Socks The Third

As I mentioned yesterday, I finished my socks *grins*

They look massively long in pictures, but in real life they come up to about my mid-calf. Which means I used up far more of the yarn than I have for my previous socks, and they're a height that I prefer, but did involve a lot of weighing the yarn and guessing how much I needed for each part - next time I make longer socks I think I'll go with the toe up method *laughs*

I know I've talked about it before, but the yarn used for the socks was one I dyed myself. My first attempt at dyeing yarn in fact *smiles*

I named this colour "Don't be mean to Pixley", and if anyone gets the reference to an obscure line from a little known TV show, I will be very impressed ;) I love how it knitted up, and one of my favourite parts is the rainbow effect I got on the heel, when the rows were shorter:

This photo also demonstrates that the socks fit, as every picture I tried taking of them on my feet either made my legs look like tree trunks or my feet look deformed *laughs* It really isn't easy taking pictures of your own feet!

Of course I am wearing the socks now for their maiden voyage, and I firmly believe that the first outing of handknit socks must include an opportunity to show them off. Luckily, I think the colours work perfectly with my purple shoes...

How cute?! So now every one in my office can see them, and be forced to admire them *grins*

Details:
Pattern: Basic cuff down vanilla socks
Yarn: Bluefaced.com Silky Sock, a wool/tencel blend, dyed using cheery, grape, blue lemonade and orange Kool Aid
Mods: No pattern to speak of, so no mods required!
Love: 4/5 having worn them for a couple of hours, I realise they could do with a longer cuff, but overall they're fab :)

PS: Don't forget the usual suspects: Tami. Natural Suburbia. Wisdom Begins in Wonder... And Plumslife, who I unfortunately omitted last week - sorry Beth!

What Next?

Well, last night I finished my socks *big grin* So you will see them tomorrow when I happily show them off. 3 pairs of handknitted socks for me, putting me on track to have an entirely handknit sock drawer by, oh about 2020!

Of course, this means I only now have 2 projects for myself on the go (plus a few gift knitting projects) and that just won't do... But this means choosing what to cast on next, and that requires far more brain power than you might expect *laughs* I have a lovely stash of yarn, and a groaning Ravelry queue, but what I can't decide is the type of project I want to knit next.

• I'm excited to use my pure alpaca yarn, which is destined to become some kind of tank top/vest. But my 2 current projects are garments and perhaps I shouldn't start another one until those are done
• I have yarn and the pattern to knit the gorgeous Owls sweater, but again, it's a garment so I'm hesitating
• It's getting cold out now, so maybe fingerless mitts to keep my hands warm?
• Or legwarmers, I want legwarmers and they shouldn't take too long, and will free up some room in the stash faster than the mitts
• Also, I have lots of sock yarn and I love socks and I want many more handknit socks...
• I have yarn to make a scarf for my mum, which she would probably like before it gets completely freezing!
• Maybe casting anything on is a bad plan and I should concentrate on the gift knitting - which would be good as Christmas isn't far off, but bad because then I'd have nothing I can blog about

So, dilemma *laughs*

This means that I am not casting on anything straight away. Which does actually result in me appearing to have superhuman willpower against the knitter's desire to cast on all the things. Plus, I can work on my current projects while I decide, instead of getting wrapped up in the excitement of new project on the needles, hopefully resulting in some extra progress. 

But really, I just want to be able to knit all the time and cast on everything I could ever want, and knit so fast that nothing takes longer than a week *laughs*

Work In Progress Wednesday Number 28

I actually have quite a lot of progress to report this week *grins* Plus, a load of additional progress on my current un-bloggable projects... Lots of knitting activity ;)

My sock is now at the toe decreases, which means it is so close to being done at last. Luckily this is the second sock, so I shall soon be able to wear them and bask in the joy of a third set of handknit socks.

Fuzzy ballet sweater's sleeves are coming along. They're about halfway done if I make them the same length as the pattern (which I think I will, I was planning to make them longer, but I don't think they will look quite right).

I have actually made some progress on Cria too. I motored through about 15 rows yesterday, which is a huge improvement compared to my usual 3-rows-then-get-fed-up approach *laughs* And now I'm about 10 rows away from starting the pocket openings, so hopefully the motivation of getting to a less boring part of the pattern will help!

But most impressively, I have not cast anything else on *is amazed* I keep thinking about it, of course, but I have resisted the urge. I really do want to get some of these projects finished before I start something new, even though I also really, really want to start something new and shiny ;)

Hopefully the sock will be finished very soon, and that takes me down to only 2 projects on the needles (well, ignoring Christmas present knitting). I'm pretty sure at that point I won't be able to resist casting on something else, it would be unnatural *laughs*

As ever, you know where to go for more works in progress and yarn along posts ;)

Innocent

You may remember me posting about making hats for Innocent Smoothies, as part of their Big Knit campaign - where they add wooly hats to the smoothies and donate money from each one sold to Age UK, to help keep elderly people warm in winter...

