RPM Socks

Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Potluck
Needles: 2.5mm

I hadn't knit with CTH before, and I absolutely loved it. All the way up there with Lorna's Laces and Tofutsies in my favourites list. It's soft, squishy and very, very comfortable.

I was worried about the pooling, but I don't think it interrupts the pattern at all and for once I even don't mind that it's not evenly pooling on both socks. However, at first I thought it might and so I tried out a new heel, so as to not interrupt the spiraling.



Yarn Harlot recently posted about her afterthought heel and I decided to adapt the idea a bit.

First, (since I was knitting toe-up) instead of my usual short row heel, I simply started the leg pattern where I later wanted the heel to go.



Here you can see what it looks like afterwards, with the heel inserted:



First I picked up half the amount of stitches (36 here) right on the last row of the sole (with this pattern it's really easy to see which stitches need to be picked up, because it's basically framed by purl stitches).



Then I cut the middle stitch in the row below and started picking them out and picking up the stitches in the row below that.



That's what it looks like whith all stitches picked up.



So far I was following what the Yarn Harlot did, but I didn't really like the kind of heel she did (hell, I don't even like that as a toe) and I was also a little worried about the decrease seam being uncomfortable under the foot, so I did a short row heel instead. A bit more work, since the stitches need to be grafted at the end, but I think well worth the effort.

I started with the short rows from the leg down, since I thought the grafting would be easier on the stockinette sole.

This is at the half way point:



The last two rows of the heel, I was careful to not only pick up the wraps, but also two extra stitches from the side to prevent holes and then knit all of those together. Quite easy to do (despite the k5tog and p5tog) and so far it's always worked.

This is before the grafting:



And this after:



There is a small line where you can see it's grafted, but a) it's on the sole, and b) it'll probably even out with washing.

Et voilà: gorgeous socks!

Back from the Holidays

Happy New Year to everybody!!

So, just a quick post with the results of my resolution and the new one for January and then I'll post a couple of more detailed posts about the projects in the next days. Lots of goodies! :)

Holidays:
(1) RMP Socks in Cherry Tree Hill Potluck
done!


(2) Slippery Socks in Jitterbug Jewel
started, but somehow lost steam after the first heel


(3) Bellatrix in Koigu KPPPM
nope

(4) Mini Clapotis in Lang Yarn Silk Dream
done!


(5) Clapotis Cap in same yarn
done!


(6) Coronet in Lang Yarns Mille Colori
just picked up the stitches for the body of the hat, then realised that I brought the wrong needles

January Goals:
(1) finish Coronet
(2) finish Danica
(3) 2 squares for the Log Cabin Blanket
(4) knit Column of Leaves Hat
(5) knit Bellatrix
(6) start Ella
(7) block Luna Moth Shawl

December Resolutions and Knitting Holidays

So, the knitting this month has been going really well. I'm already done with my December resolutions! :)

My Dad's vest is finally, finally done!

After yet another problem with the right armhole, it got finally done. I had picked up only slightly too many stitches and thought I could correct it with a couple of unibstrusive decreases.

Well, as you can see, the decreases weren't all that unobstrusive, so I frogged yet again.

But now look!



All bands are finally done and as soon as I can get my Dad to model, you'll even see a picture of the whole thing. In case you haven't noticed yet, I am so glad I got this done. I've been working on it on and off since March and simply couldn't stand it anymore. So, 7.5 50g skeins of fingering weight yarn later, I have come to the resolution that from now on I'll mostly stick to smaller projects. :D (Mostly being the operative word here, since I seem to have developed a fancy for complicated lace shawls and am phantasizing about several.)

Then the Scrolls socks are also done. I'm seriously in love with this yarn and have almost a third of the skein left over, so my worries regarding the thinness of the yarn were no problem after all.


And finally Odessa.

