Knotions launched last weekend and I have a little green pattern in it:

Hanging Vines socks! These might just be my favorites of the three recent sock designs (Oak Leaf and Interlocking Leaves were the other two). They were inspired by the ooodles of jasmine growing along the fence in our backyard. The leaves are long gone, but the vines stay nice and green all year long.

I ripped and reknit the cuff seemingly endless times. I was damn sure to make sure it was perfect before continuing on, because I wasn’t going to do any crazy chop-and-graft action again. I’m still having nightmares about unpicking all those stitches!

The yarn was dyed by Roxanne of Zen Yarn Garden. It’s such a great yellowish green – my photos definitely do not do it justice. Louet is the base yarn, and I really like working with it – it’s the perfect weight for socks and has a nice plump twist.

The only thing I’m unhappy with about these is the photos. I took a boatload of pictures in our backyard near the jasmine, but the lighting was horrible back there and you couldn’t make out the stitch pattern. I resigned myself to doing a photoshoot on our porch, which is where I photographed the Ironwork Socks. The pattern name makes more sense if you look at the socks when the cuff is at the top of the frame – the leaves are actually hanging then, and I think they look even better that way!

This is the last of the sock designs, because I have finished my 12th pair of the sock-a-month plan and am very, very done with socks for now! Socks, you are old news! Berets? Now that’s where it’s at. Even if I look silly in hats. More news next time, dear blog.

The Oak Leaf Socks pattern (originally appearing in Knotions) has been translated to German! Thanks to Andrea (kaita on Ravelry) for doing all the work of translating the pattern!

You can download the German translation here (pdf). Enjoy!

Hi blog! It’s been a while, but you know how that goes. I’ve been super swamped with work and we’re “sheltering in place” in preparation for hurricane Ike (we’re in central Houston, so no worries – we’re pretty safely out of harm’s way). I’m dropping in all quick like and tell you about these socks.

A few months ago we made the Squares for Sharron blanket. One of my squares had a stitch pattern that I fell in love with, so I sockified it and made these:

The Interlocking Leaves socks are available in Knitty, Fall 2008!

They’re worked toe-up in one my favorite sock yarns – Tess Super Socks and Baby. Yummy yummy stuff. I worked a toe-up heel flap, sort of Widdershins-esque, but a bit different (more true to top-down construction) in the heel turn. And of course they have an Eye of Partridge heel flap, as is my way!

I hope you like them! I’m still working my way towards the sock-a-month plan, and these are August’s socks, even though I knit them in May and I’m blogging them in September. I haven’t yet blogged July’s socks yet, but the next post will talk about those and September’s pair. I’m on a roll!

Hi! It is hot out. So I’ve been knitting socks!

First off, the Oak Leaf Socks!

The premiere issue of Knotions came out last Monday, and I was lucky enough to have this pair of socks included. Jody did a rocking job with the magazine (I totally understand how much work goes in to creating something like that from scratch) and there’s plenty of interesting patterns to knit. I have my eyes on Theodore for Rob, but I’m a bit short on yarn. Maybe I’ll make a skinnier version. I have some handspun that would be perfect for a manscarf.

Back to the Oak Leaf socks. I really love the zigzag line that happens when you alternate k2tog, yo and yo, ssk. A bit of swatching and travelling stitches led me to the leaves. The pattern includes a pretty transition from the mostly-purl stitch pattern to the knit stitch appearance of the eye of partridge heel. If you like how that looks, you can mirror it in the toe. I didn’t include instructions for handling this in the toe because it would have added a lot of complexity to the pattern (since the sock length can vary).

The socks are knit in Nature’s Palette sock yarn, in the Mallard colorway. I love this yarn. It’s soft and plump and this particular colorway is gorgeous – it very subtly variegates between grass and olive green. I also used this yarn in my Endpaper Mitts, and I just bought more for another pair of socks.

I’ve been slowly catching up to my sock-a-month plan this year. Let’s call these the May socks, since they were actually knit that month.

June’s socks:

Pattern: Marilinda socks
Yarn: Valley Yarns Huntington

I’ve been interested in all of the new yarns appearing in the Valley Yarns line. I used to live thisclose to Webs and tried the Longmeadow yarn at the time, but ended up destashing it because I really didn’t like the texture. The Huntington is a basic non-smooshy sock yarn. It’s 25% nylon but is very soft – it definitely doesn’t have the nylony scratchiness that I’ve been experiencing in recent yarns. It’s a bit splitty, which is most noticeable if you drop a stitch or are cabling without a cable needle.

I’ve been wanting to knit the Marilinda socks since they came out. The pattern is deceptively easy – all of the action (travelling stitches changing directions, cable cross) happens in the same row. I did make a couple of small changes, the most major of which is that I changed the double decreases. The pattern has double decreases where the center stitch is on top, but that center stitch is a purl background stitch that suddenly becomes a knit stitch. I think that changing those stitches to a k3tog on the right half of the chart and sssk on the left is a bit prettier.

One small thing to watch out for with this pattern is that the sizing runs very large. The pattern is worked over 75 stitches in the leg and there’s very little to pull in the pattern – only one four-stitch cable every 14 rows. I had a smaller gauge than the pattern (8.5 sts/in vs the pattern’s 8sts/in) and the sock fits my size 10 foot (9 inch circumference) and large calves perfectly – the pattern as written would have been way too large. Besides that, I’m very happy with the way that these socks turned out!

