Decisions, decisions

Got February’s plain socks done by the end of the month, no problem. Haven’t been able to take any photos of them because the grey, rainy days have been making my apartment too dark to get good shots.

I did get a couple of shawls that I finished awhile ago finally blocked and looking good.

Moon Shadows
Moonshadows shawl

Ashton Shawl
Lace shawl

Meanwhile, I’m not sure what to do about this month’s socks. It’s a pattern and yarn that I cast on about a year and a half ago. It’s toe-up and I stopped just before where I believed I needed to start the gusset (I’m not as schooled in toe-up socks as I am top-down). One of the issues is that the yarn I’m using is knitting up at 9 stitches and 14 rows per inch while the pattern is written at 8 stitches and 10 rows per inch. So, I had originally cast on enough stitches to make the sock fit rather than what the pattern called for and now that I’m beginning to do the increases I have a feeling the difference in gauge is going to be a headache.

I’m seriously considering ripping the sock out and starting over. If I do that I need to decide if I just want to use the same stitch pattern but knit it top-down (it’ll look different from the pattern as it’s a slipped stitch pattern and the stitches will be pointing in the opposite direction), or I could just pick a new pattern. Right now I’m leaning towards just doing it top-down because I do like the stitch pattern.

Personal Stash Sock Club

  1. January: Finish Thujas
  2. February: Plain socks in Yarn Pirate Superwash BFL, Calamity
  3. March: Finish Scylla socks in Dizzy Blonde Studios Mean Girls Yarn Club Ep. 4 – Sock, Baroque’n Hooker
  4. April: Absinthe socks in Dizzy Blonde Studios Mean Girls Yarn Club Ep. 3 – SOCK,
    Hoar Crux
  5. May: Cersei socks in Dizzy Blonde Studios Mean Girls’ Yarn Club Ep. 6 – Fingering, Wineaux
  6. June: Primavera socks in Trekking XXL, 168
  7. July: Ziggy socks in Noro Silk Garden Sock, S87
  8. August: Finish Broken Chair socks in Blue Ridge Yarns Footprints, Wild Cherry
  9. September: Transitions socks in Blackberry Ridge Silk Blend Sport Weight, Campfires
  10. October: Socks for the husband in Dizzy Blonde Studios Mean Girls Yarn Club Ep. 4 – Sock, Hoar’s Yer Buddy
  11. November: Monkey socks in Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Mediumweight, Pink Granite
  12. December: Plain socks in Fleece Artist Blue Face Leicester Socks, Marine

Personal Stash Yarn Club

Socks for JoshI got the socks for the husband done and blocked, and he likes them. They are a variation of the Thuja socks from knitty.com. I knit them out of Rabbitworks Fibre Studio Toe Jam (70% Merino 30% Silk) in The Gathering Storm colorway. I originally started these back in August and they were my commute knitting, but I found myself not really wanting to knit on BART, so they languished. Then, the socks I knit the husband last January developed a giant hole in the ball of one of the feet seemingly out of nowhere (Was a little sad about that because it was an 8-ply sock yarn that was supposed to be rather sturdy). Thus, the first month of my personal stash yarn club is complete.

New sockLast week I sat down and plotted what I wanted to knit, sock-wise, for the rest of the year. I’ve mixed some WIP socks into it so that I can get them off the needles, but it’s mostly all unballed yarn I’ve been wanting to knit with. February’s personal stash yarn club sock is just a plain knit sock out of Yarn Pirate Superwash BFL in the Calamity colorway. I’m already passed the heel on the first sock and it’s not technically February yet. I figure if I get these done quickly, I’ll pick up a larger project that’s been on hold and try to get some work done on it.

Selected Personal Stash Yarn Club Projects
I wanted to try to get some of the socks that have been hanging out on needles for a long time done so I can wear them. I also wanted to get some of the sock yarn that has been in my stash for quite awhile knit up.

  1. January: Finish Thujas
  2. February: Plain socks in Yarn Pirate Superwash BFL, Calamity
  3. March: Finish Scylla socks in Dizzy Blonde Studios Mean Girls Yarn Club Ep. 4 – Sock, Baroque’n Hooker
  4. April: Absinthe socks in Dizzy Blonde Studios Mean Girls Yarn Club Ep. 3 – SOCK,
    Hoar Crux
  5. May: Cersei socks in Dizzy Blonde Studios Mean Girls’ Yarn Club Ep. 6 – Fingering, Wineaux
  6. June: Primavera socks in Trekking XXL, 168
  7. July: Ziggy socks in Noro Silk Garden Sock, S87
  8. August: Finish Broken Chair socks in Blue Ridge Yarns Footprints, Wild Cherry
  9. September: Transitions socks in Blackberry Ridge Silk Blend Sport Weight, Campfires
  10. October: Socks for the husband in Dizzy Blonde Studios Mean Girls Yarn Club Ep. 4 – Sock, Hoar’s Yer Buddy
  11. November: Monkey socks in Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Mediumweight, Pink Granite
  12. December: Plain socks in Fleece Artist Blue Face Leicester Socks, Marine

Happy New Year!

