Thanks!

Thanks everyone for the scarf suggestions. It got me thinking and looking, and I decided on one which no one mentioned. It is, however, in Scarf Style which Toby mentioned. That got me looking through the book where I found the Here and There Cables (Ravelry link) scarf. It's just what I was looking for - something with a lot of textural interest that is also reversible. I might take out one repeat and make the scarf a narrower, though.

There were also a couple of other topics in the comments, which I decided to revisit. By "not boring" I meant I didn't want it to be boring-looking. I'm actually perfectly happy knitting boring stuff because it allows me to pay attention to a movie, and I have a very long Netflix queue. (And Ravelry queue, for that matter, good thing they're complementary.)

Patterns like Monkey and Jaywalker are probably so popular for just this reason - they're relatively easy to knit, but produce nice non-boring socks. My current one is a modified version of the Gentleman's Shooting Stockings from Knitting Vintage Socks.



It's a simple textured pattern, but it adds some interest to this yarn. Although if I had known originally that the yarn was stripey, I might have done something a little less fancy. In any case, I think they're turning out well.



The closeup of the stitch pattern is a little blurry, sadly winter light isn't great for taking photos.

And thanks to Cindiluhu and Chris for validating my sock-knitterness. The truth is that I want to knit other things. I'm not planning on stopping the sock knitting - not even close! But I do want to knit a few things that aren't socks. And the actual process of knitting a sock vs. a sweater doesn't make that much of a difference to me. The problem is more that when I go to cast on a new project I don't grab the yarn for that sweater I want to knit, I grab more sock yarn. (There's a lot of it, it's in exciting colors, I don't have to swatch!) But I *do* want a Ribby Cardi and a new scarf, so I should really get to knitting them.

As for sock leftovers... I have tons. This problem is compounded by the fact that I have small feet. I was actually thinking I should find someone with a loom and get them to weave me a scarf with black yarn for the warp and stripes of all my crazy sock yarn leftovers. I think it would be cool! Maybe in exchange for a pair of socks... ;)

Help!

Knitters, I have a problem.

A sock problem. My socks are, actually, just fine. The problem is that socks are all I knit. You may have noticed.

But lately I've been feeling guilty. You saw the swatch for the Ribby Cardi, and now there's this other yarn I've been meaning to get to. See, I have 4 balls of some Aurora 8 that looks like this. That may not be the exact color, but it's close enough. I originally bought this yarn to make the Irish Hiking Scarf, but I decided I didn't like it enough. Then I started ScWiNoNa.

The problem is this: the yarn is... boring. It is lovely squishy yarn, perfect for a scarf, and it is a beautiful color. But I can't think of anything to knit with it that won't end up looking boring. So this is where you come in, dear reader.

Do you know a fabulous pattern for a scarf? Reversible is great, but not required. And something not too boring.

In other news, I've been attending the Salem knitting group and met quite a few cool knitters. It's nice to have people to knit with again, even if it's only once a week. Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to get up to my Boston record of knitting groups 4-5 times a week, but that's probably for the best.

Hey look, a swatch!

Just when you thought this blog couldn't get any more boring...



Yep, a genuine washed and drying swatch. Still attached to the enormous ball of yarn, because I'm really that paranoid about running out of yarn. I should really *really* be fine.

Of course this is fairly exciting news. It means I'm starting a new project and that project is not a sock. In fact, it's the Ribby Cardi. Long long ago Peace Fleece had a sale and I bought two cones of yarn with which I intended to make this sweater. And then they sat in my closet for a very long time.

And then I even considered pawning them off on MJ when I visited her over the summer and making her knit the sweater for me. But then I felt like a wuss and I didn't. And then I started to think about how much I love my my other zippy cardigan and decided it was about time to actually knit up the Ribby Cardi. So here's a swatch.

(Also I've been working on more secret projects and I can't really show you those.)

Listening to: A Seafarer's Knot ~ Fair to Midland, Young Pilgrims ~ The Shins

Meet Stella

Stella is my mom's cat, and unlike my darlings Pan and Java... she is interested in knitting.

