Bonus post: I done make some boot socks!

You know, I'm trying to break the habit of apologising for my pictures, but honestly. You'd think I could show off an actual finished project a bit better than this. Photographed last night, by Armin; I thought the advantage of having someone else behind the camera would outweigh the terrible lighting, but evidently not.

Oh well. They looked really cute with my boots, and kept my feet very snuggly all day.

Note to self: learn to make your socks SMALLER. Negative ease! Otherwise I'll never be able to show them off in cute strappy shoes... and while these are officially Boot Socks... cute little heels would have been good too, no?

*sigh*

Pattern: Veronik Avery's Spiral Boot Socks from Interweave Knits, Summer 07. (Ravelry link - sorry if you can't get in yet!)
Yarn: Posh Yarn's Emily (lambswool/angora/cashmere), in Pompous colourway. Gorgeous, non? So squishy and warm!
Needles: 2.75mm rosewood Sox Stix. I loved the colour of these needles with this yarn! Also, these socks were what I was working on throughout Ally Pally as well as Stitch n Bitch day - which, inexplicably, I haven't even blogged about, but it was fab - so any time people asked what sox stix were like to use, I was able to give them a demo. They were convinced!

Mods: I cast on an extra 8 stitches and did one extra pattern repeat down the leg, to accommodate my chunky calves. I also reversed the pattern stitch for the second sock, because I like symmetry. This worked fine up until the foot, when for some reason, at first I had real trouble with placing the yo and ssk bits... The really interesting part about that was that, although on a row-by-row basis I was ostensibly doing fine, progress was slow. Really slow. Slow like swimming backwards through treacle with a camel tied around my neck. Once I decided to rip back and do the foot over, adjusting the chart placement stuff, suddenly it was full steam ahead. It went so fast, I actually knit 3cm too far before I thought to check if it was time to start the toe yet. Weird, huh? Lesson learned: If my knitting isn't happy, I better stop and ask it why.

Posted by Robynn at 02:33 PM | Permalink | 4 cups of tea on the table

Kälte Füsse, wärmes Herz, the saying goes: cold feet, warm heart. Possibly, therefore, the curse of the boyfriend sweater should rather be the curse of the boyfriend socks... but let's hope it doesn't work in reverse.

They're all right. They're not perfect, but they're all right. I'm pleased with the heel, having figured out how to allow a bit of extra room in there, and with the 3x1 ribbed cuff, which is wonderfully snug. I think the ribbing looks so wonky mostly because of the excessive frogging it had to endure; there was a noticeable improvement at the top end (where I moved on to fresh, unfrogged yarn), which you can't really see under the jeans.* The cast-on (toe) is also obviously imperfect - next time I'll be sure to tidy it up much earlier. Anyway, Armin loves them.

The specs:
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock. I found it a bit squeaky, think I'll stick to pure wool in future.
Needles: 2.25mm DPNs. I started on Brittany - having found on my Jaywalkers that I was working tightly and snapping ebony needles at that size; the birch has extra flexbility and resilience - but moved on to Lantern Moon later on, once I realised my tension felt pretty even and safe. Worked well - and the squeakiness was much less apparent on ebony.
Pattern: On Your Toes socks from Interweave, summer 07. I am going to be using this sock recipe a LOT in future.

Apart from the 3x1 ribbing, I made one modification: the heel wasn't deep enough initially. So I increased 2 stitches 1cm before starting the heel, then again 2 rows before heel shaping; I short-rowed down right over those extra 4 stitches; then decreased back to the original size in the same way as I increased. This worked out brilliantly and like the 3x1 ribbing, is likely to become my standard modus operandi for standard socks.
_____
* Aw, the things my beloved Armin does for the sake of my knitting. For this picture, he had to stand on a table (best combination of light and undistracting surface in the flat) and hoik up his trouser legs. Not exactly dignified. Go Armin!

Posted by Robynn at 10:27 AM | Permalink | 4 cups of tea on the table

That title applies to so many things. Firstly, my mood. I'm not exactly bouncing with energy, but I'm not drowning in the glums either. I had a great yoga class this week, and I've been eating a bit more fruit and less crap. Always a good thing, though sometimes... well... hard.

Second, the Socks That Wouldn't Die have bowed to my superior knitting fu (and not before time). Sock 1 (on its third attempt, I believe) has been finished, tried on, and pronounced a success. (Seriously, it's a beautiful fit.) Although my sewn bind-off is a bit crappy. On the red cosy socks I used a stretchy knit cast-off, but on this one it didn't seem to work quite as well. I could have fiddled about until it worked, but I thought I should learn a New Skill. Which I did, and I've learned that it's crappy. Next time I'll try harder on the knit version - but not on this pair. This pair will match, even if they match in crappiness.

