Eleven projects for 2011

Insane porpoise is insane. Ehem.

1. Eleven pairs of socks - a la Yarn Harlot, I've pulled out and bagged 11 socks-worth of yarn (making a significant dent in my sock yarn stash, glory be!), and chosen patterns to go with them. I'm only budgeting 11 because a) one pattern is a pair of knee highs and b) ten days of the month of June I'm expecting to be knitting-free.
2. Eleven sweaters, including (not in any particular order)

• 3. Pas de Valse
• 4. Handspun Vine Yoke Cardigan
• 5. Rollneck sweater for Devil
• 6. The River Run Pullover (Rav link), for which I will also spin the yarn*.

7. Spin more during the 2011 Tour de Fleece then I did in 2010 (39.4 oz)
8. Get my first full fleece (figuring out what to do with it is 2012's project)
9. Design a shawl
10. Submit a design to Knitty
11. Design a spinning/knitting project for Ennea Collective

OK. Now that it's all down on (virtual) paper, I'll be peering out the window every time the doorbell rings to see if the nice men in white coats have come to take me away. What a completely ludicrous list. However, if you don't aim high, you don't make as spectacular a puddle when you crash land.

What about the rest of you? What are your fibery goals for 2011? Let me know in the comments, and I'll send some lucky random person a goody from my stash (handspun anyone?). Post your comments by midnight CST on January 8th, and I'll draw numbers. Happy New Year everyone!

* I need a little lie down and a stiff drink just contemplating this project. It needs to be done in March. Approximately 2000 yds of yarn in 9 different colors. Fuck me sideways with a chain saw. That is all.

Summertime, and the blogging is absent

Sorry about my unplanned hiatus. I've spent the last two weeks in the US with family, and the last two days trying to shake the jetlag before I get on yet another plane (this time for work). But I do have lots of finished objets to share with you.

First off: I did manage to spin up my yarn in those few days at home between trips. I ended up with 96 yds of bulky/superbulky superwash merino,

and about 175 yds of somewhat overplied Targhee.

About 91 yards of the merino became this,

and 170 yards of the Targhee became this,

which still needs the ribbing redone on smaller needles so it doesn't fall off quite so easily. The patterns are written and off to my wonderful test knitters, and I hope to have them available for release soon. Along with some better pictures!

I also managed to finish 99.9% of the mind-numbing stockinette on the Aran Necklace camisole. And then I ran out of yarn. Thankfully I was in the hidden section of the hem, and I had some DK weight random cotton lying around.

Last night's bout of jet lag-induced insomnia meant that this baby has it's hem sewn down and is blocked and drying on the guest bed as we speak. Hooray! Of course, autumn has arrived here in the UK (unlike in New England where it was ludicrously hot) (ok, it wasn't Texas hot, but it was hotter then England!), and it's not likely that it will be warm enough to wear on it's own, but that's ok. Especially since the armholes dip down below bra line on the side. Hmmm...

Finally, I finished my first pair of socks in a couple of months. I kind of lost my sock mojo at the start of the summer holidays in July, but 7 hour plane rides do allow for some concentrated sock time. I can only show part of these, since they're a design that I'm submitting, but they were great fun to knit. I liked the yarn alot too - Cherry Tree Hill Supersock merino. I think the colorway was "Blueberry Hill", which I liked. US 1.5/2.5 mm needles, 8.5 stitches per inch.

I wrote this up and sent it off to Sock Madness for next year, so the picture is deliberately obscured. Just in case you thought I was doing some drunken knitware photography.

So, two weeks vacation and no blogging means three completed original designs, and one summer tank I can't wear until next June. But there's a lot going on this fall - the iKnit Weekender is in a couple of weeks, and yesterday on my bike ride I hatched out a great and completely insane plan to knit sweaters for six people in my family (including me to be fair), four handspun, one cabled, one colorwork, by next March. Methinks that any Christmas knitting to be gifted has already been knit this year...

Drummossie

So a few years ago, I knit a pair of entrelac socks. This pair, in fact, in some hideous Trekking XXL colorway that included black, grey, chartreuse, yellow and kelly green. They were something else - fun to knit, definitely challenging, but they ended up too small for me. Entrelac definitely does not have the side-to-side stretch of stockinette, so I gave them to my Mom. But I wanted to knit a pair that would fit me, and I wanted socks with entrelac on the top and stockinette on the sole.

After a bit of mucking around, I came up with these.

They ended up being for Himself - Trekking XXL for the entrelac, and a bit of Knit Picks Essential to finish off the heels and soles. I wrote the pattern up and submitted it to Knitty, but it didn't fit for them. Then last summer, I saw a call for sock designs for Sock Madness IV (which I've mentioned a bit before), and sent in the pattern for these. They liked it, and yesterday it was released as the final round pattern for this year's Madness.

The construction is either ingenious or diabolical, depending on your mood. You start with the toe, and then put half the stitches on a holder. The other half are worked as a flat entrelac panel for instep up to the ankle. Then you provisionally cast on the rest of the stitches for the leg, and knit entrelac in the round up to the cuff. The heel flap and sole are worked down from the provisional cast on, and are attached to the instep flap at either side.

So far there are six or seven pairs underway, including the four finalists. It's been a bit over 24 hours, and I'm thinking someone is going to be finished pretty darn soon. Which is amazing, since entrelac is not exactly a fast way to knit anything.

If you're on Ravelry and want to watch the contest wind down, the group board is here. I will be releasing the pattern in three sizes in the near future, so keep an eye out for it here and on Rav.

Lions and tigers and cashmere, oh my!

In the midst of plying a bobbin a night, I've been getting some work done on the Knit Love Club May socks.

Halfway through repeat #1:

Halfway through repeat #2:

The leg calls for 2.5 repeats, but I think I might call it good at 2. I didn't swatch and I'm a bit concerned that my gauge is a little too big with the needles I'm using, and I don't want to run out of yarn.

And I must say that, sadly for my budget, I may not ever be able to knit with yarn that does not contain cashmere again. Oh dear!

FO: Nice GAMs!

Pattern: GAMs by Taya Schram, for Sock Madness IV
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, colorway Irving Park, 1.6 skeins (~350 yards)
Needles: US 0/2.0 mm
Start/finish: 30 April - 25 May 2010.
Gauge: 10 stitches/14 rows per inch
Finished size: 7.5 inches from cuff to bottom of heel flap, 8 inches foot circumference (unstretched)
Comments/mods: The third pattern for Sock Madness. I've had this yarn sitting in the stash for more then 5 years, and it was high time to move it along. I was very entertained by the way the yarn pooled into stripes on the leg and foot.

It broke up a bit around the heel, but came back together nicely. I knit the 77 stitch version of this sock to try and make sure they would fit my size 10 (US) feet, and the stretchiness of the stitch pattern meant that I had no problems getting them on.

The heel design is called a strong heel: there's no heel flap, but you increase two stitches on the sole/back of leg stitches as you go down, making a kind of reverse gusset. This makes it easy to carry the stitch pattern all the way down the back of the heel.

This was a really fun pattern to knit, with an easily memorized repeat, and I'm happy with the way it works with the fairly variegated yarn. I was a bit worried that the stitch pattern would get lost, but that wasn't the case.

These got finished just in the nick of time, because guess what arrived today?

May's Knit Love Club package. Some gorgeous yarn (Spirit Trail Fiberworks Sunna in "In Dreams"), a beading needle and a week package of purple beads. What you can't see from this shot is the rest of the fiber content: 75% SW merino, 15% cashmere, 10% bombyx silk. Excuse me while I swoon...