Temporary fall leaves sock

I know I promised a photo of my soon-to-be frogged Fall Embossed Leaves sock. So I'm here to make good on that.

Here's a photo of it, as far as I got. As you can see, I was almost done!! erg. But that foot section was way too big, seeing as it had a lot more stitches in it than it was supposed to have. But you can see how fallish the colors are...I love it.






Here it is after I reclaimed the red yarn from the toe to start the other sock. This is my homemade sockblocker...a wire hanger! It works great.



So I've decided that this error of mine is turning out to be a blessing in disguise because I am now able to make the socks better. I haven't frogged this one yet but I did start the new sock, with a few improvements.

First, I cast on with bigger needles, and v e r y l o o s e l y. I hope this does the trick, since the first sock really had a too-tight cast on.

Second, I decided to make the red cuff part a little shorter, by three rows. Not much, I realize, but I think it makes it look a little better. My cuff was longer than the pattern called for, even though I did the required number of rows. (Please don't berate me, but no, I don't tend to pay much attention to row gauge. And yes, I know this is going to bite me in the @$$ one of these days.)

The third change I am making is I am going to do one fewer repeats of the pattern. I think the sock was turning out to be too long before.

So, I definitely got my leaf sock knitting mojo back! ;o)

Too cute

Okay, I know everyone's probably posting this one, but I can't resist. It just hits too close to home! :)

No RSC spoilers here

For anyone stopping by who hasn't gotten their October Rockin' Sock Club yarn yet, have no fear! I won't breathe a word...except that I got it in the mail yesterday and I like it! Both the yarn and the pattern look neat. I'm way behind on those RSC projects at the moment...having not even finished my June kit Solstice Slip socks yet! Ah well. I decided that I just wasn't happy with trying to rush and finish each of them before the next kit arrived. I'll definitely do them all, and in order and as intended with yarn and pattern (I'm a little neurotic like that)...and will cast on for the August socks as soon as the June ones are done. Just not going to worry myself with it is all.

I've also made a resolution to only knit only things I want to knit, and only if I am having fun doing so. If I'm not having fun, into the frog pond it goes! Let me just say too, I still love the fall socks I am working on even if I have to frog the whole thing. It's a little disheartening to have to start all over, but that's okay. I do love to knit after all! And once I take a break from it, I'll be excited to start it all over again. I decided I might get back into it by starting sock #2 before frogging the first one...see if I can't master a looser cast-on.

OH, and I did recently get a nifty tool that will make following the pattern chart a lot easier...the Chart Keeper from KnitPicks. Very cool! It comes with four magnetic strips that hold your paper in and which you use to keep track of your rows. It has a strap that holds it closed with magnets and can be folded back around while it's open to hold it that way (like in the photo on that link). Anyway, I like it.

Last night I needed to knit something super simple, so I worked on my basic socks in gray Trekking. It was kind of refreshing to knit something without a pattern for a change. I might need to knit a hat or mittens or something else quick and simple too, just for the instant gratification!

But...I now have my eye on this:



It's a blanket from Patons that I got a link to in their latest e-newsletter. (I can't find it on their website, so email me if you want me to send you the link.) It uses ten different Patons SWS yarn colors, 5 solids and 5 self-striping. I am so tempted!! It looks so cozy...you knit it in four strips of 5 blocks each...each color gets repeated twice, and the solids have a simple pattern and the stripes are just stockinette. I put the list of yarns needed in my purse and figure anytime I'm near a store that sells it I'll pop in to see what they have. You can never have too many blankets, right? Especially with oil prices the way they are these days!! This winter we'll be keeping the heat down and the blankets handy. :o)

Time Out

Argh! My Fall Embossed Leaves sock is in Time Out. Why? Because I messed up. Waaaaaay back at the gusset, I didn't decrease enough for the foot...but then I proceeded to knit the entire foot, and didn't discover my mistake until I started decreasing for the toe. *sigh* So, the sock is in time out right now until I decide what I am going to do.

