Blog, I’ve been neglecting you again. I blame freaking Lost - Rob and I are working our way through seasons 1-3, which always trumps internet time. I’m about four projects behind on updates (if you count handspun), so here’s a little two-for-one sock action.

Pattern: Leyburn Socks
Yarn: Lisa Souza Sock!, the wool/nylon blend one

I’m in a bit of a knitting funk these days, and the only thing I can manage to finish is socks. So socks it is! I’ve had this yarn in my stash forever, because I’ve been stumped as to what to make with it. I really believe that slip-stitch patterns are the perfect thing for variegated yarn. I’ve wanted to knit the Leyburn pattern for a while, too (I swatched it in some Koigu last year), and this is the perfect marriage of yarn and pattern!

I followed the pattern very loosely, as I paired the stitch pattern with a Widdershins-esque toe-up heel flap. My heel turn is a bit different from the Widdershins one, though - for some reason Widdershins heel turn is half the depth of a normal top-down heel flap. I also worked a Magic Cast On for the first time, and it was like magic! Much better than dealing with a short-row toe.

I changed around the Leyburn stitch counts, too - the foot is 34 instep stitches and 31 sole stitches, and leg was 64 stitches. I should have increased some stitches around the heel flap (or worked a longer flap), since the floats are a bit stretched out there.

This was the first time that I’ve used Lisa Souza yarns. I love the non-pooling dye job, but the yarn felt very nylony when I was knitting with it. She also sells a 100% merino sock yarn, which my pampered fingers demand, apparently. I also love the generous 4 ounce put up - I have a sizeable ball of yarn leftover.

I wrote this entire post without mentioning the obvious fraternal nature of the socks, which is really a testament to my diminishing anal retentiveness. It’s part of the beauty of handpainted yarns, right?

I’m in the minority here, but I really prefer knitting socks top-down! I hate, hate, hate working the sewn bindoff for toe-up socks, and I hate even more undoing the sewn bindoff because it’s too tight. Knitting socks toe-up also requires a bit more math before you start, since you need to know your heel depth and the number of stitches before the heel turn to figure out how many gusset increases that must be worked. I probably won’t be working any more toe-up socks, unless I’m really, really afraid of running out of yarn.

In keeping with the sock-a-month theme, the socks above were March’s pair, and these are April’s.

Pattern: None - just a 64 stitch top-down stockinette sock with an afterthought heel
Yarn: My handspun! 3 ply (navajo plied) from some Funky Carolina superwash merino in the Missed colorway

Handspun socks! There’s not much to say about these, except that I spun the yarn! I can’t believe that these turned out so well. The handspun was mostly fingering weight (I used a US 1.5 needle and got 8 stitches/inch), but was a bit thicker for the second sock’s cuff. I think that the thick portion was where I started out spinning, and the uber thin portion was toward the end. I can say that spinning worsted weight yarn goes much, much faster than a 3 ply sock yarn!

My first afterthought heel! I chose the afterthought heel so that the stripes wouldn’t be interrupted, and I heart it. Normal short-row heels don’t fit my massive instep very well, so I worked a few even rounds before decreases to give me some extra ease in that area. The instep stitches are still stretched out, so I’ll try more even rounds next time.

The right sock has very short stripes, so I ended up cutting the yarn in a couple of places on the left sock to keep the stripes from getting too out of control. I also knit the first sock on the short side, since I was afraid of running out of yarn, and I extended it an inch after the second sock was complete. I must have missed this lesson in Knitting 101, but if you pick out the cast on edge to frog the top ribbing, you’ll have to pick out every. single. stitch. No frogging from the cast on edge. I ended up snipping a stitch and cutting off the ribbing, knitting an extra inch, and then grafting the sock back together. I can’t even tell where the graft is, so yay!

Pattern: The charts are a modified version of the Intricate Stag Bag, the general size is sort of based on the We Call Them Pirates hat.
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Tangerine, Dale of Norway Baby Ull in a charcoal grey

Every Thanksgiving, we visit Rob’s parents in a rural area of Pennsylvania. That’s right before hunting season begins, so we usually don hunter’s orange if we walk around outdoors. I’ve been wanting to make Rob’s dad a stranded hat with a deer motif for years, and when I saw the Intricate Stag Hat pattern, I was sold!

