Playing catch up

Hello! Remember me? Hmm, yes, well I had no real intention of blog-fading but the crazy busy that was the beginning of April turned into the crazy busy that was and still is the whole of April and probably May too!

I was seriously tempted just to post: "I'm back. Alive and well. Tired now. Bye bye sleep" at one point but by popular demand (Mandy and my Mum) I'm back with the mother of all updates.

So ..... where did we leave off - I suspect it may have been Easter. Easter looked like this:



And shortly afterwards it looked like this:



Shrink plastic boiled egg wrappers are a wonderful invention - and I still have a strip left for next year!

I also got out the latest in my infamous collection of wonderful cake tins - acquired from Williams Sonoma in Florida before Christmas and nursed home in a suitcase straining at the seams of the weight allowance and stuffed with yarn.


Two halves of lemon sponge cake, sandwiched together with lemon zest buttercream icing, drenched in melted honey and lemon and then drizzled with lemon icing - it's a good job it isn't quite the season for bees because this was sticky and wonderful and didn't last long - now all I need are little icing bees like the picture on the front of the tin label!

Easter seems a really long time ago now! Most of my time since then has been taken up with either work or looking after H who, with the spirit of timeliness characteristic of my family, was inspired while playing hockey to deflect a teammate's shot on goal that looked to be going wide of the mark, not with his hockey stick, so much as with his right hand ring finger backed up with his stick.

Oddly enough in the battle between carbon fibre stick, solid lump of plastic travelling at around 150mph and H's finger, it was the finger that lost. Cue trip to A&E.

His finger is now well on the mend and the skin graft needed to patch it all up is healing nicely but he has spent a week being able to do absolutely nothing for himself, and the last few days being able to do only a little something - so I have been spending time opening things before dashing off to work and then dashing home again. My parents-in-law came down for part of last week to keep him company which was great - and they cooked us a wonderful roast beef supper for our wedding anniversary!

In all of this crazy there has been a little knitting. The soft grey-blue sock that was a little camera shy the last time I posted has been finished - they (for there are two) are the Over the Garden Wall Socks, the second kit of this year's Socktopus Sock Club.
The pattern has you knit a relatively plain sock (but with a funky heel) and then knit icord vines up the trellis section in the sock, complete with flower buds



and peas in the pod


The yarn is Artists Palette Yarns Sweet Feet and it is luscious - soft and bouncy and cool and I love it.

The second finished knit that got as far as the picture stage is this little man:

May I introduce you to Ferdy - knit from Ysolda's Elephant pattern in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino; a Christmas present from my SIL. I don't know why he's called Ferdy, he very nearly got called Walsgrave which is where the hospital is in Coventry, but he put his paw down on that one and told us he was Ferdy.

I can't rate the pattern highly enough; it was easy to follow, very clear and the finished product looks like the one in the picture without having to be any kind of toy making genius, and there is a definite plus in not having to sew up tiny fiddly little limbs which never end up quite balanced when you sew them onto the body!

I finished Ferdy as H sat watching a football match and decided that he wasn't quite complete without a football scarf - some scraps of cream baby cashmerino and STR mediumweight and he's a true Celtic Elephant (or possibly Plymouth Argyle, Yeovil Town or North Ferriby United - it's up to him!). H thinks he's very cute and I take a childish joy in setting Ferdy up each morning as if he has been up to something in the night - playing on the playstation, watching telly, playing cards etc - for when H comes down later on after I've gone to work!

I have more tales to tell, mainly about the wonder that is Wonderwool Wales, but for now au revoir but not goodbye! I leave you with more tulip pictures that show how the uncharacteristic classy pale ivory start to the Dutch Appreciation Society has reverted to a more Carie-esque colour palette!

Om Shanti

Peace be with your feet! (Translation: by Carie. Accuracy: wayward)

I think I may be on a finishing streak at the moment, I finished my blanket (which has been in almost constant use ever since) and now I've finished a pair of socks.


These are the first pair of the 2009 Socktopus Sock Club, the Om Shanti socks, designed by our fearless leader, Alice. I think the idea is for a little self-pampering in the post-Christmas season because they arrived with a wonderful array of foot soak, scrub and butter that smells wonderful and has left its lingering scent in the yarn itself. I can't wait to use them.

The yarn is Chameleon Colorworks Evolution which is a 100% merino wool that has been stretched. And yes, that is as bizarre as it sounds. As far as I can work out, stretching the merino makes it longer and thinner so that it is closer to cashmere in form and thereby softer and fluffier.

