Sixth Socks

My 6th pair of knitted socks are complete. The interesting thing about these socks is that it is the first pair I've knitted for myself. I've done three pair of socks for the Hogwarts Sock Swaps (all three in Ravenclaw book colors), one pair for Sage (that sadly didn't survive their first washing, which I completely blame on the yarn), and one pair for Harley. And finally, I have my first pair of made by me for me socks.

It's not visible in the first photo, but there's some lower calf shaping going on in these, thanks to my well-developed legs.



The above photo is from just after I finished the first sock, in which the shaping is visible.

I started off with Cookie A's Baudelaire pattern, but quickly decided that I am not a fan of lace, especially for socks. So I changed it to a basic 3x2 ribbing. Still kept the stitch count and the toe-up gusset and heel, and they worked out quite nicely, though I am still going to experiment with other toe-up heels.

The yarn is what was left of the Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Cedar... after I finished my gloves I still had more than one full skein of the yarn left. Since the skeins weren't an identical match, I split the remaining yarn equally in half and worked toe-up, starting first with the partial skein's yarn, then switching to the full skein's yarn. The switch is about an inch after the ribbing starts on both socks, and it's only really noticeable if you know it is there. Which now everyone does.

Next socks on the agenda for me... Firestarter (it's a pdf, just to warn you). Alas, they may have to wait a bit until I make another pair for Sage since she keeps trying to steal these.

Hogwarts Sock Swap 3 - package arrived!

Look at all the goodies that arrived today! Ahem... I forgot to put one very important skein of yarn in the photo... whoops! Not pictured in the above photo is a beautiful skein of Malabrigo Lace in Forest... so soft, so pettable, so pretty. How on earth could I have forgotten it?

Included in this package were so many goodies, I don't know how my pal Ana got everything to fit into the box. She did an amazing job on the socks, Monica Jines's Triple Twist Socks...



They fit perfectly and the yarn she used, vanCalcar Acres Jennifer's FlockSock Sock Yarn, is very sot and squishy and my feet are quite happy right now.

Other than the socks and Malabrigo Lace, she also sent lots of other yummy yarns - two skeins of Brown Sheep's Wildfoote in Rock 'n Roll (Harley fell in love with the bright rainbow colors, I have a feeling this will end up as socks for her), Elann's Sock it to Me Colori in a wonderfully bright colorway (of which I cannot locate a name, only a color number, which happens to be 33), Some Sugar 'n Cream in Beach Ball Blue, which is possibly one of the few colors of theirs that I have really liked but never bought (and now I have some so I can make something other than boring off-white dishcloths the next time I feel like making one which will probably be soon since a lot of ours are holey). There was plenty of non-yarny goodness in there too... the Fawkes sock pattern from the late Gigi Silva, a very nice old-world style journal, The Magic Loop book and a 40" US1 Addi Turbo circular needle (since I mentioned wanting to learn magic loop for socks, and now I can!), two little packets of Soak in citrus and sola - very excited about trying these scents, the one Soak I tried in the past was lovely and I bet these are as well, a wee little soap bar from Biggs & Featherbelle and a very cute card with knitted socks on the front.

Thank you Ana! I love my goodies!

Harley's socks

I finished Harley's socks, but forgot to post about them here.

I am still in awe of how the yarn knitted up, with it's swirling striping and twisting turns. The second one (on her left foot) knitted up very differently in the last 2 inches, and though they are identical in length, and the yarn was divided exactly in half, I had less than a yard left from the first one and close to 10 yards left from the second. I suppose that isn't a bad thing, as I can use it if they ever need repairs (knowing her tendency to wear through store-bought socks, I suspect that there will be repairs in the future).



She loves her socks, and is already asking for more. Maybe after I make some for myself, which I have yet to do.

Harley's post

I was originally going to title this "Slacker", but then I realized the majority of this post pertains to knits for my older daughter, Harley, so now it is her post instead. But she's not posting it. Because she's asleep. And she'd probably spout off some random nonsensical stuff about climbing big rocks and eating sushi if she were posting it, instead of posting about things I am knitting for her.

I am a major blogging slacker these days. I've been knitting, but pretty much just the same things as always... Harley's socks of many colors, which I never posted a photo of.



