A Sock and a Request (Adriana)

I finally FINALLY finished my second Naive sock! Long-time readers will recall that I knit the first one last summer. Then it sat by itself all winter long until I decided to make it part of Mission Possible.

It is now done and here are the pictures to prove it!


View from the top (it's hard to take pictures of your own feet)


The cables go on and on and on...


The sexy gusset


Cleo gives her approval of the new socks

The pattern is, of course, Spillyjane's Naive Socks (This Must Be The Socks) (pattern free here)
I dyed the yarn myself a few years ago.

Comments: this is a really awesome pattern (and I'm not just saying that). Once you get going it goes really quickly. After a few repeats you start to be able to see where the cables are supposed to twist which makes it good bus knitting. Unfortunately I did something a little wonky with the first sock so I had to repeat it with the second one in order for them to match (I don't care).

In other news, I FINALLY learned how to cable without a cable needle! I figured out the left twist by myself on the bus one day and Grumperina's great instructions helped with the right twist. Now I actually enjoy doing cables, which is seriously awesome. I just wish I'd learned before knitting Trellis.

I have a request for you all. I'm going to be away from home for a month this summer (I'm stage managing Pete's Fringe shows this summer and we're hitting the road!) so I've decided to only knit socks while I'm away. This should help me make a dent in my sock yarn drawer. In preparation for this trip I want to buy a new skein of sock yarn, but I'd like to support an Indie dyer. I looked at a bunch of different yarns but I'm totally overwhelmed and need recommendations.

Here are the ones I've looked at:
Artsygal
Mama Blue
MadelineTosh
Sunshine Yarn
Fearless Fibers

With so many gorgeous sock yarns out there you can see why I'm having trouble picking one. If you have any recommendations please let me know.

Dyeing Orange (Adriana)

A few days ago Phoe sent out a call for orange sock yarn so that she could do a rainbow of socks, like B is doing. I'd been wanting to dye some yarn for her for a little while now, especially since she's sending me her lovely Phairo scarf which was offered up on her free stuff page.
I wasn't sure how she wanted the yarn dyed so I offered her the choice of solid, semi-solid, variegated, stripes or gradient stripes. She was intrigued by the last option, an idea which had occurred to me as I was falling asleep one night so I wasn't sure how it would actually pan out.

I stretched the yarn out down my hallway the way I always do when I dye striped yarn. I laid it out zig-zagged on my counter so that I could see the whole length. I started with pale yellow, and gradually added more red as I went along. It involved some of trial and error; I ended up going too dark at one point and had to jump ahead in my colours. It was a lot of fun and I think it turned out beautifully.


Here it is on my dying rack:


And finally all wound up:


Phoe, I hope you like it! I can't wait to see how it looks all knit up.

A Couple of Socks (Adriana)

Look! I finished two socks!

Unfortunately, they're not a pair (a growing trend in my sock knitting). On the left is Gen's Tropical Vacation Socks and on the right my purple Koigu socks.


Here is the first of Gen's socks. (I forgot to remove the stitch marker which showed me the top of the sock.) These had been my commuting knitting, but now that my commute is over for the time being ( my placement is done but I'll be back in class in a week) I'll have to find other time to knit on them. Luckily I'm going to visit my parents for a few days starting tomorrow and the travel time should allow me to get a good start on the second sock.

Remember my lovely but boring Nutkins? At that time, I'd decided to knit Annetrelac socks instead. Doing them toe-up meant that I knit a stockinette foot up to the leg. I tried to follow the pattern but entrelac seems to take forever in fingering weight yarn. I finally concluded that the yarn wanted to be a plain stockinette sock because it sure is beautiful.

Once Gen's socks are done I'll knit the second purple sock.

The final project I have on the go right now is a super long scarf for the sister of a friend (it's a birthday present from my friend). She wanted it to be long enough to wrap twice around her neck and to place her hands in pockets at the end. For something that long I insisted on bulky yarn. Because of that it's knitting up really quickly. Here's what it looks like from where I'm sitting:

It's grown at least another foot since I took this picture. I've nicknamed the scarf Big Red :)

On the Go (Adriana)

Here's a quick post to show off what I'm currently knitting. Apparently I've already used the titles "WIPs" and "On the Needles". Good to see just how creative I am :P

My bus/work knitting is Gen's handdyed socks, in a colourway I've taken to calling "Tropical Vacation". The blue makes me think of the sky and the water, and the green of island vegetation. Gen, you can change the name if you want since these are your socks.

I'm just about ready to turn the heel. It's amazing how much knitting I can get done between the bus rides and waiting for my super-slow computer to boot up at work (it takes 10 minutes to start. Seriously).

