Socks

Knitting FO’s, a WIP and Mending

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Time to update my knitting projects. In the top picture are two new for my Hats for Warmth Project I work on. I have 6 hats and the children will get 4, the other 2 will go in my bag to be sent to the shelter when I have 5 or 6 done. The hats I worked on during General Conference as I listened :). I use “I Love This Yarn” from Hobby Lobby, it’s a worsted weight yarn, and I use a size 5 (I knit a little loosely so I go down a size needle) 16″ circular needle (my favorite is the Knitters Pride Karbonz) in a two by two ribbing. For adults I like to make it 9 1/2 to 9 3/4 inches long so they can fold up the cuff (it’s too cold for a beanie here) and I don’t have to measure their heads for length that way :). ZeusHide on Etsy.

Next is the baby blanket I have been working on. This is a paid for pattern so I’ve linked to the Ravelry page so you can see more about it. I think I bought it from Webs patterns tho, I think that is where I first saw it. It is turning out to be a nice cosy easy knit. Turned out the lady I was knitting it for wasn’t pregnant (one reason I don’t ask because who wants to be embarrassed! LOL someone else asked). So I will continue to work on it at my leisure and enjoy the knit. Maybe it could be a lap blanket for someone at Christmas :). You can see the yarn I am using. It’s from Hobby Lobby, it’s soft, came in a large skein and was 30% off (which Hobby Lobby does every other week for its yarn). It will take the whole skein, but with the discount it was only a little over 8 dollars for the skien! It is a worsted weight 16oz skein, acrylic for easier washing. Without the discount it is $12.

The last small picture is 4 pairs of alpaca socks from my son’s store, a little critter snuck into his store and chewed them up. He had to go through all his merchandise to make sure everything else was ok and he put out traps to catch the little bugger. He’s not had the problem before so he’s looking to see where it came in at. He told me if I could fix them I could have them, so I said sure and I ordered what’s in the 4th picture, a nice darning set. The little flower looking thing is a needle threader, how cool!!! I was watching Knitting Expat from YouTube on her Finishing Fridays podcast and thought I could do that, no telling what they will look like but they will be wearable and since it’s on the toes or heels, no one will see it. They are different sizes so I think I can fix two of them one for my son and one for his spouse and the other two I can wear one and give the other one so someone else who wears an XL (it’s one of the colorful ones) tho with the toes involved, maybe it won’t be XL after I mend it lol. They are very thick and soft!

Gonna go make spaghetti for supper. 😉

One FO and Getting Ready for the Heel on the Sock

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Tin Can Knits Flax baby sweater is done! I wish to color was better, blame my phone :(. It goes from dark brown to light brown to cream to white. It’s really a nice striping yarn, I give more info on the yarn here, you’ll need to scroll down a bit. I just did a reg bind off on the sweater bottom without following the knits and pearls, not sure I like that, so I did the bind off on the sleeves following the knits and the pearls, and I like that better.

My sock is almost ready for the heel, I have two more rows before I start it. The heel is always the fidgety part for me, maybe someday will be use to it :).

My back is slowly getting better, herniated disks that decide to bulge are a pain, literally. My son will be picking up the love birds they gave me because cleaning up after them (they are very messy birds, they love to chew up paper, which is fine but it gets under the cages so that I have to get on my hands and knees to clean up the larger paper strips before I can vacuum) and with my back it’s getting too hard. They were his and his husband’s before they gave them to me and I’m sure they will make a spot for them again. I will miss their unique calls and sounds, but not necessarily cleaning up after them :P. I will still have my cockatiel, who is much easier to clean up after and is much more quiet :P.

Hope everyone is having a nice week end and that all the fathers have a great Father’s Day!

This is Where I am on My Sock

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Update on my socks. l am a slow sock knitter, probably because it’s thin yarn on tiny needles, but I am enjoying this knit with the color changes. In case you are wondering, the safety pin looking things count 10 rows each so I can keep the legs the same length on both socks and I will do this with the foot as well, I got this hint from the Crazy Sock Lady. The leg will be 60 rows not including the cuff, I’m not sure about the foot yet, I’ll worry about that when I start it because I’m not sure who it’s for yet, grandchild, friend? It hasn’t spoken to me yet, so I won’t borrow trouble. 🙂

Summer Sock Camp at the Ready!

