Year of Projects 6: Week 28

We're in a bitter cold snap right now - perfect weather to stay inside and knit, in my opinion. And lots of knitting has been happening around here. My Thornfield socks are finally done, thanks in no small part to last minute efforts to finish them in time for Christmas gift giving. Sadly they weren't done on time but at least one was done so that the recipient could try it on and await the second sock of the pair... the gift of best intentions rather than a finished pair of socks!

The pattern is actually quite lovely with intertwining lattices of travelling stitches but it is almost entirely overwhelmed by the busyness of this yarn. If I make them again I'll stick with a light solid coloured yarn to show of the pattern. As a result of the travelling stitches the sock knits up quite small. I had originally planned these for myself, with the idea of wearing them to Rhinebeck, but when the trip fell through and when the first leg was so obviously tiny, I decided on a change of course. Rather than rip the leg and restart, I earmarked this pair for a friend.

The yarn is Sock Talky by the Dye Guy. I picked it up when my friend and I went to a "HandMade Market" at a Niagara region winery and stopped in the little village of Jordan Ontario for lunch and a poke around. The yarn feels gorgeous! Very soft. But it's on the thick side for fingering weight sock yarns so these are definitely going to be WARM socks.

In my last post I mentioned that I had signed up for a couple of KALs in the Solid Socks Group on Ravelry. I've made a bit of progress on each of the KALs.

The mystery KAL is a pair of toe-up socks designed by Sarah Ronchetti. I don't mean to imply anything negative about the pattern, but my participation is reminding me why I don't usually like MKALs. The pattern is not really my cup of tea. In general I prefer to knit cuff down rather than toe up for my socks. I find that heel flap and gusset construction allows me to tailor the fit of the sock better than a short-row sock. As well the sock pattern as written features a very blunt squarish toe box - that won't work for my pointy toes at all, so I've already altered that. And the pattern section on the instep is centred between wide purled panels. I don't much like that either.

The yarn came from a destash by a fellow Raveller. And the fact that I hate the colour isn't helping. You could call it a warm shell pink. It just makes me think of hot flashes. In the skein it appeared pretty solid, maybe slightly tweedy but it's knitting up faintly stripey, and I'm not loving that either.

I considered using twisted stitches to tighten up the transition from knit to purl, but decided against that. To qualify for prizes in this group you must knit the pattern as written. Looking back on it now, I'd rethink that decision. Having altered the toe, and with the yarn inclined to stripeyness, I'm pretty sure I've already disqualified myself. The transitions look a bit crappy now, but I think blocking and wear will help. That's what I'm telling myself anyway.

Clue one is done. Clue two dropped last night so I'll get to that some time next week.

For the second KAL I picked my own pattern based on the January theme "Botany". Once again the yarn came from a fellow Raveller's destash -  an unlabelled cake of green yarn. For my pattern I chose "Vallisneria" which is meant to be reminiscent of sea grasses. I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying this green. Not too dark to present any difficulty seeing the stitches on the needles or in the knitted fabric. Not even remotely pastel or wishy-washy. And not a hint of pink! Ahhh, bliss. This KAL is meant to finish at the end of January... I'm not sure I can manage that, but we'll see. Gavin wants his grey socks sooner than later so I might have to switch gears and re-cast them on instead of working on anything else.

And finally, some of you showed interest in my paintings, so here's a collage of my favourite six from 2016. I start painting workshops in about ten days so it will be interesting to see where it goes from here!