Well, I was quite excited to spot some behatted smoothies "in the wild" as it were, while shopping recently:

Obviously, I didn't spot any of the ones that I made (not that I would ever expect to!) but I was really pleased to see them out there. It was just a shame they didn't have any of the flavour I like, or I'd have bought one *laughs*

After I posted my hats off, a few weeks later I got a lovely card from Innocent to say thank you - which was a really lovely touch. I didn't make as many as I would have liked (I forgot when the deadline was!) but I hope they do it again next year so I can make lots more *smiles*

As a reminder, here are a few of the ones I made :)

Expectations

Expectations... I had them. My knitting progress (and enjoyment of said progress) has vastly exceeded my expectations.

When I first started knitting, my inexperience meant that I had no frame of reference for anything, so my expectations were based on the limited knowledge I had. For instance, the first thing I made was a scarf, in aran weight, that required 1 ball of yarn, casting on 20 stitches. This formed the sum total of my knitting knowledge.

When I decided to make a scarf for my brother, I didn't really know much about yarn weights, or needle sizes or anything. I bought a ball of chunky yarn, and the recommended needle size, and cast on 20 stitches. I expected to only need 1 ball, after all, that's all I needed for my last scarf *smiles*

After finishing that ball, the scarf was really very short. This is obvious now, but was pretty surprising at the time *laughs* Another ball bought, and used, followed by another one, and I finally had a scarf the right length.

It was a lot wider than I expected, which I now understand is a result of casting on the same number of stitches in chunky weight as I did in aran... Didn't know that at the time though ;) I was lucky that the 3 balls I'd bought at different times matched as well as they did - I didn't really know anything about dyelots then either...

I was also at the time making an eyelash yarn scarf for my mum, on tiny needles. I expected them to take about the same length of time, being that they were both scarves *rolls eyes*

So, with more knowledge has come more realistic expectations. Once I got into knitting and decided I really wanted to keep at it, I started reading blogs, forums and tutorials online, gathering as much information as I could.

The other reason for choosing "expectations" for my "E" post is boyfriend. He had pretty rigid expectations of what knitting meant (in fact, he still struggles to comprehend that knitting with cotton on tiny needles, like for my green top, actually qualifies as "knitting")

His expectation was that knitting equals chunky wool with old ladies churning out blankets and fisherman's jumpers. Like this:

When I first suggested knitting him socks (as he's not really a knitwear person, and I wanted to make him something) the look of horror on his face was priceless *laughs* He was adamant that it would never happen. No socks.

It wasn't until I finished my first socks that he started to mellow and confessed what he thought I actually meant... He expected knitted socks to be the sock equivalent of the jumper above - big, thick and woolly. As he never has need for big, thick and woolly socks, he didn't want to have me make them and then have to pretend to like them. Once he saw how awesome my socks were, and discovered what the type of fabric created is actually like, he suddenly wanted his own pair.

I expected him to want plain black socks (although I was going to push him towards charcoal grey), but he very sensibly decided that if I was to go to the trouble of knitting giant man socks, they should at least be a bit different than all the plain black socks he already has.

So he's having blue, stripey ones *grins*

When I bought this, none of us (me, mum, boyfriend) knew what to expect once it was knitted, so I cast on for a small section so we could see. That's the fun of sock yarn though, I think, not knowing quite what to expect from it ;)

Tomorrow I plan to post 4 day's worth of the 30 day photo challenge... Stay tuned.

Exciting Friday :)

So, today I can finally show off my finished Hitchhiker scarf *grins*

But I won't keep you in suspense, I know you're keen to know who won my knitting-birthday giveaway ;)

So, thanks to the trusty random number generator, congratulations to the following people (I'll get in touch directly to get your addresses!):

Winner of the Shunklies yarn is: Kathleen (A Surprise Every Time)
Winner of the mini skeins is: Leah (Good Enough Knits)
Winner of the crochet book is: Tink (Master of a Thousand Things)
Winner of the cable book is: Sarah (Crafts from the Cwtch)

Thank you to everyone who entered - I was blown away by all the comments and honestly wish I had more prizes to give out!

Anyway, after the excitement of that, on to my FO...

It's really quite hard to take a picture of a scarf with nowhere to drape it and no good light! 

Yep, my Hitchhiker is finished. Well, it was finished last week but I was too busy being excited about my giveaway to post it *laughs*

I love this scarf. I love the pattern, the yarn is heavenly, it is just so warm and squishy. I anticipate it getting a lot of wear as the weather gets colder and colder.

Details:
Yarn: Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend, in Capricorn
Pattern: Hitchhiker
Mods: used DK weight yarn rather than sock weight and just carried on until I ran out!
Rating 5/5 - love the squishiness of the garter stitch, as well as the way it breaks up the pooling of variegated yarn

And, just to prove that I do (sometimes) smile in photographs, here I am wearing it:

I like to have the main part wrapped around my neck, with part hanging down to show off the sawtooth edge (which boyfriend claims looks like a dragon tail *laughs*)

PS: Don't forget the usual suspects: Tami. Natural Suburbia. Wisdom Begins in Wonder ;)

I'm Not Here...

Well, not here on my blog anyway.

I have written a guest post for Craft Blog UK, so technically, today I am here *grins*

If you do go and check it out (and you should, it's an excellent post if I do say so myself), please come back and let me know what you think ;)