Mystery Socks and Vogue Knitting Live!

There has been a lot of secret knitting going on lately around here, so the blog has been very quiet. But there are a couple exciting things coming right up that I'd like to share. :D

First off, I'm hosting a Mystery Sock KAL with my friend Stephania of Three Fates Yarns! It will start on my birthday next week, April 11. The link will take you to the sign up post in the Three Fates Ravelry group. The KAL is free and you're not required to knit with Three Fates Yarns (though if you do you'll be eligible for extra prize entries.)

Please come and join us, it should be lots of fun!

The second exciting thing is that I'll be at Vogue Knitting Live Seattle this weekend, hanging out at the Cooperative Press and Three Fates Yarns booths. If you'll be there, come and say hi!
If not, I'll try my very best to actually remember to take some pictures so I can post about it next week.

Oh, and one more exciting thing... at the end of next week I'll be traveling to Wisconsin to visit my best online friend ever, MJ! It looks like she's abandoned knitting for cooking, but I'll try to remedy that situation. ;)

And last, but not least, here's one of the few non-secret things I've knit lately - a Wingspan shawlette out of some very old stash.

Sock Parade!

I've been slacking a little on posting my No Repeat December socks, so here are several:

Day 3:



I bought this yarn for my friend Cathy for her birthday when we were at SPA in Maine. She knit my (Black)hearted pattern, but after an unfortunate felting incident the socks didn't fit her... but they fit me, so they've come full circle.

Day 4:



I got these in a swap, the yarn is Sockotta and the pattern was designed by my swap partner, she called it Jersey Riptide.

Day 5:



Hey, socks I actually knit! Plain ones in Mini Mochi.

Day 6:



Cara was making fun of all my blue-ish socks, and she requested red ones. These are the pattern sample for my free pattern, Garnish!

Day 7:



A plain pair in my very first skein of Trekking XXL, a gift from my mom. (I knit a pair in Trekking before this, but that was from someone else's yarn, and made for that person.)

Day 8:



And today, my Regia Nation Color rainbow socks. Yes, I should have broken these out Thursday for the first official day of marriage equality in WA, but they were drying after I did sock laundry. Oh well, I am all for rainbows (and marriage equality) every day!

Blocking

Today, I wore a pair of plain ol' stripey socks:



These Vesper socks were the project I worked on in 2008 while moving cross-country from Boston to Seattle in a UHaul, and were finished shortly after arriving. They've held up pretty well!

I also finally got around to a task I had been putting off - I finished my Zauberball shawl while at Rhinebeck - and even wore it in its unblocked unsightly state! Upon arriving home I planned to block it, but couldn't find my blocking pins, the consequences of moving. Eventually I gave up and bought some more.



I think it's going to look much better when it's nicely blocked. :)

No Repeat December

This month, I'll be trying to wear and photograph a different pair of handknit socks each day. The idea is from my friend, and fellow Purlygirl, Jessica of Rose-Kim Knits.

Today we'll start off with a lovely pair of Conwy socks in J Knits yarn, knit for me by my lovely friend Cathy back in 2009! I thought this was part of the BFF sock swap, but now that I check the historical record (aka blog) I see that she just sent me these socks because she's really nice, I guess!



Nice socks, huh?

So, I'm thinking about posting these each day along with any sharable news about my knitting. With so much secret knitting going on I haven't had much to post lately. What do you think?

Knitting everywhere!

In the past few months while I've been neglecting my blog, I moved to a new apartment. I've also been knitting all over!

I went on vacation for just over 2 weeks - the longest since I started at my job nearly 4 years ago! - in Boston and NYC, and to Rhinebeck. It was great to see some of my Boston knitting friends, including attending the wedding of one of them. I got to visit Gather Here, a new knitting and sewing shop in Cambridge MA, and a bunch of NYC yarn stores. And, of course, there's Rhinebeck!

I was really bad at remembering to take pictures, but here are a few highlights:

I visited the Statue of Liberty!



I went to Brooklyn General - my new favorite NYC yarn store - and La Casita, where I was advised to go to the Brooklyn Farmacy and try an egg cream, so I did.



