Let's twist again

Goodness, Sunday already! It's been a bitty week - a little bit of doing this and that but nothing really finished, so to speak. I worked a whole day on Vivian and will take some more pics to show you how the cabling is looking - very nice:-) But I had to take a break as it was taking over everything! I was getting far too absorbed with it. I think all my conversations were absentminded '..... yes' and  '.......no's' about five minutes after the question was asked - oops! And I had that kind of abstracted feeling you get from reality when you concentrate too hard on something, which took ages to go before I could rejoin the land of the living.

But I do have some progress pics of my green limone sock for you - one down and one to go. I especially like the rib pattern in little groups of three along the top cuff. And you can see what a clean gusset shaping this has at the heel too. No holes here at all and it has a very professional finish - which makes me feel all the more accomplished - thank you Karen:-)

I'm usually last to finish test knits:-) - I like to think I am being thorough rather than being slow!  - so I think this pattern will soon be released. I'll let you know as soon as I do. If you are already familiar with cables and a bit of shaping but haven't ventured into the world of socks yet, this pattern would be an ideal starting point. There are lots of visual aids and online links to technical info if needed so you feel supported all the way. And you get a lovely pair of socks as well. Now I just have to cast on sock no 2 before I fall foul of the second sock syndrome..... Which reminds me I have another cornflower sock to finish at some point, after the Vivian, the little minx socks and baby knits.

Yes, hopefully more on baby knits soon......:-) Have soft yarn, just have to decide what to knit. It's a baby pattern jungle out there!

Lemon & Lime Twist

So, I thought I'd surprise you with some more knitting! There is still stuff needing find a home that I really should be concentrating on but I'm very good at ignoring it while I knit my lovely sock:-) Ah, procrastination is my friend - well, my knitting friend anyway!

This lovely sock is a new test knit designed by Karen called Limone Twist (ravelry link). She knitted these in a gorgeous Wollmeise lemon yellow - scrummy! - so I thought I'd do a bit of lemon and lime. You know, I don't think I have a pair of green socks so I think I'll keep these ones for me - if I have any room left in my sock drawer. Well, a girl has to match her outfits and I do wear every colour under the sun so I correspondingly have a LOT of socks. But not green ones - yet:-)

The pattern is a lovely little twisted rib knitted over 4 rows and has a really clever construction.  After knitting through the chart or written instruction - it has both - you suddenly fall straight into the rhythm of it and you are off! This is the quickest I've knitted a patterned sock and I can even watch tv without losing my place at all - praise indeed;-)) I'm only halfway to the heel but I'm looking forward to another new heel to try - a gusset heel on a toe-up sock. I did try this type before, once, but it was so involved with the detailed patterning that it was difficult to appreciate the structure. In this sock I can see how elegant it looks and it will be interesting to knit and see how the shaping is formed. I know! The little things that please!

So lots more tv to watch so I can knit up a sock storm in Lemon & Lime. If the yarn looks familiar, it's the same hand-dyed sweetgrass green I used for my knotty gloves. I had quite a bit left over as well as another skein so I thought the slight stripes would work well on the sole of the sock. Gives it that little lemony feel to the lime don't you think?

Progress report:-)

So, I've got to dye some more yarns soon so I can start my new shawl, get some more sock yarns in the shop - if I don't divert them for my sock drawer:-) -  and get Vivian and some baby knits started. Nothing huge then, she says wryly!

Vivian is on hold at the moment as the lovely deep teal just isn't knitting to gauge - sigh. But I've got my eye on some chunky yarn on Ebay so hopefully I can be up and running in a week or sooner, depending on the post.

The lovely baby yarn I ordered arrived but wasn't quite as soft to the touch as I'd hoped. Lovely colours though. Maybe I can mix and match with other yarns I already have. But baby patterns have been earmarked and should be appearing soon. The good thing about baby knits is they are quick!

So thats us all up to date I think. Going into town tomorrow so I may have a hunt for some Sirdar snuggly. It is SOOO soft! But I'm not sure if the wool shop has it in stock so fingers crossed or it's back to shopping online. See you tomorrow!

Little minxes

Little Minx socks - front

Today we have some knitting progress - yipee! Things are slowly returning to normal with most things having found a home - just a few more things a-waiting but hopefully they can get sorted tonight and then we can be DONE! Maybe a final tweek or two as I start to use this new workspace but that's okay, you can't pre-empt everything! (although I did give it a damned good shot!!)

