Linearity Shawl

I've been working on the Linearity Shawl this spring.  It was a Mystery Knit Along so I haven't been talking about it or showing pictures, but the final clue was released a couple weeks ago.  As the name indicates, this was all about lines: vertical, horizontal, textural, and colorful.  

I knit it in Malabrigo Ultimate Sock in Sabiduria, Whole Grain, and Natural.  Since there were no complex lace or stitches, it was a great TV watching project.  The finished wrap straddles the large scarf/stole sizing (I didn't actually measure it, and I just steam blocked it), which will be easy to wear either way.  I also think it could easily be a unisex accessory!

A New Pair of Socks

After finishing a pair of socks, I almost always cast on for a new pair of socks!  This is the start of Flourish, the first design for The Handmade Sock Society 6! I'm knitting them in Malabrigo Ultimate Sock in Arapey, which reminds me of a Mourning Dove, or a Lump Bird, as we call them.  When Caleb was little he noticed that the Mourning Doves would just sit in front of the bird feeder all afternoon.  Not really eating, just sitting and making it difficult for the other birds to get to the food.  He was watching them and said, "Mommy, those birdies are lumps!"  So they've been Lump Birds at our house ever since!

The socks are fun to knit, with the lace panel down the front and stockinette stitch around the back of the leg.  The lace stitch pattern is easy to memorize, so you get a lot of fancy for very little work on these.  I'm actually not going very fast on these because I've been working on the Linearity MKAL and I'm trying to get that shawl finished.  I'll show pictures next week, since the last clue was launched early this week!

Have a great weekend!

Finished Socks

I finished my Old Sweatshirt Socks!  I actually finished them over a week ago, but last week Caleb graduated from Texas A&M!  We are so proud of him!

These socks are the second time I've knit this pattern. I love the slouchy legs and fitted foot of the finished socks, but the knitting is fun too.  It's a simple enough stitch pattern that a busy yarn can shine and just a good, basic ribbed sock.  The pattern does come in different sizes so it can be used for different sized feet without having to do a bunch of maths.  The only downside is that it eats yarn.  Lots of yarn!  I skipped one of the leg repeats and still ended up needing a couple of yards of another yarn to finish the second toe.

I will probably knit these again at some point, but maybe I should just plan on an accent color for heels and toes!

New Socks

A couple of years ago I did The Handmade Sock Society from Helen Stewart.  Running from May to October there was a new sock pattern released at the first of each month.  I'm going to do it again this year and the first sock pattern will be available Thursday, May 1!  In the meantime though, I had no socks on the needles so I started a pair that I'm hoping will work up quickly.  

These are the Old Sweatshirt Socks and I've knit them before and really like the fit of the finished sock.  I'm knitting them in Becoming Art Cielo Fingering in the Love Bird Colorway.  These socks have a normal fitting cuff which increases into a slouchy, relaxed leg, and then decreases back to a snug fit at the ankle and a normal fitting foot.  This makes them wearable in shoes, but they're also perfect for lazing around the house or sleeping in as well (just like an Old Sweatshirt).  The pattern calls for four repeats of the stitch pattern in the leg, but like I did in my first pair, I'm only working three.  This sock pattern uses a lot of yarn (slouchy comes at a price) and apparently some people were running out of yarn.  I had seen a few projects that worked only three repeats, and there were no notes about running out of yarn.

I'm actually a little farther along than this picture - I finished the first sock yesterday and have cast on for the second sock now, but it's too overcast and dark to get a good photo.   I don't know that I'll finish the second sock by Thursday morning, but I should be done by this weekend and then I'll be ready to start the new sock designs!

A Current Project!

Now that we're all caught up with previously finished projects, I'm ready to show you current projects in progress!  

This is the Sipila pullover and it's actually my second attempt to make this design.  I tried to knit this several years ago, but I wasn't happy with it, so I frogged what I had, and decided to try again later.  The pattern is written to be knit in fingering weight singles yarn (which I generally love by the way), and my first attempt was using Tosh Merino Light from Madelinetosh (a fingering weight singles yarn, in case you're not familiar with it).  I was getting gauge, but as I was completing the colorwork yoke, I just really wasn't happy with the way it looked.  The stitches felt too big for the yarn, they seemed to be slipping around a lot (which sounds weird, but I don't know how else to explain it), and I just didn't like the overall look of the fabric.  I put the project in time out so I could think about it and when I came back I actually steam blocked it just to see what, if anything, that changed, and then I made some decisions.  Despite getting gauge, it just wasn't feeling right to me.  I decided that either I would need to start over and use smaller needles (and refigure the sizing for my new, tighter gauge), or I would need to start over and use sportweight yarn at the original pattern gauge.  Either way, I was going to have to frog and restart the whole thing.  So I frogged it, and set it aside for a few years.  

