Undulating rub socks and others

The sun was out for a brief period this morning and I finally managed to get pictures of some of my latest FOs. I will probably publish a post with them later on, but for now, I thought I'd introduce my newest socks.



Pattern: Undulating rib socks from Favorite Socks
Yarn: BFL sock yarn from Angel Yarns (they only sell on Ebay) in Zennor
Needles: 2.25mm

While these socks didn't look like much while I was knitting them, they turned out to be just the thing to wear with jeans on a weekend. While initially I didn't find the yarn very soft, it was not bad to knit with and so far it does not make me itch, unlike some more expensive brands. I alternated two balls to stop the yarn from pooling and I think the colour is quite nice, especially for the price it is sold at.



I've also got some new lace yarn in the mail. I bought some merino/ silk lace-weight in the Old Maiden Aunt sale. It is in the cinnamon colourway and it is pinker than I thought it would be. At first I wasn't sure if I really liked it (the dangers of internet orders!) but I think I know now what I'll knit out of it... It seems to me to be just the yarn to make the Laminaria shawl out of.



I also got 4 skeins of the discontinued Rowanspun 4ply in midnight. I am not sure yet what I'll make out of it, but I do love how it looks.

For some reason I have also cast on for lots of new projects over the last week or so. There is of course the never-ending red cardigan I have been working on on and off (mainly off) for months. I bought the yarn for this back in March last year - maybe I will be able to finish it in a year?

All my other projects are new. I started knitting the Fourth Grade Hat from the twist collective. I have the sudden urge to complete another hat before the end of winter. It is a bit fiddly for a hat, but every time I complete an entrelac triangle / square I feel like I'm making huge progress. I also cast on for a pair of mittens from my new Selbuvotter book. I love the patterns and even though I am not sure yet who the recipient will be, I cast on for a pair on men's mittens in Cornish organic wool I bought at IKL. I also started on the tea cozy from The Knitter's Book of Yarn I've been wanting to make for ages. And I also cast on for a knitted jacket in super-bulky yarn that I could use at the end of winter, early spring. But that's a whole other story and maybe (hopefully!) I will be able to post about the finished product soon...

The real WIP

My thesis is nearing completion. I am nearing complete exhaustion...


I have been knitting though (and checking ravelry) as a way to relax a little bit. I've got quite a few works in progress, most of them stuck on one thing or another. So I am going to cast on yet another sock tonight...

I did have to finish these baby booties for tiny baby Calvin.


They took about an hour to knit and longer than that to finish. So much sewing for such a tiny thing! Next time I'll try the seamless version.

Pattern: Saartje's booties
Yarn: Fyberspates Merino Sock Yarn
Ravelled here.

FO: Nearly Monkeys

I finished these socks this morning and am very pleased with them. I knit most of these during my holiday, so apart from being pretty they will also bring back fond memories. I thought this yarn would be nice for a pair of stockinette socks and I added a lace panel at the side to keep things a bit more interesting. I chose them from one of my Harmony stitch libraries. The one on the right foot is basically the same as the lace in the Monkey socks, another pattern I was thinking of knitting this summer. But I realised that I just didn't like that pattern enough, no matter how popular it is... So instead, I have my Nearly Monkeys.
I wanted to try the eye of the partridge heel on these socks. In retrospect they would have looked nicer with a slipped stitch heel. Another thing I would change would be to add three rows of garter stitch to mark where the toes start and break up the stockinette a little. I'm just glad there was no annoying pooling going on.


Pattern: My own.
Yarn: Fyberspates Merino Sock Yarn, colourway 'low tide'. I love the way they go with jeans!
Needles: 2.25mm, double pointed

Holiday tank on holiday

I did manage to finish my linen tank top on time for our vacation. We had a lovely two weeks diving in the Maldives and the top proved to be perfectly wearable. I tried to get my husband to take some pictures of it for me, but I'm afraid they didn't really focus on my knitting... Here is the best one of the lot, but even this isn't so great. As you can see, it is just perfect with bikinis and shorts!