It is incredibly soft yarn and it has a halo and a sheen a little bit like silk which you can just about see in the picture. The only way I can think of to describe is is that it is like wool that has been over-ironed, but in a good way. As sock yarn it won't be for wearing with my walking boots but you can never have too many pairs of socks for padding round the house in your pyjamas and these fit the bill.

The colour is Peppermint Cheer - which is the reason why most of my photos incorporate some of the leftover peppermint sticks from last Christmas. Actually I don't think we've eaten any of them yet and we brought a whole box back from the US - I'll be making peppermint bark for Easter at this rate. My socks have spiralled beautifully so they look very like peppermint sticks.

For once, I made few variations from the pattern, and one was accidental. I knitted the largest size and only when I got to the heel turn on the first foot did I realise that I had an extra stitch in the foot, so I decreased one at the heel turn and left it be and repeated the same for the second foot. The socks fit me perfectly and I'm glad for the extra stitch.

I also made the cuffs a little longer - 13 of the three row repeats and 12 rows of corrugated ribbing. I have plenty of yarn leftover (I'm thinking of a pair of really cute baby socks) and my socks are about the same length as a pair of commercial socks would be.

I really enjoyed last year's Socktopus sock club and so far this year is set to surpass it!

Squirrel Nutkin

As soon as the sixth and final Socktopus club package arrived through the door I knew I was going to love it for the very simple reason that the yarn exactly matched the sweater I was wearing at the time.

I have given up on having one favourite colour and accepted that I am a true colour magpie; every colour is mine is my motto, it just needs to find its place. However, I have a weakness for some colours more than others and the autumnal red/orange/brown swathe of the colour wheel has proved the inspiration for more than a few projects and an only slightly tongue-in-cheek attempt to persuade my sister to have burnt orange bridesmaid dresses. (She knows me very well and we wore blue!)

This is Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in the special club colourway Sugar Maple and in real life it is a rich orange brown with the burnished copper sheen of a highly polished dining room table. The yarn is soft and doesn't feel as if it has the nylon content so useful in sock yarn but knits up smoothly into a great sock fabric.

As you see:


If you are a SuperSockySocktopod (try saying that fast) you will see that these Tear my Sole socks are ever so slightly deviated from the original. If you want to see how the pattern really looks, there are some great Ravelry pictures here.

The original pattern has an ingenious heel pattern which involves making very loose loopy stitches and then crossing them over each other to give a kind of woven section to the fabric. I knit the first repeat but I quickly realised that while I loved the technique, I also needed to want to pull these socks out of the sock drawer. The pattern results in a set of open diamonds down the back of the leg and whilst I'm all in favour of lace socks I could easily put my finger through these gaps and I knew that with the diamonds I just wouldn't wear the socks.

Cue a trip to the frog pond! The woven stitch pattern incorporated a row of purl stitches so rather than just knit the back in plain stst I purled a row every four rows to give the texture of the original pattern without the openwork and I'm really pleased with the result.


As I may have mentioned before, I am not small of foot and as the original pattern was knit for small to medium sized feet I decided to add in a few stitches to help with the fit. The cuff is knit as a 3st repeat so I added an extra three stitches and when it came to the leg pattern I simply added them to the plain panel at the front of the sock and left them there until the toe. When I got to the toe detail I decreased two stitches on the final row of the foot pattern by left and right leaning decreases at either edge of the plain panel. On the first row of the toe detail itself I knit two together at the centre point single knit stitch, which becomes invisible underneath the slip stitch detail.



My only other amendment was to knit 14 repeats of the plain heel flap, and pick up 14 sts on each side of the heel flap rather than 12 and 12, but I then decreased down to 11 sts on each of the sole needles in line with the pattern.



Right back at the beginning of the sock club adventure I promised myself that I would knit each sock to the pattern that came with it and it took a little bit of wrestling with my OCD tendencies to break the mould. I am so pleased that I did because I really love these socks and despite all the changes they have retained the originality and quirkiness that I admired in the original pattern.



Here endeth the 2008 Socktopus Sock club; and I think that this makes me officially a Queen Bee sock knitter for finishing all of the socks within the year - I'll do anything for badges.

Alpha and Omega

The first and last.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!- drum roll please

As the title may suggest, I didn't quite finish the 2008 Christmas knitting in 2008, as Big Ben struck I was 2/3rds of the way down the foot. But, as of New Year in Hawaii and the other Pacific Islands I'm all finished.

