2006 - A Year of Socks

Socks #49



#50



Happy New Year!!!



Selected socks from 2006, click for the whole set. :)



Well, the year is over and it sure was full of socks!

What came while I was gone (and socks!)

When I returned from Seattle I had a couple of packages waiting for me.

The first one was from Scout's Indie Swag Club:



It contained a great sock pattern, my favorite color of yarn that I've gotten from her so far, and some adorable snowman stitch markers.

The second package was my first installment of the Petals Collection from Sundara Yarn:



The yarn is a gorgeous color and the pattern looks great. :)

And the newest pair of socks - #48



Pattern: Chevron (modified) from Sensational Knitted Socks
Yarn: JKnits in AC #112
Started: 12/27/06
Finished: 12/30/06

Never fear, more socks to come after my knitting New Year celebration tonight. ;)

A Trip to Little Knits

As of this morning I'm back on the East Coast, but I still have a bit of blogging about Seattle to do. Since I was in Seattle, how could I resist going to Little Knits? I've ordered from them online in the past and had great experiences, so when I got a "good for $25 of yarn" from my aunt I immediately decided we had to go to Little Knits. Yesterday morning we headed out for our yarn shopping adventure.

Sue was really nice and helpful even though they're working like crazy to finish orders and make up for Seattle's recent bad weather and lack of power. Not only did I get my yarn, she showed me around the "store" (it's in a little house) and let me take some pictures to show all of you!

A box of Schaeffer yarns that just arrived:



Wool in the Woods Twin Twist (I got some from my aunt!)



And one of the rooms with cubbies of yarn:



I flew back on a red-eye flight last night. I haven't had the best luck with my travel on this trip, both my flights and both my train rides were at least an hour late. :( I got to the airport to hear that my flight was about an hour late, headed to the gate, found a plug and watched some Smallville on the laptop while knitting socks. The flight finally boarded about an hour after it was originally supposed to take off and we didn't get out of Seattle until about midnight. I did absolutely no knitting on the plane, but I did get some sleep in.

I arrived home to find two lovely packages, one from Scout's Swag and one from Sundara's Petals Collection, but I'll save those for another post.

As promised, more socks!

I finished two pairs of socks - a pair for a test knit and to donate to Dulaan (so I can't show a picture just yet) and a pair of childrens' socks also for Dulaan.

Here's my sister's dog Zoe (our confused model) with the kids socks:



You can even see a bit of the heel of the other sock on the left, in case you didn't believe me.

Details:

#46 Man socks
Pattern: Hubby's First Socks
Yarn: Vintage 100% wool given to me by enallagma9
Started: 12/20/06
Finished: 12/25/06

#47 Kid socks
Yarn: Fortissima Colori Socka Color (left over from Jaywalkers)
Started: 12/21/06
Finished: 12/26/06

Listening to: Wicked Game ~ H.I.M, When Love and Death Embrace ~ H.I.M.

Get your awesome art here!

I saw this over at Nessie Noodle and decided to post it here. Thing is, I already did it once before (on another blog) with limited success. So 2 of the slots are already filled, but the first 3 of you who comment are in.

The first five people to respond to this post will get some form of art by me. It may be knitting-related or not.

There's a catch, of course -- as with most memes, if you sign up, you have to put this on your own blog as well.

Stay tuned for socks, which hope to be here later today!

Listening to: The Missing ~ Filter, I Want You ~ Savage Garden

The newest in knitted kitty fashion!

Pan is here to show off the newest in kitty fashion - knitted wristwarmers (anklewarmers?) - he's a very stylin' cat. He would also like to wish you a happy whatever-holiday-you-celebrate and New Year!

As for knitting, more sock knitting has been going on. All this traveling (today by train) is providing ample opportunity to up the sock count and help me towards my goal of 50 pairs of socks in 2006. I think I can make it...

Listening to: Svältvinter ~ Vintersorg, Karma Police ~ Radiohead,

Flying time is good for sock productivity!

After an eventful trip to the airport (the lines were huge!) and a rather uneventful flight I have some sock progress to show!

