I always thought that sock blockers were such a frivolous purchase, but I’m the first to borrow a pair when I have a too-small sock that needs some lace stretching in order to be attractive.

Another Ironwork Sock is done! Hoo, boy, am I glad I’m only knitting one of these. Dare I say that I now have this pattern memorized? I promise, I’ll only use my powers for good! I used Spirit Trail sock yarn that I purchased at MDSW for this, and I love it! It’s twisty and squishy and good.

Speaking of delicious…

Please stand out of my way while I tear apart the pretty packaging, rawr!

The Wollmeise yarn finally arrived! Roll call!

Dornroschen – medium.
Brombeere – dark.
Poison #5 – dark.
Veilchen – medium.
Gewitterhimmel – dark.
Tiefer See – medium.
Farn – dark.

Only the Brombeere and Gewitterhimmel are mine. I’ll be passing the rest off to their rightful owners this week. Maybe. Just kidding, girls, you’ll get your yarn!

I leave you with one last photo of the pretty.

This blogging once a week thing is sort of lame, but for some reason my knitting has been progressing at a glacial pace. So a quick roundup:

I started another Ironwork Sock, for a gift.

I’m using the Spirit Trail sock yarn that I purchased at MDSW this year. I’m really liking the yarn, although it’s a bit more semi than solid, so it’s probably not the best match for the pattern. I’m pressing on, as I was determined to knit this from stash! I was planning on knitting a billion different sock patterns, but that evil mistress gauge had different plans for me.

I’m actually very happy that I’m knitting another of these because I’ve uncovered a couple of errors in the pattern. Ugh and apologies to all that run into the errors! I’m putting the errata on the pattern page, so you should definitely check it out if you have purchased the pattern. I’m learning a bit about this pattern writing process and I’ll definitely test knit changes I make in future patterns, especially with items as small as socks.

Tangled Yoke is starting to look like a sweater. Since I’m knitting the body top-down, I investigated bind off alternatives to make the bottom edge pretty and stretchy.

I’m a tubular bind off master now, thanks to Silver’s help.

Speaking of cats (do you like that segue?), say farewell to Jet Li!

He found his new home this past weekend! All five kittens have new homes, and I couldn’t be more excited. We thought we’d have Jet and Bruce for much longer – apparently, people aren’t too keen on adopting black kittens. The mobile adoption place seemed like a good idea in theory, but none of the kittens were adopted through it – we lucked out to find friends, friends-of-friends, and neighbors-of-friends-of-friends who adopted all of these guys. We’re going to miss having the kittens around, but I’m happy that we found good long-term homes for them!

Finally, finally, finally! The Ironwork Socks pattern is finished!

The pattern is offered in three sizes (corresponding to cast on amounts of 64, 72, and 80 stitches) but will work with a wide range of foot measurements and stitch gauges:

I erred on the large side for sock measurement to size conversion – the stitch pattern has a similar gauge as stockinette, but a bit less stretch because of the traveling stitches.

I would consider this an intermediate to advanced pattern, as an understanding of knitting charts is required. The pattern contains three charts for each size, one each for the leg, heel, and instep. There are clear instructions on all of the chart symbols and written instructions for the heel turn, gusset, and toe sections.

You can buy it here:

$6.00

I’ve switched to using Ravelry to deliver the patterns. You do not need a Ravelry account, but you will need to use Paypal to pay for the pattern. After you complete payment on the Paypal website, there will be a link to the pattern download page and you will also receive an email with the download information.

Urm, from last weekend. I seem to have left my blogging mojo somewhere, and can’t seem to find it. It doesn’t help that I’ve been busy like a bee lately at work and haven’t really crafted much recently.

A friend of mine from way-back-when visited last weekend, and I showed her all around Houston. Which means we left town. We didn’t go far – we drove down to Galveston for the day to check out the Moody Gardens aquarium (I heart aquariums with big red poofy hearts!), the shore (windy!), and an Amy-guided tour of the island (rainy!).

The Mardi Gras arches were meant as a temporary exhibit, 20+ years later one is still standing. The girls can be seen here partying like it’s March.

Ok, I did show other-Amy a bit of Houston, mostly unphotogenic things like shopping and drinking. We also checked out the Mercer Arboretum before she left.

Pretty and spikey! The Arboretum would be the perfect place to visit in spring, when the lilies are actually blooming. It’s easy to forget that it’s autumn when it’s 90 and humid. I miss the gorgeous colors of the northeast fall so much! I seriously can’t wait for the day when we leave Texas. See ya, TX, wouldn’t want to be ya!

In kitten news, we’re down to a pair of black kittens! Meredith has been invaluable for sending suckers over to our house to adopt the others. Bruce and Jet continue being adorable and have become super buddies.

Aww! The cats are all big cuties until you leave your yarn lying around.

I’m usually very good about keeping the yarn behind closed doors since Silver loves to gnaw on it. This will teach me to forget! Whoever did this did an excellent job of running around the chair and table – it was so bad that I needed to cut it. Thanks, cats, for putting the tangle in my Tangled Yoke cardigan!

Knitting? Yawn. Let’s talk about something different, like sewing! I busted out Old Cranky and made something that’s actually usable, with some fancy fabric that I’ve been saving for when I’m a stitching pro. Ha! I finally stopped holding my breath on that one and dove in.

Pattern: Clutch Handbag with Fabric Flower, from In Stitches by Amy Butler
Fabric: Etsuko Furuya Echino exterior, Denyse Schmidt Flea Market Fancy interior

It could use a trip to the ironing board (that fold on the left is a wrinkle, not a pucker), but it’s not bad for my first successful bag! I obviously skipped the fabric flower, and now I’m thinking that the bag needs something…. maybe, say, a flower? What do you think?

I’m especially proud of the top flap – the topstitching is so much better than any of my previous attempts.

Nice!

The pattern instructions were extremely clear, I have no complaints. This allowed me to make a slew of little modifications:

• The pattern calls for 4 layers of batting for the bag interior, two attached to each side of the outer fabric. I cut out two layers and thought that they would be poofy enough. The batting is less three dimensional once you baste it to the fabric, but still, I was going for more sleek, less marshmallow. I ended up fusing medium-weight interfacing to the exterior fabric, then attaching a single layer of batting.
• The pattern creates a massive clutch, so I shrunk the pattern by about 12%. I took an inch off the height, then scaled down all of the other measurements accordingly.
• The pattern called for a velcro closure. Um, no. I used a magnetic purse snap instead. I’m still a bit shocked that it worked out so well given that I fiddled the size of the bag, but the snap is in the perfect location.
• I omitted the interior divider, instead adding an interior pocket from this crafster tutorial. I skimmed the tutorial before starting the pocket and ended up doing step 1 wrong. It’s not very noticeable, but you can see the interfacing on the inner side of the pocket and the zipper isn’t tucked neatly between the layers.

If I were to make this again, I would round off the bottom corners a bit more – they’re pointier than I had expected from the pattern photo. I would also use the main fabric for the top 1-2 inches of the interior, so you don’t see the interior fabric peeking out from the inside. Lining up the fabric pattern on the outer flap and front exterior would be nice, too.

Oh, yeah, I also would be careful not to fuse interfacing to the right side of my fabric. And no topstitching after midnight, since the results will inevitably have to be ripped out the next day!