AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

not just socks

I really don't just knit socks, but it is hard to tell at times.  Currently I have a whopping 20 works not quite in progress, including a scarf that needs the ends woven in and a good blocking (actually make that 21, because I just finished the knitting for the Red Scarf project and never put it in Ravelry).  Only 3 of those projects are socks, so it is probably safest to say that I only really finish the sock projects.

So, here are the socks I finished a gazillion years ago (in September).

These are the Retro Rib socks from Favorite Socks, and I can see why they are popular.  Easy enough to work on in fits and starts, they make a great commuter sock pattern.  I've been wearing mine with the most business-like grey slacks I have, which makes them extra fun. 

One of the things I liked most about the cruise were the towel creatures.  So, here is the doggie from one of the last days posing with my wool socks.  Now, why, oh why, did I think it was a great idea to pack a pair of wool socks to a Caribbean cruise?  I'm not sure I could tell you know, but I have 3 socks, a sock book, and the yarn for both the matching sock (the Diamond Gansey socks I've been working on) and the fair isle socks.  It was a sock knitting extravaganza, but only in the early morning or late evening when I was tuckered out from all the sun.

Now, these socks are done and I've taken a little break from the fair isle socks (umm, I started a fair isle hat which is also not listed in my Ravelry queue), so what I'm working on most right now is Ishbel.  I started Ishbel when Ysolda came to Boston to sign her book at Windsor Button.  I bought the book, had her sign it, and bought yarn and cast on that night.  I knit through the stockinette and I started the lace.  Then I stopped cold, and I don't remember why.  There was nothing wrong with the project, but I just didn't keep going.  Go figure.

Now I'm about 20 rows from the end and I know I will need to buy more yarn, either a similar shade of the Malabrigo sock or a complementary color.  I don't know what I'm going to do yet, because I'm pretty sure I have enough to get through the last iteration of Chart A and possibly Chart C.  I would like to get that far, but worse comes to worse Windsor Button is just up the road.  They will have something that will work no matter which road I end up going down.

meeresrauschen (on vacation)

I don't have exciting photos very often, so please expect me to milk the vacation pictures All.Winter.Long.  I think that once you've seen a couple, you will find them a welcome treat when the middle of winter hits and all is grey and dreary.

I brought 3-4 skeins of yarn with me and one knitting book on this vacation, though I expected I was only going to work on the one project.  I took the early mornings and some of the later evenings and worked on the meeresrauschen socks.  My German is non-existent (unless it is schadenfreude or schmetterling, my few German words), so I will be calling these North Sea socks.

I got fairly far in these while I was on the cruise.  My little helper (the towel creatures were hilarious!) was Mr. Ogg Dogg, and he loved the knitting needles and card games.  He made a pretty decent model for these socks in progress, no?

Now, I finished the heel during the plane ride back and have pulled them on my foot only to stop at the area right before the heel.  Whoops.  My lack of swatching really cannot be forgiven, but I'm going to finish the pair and then give them away.

Anyone with size 6 feet (if you claim them early then you can tell me your foot length and they will fit both around and in length) can claim them.  And remember, claiming these allows you to think about the Carribean, where I knit part of these socks and think of fall in New England (where they spent the rest of their time).

The pattern has kept me fairly well entertained, so I will end up knitting a second pair.  I have an idea for brighter more enticing colors for the next pair and either a real swatch or at least upping the needle size to a 1 or a 1.5. 

Random photo:

It's huge, because I love it so.  And well, these are just a few of the blues my hair will be when I'm a retired old lady (30+ years down the road). 

i'm back!

Vacation is officially over.  Saturday was the travel day and the following two days were recovery from travel.

The travel day looked like this:
Boat to a bus to a plane to a plane to a bus to a subway to a cab.  Whew!  There were hours of layovers, which was handy for the knitting (I left the camera brain behind, so pictures tomorrow) even if it wasn't handy for the mounting sense of frustration of knowing that you could be home already!

