Posts from — September 2008

These are going much faster than I thought they might.  They’re big ones – I’m hoping big enough for MP.  I did the K1P1 ribbed cuff on slightly larger needles (I think around 2.5 mm) and 70 stitches, then increased to 72 stitches and switched down to 2.25 mm dpns. Just a basic K1, Sl1 heel flap with a 3 st garter selvedge on either side.  My favorite heel flap.

Apparently I’ve been watching more movies and football of late because I’m much further along on the first sock than I thought I might be by now.  These are the kind of thing you can sit and watch TV with or visit with friends while knitting, and nobody feels ignored.  At least I hope they dont.  We went to some friends house to watch MNF this week, and they did notice I’d brought my “crocheting” – but nobody seemed too bothered by it.

Well, another one!  I really like this pattern, as do many knitters who enjoy the practical wisdom of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s designs.  For this one, I wanted to make it look like a watermelon (no, those aren’t Christmas colors)…so my idea was to make the body of the sweater and sleeves the dark green, and us the lighter green, ecru and red as the inside of the “rind” and the watermelon – only – you know, the way I plan often isn’t actually the way things work…so of course I came up short on the dark green yarn.  As a result, this little sweater hibernated in the depths of my yarn bag for probably a year.  Finally, one day recently, I decided I wanted my stitch markers back (this project had most of them on it, yes indeed, I need to buy more stitch markers), and so I went looking for which WIP (work in progress) had them – and I found the watermelon sweater innocently sporting them, as well as my size 3 Profi bamboo circular needles.  And so the decision was made to just go ahead and finish the sweater with whatever striping I ended up with – and that’s why it’s striped instead of the original plan.  I still like it.

I used Knit Picks Shine sport yarn, one skein each of these colors (well – only parts of a skein of the red and ecru).  The sweater has a nice “heft” to it because Shine is cotton and microfiber mixed – so it has a little bit of a shine – um – DOH! – and it’s heavier weight than just cotton would be.  I want to make another one some day, but use my original idea and make the bottom all the darker green, with maybe just the very bottom edge and perhaps cuffs using the ecru-to-red change.

Project link on Ravelry.com.

I finished the toe with a skein of similar yarn but slightly different fiber content.  I actually cant tell which sock has the different toe unless I look really close, so that’s a relief.  I’m disappointed I didn’t just try to do the short-row heels on this pair.  I have just never gotten the hang of those heels and really don’t actually LIKE them any better than a standard heel flap and heel, so the incentive just wasn’t there to make it “click” in my brain.  However, the textured eye of partridge heel flap was probably a little bit “much” this time.  It may look different on a foot, but as a flat unblocked sock, I don’t like it this time.  Otherwise, though, this pattern is really a fun knit.  I am actually thinking that it’d be a cool pattern to substitute for EZ’s February baby sweater, and I just might take that project on one of these days.  Next sock project, though is SPM’s “Earl Grey” socks in black.  Yeah – really enjoy challenging my eyesight trying to work a pattern (albeit a small one) into a black anything…but then, that’s how I roll.

Cosy?  I can never remember.  I have a feeling this kind – the kind that goes on a teapot is spelled with an “s” and the snuggling kind with a “z” – or not.

This free pattern comes from the Sugar’n Cream yarn (Lily) website - only I used Peaches’n Cream in “Peppercorn” color.  I have one of those big cones of it, and wanted something easy to knit while I watched old Cary Grant movies this past weekend.  So, I decided to try the cosy pattern I’d downloaded a while back.  It’s probably not the warmest cosy you’ll find, but it’s an easy knit.  The twisted ridge of stitches break up the garter stitch nicely and give it a little interest.  It takes apparently two balls of dishcloth yarn for the large size which will fit a 6-cup pot.  I think this might be be a nice one to knit from wool some day.

See that tiny little ball of yarn?  Do you think it’s enough for another, oh, say three inches or so of sock?  Yeah, me neither. I could have sworn I had two skeins of this yarn. I made the socks small, since the pattern is for an “average” woman’s sock. My oldest granddaughter has a foot about that big, so I decided to just knit it as written and give them to her, but I can’t find the second skein. I do have another skein of pink sock yarn here though – so once again the kids will be getting something improvised!