WIP roundup aka do I have the right to knit a sweater

Actual WIPs
Noro Linen Bits (see above) - Most successful socks ever, finished one in ten days, going well on the second.

Nightwatch Lily - Not being sure if it will get much wear by my daughter has put me off knitting it. I hope to finish it before the end of the year but its not a priority in my knitting mind.

Hibernating
4 pairs of Socks - Vinnland are too hard, Hungry Bees pattern is stupid, Twin Rib is boring, Jays are tedious and tricky

Red Twisty Turvy - Will try to get it done before Autumn

Gotland Driftwood - Need to prepare and spin fibre to finish, not on the cards right now

Rock Island - This pattern kills, don't have the time for fancy lace.

Cast offs & WIPs & a UFO

I've had a good week, two cast offs, hurrah! I don't think this has ever happened to me before.

First was my Feather & Fan Comfort Shawl which was a way of dealing with an odd pale green fingering yarn called Daphne I didn't want to make into socks. I'm really happy with it, quite big and soft. I think it looks quite fashionable, which is awesome. I very inexpertly blocked it, but it came out alot better than before blocking.

Second was Camo Gentleman - casual socks for hubby. Nanacindynz did a lovely job on this yarn for me, I'm really going to miss her yarn when I run out. I've still got 50g left of this yarn, 150g of Party dress and 100g of Aroha though. I like the simple pattern and that the yarn colour is a bit different on each sock, one has much paler green stripes than the other.

On to WIPs

I've got serious work to do on the finishing chart of Haruni to get it done. I do hope to get it done this month but its not knitting I can do in the car or anywhere I can get distracted.

My grey Los Monos Locos (Monkey) are now my car knitting, I'm zooming through the ankle of the second one at the moment. I'd like to get them done this month too.

The very stalled Vinnlands look great but the tricky pattern makes me tire of them after one row. I think I will try and finish them before I start another pair of sock, we'll see.

The baby twisty turnies's needles have been stolen for the Haruni so its stopped at the moment. I think it looks good but I wish I'd waited to get some soft merino, but I do like the colour. I'd like to get it done by mid-year.

The matchy-matchy cardi just needs sewing up, which I'm scared of. Like picking up for the ribbing around the front, I'm sure I'll do it inexpertly and make a mistake. Again I hope to get it done mid-year.

The horrible UFO of doom is my Mum's horizontal stripe scarf, I hate it and the horse it rode in on. I might finish it one day but if I make my Mum possum socks for her birthday I hope she'll forgive me if I don't.

Blendy's NZ Yarn Sampler

I've never bought a knitting sampler but I'm keen to try this one: Blendy's NZ Yarn Sampler. The box will have 15 samples of yarn and embellishments. It has some of my faves in it Needlefood and Vintage Purls. Other ones I haven't heard of sound fun, like the Nut & Bee illustrations.

Grrrl Shaped Yarns

My friend Brooklynne has been working away at her online yarn shop for a while now. Creating her own yarn line, thinking about different options for selling other yarns and knitting items like needles. She's launched the shop today as Grrrl Shaped Yarns (GSY) with three fingering weight yarns and eight different Knit Picks fixed needles in sock sizes

In the top left we have Fire Island - 50/50 Merino Silk for NZ $25, top right Life On Mars - Superwash Merino $20 and Theresa - 50/50 Merino Silk $20 of which 50% of all proceed will be donated to UC Davis Cancer Research.

I love these yarns, they are well priced for hand dyed quality yarns which would look great in socks or shawls. I think Theresa would look gorgeous as soft colour changes in silk, lovely.

I wish Brooklynne good luck with her business and look forward to seeing the new yarns she dyes.

Needlefood Sock club shipment 1 [Spoiler]

Here's the first shipment of Needlefood's second sock club:

I really love the thematic colours of this sock club pack, very clever. Items included are a 100g skein in the club colour 'For the Girls', a semi-solid pink, chocolate fudge, floral Soak, a 2.5mm crochet hook for picking up dropped sts, a floral brooch and four st markers.

Here's the yarn 'For the Girls', 100g of 80% merino, 20% nylon fingering weight yarn with 352m per skein. It's a semi sold with quite a strong contrast between the dark pink and the light pink.

