Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Unicorn Mermaid Socks

I think it must be springtime, because I have a hankering to start a million new projects, while established ones are languishing on the back burner.  I have new knitting, new weaving, and even new cross-stitchery (!) on the go, with plans for much much more, but never fear, even old projects are getting some time dedicated to them, including my ongoing stockingette sock series.

This is some beautiful Koigu KPPPM that I've had for about as long as I've been knitting (I'd say about three apartments ago.)  Another example of one so beautiful that I just couldn't imagine what would do it justice.  I bit the bullet and cast on the stockingette socks and once again was so enchanted by the perfect little stripes that appeared.  I do love knitting with Koigu, so these ones were a joy from start to finish.  And the colours... to dye for.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Striped Cotton Hat, Redux

Many years ago, I saw a hat pattern by British designer Kim Hargreaves, which was a little reverse-stockingette striped slouchy hat, in cotton yarn.  Even as a new knitter, I knew it wasn't worth buying the $30 pattern book for it, so I just went out and got some cotton yarn in natural and charcoal and faked it.

The hat turned out super cute, but the band (since it was also in reverse-stockingette) curled like crazy.  It made it really hard to wear, since it tended to want to curl up my forehead and disappear.  Despite loving the hat, I barely ever tried to wear it because it was kind of frustrating to try to make it work.

Flash forward to yesterday, when I saw the hat sitting in the closet, all cute and springtimey, and was sad (again) that I don't wear it much.  Then I had an insight - knit a lining for the hat band so it won't be able to curl anymore!  A couple of hours and a bit of knitting later, and my hat band has a lining and actually works as a functional hat!

This one will be getting a lot of wear this spring & summer, to make up for all those years it was neglected.

(p.s. upon taking another look at the Ravelry pattern page, it appears that she has re-released this hat pattern, in bright colours and in regular stockingette, rather than reverse (which I feel takes away a bit of the charm but hey) and it mentions that the band is in garter stitch, which obviously wouldn't curl.  So if you decide to fake this hat, too, do the band in garter stitch and save yourself some heartache.  Just remember to go down a needle size (or two) since garter stitch is wider than stockingette.)

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Hopey Changey Socks

As part of my ongoing project to knit up all my variegated sock yarn into plain and simple stockingette socks, I found another skein that's been in my stash for five years or so.  I got this one in a sock yarn club way back then, and while I liked the colours, I assumed it would knit up as a crazy variegated blobby mess.  Imagine my delight when I started to knit it up and realized it was going to make stripes, instead!  All those years of wondering what to do with it and it worked out perfectly without any effort.  Lesson learned.

This yarn is Zen String Lotus Toes fingering, a thin little superwash merino, and the colourway is called Hope.

Only four more variegated skeins and this little project is finished.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Even More Rainbowy

I finished another quarter panel of my Hue Shift Afghan, last night.  Where the first panel only used half of the colours of the design, this one incorporates all 10 colours in it, which makes it a lot more fun and interesting.  The third panel will be the same idea, but in a different order, and then the final panel is just the blues/greens.  I am still loving every minute of this one.