I started the Meeresrauschen just before vacation, so I would be over the first hump of fair isle knitting by the time I got on the plane.  Surprisingly not bad for my first attempt, though I needed to untwist the yarn every row (I'm sure this speaks to my technique or lack thereof).  Of course, I am past the heel and have come to the conclusion that only a strict blocking can save me from a woeful sock failure.  Her 77 stitch sock with the needle size indicated has thus far produced a sock that does not go over my heel.  I am hoping that blocking will fix it, but if not hopefully there is some dainty creature out there with feet between a size 6 and a 7 (I'm a narrow footed 7.5) will offer to wear my first fair isle socks.  I'm going to finish them regardless of whether or not I can wear them.  I can always make another pair...  Oh horror, buying more sock yarn!

They will be thick and warm for the lucky devil (I'm hoping to have the first sock finished and blocked out this week), because frankly I'm not confident that stretching them out while under the influence of blocking will fix my fit issue.  People with more experience at fair isle, any tips so I can do a better job the next time?

dashing off to the gym

Just a quick post.

So, tomorrow I'm planning on downloading the Meeresrauschen socks.  I have a contrast yarn, and I want to try a little bit of the sock pattern in the comfort of my own home before I go vacation. 

I'll probably bring the diamond gansey socks I'm working on as well.  It's not much in the way of socks, but at this point I can do the gansey ones almost in my sleep.  Good for when I just want to sit around and stare at the other people around or look at the ocean!

I cannot be trusted

Yesterday I went to Windsor Button over lunch, ostensibly to get another size 6 circular and another batch of size 0 dpns (because 4 needles aren't handy if you want to try the little buggers on).  I knew I wanted to knit a pair of fair isle socks next (we will get into my stupid a little bit later), and while I have one skein of yarn that will work I needed a contrasting skein of yarn.

I did not actually intend to buy the contrasting skein of yarn yesterday.  Now I own a skein of Trekking in a nice ivory color.  It will go very well from the skein of yarn from the Loopy Ewe (purchased as part of the I didn't get to go to the sock summit or Loopy Ewe sock fest earlier this year).  While I want to make the Kikko Hanabishi socks, I will do a much better job if the pattern is stupidly scintillating.

Enter Meeresrauschen (ravelry link).  It has vertical stripes, which I am a bit of a sucker for.  It has a visual motif, aka non-abstract, which is a huge selling point.  And because I am a sad individual, the modeled picture is in a beautiful teal color with a wonderfully contrasting lemon-lime (ish) yarn.  Not that I don't know I can change colors, and will be changing colors, but I do fall for things in the blue family faster than things in the magenta family.

Of course, between finishing my last pair of socks and starting this pair of socks I accidentally (Whoops! *thud*) started another pair of socks.  My latest pair of socks are the Diamond Gansey socks from Wendy's book: Socks from the Toe Up. 

warning: colors much more vivid in person

I started this sock Tuesday night and am about ready to start the gusset.  For me, this is blindingly fast.  I'm not sure if this is because I really love the pattern or the yarn (this is the yarn made by Caroline for Claudia's 2009 MS Fundraiser).  The colors just glow in the sunlight, which made knitting on it this morning a real treat!  This is a wonderful yarn and I am really loving it, though I think part of the reason the sock is working up so fast is that it isn't ribbing... I am definitely all ribbing-ed out.

Now, why I am an idiot.  I was photographing this sock in progress with my finished socks in my bag when I got the battery dead warning from the camera.  So, no photo of the finished socks until I can get home and fix the battery situation. 

Arr!

What's a pirate's favorite sock?

Arrrgyle!

Talk like a pirate day was Saturday.  It was a good day, and despite the MBTA shuttling from Quincy Center to JFK/UMass I was able to get to Davis and help a friend warp her loom for the first time.  Her loom from what I remember is a Beka, and it is very different from my Kromski.  Not in a bad way, but it is definitely not designed to be even quasi-portable.  I'm going to be bringing her a few books and some of my other gear.

