Socks

I seem to be on a bit of a sock kick at the moment having managed to finish my first pair of toe-up socks using the MUMTUS recipe . I did enjoy knitting socks this way actually and I've now got all enthusiastic about toe-up socks and been searching out and faveing patterns on Rav like there's no tomorrow!  However, as is the way of knitters, I'm sure the mania will pass as soon as something else pretty catches my attention.  Toe-up does seem quicker to me than the top down method and magic loop is easy to do, I love Wendy's magic cast on and I used Jeny's surprisingly stretchy cast off for the top.  Mason is delighted with his new socks and is currently wearing them to school and showing them off to all and sundry!  I just hope none of the neighbours looked out of their bedroom windows this morning to see me sitting in the backyard photographing my own feet!

I'm not overly keen on the yarn or the colour to be honest.  It is the Zettl sockenwolle from Lidl a couple of years ago, it is supposed to be machine washable but I know from experience of the socks I knitted for Patrick in the grey colourway...it isn't machine washable!!  They felted and would do a small child as a pair of boots!  I chucked them out after trying in vain to get them onto my own feet and realising that even if I found someone they would fit, they were so stiff and uncomfortable, said person would not wear them anyway.  Anyhow, I'll have to make sure this pair are handwashed.  I liked the colourway when I started knitting the foot but there is a bit of pooling around the heel gussett on both socks.  Then I tried to get a bit fancy and knit the leg in a 3 x 1 rib.  This was a mistake, far too much variegation to take any pattern whatsoever, they just look messy to me. 
 

Buoyed by my success in getting them finished though, I got a hankering to knit myself a pair of lacy pink socks.  Pink because I've had this yarn in stash for yonks and lacy because I had lacy in mind when I bought the yarn.  I'm really not a pink girl normally, it doesn't suit me at all.  However, for socks I can probably get away with it :-).  A quick search on Ravelry for toe up socks found me the simple lace pattern of Bubbles Down the Drain by Staci Perry (Rav link).  The description of how to knit the toe part seemed rather complicated in the pattern so I decided to go with Wendy's Magic Cast on and the MUMTUS recipe up until I reached the stitch count for starting the lace pattern.  As you can see I'm at about 3 inches and that is after approx 3.5 hours of knitting time, as I've remarked in the past, I'm not the fastest of knitters but I enjoy it and finish things in my own time so I'm not too worried about that.  I am trying to keep track of time on this project, just out of interest to see how long it actually takes me, in knitting hours to knit a pair of socks.  I'm really enjoying this pattern, it is a four row repeat with rows 2 and 4 being identical.  I find this spurs me on to knit a little bit more.  Rather than just stopping knitting, I tend to finish a four row repeat before stopping, so instead of "just one more row" it's "just one more repeat".

I think next up on the radar is Medici by Woolly Wormhead.  Patrick's sister Coral has knitted it for herself in Manos Del Uruguay Silk Blend but only used 41g of a 100g skein.  She has very generously given me the rest of the skein for me to knit it for myself.  We'll have to make sure we don't both go out in them together though!

And the winners are.

After much pondering and trying to discover how many (or few) followers a blog has, I've finally decided to whom I am going to award the Liebster awards.  It was quite a difficult one really and in the end, I decided to go with what was in front of my eyes with regard to followers, if it didn't say on the blog, I've assumed there to be less than 200, if it did say on the blog, I've assumed that to be correct even though there are different ways to follow that may not show up on the blog itself.  As you can see, I've been tying myself in knots with this, probably unecessarily!

The idea is to put a copy of the award logo on my own blog and then to award it to between 3 and 5 other blogs and inform them via a comment on their blog, so without further ado, here are my 4 choices.
1. KateohKatie.  Kate is an American girl whose blog I started to follow after admiring her version of Maude Louise on Ravelry way back in 2009 sometime.  She's articulate and witty, I enjoy reading about her life and her knitting and baking adventures and she makes me laugh out loud sometimes.  She also has a very cute doggie called Roxie :-)
2. Squirrel. Shirley's blog is always enjoyable and she makes beautiful project bags which she sells on Etsy and Folksy.  Make sure you visit her and follow the links to her shops...not that I am enabling or anything!
3. JosieKitten.  Just a lovely blog to read. Josiekitten lives in a lovely part of the country and posts beautiful photos of where she lives, her knitting and also her delightful cat Florence
4. SnoopyDog.  Another lovely blog to read, Snoopydog is Josiekitten's friend and her blog follows a similar format and always cheers me up. Another one with a cute pet, Oscar the labrador is just gorgeous.

