Koi Pond Socks

A long long time ago, I bought a bunch of variegated sock yarns from Blue Moon Fiber Arts.  Over the years, I've used up most of them, but it's always a challenge to find patterns that will look good with some of the crazier colour combos.  I recently came across a free pattern on Ravelry called Harvest Dew, which has a really cute slipped stitch pattern that helps to break up pooling in these types of yarns.  I paired it up with a skein called Koi Koi and whipped up a pair of socks.

The stitch pattern itself is very easy to memorize (like, once through the pattern and you have it down) and also very quick, so the socks don't take much longer to knit than a simple stockingette sock would.  I knew it would eat up the yarn more than stockingette, so I did have to shorten the leg a bit, to make up for my big ol' feet.  If I used a yarn with a little more yardage in the skein, I could probably have made a taller leg, too.

End result: fun-to-knit, cute, comfy socks in one of my favourite yarns ever.  Sweet!

The Honeybee Cardigan

Finally finished, and so lovely -- the lace really opened up with blocking (as is to be expected) and the weight of the Socks That Rock mediumweight makes it hang beautifully. The ribby nature of the lace makes it a bit clingy in all the right places, which is helped along by the inch of negative ease I knit it with. The yarn is also so round and bouncy that it gives great stitch definition. I think you've probably seen enough gratuitous closeups in previous posts, though, so I won't indulge myself with more of them.


I started this one in October and worked at it in fits and spurts, mostly at our group knit nights, so I'm sure it could have been done much faster, had I tried. Sometimes a slow project with no deadline can be so relaxing, though. (Case in point: the insane Ingalls hexagon quilt that I have puttered away on for a year or two and probably still will for several more.) The pattern itself was pretty straightforward, save when I got to the sleeve/body decreases, where I had to improvise the decreases amongst the ever-changing stitch counts of the lace. It went pretty well, and I don't think would be very noticeable if I didn't mention it. The only other change I made was to make the sleeves a bit shorter than recommended. I like them this length, and would even go another half inch shorter if I knew then what I know now (i.e. that they would lengthen a bit more in blocking.)

In any case, I have finished it and this leaves me with no big projects on the needles, and a world of possible options from my queue. *Rubs hands together* Where shall we go, next?

More Bloody Socks

Just so you get a chance to see how nicely my overdyed yarn is knitting up, here is a shot of the lovely variegated yarn on the sole of my Vampire Boyfriend sock. Purdy, ain't it? Perhaps it seems sacrilegious to overdye Socks that Rock, but I'm sure that Tina would approve of a little experimentation in dyeing, even if it's over one of her creations.


The socks are still moving along -- I am nearing the finish of the first one. The pattern takes some brain power, however, since the cables along the side are on a 7-row repeat, and the larger heart pattern in the middle is a 20-row repeat. Thank goodness I know how to read my knitting, for those pesky moments when I forget what row I'm on, on either/both of them.

Knock wood, I should finish the first one tomorrow night. I hope so, anyway; I am already chomping at the bit to cast on both patterns from this month's Rockin' Sock Club shipment. So many socks -- so little time.

Live Fast, Dye Young

A long time ago, I had a gift certificate for Blue Moon, and among the lovely items I got yarn for, I also picked up a skein of sock yarn on a whim. The colours looked lovely and I was pretty excited about it. Once I had it in my hands and wound it into a ball, I just couldn't imagine what pattern I would make with it. It's been sitting within my eyeline for months, and I have toyed with the thought of one pattern or another, but nothing seemed right.


In an unrelated whim, this week, I had an inspiration to make a certain sock pattern, but the yarn for it would need to be a semisolid bright red. Since I'm not buying new yarn right now, I remembered a skein of undyed yarn I had in my stash, and thought I should try another experiment in Kool Aid dyeing. Then I thought of this skein and an experiment in overdyeing, instead.

