Horcrux Twin Socks!

Way back in March, right before moving away from Salem, I started making twin Horcrux Socks with Eloise in our Harry Potter Draco yarn from our mini yarn crawl to Twisted. And today I finally finished them!



Pattern: Horcrux Socks
Yarn: Opal Harry Potter in Draco
Started: 3/1/09
Finished: 7/4/09
.26 miles for a total of 2.29 in Sock Marathon

Although the Harry Potter yarns are an exciting idea, I didn't really like most of the colors. But blues and greys, though a bit boring, aren't bad. One weird thing was that after my psycho efforts to match the stripes exactly, they get all wonky after the heel. But there wasn't a knot! Just all of a sudden the order of the stripes changed! Strange but true.

So I've joined Summer of Socks, because it's summer and I'm planning to knit socks as I usually do. I've decided that my first goal will be to finish all my sock-WIPs this summer, this is 1 of 9 1/2.

Listening to: Kimdracula ~ Deftones, Evil In a Closet ~ In Flames

Socks and Vests

I'm in one of those phases where I'm not finishing a lot, and I've been working all the time so there hasn't been much blog activity. But today we have a couple things!

I was teaching a sock class for knitting two socks at a time, and the basic pattern specifies worsted weight - it's very useful for getting through 2 heels in one class. I almost finished the socks in the last class a week ago, but then they sat around on my couch waiting to be grafted, which is so unlike me! Usually once I hit the toe decreases nothing will prevent me from finishing a pair of socks.



Yarn: Reynolds Odyssey 441
Started: 5/30/09
Finished: 6/18/09

I bought the yarn in Boston shortly before it was discontinued, but I have so little worsted weight sock yarn in my stash this was the only convenient one to grab. I'm glad I did! I thought it would be a little more striped, but the finished socks are fairly subtle (and more pink/purple than blue, also a surprise.) The yarn is quite soft and the color effect is achieved by using plies of different colors. It was very nice to knit with and I'm looking forward to seeing how it wears.

I've also been knitting a vest for the yarn store.



Pattern: Portland Tweed Vest (rav link)
Yarn: Portland Tweed in color 5077
Started: 5/21/09
Finished: 6/20/09

I didn't have my camera today, so I took this picture with my iPhone. I'm trying to get WIPs cleared of my Ravelry page ASAP since I'm getting kind of guilty about their growing numbers. ;) This vest is, of course, not something I would normally knit, but I enjoyed working with the yarn. The pattern, on the other hand, was a bit annoying. It's written in a way that was very difficult to follow - probably to save room as it is printed in a booklet.

However, having the instructions about *how* to do the decreases on a separate page from where the directions for the pattern pieces (and *how often* to do the decreases) are is very very annoying. There were also quite a few things that were unclear due to the brevity, such as instructions like "knit to last 4 sts, ssk." Um... there are two more stitches left after that ssk, which I'm assuming I need to knit! Combine that with the fact that you have shaping going on at different intervals on either side of the piece plus a lacy cable panel in the middle...

Suffice it to say that it was not an ideal project for putting down to jump up and help customers. And that 7 stitch ribbed band around the front / neck? Knit as a strip and sewn on. Yeah. But hey, it turned out great!

WIPs

I have 22 WIPs on my Ravelry page. In truth, I only have 20 because 2 of those are actually design projects that are complete, but that I haven't marked as FOs because I like to wait til I can show pictures. In this case I might have to bend that rule.

I go through phases of casting on, I'll start many *many* projects and I'll work on them all a little bit at a time - or at least a good portion of the projects, there are a few that have been lonely a while. Then finally I'll finish them, and it will look very impressive like I finish a lot of things at once. That is a trick.

Here are a few pictures, mostly of ones that I seem to be lacking photographs for entirely.



I started the Horcrux socks as twin socks with Eloise back in Salem I think. The yarn is the Harry Potter Opal in Draco.



These are some plain socks I promised to Snarfy because the yarn color scares me, and apparently she finds it "OMG hot!" I was happy to relinquish it to her, but since I haven't used this brand of yarn before - Dashing Dachs, if you're curious - I thought I should actually knit the socks myself.

And for something a little different... one sock!



Yes, I started my other Nebula, which is something of a minor miracle since when I knit socks one at a time they generally take me years to complete. The DPNs are also a trick - I believe I cannibalized the needles for another more pressing project. :o

There's another project which I'll likely be finishing Saturday, so I'll just save that one til then...