Please have a look at the above blogs if you don't already follow them, that is afterall the idea of this award scheme, to get us all to look into blogs we have previously been unaware of.

I do enjoy reading blogs of ordinary knitting folk like myself and seeing the photos they take of their knits, surroundings and pets.  Thank you to all of the above (and bloggers everywhere) for allowing me and others into your lives in this way.

And now for an update on Tappan Zee...you know it was finished?  Well, I decided that it wasn't and frogged the border to knit extra rows.  The more I tried it on, the more I felt that it wasn't working as a cropped cardigan.  The yoke is too patterned and it looked top-heavy and unfinished.  So, I unpicked the cast-off and frogged the garter rows, knitted a few extra rows and put in an eyelet row which I think makes it look more 'finished'.  I then re-knit the garter rows and cast off.  So, I present to you..... Tappan Zee, in Adriafil Soffio Plus.

These pretty buttons were from Textile Garden.  The service, communication and delivery were excellent and I'm sure I'll buy from her again.

So, next up for me is to finish Mason's second sock!  I started and finished the first one in record time for me back in September last year.  These are the MUMTU (Mash-up Magic Toe-up) socks and I've just turned the heel of the second sock so am onto the leg now.  I'm hoping to get these off the needles by the end of the weekend.  Then, I intend to finish Maude Louise at long last before I allow myself to start anything else.  Get me being all disciplined!!  I've just managed to talk myself out of buying some extremely cheap Noro Silk Garden at Knit Night tonight so I'm feeling particularly proud of my willpower.

That's all for now folks, see you next week with some finished socks I hope!

An award and an FO

I'm very pleased to have been awarded the Liebster Blog award by Clicky Needles.  Clicky's blog is always a pleasure to read so check her out if you haven't already.

This is an award system between bloggers with less than 200 followers.  The idea is that when you have received the award, you put the icon on your blog and then have to award it to between 3 and 5 other bloggers who have less than 200 followers themselves, you notify them by a comment on their blog and announce the winners on your own blog.  It's a good way of publicising blogs and also finding other blogs that may interest you.  I'm having a bit of a think about who to give the award to, a problem I'm finding is that most blogs don't show the number of followers, so how do you know how many they have?  I'm going to have to hazard a guess I'm afraid and hope for the best!  I'll hopefully have made up my mind by next week and will post the winners then.

The other news is that Tappan Zee is now finished.  It just needs a light block to even out the stitches, I'm really pleased with how it turned out in this yarn.  Modifications I made were to put a garter edge on the sleeves to match the neckline and bottom and to omit the diamond pattern at the bottom.  I also finished it off shorter because I wanted it a shorter length.  I can't believe how far that yarn seemed to go.  I had already knitted Meret out of it and used less than a ball for that.  I've now finished a cardi that is supposed to take 700 meters with less than 600 meters!  My next mission is to get Maude Louise finished and done with before the weather gets too warm to wear it!!  However, for some odd reason I have a hankering to knit a toy of some description next.  I've no idea why because I'm not one for cuddly toys or nic-nacs around the house so I've no idea what I would do with it once finished but still, the notion keeps nagging away at me.  A nice bunny or teddy in some lovely Wendy cotton dk I have stashed seems to be the general train of thought. 

Rightio, I'd best get back to work now.  See you next week, with the winners of the Liebster announcement and hopeful a progress report on Maude!

Memories

One of my things I want to do this year is to sort out my huge family photo collection.  I have, like everyone else, hundred of photos.  As well as the plethora of miscellaneous digital images on various CDs, portable hard drives and memory sticks, I have hundreds of physical photographs, going back to my own childhood and even earlier as I was a bit of a family historian a few years ago. I intend to start with the digital ones, try to sort them into some semblance of order and put them into folders on an external hard drive.  Already, I'm feeling daunted by this and I've only looked at one CD!!  The memories this is going to turn up will be fun though.  Such as this one

The son in this photo is now 17 years old!  I had knitted this jumper for his elder brother and it had been passed down to him.  They were both fans of the children's tv show Tot's TV and this pattern leaflet had jumpers with each of the characters and toys to make too.  I have to say, I was immensely proud of this at the time :-)

And this picture of my two boys looking like they actually love each other!