Rob’s parents were in town a couple of weeks ago, so the hat was quickly finished and gifted. It’s a bit large on Rob’s head, but it fits his dad’s 24" melon perfectly.

I modified the chart a bit by moving the trees away from the deer by a few stitches, creating some treetops, and adding a third tree. The pattern repeats on the back of the hat.

I used fingering weight yarns so that I could cram the whole scene onto the hat. I’ve used Dale of Norway Baby Ull before, and I’d use it again in a heartbeat, it’s soft like buttah. This was my first time using Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn - it’s quite tightly plied, but it blocked into a beautifully cohesive fabric.

The biggest challenge with this hat was tensioning the very long floats in the chart. The floats were extremely long at the very top of the hat, so I stopped the stranded knitting and duplicate stitched the top of the trees. I’ve never been much of a duplicate stitch fan, but it’s fairly invisible. It’s difficult for me to tell visually where the stranded knitting ends and the duplicate stitch begins, although the texture of the fabric changes at the duplicate stitch area.

A lining knit with the Baby Ull finished off the hat. Knitting the lining was the same amount of knitting as a sock, what a slog. I’ve offered Rob’s dad a liner replacement if the hat isn’t warm enough - it seemed fine when I was knitting it, but the hat is pretty thin. Overall, I’m happy with the hat, but I’m not yearning to struggle with any super long floats in the near future!

February’s socks are finished! I swear I finished them last month, but have put off posting until I retook the photo. They kind of blend in with the background, no? I suppose I can be stealth kelp in these, at least on my back porch.

Pattern: Child’s First Sock in Shell Pattern, from Knitting Vintage Socks
Yarn: Yarn Botanika Merino/Tencel in colorway Rum Runner

I heart the look of this pattern! Naturally, I made some modifications:

• I changed the top rib to 2×2. I prefer my rib to consistently match (or not match) with the sock patterning, and the 2×1 rib didn’t sync with the pattern repeat.
• I flipped the chart for the second sock.
• I’ve read that the gusset depth is pretty shallow for this pattern, so I extended it to 16 slipped stitches.

The only issue I have with these socks is the yarn dye job. I really wanted a semisolid yarn, but I opened up the skein to find this:

The yarn was tied too tightly before it was dyed and the dye barely penetrated in that spot. There were lots of white flecks in about 75% the skein. The left sock leg was knit with the semisolid portion, and the patterning in the rest of the socks is obscured by all that white. Boo, but I like them anyway!

That Mr. Roboto, he’s such a cornball.

Pattern: Robot (rav link) from Unusual Toys for You to Knit and Enjoy, Mochimochiland Heart
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted and scraps of Louet Gems for Mr. Roboto, Wool/Sarisilk blend scraps for the heart

This is another of those thrown-in-a-drawer, procrastinate-on-the-finishing projects. I had originally knit Mr. Roboto as a graduation gift for Rob (whose degree is in robotics). He graduated about a year and a half ago. Poor neglected Mr. Roboto!

The pattern instructs you to knit both sides of the robot flat, then seam him together. I had the bright idea of knitting him in the round and kitchenering his vertical seams together. I’m not sure that this saved me much work, and I think it produced more ends to weave in. Also, I knit him flat along the length of the intarsia panel, so I had to seam that side anyway.

Then I embroidered the most hideous face on the poor robot, prompting the delay in finishing. I finally bought a boatload of safety eyes, ripped my embroidery, and started over. I tried to embroider the heart to have the same expression as Mr. Roboto, but the heart just looks kind of sad - Rob even pointed it out. Awww!

Overall, Rob was very happy with his V-day gift, and Mr. Roboto is happy to be out of that drawer. Now, if Mr. Roboto could just find a little love…

One of my sort-of resolutions this year was to finish-or-frog my lingering projects (let’s not even discuss another resolution to blog more frequently, which I’m clearly failing at). How did I do? Well, the Socks for Veronik were project number 1 out of 6, and here’s number two:

Pattern: Counterpane Clutch from Handknit Holidays
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Pure Silk, less than one skein!

What seemed like a simple project at the time became a monster. I first knit this when I bought Handknit Holidays, out of some Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk. I remember being pretty frustrated that it took a little over one skein to make the bag, and the hairiness of the bag was not the look I was going for. So the bag sat in a corner for the longest time. I would root around in my yarn stash and uncover one of the halves, then guiltily stuff it back into its deep, dark corner to hibernate.