See, I'd definitely just rip it back to the gusset and restart from there if that was truly the only problem...but...in all honesty, my cast-on was a little tight as well. A part of me knew this and didn't want to admit it, but when I tried the sock on I knew I couldn't deny it. So now I figure I'll rip it back and start all over...and I am annoyed with myself and consequently my sock so I needed to walk away from it! Which also bothers me and makes me sad because it's my fun fall project in honor of all the pretty colors out there, and I'd like to have them done...but now I've lost my steam.

I should just go back to knitting something else for a little while (like my Solstice Slip socks which I still haven't finished!), but I also don't like to leave things unresolved. Oh well. I'll try and remember to take a photo of it before I frog it!

A small update

Just popping in to say Hi. I don't have any knitting photos for you right now, nor do I have any finished knitting to report on. So instead I'll post this photo from Vermont last weekend. More on that later.



I have been doing some knitting, but mainly I've been doing a little reorganizing, especially regarding my notebook of completed knitting. I like to keep detailed notes on my knitting projects when I'm done with them, and the system I'd devised for myself was nice but very labor-intensive, and it was bringing me down and making me dread it, and just wasn't working for me anymore. It involved printing a template I'd created onto card stock and then printing photos of the projects and attaching them...and it was just too much. I am trying to simplify my life! So I am in the process of transferring my completed knitting project notes to a nice new notebook. Plain and simple, nothing fancy. Don't worry...I won't go on and on about it any more here! ;o) But now I can't relax until this project is done, so I am doing more of that instead of knitting.

Anyway, here and there I've still been working on knitting my Fall Embossed Leaves socks and the first one is coming out really neat, I'm past the heel and onto the foot now. I will post a photo of it as soon as I'm done. I should be able to finish it this weekend as I am heading up to Rhode Island to visit my best friend. I am flying up but taking the train back so I'll have lots of lovely knitting time! So hopefully next week I'll have a photo of it to share with you.

Oh, in other news, I ordered some more yarn. (hehe). But only a little, I swear. ;o) I was drooling over the Anemoi Mittens pattern and I got some KnitPicks Essential yarn to make them. I am using that yarn for my Embossed Leaves socks and it's so soft I figured it would make great mittens too. I went on Ravelry and looked around at other people's mittens to see what color combinations would work best. I noticed that the ones with two high contrast colors looked best, although that's such a pretty pattern that I am sure any colors would look great. But the colors that jumped out at me the most were pink and white (of course!). So that's what I decided on for my mittens and I got a ball of the pink (Petunia) Essential and then a skein of their "Bare" yarn (in the equivalent to Essential). And then since the white will (hopefully) be enough for two pairs, I also got a ball of the green (Grass) color to make some mittens for my friend.

Oh wait! I have another yarn story. A couple of weekends ago, we went up to visit my in-laws. That's when we had the baby shower for my sister-in-law for which I was making the sweater and booties. (Which, by the way, got a great response from the mom-to-be and also everyone at the shower. hee! It was fun to have my work appreciated. They actually applauded!...which made me a tiny bit uncomfortable, actually, but was still nice.)

Anyway...so, the day after the shower we all went for a drive to Vermont (they live near Albany) which is a traditional family outing every fall. The day usually includes a picnic in the park, leaf catching (when you try and catch falling leaves, and you get a dime from my father-in-law if you catch one), a hike in a park, stops at a couple of favorite shops, including the ever-popular stop at the Chocolate Barn where we all get chocolates and then sit on the hill and eat them. This year was a tad rainy and damp so there were minor adjustments to be made, although we did find a covered picnic area where we still managed to have our picnic, and went for a walk around a lake (pictured below). Leaf-catching was a bit sparse as it was early in the season, and the trees weren't letting go of them yet. But the day was still a lot of fun and the fog that rolled in made it very pretty.



(But I digress, yet again. I promised a yarn tale...)

