FOs

As you may have noticed from the added photos in the last post, I finished the red Pinheads and Picot socks. They are super comfy, and even though today was a fairly warm day, I've been wearing them all evening. I just love how hand knitted socks feel on your feet, and whenever I get a pair done, I have to wear them right away. And talking about wearing your hand knitted socks, I ordered a pair of shoes that will allow me to wear them to work, too. When the weather cools down again, that is.
I think these will look very nice with wool socks. They are Red Wing Alexandrias -a brand I've never worn before, but they look comfy. Most of my shoes are SoftSpots, because they have really nice ones for wide feet. And I order all my shoes online, because so few store carry wide sizes any more. I could go on and on about this...

But there's something I've been wondering about when it comes to wearing your own handmade socks. Do you wear them to work? And do you have certain ones that you can wear to work and others not? (I'm thinking black or other more subtle colors that wouldn't be too obvious if you have any kind of a dress code.) I've wondered about this for a while, and would like to hear from you.

I also finished something else, namely the Clementine shawlette. I actually finished it over a week ago already, but didn't get a chance to take pictures, other than of the blocking.


I used sock yarn to knit this to get it a little heavier than lace weight. This took almost 200 g of yarn on 3.5 mm needles. I really enjoyed knitting it, it was fairly mindless with the easy to memorize pattern and all. I made a couple of changes to the pattern, though (hey, that's new! Who would have thought...) Other than knitting with a different weight yarn, I added two pattern repeats sideways, because with just 5 repeats it would have been way too narrow. I also added some short rows on the last row to make the join work better. The zig-zag pattern would pull otherwise, when you join it head to head. I thought I'd try short rows (very short, 6 stitches for each pattern repeat), and it worked. So the zig-zag is still a zig-zag even at the join.

Here's a couple of modeled shots, too. It works perfect for keeping me warm in my chilly office.



My husband says I look too serious... but look at those pretty skies and the slough in the back of our house getting all green! It's full of birds, as you might guess. So much so that we can't sleep with the windows open, because the birdies start screaming EARLY in the morning and wake us up.

"Pinheads and Picot" sock pattern

Pinheads and Picot socks

*edited to add photos.
The socks are knitted using a main color and a contrast color. You will need about 100 g of the main color and a few grams of contrast color. The instructions are written for 60 stitches. Choose a stitch count that fits your foot and the yarn you are using. I used Inspirations Yarn Java on 2.5 mm needles, but this yarn is no longer available. It is similar in thickness to Koigu KPPPM, and some other a little thicker sock yarns. It is easiest to work the sock on a count that is divisible by 6, but any count divisible by 2 will work. (The flower pattern in the leg repeats 6 times. If your stitch count is not divisible by 6, the flowers will not be evenly spaced. It is up to you, if you feel that this is critical, or not.)

Abbreviations: MC = main color, CC = contrast color

Cast on 60 s using the main color and provisional cast on.

Picot: Knit 4 rows (you will have a total of 5 rows in main color, including the cast on). Knit 1 row in contrast color. Next row: *k2tog, YO*. Repeat *-* to the end of row. Knit 1 row. Switch back to main color, knit 4 rows. 5th row pick up the cast on stitches and knit together with live stitches. Pick out the waste yarn in the provisional cast on.

Leg: Knit 3 more rows in main color. Next row: *k1 MC, k1 CC*. Repeat *-* to the end of row. Next row: *k1, p1* (knit over MC stitches, purl over CC). Repeat *-* to the end of row. K 3 rows in MC.

Flower pattern: *k3, (YO, k1) 5 times, k2*. Repeat *-* to the end of row. Next row: *k3, (drop YO, pick up s) 5 times, place the 5 stitches back on left needle, knit through all 5 stitches: (k1, YO, k1, YO, k1); k2*. Repeat *-* to the end of row.

Knit 3 rows in MC. Next row: *k1 MC, k1 CC*. Repeat *-* to the end of row. Next row: *k1, p1* (knit over MC stitches, purl over CC). Repeat *-* to the end of row.

