Putting the sock blockers to good use

Yesterday we had daylight but no finished sock, today there is a finished sock (finished last night) but no daylight.

Yesterday the sock looked a little like this

And you can see the flow of the pattern on the foot here.

My socks have never seemed to lack blocking - it's usually provided by my feet so I've not regreted not having sock blockers before but they are great for showing off socks without having to do a convoluted handstand to take a picture of my own feet (and I can't touch my toes, I'm too lanky). So here is the first sock.

The yarn quantities are very generous so the cuff on my sock is at least 8", and that's with a good bit left over and long feet. It's a very easily memorised pattern, part of the Socktopus sock club and great for the commute.

It's a toe up sock and rather then going for an afterthought toe or a magic figure of eight cast on it starts in a rather ingenious way (you know me, I'm all for new ways to do things).

In this cast on you start with a little crochet chain in waste yarn:

Then you pick up stitches from the crochet chain

And knit a little square patch

Unravel the provisional cast on and put the stitches back on another needle

And then pick up down one side, work across the bottom and pick up along the other side and you end up with a little nose warmer for a bunny or an embrio sock depending on how advanced your SSS is!
It looks a little bit clunky in this picture but by the time the sock is finished it's all evened out - clever or what!?

More Scotland - but with snow!!

We left Arran last Sunday and prepared to head even further north to finish the trip off with a visit to H's aunt and uncle who live near Oban. It's a good trek from Arran but a whole lot nearer to Arran than Warwickshire. After you get past Glasgow the route takes you past some of the most spectacular scenery you could find - along the side of Loch Lomond and then up into the Scottish Highlands for real.

I'd love to report on the feeling of driving up past mountains soaring up into a peerless sky but ... well it is Scotland .... it started raining. Then the rain started to get a little clumpy and within 5 minutes it looked like this:

From inside the car it's like being in at 3D film with those funny red and green glasses - lots of little things coming towards you but nothing actually hits you. That's a mountain in the snow in case it isn't clear - photography from a moving car (even a car moving slowly in the snow) isn't easy.

As we came down from the mountains the snow turned back into rain, in front of a beautiful sky:

And that set the tone for our two day visit - it was grey mostly, rained occasionally but it was calm, relaxed and chilled out with only a hint of the storms hitting the rest of the country in messages from my mother along the lines of "house still on cliff. Not so sure about the garden" as they faced the teeth of a force 9 gale.

The uncle and aunt live pretty much on the shores of Loch Etive which is inland from Oban and the whole area is very like the Westcountry plus mountains so I felt right at home - we went for walks along the loch shore with Rosie the every springing springer spaniel, visited Oban which I thought was just like Dartmouth (a town near where I grew up) only to discover that Uncle's reaction to Dartmouth had been exactly the same!

And then after two lovely days we had to turn around and head south. We took a different route out of the Highlands and drove through a place that is quite genuinely called Rest and be Thankful. I don't have any pictures because we weren't able to stop but Rest is at the top of a steep valley running down to Loch Fyne and it's stunning. You can also immediately see why you needed a rest!

So now we are back into the usual routine, commuting, work and more commuting and trying to resist the temptation to sell up, move to Oban and sell ice-creams and knitted jumpers (seasonally of course!).

All of this driving and relaxing with family means knitting and so without further ado we have the Argyll square:

Mountains, heather and seaside all in one.

I also did a little sock knitting and now for the first time get to show off my new sock blockers - these are my MILs monkey birthday socks for the end of March.

They really aren't as retina searing in person I promise

I've been making good progress on the Neigbourhood Tunnels socks from the Socktopus club as well but as I'm near the end of the sock and it's nightime, I'll save that for another day!

Scotland Part 2 - in which it rains. A lot.

Arran. Not to be confused with Aran which is Irish, is the Gaelic for bread (according to the signs in the Brodick Co-op) and is where the jumpers come from.

Arran is a medium sized island tucked between the Scottish west coast and Kintyre and is the home of the bride of one of H's former work mates, formerly both resident in Warwickshire, now living somewhere north of Aberdeen. Apparently north of Aberdeen is just too accessible for a wedding so they decided to get married on Arran (I can't really comment, I had all of H's Scottish relatives travelling to Devon for our wedding!). So off we set.

The journey involves one of these:

With a very nifty opening mechanism for getting the cars out without them having to reverse.And although I may be married into a Scottish clan now, the little seafaring Devonian stays true to her roots- I spent as much time as possible on deck in horizontal rain and interesting sea:

The funniest moment was when I was sat waiting for H and the man opposite me, turning a gentle shade of chartreuse, told someone on the other end of his mobile phone that "it wasn't choppy at all - just a little breezy".

