Half a FO

I just finished the first Waving Lace sock. It fits fine, so now I'd better cast on for the second one. This pattern gives a lot of visual interest for not much fancy stitchwork, it's amazing how much difference it makes having the yarn overs and decreases separated by a varying number of stitches. I followed the pattern exactly except for the top border where I did an extra couple of rows. I forgot to count rows and I think I prefer how it looks anyway.

I've been working hard on the Mysticwaters shawl, and I've just started clue 6. No picture because I put it back on a 60cm needle and it's all scrunched up.

Last weekend, I dyed some vintage 1oz skeins of grey 3 ply botany wool. From this,

to this.
The purple has come out somewhat shaded: believe it or not I was trying for a solid colour. Still, I'm not complaining. It looks great knitted up as the Secret of the Stole ii. I don't know when I think I'm going to get the time to work on it, but the temptation was too much. There are some lovely Knitalongs going on at the moment, but I'm trying not to start all of them, much as I'd like to.

In between all the frantic knitting I get to do laundry several times a week. I save up the machine washable wool items for a wool wash once there are enough of them to make it worthwhile. This basketful of socks and sweaters struck me as rather colourful, so here's a pic. These represent about of a third of all the handknit socks I've made over the last few years. It does seem from this that I mostly make brown or blue socks, but I do have some other colours too.

Half way

I seem to have got a bit behind with my Mystic Water shawl. A lot of people have finished theirs, and some have even knit two of them. I just reached the point where I had to decide whether to make the smaller version, or the full size. When I pinned it out to measure it in order to predict the possible final sizes, it was about 26" to the point which would mean a finished size of either 30" or 37" approx. I decided to go with the larger size because I didn't want to omit the snowflake pattern which runs across the top edge of the shawl, and a 30" deep shawl isn't all that big. So I'm going to be plodding along for a while yet.

Oblique's sleeves are growing slowly. I'm doing them both at the same time, this way I won't have second sleeve syndrome and when they're done, it's just sewing up and the bands to do. With luck it'll be done in time for Spring.
My Waving Lace sock needs a few rounds frogging since I messed up the lace pattern after picking up the instep stitches. Silly me decided that I knew the pattern okay and that I didn't need to check the book. I should know better.

Plying takes longer than you think!

Here we have it, 455m, 106g of 2 ply superwash BFL. This is the most length I've managed yet. Even with the new high speed bobbins, the plying took a lot longer than I expected, but it was well worth it I think. The colours are even better in real life, and the yarn is beautifully soft.

I started a sock from the Favorite Socks book. It's the one on the cover, the Waving Lace design by Evelyn Clark. I'm using John Lewis own brand 4 ply which is 75% wool, 25% polyamide, in pink, on my 2.75mm Knitpicks circular (magic loop). It's going well, albeit I did have to frog a bit when I skipped a plain round once.
The fronts of Oblique are done, so now it's time for the sleeves. As a lot of other people have done I'm omitting the turned back cuffs, so I'm going to do a conventional cuff and shorten the sleeves a bit. Sleeves that are loose on the wrist don't stay pushed up when needed, which can be a nuisance at times.
Mystic Waters is progressing slowly, a row here and there. I'm about half way through clue 4 now.

That's much better!

I knew it had to be possible to get a better match than I had before. These are my standard top down heel flap socks using 2.75mm circs and 64sts. The yarn is Online City Colour, shade 922.

I've been dyeing today after I got my new dyes yesterday.This time I've got the primary colours plus black, which should mean I can mix just about anything. Before I was a bit limited by the colour selection I had. The top batch was immersed in a purple dyebath. I was expecting some shading, but this is much better! I'm sure I mixed the bath well, but it looks as if it wasn't very well mixed at all. The second lot was squeezed quite well, before laying it out on cling film and adding dye where I wanted it, before nuking it in the microwave. This is superwash BFL, 50g of each colourway. I plan to ply them together for socks.

I made a start on the purple one. I've ordered some more bobbins, the high speed ones that have the tiny whorl, which should mean a bit less treadling for the fine singles. They will also speed up plying. Rather than pay extra for the fatcore bobbins, I'm experimenting with using pipe lagging round the core of the standard bobbin. You can just see it on the right hand side. So far so good.

Nearly, but not quite right

This is what happens when you start the toe decreases one round too soon on the second sock. With just one round to go, it was obvious that the pale blue section would be much smaller. Having got the heels to match, it would have been silly to leave it, so a-ripping I went. I should be finished later today, hopefully with a toe that I'm happy with.


The facecloth was finished and put to use. The Rowan cotton makes it very soft and it is great for this purpose. I bought a large quantity of odd balls of this stuff a couple of years ago with the intention of knitting a multicoloured sweater. That intention never came to anything, so I see a lot of rather nice facecloths in my future.


I had one fibre related present at Christmas, thanks to my youngest son asking me what I would like. He bought me both these books, bless him. I'm trying to decide which socks to knit next, once I have the offending toe fixed.

It's 2008!

Now that the festivities are drawing to a close, maybe life will get back to normal. This would mean getting some more fibery things done, maybe. I haven't completely stopped knitting, but progress has been slow.

I knew the tree had to be useful for something beyond dropping needles everywhere! This is a facecloth in progress made with Rowan Handknit cotton. I'm using 4mm needles and it feels nice. My previous one has worn rather thin and stringlike, so it's high time I made a replacement. The pattern is from the Dishcloth Boutique. It's in the second column on the page, the Purled Ladder cloth.

Oblique is growing, the back is done and one front is just about ready for the increases above the waist. I managed to find a source of more yarn for this project, and three extra balls arrived just before Christmas (same dyelot), so I should have plenty now. It's Yarnela Meadow, which is 80% alpaca and 20% silk, and is not widely available.

I've even done a bit of crochet. This is the start of the Rosemary sweater from the fall issue of Interweave Crochet. The colour is a little bit more green than the picture shows. I've always wanted to make crochet garments which are wearable, stylish, not too holey and which aren't granny squares joined together. I like my jumpers to be decent when worn without a t-shirt underneath. No offense intended to those who like wearing large-scale net based garments or granny squares, but they aren't for me.