Knit 29 rows in MC, or to desired leg length. With the last 15 s of the 29th row, *k1 MC, k1 CC*, and continue through the first 15 s of the 30th row.

These 30 s are the beginning of the heel flap. Turn the sock. K3, *p1, k1* to the last 3 stitches (purl on top of MC, knit on top of CC), k3, turn. *Knit across, turn. K3, p to the last 3 s, k3, turn.* Repeat *-* until the height of the heel flap is 24 rows (including the 2-color set up row).


Turning the heel: Knit 2 stitches past the middle point of the heel flap (k17). Ssk, k1, turn. S1, p5, p2 tog, p1, turn. S1, k6, ssk, k1, turn. Continue in a similar manner until all the stitches have been used. 18 stitches remain on the needle.

Gusset: Knit across the heel flap and pick up 13 stitches from the side of the heel flap. Knit around the top and pick up 13 stitches on the other side. Knit in the round and decrease 1 s every 2 rows on both sides of the foot until 60 s remain.

Foot: Knit until the sock just covers your pinky toe.

Toe: On the top of the sock, *k1 MC, k1 CC*, repeat *-*. Wrap the last stitch on the top side without knitting, turn. *P1, k1* to the next to last stitch, wrap the stitch and turn. Continue in stockinette with MC, working a short row toe until 12 stitches remain in the center. Turn the toe and knit until all the wrapped stitches have been used up. Kitchener stitch the opening shut.


Weave in ends.

Copyright Lotta Breyer, 2007.

You may copy and use this pattern for your own personal use, but, please, don’t sell, distribute, or copy it for others without my permission.

comments

For some reason the comments in the last post aren't working, but if you'd like to leave one, please e-mail me through the link in the left side bar. I think it's a Blogger issue that hopefully will get fixed sometime soon.

I'm here...

Sorry for disappearing like that for two weeks, but I was in Quebec for a while on a work trip, and didn't really have internet connection at all, while I was there. A beautiful city, by the way. It was my first visit to Canada, and I really liked it. Except for the airports. Canadians are almost worse than Finnish people, I think they actually like standing in line. There was a line everywhere. Slow and long. Oh, well. I made all my flights (thanks to long lay-overs), and enjoyed the trip.

As usual, I got a lot of knitting done while in the air and at the airports (I wasn't knitting while standing in line, though, which is probably why I didn't actually finish anything.) I'm going through a spout of startitis, and so I started another new project before finishing the previous one. But I wanted something good for travel knitting, which a sweater is usually not, because you have to measure so often. And what would be more perfect than a scarf! I'd had my eyes on the Clementine shawlette from the Interweave Knits spring 07 issue. I decided to use the blue sock yarn ("Sea glass") that I recently dyed. I ran out of yarn, though, and had to dye some more, when I got home to be able to finish.
This shawlette is knit in two pieces starting from both ends, and then grafted together. I've got a little more to go on one side, but that should be a nice Sunday evening project.

Talking about Interweave Knits, I think the patterns get weirder and weirder in every issue, and I've actually decided to let my subscription expire. I'm voting with my dollars, because I feel that the number of quality patterns is diminishing in the magazine, and it's not what I want to read any more. The only pearls in the bunch in the last issue were Veronik's Spiral boot socks and Kate Gilbert's Syncopated hats. But what is up with Blouson? or the Wing top? They look more like a combination of all the mistakes and bad knitting or design that I always try to avoid. Every magazine is going to have something that I wouldn't necessarily want to knit, but I think the majority of the patterns shoud be decent. At least so that they are inspiring and nice to look at, even though I may not want to wear the particular piece of clothing myself. What I want to see is well thought through designs and clever details, not a bunch of stuff thrown together without a single thought towards fit or novel ideas. I can't wait to see what Eunny can do with this magazine...

