Tony's Socks

I tried to darn my husbands old store-bought house socks. Disaster! First, repair yarn was too thick and really, the socks had just too many holes. They are after all 20+ years old.

Then I saw the Bulky Sleep Sock pattern from a class at Yarn del Sol. Loved the simplicity. So I bought yarn, Plymouth Yarn Encore Chunky, and started this week on my very first pair of socks.

Tony's socks are grey with brown toes, heels and cuffs.

My first short rows and provisional cast on. Neither was as difficult as I thought it would be. Although...

My provisional cast on using a crocheted chain gave me a little trouble. As you can see in the center of the photo below, I split the gray yarn of the crochet chain when I picked up the new stitch in brown yarn. It meant that when I finished the short row toe section I could not unchain the provisional cast-on easily to pick up the live stitches. I had to cut the yarn at each split stitch. There was more than one split.

I worked both socks concurrently on different needles. One sock with magic loop and the other with 2 circulars holding stitches and a third circular for the knitting.

I only had the right size needles in circulars of varying lengths. It is a little spidery but it's working out.

A whole toe! And if you look carefully some of the picked up stitches from the provisional cast-on chain are twisted (right side of brown toe at the color change). I guess I picked up the wrong leg of the live stitches. I didn't see it until I'd knit several more rows. I was able to place them on the bottom of the foot. None the wiser!

A heel! Identical to how the toe was made.

A whole foot!

Two feet. And I ended up buying a second set of needles with a long cable to do magic loop. The spidery multi-needle mess got to be unwieldy.

Finished. A very thick and warm pair of house socks for my best guy.

 Happy feet!

Hitchhiker with Stripes & Beads!

Yarn del Sol, my local shop, hosted a knit-along for a beaded version of the Hitchhiker scarf. It's an asymmetrical triangular shawl with 42 points on one edge. A very easy knit. The knit-along included instruction on how to add beads at each point.

I purchased a skein variegated light teals (yarn on the right) from In The Deep Hue Sea at YDS.

These were my beads of choice.

Then I started and stopped for many months knitting very slowly.

I eventually got to about the 30th point and realized that I was going to run out of yarn to make all 42 points. I could have stopped anytime but for some crazy reason was determined to make all 42 points! So I dug into my stash and found the lovely variegated dark teal yarn (left in first photo at top) I had leftover from another project. It's Ranco from Arucania Yarns. It was almost the same grist and the color was a great match.

I had created this little chart to count my rows. You'd think I could remember an 8 row repeat in garter stitch with increases on only one side. But I could never figure out which side I was on whenever I stopped. The chart was my memory. I also used it to work out stripes using a very short Fibonacci (D/L=Dark/Light yarn) sequence.

And the finished result. I think it turned out just great.

Deadlines part 4

Week 4
I knit like mad all week, every spare moment. It was taking me 40-45 minutes to complete each row.

I started weighing the ball of yarn every row to maximize usage. Each row used about 4g. I estimated I needed 3 times that for the bind off. Last night I realized I could only work 2 more rows before needing to bind off.

Today, I made it to the bind off!

It's going to take some time for the bind off The pattern called for a regular bind off - knit 2, pull first stitch over the second. I tried it and didn't like the look of it. Instead, I chose the Lacey Bind Off from this website - http://www.stitchdiva.com/tutorials/knitting/stretchy-bind-off-comparison. It's a stretchy bind off that has a really nice finished edge. And worked with some tension on the yarn, the stitches are not too loose.

I'm actually going to finish the shawl in the next couple of days. I will have time to wash and block it before I leave for the retreat next Thursday. So excited!

Tour de Fleece Finale

Day 21, July 22:  Got in just 15 minutes today.

Day 22, July 23:  Does touching the wheel count? I didn't spin but I put my feet on the treadles for a second. I was up super early to host a garage sale for my mother-in-law then took Ian to a school friends birthday pool party. Just ran out of energy.

Day 23, July 24: Spun yarn for 15 minutes. Spent most of the day rearranging/cleaning my son's bedroom to accommodate a new-to-him dresser. The dresser started as avocado green. Ian designed the paint work and we did it together over the last couple of months. Finally finished this week. It is supposed to look like an online computer game called diep.io. It turned out way cooler than I thought it would.

Tour de Fleece Final Report:  I didn't wear a yellow jersey but I feel like a winner anyway. I spun most days and really got in a lot of time the first two weeks. Then mother-in-law happened and spinning slowed way down. But it got me to blog again after a 2 year pause. So I'm happy.

Tour de Fleece part 3

Day 7, July 8th:  Spun for an hour and a half today. Had to paint the first layer of color detail on my son's "new to us" dresser.

Day 8, July 9th:  Got in 2 hours of spinning in the early morning. Finished first 1/3 of roving on bobbin #3 and continued with the 2nd third of roving on same bobbin.

Day 9, July 10th:  Spun for 45 minutes. Was out of town overnight but managed to squeeze in a little bit of spinning.

Day 10, July 11th:  Rest day. Just like the Tour de France. But I did spin anyway for 45 minutes.

Day 11, July 12th:  Spun for 45 mins and then got sick. Have some really weird body ache with no fever or congestion. Just very achy with sensitive skin all over. Weird.

Day 12, July 13th:  Still sick. Spun only 15 minutes.

Day 13:, July 14th:  Felt better today. Spun yarn for 1.5 hours.