The biggest thing with the Beka that was not an improvement was the use of a crochet hook as a sleying tool.  Pulling the warp through the reed with the crochet hook was just not as comfortable as using a tool more designed for the task (mine is a long flat hook, and I have not accidentally damaged the yarn using it).

Saturday was full of one bad thing too (the warping was a very good thing).  I knit the heel flap and turned the heel on the train only to realize that I somehow was one stitch over and that my heel was never going to look centered.  I don't mind if it isn't exactly the same as the first sock of the pair, but I figured that this was a simple change.  Rip, rip, rip!

Sunday I reknit the heel flap during more football and had to turn the heel twice.  Sometimes the socks don't want to be knit!  I'm finally done with the heel and I have at my last count 42 rows before I get to the toe.  Soon!  Soon I will have another new pair of socks.

I think my next pair of socks will be the Kikko Hanabishi socks.  I am interested in two color knitting, so this might be a good choice.  The only problem I see with them is that they might be too small.  They only come in one size, and the pattern is wide enough that I'm not sure how I would expand them for my slightly larger feet.  I've never tried to make a pair of socks for myself that were not at least 60 stitches. 

Of course, this means I am trolling ravelry now to see what other options there are.  Does anyone have a favorite fair isle sock pattern? 

nothing useful to say

Last night a few friends and I went to see the latest Harry Potter movie.  This time around I did not break out my double thick Ravenclaw scarf. 

I had a lot of problems with this latest movie.  Mostly in how they set things up for the final movie(s) and the choices they made in what to cut and what to keep.  There were definitely things I thought were important plot elements that either were not covered or just received the glancing blow.  Not a bad movie.  Just not what I was hoping for.

Of course, now I'm just really tired.  Bed was midnight, an unkind hour for a person who tends to wake up early.  Tonight I'm prepping an ice cream batch or two, which should be tasty treats for a party for a couple of friends on Saturday.  I think I will prep the Grape Sorbet first, so I know that I won't have the grapes go bad.  I'm dreadfully bad at keeping fruit all happy until I get around to eating it.  I need to remember to freeze more of it, so I can use it in the middle of winter or add it to a dessert without traipsing to the grocery store (like I'll be doing - hacked caprese dinner here I come).

I am knitting.  It's a sock.  Retro Rib is nearly to the toe of the first sock.  I want to work on the sweater, but if I stop working on the sock who knows when I will remember to come back to it.

aaiiieee! oh, and some new socks

Life has been super duper busy.  It's all good, and it involves a lot of fun cooking (hey, Norma! I made some frozen yogurt with your rose petal jam and some cherries mascerated in brandy - it is really good!) and some games, and a lot of multitasking.

Multitasking.  How I grow to love and hate you, but because I know how to multitask, I can do both at the same time!  It's great how these time saving skills allow such contradictions into the world?

These are my newest pair of socks.  The yarn is Fannie's Fingering Weight in the Caribbean colorway.  They are very bright, which is great.  I love wearing these, because they give me that spot of happy color when I'm too busy to stop and smell the roses as it were.

I knit these on size 0 needles, and they fit just fine.  I love my socks a bit on the tight side, so these are perfect.  The only other socks I have that are comparable (in tightness) are a pair of plain jane Trekking socks I made a while back and am also wearing to pieces.

I did a slip stitch heel, but if I were doing it again I would try the Eye of Newt heel (umm, it is a partridge or a peacock and I'm a lazy blogger and not about to look it up - besides, wouldn't an eye of newt heel treatment be a lot of fun!).  My heels were a little short, so if I were to do this again I would knit a few more rows in my heel flap.  The socks fit however, so this is mostly a minor issue with the fit and appearance.

This isn't the only pair of socks I've been working on.  I also have a pair of socks in the Melon Cooler colorway from Woolcott.  I started them off in the Retro Rib pattern, and other than the pattern growing v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y this is a lovely pattern.

I love how bright these are, though I still don't think of them as bright as the Caribbean socks.  Probably because the light blue-teal colors just scream at me and with the melon cooler, my eyes are instead drawn to the golds and the little tiny spots of red.