The journey across is a game of island hide-and-seek; now you see the mountains, now you don't. But when you do see them:

Totally worth it - this is Holy Island, just off the east coast of Arran. And this:

Is a banana impersonator who let go of her hat only to allow the photo to be taken and is clinging firmly to the railing behind, and Brodick on the shoreline behind. Don't worry if you can't see Brodick - settlements on Arran tend to be in the style of one row of houses along the shoreline, particularly on the eastern side.

We arrived in Arran on Friday lunchtime and decided to spend the afternoon circumnavigating the Island. There are only really two main roads in Arran - one goes around the coast and the other goes across the middle; we went around.

And this is the point at which we mastered the art of the 11 minute walk. It goes a bit like this: It stops raining, we plonk the car at the nearest suitable parking space and set off for the mountain/sea, we get 6 minutes away from the car, enjoying our walk in the fresh air and by the seaside; the clouds open and we make a sprint for the car before we get swept away in the nearest torrent. When not raining the north of the island is spectacular - mountains with snowy peaks are always going to be a hit with me:

Circumnavigation at last brought us to Blackwaterfoot and our hotel on the seafront - how about this for a room with a view:

It would of course help if it wasn't raining (see 11 minute walk rule above!) but I can highly recommend the sound of waves against the shore as a restorative cure.

The wedding was wonderful, the bride and groom nipped in and out of church between rain showers and the storms even abated for the fireworks. There was shortbread, tablet, Ceilidh dances and a good amount of whisky and I even managed to avoid being publically called out as English by the bride's three brothers once the rugby score came through.

So having been a walking advert for the Arran tourist board it's time for my little bit of yarn from Arran:

Blue for the rain, the sea, the mini lakes and puddles all over the island and a bit of bright green grass.

Back on English Time

H and I have spent a wonderful week in a combination of Arran and Argyll time - very laid back, very chilled - pure bliss - it's a real bump back down to English time which revolves around trains and time recording.

We have many pictures, and many tales to tell so I'm leaping into part 1 of an epic three-parter: "what we did in Scotland".

Last Wednesday we loaded up the knitting and drove up to Edinburgh where H's brother and sister live - it was lovely to see them and my SIL managed to get the Thursday off work/university classes to spend the day with us, pootling around Edinburgh. We hit central Edinburgh midmorning and spent a good while trying to find buttons for this:

Finished (but for the buttons) on Wednesday night/ Thursday morning. All plans for multi-coloured stripes etc were blown out of the water by a slight yarn shortage - I tried corrugated ribbing in blue and pale blue but it just looked messy next to the solid colour blocks so blue and red it is. Unfortunately although I found a rather cute sheep button to add to the tin, we didn't find anything quite right so the search continues - it doesn't fit any of the babies I know at the moment (seeing as how they are all currently bumps) so there's no rush.

Time being such a valuable commodity it has to be one of the great pleasures to spend time with people that you love without feeling that you have to dash off and do something - so we had a very leisurely lunch and toddled up the hill to the castle for a view:































It really is quite a drop off either side and so nice to see it without scaffolding bleachers like last time.


















Having found one castle it seemed only right to make it the theme for the day, so we found another one:































And acted in a manner entirely consistent with our ages and position in society:


















The observant among you will notice that I am dangling a bag that if you look very carefully contains the magic word that makes all knitters' hearts leap at the thought: "yarn"

And the bag does not lie - Ysolda mentioned on her blog that K1 yarns had opened up in Edinburgh so we went in search and this is truly not a shop to be missed - tucked just around the corner from the castle it's bright and spacious and has all sorts of wonderful nuggets of potential, some of which may have come home with me. (It was at this point that we gave up on even the pretence of doing any culture and went shopping)

K1 stock a huge range of overseas knitting magazines and crazy yarn like Habu stainless steel yarn (loved the colours, couldn't for the life of me work out what I would knit with it) and this:

Fyberspates Scrumptious Blue Faced Leicester and Silk - my SIL appreciates and wears her knitwear with pride (she also once bought me yarn for Christmas) so this is to be a hat for her - something cabley I think - let me know if you have any pattern suggestions - it's aran ish weight.
I also acquired a couple of balls of Noro Kureyon, having not really put up much resistance to the idea of a full size Lizard Ridge blanket to snuggle under. I took my existing Noro to Scotland as it's a nice quick knit-while-you-chat type project and I made three squares while I was away north, one in each of my trio and each vaguely connected in colour to the place.

