Sock a l’orange!

Procrastination mode is in full swing at the moment, with only a couple of essays in between me and the finish line I seem to be losing more motivation for uni work than I’m finding.

However, this does mean that I have oodles of energy for knitting and I finally got round to finishing my first ever socks. I wrote about them a month back but they’ve been in the bottom of my project bag in a half finished state ever since!

Well I took the liberty of an afternoon off this week and finally got them finished and off the needles…..

What do you think?

They’re most definitely not perfect – the toes are grafted with kitch-sort of ner-stitch meaning they are very very messy and a bit lumpy but I learnt a lot which is great and I’m not totally put off sock knitting!

My Rams and Yowes blanket is coming on nicely (the steeking disaster now firmly behind me). The garter stitch border is incredibly dull but it does make for excellent TV knitting so I’m actually getting on with it – about half way through the first repeat! Hopefully we’re still on target for an August finish!!!

thanks for looking

lots of love

Shoe xx

A steeking disaster

So I finally finished the colour work section of my Rams and Yowes, I literally can not speak highly enough of this pattern, I love it. I already want to make another one and I haven’t finished this one yet. Easy enough to do in front of the tv, difficult enough to keep you interested. The Jamieson and Smith yarns are just fantastic – so lovely to work with.

Anyway, given that the dissertation was finished bound and handed in I thought I’d steek my blanket. Now I had an incling it wasn’t all going to go to plan because of where I’d changed the yarn (in the middle of the steek – even know I don’t know what I was thinking – it probably says in huge bold letters somewhere in the bible of knitting – DON’T CHANGE YARN IN THE MIDDLE OF A STEEK!!)

So I put in my crochet reinforcements, I’ve used some leftover malabrigo sock – which is a lovely strong sock yarn and perfect for steeking.

Reinforcements in, and as anticipated the yarn changeovers caused me a massive issue and when it came to cutting I ended up with a few holes in the steeked section as it started to unravel. PANIC!  I spent the rest of the afternoon hand sewing the edges of the blanket to reinforce them, before tentatively picking up my stitches for the boarder.

I read up quite a bit before picking up stitches, and went for 3 out of 4 (which worked out around 147 stitches on the first side so I stuck to that!) no idea how it will look and i’m knitting on a 100cm circular so can’t flatten it out.  I’ve knitted the first 4 rows of garter and it all seems to be holding together ok – and I hope that once the whole boarder is done  and reinforced then it will be even better!

Another outcome of my steeking faux pas is that I couldn’t just tie off my ends to be hidden by the boarder (as they ended up on either side)  so these will all need at least partially sewing in!

That said, I’m totally in love with it! The boarder is coming along slowly but surely and it’s epic TV knitting (about all my brain can cope with at the moment!) I’m still hoping to have it finished by August, but given that my to-do list appears to grow every day i’m not particularly hopeful!

Lots of love

Shoe xxx

Twiglet Mitts

Twiglet Mitts (photo courtesy of http://www.imake.gg)

Carrying on with my theme of knitting small things, I have finally got round to starting Twiglet Mitts. Now I may be slightly biased as they are designed by my wonderful friend Martine of iMake fame, but I think they are absolutely beautiful and I’m super super proud of her for being so wonderful and fabulous!

The pattern is well written and easy to follow, they are a lovely quick knit (although you wouldn’t think it given that i’m only half way through the first mitten – knitting socks and writing dissertations has rather gotten in the way!) and a great pattern for a small 50g skein of sock yarn.

I’m knitting mine with February’s SSS skein (a beautiful lavender colour that has this lovely subtle variegation . I’m loving the pattern so far. I’m magic looping mine, although I’m contemplating putting them onto DPNs. I’ve always thought that I didn’t get on with them but actually have been fine knitting socks on them and find them less faffy than magic loop (a complete turnaround from my previous thinking!!)

Hoping to get them finished over the next couple of weeks (by which point I had better not have an excuse to wear them as I am rather fed up of the cold weather!)

lots of love

Shoe xxx

Life’s too short to knit socks…….

My previous sock knitting exploits have been disastrous to say the least and when you can get five pairs of socks for £2 in primarni – why go to the bother?  I don’t need hand knitted socks. I won’t enjoy hand knitting socks. I wouldn’t enjoy wearing hand knitted socks……..

Oh how wrong I’ve been!

March’s SSS (if you haven’t looked at the SSS – do it – it’s amazing) was a gorgeous blood orange colourway. Now you all know my obsession with orange – but with a 50g skein and nothing that i could match it with I was a bit short of ideas….so in the middle of finalising my dissertation I decided to knit a pair of socks!

SSS3:

I have small feet (a UK 3-4) but I still wasn’t sure if I could get a pair of ankle socks out of one skein so I looked for a pattern for some foot/trainer socks. I found two I thought looked lush Tennarisukka and Mouches, both gorgeous free patters available through Ravelry. In the end I went for Tennarisukka as I thought with the style of yarn this pattern would look better.

Well it’s safe to say I’m now addicted to sock knitting, and i just LOVE how this yarn has knitted up – like an orange tweed almost!

I couldn’t believe how quickly it knitted up and how lovely it felt on my foot!

Anyway – fully aware of second sock syndrome I cast on the second sock straight away and am about half way through, but assignments, job interviews and preparing for exams has put any knitting that requires concentration firmly to one side until May so it will perhaps be a while!

