Socks and Straightening

Without further ado - may I present my latest creation!

Pattern: Childs First Socks from Knitting Vintage Socksby the brilliant Nancy Bush
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Amethyst
Needle: #1 32" KnitPicks Circular
Modifications: Added one pattern repeat (8 sts)
The pattern was a fun and quick knit - it's a 10 row repeat, but it becomes very intuitive once you do a few repeats. It's nice and stretchy, but I did add a pattern repeat to make sure the "shells" in the pattern didn't stretch too much. I liked the ones I had seen with some dimension to them.

The yarn is great stuff. A really tight twist, great yardage on the skein (420 yd), it's superwash, and the colors are amazingly saturated. This purple is so rich, so deep - I have really never seen a dyed yarn so, well, so purple! I have 3 more skeins (shown here) and the colors are just as pretty. I'm thinking maybe combining two of them for some fair isle socks (yes, another try!).

These were off the needles for about two minutes before I started a new pair. One of my best friends saw a picture of my Trekking Socks and fell in love with the trademark Trekking stripes. Luckily, I had a skein of Trekking #107 - she loved the colors and a new sock was born. Simple is better with Trekking, so I'm just planning on doing a garter rib pattern. Easy peasy.

Inspired by Stephanie, I took a long look at my craft room. Like her, it started to become just a catch all for my stuff. I'd just pile it up on the desk or throw it in the closet. It was a mess. I used to do a lot of quilting - I had a closet full of fabrics all sorted by color. It made what I needed easy to find at the time. But, with quilting and fabric crafts taking a back burner right now to knitting, I thought that the closet could use a little makeover. I didn't take any before pictures, but just picture the shelves all covered in piles of fabric. Yes, all the shelves. Now, it's a picture of organization.

The plastic bins hold my yarn - 2 of sock yarn, 2 of leftovers and single skeins and the ones on the floor are for sweater quantity yarns. The fabrics are now stacked a bit higher and are towards the back. Still easily accessible, but just not taking over all the shelves.

The desk was another huge catch-all. Large flat surfaces tend to get like that...it took me a while, but it's now clean and a great workspace. And, my sewing machine now has some room to breathe!

It's a huge desk - hubby and I each got one at Ikea a few years back. It ended up working out perfectly for a sewing table.

Organization....a wonderful thing.....

More Inspiration

My library network is pretty great - if I can't find a book in my own library, odds are one of the libraries in the network will have it. The woman who runs my library is a knitter, which really helps, but we are a pretty small area, so what I usually do is search our network on-line. I find it, request it, and a few days later, I have it in my hot little hands. Ethnic Socks and Stockings is a title I stumbled across - I can't remember where, but I think I saw it mentioned either on someone's blog, or somewhere on a forum. Anyway, the book arrived and what inspiration! These are just a few of the socks that immediately caught my eye.

The top part of the sock pictured below reminds me quite a bit of the pattern that Kathy knit. I like it with the variegated yarn - something I haven't tried yet. (I'd actually have to get some to do it - I only have solid sock yarn in the stash now!)

I haven't had a chance to really read through the book yet, but it looks really interesting. Lots of information on heels and toes - it may help with my sisters socks and designing a heel that will take a stranded pattern. It doesn't really have sock patterns, but more guidelines as to how to construct the sock, as well as the chart for the colorwork.

Sigh. Another book to add to the growing list to buy! Even after a quick flip through, I know this one will have some great information and has tons of instructional pages on different sock parts - it reminds me a bit of the beginning of Knitting Vintage Socks.

For an update on current sock knitting (I can't stop planning for new socks!), the Childs First Sock #1 is complete!

The second one is well underway - only a few repeats to go before the heel. This picture shows the color a bit better. The purple is so rich and dark that it keeps photographing as blue.

The back of the Street Smart Hoodie grows as well.

I worked on this a bit in-between the sock and cleaning the house this weekend. I still have a ways to go, but I'm in no rush to finish this one - I'm quite enjoying the pattern. Plus, I haven't decided what I want to do about the front yet, so I'm slowing down on this one to think about it.

I had such opportunity for intensive knitting time on Saturday. Terri and I were doing some agility training and she went to give a tug toy to one of her dogs and he mistook her hand for the toy. She got a pretty good laceration, so off we were to the emergency room. It was a five hour ordeal (not too horribly bad for a city emergency room on a weekend) but with no book, no knitting, the time passed very slowly. As I sat there I thought about how much knitting I could be getting done! Oh well - she got her hand taped (they wouldn't suture it as it was a dog related injury) and is on the mend. Luckily I made up for it on Sunday with some great knitting.

Mark your calendars - two months from today is the 2007 Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival!!!! I can't believe it is coming up so quick! This will be my third year going, and I'm just as excited as I was the first year. The vendor list is posted, so the planning can begin! I guess I really have to get cranking to use up some more sock stash before I go! I plan on going Saturday for sure and hopefully meeting up with as many people as I can....

My Hero

After the horrible sock mishap of earlier this week, I needed something to get me back on the sock knitting vibe. Enter my hero of the knitting world, Nancy Bush. I browsed through all her
books that I have and started the Childs First Sock, from Knitting Vintage Socks on Tuesday. Needless to say, I have made some great progress this week.

Always count on good 'ol Nancy Bush to help you rise out of a knitting funk. Her patterns are amazing. The variety of heels and toes - astounding. The patterns are also usually pretty easy to adjust to size, as most are written for much smaller feet than I have! Every time I look through her books, I discover another pattern I'd like to knit. The one book of hers I don't have, Folk Knitting in Estonia also has quite a few patterns in it that are on my to knit list. Luckily, my local library network has a copy and I tend to reserve it often. Maybe for my birthday in a few months I'll splurge and get myself that book along with the new Favorite Socks book from Interweave.

I guess, without even realizing it, I've sort of been working on my own Nancy Bush Compendium Project. I'm in good company though - a couple of other knitters have been working their way through her patterns also. Without even realizing it, her patterns always seem to rise to the top of my to knit list.

Too many socks, not enough time!

Snow Day

We've actually had a few small bursts of snow over the past few days - only about 4" total, but enough to make everything pretty and white again. (grass was starting to show through!) Hubby and I took the boys over to the Dam to have a good romp in the snow and burn off some energy.

The lake is frozen through - there were people ice fishing and snowmobiling across it. So, we figured it was thick enough to hold us.

It was nice in that there was no one else there and the boys could just run and play. We did run into one Basset hound towards the end of the visit, but he was very friendly and eager to join in.

We all had a great time - needless to say, the boys pretty much slept the rest of the day away! It's hard work running through all that snow!

The good vibes for the day continued when I got home and started a new sock. Using the purple yarn from Aldebaran, I cast on for the Child's First Socks from the ever inspiring Knitting Vintage Socks. I had to add in one pattern repeat as it is sized for a much smaller foot. So far, so good.

But, my only question is why aren't there any charts in this book??? I got so frustrated trying to read out the instructions I just made my own charts. I used Excel and a knitting font I downloaded from here. Now, I have pretty charts to work from.

The mail yielded a great surprise from none other than Sachi! She had mentioned on her blog a while back that she had chapter excerpts from The Friday Night Knitting Club if anyone wanted a preview. Always up for a new book, I was in. When my envelope arrived yesterday, it had so much more than just the excerpts!

Not only did she send some absolutely stunning stitch markers in a beautiful iridescent green, but two skeins of Silk Garden! I have never even touched the stuff, and seeing all the beautiful Lady Eleanor's I have been tempted to seek some out. Not sure what to do with the two skeins - for now they will marinate in the stash....Thanks so much Sachi!!!