Pattern: Ribs and Lace Tank, Interweave Knits Spring 2007
Yarn: Garnstudio Bomull-lin (6 balls)
Needles: 4.5mm & 3mm - I used much smaller needles than specified by the pattern

I really liked knitting with linen, although it wasn't easy on my hands. This would have been a quick knit if it wasn't for the fact that at first I used needles that were too large and had to frog a lot before I finally faced up to the fact that I was producing a tent, not a tank top. My tension is a bit uneven on the rib part, even though it is fine on the lace / stockinette part, but it's not too bad.

As much as this was a fun project, I am not sure I will be knitting anything anytime soon that I can only wear when on holiday. I just can't see myself wearing this in London more than once a year...



On that note, I will leave you with some pictures of fish. My husband has taken quite a few good ones, but some need editing as it is hard to get the colours right underwater...

Batfish. These guys are so friendly and curious, they'll swim right into your face!


By far the best shot of me underwater so far. I'm pleased!

Shark, hunting. I love sharks, they move so gracefully. In case you are wondering, this guy wasn't lucky, at least not while we were watching.

Weekend Pullover

Finally, a finished sweater. May I present to you, the weekend pullover:


Pattern: Placed Cable Aran from IK Fall 2007.
Yarn: I got this yarn as a gift from my mom last autumn. It is a bit of a mystery yarn - the label calls is HRK Petra, and as it was made in Turkey, I was wondering if it is left over from a factory that makes yarn for some of the bigger companies. It is a wool/acrylic mix, which is very typical of my mom. She always maintained that she did not like knitting with wool. I found out from my dad that the reason was that she accidentally felted multiple non-superwash fair isle wool sweaters in the washing machine. In any case, the yarn is really soft - I hope it will breathe well, that's my only concern. When I managed to buy a copy of last fall's IK a month or two ago, I thought of this yarn as soon as I saw this pattern.
Price: the yarn was a gift, so £0.
Needles: 5.5mm Addi Turbos.
Modifications: Knit in the round up to the armholes. Based on the advice on ravelry, I added an inch or two to the body of the sweater and a p1k1 row about an inch from the bottom to stop the stockinette from curling too much. I do like the curled bottom edge though, so I wasn't going to add a ribbed edge. I picked up the stitches for the sleeves from the body and knit them in the round from the top down with magic loop. I also lengthened the sleeves compared to the pattern, but this was easy, as I just tried the sweater on as I went along.
Verdict: All my store-bought sweaters have set-in sleeves and I hate turtlenecks. The reason I picked a drop-sleeve sweater with a cowl neck is that I wanted something different. And I think it looks super cute in that wear on the weekend, go to the grocery store, laze on the sofa kind of way. This is the first sweater I knit since my less successful efforts when I first learnt knitting. Not only is this one wearable - it is wearable outside the house, in public. I am pleased. And it was fun and easy to make. If I didn't have three other projects on the needles, I would have finished it really quickly too.


I finished this yesterday and Gerald took some photos for me. But I have a horrible cold that started last night, so I didn't have the energy to post the photos online. Instead I finished the leg on Roza's socks. I can't wait to finish those and start another pair of socks. Apart from the cold, I had a really productive weekend, cleaning around the house, doing errands and finishing my sweater!

Lifetime supply of acrylic

First off, I finally managed to bring myself to finish my green scarf. I couldn't get a good shot of the whole scarf, but here's a close-up of the lace.


Th yarn is Stroud Wool Socrates Supermerino-Bamboo-Silk from Violetgreen. I used two very similar colours of green, as I originally only ordered 100g for a pair of socks but decided to use it for a scarf instead and by then they did not have the original colourway. But I changed colours every few rows and it is barely noticeable. My husband didn't like the colour, but I think it's quite nice for the spring. The pattern is from Victorian Lace Today and I worked the main part of the scarf in slip-stitch pattern, which, needless to say, mad it very boring. Still, it's done now. It is not a favourite, but it turned out ok.

