What to do with sock yarn leftovers

Baby socks, of course! And just in time for SAM5 too. I was getting a bit worried... I started these so I would have socks for January. Then I accidentally left them at my parents last Friday. Ack! I finally got them back yesterday and finished them last night. Phew!

Yarn: Regia Mini Ringel Color in 5211, leftover from FIL's Wendelin socks.
Needle: Knit Picks 2.25 mm circ, Magic Loop.
Pattern: My own. Judy's magic CO, 2x2 rib on instep and leg, short-row heel, elastic BO. I ran out of yarn, so the leg of the second sock is slightly shorter than the first one...

More socks yarn leftovers can turn into a shawl.


The Pi shawl by Elizabeth Zimmermann, on a 60 cm circ. I am a bit further along now. This is a really fun knit! I am doing the version with yo, k2tog rounds every six rounds. These yarns don't need any more detail than that... The hole rounds makes the knitting seem faster, there are never more than six rounds until the next action. At the same time it is easy to remember what comes next.

You Make My Day Award

I received this award from Nina at Knit In Denmark. Thank you so much, Nina! It is nice to know that my blog is appreciated :-)

I couldn't find the origins of the award, does anyone know? However, here are the rules:

“Give the award to up to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times.”

I actually found several set of rules. Some tells you to give the award to 5 people, some to 10 and some to up to 10. I'm going with the up to 10-variety! So, here are my winners, my absolute favourite blogging people, in no particular order:

Stephanie @ Yarn Harlot
Franklin @ The Panopticon
Anne @ Knitspot
Julie @ Samurai knitter
Probably Jane @ Jane's Probably Knitting
Elemmaciltur @ Númenna - Nan Annûn
Aija @ sock prØn
Jared @ brooklyntweed

Visit them!
I will do so immediately, to tell them about the award.

Startitis, and a FO

New projects galore over here. First I started a pair of socks for Mum, Veil of Leaves from New Pathways for Socks Knitters (which I am not sure that I like, may frog them). Then when I ripped the top down cardi I started ages ago and got bored of E came by and loved the yarn so I promised him a sweater. Which I promptly cast on. Sherwood from Knitty. I am about halfway through it and I really like how it is turning out. My gauge is slightly off so I am getting away with the number of stitches for the 4 year size and still getting the 6-8 year size, and that is plenty big for my small and skinny six year old.


Of course this means a sweater for H in the near future.

Then I got stressed out by not having a pair of January socks for SAM5 yet, so I started a pair of baby socks for A. The fist one is almost done. I think he likes it!


Oh, yes the FO. I misplaced my Knucks so I decided I needed a new pair of fingerless things. Some Ravelry surfing resulted in the Vanilla Mitts. Started Sunday evening, finished Tuesday morning. I used some Claudia Handpainted fingering that I bought to make a scarf. Don't know what I as thinking, a scarf from only 100 g of fingering. Plus that I don't really like the Santa Fe colourway.


Pattern: Vanilla Mitts
Yarn: Claudia Hand Painted Fingering in Santa Fe and Ingrid's Blues, one strand of each. About 60 g in total.
Needles: 3,35 mm circ, Magic Loop
Mods: I cast on 36 sts instead of 40 or 44. I put the thumb stitches on a piece of yarn instead of knitting the thumb at the same time as the hand. That seemed too fiddly! The thumb was huge so after the first two rounds I decrease two stitches each round until I had 12 stitches left (I started out with 22) Both hand and thumb are finished with 4 rounds of 2x2 ribbing.
Verdict: Me like! The fabric is firm and thick, almost windproof. And they where quick to make.


I have hardly touched the Fire&Ice socks, the Bee Fields shawl, and the Obstacles shawl...

Oh, and I have spinning to show off! Look at this: my best effort so far.

4 ounces of BFL roving from Spunky Eclectic turned into 300 meters of fingering wieght two-ply. Lovely sea-green colour. I don't know if I will turn it into socks or a small shawl.


