SockapalOOOza socks!

My socks arrived from my sock pal last week! Her name is Katie and she made me some awesome socks. Here are some pictures:







Too bad the weather has just turned to hot to wear them! But I'm looking forward to padding around in them on the cold hardwood floors in the winter. I really love the color.

In other knitting news, here are some shots of the shawl I'm working to wear to Bridget's wedding. The first shot is the first half of the shawl blocking and the second is the blocked half compared to the (still-being-knit) second half.





Once the second half is done and blocked, I will graft them together (so the shawl is symmetric) and then knit the border. BTW, the funky yellow yarn at one end is waste yarn that was used as a provisional cast-on so I can use the live stitches later.

The pattern is the "Print O' the Waves Stole" from Eunny Jang's blog. Her patterns are all really interesting and this one is free!

Back to school work with me.

My favorite knitting blogs

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted. I have been knitting regularly and have even finished a bunch of stuff, including 2 pairs of socks, the reknit on Dad's sweater, and about half of a sweater. But between distractions and my camera batteries kicking the bucket, I guess I've let the knitting blog languish. I will have new pictures soon.

In the meantime, I give you my favorite knitting blogs to read. Maybe I'll try to put them on the sidebar soon.

In alphabetical order:
And She Knits Too!
Carrieoke's Knitting Blog
Grumperina goes to local yarn shops and Home Depot
Knitting Escapism
My Fashionable Life
See Eunny Knit
The Blue Blog
Yarn Harlot
Yarn-A-Go-GO
and of course
You Knit What??

I know Nick probably can't figure out why people read these things, but I get a fair amount of creative inspiration and new project ideas from these things (all except for You Knit What, that is). And after reading some of these for over 2 years now, it's strange but cool to feel like I know people that I've never met.

I check in on many more than this, but these are the ones I look forward to reading.

PS - I never get over the fact that the spellchecker on Blogger doesn't recognize the word "blog".

I hope my sock pal is pleased

My socks for Sockapaloooza are finished! First one was started Friday before last, finished on Wednesday; second one was started this past Friday, and finished Sunday evening during my dinner/Oscars break from studying for my public exam. It's amazing how fast I knit when I'm stressed. They are shown here amidst my practice exams and scribblings. Let me tell you, tax incidence is a bitch.


Details:
Yarn: Dancing from Knitpicks.com in “Jig” color, 2 balls
Pattern: Gentleman’s Fancy Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush
Needles: US size 1, 4 dpns
Comments: I really liked this yarn. The pattern works well for variegated yarn, not too much stitchwork to get lost in.

A shot of the bottom, you can see the light blue pooling, which I really like:



One of the stitches close up:



And to prove that they are stretchy and fit more than just my midget feet:

One foot down

After receiving my yarn last Friday, I finished the first sock on Wednesday. Too quickly to even post in progress pictures. After waffling so many times, I eventually decided on the first pattern I had wanted to make, the gentleman's fancy sock from Knitting Vintage Socks. I used the yarn called "Dancing" from Knitpicks. My sockpal mentioned that she liked Sockotta, and this yarn is almost identical. Between the stretchiness of the yarn and the ribbing in the pattern, I feel confident that the sock will fit well.

Here's a picture I took before I grafted the toe:

Why aren't there any good sock patterns for big feet?

I've picked and then rejected a pattern for the sockapaloooza socks about a half dozen times now. I thought about several in the new book I bought, Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush (there are lots of great socks in the book), but I would have to dramatically alter the patterns because they are all (even the men's patterns) fairly small. I never realized the lack of sizes in sock patterns before. Virtually all patterns are written in one size with most running about 7.5 inches in circumference and the maximum is around 9 inches. Not big enough for my sock pal or Matthew, when I get around to making his socks.

I really don't feel like rewriting a pattern or coming up with a new one, but I think I may have to. I wonder if the yarn is stretchy enough to fudge it? Hmmm.......

Still waiting for the sock yarn

Damn postal holidays! I want my yarn!

The boys had a video game night on Saturday. I played a few games, but I'm truly horrible at that stuff, so mostly I sat on the couch, drank beer, and knit. This allowed me to make more progress on the diamond lace sweater. I have finished the front and back, but I have to do some figuring for the sleeves so I haven't cast them on yet. And I broke a Denise cable! I pulled to hard last night while shifting a sweater being knit in the round and broke it. Doh!

Modest progress

Mostly because I followed the directions and got a ridiculously long sweater front that I had to rip back about 10 inches. Short torso, people!


I haven't started on my socks for Sockapaloooza yet (bad knitter), but I blame the huge move we just completed. School is also pretty busy, and I *should* be working on some papers right now (bad student). But I'm a pretty fast knitter, so I shouldn't need three months to knit some socks anyway. I have an idea of the kind of socks I want to make, so as soon as I get some yarn and the book that contains the pattern, I'll be good to go.

Eeeeeeeeee!

SockapalOOOza starts today! I got my e-mail and am starting to think about yarns and patterns. So exciting!

I got smart

I always blog in the evening (night owl, you know) and pictures don't come out well in dim, compact fluorescent lighting. But I was home today and had the novel idea to take the picture THEN and blog LATER. Genius.

Here's the progress on the lacy sweater. The color is still a little off, but I don't have time to photoshop it. You get the idea.


Let's hope my new-found brilliance last for at least the rest of the evening - I have lots of hoity-toity papers to digest.

On the needles

I have 3 projects on the needles now. I'm such a wild woman. The first is the other blue sock, and it's couple of inches long right now. I found the 5th needle hiding in the Interweave magazine that contains the pattern, marking the page.

The other 2 are sweaters from a new pattern book I bought on Friday (yes, I cast on two sweaters on the weekend before the big move). It's the Fall 2003 Adrienne Vittadini book and it has a lot of nice stuff in it. The first is this beauty in an eggplant colored cotton:


I got the yarn from ripping apart a JCrew sweater that Matthew had been given and never cared for.

The second is this sweater:


I have been looking for a good sweater pattern for some time for the Jaeger Luxury Tweed I bought from Elann. It's a strand of sage green and a strand of pale yellow twisted together. I'd give you a picture of the yarn, but the lighting is no good right now. The gauge on this one is substantially different from the pattern, so I'm making some modifications as I go along.

While socks are fun to knit, nothing beats knitting a sweater as far as I'm concerned. It's much more meditative than sock knitting; a casual stroll in the park as opposed to a jog around the track.