This weekend I decided to start turning what I call my 'lifetime supply of acrylics' from this:



Into this:
I think I originally bought the acrylic to knit golf club covers as a gift for a friend who took up golf. I never knit them and she hasn't played golf in over a year, so no loss there... The yarn is Sirdar Wash'nWear DK in black and baby blue and despite being acrylic it is not bad to knit with. I knit a couple of simple scrubbie-type things. I started using one in the kitchen and I hope it won't fall apart too quickly. My husband is making fun of me knitting a sponge, but it looks cuter than the store-bought ones and is super-quick to make.

I also read the Diving-Bell and the Butterfly this weekend for my book club. It was really short, but I didn't find it very engaging. Obviously, I feel sorry for the main character, but that doesn't make the book a literary success for me.

Roza's socks nr. 1

I have finally managed to finish something, even if it just the first of a pair of socks. The pattern is Roza's socks from Interweave Knits and the yarn is Arauncania Ranco Solid. I am going to cast on tonight to avoid second-sock syndrome, although now that I have the first sock I am really keen to knit the second one. The yarn is really nice to work with and the colour's great - it goes well with jeans!. The brioche rib pattern, however, does get a bit boring. This was the first time I felt completely comfortable with the kitchener's stitch.


I also started swatching for one of my bigger projects; the Debbie Bliss cardigan. I hate swatching when I am really really keen to cast on - I feel like I'm being held back from really starting. The yarn is a DK weight merino from Colourmart. It comes on cones, still oiled. It is a bit splitty, but should be nice to knit with if I use my Addi lace needles. It feels more like 4-ply when it's on the cone, but blooms absolutely beautifully when washed. I adore the colour and my gauge is fine too. This should be a really beautiful cardigan for next autumn!




I also bought some yarn for the printed silk cardigan. I really want to knit this pattern, but I had the hardest time choosing the yarn for it. A pair of earrings and my new Banana Republic dress inspired me to knit it in burnt orange, but I just couldn't find the right thing. So I bought some cotton-cashmere off Colourmart on impulse. It was a bit more than I budgeted, but not much more. The colour is definitely lighter than I thought it would be - the colourway was called terracotta. Still, I think I'll keep it. I have kept a cone on my coffee table since Monday, when it arrived, and the colour is definitely growing on me. It also looks nice with the Banana Republic dress... I'm just worried that it won't go well with my complexion. I should knit up a swatch and see how the colour and texture change when I wash it.


I also bought some cashcotton DK off ebay when I was researching yarn for different projects. I was initially worried about the colour, but it is gorgeous. First I thought I'd use it for the dollar and a half cardigan, now I'm not so sure. I also bought some cashcotton 4-ply from stash, because it was cheap. So this month was a bit of a cashcotton month and I overindulged on yarn again. I am still thinking of picking up some discontinued Jaeger merino while there is still some around - it is really cheap. Oh and I picked out the yarn one more summer project that

Lace Shawl FO

I thought I would never finish this... I really liked the pattern (it is from Victorian Lace Today), but wasn't so keen on the yarn and as a result I didn't like the overall experience. I read a lot of good things about Handmaiden Seasilk on the internet and I even went to my LYS rather than ordering online. I would have preferred a darker blue, but was happy with the one I got. But, not only was it very tiring to knit with this yarn (something others have mentioned as well), but it also turned out to be slightly fluffy. It appears to be shedding some of the (presumably) seasilk part. At first I considered sending it back, but then I looked it up on the internet / ravelry and this seemed to be a common problem with this yarn. Also, when I asked other family members, they didn't think the fuzziness was really noticeable on the finished product. I guess it just bothered me as I was working with the yarn. You can see the fuzziness a little bit in the picture below:



The finished object is quite lovely and I hope my MIL will like it. I wrapped it up nicely in tissue paper and my BIL is taking it with him on his visit.






Part of the reason this seemed to be a never-ending project is that I had to rip back the garter stitch edging at the top and a pattern repeat, as otherwise I would not have been able to finish the lace edging. Even like this, I wish I had knitted one fewer pattern repeats as I only had enough yarn to single crochet along the top, rather than finishing the edging the pattern recommended.