YOP#6 Week 18

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Last week I knit a pair of socks for my husband.  Unfortunately I misread how long the foot is to be, I keep such notes on Ravelry, and did 7″ from back of heel instead of 7″ from end of heel shaping.  Socks are now for Tyler who has scored 3 pairs of socks since YOP goals were assembled.  This pair, and the last pair, are to be Christmas gifts.

This August we went to MidAmericon in Kansas City and I purchased Tyler a piece of artwork from art show.  It was a relatively expensive gift and he was told to not expect anything for Christmas so the socks are all the unwrapping he will be doing this year.

So the yarn is an oldie from my stash.  There was a time, say 11  yrs ago or so, when I purchased several hanks of Mountain Colors Bearfoot sock yarn and I am down to 3 hanks after this one called Moose Creek. For some reason it always looked like a brownish plum color but honestly it is a brown and my eyes were just drawn to the flashes of plum or burgundy in it.  Here is the hank wound up into a yarn cocoon:

Mountain Colors Bearfoot Moose Creek yarn cocoon.

Mountain Colors Bearfoot Moose Creek yarn cocoon.

 

See the plum and reddish tints?

Here is the finished sock, overexposed and unwashed.  You can see how the colors pooled but it isn’t nearly as obvious in the actual sock:

Finished sock

Finished sock

 

One nice thing about Bearfoot sock yarn is the mohair content which makes it super warm and cushy.  Usually whenever I wash a pair I reach inside and take out yarn pills.  Sometimes I let them gather for a while and it is extra padding on sole of foot.  For some reason it just pills inside the foot.  I have knit textured socks and the texture is basically lost after several washes.  But these have made my warmest and longest lasting socks.  I have  pair going back 8 years.  My Mad Color Weave socks.  I also have a couple of pairs even older than that but I don’t have them saved anywhere handy picture wise. Most were Michelle’s Basic Sock pattern.

Another awesome thing about this sock yarn is that it is slightly heavier than fingering weight.  I think it is the mohair again.  The yarn feels dense and plush and fills in any place that would normally have a gap such as the gusset area.  Here is a close up of heel and gusset to once again show color of socks {not overexposed}:

Sock heel and gusset

Feel free to click to embiggen 🙂

The pattern is A Classic Sock from Nancy Bush’s Folk Socks book.  I purchased my copy when Zoe was a baby so about 21 yrs ago and it is falling apart at this point.

In a few days Wovember starts.  I have been anticipating Wovember for weeks.  I have cast on Strokkur and am hoping I don’t have the same tension woes that caused me to rip and reknit this sweater 3 times so far.  I have switched from my Trusty Grays {aka Aero needles} to bamboo ones hoping that will help.  I am also planning on measuring every 20 rows or so which is annoying but should end up with a finally FO.  It is expected to be in the mid-80’s on Tuesday, not the least bit Wovemberish at all, but such is St. Louis weather.  Winters here tend to be relatively warm and drizzly instead of snowy.  It makes me sad but home is where the heart is and I do heart my family.

yarny days and knitterly evenings

~Elka

 

Tea–YOP#6 Week 11 post

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It seems as if the only times I post is for YOP.  Mainly because I have been good about staying on track with my highly mutable list. Woo hoo

I finally finished the My Cup of Tea Socks.  I guess I shouldn’t say finally but it basically took me a week to sit down and graft together the last toe so yeah not too inspired to finish.  The yarn was purchased on Etsy from Hedgehog fibres in 2009 so deep stash being used up here.  I am going to end up giving them to Tyler and here he is modeling the socks:

My Cup of Tea socks

My Cup of Tea socks

 

The yarn was darker and glossier pre-knitting and washing.  The water was pretty green when I dunked them in for the washing and I suspect it will continue to bleed for a while.  Tyler has been asking for them while I was knitting them but I told him he was out of luck.  I am a sneaky Christmas gift knitter that way o.0.

Anywho they were laid out to dry Friday night and I started winding yarn for some tamalicious fun.  Hey I have news!

So before we went on vacation last month I was looking for some papers I had on my desk and the desk basically gave up the ghost when I moved it to check to see if they had fallen off the back or side.  It was one of those inexpensive particle board desks from Target I believe about 15 yrs ago for the kids and has been moved multiple times.  Anyway it kinda collapsed and instead of having the beloved one reassemble it I threw it out in a fit.  Which means I am concentrating on the yarn piles that were on my desk.  Which takes us back to my first YOP post and a list check up so to speak.

