FO Friday - Dimple Done!

Pattern: Dimple soon to be available from Designedly, Kristi
Yarn: 1 Skein No No Kitty Kona Superwash in Graffiti (discontinued), DK Weight Merino
Needles: US 4 & US 3

I’m not big on pink. I would have never chosen this colorway myself, however, I think I will have a lot of fun wearing these with basic jeans and t-shirts etc. They are bright and playful. I prefer the second sock better as it has a bit more orange in it even though they came from the same skein. I had just 1.5 yds of yarn remaining. These have a 6 inch leg and my shoe size is 9.5. It was a close call!

DH wants his Dimples to be longer so I made sure to buy more yarn, but our ankle sizes are almost identical and he likes his socks a bit snugger than I do so the foot just needs to be about 3/4 inch longer than mine. I’ve done about 5 rows on his. I was *exhausted* yesterday.

In other news, I’ve joined in on the 200SOX Kal! I’ll get one of the following buttons added over to the right as well as return my KAL section to it’s previous state before I upgraded the blogging software later today after water aerobics and getting the chilli going in the crock pot.

I did it! FO Friday!

Pattern: Flatiron Clog Socks from Designedly, Kristi
Yarn: 3 skeins KPPPM, it’s been too long, I no longer know what colorway it is, sorry - vast majority of skein 3 remains
Needles: Sock 1 was done on Swallow Caesin US Sz 0, Sock 2 was done on Wright’s Aluminum US Sz 0

Notes: Once blocked the size discrepancy wasn’t nearly as much as I had feared, though sock number 2 was definitely tighter and much more to my liking actually. That said, I won’t be ripping sock 1 and redoing it. It’ll be fine and it will give me a sock I can wear when our friends cats decide to hunt one of my feet and it swells up again.

As for the needles, I will not bother with the Swalloe DPNs again for socks. They are even less sturdy it seems than the birch DPNs. For US 1 and smaller I’ll be sticking to metal from here on out!

I won’t mention how long this took me to complete this pair! The important part is it is done, done, done and I have one more pair of hand knit socks to add to my sock drawer!

Some additional views…

Then, since it’s Friday and I’m totally ready for some sillyness, I have an Avatar as per Jenla’s meme…

Okay, so it isn’t so much ugly as they were looking for, but it is utterly ridiculous - a mini skirt and strapless top in snow and ice? Sure, there is a stocking cap and scarf, but look at all that skin exposed to the elements??? How about that horse and the corgi in a rain coat?? Silliness, pure and simple!

Have a great weekend everone!

Out with the Old and In with the New!

Happy 2006! It seems the holidays have taken heavy tolls on many in (just to name a few) blog land so here is hoping that 2006 is better year for everyone!

Like many of you, I’ve taken some time to look back on my knitting accomplishments this past year. I don’t have nearly as many FO’s to count. It was definitely the year of felting and of small accessories for me. I did start out on the path to some garments, but kind of dropped the ball when it came to finishing. Actually I’m finding that I have quite a number of unfinished items hanging around now with the new year.

I have an ever-so-close to being down Skyway Scoop, I have two socks without mates, one mitten without a mate, one lace shawl somewhat in progress but needing tinking to try find the error, and one long sleeve pull-over sweater that I suspect is about 1/3 done, but got sidelined when the pattern wasn’t quite specific enough and I waited for a response from the designer for a few weeks and then was caught up in other “must complete now” projects which were followed closely by the holiday knitting.

I’m sure some of my decrease in FO’s can be attributed to the taking on of these larger projects than I had tackled in 2004. I also suspect some of it can be attributed to having added spinning to the list of fibery pursuits as well. In fact, I’ve spun 264-yds of singles and 1594 yds of 2-ply. This excludes all the spinning done in the class I took in Boulder in August. Because I was one class from having a double major with math, I had to do a little further figuring…

264 yds + 2 * (1594) + 1594 = 5046 yds to pass through the spinning wheel, assuming that 2-ply yarn is exactly half of the singles, which isn’t quite true, but close enough. That is just shy of 3 miles of fiber which would nearly get me to the SnB watering hole of Catalyst Coffee! Though I do wish my wheel hadn’t been collecting dust so much during November and December, but that holiday gift thing kind of kept me away. Now, I’m itching to get back, but can’t make a decision on what fiber to use…

While it seems to me that I didn’t accomplish as much as I would have liked, I did manage to release four knitting patterns for sale as well as two free patterns in 2005. That isn’t too bad and I have to say for being a rather low rated and new knitting blog my sales on the sock patterns have been pretty good. So, that is something to be proud of.

As I mentioned previously, I do have some goals for 2006. But, before I jump into those headlong, I’ve decided to heed the cliche - out with old and in with the new. I’m declaring January as clean-up month. Now, I don’t expect to get everything that is on the needles wrapped up, but I would like to complete the mates to the two socks and the mitten by the end of the month and perhaps finally finish Skyway (though I have to say I’m not so excited about that because firstly it is quitely likely going to be much too big now that I’m 35-lbs lighter and it is a tank top and it is January). I’m going to try my best to only allow myself to cast on for a hat for DH’s birthday until those lonely socks and mitten have mates. Though making of said hat might not happen either since he isn’t wearing the scarf he had specifically asked for last year for his birthday. I haven’t decided yet and his birthday isn’t until the 25th so I’ve got some time to decide if I think it’ll get used and if DH is worthy of the soft, yummy alpaca/silk/merino handspun goodness. (Given that with the assitance of mom, dad, grandma, and grandpa paying a little over half of the total I will have this new knitting chair and ottoman [in a different color] in the upstairs where there is sunlight in 8-10 weeks, he probably does deserve it, but he has a beret he wears all the time and forbode me to knit a tam for him last year and I’m not sure he’d wear a stocking cap much and when I mentioned gloves which I was first planning for when I spun the yarn he didn’t seem too interested in those either… - how is that for a run-on???)

