Elegy for the first sockotta socks

Found a picture of the ones that the airlines lost. If only they were stolen, I'd have a hope that someone was wearing them. But they probably ended up in the dump. So sad. Finished April 2004. Gone January 27, either Raleigh-Durham or BWI.

Socks for Soldiers

I joined the yahoo group: socks for soldiers. Pretty cool thing they're doing, but I would just like to say for the record that the plethora of word documents makes it really annoying to try to find anything. It's easy to see how information can silt up over time. It's obvious, too, that people keep asking the same questions over and over. I guess you're supposed to buy the yarn from the founder/manager/sarge but I really didn't want to - for one thing, I do not want to commit to anything right now as far as getting things done. Another thing is that I have a particular soldier in mind for these. The next pair might go to him, too, or to the group. Not sure.

This yarn is on the approved list and I'm hoping it can be dyed or the person I have in mind will take them in white since he currently wears white cotton socks. This is Regia 4-ply.

Bwak, bok, bok

How do you spell the sound a chicken makes? I'm ready to crochet and cut, but haven't yet. I will bite the bullet when I get a chance.

One for the frog pond

I was trying to do something like the gray one that worked so well, but longer, and with a different neck for variety. I was going to make a square neck, but I'm out of yarn, sigh, and this is exactly like another sweater I made, I'm going to frog it.

WIP: Green-Orange-Blue Sockotta Socks

My favorite blue sockotta socks were lost by southwest airlines (never check your favorite socks), so these were to be the replacement. I cast on at ASIST last fall but this is as far as I've gotten due to school work and stuff.

FO: Moebius Shrug

This is using some of the indiecita alpaca, double stranded from the immaculate stash. Based in part on something from a catalog, but I just knit a 4ft long scarf, starting with a provisional cast on, and then did one twist, and a three needle bind off in pattern... crappy picture, but there you go. This was finished ~12/9/2007.

Butterfly Super 10 Gray Summer Sweater

I finished this probably some time last fall, but I guess I never posted a picture of it. I really like how it turned out. I just made it with 0 ease and based on my measurements. I decreased twice in the front and twice in the back to make darts instead of just decreasing at the sides. The top front is a regular lace pattern from my stitch calendar. I used the sweater workshop guidelines to design it.

This is the yarn I bought in Toronto at SLA2005.

FO: Double Eyelet Rib Socks

Trekking XXL yarn bought on a field trip from a conference in Charlotte, NC. The eyelet rib comes from the 365 Stitches a Year Calendar, June 14. These are for me -- I'll have to try to take a picture of them on during daylight.

Ball and chain socks

I had some yarn to make my dh socks and couldn't figure out what to do so these are with afterthought heels (using Knitting Without Tears instructions) and the slip stitch chain pattern from the 6socks knitalong (sorry I totally can't keep up with that now... I've given up!)

I suggested naming these chains of love, but the old dh liked ball and chain better :)

Another dinosaur sweater

I knitted this between semesters for my niece. I knit another one about 10 years ago for my other niece and swore I'd never knit another one. It's so cute, but I hate weaving in ends! This is out of Lion Brand Wool Ease. Not the best picture but the child wouldn't stay still :) Of course, we should have taken a picture before giving it away. The scales are 3-D, too.

Whipped up Tychus for my brother in law

For Christmas. I made it about 2" shorter and only needed 4 sections. I used double stranded Plymouth Encore from the stash.
Update: I meant to include the link, oops. This is from Knitty. Find it at: http://knitty.com/ISSUEsummer05/PATTtychus.html

Lazy... but still knitting...

My Dad wore through the soles and toes of his merino fluted banister socks - despite the fact that I carried wooly nylon along... I think this is the second time I repaired them but last time was just the heel.

I didn't take any pictures, of course, but what I did was pretty elaborate. I first tried to just darn the hole but it wasn't working. So I...
- cut off the sock just at the end of the gusset and at the end of the leg (with scissors, of course)
- raveled back to have an even row, knitted back so that the measurement down the leg and down the foot was the same as what it was before
- joined the leg with the foot by doing a three needle bind off of the center 1/3 of the stitches
- did an afterthought heel (following Knitting Without Tears instructions) -- which is actually a toe
- measured again, and realized how long the foot was (oops), cut off and unraveled and made a new toe

I did the same thing for the second one, because it was worn through at the toe. I made them just a smidge longer so that he is less likely to wear through them again.