I couldn't decide what to make with this yarn, I considered Monkey, Pomatomus, Love Struck Hearts and Oblique Openwork before deciding on Nanners.

I think Love Struck Hearts looked really nice but I decided I wanted a repeating pattern with distorting angling sts like Monkey.

So here's the Nanners:

I really like the fish scale like look of these, one day I'm hoping to do Pomatomus which is sort of an advanced version of this.

I'm glad to be doing a Wendy Johnson pattern, her blog is great and I'd love to buy her book Socks from the Toe Up. I love toe ups so Wendy patterns are perfect for me.

Rationally knitting socks for the toe up

I've learnt a painful lesson, cutting a 100g skein of yarn in half does not equal two balls of the same yardage. I knitted on yarn over cable sock doing 39 repeats of the 4rw pattern from the heel and cast off. I knit the second to 36 repeats of the 4rw pattern and didn't have enough to cast off. I attempted to spit splice with the small amount of yarn left from the other sock but it didn't work, perhaps because the yarn is superwash. So then I tried a knot and kept knitting and it looked ugly. So I gave up and undid both, ended up with 33 repeats of the 4rw pattern which are still lovely long socks and actually fit better too.

& So I am left with a nub of yarn. Now I used to think that avoiding this was the whole point of knitting from the toe up. However the stress of trying to get equally long right to the last tiny bit of yarn socks is just too much. Next time I should just pick a length, know I'll end up with two nubs of yarn. Pick something from 653 patterns to knit with 1-285 yards and have fun. Long live the nubs.

No hole Monkey or No Yarn Over Monkey

I love the Los Monos Locos version of the classic and much loved Monkey pattern by Cookie A. I have done one pair in a beautiful 'Odd Ball' (limited edition) variegated yarn called Martinborough Vines by New Zealand dyer Needle Food. I did a twisted rib cuff for only a few rounds and should probably do more next time as they fall done a bit.

I would love to try the pattern without yarn overs, to make a moving rib but not lacey sock. The options I've seen are:

Cayenne's MonkeyToes

She removed holes by replacing YOs with M1L/M1R (as appropriate) increases in the following round, for similar reasons

MyYarn's Toe Up Monkey Mods

She eliminated the lacy holes by knitting the yarn overs through the back loop

Jauping's Sedate Monkeys

She used a “lifted increase”…for each pattern repeat, using a right lifted increase (knitting the right leg of the stitch, then the stitch) in place of the first yarn over and a left lifted increase in place of the second yarn over (knitting the stitch, then the left leg of that original stitch). [Thanks to Jauping for messaging me this detail]

I know that M1L and M1R would drive me crazy, I'm using M1 for Vinnland and I don't love it. I quite like the idea of knitting through the back loops of yarn overs and using the right and left lifted increases. From the description it sounds like Jauping used LLinc LRinc which I use for toe increases, I think I'll try both out.

Socks: Needlefood Martinborough Vines in Crazy Monkeys

Here's my beautiful Needlefood Martinborough Vines yarn balled up using my new wool winder (looks a bit grubby here but I gave it a clean). I'm so glad I bought the winder, saves me the main thing that frustrates me about knitting from hand dyed yarn, balling it up by hand.

I got the idea to knit Monkey socks using this yarn from KiwiRaven's wonderful Plumberry Ambrosia No Purl Monkeys. I don't like to purl and always knit tow up so I was really pleased to find the Los Monos Locos pattern. Here's how my Crazy Berry Socks are knitting up:

I think they look great, and so did kitty, after this cute photo was taken (below) she un-wound and messed up all the yarn which resulted in a very frustrating two hours getting all the knots out.

I've since turned the heel and here's where I deviated from the pattern. I had tried with the toe to reinforce it using the Eye of Patridge stitch which didn't work so I was not going to try it on the heel. I absolutely adore the short row no wraps heel from the Lifestyle Toe Up Socks so that's what I did, holding 12 sts on each side with 8 active sts left in the middle. I turned after row 1 so started again using row 2 from the back and front. It's going to look really cool with the triangles lining up the side of the ankle.

