Year of Projects - Christmas in Tallinn 01

Knitting on the Road: Canada • Canal du Midi • Conwy • Dalarna • Denmark • Friday Harbor • Hiiumaa • Huron Mountain • New England • The Road to Oslo • Santa Fe • Spey Valley • Christmas in Tallinn • Traveler's Stockings • Uinta Cabin • Unst • Whitby

Full disclosure: this is actually my second go at these socks. On my first go I used navy as the second contrast colour but found it too dark and too close to the dark green contrast colour. Oh, and I messed up the chart too on that first go.

Now with peacock blue for contrast the colours are playing nicely together and my Christmas in Tallinn sock is well underway. The pattern as written directs that the last nineteen rounds of the chart are to be worked twice but I think once will be enough for me - after all I want a wearable sock not a Christmas stocking. If you click the above photo to enlarge you will see that the variegation of the dark coloured yarn is detectable. It's a bit more subtle than I had hoped but I'm only about a third of the way through the cuff chart. Maybe it'll become more obvious as I knit more?

The sock begins with a "double-start cast on" which I'm now (finally) able to do without prompting from diagrams or a YouTube video. The next two rounds of the cuff are an Estonian pattern called Kihnu Vits - alternating colours knit in round one are purled with the opposing colour in round two while both yarns are carried in front of the knitting so that the purl bump from round one and the float from round two create a lateral braid. Cool huh?

There won't be much time to work on these today though. Gavin agreed that this weekend we could do whatever I wanted, so we're off to The National Home Show and Canada Blooms. Maybe seeing all those gorgeous gardens will be enough to keep me out of my own for now despite the mild weather?

a monstrous start

I know I should be working on my vest, but then I saw this. For her "Monster Mission of Love" Isaida is collecting knitted monsters to distribute to children in foster homes in her region. What a great idea! And what a perfect project for some of the acrylic worsted yarns in my stash, not to mention safety eyes, white felt and stuffing that I also have on hand. When I pulled out the yellow and gold I wasn't too sure how it'd look, but it's really working for me. I like the two colours together better than I ever liked either of them separately. Weird, huh?

Have a look at the incredible amount of cuteness in Rebecca Danger's pattern shop - it was a tough task to decide where to start! Finally I settled on Daphne and Delilah and why not? It's a two-fer. Besides Daphne has a pouch on her belly; that's got to be handy, right? The pattern is very detailed and very clearly illustrated so it's going well. I started with jogless jogs but I'm not sold on them, so I think I'll knit the rest letting the jogs happen at colour changes. The designer suggests a row counter, but as the colours alternate every three rounds I don't find it too hard to keep track of the row counts.

Now let's see if I can wrap this monster project up quickly and get back to that vest.

Finished Object Friday

For the last couple of days I've been knitting my vest fairly monogamously - after all I'd like to finish the vest while the weather remains vest-suitable. But I did take a bit of a time out to crochet this little star dishcloth. I've crocheted it with a size H hook from scraps of dishcloth cotton, and despite the pattern name it works up to a not insubstantial 8-1/2" across.

In fact round five should have been yellow as well, but after round four there was very little yellow left so I worked that round as well as the edging in natural. And dare I say, I think it's pretty nice this way. This pattern has crocheted up extremely well - my finished result is flat, even and looks exactly like the pattern photo - so it's a keeper. Too bad I don't have more scraps of different coloured dishcloth cotton in my stash. Although ... maybe I can convince my crafty friends to donate some of their scraps ... or trade them them for entire balls of natural colour? Hmmm. Must work on that.

If you've got some time today, have a look at the parade of finished objects at Tami's Amis. There's almost always something inspiring and surprising!

Work in Progress Wednesday

are you sitting, Dee?

The last several days of very mild spring weather left me perplexed yesterday about what to wear to work. With temperatures in the mid-teens Celsius it's still not really short-sleeves weather, but long-sleeved sweaters are too warm and wintery. What I really need, I decided, was a vest. (And apparently, if you read Dee's blog, she came to the same conclusion yesterday). So I cast on this one that's been in my queue for ages with some Briggs & Little aran weight yarn from my stash. I have plenty of yarn so my plan is to make it about hip length.

There's a second reason for this vest; after weeks and months of sock knitting I have an urge to knit something with bulkier yarn on bigger needles. When you're trying to knit through your stash, progress can seem very slow on size 0 needles with fingering weight yarn. After binding off a pair of socks yesterday, the inclination to start another pair was entirely missing. Aran weight instead then.

Now as the Yarn Harlot has often observed it would have been better if the urge to knit this vest had arrived several weeks before vest-wearing weather. As a knitter I run the risk of finishing an aran weight wool garment at the most inappropriate time if the weather continues to get warmer. But spring is early this year, and if I knit monogamously on this project hopefully I can finish it with weeks of spring remaining.