That photo is quite outdated - that sock is done and the second one is a bit past the heel. They are toe-up, loosely based on the Knitty Universal Toe-up pattern with a short row heel and a 3x1 rib. The yarn is KnitPicks Bare, superwash version, that I dyed with many flavors of Kool-Aid. I find it interesting how it went from nice and random on the foot to spiraling (and then for a while not spiraling) on the ankle. The foot, to just before the heel, has 60 stitches, then I increased it to 64 at the heel. The increase completely changed the randomness of the colors. Harley loves them though and is waiting very patiently for me to get the second one done.

In other Harley knits, I finished her hat the same day I started it, which was sometime last week.



Same pattern as the one I used for Sage's hat, same yarn, different color. Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Bobby Blue, which she loves even though I think she'd look better in something deep red or olive green or chocolatey brown. She didn't want mittens since she already has superwarm winter gloves, so I need to figure out a use for the remainder of that lovely yarn, of which there's maybe 85 yards to play with. Ooh... I just got an idea based on what her one Christmas present from her aunt is. I will save that for a post-Christmas post though since it hasn't yet arrived.

Another Rogue update

Both sleeves are coming along nicely - they are nearing the halfway point, just lots of stockinette to go before I do some shoulder shaping.

I never took a photo of the finished hood, I think it can wait until the sleeves are done and there are final photos of it. I am worried about wearability, the alpaca in the yarn seems to bother my neck a bit, and I cannot wear turtlenecks, but hopefully it'll soften up when it is washed and blocked.

I want to post photos of my finished Ravenclaw socks, but that has to wait until they are in the recipient's hands. I am going to include a bit of the leftover contrast yarn, because I don't know if she will like the cuff/bind off, and I'd like her to be able to adjust it if desired. I should be sending them out by the end of the week though, so hopefully photos can be posted soon.

In a strange random last thought, I removed all links to other blogs in my sidebar - I switched everything over to Google Reader, but I've not yet taken the time to do the sharing thing so I can have a nifty link for everything in my sidebar. It's be much easier if they could just have a link to everything without needing to do the share bit, but whatever. If anyone has any tips on that let me know.

Sneak peek

It's a bit blurry and/or out of focus, so I may retake it tomorrow when I have more light to work with, New photo added, much better looking I do believe. The above is a wee little peek at the Ravenclaw socks I am working on for HSS2. Sock #2 is at the heel, I have the first part of the heel (short row) done, but I'm taking a break before I start decreasing the number of wraps again since I already had to frog it back two times. I seem to keep dropping one of the stitches when I am working the p2togtbl for the one side. I don't remember how I did the first one, but I know it didn't give me any problems like this second one is. Hopefully the third time will be the charm for this one. Once I get this heel done, I've only got a few inches of cuff to do and they will be finished.

A sock a day

I rarely have more than 2 projects on the needles at a time, but this past weekend saw a total of four different projects. Thankfully, one of those is already completed.

Saturday morning I decided to do some stash-busting, and by Monday afternoon (though it would have been Sunday night had we not spent the majority of Sunday away from home) Sage had a pair of socks.



I am using a smaller photo than normal because my camera is sucking so much lately, almost every photo is shit, and Sage didn't want to hold still for more photos that probably wouldn't have been any better than the above.

Details:

universal toe-up with a 2x2 rib cuff
black is Kraemer Yarn Summit Hill
plum is Moda Dea washable wool

Yes, these socks are worsted weight superwash wools. Yes, she was running around in them in the middle of summer. Thankfully, she loves them, complete with their barely fitting heels and insane warmth. I doubt she will wear them outside the house, so whatever.

Socks on the brain; Nalgene cozy

I've looked at possibly hundreds of sock patterns in the last 24 hours. I have to say that this is possibly my favorite of all those that I have seen recently. OMG pretty cables.

I've also looked at countless sock yarns trying to find the perfect one for my new Hogwarts Sock Swap pal, who happens to be a Ravenclaw who prefers book colors. Wow does that sound familiar. ;)

I think before I do any online yarn/pattern ordering I am going to finally venture into one or more of the local yarn shops, which I have yet to set foot into.

Unrelated to socks, I whipped up a cozy for Chris's new Nalgene bottle (he lost his last one several months ago, we finally replaced it last week). Details are at the Ravelry project page, here's one photo of it post-felting:



It took less than a day of knitting... I forgot how quickly things knit up with larger needles.