I don’t believe I’ve talked about it here, but a few years ago I began treatment for a thyroid disorder.  I had had all the classic symptoms: exhausted, freezing, hair loss, memory problems, and weight gain like you wouldn’t believe.  Over the course of about 4 years, I’ve worked with my doctor to find the right levels of medication to get me back to feeling like myself.  Finally, in July, I think we got to the right point.  It feels like almost suddenly I’m doing all sorts of things that I remember doing but for a long time couldn’t bring myself to do.  I’ve read more books in the last 6 months than I think I did in the last 2 years.  And now I want to really get back to knitting again.

I had done some cold sheeping while I was unemployed, but the knitting and the spinning weren’t happening except when i felt they really needed to, such as for gifts.  So, thankfully, lots of yarns hasn’t been coming in, but it also hasn’t really been getting used.  I’ve decided that this year I should try to keep myself knitting on a regular basis.  I’m going to do that by making up a personal sock club — one set of yarn and pattern for each month.

Rabbitch Toe Jam sock yarnI’m going to start by concentrating on a pair of socks I started for the husband back in August but hadn’t really been working on.  Thus, my January sock club is a pair of Thuja socks knit out of Rabbitworks Fibre Studio Toe Jam (70% Merino 30% Silk) in The Gathering Storm.  The fun and excitement will come when I try to figure out how I did the heel on the first sock.

Auntie Blankie

Hey, look! It’s a Finished Object! Never thought you’d see one of those around here, eh? I finished off the baby blanket for my niece a few weeks ago. This is a grand thing for a couple of reasons: 1) It has been blocked and was handed off at Christmas, 2) I can knit on other things… any thing I want. I finished the blanket with enough time to think about whipping out a pair of socks for The Husband for Christmas (although the last couple inches had to be knit Christmas day after giving him his gift). I also managed to finish a pair of socks for myself, although that’s not as much of an accomplishment because I had finished the first one back in May when I went to Seattle for a conference. I cast on and almost finished the second sock on my trip to New Haven, CT to interview at Yale the second week of this month.

Here’s a shot of the baby blanket in all its glory:

Designing in my sleep

Since I am still only spinning the lace yarn for the shawlette I’d like to design, I have been lying awake in the dark thinking of how to execute said design.  Some things have been hard to figure out just in my head and will need to be put on paper to see how the mechanics will actually work out.  Some things I think of then forget as I drift off to sleep, leaving me only to wake up in the morning knowing I had a solution and it’s gone.

One of the mathematical things I’ve been working on is the fact that the lace pattern I have chosen is an even stitch number stitch pattern.  Most shawls started at the top, as I want to start this one, tend to have an odd number of stitches in between the edge stitches and the center stitch.  Last night, I believe I worked out how to jigger it, now I just need to find out if it’ll look alright.

Meanwhile, the sock design I began working on in June is slowly making progress.  I finished the first sock only to discover that even though I had gotten gauge in my swatch, I lost a whole stitch per inch when knitting the sock.  Eight stitches per inch is quite a bit different that 9 stitches per inch, especially in stretchy 2×2 ribbing.  So, I’m working the second sock on needles that are half a millimeter smaller.  The unfortunate part is I really liked how the color of the yarn worked out in the larger gauge, and in the smaller gauge it’s spiraling.  The little bit of fancy stitch patterning it has is an 11 stitch repeat, so not much I can do there to play with fit.  Just have to live with the change in color patterning.

That was loads of fun… not

I apologize right up front to anyone who visited my bog in the last month and found it redirecting them to some stupid, fake “anti-virus” site.  My blog was somehow hijacked, and a script was inserted in every. single. frikken. post.  Thankfully, my server host provided me with a SQL statement to run against my database to clean out the script.  And I wasn’t affected by any of the other hijacking symptoms that were possible.  I’ve backed up and upgraded, so hopefully, this won’t happen again.  I have plans for backing up more often and keeping on top of making sure I upgrade in a timely manner.

