catch up

Hello friends!

It snowed all day yesterday and it was so beautiful. The snow plows must have been down our road at least once, but with all the cars parked on the street, they can't clear it all. We helped two people push their cars out today! I've realized what I really like about winter is a deeper sense of community. When I see people shoveling their sidewalks it makes me happy because they are, in part, doing it for the welfare of others.

anyway... now to share all of the recent finished objects that I have finally photographed :)

The first is a test knit that I waited to share until the pattern was released.

The pattern is Frostweed by Julie Zaichuk-Ryan and it is a lovely textured mitt.

I used some yarn I had dyed last summer and a complimentary color also from stash.

They are super cozy and squishy. A very satisfying knit!


Another project I finished awhile ago, with a not very good photo at all:

Pattern: Pendulum by Amy Miller
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Heritage Silk in Turquoise and Charcoal

I am not entirely happy with this shawl. I think in part it's the yarn. Though it has beautiful drape, the wrapped stitches stand out like eye sores when the it's laid flat. I just felt the yarn was too slippery for my taste, which I suppose is the silk. I do like wearing the shawl wrapped around like a scarf.

Project: I ♥ Canada a basic vanilla pattern
Yarn: ONline Supersocke 4-fach Walking Color
Needles: 2.25 mm

These socks received their name because this is yarn I purchased on our Canada vacation last summer! I am wearing the socks now and they are already favorites. They have a well worn feel to them, that favorite sock feel, without looking worn out. I love them. I will have to find this yarn again!

I knit this pair one at a time. I am trying to always have a single, vanilla sock on the needles at all times. It's just perfect for taking along.

a modified eye of the partridge heel

This is pair five of thirteen this year :)

Pattern: Monkey by Cookie A
Yarn: iKNITiatives in Visions of Spring Flowers
Needle: 2.25 mm
Modifications: used a Fish Lips Kiss Heel
Pair 6/13

I entered this one into the Ravellenics's Sock Hockey! I am super stoked I finished them in time. But honestly...they were so fun to knit! Once I gained confidence in myself, I was able to knit the chart quicker and even memorized it towards the end.

Fish Lips Kiss heel

 oh! and what's on the needles now:

It's Zwerger Garn Opal Vincent van Gogh in The Red Vineyards at Arles, based off of colors from its namesake painting:

via wikipedia

one of my favorite yarns for many reasons xx


It's Bookclub tonight and I'm hosting so I had better finish getting ready :) have you read the Mortal Instruments series?? I am obsessed. 

bye! xx

skiing the snowglobe

I have quite a few projects to share but they will have to wait until next time. I came down with the crud at the beginning of the week and haven't been up for taking photos. Even worse, my coworker is also very sick so I had to cover her shifts this week.... thankfully I had Friday off and spent the whole day resting. I have been knitting and reading a lot - I finished City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. It is excellently written and I highly recommend it :) I started the second book last night and am already halfway through!

The weekend before I became sick, Scott and I had a few days off together and we went cross country skiing! I have only skied once before, and that was on a high school field trip, but I loved it!! I am so happy we finally went... it was gorgeous at the pass. We love snow and it was renewing to be around so much of it.

Lolo Pass is only about fifty miles from us and it's a place Scott grew up around.

I only fell a few times, which I am very proud of :) the first day we went, it was sunny. The second day we went, it snowed the entire time!!!

it was so peaceful.

During all that car time, I made good progress on a pair of socks :) here is an Instagram photo of them finished:

sort of :) Berny wanted to enhance the photo xx

hope you are all well, don't catch my cold!

sock drawer claims one more

Woo! one more day in this work week for me! I covered a few days for my co-worker and so I will have a four day weekend :)

I finished a pair of socks that are perfect for Valentine's Day:

Pattern: Socks on a Plane by Laura Linneman
Yarn: A Yarn Loving Mama in Volcano of Love
Modifications: I used a Fish Lips Kiss Heel instead of pattern's written heel
this is pair four of thirteen pairs I hope to knit this year!

I learned to cable without a needle and that was pretty thrilling :) It made it much faster to knit and waaay less fiddly.

the heel:

I really enjoyed learning how to knit the Fish Lips Kiss Heel and it fits me very well. I want to knit more socks with this heel!

