My school colors

About half of the projects on my plate/in mind at the moment are secret, and as such can't be discussed. Makes for pretty boring blogging, not to mention that I've been abandoned by my husband for a week and am trying to wrangle two children on my own. However, there has been some knitting going on, mostly late at night with the companionship of Vampire Bill et al.

First thing I've been working on is the first installment of the Knit Love Club 2010 sock club. It arrived a couple of weeks ago, and I've been loving it.

The yarn is Alchemy Juniper, colorway "Rumplestiltskin" (club exclusive), and the pattern is by Socktopus/Knit Nation braintrust Alice. The yarn is lovely (if a bit splitty for doing k4tog/ssssk, but what wouldn't be?) and the exact color of roasted butternut squash. Really. See?

The pattern is fun to knit and looks way more complicated then it is. I've had to do some adjusting to make the leg a bit longer and make sure I don't run out of yarn, but I'm well into the foot now and I think I'll have plenty. Maybe even some leftovers for The Blanket.

Project #2 is the big spinning project. I try to do about an hour a night on this at least, and I've now filled five bobbins.

That's the good news. The bad news is that I still have this much fiber left to spin, and only three more bobbins available.

That bump on the left is 171 gr and the one on the right (much compacted) is a whopping 472 gr (half of what I started with). Ooof. I was considering trying to get the spinning done during the Olympics, but we're going out of town for seven days for half-term holiday, and the wheel is not invited to Tunis with us.

Instead, last night I started swatching for this for the Olympics. I have serious color choice issues in stranded knitting, so I'm going to knit this vest (which I've been lusting over for ever) instead. I did one swatch last night, and have ruled out three colors and one needle size so far, so we'll see what happens. There is much more swatching for another secret project in a yarn I've never used before, but I think I want to marry. And so on and so on. So apologies for the lack of new, shareable content, but it may be a couple of weeks before I get to anything more interesting then the socks, purple yarn making and random Fair Isle swatches.

A bit of a spree

As those of you on Ravelry know, a number of designers chose/are choosing to donate some of their proceeds from pattern sales to various organizations offering aid to Haiti. Using their nifty "Help for Haiti" tag, you can browse the patterns, or filter the results to patterns that you've already favorited or queued.

The ease with which I was able to find patterns that I had already noted down meant that I dropped quite a bit of imaginary PayPal money on patterns. Including:

Snow White
Gosport
Honeybee Cardigan
The Manzanita Collection
Francie
Northman Mittens
Triskele Mittens

And I don't think I'm done yet. A number of designers (including me) are extending the donating period well into February and even later. So get out there and start buying people!

The next question, of course, is what do I cast on first with my four sweaters worth of stash (at least). Any suggestions?

Two socks at a time

A couple of years ago, there was a very cool article in Knitty about knitting your socks two at a time. And not just the usual two at a time, but double knitting your socks. Otherwise known as knitting two socks inside each other using two balls of yarn and alternating which set of stitches you're working on. I was intrigued by the idea, and even had some yarn that I'd mentally tagged for some socks for myself knit this way, but never got around to doing anything about it.

Over the holiday, I realized that Devil was sorely lacking in the handknit sock department. We picked through the bags of scraps I've got for the SYB, and she pulled out several that appealed to her (distinguishing characteristic: pink). I wound each scrap into two balls, and set off.

To simplify things, I knit the cuffs separately so I didn't have to worry about purling in double knit, and then put all the stitches onto one US 1/2.25 mm circular needle. After a few rows, the double knitting seemed pretty straightforward - this was greatly assisted by the fact that I didn't try to match the repeats on the yarn (which was a mix of variegated and self striping), so the two sets of stitches were largely different colors.

I made sure to check every couple of rows to make sure I hadn't totally screwed up and knit the two socks together. There were a couple of bobbles, but nothing too dramatic or messy.

Then I reached the heel. I must admit to having a mental block at the idea of trying to double knit the heels, so I took a page from Elizabeth Zimmerman's book and decided to do an afterthought heel.

Instead of cutting the knitting after picking up the stitches, I knit in a piece of scrap yarn, similar to the way the stitches for a mitten thumb are set aside. It's hard to see in the picture, but the scrap yarn for the heel is there (click for note). I knit a bit past that point, and realized that in order to get the foot length right, I really needed to put the heels in now. I picked up stitches on either side of the scrap yarn in the outside sock,

unraveled carefully,

and started knitting again with the heel yarn.