Then, last April, I bought a couple of skeins of Pure Silk from Yarntopia’s anniversary sale. The clutch looks much better in a smoother yarn, so the Alpaca Silk got frogged (and subsequently became Center Square). Then I proceeded to stuff the reknit bag into a deep, dark corner to hibernate.

Why all the procrastination? Ugh, the finishing details! I had originally planned to buy a metal claspy purse frame for the bag, which would have cost more than the yarn used to knit it! The clasp ended up being backordered, then gone forever, and I finally just went with a boring old zipper.

I made one small modification to the knitting portion of the bag - I provisionally cast on both sides, then kitchenered the bottom together. No seams! I don’t remember why I didn’t just knit the bag in the round, maybe because of the clasp details? If you’re installing a zipper, you might as well just knit it in the round and make it seamless.

The knitting part of this bag was quick and easy. You can easily get one bag out of a skein of Pure Silk. I even had enough extra yarn that I knit a wrist strap with (but the strap looked crappy and was removed).

I chose the invisible zipper purely because it’s such a close color match, but I’m pleased with the choice now.

The next step was the lining. You should definitely block the bag before figuring out the lining. I drafted a pattern for the lining (scallops and all), which was too small. Then I drafted another one. I actually made two linings - an outer lining that you can see through the lace pattern, and an inner lining that’s a teeny bit smaller. I interfaced both linings, but did not sew them together. The inner lining also has a pocket on each side that’s credit card / money sized. I’m always worried that I’m going to lose money when taking things in and out of pocketless clutches.

Last step - zipper installation. This part is No Fun. I wedged the zipper between the two lining layers, which looks very tidy. There was lots of basting and swearing and rebasting involved with zipper installation. Then there were a few attempts to find a stitch that will look pretty on the inside. I think I succeeded, but seriously, between the Tangled Yoke ribbon facing and this zipper, I was handstitching for a solid week.

My final verdict? Meh. I probably won’t use it much. First off, the yarn is extremely fuzzy and the bag looks quite worn already.

It’s like little sunspots erupting from the surface of the bag. From what? The abuse of being ignored for all this time? The most wear that the bag endured was living in a desk drawer for a few months (as an attempt to get me to finish the damn thing). I now realize that this fuzziness and wear is common with single-ply silk yarns. Boo. The other issue is completely my fault - I didn’t interface the lining enough. I used a fusible interfacing, likely lightweight. The bag is pretty floppy and looks pretty silly. I haven’t tried loading it with my cellphone and lipgloss yet, but it doesn’t look good.

And what about the other four finish-in-January projects?

• Tangled Yoke - needs a single ribbon facing for the buttonhole side. I need to figure out buttonholes on my sewing machine - there’s no way that I’m hand stitching them.
• Petal - No longer looks hacked apart. I need to figure out the sleeve caps, which don’t fit the sleeves terribly well.
• Intricate Stag Hat - no progress.
• Mr. Roboto - Almost done! I think he’s going to become a valentine’s day gift for rob (rather than a graduation gift, an event which occurred almost two years ago).

Now we’re striving for finish-by-Spring. Hopefully!

Pattern: Socks for Veronik, from the Interweave Knits Holiday ‘07 issue
Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock, color Firefly

These socks certainly brighten up the dreary days around here! We don’t really get much of a winter in Houston, but the city is trying it’s best with two solid weeks of grey and drizzle. I don’t mind the gloomy weather, it gives me the rare opportunity to get some wear out of all my handknits.

Lest you think I’m always lounging about in pointy shoes and handknit socks…

The reality is that I’m working from home in my pj’s. I do like the blue, white, and yellow combo, though!

These are my first continental project and they turned out pretty well! The sole of the sock has some tension issues, but those will probably even out with wear. I followed the pattern exactly which gives you a fairly long leg in the sock. If I were to knit these again, I’d shorten them by a pattern repeat or two. The small garter edge looks pretty, but doesn’t do much to hold up the sock when faced with my generously sized calves.

This is my first time working with Lorna’s Laces for a whole project - I’ve swatched a variegated colorway of the Shepherd Sock and swapped it away because it pooled so badly. Yellow’s never my first choice, colorwise, but I’ve warmed up to it quite a bit. The yarn itself was wonderful to work with and I’d definitely use it again. I wish I could buy the semisolid colorways locally.