It's a little weird to alternate rows with twisted stitches and rows without, but it is making it easier to remember the pattern.

I took this picture days ago in the last patch of sun I could find, and they are now almost 7 inches long.  I think I am supposed to start the heel when I get to 8 inches, but I keep leaving my book behind.  Makes it hard to double check things during the morning commute.

So, two pairs of socks, one an additional FO and the other sock 1 on the needles.  Neither of these is getting the biggest of the projects done: either my new sweater (which I haven't even swatched for) or the baby set that I keep letting get the best of me.  This Sunday is New England Revolution, and I find watching the NE Revs a very soothing way to work on a cranky project like the baby blanket.  Maybe this weekend I'll be able to get to the sewing up with some GOAL! action to keep my eyes and brain occupied while I plod along.

rip! reknit

I have this gorgeous skein of sock yarn from Woolcott (image snagged from the blog, saved to my server), but I apparently couldn't pick the right pattern for it.

I started off with a simple 60 stitch 2x2 rib, but then I decided I wanted a pattern.  Bad idea.  Apparently most of the sock patterns I liked would involve a special cast on, a different ribbing pattern, a completely different stitch count, or were for worsted weight or DK instead of sock yarn.  Well, I solved that by ripping out the 2x2 rib and recasting on for the Mock Cable Socks. 

I got halfway through the first repeat of the pattern and decided that I didn't like how it looked.  I'm pretty sure that I should have been doing my M1 as purl stitches, and so I had these odd ridges where briefly there was some garter stitch.  It's a very odd look over just one stitch in a sock.  Last night while watching Moulin Rouge (well, listening... that movie is like very odd crack or something... especially Like a Virgin) I ripped it all out again and went back to flipping through 25 Favorite Socks, of which I'm really interested in about 10.

I started over and am about halfway through the initial ribbing on the cuff for a pair of Retro Rib socks.  I feel like the last person in blogdom to have made a pair of these (almost: over 800 pairs on Ravelry).  The only way I could feel more like the last person ever is if I were making the Embossed Leaves.  That will happen as soon as I find an appropriate color/weight yarn in my stash certainly. 

This is, of course, a long winded way of saying that I managed to knit last night.  Not only did I manage to knit, I managed to knit on what I said I would knit on.  If I keep this up, I might actually finish another project this month!  [Or maybe not... there are only 9 days left to finish something!]

running through the blanket

Today my friend and I went on our long run starting from Harvard Square.  It was a pretty good run - on target for my half marathon pace - though wet.  The air was so full of humidity that even my short jog to the MBTA left me dripping sweat. 

Most of our run was along the Charles River, which theoretically cooled us off a bit.  On our way back to Harvard Square along the Boston bank of the Charles, I am pretty sure I saw a cormorant.  Of course, I don't run with my camera (and it now occurs to me that I did have my phone.  doh.), so here is an image from Lonetown Woods (the author takes a lot of beautiful bird photography, so if you want to see more hawks and sea birds and even vultures, please go look).

Next week's long run is supposed to be 8 miles, and will hopefully not be quite so muggy.  I also hope that it isn't in Harvard Square, because the Square is full of temptation.  There is Beadworks (though I normally go to Lush Beads), and Lush, and ice cream and coffee.  There is also Woolcott.  Sean, the owner of Woolcott, has started offering his own hand dyed yarn, which I first saw on Queer Joe's blog a few weeks ago.  The colors that Joe bought were super saturated jewel tones, which I love (love, love).  Each of the colors however are once offs.  Sean only makes a few skeins of each color.

Those were gone, but there were still some really pretty colors.  I bought a skein (and they wound it for me at the shop, so I could start right away) of Melon Cooler and some size 0 needles to make sure that they fit my feet.

No pictures of the Melon Cooler, but picture a bright spring green with golden streaks and little dots of red.  It is a beautfiul color, and I'll have pictures in the next couple of days. 

Now it is time to finish getting ready.  I want to visit my fishies at the Aquarium and watch the new Star Trek movie (again).