I did decreases at the edge of the heel every other row until I had about 16 stitches left,

and then I grafted the remaining stitches together. Ta da!

Then I did the inside sock. Each heel added about 1.75 inches to the length of the foot, so I now know how far I have to go before I can start the toes. Of course, with the advent of the massive sampling/swatching project of the last week, these poor things have been neglected in my bag for a while. Hopefully I'll get them done before half-term so Dev has some cozy socks to wear.

The first FOs of 2010

A couple of items that, as of today, are on their way to the Windy City. First up:

Pattern: Star Crossed Slouchy Beret by Natalie Larson
Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in Stone Blue, a gift in last year's WHMU (WAMSKAL) Festivus gift exchange, 210 yds/100 gr. I used just barely over half a skein (48 grams in hat, 46 grams left).
Needles: US 10/6.0 mm and US 11/8.0 mm for ribbing and rest of hat respectively.
Start/finish: 3/1-6/1/10, making this the First FO of 2010
Comments/mods: no mods, only comment is that 1) I love this yarn (to-die-for soft), if only for squooshy soft things like hats and cowls and 2) I was surprised at how much I liked the fabric knit on needles two sizes larger then called for on the label. I am going to try and squeeze another hat out of the remaining 46 gr using just the size 10 needles. If it doesn't fit me, it might fit one of the kids someday.

FO #2:

Pattern: Ocean Toes by Cat Bordhi, Cedar architecture from her fabulous book
Yarn: Dream in Color Starry, about two thirds of a skein, which would round up to about 300 yds.
Needles: US 2/2.75 mm
Start/finish: 6 Dec - 10 January 2010, making them the second, although longer process, FO of 2010
Comments/mods: this yarn was repurposed after my failed Viper Pilots experiment. The yarn was meant for my best buddy Aquaphilic, and as she is something of a fan of BSG, I was hoping the Viper Pilots would do the trick. Unfortunately, my choice of needle size led to a Viper Pilot that was a bit on the small side. So on to Ocean Toes, also an appropriate choice given her athletic history.

The yarn was lovely to work with, and the sparkle is just fun. We'll have to wait for an update from Aquaphilic as to how well it wears in the future.

The only modification I had to do to adjust the pattern to fit a women's US size 10 (approximately) was work an extra 12 rows of stockinette before beginning the toe decreases. Here's hoping they fit!

Both of these lovely items are winging their way to the cold Midwest as we speak, so I'd better get cracking on another winter hat. I still need one!

FO: Eunice

Pattern: Eunice, by Cookie A, from Sock Innovation
Yarn: Spindlefrog Sock yarn, 75% superwash merino/25% nylon, 425 meters/100 gr, colorway "Bronte"
Needles: US 1/2.25 mm, magic looped (!)
Gauge: Hunh? Close enough...the pattern is written for women's medium, but with the lace it stretches enough to fit my 9.5" circumference, size 41 feet.
Start/finish: 12 Oct - 31 Oct 2009 (just in time for SAM!)
Comments/mods: Once again, a screamingly fast pattern from Cookie A. The yarn was some I picked up in September at Stash - their Yarn of the Month selection - and I love how the colorway works with the pattern. Since the colors are mostly quite similar (dark green, black, grey) the lighter bits make a nice accent instead of muddying the pattern.

There is a bit of pooling on the soles, but it's not noticeable on the top of the foot, so big deal. The yarn was lovely to work with - a bit on the thinner side of fingering/sock weight (similar to Trekking XXL), but nice and soft, and the dyeing is lovely. I hope it holds up well!

I did change the toe, yet again, since I don't like the steady decrease rate that Cookie uses. Instead I decreased 4 stitches every third round 4 times, every second round 4 times and then every round 4 times. Same number of decreases called for in the pattern, just distributed slightly differently. Other then that, I didn't make any modifications but if I knit these socks again, I will do more repeats on the leg to make them a bit longer. I have a ton of yarn left, even after knitting them long enough for my feet, and while I don't typically like long socks, these are a bit short even for me. I must also mention that I'm now two for two on patterns with errata from this book. I hope that's not true for the whole thing, but I will be sure to double check before I start Installment #3. Which is looking like it will be in December, since this month is not conducive to an entire pair of adult socks.