princessdeia

It seems Autumn decided to arrive last week… Along with the falling leaves, grey skies and rain… Autumn seems to have helped my find my knitting mojo! Of course all knitters know October means Socktoberfest, as seeing as I have still to finish my first Ravelympics socks, what better time to catch up on some sock knitting.

The interesting addition to Socktoberfest this year has been Through the Loops‘ Mystery Sock. I have always wanted to join on of the mystery knit-alongs but always seem to discover them too late or fear that I will end up with a shawl I will never use… But a sock seems so simple.

Each Wednesday I new section of the pattern will be posted on Ravelry, so far only the cuff has been published, I think the pattern will be best worked on circular needles two socks at a time - but I am planning on knitting them on DPN’s - but still knitting both socks within the week.

Of course, the best thing about Autumn is all the new programmes returning to our screens - more reasons to stay at home and knit! So yesterday, whilst watching Fringe I cast-on and completed section one of the first sock.

For the past month the buzz on ravelry has been all about the Ravelympics… When, it was announced on the socktopus board that they were putting together a team, I had to join in, I have decided to compete in two events, the Shawl Relay and Sock Put.

So this afternoon, whilst the thousands of athletes walked into the Birds Nest, I began to knit, casting on one sock and the shawl - although I have to say casting on 5 stitches for the Forest Canopy Shawl was pretty easy.

Yarn: Knitwitches Sock Yarn in Lavender Sunset.
Pattern: Pomatomus from Knitty.
Needles: 2.75mm.
Notes: With my first pair of Pomatomus socks I suffered from SSS, even though I loved the pattern, this time around they knitted up amazingly well.

Published with wonder of Wordpress, whilst I am away.

Yarn: NDS - ALBA Shetland 4ply, in Green.
Pattern: Baudelaire from Knitty.
Needles: 2.5mm
Notes: The last time I made these socks I had a few problems with the casting off - but this time I used the Tubular Cast off and it works. I brought yarn at Ally Pally last autumn, unfortunately it is no longer available.

Published with wonder of Wordpress, whilst I am away.

So like all sock knitters I have a bag of leftover yarn and no idea what to do with it… I did a little bit of research online and found a few patterns. I don’t have enough for a blanket, I thought these were cute, and of course there is the calorimetry.

In the end I thought I would knit another pair of socks. I enjoyed reading grumperina’s experiments with Lorna Lace Spiral Socks, but I have mainly multi coloured yarn, so this wouldn’t work. With the leftover Lorna Lace from my Jaywalkers,  I brought some solid yarn to make the Old Shale Socks, but never gor around to making them. Then, last month I had a dream.

When I awoke, I had a strong image of the socks I had been knitting in my dream. I wanted the toe, base of the foot and heel all to be in chocolate and the top of the foot and leg to be in the multi yarn. I of course turned to Ravelry to see if anyone could help me find the pattern, in the end I discovered Hidden Passion (Rav Link) - which are almost right.

Instead of ordering the book, I took my yarn, needles notepad and pen sat down in the summer sun and started to knit. I figured it was just a case of knitting half a sock at a time on two needles, Using provisional cast on and the chocolate yarn, I began with the heel flap -30 sts for 32 rows (slipping the first stitch), then created the heel.

Next I picked up the slipped stitched to create a  gusset, then I knitted into the back of each picked up stitch for one row (I found here I had to knit with three needles). Continuing by decreasing one stitch at the beginning of each row until 30 stitches remained.

I carried on knitting, slipping a stitch at the beginning of each row until I was two inches short of the desired length. Then I used Dianne’s excellent description for a short row toe. Before changing to the multi-yarn.

I picked up the slipped stitch from the foot, and knitted it together with the first stitch on the needle. Knitted to the final stitch, slipped that and picked up the stitch from the foot and passed the slip stitch over. On the next row I slipped the first and last stitch (30 stitches).

Once, I had picked up all the slipped stitches from the foot, I undid the provisional cast on and started knitting on the round (with 60 stitches), until the desired length.

Then I changed back to the chocolate yarn for the rib - I did about 15 rows of rib.

Finally, I used the tubular cast off to finished (using Anna Bell’s tutorial).

Last night was the first meeting of the the Socktopus Sock Club at the Troubadour Coffee Shop in Earl’s Court. Some of us arranged to meet up at the tube station first, and planned on walking to the cafe together.

After waiting for a while the call of knitting was too strong and we headed to the cafe, but concerned we might have left Alex behind we left her a little note, thanks to Mel and her Post it Notes!

Once we got to the cafe (and found Alex), we discovered it was buy one get one free on cocktails, I figured it was safe to have a couple of Cosmo’s and knit, fully expecting that I would have to rip back my knitting this morning!

It was great to catch up with everyone, meet some new knitters and even watch as we converted our waiter into a knitter! It almost makes up for having missed Alice’s Hen Do.

All in all a perfect night, knitting, greats and some rather lovely Stockey Tiffee Pudding!

