Tupelo Cowl

I got some sock yarn with the Cookie A Sock Club a couple of years ago, and started to knit up a pair of socks with it, but it just didn't feel right to me.  The yarn is a mix of wool and silk, and it didn't have a lot of stretch but it did have a lot of shine.  It also was a bit thick for my sock preference, these days, and ultimately I frogged the sock and set the yarn on the shelf.  I thought I might knit it up into a little one-skein shawl, but the yardage was a bit short for even doing that (and I hate running out of yarn before the end of a project) so it sat and sat, waiting for me to have an epiphany.

Enter the cowl.

I don't normally knit cowls, either (since I don't normally wear them) but something about this one spoke to me, especially once I came up with the idea of doing it in the lovely pink silky yarn that had been waiting and waiting for inspiration.  I decided that a little shiny cowl would be the perfect thing for those cool spring mornings when you don't want to dress up too warmly for your walk to work (since the afternoon walk home in springtime is much much warmer and you have to haul all those wintery things back home with you when you just yearn to walk unencumbered through the warm sunny air.)

So I spent a few days knitting up a cute little cowl and I've been wearing it off and on.  The variegations in the yarn somehow ended up as stripes, but I'm ok with that.  It's still silky and shiny and drapey and warm.  I may have even converted myself to a cowl person. 

Wibbly Wobbly Doctor Donna Socks

When someone has many passions, it is always fun to find little ways to overlap them.  A while ago, I found a great little yarn dyer called Nerd Girl Yarns, who dyes skeins of yarn in lovely nerdy themes, like Firefly and Sherlock and one of my newfound passions, Doctor Who.  Even the hard heart of a girl trying not to buy more variegated sock yarn has to be softened by such delightful fare.

One of the Doctor Who themed skeins was called Doctor Donna, the name of which will bring a tear to the eye of many a Whovian.  After putting it in my shopping cart and mulling it over for a week or two, I finally gave in to my baser urges and decided it was best just to buy it (along with another skein which we'll talk about another day.)

Doctor Donna has lovely portions of both a nice brown from Tenth's suit, as well as a beautiful deep Tardis blue and a deep auburn reminiscent of Donna's hair.  I was hoping for the best as I began at the cuff, where the blue and brown seemed destined to make a nice path around and around the sock.

By the time I was done the leg, I knew I was in trouble.  The blue pooled at the back of the leg, and didn't make much of an appearance at the front.  I shrugged it off because I knew things would change up at the heel flap and gusset.

The blue appeared, making several stripey rounds of different sizes as the sock circumference changed.  Then I got to the foot and realized that it was no good, the blue would somehow stay on the sole for the entire foot of the sock.  As you can see in the photo (with a cat paw included not so much for a size comparison but because my cat is determined to become one of those viral internet cats) the blue only reappeared again at the toe.

There is a second sock, though, I thought.  Well, you can see what came of that.  Somehow it turned out almost exactly the same.

At some point I remembered a moment from one of my favourite Doctor Who episodes, The Doctor's Wife, and although it was the Eleventh Doctor in that episode, and not Donna's Doctor, it certainly applies here:

The Doctor: You didn’t always take me where I wanted to go.

The Tardis: No, but I always took you where you needed to go.

I guess the yarn took me where I needed to go.

Ariel Socks

Even though I put a great deal of effort into knitting up my whole variegated sock yarn stash, last year, there are still times when seeing a particularly beautiful skein makes me weak in the knees.  When I saw this yarn at the Loopy Ewe, a fuzzy warm BFL called Willow, from Huckleberry Knits, I noticed not only the amazing colours but that the colourway was named Little Mermaid.  How could I resist that?

I started out using a 2.25 mm birch circular, on the first sock, but somewhere around the heel of that sock, the needle tip broke off (ugh) so I transferred everything to a 2.25 mm steel circular.  Being as the needles were the same measurement, I never imagined that the two socks would turn out so different!  You can clearly see the different ways the colours stack on each foot, and somehow it even looks like there's a limey green in the right foot (there isn't.)  It turns out that my stitches are a wee bit snugger and tidier on a steel circular.  This may change everything.

I have another variegated sock yarn on the needles right now, and it's doing something even crazier, but that will be a topic for another day.

Porthos Socks

There's this great designer on Ravelry that goes by the name "Caoua Coffee" - this person cranks out beautiful patterns, mostly for socks and little accessories, and gives them all away for free!  As someone always on the hunt for fabulous and fun things to make, I certainly won't even try to resist a whole flock of well-designed patterns that are free for me to enjoy.