The base of it was mostly a very soft yellow, with some light minty green, a pinky red, and a soft brown. I figured that the red overdye would leave it many shades of red, some orangier (from the yellow) and some brownier (from the green and brown). It turned out pretty much like I anticipated, but with some spots less-dyed than others. I was initially a bit dismayed by this (probably from a combination of unsaturated yarn before going into the dye and also my own lack of stirring to ensure the dye was evenly distributed after the yarn went in) but it is really growing on me. I am going to see how it looks knit up, and then decide if I want to throw the completed socks back into some cherry Kool Aid to even things out a bit.


Aren't experiments fun?

Obligatory Progress Post

I know I have been awfully quiet -- it's not because I have been idle, but because what I have to show isn't that interesting. My garter stitch cardigan has been progressing fairly quickly, but isn't very photogenic, yet:


And my Rockin' Sock Club socks are very Fraggley, but I am at the point where the second one looks much like what I've already shown you of the first:


The only exciting thing is that I finally put up my quilting frame (which takes up merely about half of the remaining floor space in my bedroom) and pulled the Fresh Squeezed Quilt out of oblivion. I had agonized long and hard over how to quilt this one (and am still not one hundred percent decided what I am going to do on some parts of it) but began with some little leaves. How cute are they.

Eye Candy

One of the challenges since the move has been finding room for all my crafty stuff.
Whereas I used to store yarn and fabric in little stashes all over (i.e. the bedroom, closet, dining room (aka crafting zone) and living room) now I'm trying to consolidate it all in my bedroom. As I said, a challenge. I decided to try using more wall space for storage, which inspired me to bus my way to Michaels yesterday and pick up some inexpensive little woven birch baskets for the yarn stash that doesn't quite fit in my other storage spaces. Now my bedroom wall looks like a yarn store, and I am blissful. Oh just look at all that Koigu.

In the meantime, I have finished the right half of my garter stitch cardigan, and last night at the pub I started the left half. I also have made some good progress on my Fraggle Socks. When I decided not to use the Socks that Rock colourway that came with the kit, it was because a) I thought it was too busy and obscured the knitting design, and b) because the various shades of purple didn't seem like the truest Fraggle colours.


I remembered a fantastic skein of Handmaiden Casbah that I had in my stash, and immediately knew it was the perfect colour: the pinks, reds, oranges, and purples seemed really Fraggley to me. Well, it turns out that it's just as busy as the original yarn (if not even busier) but I still love the colour and think it's perfect. Plus it's soft as all get out, since it's part cashmere. Yeah, that's right. Yum.

Rogue Roses Socks

For the second shipment of the Rockin' Sock Club, we got a pattern by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and a skein of mediumweight Socks that Rock in a colour called Gertrude Skein (ha ha.) I have to admit that I didn't take to the colour right away -- on certain days, in certain light, I loved it, with its nice rosy shades. On other days, and in other light, it looked like muddy greens and orangey oranges. Not my favourites. One of the great things about the Rockin' Sock Club is that it can get you out of the comfort zone of only working with the same colours all the time. I kept an open mind and just looked at it on my coffee table for a month or so while I worked on other projects, and once I finished my Red Ruffle shawl, I cast on for the socks.


They went very quickly (maybe because it's a mediumweight sock yarn, or maybe because I had just finished a project with 2200 stitches on the needles, so 64 stitches is like chump change.) The first night, I did the cute little hem at the top with its adorable picot edge. In a day and a half, I was three-quarters of the way through one sock. Then I realized that the foot was not as snug as I'd like, so I ripped it back through the heel flap and used a smaller needle (US2 instead of US3) for the heel flap and foot. Much better.


Despite that setback, it still took me just over a week to finish the socks. It could be because it was fun to do the Rogue Roses stitch, which you can see makes little rosebuds every now and then. Added benefit of the rosebuds: they break up pooling that the yarn was trying really hard to do, especially in the foot of the sock. I could see as I went that if it weren't for that stitch using up yarn every six rows, I would have had some serious colour pooling and striping in the foot. Yay for funky stitch patterns!