I originally listed several piles or bags of yarn to tackle along with general project goals since the yarn piles were too numerous for me to get through.  The first list of yarn piles started with my desk yarns and it makes sense that I now focus on these items since the desk is no more.  They were:

On the Desk:

  • kypria
  • hedgehog fibres fingering in merino, bamboo & silk @350 meters per Etsy listing = My Cup of Tea Socks
  • the yarn for Angharad
  • Lamoramere-gift from Angela on my birthday eep 12 yrs ago.
  • yarn for 2 tams <missing a few colors here or there. Purchasing piecemeal due to job hours being cut. (purchased 7.15.16)
  • 400 yds of cashmere-gift from Stitching girl Toni years and years ago
  • and sock yarn remnants. Some of these remnants are practically full balls for example the orange Eidos I used for stripes on my gentleman’s railway socks

Project wise we had (I edited my wording to make it easier to track):

1)Socks:

  • Husband 4 pairs 3 pairs
  • Tyler 3 pairs 2 pairs
  • Myself 3 pairs

2)Sweater for me.

3)Something Lace

4)Purchase Reef Yarns

& “My Tams. Please I need the preciousness.”

 

AHA this digression is going somewhere.  My friend Lorraine, aka Sheriff of Knittingham, aka Twisted Traditions designed a lovely tam I admired called The West Wind, based upon a painting of the same name by Tom Thomson. She is a fabulous designer if you are unfamiliar with her work.  Anyway I had all the colors but 2 called for in the tam and, as you can see above,  it was one of my on both the desk piles and the project list.  I started winding the yarn Friday after washing the socks and they are lovely:

The West Wind yarns

The West Wind yarns

This is another stash buster project for me, despite having to pick up a couple of balls, because I had the yellow, dark green, dark blue, burgundy, and pink in my stash.  In fact they had been in my stash so long that they were in hank form. J & S yarns switched to ball form in 2002 per their blog.  It is also a fairly simple project with only 7 colors.  Compare that to the Midnight Tam which calls for 11 shades and  you can imagine how much easier it is to work.  Also it starts off with a XO pattern which is easier to work than something pictorial such as the Neeps Heid.

And if that were not enough I almost felt like crying when I started knitting it.  The pure joy of working fair isle is so overwhelmingly happy making I cannot even begin to describe it.  I suspect I will have a FO soon unless I put off weaving in the ends forever {It took about a  year for me to sit down and weave in the ends for Neeps}

 

yarny days and knitterly evenings to all

Elka

YOP#6 Week 6

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Hurray!  I finished Kokkeluri.  Not much more to say about either the yarn or the pattern I haven’t said before…. tempted by the ‘blousy flower’ I had to cast these on.  I didn’t enjoy the knitting at all in part because it breaks the rules: maintaining color dominance in stranded knitting, and length of carries.  The non repetitive nature of the flower meant I was tied to my chart AND I should have strayed from my dpns to some other method of circular knitting.  I did enjoy the palm pattern, have done the braid before and always love it, and think I may prefer the i-cord cast off over the i-cord cast on.

I was surprised by how much I disliked the knitting.  I have knit neep head and enjoyed that process.  Usually if I like one thing a designer does I like everything.  Not because these designers don’t branch out of my comfort zone, they do, but because how they tend to think about and present the process works for me.

My husband and children both exclaim about how beautiful they are but my eyes zero in on the uneven knitting.  I don’t recall ever having such problems before so part of me blames the pattern although it could just be me and my rusty knitting skills.  Either way, I will rely on EZs comment on years and multiple washings curing such faults.

Anyway I finished these up Friday night.  I broke up the remaining bits into small nightly chunks.  Monday get to decrease section of mitten body, Tuesday finish decreasing mitten top, Wednesday do thumb, Thursday do i-cord finish, Friday weave in ends and soak.  The mittens are still damp and are being guarded by my mitten monster:

Mitten Monster guarding Kokkeluri while it dries

Mitten Monster guarding Kokkeluri while it dries

 

The mitten monster is also a sock monster and sweater monster and shawl monster.  He is a general all purposes blocking, drying guard.

I have cast on some socks for myself: My Cup of Tea designed by Robin Lynn.  The lotus pattern  used on front of socks remind me of dragon scales 🙂

 

yarny days and knitterly evenings

Elka

 

YOP#6 Week 2

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Today marks my eldest grandson’s 4th birthdate and tomorrow marks my youngest grandson’s 2nd birthdate so I spent most of today celebrating with family. But look I have things to report on my YOP list:

I finished a pair of socks. Plain boring socks out of Ditto yarn:

Ditto socks.

Ditto socks.

This is my favorite of the 3 pairs I have knit out of this yarn simply because of that red purple favorite color. I purchased all 3 colors at a long closed yarn shop and I believe the yarn has been discontinued since 2010 so deep stash for the win.

I also finished the first of my Kokkeluri mittens and cast on for the second. The mittens are warm and the yarn feels really nice but I am getting a bit of fuzz and it is prone to splitting. Still not sure if I am going to end up keeping the mittens but here ya go… part of my 7 skeins club bag yarns:

Kokkeluri WiP

Kokkeluri WiP

I have been working on these, of and on, for over a month now. Considering the patterns of the booklet were released to us club members weekly I guess it should have taken me much less time to finish them but at least my not feeling like knitting them has led to plenty of socks 🙂 Always a silver lining !

yarny days and knitterly evenings~

Elka