Seastorm coming to an end

Turned the heel, and now I'm on the final stretch!



I really like this colourway. I am following Cat Bordhi's technique for her Foxglove pattern, but I can't handle putting the increases "anywhere I feel like." I wanted to knit a plain toe-up sock with traditional increases on the sides, so I placed the increases at the beginning (LRinc) and end (LLinc) of the sole at the rate of 2 increases per 3 rounds for the arch expansion section, as per Cat. This pair of socks will be going into the gift reserve, designated.


To meet my non-sock knitting project needs, I've cast on for Tomato using Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton in Navy. The colour is so dark, it's not the best project to work on in the evening. The contrasting houndstooth will be in Pickle. The colours remind me of black watch plaid, a favourite of mine. I have a good feeling about this one. Hopefully it will be a quick knit, without any major mistakes! Check out my queue on Ravelry to see what will be after this - I'm crispynoodle.

Sew soon

Today I spent a little time with my ball winder and swift. These gadgets play great together. That there on the swift is Cherry Tree Hill Supersock merino. All in anticipation of me finishing off Seastorm sock, well, I haven't made it to the heel, but soon. I just can't cast off without being totally ready for the next sock in line. After winding the whole ball, I wound approximately half back into a second ball - as a toe-up sock knitter I want to use up that yarn. A visual guess at half would likely do, but when pharmacists have access to sensitive scales, well, let's just say these two balls are now within 0.5 g of each other. Perfect.



And to start the ball rolling on yet another endeavour, Bernie and I will be getting re-acquainted. I pressed the fabrics (shown in the last post, all folded up) for the new quilt which will eventually go in our room. This is the first time I have blogged about quilts, I was starting to think I should take the quilt out of the crispy noodle! (just go with it, folks) It's still in me, though, the pressing and cutting has rekindled my interest and will be another distraction from all my woolly work.



Bernie looks pleased.

On a long cable break

It's done!



Debbie Bliss' Classic Cabled Sweater from her book Out of Town. The pattern called for 18 balls of alpaca silk aran. I chose a lovely red that has since been discontinued. Imagine my dismay at running out of yarn at the time of working the collar. I found 2 balls on ebay, however in a different lot number. I did not see a difference, so I went with it! Really, my options were rather limited. Anyway, I'm very happy with the way it turned out. The only modification I made was the needle size - Debbie says to use 5 mm on the body and 4.5 mm for ribbing sections, but I had to go down to 4.5 mm and thus use 4 mm for ribbing. The fit is perfect, sorry no picture to confirm this! The shaping is done by using the smaller needle around the waist section which eliminated any inc/dec within the double moss stitch. Ain't it grand? It's quite warm, not many cold weather days to wear it but I've been sneaking in a few hours here and there with it on. Cosy and soft, I love it.

So, I've been off knitting for at least three days.

Couldn't stand it any more, so I knocked off a sock made of the yarn on the right (Fleece Artist's Basic Merino in Seastorm):




which I plucked from my crystal bowl of sock yarn:



And now for something completely different! My newest item added to the working queue:



and this:



I've got plans, baby, big plans...

Warm neck, a good thing

Another FO - Fleece Artist's Kid Silk Scarf in rainforest green. A New Year's gift for a buddy on Whidbey Island. It knit up fast in the wave pattern, no mods necessary!

Here's a close up.


Here is some new yummy yarn from Perl Grey, part of the Fleece Artist family. This is the pattern and yarn from the Coco kit, a big collar or cowl neck. It's something different to make, not to mention I love the colour way (Fruit Punch). It's a combination of merino, kid, nylon and silk. Hand painted by the fleece artist herself.


Isn't it pretty?

New Year, new knitting

Now it's that lovely time of year when we can get back to the knitting we left behind to get ready for Christmas. This means for me I am getting back to reddy....I completed the back (thank you, thank you) and have started the front. I am very happy to move along with this! Pictures still to come!

If you're wondering about Wicked...well....let's just say we had a little problem with dye lots, and it has been frogged back to balls of yarn waiting for its next turn, in a ziploc bag. It took some time to accept this decision, but now I feel liberated from the problems it was causing. I am quietly making plans for it within the next couple of months.

In the meantime, I finished a pair of socks:



and almost finished another:



Here's the Christmas hat I made miss M which she loves:



That's the holiday knitting so far!

Tweedy cable hat

After telling anyone who would listen that I was planning on finishing Wicked EVEN though it was going to be too small ie. I was ready to move onto other projects, I could not stand the thought it was not going to fit me, especially because I love the yarn so much.

So...I frogged back to the the armholes, added a couple more increase rounds, and resumed! I'm very pleased with the fit now. So excited, I took time out to do the sleeves, and the pocket. Currently I'm doing the shaping on the body...it's very easy knitting now, but I still have Christmas knitting to do and feel kind of guilty working on this! Besides which, I am waiting for one more skein to arrive for finishing off this bad boy.

So, a little break I will take.



Here's a little cutie cap I whipped up using some leftover Gedifra English Tweed. I used this pattern from the Yarn Harlot (her free pattern on her website), with one modification to make it bigger since my gauge didn't match the pattern's. The pattern is very fun to make, but I still had to block it bigger because all the cables really pulled it in. It's still a bit small, but sure fits this model rather nicely! I wasn't sure if this would suit my intended giftee, so I started these:



This will end up being a New Year's present, but I know will be gratefully received no matter when I finish them.

This and that

Since the last hat streak, I thought I would work on Classic Cable, ready for something more challenging. I took the pattern out, read where I left off, then sighed heavily and returned it to its little bag....I just don't think I can immerse myself in this attention-needing pattern! I feel kind of bad since I imagined myself wearing this nice cosy red turtleneck at Christmas. C'est la vie, there is always Valentine's!



So I thought I would work on Wicked.



This was ticking along jim dandy when I started to doubt the fit. I knew the gauge was not perfect when I started, but at that point I was so ready (yes, that would be at cast-on) to just whip it up and get on to the next project...I thought I would go for it. Well, ahem, the sweater may turn out to be rather snug. I have not started the sleeves yet, but I think I'll pick up a few stitches when I start (at the armpit) which I find I have to do anyway with a raglan. Then if that doesn't help ease up the fit, I'll block it out a wee bit. If that fails, well, little miss M will hopefully wear it in a year or two! I am down to near the bottom and now I have this bad feeling I'm going to run out of yarn. In a panic I worried about them not having more of this colourway, so off I went and ordered more, yep, one more skein! That should arrive later this week. So, while waiting for that, I churned out a couple more things.



Here's a close-up of a Christmas gift which is just finished!



Here's something else - this little vest was a happy surprise. The yarn is Grignasco Karma, made up in Blue Sky Alpaca's ribbon vest pattern. I did not use ribbon, and the vest turned out to be a little big for me overall (not because of the lack of ribbon, but because I was too lazy to play with the gauge). So after about a year of wondering how to make it smaller, I psyched myself up to bravely put it under the needle of my trusty Bernina. That was fun! I turned the vest inside out, hand basted the fit compared to something else that fit me well, then seamed it on my machine a couple of times (same seam), then repeated this 1/4" away into the seam allowance. Then, with my trusty Janome, I serged off the new seam allowance to about 5/8" and voila, a perfect little vest with some fun colour and little bobbly things! There's deal on this yarn at Urban Yarns this week!