A Little Knitting

Sunday, March 30, 2008

For some reason the pictures of my Kona yarn and the resulting socks look sort of brown. The yarn is actually a very deep and beautiful green.

Pattern: Japanese Feather Socks
Yarn: RIT-dyed Kona Superwash, 0.5 skeins
Needles: US 2 DPNs
Notes: I love this pattern! I could knit it over and over and over again and never get bored, I think. It's simple but looks so damn beautiful. I also love this yarn, it's nice and thick and I only had to cast on 52 stitches to get a sock that fits me so they knit up super quick.

My friend Jenna bought me some Socks That Rock for my birthday.


It's so soft and squishy! I can see why half the knitters in the blogging world are in love with this stuff. I started out with the Embossed Leaves pattern from the book Favorite Socks but didn't get gauge - even after my (flat) gauge swatch told me I would - and also remembered that US 1's don't agree with my wrist. Every time I think it's going to be different. Isn't that the definition of something? Hmm...

So I pulled out my More Sensational Knitted Socks book that I haven't looked at since I bought it and chose the Leafy Lace Socks. First, I swatched... in the round this time.

After determining gauge and adding some negative ease for nice cozy socks, I cast on 50 stitches, did a picot edge and started the pattern.

There's a lot more twisted rib in the pattern than I thought there would be, which also hurts the wrist but since I'm on US2's it seems to be going alright so far.

Whew, that was a long post. The only other thing to say is that I quit with the mittens for Kurt. It's been a lot warmer here lately and they were too big anyway. Maybe next year he'll get some new ones.

A Much Needed Breather is Here

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Midterms and a birthday celebration have gotten in the way of my posting but I'm on Spring Break and ready to share some pics with you.


Here is my Scoop Neck Vest Sweater! It is fantastic and beautiful and I love every little stitch of it. There were a few issues the night I wore it for my birthday: namely the shoulders kept sliding down and showing a little bra strap. A better blocking will take care of it though, I'm sure.


Here is some Kona Superwash I dyed a couple of weeks ago with RIT dye. I had been hoping to make it a very lightly variegated green but that RIT boy, whew, as soon as I put the yarn in the bath it immediately sucked up all the green and there was no changing it. Then the rinsing... holy shit, people, the amount of rinsing was insane! Not my favorite way to dye, that is for sure. But I like it and think it will make a nice cozy pair of socks.

If you remember last time I used Kona, I ended up getting two full pairs of socks from one skein. So I bought two skeins this time and wound them into four smaller skeins for four pairs of socks (with Jenna's help and ball winder). I'm going to let Kurt dye one of them and I'm going to dye the other two. We might even do Kurt's later today. He's using Kool-aid and going for a bright red. I have no idea what my others will be yet.

I also finished my cabled hat which you can see on my Ravelry page. I don't like it so I'm not even going to bother to post pics here. It ended up too short and I ran out of yarn so I couldn't make ear flaps on it. Boo. I think I'll get some more Wool of the Andes in that colorway and make a better one next winter.

Last night I started some mittens for Kurt since one of his other pairs, the ones he actually never looses, started falling apart. They're just simple mittens in Wool-ease because I'm sure they'll end up getting misplaced pretty quickly. I'd just buy him more but the silly stores seem to have gotten rid of winter gear already. Don't they realize we live in North Dakota??

Hopefully I'll post again before my Spring Break is over next week!