Midsummer

We spent Midsummer weekend at the cottage with my parents and M's dad. The weather was kind of blah (like it rained all Midsummer's Eve) and the kids played outside most of the time so I got quite a lot of resting and knitting done. I brought three projects and expected that to be plenty, but not so...

I finished the Embossed Leaves socks!

Pattern: Embossed Leaves from Favorite Socks by Interweave.
Yarn: Apple Laine Apple Pie in Garden Party
Needles: Addi Turbo 2,5 mm
Mods: I did a long-tail cast on instead of the one in the book, which incidentally isn't the one used on the socks in the pictures in the book. Those are made with a tubular cast-on, see the designer's blog for tutorial on that. As I mentioned before the socks where long enough after 7 full pattern repeats instead of 7,5 so I used the reversed star toe described on the designer's blog.
Verdict: Love! A fun fast pattern and it looks great. I will certainly knit another pair in a more solid colour so that the pattern pops better, but I like this version too. The yarn I have gushed over before ;-)

Here's a detail shot of the leg:

My car knitting was my first cast-on for Summer of Socks. A Mata Hari sock using Claudia Handpainted Sport in Caribbean Blue.

I love this colourway and have been agonizing over what pattern to knit with it for ages. This one is nice and simple. I'm doing a round toe and trying Wendy's gusset heel. They are on the large side but I have decided not to rip them. I'm going to make them as high as the yarn allows. Which won't be very high, I suspect...

The third project I brought was my Swallowtail shawl. It has been neglected for quite some time now, poor thing, but now I managed to progress from 5 to 10 finished repeats of the Budding Lace 2 chart. This is how it looked after 6 repeats:

About 6" high and 12" wide. Tiny. However, I found hints on how to make it larger on Mintyfresh's blog. She knit 19 repeats of Budding Lace 2 instead of 14 and I think I'll follow her lead.

When we got home I felt that I needed another sock on the needles... So I decided to find a pattern for Dad in Favorite Socks. I bought yarn for him last autumn... Trekking XXL in dark blue and greens. I like the lattice look of the Uptown Boot socks, but when I knit it up it looked nothing at all like lattice.

Just some sort of diagonals. So I ripped them and tried Cable Rib socks instead.

Much better!

Notice my new pattern row counter I made from Turtlegirl's instructions. This one is for 10 rows. Very nifty and not too fiddly to make. I made a shorter one too, for 4 rows.


I'll definitely make more as I need them.

Oh, and I got some yarn in the mail. From you-know-where. I have been waiting nearly a month for this package, it got stuck in Customs :-/

Woolly Boully sock yarn in Brooklyn Candy.

Claudia Handpainted fingering in Peppermint Mocha.

J. Knits Light Sock in Vermont. Yes, that colour is accurate, at least on my screen. Veeery bright.

And five skeins of Louet Gems Sport in Indigo for the Highland Triangle shawl in Fok Shawls.

Sidewinders

My Sidewinder socks are done!

Pattern: Sidewinders by Nona.
Yarn: Opal Rainbow
Needles: 2.5 mm Addi Lace
Mods: None. I was a bit concerned about the width of the leg but they turned out to fit my legs just fine. I made the 8-9 M size, feet are about 9" around and 9.75" long.



Now I have only two more socks OTN...

I just cast on for the second Embossed Leaves sock. I think I'll finish this one before I tackle the rest of the Pomatomus...

...which now has a shorter leg. I weighed the remaining yarn when I had knit the leg and heel flap. One third already gone and about one quarter knit. No good. So I ripped out one pattern repeat of the leg. It is still long enough I think.

Summer of Socks starts tomorrow. I haven't decided on a specific goal, maybe to knit 2 pairs a month? I won't start anything new tomorrow, I'll finish the socks I'm working on first.

Speaking of sock yarn... I got some stuff from my favourite source today!
The cutest stitch markers, from Entrelac stitch markers. Very light and good for both socks and lace methinks.


And a shawl pin!