So, back to the knitting. The little minx socks really are getting there now but I've only been knitting them watching tv and I've not done a lot of that lately so progress is slower than normal shall we say:-) Now I'm downstairs working, I can monopolise the TV and dvd for longer knitting times rather than using my computer to watch films *hehe* Much more comfy in the living room than on a swivel chair, I must say!

Little Minx - back

The foot section knits a bit quicker being plain on one side so you can steam ahead and get some good progress here. Saying that, the twisted cables are so easy to do, you just motor along remembering to twist every 4th row. I can get quite a few repeats done in 1hr of tv watching so it won't be long till I'm at the top. I keep telling myself every row counts but I think a concerted effort is needed to get these finished so I can start Vivian soon. I may just cast on Vivian this weekend anyway as time's-a-tickin' - April the 8th deadline:-)))  (not that you or girlie bump need the reminder sis!!)

You may have noticed that neither sock has a heel yet. Unfortunately the red bit I need is at the end of the ball so I've decided to knit both heels after both socks are finished. That way I can match up the colours better. The yarn isn't totally exact with its colour proportions as I found when I tried to match the second sock to the first but its near enough and still obviously looks like a pair so I can live with that:-))

Because I've had plenty of time to think about adding the heel to the sock, I've thought about different ways for doing this. The afterthought heel - which I intended to use - is meant to be reduced on both sides and then grafted together. I was thinking if I have to graft anyway, maybe I could do a short row heel? I don't like the obvious lines the decreases give the heel shape and I much prefer the sleekness of the short row heel. It would be easier to knit the heel from the top rather than the sock base so the grafting would be meeting st stitch instead of the knits and purls of the twisted rib pattern. I haven't come across anyone else using this method so is there an obvious reason it's not used, do you know? Anyway, I'll give it a try and if it goes pear-shaped, then I can always use the afterthought heel method.....:-))

Tomorrow, I get some nice baby yarn in the post - excited!! Time to start designing and knitting baby stuff. More on that soon:-)) Have a good weekend yourselves now!

Little minx update

I've been knitting away at my Little Minx socks all week and thought it was about time to show you an update. The last time I mentioned these, I was unhappy with my choice of yarn and decided to use more subtle colour tones in the Almond zauberball. And I am so happy with the difference! The more solid bands of colour really let the twisted stitches show off don't you think?

You can see how the zauberball colour gradations are beginning to move across the sock surface as we get to the heel. I think this will still have a lot of tonal contrast going on overall - hopefully it won't have too definite blocks of colour.

This pattern is a toe-up , short row heel sock design with good links to tutorials if you need some visual help. This one is a simple W&T heel (wrap and turn) and all went nice and smoothly. This yarn is a bit splitty, especially picking up all the wraps so I tried hard to get a clean finish. Unfortunately, by the time I had finished knitting the heel insert, the colourway had changed significantly from reds to a more dominant brown shade. You can see the sharp line on the patterned section a few rows from the top. Sigh! After all the smooth subtle shading, it just seemed too obvious and very annoying.

I went away and tried to live with it for a bit but to no avail. So I decided to rip it back and try out an idea I had from experiencing this problem before. If I knitted an Afterthought heel, the tones in the yarn wouldn't be disrupted and I would have a lovely subtle sock again.

The afterthought heel is basically a knitted tube with only the toe shaped as you go. After you finish the sock, you add the heel section. You can do this two ways: cut a row of knitting on the st stitch side and pick up the stitches top and bottom of that cut row on two dpns/circular needles (favoured by Elizabeth Zimmermann), or you can add a row of waste yarn as you are knitting the tube, just where you want the heel to be placed, then after you finish the sock, unpick the waste yarn and place top stitches on one needle and the bottom stitches on another and decrease just like a toe and graft the ends together. It's quite hard to explain without how-to visuals and I found links to both versions if you want to try:

 Yarn Harlots afterthought heel using Elizabeth Zimmermanns cut version.

Knitting up a storms's version using the waste yarn technique.

I'm playing it cautious and avoiding cutting for now:-) As you can see, I have used some ochre waste yarn on the back of my sock. What is also really good about this technique is that if the heel happens to wear out, you can just unravel it back to the tube and reknit the heel with fresh yarn - cool, huh?

