FO: Effervesce

Wow, so Ravelry is telling me that the last time I completed a full sized pair of adult socks was in 2012!  I've always loved knitting socks, but for some reason I haven't really been feeling it for a while.  I didn't realise that we were taking quite that long though!  Of course I haven't stopped buying sock yarn in all that time so hopefully my sock mojo is here to stay and I can start working my way through some of it!

What's to say then?  This pattern (Effervesce by Purrlescent) was just the ticket to get me going on socks again.  I was looking for something a little intricate but not requiring every ounce of my concentration.  These little cables were pretty intuitive and a quick glance at the chart at the begining of each round was all that was necessary.  I love the effect of the cables as they dwindle down to nothing just before my big toes.  So pretty and because the socks mirror each other each sock is a little different which makes knitting the second sock a little less tedious if you suffer from second sock syndrome!

I went for the middle size as some of my handknitted socks have come up a little snug in the past, but these are nice and stretchy and I could probably have got away with the smallest size.  The foot chart, however, was exactly the right length for my foot and I didn't need to add any rows before starting the toe.  The yarn is John Arbon's Exmoor Blueface which I bought a couple of years back.  I bought 2 skeins, the first in Navy to send to a Ravelry friend in a swap and the peacock for me.  It feels really nice on my feet and I'm still loving the colour I chose.  It's slightly fuzzy so the cables aren't quite as crisp as they could be, but who cares.

I'm definitely fully back on the sock bandwagon and I'm itching to knit my next pair but I promised Lissy a sweater so I'm going to try and bust that out as fast as I can so I can get back to my socks.

WIP: Socks for Cassie

Seeing as how it's starting to get a bit chilly here and seeing as how Cassie seems to need an entire new wardrobe, I thought it would be good to knit her some socks. I've never knit socks for her before and I don't really have a go to pattern for toddler socks (any recommendations are gratefully received). I started to do a quick Ravelry search and then I remembered that my Mother-in-law had bought me a kiddies sock book a while back and that I hadn't tried any of the patterns yet. I'll be honest, it's not ideal, most of the patterns are DK and I much prefer 4ply for socks, but I thought I'd select a pattern anyway, they'll be a quick knit and perfect for indoors and to go under wellies when the weather really starts to turn.

The pattern I chose was Flower Power from Cute Knits for Baby Feet, there are no projects aside from mine on Ravelry so this is a picture of what they are supposed to look like.

I'm won't be bothering with the little flower, but I am sticking with the contrast heels and toes. I'm using the same yarn as the mittens I just made and after this I'll be using it again to knit myself a hat. I'm getting my money's worth out of that colour combo!

The first sock is done, from the time I got to the heel until the time I cast off I was not convinced that there would ever be a second sock. It looked too large, the heel was a mess and the toe not much better. However, I've sewn up the worst of the holes and tried it on Cassie and it fits so I will make the second one. If I ever knit it again I will be making some changes to the whole thing though. I'll save my thoughts on that for the FO post though.

 

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Lucky old me

Stu and I both took yesterday off work and had a lovely long weekend, spent mostly outside and it had been glorious.  Apart from a brief shower of rain yesterday the weather has been unseasonably sunny and warm and we very much took advantage of it.  On Friday Stu picked me up from work and we went fishing.  Well Stu went fishing and I sat and knitted next to a lake.

On Saturday we behaved like good British people and went to some garden centres.  We got lots of flowers and six different types of strawberry plants and I got myself a lovely pink knitting lounger so I don’t have to sit on the steps next to the tumble dryer any more!

Sunday saw us risk causing a break in the good weather by buying a barbecue, but we didn’t actually use it so the sunshine continued unabated.  I took advantage of this by knitting while Stu worked...better than television.

Yesterday, while everyone else worked we went and hand delivered a load of wedding invitations before taking a little trip to Ikea and then coming home and doing some knitting.  I decided to take a break from the wedding shrug and finished off the first of my hand dyed socks.

Once that was done and ends sewn in I immediately cast on for the second one (if I don’t it will never get done) before putting it aside and casting on again for the second of my first ever toe up socks.  As I have documented recently all was going swimmingly with this sock the first time I started it until I noticed that I had been knitting the lace pattern all the way round, including on the bottom of the foot.  I’ve now knitted the toe again – great practice for short rows – and now all I need to do is find my fifth DPN and I’ll be off and running again.....about time too.

Phones, smarter than me.

After enjoying a nice night knitting away on my wedding shrug on Tuesday, I sat down last night to do the same again.  Assembling all my bits and bobs I quickly spotted a flaw in my plan.  I don’t need much, just the project, both needles, my notebook which has a simple breakdown of the bit of pattern I’m on plus a tally of how many pattern repeats I’ve done and my phone which has the row count on it.  Except I managed to leave my phone on my desk at work last night.  Marvellous.  Smart phones are a super idea, so many things you can do with them .....and so many things you have to do without if you leave it somewhere.  Mine also has my bus ticket on it.  Extra marvellous.  Luckily it is lovely and sunny here at the moment so a 50 minute walk to work this afternoon wasn’t actually all that bad.

Compare this to a picture of the same view in November.  Slightly different eh?  Because the weather is so nice I headed out into the garden with my sock this morning.  I found myself a nice sunny perch next to the old tumble dryer and knit away whilst dreaming of sunloungers and thinking that maybe it’s time we took that old tumble dryer to the dump!

Photo story

Ok, because it has once again been a wee while since I updated I'm just going to add a whole load of photos of what I've been up to and try and bring this up to date.  I've got a few irons in the fire at the moment so the sooner I'm all caught up, the sooner I can talk about those.  Onwards!

So.. dying occured - it went well I think, 2 lovely skeins of sock yarn to be proud of:

I started knitting a little triangle scarf/shawl with some of the Araucania I bought a while back

 I finished my Charades and I love them

And... last but not least, my man, he knits!