I then got some "dimensional" paint from the hobby store, and painted treads on the bottom.

Hopefully they'll be safer and last longer this way. Of course, the new heel will be much easier to replace -- when I need to!

This re-knitting bit was much better than darning. Less painstaking and more tricky to figure out. My cup of tea.

Subtle Sock WIP

This is from the Pattern-a-Day 2005 calendar. Using Invicta. I got so tired of avoiding knitting the ^&*( lucky wrap sweater that I gave up on it for now... I then spent a couple of days trying to figure out what to do with the Butterfly super 10 in ice gray and finally just started on some socks. I frogged the mosaic socks I started for the 6sox knitalong and started on these. I got the first sock done in about a week so I feel much better :)

The pattern calls for a longer leg but this length is better for me. It also didn't call for any pattern on the toe, but I thought they looked a bit too subtle. The one problem is that it calls for 64 stitches (fine) but it's a 6 stitch repeat -- ooops! So increased 2 after the last ribbing round and then decreased extra at the gusset. Of course I forgot that when I went to do the toe so it's a little wierd at the end of the row. They're already a little big so I didn't want to increase 2 again.

FO: Samus

This is from the Chaco I got at Maryland Sheep & Wool 2005. I still haven't put the zipper in.

Been knitting (since the end of the semester)...

But haven't been taking pictures. I finished Samus using Chaco 100% worsted weight. I'm now back to the #$%^ clover leaf wrap. It makes me not want to knit, but I'm going to try to finish the first sleeve before I give up, again!

Finished Dr. Who

I finally finished this scarf... in plenty of time for Christmas. I used Knit Picks yarns and made the scarf for under $30. The colors aren't perfect, but close enough, I think. The yarn's worsted weight, so the scarf is really long. I only used 40 stitches across, though so it wouldn't be too wide. I used tomato, hyacinth, fern, pumpkin, snickerdoodle, chestnut, and mist. I think I'd use another red if I did it again.

I still want to knit as much but with the grad school class this fall there was no time. I'd like to make myself a sweater in the break before classes start again, but my immediate thing is to make myself wrist warmers for work.

Working... slowly....

I.. must... knit... (in a William Shatner type of voice) aack. The world is conspiring against my knitting and my fingers itch to knit. I started to fantasize about hiding under my desk at work to sneak some knitting... So besides the wrap sweater I'll never finish, I've got two WIP. 1) is the socks from the 6sox...



The other is a Season 12 Dr. Who scarf (who knew there were so many different ones just worn by Tom Baker?). I went with the less expensive Knit Picks wool of the andes. It halved the cost, but the red and the yellow aren't really right. Everything else is fine. Here's the raw yarn, I'm about 2 feet in but I don't have a picture yet.
I did get an extra purple (hyacinth). I was less than $1 away from free shipping so... anyway, I figure I can make a hat or mittens.

A Prairie Home Companion Lives of the Cowboys (on knitting)

pointed to on KR

ARGH!

I wrote out all the instructions for the doggie toy and they're gone... and my template is still messed up. ARGH!

Anyway, I did actually finish the gray socks. I skipped the last of the 6 sox socks so I'm waiting to start the next socks until October 1 when they unveil the next pattern.

Finally a FO: EV's new toy

I designed and knitted EV a little squeaky man. It's out of 100% lambs pride heavy worsted. I felted it (a lot). It's stuffed with fiber fill and has a squeaker in the tummy. You can buy packs of 4 at the pet store for $2. If I had to do this again, I would have made a smaller tummy and a bigger head. There's only one seam in this -- on the one arm. That's where I stuffed it. I went about this the hard way to avoid seams (and therefore weak points) but that's usually the way I do things -- over engineered and wierd.
Here are the pictures:

Note the blurred tail! That's so funny, she was wagging fast enough to show up as a blur :)

I will post the pattern but I'm not really recommending anyone do it this way!