And then there's this....which I have to say looks more realistic than the previous one!

So, on with the sorting out.  This could take quite a while!  I'm sure I will enjoy it tremendously though.

Time Flies

How time flies!  I really did intend on making sure I had a new post out each week so I can't believe that two weeks have gone by since my last post. 

Firstly the brilliant news for this post is that my work colleague took her triplets home from the hospital last Friday.  Here are the little teensy matinee sets that I had knitted, I was chuffed to bits to discover that she had used them for the babies' coming home outfits and they had been much admired.  I made two sets with pink buttons and pink pompoms for the hats and one set with blue.  The pattern was one from a Sirdar book for newborns and premature babies, called Sirdar 280, Early Arrivals Booklet if anyone is interested.  I was going to put a link to the article in our local newspaper about their homecoming but it appears to have been taken down already! 

Baby Roots cardigan

In other knitting activity, I've also knitted a baby jacket for another work colleague's new grandson and also a hat for his big brother so he didn't feel left out.  The jacket was a free one on Ravelry, Baby Roots Cardigan  (Rav Link) and I really enjoyed knitting it.  It was knitted top-down in one piece which is my favourite construction for cardigans.  I used some stash yarn which was Rico Aran Duo in a cream mix colour and it turned out really well. 

Bubbles

The hat was Bubbles by Woolly Wormhead and I knitted the flat top version which I think is so cute.  I usually love Woolly's patterns and this was as well written and clear as ever but it had far too much purling in the round for my liking and I don't think it's one I'll knit again in a hurry.  It turned out lovely though and I'm looking forward to seeing Ethan wearing it.  The yarn was some stash yarn that has long since lost it's ball band but I seem to remember it being Stylecraft Aran with Wool.



 I've also started Tappan Zee for myself.  I've liked this pattern ever since I first saw it in Knitty's Spring/Summer 2010 edition, but as usual it got lost in the queue.  However, after knitting my Meret in the lovely Soffia Plus, the rest of it in my stash started shouting Tappan Zee, Tappan Zee everytime I walked past the shelves where I keep my yarn stash so I had to cave in and cast it on.  It's another top-down seamless jobby so I'm a happy bunny knitting along.  I'm pleased with the look of it so far, I just hope I have enough yarn...I'd hate to hate to frog my Meret to finish it!

Last weekend, Patrick and I went to Manchester to the National Winter Ales Festival.  We set off in the chucking rain, the M62 is most unpleasant to drive down in that kind of weather I must say.  We arrived in the chucking rain and it was still chucking with rain when we left the Premier Inn on Saturday morning.  However, we didn't go to sunbathe, we went to drink lots of lovely dark winter ales.  Mission was accomplished most satisfactorily.  As usual we met some nice people and had a giggle with them.  One group of lads had brought along their lager drinking friend to try and convert him and he wasn't much impressed.  However as an ex-lager drinker myself I understand that it does take a while for your palette to adjust to drinking alcohol that actually tastes of something rather than just being wet and fizzy.  On reflection though, dark and flavourful winter ales probably are not the best introduction to a real ale drinking career!  He would be better at a summer ales festival I'm sure but I doubt he'll give it another chance.  He did make a very valid point though and one which I have often made myself.  Where the hell do some of these people hide when they are not stalking around beer festivals?  Seriously there are some people who at best could be described as "characters" but really are just a little bit weird.  There are the usual anorak, back-pack carrying oddities but also some very strange looking people, like the little guy with the leather trousers, leather waistcoat, leather cowboy hat and aviator sunglasses...indoors...in Manchester.  He would look ok cruising Route 66 on his chopper maybe.  I really wanted to try to take some surreptitious photos of some of the "characters" but it would have been too obvious.  Although lager boy did grab Mr Leather & Sunglasses and insist on having a photo taken with him, I should have taken one too. 