   

As far as WIPs, I knit on I ♥ Canada a lot this week:

(sshhhh...I knit on it while I was working... I kept it with my coat in the file room, and every time I needed a little destressing, I knit a few rows....)


and I cast on a pair of Monkeys:

It is a pattern I've been meaning to knit for a long time and am finally doing it! The yarn is handdyed by iKNITiatives and the colorway is called Visions of Spring Flowers. 

This pair is for Sock Hockey in the Ravellenics! Are you playing? 

About the knitting journal, it was a gift from a friend:

the front

I have never kept a knitting journal before, but now that I am, I find it incredibly handy. I glue the tag with a sample of the yarn to each project page, along with pattern information, modifications, amount of yarn used, and so on. In the first few pages, there's a list of the monthly sock patterns I want to knit, and on another is a record of things I have actually knit this year.


The first Ravellenic project I completed was an Aerial Unwind:

I decided Rockefeller just wasn't for me. It's a little nostalgic, as it was my first mystery KAL.... but I'm over it!! I plan to dye the white yarn, and knit socks from the other two skeins! The yarn is Mountain Colors if anybody is curious.

Doesn't the middle skein remind you of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles??


In other news, it appears Knit Picks is discontinuing their Felici sock line, or at least, discontinuing all current colorways and possibly returning with new colorways. It frustrates me that a public announcement is never made about yarns they will no longer make.

I did panic..... :

I hope everybody stays warm and dry this week! xx

Spring is Coming!

hehe... I knew that if I made a fuss about our spring-like winter something would happen...and it snowed!! I am very, very happy :) We are also expected to receive below zero weather this week so I'm planning to make some crock pot stews soon.

Last night I finished my Spring is Coming socks:

Pattern: an improvised, basic vanilla sock, 64 stitches, cuff down
Yarn: Crazy Zauberball in Spring is Here
Needles: 2.25 mm Hiya Hiya Sharps, 32" circular
3/13 pairs for 2014

I LOVE them! The Crazy Zauberball is my new favorite yarn. There is just something wonderful and cozy and happy about how the color changes from one to the next...

 

I still very much enjoyed knitting these one at a time, and I'm planning my next OAAT pair.

I am still working on Socks on a Plane. I knit my first Fish Lips Kiss Heels on them and it went so well! I forgot to take a photo, but maybe next time I blog they will be finished! The FLK heel fits me very well and I am planning to use it again. However, one of my problems with toe up socks is the soles always end up longer than a pair that was knit cuff down! Does that make sense? It drives me nuts when I wash the week's worth of socks, and I can tell which ones were knit toe up. They still fit me well, but the foot really grows when wet. Where I am going with this is, these Socks on a Plane socks have super long feet!!! I suppose my remedy is to just start the heel sooner. Does this happen to anyone else?

Last week I noticed I had forgotten to cross a cable about twenty rows down. At first I was going to leave it because I didn't think I would be able to fix it! I did a little Googling, frogged down, and am so glad I did!!

It was very thrilling and so much easier than I expected. The biggest thing is being able to read the cable and know when to cross. I used two dpns to rework the stitches.


I have learned my yarn diet lesson: it does more harm than good...

from left to right: Liberty's Yarn Jabbersocky in Yule, Liberty's Yarn Sockingbird in Montol, Black Market Wool in No Use for a Name and H2 Go, iKNITiatives in Visions of Spring Flowers


I think I would have similar results if I ever went on a real diet. No chocolate bar or bowl of gravy would be safe. 

It's safe to say I'm ditching my yarn diet. I did go about one whole month without any yarn purchases though :) and then I went waaaaay overboard (I still have a box coming in the mail). I did look at my expenses in January and am planning a budget (this is boring stuff, I know). It will feel better buying yarn without overspending.

Ok! I must make a taco dip to bring to the Superbowl Party!!
Go Peyton! :)
xx

more WIPs than FOs ... C'est la vie

January in Montana is feeling a whole lot like SPRING. It's really weird and while I love the sunny days, I am also missing the snow that I know we should be receiving this time of year.