About the red socks in the last post, I will definitely write up the pattern, it's very easy. I'm trying to decide how to write my patterns, though. Should I write them in great detail so that even a beginning knitter can figure out what to do, or less detail so that you would have to know how to do certain things without explanation. Such as, "rnd 87, begin neck steek". Should I explain how to do a steek? Also sock heels, somebody who has knitted at least a few pairs of socks, knows how a heel works and only needs a few numbers to be able to replicate the heel in the pattern. And experienced knitters have a bad habit of changing the pattern anyway, especially when it comes to the heel -everybody's got their own favorite. Anyhow, I'm sort of leaning towards the "less details" way of writing them, mostly because it takes so long to write a pattern describing every little technique, but then the patterns would be less universal, and maybe not usable by less experienced knitters. What do you think?

Spring weather

We feel lucky to just have missed the severe storms that were moving across the area this weekend. Some towns got about 10 inches of rain, and there were several tornadoes going around. But as is typical of South Dakota spring weather, it fluctuates so much that you literally don't know what to wear each morning. I'm compromizing with one warm foot and one cool foot:


Or maybe it's just that I only have one of these done... :) Here's a detail shot of the cuff:


I got the idea for using the blue as an effect yarn from doing a provisional cast on and using the blue as my waste yarn. It just looked really nice together with the red, and I decided to give it a shot. I have to say, that I tried a few different things, before ending up with this design. The picot was pretty clear in my mind, but the rest of it I made up as I was knitting, and I think each part I ended up frogging at least once or twice.

Here's the heel detail:


And the toes:


I have to admit that I'm quite pleased with the result. And as always, this yarn is a pleasure to knit with. (Sorry I can't link to the yarn any more, it has been removed from the store web site. I'm looking for new sources of undyed yarns, so if you know of any good ones, please let me know!)


I might have to slow down with the second sock a little, because there's a competing project. I know, I know, I have more than enough unfinished projects that really should be competing, but Maud corrupted me. She knit this beautiful spring green sweater that really hit the nerve with me. I had to run and buy the yarn for it and start right away.


The pattern is Amelia's (Anna's) Pippa. It has a similar small cable that I tried in the pink swatch in the last post:

I'm using Rowan wool cotton instead of Debbie Bliss Baby cashmerino. The gauge is very similar and the LYS had a better color available in the wool cotton. Plus it's one of my favorite yarns, so it all worked out ok. I'm not quite sure, if I have enough yarn, but I'm using the age old method of knitting really fast to try to make it last longer. ;)

knitting?

Yes, there's been knitting! Like I said last time, I've been swatching. Nothing specific, I just wanted to try some of the stitch patterns form the new book. And somehow I've felt like doing just short little projects lately, nothing big and intensive. And by small I mean... well, small.

Don't ask me why, I don't know. This little tiny sock is obviously more decorational than functional, and I just felt like making one. That's all. The other small projects are a little bigger:

This is a cabled rib that I found particularly pretty. I think it would add a lot of interest to a basic ribbed sweater. I have no further plans for it, though, I just like it.


The same thing stretched out:
Here's another little square that I just felt like knitting:


A cotton wash cloth. I've never really used them, and wanted to find out what the fuss is all about. Now I can. ;)

I also got the Trekking socks done:


I almost feel bad about the hot weather now (almost), because I can't even think about wearing any of my hand knitted socks. Today the temperature was 33 C (90 F), and there was no way I was going to wear any kind of socks. Thankfully it was Sunday and our schedule consisted of gardening and grilling.

I was playing around with PhotoImpact a little:

I like PhotoImpact better than PhotoShop. I think PhotoShop is unnecessarily difficult for an amateur to use, it's insanely expensive, and PhotoImpact can do just about everything I would do in PhotoShop, anyway. And I'm not talking about professional use here, just me and my amateur photo editing needs. ;)

The next sock project is using the newly dyed yarn, colorway Pomegranate and a little bit of leftover blue from about a year ago:

I'm just having fun with the colors, and making the pattern up as I go. We'll see how it turns out.

new trend...

