Third time's the charm?

Started this sock for the third time- just not happy with the toe as it was and I knew it would continue to bother me. Good thing; this version's much better. Never going to be ready by the birthday though...

Sock Talk

So much easier with the long circular...

conversation with an 8th grader:

Yo miss, what are you making?

me: a sock

him: a sock?

me: yes

him: people can make socks?

More babies, more socks

Another Devan knitty sweater on the machine with hand finishing- this time in a Red Heart (i think) self patterning sock yarn. I'm not in love, but it's cute enough and it's done in time for me to give it to the student in one of my college classes who just had a baby. Started the socks again since I wasn't thrilled with the first start. As you can probably imagine, I'm waiting with great anticipation for the arrival of a longer size 1 circular needles- all the needles I own, and yet there are still gaps I don't realize until I need the missing needle. I prefer the Magic Loop method for socks, though I can (and have) done them with 2 circs, 3 or 4 or 5 single points, or even in the round on a sleeve needle like this one. I find the long circ method a lot more portable and less fiddly, personally. I started these toe-up because I'm designing them and want to make the leg as tall as possible, so I measured the yarn into 2 balls of each color (using an old postal scale- one day I'll treat myself to a more accurate digital model) and started from the toe, and we'll see how far I can get before running out of yarn.

Scarves and socks

Okay so I've been hideously slacking on my posting to this blog. I HAVE been knitting, though. I did a pair of ponchos for a friend's babies (and of course

failed to photograph them before giving them away- hope to get some shots of them in the ponchos soon to post). I had my fabulous personal photographer take some shots of

me in my knitwear for my website- here are a few of my favorites: (and they're all versions of the same scarf pattern from my book, Double Exposure:

Plus, I decided to make some socks for said photographer for his birthday, which is frighteningly close. Well, I knew I wanted red and black yarn, with something to add a little depth. I thought the hand-dyed and tonal versions of Stroll from Knitpicks would do the trick but without having seen them in person, I was nervous, so I ordered the regular solid versions as backups (frighteningly close, remember?). Then I needed to upgrade the software I use. Then I realized I didn't have the long circular I wanted to do it on. So little by little, these socks are getting more and more expensive- but worth it..

So in the end I decided not to make ANOTHER Zimmerman 2-needle baby sweater but instead ANOTHER sock yarn Knitty baby sweater. I "cheated" by making the pieces on the machine, and then doing the rolled edges by hand- that took as long as doing all the sweater parts on the machine. I'm satisfied with the sweater but honestly not thrilled; the yellow section of the yarn had dark shadowing on it that made it look a little stained or something, but that was part of the yarn. I definitely will have some self striping sock yarn on hand and wouldn't hesitate to whip it out of the machine with the hand edges again- I think I get hung up sometimes on details. After all, the sweater is the gift, the machine is hand run- does it matter if I use 2 needles or the machine?!

Done.

Next.

Repetition

I wasn't surprised when I opened the Spring issues of Interweave Knits and Vogue knitting and found big features in each on lace knitting. After all, it's the Spring issue. But it was kind of weird when both mags had big feature articles on Kitchener stitch. It's funny how that happens in knitting- I remember once I designed a sweater in blue and white with the word for "peace" in many different languages knitted in. A few months later, Dale (I think it was Dale) came out with a sweater in blue and white with the word for "peace" in many languages knitted in. It wasn't exactly the same (of course) and even the concept must have occurred to us both independently since they must have had it already in production when mine came out, but it was a very weird coincidence.

Of course, sometimes repetition isn't a surprise. I just found out that a dear friend at work added a baby to her family and I wanted to whip out a baby sweater over the weekend, so I don't want to design something from scratch. What did I come up with? Yep, Zimmerman's 2-needle sweater (aka the February sweater) with a solid body rather than lace. (It's a boy and while I think gull lace is fine for a boy, especially in blue, there are those who disagree, and I don't know where the baby's parents fall). I have to get out of the Zimmerman baby sweater rut, but it's fast and almost automatic by now and I usually have something on hand in the right gauge... and if it ain't broke, as they say...