I have been working on many WIPs.

I finished my first one at a time sock! I know why two at a time appeals to me, because I can be willy nilly about the leg length, or if I want to make my toe this pointy instead of that. I can just knit it how I like and not give a second thought to those measurements. But with one at a time, I am forcing myself to keep diligent notes to help with the second sock. It will drive me crazy if one has a longer leg than the other. That said, I am really enjoying the process of these socks :) I have definitely become a ginormous Crazy Zauberball fan!!

After finishing the first, I immediately cast on the second sock:

 

and then I cast on three new projects... :):):)

The first is Socks on a Plane by Laura Linneman, in A Yarn Loving Mama's Volcano of Love sock yarn:

I am so in love with this yarn!! All of the speckles make me so happy! I am also enjoying this pattern very much! They are my first cabled socks and I am cabling without a needle, oh yeah! I learned how to from Leethal Knits tutorial. It has made me so excited about cables that I can't wait to knit more this way.

stitch marker by AYLM too, isn't it so pretty?

These socks were unplanned and not on my 2014 socks list... but I couldn't resist the KAL on IG and Rav for them!! They will probably take me through February to complete. I am planning to do my first Fish Lips Kiss Heel on them. I am always the last to the party on trends but I am very excited to try this heel!


The second cast on is a Hitchhiker in my handspun!!

It was spun during the Tour de Fleece in 2013. It is 100% merino and I have about 372 yards. I might use another handspun to finish, because I'm sure I will run out of yarn. This is my first project knitting with my handspun and it is so wonderful. I love knowing I spun the yarn...and the idea still trips me up sometimes.

I haven't made much progress on my third cast on because I ended up frogging what I had knit and going down a needle size, but I will tell you that it is a test knit! And I am using more kool-aid dyed yarn.


As far as finished objects, I have two!

Pattern: The Weasley Homestead by Erica Lueder
Yarn: KP Bare handdyed with Kool-Aid
Needles: 2.25 mm TAAT
Modifications: none


I also finished my first ever cross stitch sampler:

Woo hoo!!! It is the Woodland Sampler by the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. I adore it. I framed and hung it over my yarn stash, next to a photo of my gram. It was not in my budget to have this professionally framed, so I bought a frame that holds three 5x7" photos, removed the matting, and it fits perfectly. It took a little ironing to keep the edges tucked in. yay!


One last thing, we tried this recipe from Skinnytaste last week...it is so good I made them again:

sweet potato Irish nachos.......... :)

yumm-o! 



What have you been up to? xx

Tonight is Scotch whiskey and a Psych marathon...doesn't get much better!

I have gotten such a great response to my 2014 sock list! It's really awesome hearing from others, and it sounds like there are quite a few who will be planning their own list :) that said...I have already changed February's pattern. At this moment (haha!), it is no longer True Love by Chrissy Gardiner but Monkey by Cookie A, another pattern that I really love.

Lately I have been working on this lovely sock:



It is my first Crazy Zauberball and I LOVE it! The colors are amazing!! I am also knitting this pair one at a time, another first for me. The main reason for this choice is because I love how the yarn is already wound! If I knit them two at a time, I would have to rewind. Another reason is I have been very curious about what it feels like to knit just one sock by itself. And I'm enjoying it so much!!




There is some relief in reaching the end of a row and knowing I just turn and keep knitting, no second sock to worry about. One sock seems so much more portable too. I am not worried about having second sock syndrome...this yarn is so pretty and I am loving the mindless knitting.




I am still (slowly) working on the Weasley Homestead socks:




Last week I was just working on the heel flaps and now I am about two-three inches away from decreasing the toes:




My third WIP is a cross stitch project!



It is the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery's Once Upon a Time Sampler!!! eeeee! It is a year long mystery pattern, with a new part of the sampler released once a month! And it's fairy tale themed! ♥ ♥ ♥




I am not very far along, I have worked a little bit of the inner grids, and am now stitching the top part of the border. Then I will stitch January's little section and border! seriously so excited...I love fairy tales!


Last postI mentioned my second finished object of 2014, which is a Great Divide Shawl. Finally, photos!