I'm in love with the pattern. It's well written, intuitive and looks very pretty. Unfortunately the resulting hat doesn't suit me at all. Somehow I need thicker hats to balance my face and my hair, so at the moment I'm trying to find somebody who'll wear it. My Mum is out since hats suit here even less than me and I'm not sure if my best friend will like the colour. But we'll see...

I just realized this post is getting ridiculously wrong. Sorry about that, but I won't be able to post again until January because of the whole limited Internet situation, so I just have to squeeze everything into one post.

For the two weeks I'm at my parents I have a lot of knitting planned. Let's just call it my holiday resolutions and the go back to the regularly scheduled monthly resolutions in January. :)

(1) RPM socks in Cherry Tree Hill Potluck

I've been meaning to knit this pattern for ages, so it's finally on my list.

(2) Slippery Socks in Jitterbug Jewel


(3) Bellatrix in Koigu KPPPM


(4) Mini-Clapotis in Lang Yarns Silk Dream

I already started this and really love the combination of pattern and yarn. And since I'll probably have a skein of yarn left over, I'm also planning to knit a
(5) Clapotis Cap in Lang Yarns Silk Dream

(6) Coronet in Lang Yarns Mille Colori

I'm kniting a scarf from this yarn and will have about two skeins left over. So I started Coronet. Since the gauge is different I increased the cable to a twelve-stitch cable, instead of 9 stitches, and addes two rows in between the cables. Very pleased with the result so far, but now I have to pick up the stitches for the main part and after the horror that was my Dad's vest regarding picking up stitches, I'm really not looking forward to that.

Looking up at that list, I'm thinking I might be slightly over ambitious... on the other hand, I have nothing to do but knit and read for the next two weeks... sounds like heaven. :D

Sorry, no links this post. I'm at my parents with only dial up and am writing this offline. As always, however, you can find all of the information on my Ravelry projects page and queue.

And now have a good holiday season and happy new year!

December Resolutions

So, not so much on the current projects list today, but a list of what I have/want to do this month.

First and foremost:
(1) Dad's Vest

This is what it currently looks like. The neck band, as well as the left armhole are just too big. I tried picking up according to my gauge, but somehow that didn't work. It was supposed to have been finished for my Dad's birthday at the end of October. I haven't touched it since the day before his birthday when it became clear that I wouldn't be able to finish.

And I'm determined to finish it before Christmas. Because my parents are not getting anything knitted for Christmas this year, this might actually work.

I need to pick out the cast offs of the bands I already knitted, rip them, pick up the *right* amount of stitches (how much that is I haven't actually figured out yet) and knit the armholes and neck again.

(2) Odessa
The SSEC Operation Reindeer Recognition this month calls for something knit in the colours of the Sami flag. I bought some beautiful Rowan Cashsoft DK in red, along with some red beads that I've been meaning to knit into Odessa, so this is finally a good chance to get started on that (even if it means starting yet another project).


(3) Scrolls Socks
I fell in love with this pattern the first time I saw it and already started the socks.

They are knit in SWTC's Tofutsies, colourway Get Your Feet Wet. Even though the yarn is multi-coloured the pattern is really distinct and the colour changes only add character, not obscure the pattern. So I really think it won't be a problem to finish these. :)

And I absolutely love the yarn. I was a bit weary at first, because it seemed very, very thin, but I'm getting an amazing mileage out of this and the sock is simply so soft and thin and scrumptious that I want to touch it the whole day. Only small problem is that it smells a bit weird, but I hope a good wash after knitting will change that.

Oh, and yarn count from last month was 23.11 miles and as of yesterday I'm down to 22.76 miles! Since I only count the yarn as knitted up when the whole project is finished, if when I finish Dad's Vest that will absolutely blow my numbers through the roof. Should be more of an incentive... :)

November Clean Up

So, how did I do for my November resolutions?

(1) Dad's Vest
Haven't touched it. No,wait. That's not true. I have touched it. But only to lift it to grab other stuff below it in the knitting bag.
(2) Child's First Sock
Success!

