Powerless

I have been taken over by an inner sock knitting demon. I am powerless to resist. My husband thinks I am addicted.

So, with Java on the needles and coming on nicely (now at the heel of sock one), a pair of stripey scrappy socks cast themselves on early on Tuesday so that I could knit them while I read and marked 4 student dissertations (cables and charts are not conducive to knitting while reading, so it was imperative to have something plain to knit). It was a day well spent - and by bedtime I had done my marking and kitchenered the toe of sock 1 (here's the yarn I chose). 

The second sock has taken two days (rather than one) to knit, and I will shortly kitchener the toe. With this in mind, I found myself rummaging in the stash this morning for some more sock yarn, as you do: get up, have breakfast, wake and feed children, get work and nursery bags ready, get everyone dressed, select and weigh sock yarn.

As my sock drawer is quite full these days, I'm trying to get ahead with gift/birthday/christmas knitting. The almost finished green/grey socks knit this week are for my mum (christmas) and as my dad's birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, the next ones will be for him.

Making Monday: Socks (FO)

Never mind the bed bug, I've been bitten by the sock bug, and this week has mostly been about finishing these stripey foot warmers.

Now and again, I join with a small group of knitting women/mums for an evening of chatting, knitting and eating cake. After a short break for the Scottish summer holidays, we reconvened this week (thanks Beth! *wave*), and I managed to finish these off, as well as catch up on the latest news from the group, which included: 3 chickens and some bees; several children back at school; a dog bite on a tummy (ouch); camping in Scotland; circuses and pigs. Make of that what you will...

Pattern: generic top down

Yarn: unknown self-striping yarn (from Oxfam) plus pale brown yarn from stash

Time taken: 19 July -25 August 2011

As it turns out, we were all knitting socks this week. Except one, who is knitting a hat (or a sock for a head). Anyway, to get back to the FO, as usual I employed my favourite striping trick to make the yarn stre-e-tch to a make a pair of socks. I began with roughly equal amounts of yarn, together weighing 66 g (which I know is enough to knit a pair of socks in my size). I normally try and work things so that the cuffs and heels are the same colour on each sock, but there wasn't enough yarn to do that this time, so one sock has a plain cuff and heel flap and the other has a self-striping cuff and heel-flap - which you can just about see in the photos above. 

Try as I might, once I'd finished this pair, I couldn't stop, and another pair of socks cast themselves on. Java from knitty again, but this time with the twinkle toes sparkly blue yarn I had for my birthday. There's 100g in the ball, so I know I won't run out this time....

Two

This little pumpkin was two this week. How the time has flown!

Happy birthday, little one.

Making Monday: Husband socks

I'm joining in with Natalie's making monday for the first time. Despite lots of work, wrangling children and cleaning the kitchen yesterday, I managed to finish the husband socks (only 4 months after the actual birthday), and DH seems to be quite pleased! As I often do, I combined two yarns to make the socks stripe and to make the best of the yarn in my stash. It's one of my favourite sock knitting techniques...

Pattern: generic top down socks

yarn: Regia solid (charcoal); unknown sock yarn from a charity shop (paler grey with blue)

DH doesnt go in for very colourful socks (his entire sock wardrobe is grey or black!), so I like the subtle blue flecks here...

As you can see from the picture below, I use this striping technique a lot. Four of the nine pairs here (all below the purple ones) are striped like this, and I've got another pair on the needles at the moment...! If you are interested in these things: the green pairs of socks are made with Yarn Yard yarn as is the rainbow pair (second from top). The blue/green pairs above and below the purple socks are made with Crazy zauberball yarn. The purple socks are Jenny Cook yarn which I had for Christmas. The other pairs are scrappy pairs I made using various combinations of leftovers. I blogged about the grey/green/white ones earlier in the summer. I love seeing my socks together like this (there are a few other pairs too), washed and dried and ready to go back into the drawer...