Hogwarts Sock Swap Questionnaire - Second Year

I decided the other day to sign up for round two of the Hogwarts Sock Swap. The first one was a lot of fun, I enjoyed making socks for someone I don't know (especially since they were my first socks) and I am glad the swap is continuing for another round. If you didn't make it into the first swap, have no fear - sign-ups for First Years starts on the 14th.

Now then, on to the questionnaire for round two:

What Hogwarts house have you been sorted into?
I took all three sorting quizzes this time and still they have decided that I am truly a Slytherin at heart.

Shoe size? Foot length? Foot circumference?
I wear usually somewhere around a women's US 8 to 8.5, sometimes a 9. My foot is 9.25" long, 9.5" around the ball, 10.5" just before the ankle, and my ankle is 12.5" around when the tape measure is 6.5" above my heel. I fully admit to having terribly wide feet and thick calves from years of bike riding.

List your three favorite sock yarns.
Since I've only made the one pair of socks so far, this is moreso based on what's in the stash and others I've petted.

a. Regia - currently have their 4-ply wool in the stash, would love to try the silk and bamboo ones as well
b. Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock - I've only petted it to date, would love to finally knit with it
c. KnitPicks Essential - the Bare version, which I hand-dyed for the last swap was a nice all-purpose sock yarn, easy to knit, felt good as a finished sock too.

Would you like to try a new brand of sock yarn? If so, which brand?
I am open to trying out different brands of sock yarn - I always lust over the pretty variegated hand-dyed ones on etsy, but I really want to try some non-traditional fiber blend sock yarns (cotton blends, silk blends, etc.).

Do you prefer variegated or solid sock yarn?
While I do love some of the gorgeous variegated yarns I've seen out there, I personally prefer solids or subtle gradations for actual use.

What colors would you like to add to your sock yarn stash?
Well, what stash there is on hand of sock yarn is limited (and can be seen at Ravelry), so adding other colors would be nice. I like black, deep reds, deep purples, deep greens (jewel tones, anyone?) and silver.

What kind of sock patterns do you gravitate toward? Lace? Ribbed? Fair Isle?
For now I have been sticking to simpler designs, but I love cables, and would love to eventually splurge on some of the patterns by Cookie A. *lust*

Do you have any allergies? (smoke, animals, etc.)
The only things that really bother me are overly fragranced items, such as soaps, perfumes, incense, candles, lotions and the like with strong scents, most often derived from perfume oils and man-made fragrances. Essential oil fragranced items are usually fine, though there are some specific oils that bother me as well - those include gingers, musks, ambers, cinnamon, clove, bergamot and the like.

Will your socks be exposed to cigarette smoke or animals as you knit them?
Smoke, absolutely not, but we have a cat and a guinea pig, neither of which play with the yarn but they do occasionally leave hair lying about.

Are you willing to have an international Hogwarts Sock Pal?
I said no last time, and then I saw all the lovely goodies people were getting from their non-US senders. I think this time I will have to say sure, I can ship internationally if needed.

An Owl has landed!

Our mailman arrived earlier than usual today and he was loaded with packages galore. The best one by far was a big green envelope. I ripped into it before I had a chance to grab the camera, so no photo of the envelope, but when everything tumbled out of the hole I had shredded into it, this was the result:



Those crinkly bits are recycled from another package, they all have Harry Potter quotes from various books on them. When I first saw them posted by the original recipient I thought they were very clever, and now they are mine.



After unwrapping all the goodies, but before Sage was up I got that photo - as soon as she was up the candies were gone. She only likes the grape jelly, blueberry, cherry, grass and soap flavored Bertie Bott's beans, so she saved me some of them - mostly rotten egg, vomit, sardine and booger flavors. *blech*



The original sock photos I took sucked horridly (mostly because of the current state of our living room), so I tried again outside a little bit ago. Photographing one's own feet isn't easy, but it can be done, and having a camera with a lcd screen that rotates helps immensely. ;)

They fit perfectly (though the bind off is a wee bit tight, I think I may undo it and replace it with a sewn bind off instead), and they are very soft and squishy and I love them.

Thank you, Jenifer! When you originally posted the photos of these on the blog I had a hunch that they were mine, andI am very glad I was correct!

