Although not imbued with any piece of my soul, the Horcrux socks are finished.
As I said before, these are a quick knit. I think the patterning helps them feel faster than plain stockinette socks since you get to constantly change up what you are doing. I don't like the heel on these, it's too baggy. Next time I'd use a slip stitch heel flap and a regular heel turn (rather than the band heel in the pattern). Otherwise, they fit great. I intend to wear these next weekend while reading Deathly Hallows. I have enough yarn left over I could knit another sock. Don't know if this is normal for this pattern or just a lucky break. I should have plenty to knit a pair of ankle socks (my next sock project).
With all the dyeing I've been doing lately, I discovered I really could use a skein winder. Winding skeins on my swift does work, but it puts a lot of strain on the connections and I was constantly having to retie the bars. So I looked into getting a skein winder. Unfortunately, budget wouldn't allow the $80+ expenditure, not with Quilt Odyssey only 2 weeks away not to mention the undyed yarn I bought to dye. Enter my very handy with woodworking dad and voila...
Fantastic! It's beautiful and turns so smoothly. I can't wait to get the Treadsoft skeined up for dyeing.
I frogged the Four Seasons Cardigan from months ago. It's been sitting in the box untouched for nearly a year by my reckoning and the more I looked at it the more I knew I'd never finish it. So it's frogged and has been re knit, by machine, into a v-neck cardigan of my own design (with the help of the Knitware software). That's it laying on the table behind the skein winder. I got all the pieces knit up between Friday night and this morning. Now I'm working on the hand knitting, adding the hems and seaming. The instructions direct to knit the button/buttonhole bands separately and sew them on, but I think I'm going to pickup and knit the band. I HATE sewing up. I'll go back and rewatch EZ's instructions for picking up a cardigan band on the Knitting Glossary dvd and should be fine.
I'm still not going to rank this NZ yarn among my favorites because of the prickliness, but I must say, it sure did dye up pretty. Here's a small swatch knitted on US 7 needles.
Before felting...
After felting...
I'm very please with the results. The fabric is dense but not stiff and should make a great belt. The sample was 15 stitches wide and after felting is about double what I need my finished belt to be. So I figure 8 stitches should do it. It shrank very little in length. But even if I knit it too long, after felting it shouldn't be a problem to cut it off.
Tonight I skeined off 4 100g hanks of the tan wool to dye to make the Stag Bag from yesterday. Although I'm sure it would be fabulous to knit the bag in the alpaca yarn called for, I've got this on hand and am anxious to find a use for it. I realized, on further reading of the pattern, that the colorwork chart is worked back and forth. I loath purling in stranded colorwork, so that's just not going to happen. The pattern as written has the colorwork panel on the front and a plain solid color back. This creates a problem if done in the round since my 2nd color will be on the wrong side of the work when I get back around. I know there's some way to do it with slip stitches, but that's way more complicated than I want to try for now. I could work the back of the bag in a two color pattern as well, maybe a checkerboard or something. Or I could just cut the yarn and reattach at each new row. This would mean a ton of ends to weave in, though. These are all problems for another day. For now, the yarn is in the dye pot. Results soon.
SoS report: I knit an inch or so on the Horcrux while listening to Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians audiobook. In addition to SoS, I've signed up for the library's adult summer reading program. With the aid of audiobooks, I've gotten 2 books "read" already. And my hands are free to stitch away.
I hated going back to work today. Normally weekends don't really effect me like that. But losing that freedom to pickup Horcrux and knit at my leisure was tough. I shall treat myself to a good long knit tonight after dinner. Unless this keeps me to distracted...
2 cones of New Zealand wool. Each is over a pound of dk weight yarn. Purchased from Ebay. You'd think I'd stop buying this unknown yarn after my recent experience of Ebay yarn that didn't meet my expectations. But it's actually not bad, for what it's intended for. It's very scratchy wool indeed, at least too me it feels scratchy, but I'm pretty sensitive to that kind of thing. My intention when buying it was to try dyeing it, and that's what I'm going to work on tonight. I wound off 100 g of the gray wool and it's soaking now. I haven't decided what colors I'm going to use, but I'm thinking greens and blues. Since the wool is so scratchy, it will most certainly end up being knitted into something felted. I'm really horrible with this part, coming up with ideas on what to do with x amount of yarn. For now, I'm just interested to see if I can get something I'm even going to want to knit with!
Also in the mail today, more inspiration for sock yarns!