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I decided to do the Summer Sock Camp with The Crazy Sock Lady. She has a podcast on youtube this is a link to her video about the Summer Sock Camp. Her channel is fun. I haven’t knit socks in over a year, maybe 2, and thought it would be fun to knit socks again. If you like to knit socks and are interested in being entered for some pretty nice prizes, go check her out. This goes on from June through August.

This is her vanilla sock pattern and she has a video on using 9″ circs for this. She also has videos for using two circs, the flex flips and magic loop techniques, top down and toe up. I prefer the 9″ circular needles and I like the bamboo because they are a bit more grabby and my yarn doesn’t slip off the tips. I have to go down an additional size so I use a 0 because I knit loosely anyway and knit even a little more loosely with the 9″ circulars. I chose her vanilla sock pattern (available in her Etsy for $2.00) because I am using Threads and Loops Perfect Pair sock yarn and I wasn’t sure a textured pattern would show well or maybe even be over the top with the color designs in this sock yarn. The Crazy Sock Lady (Kay Litton) has some truly beautiful sock patterns on Etsy. Hope to see you over there on her podcast :). Let the fun begin!

A Gift from a Friend

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A friend who’s knitting podcast I follow on YouTube (was the Knitting Samurai is now called Adoreknit and yes she is the one I buy the lovely stitch markers and progress keepers from on Etsy (The Mandalorian, Harry Potter and many more) you really should check her out, I love all her knitting adventures) knit me a pair of socks, and oh my how beautiful they are and I love the cable detail she designed on them, and they fit perfectly!! I’m awed that she would do that for me. She also snuck in some tea and candy (yeah I ate some of the candy before I took the pictures LOL) and a very sweet letter with some color catchers in it incase my colors run when I wash the socks. Knitting friends are the best!

I got my dad’s car from his estate, I didn’t want to do the long drive from the desert southwest to the midwest so I hired a transportation company to bring it. Yeah it’s expensive but not really a ton more than flying down, and driving back with the cost of gas, motel room (it’s a little over a 2 day drive) and food and all the hassles going through the big cites on the interstate hoping you don’t miss a turn off :P. Family will get together sometime late spring or early summer to do a wake for him. I miss him and it will be like he is riding with me whenever I drive his car.

Hope you all are getting ready for Easter, I love Easter and Spring time.

2 FO’s and New Needles

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Finished the baby socks.  As you can see they are definitely not matchy matchy ;P, but close enough that you can tell they are a set.  I used Knit Picks Options double pointed needles size 0, and the yarn was Premier Wool-Free Sock yarn in the Vegas Lights colorway.  They were well loved.   Anyone know if they make baby sock blockers?

I bought some yarn for a Chemo hat for a friend who is dealing with breast cancer.  I went to Hobby Lobby and chose Yarn Bee Snuggle Up in the silver colorway and Yarn Bee Cloud 9 in the cream colorway, Hobby Lobby had a sale on their yarn and I like their yarn :).  They are both soft yarns and together they are extremely soft.  There is another hat pattern I want to knit and the designer said she will put it back up on Ravelry.  I will post more about it when it’s up.  Raverly is such a wonderful knitting community where we all share our love of knitting, crocheting, spinning and other fibery creativeness.  This pattern I used is a Lion Brand Yarn free pattern called Fun-Fur – Mircospun Knit Chemo Cap.  I used a size 10 bamboo 16″circular needle and a set of size 10 double pointed needles when I got to the crown.

Flexi Flips

 

I bit the bullet and bought a set of bamboo Addi Flexi-Flips size 0’s to knit socks with and they came in the mail today (my local yarn shop didn’t carry them.)  Altho’ I enjoy knitting the socks, I hate the using the regular double pointed needles and I never learned to knit using the magic loop method.  These are kinda like a combination of those methods and I thought I would give it a try.  They are a bit pricey at $32 dollars a set.  There are 3 needles in the set with a flexible cord that bends so that you can knit small radius round items items like socks. 🙂  Hopefully I will enjoy this method much better.