Phew!

On the principle that the first shall be last and the last shall be first, these are the first socks finished in 2009 (but not the first finished socks of 2009):


I call them office stripes; interesting but subdued. The yarn is Regia Strato Colour 5747 Flannel and it does put me in mind of a pin stripe suit with braces. It's a 68 stitch sock to my standard pattern, plain and simple, and perfect for my FIL whose Christmas present these are - along with a promise to knit him a new head cover for one of his golf clubs!



They're certainly a hit with H who has earmarked them for poaching if they spent too long languishing in his father's sock drawer.

With a certain degree of symmetry, the last socks of 2008 are for my MIL. Are you ready for these? If it's still a somewhat tender hour of the morning (or afternoon) you may want your sunglasses. Don't say I didn't warn you because these are the Hot Hot Hopscotch:


Knit in Jitterbug in the colour Alizerine. The pattern is from the Socktopus Sock Club - although my club socks are almost unrecognisable as the same pattern, being in a much more muted mushroom colourway.

Before you worry that I'm on a mission to blind Beth with scary bright socks, fear not, she choose the colour when she came to visit about 6 months ago so hopefully she still likes it. This is after all the lady whose children include (a) my husband, well known for picking the brightest colours off the shelf and (b) my brother in law who chose the infamous neon socks. I think I'm onto a winner.

The Hopscotch pattern is very well written and gives a finished article that looks far more complicated than it really is - hopefully Alice will publish them for general release this year and you'll get to see what I mean - I can't recommend it highly enough.

The other advantage is that they are toe up, which means that I get to play around until I'm left with this:

That's ALL the leftover yarn from the skein!

So, Christmas is finished, a mere 7 days late, but without any IOUs or presents given with the needles still in - perhaps I ought to get started on next year, but first I have a little blanket to knit for a baby girl who (finally) arrived last Monday.

I hope that this year contains everything that you could wish for and more!

A diet of Fibre

Way , way back, when there was daylight, there was this:



A teeny bump of Corridale, dyed blue and red and combed? carded? together to make the pretty mixture in the picture. After I finished spinning the strawberries and cream pink merino I started on the bits from the Socktopus class sampler that don't need any more prep work before spinning, and this was the first to hit the twist.



It spun easily and finely (that's a penny in the picture) and I have a tiny number of yarns of two ply at the lower end of fingering weight. It sat in the handspun basket for a while until I finished some other yarn (more on that later) and I decided that I needed a break from endless cross stitch to deadline. I've always been told that you don't really 'get' handspun until you knit with it, but I need to take the time to figure out a pattern for the merino and "My First Handspun" so they're still in the basket, but the Corridale looks like this:



Knit up over 30sts on 3.25mm needles and a gorgeous mulled wine colour that is incredible hard to photograph. The picture above is pretty accurate but that's more than can be said for many of the pictures.

This was my first swatch of the evening and I think H missed the part of my brain process that stayed silent because I was terribly keen to show it to him and wave it around and explain that it was knitting that it was only half way through the evening that he suddenly turned to me and exclaimed: "You spun this?". Penny, meet a long drop. He confessed that he thought that it was real yarn and was then terribly impressed. As he should be because it's great.

The second swatch du jour used very newly spun grey alpaca. It started life as a mini-batt:



And after some careful study of Maggie Casey's book, Start Spinning (a book I would thoroughly recommend) I tried to spin this by long draw (I think). I mean the method where the twist is between your two pinch points, rather than always to the right of both hands.



Alpaca has a very different feel to wool as well, whether combed top or batts or roving, although how much of that was the yarn and how much was the 'grease' it's hard to tell. I know this much was in there originally:



And the water was pretty cloudy when I rinsed the final yarn.



From the penny shot you can see that it is much thicker than the Corridale, on the heavy end of a DK weight.



Knitted up it has a rough, crunchy texture which I rather like. This is also 30sts, this time over 4mm needles, and as before I knit until I ran out of yarn. I'm going to try to give it a dip in Eucalan over the weekend to see what happens.



You can see by this close up the halo on the alpaca - partly the work of the alpaca and partly the work of me :)



Playing compare and contrast you can see that the stitch definition is much sharper in the Corridale than in the Alpaca, but not half so fuzzy, and despite the 'crunchy' feeling in the alpaca it is the softer option.



