Finished!

I finished my Baudelaires! I was home with ill H on Monday (chicken pox): second sock went from just above toe to just above heel. I was home yesterday ill myself (cold, and yes H is still ill): second sock done!

Pattern: Baudelaire from Knitty, design by Cookie.
Yarn: Fleece Artist merino in Tiger.
Needles: 2.5 mm Addi Turbo, magic loop
Mods: My gauge was larger so I got away with making the smallest size, 60 stitches, nice for my 9" foot :-) I did 5 pattern repeats before starting the gusset, and made the leg 8 repeats plus ribbing.
Verdict: Love! I love this yarn, great colours, no weird pooling or flashing, nice and soft. The lace pattern is pretty and easy peasy to learn by heart, and everything is well explained. And I love the little cable that grows out of the gusset!

The colour is slightly more accurate in this picture.

Now on to the agony of deciding what sock to do next...

I cast on for Conwy from Knitting on the Road. My one gripe with this book is the sizes. Or lack of sizes. Each pattern only comes in one size and most of them are quite narrow. Maybe Nancy Bush has small feet? Well, I don't.

Conwy uses 60 sts of thin Lorna's Laces for a finished size of 7". That's 2" less than my foot. No go. I have a pretty Lorna's Laces that I want to use for Conwy, so now I'm thinking of how to modify the pattern. The pattern is top-down and starts with 72 stitches for the ribbing and then gradually decreases down to 60 stitches for leg and foot. The pattern is divisable by 6. So either I go top down and ditch the decreases and modify the heel directions, or I start from the toe and do my own thing but using the stitch pattern. Hmm. I like toe-up because I don't have to worry about running out of yarn. Top-down I have a tendency to make the leg too short because I worry about the yarn amount, and then I get irritating amounts of leftovers.

Wait, did I just answer my own question...? I think so. Rip, rip. Round toe, here I come!

Good yarn, bad yarn

I finished knitting the Baby Surprise Jacket. It sure looks strange, doesn't it?

But it's so cute when folded correctly :-)

Of course I have a million ends to weave in before seaming it together, bleh. I think I'll use a self-striping yarn if I make another one, I like the stripes around the corners, but weaving in ends are not so fun. The size turned out to be about 0-3 months I think.

Sheri at The Loopy Ewe made a fantastic update a couple of weeks ago, so I just *had* to order some... It arrived the other day. Very yummy!
I tried to be professional and take a daylight picture without flash, but the colours actually turned out more life-like on the flash picture, oh well.

From left to right: All Things Heather merino in Maraschino, J. Knits in Boston, Yarn Pirate merino/tencel in Rosie, Lorna's Laces in Jay Pond, Apple Laine Apple Pie in Pretty in Pink, and Scarlet Fleece It's Tubular x 2 in Purple Mountain. They are all fantastic and I can't wait to start knitting Perfect Socks with them! The red or the pink might become Falling in Love socks
but I'm also a bit reluctant to start anything new before the yarn requirements for Sock Madness has been posted. I'll need to set yarn aside for that. Decisions, decisions!

And now for some yarn disappointment: I made a pair of socks with a very colourful Koigu a while back. I liked them very much but look at them now! The small balls of yarn are not washed, the socks are washed three times, in a nice detergent without bleaching agents and all that.
There's hardly any colour left! The yarn has gone all pastel on me, and let me tell you pastels are so not my thing! Anyone else has experienced this? I thought Koigu was a Good Brand, now I'm not so sure.

Sock Madness!

Just a hint that the signup for Sock Madness in underway and it needs more players. I have signed up, I think it'l be fun. And even if you don't win you get a number of sock patterns designed especially for the competition! So what are you waiting for?!

FO and Quilting

Here are my first socks for Sock-a-Month 3:


They are knit in Lana Grossa Meilenweit 6 ply, so they are thick and cosy. The pattern is my own. Toe-up with a round toe from Sensational Knitted Socks, increase to 48 stitches and a short row heel from Wendy Knits. The rib is 4k 2p, and for the cuff I did a twisted 1k 1p rib. Finished with a sewn cast-off. I used 3.25 mm Brittany birch dpn's.


These are the first socks I've finished for my fiance (not the first ones I started, alas!) and when he put them on he didn't want to take them off again. So I think they are ok!

My Baudelaires has been on hold for a while, but they are next in line. Here's the second one:


The Baby Surprise Jacket is looking stranger for every row:


And I've started a new sweater! My first adult size sweater in many years. It's a top-down raglan cardigan using Cosmic Pluto's recipe. I'm using Cascade 220 in a sort of heathered petrol blue , quite nice. I haven't used this yarn before but so far I like it.


Quilting content!
I went to a quilting class yesterday. I haven't quilted in ages but this was really fun. Take one patterned fabric with long repeats:


Put six identical pieces on top of each other and cut equilateral triangles. Sew them together and get this:


and this:
Great fun, all the block turn out different and it's virtually impossible to guess the outcome. As always, me and mom where the only ones with bolder fabrics, all the others in the class had pretty little pastels... Oh well.

Sock bags

I've made sock bags for my Sockret Pal and me. I've seen bags like these around the net and if you can sew just a little it's not hard. My bags where first inspired by Trek and Beth and I was going to do the top like they did, because that's what I normally do. But when I had cut out all my pieces I found an excellent tutorial by Jessica with a very interesting and perfectly reversible drawstring top. So I used that one instead.

You need: Two fabrics, one for the outside and one for the lining. Cut two 12" (30 cm) squares of each. 1 yard (1 meter) cord/ribbon and one stopper.
Finished size: Bottom is 5,5" (14 cm) square, bag is 7,5" (19 cm) high.

Cut away a 3" (7,5 cm) square from the two bottom corners on all four pieces of fabric. Now put the two outside parts right sides together and sew the two side seams and the bottom seam. Do the same thing with the lining. I use a seam allowance of 1/4", because I'm a quilter, but anything goes, just be consistent. Maybe it's better to use a little wider seam allowance. Now the pieces should look like this:

Now press everything flat. Then, either press the seams open or press them to one side. If you press them to one side, check that the bottom seam and the side seam are pressed in different directions so that the seam allowances can be butted together when sewing the corner seams.

Pin and sew the corner seams. Press the seams flat and then press them open or to one side. Now both the outside and the lining should look something like this:

If you want to make a bag in another size just remember that the size of the cut-away corners are 1/4 of the width of the fabric piece for a square bottom.

I followed Jessica's tutorial for the top, so check that out. I made the first seam 1,25" from the top and the second one 0,75" from the top. Next time I will probably make the channel even smaller.

Here are my finished bags:



I found Zimmermania a while ago and have been checking it out since then. I have a couple of EZ's books and now I have finally started making something from them: a baby surprise jacket. Right now it looks rather weird:


but I think it's supposed to be folded like this:


and then it looks ok I think. I'm using yarn from an old project I ripped, I hope it's not too scratchy for the poor baby. Maybe I should wash it with hair balsam or something.