So pretty! And I really needed one. I don't like knotting shawls or having to fiddle with them all the time to keep them from falling off. This one is made by Romi. The pin is 3" (7,5 cm) long and the eternity bit is half of that.

What? Why, yes, I got some yarn too.

Lovely laceweight from Perchance to Knit. The colourway is Midnight Rainbow/Harlot's Peacock.


It came with a matching stitch marker too!


There is 500 yards. I'm not sure what I will make of it. Maybe a scarf version of the Box Lace Shawl in Folk Shawls? Suggestions are welcome!

OK, and some sock yarn. Here's Stonebarn Fibers Gypsy Girl Creations fingering weight in Blueberry & cream.

And Misty Mountain Farms Jubilee in Waterfall.

They are both very pretty and I don't know what they will be when they grow up.

I have been playing on Ravelry since I got my invite. It's great fun! I have put up all my needles and hooks (all three of them...), most of my stash and my latest projects. I'm really enjoying to looks for other peoples projects with yarns I have and getting new ideas.

Woo hoo!

I got my Ravelry invite!!! And just in time for the rainy weekend too :-) My username over there is Malin.

Must. Go. Explore!

Milestones

1. H is finally out of nappies, yay! Except at night, but that's no big deal and I suspect that she'll be dry at night too soon. It's not a day to soon that she shed the nappies either, she's almost three and a half. But E was almost four before we forced him to quit his nappies. They are stubborn little things, my kids. And you have to admit that it is a nuisance to have to stop playing for a minute and go to the bathroom...

We carefully set H up for quitting 'in the summer, before the baby comes'. Last week summer arrived, so we told her it was time to quit. She objected that the baby wasn't here yet but accepted that she needed to practise before baby arrives. And now she's very proud of herself :-)

Now we don't' have to wash nappies for couple of months! H uses paper things at night, we never found a cloth option that didn't leak at night for her. Too skinny, I suppose.

2. E has learned to ride his bike without training wheels! Except for starting, but other that that he's doing really well. He has been a bit reluctant to try, and he thought it was a bit scary but this weekend he just did it. On Monday and today he even rode to daycare. OK, so you can see the daycare from our house, but still :-)

3. I'm exactly seven months pregnant. Only two months to go. Labour and delivery is starting to feel real...


We still have a few things to fix before baby arrives. The pram needs to be cleaned. Baby clothes have to be dug out of the closets and inspected and washed and we may need to get some more tiny summer things as E and H were born in winter. The cloth nappy stash needs to be checked and completed too, some stuff is falling apart. I need to get some stretchy nursing bras for the first huge days. Other than that I think we are all set.

Except for names... It is so hard to find nice names that are not too common and not too strange. For some reason both M and me have an easier time with girl names, but it is still hard, and we don't know what we are getting anyway so we need both. When E was born we just had one boy name picked (and no girl names at all...) and it suited him so we were fine. With H we still had two or three girl alternatives, so she was nameless for a few days and that was a bit awkward, I'd rather avoid that. On the other hand you don't have to register baby's name for three months...

Knitwise I have almost finished E's socks. I just need to weave in the ends. I ran out of the Scout yarn but I found a perfect match in the stash: Opal uni in a blueberry shade. The heels and cuffs are in Opal, it almost looks intentional doesn't it ;-)


Toe-up with Judy's magic cast-on, 52 sts to the round, instep and leg in a k2, p2 rib, Sherman heel (love. it.), sewn bind-off. Oh, and knit both at the same time on one long circ. The first time I tried that. A bit fiddly in the beginning, next time I think I'll do the toes separately and then put them on the circ, but good when you want to make sure that the socks are the same, and that the yarn doesn't run out on you. I knit from both ends of a center-pull ball.

I have also finished a Sidewinder sock, in Opal Rainbow. I just had to try the pattern when I saw it. Fun to knit, and rather mindless as you only do one thing at the time.


And the fit is great!

I chose a really stripy yarn to make the unusual construction obvoius. Fun!

Pomatomus is one leg long. I'm very happy with the way the yarn behaves, and the patterns is fantastic!


