Looking Ahead

So, I (finally) recounted what I did in 2009 with the needles, now I need to look ahead to what I plan to knit in 2010.

• Finish two pairs of socks in hibernation.


• Hats for the local hospital nursery


• Start a Hemloch Ring blanket with my grandmother's yarn (don't feel like I have to finish it this year)


• Christmas stockings for my Little Man


• Crazy Monkeys socks to learn Eye of Partridge heel that my SIL raves about


• Best Friend Cardigan for me


• Pomatomus Socks


• New hats for the kiddos for next winter: Who? for Pumpkin and a striped hat for the Little Man

That seems enough to be getting on with for now. I have already completed one of the socks I started last year, even:

The pattern is Die Zaubersocken and the yarn is On Your Toes by Kertzer. Loved, loved, loved this yarn. It was smooth and shmooshy and shiny and this pattern, with lots of stockinette, showed it off so well. I got exactly what I wanted by a yarn and pattern pairing. :) I do, however, need to get a better grasp of sizing... I always push on a little too long before I get started on the heel, underestimating how much length the heel will add. The picture shows a bit of scrunching up from my socks being a bit too long. I will hopefully learn!

sock yarn does not count as stash!

I've heard it said before... sock yarn doesn't count as stash. Sure, it's a cute thing to say, but I didn't see the reasoning until now.

Sock yarn is intended for socks. I know, that's obvious, but the statement has important ramifications. Yarn in any other weight doesn't have a set purpose. Lace weight could be used for a shawl, a scarf, a doily... Worsted can be bought in a small amount for a hat, or a larger amount for a sweater or afghan. If you find a fabulous DK (like I did recently: Rowan's Tapestry!) and you just go ahead and just buy some with nothing in specific in mind, you may not have the right amount when you choose a project. (Why I still haven't bought any Tapestry, yet.) You'll inevitably buy more than you think you'd actually use, because you don't want to come up short. A couple purchases like this and your yarn drawer turns into your yarn room... and a problem with over abundant stash. It's simply hard to know how much yarn to buy when you find something yummy, and it turns into stash.

Sock yarn, being intended for socks, is typically sold in amounts appropriate for a sock project. It is therefore easy to know how much you need. You can grab a skein and know that you'll pair it with a perfect pattern later and have the right amount. Sure, there are exceptions. Knee highs would require two skeins and mitts might need less. But, if you like knitting socks, the yarn is easy to just grab when something tickles your fancy and you don't have to feel any guilt about it spilling over out of the closet and all over your living room.

I like sock yarn for these reasons. And I can't wait to see the new skeins I just ordered that won't actually be stash. :)

Happy New Year

The Pumpkin's Christmas gifts were well-received! She has so little hair still that she's never worn bows, but I'm especialy fortunate (as a knitter) that she enjoys hats so well. I would like to have pictures, but I can't upload pictures to my computer just now.

My knitting resolution for 2009? To plan less. Last year, I had so many projects with deadlines on my queue that at times it started to feel like a chore, which is the last thing knitting should be! I got loads accomplished, but I think that 2008 will have been the only year that I tried to knit gifts for everyone for Christmas. (And I think the baby boom will slow down a bit.)

Unfortunately, my pregnancy isn't going as well as hoped and I'm sort of laid up for a while. It makes it hard to knit because I'm not supposed to be upright for long. And I imagine after Little Roo is born that I won't have as much time on my hands to knit (ha, you think? Thank you Captain Obvious...) So my slowdown on projects is partly practical.

But also, I want to have the freedom to pick up whatever strikes my fancy whenever it does. Last year, I had so many things planned that I had no room to grab a project or class that just struck me and I don't want that to happen this year!

Still, I did tons in 2008:
2 Big people scarves
1 Little person scarf
1 baby blanket
1 toddler dress
1 set snowman ornaments
1 set dishcloths
1 pair booties
9 baby/toddler hats
5 pairs socks

I completed a stuffed bear started in 2007 and
I started a toddler sweater for Pumpkin.

This year I will knit a hat for my new baby and a hat for a friend's baby. I want to also do the socks for my Mother-in-Law that I put off last year when I ran out of time, and I want to get started on an afghan I planned for our living room. That's all I have planned... for now! Everything else is just icing on the cake. (mmm... cake...)

Ever seen an elephant in a cherry tree?

No, because you can knit them with red toenails, silly.

I went to Susan B Anderson's blog today on a whim, and found out that she is going to be publishing a new book of toys! YAY!!! Her first book, Itty Bitty Hats is just amazing. It's like reading candy. I really cannot wait to see the new book. (Actually, I still need to see Itty Bitty Nursery, truth be told.) If her little knitted elephant is any indication, I think we're all in for a yummy treat! (Check out the Rav page for these elephants. Adorable. One person even took a photo of the elephant's bottom and it was the cutest thing.)

I finished my two-at-a-time toe-ups today. I have no pictures yet because I am ordering a pair of sock blockers from Knit Picks, as soon as I can call in my order. (Why must I call in my order when they have a perfectly good website? Because they don't have a perfectly good website, and I, like so many other knitters who want to give Knit Picks our moneys, can't get the checkout page to come up without sending up in a crazy loop back to the log in page. Grrr.) Once the much-desired sock blockers come in, I can take a picture that befits the beauty of the Queensland Collection wool. It's such a nice yarn and the variegations are so subtle and pleasing. In fact, of the four ladies using the yarn in my class, not a one got any pooling.