So progress so far? I have zoomed on from the afterthought line and have knitted about another inch or two since I took this picture. Hopefully with a few hours of knitting tonight, I will get this sock finished and the second one up and running. Oh, the reason the sock is folded in half is that as a rule of thumb without trying the sock on, the leg height is usually the same as the length of the sole. Once I get near the end, I try it on and see if I like the height and either start the rib or knit a bit more to suit:-)

So hopefully I shall be able to show you at least one finished sock soon:-) And if you fancy knitting this pattern up yourself, Karen has just released this on Ravelry here and even better, it's free! It's a lovely twisted rib pattern and a very good introduction to sock knitting and easy cabling. It doesn't take long to get into the pattern and before long, you have a complex and gorgeous sock emerging:-) Thanks Karen, for a very enjoyable knit!

Cornflower socks

Taking up a most of my time on the needles right now are these lovely cabled 'Cornflower socks' designed by Karen Scott. These aren't out as a pattern yet as I'm test knitting them but you may recognise the cable pattern from the grey and purple cornflower cowls I've been knitting. I love how this pattern looks so different on a much smaller scale - so intricate and detailed, lovely!

This sock pattern is for top down socks - a new thing for me as I've just kind of stuck to the toe ups really so far. So I was all excited to learn a new technique:-) The instructions are so easy to follow and the cable pattern is now becoming quite familiar to me. I can even watch tv now without losing my place in all the left and right twists! It's taking quite a bit longer than I expected to make progress with a full cabled pattern in sock yarn but I really think this is worth it as I love how its working up -and I'm also not the fastest cable knitter in the world. I really should learn how to cable without a needle as it would probably help the speed issue!

Anyway, back to the pics - I love these cables:-)) And I'm glad I decided on such a definite colour for these as it gives a decided punch to the sock I think. The yarn is one of my hand dyed semi-solids called 'flame red' but for some reason only weighed 98gms so I decided to keep it for myself:-))

Knitting all went fine till I came to the heel. Now, I generally understand the principle - you knit a heel flap, turn to get a base to the heel and then pick up stitches to shape your gusset so you can carry on with the cables down to the toes.

Nice close-up of the heel  so you can see it a bit clearer. It looks lovely and perfect now but I had a bit of a song and dance to get there - let's just say it was definitely a learning curve;-) I must thank Karen for patiently answering my frantic and confused e-mails over the weekend:-)) You're a star! And I've now got heel flaps 'sorted'. Whew!

So now I'm back on cables for the front of the sock and knitting away on the home run down to the toes where I feel I can manage the decreasing and grafting ok:-) I like the feel of going downhill though, that's a novelty! So right now, I'm in the happy state of free-wheeling down the hill, wind in my hair and enjoying myself till I get to the bottom and then I get to start again with the second sock. Yay! :-)

Cornflower Cowl

Well, I was intending to show you this lovely grey cowl as I was knitting it but it was such an enjoyable knit, it didn't take long at all! So, I have progress pics and final posey shots for you:-)

Okay, where were we..... the last you heard about this project was me drooling over my lovely parcel of baby soft grey alpaca:-) I cast on pretty much straight away and have enjoyed every knitting minute of it. The yarn is such a pleasure to knit with and it knits up with such a nice drape and feel - gorgeous.

I was test knitting this lovely cowl design - 'Cornflower Cowl' . I love the way the cable patterning looks with the softer alpaca. You can still get good stitch definition but its softened slightly by the fibres in the alpaca. The pattern is quite easy to remember and I've spent my evenings listening to talking books, twisting cables and knitting away happily. It only took me four eveings to knit - and I'm about average speed, I think. So this is a great idea for a lovely quick christmas knit. I'm already planning some more!

And, just to show you how the cowl looks on, I got John to take some posing pictures for you:-)  Now, I've never worn one before - probably because I have a lot of scarves - but I loved it! I somehow thought cowls would be tight and restricting around my neck (I have a short neck which is a bummer for polo necks - no graceful swan-like neck for me:) But no! This was soft, cosy and immensely secure. I suddenly realised I wouldn't have to keep tucking in the ends of a scarf anymore - bonus! I didn't consciously realise that bugged me until now and now, the problem is solved, and very nicely too.

But this already has a future home as a christmas pressie so if I want to be ready for winter, I'll have to get some more yarn on the needles, my cornflower cowl pattern in hand and start a new talking book!