Before the Deadline

At the end of each month now I have a sense of impending doom. I am finding myself constantly checking the calendar to see how many days I have left to finish Ty’s socks. I’m proud to say that I have completed approximately 17% of my new year’s resolution. Meet the February Socks: “The best socks yet” ~Ty

We spend quite a bit of time last night looking for new socks patterns to add to my Ravelry queue, as well as picking March yarn and pattern. Now that Ty knows about ease, and how much he likes in his socks, it will hopefully be easier to make “the best socks yet” every time.

In non-sock news, I finally started the hat Ashley’s been bugging me for since October (I don’t know why she isn’t making it seeing as she knows how to knit…) and I cast on today for my Rose’s fingerless gloves. This came after a much welcomed push to revisit my patterns like I’ve been saying I should. Last Tuesday at Looped I met someone new, as I do most Tuesday, and she commented on how much she liked my yellow hat, which I’m pleased to say isn’t the first time someone’s mentioned it. However, this time, she told me that she needed the pattern, that she wanted to make that hat and she would pay for the pattern. Well, that got me thinking about my desperately lonely patterns, which prompted me to cast on for the gloves. The hat pattern is still tucked away in one of my notebooks, but when I have a few hours where I’m not worried about a sock deadline I’ll type it up and post it.

And in conclusion, pictures of my Fuse cardigan! (complete with me squinting at the sun)

Happy Knitting!

Oh, Hello there

I’ve been rather absent over the last week I suppose. And unfortunately the next few weeks will be more of the same. I’ve hardly had much time to even knit! Graduate school interviews are an amazing and exhausting experience.

So I’ll just leave you with this until next time.

Looped Yarn Works and The Phillips Collection yarn bomb Dupont for Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Super Yarn Sunday

Have I mentioned recently how awesome it is to have friends who knit? Yesterday, Superbowl Sunday, I went to the Superbowl sale at Looped Yarn Works and bought some great yarn with friends, instead of sitting in front of a screen screaming at people who can’t hear you. How much better did I like it? A lot. It was so much better that I think I’ll have to do it again next year. Superbowl sales seem to be a trend with yarn shops, I guess they know their customer base pretty well. The majority of my money went to enough Berroco Peruvia to make a sweater for Ty. Not that I’m planning on starting it soon, I have much to much on my plate already. But now that I have the yarn, I can begin thinking about it more realistically, and perhaps even swatch a bit.

Saturday I spent frantically trying to finish my Fuse cardigan, with success! I sewed the few ends in and set it to block, making sure to prevent the cats from sleeping on it by locking it in the bedroom. Apparently, the bedroom, when the door is closed, is the coldest place in the apartment. Surprisingly this temperature is not conducive to drying wool. My cardigan is now locked in our tiny bathroom, which is the warmest room. I am very hopeful that by this evening it will be completely dry and ready to take the buttons I bought for it.

The February sock has had two restarts so far. Although I usually do a lazy, very small swatch, I’m glad that I did that much for these socks. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’ve reached gauge, and sometimes it’s obvious. This was once of those obvious times, so I won’t have my chance to knit on size 0 needles after all, just plain ol’ size 1 needles instead. The second restart was an issue of how much negative ease there should be in a sock. And if Ty’s feet are 10 inches around, and socks should have 1 inch of negative ease, that means (10-1=9) that I should make the 9 inch socks. It’s nice comfort that by the end of the year I should be a pro at making socks for Ty, although he says that by the end of the year I’ll never make socks for him again.

Happy Knitting!

Success!

I won! I finished the January socks with time to spare, mostly due to my accidental late night reading on Monday night. I finished about 80% of the sock on Monday and the rest yesterday, leaving me time to work on my cardigan again.

You might notice that the ends aren’t sewn in (and I don’t block socks), but I figured that it still counts as a win, especially because the recipient isn’t even home to wear them. Some of the things that I’ve learned from making these socks: doing thin stripes in the round isn’t very pretty either way you do it, I’m not a fan of my gauge on size 2 needles, making a ginormous sock in 48 hours isn’t impossible.

I also took the time last night to decide what the February socks are going to be. I was originally leaning toward the Handsome Devil Socks, but ultimately decided that I was tired of carrying two colors around for now. So instead I picked the Boyfriend Socks, with the lusciously soft Fiberphile super squish sock yarn. I realized last night at knitting when we were talking about cables that I haven’t done anything super cable-y for way too long, like a month. The cables on the Boyfriend Socks are just what I need. The other exciting thing about these socks is that they are knit on size 0 needles and I have never (never!) knit with size 0 needles. I’m eager to cast on, but first I told myself I should be smart and actually do a swatch in addition to actually charting the cable pattern (who doesn’t chart cable patterns? seriously).

I swear this picture looked focused last night…

And really, we all know that before I do anything else I want to finish the Fuse cardigan. I’ve knit one of the sleeves about two inches longer and I think it’s the right length, but I’m nervous. Perhaps I’ll block it before I join all the pieces. Either way, once I join everything it will be too big to bring with me, so it will just be a home project. I keep getting excited about being almost done and then I remind myself that the upper back always takes longer than I think it should, and because I’m increasing for the fronts instead of decreasing, I’ve really got a long way to go. Maybe I’ll finish it this weekend?

Happy Knitting!