SO...before we left the house my sweet sister-in-law looked up yarn stores in Vermont and found one that was on our way! And they stopped there! For me! Isn't that cool? I kept insisting that we didn't need to, but they were very sweet about it. So I made my choice quickly. I got a skein of the famous Malabrigo in a gorgeous turquoisey blue. I am on a turquoise kick lately. It's as soft as I had heard it was and I am now trying to figure out what to make. I want it to be special, and I'm thinking scarf since it's so delightfully soft. It's worsted weight, and about 216 yards. A decent amount for a scarf, I think. If nothing else comes to me, I'll just make a long narrow ribbed scarf with big needles, and I think that'll yield something nice that I can snuggle up to.

The yarn store we went to was called Black Sheep Yarns in Dorset, VT. It doesn't seem to have a website. The ladies there were very sweet, and it appeared to be in a new building that was on someone's property. There was a house there and some little dogs that ran up to the fence, so our nieces and nephews were entertained by the dogs while I looked at yarn. So that was a really fun end to a really fun day!

Guess that's it from here for now. Happy Knitting!

Baby shower gifts

As I've been yammering on about lately, I have a baby shower to attend/host for my sister-in-law. And as a Knitter, to me the words "baby shower" just say "GO, go now and knit something cute!" So that's what I did. At least I think it's cute, and I'm pretty sure my sister-in-law will too. She likes to make things herself, so she has an appreciation for things handmade, and that makes it all the more fun to make things for her.

These are the invitations I made. The little beach ball is a clip art which I printed onto the cards with my computer printer (my other sister-in-law with whom I am hosting this wants to do a baby-boy-beach theme for the party since the mom-to-be lives in San Diego). The invitation bit in the middle is a rubber stamp I have, which I stamped using embossing powder. (Here is an explanation of how it works, which while it does not have photos, explains the process pretty well.) Then I punched a zillion little holes and threaded the ribbon around. (Oh, and the little hole punches? We're STILL finding those all over the house.)



Now on to the knitting. First up is the sweater, Devan from Knitty. Yarn is Sockotta in color #605.



I love the little square buttons I found for it, too.



Then I just had to make some booties to go with the sweater. The pattern for those is Saartje's Bootees. These were very quick to knit and the end result is satisfyingly adorable!



Here's the set:



In addition to these items, I also sewed some little embroidered decals onto some "onesies." I think they came out cute too:



I think the bees are just too cute...I've had the pile of these sitting on my dresser (unreachable by the cats) and every time I walk by I see the little bees smiling at me. I love the lion too.

So, we're off soon for a family visit and the shower. Back to the blog in a few days!

Text update

I'm just stopping in to say a quick Hi, and give a text-only update of what I've been knitting. (I'm sorry...I need to take photos of things which I will do later but for now hopefully this will suffice.)

So, I've been frantically knitting away at my baby shower gifts for my sister-in-law for this weekend. (This being my main excuse for not blogging...I have been knitting you see...deadline knitting. Oh, and I had to make the invitations too, which took longer than I'd expected them to. But I digress.) Anywho...as I've mentioned before I am making the Devan cardigan from Knitty, and then I am also making matching booties from Saartje's Bootees pattern. So cute! The sweater is all knitted up, washed and blocking, so now I'm ready to add the buttons. I finished the knitting portion of the booties, which only took me two evenings, and am ready to tackle the finishing. I think they're going to be just a little cute. :o)

The cardigan came out looking rather cute too, with the self-striping yarn acting a little haphazardly, but looking deliberate at the same time, I think. Sort of rustic stripes. Anyway, the perfectionist in me finds it acceptable, so I'm sure my sister-in-law will too! The buttons I found are cute little square ones in different colors. It was tougher than I thought to find buttons...a huge wall of buttons in the store in every color imaginable, and it still took me 45 minutes to find the right ones (or so my husband whined reported).

Back soon with photos, I promise!