Pair #44:



Pattern: Jaywalker
Yarn: Fortissima Colori Socka Color
Started: ?
Finished: 12/20/06

Pair #45



Pattern: Here There Be Dragons
Yarn: STR mediumweight in Lagoon
Started: 12/8/06
Finished: 12/20/06

Since I'm across the country without my sock blockers the pictures are not the most beautiful, but hopefully they illustrate the fact that I did in fact knit more socks. ;) I would have waited til I got home, but the Dragon socks will be winging their way to their owner today so I figured I'd better photograph them quickly. Plus, I don't want you guys to get bored and leave me!

In other not-so-knitting-related news, I've decided to put the music I'm listening to while I write my blog posts. Just for fun, so you can laugh at my musical tastes.

Listening to: Almond Beauty ~ Sculptured, Jimmy ~ Tool

Socks and yarn in the mail!

Today I went to Bazaar Bizarre where I met up with Alexis and Bryghtrose and saw Shannon Okey. I was amazingly well behaved and didn't buy any sock yarn even though there was one from Skeintily Clad that I really wanted.

In fact I only bought one thing - the Spin to Knit book! Shannon was nice enough to sign it for me and wrote "reminder: do not sell this for sock yarn" which is a very good reminder for me. ;)

Alexis headed off to meet a friend and Bryghtrose and I headed up to Newbury St. where I completed 1/3 of my holiday shopping. Then we headed out to my neighborhood and went to my apartment to drop our purchases off before dinner. There we found this:



The last package from the 2006 Rockin' Sock Club! When I pulled out the first bag containing the two skeins of Leticia (in Rooster Rock) I was a bit confused because it clearly is not sock yarn. After reading the newsletter I found it was because I won their contest!

The red skein on the left - "Mustang Sally" - is the December color, and the one next to it is our bonus skein - "Rare Gems" - which are all unique. I love the colors in mine, which is mediumweight.

In other knitting news:

Sock pair #42 is a pair of kids socks for Dulaan made with leftovers from the Jaywalkers



Started: 12/10/06
Finished: 12/15/06

Sock pair #43



Pattern: Dublin Bay
Yarn: Trekking 07
Started: 12/11/06
Finished: 12/16/06

And last but certainly not least, the STR in Carbon I won in a contest on Sheep Geek.



It's going to help me accumulate enough sock yarn to knit though the apocalypse.

P is for...

Pantalaimon!



You get to see a lot more of Java on this blog (she was featured for Lick and for her recent fish tank swimming), but her brother* Pan is my cat-that-is-more-like-a-cat. Every time I take a picture of him, he looks away. He's got the usual kitty ambivalence, but he's very tolerant. Some time I'll make him wear knitting.

He'll be embarrassed that I'm telling you that he sleeps on my bed every night. ;)

Hamming for the camera:



* Yes, he's really her brother. They're littermates and look nearly identical, although now that Java's lost some weight it's easier to tell them apart.

Autumn in Oregon sock - singular ;)

I got to test knit the Autumn in Oregon pattern for Chrissy, which gave me a great opportunity to knit some socks for my friend Amanda and steal some of her yarn in the process. The pattern is available for purchase here, and there's a kit too.



I didn't have any yarn of the Autumn persuasion, which is probably not surprising to any of you. By chance Amanda said something to me about how she didn't know what she was going to do with her Fall Leaves color of Sunshine Yarns that she had, and an idea was born. I took the yarn (and Amanda's needles, in fact) and knit up this sock - the second one is coming soon.

The pattern, although fairly complicated, is pretty easy to memorize so it was a pretty quick knit. I might make another pair for myself in a more solid color, since I think this yarn is a little too varigated to make the pattern visible, but overall I'm pleased with the outcome.

O is for...

Orphans



More about that first sock in the next entry!

Jaywalking again!

Well, it's been too long. There's been more real life and less knitting going on in my world lately, but I do have a finished pair of Jaywalkers to show, so read on!

Pair #41 of 2006 (Will I make it to 50? Stay tuned!)



Pattern: Jaywalker
Yarn: Claudia Hand Painted in Passion Fruit
Started: 11/28/06
Finished: 12/7/06

As you can probably tell by the colors, these socks aren't for me. The yarn is just lovely, and I'm glad I picked up a couple of skeins for myself a while back. :) The base yarn is Louet Gems, and the colors are very nice, although I did notice pretty significant differences between skeins even in the same dye lot so it might be best to look for "matching" ones when you purchase the yarn.