This is the Edinburgh square:

Green for all the grass, grey for the buildings and a flash of purple for all the thistle-shaped tartan tat.

In our next installment - we go to a place where it rains at least every 11 minutes.

Scalpel please

It turns out that Socktopus package was really good. So good in fact that the universe decreed that there should be a bit more balance back the other way.

Last night I finished the second sleeve on the Crocus cardigan. It looked like this:


Anyone see the problem yet?

How about now...


Yes, it is the truth universally acknowledged that whenyou have a bag full of cotton 4ply scraps all in mid to dark red you will inevitable put the wrong red in your sleeve and fail to notice all the time you finish the sleeve (including several re-dos) and finish the bottom of the cardigan and finish most of the second sleeve.

Now I like knitting this cardigan but not perhaps enough to want to reknit that particular bit again (as I said, many redos to decide on the cuff) so you know what's coming (please sit down if you are of a nervous disposition - this involves both scissors and kitchener)

Step 1: this is how the beautifully knitted but incorrectly coloured sleeve looked.

Step 2: at the colour change (the row of moss stitch) I snipped a maroon thread and unravelled back.

Then as even I realise that it is not clever to attempt terribly technical things after midnight I popped both ends onto DPNs and headed for the wooden hills to an easterly county.

This morning, Step 3, it looked like this:


Slightly drafty around the elbow for the small child wearing it and possibly painful if you got your DNS muddled. So I reknit the dark red stripe and the colour change into the blue.

Step 4: I kitchenered all the way around the elbow (on a decrease row as well - I need my head seeing to!)

Step 5: Back where we started!

And now it all matches.

I think the neckband is going to be red rib (possibly going into orange if I run out of red) and the current choices for the button bands are either intarsia rib (following each colour out into the rib) with a button hole in each segment and a different coloured button for each, or possibly corrugated ribbing (maybe in the two blue colours). In the end it will probably come down to how much yarn is left over but I do like the idea of contrasting buttons - only time will tell.

Balance (NB Socktopus spoiler)

Some days the universe just gets it right; you have a hard day at work and to make up for it a lovely friend (the sort where you've known each other since you were 13 and you don't have to tidy up for) comes round for dinner and gossip, or you have a really wretched day and something lovely arrives in the post.

If I show you this:

You will know just how bad my day was (hint. I needed to be medicated with cookies by the girls). For this is the second Socktopus sock club package and it is full of pretty things -

Sock blockers with a ball of yarn carved into the ankle - and what you can't tell is the gorgeous smell from the wood

And a little pink-wrapped package


OK have I made you wait long enough yet?


This month's yarn is Sheldridge Farms in Arcade Fire and it's soft and smooth and the most perfect colours. Why do I feel the ballwinder may be coming out soon!

As I said, balance is restored.

Decisions decisions - please help

The Baby not-Tulip-but-Crocus sweater has been missing from the blog for a while (mainly while I knit other things that will fit babies this year rather then when they can speak) but I've been plugging away on it in spare moments, pretty much picking out the next colour stripe according to mood.

Sunday afternoon it looked like this:

And after it got dark I finished off the bottom by completing the blue stripe and then adding more 1x1 rib in bright red. All I have to knit now is the sleeve (pretty straightforward, just copy the other one) and do something about the neck and front bands. The original inspiration has a few rows of moss stitch and then i-cord ties but I think that moss stitch bands would look odd given the rib on the cuffs, and I subbed the rib for the moss stitch because it was too bulky and rather rough to the touch in 4ply cotton.

So here is my question for you - so I do a ribbed neckline and ordinary cardigan button bands, ribbing and then the i-cord ties, or something totally new and original (lots of i-cord ties!). I think that size wise I'm looking at 18 months to 2 years so I worry that i-cord ties are too easily fiddled with. Let me know what you think.

Meanwhile in the "knitting for mothers" category the Monkeys are coming along nicely for the MIL and I've started swatching for the Quarterpint Cardigan. All this swatching and cardigan construction is bringing out the latent engineer in my husband - he has declared that "we" need a stitch dictionary so that he can check that I'm making the nicest possibly cardigan for Mum. I may be wielding the needles but structural decisions apparently need joint input.

Tangled Yoke - the photo shoot

Finally finished and finally dry on a lovely sunny morning.

My chief photographer was bribed and corrupted to do a quick photo shoot before heading off for ritual aggression (sorry, I of course mean a hockey match).

