Category: craft

There hasn’t been a lot of knitting going on around here recently but I do have a couple of finished projects.

First, my evening socks for a young lady.

Despite being a really enjoyable knit, these are a little disappointing as finished socks. One of these days I will start listening to my instincts when they tell me that socks are going to be too short and too tight around the calf. I may unpick these from the top and knit a new longer, stretchier cuff. In future, if I want knee-high socks they’ll be knitted toe-up.

They look great though and the 5-row pattern repeat made them very quick to knit; it ends up being ‘just one more repeat’ rather than ‘just one more row’.

I’ve also finished my River although it still needs blocked and there’s no point trying to photograph an unblocked lace mohair shawl! Just picture a black amorphous blob here.

There hasn’t been much progress on the crochet baby blanket but since I’ve just head that one of my oldest friends is pregnant with her first baby expect a lot more baby knitting to come.

There was going to be a much nicer picture of these socks (which are the Pom Pom Peds for my Mum) to go along with this post. It was going to be nicely posed with props (golf balls!) since I found the remote control for my camera yesterday. Unfortunately, it seems that the remote and my mini-tripod can’t be in the same place at the same time since I now can’t find my tripod. Also, the battery in the remote control is dead and since it takes a watch battery, I don’t have a replacement in the house. Add to that the fact that I couldn’t find a single golf ball despite there being dozens of them somewhere in the house and I decided that a nice photo of the socks just wasn’t meant to be. Hence, the lying_on_the_floor_with_feet_up_on_the_sofa pose.

I do seem to be turning into the sort of knitter who can’t knit a pattern without changing something. With these, I lengthened the cuff slightly and used a completely different toe so that I didn’t have to do any grafting. I know grafting isn’t difficult but I do find it fiddly and I actually prefer the finish of a non-grafted toe. This toe is the French Toe as described in Knitting Vintage Socks.

Now I just have to wrap them up and send them to my Mum with my fingers crossed that they will fit!

From looking at this first photo and, indeed, from looking at the project itself at first this could easily be mistaken for a baby sock. Looking a little closer reveals that it is actually adult-sized. In fact, it’s the first of a pair of socks that I’m knitting for my Mum as a belated Mother’s Day present. She wears a lot of these little trainer liner socks when playing golf so I’m hoping these will get lots of use.

The pattern is Pom Pom Peds from Purlbee. I haven’t decided whether or not to make the pom-poms yet. I know my Mum has a strong preference but I can’t remember whether it is for pom-poms or against. I wonder if there’s any subtle way I can work the question into a conversation!

And here’s one I made earlier from the same pattern with some leftover Opal sock yarn. Unfortunately, I don’t think I have enough yarn to do the pair but since I still don’t really like the stripes, maybe it doesn’t matter.

These are a really quick knit, that’s one and half socks since Friday.

Now, I’m generally considered an intelligent person but like many other intelligent people, I occasionally do things so lacking in common sense that people wonder how I’ve managed to survive as long as I have.

So, recently there was a weird confluence of events. I finished my Katje cardigan without having planned what I fancied knitting next; Birdwoman was talking about knitting lace; I had been raiding my stash/unfinished projects and reclaiming yarn from projects that I was never going to finish.

Next thing I know, I’ve cast on for a River with some Kidsilk Haze that I’ve had for a long time. It was going to be a shrug but I finally admitted that I was never going to wear the shrug and I should use the yarn for something else.

Now, one of the reasons I was so keen to move directly on to a new project was the fact that I have my next set of exams in less than a month and I needed something to distract me.

Note to self: knitting lace in fluffy mohair does not help relieve stress. I don’t think I’ve made this many mistakes in a project since my first garter stitch doll’s blanket when I was 7.

Some times it flies along with no problems at all and then there are nights like last night when it takes me half-a-dozen attempts to get to through a single row.

Never mind, I’d still prefer this

to this

any day!

Ta-dah!

Another finished cardigan. This time, Katje from Cocoknits, knitted in Noro Cash Iroha.

Even more amazingly, I have actually woven in all the ends already. There were a lot of knots in the Noro resulting in a lot of ends to be woven in but two episodes of Battlestar Galactica and one episode of Blackpool later, they were all done. It helped that that was the only finishing needing done on the cardigan; no seaming whatsoever!

I love this cardigan. It’s a great casual wear and the yarn makes it nice and snuggly.

My only complaint is that it seems that Spring is finally here and I might not get to wear it as often as I’d like!