Easing back into the real world

Vacation is over. me and DH started work this week (ugh!) and the kids start daycare next week and school two weeks after that (daughter starts first grade, and eldest son third). My awesome dad is taking care of them this week. Really, I don't know what we would do without him. I thank him every day, and I'm knitting him a sweater :-) I actually bought the yarn for it last year but I had a hard time deciding on a pattern so I didn't start until this July. Two things got me started: Dad asked about it, and I bought a great book, Knits Men Want. A very nice, and fun, book with men's patterns for sweaters scarves, hats, and socks. Clean and simple designs, and all the patterns are written for multiple gauges, love that! I'm doing the henley with a little stitch pattern I found on Knitty. It's turning out very well.

The picture was taken just before setting stitches aside for the sleeves and starting the body. I'm 5-6 cm (2") down the body now. Dad suggested that it would make a good birthday present for him, so I have two months. Totally doable, if I can resist all the shawls that are tempting me at the moment... This has definitely been the year of the shawl. So far I have finished eight shawls, one is waiting for blocking, and another four shawls plus a lace scarf are being worked on. And I constantly add to my Must Knit Now list. Ravelry's recently added patterns listing is Dangerous!

I played a bit with the blog layout, please tell me if something is wonky!

Oh, and there's a competition at Gina's blog, you can win a KnitPro needle kit!

EZ

I am on some sort of Elizabeth Zimmermann binge. Reading her books (I got The Opinionated Knitter and Knitting Around in the post this week), watching her on DVD (I got the Knitting Workshop DVD too) and knitting her pattern (I'm almost done with an EPS sweater), feeling very inspired and wanting to knit many more of her patterns. To think that I never knew she existed until a few years ago... Amazing how her patterns don't look very dated either, after all these years.

As I was finishing up Twist I felt the urge for another DIC sweater, and I have been wanting to knit an EPS sweater for some time, soooo I got me some DIC Classy in Flamingo Pie, plus a lone skein of Gothic Rose to use as contrasting hems (from The Loopy Ewe of course) These colourways go together really well! I was a bit uncertain of the combination but the Loopy Elves very kindly checked it for me. Gothic Rose is a dark eggplanty colour, and Flamingo Pie is a mild orange with yellow and light eggplant accents. I would love me a sweater of Gothic Rose someday, lovely colour!


You may see that the 'non-pooling' Dream In Color has pooled into a yellow zigzag on the chest (of course not on the back...) I don't think that it is very visible IRL though.

The hems of my sweater have the dark yarn on the inside and picot edge


and the rest of the sweater is plain except for a small zigzag on the yoke, right after the first decrease round.

First I wasn't going to put in any yoke patterns, but the sweater asked for it! I haven't decided what to do about the neck yet, maybe a picot hem just like the other edges, maybe just a plain roll neck. We'll see.

I have read many discussions about how to hold the yarn when knitting with two colours, but I have never seen my way described. So here it is. I hold both yarns parallell in my left hand (I knit left-handed/Continental/picking)


If I am careful to keep them some distance apart it is easy to pick the one I want for my next stitch.


You have to be careful not to pull the yarns to tight though. The floats must not pull the fabric in.
My zigzag has two rounds with 5 stitches of one colour and then one of the other. On those rounds I tried to carry the single stitch yarn in my right hand and throw those stitches. That worked rather well, and the floats came out nice and loose without any fussing.

I also have a new sock! My sock mojo has been missing lately, but when I saw Yarn Harlot's Francie socks I had to get the pattern and cast on. The pattern has been in my Ravelry queue for some time but now I realised that this, at last, was the perfect pattern for the red All Things Heather sock yarn that I wound up ages ago and had started at least three patterns with already. Hedgerow socks, Brother Amos' Brimstone socks and a few others got frogged. Nice patterns, but not for this yarn. Francie on the other hand is perfect!


One sock is done and the other is started.

And this is how happy you are when you get to climb the stairs!

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!

Loot and a finished object

In my last post I mentioned all the packages I was waiting for. Most of them (and a few more...) have now arrived. Yay! I am also waiting for a couple of new ones. Oy.

I have new books!

Charlene Schurch's new sock book. I like it for all the example socks and little stitch patterns. The actual patterns, I don't know. I like knitting toe-up, but most of her toe-ups start in the same way, with knitting a small square and then picking up stitches around all edges. And the only toe-up heel flap is an upside-down version of the top-down one. It would have been nice with more different toes and heels.