I realized recently that I have exactly 12 skeins of sock yarn in my stash. If I knit a sock a month, I’ll be sock yarn stashless by the end of the year, and that sounds fabulous to me.

I’m getting a jump on February’s pair - a Child’s First Sock in some Yarn Botanika merino/tencel yarn. I’ve loved this pattern since forever and I’m excited to knit these up! Shhhh, don’t tell my unfinished objects about this one.

Rob and I are going to visit the family this weekend, so this will be the perfect travel project. I’m rushing to finish the Tangled Yoke today - it’s very close to completion, and I’m determined to get some wear out of it!

If you’re a female in our family that’s receiving a gift from me, there’s a good chance that you’re getting a scarf!

Pattern: Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf
Yarn: Colinette Giotto, color Castagna

When we were in London last year, I actively sought out places to buy Colinette yarn, since the price is right when you’re not importing it into the US. My mother is allergic to wool, so I chose to buy some Giotto to make her a scarf. It’s a cotton ribbon yarn that’s half shiny, half matte. The shiny strands are unwoven, they run parallel between the edges of matte binder.

I swatched the yarn last year and have been trying to destash it ever since! I’ve come to realize that I despise working with ribbon yarns because the twistiness drives me crazy. Also, it’s entirely too easy to pierce the unwoven center of this yarn. I was determined to get this yarn out of my stash, and I now know to stay far, far away from this stuff in the future.

I found the pattern via Ravelry, and I think it works well with the yarn. One down!

Pattern: Cream of Spinach Scarf
Yarn: Brooks Farm Riata

We saw Rob’s Aunt last year and sort of dropped the ball, gift-wise, so I thought I’d make her a scarf this year. Again, I found the pattern via the Rav, and I’m really happy with the result. The scarf has tons of drape, and the one-row pattern meant that this scarf was finished in a matter of days. Riata comes in some huge whopping skeins (375 yards), and I had plenty leftover from this generously-sized scarf.

I won two skeins of this yarn last year at Kid and Ewe (a wee little fiber festival in Boerne, TX), and this is the first one that I’ve knit up. It’s gorgeous stuff, each of its three plies has a different fiber composition - fuzzy mohair, matte wool, and shiny wool/silk. I kept staring at the yarn as I was knitting it, marveling at the contrast of textures. Those Brooks Farm people really know how to make a yarn.

Pattern: My So-Called Scarf
Yarn: Brooks Farm Four Play

My family exchanges names for gift-giving for Christmas, and I pulled my aunt’s name. I figured that I should really make her a scarf since I’m making Rob’s aunt one, hence scarf #3.

Speaking of lovely Brooks Farm Yarn, I would definitely qualify Four Play as one of my desert-island yarns. It was incredible to work with, so so soft and shiny. Good stuff, there. Everyone and their mother has made one of these So-Called scarves, and it’s a great pattern. The best part is that it lies perfectly flat, no pins, sweat, or tears needed. I’m especially pleased that I knit the entire scarf with one skein of the Four Play (270 yards) - it’s on the skinny size (5″ wide), but will be perfect for my aunt.

This is the last of the holiday knits, whew. I’m working on one more item, but I realized that the colorwork hat on size 2 needles (with a full lining) is so not getting done anytime soon. It also turns out that our holiday deadline is extended a bit - we’re staying here this year, thanks to Rob and his whack back. He’s having a wee bit of outpatient surgery tomorrow, so it will be a very balmy holiday for us!

Here’s the first of four posts on all of the holiday gifts I’ve made over the past month and a half. I’ve been a crazy gift-making machine lately, due to a mix of mall-hating, handmade-wanting, and uncertainty of what to gift to Rob’s family. The contents of the last two posts aren’t finished yet, my fingers are crossed that I’ll have them done in time!

Pattern: Top-down stockinette over 58 stitches with a short row heel and your standard toe (closeup here)
Yarn: Lonesome Stone Mountain Feat in Cran Brulee

Boring old stockinette socks for my mother-in-law. She loved! adored! raved! about the socks I made her last year, so she guaranteed herself a handknit gift this year.

I swatched this yarn with a few different patterns - I wanted something with textural interest, but the yarn was giving me fits:

I’m not buying variegated yarns any more. No, really, I mean it this time.

