May Socks May 30, 2006

Pattern: Bi-Color Socks from Family Circle Easy Knitting, Holiday 2005
Yarn: KnitPicks Dancing (Swing) and Fortissima Cotton (#04), less than 1 ball each
Needles: Size 6 Pony Pearl dpns
Began: 5/18/06
Completed: 5/30/06

(The toes and heels were knitted with two strands of Fortissima, the rest of the sock used one strand of each yarn.)

A fun pair of socks but hopefully the last pair I’ll ever knit with dpns. It’s just so tedious. I followed the pattern’s recommended gauge (22 sts/4″). I’m not a sock gauge snob (i.e. the most sts/in, the better), but even I think that’s too loose.

I was surprised to see that I had quite a bit of yarn left over, especially the Dancing of which I have probably 1/4 – 1/3 of the ball left. I made these socks with one eye toward using up my existing sock yarn stash, so this is actually disappointing. Heh.

New KALs May 26, 2006

I’ve added two new knit-alongs to the side column: Mason Dixon KAL (I just finished my first ballband ‘warshrag’ yesterday!) and Summer of Socks (to pick up where the Sock-a-Month KAL ends). Sign ups for the latter end today!

Decreasing in the Dark May 25, 2006

A little power outage is nothing to a determined sock knitter.

ssk by candle and flashlight

I did, however, put off kitchenering until later. I’m not that much of a badass.

One down, one week to go. Easy peasy.

Free Pattern: Ballet Slippers May 23, 2006

Ballet Slippers

Size: Woman's medium. 8" x 3" (unstretched) to fit US size 7.5 (9").

Yarn: Bernat Softee Chunky in colorway Carnival, two-thirds of 1 ball
Needles: US size 10 (6.0 mm) straight or circular needles

Gauge: 13 sts = 4"

Mid-May Dishcloth and Actual Sock Progress! May 22, 2006

The latest pattern from the Monthly Dishcloths KAL was a right puzzler. Knit from the bottom up and with red as the recommended color, I guessed everything from a candied apple to a lighthouse.

It’s the dress-with-a-heart logo from the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign. What a nice surprise!

Meanwhile, I’ve turned the heel on my first doubled yarn sock:

These would be coming along quicker if I had any size 6 dpns other than Pony Pearl. I love the look and feel of them and sometimes the blunt ends are helpful with snaggy yarns, but to my mind they weigh too much. I hate heavy needles! I tried to switch over to my new Balene 11″ circular needle, but it’s too long. For the heel flap I was able to use another set of new needles: 10″ Plymouth Bamboo straights – very nice indeed!

These are being knit with one strand of solid blue (Fortissima Cotton) and one strand of varigated (KnitPicks Dancing in Swing). I like the way they’re knitting together. The elastic in Dancing counteracts some of the cotton’s lack of stretchiness.

Something Crocheted This Way Comes May 22, 2006

Pattern: Beverage Bottle Cover
Yarn: Endless Summer Collection Connemara in Peach Mousse (#17), 1 ball
Needles: size 7 (4.5mm) Plymouth Bamboo dpns, H/8 (5.0mm) crochet hook, size 5 Brittany Birch dpns (for i-cord)
Stitch patterns used: (from The Knitting Stitch Bible) Structured Squares, Ringwood Stitch
Began/Completed: May 2006

This was a fun one, mostly because it started out like this:

Before this, my history with crochet consisted of one summer at GSP where I was taught chain stitch, single crochet, and double crochet and then left to my own devices. Before interest faded I made an afghan square, a beret and an oversized vest. This was a sort of lawless crochet – no rules, no patterns, just whatever looked best. Crochet is friendlier to improvisation than knitting.

I’ve noticed in the last few months that many of my favorite moments in ‘knitting’ involved a hook. Picking up dropped stitches is not the only use for a crochet hook in knitting. They can be used for casting on, binding off, picking up stitches, or in a pinch for those really tight k2togs. For this pattern I had to do some research to refresh my memory, fix some bad habits, and finally learn a bunch of beginner’s basics that were skipped over 10 years ago. I checked Crochet Your Way out from the library and got to work. (In my excitement over the new knitting books my library has purchased over the past year it never donned on me how few crochet books they have. They could be counted on one hand (and the above book counts for two of those!). Crocheters of Winchester, I feel for you!)

I topped the cozy off with an i-cord drawstring just long enough for the purpose. It can double as a wrist strap for carrying.