I'm sure many of you are wondering why I, who is known for a little swatch avoidance, could take so much trouble to knit what are in essence, unusable swatches but fear not, I have a plan. It's called re designation. (Governments are very good at that sort of thing).

The Corridale, after much experimentation, has discovered a new role here:



Well you wouldn't want the tyres getting cold before an F1 race would you? Even if it is only around the Scalextric!

We tried the Alpaca against a number of small toy cars before identifying an ideal knitwear/victim combination



A Pumpkin Cozy!

Hopscotch in the Park

Sunday is a day of rest. Occasionally, rarely, it is in the UK a day of peerless sunshine in which everything becomes bathed in a golden glow and the world slows down for the afternoon, fulfilling every criteria for English rural life, including the ice-cream van.

Anxious not to waste any part of this unexpected gift Mary and I abandoned our respective other halves and headed to the park for a little tea, a little cake and a little knitting. We had ice-cream and hot chocolate and basked in the sunshine on a bench up above the river and watched people passing by, people sculling precariously up the khaki muddy river, and knit socks, second socks to be precise; Mary a warm heathery blue pair for toasty toes in the winter and me, well Hopscotch:

I meant to blog about these socks part way through creation but as is so often the case, the blog post was in my mind but never actually made it onto the 'page'. These socks are the fifth installment of the Socktopus Sock Club, started as I headed down to the second spinning class on the 14th, knit on a business trip to London on Monday, knit with the girls on Tuesday night, knit on the way to the dentist on Wednesday (but not on the way back which speaks volumes), knit to work and back on Thursday and Friday, abandoned for a wedding on Saturday, and finished on Sunday.

These socks have seen courtrooms, waiting rooms and tea rooms and seem none the worse for it.

They have even seen a very unusual car:

An orange car; part of a parade of unusual cars lined up in the park on Sunday.




I keep saying that each new pair of socks is my new favourite pattern but it's true - this is definitely a pattern that I will repeat. What I really love is the way that it looks all innocent, a slightly bumpy ribbed sock,



and then you spread the sock around your foot and you get this:


Perfect.

Knitting? I do that!

Spinning is now firmly established as part of my daily life. One of these days I'll just be too busy with all of the crafty things to remember to go to work - oh, wait, maybe that's why I was a bit late the other day - oops - too much ravelry at breakfast.

I am though at heart still a knitter first and foremost and there's very little that a knitter can do when the yarn calls, but cast on. An eagerly anticipated parcel arrived from Socktopus on Saturday (does anyone else notice that Alice is turning out to be a most wonderful enabler!) with the fifth sock parcel. I can't believe it's the fifth sock already. I've signed up again for next year because (a) it's been brilliant and (b) otherwise I'd be terribly sad at it ending. Oh and (c) H really likes the shiny parcels.

Before I got further:
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
If you are in the Socktopus Club and want to keep it a surprise then move along. Come back tomorrow or maybe Wednesday.

Right then, just us left? Look-see:



Toe-up Hopscotch Socks in yarn that is mushrooms and clouds and sunsets and green leaves all at once. It is more muted than anything that I ever pick for myself, being queen of the bright colours, but it is just gorgeous; and very soothing to look it.

It lasted about 5 or 6 hours in my home before I wound it up.

The little box is my most favourite bell and whistle yet. It opens out to become:


More little boxes - it's almost as good as a tardis. And inside the little boxes there were:

A thread cutter, a plastic sewing up needle, post it notes, a harmony cable needle which is nice and short and has cunning little grooves in it to hold the stitches without stabbing your hand, blue marking tape, little stitch marker elastics and coil-less safety pins. I've added a little tape measure from my work sewing kit and it is my constant companion on my many train trips.

But enough of this, I know what you really want to see:



The first few inches of sock. Mesmerising, engaging cables with lots of lovely plain rounds in between - you can't ask for more.

All that train knitting does mean that I get a fair few socks done and so I have finished each of my socktopus socks before the next one arrives, and so I got badges:



I feel that I need a sash to put them on (although in my day it was the sleeve(s) of your tunic), preferably with a slightly tatty name tape that says 1st Warwickshire Knitters, and an embroidered picture of the bear and crooked staff that's slightly skewiff.

If you have absolutely no idea what I'm going on about try here and here. In the interests of full disclosure I should tell you that I had the Northamptonshire Tudor Rose on my sleeve. I was an Imp. Clearly nothing very much has changed, and I'm still a sucker for badges.