This time I chose a simple knit/purl design, no cables or lace or anything fancy at all.  I matched it up with a lovely shade of Knit Picks Stroll sock.  The photos really don't do this colour justice - it's called Jackrabbit Heather, and it's the prettiest grey brown heather.

The socks were a lot of fun to knit, and looked really cool on the needles, the way the knit columns sway back and forth, based on the tension of the ribbing/garter stitch surrounding them.  Once they're on the foot, the swaying is less pronounced, but they do make a nice manly lattice.  Yep, they're for gifting, to one lucky dude.

Fair Isle Hood

Throughout my years of making things, people have sometimes called me an artist, and I balk at the term, as I've usually considered myself a crafter, not an artist.  It is something that has dogged me, actually - the dividing line between art and craft - and there are only a couple of times that I've made something that I might actually consider art.

This is one of those times.

I had an idea spark in my mind one day, and the more I thought about it, the more I was amused and entertained by that idea.  The more I thought about it, the more I thought of little details (fair isle, buttons, short row shaping) that would make it perfect.  And the more I thought about it, the more I really wanted to make it.

It's wool, it's not really practical, and the button is purely decorative, since it doesn't even have a buttonhole under there, so it's not really a useful object in the end (is that what makes it art?)  But it's awesome and I love it.

Doppler Socks

It's hard to follow up on those fluorescent green socks, but I had a couple more balls of the bright sock yarn from Knit Picks, and decided to knit it up, too.  These ones were blue and orange, which is another crazy colour combination (unless you're an Oilers fan.)  I decided to mix things up a bit with the stripes, and went from one row of orange to two rows to three rows and back again, keeping six rows of blue between.  It doesn't look as dramatic as I thought it might - perhaps varying the blue stripes would help, as well.  No worries, they are still cozy and fun socks, and my sock drawer is starting to look pretty wild!

Catching Up

I've actually been working on so many projects lately that I don't even know where to begin.

I finished my third Camp Loopy project on time, last month - this one was a lovely garter stitch wrap called Edge (Ravelry), which uses short rows to make little wedges of colour.  I used the Loopy Ewe's solid series yarn, incorporating a couple of neutral browns with a lovely clear blue for the accent colour.

It took a fair bit of yarn and a good chunk of my August knitting time, but since it's garter stitch, it went pretty fast.  The colour changes and short rows helped to keep it interesting enough, too, that it seemed to go fairly quickly, even if it took a few weeks.

The pattern specified a particular type of bind-off, to allow lots of stretch for blocking, but I found that the bind-off was a bit too stretchy, since when I blocked it (and I stretched it out beyond the recommended dimensions) the edges still ended up a bit ruffly.  Next time, I'd use a regular bind-off, probably.  Yes, there will probably be a next time, since this one is intended to be a gift, and I would really love to make myself one in a different colour scheme.  Lord knows I have plenty of sock yarn to make up something pretty for myself.

Overall, I really like the wrap - it's nice and big, and the garter stitch is so squishy and comfy.  I think it will be really perfect for cozying up in for a night of reading in the dark of winter.

The 80s Want Their Socks Back

I do love to have a stockingette sock on the go, ready to grab in an instant when a project is needed on the fly, or just around when I need some simple meat & potatoes knitting.  One of the simplest ways to jazz up a simple stockingette sock is to pick a couple of cool colours and make a little stripe.  My personal go-to stripe has been a 3:1 ratio, for a few years (that is, three rows of background colour to one row of accent colour.)  I find that this ratio will use the two colours up pretty evenly, if the accent colour is also used for toe and heel and cuff.  This time, I decided to keep that ratio but double everything, so I was doing six rows of background to two rows of accent.  That way the accent stripes were a little bolder, as if these socks weren't bold enough.

The yarn is from Knit Picks Neon Stroll collection (now nearly sold out, but hopefully they'll bring some back, soon.)  The green is the one that caught my eye, a true neon green that took me back 30 years or so, to the days of multicoloured rubber bangles and layered ripped sweatshirts, worn off the shoulder.  I thought the purple would be the best colour to accent that green and voila!  The brightest socks ever.

HBC Shawl

Of course, the thing that prompted me to finally write a post about the June shawl yesterday was because I have another shawl to write about today!

Since I was a kid, I've always loved the iconic look of the Hudson's Bay Company point blankets: a simple off-white blanket with the four wide stripes of colour.  It's an instantly recognizable symbol of Canada (though admittedly not always a good one.)  As they cost hundreds of dollars, I've always relegated it to the "someday" pile.

