Identifiable Finished Objects

Haven't had much time to blog thanks to the end of semester rush at the library, but at least I've managed to get in enough knitting time to have a few finished objects. There's nothing more satisfying than casting off that last stitch or weaving in those last few ends and realising you have something new to use. Some of the finished objects I had complete last month, but of course the photos take forever to take and put up. The first were the ones done for Anne's birthday. For the first time in about six months I dragged the sewing machine out to make her some sock-knitting themed gifts. I'd already put together some stitch markers from shells and little semi-precious stone chips I'd bought from John Lewis last year and had bought her some Clover dpns from the Stitch and Craft show at Olympia, so making a needle roll to go with them seemed like the thing to do. Plus it'd use up some of the fabric stash I've developed in the last couple of years, the matching homespun fabrics I'd bought from Alexandra Palace last November weren't enough for even a lap quilt, but more than enough for the needle roll.



Of course once the needle roll was done she needed something to actually make a pair of socks out of, so out came the Kool Aid I'd bought after reading an article on dyeing with it in Simply Knitting. The process had the house smelling like hot sugar for hours, but the results were well worth it - some bright colours I was hoping she'd like, and great smelling yarn. Of course once I'd got the bug for it, I had to rush online and order some of the undyed yarn, and since it's now a bank holiday Monday I actually have the time to use up the rest of my Kool Aid stash on some more yarn.



Had to race to get another gift done for the middle of the month too and working on it while I'd been on the Isle of Wight hadn't exactly been a success. In the week I was there I managed less than half of the first sock - whoops! It was a bit of a rush getting them done when I got back, but after all Neil (the guy I used to type for) had asked for socks in the past and I was determined to get them done in time for his birthday. It was the first time I'd used any 'stretch' yarn (Regia Crazy Colour 'Stretch') in this case, and quite liked it, apart from the tiny flecks of white that showed up in the coloured sections thanks to the elastic in it.



After all that work for everyone else I had to do something for myself of course, so first of all it was working on a pair of plain socks in Opal Dreamcatcher. This was one of the first sock yarns I'd ever bought on Ebay and of course it'd been languishing in the stash ever since, calling out occasionally when I picked up some other yarn to work on. Being such a plain design they took less than two weeks and I learnt that you can get a pretty long leg just out of a single ball. These had a 20 row ribbing and then another 90 rows before I got to the heel and I still had a pretty good amount of yarn left over at the end.



By the time they were done I was ready for another pair of the Suzanne Brockmann Team 16 series socks I'm making for myself. I finished the 'Classy Slip Up Socks' in Opal Uni within a fortnight, and of course I had to start wearing them right away. I get desperate to put things on once I've finished them, and of course then show them off to everybody.




I think they fit the Kelly Paoletti character pretty well - bright but very classy looking and of course super warm and comfortable. Doctors know the comfort that comes from having nice warm feet when the weather starts getting a little miserable out - just like it is in London today, lots of grey skies and showers, ick. The planning for the next pair of Brockmann socks started immediately, this time for Izzy Zanella, my favourite SEAL these days, but first I wanted to get some instant gratification from dashing off a pair of plain stocking stitch socks again. The Lorna's Laces Pin Stripe yarn had finally made its way to the top of the pile and knitted up quickly of course. The socks ended up all yummy and soft and of course they had to be worn quickly. They went on their first trip on a boat ride up the Thames with Jann, who'd come to London from Portsmouth for the day. Turned out to be pretty cold by the river so I needed the warmth, but of course I forgot to take photos of them. I'll wow you with photos taken at the National Maritime Museum and on the river instead.




The statue of Old Father Thames and the Aft section of the Implaccable made easy targets for the camera and they were far easier to shoot than the scenery on the water which tended to blur a little in front of the lens as the boat moved. I did manage to a get a couple of nice shots of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge though.