Apparently I'm not the only one bitten by the dye-your-own sock yarn bug. It's becoming increasingly hard to find affordable undyed sock yarn. I've still got 2 skeins of Knit Picks Bare merino/silk. I'm jonesing to get some superwash, but their site still shows it's back ordered until the end of July. Now the merino/silk is back ordered until the end of September! I did get some of my yarn from Socks that Fit and it's very nice. Just a bit more expensive than Knit Picks. Most places sell by the cone and I'm not ready to commit that kind of money just yet. At least I've figured out how to get the yarn off the cone into a hank without too much trouble. I mount my swift on it's side so it spins like a ferris wheel and set the cone on my scale so I can see when I've wound off the appropriate weight. I've also marked the swift and calculated the amount of yarn per revolution. All I need to do is count the number of strands in the hank and I've got the yardage.
I'm off to dye now. Oo, that didn't sound very good!
Holy crow! I started the Horcrux sock (sock #1 for SoS) on June 21. I cast on before work, because I was DYING to start. And I've pretty much only worked on these socks when knitting (I knit a few rows on the Bamboo socks when I needed mindless, no counting involved knitting). But mostly, it's only been Horcrux. And it's not been all that much knitting time, actually. I worked Thursday and Friday, all day. We went away Thursday night and Friday were busy with Ebay listings. So I'm thinking 2-3 hours TOPS I've spent knitting. Look at this....
As of 8:00 this morning, I'm ready to turn the heel on sock #1! This pattern totally rocks. It's so easy and looks awesome. It looks kind of poofy in the lace section because of the way the ribbing pulls in, but it looks just fine on my leg. Very comfortable. This is my first lace sock and I wasn't sure how I'd like it. So far I'm very pleased.
I've decided on Sock #1 for SoS...
I think we all knew I'd choose the Horcrux sock. How could I not? If I'm REALLY speedy, maybe I might even be able to wear them to the movie next month! When I got all my sock yarn out to take that picture over the weekend, I found a skein of Opal Cotton hiding in there. And, as I said before, I'm really in need of summer weight socks, so the Opal turned out to be the natural choice. I've even got the death eater bag to keep it. So I'm all set. Summer of Socks, here I come!
Ok, this sock yarn obsession has got to stop. Now look what I got...
LIME AND VIOLET! Wooohoooo!! I managed to score the Darvoset skein from Miss Violet's Better Living Through Chemicals set. Tres gorgeous. And soft. (At this moment, L&V have a new series up on their site. I froze my credit cards in blocks of ice so as not to be tempted.) I'm pretty sure this is going to be the Horcrux socks. If you want the sock weight pattern, you have to join this Yahoo Group, which I did, just to get the pattern. Much as I love plain jane stockinette socks for their simplicity, I'm ready to branch out into patterned socks. To wit...Here's the Katsara tube socks to date.
I'm going to have to come up with a new name because I'm not planning on making these actual tube socks. Unless I have to hard a time reworking the pattern, I intend to put in a heel flap and gusset. Think they'll fit better that way.
Progress on the Bamboo socks. 
These are so soft and light. Will be perfect for summer, if I can just find time to work on them!
This last week I've mostly been working on a machine knit sweater. I didn't take time to take pictures. The process goes so fast, it's hardly worth taking time for pictures. Now I'm doing the seaming up - which always seems to take as long (or longer) than it took to knit the sweater! Pictures next week.
My latest batches of soap.
I'm very pleased with these. On the left is a eucalyptus/orange blend, smells dreamy. On the right is a new batch of Castile. This time I put just a touch of green coloring. I thought the first batch was too pale, and this puts me more in mind of olive oil. The olive oil I'm using right now is very pale so it doesn't really lend any color of it's own to the soap. I'm patiently waiting for my lavender to bloom. Mom had requested some lavender soap with actual lavender buds. I think this sounds like a great idea and hope to give it a try.
As if I don't have enough projects going and in the wings...I did buy yarn for one more project. Be still my heart...
Fleece Artist/Handmaiden SeaSilk in Seashore. For those who haven't heard of this yarn, it's made from silk and seacell which comes from seaweed. It is unbelievably soft. This yarn would make the perfect pet, no need to even knit it up. I could simply carry the skein around and be happy. However, I do intend to knit it up. I was originally prompted to buy the yarn to make the Montego Bay scarf in the Summer 07 Interweave Knits (after the HUGE disappointment of the eBay yarn). But the more I think about it, I'm thinking shawl. Now, I'm not much of a lace fan, and this is laceweight yarn so I may just be screwed. But I'm willing to try. Eventually. For now, good pet.