This seems to be a recurring trend: I have very little knitting progress to report. This time the reason is this:
Meet Suzy, our newest family member! She's a 6-week-old beagle, and about the cutest thing you'll ever see! Knitting time has been limited, and the most I've gotten done is half a sock and some swatching from the Japanese knitting books. Also, summer has finally arrived (we basically skipped spring this year), and the warm weather is not very inspiring, when it comes to knitting. Not that I would ever quit, but I might slow down a little. In fact, I think my family will appreciate that...

Liz asked, if the books are in Japanese -yes, they are, and no, I don't know Japanese, but I like a good challenge. ;) I don't think I'll try to learn Japanese just to read the patterns, but everything is fortunately charted down to a very close detail, so I should be able to figure them out. And what I can't figure out, I might just have to make up.

The winter is not over...

It's been snowing here for the last two days, and I have to say that I've had just about enough of that stuff... but it's been a good excuse to dig out the heavier knits again. My favorite is a Clapotis out of Malabrigo -so soft and so big, so comforting! I haven't shown it here in the blog, because I made it before I started blogging. BTW, have you noticed, did Malabrigo change their yarns? Where is the alpaca??

Over Easter weekend, I didn't get much knitting done. The socks? -not done yet. The sweater? -not done. I was just completely overwhelmed by the beauty of these:

Three Japanese craft books that are so cram packed full of pretty patterns that I want to make almost every one of them and don't know where to start! Well, this is of course a good problem to have, I'm not complaining, but it's slowing me down.



I will definitely make a couple of these sweaters:but also the accessories are just unbearably pretty:


I almost can't take it!! And I feel like I have to start knitting every one of these things right away!But that of course won't happen... that's ok, though. I'm just happy that I have a ton of really nice patterns waiting when I'm looking for something to knit for next winter. Because these are mostly winter knits, and I don't think I'll be starting a scarf (except for lace) or a pair of gloves any time soon.

I did start a swatch from the "300 Stitch Patterns":
This is pattern numbre 071, in case anybody is interested. I used a leftover ball of Elann Peruvian Alpaca and 3.5 mm needles. I made it 20 x 20 cm, so I can use it as an Afghan square later. This is a very fun pattern and looks nice on both sides, so I might even use it for an Afghan project myself. I have a bunch of some chunky weight wool somewhere that would be suitable for that.

I also found the time to do some dyeing, since I promised Pat I'd send her some hand dyed sock yarn. I had enough undyed yarn left for three pairs of socks, and decided to dye it all at once. This is the colorway I dyed with Pat in mind:
Pat gave me free hands and didn't have any special wishes about the color, so I looked around in the blog to see what kind of colors she usually picks. Bright, clean colors, nothing too muted. Am I right, Pat? :) So I dyed this with thoughts of fruits and flowers in mind, watermelons, poppies and sunflowers. A color that would make you think of warm sunny summer days, when you wear the socks. I decided to name the color "Tutti Frutti". I hope you'll like it, Pat, I'll be sending it your way soon! (I know you're on a trip right now, so I'll wait a few days before putting it in the mail.)

The colors I dyed for myself were a sea blue with lighter greens that remind me of sea glass:
You can only see a little bit of the lighter colors here, but they are in there, trust me. ;) I made it with wide stripes, and after I had started, I realized that a smart person would have divided the yarn into two 50 g skeins before starting, instead of dyeing it all in one. Now I'll either have two unmatching socks, or a lot of ends to weave in. Oh, well, I guess I learned something there... Anyhow, I'm calling the color "Sea glass".


The last one is "Pomegranate", a somewhat muted dark pink:


And here are all three:

Warm toes

Last week I had to get some socks on the needles, especially considering that I have grown my sock yarn stash much bigger than it really needs to be, but also just because I didn't have any. On the needles that is. Except the swirl socks, but they are way too complicated to take them with and knit a little here and there, or even knit while watching TV or reading blogs. So I started a pair from the OnLine sock yarn that matches the Oxblood yarn and shoes.
I don't really have a "standard" pattern that I would always use for socks, but this is about as close as it gets. Top down, 72 stitches, 2.5 mm needles, k2p2 ribbing at the top, a few decreases in the leg, a Dutch heel (my new favorite that will replace the square heel I used to use most often), decrease back to 72 stitches, kitchener toe. I have "shapely" (someone with a poor selfesteem would say fat) calves, and I always need to do a few decreases in the leg to help keep the socks up, unless I do ribbing all the way to the heel.
Once I finished these, I immediately started another pair:
This is one of those wonderful Trekking colorways that I ordered from Germany (I think this is 76, 78 is what I used for the Pomatomus wrist warmers). Looks very close to the ones I just finished, but this is really much more purple, whereas the OnLine socks are more brownish. The gauge of Trekking and OnLine in almost exactly the same, but Trekking is much softer. Not that OnLine is hard, either, and I certainly don't mind it for socks, but Trekking is easier on my hands while I'm knitting.

Now to the contest for the promised sock yarn. I used Excel (my favorite piece of software, of course) and a random number generator to find the lucky winner. Therefore no pictures of drawing from a hat, or anything. But this way it's absolutely fair, and the geometry or the way I folded the pieces of paper don't matter. ;) And the winner is... (*drum roll*) ...PAT! Congratulations, Pat! Could you please e-mail me using the link in the left side bar, and let me know your name and address, and also what colors you would like in your yarn. I am going to dye some for you in the next week or so, and send it your way.

As far as my favorite project to knit... aagh, I can't choose!! But if I really just think about the knitting part of it, I think Hyrna Herborgar was my favorite. The yarn was very nice and soft, the pattern was interesting and the result pretty. All the other guesses were very good, too, and I could probably come up with a way in which every one of those projects was my favorite. Some are my favorites to wear, some I think are the prettiest, some were fun, some fast, many tought me something new, some gave me a huge sense of accomplishment... I can't think of anything that I didn't really enjoy knitting. I guess it makes sense, since I wouldn't have knitted it, if I didn't like it.

I have also been working on writing out the pattern for the stripy vest. I know a couple of people were interested, so I'll try to get it posted soon. After that, I'll do the same with the zippered cardigan.

Warm wrists

I was going to draw names for the winner already today, but I think I will give people one more week to get their names on the list. I know I have more readers than that! And mom, this would be a good time to learn how to leave comments! ;) Anybody who didn't comment on the last post, go ahead and leave your name down there, and you might get lucky and win some yarn.

This leads me to another subject -it's interesting to see these ups and downs in then (knitting) blog world. Ups and downs in posting and in commenting, how they vary with seasons and holidays. Lately I myself have been exploring other blogs, ones that I don't normally read. I have found a couple of amazing ones. One is this cupcake blog. Yes, cupcakes! I didn't know people blog about cupcakes, but then again, I've gotten weird looks and questions from other people, when I told them I have a knitting blog... I've been asked why anybody would want to read about knitting, and this particular person was not trying to be mean or anythig, they were just honestly wondering. The other new blog I found is this Japanese fiber artist's blog. Her English is not perfect, but her art is just unreal! Make sure you browse the archives!

The sweater that I had in the works (still do) a couple of posts ago was the Bell sleeve jacket (number 15) from the Holiday Vogue Knitting from last year. I finished the back and the front pieces, but then felt like I needed something that didn't require for me to read the chart or instructions constantly. But first I needed to free up one of my 2.5 mm circulars, so I had to finish the Pomatomus wrist warmers:


I really like the texture of this pattern, but it was such a pain to knit with all those twisted stitches (and this is just my opinion ;) that I don't think I'll use it again. Very pretty, but too much pain for the gain. Oh, well. The yarn in the background of the first picture is OnLine Supersocke in Sierra, and it's my next brainless project, plain stockinette stitch socks. I really like the color(s) of this yarn -it's "oxblood" with some moss green and some lighter color speckles. By the way, oxblood doesn't sound quite as poetic as "chartreuse", but I guess it makes sense. :) But better colors of that next time, and maybe a progress update on the sweater. (I really don't want to call it the oxblood sweater... I'll have to come up with a better nick name for it...)