I also started on the December fiber from the Spunky Club, Party Dress. A very colourful superwash Corriedale in red, blue and electric green.


Not something I would have bought myself... Though I like the fiber.
Someone in the club plied hers with white and that looks rather nice so I am doing the same. I have ordered some white superwash merino to ply it with. The yarn will be a sweater for H. Top-down raglan I think.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas (or whatever you celebrate at this time of year)

We spent Christmas at our cottage in the woods with my parents and my paternal grandmother. Forest all around, no street lights, no passing cars, fire in the fireplace and kitchen stove at all times, lots of good food. Very cosy. No snow though, but there usually isn't any at Christmas. As H said: "It was a grey Christmas".

But in the dark afternoon of Christmas Eve, there was suddenly a lantern outside the window. Someone came walking over the field. Jultomten!


The children where all big eyes and nervous eagerness. Everyone was accounted for, so it had to be the real Santa! And he brought presents!

They let him in this time. Two years ago when he last visited E was terrified (and four) and refused to let him in. Santa had to leave the sack of presents and leave... Last year we where in Australia with my sister and her family and our kids where excited to leave milk and gingerbread for Santa by the fireplace in the evening and see that there were only crumbs the next morning. He had actually come down the chimney! And left presents in stockings! They still talk about it.

I only did one knitted present this year, Grandmother's socks (they fit and she loves them. Yay!) But I finished a hat for M on Boxing Day (can someone *please* tell me why it is called Boxing Day!?)


Pattern: Zeebee
Yarn: Drops Alpaca in a dark blue, 2 balls.
Needle: 3.75 mm Knit Picks circ
Verdict: Fun pattern, even though it is a bit boring with back and forth garter stitch. Luckily there is short row shaping on every row to keep you awake.
M wanted a hat to fit under his bicycle helmet and I think this one does the trick. It is plain and long enough to cover the ears. And when the helmet comes off you can fold up the brim if you want to.


H picked up a dreadful cold at daycarethe week before Christmas, so she spent Christmas coughing and coughing. Then she passed it on to baby A. He has been most unhappy with a stuffy nose, running eyes and much coughing. I spent all Saturday afternoon at the hospital to get some meds for him. He seems to be on the mend now, thankfully.

I must show off my latest spinning! This is Sunrise:


Fiber: 4 ounces of Blue Faced Leicester (sp?) roving from Funky Carolina, colourway Sunrise (I think)
Yarn: 110 m/120 yards of approximately DK weight yarn, about 11 wpi.
What I did: I split the roving in two equal lengths, one for each ply. Then I split it many times lengthwise but I didn't predraft. I spun it as thinly as I could, and plied it. Amazingly, I had less than one meter left on the other bobbin when I ran out of single on the first one!


And this is Manly:


Fiber: 4 ounces of superwash merino roving from Squoosh, colourway Manly. This fiber is So Soft!


Yarn: 112 m/122 yards of approximately DK weight yarn, about 11 wpi.
What I did: I split the roving in two equal lengths, one for each ply. Then I split it in eight lengthwise strips but I didn't predraft. I spun it as thinly as I could, and plied it. This time I really tried not to overtwist the single. I had a bit more left over from plying this time so I tried Handy Plying the rest. OK, very easy to wind the single around my hand. But not so easy to ply from the thing. It tangled rather badly and it took me quite some time to untangle it. But I managed to ply a baby skein.


I have nothing on the wheel right now but I think that my other roving from Squoosh is next in line.

It is merino but not superwash. Colourway Kiss.

I joined the Spunky Fiber Club, December was my first shipment. So now I have to decide how to spin this very bright thing:

8 ounces of superwash Corriedale in *very* bright colours. One looong length of green, and two shorter lengths of blue and red. Someone plied hers with white, that looked nice and not quite so bright. I may do that too. Anyway I think this is destined to be something for the kids.

