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...

Hello, Again!

Well I'm not sure if anyone is even still around here, but I guess we'll see!  My life has been crazy over the last year or so, but I've been wanting to get back to blogging, so here I am.  I won't promise regular posts, but I'll pop in when I can and we'll go from there.  I'm not going to get into details, so let's get into the knitting, instead!

I've finished a few things since I was last here, so I figured I'd start there.  This is the West Knits Mystery Shawl for last Fall - the Go Go Dynamo!  It was a fun project, not too difficult, but enough going on to keep things interesting.  Also, for a two color shawl, there were a LOT of ends to weave in - but it was totally worth it!  I used Malabrigo Mechita in the Natural and Aniversario colorways.  I can't tell you how many times I've used the Aniversario colorway at this point, but I love it and I make no apologies!

This shawl has short rows and mosaic knitting and brioche, as well as modular elements that get connected together with other modular elements.  

Like I said, lots of things going on, so it wasn't boring.

In the end I had a big, snuggly, shlanket sized shawl that I just love!

I'll be back with more when I can!

Something Pink!

Knitting continues here at Chez Pink Lemon.  Often with dog hair, and sometimes with a bit of dog spit too!  I've mostly been working on my Go Go Dynamo Mystery Shawl, which is supposed to be kept behind spoilers until the end of the month.  I'm still "behind" on it, but slow progress is still progress.  We're supposed to avoid spoilers for that design until the end of the month, which means the thing that I'm actually spending most of my knitting time on isn't really good for feeding the blog.

I do have some recent photos of my Keera Pullover though!  I finished the body and in this front view you can see the pockets.  I don't really use knitted pockets - they're too stretchy for any real usefulness - but I feel strongly that everything should have pockets, so I included them anyway.  It occurs to me as I type this that I could sew in some fabric linings and they would be slightly useful.  Hmmm....

Here's a shot of the back (love it!) and of course, you can also see that I'm working on my first sleeve.  I love hand dyed yarns, but it's so nice not to have to alternate skeins sometimes.  This is such a pretty, soft pink, it just makes me happy!

And since I mentioned the dog hair and the dog spit, here's a picture of little Obi dog!  This was right after our walk this morning.  We've figured out that it's easier to bring him and his water outside after a walk so the kitchen doesn't get turned into a swimming pool.  It's less offensive to Mr. Noodle this way too.

Another Pair of Footie Socks

Earlier this week I showed you my pair of Footie Socks with a bit of stranded colorwork on the foot.  These are made using the Footie Socks pattern that I've been using for about 10 years.  It's a great pattern.  I've also made multiple pairs of the Rose City Rollers footies.  

Recently I ran across another pattern for footie socks - the Shicheng No Show socks.  These have the more open top foot (is it instep?) of the Footie Socks, but they're knit top down (knit towards the toe) like the Rose City Rollers.  For some reason I really prefer top down socks, so I'm hoping this might be the perfect sock pattern.  I'm knitting them in a leftover cashmere blend yarn from Wonderland Yarns, but it was part of a set or kit of two yarns and doesn't really have it's own colorway.  It's a pale gray with multicolored speckles.

I've got the first sock almost finished, and have made good progress on the second.  There is a ribbing cuff to be added last, and I decided to do both socks at the same time, so it looks a bit wonky right now.  I have tried it on and I have high hopes for the finished socks.  Have I found the ultimate footie sock pattern in the universe?  Is this the one footie sock to rule them all?  Do you know how weird the word "footie" looks when you type it over and over and over?  Tune in to a future blog post for the final results of this battle for supreme sock dominance!  Or not, maybe no one else is really that concerned about footie socks.