Much to my happiness, the second project for Camp Loopy was to knit something up (using at least 600 yards of yarn) that is somehow reminiscent of a favourite place.  I instantly thought of the shawl Point, based on the concept of the classic HBC blanket.

The Loopy Ewe carries about a million colours of solid fingering weight yarn, in 200 yard skeins, which make it easy to stock up for striped projects.  I got one little skein each of the colours (and have just tons left over) and then three skeins of the Ivory.  The pattern only calls for two, but since that would give me essentially a one-skein sized shawl (like the one I posted yesterday) I elected to upsize it a bit.

The main body of the shawl is a little knit-purl pattern that adds just enough texture, particularly in a simple ivory colour, and then mindless garter stitch to make the stripes.  Because I'd upsized the shawl, I also decided to make each stripe three ridges of garter stitch instead of two (i.e. six rows of knitting instead of four.)  I really like it, since the stripes in the blankets are so fat and I didn't want these ones to be too thin.

Much to my dismay, the red yarn bled a bit into the ivory as it was washed.  I tried a second soak to minimize it, and while that did work to some extent, you can still see the little bit of red there, if you are looking for it.  I suppose I'd better wash the rest of the red before I make anything else with it, and keep that in mind in future.

Having pulled it up from drying on my bedroom floor, I couldn't wait even a moment to try it on for a selfie, without any makeup or even a sensible look on my face.

Perfect.

By Any Other Name

While I might be quite tardy in blogging about Camp Loopy this summer, I've been pretty timely about getting my projects done.

The first project (the June project, that is) called for something smallish, only 400 yards, that reminds you of a favourite book/movie/tv series.  I scrolled through my Ravelry favourites list for inspiration, and quickly came upon a little shawlette that I've been wanting to make for ages.  It's named Henslowe, after Philip Henslowe, a real theatrical contemporary of Shakespeare, who was portrayed by Geoffrey Rush in one of my all-time favourite films, Shakespeare in Love.

I chose madelinetosh for this project - their fingering weight wool single called Tosh Merino Light - in a colourway they call Cherry, but I see as many shades of fragrant roses.

I went down a needle size to get the specified gauge for the project, but having done so, it seems to have turned out a bit small for my tastes.  It will work well as a scarf but isn't really sufficient for a shawl.  It looks so lovely in this yarn, though (go ahead and click on that photo for a close up and try to deny it) that I am tempted to make another in a different colour, this time with two skeins, and make it both wider and taller in the garter stitch portion before doing the lace edging.  Then again, there are so many things to make, that who ever has time to revisit something a second time?

SPRING, Gorramit!

This year, spring has poked its warm little head out and retreated a few times already, leaving a long dull winter in its wake.  I finally broke down, mentally stomped my feet like a toddler, and decided to try to entice spring to hang around by knitting with some of the brightest colours I had in my stash - my last two balls of Felici sock yarn, in the Fizz colourway.  It's purely a coincidence that it feeds into my current stockingette sock obsession.

These ones were the same old simple design I always knit, with an afterthought heel, but I decided to change things up and do a star heel for this pair.  I'm really tickled that I did, since one of the heels sort of reminds me of a Jayne hat.

My obsession with striped socks continues, but now I have to resort to making my own stripes.  It's just a different kind of fun to come up with the colour combinations.  The next pair are a real doozy.

Violets on Television

Lately, I've been feeling a real addiction to knitting socks.  Nothing complicated, either; no lace or cables or any funny business.  Just a simple toe-up stockingette tube with an afterthought heel, in self-striping yarn.

I'm not sure if it's because it's so meditative, or because sometimes life is too complicated to think about anything but stockingette, or just because I need a dose of colour after the aforementioned neverending winter (which I'm sure anyone in the northern hemisphere is mighty tired of by now.)  There is just something perfect about the simplicity of a sock like this.

Immediately after finishing the pink ones, I pulled out my next set of Felici yarns and began these.  I mourned the yarn all over again, since it's such a pleasure to knit that I had a hard time putting them down.  I love all the shades of purple of these ones, and finished them in about a week.

These colours are a bit more calm than the last pair, and nowhere near the riot of colour of my final Felici pair, now in (peaceful and meditative) production.

Spring Flowers socks

After the long and arduous winter we've had, it's nice to have things warming up and melting, in the last few days.  I've been able to leave the house without a jacket for the first time in six months or so, and I'm looking forward to seeing some colour popping out of the ground.