Listening to: Sober ~ Tool, How Soon Is Now? ~ The Smiths

Knitting vs. Real Life

Well, combine secret knitting with big life changes, and you get blog silence.

First of all, the knitting! Last weekend I went down to Oregon for a baby shower for my friend Stephania, so now I can reveal a bit more of that secret knitting:



Pattern: Blossom
Yarn: Knit Picks Shine in Sky (4 skeins)
Started: 4/28/09
Finished: 5/20/09

This was a fun pattern to knit, although the construction was not at all how I had expected. Here's a picture of it blocking*:



*Note: The second attempt at blocking included pins.

The pattern has ties, but a coworker with a young baby told me that ties are not that great on her baby so I decided to modify it to use a button. I think it turned out really cute, even without the suggested embroidery. My embroidery skills are questionable, so I decided to leave it plain.

The secret knitting is slowly coming to an end, so soon I should be able to post projects in real time.

As for real life, I just started a new job - this time in my field. It's keeping me a little more busy than my part time yarn store job was, so I haven't had quite as much time to knit. But, then again, now I have a longer commute...

Lace!

Well, the secret knitting continues - at this moment I have no less than *four* secret projects on the needles. No kidding! And most of them are time-sensitive, so they've really been getting all my attention lately.

That said, I can share this old project. It actually was not secret at all, but it was for work and needed blocking and so it was not photographed as a finished item until just the other day.



Pattern: Silk-Wool Horseshoe Lace Scarf from Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpaca Silk (3 skeins)
Started: 3/5/09
Finished: 4/16/09

As you can see, my sharf (I have decided it is a sharf instead of a scarf, because it is very wide and a bit shawl-like. Yes, I do realize it is called a stole!) is in good company with the other lacy knits hanging out at the store. Although it is something I probably wouldn't knit myself, it was pretty fun. The lace pattern is very easy to memorize and became a bit boring after a little while.



I will admit that I did not block it. My apartment - based on size and cat to closeable door ratio - is not a good place for blocking lace. One of my lovely coworkers was nice enough to block it at her house.

If I were going to knit this pattern again I would take out a couple of repeats width-wise because, as mentioned above, the scarf turned out very wide and not as long as I would have liked. Of course the yarn used in the book has some insane amount of yardage, but I still think the scarf is way wider than necessary. Apparently a lot of people agree because it looks like most folks on Ravelry also took out lace repeats. Also the 2 stitch garter border doesn't really do anything except fold to the back. If you want a border, make it bigger!

Listening to: A Fine Day To Exit ~ Anathema, ...A Distance There Is ~ Theatre of Tragedy

Surprise!

Some of my secret knitting can finally be revealed....



Know what that is?



How about now?



It's my very first Baby Surprise Jacket!



Pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann
Yarn: Knit One Crochet Too Ty-Dy
Needles: size 7
Started: 4/22/09
Finished: 4/28/09

I'll share one more picture after I put the buttons on - I couldn't decide if buttons were ok for babies, but the verdict from the mom was yes, so buttons there will be!

Sunday I went to my first baby shower for this round of babies. It seems that many people I know are having babies this summer / fall so there's been a lot of baby knitting in the works, most of it secret. Now this one is un-secret, so I can share it with you!

This is my first BSJ, although I know almost everyone has made one already. It's a pretty easy pattern, though I did find the chatty style it is written in a bit off-putting. And the random capitalized words? Strange! But, nonetheless, it is a lovely little jacket and a truly innovative pattern. I think it came out really well.

Alpaca?

I didn't know what I was going to call this post, but then I realized that a lot of it revolves around not-alpaca. You'll see...

First, I knit this hat - which *used* to be the Alpaca Ski Cap - for the store. The yarn that was originally used was discontinued and so I knit it in some lovely Cashsoft Aran.



Another bonus of working in a yarn store is that you get to knit things you wouldn't make for yourself, but still enjoy knitting.

And on the first Friday of each month, there is a spinning group that meets. The owner was kind enough to lend me her folding Lendrum since my Kromski Symphony isn't very portable. I grabbed some fiber on the way out the door yesterday morning and got a bit of a surprise when I went to spin it. There were two little braids of fiber labeled "Alpaca" which I believe I got from a secret pal at some point. Well, I pulled it out and it certainly wasn't like an alpaca I have used! It had a lot of guard hair and really didn't feel like alpaca to me... not the soft squishy fiber most of us are used to. I don't know if it's just a different kind of alpaca or if it's llama perhaps? In any case, it spun up quite nicely anyway. I was jokingly calling it "fake alpaca" all night.

