I'm in love!

In Cat Bordhi's new book, New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One. I got it in the mail on Friday from Socktopus (together with some *very* nice yarn, see below) and I started drooling right away :-) The socks in the book are amazing, I want to make almost all of them NOW but I'm being good and started with the first learning socks. I finished the Little Sky socks on Saturday. Baby socks are quick :-)


They look really huge for a baby sock but when I measured them against A's foot yesterday they look ok for winter. My baby Bigfoot...

Pattern: Little Sky from New Pathways For Socks Knitters, Book One by Cat Bordhi.
Yarn: Garnstudio Alaska, exactly one ball. I was a bit nervous at the end of the second sock...
Needle: 4 mm
Verdict: Good pattern, easy to follow. A great way to learn some of the new things in Cat's book.

The learning socks are a good idea, because the New Pathways in this book are new ways of making the gusset part of a sock. There are 8 different (some are *very* different) ways in the book, each with its own baby sock and a number of large patterns *and* master pattern. Plus detailed descriptions of everything and then some. If you are interested in sock knitting: get this book!

I had just started a pair of socks for E and had only the toe done, so I ripped those and started a pair of Spiraling Coriolis for him instead, using the Spiraling Master Pattern with his measurements. This is the first one:

The other side, note the absence of normal gussets.


It looks a bit wonky off the foot but on the foot it's great. I can't wait to start a pair for me! The difficult part is to choose a pattern...

I have been a bit bad about posting my yarn purchases lately. I add them to Ravelry but not always show them here. Bad blogger :-( Anyway, I bought New Pathways and some yarn from a new online yarn store in the UK that I found through Lime & Violet's Daily Chum, Socktopus. If you are in Europe, check it out! Well, do it if you are outside Europe too... It's the only reasonable place I've found to get the book (amazon.com takes absolutely forever to get their stuff here, I think they send it by rowing boat across the Atlantic. Two months is ridiculous!)

First I saw The Book, then I saw that they had Dream In Color...

Cool Fire

Some Summer Sky.
... and a couple of other yarns that I had to try. This is Evolution from Chameleon Colorworks and it is absolutely amazing!


You would never believe that it is a pure wool when you see it and feel it. It's shiny and luscious and... mmmmm.

I also got this:


Dazzle from The Natural Dye Studio. This is China Blue.

Before I got distracted by The Book I finished a baby hat:


Pattern: Djevellue
Yarn: Lucy Neatby Celestial Dream Multi Color in Fiesta
Needle: 3 mm Addi, magic loop
Verdict: Love this pattern. Easy, peasy and cute! I was rather disappointed with this yarn when I bought it. The yarn base is nice and cushy, but the dye job is very uneven. It goes from very light in one end of the yarn to very dark in the other. It would be difficult to make matching socks out of it. So it sat in the stash for a long time before I decided to make smaller things with it. I'm happy with this hat, even though it's rather large, way too big for A right now. But eventually it will fit.

Now I'm off to do some knitting while the baby sleeps!

Swirl socks

A has a sleep-only-if-someone-holds-me-day. After a while I managed to slide him into my lap instead and was able to knit. So I finished another pair of socks! I must say that sport weight socks almost feel like cheating, they are so quick to make...


Pattern: Swirl socks
Yarn: Cider Moon Glacier in Juneau
Needles: 3 mm dpn's, and 2,5 mm dpn's for the inside of the picot edge
Verdict: A fun and easy pattern that you could change as you like. Zig-zags anyone?

I'm still here...

Thank you so much for all the well-wishes after baby A's birth! Time flies, he is two weeks old already and he's starting to hold his head up a bit and he is awake a bit more. Now we are waiting for the first smiles!

We showed him off at work the other day, that was fun. And I had to tell the birth story about a hundred times :-)

On the way there we stopped at the hospital and took some pictures of me and A on The Spot.


Yes, it is close to the hospital but not close to an entrace...

A of course likes to nurse, and cuddle, and sleep. Most of the time this involves me and my lap, so I haven't been knitting very much lately. I have have managed to finish the Pheasant Run socks though.


Pattern: Pheasant Run by Lisa Parker, Wildhorse Farm Designs, for The Loopy Ewe Sock Club August 2007.
Yarn: Claudia Handpainted fingering, colourway Loopy Ewe Sock Club.
Needles: 2,5 mm Addis
Mods: I don't like the look of garter stitch heel flap edges so I did a regular sl1, k1 heel instead. I also made the heel flap a bit longer to fit my highish instep, 3" instead of the suggested 2,5".
Verdict: This is not a colourway I would have bought, but I *love* it! The pattern is really great too, I love the look of the twisted rib triangles and it was easy to get the hang of how the pattern works. I made the scalloped top version (i.e. without ribbing at the top) with 2,5 pattern repeats in the leg and another 2,5 repeats on the instep.



Rudyard is done too.

Pattern: My own, inspired by Kipling.
Yarn: Garnstudio Alaska
Needles: 4,5 mm
Size: 3- 6 months

And I started a new scarf in Wollmeise yarn.


The pattern is the narrow version of the Woodland Shawl. Great pattern, easy to memorise (at least for me) and the 41 stitch row makes it feel really fast too. This Wollmeise colourway is called Zenzi, which apparently is a common name for a cow!

The colours remind me more of birch bark and shadows, it feels very right for this scarf (and for my black winter jacket that I hopefully will fit into when it gets colder!)

I'm having a hard time to find anything to wear right now, it seems like every pair of trousers are either too small (the normal stuff) or too large (the maternity stuff) I'm almost back at my pre-pregnancy weight, but apparently not to my pre-pregnancy size and shape :-( So my trouser wardrobe consist of one pair of regular jeans i a huge size that I bought when E was newborn, and the smallest pair of maternity pants. And nothing else. Ahhh.

Now when I have finished the Pheasant Run socks I have restarted the Swirl socks.


I started them and packed them in my hospital bag, but I only knit half a round or so while there... Now I had forgotten how to work the pattern so I had to rip back to the toe (not very much though) Sport weight yarn makes them really fast, and the pattern is really easy and great for jazzing up a plain sock in a varegiated yarn.