In other circles, I completely failed at Tour de Fleece.  I spun for the first three days, then I hurt my back and didn’t get my wheel out for the rest of the tour.  On the upside, I did manage to get the singles for a 3-ply yarn spun, just need to find the time to ply it up and see if my experiment to try getting a specific type of yarn worked.

I’ve been knitting, working on a baby blanket for my niece, who should be joining us in October.  I’m also working on designing a pair of socks.  This isn’t the first time I’ve created my own pattern, but it is the first time I’ve done something more than just stockinette or ribbing.  I’ve actually put some thought into it.  It’s been fun enough that I’m already thinking of a second pattern for the first installment of the Mean Girls Yarn Club, Part Deux that I just received.

In preparation

We’re taking a trip to Japan in a couple of months and my sister is graciously letting us stay with her.  She’s also been great with suggestions of things to do.  The best part is we’ll get to partake of her sushi equity and the sushi chef has even offered to take us with him to his fish market.

So, because she liked the other 2 pairs of socks I’ve knit for her, I thought another pair would serve as a good thank you gift.  The last 2 pairs were just plain vanilla socks.  This time I wanted to do something a little more exciting, and I settled on Cookie A.’s Monkey pattern.  The yarn I’m using is ShubuiKnits Sock in the Rappongi colorway.  I couldn’t pass up the opportunity when I found out they had a colorway called Rappongi as both my sister and the Husband have told me of drinking trips to the Rappongi district.  I remember something about heading home on the trains as business people are heading into work.  The colors are eye-searing pink and orange, and my sister told me she loves it.

I’m just glad that I’ve started well enough in advance that I shouldn’t be rushing to finish them before our trip.

Drumroll, please

The Rivendell socks were finished Friday night.  I washed and blocked them overnight and put them in the mail to the Sock Museum Saturday afternoon.  The USPS says they were delivered yesterday morning.

Basic stats
Yarn: Dream in Color Starry in Grey Tabby, used about 250 yds
Needles: 2 Hiyahiya circs, size US 2.5, 20″ long
Gauge: 7.5 sts/in in stockinette stitch, 9.5 sts/in in Ktbl, P2 ribbing

These were a pretty fast knit, and I probably would have been done with them way sooner if I had worked on them consistantly.  The clustered stitches at the top were a new technique for me, but really interesting to do.  I find the horizontal effect they make a nice addition to the pattern.  However, it should be noted that they do make the cuff of the sock a little less stretchy than the rest of the ribbing.  Some people might find this slight restriction annoying; it doesn’t bother me very much, although if I were to knit these again, I may try to find a way to combat it.

Unfortunately, neither of my photos picks up the silver thread in the yarn very well.  When you can see it, it adds a nice little sparkle, which I thought would be a nice effect for socks named after Rivendell.  The subtle shading of the colorway didn’t detract from the pattern at all.  I did love how the yarn became nice and soft after washing it.

I hope my socks have tons of fun at the Sock Summit in my stead.  And I hope that everyone who’s going get a chance to see my socks.

Baby gifts and socks

Just a quick post to show off a few finished items.  They’ve been finished for awhile, but I had to get the photos off my camera, which took great effort.  First up are the baby gifts I knit for my friend — a simple roll-brimmed hat and the Little Sky socks from New Pathways for Sock Knitters.

They were all knit out of Dream in Color Classy in the Happy Forest colorway.  I really like the way the yarn softened up when I washed it.  A sweater out of Classy would be really nice, and I’m remembering seeing one of the new semi-solids from DiC in a pretty, chocolaty brown.

Next up is the pair of socks I knit my mother for her birthday/Mother’s Day gift.

They are knit out of Jojoland Melody Superwash.  They took 2 skeins, and I thought it was interesting just how different in striping the 2 skeins turned out to be.

Rivendell socks

The Rivendell socks progress steadily.  The pattern looks nice in the semi-solid color.  Unfortunately, in this photo, you can’t really see the sparkliness from the silver thread.  The pattern has been easy to follow so far; the charts reall help with that.  I was thrown slightly for a loop when working the cluster stitches, but it’s an interesting technique.

While the gauge (@ 7.5 sts/in) is a little looser than I would normally knit socks, it does seem to help the knitting go quickly when each round it only 63 stitches long.

The ribbing seems really stretchy, so I don’t think I’ll have to worry too much about fit issues.  Although, I don’t believe there are any plans for anyone to wear the socks.  The Sock Museum website does not actually say what will happen to the socks after Sock Summit 2009.