In a week’s time we went from 88 F and sunny to 55 F and rainy. I know the Vernal Equinox was on Sunday, but we been suddenlt plunged back into winter around here. On an interesting note, a tornado hit South SF on Sunday.
I’ve had plenty to post about recently, but I’m damned if I’d had the time to do so. Thus, this post is mostly going to be look what I did last week. 🙂
Lace Scarf
This is a lace scarf I knit up as a belated Christmas present for my best friend’s fiance. I used fingering weight Frog Tree Alpaca. It seems to be a nice yarn, although I was a bit shock by the amount of guard hairs in it.
Cappachino Socks
Since the felted kitty bed was finished on Thursday night… well, the knitting part anyway… I cast on for a pair of socks. Back in November I got my Secret Sock Kit in the mail from Inspirations Yarns. It’s a beautiful chocolate-y brown color with variations in the (now let me show my complete lack of dyeing vocabulary) darkness/lightness of the color. It’s their Java yarn, which is a superwash 3-ply that they claim is sport weight. The Secret Sock Kit also came with a pattern. I decided it would probably be best to use the pattern that was written for the yarn. I get out my size 2 dpns and look at the pattern to see how many stitches I should cast on. The pattern has 2 sizes: woman’s small and woman’s large; by the numbers associated with the sizes I assumed I was a large… cast on 42 sts. This is when I notice that if you’re making the small socks you woudl cast on 40 sts. I was perplexed… 2 sts difference didn’t seem like a lot even with a gauge of 6 sts/inch. I decided to give it a shot even though I am feeling great doubt. I got through the ribbing (just an inch, thankfully) and started into the st st. I thought it looked more than a tad small while doing the ribbing, but ribbing can be deceptive. I measured my gauge in the st st… 7 sts/inch. No wonder it looked small. Switching to size 4 dpns got me to gauge, so I ripped back and started over again.
Still looks a bit too small doesn’t it. I slipped it on my foot… the knitting stretched as far as it could. Those would not be comfortable socks; I would feel every ridge of the sts. So, out it came again.
Third time’s the charm, right? I decided I liked the look of the fabric when I was using the size 2 dpns. I have a sock pattern for basic socks and one of the sizes uses a gauge of 7 sts/inch… perfect… I thought. It was huge. I didn’t even bother taking a picture of that one. I ripped it out as soon as I realized it would work for a sleeve.
The too small sock was 7 inches around, the too big sock was 9 inches around, so I settled on something in the middle. I cast on enough sts to get me 8 inches and went for it… this time I’m actually writng it down so I can knit the second sock. I started the heel yesterday – it’s a short row heel that’s a mixture of 3 different ways of doing it. So far, it looks pretty good.
I’ll take pics once the heel is completed as well as before and after shots of the felted kitty bed.