And while I decided I loved the yummy yarn I worked with on the sock, I have to say I did not enjoy the method. I like toe-up, mind you, but not so much the two-at-a-time. It certainly was satisfying to finish the entire pair at once and not have the Let Down That Is The Second Sock. But doing two at once is cumbersome. In my line of work (chasing after a 1.5-year-old), I need to be able to pick up and put down my knitting quickly before it gets yanked out of my hands and stuck in an electrical outlet, and with two socks hanging off the needles at once, the yarn get so tangled up that I have to spend five minuted arranging myself before I can dig in. No, not very practical for me, but as I said, I am so glad to have learned toe-upping and I will continue to explore that path. Maybe someday I'll be the crazy sock lady who knows every which way of doing every type of sock heel known to man. (And I'll still be cute, dagnabbit.)

Accio socks!

"Honey, what are you knitting?"

"[blah blah, whatever I'm knitting now]"

"You haven't knitted anything for me!"

[in my head:] "But what in the world would you actually wear that I could reasonably knit?"

Well, now I have! DH's socks are done and have turned out quite well. I have yet to receive an official report on how well they wear (because he hasn't had the chance to wear them yet) but they do fit him well. *phew!* And such a nice picture, to boot. He seems to like them. If he enjoys wearing them at all, I might even consider it a yearly anniversary tradition to make him a pair of socks. At any rate, he seems satisfied that I finally made something for him.

The yarn almost ran out on me. I need to figure this out. Poking around on Ravelry, I didn't see anyone else having trouble with this using this yarn. Why is this happening to me? Am I knitting at an impossible gauge? Is it because it's men's socks?

Well, in the future I need to do toe-up, two-at-a-time to avoid disaster. Good thing my LYS is planning some classes on this soon. That way, if I do run out, the ankle is a little shorter, but they're still socks. One toe-less sock would have just been silly.

What a girl knitter needs...

Is a way to surf Ravelry and knit at the same time. Overload! I can read while I knit, but being on the internet is hard what with all the clicking and scrolling. What bliss it would be to shop for new yarn while I fondle old yarn knit though...

It would also be nice to have a way to tink SSKs. Those are a real mess to undo.

DH's socks are halfway done, and I know this because #1 is complete (with the exception of end-weaving) and #2 is cast-on. The finished sock is a perfect fit. :D Which means, of course, that I'd better not throw it in the dryer, lest it not remain a perfect fit. (Oddly, though, my swatch--and yes, I made a swatch and washed & dried it--did not shrink a bit. If anything, it grew, which really blows my mind.)

Baa, baa, black sheep...

Anouk is complete! I put snaps on last night. I'm disappointed with my alignment skills, as the snaps are a little too visible for my taste. Still better than the dress gaping at her shoulder though!

I've started DH's socks and so far... so good! The Trekking knits up quite sharp in k3 p1 ribbing. (Could it be that I've used so much cotton lately that wool is surprising me? This must be why the Yarn Harlot loves wool because dang! It looks slick.) The top is k2 p2 for stretch and the ankle and top of foot will be k3p1 for a stylish look and a little stretch. I've slipped the 3 inches I have on DH's tickly feet and, well, like I said. :D

Dh wanted to order something from Amazon but it came up $5 short to get free shipping, so he asked me if there was something I wanted. Well, of course! Don't you know I have a whole list of knitting books I'm interested in as a matter of fact? I ordered No Sheep For You and should be seeing it soon. Exciting stuff, whilst I knit with a bamboo blend yarn...

(OK, I do ctach the irony of extoling both the sheepish and non-sheepish virtues of my Trekking simultaneously. Let's just enjoy the complexities of the thing, shall we?)

No Sheep For You!

I checked out No Sheep For You at the library last week and have pored over it. It is so amazingly informative about all the nonwool options out there and has patterns that capitalize on the properties of nonwool yarns. I am particularly interested in Eileen, Tomato, and the Drunken Argyle sweater (knit out of sock yarn!), because I just love argyle. (I really need to learn some intarsia one of these days so I can actually knit some...) I so want this book next Christmas!

Skinny scarf is all done. It is a freakish 5 feet long. I had no idea it was so long, all scrunched up on the circulars, OMG. It was a pretty stitch pattern and cotton yarn worked well, except the bind off was a little sloppy, I think. I'd like to wash it to see if it will lay flatter, but I'm afraid the navy yarn is going to bleed.

I just finished a class on Tunisian crochet, which I find much easier than regular crochet. I will be making the Stashbuster blanket using the technique. It was a more rustic, hand-made look to it than I normally like, but what a godsend project to use up (most of) the bucket of yarn I got from my mom & grandmother. It's really clever.

Teh Cuteness!

This might make me want to learn to crochet. I found it on an "Amigurumi" group on Ravelry and that stuff is amazingly cute.

I'm still working on DH's socks. Knitting socks with skinny sock yarn sure takes a long time. But I think it's pretty cool because it looks like "real" knitting (whatever that means.)

I Cheated.

I bought some knitted mittens for my daughter. I feel so guilty because I could have made mittens myself! But, I didn't want to knit mittens. Now that I'm a knitter, will I never be able to buy knitted things without feeling guilty?