Happy Socks!

I finally finished my RPM socks last night. They are from Knitty.com Summer 2006. I made some adjustments to the pattern. First of all I made them toe up, two at a time on two circular needles. Then I made them much longer than the pattern. They fit pretty good, but when I went to bind off it was too tight. I originally did the sewn bind off, but it was too tight. So I did some searching and came up with the Russian bind-off. You can view the info here: http://wendyknits.net/archives/1152 This bind off came out much stretchier.

I forgot to mention that I also worked the design opposite on each sock. I thought I might look fun and interesting that way. They are made from Knit Picks Felici, colorway Pebble.

Brown, Brown, Everything Is Brown... During the winter I decided that I needed some brown socks to go with my brown slacks. Now I've got 3 pairs and I'm bored with brown! Not exactly a summer color. Think I'll go buy me some new sock yarn. And while I'm at it I need some yarn for the trim on my Origami purse from Folk Bags. I'm not showing you 'till it's done, but it's made from Noro Silk Garden. It seems a little thick, but we'll talk about that later.

Another Fine Mess

Alp Premier is a beautiful yarn I found in San Antonio a few months ago. I couldn't resist the yumminess. It was approx $30.00 a skein. Since I had nothing better to do while DH was at work, (yep, he works there, we live here...) I bought it. It sat in the stash for a month or so while I finished MIL's socks for Christmas. Lately I saw it made up into a shawl at my LYS. Silly me, I thought I could get away with only 1 skein. I have already knit this poor yarn 3 times. 1st time was Cat Bordhi’s Mobius cowl scarf. It looked more like a clown collar. No pics, please. Then I tried to knit a shawl, but the needles were too small. I think they were 11s. So I tried again on 13s, my largest. Ummm… It’s way too small. I noticed that one person who made a shawl out of it on Ravelry used two skeins. I’m not willing to go for another skein. The next reincarnation will be a plain straight longways scarf. I better like it this time. What possessed me to buy it in this colorway anyway? I know it must have been the brilliantly colored ribbon yarn. As I’m knitting it I think of Masquerade. My kids did the song in High School show choir and I sewed all the costumes in brightly colored lame. It was beautiful. Well, at least I thought so. ;)

Ambrosia

I just finished my Ambrosia Socks. This is a beautiful sock pattern, carefully designed and documented. I knit them in Knit Picks Gloss in Cocoa which is very soft. The stitches are well defined and make a wonderful sock. Too bad I don't follow directions very well... I ripped them down about 3 times, so I should have been done a month ago. The first time I wasn't happy with my short row heels. They had holes at the turn, so I used a different method that I had used on my MIL's socks. Everyone seems to have a different way to turn the heel. I think I like this one best.

The butterfly rib pattern is so easy, I didn't think I needed to look at the directions after the first repeat. Just knit, and knit, and knit - Oops! I realized that I had not added the 4 additional stitches as I started the pattern up the leg, and I knew it wasn't right, but I kept going... Finally I looked at the pattern. Since I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I do like the knitting, I frogged down to where the pattern starts. Then, I kept knitting and knitting, thinking I must be almost done when, wa la, I looked a the pattern again, and I was supposed to move up a needle size 4 pattern repeats down. Again I frogged. Moral of the story, read the directions all the way through and pay attention! Anyway, I'm happy with them now. They are so comfortable and I love the pattern's detail. On to the next pair...

What Brought Me Back

This is the project that started it all. It was approximately 4 years ago. The woman who lead our bible study wanted to have it at her mom's yarn shop one night. I was immediately taken in by the small store in Pasadena, CA. I wish this store had a website. The name is Elegance Designer Yarns on Green St. You can Google it for the address. It was so artfully arranged. There was a comfy couch in the bay window, antique hutches and side boards with yarn spilling off the shelves in a riot of colors. I think I was taken back to when I first started knitting at about 8 or 9. I didn't stick with it then. The sticks were awkward and I couldn't keep my tension straight. If only I'd learned continental first. I think I only tried to knit a scarf at first and I quickly became bored. Besides, the yarn was something on the order of a Red Heart yarn. (Not that there's anything wrong with that... Seinfeld) Just not very comfortable to work with. At any rate, I heard that there was a workshop the next Saturday, so I signed up for it. Barry Klein from Trendsetter was teaching a pattern for an afghan. I think it is called Anniversary Plaid. It ended up not being a knitting project, but a crocheted one. That was fine with me because at that time I was more comfortable with crochet. Since my SIL was pregnant, I decided this would be the perfect project. It took a while, and after I had a few color changes I decided that I didn't like my choice of yarn. I hopped on down to my favorite LYS, Unwind, and there bought the yummy yarn for the blanket.

Drinkin' And Knittin'

Remember how I thought it looked so much better after I changed all the purls to knits?

Well, I wasn’t happy with that either so I frogged the panel down to where you start adding stitches again and really worked on replacing them with the pattern. The stitches look all wonky now because I used a size 0 needle to redo them and I just found two dropped stitches. Ya know, it ain’t easy to repair dropped stitches in lace. They are probably about, oh, 20 rows or so down. They aren’t even in the place I repaired. I’m thinking that was the other night when we had wine with dinner. Caution, don’t drink and knit lace!!!

I’m about ready to tear my hair out with this! I got to thinking that I probably increased the body the same way I tried to do the sleeves. Maybe I can just make a couple of wine cozies out of them...