Another Pair of Socks

While I put the finishing touches on my Sagittarii pullover, I will distract you with another pair of socks and some big puppy!

These are the Paper Wings socks which are the fourth design from THSS, Season 5.  I knit them in Sweet Georgia Yarns Tough Love Sock in Coastal (which I think is discontinued).  Another great design, quick to knit with lots of easy, relaxing knitting.  Good for puppy knitting.

Speaking of the puppy, here is little Obi dog in all his glory.  I call this his Sears catalog pose, as he looks fabulous while staring off into the distance.  He has gotten interested in my knitting, but is being very polite about it.  When he sees me working on something, he comes over to look, and when I hold it down for him to see he mostly doesn't try to put it in his mouth!  Leave It, Drop It, and No Bite have about a 75% success rate around here, so we're getting there.

Have a great weekend!  Obi will be watching his first football game with me this weekend as the Aggies have their first game Saturday evening!  Whoop!

Slow Progress is Still Progress

I'm working on the sleeves of my Sagittarii pullover.  I've actually finished the first sleeve now and started the second one, but I haven't gotten a photo this morning.  I also redid the neckline and I've got to decide if this one will work, or if I'll undo it one more time and just crochet the edge.  I don't like necklines that sit too close to my actual neck, so I'm trying to find the spot where the neck lies flat, finishes that top edge nicely, and doesn't drive me crazy when I wear it.  I'll get there.  I've spent too much time on the rest of this sweater to not get the neckline just how I like it.

I am trying to get this finished (at least the knitting portion, ends can wait a bit) by Thursday night because ESK is having a Flash Craft Along for another sweater, and I had already planned and bought yarn for one that will fit the rules before they announced, so I might as well get Yarnathon credit.  Anyway, that starts Friday, so I'd really like to get one sweater off the needles before starting a new one.

(I also have an Evening Dew Cardigan on the needles that got set aside when I started the Sagittarii.  Fortunately, there's no sign of any sweater weather around here yet.  We're having a cool front right now and everyone is super excited about highs of 95-97.)

In Obi news, I've got to get a recent photo, but he was 48 pounds last week.  He's lost most if not all of his puppy teeth and we're very thankful that the last of his puppy canines (AKA Needles of Doom) fell out this past weekend.  He is doing pretty well with Mr. Noodle, who is starting to taunt him, but Obi responds by snarfling him as often as possible.  With the extra drool levels due to teething, the cat snarfling is impressive!

Not A Sock

I did a quick, non-sock project!  This is the Red Clover crochet Shawl, made in a single ball of Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball in the Tonspur colorway.  

The pattern is available free on the designer's website, or you can purchase an ad free (and quite a bit easier to read) version through Ravelry.  Once I memorized the pattern and figured out how the pattern worked, it was easy to make. 

The pattern was perfect for the single skein of yarn that I had, although it would be easy to make bigger if you had more yarn.  It's been a little while since I made a crochet anything that wasn't an animal, so this was a fun project and I could definitely see myself making it again.

If You Guessed It Was Another Sock...

...you'd be correct.

Yes, I started the fourth sock for the Handmade Sock Society 5 - Paper Wings.  I'm knitting it in Sweet Georgia Yarns Tough Love Sock in Coastal.  This is such a relaxing design to knit, and it's been ages since I knit an Eye Of Partridge heel flap.  I love them and I'm not sure why I haven't done one in a while.

In puppy news, little Obi dog continues with the teething.  We're very excited though because his gums are swollen underneath his baby canines (AKA the needles of death).  Hopefully the big dog canines will push through soon and we can leave those pointy, sharp puppy teeth behind.  He still has some baby molars, so we're not done when we get the big canines, but we're making progress.  Also, he has chased his tail so much that the tassel (that's what I call the little tuft of hair that swirls around the tip of his tail) is looking a little sad and ratty!

Another Musselburgh Hat, Sort Of

I decided to make another Musselburgh hat, but this time I decided to make it out of two different yarns held together.  It would be a little thicker than my fingering weight Musselburghs, but hey, winter is coming.  I used Hedgehog Fibres Oh So Fine in Sea Glass (which is a fingering weight non-superwash yarn that is super soft), and I paired it with Moondrake Co Yarns Fuwa Fuwa in Frozen (which is a brushed cashmere and wool blend yarn - 70% cashmere!).  The Fuwa Fuwa is similar to a Kid Silk Haze type of yarn, but because cashmere has a shorter staple length than kid mohair, there's a little less fuzz - it's more floof than fuzz.  

I started out knitting the Musselburgh pattern as written, holding the two yarns together, using US 5's (3.75mm).  Once I had gone far enough to have something I could measure I got my gauge and figured out which set of numbers to use for my size, and I was off!  As I was approaching the halfway point, I realized that while the fabric I was getting was both floofy and soft, if I knit the hat doubled as it's supposed to be, this hat will be too warm for Texas.  Let's face it, we do get some cold weather, but if it's cold enough for what this hat could have become, I'm not going to be outside very long.  I decided to finish the hat a little differently - with a hem.

When I got to the halfway point I worked one round in purl for a turning round (still holding the two yarns together).  Then I dropped the Oh So Fine and changed to a set of US 3's (3.25mm). (It's important to drop needle size for a hem so that the hem has a slightly smaller circumference -look at me using the maths- than the main part of the garment and lies flat on the inside.)  Then I knit the hem for about 1-1/2 inches and stitched the live stitches down into the hat to finish it off.

Voila!  Not quite a Mussleburgh, but mostly, sort of!

We now return to our normally scheduled programming of socks.  (The fourth pattern in this year's Handmade Sock Society drops today!)