I actually think I would have had enough yarn (just) to squeak out an ankle sock so maybe next time I’ll be a bit braver! 50g sock yarn skeins are actually great. Martine has a fab blog post with patterns for under 200yds of sock yarn (I have no idea what she’s talking about with me being an enabler!!)

lots of love

Shoe xxx

Sheep Carousel

Considering the volume of uni work I have to complete at the moment, I’ve been doing rather a lot of knitting.

I mentioned in a previous post about a lovely Raveller who had asked whether she could buy some of my leftover stash yarn! Well a couple of days after I posted it off, I got the wonderful surprise of a gifted pattern (I made sure to tell the Raveller off as there was no expectation of something in return for the yarn).

The pattern was Sheep Carousel by Kate Davies. It’s a gorgeous sheep tea cosy that I have had my eye on since it came out. What i love most about the pattern though is the number of techniques you can learn and practice in just one pattern including:

• provisional cast on
• cable cast on
• i-cord
• i-cord bind off
• vikkel braid
• steeking,
• and obviously colourwork.

Whilst I have done the odd provisional cast on and a few colourwork projects – the others were all new!

Vikkel Braid rows 2 and 3

The Vikkel Braid had me stumped and I needed a couple of attempts. I struggled to find a good You-Tube video but I found this blog post about Vikkel Braids which in the comments section below had a little helpful ‘this is where you put the yarn’ snippet which made it all make sense!

Reinforcement stitches in

Having finished the main body it was time to steek! Scared! The instructions on the Kate Davies website are amazing and as they were only small sections I quickly had the reinforcement stitches in place and tried not to think about it too much before cutting through the stitches. I kept looking at it expecting the whole thing to unravel! It didn’t!

I’m really pleased with the finished object, it doesn’t quite fit on the teapot straight and it’s a bit snug but I think that is the yarn I’m using (it’s not my favorite at the moment – pulling out my provisional cast on caused a snap in the stitches under it which I had to fix and i find it quite splitty but the colours are amazing) and I hope with a good block it will be fine. Actually it might be the teapot!!

The pattern has used less than 25g of each colour making it a great stash buster for those odds and ends of 4ply you have kicking about. Literally can not recommend highly enough!! #enabled!

lots of love

Shoe

PS: sorry about the quality of the photos – I need to get better at actually taking photos again rather than just iphone snapshots!!

Naughty!

I’ve been a bit naughty the last couple of weeks – despite being on a strict budget I’ve been buying yarn……I didn’t mean to it just sort of happened…….what I will say is that I’m not disappointed by my purchases.

Firstly, the gorgeous Loop London had a sale last weekend, they had Malabrigo Sock at just £9 a skein and well it would have been foolish not to stock up on what is definitely my favorite yarn for shawls……I resisted the temptation for another skein of teracotta (the most beautiful orange yarn you’ll ever meet) and went for three alternative gorgeous shades, Ochre, Violeta Africana and Azules. Strangely I really like the look of the three shades together and had a sudden urge to knit some sort of fair ilse sweater vest………which probably isn’t a good idea so maybe they’re more destined to become socks or shawls…..

Secondly, I treated myself to The Yarn Yards Small Skein Society (SSS) Subscription. I have been wanting to join a sock yarn subscription for ages but hadn’t found one that you didn’t have to pay for in advance, something I just couldn’t stretch to, and I wasn’t sure i’d really use up 100g skeins that quickly! The SSS is 50g skeins and works on a monthly rolling subscription so you can opt in and out at any point.

I plan to knit Twiglet Mitts (read about them here or the Ravelry link is here) with my first skein!  Hopefully the skein will be a colour that will go with my coat – oh the excitement of not knowing!

What is extra special about the SSS is that for an extra couple of pounds you can order your yarn subscription to come with ChocOnnaStick a must for any hot chocolate or just chocolate in general fan, a subscription with yarn AND chocolate – what could be better!!!

Anyway – after all the naughty-ness last night a perfect opportunity arose for a little bit of kindness. A lovely Ravely member contacted me about some leftover yarn that I had in my stash wondering whether she might be able to purchase it off me as she was short for her project.  I was more than happy to help and suggested rather than giving me money she could give a little donation to charity – which she kindly agreed to do so I’ve packaged the yarn up ready to post this week! How Exciting!

Lots of love

Shoe xx

Rams & Yowes

Here it is. My latest HUGE project.

Rams and Yowes is an amazing colourwork blanket/shawl by the amazing Kate Davies (of ‘Owls’ fame) which uses all 9 of the natural shades of Jamieson and Smith Shetland Supreme Jumper Weight.

2013 is a big year for me and I’ll be moving come July to a new home to start a new job in a new career but right now I have no idea where that new home or new job will be, and in all honesty I’ve been feeling a little unsettled. I fell in love with the pattern back when it was released and it sat in my favorites for ages, the fortune of a little spending money from Christmas and the uncertainty of the year ahead made for a perfect combo to get this beautiful blanket into my hands!

Initially i was going to change the colour scheme, but after hours of scouring through colour schemes on Ravelry I decided that to do this blanket justice it would have to be done in the original yarn with which it was intended to be made.

Progress is quicker than I expected, colourwork is so addictive I can easily find myself knitting 7-8 rows in a night. The yarn has a quality which somehow makes colourwork seem effortless……and it’s great watching the pattern come through.

So far I’m just starting the third row of Yowes, hampered slightly by realising that I’d started the wrong yarn which involved unknitting 7 rows….glad I did though as I whilst normally with my knitting I am not overly fussed about little errors (makes it look handmade!!) the colour error would have affected the look of the blanket!

Sure there’ll be a few more posts on this to come – but for now i’m back to the dissertation!

lots of love

Shoe xx