FO Friday- bird socks edition

More bird socks have been finished! And just in time too- they were finished last Sunday and given to my mother on..Wednesday, I think it was? I think I need a break from socks (oh wait, no I can’t, I have to finish the acrylic ones for my vegan friend…). Then I can have a break and concentrate on the cats cross stitch and my cardigans for a while. 🙂

Anyway, the latest bird socks!

 

Mostly made up pattern- 66 stitches, (German) short row heel,, purl the stitches when you’re about to use dark blue yarn (feel free ot fudge, it’s not supposed to be very precise, more of a bit of interest).  The mother likes them a lot, so score for that 🙂

And now I get to focus on meeeeeeee 🙂 I haven’t yet planned Christmas presents…so I get to have fun with what I want while I think up plans for that. It may well be that I buy things this year (shock horror!), and keep having fun myself with my projects for me 🙂 We shall see I guess.

An update on project birdsocks

Project birdsocks, for people who are new to this blog, is my attempt to knit my mother socks so whe will stop borrowing mine… WestYorkshireSpinners released a range of 9 self-striping socks inspired by various birds, and for each one, they also suggested a solid colour which would work for (e.g) constrasting toes, heels and cuffs. So here I am knitting 18 pairs of socks for my mother.

Two pairs have already been finished and are awaiting her birthday, I aim to have a third pair finished (I figure three pairs of socks makes a good sized present).

The third pair of socks, I duly cast on at the start of June, and then prompty ignored them…*facepalm*. The problem was that I had chosen this wonderful entrelac pattern to really hightlight the colour changes, but I had forgotten how to knit backwards, and with 5 stitches a go the turning of the work was constant, and irritating. Anyway, having gotton around that problem by relearning how to knit backwads, after a few rows, another problem became evident. The thrice-cursed thing wouldn’t fit over my ankle, which was rather irritating, since I love the idea of this sock for scrap yarn. I may try again with an extra stitch in each square and see whether that solves the problem or not.

So, here I was with part of a sock done (uselessly)(it may or may not get frogged, more likely it’ll just go in the rubbish), and a time limit starting to breathe down my neck (my mum’s birthday is near the end of July). What is a person to do??? The answer: take a leaf from ym friend Jon’s book (he’s doing a pair of socks a month this year, in a bid to reduce his sock yarn stash), and knit something relatively vanilla, but with a bit more interest than that.

So here we have the main points about these socks:

toe up, short row heel, predominantly vanilla in a self-striping yarn. Looking at what other people have done with this yarn (very little), there is a narrow band of two colour yarn between all the other bands of colour. So I decided to purl the dark blue bits of that. I.e. when the yarn about to get wrapped around the needle is dark blue (intuitive rules about when it changes colour part way through the stitch), it will get purled rather than knitted. Having done a few sections, it might have been better to purl when the stitch on the left needle is dark blue, but it works perfectly well this way 🙂

WIP…something day? Scatter brained edition

Ok, so, phew, I survived my three weeks of slight insanity. Umm. Crafting kinda fell by the wayside, with the result of it all wanting attention NOW. Unfortunately, my holiday is now over and therefore I have to do the work thing…

Anyway, what has been happening? Well, I was in York at the weekend for Pride, so much knitting was accomplished on cockatoo brae (long train trips are made longer by delays…amusingly, the train ticket I had was a complimentary one due to the delays I had coming back from York from my viva…this makes claiming compensation rather awkward…) Anyway, cockatoo brae is coming along well ahead of schedule! As well as all the rows I planned to do this month, I have started the increases as well 🙂

(Isn’t all the brown lovely. Find the sarcasm in the last sentence…)

This weekend I will be teaching my aunt how to crochet jellyfish for premature babies. Naturally, this means I a) need more yarn(and crochet hooks), and b) need to crochet one in the first instance so I know what’s going on. 4ply yarn and a 2mm crochet hook are fun! Fiddly, but fun.

My mother’s socks have been started…just. I really need to get on with these, but I can’t take them home this weekend, since I’m visiting her…These will become my priority when I finish Mildred’s socks.