The yarn itself is wonderful. It doesn't split and wasn't damaged by the numerous test knitting of the toe and the hammering that the cat gave it. The resulting fabric has lovely stitch definition and quite a stiff hard wearing feeling that I'm sure will soften beautifully with wear. It feels so soft on my feet when I try them on with a nice feeling of elasticity. I love how the colours are playing around in the sock pattern, especially the yellow against purple.

The next Needlefood yarn I'd love to have is Black Forest:

I love the new pictures: skeined on the left (how it comes) and re-skeined on the right (how it knits up).

Judy's Magic Cast On

The only toe-up cast on I can do is Judy's Magic Cast On. The best description with pictures I have found is on Persistent Illusion however Cat Bordhi's Knitty article and videos are also useful.

Sock club love!

I'm part of the Vintage Purls Summer Sock Club 2009 and I'm loving it! I received the second package yesterday and the first last month. The first come with a wonderful bag, pattern and yarn, the second with a gift you knit for yourself, pattern and yarn. They both came with some yummy lollies which is such fun. The cost was $95 so with each skein of yarn being usually $23 for Limited Edition and patterns usually being about $5 and the with gifts I think its very good value. Its also the fun of our own ravelry group and the joy of having unique yarn and patterns. I also love communicating with the purveyor Morag who taught me to Magic Loop. She is also the only online yarn shop in New Zealand to stock Knit Pro so I love being able to order more neeldes that Morag pops in my sock club packages for free shipping.

Here's Vintage Purl's picture of the first yarn and pattern called Bluesky Baby which I haven't started - I'm scared of lace but I hope to do it one day, or failing that I'll make lots of blue booties.

Knitting marine man socks

Wow, stockinette socks are still really really fun but going so much faster. I'm speeding along with a lovely hand dyed 100% wool sock yarn that was a gift from maude & me's miss tracee.

This photo was taken two days ago and I'm already 4" into the leg. Still got heaps of yarn to go, these will be quite long. I'm glad I put in the negative ease as its created an almost ribbed look around the instep which looks really cool without all the tedious work of rib knitting. I really love the slight scratchiness of the yarn, feels really appropriate for man socks. I might have to do some calf shaping to fit as they could be quite long from what yarn I have left. I really love the no wrap short row heel, still a few holes as it joins the instep but none along the heel.

Arohaina Socks

Here's the second sock I've made, started in late October last year. I've only got a few inches beyond the heel so I've probably got about 3 or 4 to go. I'm using a Seaweed Sock pattern but I'm finding it really tedious. The beautiful Arohaina sock yarn by NanacindyNZ is quite thin, about 9 sts per inch so with all the changing between K and P means it takes ages.

These socks are toe up, it took me a whole night to find a cast on I could do but ended up with the Double Knitting Cast On from Let's Knit2gether, Thanx Cat! I agree it's cool and easy.

I've taken the sock off my needles to start a completely different simple pair using a different yarn. I think at this stage being new to knitting socks mean I just enjoy stockinette in the round from the top down. I hope to get back to knitting these later but I'm not into it right now.

Finished socks - Balrog Socks

I've been meaning to post this for yonks but for some reason I haven't, here are my first pair of knitted socks - First Socks.

The yarn for these was supplied by unionmaid a lady I meet through Ravelry who taught me how to knit socks by giving me yarn, needles, a pattern and lessons!

These socks taught me a lot about knitting with four dpns, turning a heel and Kitchener. I really enjoyed them because they were quick to knit, 18 days and the alpaca in the wool is so cuddly. I followed the pattern exactly so I've got a golf ball of yarn left over and I wish they were a bit longer. I've thought about cutting the cast on and knitting up to make them longer but I enjoy wearing them too much.

Knitting baby socks/booties

Lil Leila Provenzano

Baby measurements are a bit of a mystery to me, I know they are small and grow fast but when and how?

Sock sizes and measurements

Shoe size chart by age

Basic sock calculator

Estimate sock yardage

These all fit very well into Sock-u-lators

Knittery is pretty

I heart Knittery it's Australian and you can get hand dyed beautiful sock yarn for NZD $28 including shipping, so yummy. Here's my favs, some are merino, some merino cashmere, thin and thick.

3ply: Merino Slim Sock

4ply: Merino Cashmere Sock

5ply: Merino Chubby Sock