Folk Shawls. I love it! I fell in love with the first shawl, Litla Dimun, and it's on the needles now.
The colours are off in the photo, it's not that orange. The yarn is Opal Neon in colour 1934, red-pink-orange. I got three balls from Astrid.

I also really like Feather and Fan Trangle Shawl, the Highland Triangle Shawl, the Box-Lace Shawn (though I would probably make it a stole), and the Spanish Christening Shawl. I'm on the lookout for suitable yarn. Most of the patterns in the book seem to use fingering weight yarn.
Note that there are quite a lot of corrections on Interweave's website.

Favourite Socks from Interweave. Love it. There are no corrections up on this one yet but I've heard that there is an error in the chart for the Hidden Passion socks. I really like this book. I haven't got more than a handful of the magazines so most of the patterns are new to me. I want to make loads of these socks! Embossed Leaves, Hidden Passion, Uptown Boot, ...

I have also got some spinning books but I save the spinning stuff for another post.

Sheri has got the better of me again...

Left to right: Cider Moon Glacier in Juneau, J Knits Superwash in Louisiana, Cider Moon Glacier in Blue Ridge Parkway, Louet Gems in Crabapple Blossom and Linen Grey.

Left to right: Claudia Handpainted Sport in Wisteria, Seacoast Handpainted Panda (with bamboo) in Cherry Fizz, All Things Heather merino/tencel (oh my so soft) in Sunrise, and Scaeffer Lola in Raspberry Mocha.

I also got Panda Cotton in Faded Jeans. Apparently it is very shy, this was the best of four(!) photos, but it likes to become plain toe-up socks.


Me and M are going on a conference cruise the weekend after this and these are coming along for plane knitting, if nothing else. I'm usually very suspicious about cotton yarns, but this contains a little elastic and is very nice to work with.

I have a finished object! Short Millicent socks, by Cookie.

Yarn by Scout's Swag, knit on 2,5 mm Addis, magic loop.
I think I really knit three socks, because I had to rip a couple of times. Not because of the pattern but because of the pooling of the yarn. The leg spiralled nicely, but then the foot was supposed to have more stitches. Uh oh. The spirals became four solid fields of colour instead. Not nice at all, rip, rip, back to the gusset. I decreased down to the same number of sts I used for the leg and then the spirals appeared again. Phew. Then the spirals got stubborn on the foot of the second sock too. I think I relaxed too much and had to knit tighter to make them appear again.
All in all I am very happy with these socks.

Here's another pic with the socks on my new sock blockers! Also from The Loopy Ewe of course. These are the plastic ones, I am contemplating the idea of using them as a template for making wooden ones.


Finally, as a bonus for reading this very long post: a picture of how fat I am with four months of growing left!!! Apparently my uterus is right on track, and the utrasound said one baby only but oh my! am I going to have a fun hot summer...

No knitting

No knitting today :-( Yesterday at work (I sit at the computer all day) I suddenly developed an intense pain in my right hand. It was allright last night, gone this morning, but returned as soon as I startd working. I'm afraid I'm getting carpal tunnel syndrome or something. I actually quit a bit earlier than planned today and searched town for wrist supports. I didn't find anything fantastic, but I'm picking up the best one tomorrow. In the meantime: no knitting, and minimal computer time.

But I got a box from Amazon today: Barbara Walkers knitting treasuries, so my evening is OK anyway :-)

I finished H's Ladybug socks yesterday. They are definitely fraternal :-)

The size is for a 2 and a half year old (tomorrow!). There is definitely enough yarn left in the ball for a pair of socks for me too. I think I'll try to make them a bit more identical though.

I was good and organised my circular needles the other day. I used to keep all my knitting needles in a plastic bag, but no more! I got some small ziploc bags and put each size needle in its own bag with the size and lengths written on it. And a while ago I made a roll for the dpn:s, so now I'm very organised :-)



The roll is very easy to make. The outside is a fat quarter folded in two, sew around the edges (leave a hole) and turn. Topstitch around all edges. The pockets is one half of a fat quarter (more or less) also folded in two, sewn, and turned. Then sew the pocket to the outside and sew straight seams for the pockets, smaller at one end, larger at the other. Attach a ribbon at one end. Finished!