I really like the pattern since it can hold my interest and at the same time is easy enough that I don't need to look at the chart. And I really love the Regia Bamboo.
(3) Pomatomous
Another success!

These almost kicked my arse. I started them almost 2 years ago and ran into some problems with the pattern 1.5 repeats from the toes of the second sock. So they sat in my knitting bag... and sat there... and sat there. And I finally finished them in only two days and that despite the fact that the toes were giving me all kinds of trouble because I kept running out of yarn.

As you can see, the toes are stripey and the top is even fully in a different colour. The contrast is a bit too great for my taste, but I am so not ripping these out again.
(4) Estonian Socks
Small success.
I started these, but don't really like the way the cuff is knit.

This is the cuff according to pattern. The garter at the tops keeps folding over, because the stranded knitting is so much thicker, not to mention that the non-stranded rows seem so much wider than the stranded ones.
So, I started the second one differently:

Instea dof garter I did a folded cuff, dark grey in the back, then started with the stripes accoring to the pattern, but did it completely in stockinette. I also went down one needle size (to 2.5mm) for the non-stranded rows and will do the stranded rows in 3mm. Like it better, but somehow the stranded knitting isn't speaking to me at the moment... too many tangles.

It's very strange. At the moment I have lots of time for knitting, but I only feel like knitting simple stuff. As soon as I run into the slightest problem, but complicated part, I stop and have to resist the urge to start something new. But more about my current startitis and my December resolutions tomorrow.

Toting Bags

It figures that as soon as I join the SSEC I start knitting basically anything but socks. :)

I've been meaning to try felting fulling for a while and finally found a project that I think I'll actually get use out of. It's the Teeny-Tiny Felted Tote, although mine won't be quite as tiny, because I do want to get some use out of it.



I'm a mix between process and project knitter, so while I do want to try out new techniques, the result also has to be practical for me. And with 3 skeins of SWT Karaoke, compared to one skein of Noro Kureyon, I figure this will be just big enough to work as a small project bag for my desk, so I won't have my knitting lying around all the time. The colour is Wild Cherry and it's a very subtely varigated yarn.

It's knit on 5mm needles and I'm already well into the third skein, so I'm pretty happy with how quickly it's going. It's perfect phone conversation or reading knitting, so I usually get a few rounds done every day.

I also have an incredible itch to start new projects. I got Knitting New Scarves by Lynne Barr a few days ago and am simply itching to try one of those out. I actually have five of them in my Ravelry queue, something that I'm falling more in love with by the day, btw. It finally gives me the feeling that I can actually work through my stash, not only by telling me how much yarn I have (23.1 miles as of November 13th), but also finally is a way for me to see (and therefore use) all the wonderful yarn I have in my stash.

November Resolutions

Figuring I need to start blogging less sporadically, as well as keeping ahead in my list of WIPs and the delightful evil that is Ravelry's queue, I thought starting the month off (well, almost) with a few resolutions for this month's knitting might be a good idea.

(1) Dad's Vest

Much further done than in this pic, but still both armhole and the neck band to go. Picking up hundreds of stitches at a time is not my idea of fun, especially not in a darkish grey yarn. Still, nothing too tedious for my dad, so this has got to get finished.

(2) Child's First Sock
Blogged about them yesterday. Less than an hour of work left and I just can't seem to sit down and do them. This has gotta change.

(3) Pomatomous

I started these in early 2006 and am still not done. I love the pattern, love the yarn, but I'm not quite sure anymore where I left off in the pattern. And I'm not that happy with the stripey toe that's necessary because I ran out of yarn. Still, I finally wanna finish them.

(4) Estonian Socks
I've been coveting these since I saw them on Mustaavillaa's blog and even though I plan to make them with one two colours of yarn, I want to use Lorna's Laces Flames for the stranded part and some simple dark grey sock yarn for the rest of the sock. My idea is to knit the cuff and stranded part first, cut the yarn and start from the toe up and graft the cuff and sock together (in case you can't tell, I don't mind grafting :D) so I won't have to worry about running out of yarn and seeing right away if I have enough LL left over for this (about half a skein).

