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 finally got my Ravelry invitation yesterday. Hooray! Ravelry is a website for knitters and crocheters to post about all things knitting & crocheting. I got on the waiting list as soon as I heard about it (maybe 2 months ago) and thought I'd never get on. They are still in Beta and controlling the number of registrations. As of today, the waiting list is over 9,000! I didn't really know much about it except what others were saying on their blogs and podcasts. Now that I could actually get on the site, I agree. It's awesome. You can track your projects and stash and needle inventory. You can connect with other knitters and see who's knitting the same stuff you are. I envision spending hours over there, just looking at everyone's cool projects. I need to get photos taken and get my profile up too.
I was working in the garden today and lo and behold...
Our first tomato of the season is almost ripe! Everything is coming along so nicely. And with 90+ temperatures predicted the next few days, things should get a boost. We had our first peppers this week and will have eggplant before long. We still have cucumbers coming out of our ears. Anyone want some? Next year, one cucumber plant. Two are overwhelming!
I cast on the Sea Silk this week. Yummy! I decided on the Huck Lace shawl from the Morehouse Farm Merino Knits book.
I haven't had a chance to go through this book real thoroughly, but at a glance it looks like there are lots of cool patterns. I like the Huck Lace shawl because it's very plain looking and I think will show off the colors of the Sea Silk very well. Plus it's not too lacy. I'm not really into lace all that much and it's hard to find shawl patterns that aren't lacy.
I dyed up another skein of Gloss this week.
This is called Moo Cow. White with black and gray spots. Love it. I'm so into dyeing. Ideas keep popping into my head. With KnitPicks being out of the dyeables that I won't for a while yet, I've still been search for other sources. I found Catnip Yarns and ordered a pound of Treadsoft Superwash. It's a bit different than the Gloss I've been using. The twist is much tighter and the yarn is a bit finer. Unfortunately, I've been having trouble with my swift when I re-skein yarn. I think it's creating too much tension on the bars and the ties keep breaking. It's easy enough to fix, but I don't want to damage the swift. Dad is going to make me an actual skein winder, which should make my life much easier.
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!
Yikes! Summer of socks starts this week and I'm still knee deep in both the Regia Bamboo and Katsara socks. I just turned the heel on the second bamboo sock and really want to keep working on them so I can wear them during the warm weather. I miss my handmade socks in the summer since wool is just too warm for our climate. I'm really looking forward to some summer-weight socks. I'm still on the first sock of the Katsara socks and won't feel too guilty putting them aside for awhile. The rules for SoS are pretty loose. You can knit as many or as few socks as you want using any yarn and pattern you want. It doesn't specifically say the socks must be started on or after June 21 (the start of the KAL) unless you are participating in one of the contests. I'm not a contest kind of person so I'm not too worried about that. But I think the spirit of the KAL is to try to start and finish the socks during the 3 months of summer. So. Now I've got some decisions to make. I've got a pile of sock yarn to choose from.
Knowing my general slow knitting speed, I'm figuring I'll be able to do 1 maybe 2 pair during this time. I want to do something special, so I'm leaning towards using one of my newly hand-dyed yarns. Although the Lime & Violet yarn is pretty special too. And then there's the Socks that Rock. As for patterns, I'm thinking Horcrux (since this is also the summer of Harry Potter) but Jaywalkers have suddenly started calling my name too. ARGH!
I finally got around to getting a picture of the machine knit sweater I made over Memorial Day weekend.
It was knit from Lion Brand Cotton Ease in Berry, 6 skeins plus a tiny bit of a 7th, on a Bond ISM using keyplate 3. The ribbing was knit by hand. I used Ann Budd's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns to come up with the pattern. This sweater is super comfortable. We had a cool snap last week and I actually got to wear it one day. I would only make 2 changes for next time: I'd shorten the sleeves a bit and start the v-neck sooner, there's very little depth to this one. I really like the modified drop shoulder design. It's much less bunchy under the arms, very well fitting but still comfortable.
And finally, thanks to Charles for mentioning my blog on his knitting videocast this week! As far as I know, he's the only knitter doing a videocast. He's up to his third episode, I think. He features book and magazine reviews, website reviews and yarn porn. Since I tend to listen to podcasts on my Ilo and not my computer, I often don't get a chance to see what the podcasters are talking about. With Charles' videocast though, you get to see the stuff as well as hear about it. Great job Charles!