Speaking of Mildred’s socks, I have one finished and the other one past the toe. Before Pride at the weekend there were three members of knitsoc in a cafe, all knitting socks, all from the toe up, (two on circular, one on DPNS), in various colours and patterns. It was rather surreal to be sat there, and have someone ask what we were knitting, and all three of us saying ‘socks’ in unison. Anyway, these socks need finishing soonish. 🙂 They’ll be coming with me at the weekend.

Finally, the cross stitch wedding sampler has been ignored. But you can have a picture on what was done before but not photographed. Hopefully I’ll come back to this after the weekend (it’s probably a little bit optimistic to think it might happen before the weekend, given how it’s all going!)

Right, that’s me pretty much caught up I think (except for what I’ve been spinning/knitting but that should end up being a blog post by itself sooner rather than later…)

Flurry of finishes!

So, things have been busy here, and I have brief moment of calm in the eye of the proverbial storm! And I have some finishes to show off to you all. Firstly: the cross stitch stockings from…ooh, a while ago!

Finished! I’m really happy how these came out, although I have no intention whatsoever of replicating these ever again! Working with the felt was definitely a challenge, but now I’ve mastered it, (basically how to angle the needle to go through the hole cleanly), I don’t feel the need to try it again!

In other news (and another finish!), I finished the second pair of my mothers socks! I’ve had a quick look through my queue for which pair to start next, and I’m overwhelmed…*facepalm*. I’ll have another look tomorrow I think.

And the wedding sampler. I had no votes on which way to go, so I’m going around really! The ‘I do’ square (ignore the fact it’s a square out, it doesn’t matter that much…) was really fun to do

It’s finished now, and I’ve done most of the heart above the middle section. Busy busy busy 🙂

SO Sunday- double edition

Two things to talk about today! Aren’t you all lucky 😉

 

Firstly: new socks! This weekend is 4 days due to all the bank holidays we have floating around! And how better to spend it than b starting a pair of green Spring socks? (Other than working, but I couldn’t do that thanks to my building being shut 😦 ). So, new socks! I am particularly impressed with how the ribbing ended up being framed in the way it was- I was willing to do a complete new colour in order to do it, but it turned out that two colours being framed like this results in 1 inch perfectly 😀

And the pattern is just flying off the needles. The thing I am most excited about project bird socks is pushing me so far out of my comfort zone. I’ve borrowed a number of sock books from someone in my spinning group, and I chose patterns as best I could based on what traits in the yarn I wanted to display (so Spring colours for this green), without looking at how the sock is constructed. I’m looking forward(ish) to doing new things I haven’t done before (or maybe only done once or twice, and then ignored). Here’s to learning new things!

 

The second thing is also about learning new things, or at least experimenting. For my OLAS cardigan (the big cabled thing), I want to put in pockets, but not afterthought ones. Which got me thinking about what has been written about knitted pockets (not much), and what is possible. So now I’m experimenting with different pockets, and will discuss each of them on the blog. (As mentioned in the last blog post, where I mention my monthly goals). And how better to try new things than by killing two birds with one stone, and knitting it left-handed??? (I want to learn proper left-handed, which is different to knitting backwards to avoid purling so I can teach a lefty properly 🙂 More on this at a later date). So here I am knitting essentially a gauge swatch, but will have a trick up its sleeve later, feeling a lot like a beginner again!

FO Friday- March goals edition

Another month gone…where are they going??? So, before I get inot the goals, firstly I want to show off my new finished things.

Socks! Who doesn’t love socks? This pic is of them drying after they’ve been worn for the first time, because I had to wear them straight away!

This pair have afterthought heels, which I really dislike because of the kitchener stitch…

And secondly, another sewn card! (Note: I say another…it’s been quite a while since the last one I did. These are done by punching holes in the card with a large stabby needle, then sewing them in a set pattern with a smaller needle and metallic thread. The companies which produce the cards are form-a-lines (for the A6 size) and…I thought there was a sister company for square cards but I can’t find them again so maybe I imagined it or something…)

This is for a couple I know who are getting married in April. I had to change the pattern slightly so that both hands are holding top hats- in the original design the hand on the right had a handkercheif. I’m very pleased how this came out in the end.

Finally: a bird! This is a generic one done to see how large they are when finished- I think it might be a smidge too large for the planned use, so I’ll have to go down to embroidary thread and *very* small knitting needles (1mm I’m thinking)

So, the March goals I had:

1) Finish my mother’s first pair of socks. Done! The ends are even woven in, that’s how done they are:)

2) Carry on the wolf cross stitch. Done! I hit 75% at the weekend, so go me!