Still Alive...

... and still knitting.

Summer was just hectic and full of stuff like moving (twice!), working and pretending my Dad's Vest didn't exist. It's now 3 days past his birthday and the f***** still isn't done. I was on the home stretch, did the neck band, did one armhole band... and realised that there is no way in hell either of those fits. Way too large even though I measured the length with a piece of yarn and picked up stitches exactly according to my swatch. I still gave it to my dad, just took it back with me so I can finally get it done (hopefully before Christmas -- also, my parents are so not getting anything knitted for Christmus -- nu uh, no way). Also, no photo, because really depressing.

In better news, I'm finally on Ravelry (Honey) and I'm absolutely orgasmic about all the organising options. Still have a way to go with my stash and projects, but I'm getting there. :D

I have also joined the SSEC and hope to finally get control of my sock stash. Because this was one thing I realised while putting up yarns on Ravelry - I have a hell of a lot of single skeins of sock yarn.

So I'm currently working on two pairs, one is almost done, the other about half-way. First the Child's First Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks in Regia Bamboo.



I'm absolutely in love with the pattern. It's incredibly easy and intuitive and once I did a few rounds it was easy to see which stitch had to come next without consulting the pattern. Of course, now I've been stuck just before the second cuff for weeks, but I'm still hopeful to get this done before Christmas.

Then there is my TV/DVD/car knitting in the form of simply stockinette socks in Regia Color.



My standard 2.5mm needles, but a bit of a deviation for me. I am actually using 2 circs. I usually hate them, but I got the new Addi Lace from Get Knitted and am just so happy with them. The join is incredibly smooth compared to the Inox circs I'm using as my second pair and the tip is verrrry nice. :) Already got some more in 3mm and 3.25mmm.

And then I also found some yarn, whose colours simply took my breath away: Lang Yarns Mille Colori. This is a mix of pink, orange and purple and I'm looking forward to every colour change.

What I'm knitting with it?



Finally something to fill my craving for entrelac: Danica. Only in one colour and with a very different yarn. I'm pretty pleased with how it's turning out so far.



And I think I bought enough yarn to knit a hat in entrelac as well. So no matter how bad the weather gets here, I'll always have something bright to look forward to wearing.

Birthday Girl

So, my lovely Mum turned 60 on Wednesday and in celebration of that day, I had been working on a load of knitted stuff. Some of it she knew about, some of it she even knew it was for her and one was an absolute surprise.

And I did indeed get everything finished, even the scarf of doom and successfully beat the Second Sock Syndrome - twice. Not to mention I resisted the pull of my log cabin afghan.



The first one to be finished, well in advance, were the Opal Sideways socks. I have mentioned that the pattern is an absolute joke before and I didn't use it as more than a rough guideline. While I had already cast on for the second time, this time with the modifications to fit my Mum's feet, I found Nona's Sidewinders pattern and have been itching since then to try this pattern. But I have to admit, once I figured out how to make the socks fit my Mum's feet, I did not feel like messing with the gauge and so stuck to my modifications. I'll be on the lookout for a yarn with the required gauge though and try it then. Knitting the socks sideways was fun and challenging and it gives a completely different look to yarn that I'm usually not too fond of (I'm more for rather random, short colour stripes, usually only a few stitches long).

And my Mum loved those. In fact, she's that in love with the yarn that she's thinking about knitting a cardigan for herself in that. And considering she's usually very thrifty in her yarn buys and this is Opal at 8,95€/100g skein, that's saying a lot. I forgot the exact name of the yarn, but it's from Opal's Hundertwasser collection, something with Ultramarin III in the title of the picture, I believe, and it's knitted with 2.5mm needles.



