Archive for March, 2011

I started working on these socks on January 1st. Now they’re finally finished!

I kept getting distracted with other projects that had various (self-imposed) deadlines so I set them aside. Now they’re done and have my 2.25mm needle empty again. And they’re so pretty. I love cabled things and ooh-howdy do these have some CABLES! Two patterns with different numbers of row repeats, and the left sock is different from the right sock. You can’t really tell in my photos but the cables are mirror images of each other.

Here’s the back:

And the front:

The yarn is Knit Picks Stroll in Blue Topaz. Incidentally blue topaz is also my birthstone, and a very gorgeous color. I thought the Stroll was fabulous to work with and very comfortable to wear. Which is good because I have a pretty good amount of it in my stash.

At times these socks started to feel like my knitting Waterloo. I kept making mistakes and running into problems all over the place. I had to do a lot of back-tracking. It was tricky balancing the cable needle with the thin yarn and small needles. But then I finally figured out how to do cables without a cable needle. I’d tried it before but could never quite get it to work. And then it just clicked. After that it was smooth sailing to some beautiful socks.

Here’s a link to the tutorial that finally freed me from the cable needle.

Contrasting this three-month-long sock project I also recently finished two projects that went by super fast.

Building on the pattern I used to make the April Red Robins I made a little American Goldfinch.

He (it’s most certainly a he with that BRIGHT yellow yarn) is made with Berroco Comfort and took me about three hours to make. It’s a fun little crochet to do while watching a movie. I might have to make an aviary.

Though I have no pictures of it, I have a fourth version of this bird pattern that was basically a test-run of my changes to the pattern. Once I was done and satisfied with my work I put catnip in it and gave it to Shinobi. He loves it. It’s the perfect size for a cat toy.

I had to squeeze in one more hat before the end of the winter season. We had a snow storm this week and it’s been below freezing for the past few days. I used a pattern called Fiona (designer’s web site) and some leftover Lion Brand Wool-Ease that’s been in my stash for about two years. I’d hoped to use up the rest of the Grey Heather. Close, but not quite! I still have about 35 yards left.

More cables! It took me about four evenings of knitting to make the hat. It’s so cute and the perfect size for my head.

I wore it all night last night while I was cleaning the kitchen and getting ready for bed. I do love berets.

I really do just pile on the projects. Right now I’m working on another pair of socks that will be finished very soon, and next up in my queue are these socks and this sweater. And, of course, that dang scarf I started last November.