I was very lucky in adopting two cats who don't really care about yarn. Yarn in balls is left entirely alone, yarn dangled in their faces as I knit with a cat in my lap rarely gets more than an ear-flick, and although Pan has an affinity for fiber and may be trying to learn to spin, he doesn't harm anything.

Stella is another story.



Thankfully she doesn't feel the need to sit in my lap, but my mom has to fend her off for knitting purposes. But look at the socks she's stalking there...



Yarn: Steinbach Wolle Sockenwolle - a Valentine's gift from Rebel made into a gift for a mystery recipient ;)
Needles: 2.25mm Inox Express
Started: 11/4/08
Finished: 11/12/08

The socks are my standard plain ol' socks pattern, though slightly larger since they are not for me. (That's not really a hint, almost everyone I know has larger feet than I do.) Sorry the picture is a little blurry, I forgot to take it until a few minutes ago and the daylight is receding a bit but red + flash = not pretty.

I have a couple more pairs of socks in progress, but one encountered a little setback today when I discovered that the yarn is a little more stripey than I realized, and I didn't match the stripes when I started the socks. Obviously I could not just let this go like a sane person, so I ripped out my pair of roughly 1 inch sock cuffs and am starting again with my freaky stripe matching tendencies.

Kauni Socks

Well, I did finish my Kauni socks - actually they were done on Tuesday but I haven't got around to posting them til now. They did meet with a small pet disaster.



"I guess I feel a little guilty, but knitting needles sure are tasty!"

The door to the room containing my sock-in-progress was left open and Zoe decided that munching on the circular needles was a good plan. She chewed through the cord, but luckily no yarn was harmed. She's the one who was responsible for this too, so I guess I should have been prepared.

But despite their close call, the Kauni socks turned out just fine:



Yarn: Kauni 8/2 in colorway W-EQ
Started: 10/19/08
Finshed: 11/4/08

I'm quite pleased with them, and apparently my feet are the exactly right size (and my estimates on how long to make the leg are very good!) because I managed to make a pair of socks with exactly one rainbow. I knew it would work!

I've also gotten a few questions via the comments that I'll attempt to answer:

Cindy asks: So, what's your secret?? Is there particular pattern for how you pick up your gusset stitches?

I don't think I have a secret, as far as I know I pick them up the normal way - under both strands of the V made by the slipped edge stitch. I do tend to keep the tension pretty tight while picking up stitches, and I pick up an extra stitch by basically doing a m1 increase in the bar between the gusset and heel flap stitches to help avoid the hole. Then when knitting across the picked up stitches the first time I knit them through the back loop to twist them and hopefully tighten them up a bit.

Me (no, not me, someone named Me) asks: I only "know" Kauni from looking at pictures. The description always say it is such a rough yarn. Is it really going to be nice to wear as a sock? Or do you wear other socks under your handknit socks anyway? Or am I mistaken?

Kauni is a pretty rough yarn. That said, I don't think yarn needs to be particularly soft to wear on my feet. I walk around on them all day, they're pretty tough. ;) The Noro yarn is also not particularly soft and I like those socks just fine. Although it's also not machine washable so I'm sure the bottoms of the feet will felt a bit, I took that into account and made the socks a little bigger than I usually do. And really I was more obsessed with the idea of these socks than thinking of the practicality.

I don't wear other socks under my handknit socks, although it seems people must because I've been asked this a couple times. I can't imagine wearing two pairs of socks - I tend to run pretty warm and it's not that cold around here. Maybe on the coldest day in Boston.

Listening to: Youth Overrided (acoustic) ~ Cave In

Oh, hey, a sock!

I decided to finally break out the Kauni yarn - I got it waaaaay back in April on the pre-Sock Camp yarn crawl - and make my extended rainbow socks:



In fact the plan was to split this skein, but when we wound it we realized that it only contained one complete rainbow. :(



As you can see the second rainbow switches abruptly from yellow-orange to purple and then starts all over again. So I was forced to keep the whole skein even though a pair of socks for me will take almost exactly one rainbow worth of yarn.

Of course I took the picture of this first sock last week intending to blog it right away, and then I didn't. So now the second sock is well on it's way and you may be seeing the pair very soon.