The Mad Color Weave socks are finished! Well, they’ve been finished for a few weeks now. Way to pull out the old FO’s when there’s nothing else interesting to blog about, kelp!

The shoes match the pinky-peachy base of the sock yarn, but they don’t fit at all with the socks crammed inside. Ouchies!

Pattern: Mad Color Weave
Yarn: Koigu KPPM p335, with a wee bit of Claudia’s Handpainted for the toes.

I’m very pleased with the outcome of this pattern! It’s the perfect thing to show off a yarn with short color repeats like the Koigu. The slipped stitches don’t give you a ton of stretch, so I ended up knitting the 74 stitch size.

I lengthened the leg to 8.5 pattern repeats, which caused me to run out of yarn for sock #1. I had a teeny bit leftover after knitting sock #2, so I evened out the toes and closed them with some matching yarn. I think my yarn issues for sock #1 are due to gauge - the first sock’s leg is noticeably looser than sock #2. This always happens to me when I knit two of something!

I also futzed with the side cables to make them cable in different directions (ahhh, symmetry!), and knit the heel flap a bit shorter than called for in the pattern. The heel flap edit was due to my yarn issues - I was running out of yarn and it seemed a bit long. It turned out to be a mistake, as the extra length is needed for the band heel:

Hmm, I guess I should have cropped out our grill. Focus your attention to the right, please!

I may have purchased the Claudia’s this summer, for a bit of blog header enhancement. Does that count as buying yarn? Man, I just fell off the wagon big time, but that’s for a future post. Gotta milk the knitting content as much as possible!

Oooh, I have had a royally bad week, people. Total suckage around these parts. And a certain Tangled Yoke isn’t helping manners any.

It looks perfectly tangled, huh? Well this sweater has given me nothing but fits the whole way. I actually had the yoke almost completely finished (sans neckband) when I finally counted my stitches and realized that it’s too big. I had originally cast on for a size too large. Damn! To seal the deal ripping-wise, my center motif wasn’t in the center, as I followed the directions on where to put the center portion without counting how far it was from the other edge. Then I sleepily re-cast-on on a plane and didn’t double check my stitch count, and I’m 8 stitches short for the yoke. Wha? I fudged the decreases before the cabley portion, and now we’re finally good to go.

I provisionally cast on at the bottom of the yoke so I can knit the body portion top-down and try on the fit as I go. I’m pretty close to one of the sizes, and hopefully my incorrect stitch count will produce the perfect amount of negative ease. If not, I’ll be creatively blocking this thing to make it fit, because I’m certainly not ripping it again!

Then the kitten adoption place that we’ve been working with has been effectively dicking us around with vaccination requirements and insisting we pay to spay/neuter the kittens (I shudder to think how much we’ve already spent on veterinary care). We’ve found a new place and will hopefully find these guys new homes soon. I mean, who can resist these stripes?

Or how about this spunky gal:

I totally want to keep her, but Rob says no. Boo.

Welcome to the September ‘07 edition of Yarnival! I was worried that there wouldn’t be many submissions, given that August is the time for heat and vacations. Not so! The knitters brought the goods, and I’m here to bring them to you:

Last-Minute Wedding Shawl Smackdown!

Summer is the time for weddings. Apparently it’s also crunch time for shawl knitting! These two ladies impressed my (handknit) socks off with their feats of speed and deadline knitting.

Kelley knit her wedding veil in two months. On size 1 needles. Damn!

SJ says “Many of my SnB friends thought I was crazy for casting on a mere month before the big day, but I finished with two weeks to spare and I couldn’t be happier with the results!”

Fee Fie FOOOOO Fum!

Lisa finished her Hot Ticket, with the cutest model around.

Kim submitted Lorraine’s Guenevere jacket, a fair-isle wonder!

Sockpalooza wrapped up at the beginning of August, and Irishgirlieknits has a little letter for her sock pal. I wonder if the socks ever made it into the mail?

Lindsay finished a glamorous shawl for a glamorous person. Her post is full of details about the “tangles” of the Frost Flowers and Leaves shawl, definitely worth a read!

Claire finished an absolutely stunning scarf (and baby knits, too). Bonus: porpoises!

Janet says, “The Rusted Root that Vanessa knit was an exercise in tenacity! She documented the ‘adventure’ to its successful (SURPRISE!) conclusion and I was impressed with her dogged determination to make this RIGHT and wearable.”

Some mid-issue miscellany - knits that defy categorization

Caro says, “I’m just so stoked that these girls all took time to knit something for a knitter. Who else can appreciate exactly how much time went into the project.” Awwww! <wipes tear>

Heather cushions the back-to-school pain with a trip to the LYS on the way home from work.

Deb tells a yarn (ha!) about the dangers of ponds. Beware!

Marg. needs a swift so she can solve her avoidance issues.

A grammar lesson, the fibery way

Emily H-K teaches us how to conguate. I wish middle school assignments were this lovely!

Kim nominated Scrubberbum’s post on knitting in all contexts.

You learn something new every day

Kristy demonstrates how to flip a charted lace pattern. So simple, yet so, so useful when making lovely sock symmetry.

Stella shows us her steeking technique, complete with video! As she says, “Be brave, be very brave, eeek, it’s a steeek!” Indeed!

Elizabeth brings us her gorgeous Ophelia pattern, a perfect knit right now for Indian summers and southern climates.

Meg reviews When Bad Things Happen to Good Knitters. The story of my life, really.

A bit of rumination

Why knit socks? Elemmaclitur ponders his reasons. Then he flashes the biggest pile of Wollmeise I’ve ever seen!

Lindsay takes control of her creations with destruction.

Jocelyn takes pleasure in both the little and not so little things. She also brings us this issue’s Yarnival hunk!

The End

That’s all for this issue of Yarnival! Don’t forget to show everyone a little comment love, and submit your entries for next month here. Lucky Issue 13 will be at Stitch n’ Sue mid-October, be there or be felted!

Finally, the Ironwork Socks charts are done! I’ve had my nose to the computer for the past week, finishing up the font and ironing out these charts. What a frustrating process.

Anyone want to test knit? There are three sizes, so it’s suitable for a range of foot sizes and yarn weights. I’m especially looking for anyone willing to knit the smallest size (over 64 sts) and the largest (80 sts). The pattern is mostly charted, with written instructions for the heel and toe action. If you’re interested, comment here or drop me an email at kelpknits at gmail dot com.

ETA: Ok, I think I’m set! I’ll get back to everyone tomorrow. Yay for the people in the internets!

There’s no knitting to see here. Well, I could photograph another almost-completed Mad Color Weave sock, but that would steal all the fire from the FO photos. And do you really want to see another frogged piece of Petal, complete with swearing? Yup, the sleeve cap reknitting doesn’t need blog documentation.

Therefore I shall distract you with… kittens!

Clicky on the picy for extra big. How can you resist those little blue eyes?

The kittens have undergone an amazing transformation from when we found them a little over a week ago. Back then, they would huddle behind the toilet whenever we walked into the room and would hiss like crazy. Now they climb all over us and are positively jumpy. Dare I say, frisky? Definitely frisky. Also, they learned how to purr this weekend and they all purr at the same time when we enter the room. Purring in stereo! It’s pretty awesome.

We have another week of kittens living in the bathroom before they get their feline lukemia test, and then we can take them to get adopted. I’m introducing them to the other cats as soon as possible - we only have one, small bathroom, and we want it back!