So that's what I'm up to these days. Happy pi day! And Happy Birthday to my brother Mark! Be sure to check the links at Tami's Amis to see what everyone else is up to.

FO: Huron Mountain Socks

Ta Da! Although I've photographed them on my feet, and although I'm wearing them right now, these socks are not for me. They're about a half inch shorter along the foot than I would like them. Given that most people's feet are a half inch (or more) shorter than mine, I suspect they'll fit many others just perfectly.

The heel is a band heel - aka German strap heel - where the heel flap narrows down towards the heel turn avoiding the need to work gusset decreases. That's a good thing with a colourwork pattern continuing around the foot! I wondered about whether this heel would feel any differently on my foot, but it feels just fine.

The pattern, Huron Mountain, is meant to mimic a Loon's plumage, and I think it does that quite effectively. The likeness would be more pronounced had I used black yarn instead of grey and white yarn instead of cream but I like it nonetheless. Besides, it's the best I could do with yarn from my stash. So that's another very nice pattern from Nancy Bush! And another project finished from my Year of Projects.

Year of Projects - Huron Mountain 02

Knitting on the Road: Canada • Canal du Midi • Conwy • Dalarna • Denmark • Friday Harbor • Hiiumaa • Huron Mountain • New England • The Road to Oslo • Santa Fe • Spey Valley • Christmas in Tallinn • Traveler's Stockings • Uinta Cabin • Unst • Whitby

The high today is expected to be in the double digits. In fact, we're expecting temperatures 10° C above seasonal norms all next week (10°C = 18° F!). Yippee!

My first Huron Mountain sock was finished Tuesday and I've been overwhelmed by its popularity. Several coworkers and friends have tried to put dibs on this pair or place orders for their own pairs. Even Gavin has remarked that he particularly likes this pair, and he's not generally a fan of socks at all. The second sock was cast on Friday. After some steady knitting through last night's hockey game I've finished the first chart and am ready to start the second to complete the leg to the heel. Once the sock is done I'm going to wear it around the house a bit  - with shoes and in stocking feet - to see how I like the feel of the banded heel. It's kind of nice to be able to carry the colourwork chart through the foot with the interruption of gusset decreases, so I'm hoping it tests out okay.

My guess is that my second Huron Mountain sock will be finished about midweek. Looking through the list of patterns remaining to be knit, I decided to tackle Christmas in Tallinn next. The pattern is written as a Christmas stocking, but as the chart repeats at 18 stitches which can be knit 4 times across 72 stitches, I'm determined instead to knit it as a pair of socks instead. Socks with a very fancy leg pattern, that's for sure, but socks they will be! In anticipation I had a look through my stash for yarn that would work; here's what I decided upon -  the main colour will be a light grey, the main contrast will be worked in a variegated blue/green yarn and for the small bits of the second contrasting colour in the cuff I'm using a solid navy blue. I hope the effect will be interesting and dramatic. We'll see by next week!

That's it for me this Sunday - it's way too nice to stay inside! Have a great week on your Year of Projects and whatever else you turn your attention to!

two little projects

Yesterday I finished the Barbie Dress (pattern 781) that I had started on Tuesday. When I cast on the dress I thought it'd be a quick little project - boy was I wrong! Turns out that dress uses a lot of yarn and takes a lot of time. I should have guessed that from the beginning when the first instruction is to cast on 162 stitches for the skirt! Yikes! The bottom part of the skirt is straight stockinette so it's inclined to roll up; if I were to do it again I'd start with a few rounds of garter stitch to straighten it out. Following the pattern directions, there should have been more purple reaching higher but when I ran out of purple I decided that the drop waist would start a whole lot sooner. Round 19 of the decrease shaping - with all its K3tog TBL and m1 K1 m1s - was nearly the death of me. That's enough of playing with dolls for now! Phew!

With the dress finished, I moved on to crochet a square to fulfill a promise made to SIBOL. This is for their "One Heart from Around the World" blanket. The challenge had been posted for some time and it turned out that they were extending the deadline hoping to get a few more squares. I checked my stash, I had just enough red worsted, so I signed up for one square. Of all the squares I've crocheted this is not my favourite. Those really long double-triples in the bottom corners just bug me, as do the stitches worked two rounds below at the top centre of the heart. As well because the centre of the square is worked as a ring of seven chain stitches, it leaves quite a hole in the centre of the block. I used the yarn end to tighten that ring to narrow the hole but if I did this square again, I'd use the adjustable magic ring instead.

Now that these two little projects are wrapped up, it's back to socks. I cast on my second Huron Mountain sock last night. Gavin's had a migraine for the last couple of days, and it's still "buzzing" in his head today, so it looks like a quiet weekend for us.