Now when Grandmother's socks are done I have continued to work on the Fire & Ice socks again. This is the second one:

I have just started the arch increases.

The second project that I really work on is the Obstacles shawl.

I have done 11 repeats, a little more than a third of the length according to the pattern. I plan to make it as long as the yarn allows. I still have a good bit left on the first of my two balls, so about 30 repeats is a good guess. The colour is a bit off in this picture, it is really a dark rich red. I love this pattern! The texture is interesting and I have managed to learn the pattern by heart so it makes good TV knitting now. At least when I don't hold baby A...

And because socks are socks, I couldn't resist my new Noro Sock yarn...


But I may resist it a bit now, I really want to make a pair of socks for my mum first. She has some health issues right now and I want to make her something. I have both yarn and pattern picked out, I just have to make some calculations before I start.

Smokin' Socks

I finished grandmothers socks in good time for Christmas. Yay!


Pattern: Smokin' Socks by Knitspot
Yarn: J. Knits Sperwash Me Sock in Boston, from The Loopy Ewe of course :-)
Needles: 2.25 mm Knitpicks circ
Mods: I made an in-between size, 66 sts instad of 60 or 72 as the pattern suggests. In hindsight I think that 60 sts would have been ok, but as I don't have grandmother's foot measurements just her shoe size I didn't want to make them too tight. I did the heel over 34 sts using Cat Bordhi's wrapped stitches.
Verdict: The yarn, hmm. I love the colour and the variation, and the knitted fabric looks and feel very nice. But the yarn is a bit splitty, it is tricky to pick up a dropped stitch. At one point I ripped a few rounds at the toe and it was No Fun to pick up the stitches again.


I love the stitch pattern. I will certainly use it again, for me. It is easy to knit, yet it looks and feels really nice.

Wheeeee...

...eeeel! As in spinning wheel. As in I got one. Ooops.



It's a used Louet S10, with a skein winder. It looks like a windmill with the skein winder on... Kind of fitting for a Dutch wheel maybe. I got it off ebay, from a Dutch seller that seems to buy ands refurbish old wheels and put them up for sale one by one. I was a bit nervous about making my first ebay purchase. I mean, you hear so much about being tricked into buying a box of bricks or whatever... But I checked the seller as best as I could and all went well. So I have a nice little wheel and I'm making yarn!


These are my first skeins of yarn from the wheel. BFL top (or roving? I'm not sure about the difference) from Spunky Eclectic. I bought a spindle kit from her ages ago with a nice little Cascade spindle and this and one other roving. I have spun a bit on the spindle but I find it very difficult to do anything but park and draft, and very little drafting at that! Maybe if I learn to draft properly on the wheel the spindle may be easier. I find it difficult to keep the spindle spinning for very long, but treadling the wheel is easy. We have an old spinning wheel at the cottage, and as kids we used to play with it and treadle, treadly, treadle. Seems like my foot remembers how to keep the wheel turning!


I managed to spin 66 grams (2,3 oz) into 19 meters (20 yards) of rather fat yarn, 5 or 6 wpi. The smaller skein is 13 grams (0,5 oz) and 3,5 meters (3,8 yards) . It's a start...
My current yarn is turning out thinner.


But drafting is still very difficult for me. This is a Corriedale top from Funky Carolina. I have split it in thin strips and predrafted before spinning but of course I would like to be able to do the drafting on the fly. I have two more rovings (4 oz each) after this one, and a few more on order from etsy sellers. I think I want a fleece for Christmas... Cleaned and carded, please, even though I got a pair of hand carders with the wheel, and I know how to use them. Or indeed any larger amount of wool to practice on. It would be nice to be able to have enough yarn of one kind to actually knit something! I have no idea where to get good wool here in Sweden though. Anyone know?

Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning arrived in the mail today. It seems to be a very good beginner's book. Especially if you, like me, have no one to show you.