As if to congratulate me on my great prowess, not to mention progress, I arrived home last night to find a gloriously lavish pile of magazines in the post. Eunny's first Interweave, the 25th anniversary Vogue (which is HUGE - I haven't yet found out whether that's all ads, or whether there's actual worthwhile content, but apparently there are 60 designs in there!), plus Simply Knitting, Knit Today - and a media pack for an upcoming UK launch.

It's supposed to be hush-hush still, so I won't share any details, but there's something to look out for: a new monthly knit mag from around October. They'll be distributing, of course, at Ally Pally. And they promise "more more more". Sadly, they don't promise better; I seem doomed to disappointment in my desire for a Vogue-a-like mag with stylish, sophisticated, challenging knits. But let's wait and see.

And today, we're off to Putney for more knitting at the new and improved venue of the Duke's Head... knitting with booze! Alas, the weather is newly returned to its crappy, rainy state. I was rather hoping for a little riverside sunshine. Ah well. Once again, if you're in south-west London and fancy dropping by, we'll be there between 12.30 and 3pm. See you there?

Posted by Robynn at 09:08 AM | Permalink | 2 cups of tea on the table

Eh.

So I'm supposed to be showing you some knitting right? ...Eh. Whatever.

*deep sigh*

The denim jacket's coming along, I'm onto the first sleeve now.

I'm a bit worried that it's going to come out too big. I picked the biggest size, based on my bust, but the thing is I'm a busty girl; the rest of me isn't necessarily in proportion. Maybe a little negative ease would have been something to consider. Well, let's hope all that ribbing does its job and pulls things in nicely. How does denim ribbing behave once it's been washed? Anybody? I rather think I'm going to have a sack on my hands.

(Shrug? Oh yes, shrug. Deadlines. Yeah. Well, I've found possibly the perfect yarn for that, in this week's Posh sale, so I'll crack on when that arrives. Hooray for excuses to carry on with my jacket!)

The sock is progressing slowly. I am SO VERY BORED of this now.

So I've cast on for another sock. Or more accurately, for a swatch for what will be another sock. (Didn't exactly get very far. Supper was ready.) I just wanted to check that, when doing a pretty pattern - Spiral boot socks from Interweave - and using scrummy yarn, socks are still fun.

Eh. They might be. I can't tell yet.

So, right, forget all that now. (It won't be hard. It wasn't that interesting.) What do you do when you feel... well... crappy? Assuming (purely for the purposes of argument) that part of the crappy might be described as "fat", so chocolate is not necessarily the answer? (I know. Sacrilege.) And further assuming that you have a metric shitload of work to do, so - even more heretical - knitting might not really fit into the schedule either?

Posted by Robynn at 10:57 AM | Permalink | 2 cups of tea on the table

Well, we had a lovely weekend, good thing I didn't blink and miss it. The clouds are back in the sky today. (Obviously. This morning I put a load of washing in.) Which makes me doubly pleased that I was just a little bit naughty... I stole a good few hours from work to sit out in the garden, knitting and reading Harry Potter*. Yes, this is how I rebel these days. (Come to think of it, it's much like how I rebelled at school, too: knitting instead of homework. I'm so wild.)

This is what I was knitting on.

Remember that denim jacket I started in, um, April or so? Remember my cold feet? Remember I said I'd just tweak the Jess pattern a bit? Here's a first: I'm not tweaking. I'm knitting it exactly as is. For novelty value. And also, um, laziness.

(How's that rolling, eh? I'm planning on making this project, not just my first ever true-to-pattern knit, but also my first blocking job. Really. I've done all right without it all these years, but it's time to stop being so damn lazy.)

I'm enjoying it (which explains how I've raced through two fronts in a week - yes dears, that is racing, at least considering my schedule), despite being irritated by the lack of photographs in the pattern,** the stiffness of the yarn and the way it makes my hands blue. On the other hand, after working on titchy little 2.25mm sock needles, these 4mm sticks are positively chunky! Loving that, oh yes. While the titchy little socks...

Well. Um. Yeah, they're fine and all, whatever. Can I stop now?