The resulting yarn is not as even as I usually spin, but it was a new wheel for me and it's a single treadle with scotch tension - much different than my large double treadle double drive wheel. All things considered it turned out well!



Here's the mystery-alpaca plied and drying in my bathtub. There were two colors, a navy and a brighter blue, so I plied them together for a barberpole look. I like it!



You can see the barberpole effect in that picture, as well as the guard hairs. The yarn looks a bit fuzzy - like you'd expect from an angora yarn, but isn't quite as soft.

I've been doing some other spinning lately, but this one at home. At Sock Camp my roommate Marisol bought one of the Sheep to Shoe kits, but wanted a worsted weight yarn. She's just learning to spindle spin, but decided that since the fiber wouldn't fit in her suitcase and she wasn't sure how fast she could get it spun, that she'd leave it with me.



The colorway is "The Claw" and this part kind of matches my wheel! The color repeats are very long, so I haven't hit the purple yet.

And last but not least, I got one of katkoe's random mailing Wednesday surprises, and came home tonight to a little envelope with these:



Stitch markers with the names of my (usually) beloved cats in an envelope that appears to be made from plastic bags!

Lots of ends

When Snarfy and I bought the same brand of yarn at the Superbowl sale, we decided to make fraternal twin socks. One night at knitting group - just before I moved up to Seattle - I wound off some of my blue for her and some of her green for me, and the Snarfytwin socks were born.



Needles: 2.25mm
Yarn: Newton's Yarn Country Happy Feet
Started: 3/3/09
Finished: 4/26/09
.24 miles for the Sock Marathon, 1.46 miles total

These socks were a long time in the making, mostly because they kept getting pushed to the bottom of the bag as I knit other more time-sensitive projects. But they were the perfect socks for a few rows of bus knitting in the morning, and when I got to the toe yesterday I figured they should be finished. Of course, knitting socks with contrasting bits gives you lots of ends... I have to remember that next time I think about doing contrasting ribbing, heels, and toes in my socks.

Secret knitting still continues, so the blog might be quiet for a bit longer. Of course, deadlines for being able to show you some of these projects are coming up so the blog will soon be full of things I finished already. :)

Listening to: How Soon Is Now? ~ The Smiths, Dose ~ Filter

I'm still knitting!

I knew it was time to blog when MJ asked "What, are you turning into me?" ;)

Yes, it is true. I haven't posted in almost an MJ-long time. First there was sock camp... for almost a whole week of 24/7 knitting-related vacation you would think I would have gotten more knitting in.

And I had a birthday...



At work I got a birthday fritter! (There are many reasons I love my job, and this is only one of them!) My family stopped by to say hi too, and then went to my apartment.



I came home to find these adorable star cakes and some balloons! It was a very nice birthday.

And then there has been secret (test and gift) knitting which I can't show, and I haven't finished anything. Well, that's sort of a lie. I did finish the lacy alpaca silk scarf that I was knitting at work, but it hasn't been blocked yet and it's for a store sample anyway.

Speaking of work, we are having a big sale this weekend so it's been pretty crazy. But it's still really fun. I'm just trying to restrain myself around all that yarn!

Listening to: Rusted Wheel ~ Silversun Pickups

Winners!

Congrats to Cathy and Harriet, who won my blog contest!

1. What are my cats' names? (a bonus point for *full* names, another bonus point for linking me to the cutest picture of one or both of them on the blog)

My cats, Pan and Java, are really named Pantalaimon and Kirjava. Any picture qualified for cutest. ;)

2. Who is my "boyfriend"?

My "boyfriend" is CTHGSY. You haven't seen him for a while, but I assure you he's still around.

3. What yarn did I use for my first "human-sized" socks?

Lion Brand Magic Stripes

4. How many adult sweaters have I knit?

The answer for sweaters with sleeves is actually 6, although only 5 of them really made the blog. As for t-shirts / tanks, there are an additional 4. Strangely no one got this question right.

5. Why are my Regia Strato socks famous?

I took these socks to New York and knit on them in line for the AFI video premier of Miss Murder. The line (and me knitting the socks) was shown on MTV.

6. What luxury fiber do I dislike?

Silk.

7. How many times have I moved since starting this blog?

Cathy was right on with 6. Actually, I counted wrong the first time and thought it was 7, but recounted and it's really 6.

Winners - please contact me via email (or if I don't hear from you in the next couple days I'll try to track you down) so I can figure out a good prize for you. :)