3) Sew the wedding card. Done! See above 🙂

 

4) Get gauge on cockatoo brae. Done! Sleeves are half(ish) done! More up to date picture of sleeves so far:

5) Stick all my sock yarn (not the stuff for project bird socks) on ravelry and find projects for them. Done! See my ravelry account. (Link opens to my stash page filtered to only include yarn with projects associate with it in a new tab). Obviously, this isn’t all my stash, but it’s all my sock yarn here in Bristol. Bonus: I actually also added all my yarn here in Bristol (including my handspun, although I’m not convinced I’ve done that bit correctly…), and found patterns for almost all of it (including my mothers bird socks). This brings me to a total of 28 projects in my queue, of which 26 are socks…

So, next months goals..

1. Finish the sleeves on cockatoo brae
2. Carry on with the wolf cross stitch (I’d like to finish but think it unlikely given that this final quarter is more complicated than the last and I only just hit 75%)
3. Knit up and write a blog post about afterthought pockets. (I want to in the end do a series on different pockets, and I figure that an afterthought one is probably the easiest to start with…)
4. Knit another pair of the bird socks (or at least get the first one done. I’m planning on doing the socks in their pairs, so this next pair will be cardamon main colour and bluetit cuffs, heels and toes).
5. Bonus: start knitting something with my handspun… This one is slightly terrifying, because it’s my handspun…But I also know that knitting it will allow me to see what’s going on with the yarn a lot more clearly than just eyeballing it! Bring it on! (I reserve the right to not talk about how bad it is if it’s truely awful…)

 

 

 

WIP Wednesday- everything edition (again)

So, apparently when I get busy this blog falls a bit by the wayside…in a bid to catch everyone up with what I’ve been doing, another everything WIP Wednesday!

1) I did, in fact, sew the sleeves into the OLAS cardigan. It’s now blocking by the radiator. Then I’ll cut the yarn ends and sew in the buttons and pockets. Still on track to finish for next weekend when my friend comes to visit to collect it!

2) The headband is nearly finished. I have a decision in front of me- do I use a couple of buttons to hold it closed, or just sew it??? I only have one button, so I would need to order another one online, which I think shouldn’t be a problem… (Edit to add: I can’t find the original button, so sewing it together it is)

3) I did a short row heel! My mother’s first sock is coming along swimmingly now! I also decided to go with a pattern, rather than make up my own which would need more attention. This is Hermione’s pattern, so it’s easy to get into the rhythm.

4) I (nearly) finish-finished my cross stitch (I guess this is a FO Friday but it can hide in here!). I gathered the fabric at the back, but I can’t stick the felt to the back because I appear to have misplaced my superglue…*facepalm*. Ahh well.

5) More spinning! On Saturday the spinning group met again and I finished off all the blue. Now to decide- do I start knitting the scarf now or wait until I’ve finished spinning all the yarn??? (Side note: could you please tell me what the spinning and knitting widgets on the side say? They’re coming up as innacurate for me, but I’m not sure if it’s because wordpress isn’t updaing the widgets or my laptop isn’t updating the widgets). (No picture because it’s just more cute skeins which I haven’t yet washed. Anyone want to give me some tips about washing handspun skeins???)

6) I ordered some things…the kingfisher sock yarn, more knitting needles and some sock yarn to get free shipping. And then some project bags for socks. Gotta keep knitting socks 😀 (No picture on this beause it hasn’t arrived yet 😦 )

7) I updated all the pictures on my ravely at the weekend, and in the process found a circular knitting needle I had forgotten I owned, in a scrap project. Naturally, this meant I had to knit some more squares on both my scrappy projects. They’re coming along nicely (but I still need to knit socks to feed the small squares one) (No pic because scrappy projects start looking the same after a while!)

8) No progress has been made on the wolf cross stitch. After the OLAS cardigan, this will become the main priority until it’s finished (or I get bored of it) I think. (No picture because no progress!)

9) I (badly) darned a sock! I think it was a knot in the yarn which had come free, but I darned a row above it as well as the row the yarn ends were on, and after a while it should start felting together nicely. And that will hold the ends in, so I decided to be lazy and not darn them in that well 🙂