Et voila:


One Tangled Yoke in Rowan Felted Tweed, herb colour. It's pretty windy here at the moment which explains my rather unusual hairdo!

I'm really pleased with the way the fit on this cardigan has turned out as I added a fair whack of length to get to the length were my back stays covered when I bend over. The yoke is frankly gorgeous and very ingenious:

You can see it a little bit closer in this one - what I love is the way that you do a layered decrease at the top of the yoke which makes all the curves join together.

The only slight hitch you can almost see in the pictures - it's this:

The yarn relaxes and grows quite a bit when you wash it and although I did wash my swatch (and count by stitch gauge accordingly) I think it pulled out a bit more on the row gauge in the real thing. I could shorten them with a bit of cut and paste but I quite like them long - it makes a change to commercial bought sleeves ending at my elbows!

Seeing as it's Mother's Day in the UK today it also seemed only appropriate to pull out the yarn for the next presents for Mum and H's Mum (I'm not giving away secrets I promise - Mum choose the yarn for her Christmas present and H's Mum doesn't read)

This one is for Mum - Rowan Scotish Tweed Aran

and this one came home with me yesterday and is destined to be a pair of Monkey socks for H's Mum for her birthday - Raspberry Jitterbug.

So if you will excuse me, I have some winding to do!

It's Christmas!!

Or more accurately, it's my Christmas present - yippeee.

The Purveyor of Pretty Things arranges a whole load of workshops with Rowan consultants every year and the ones I have been on have been brilliant without exception. Today Jane Crowfoot was teaching finishing techniques and I went to hone my skills.

In other words I produced very oddly shaped pieces of knitting and proudly bore them home to show to H: "Look! look what I made" I cry, "gosh what lovely ....... knitting, erm what is it?"

Exhibit A is fairly recognisable - we knit a few rows and then put in a mini neckband, using different decreasing stitches at the sides of the neckband to see their effect and I picked up lots of tips for avoiding showing the decreases when the neckband is in, and that dreaded hole in the corner syndrome.

Exhibit B is where we get into truly weird - this practice piece shows button holes (the bottom one of the row of three is a deliberate how not to do it), increases (of many different varieties) and a bit of short row shaping for a shoulder at the top. In other words, it's an alien.

And finally my favourite, Exhibit C. Without scrolling down.. I said WITHOUT scrolling down, guess what colours I used to turn my four small squares into one big square.

Did you guess mint green and baby pink? No - why ever not!

Ah, the joys of mattress stitch.

It was a wonderful day spent with a lovely group of ladies, AND we had chips for lunch.

Thank you very much Mummy and Dad - a great choice of Christmas present

Knitting to watch wool dry

Tangled Yoke is blocking - I have high and overly ambitious hopes of wearing it tomorrow (I blocked yesterday evening so it's not quite drifting into the realms of fantasy again but we'll have to wait and see.)

Having finished H's socks and the Tangled Yoke I needed a little something to knit on the train. Take 1 of Carie's train knitting for this week was a mitten, a Latvian inspired mitten of my own colouring to be precise.

I was managing the three colours in one row thing quite successfully and I am pretty pleased with the way it's turning out (no pictures but it's green - for a change!) but when we got to five colours all attached to a scant centimetre of mitten I ran the risk of garroting most of my fellow passengers should the train take a sudden lurch. I believe that their reaction would be less "oh look a lovely, but very thin, woolly scarf has landed on me", and more "get this @&*$% off me now you crazy yarn-trailing girl". Deciding that in their haste to be free from the fibrous embrace of my Shetland 2 ply something bad might happen to the yarn I redesignated the mitten "sofa knitting" and went stash diving for a little something else, and found Mason-Dixon.

Actually I stubbed my toe on Mason-Dixon getting into bed and picked it up for another read through and remembered the Ballband Dishcloth.

So I made one:

The green is Rowan hand knit cotton and the white/yellow/green/blue is Lily Sugar & Cream which we bought on our honeymoon:

I started this one on the way to work on Wednesday and by the time I'd gone down to London in the middle of the day and got back up to Warwickshire at the end of the afternoon I'd finished. It's satisfying, pretty, quick and an easily memorised pattern.

In fact I had so much fun I made another one this evening - it seems only fair that if this is honeymoon yarn there should be one each. Now all I have to do is bring myself to use one on my kitchen!


For some reason the colours say Easter to me - maybe I should save them....?

On a completely unrelated note it is incredibly windy here tonight - almost as windy as at my parents' house on the edge of a cliff, fingers crossed that all the necessary power and train lines stay up!!