Tuesday, September 26, 2006

M is for Missing

It's been a while posting here! Not to worry, I've been busy, busy, busy these last couple of weeks. Fall is here in town which means the nights are getting colder and it's almost pleasant to knit with wool again. Hooray!

First up, it's an FO! The Trekking socks have made their debut:


I really love looking at this toe!


Look how cozy these look! So ready for fall.

Pattern: Rib and Cable socks from Interweave
Yarn: Trekking XXL, 1 skein (lots left over)
Needle: Size 1 Susan Bates, toe-up on 2 circs
Special skills/mods: short-row heel, cables without cable needle

There's a lot I could say about these socks. I love this pattern....but I am not knitting it on such tiny needles EVER again. These socks took forever to knit. And all the tiny cables every four or five rows put me over the edge. After a while, I was looking for reasons not to have to cable any longer. I had to bribe myself to keep cabling. It worked...sort of. As a result, I started knitting all sorts of other projects to instead of finishing this one. So, the moral of the story is, be careful what you wish for. I wanted these socks since I saw them, but to get a happy result meant a lot of unhappy hours in the making.

Next up, it's a WIP! Here's the current state of the drop-stitch scarf for my Funky Scarf pal:


Lovin' that purple color! So shiny!

And there's a bonus WIP! A clothing WIP! This is my first ever attempt at a knitted clothing item. Up until now, it's been all socks, scarves hats and the like. This is my attempt at the Debbie Bliss Fiery Bolero:


Love that minty, forest green color!

I've already discovered one mistake, but it was a newbie one. I had to learn the cable cast-on increase for this piece. Instead of using a M1 or bar raise, you do cable increases at the beginning of the row. Well, I did, but over the space of 8 or 10 stitches, instead of one stitch. Oops. So there's all these holes in the piece where it should be just plain stockinette. I think I'm going to rip it, since there's no use in having a bolero I'm going to hate, and I hate looking at the holes. Oh well. I really like the yarn- Sirdar Snuggly DK weight. It's an acrylic, but feels like an alpaca/wool blend. And it doesn't rip up my fingers like some acrylics do.

Following the bolero disaster, there's some spinning on the horizon. Look what I found at the LYS the other day:


My little black rain cloud

It's Alpaca With A Twist! And this stuff is sooooooft. I believe it's made of what a cloud is. Yep, this is my little black rain cloud of fiber. I wish I could roll around in piles of it, and sleep on it at night, I love it so. However, this stuff has two very big caveats: it is very short, which leads to lots of breaks in the drafting, and it sheds everywhere. Thus, to spin with this means I'm covered from head to toe in short, black fibers that won't go away. But I don't care. I love it with all my heart.

Finally, there's a bevy of KALs out there for the joining. A few I've added (or may be adding) to the side bar as of late:


Pirate socks!


Dye and Spin along


Knit Socks!


Cables and more cables


Hooray mittens!

1 Comments:

Blogger Shelley said...

Wow--stunning socks!

7:13 PM  

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