FO: Purl Scarf

We've been tidying up and rationalising and getting rid of a few things here and there. A parcel of baby/toddler clothes for a friend, a bag of old work shirts for the charity shop (I had first dibs and have kept two for repurposing), a few toys which are a bit young for our two beans now. Perhaps because of this, and perhaps because a work colleague is knitting her first scarf, I had an itch to scratch. Some immediate knitting and stash busting gratification was called for. I knew exactly what I wanted to do - another of the purl scarves from last-minute knitted gifts. So, I reached into the stash and pulled out a super chunky jumper (another charity shop find) that I had partly deconstructed a while back.

I snipped and ripped and frogged and wound myself a big ball of the creamy yarn. Then reached into the stash for something hairy - a mohair yarn (bought in a charity shop years and years ago), and something smooth - a ball of unnamed DK (?Sirdar). I set to and knit and knit and knit - all through Harry Potter and the deathly hallows part 1 (twice). And then I finished, and I put it in my box of gifts, ready for a birthday or other deserving event/recipient to come along and claim it.

Pattern: Purl scarf, from last-minute knitted gifts

yarn: various from stash

Mods: omitted fringe

time taken: Friday 28 July - Sunday 30 July 2011

And, I made a dent in the stash to boot (half a jumper, plus three balls of mohair and one of DK yarn). There wasn't much left.

Other projects are coming along here and there. Drew is almost up to the armholes (again), and there has been quite a lot of sock action too. Husband sock no. 1 is finished, but no. 2 not quite cast on. The seriously stripey sock experiment was ripped (but I learnt what I need to learn) and is being reknit. And, then there are the innocent hats. I saw this the other day and realising that I live nobbut a stone's throw from Age UK's Scotland office, I thought I would join in. I've knit 4 so far, and as they take hardly any time I think there might be a reasonably large pile before too long...

Last night I got my sewing machine out to tackle the pile of mending/sewing bits and bobs which is threatening to take over the dresser. I finished another nappy (no. 6), repaired one pair of shorts and one pair of trousers (both belonging to the bean) and redecorated one of the jelly beans t-shirts to cover up the mysterious spots/stains which appeared recently. DH was pleased by the reduction in stuff/clutter, and I was just pleased to get a few more things done. Tick. It's satsifying, isn't it?

Super Sunday

The sky was blue, the sun was glorious and we packed lots into the day. My idea of a super Sunday...

walking up Blackford Hill with the children
stopping to watch the ducks and geese at the pond
making chocolatey, beetroot brownies
loads of washing washed and dried
the windows all open, bringing sunshine and warm air into our home
a family bike ride through the cool shade of the Hermitage of Braid
a well-earned ice cream eaten in the sun
home made pizzas, eaten in the garden
water play
bare legged children running and running in circles on the lawn
another nappy sewn and washed, ready to wear
my first home made yoghurt
listening to the cricket as we pottered in and out of the house
a knitting experiment concluded and frogged

FO: Grace

At last, Grace is finished and ready to parcel up and send on to the small girl I've been thinking of as I made this. It's not perfect, but it's not bad either, and as usual for Rowan patterns, has turned out to be rather a generous size (I made the 3-4 size). The bean tried it on for me the other day, and it was plenty big enough for him (aged 4 1/2), so it will do for Bella (3 and a bit) for next year and beyond.

Pattern: Grace (Rowan Winter Kids)

Yarn: unravelled and reknitted from a charity shop jumper (commercially made garment)

Mods: None

Time taken: CO in February 2011. Finished July 2011.

It has taken me ages to finish. There was all the shenanigans with the yarn and then getting the button bands all wrong, and reknitting the collar several times over. In the end I did it as written, but stitched it down in order to cure the curling once and for all.  While I like the pattern, I am not wild about the pleat detail, and found the collar rather badly behaved. I should also report here that after all that angst about running out of yarn, I had barely a yard or two of yarn left once I had done all the seaming and finishing. The good thing about that is the total obliteration of that particular yarn from the stash!

As if this wasn't exciting enough, I've been having fun with the latest husband socks (sock 1 now at the toe). However, because husband socks are not the best thing to experiment with, I accidentally cast on another pair of socks (how did that happen?). Watch this space - tutorial/recipe for seriously stripey socks coming soon.