Knit One, Purr Too

Turquoise

This week I've pretty much been working on Soleil. After the lace bottom border, the rest is pretty much mindless stockinette, and the fact that it's worked in the round (at least til you divide for the armholes) means the knitting went pretty quickly.

Here's where I was as of Thursday night.

And here's where I am tonight.

I included the first shot because it shows the lace border a little better (and also, if you look closely, the lovely turquoise band that has been permanently dyed to my finger since I started using this yarn!).

I'll admit that there was part of me that was hoping I'd be able to finish this by today or tomorrow because how often do you get to say you knit an entire sweater in one week? But I don't think I"ll get the front done tomorrow afternoon, and since this doesn't really have to be complete until Mother's Day, there's really no need to push it.

Naturally this means that I decided, this morning, to take a break from the never ending rounds of turquoise and cast on another pair of socks. I'm using Trekking XXL in Pebble, and this pattern. I brought yarn and needles to the ladies' tea I attended this afternoon and my knitting friend and I sat side by side at our table and worked on our respective socks during a marvelous presentation on the history of the railroad in California, put on by several docents from the Railroad Museum. They do this tea every year and it is always sold out because it is so much fun, but this is the first time I ever thought to knit at one. Somehow the art of making socks with pretty little lace inserts on the sides seemed very appropriate to a ladies' tea.

Branched Out

Blocking is complete, so my Branching Out scarf is finally finished.

The true color is closer to the maroon in the first picture, but this shot shows the pattern better.

I mentioned this in an earlier entry, but I'll repeat the pertinant info here, so it's all in one place. I used 2 skeins of Berocco Softwist in maroon, and size 9 needles.

Next onto the needles - Soleil, using some lovely varigated turquoise superwash wool instead of cotton. I've used this wool before so I know it will barely shrink and it won't felt, and it will still feel silky smooth against bare skin even during the heat of summer. Amusingly, the superwash was apparently super dyed. Both nights I've worked on this my fingers end up stained with dark blue dye, and there is a rather intriguing diagonal stripe across one finger on my left hand, where I hold the yarn.

A plethora of socks

Finished object update, this time with pictures!

I've been a wee bit sock obsessed these days. I finished off pair #4 this evening.

These are made from Colori Sock It To Me sock yarn from Elann.com - the mixed berries colorway. I used a spiral rib pattern for the leg, top-down pattern with the usual heel flap and short-row heel, and this time did kitchener stitch for the toes because the gathered toe fell apart in the wash. I think I like the look of the kitchener stitch bind-off for the toe best of all three I've tried so far. On the plus side I figure if I keep making socks I'll eventually be able to do the kitchener stitch without having the instructions right in front of me. Heh.

Spiral Rib Pattern:

Cast on stitches in a multpile of four and do k1p1 ribbing for however long you want (for this pair I did two inches). Then k4 p4 around the entire circuit once; on the next time around k2tog k3 p4 then k4p4 around and around and around until it's as long as you want. The decreased stitch allows the rib to spiral without you having to do any counting whatsoever. Then once the heel's done and you're picking up the stitches to start the foot, increase one stitch somewhere on the top flap of the sock, and you're right back to the number of stitches you started with.

Next up we've got a two more pairs of sock.

The striped ones are Regia Multi Effect #5381. The much larger socks you see (cleverly modeled by Richard's much larger feet) are made from Treking XXL in olive - a colorway that didn't look all that exciting in the ball, but turned out to have a gorgeous wealth of colors that came in out in loads of very subtle stripes. I am tempted to get some for myself, if it weren't for the fact that I still have enough yarn for 7 more pairs sitting in my stash that I really ought to work through before I think about buying more. Ha ha.

And finally, a finished object that isn't socks - Branching Out.

It's blocking right now, if that wasn't obvious. I love how the design popped as soon as I soaked it and stretched it out. I used two skeins of Berocco Softwist in a dark maroon. It looks much darker in this picture because it's wet.

Originally I was only making this for lace practice, since this is my first lace project. I'm not really a scarf person, so I was actually thinking about frogging it. But then I remembered I'm supposed to bring a door prize for the women's tea next weekend, and my knitting friend said she could whip up a cute little knitted bag for it, and voila, it had to be finished.

There is a little part of me that wants to keep this one, since I do so love the color, and the yarn is so very smooth and soft. I've got other yarn I could use to whip up a door prize...but do I have time to get something else done by then. Oh, decisions, decision.

Still knitting

I keep meaning to post and then get sidetracked (usually by knitting, go figure). So a quick summary, to hold you all over until I can get pictures uploaded.

First of all, a huge thank you to my secret pal, who sent me a lovely book marker, and my very own copy of At Knit's End!! I have been gleefully reading through it since it arrived yesterday.

In other news:

• I finished my second pair of socks. I need to go dig up the skein wrapper, but I'm pretty sure it is this pattern - Regia sock yarn, 50% off at my LYS.

• I made a pair of socks for my husband and learned some important lessons. Men have big feet. And more importantly, socks for men take twice as much time (and at least twice as many stitches) than socks for people with tiny feet, like me. I ended up not having quite enough yarn, so had to do the last 3 rows of the toe decreases on the second sock in some leftover blue. So one of his brownish socks has a blue tip. It looks a little odd, but he doesn't seem to mind. I figure it was my first pair, and the next one I'll keep better measurements in mind.

• I started my first lace knitting project - Branching Out from Knitty. It's easy stuff, although I really have to focus on the pattern, but I'm not exactly a scarf wearer, so I'm debating whether or not to just frog this thing and use the yarn for something else, or keep on slogging away at it and try to find someone to foist it off on later.

• I've started sock pair #4 (big surprise there) - from my recent sock yarn acquisition from Elann.com (4 colorways from their Sock It to Me Collection Colori yarn, and two from their Paton's solids and prints). And this time, now that I think I've got the hang of basic sock construction, I'm tossing in a spiral rib pattern, just to mix it up a bit. I'd say by the time I make it through this latest batch of sock yarn, I'll have at least one pair with cables too, but we'll see.
  

Feather and fan afghan

I finished the afghan this afternoon, after much frantic weaving in of ends. We will not speak of how much fun the weaving in of ends was not. I tossed it into the washing machine to even out all the stitches and remove some of the cat hair. As you can see, nothing in my house can ever be truly free of cat hair (that's Azzie, who came skittering out of nowhere to inspect the second I laid this out on the floor). Good thing my little sister (who is getting this as a birthday present) has cats of her own, so she won't mind a few extra cat hairs tagging along for the ride.

I made this using a basic 17 stitch, 4 row feather and fan pattern:

Row 1: Knit
Row 2: Purl
Row 3: (K2 tog) 3 times, yo, (k1, yo) 5 times, (K2 tog) 3 times for each 17 stitch set.
Row 4: Knit

Each stripe is 12 rows, or 3 sets of the pattern. I used Lion Brand Homespun in Gothic, Sierra, and Prairie, on size 11 needles, which gave me a nice soft weave. Homespun is a huge pain to work with, but for things like this it is so worth the extra hassle.

It's wrapped and packed into a box, and I'll drop it in the mail Monday morning and hope it arrives by her birthday. I hope she likes it!