No, no I can't. This is the first ever pair of socks I'm making for my lovely Armin (although clearly not the last; did I mention he's requested his very own cosy socks, in Wollmeise Tiefersee?) and dammit, I will finish them. Doomed as the little bastards are. Y'see, I been lazy, and I been dumb. I finished the first sock, cast off, and he couldn't pull it on. Cast off too tight. So I put that aside, figuring I'd deal with the cast off thing later, and did the next one. Didn't quite get around to redoing the cast off meanwhile; didn't even check whether it fit if I pulled the cast off out. So. Finished the second sock, complete with stretchy cast off. Tried to pull it on. It didn't. Bummer. Wasn't the cast off that was the problem...

So I pull the sock back to the heel, add a few stitches for a deeper heel, turn the heel, start working up the leg in k3, p1 rib. It's going to be a long slog back up. (Have I mentioned I hate ribbing on dpns? Really do.) But hey. We'll get there. Then, attempting to demonstrate to a friend how I screwed up, I pull the too-tight sock on my foot...

Hang on. It totally goes on. Apparently this is what I get for knitting drunk.***

Still, Armin would like it a bit easier to pull on (fair enough), so it's not a bad idea to be reknitting. Also, they're too short. (I did confer with him on the length, but it looks a lot shorter on the leg. All part of learning to be a sock knitter, I guess.) Still. Damn.

And while I've been steaming ahead on Jess, and plodding ahead on the socks (they're my train knit, which means I have to choose between reading and socking; at the moment Harry Potter is winning), here's what I should have been working on.

The wedding shrug for my bestest friend, getting married in Cape Town in September. As you can see, I'm not exactly racing on this one. I do have an excuse though: this is not our first choice of yarn. It's to match a "red/gold" shot taffeta dress, which, being in Cape Town and all, I haven't seen. I have seen some very dodgy photos, and a tiny - 1cm x 3cm - scrap of fabric. But you know what shot taffeta's like. That little scrap looks kind of purple/yellow, rather than red or gold. The photos look quite orangey. She swears the actual dress, in normal light, is none of these things, and I believe her. So how to pick a yarn? This Goldiehair has flashes of what is probably exactly the right colour - but overall it's pretty dark, and she's not mad about the idea of a dark shrug. The Silk Rhapsody I was using for my Moebius is maybe closer to the dress; but the fabric scrap gave me the idea that it would be close but not close enough, and you know how crappy it looks to have a bad colour match; that made me think I'd do better to have a contrast, not a match, because that's easier to fudge.

So I've found a couple of slightly lighter red/gold-ish colourways in Colinette mohair, and ordered them (just one ball of each - I have no idea what the yardage is anyway - and with luck they'll arrive promptly, and one of those will do, and I can buy more, and get cracking). Oh, I should probably finish the Goldiehair one anyway, though. To go with my (garnet red) bridesmaid dress. Yup... I should get going right away.

If only Jess weren't so very, very appealing right now...

PS I still owe you yarn photos. Oops. Okay, here we go: evidence of my late spendies.

BFL laceweight from Hello Yarn - arrived with my nostepinde. (Because clearly it would be Bad and Wrong to order something from a yarny all the way in America and not grab the chance to sample her wares at the same time. Right?) I'm planning to use this for my first lace shawl; I've been hesitant about the whole lace thing, because I'm not sure how wearable it is in my wardrobe. But the challenge of it all is getting to me. So I spent a good while browsing the Interweb, looking for the perfect lace shawl pattern, and I saw quite a few lovely things, and developed an instant and intense desire to make the Peacock Shawl... but that of course will require quite different yarn. After all my research, Dee's Fir Cone photos appear to have swung the deciding vote. Funny, I never had any desire to make this shawl along with everyone else, but I rather think it'll be perfect for this particular yarn. ...Then I just need to figure out how to wear the damn thing.

And then we come to my Posh indiscretions. Ah yes. It's clear that my sock enthusiasm has not been entirely squashed by the shepherd socks of doom.

Emily, in Pompous. Intended for those lovely lacy boot socks in the last Interweave.

And finally, left to right: Emily, Bed of Roses; Lucia, Devoted (way less bright than it looks - Photoshop failed me); and Emily again, in Offbeat and Ripen. The Lucia is a present for my sister, whom I am welcoming back into the knitting fold with enthusiasm, and presents. Although I am finding it very, very, very hard to let go of this particular skein. It's delicious.

_____
* No spoilers please! I'm actually just working my way through the series, refreshing my memory for the final instalment. Which I will be reading aloud to Armin in the evening, as he washes up. It's a longstanding tradition; and don't mock, it means I get out of doing the dishes.
** One photo. One. About five centimetres deep. No detail shots, no back shots... nada. So frankly, this is going to be a voyage of discovery, this knit.
*** Not actually joking, no. I finished this sock - and attempted to try it on - in the late stages of a barbecue last weekend. Sitting on the table. I want to say this wasn't actually as weird as it sounds, but what do I know? I'd had a few gallons of Bombay Flowers. I couldn't even pull on a damn sock.

