Tufts baby socks

In addition to the 3 pairs of adult pairs of socks I made for Soctoberfest, I also finished this one pair of baby socks. These were super fast, cute, and at only ~80 yards of fingering weight, they are a great use for leftover bits of sock yarn.

Pattern: Booties by Sansi Rosner
Pattern Source: Not Just Socks
Size: 6 months
Yarn: Mind's Eye Yarns Merino/Tencel
Yarn Supplier: Mind's Eye Yarns
Needles: US 2 / 2.75mm

After I graduated, I asked Lucy if she could dye some sock yarn in the colors of Tufts University. The result has been sitting in my stash, waiting for just the right idea. The length of the color repeats looked just perfect for baby items.

So I took out my copy of Not Just Socks to check out the coordinating items for the baby sweater in there. (You may remember the smores sweater I made with that pattern.)

I made the same modification to these socks where I skipped the rolled edge, which I just can not bring myself to like if followed immediately by ribbing. Instead I jumped right into the garter ribbing. Besides the fact that these are really socks, not booties, I have no other real complaints about the pattern. They are cute and unisex. You could lean one way or another with color choice, but the pattern is just right either way.

Fall Socks

The Fall 2004 Issue of Knitty is famous for a bunch of really great patterns such as Shedir and the Clapotis. This pattern has very seldom been knit in comparison (only 18 currently on Ravelry including this pair). They were the perfect solution to having just 170 yards of this gorgeous hand-dyed though.

Pattern: Lou Lou Comfort Socks by Amy Swenson
Pattern Source: Knitty Fall 04 Surprise
Yarn: Spunky Eclectic Super Sport in "I <3>

Modifications: I used a masterbed pathway heel because I found the short row heel too shallow and a then ribbed cuff with sewn bind-off rather than the picot edge. I think a picot edge is cute, but the version used in the instructions is not my favorite.

My housemate loves these colors but is allergic to wool and can't wear anything made from it, so I knit her a decorative mini sock with the leftovers. You can see the colors better in this one. They really are the colors of Fall in New England!

Pattern: Alpaca Sox Mini Socks by Classic Elite Yarns
Needles: US 5 / 3.75 mm
Modifications: cast-on 20 sts

Does this coound as 3 more socks for Soctober or just 2? Either way, I feel like I am making progress on the sock yarn stash.

Two Pair Down!

Salvbard gets a fair number of my socks, and he is a good recipient in that he wears them all the time. So a few days ago when he came to me with two pairs with holes, I wasn't shocked. I was pleasantly surprised by just how much wear they got before they did wear out the toes. Fortunately I had a little yarn saved for each of these.

First up was the younger of the two pairs. After replacing the toe so that this pair could go back to live in the drawer.

This pair was made in April 2008 from souvenir yarn from Germany in April 2007. They are one of his favorite pairs, and get worn a lot, in boots no less. So these lasted 18 months despite quite frequent use, and they do not have seem to have significant wear anywhere else.

Leo-colored Socks

More sock knitting has been happening, though mid-term preparations has been slowing down the blogging about them.

Yarn: Lana Grossa Meilenweit 50 Uni in color 1102
Yarn Supplier: The Knitting Kitten
Needles: US Size 1s/2.25 mm

Just plain old stockinette socks, but as we have established stockinette is good for stress. And self-striping yarn is good for stockinette socks, so this was perfect.

PoA Slytherin Scarf

I have been sitting on this post for a month waiting to get better photos. I guess it is time to accept that that is just not going to happen.

After the move I needed a mindless project. And this was a project that I have wanted the finished product of for a long time, but it was too boring to knit normally. In this case, however, lots of stockinette in the round was just what the doctor ordered.

Pattern: Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban Scarf by Lauren Kent
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash (color 801)
and Nashua Handknits Creative Focus Superwash (color 01)
Yarn Suppliers: Woolcoot & Co. and Windsor Button respectively
Needles: US 8 / 5.0 mm

This knit grew significantly just after soaking and laying flat. Although it was not stretched at all, during blocking it easily gained 8-12 inches in total length. Now it falls just past my knees. I don't have much to say about the pattern; it is simple but well written. And now I have a super warm scarf to get me through the Boston winter.

Locust Socks

I hope that everyone in the US had a great Columbus day. Even if he just "discovered" an already populated continent, a school holiday is still welcome. It was a surprisingly beautiful day, with that perfect chill edge of autumn. And that meant good light to take new FO pictures.