This weekend, DH brought to my attention that fact that my sister hadn’t forgotten me for the holidays (which I wasn’t upset about as usually she gets around to sending something when my birthday comes around in April and she started a brand new job just two weeks ago and was moving so I wasn’t expecting anything on time). But, it seems she enlisted DH’s help and it all somehow involves Woolen Treasures. However, she set it up, then needed to call them presumably to pay for it and when she gave the go-ahead to DH he was sick so never got over ther. So, he has promised me lunch at one of my favorite restaurants in Loveland tomorrow which is right up the street from Wool Treasures and then we’ll be going over there to obtain this mysterious gift that DH has been teasing me about all weekend long. He has assured me that I would love it and that he helped her (I’m presuming in ways beyond forgetting to pick it up)… So, probably some fun fibery news of some sort will be ready to report on tomorrow.

Holiday FO!

Pattern: Kind of based on KnitScene’s Issue 1 Pattern 37

Yarns: This, This, and This (doubled) Handspun Yarns
Needles: Bamboo US 10s
Recipient: Me!

Because I actually got some decent self-portraits here is another shot, this time straight on…

Over on the side bar is a hat all alone shot.

I really like this hat. It’s a tad on the large side, but not enough so that it falls down and it does mean my hair doesn’t get plastered to my head when I wear it. It’s also *very* warm. I followed the dimension of the pattern and next time, for my head, I’d shorten it another inch as I don’t really need the ear flaps on there at this depth.

I started this on Wednesday the 21st and actually completed all of the knitting that day and then washed and blocked it that evening and it was ready to wear on the 22nd. It looks pretty fun with my new parka too. This is my first significant handspun knit item for myself (this excludes the warmlets) and only the second significant handspun knit all together, both having been knit in December. Overall I’m pretty happy with it.

I was laughing as I was knitting it, as the greenish yarns in the hat are my first and third skeins of singles ever spun on my own wheel and I was really, really, happy with them. They are crap! LOL! What progress I’ve made!

I’m a day late at coming back from what I had mentioned in my last post last week because yesterday I just needed more recuperation time. I had a restless night of sleep on Monday night so when I woke up I just grabbed my book and had been determined to read just a couple chapters and then start my day. Before I knew it, it was 1pm and I had only 6 pages left (having read over 250) and my mom called. I talked to her for a little over an hour, finished my book and then my best friend from college called to catch me up on the goings on in his life and letting me know he is moving to Chicago and we talked for over an hour as well. Before I knew it, it was 3:30 and I had accomplished nothing, LOL! So, I did a couple loads of laundry and played this new PS2 game SIL3 turned us onto and DH decided to pick up on Monday night. It’s just my sort of speed of video game, but I needed to practice so I could compete semi-fairly with DH in the battle mode :-)

Oh, and one more note… C&)*@$t is out in our neighborhood yet again. I’m posting from the comfort of wonderful Catalyst Coffee once again. There is no estimate on the resolution of this outage so I may or may not be back tomorrow. If WordPress had auto posting like TypePad I would utilize that, but alas, I’m not equipped to do that so you shall have to wait with baited breath to see if I return tomorrow or not…

I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season!

FO Thursday too?!?!? Yep!

Pattern: FiberTrends Felted Clog Slippers
Designer: Too lazy to go look…
Yarn: 2 Skeins + a little of Lamb’s Pride Worsted in Persian Peacock M124 and 3 skeins Paton’s UpCountry 80930 (discontinued)
Needles: Addi Turbo’s in Size Recommended
Size: Smallest Man’s Size
Recipient: Amber (my sister), Size Wm’s 11

I substituted a thick Lopi-like yarn (the Paton’s Up Country) for a doubled worsted for the soles and color of the slippers because there was NO brown worsted yarn to be had at the LYS when I was acquiring the yarn for this project. It ended up working out just fine. I did nearly run out of the Lamb’s Pride, but luckily had enough left over from a previous project to finish. Since they are just slippers I didn’t worry about dye lots and it didn’t seem to make a noticible difference in this project.

I did have issues with the weaving in of ends distoring the slippers, though that was mostly on the soles so I’m not worrying about it. They feel find, the edge of one just looks a little odd. I should shave these, but I’m suspecting my sister will need to do little additional hand felting to get them to match her feet so I’m debating. At this point I don’t have a sweater shaver (and well, I would like one, I have a sweater stone on my Christmas list with the in-laws so…) and don’t relish the idea of hitting the retail jungle on December 15th. So, we’ll see if I get somewhere that has them before I get the package ready to ship than great, if not, oh well.

Some gals at one LYS last year were discussing using the liquid latex for dipping tool handles in from the hardware store to put non-skid bottoms on slippers. I was thinking it would probably work even better to get a little texture to that so was thinking about stitching on some of the sticky, bumby shelf-liner stuff and them dipping them, but I’ve decided my sister needs to finish sizing them before doing that. So, I’ll give her a little certificate entitling her to have me do that the next time I’m visiting or she can just ask for the directions to do it herself.

This color combo is her favorite right now and I had been hoping to lcoate some flannel loungewear in that color combo to go with them, but no such luck. But, as it turns out this next week she’ll be moving into her own place once again so I’ll just stick a Target gift card inside of them so she has a little help in setting up house once again. I know how expensive it is to have to rebuy all those cleaning supplies etc. Plus, each place has different requirements in terms of storage solutions and such. I think it’ll be well recieved.

Here’s a bit better, but not so original look at the slippers…