Garnish

I have a new pattern up on Ravelry - Garnish.



So this post is a little bit about that, and a lot about my fabulous non-knitting friend Brian...

The idea of this pattern was a bit long in the making, but the final inspiration was a little pop of color in an otherwise dreary winter. And when I saw Brian's grey and white apartment, I knew I wanted to do the photos there. And I was a little surprised when he went along with the idea, and even volunteered to be the photographer for my little photo shoot.



We had a lot of fun, and he really got into the spirit of it. Some ideas were maybe even a little too crazy. ;)



I was so glad to be able to get such nice pictures of the socks, but also really impressed that my friend, although he isn't a knitter, didn't think I was totally crazy. He definitely stepped up to the challenge.



Hopefully everyone else will have just as much fun with these socks. :D

Listening to: My Gift of Silence ~ Blackfield

Socks vs. Sweaters

Spending the last few days at Madrona has got me thinking about sweaters.

I saw so many beautiful sweaters and shawls, and though I did bring one sweater, most of the handknits that I wore were socks. This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. ;) So I see everyone with their sweaters getting admired and I feel a bit jealous. My socks are certainly less visible (and possibly less impressive) than sweaters. And to be fair, my socks did get a bit of love, and my sweater got plenty.

It just made me wish that I had more sweaters or other obvious knitwear to show off.

I love to knit socks. I love to wear socks. And it's not that I can't knit a sweater or shawl, it's just that I don't really want to. I have knit sweaters, and they're great. I like them. But when I sit down to knit, I want to knit socks. Even when I start sweaters they usually linger for ages. They're not even that much more work! I'd say a sweater is roughly equivalent to two pairs of patterned socks - depending on the socks and the sweater, of course.

I met the beautiful Faery Ring which didn't help the case for socks. Not that I don't have a bunch of other sweaters to knit already... including a couple on the needles. But I've tried to reform my sock-knitting ways before, and it has never worked.

Speaking of socks, here's a pair I finished while I was there:



Yarn: Mini Mochi in #108
Started: 12/29/09
Finished: 2/12/10

This yarn was a bit difficult to work with - it's quite splitty and it took me a while to get the feel of how to knit it without splitting stitches. But once I got the hang of it, it wasn't too bad. The one thing that did bother me a bit is the difference in the stripe length. This isn't just a case of me being picky about stuff matching though, the sock with the longer stripes had sections of much thinner yarn than the other sock. Not only did this change the length of the stripes, it also made the width of the sock smaller and larger in some places. The yarn is also quite fuzzy. I'm curious to see how comfortable these socks are and how well they wear. I do have more in one of the rainbow colors, so if I don't like the socks I might have to find another plan for those skeins.

Madrona

I've had a great first couple of days at Madrona, including finishing a pair of socks and starting some new ones. Sadly I don't have my own laptop so I can't upload any of my pictures. Another time.

Until then I'll tell a little about a more "underground" knitting project. I mentioned that I had been working on Blurple Waves lately, but I didn't show it:



A bit of an artsy shot taken for Project 365, but I think you get the idea. I'm having fun rediscovering a lot of yarn that I got as "souvenir" yarn or received as gifts.

I think the plan of knitting a ball of yarn each month is going to get the blanket well on the way to my goal of finishing it before the end of 2011, and with not too much work at one time. So far I'm really enjoying knitting it - it's a very easy movie-watching kind of project - and really liking how it's coming out.