My evening and weekend knitting time has been taken up with a new project, Trellis. I'm making this for my friend Ev to give to her friend who is due at the end of March. Ev supplied the yarn and will be taking me to our favourite restaurant in payment for the knitting.
I'm finding it slow going despite the tiny size. I'm discovering that I'm not such a big fan of cabling (sorry Jane).

It's is awfully cute, though. This is the finished back and I'm about 2 inches into the two fronts (I'm doing them at once in the hopes of making the sweater go by faster).

That's all for today. I'm hoping to finish Trellis this weekend since we get Monday off due to the newly created "Family Day".

Yarny Goodness (Adriana)

Last month Phoe held a contest to celebrate her birthday (very generous of her). She had a number of different coloured packages and we were to pick a colour and she'd draw lots for the winner of each colour. I was thrilled to win the red package! It arrived in the mail last week but I had to wait until the weekend to get a decent picture (I'm really looking forward to longer daylight hours). Inside the red package was a gorgeous hank of laceweight by Yarn Chef (who I'd never heard of before) in the colourway Caribbean.

Isn't it stunning? I think it would make a really nice spring shawl.
Phoe also included a beautiful bracelet she'd made which I love!

This Friday I got bit by the dyeing bug and I ended up spending my evening in the kitchen dyeing up a storm.


The red is some sock yarn I'd gotten which was rather tame in colour so I decided to liven it up. I think this would make some lovely cabled socks.

The orange in the back is the yarn I'd dyed yellow to make the ill-fated Simply Lovely Lace Socks for Gen which ended up being teeny tiny. Luckily I have a friend with teeny tiny feet who is enjoying them right now. I ended up with a fair amount of the yellow yarn left so I overdyed it orange to use as the contrasting colour in a hat for a friend.

Since I now owed Gen some socks she requested self-striping socks in blue and green.

I hope this is what you had in mind!
I always enjoy dyeing self-striping yarn. It's fun to run back and forth across the apartment stretching it out and winding it back up again.


Here are all my yarns wound up. I've already cast on Gen's new socks which will be my bus knitting this week.

I hope everyone's having a great weekend. It's minus 28 here with windchill so I'm going to snuggle up with some knitting in front of the tv for the rest of the day :)

Candy Socks (Adriana)

I finished my Candy Socks this weekend!






(Taking pictures of your own feet can result in some funny angles)

Details:
Pattern: Spiral Book Socks from Summer 2007 Interweave Knits
Yarn: Deegu in the colourway formerly known as Tulip Garden
Needles: 2.5mm Addis
Date Started: June 2nd (ish), 2007
Date Finished: June 17, 2007
Notes: I fell in love with these socks in the magazine but I'm not big on knee highs. They are a lot of work and I have larger than average calves so that means doing extra math and needing more yarn... Then I saw a shortened version on Ravelry which used STR and I really liked the way the spirals broke up the colours, similar to Jaywalkers in that respect. I decided to do the socks toe-up since that is my way and I wanted to use some of my lovely Deegu. The pattern is really straightforward and lots of fun. This is a very stretchy pattern so I had to adjust my stitch count (to follow the actual pattern. I had sized it up slightly unnecessarily).
The pooling of the yarn was a problem so I had to alternate knitting with both ends of the yarn. It still pooled but people seem to like the swirly effect which was a happy accident.

Since I had faithfully finished the Candy Socks I was allowed to cast on for new socks using some of my fun birthday yarn. With so many choices it was hard to decide but with Heather's nudging I decided to start Coupling from the new Knitty with their recommended yarn, Sea Wool.


All prettily wound up


Toe and first two pattern repeats.
I am in love with the sock!! I'm not certain about the yarn yet (it's different than the 100% merino I'm used to working with so it's taking a bit of getting used to) but I absolutely love the pattern. It is very straightforward and oh so pretty!! I've christened these "Coupling-at-Sea" Socks which is just dirty enough to be fun :)
I foresee this socks knitting up really quickly, which is good because I've got lots of projects waiting in the wings!

Birthday Swag (Adriana)

I had a very yarny birthday earlier this week. I'm so lucky that my friends know me so well to get me such yummy yarns! I feel quite overwhelmed by all the goodness and I don't know what to knit with first!


From Heather and Gen, this is Fleece Artist Merino Sock in Mahogany. I love that shock of red.


Heather and Gen also gave me this beautiful FA Sea Wool, colour unknown (possibly Origin). I've heard so many good things about this yarn; I'm so excited that I finally get to play with it.


After I admired her Regia Strato socks, The Jane got me some of my own! This is Granite, a discontinued colour, which has a lot of meaning for me growing up as I did on the Canadian Shield. My favourite provincial park had mountains of granite. I'm not really sure why Regia named this colourway that as the granite I grew up with was not navy with steaks of purple and blue, but I still love this colour. I may dye myself some true granite sock yarn one day (my mom has promised me some granite rocks to serve a inspiration).