Next to be finished were the Elfine socks (PDF). I've been in love with this pattern since I saw it for the first time, but had to find out that it wasn't meant for me and frogged the half sock I had in Koigu.



The structure the pattern creates is simply fantastic and I think, unusual for lace, that they look as good off the foot as they look when being worn. My Mum loves lace knitting, but is firm in her belief that she can't do it (no matter how often I tell her that she knows all the stitches and I'll explain it to her - for her knitting is about speed and relaxation, so ribbing is as adventurous as she gets), so she was very exited about getting these socks and being able to finally wear them when the weather gets cooler.



The only things I changed were the toe and cuff. My Mum didn't know these were supposed to be for her even though she saw me knitting on them plenty of times (and I still can't believe she bought it when I told her socks in this colour were for me) and so I even followed the exact instructions for the foot and lef length, since my Mum's feet are pretty much the average for women. Makes it easy to knit for her without her ever trying them on.

The change to the toe consisted of using a short row tow with a crochet chain cast on, my standard for toe up socks, since the recommended Figure Eight cast on just drives me absolutely batty. And instead of four rows of garter stitch as a cuff, I did a picot edge, and bound off very loosely. The socks were still a bit tight, but the cause of that was the crochet I used to keep the cuff folded over, so after my Mum received them, I just undid the crocheting and instead sewed the top of the cuff to the inside. It's much stretchier and looks just a nice.



Finally, the much bemoaned and sworn at Lead of Follow lace scarf. I love how it turned out, but boy was the way a long one. It's knitted in Rowan Scottish Tweed 4-Ply in seagreen and I used 5 skeins to complete 19 pattern repeats plus the border. I could still have squeezed out another repeat, but my Mum is a small person and so I didn't want the scarf to be too long (it's just perfect in fact), not to mention that I couldn't face knitting another repeat after I was already so happy about finally reaching the end.



The scarf did indeed dry in one day, so I didn't have to sleep on the floor or the living room couch, and for blocking I tried a new (to me) method of putting nylon string through the edge stitches and then putting the blocking pins inside the quadrangle created by the string. I usually always have problems (especially in lace) with pointy bits in the supposedly straight edges, but with the string it worked perfectly. I put the pins in just like I normally would and then pulled on the string on one corner of the scarf and so created enough tension that the string pulled all the edges straight. Very simple solution and blocking lace now holds much less of a dread for me.

Again, my Mum loved that I knit lace for her, when she doesn't want to do it herself and she also loved that she can wear this scarf for warmth, wound around her neck, or just as an accessoire, loosely draped over her shoulders.



Finally, all the pieces came together and only had to undergo one more little test. Idiot me had forgotten to buy wrapping paper, so I improvised a little. A small box some yarn from Wolhalla had been in, a bit of printer paper and a slightly modified picture from the Windows example images... et voilà...



... the present for the best mother in the world.

The Irrationality of Startitis

It's not like I don't have enough to do with my Dad's vest (going okay, even though I had to rip back the whole front – 40,555 stitches gone *weeps*, but still manageable at 833 stitches per day to go), my Mum's Lead or Follow scarf (getting more exhausting by the stitch and I have 3,685 of those to go in the next week and a half and then still the blocking, where I can just hope that it's done in a day, because otherwise I'll be sleeping on the floor... the wooden floor), or my Mum's Elfine socks (977 stitches per day, again manageable, but now that the first one is finished, kinda boring. I know that pattern by heart now, though, so it makes good TV knitting).

But no. I have to start something completely unrelated. Not enough that I had a little incident with the Koigu and the new entrelac pattern during the holidays, or that when I first got here, I was so enamoured with the rests of all my projects that I started a left-overs afghan, noooo. Now I had to start yet another afghan.