The timing was just right for this project: some comfortable knitting and just enough crochet to help me decide if I have a future in it. What are my feelings now that it’s done? Pretty darn pro-crochet! Amazingly, I’m happier with the crocheted bottom than the knitted top. Having only one needle and one active stitch to worry about is easier on both the wrists and the nerves. The movement came right back to me, though I did have some difficulty remembering to move the yarn over and under the needle rather than under and over as in knitting. One mystery that remains unsolved is what to do with the live loop when you stop working for the day . If you wrap it up securely I suppose one could just leave the hook in, but most of my UFOs are jumbled together in one bag. I ultimately grabbed a safety pin, but I still worried about unravelling.

The only thing holding me back from going really gung ho with crochet is that I’m not naturally attracted to the look of crochet. “Too holey” is my usual verdict. As much as I like the look of the bottom of this cozy, I wonder how practical it is. With all those holes, will it keep the contents cold? When the bottle sweats will condensation drip through the bottom? Not that crochet will get all of the blame should this happen. This is my first time working with merchanized cotton, and I have concerns that it won’t be as absorbant as its less fancy ilk. I knitted one of these last year out of Bernat CottonTots, and if I put a half-ice-half-water bottle in it before going out, not only will it keep the contents ice cold for 6+ hours but it’ll protect my bag from condensation too! One can only hope that this new cozy will be as dependable.

Knitting Books, Anyone? May 20, 2006

Amazon is once again giving away free 3-month trials of their Amazon Prime service. If the offer is available for your account, you get 3 months of free 2-day shipping on every order, not just those over $25! Nifty, eh? Unfortunately Prime does not apply to Joann.com items sold through Amazon.

Searching for the soul of a dishcloth May 20, 2006

I’ve just discovered that BookPage’s very funny report (written by Miss Ann herself) from the photography session for Mason-Dixon Knitting is also available online. Enjoy!

Another Unfinished Sock May 18, 2006

The more I try to knit socks the more I start to doubt that I possess the persistance to see a whole 7-9 sts/inch pair to the finish. I’m not sure if it’s dislike of tiny needles, dislike of dpns or just knitter’s ADD. These days if I can’t finish a project in a week, it’ll likely I’ll not ever! As such, it’s not a surprise that what were supposed to be my April socks for the Sock-A-Month Knitalong look like this:

The photo was taken on 4/30, but the view isn’t much different today. The yarn is Bernat Cool Crochet in Neopolitan on size 2 1/2 needles. I had great fun with the short row toe (using Wendy’s awesome pattern), but it was a different story when time to start in the round. The only idea I have left that might shock me into being a ‘proper’ tiny needle sock knitter is Magic Loop. But until I get some smaller 40″ circulars, I have another plan…

The Holiday 2005 issue of Family Circle Easy Knitting has a basic sock pattern using two strands of sock yarn held together. I dug through the stash and came up with this:

Fortissima Cotton and KnitPicks Dancing in Swing. The plan is to use one strand of each for the body of the sock while making the toe and heel all blue. The pattern calls for size 6 needles which sounds heavenly to me right now.

May Dishcloths May 18, 2006

I’m starting to accumulate a backlog of unblogged photos on Flickr. Here’s the Dishcloth Edition, sponsored by Meijer which has an excellent selection of the darker Sugar & Cream colors:

These are at the request of Mom who sheds a little tear when faced with wiping up spilled spaghetti sauce with a brightly colored hand-knit dishcloth. You might recognize the sage from last week’s palm tree cloth. One 2.5 oz. ball made exactly two palm tree dishcloths with about a foot to spare.

Counter-clockwise from top: mid-March KAL, April KAL (watering can), and a super simple one that’s just double seed stitch. I love the way this last turned out. The color (Peaches & Creme yellow) is gorgeous, and I can tell the texture will be great for scrubbing dishes.

I liked mid-March so much I made another one in Sugar & Cream (color Sunkissed). On the left is April’s KAL cloth – a sort of stretched flower. Weird.

Skip to the present, I did restart the bobbles and eyelets dishcloth from Mason-Dixon Knitting

The instructions are vague on what length circular should be used. I used 29″ and 16″ circulars, plus dpns.

[Whoops! Looks like the Mother's Day water bottle holder sneaked into the photo. It'll have its own post later...]

I think it’s interesting that the book doesn’t show a good photo of the center of the cloth because I’m having trouble getting mine to lay flat.

There it is folded in half – so not like a semi-circle! I’ll have to take a closer look at the Mason-Dixon Knitting KAL I just found to figure out what I’m doing wrong (if anything). Probably something like casting on or decreasing too tightly. I do that all the time.