When I first started this round of Project Spectrum, I had a lot of big intentions. I was going to use this opportunity to stash bust, experiment with adding more colour into my life and blog away about all things fiery. Of course, it didn’t work out like that at all!

I have had very little free time recently, which translate to very little knitting and even less blogging. So in a last minute attempt to show I have been embracing all things pink, orange and yellow! Now I haven’t painted any walls yellow or rushed out to buy a bright pink coat, I have slowly been adding more colour into my life.

I figured the reason I never considered wearing yellow or orange was because I had never found the right shade for me… so before going to Rome I brought this mustard yellow top, I thought it was a safe bet, it works well with the staples in my wardrobe (dark blue jeans or brown cords).
Please ignore the lame photo it was taken as part of the “Fontana di Trevi Experiement” on Ravelry!

However, I am yet to find the perfect shade of orange and this colour is still missing from my palette. Pink has been the easiest colour for me to play with, it is very easy to throw on my pink converse shoes, and I have previously knitted several pink socks and of course I have had another pair of pink socks on the needles this month! I am hoping to finish these tomorrow, so I can start working with the earth tones for the next cycle of PS3.

I don’t have the time to commit to a long swap like Secret Pal, but I still love swaps, (it is the joy of getting post). I love the idea of the Mystery Swap, a parcel with a theme and a few years ago I had so much fun with the Project Spectrum Postcard Swap, so imagine my joy today when I got two interesting pieces of mail (along with a rather boring bank statement).

First was this parcel from Karin, as part of the Mystery Swap, she picked Miss Marple as the theme but as I have all the books, she is calling it “The Miss Marple package without a Miss Marple book” package… Karin thought the darker blue yarn would be perfect for the Reading-In-Bed Shrug (pdf file) - which I think is very Miss Marple.
Also included was some sock yarn, rose napkins, a pattern book and frog candle (not pictured).

Next was an ATC as part of the PS3 - Elements, this firey creation was by Meg, she was lovely enough to also include a spring ATC for my collection - but for some reason I forgot to photograph it :S

As I am blogging about PS3 it make sense that I should show off my fire inspired knitting. My second pair of Pomatomus Socks this time in Knitwitches sock yarn.

Yarn: Knit Picks Palette in Navy.
Pattern: # One Husband Socks
from Whimsical Knitting Designs.
Needles: 2.5mm
Notes: After being with Jason for over ten years I thought I would test the waters around the boyfriend curse and knit him a pair of socks to celebrate our first wedding anniversary! These took forever to knit, I think part of it was me losing my knitting mojo and the other was the size (72 stitches per round).
Modifications:I knitted a plain heel instead of the textured heel in the pattern.

Yarn: Knitwitches Sock Yarn in Evening Sunset.
Pattern: Monkey from Knitty.
Needles: 2.5mm
Notes: For the last year, every socks knitter has made themsleves a pair of Monkey sock, as every reader of this blog knows I am always late of the starting blocks when it comes to knitting trends. What I didn’t realise was reason knitters love this pattern is the simplicite of the pattern and the amazing final product. Like with Jaywalkers socks, the pattern is easy to memorise and looks fantastic.

When we went to Ally Pally last summer, Laura had done her research and discovered Knitwitches, when we got to the stall all of us were amazed at the colours, at one stage I think I had six colorways of the sock yarn in my hand at one stage, this was one of the colors I came home with. I love the brightness of the purple.

I have been really bad and writing (and knitting) lately, Jason and I spent last week celebrating that fact we have been together for 10 years. It seemed a little silly celebrating our “dating” anniversary when we have our first real anniversary coming up - but it was such an achievement we thought it needed to be marked!

I wanted to start the new year off with no projects on the needles (and then start stash-busting in the new year), but I didn’t get a chance to finish my monkey socks, over the last few weeks, I have been busy working on Broadripple Socks - this is a fast knit and uses 3.25mm needles so should be finished soon… I have also cast on #One Husband Socks, for Jason - this will be the first thing I have knitted for him and he seems excited - he has already warned me I can’t get second sock syndrome with these - it seems he does listen to my knitting ramblings!

In between the shopping, wrapping and decorating this week I have been working on my Scarf and Socks, I am treating this as practice run in being a two-project-gal! My aim is to have them both finished by the 31st, so I can cast on two new projects in the New Year. But which projects, as I am enjoying this sock/scarf combination I searched my ravelry queue and narrowed down my choices - and decided to let you decide.

For Socks, I have narrowed it down to # One Husband Socks in Knit Picks Palette (for Jason), Broadripple Socks in some NDS yarn, Old Shale Two Yarn Socks in Lorna Lace for my sister or Rainbow Socks some Opal yarn I have had in my stash for ages. (All link are to Ravelry)

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I was tempted to have another go at knitting the Flower Basket Shawl, but instead have narrowed my scarf/shawl selection to…
Ene Shawl in Knit Picks Shimmer, Print O’ the Wave Stole also in Shimmer, Short Row Rib Scarf in Wendy Fusion and finally the Wisp Wrap in KSH.

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