As a birthday present to myself I bought 5 balls of Rowan Calmer in Plum (colour truest in second picture) from Redbirdknits. I hadn't ordered from there before but it was an excellent experience. Since it was my birthday I got a discount on the yarn (or would have if it hadn't already been discounted) and I got free shipping. The yarn arrived two days after my birthday which was very speedy! This yarn is destined to become a fun and flirty summer top and shrug (if there's enough left over).

The yarn that Heather and Rosemary dyed for me as part of the dye challenged arrived within days of my birthday so they felt like presents too!


I asked Rosemary to try to match the colours of my dress and I think she did a fantastic job, especially given the truly terrible picture I sent her. I think the turquoise section is my favourite.



I was trying to find some colours that were out of my usual comfort zone and I asked Heather if she could try to reproduce STR Azurite. I think she did a great job.

These both used Knitpicks Gloss as the base yarn. That 30% silk definitely gives it a glorious shine.

Just so you know it hasn't been all stash acquisition around here, I have managed to get some knitting done too. I finished the Birthday Bolero (pictures to follow after the recipient receives it) and I whipped off a One Skein Wonder too fast to bother blogging about it.

This is a gift for a friend who may or may not read the blog.

The current project on the needles, and the reason I haven't yet cast on any of my scrumptious birthday yarns, are the Spiral Boot Socks from the new IK. After two friends independently said the yarn looked like candy these have now been renamed Candy Socks. The yarn is my own Deegu.
First sock in progress

Finished first sock

This yarn pooled something terrible. I need to do more experimenting with colour sequence in an attempt to stop the pooling. I even alternated both ends of the ball in an attempt to break up the colours; as you can see, I wasn't that successful. Still, I do love these socks.

With so many beautiful sock yarns at my disposal, it's all I can do to keep plugging away on the Candy Socks. I keep myself motivated by thinking about all the stunning patterns I can make when this is done, like this, this and this. (Knitty came out at the perfect time for me!) I haven't yet decided which pattern I'm going to do next and more importantly, which yarn is right for which pattern. If you have any suggestions, shout them out in the comments.

All in all, this was an excellent birthday :)

Deegu (Adriana)

Pretty much as soon as I started knitting I was fascinated with variegated yarns. I quickly learned (after an unfortunate pair of wrist warmers) that complicated designs and multicoloured yarns don’t work together. I was able to give up busy yarns for larger projects but I couldn’t do it for socks. I love the stripes of Regia and Trekking, the perfect variegation of Koigu. My dislike of pooling has kept me from purchasing any STR but I still drool over the Blue Moon website. Lorna’s Laces’ tendency to pool wasn’t enough to keep me from grabbing some in Wisteria as a memento of my trip to Seattle last year.
Given this adoration of variegated sock yarn it’s hardly surprising that I quickly ventured into the world of dyeing. My first attempt was crude, making use of some pink and red Kool-Aid. Heather was the recipient of this sweet-smelling skein.
Rosemary introduced me to proper acid dyes last spring when we dyed together in her basement.
Here is what I came up with.


Pacific NW Coast


Top: Flames
Bottom: Green/purple stripes (I was less than inspired)


Tulip Garden (currently being made into Spiral Boot socks from the new IK).


Clapotis Inspired (made into these gauntlets)

After languishing in my stash for almost a year I finally concluded that the first three really weren’t me and they have gone to live with sock-maker extraordinaire, SpillyJane (check out her Rib and Cable Socks. They are stunning).
More dyeing has occurred since then. Heather received dyes for her birthday from Rosemary and I got some for Christmas from my mom. My sense of colours has improved; I’ve gotten better at selecting colours and shades that I will actually like after the initial high of the dyeing process has worn off.
Here are a few of the other yarns I have dyed:


Dyed per Rosemary's specifications as part of the yarn dye challenge (more from us about this later. For now you can check it out on Rosemary's blog.)


Though Gen hasn't been fully converted to sock knitter yet, I couldn't resist gifting her with some handdyed sock yarn for her birthday. Hopefully some gentle encouragement is all she needs to get back to socks.


This was made by dyeing part red and part bright pink. When the colour looked too bland for my tastes Sam encouraged me to splatter it with a darker colour we had on hand. I think this more subtle colourway would be perfect for cables.

I got my invitation to Ravelry (username “Aphrodidee”) last week and much of the weekend was spent photographing my stash and adding pictures of it and my projects to the website. Talk about an excellent resource. The creators truly are brilliant. No wonder it exploded when knitters found out.
As I was inputting the information about my stash I decided to make my handdyed yarns official by giving them the name Jane had coined: Deegu. So if you want to see my yarns and what I’ve been making with them you can look it up on Ravelry. How cool is that?!?!

This ends my rambling about variegated yarns. You may now return to your life :)