Ravenclaw update - final

ravenclaw8
Originally uploaded by blackraynecloud

The socks are done. Technically they've been done for several days, but I hadn't gotten a chance to photograph them until earlier today. They really do match up stripe-wise, but they were on my model (who's 11 year old feet are smaller than the intended recipient's) somewhat crooked.

I will hopefully finish getting everything else I plan to include in this swap package this week so these will be on their way to their new home soon.

I am anxiously awaiting my Slytherin socks as well - I think I figured out who my sender is, I guess I will find out if I am correct soon. ;)

Ravelry updating

I was beyond bored earlier (can't sew, need trim for a corset I am stuck on, need to draft other corset patterns, need to cut skirt fabric, etc.) so I started updating my Ravelry stuff. Of course, when it came time to add yarns to my stash I completely forgot what yarns I have in my stash. A few got entered but not many and none have photos yet because I haven't ever been in the habit of documenting my stash, but maybe I will start soon.

I officially created a Flickr account to use with Ravelry - I did have one from a while ago, but never used it other than to comment on a photo one time. Thankfully I remembered the login info for it, and it now currently hosts one photo, a slightly better version of the most recent Ravenclaw sock photo, which I edited in Picnik. Unfortunately, Picnik runs horridly slow on the iBook (which is chugging along with 256mb of ram, the poor thing), so I doubt I'll use it much, but it is a nifty program, especially if you don't have access to regular photo editing software.

The second sock is nearing the end of the cuff. No heel yet, I guess it really will be an afterthought heel afterall.

Another pictureless sock update...

Updating when I have no photos to share sucks.

Sock #2 is past the heel finally. Once I get the ankle further done (it's only a few rows past the heel point currently) I will do the not-so-afterthought heel, then get the remainder of the ankle finished up. Right now I am guessing it will be late next week when it's finished if I don't keep screwing around on the GameBoy all day like I have been. Hopefully there will be more than one working computer in this house late next week too. If there is, the next update should be complete with photos.

Socks and sheep

Sorry, no photos for a while, two of the three computers here are dead and the living one, Chris's iBook, hasn't got any photo editing software on it, nor does it have enough free space for me to start adding things he won't use. So all photos are on hold until we can get my iMac or the girls' eMac up and running again.

For the record, the iMac has been dead since just before we moved back in January, the fan keeled over and it overheated. Not sure if just a new fan will fix it either. The eMac, according to Apple's help pages, at the least needs new memory sticks, but it may be more than just them dying as well. Hopefully we will be able to get one (preferably both) fixed before long, as I really dislike using the iBook.

Anyway... this isn't a Mac blog, so onto the socks and sheep.

Socks - the cuff was looking really tight on them, and they wouldn't even fit Harley so the cuff got frogged. The heel is knitted, I did it before frogging the cuff to see if having it in place would help, but it didn't. I ditched the Razor Shell pattern and am now using the basic pattern for the ribbing of Knitty's Thuja (no link, sorry) instead. I also did a little increasing right at the heel to give me a few more stitches and it looks like it should be fine now. I am up to the third blue section of the stripes, having done the majority of the new cuff in the last two days.

Sheep - this weekend was the Waynesburg Sheep and Fiber festival. We drove down yesterday, it took about an hour to get there, maybe a little more. Not nearly as big as I was expecting or hoping for, but there was some lovely yarn and fiber to be had. I didn't feel like spending $20.00 on one 240ish yard skein of positively gorgeous yarn, though, but I did get three4 ounce bags of wool top to spin - one's a grayish black, one's a bright red and one's a darker red. I removed them from their bags when we got home, as they had been sitting in the sun with condensation inside the bags, they are airing out on the enclosed front porch. I am thinking I should have instead gotten some undyed merino instead, it was cheaper and most likely not as smelly. Oh well.

This is an insanely long post. Time to get back to the sock knitting!

Hogwarts Sock Swap

So I just posted the questionairre for the Hogwarts Sock Swap and I should probably mention a few things in regard to it.

1. Go forth and join.

2. I have yet to knit a single sock.

3. I am crazy. Want proof? See #2.

4. Having to buy sock yarn breaks my Knit From Your Stash. Oh wait... *checks guidelines* 2.a. Sock yarn does not count. *breathes sigh of relief*

5. I made a button specifically for me because Slytherins rock.



Whoo!