Posted by Robynn at 01:34 PM | Permalink | 5 cups of tea on the table

Hey, you know what happened to me yesterday?

I finished some socks!

Two of 'em! At the same time! How cool is THAT?

Pretty darn cool, is how cool.

The geeky bit:
Yarn: Wollmeise's* worsted weight, in Granatapfel. One skein (I just kept knitting till I ran out).
Needles: Destiny rosewood circulars, 40" long, 4mm.
Construction: Toe up magic loop, following these instructions, but taking the numbers from Ann Budd's toe-up sock recipe in the Spring 2007 Interweave Knits.

Now it's just as well that I've finished the socks, because I have some more deadline knitting coming up. Any day now the postie will be bringing me a scrap of shot taffeta from my dear friend Cara's wedding dress, and then I get to hie me to yarn shops in search of some matching mohair, and then I get to make her a shrug. And ideally, I also get to make myself a shrug, because my bridesmaid's dress isn't any warmer than the bride's (although, weirdly, it's far more frou-frou). I think my recent impulse-buy Goldiehair will be perfect for my own shrug/wrap; but for Cara, what?

Distressingly, I think I know what. I think the Silk Rhapsody I'm using for my moebius will be a perfect match for her dress. Oh dear. I do think I spotted some more in the same colourway in Stash, so I'll have to cross fingers it's still there. But how much do I need? Follow my logic here, please, tell me if I'm making sense:
The Crystal Palace yarn called for in the pattern is roughly the same yardage as the Artyarns, but is an awful lot finer. So one is supposed to use double strands; the pattern says to use one strand of print and one solid together, except for the trim, which will be two strands of print.
So. Ignoring the trim (I have other plans entirely), we can estimate that two fine strands x 240m are the same as one strand of chunkier yarn x 240m, when knit at the same gauge. Do you think? So I could just ignore the print yarn and buy as many balls of Silk Rhapsody as I'm supposed to buy of solid-colour Kid Merino - viz, two.

Right?
If you think I'm sailing a little close to the wind, bear in mind I do already have one skein in use on my moebius, and should worst come to worst I could cannibalise that. (Sob.) But still - your thoughts please?

Well. Moving on. I have had some serious postal treats this week. First came my thrillingly naughty looking nostepinde.**

Which is further proof of the dangers of Ravelry. Not Just A Timesucker, its powers of enabling are... beyond imagination. I mean, I have a swift and ball winder. They work all right, even if they are ugly. They're certainly more efficient than hand winding. But they're not maple and walnut, are they?*

I think I need a lot more practice on this thing. The instructions I read (and which I pretty much completely failed to follow, I now notice) mention that the writer developed proficiency in a mere half-hour, after five or six balls. Well. It's probably fair to assume that her balls weren't 525m long.

Knitters, if you're minded to try this newfangled nostewotsit, I strongly recommend checking your yardage before your wrist falls off.****

So that was Monday, and today? Today I got some books.

More Ravelry-assisted enabling to blame here, at least partly. On a discussion about magazines and where to get 'em, someone linked to this magnificent shop, P&M Woolcraft. Not being a spinning/dyeing type person, I expect much of their delightfulness is going right past me, but the books! Oh, the books. What a selection. And magazines! And subscriptions! The prospect of being able to enjoy subscriptions to certain US publications that really don't know how to handle their subscribers... well. It's a treat. And you know what? I've had No Sheep for You and Favorite Socks on preorder from a major bookstore chain for months. Months. They haven't been able to tell me what was happening, so when I saw these titles at P&M I popped them right in the basket. The very next day, would you believe, the bookstore emailed me to say that they couldn't fulfil the order and were cancelling my purchase. Saved me the trouble of doing it myself!

So this morning the books arrived, and it was cold and grey outside and I must admit... I dived right under the duvet and devoured them, every one. What a treat. And no calories, either.

PS. I see my title promises yarn, as well as socks and books. Yeah, I've gotten a little of that too. *blush* I have no self-restraint. But I'm also all photographed out right now. Next time, okay?