 

Ravelry page
Yarn: madelinetosh dk in Robin's Egg and Black Currant
Needles: US 8
Modifications: none! well, I did run out of my main color during the final garter edge, so I finished knitting it with the contrast color.




I love this pattern! I love wearing this shawl! It is so cozy and squishy. Every time I wear it I receive compliments. love love love!


Enjoy your week, my friends!
xx



ETA: flickr is changing some things, and for the past two posts when I shared a photo, you would see the iframe...and it was driving me nuts!!! I figured out how to post just the photo and not the iframe. Thanks for bearing with me!!  xx

2014: a year in socks

Happy New Year!! I hope it has been treating all of you very well. So far my January has been very inspiring and hopeful. I hope I can make it last! :)

Right now I am knitting Weasley Homestead socks by Erica Lueder:


The yarn is stuff I handdyed with Kool-aid! I am really pleased with how these are knitting up; I wasn't too sure on the color at first, but the colors combined with the pattern.......ooooooh!


Since the new year began, I have finished two objects. yeah!!



Pattern: Afterthought Heels by Laura Linneman
Yarn: String Theory Colorworks Tachyon Self Striping in Helix Nebula
Needles: Magic loop on 2.25 mm 40" cable
Cast on: December 23, 2013

Learning to make an afterthought heel has been in my to do list for quite some time. I love when all the stripes line up. And these were soooo easy to do! Very eye-pleasing with not a lot of effort :)


My second FO is currently blocking; it is a Great Divide shawl. I started it in September 2013, so it feels awesome having it completed. I will take photos as soon as possible!! I already know I love it. I knit it with Madeline Tosh dk...... ♥ ♥ ♥


Have you heard about the Knitting Resolutions KAL that My Sister's Knitter is hosting??

via My Sister's Knitter

Firstly, these are the best KALs I've ever participated in. Andi is an awesome host, and the Ravelry group is full of the most supportive crafters :) and secondly, all of the KALs have been very inspiring!

so, my goals:

1. Knit 13 pairs of socks
2. Knit up more stashed yarn, including handspun!
3. Learn to Navajo ply
4. Buy a darning egg and fix that white pair of socks
5. Organize craft room
6. Frog Rockefeller, reskein and wash yarn ... I will never wear this shawl
7. Knit mom an afghan
8. Knit dad a pair of socks
9. Finish WIPs, I think I have about four
10. Read 50 books

there are several more, but they are pretty unrelated to this blog so I won't mention them :)

 

To help knit thirteen pairs of socks, I spent my morning organizing and going through both my Ravelry library and queue, combing patterns I have been dying to knit. I really want to knit new patterns this year. There is nothing wrong with Hermione's Everyday socks, but they are my go to pattern when I don't know what to knit, and I would like more variety!! hehe :)

I created a 2014 tab in my queue with eleven sock patterns (ideally one per month!):

January: is my current WIP, Weasley Homestead
February: True Love by Chrissy Gardiner
March: Shur'tugal by Alice Yu
April: Cadence Socks by verybusymonkey  (I want to try this pattern again since I frogged my first try)
May: School Pick Up Line Socks by Lisa Beth Houchins 
June: (open)
July: Devil's Snare Socks by Erica Lueder
August: Waving Lace Socks by Evelyn A. Clark
September: Merripog Socks by Jennifer Hagan
October: Boo! Toe-Up Socks by Emily B. Miller
November: "Little Pumpkins" Socks by Sabine Ruppert
December: On-Hold Socks by Wendy D. Johnson
floating socks (that I might work on between other sock patterns):  another stripey pair of AfterThought Heel Socks by Laura Linneman. and there will more than likely be Hermione's too...because I can't help myself

The above photo are skeins I would like to knit into socks this year, and many of them have been "assigned" to a monthly sock pattern. I am sure there will be changes to this list during the year; I will really just use it as a guideline. But I am already looking forward to all of these patterns...some have been in my queue for years!! It feels really good to have a plan for them finally :)

I really hope planning a year's worth of socks pays off! It will give me something to look forward to each month. It will help use up stash. It forces me to use patterns I've been collecting...and ogling :) 

that's it from me, I hope everyone has a wonderful week!! xx