Last day for January socks

I just might finish in time, if only because of the arctic blast we're now experiencing in the Denver area. Not that I've spent any of my day so far knitting, but I did get some chores out of the way. Last night I grafted the heel of the second Skew sock. That leaves the leg and cuff. Totally doable, I just need to sit down and do it.

School is canceled for tomorrow because of the forecast temps. If I get through the second Skew, I can work on one of the other projects that I have been longing to get back to for the past few weeks. We'll see, won't we?

Lesley's Mittens

My friend Lesley from Maroon Bells Morris asked me to knit her a pair of big, warm, wool mittens. She likes the colors I used in the cardigan I was wearing (blue, green, purple) and her hands are the same size as mine. We share a birthday too, oddly enough. I dug around in the Cascade 220 yarn stash (3+ totes) and found some blues that work well together. Using a light, a medium light, a medium dark and a dark, I played around for a few days and came up with this:

 

Easy peasy fair-isle stripes. Big enough that a pair of cheapy stretch gloves fit underneath, but not so big that you can't start the car. I think she's going to like them. I know I'm starting a pair for myself as soon as I take care of a little something for Sallie.

Lots of knitting!

This past week I got a lot of knitting done, as well as a little weaving. First, I cast on the larger Sonja Esbensen doily from this free pattern as a shawl. I'm knitting it with Knit Picks Shadow and size 9 needles. It's just over 100 rounds, so it aught to be plenty big enough when it's done.

I also worked a lot on my Kureyon zigzag scarf. It's coming right along and I can make a lot of progress when I pay attention to which side I'm knitting so I don't miss the decreases. ;)

Skew is coming right along. Although it is easy to knit, it's a truly bizarre sock. Here's the foot, about halfway I think:

This is what it looks like once you start the heel shaping:

 I'm nearly done with the first one, just started the ribbing this morning. I tried it on last night and it's very comfy. In fact, all the kids tried it on, too, just because it looks so funky. They all like how it fit, so there may be more of these in my future.

New Year's Lace

On Thursday I realized I hadn't knitted any "lace" lace in a while and I really missed it. A few days before I came across a free Sonja Esbensen design I hadn't seen before, so I cast on the smaller piece, as "instant gratification" lace. I cast off and blocked it this afternoon. It's just what the doctor ordered!

The color in the top pic is accurate, but the design show up better against the wood table.


I also got a decent pic of my Fairies and Flowers scarf.

This one drove me a little nuts on the second half, so it sat in time out for a while. There are wrong-side decreases on the flower half that I was sometimes, and sometimes not, in the mood for. The finished product thrills me. Just the right length, lacy and beady all over, soft and warm. It's more teal-ish than the photo shows, though.


Also started my January socks today, Skew.

Rough Weather

It's hard to believe I haven't blogged in almost a month, but it has been a busy one. The high school musical was Sweeney Todd, and we has the pleasure of watching Devi play the long-lost, crazy wife, and got to see Tara do scenery and such in the background. Finn's instrumental ensemble concert and choir concert was a few days later, as was Tara's band concert. All the morris teams danced at Solebration (including the longsword team), and there were also a couple of paying gigs for the border team. Lots of practices. Oh, and the actual holidays and attending rituals and get-togethers, plus a couple of birthdays too. Wonderfully fun, but some thing fell by the wayside.

I finished my December socks on the 20th, in plenty of time to give them to Tara for Christmas. There was much rejoicing. ;) To my immense satisfaction, she proceeded to wear them around the house for the next 3 days. Her colors, her size, great pattern.

I also got a couple of good shots of Finn goofing around in his Ogre Slippers.

 

I finished my February Lady this month, too. I knitted the cuffs three times, finally deciding the sleeves needed to be full-length and decreased towards the end so the garter stitch cuffs don't flare out. I wear it almost every day.

Myriade Domino

I volunteered at TACtile Textile Arts Canter today. When I was looking for an simple, no-brain-required project to take along I found that everything on the needles right now is kind of thinky. I'm not even far enough into this month's socks to get very far without looking at the pattern constantly. So I grabbed a tote bag full of Bernat Myriade that I bought a long time ago and have been planning to knit into a ???  I decided that domino squares would be a nice way to show off the gradual color changes, but that's as far as I got. I took a skein and some size 9 needles, threw it into the spindle bag (in case I felt like working on the Rose Quartz batt) and left.

After a few false starts, I'm now 2 squares in on a lovely ??? Probably a blanket of some kind, but not willing to commit yet. We'll see if it suddenly wants to be anything in particular. In the meantime, I'll have something to do.

 

I finally got Devi to model the Funny and Fancy socks.  Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. She's been wearing them a lot, much to my immense pleasure. If I'd known all it took was silky sock yarn, I'd have made the switch years ago.

December Round Up

I've been making progress on my project pile, in one way or another. First, the sad news.

This afternoon, I bid farewell to Heere Be Dragone. I pulled it out to take pictures in hopes that it might motivate me, but when I took the meager 20-odd rows out of the bag, I saw that it had been chewed up all along one edge. Upon closer inspection, I saw a centipede-looking thing crawling around in the bag. Ugh. The skeins got shaken out outside and placed in a ziplock bag in the freezer. I took the chewed up bit off the needles and threw it away outside. Don't know when I'll pick that pattern up again, but it probably won't be anytime soon.

The good news is, of the 15 WIPs I found in October, only 7 remain on the needles. I finished the Noro Silk Garden Sock ZigZag Scarf yesterday. It came out a little shorter than I had hoped, so I "blocked" it by pinning it up to dry by one of the end points. I like the way the corners fold, nice and leafy. I would like to see it with smaller squares (that would make it longer, too). Next time I'm in a domino mood I'll pick up another skein and give it a go.

I did like the yarn, but I would never knit socks with it. It is a loosely twisted single with a very variable diameter. Great for accessories, but seeing "sock" in the name is, I feel, misleading.

On the subject of socks, it is now December so I can start my self-imposed sock club selection for the month. I'm knitting Rough Weather from Think Outside the Sox in a skein of Lion Brand Magic Stripes that I've had sitting around for a really, really long time. Since before I found real yarn shops to buy yarn in. I've made a pair of socks from this yarn before, it's not bad but not my first choice. A little on the thick side, and a bit fuzzy but durable and soft and warm. This pair will be for Tara since she loves the colorway, Lumberjack Black. If I knit fast enough, she may even get them for Christmas.