I made some colour of my own with these self-striped socks from the now-defunct Knit Picks Felici yarn.  I'm super sad to see this yarn go, since I always loved the base yarn and the simplicity of knitting the self-striping colours.  I haven't got much left, but I'm hoping they'll come up with something else by the time I run out.

This particular colourway was called Peachy, and I think it's pretty perfect for spring.

I did the usual, nothing new here: toe up, 68 stitch circumference, afterthought heel.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I do love how the stripes match but are offset from one another.

Happy spring!

Snapdragon Socks

I wanted to celebrate the end of my Variegated Sock Yarn into Stockingette Socks project, so I saved a favourite of mine - sweetgeorgia's Snapdragon colourway in my coveted BFL sock yarn - for the final pair.

Despite what your eyes are telling you, this colourway features some fun fuchsia (not reddish) stripes on a super bright lime background.  In a fuzzy BFL sock yarn, they make some pretty warm, sturdy, and spectacular socks.

I did my basic sock, toe up with an afterthought heel, and tried the round decreases on the heel again.  This time I used the kitchener stitch to graft the last six stitches together, which I think makes a nicer close than just threading the loose end through and pulling tight.  I am growing to like the round heel, although for some reason it makes the instep tighter, I think, so I'm still working out the kinks in that.

Is it crazy that I've been wanting to order more variegated yarns to make socks?

Experiment in Stripes

Another scrappy scarf, this time using the Irelande and Chocolate and Robin's Egg blue from previous scarves, and some Chartreuse Patons Wool with a bit of Peace Fleece in Kamchatka Sea Moss.

I did a warp stripe, but it's almost lost in the twill - I swear the weft was open enough when I was weaving it!  You can see the angle of the twill is pretty much 45 degrees, so I'm not sure why the vertical stripe is so subtle.

What shows up fairly well is the sort of fade I did to change from blue to chartreuse and back again.  I think it really turned out, and makes a cooler transition than just a clean break from one colour to another.

Happy holidays to one and all - I'll be out of town and away from my loom, so the last scarf will have to wait until next weekend!

A Little Bit Hobbit

Changing up to a different sort of colour scheme for this one, I chose some nature-shades for a little hippie kid.  Upon weaving it, I find it very hobbitty.  The vertical element of this scarf really makes me think of trees.  Needless to say, I like it.

More Cascade 220 Wool Heathers, this time it's Chocolate Heather and Irelande Heather.

Another scrappy scarf is up next.

Using the Leftovers - Oranges & Pinks

Once I've made a few of these scarves, I have enough leftovers from the colours used to make a new scarf with the combination.  This time I added a bit of Galway wool in Natural and a bit of Custom Woolen Mills wool in Red, to round things out and give a bit more contrast.

I kept it in hopsack, which for some reason I thought would end up looking different than just a fat plain weave.  Live and learn.

I do love these crazy plaids, and I'm betting some of the kids do, too.

Shrimp & Eggs

I like to put a few unconventional scarves in the pile, in some crazy colours, because I know that kids aren't afraid to have fun the way some adults can be.  I'm also kind of into hopsack at the moment, so for this scarf, I revisited a hopsack design that I'd used in the past: sort of a windmill design.

While I was weaving, I decided the Robin Egg blue and Shrimp pink didn't have enough contrast to be really effective in this design.  In fact, the fear of that was partly the reason I chose a pattern that had big blocky elements to it.  One of these days I'll remember to think more about contrast when planning colour combinations.  For now, it's just one more warm and wooly scarf done.

Weaves with Orange

For the second scarf, I chose another classic weaving pattern - a simple but effective herringbone design - in some unconventional shades of orange.  The darker one is Provence, which I used last year as well, in a crazier scarf, and the lighter one is Tangerine.

I was a bit concerned that there wouldn't be enough contrast for it to look good, but I think it ended up being a nice subtle herringbone.

If you're thinking that this year's scarves are a bit conventional, don't worry.  Things are about to get wild.

Another year, another pile of scarves

I got a bit of a slow start on the Kindergarten Scarves this year.  I've been meaning to weave a set of towels and even wound the warp to make them, but just never got inspired enough to put them on the loom.  Eventually I decided I'd have to make the scarves first, since time is ticking away, so I set the towel warp aside and started to wind some wool.

The first one I made is a fabulous pink and black houndstooth for some fashion-forward kid.  I kind of love this one a lot, and would gladly keep it for myself.  One can never have enough scarves, after all.

I definitely found my scarf mojo with this one, and have been diligently weaving since then.  I'm pretty excited about how things are going!