Spinning Wheel Acquisition

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A friend of mine passed away a couple of months ago and her husband said she had asked that I be given her spinning wheel and all her fiber.  I wasn’t sure what kind of wheel it was and when I received it today I had to put some of it back together, but it is a Kromski Polonaise.   It’s a beautiful Mahogany finished wheel and will look much nicer when I get it cleaned up from all the dust that has taken up residence on it,  I honestly don’t know that she ever spun on it but she loved fibery things.  I will figure out more about it and add it to my wheel collection and spin on it.  This one appears to be able to be used as a double band drive or a scotch tension.  There was a number (wheel number?) date and signature on the bottom, will have to investigate that.   The band was not on the wheel so I will try to figure out making it work as a scotch tension, but I can say the wheel moves very freely, I have a feeling this will be a really nice wheel to spin on.  Hehe , I think my Rick Reeves wheel is a little jealous, you can see it in the back ground doing a photo bomb :).

I did start the 2nd baby sock.  Starting little socks is not my favorite thing to do because it is easy to twist when joining in the round with so few stitches on double pointed needles so I take extra time and care when starting them, hate frogging (for my non knitting friends, frogging is ripping it out, think ribbit, ribbit to rippit rippit :P).  The rest should be much more relaxing to knit ;).  Hoping to have it finished by Friday.  🙂

HFO!

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2nd Pair Baby Socks HFO Ok, I finished the first sock in the new yarn.  Still larger than I hoped for but a little smaller than the last one.  I got all the colors in the one sock lol, but the color changes are short so it all works out, and looks like I won’t have to do too much yarn management to start the 2nd sock in about the same place.   I did a kitchner toe on this one instead of just pulling the stitches together as per the pattern, because I didn’t like the original toe.  This one looks so much nicer and rounded :).

Looks a little weird to have all the reds, oranges, pinks and yellow for them to have thrown in a green – looks a little out of place to me, but they didn’t ask me :P.   I will start on the 2nd sock, probably tomorrow, too tired tonight to deal with casting on tiny socks on tiny double pointed needles and making sure I didn’t twist anything.  They might not end up being matchy matchy, but I think they will be close enough.

 

1st Robin, It’s Spring! + Drop Stitch Shawl KAL

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Soooo happy!!!  I have been waiting to see the Robins return, and I saw my first Robin today!!  Welcome Spring!!!  Sorry the color in the picture is not very good :(.

I follow a blog Muddling Through Life and she is having a KAL, (knit-a-long for my non knitting friends.)  It looks so pretty, so I dug out some very deep (meaning I’ve had it a very long time :P) stash.  The above picture shows the yarn, it is a synthetic yarn unfortunately, but it is a fingering weight.  It is some my mom sent me from South Korea when she was working for the Air Force as a non military personnel civil Service employee, years ago.  It is a large skein at 8 oz, it is a beautiful light lavender even tho it shows up like a grey in the picture.  I did have to go buy some new needles because I didn’t have any 40″ needles.  I now have a pair of ChiaoGoo size 7 red lace circulars. 🙂  The pattern calls for a size 8 but I have to go down a size to get gauge because I am a little bit of a loose knitter.  I wanted some ChiaoGoo bamboo needles (my needles of choice) but they were out and I wanted to get this started so I settled for the stainless steel.

I have also started the Welcome New Born Socks , from a previous post, now using the new sock weight yarn (rather than the baby weight) and they are definitely smaller :).  I’ll post a picture of my progress in a couple of days and we should see the answer to my one of my questions about how much of the repeatable colors you can get in a little sock :P.

FO!

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I finished the socks I was knitting for an infant I am watching for a few months.  Altho’ these went pretty fast (because they are small :P), they really were not small enough to be newborn, they would probably fit more like a 12 to 18 month old.  But maybe it’s because I used a baby yarn that is a bit thicker than a sock yarn.

So, to give this pattern the benefit of the doubt, I picked up a sock yarn from Hobby Lobby (they were having a 30% off all their yarn sale this week :)).  It is Premier Yarns, color Vegas Lights and is acrylic, so her mom can just throw it in the washer and dryer.  I will give this another try before I move on to another pattern.  I’m interested to see how the colors work up in a very small pair of socks.  Wondering if I can even get all the colors in one little sock or if I will have to do yarn management to get them to turn out more or less the same.  Otherwise she can be like the teens and have mismatched socks, which have been the rage for more than several years.

I haven’t seen the robins yet, but maybe I just missed them?  I usually see the males staking out small territories they then defend from other males so they can try to lure a female Robin to their area. The females show up  2 weeks after the males.  I expect to see the male Robins very soon, we have been having upper 40’s and lower 50’s days , it is so wonderful!!  I love Spring!