Knitting? no. Spinning? Yes! In fact, I brought fiber to predraft at my Stitch and Bitch last week, rather than knitting on one of the many projects that I’m bored to tears with. Someone asked me if I joined the Tour de Fleece spinalong. Um, kind of? I clicked “join this group” on Ravelry. Does that count?

Pigeonroof Studios superwash merino in Harlequin. 99 grams, 13wpi, 170 yards. I’d take that WPI number with a large grain of salt – I very, very sloppily measured it before the skein was washed. Original fiber.

6oz of Crown Mountain Farms corriedale pencil roving in Stonehenge. 163g, 14wpi, 313 yards. Original Fiber. I was thinking about using this as the yoke of a sweater, but who am I kidding? 313 yards isn’t that much more than a standard handspun skein.

Julie Spins Rambouillet in Polar, original fiber. I haven’t weighed or measured it, so let’s just call it beyond categorization for now. This one’s for my Hush Hush Handspun Hootenanny pal.

My Ravelry handspun page is starting to look like a yearbook page of skeins, which pleases me! To tell you the truth, I don’t care for spinning that much. However, I love the end result and really, really like buying more fiber than I have room to store, so spinning must occur!

I think that part of my knitting issues lie in that I’m officially sick of socks. Whatever happened to the sock a month thing, you ask? And isn’t that my unpronounceable name in the Knotions preview, you wonder? Yes! May’s socks will be fully revealed in August when Knotions launches, very exciting! For now, here’s a little preview:

And I just finished June’s socks. See, I’m not that far behind!

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!

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.

Finally, finally, I’ve written out the dotty pattern. I was planning on writing up the details on how I came up with the numbers in case anyone wants to modify it before I realized that hey! It’s felted and really, it’s not a math exam where anyone cares if I show my work. If anyone is interested, I’d be more than happy to decipher my notes for you.

So here it is! I was a bit fast-and-loose about measuring my gauge, but hey! It’s felted, so don’t worry about it! Also, the bottom decrease method doesn’t necessarily jive with my row gauge in stockinette, but I think it will work based on how mine turned out (actually, the bed bottom is now flat after the cats used it a few times).

I’d love to know if anyone actually makes this thing. Your cats will heart you for it!

Yarn: Knitpicks Wool of the Andes [100% wool, 110 yards/50 grams]

• 3 balls MC [Chocolate (23774)]
• 2 balls CC1 [Chambray (23769)]
• 2 balls CC2 [Rain (23768)]
• 2 balls CC3 [Stream (23434)]

Notions:

• One 24 or 32 inch US 10.5 circular needle
• One set of US 10.5 double-pointed needles
• One stitch marker
• Tapestry needle

Gauge:

• Dot pattern, before felting: 3 circles wide by 3 pattern repeats tall = 3.75 inches by 3.5 inches
• Dot pattern, after felting: 3 circles wide by 3 pattern repeats tall = 3 inches by 3.18 inches
• Stockinette, before felting: 15 sts by 20 rows = 4 inches square
• Stockinette, after felting: ? stitches by 42 rows = 4 inches

Finished Measurements:

• Bottom: 17 inches in diameter
• Sides: 5 inches tall

Dotty Pattern:
Worked in the round over 6 sts, slip all sts as if to purl

Row 1: Attach MC. Knit
Row 2: Purl
Row 3: Break MC, attach CC. [sl2, K4]
Rows 4-7: [sl2, K4]
Row 8: [sl2, K4]. Break CC. Remove marker, sl3, place marker. This is your new beginning-of-round.

The Dotty Cat Bed pattern

Using MC, CO 276 stitches. Join in the round, being careful not to twist. Place a stitch marker to denote the beginning-of-round.

Sides
Work the Dotty Pattern 9 times, alternating CC colors each repeat (CC1, CC2, CC3, CC1, …).

Transition Section
Break CC3, attach MC.
Purl one row in MC.
Flip cat bed inside-out. Remove marker. Slip one stitch from left needle to right. Pass second stitch from right needle to left, do not drop stitch off left needle. Place marker. You should now be set up to knit every round, and the stockinette side of the fabric is on the inside of the bed.

[K34, PM, K35, PM] to end. You should have eight evenly-spaced markers around the bed.
Knit one row in MC. Break MC.

Bottom
Work three-row stripes, alternating colors in this order: CC1, CC3, CC2, MC. Or invent your own stripey sequence. Go crazy! At some point you will run out of the CC colors – switch to MC and use that until the end.

At the same time, decrease as follows:

Row 1: [K to two stitches before marker, k2tog, slip marker]
Row 2: K
Row 3: K
Row 4: [K to two stitches before marker, k2tog, slip marker]
Row 5: K
Row 6: K
Row 7: [K to two stitches before marker, k2tog, slip marker]
Row 8: K

*** Warning: this decrease sequence above is emperically-generated – no math was used here! In the pattern photos, the decreases are worked every 3 rounds, which led to a not-flat bottom. However, once the cats started lying in the bed, the bed bottom flattened out in no time. ***

Continue decreasing (switching to double-pointed needles when there are too few stitches on the circular needle) until you have 24 stitches. Break yarn, thread through remaining stitches, and pull tightly to close.

Finishing
Weave in ends. Felt the bed, using instructions here or here. I placed the bed in a zippered pillowcase, then threw the pillowcase and a pair of of jeans in my washing machine, on the HOT wash cycle, for about 15-20 minutes.

Once the bed is felted to your liking, block it over a cylindrical surface or bowl (I used an inverted bowl and lots of plastic bags).

Coerce cats into sleeping in it.