I bought the yarn during our trip last month in Boulder, at Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins. It’s produced in CO - the perfect souvenir yarn! The yarn was a bit thick-and-thin in nature, and it’s definitely the beefiest yarn I’ve ever knit socks with. I’m pleased with the final result, they’ll keep Rob’s mom’s toes toasty.

SS and S was a great yarn shop, huge and inviting with tons of yarn. I did have one issue with it - I was thisclose to buying some Koigu there, but they were selling it for $14 a skein! It’s usually $12, and the highest I’d previously seen it was $13.50 at Purl. I was priced out of my dear Koigu, so sad.

Pattern: Utopia Hat
Yarn: Malabrigo in Forest

A warm, cozy hat for my brother, who lives in the cold, cold land of Buffalo. I found the pattern via Ravelry - this will become a theme this year. I do wish that the pattern listed the hat’s finished size - I had to do some swatching and ripping and reknitting to get this to work. I knit the Malabrigo very tightly on size 4 or 5 needles, and added two pattern repeats (48 stitches) to the pattern. My brother has a monstrous head, and I’m not entirely sure that this will fit him. It will likely be too short, so I didn’t weave in the top end in anticipation of some holiday frogging.

The yarn was lovely to work with, as always. I have some Manos in the stash, but I think it’s a wee bit scratchy for a gift hat.

Next up: a bevy of scarves.

Remember those mittens I was wearing in Denver?

Here’s the pattern!

I knit these mittens a couple of years ago, pre-blog, when I was on a big cable kick - I really wanted some cabley texture that wouldn’t be annoying to wear on the palm of my mitten. The tighter cabling and purls on the cuff draw the fabric in to keep the snow out.

This pattern calls for one skein of Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted, but any heavy-ish worsted yarn should do. The mittens are knit tightly (using US 6 needles) for extra wind-battling power during those long, cold winters.

I’ve been finessing the top decreases over the past couple of days, so the mitten photo above isn’t 100% accurate. The pattern as written is most similar to the left mitten above - all of the decreasing issues in the right mitten have been fixed.

Yay for mittens!

I’m rushing around today, trying to get things together before we leave for the holiday. Somehow I’m behind on just about everything right now, eep! We’re off to Denver for a week to visit Rob’s brother and family, so here’s a drive-by FO post before we leave.

Pattern: Endpaper Mitts, by Eunny Jang.
Yarn: Brooks Farm Acero (the dark blue), Hand Jive Nature’s Palette in Odd Duck #4.

In short, I love my Endpapers! They’ll be perfect for winter in Houston and my why-is-the-vent-blowing-on-me office. Yay!

The pattern is straightforward, although a bit thoroughly charted - the pattern repeat is the rightmost 10 stitches of the chart. I find a 10 stitch pattern easier to follow than a 27-stitch mass of blocks, and I pretty much had it memorized by the end. Since I knit tightly, I went up a needle size for both the ribbing and the pattern.

The one problem I had with the pattern was the Italian Tubular cast on. I used this tutorial (perfect!), but it was coming out loosey goosey. I consulted my Montse Stanley book for alternate tubular cast ons, and she suggested that the Italian cast on should be worked on smaller needles. That did the trick! It still flares a bit, but you can’t tell when the mitts are on.

The yarns are, in a word, awesome! If I were buying yarn (I’m still technically dieting until the end of the year), I would rush back to the yarn store and buy more of the Nature’s Palette yarn in that same colorway, I love it to bits. I think the colors work very well together and they’re definitely a “me” color scheme. The Acero is shiny, thanks to the undyed silk, and looks great with the matte Nature’s Palette.

The photo above is perfectly true to color. One issue is that the Acero variegates ever so slightly to a lighter teal, and it’s almost the same color as the Nature’s Palette in some places. It almost looks like I made a chart error, but I swear it’s the yarn, not the knitter!

Knitting these mitts has definitely improved my continental knitting. I still knit much looser in continental than english-style, so you can tell that my light blue stitches are pretty elongated. I’d also say that my floats are too long - I was being very careful not to knit too tightly around the DPN joins, and I think I overcompensated.

Endpaper Mitts say peekaboo! Ok, I’m off, have a good turkey day (or tofurkey day, or plain old Thursday)!