FO: June/July socks

Pattern: Charade by Sandra Park
Yarn: Brooklyn Handspun Soft Strength, colorway "Persephone", from Knit Love Sock Club 2010
Needles: US 1.5/2.5 mm magic loop
Start/finish: 1 June - 15 July 2011
Comments/mods: This yarn arrived in one of my Knit Love Club shipments last year, and I wasn't sold on the yarn/pattern combination so it went into the stash. A year later, and it's become a lovely pair of socks.

This pattern is well written, with a really nice stitch pattern. The only change I made was to make the foot long enough to fit me. The socks are a bit tight around the foot, and not really my colors, so I think they're going to become a gift. If my grandmother were still around, I'd give them to her - I have fond memories of pouring over the Preppy Handbook with great fascination on our summer visits to her house, and this pink and green color combo would have been perfect for her.

I like the herringbone rib alot.

So, after two months almost, my June socks are finally done. Total pairs so far for 2011: 7, right on track. I've already cast on for August's pair - they're awfully fiddly, so I'm getting a head start.

Admitting defeat in the face of ridiculous odds

Not surprisingly, after the amount of time I spent not knitting this month, my June socks are not going to be done. Sad day. In fact, as of June 21st, they looked like this:

Which is not all that different from how they looked on June 10th, on my way to John O'Groats.

Oh well, such is life. Recent knitting time has been taken up with teacher gifties - numero uno (which is actually the second one I started) will be finished tonight,

which will let me get back to numero dos, which is about one third done. I'm hoping that garter stitch goes faster then stockinette on this one. The socks will just have to wait for July, and having one sock almost done will hopefully make up for the fact that the Tour de Fleece starts (gulp) this weekend!

FO: Bright red socks for May

Pattern: Lanterne Rouge, by yours truly, part of a set of four Tour de France inspired anklets I designed a couple of years ago
Yarn: Cascade Fixation in really, really, really bright red, 1.8 skeins, approximately 180 yds total in the socks.
Needles: US 1/2.25 mm for the foot and heel, US 1.5/2.5 mm for the leg
Start/finish: 1 May - 28 May 2011
Comments/mods: As this is my own pattern, I certainly can't own up to it being anything less then stellar. However, I did modify a few things (and found a few boo boos in the pattern that I'll fix once RAB is over and done with). First off, I knit the medium size for stitch counts, but used the length measurement for the large size. I did this because I was worried that the lace pattern stretchiness might make the size large too loose around the foot.

I knit the pattern as written for the first sock, tried it on, and realized I needed some adjustments for the leg - it was impossible to get on! So I increased 4 stitches after finishing the heel flap (instead of decreasing) and switched to slightly larger needles. That did the trick.

Finally instead of making these short, ankle-length socks, I kept going until I was almost out of yarn. I really like how socks made from Fixation fit and feel, but I hate hate hate knitting with it. It hurts my hands like nothing else. Sadly, there are now several partial balls of Fixation in my stash (as well as a couple of whole ones!) that I may just have to get rid of.

So, I am absolutely thrilled that after five months of 2011, I have five finished pairs of socks to show for it. I'm a bit worried that June is going to throw a spanner into the works however, what with this silly 953 mile bike ride I seem to be doing. But I think I've come up with a possible solution: Aran weight socks.

To be fair, using aran weight yarn seems like a huge cop-out, on many different levels. But here's my rationale: for at least 10 days next month (and probably more like 12 or 13), I will be too tired from riding my (lovely new, see in first picture) bike up and down the myriad hills that make up this damned island, or too busy lying on a beach in Cornwall trying to recuperate (please don't let it rain!) to knit a single stitch. And I'm also going to design these socks myself instead of digging in to the pile of SISC bags waiting upstairs (deadline is early July). So that seems fair, doesn't it?

Maybe?

Bueller?

The madness goes on...

This morning, my Sock Madness 5 design was released to the competitors.

Meet Argus Panoptes, shown here in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in "Blueberry Hill". I'm hoping to release this in three sizes sometime after RAB finishes (so late June), but if you'd like to see other peoples' versions and cheer on the madness, head on over to the Sock Madness Forever group on Ravelry. Go knitters, go!

At least something got finished in April

With all the rampant starting of projects (and willful ignoring of projects in progress - I'm looking at you River Run), I was sure I would end the month without any finished objects under my belt. Thankfully last week's 9 hours (cumulative) on the train to and from Scotland and a trip from London to Somerset yesterday meant that last night I grafted toe #2 of my April socks while getting all weepy watching Wills and Kate on the BBC1 highlights show last night*.

Pattern: Nornir by Caoua Coffee, the round 2 pattern for Sock Madness 5
Yarn: Woolcraft Superwash Sock Yarn, bought for cheap cheap cheap at my semi-local haberdashery in December
Needles: US 1.5/2.5 mm double points
Start/finish: 1 April - 29 April 2011
Gauge: I am steadfastly ignoring gauge in my socks this year because I'm largely knitting them for other people. These are for someone in the States, and if they don't fit the intended recipient, I'm sure they will find a happy home.
Comments/mods: No mods from the pattern, although I knitted the large (72 stitch) size instead of the smaller version. I guess I originally thought they would be for me, but the slipped stitch/ribbing pattern coupled with a slipped stitch sole makes for a fairly inelastic fabric. They might actually fit me, but they'd probably be a bit tight, so I didn't even try. Off they go for a present instead.

The pattern was very nicely laid out and clearly explained. The stitch patterns used do eat up a fair bit of yarn, and take some time. At least it seemed like it took a long time. The leg is 82 rounds long, but the stitch pattern compresses quite a bit, so they aren't very high.

The bad news: I'm in Somerset, 3+ hours from London, I will be here until Monday, and I don't have the May socks with me. Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!

* I was not terribly in to the whole Royal Wedding TM coverage by any stretch of the information, but was interested to see all the hoopla. Imagine my surprise when I found it all to be actually really wonderful - they were so sweet**, and I thought the whole ridiculous affair was fairly restrained as these things go***. Maybe that's a function of the Veddy British coverage that I watched - what was it like in the States?

** Must give huuuuuge kudos to Mrs. Wales, as the media circus has been unbelievable and I think she's nutso for having agreed to this whole thing in the first place. As an English friend pointed out to me, "Well, she must really love him." Amen.

*** My childhood memories of Charles and Diana's wedding includes a train the length of Westminster Abbey. That might be a wee bit exaggerated, but not as much as I'd like to think.