The yarn is Schachenmayr's Extra, 100% wool, 125m/50g in the colours white (3524), burgundy (3535) and jaspé wine (3533) so far. I ordered it when it was on sale at an online shop for one (read that again, ONE) Euro a skein, when it normally retails for 3 or 3.30€ and got thirty skeins, five in white, fifteen in burgundy and ten in the jaspé wine. Very pretty, they work well together, but then I started thinking and planning and walking slowly but steadily into my downfall.

The first clue was that I started looking at other colours that would go well with the ones I already had. I finally decided on a lavender (krokus, 3651) and grey tone (email meliert, 3550). Now, of course, I needed to know how much to order of each of these. So I started knitting.

7,200 stitches later, I knew that each block would take about 57g of yarn and I would be just fine if I had 10 skeins of each main colour (burgundy, wine, lavender and grey) and the five skeins of white for the centre. The other five skeins of wine are now reserved for the crocheting (probably crocheting, I'm not sure about that yet) together of the blocks and the border for the whole afghan. So I ordered the lavender when I found it pretty cheap on ebay (1.55€ a skein, still a good price), but haven't had any luck with the grey yet. But I have time.

Then I started playing around with the possibilities these amounts of yarn give me in terms of pattern combinations. I already know that I want the blocks to be log cabin squares, but with five colours there are still incredible amounts of possibilities, but I think I've found a few that will combine nicely and work out as a whole.





And those I then combined to get this overall pattern. Size should be around 1.94m x 1.40m (~ 6'6'' x 4'8'') and it 'only' has a staggering 252,000 stitches.



Of course this isn't the first try at those diagrams. I already tried a practise square, but I don't like the same colour meeting in adjacent rows, so I changed that. Which also means that I have to rip back the square. I'm consoling myself with the fact that some parts of it weren't perfect anyway and that it was more like a very big swatch.



Things I'm going to change are:

1.the cast on was a long tail cast on, but it bunches unattractively with the picked up stitches and separates too much from the rest of the white square, so now I use a crochet provisional cast on instead, then pick up the stitches and bind them off with the same bind off I use on the other ends (k2togs all the way)

2.the line between the white centre and first block of red is blurred unattractively on the left side where one of the white stitches goes up into the red area. The pattern I used said to simply continue knitting the white stitches, without binding off, so I did that. Not so pretty. So I'll definitely bind off there as well and pick up the stitches in red again.

3.One of the picked up stitches goes to far into the white block. I still was training how to pick up stitches along a garter stitch edge.

4.Unattractive picking up of the bind off edge. I tried picking up only one of the strands of the bound off stitches, but found that I like it much better the way I did it with the next block: picking up the whole stitch. Although that creates a slight ridge on the back, it looks much neater in the front and doesn't interrupt the pattern the way the other pick up does.

5.And finally, of course, the colour combinations, which will hopefully make this look more like a log square, rather than some random blurbs of colour. It will also make the weaving in much less of a core, because it'll reduce the number of ends to weave in from 18 to eight. Still angst inducing considering I'm planing on knitting 26 small squares, but better.

And now, off to some birthday knitting.

When It Doesn't Quack Like a Duck...

... it can still be a sock.





Even though this doesn't look like it, that sock actually fits a human foot. Look, it even has all the necessary parts of a sock.

The Toe

The Heel

The Cuff

The pattern is very loosely based on the Opal Sideways pattern. Very, very loosely. The pattern from Opal is absolute crap, so I tidied it up, changed the numbers to fit my Mum's feet and just twisted it around until my Mum liked the result. She only wears socks in the evenings or during the night, so she wants comfy, slightly big socks and these are just perfect for that.


The heel is made with slip stitches, just like a normal heel flap for cuff down socks. And the cuff has one garter stitch row every 4 rows, so it'll hopefully stay up well. All in all, I knit 111 rows, then grafted them together and picked up 60 stitches to start the toe decreases.

And I'm already well into the second one, actually much further along than in this photo.




But look at my new stitch markers! From Aija at Zer0. Very pretty and make knitting even more fun. :)