I finished the lovely Rikke hat in DIC Everlasting DK:





After a few days in NYC I headed to Rhinebeck, where I ate yummy creme brulee in a restaurant named Arielle!



I saw lots of yarn and sheep at Rhinebeck, though I didn't take pictures. I also watched the Leaping Llamas competition! And I managed to finish a shawl I've been working on (or not really working on) for a long time. But it still needs to be blocked, so you can see it next time.

Also next time, the story of how I went to Knit Fit here in Seattle and didn't take even one picture.

Exterminate!

The past week has held a lot of finishing!

First, I quickly knit a Dalek for my coworker:



Pattern: EXTERMIKNIT!
Yarn: Cascade Heathers in 2453 and 4002
Started: 8/12/12
Finished: 8/22/12

Then I put the finishing touches on these socks, which I started far too long ago!



Pattern: (Black)hearted by me!
Yarn: Shibui Knits Sock in Blossom
Started: 2/18/12
Finished: 8/24/12

And, of course, I had to finish my cowl for the Purlygirls Cowl Swap!



Pattern: Modish Cowl
Yarn: Ultra Alpaca
Started: 7/12/12
Finished: 8/26/12

Plus I squeezed in a little bit of time to work with my CSM. I did some fiddling to get the ribber to work (had to adjust the height and timing) and made a scrap tube with one purled stitch. Since I didn't feel quite ready to make ribbing on my first socks, I decided to do a hem top, since hanging a hem seemed pretty easy, and it was!



It was a little more tricky to switch from the finished toe back to waste yarn, and for some reason I dropped several stitches trying. But I was able to do a couple quick cranks with waste yarn, and then pick the stitches up while getting ready to graft on knitting needles. And so I completed my very first sock successfully! Unfortunately I think the 72 stitch cylinder is going to be too large to make socks for me. I'll grab some of my slightly heavier yarn and try the 54 stitch cylinder next time!

Big Pink Socks

A while back my friend Monica was talking about how she had a bunch of shawlettes she didn't wear. She has quite a few, and these were just not quite what she wanted for various reasons. One of them was a lovely Akimbo in colors I quite liked:

\
 (That's her picture.)

So we arranged a little trade. She would give me her lovely shawlette, and I would knit her some socks. Like most people I know, Monica has bigger feet than I do, but not like most people she wears a size 12. She's tall, it makes sense. But it meant that I was knitting probably my biggest pair of socks ever.

The socks went with me on many outings and adventures.



They went on a cupcake and coffee date with a friend, and on another coffee and knitting date with some other friends where we were all knitting pink things!



They went to Stitch & Pitch!



They went to the Skacel party, which was really awesome, and Monica and I took a picture of us being Addi needles with the socks:



And then, finally, they were done!



Pattern: Monkey by Cookie A
Yarn: Yarntini in Flirtini
Started: 5/19/12
Finished: 8/11/12

My new obsession... shawlettes

The Doubleknit Finish, Frog, or Slog Along has been motivating me to get some of my WIPs back in action and into the FO pile. This lead to my Hitchhiker being finished a few days shy of its 1 year WIP birthday.



Pattern: Hitchhiker
Yarn: Rainy Days & Wooly Dogs (aka Gothsocks) Belladonna in Tainted Love
Started: 7/7/11
Finished: 7/4/12

I've been on a big shawlette kick lately, so when I heard about the Abstract Fiber Arts club at Madrona and saw that the first pattern was a beautiful shawl / shawlette, I was tempted. It's a 1 or 2 skein club, so there are larger or smaller options for the patterns. But I have a problem with yarn clubs where I don't know exactly what yarn base I'll be receiving. I don't use silk, and it seems like lately it's been in more and more yarns, a few percent here and there - especially with lace yarns, but that's enough to stop me.

So I asked Karen if it would be possible to do the club, but not get any yarns with silk. It's a weird request, and I totally wasn't expecting her to say yes. That means that she has to dye a different skein of yarn than everyone else's every time there's silk (and there's a lot of silk!)