In the meantime, my brain kept thinking about it, and I definitely still wanted to knit it.  I went through my notes from the previous attempt and decided I'd use sportweight yarn (and avoid the maths).  This time around I'm using Malabrigo Arroyo in Hollyhock and White.  I'm much happier with the look of the knitted fabric, and as you can see, I've knit the colorwork yoke, separated the sleeve stitches from the body stitches and I'm currently knitting the length of the body.  It's to the autopilot phase of the body, so I can pick it up and put it down without a bunch of figuring out where I am right now, and I've definitely taking my time knitting this!  It's good for TV knitting and knitting while brain dead at this point.  That will all change once I get the body finished and start the sleeves, because then we're back to colorwork!  The polka dotted sleeves are one of the reasons I fell in love with this design and I'm looking forward to knitting those, but there's no hurry - it's going to be months before I can even think about wearing something like this!

Let's Talk About Socks!

I've knit two pairs of socks so far this year, so I thought this morning I'd show them to you!  They're both socks knit from the top cuff down in fingering weight yarn, but that's where the similarities end.

The first pair is the I Heart Harvest Socks.  I knit them in Malabrigo Ultimate Sock in the Sabiduria colorway.  This is a ribbed sock and the gusset is on the top of the sock instead of the lower sides by the heel flap.  The ribs accentuate the shaping and fine tune the fit.  The finished socks are a little more interesting than a standard ribbed sock, and would be great for gifts because the ribs give you more leeway size wise.  

The pattern comes in multiple sizes, so as long as you're in the ballpark, the ribbing will adjust to the actual foot size of the wearer.  The knitting itself is straight forward, and while I did slow down a bit at the heel turn and setting up the gusset, once I understood how the pattern worked I was knitting along quickly again.  The second sock went faster through this section.  I love the finished socks.  There's enough design wise to make them interesting to knit and wear, but not so much that I would hesitate to knit a pair for Mickael or Caleb (they both prefer simple sock styles).  I will definitely be making more of these!

The second pair of socks is the Feet Teeth Socks!  This pattern has several variations between the tooth size and style; stripes, dots, or a solid "body;" and even the placement of the mouth.  Sizing for kids to adults is included so everyone can have some!  I chose to make the striped socks with the large teeth on the toe.  I grabbed some yarns leftover from other socks to make these, and I will definitely be making them again with some more leftovers.  The main part of the socks are knit in Cascade Heritage in Caribbean Sea and Lady Dye Sock yarns in Whistledown's Watchful Eye.  The teeth are knit in Cascade Heritage in Snow, and the mouth and eyes are both Sweet Georgia Yarns Tough Love Sock in Secrets and Charcoal respectively.  This is the first time I've really done duplicate stitching (the eyes are duplicate stitched) and it shows.  The second pair of eyes looks better than the first.  I love these socks just because they make me laugh.  If you were to put them in shoes, they would just look like striped socks, but you'd know there were monsters in your shoes!  I think they'd be really fun in a dressy, conservative black or navy with the monsters lurking in wing tip shoes.  I might have to knit Caleb a pair to wear to interviews!

Pink and Snuggly!

Earlier this year, I finished my Keera pullover that I've shown here in progress.  I knit it in Blue Sky Fibers Extra in the Lei colorway.  This yarn is very similar to Berroco Ultra Alpaca (about half wool, half alpaca) and is just as fun knit with.  It has a bounce to it and it's just a very enjoyable yarn to knit.

This pattern was fun also!  It's worked top down and everything except the back is worked in stockinette.  The back stitch pattern isn't too complicated (I used stitch markers to separate the different sections), and I found it easy to knit while I was watching TV.  I did do the little pockets on the front, not that pockets in knits are super useful (they tend to stretch easily),  but I feel like the world needs more pockets anyway, so I will pretty much always add pockets to everything if given the opportunity!  I could line the pockets with a woven fabric to help them hold their shape if I wanted them to be more useful, but so far I haven't been bothered enough to do that.  (On the other hand, as I'm thinking this through as I write, I do have a scrap of a lovely pink floral paisley Liberty Tana Lawn that would be amazing for pocket linings in this sweater.  I'll have to think about that!)  At this point, the sweater won't be wearable until late October if I'm lucky, so I've got plenty of time to think about whether to line or not to line (the pockets, that is!)

Decisions, decisions...