Christmas knitting (dare I say the word?)
I'm not doing much of that actually. Knitting deadlines stresses me out and then it's no fun to knit, it turns into a chore. I much prefer to dole things out as I finish them.
Still, I am knitting a couple of items for Christmas presents. A pair of socks for my grandmother. She is 87 and fell and broke her leg in June, had surgery which didn't take and now had her hip joint replaced instead the other day. So she needs cosy socks.

The first one is done and the second one is at the heel. It's a fairly quick pattern (Smokin' socks by Anne at Knitspot) so I'm confident that I will finish them on time.


The Fire & Ice socks are on hiatus until Grandmother's socks are done. First one is done and looks like this:

The second sock is almost at the start of the gusset increases. They are sooo comfy, I'm really happy with them!

The second (and last!) Christmas item is a Pirate hat for H. She immediately wanted one when she saw the one that E got for his birthday, and I was planning on knitting her one anyway. So two knit presents this year. If I don't spin to much... Though I *may* knit an iPod sock for M... This pattern (that I found through the Daily Chum) is so cute :-)

I am 8 rows in on the bee swarm section of the Bee Fields shawl (also by Anne at Knitspot). So I have one neat row of bees :-) Or is it one and a half? Not sure yet.

Anyway, I love this shawl. And the yarn (The Plucky Knitter Merino laceweight) And it's not that difficult to knit either. Granted, this section has patterning on both right and wrong side rows and I haven't done that before, but I'm learning to read the pattern from the back too.


For some strange reason I haven't worked on it since the wheel arrived though. Hmm.

BTW, I just had to start an Obstacles shawl as well. I am in some sort of Knitspot period I think.

Lovely pattern! I'm using two skeins of Dream in Color Smooshy sock yarn in Ruby River. Yum!

Baby mittens

A needed mittens so I made some from the same yarn as his djevellue. I just love how they striped!

Size: 3-9 months
Yarn: Thickish fingering yarn, 65 meters/70 yards
Gauge: 32 sts/10 cm (4”)
Needles: 3 mm (US 2,5) needles or size to get gauge

Cuff: CO 32 sts (I use long-tail CO) join for knitting in the round. Rib k1, p1 for 4 cm/1,5”, 13 rounds.
Hand: Switch to stocking st. Increase 8 sts evenly on the first round (k1bf, k3 around), 40 sts. When hand measures 8 cm/3,25”, 30 rounds after increase round, decrease for top:
Round 1: k2, k2tog around, 30 sts
Round 2: knit
Round 3: k1, k2tog around, 20 sts
Round 4: knit
Round 5: k2tog around, 10 sts
Round 6: knit
Round 7: k2tog around, 5 sts

Cut yarn and thread through the remaining sts, weave in ends. Make another mitten. Make an i-cord or crochet chain about 67 cm/27” long and sew one mitten to each end. Thread through sleeves to avoid loosing mittens.

Winter already?

The first snow fell on us on Friday evening and Saturday morning. The kids were of course extatic and ran out to play almost before we boring grownups had made it out of bed. Most of the fun melted away of course but we had freezing temps here this morning even at nine am and a few more flurries of snow this afternoon. Real winter (i.e. with snow) rarely arrives before January, so this probably wont stay long.

I started and almost finished a Pirate hat for E's birthday soon.


The horrible blue is the cotton lining, it won't show. The pattern is We Call Them Pirates from Hello Yarn with some mods. I tried it last year but my gauge was way off then so that hat turned out very small. Baby A will get it when he grows into it. Next winter maybe?

The Mystic Waters Shawl KAL is under way. I started it but frogged rather quickly. I had barely begun knitting when I saw the second clue finished and I didn't really like it. So I will not knit it now. Maybe later, I am collecting the pattern. The yarn I used was very nice however, Baruffa Cashwool in a light grey.

Instead I decided to do a Knitspot pattern. But which one...? I have been wanting to knit Casino forever and I have yarn for it, the Bee Fields shawl and stole both are fantastic, I really like Obstacles, and the new Cluaranach. Aaaahhh!

