Category: socks

giving thanks

Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. I’m grateful that I have so many nice readers and that this is somewhere that I can share my thoughts! Today I had a day off from the store for Thanksgiving, and I spent it doing lots of crafty stuff (in addition to the cooking that I didn’t photograph!).

Big finishing day/weekend, actually – I finally finished up some socks that I had lingering around on the needles, out of Jojoland Melody superwash.

These were an experiment – I tend to knit quite loosely, and although I usually do my socks on 2mm needles, I don’t get a really satisfactory gauge. I mean, it’s okay, but not as tight as I’d like sometimes. So for this pair, I used a 1.5mm/US000 addi turbo needle and did magic loop on 72 stitches (I usually do 64). You know what? After lingering for so long and working on them off and on for months….they’re a little small. Sigh. Oh well, I’ll probably wear them anyway. Probably shouldn’t put them in the dryer, though…

I also finally cast off the first of my stripey knee socks, knit out of Indigo Moon sock yarn.

Here’s hoping the second one goes a little faster! This sock was actually really not too bad to knit, but I kept putting it down in favour of other projects. So I’m thinking that the second sock will be my Rhinebeck car project.

I also managed to do a little handsewing (my machine’s a bit buried, so needle and thread it was) to finish off the elastic waist of my roundabout hemp skirt.

Pattern’s forthcoming, even as we head into the cooler months. I think the skirt would be great knit out of a nice sturdy wool.

And a little more weaving in of ends and blocking…and more brown/pink.

I finally knit the thumbs of these koigu mittens this weekend, and now they’re all done. In this photo the mitten on the right is blocked, the one on the left isn’t. There’s a really big difference in person, as per usual with blocking! Now they’ve both had a dunk, and I spent the evening working on the pattern – so as soon as I get some photo taken, the pattern for these will be going up. I’m hoping for before Rhinebeck.

Speaking of which, are you going? I’m super excited!

October 13, 2008
b-side oops!

A knitter caught a chart boo-boo in B-Side – some wrong side knit stitches are missing from the chart. If you just knit the wrong side rows as the stitches appear, you’ll be fine, but if you’re following stitch by stitch, there are some missing stitches. A corrected version has been sent out to everyone who bought the pattern straight through Paypal, and the corrected version is also now available on Ravelry for download by everyone who bought it through there. Oops!

I must say I don’t have all that much going on around here. More weaving, knitting on the cashmere sweater (which is getting closer to completion, but it just looks all bunched up right now), a bit of sock knitting.

I’m almost up to the heel on the first jojoland melody sock (the one I’m knitting on 1.5 mm). Booooring. But at least it’s a nice small project to carry around.

I got these pretty pretty stitch markers from my friend rachel m – she’s selling other pretty pretty stitch markers, earrings, and bracelets (with more to come) up on her etsy shop! Go look and buy! I shall be adding them to my various projects immediately.

Well, since I don’t really have anything else, maybe I can pick your collective brains about cameras – I want to buy a DSLR, I’m ready to take the plunge! But what to get? The Canon XTi is mega-popular (especially among knitbloggers, it seems) and a good price. My little point and shoot is Canon and I love it.

But I’m leaning more towards a Nikon for this one – the D40 is supercheap, compact, and I have a couple friends who are really happy with theirs. I think the one I really want right now is the D60. It’s a little more expensive, but not any more than the Rebel was a couple months ago (when I was contemplating buying one). I’m not sure though!

Any thoughts, opinions to help me make up my mind?

June 6, 2008
big needle, small needle

Well, the needles aren’t that big really, but bigger than I’ve been using lately! I started a new sweater project out of the Fibranatura Mermaid I bought while Ysolda was here:

Which proceeded to go really fast on 4.5 mm needles. I’m almost up to the armholes on the body. It’s slowed down a bit this week because of other stuff, but I’m determined to bust this one out!

In sharp contrast, I just started a new pair of plain socks out of some nice Jojoland Melody, toe up.

On very small needles.

I knit really loosely, so my socks usually turn out to be around 8 stitches per inch on 2 mm. I want some tighter-knit socks though, hence the 1.5 mm! It doesn’t feel super crazy thin, but I do notice that it’s a little harder to control splittyness in the yarn – it’s easy to catch part of the yarn rather than the whole strand since the needle is so thin!

Does anyone have any suggestions for really thin sock yarn or heavy laceweight yarn that would hold up for socks on this size of needle?

May 17, 2008