October – knitting round-up / confession

October has been a busy month! The store has been getting steadily busier as we head into prime ‘knitting season’ and home life has had the usual variety of birthdays, minor illnesses, kid’s parties and other incidentals all adding  to the day-to-day excitement!

Knitting has been ticking along though, sometimes in the foreground and other times most definitely in the background as ‘life’ takes over. This ‘pile’ represents the progress, or otherwise, made during this crafty month…

There’s been a bit of progress on the blue ‘correspondent’ scarf…

Quite a lot of progress on the wonderful ‘Kozue’ scarf/wrap in the beautiful green ‘Past & Present’ Posh Yarn…

The remnants of the balls of Sublime used for a couple of reversible squares for a secret cot blanket (ssshhhh….)

and perhaps most excitingly, my Chipmunk is ready for steeking!!!

More on that next week – I’m going to make sure that you’re all holding my virtual hand when I get to the point of cutting the current sweater in order to transform it into a cardigan!!

The skeins of Hazel Knits – in the fabulous ‘hoppy blonde’ shade – are just about ready to cast on for my next project, the Madeline Tosh ‘Hay’ cardigan which I am very excited about…

What the observant among you may have noticed is the very obvious lack of socks…

Hmmm, now the ’round-up’ becomes a confession!! After all my contemplation and deliberating over the choice of yarns, the subtleties of shades of pumpkin and saffron, the excitement over the imminent Through the Loops Mystery Sock pattern…. I have failed *miserably* to even cast on!!! A sock-less Socktoberfest seems certain given there are only 2 days of October left (and one of those is going to be consumed with a fifth birthday!!) Oh well, there’s always next year…

A mystery no more!

Well, I finally finished the Mystery Socks started on October 1st to celebrate ‘Socktoberfest’. They were a pleasure to knit – just my sort of project with the right combination of interesting construction and yet easy enough not to have to pore over charts late into the evening! I used some Natural Dye Studio Dazzle sock yarn that had been waiting for the right project and the results are a very soft, toasty pair of socks just in time for some chilly weather…

Olive anyone?

teeny tiny sock needles!

Yes… it does feel a little like knitting with cocktail sticks!

I’m road testing these 10cm double pointed needles from Knit Pro… and I like them a lot! After a couple of rounds feeling like I’d somehow been transported into the pages of Gulliver’s Travels I soon developed a nice easy rhythm and in no time I’d got half a sock – and Chris has now stopped asking me if I’m going to do some teeny tiny knitting…

They are smooth and pointy – as you’d expect from Knit Pro – and the short length does make for very speedy, tidy knitting as well as making the sock-in-progress very portable, which is always handy!

(Especially when you are up against a deadline… yes, that is indeed a Through the Loops Mystery Sock that you are spying… ssshhhh!)

The yarn is Natural Dye Studio Dazzle Sock in Aqua… and it is gorgeous!

Socktoberfest 2009!

I have a penchant for hand knitted socks, indeed a pair of socks were my first ‘finished object’ as an adult knitter. It was the desire to knit socks from wonderful yarn that forced me to make the leap from ‘learning to knit’ random squares to a full-on project (and one with 5 double pointed needles, heel turning and toe grafting to boot!)

pomatamus

I usually have a pair of socks on the needles… small enough to carry around lest there should be an ‘opportunity to knit’ while playing at a friends house with a total of 6 children between us (there never is but we live in hope) or watching over my 3 at the local park (there never is but we live in hope), complex enough to keep me engaged – I like a little bit of lace and the odd fancy heel flap to up the ante!

And here we are again… Socktoberfest. The annual month of celebratory sock knitting. For me, celebrating the change in season to sock-wearing weather (we often have that in July here as well but we don’t celebrate that!) and welcoming in the ‘proper’ knitting season – there’s something not-quite-right about knitting on the beach unless you’ve got a tweed blanket over your knees and a Thermos by your side.

This year I have a Mystery Sock on the needles courtesey of Kirsten from Through the Loops who hosted a similar Knit-a-long (KAL) last year to rapturous applause.  Somehow, dividing a sock pattern up into 4 chunks a revealing them week by week results in a perfect pair of socks, complete & resplendant with no hint of the dreaded ‘single sock syndrome’. It’s only day 4 of the KAL and sock 2/clue 1 is almost complete so I have high hopes. I’m using a particularly wonderful shade of Dazzle sock weight yarn from the Natural Dye Studio…

Dazzle - aqua

Just to make Socktoberfest just that little bit more enjoyable we’ve also got 10% off all our sock yarn for the whole of October – so there’s no excuse not to be just as excited about socks as we are!