In the end the stash decided for me. I had this fantastic yarn in my stash, merino laceweight from The Plucky Knitter (by way of The Loopy Ewe of course) in a greyish blue, 900 yards. Single ply, so soft. The petite size of Bee Fields shawl calls for exactly 900 yards. I hope I don't run out...

Bee Fields after two repeats of the Bee Hives chart.

I also ordered yarn for both Obstacles and Cluaranach (Dream in Color Smooshy in Ruby Red and Deep Seaflower respectively. Yes, from TLE) So, together with the shawl I'm knitting for mum, I have my lace knitting covered for some time.

Oh and the Loopy sock club is shipping soon. Can't wait!

Rudyard baby sweater

When I saw Kim's pattern for Kipling I just had to make it. But it was very small and when I tried to make the pattern larger I got confused by the sleeve construction. So I made my own version, and of course it had to be named Rudyard!

Rudyard


Size: 6 months

(cm)

Yarn
Garnstudio Alaska (75 m / 50 g) 100% wool
6 balls main colour 11 (dark red)
1 ball contrasting colour 52 (blue), or an extra ball in main colour

Needles
4,5 mm (US 7) needles, or size to get gauge
1 thin extra needle, 2 mm (US 0) or so

Gauge
18 m = 10 cm (4”)

Back
CO 50 sts in contrasting colour using longtail CO. Work 5 rows (2 cm, 0,75”) stocking stitch, 1st row is a purl row. Switch to main colour. Knit 2 rows for folding edge. Work 6 rows stocking stitch, first row is knit. Weave in all ends (except working end)

On the next round (right side) the CO edge is knit together with the sts for a neat hem. If you find this too fiddly, just ignore this section and sew down the hem when finishing the sweater.

Pick up 48 sts from the CO round with a thin needle.

The edge with picked-up sts

Knit 1. Knit 1 stitch from the ordinary needle together with one stitch from the extra needle 48 times. Knit 1.

K2tog, one st from each needle

From the back

The finished hem

Work in st st until work measures 28 cm (11”) from the bottom. Put sts on a thread.

Front
Work like the back. When work measures 21 cm (8,25”) the middle 18 sts are put on a thread. Work each side separately until they measure 28 cm (11”) from the bottom. Put sts on a thread.

Sleeves
CO 36 sts with contrasting colour. Work edge as for the back. Work st st until work measures 16 cm (6,25”) Bind off. Make another sleeve.

Assembly
Soak all parts and block according to the sketch. Let dry. Kitchener the shoulders.


Collar
Pick up about 50 sts along the sides and back of the neck, from the right side. The number of sts should be a multiple of 4, plus 2 sts (for example 46, 50, or 54 sts) Knit ribbing, p2, k2 for 10 cm (4”) or desired length. Bind off in pattern.

Front neck
Move the 18 sts from thread to needle. Work one knit row from the right side and one knit row from the back for folding edge. Change to contrasting colour and work 3 rows st st. Bind off. Sew down the hem neatly.

Weave in all ends. Sew the sleeves to the front-and-back. Sew the side- and sleeve seams. Done!

Rushing Rivulet socks

Pattern: Rushing Rivulet socks from New Pathways for Sock Knitters by Cat Bordhi.
Yarn: Fiesta Boomerang in Quince, one skein.
Needles: 3 mm KnitPicks circ
Mods: I changed the cuff to a k1, p1 rib with EZ sewn bind-off.
Verdict: I really like this yarn. It is soft, solid and springy and it shows the texture pattern very well. This colourway is rather bland for me but it goes nicely with jeans.
This sock architecture, with the "gusset" on the sole

fits me very well. I have a highish instep (which I didn't compensate for, even though there are instructions on how to do it. I don't think that it would work with this stitch pattern) and a rather high arch.

I like the look with the texture pattern on the side too.