolidSocks mystery clues are all out and I can finally post pictures. That's the picture at the bottom.

-I really need/want to figure out what projects to take with me on this camping trip. Many sock projects or maybe a shawl? hmmmmm.

Socks everywhere

Well, the orange mystery sock for Sock Knitter's Anonymous is underway. The first clue went out this past Monday. So far, the reception has been good. In ravelry, there are 61 listed projects for it so far. The first clue was really short. The second clue will come out next Monday and should keep everyone busy all week. The photos of the first complete clue are great! It's a lot of fun seeing my design knit in a similar color and by many different people. I feel for the group mods though. They have been inundated with questions about yarn being "orange enough." It's enough to drive anyone batty.

Since my last post, I've been knitting a lot of socks. These are mostly for E and D. They now have two new pairs for each of them(one hasn't been photographed yet). I'm back to knitting socks again. I had to cast on an orange one to count for September's sockdown. I'm still working on patterns. I'll most likely wait until the mystery sock is almost over before releasing another one.

From the left to right: Regia Line Steps for D, Elann Sock It To Me Puzzle for D, Regia Strato and Knit Picks Essential Black for E, and Enchanted Knoll Farm in Pumpkin Juice for me. The first three are various garter rib. That pattern is stretchy (great for kid socks), easy to memorize, and not boring.

The socks on the far right are another pair for me. I'm calling it Seeds for now. The yarn is called Pumpkin Juice and I wanted the dots to look like pumpkin seeds. They still look more like dots than seeds, but whatever. I still like how the socks turned out.

This is what I'm working on now for September's Sockdown challenge. This month is orange, a Cookie A. pattern, or the mystery sock. Since I've already done the mystery sock twice and those don't count, I'm going to do an orange sock and a Cookie A. sock later. The picture on the left is more accurate in color, but the one on the right shows the stitch pattern better. This is the patchwork cable stitch pattern from the 3rd Barbara Walker Treasury. It's a cool cable with various different textures in it. I've wanted to use it on something for sometime now and decided to just put it on socks. I've knit them up to the heel flap, so they might be done sometime this weekend. Back to knitting...

Weaving socks and some mystery

This is my latest sock. Every now and then, I need a simpler pattern. This one was perfect. It was simple enough to not need a chart, but it wasn't boring. This pattern could probably be done in a more variegated yarn too.

Details:
Pair # 14 for the 52 Pair Plunge II
Pair #9 for Summer of Socks 08
Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy in Nightwatch
Needle: size 0 (2mm) Knit Picks Classic Circular
Method: magic loop, 2 at once, toe-up with Turkish cast-on, gusset heel with patterning
Pattern: Weaving (pattern to be written later)
Start: July 30, 2008
Finish: August 1, 2008

I've been asked to design the September mystery sock for Sock Knitter's Anonymous (ravelry group). This pattern will be released in four parts, once each week during September. I've been digging through stitch dictionaries and working up a few different ideas. I think that I've finally gotten down what I want. Something interesting, but not too complex since there is a wide range of skill levels on the SKA group. The only requirement was that I use orange yarn. Pretty cool to have such an open ended range of what I could do. By the end of this week, I should have a good rough draft of the pattern.

I can't really say much about the pattern. I've been asked about using variegated yarns. I think a slightly variegated yarn would work. A yarn that stripes subtly might work too. I really don't think that yarn with bold stripes would work.