Finished this pair last evening.
I can’t sit in front of a TV without something in my hands to work on. Knitting socks is mindless (except when doing the gusset or rounding off a toe where I have to keep track of the decreases).
Purple/Turquoise Socks
They didn’t look at all like I thought they would based on the variegation in the yarn. I hadn’t anticipated the striping – thought the colour changes would be more solid.
These, too, are just finished. They were a delight to work on – the pattern as it emerged was interesting and kept my interest, even on the second sock which I usually find boring to knit. Also it was easy to find the repeat to start the second sock.
Peach Socks
Once finished on to another pair. Here’s the yarn I’ve started using. The purple for cuff, heel, toe and I’ll be interested to see what pattern appears from the variegated yarn.
Yarn For Next Pair
Wimbledon has taken over my life for the past ten days! I don’t watch all the tennis matches but I am interested in a lot of them. So my time has disappeared and I haven’t accomplished much except some sock knitting while I’m watching. The pair I’m working on has another two evenings of work left in them and then I’ll photograph them and post the image.
As far as quilting goes – I’ve started working on the silk quilt – It will consist of an offset inner panel constructed from solid strips interspersed with pieced strips (with the piecing seams going in opposite directions creating a sort of chevron effect). Before beginning, I backed all of the silk dupioni fabric with “Sewer’s Dream” (a high quality sheer, fusible, washable, polyester interfacing) – to stabilize the silk which otherwise frays dreadfully. I have enough strips, both solid and pieced, assembled – but I’m only about 1/3 of the way through assembling that inner panel. Surrounding that panel will be solid strips of the bronze background silk.
Under Construction
I don’t know why, but I’m having difficulty making much headway with this quilt. Tomorrow it’s the women playing at Wimbledon (I prefer watching the men play) so I should be able to get back to work on it.
Yesterday, I took a day off completely to visit with two friends who are attending the Scout Canada Jamboree being held in Nova Scotia this year. I drove out to the site to pick them up early in the morning, brought them back to my place so they could shower and do laundry. Then we went out for lunch, did a bit of shopping, returned to my apartment to relax, have tea, and a light supper before I drove them back to the campsite for the remaining three days of camping. Brave women, let me tell you – aside from the 5,000 youth (and 1000 adults) at CJ’17, there is mud, and long hikes to tents, meals and toilets, and ticks. They smuggled me into the camp to have a cursory look around – I was happy to get back home. I’m too old for that sort of outdoor experience although the youth and adults all looked to be having a wonderful time. My connection to Scouts Canada is that for the past five or more years I’ve been involved in the program development that’s been underway – these two women and I were the driving force behind the preparation of the Scouter Manual. Now that program implementation is in full swing, I’m just on the sidelines watching how the rollout is progressing. Hence my interest in visiting the camp.
Andrea, one of the women, was wearing her outdoor hat day before yesterday when a scout commented on the “face” on the side of her hat! Needless to say, I got a photo – here it is!
Face
A nice clear “face” it is.
So socks, and quilt – I’ll keep working at both and share photos when I have something to share. Men’s semifinals are on Friday, final on Sunday. Then about a month until the US Open and two weeks of disruption, again.
Finished this pair of socks last evening. Been working on them for a couple of weeks – a pair of socks (women’s size 7-8) takes me on average 25 hours. I worked on these a bit while I was away. I already had the first sock completed. I was just past the heel on the second when I packed them to take with me. I got the gusset done while I was away. I did most of the finishing of the foot these past two evenings. I enjoyed working with this patterned yarn and the blending colour for cuff, heel, toe was a perfect match – that doesn’t always happen.
Opal Yarn
I started a new pair last evening as soon as these were off the needles.
Striped Socks
Finished this pair last evening. I enjoyed knitting this yarn – an interesting pattern that moved along quickly. The yellow contrasting yarn is such a sunny colour – it brightened up the variegated blue/yellow making the sock feel happy.
Comfort Yarn
Finished last evening. I had intended knitting the heel with the golden yarn I used for cuff and toe but given the spot where the second gold stripe on the leg showed up, I thought a contrasting heel would be more interesting so I dug through my yarn stash and came up with this dark green (almost dark grey).
Worked out well.
Socks From New Zealand Yarn
A friend recently brought me a couple of 50g balls of New Zealand sock yarn from Australia – I decided to make it up into socks straight away.
This variegated pattern, as is all of them, dependent on the number of stitches you’re knitting. I started with 72 stitches and got one pattern for 20 rows; I decreased to 68 stitches and got a second pattern; then I decreased to 64 stitches for the lower leg and the foot which resulted in a third pattern. With a yarn like this, dyed in very short segments, the difference in patterns is very noticeable. In most of the other variegated yarns, the dyed portions are of much longer length so the pattern isn’t disrupted by a change in the number of stitches. What emerges in this yarn at 64 stitches is the lime green spiral with blue patches and short red stripes.
The yarn I began with last evening changes colour every 4 rows so the number of stitches doesn’t make a big difference in how the design knits out.
Comfort Sockenwolle with Cashmere
Finished last evening. Slow going on these ones. I’d started them just before going to Toronto to have something to work on while I was there. Didn’t spend much time knitting. Resumed working on the first sock when I got back home, but the cold laid me low and I didn’t do much knitting for a number of days. Finally got going seriously about ten days ago, knit my usual 2-3 hours in the evening, finished the first sock and then the second. These socks are sized to fit a man wearing a size 9-10 shoe. I have a couple of recipients in mind.
I loved working with the Comfort Sockenwolle (Sock Yarn) with cashmere – lovely and soft and fine enough to work up with an even tension. The “denim” stripes (next to the darkish brown) invited a denim yarn for cuffs, heels and toes. They’re lively, but not so outlandish that a conservative man wouldn’t wear them.
My needles are empty at the moment but I’ll start the next pair this evening.
Opal: Moments If Love
Finally a yarn with a detailed pattern. Much more enjoyable to work with. Ran into an interesting problem – I finished the first sock, matched up the start for the second, but 15 or so rows in, the pattern was suddenly different. That will happen if there’s a yarn break when it’s being balled – there’s a knot and the pattern picks up further along. In this case, there was no knot – just about eight rows of pattern quite different than the rest and then the pattern picked up again. So needless to say, the pattern in the two socks doesn’t align. I guess they’re for someone who’s daring enough to wear unmatched/matched socks.
jmn 