And I got yarn today! From The Loopy Ewe of course :-)


Two skeins of Cherry Tree Hill's new sock yarn Sockittome in Java and Sugar Maple, a skein of Zen String Seredipity in Living Light.


And a skein of super beautiful alpaca laceweight from J.Knits, Lace-a-licious! in Alaska, 4 oz, 1200 yds. I have to find something fabulous to knit with this! Maybe Knitspot's Casino?

It is nearly Midsummer so I checked the sunrise and sunset times: up at about 4.30 am, down at 10 pm. No wonder that it barely has time to get dark before it gets light again...

I got things done

Cold. Yuk. Sore throat and weird voice and stuffy nose. Yuk again. I've been home sick from work Thursday and Friday. At least I've got some knitting done. Lord of the Rings on DVD and a sock, mmmmm. So I finished the Boyfriend socks yesterday. Here they are on my feet (as the boyfriend didn't have time to model them):

Apparently this yarn is a bitch to photograph properly, the colour is almost always off :-( It is darker IRL.

Pattern: Boyfriend socks in size small.
Yarn: Interlacements Tiny Toes colour 201.
Needles: Addi wooden dpn's 2.5 mm. I was a bit bummed when I first tried these needles because there was a small splinter near one of the tips. But I fixed that with a nail file and now they are great. Not so great when you are feverish and have sweaty hands though...
Mods: I originally started another pattern so I did another toe, Oriental cast-on or something, I can't find it now. I made a slip-knot and placed on one needle. The I held two needles parallell and wrapped the yarn around them both. Then I knit around and removed the slip-knot. And made increases every row at first and then every other row.
I also changed the heel to a Sherman short-row heel.


So nice! I definitely prefer this over the double wrapped variety. Much easier and so neat-looking!
Oh, and I wrote out a chart for the Boyfriend stitch pattern. No way I'm going to knit that from writing only. Brrr.

I also managed to crawl on the floor and block the Litla Dimun shawl. I used too few pins so the edges are not perfectly straight but it looks nice enough and I like it!


Pattern: Litla Dimun shawl from Folk Shawls by Cheryl Oberle.
Yarn: Opal Neon, a little more than two 100g balls. There is definitely enough for matching socks.
Needles: Hmm, what did I use? Addi circs for sure, umm 3 mm?
Mods: None, but I didn't manage to stretch it quite so wide as the pattern suggested. Mine is 29" deep but only about 75" wide instead of the 84" the pattern says.
Comment: The shape of this shawl is a bit unusual but the curved upper edge makes it want to stay on the shoulders nicely, without bunching at the neck.

I had to look up what Litla Dimun actually means. It's the smallest of the Faeroe Islands, and the only inhabitants are sheep!

And garter stitch.

Bottom detail:

I really tried to take some pictures of me wearing it but they where not publishable! I have to make M take some decent pics later!

New socks on the needles! Embossed Leaves from Favorite Socks with Apple Laine Apple Pie in Garden Party. I hope the pattern don't disappear completely, this colourway is pretty wild...

It's a really quick knit, the first one is finished already! Love it!


I chose a little thicker fingering yarn because I'm not sure about the size. The book says the finished width is 7.5" and my foot is about 9". We'll see. If it turns out to be very stretchy I may make them again in a more solid yarn. I have a light green Lang JaWoll that would suit the pattern I think.

BTW the cast-on in the book doesn't seem to be the original one. The book says to use a 1x1 rib cast-on which is a long tail cast-on with every other stitch created backwards so it looks like 1p, 1k, 1p, 1k and so on. Then it goes on to slip every other stitch for two rows before starting the rib. I didn't manage to do this loosely enough so I did my usual long-tail over twoo needles instead. Then I thought to google about sizing and found some hints on the designer's blog. And that is not the same cast-on! I don't feel like ripping so I'll keep mine as is anyway. But I will try this other one some day, it looks nice.

I made them 7 repeats long instead of the 7,5 repeats in the pattern so I used the reversed star toe instead of the one in the book. Very nice if I may say so!

Now I need to decide on a mindless sock for all the driving in the next few days!