Here we are 12 days into Socktober, and I haven't gotten around to mentioning it once! Well at the beginning of the month, I cast-on a pair of socks in honor of the celebration. These would not have taken so long if I wasn't working on another pair of socks as well.

Pattern: Yarrow Ribbed Socks
Pattern Source: Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush
Yarn: Yarn Ahoy Superwash Handpainted Merino Sock
Needles: US 0 / 2.0 mm

Modifications: leg and foot done in stockinette with a wedge toe.

I started this pattern to try something new, but after doing the top ribbing I was unhappy with the way this variegated yarn looked in ribbing. I really wanted to try the german heel in this pattern though. It was fun to do, but not hugely different from a standard heel-flap. I would have done the french toe too, but I was just too tired to figure out how to convert it to 2 at a time magic loop whe I got that far.

This yarn was one I traded for on Ravelry for the huge leftover ball of yarn from my sister's wedding shawl. From that person I had the yarn name, but not the colorway, so I started doing some research. It is almost exactly like Yarn Ahoy's Sour Grapes colorway, but with brown instrad of purple. (Accidental over dyeing of purple with the neon green?) I have decided this version of the colorway makes me think of locusts, particularly like in this picture. (Obviously if you are bug-phobic don't click through.)

So are any of you celebrating Soctoberfest at all this year? I am hearing a lot less on the blog-o-sphere for whatever reason.

Little Red Sweater

One of the challenges in the HPKCHC last month was to knit something that was made from at least 50% plant fiber. Looking around my stash (well virtually anyways in Ravelry), I noticed that I had 5 skeins of Cascade Pima Tencel that I had bought years ago to make a sleeveless top. Looking closely at the yardage though, I was sure I could get a small sweater out of it, especially if I was willing to have half or 3/4 length sleeves.

Pattern: 3-Hour Sweater
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Pima Tencel
Yarn Supplier: WEBS
Needles: US 5 / 3.75 mm & US 8 / 5.0

Modifications: You know there had to be a bunch, right? Especially since it was (loosely) based on a vintage 1930s pattern.

I cast on 134 stitches in the round, rather than the smaller suggested number and in pieces. I also used a smaller needle size than suggested because of the "paparazzi effect" many Ravelers had complained of when using size 10.5 needles.

I extended the bottom ribbing to for from the beginning of my hips to the start of my bust, then switched to stockinette just before starting the arm holes. I changed this to have a scoop neckline instead of the one suggested in the pattern. And rather than using a set-in sleeve, I adapted this to have a raglan shoulders by using a crocheted provisional cast-on for the sleeve stitches. This also allowed me to knit the sleeves last, making them as long as possible with the yarn amount I had.

The result is a very fitted sweater that I could try on all along the process to make sure it fit the way I wanted it too. It also, not surprisingly, took significantly longer than 3 hours to make. Totally worth the time though, it was still very fast!

My only complaint was that the yarn, which is lovely and soft, not to mention an amazing color, produced huge amounts of fuzzies that are now covering basically my entire house. My girlfriend who lives with us even found some in the shower one morning, even though the sweater had not ever been in that room. Washing it helped, and putting it in the dryer by itself helped even more. I still don't trust it enough to wash it with other things yet though.

Mitered Mittens

I have been trying for the last year or so to knit more from my book stash. I have all these wonderful pattern books, and I really wanted to be using them. Additionally, I have been spinning again the last few months, which has motivated me to think about knitting my handspun.

So it was only natural that these two thoughts would collide. The result is a pair of super-fun mittens. This yarn was spun back in July, and was a single stand of handspun plied with a strand of silver sparkly sewing thread. It is always neat to watch how handspun will knit up , and the way the roving had two strands of differently colored pencil roving held together gives this a heathered look, similar to what it had been if I had plied two singles together.

Pattern: Mitered Mittens (May) by Elizabeth Zimmermann
Pattern Source: Knitter's Almanac
Needles: US 5 / 3.75 mm
Yarn: my handspun

Modifications: My mitered sections were only slightly larger 13 stitches each, because my handspun was finer but I have small hands. I did a shorter cuff because I was worried about running out of yarn in the same color sequence. Also I made a thumb gusset similar to the ones done by Kathryn Ivy. And finally I did a more rounded area by the fingers.

I was a little worried when I spun this yarn that the sparkle would be too garish, but it really just adds a little interest and fun. This pattern was great for really highlighting an interesting yarn, and I could see myself making it again.