And now to remedy the lack of.....

....personal hat knitting from last year, I have at last knitted the Meret Beret by Woolly Wormhead.  This is a gorgeous hat that has been on my radar for about 2 years I think but for some reason it kept getting left behind in the queue.  Teamed with some stash yarn that I had won in our knitting group's raffle at some point last year, Adriafil Soffio Plus in a lovely pale olive green and this is the result.  I'm hoping to get some modelled pictures at the weekend because this picture of it blocking really doesn't do it justice, the colour hasn't turned out well with a flash and you can't really see the pattern properly over a dinner plate.  It is such a lovely pattern.  I did the version with the rolled brim and 2 x 2 ribbing combo (as in the picture on Woolly's pattern page linked above) and did an extra pattern repeat and it fits perfectly with just the right amount of slouch.

Of course I haven't finished Maude Louise yet, or the partner sock to the one I finished last September or the other projects that are in hibernation at the moment but you know how it is when your stash calls out to you!

I don't really have much else to report for last week so I'll leave you with some pictures I took when Patrick and I went for a Christmas walk around Tophill Low.  It was a beautiful sunny crisp day and we saw a deer in the woodland walk but it dashed away before I could get a photo, scared by the noise of my camera zoom.  We also went into a couple of the bird-watching hides but to be honest, there really wasn't anything much to be seen, not that I would know what I was looking at anyway unless it was something common like swans, geese etc.  All the same it was a nice walk and blew off the cobwebs and I got to model my Corella , the Woolly Wormhead mystery hat from November, in a pretty location.

So what happened...

In 2011?  Well, I finished all of these projects.

That's 18 projects in total comprising of:


1 jumper - I'm not sure I can call this finished actually because I'm still not happy with the shoulders so won't wear it until I've unpicked and re-done them.  Oh sod it, it's finished technically so it goes in the list
1 bolero - This may yet be sent to the Charity shop, I don't really like the yarn so probably will never wear it.
4 shawls - Love, love, love these and wear them all the time.
1 scarf - A gift for my OH's sister
1 cowl
1 pair of facecloths - Both cowl and facecloths were part of a swap on Ravelry, blogged about here.
4 hats - and only 1 for me!!
1 set of 3 baby layettes - for my work colleague for her triplets.
1 pair of mitts/glittens - requested by my 17 year old son who insists that my knitting is better than anything shop bought! (I've brainwashed him well obviously)
3 cardigans - the Red Mr Greenjeans was mostly knitted in 2010 but I did complete it in 2011. The February Lady I knitted in some bargain Debbie Bliss Rialton Aran and I wear it a lot and the Hampton is in Patons Caressa dk and is a really lovely cardigan which always gets complimented whenever I wear it.
You know, when I put it like that, I've actually been more productive than I realised, I tend to think that I don't really produce much in the way of FOs for all the knitting I do but I'm rather pleased with this tally.  This is the first time I've really put together a collage and list of the things I've knitted and it's been quite interesting to me.  Clearly I'm a selfish knitter because most of the things are for myself :-).  However I'm quite surprised that I've only knitted one hat for myself this year. I have knitted the same hat three times for my son, my OH and my mum's friend though!

My main knitting resolution last year was to knit from stash.  I kept to that...mostly...but I can't resist a bargain so I did make some purchases.  Debbie Bliss Rialto Aran at £1 per ball simply cannot be passed up!!  I think that is all I bought though so I'm calling that resolution a success.

So, onto 2012.  Aims for this year are:
1. Continue to knit up that stash and work from my Ravelry queue.  I have loads of things that I really want to knit.
2. Colourwork - I have halfheartedly started some mitts but I do intend to crack this colourwork malarky this year.
3. Knit more socks!  I haven't knitted many pairs and I need to rectify this.
4. Blog more regularly.  I know I say this everytime I haven't blogged for a while but I really do want to try to keep up with this because it is fun to look back on.
5. Put away a little money each month so that I can go to Harrogate for the Knitting show in November.  I've wanted to go for the past 2 years but when it's come to it, I just haven't had any money to spare.  I intend to go this year come hell or high water.

So a belated wish for a very Happy New Year to you all.  May 2012 be all that you need it to be.