I've been a little better at photographing the progress of the Izzy Zanella sock. This is the first one I've made to a design I've come up with myself. The first idea I had was to use gun-belt ribbing, but after 10 rows of the pattern that was doggedly not showing up like it should I ended up frogging and regrouping ideas instead. I'd been trying to capture Izzy's darker side, and of course his ability to disappear into the shadows when he's doing all sorts of dangerous SEAL things, the Natural Dye Studio's yarn worked pretty well with the idea, being in the Midnight Storm colourway, and The Encyclopedia of Knitting provided me with the stitch pattern eventually - shadow rib. I was doubtful about it working out, but by the time I got down to the heel it was looking pretty good. The ribbing gave a thick but really soft texture and of course it was plenty stretchy enough. I grafted the toe on the first one last night and cast on for the second straight away, but I have a feeling another birthday present rush is going to crop up before I get that one finished.

Perfect Day Off

Doesn't life feel good when you have the day off of work and all you have to do is lay around at home with some good knitting and a great DVD to watch. Since I'm still transferring all the stuff I recorded from the TV onto video onto DVDs I got to spend a full five hours watching Time Team and working on the 'Classy Slip Up' socks I'm making in a light green Opal Uni. The pattern's from Knit Socks! by Betsy Lee McCarthy. I bought the book last year meaning to knit something out of it almost immediately and of course it ended up sitting on my shelves doing not much at all for the entire time. Once I got my Opal Dreamcatcher socks finished last Saturday I decided it was time to try a pattern out of the book and see how I got on. By the time I took the photos today I'd managed to do the leg and was just about to start on the heel flap. Not so sure if I like the pattern, but the colour is wonderful, a very soft lime green, almost like a ripe pair. The pictures really don't do the colour justice. Gonna call them my Kelly socks (even though they're not quite Kelly Green), they've very classy and a very girly colour choice (they remind me of Kelly Paoletti from the Suzanne Brockmann books).




Unfortunately I've been a bit lapse with posting photos of the other projects I've finished this month, both gifts and stuff for myself. I've made sure I've snapped piccies of all the presents, but my own two pairs of socks I've been a bit naughty with, couldn't wait till I'd photographed them before I wore them and now they're both in the wash. Naughty me. At least I have photos of all the luscious yarn I've bought in the last two months to occupy you while I try and get the other stuff into a state that can be posted about. First a long shot of all that woolly goodness.



On the top row there's two balls of Fortissima Colori Socka (think that's what it's called anyway), two lovely tweedy colours mainly in blues with some grey and purple thrown in. And two fifty gram balls of Regia Crazy Colour. Fell in love with all of these at Olympia when I went to the stitch and craft show with Anne. There was only one stall selling sock wool (other than a couple of outlaying balls randomly spaced on other stalls), so I had to do all my buying in one spot, thankfully they had some great stuff.



The bottom row - 100g of The Natural Dye Studio's Alpaca/Silk mix (I think) in the Midnight Storm colourway (perfect for the Izzy Zanella socks I'm planning, he's another Brockmann character), two skeins of Posh Yarn's Emily that arrived in the post this morning, Brooding on the left, and Sweet Tooth on the right (these feel so damn yummy against the skin), three balls of Rowan's 4-ply soft in a lovely grey-blue, then two skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd sock in Devon, and two in Envy (snatched up both of these colourways as soon as I saw them on Get Knitted), and finally some Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Plains, figured I had to try this out at some point and treated myself to the Slate and Nantucket Red colourways this week.




Like all the sock yarns sitting in my stash, they're already crying out to be knitted, but what can a girl do when work's filling the rest of the week?

Leaving Winter Hibernation

It's definitely time for slapped wrists. Despite numerous good intentions, it's taken me like a month to get back to the blog to write another entry. I have managed to get in a lot of knitting time between posts and the photos had been piling up but still I couldn't carve out the half an hour of time for myself to get on and actually upload them to the blog. Naughty me. Most of the time went on planning the upcoming vacation to the Isle of Wight (only 12 days to go now!), or working at the library, or of course, just being lazy and watching TV in bed.