But after talking with her for a few minutes about how the yarn isn't necessarily going to look exactly the same (different fiber contents will affect the color) and how they wouldn't always be able to get an exact gauge / yardage match for the patterns, she agreed. I'm a pretty experienced knitter, so I can adjust the patterns to fit the yarn they send, or at least realize what potential problems there might be.



So here's the yarn I've gotten so far: Temptation (for O'Keefe), Matisse (for Lima), and Calder (for Rothko). So far I've yet to get the same yarn as the rest of the group, but that's ok! Once I get the book socks done, I'm looking forward to knitting some of the club patterns. So far it's two shawls and a mitt & scarf combo.

Just a quick introduction

I'll post more soon, but I just wanted to introduce you to the newest member of my fiber arts family.

On Monday I got a heavy box full of irregular shapes wrapped in bubble wrap.



I started opening it, and realized pretty quickly that this was going to be complicated.



I feel so steampunk, except these gears are actually useful!

After an interlude of knitting with the Purlygirls, I came back and put the Circular Sock Machine together!



And I made knitting!!! The next step was to attempt a heel - this is one of the trickier parts. I tried last night, but even though I was using some fork weights, the stitches were still riding up the needles and popping off.

But today I managed to come up with inspiration* on what to use for weights and turn my first heel on the CSM. (You can't see it here, but it went OK. Probably not wearable quite yet as I had some tension issues, but it's getting there.)





*The inspiration came when I recalled that one time when I was moving in Boston. A friend was in the bathroom helping to pack up some of the last bits when I heard a confused voice:

Her: "Ummm... Why is there a can of vegetable soup under your bathroom sink?"

Me: "My mom bought it when she was here and left it, but it has beef broth so I can't eat it. So I'm using it to weight my handspun."

Her: "How did I know this had something to do with knitting?"

Luckily this came back to me today, and a couple cans of coconut milk later... A sock heel!

Not for lack of content

I have been sorely neglecting my blogging duties. In fact, there are a few things I meant to blog about but haven't managed to get around to yet. But since it's now officially summer, I think I shall make a summer resolution to blog more regularly.

But first, let's get caught up!

A few weeks back, I saw that the lovely Sarah of Cephalopod Yarns was offering free yarn in exchange for knitted items to be donated to Afghans for Afghans. This just happened to coincide with the Puget Sound LYS Tour, which meant I needed some simple car knitting. So I grabbed a couple random skeins of worsted weight yarn and cast on for some hats!



Charity Hat #1
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in Purple Club
Started: 5/19/12
Finished: 5/28/12



Charity Hat #2
Yarn: Elann Peruvian Highland Wool in 0790
Started: 5/20/12
Finished: 5/27/12

This year I teamed up with my knitting buddy Monica and we did the full LYS tour, going to each and every one of the 21 stores in just 2 and a little bit days. We hit a few of the most local stores on Friday evening after work, and did the majority on Saturday and Sunday. It was quite a bit of fun, and this year there were even commemorative stitch markers!

Since dashing off a couple of hats, I've finished two pairs of socks! The first are from a skein of self-striping yarn that I dyed in a class by my friend Stephania of Three Fates Yarns



Stripe Class Socks #1
Pattern: my plain ol' socks
Yarn: self-striping BFL High Twist dyed by me!
Started: 3/16/12
Finished: 6/11/12

I've also finished a secret pair of socks which I can't show you, so I'll recycle the picture from my last secret socks.



Instead of dark sock-shaped blobs under the tissue, just imagine that they're more golden in color. ;)

Pattern: "S"
Yarn: MacKintosh Yarns Celtic Sock in Coreopsis
Started: 8/7/11
Finished: 6/14/12

These socks took nearly forever, but they're pretty complicated. I had to figure out the trick to knitting with big charts... audiobooks. Now that I've got a dedicated sock-knitting audiobook to listen to at all times, I hope to get through some of my more complex socks a bit faster.

Well, I think that's enough for today. Stay tuned for more in the upcoming weeks!