_____
* Actually, if you don't already know the Wollmeise, you really shouldn't click on that link. It exerts some sort of hypnotic power. Every time I see that bouncing wool, I get an overpowering urge to go look at the pretty colours (again), and then I really want to buy more yarn... like I need that. (Soon, my pretties. Soon.)
** It's not just me, is it? Have I really inherited my mother's filthy mind?
*** From Hello Yarn. Friendly, helpful, and very speedy.
**** I also recommend encouraging your bridal friends to choose their dress based on what matches the yarn you already have in stash and that gives spectacularly good yardage, rather than the rather pricey and hard-to-get stuff, come to think of it. But that's another issue.

Posted by Robynn at 01:22 PM | Permalink | 3 cups of tea on the table

This is toe-up, destined for my own dear Armin. (I consider this a mighty victory, since when I first announced I was considering knitting socks, he was exceptionally quick to say "not for me, thanks". Now he's looking quite pleased with the notion.) I'm using the toe-up recipe from the latest Interweave, and I recommend it highly. (I'm actually using it for another pair at the same time - and I use the word "pair" advisedly, as it's two at once on the good old magic loop. More on that another time. With pictures, yes dears.) At first I was planning to do a little ribby cabling or similar, but the yarn wanted to be plain old stocking stitch. It was most definite about that. I thought I'd just stick a little braidy thing on one side, to prevent it being utterly boring, but you know, I'm not convinced.

What do you think? I don't think it looks great, actually. I might rip back and go boring after all.

And that's a bit of a revelation to me: turns out that in socks at least, I've developed quite a liking for Boring Knitting. There's something terribly soothing about just going round and round and round. Probably I had to hone my boredom on the miles of fine-gauge stocking stitch I put into mother-in-law's 60th birthday present (rather bad pictures below), but even so. It might have something to do with my present state of busyness: mindless works. Mindless helps. Remember the Yarn Harlot's amazing Bohus a couple of months ago, and how she said she was really looking forward to all that tiny stocking stitch as a respite? It's like that.

(Dolly's rather larger than mother-in-law. Also, blocking would have helped. I see that now.)

Anyway. You wanna see some knitters?
So did I. I rocked up to Jubilee Gardens feeling ever so confident. What ho, knitters! I thought. I'll just turn the corner and there they'll -

Oh.
Hm.
But I walked, scanning the horizon with my super-honed knitterly radar, and waddya know? Wool!

And very nice the knittas were too. Sadly I couldn't stay too long... I had book shopping to do, and stuff. Mostly stuff. But it was fun. And we weren't broken up by the police* (more's the pity). How was your KIP day?

[4 things will continue after the break. No, I'm not done! That's crazy talk! I got *lots* more waffle right here! ]
_____
* Thanks for the link, Anne! What fun.

Posted by Robynn at 09:19 PM | Permalink | 3 cups of tea on the table

"So are you hooked yet?"

Oh no, I said. Socks are great and all, but I love all forms of knitting equally, I said.

Well... yes, I do, I can't say that I'd rather knit a sock than a sweater, or a lovely lacy wrap. Generally speaking. But right now I would.

Right now, in fact, I have an unhealthy desire to toss all my other planned and current projects into a messy heap somewhere while I cast on the next sock IMMEDIATELY.

Harvey doesn't understand this.

Well, Harvey, it's like this. My inaugural socks are imperfect. They're a leetle too long in the foot; the stitchery is far from flawless; they are displaying an early tendency to sag. Plus, as gorgeous as they are, it's unlikely they'll ever get shown off in public. (The fault is entirely that of my shoe wardrobe — to show off socks, I need either really long boot socks, or I guess a kind of cute lace-up or similar shoe that I just don't have, certainly not in a large enough size to fit handknit socks into.) But they feel great. I put them on, I don't want to take them off.

Also, I really enjoyed the portability of socks. They look set to fill the gap in my handbag that has just been vacated by Gecko Ridge. In fact, I took them on a road trip just last weekend, and I do think it's the first time I've really enjoyed knitting in a car; normally I find myself wanting more elbow room, and put my knitting away pretty quickly. And I see how satisfyingly mindless they are (or will be once I've internalised the construction; I'm about halfway there now); get started, go, don't overthink it or check the pattern every five minutes.

And as previously mentioned, I am so curious about the possibilities of socks. I want to try out every possible way of making them. This will result in many wonderful pairs of socks, keeping my feet warm and cosy for years — or until I wear them out, which I hear happens fairly quickly with handknits, so this could be a self-perpetuating cycle.

I better get started.*

_____
* No. No! Don't you encourage me, either. Not just yet. I need to at least try to do that chenille wrap thingy.

Posted by Robynn at 10:34 AM | Permalink | 3 cups of tea on the table