The last few weeks have seen quite a few projects completed though, the Monkey socks were completed first, using the handpainted Opal yarn that'd been sitting in stash for about three years. With the idea in my head that I'd do socks connected with all the characters in Suzanne Brockmann's Team 16 books. Since I'm seriously strange when it comes to things like that, I like wearing things that remind me of the books I love, so when it comes to my yearly rereading time for all the series' I'm hooked on I pull out the little outfits and have myself a real good time getting totally immersed in my favourite characters again. Considering the jungle setting for Wildcard's story (Out of Control) I figured a pattern called "Monkey" was particularly fitting and when I delved into my stash for the yarn, the handpainted Opal just screamed 'jungle' to me. Since they were my first non 'plain stocking stitch' pair they took me almost a month to complete, but I got them done and they feel great on.




Now they just need a good blocking. I've been wearing them without doing it and while they're perfectly comfortable, I think the blocking would make the pattern show up a whole lot better. Just gotta hope I can get some sock blockers when I go to the Stitch & Craft show at Olympia on Friday. Only two days left till the exhibition now and I absolutely can't wait. Last time I managed to curb my spending (made sure I only took £50 cash with me), hopefully I can behave just as well this time but with my sock wool obsession at the moment, that's likely to be blown in minutes. I'm only supposed to be buying some wool for my boss Neil's birthday socks, and maybe a skein or two for myself, but I can never be quite that restrained when it comes to buying. I might even run into a work colleague at Olympia, since I told her about the show and she has the day off on Friday she's decided to go and treat herself too.

The second completed socks were my camouflage ones. I saw the Lornas Laces camouflage colourway on Angel Yarns and got majorly bummed out by the fact that they were out of stock, so I did a hunt on Ebay for the stuff and ended up getting four skeins. I figured two would go on a pair of plain stocking stitch socks (the easiest pattern to knit up quickly for me) and two for a pair of jaywalkers when I finally get around to trying the pattern out. I'm a big fool for anything in that shade of green anyway and I figured they'd look great with my combat pants for work, gotta coordinate after all. The first sock went incredibly quickly, I managed to get all but 10 rows of the ribbing, right down to the start of the heel flap done in one day, a miracle for me. The rest was a little slower, but they were on my feet in a week and half.




On a real run with the sock knitting, I had to cast on for the next pair immediately, using some Natural Dye Studio yarn I'd bought from Ebay. I got it so long ago that I can't remember the colourway or even if it's pure wool, or a mix with alpaca or silk in it. Whatever it is, it feels absolutely lovely, far softer than any of the other sock yarns I've tried before and I love the way it stripes up. So far I've nearly finished the first, just a plain stocking stitch foot with heel flap and gusset and a 60 row leg in 2x2 rib. Just gotta finish off the toe of that one this afternoon and I can move onto the second sock. Somehow I never end up with second sock syndrome, even if it does end up being a little slower than the first, I just plow straight on with it in the desperation to get the things on my feet. I'm calling these socks my love hearts pair since the colours look exactly like the sweets (candy) I used to love when I was younger.



This is as far on as they were when I took all the photos earlier this week. I think fondling this wool when I first balled it up from the skein was what's hooked me so completely on Natural Dye Studio's yarns. Since I balled the yarn up I won two more lots of the stuff on Ebay, one is pure British Blue Faced Leicester wool in the Titanium colourway, and the other pure merino sock wool in the arctic skies colourway. Both are lovely and soft and I can't wait to work with them.



Despite the lovely warm spring weather we had in London last week, the weather today has been looking completely yucky. Luckily I haven't been out in it, yay for the days when I get to do my typing work from home rather than having to drag into the library, since it looks like it's about to pour down with rain. It's the sort of day where you just want to snuggle up at home with some project that'll produce an end product that's warm and soft and completely huggable. So I think I'm gonna do just that, finish up the work for the day and run off to my socks ...