Year of Projects: Heelless Sleeping Socks 01

Folk Knitting in Estonia: Aino's Gloves • Anu's Christmas Gloves • Anu's Mittens • Anu's Stockings • Avo's Mittens • Ellen's Stockings • Helgi's Mittens • Hilja's Mittens • Ilmar's Socks • Juta's Stockings • Kalev's Mittens • Kristi's Mittens • Laila's Socks • Landra's Gloves • Liidia's Gloves • Liivi's Stockings • Maarja's Socks • Maimu's Mittens • Marko's Mittens • Meida's Mittens • Merike's Gloves • Rita's Stockings • Sander's Mittens • Tiit's Socks • Ulla's Gloves • Virve's Stockings

Knitting Vintage Socks: Gentleman's Shooting Stockings with Fluted Pattern (1887) • Gentleman's Sock in Railway Stitch (1889) • Gentleman's Socks with Lozenge Pattern (1895) • Bed Sock in Lemon Pattern Fancy Knit Stripe (1896) • Cycling or Golf Stockings with Fancy Cuff in Trellis Pattern (1897) • Heelless Sleeping Socks (1897) • Child's French Sock in Citron Pattern and Diaper Knitting (1898) • Child's First Sock in Shell Pattern (1899) • Gentleman's Half Hose in Ringwood Pattern (1899) • Gentleman's Sock for Evening Wear (1900) • Evening Stockings for a Young Lady (1900) • Fancy Silk Sock for a Child of 5 or 6 Years (1900) • Gentleman's Fancy Sock (1901) • Gentleman's Plain Winter Sock with Dutch Heel (1901) • Child's Sock in Miranda Pattern (1904) • Baby's Bootikin (1905)  •  Little Child's Sock (1907)  •  Ladies Useful Stockings (1913)  •  Ladies Silk Stockings with Clocks (1914)

I've come to the conclusion that I'm mittened-out. I just can't bring myself to cast on another pair. It's possible I'm also sick of Estonian Knitting - no offence meant to the Estonian people. Instead I find myself knitting socks. So to that end, I've added the book Knitting Vintage Socks to my Year of Projects with the idea that I can pick and choose between the two books for the next six months.

There are three patterns from Knitting Vintage Socks that I've already knit; I likely won't duplicate them. Last week I finished Gentleman's Fancy Socks. My Railway Stitch socks were knit in November 2010. And we have go all the way back to May 2010 to find the Fancy Silk Socks.

Yesterday I cast on Heelless Sleeping Socks for a friend who has been hankering over tube socks for a while now. I've made a good start, in fact, I'm far enough now to see that I definitely haven't enough yarn to finish them. The yarn is mystery yarn that I picked up from the sale bin at Wabi Sabi in Ottawa. There's just 50 grams so it's not really a surprise that there's not enough. No problem though, I have a complementary yarn that I can stripe in to make this work. Tonight I'll be ripping back to the cuff and putting plan B into action.

Finished Object Friday

Pattern: Gentleman's Fancy Sock

Yarn: Wandering Cat Alley Cat BFL in their Badlands colourway

Modifications: I shortened each leg by one repeat; it's long enough as is. And I switched to my usual wedge toe.

Comments: All that ribbing makes for a very stretchy and comfy sock. I'll definitely knit this pattern again. I knit the French heel as written - plain stockinette with a single purl column up the centre back of the heel - however I think I'll switch to a reinforced heel when I do them again. Hopefully the recipient doesn't go through the heel!

The colour pooled a bit on the feet but in real life it's more muted than in the picture. For whatever reason, the photo seems to have intensified the colours and emphasized the pooling. The BFL yarn is lovely soft. It certainly is going to compete with MCN for my yarn buying dollars.

It's Friday so check the links at Tami's Amis see what everyone else has finished. I've been very absent around the blogs for the last couple of weeks, but now that my brother's book is launched I'm hoping to get back on schedule. More about his book here and here.

Christmas knitting and a give-away

With the beginning of December arriving this weekend, it really is crunch time for Christmas knitting. So I couldn't be more pleased that this pair of socks is almost knitting itself. The pattern is Gentleman's Fancy Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks. You've seen the yarn before - it's Alley Cat BFL in a colourway called "Badlands". Several Ravelers warned in their notes that they needed slightly more than a skein so this yarn was the perfect choice as I have one skein plus almost 15gr leftover from my Archer socks. That should do it!

The pattern is simply K2P2 rib (and P2K2) rib which shifts back and forth between bands of stockinette. The result is very deeply textured and REALLY stretchy. It's going to fit beautifully! As you can imagine it's also very mindless knitting that's working up very quickly. That's awesome  - looks like I can finish up this pair before the end of next week.

Now, about that second picture ... With the addition of a loom it's clear that I have too many craft projects. Time to sort'em out and give some away! This lot features a cross stitch pattern called Gathering Place (Leaflet 91) from the Stoney Creek Collection by Leisure Arts with backyard birds like cardinals, chickadees, a woodpecker, blue jays, finches and wrens gathered around a feeder in a snowy pine tree. Along with the pattern I'm including three lengths of cotton cross stitch fabric and an assortment of DMC embroidery floss. I'm guessing much of the floss was purchased for this pattern so you'd be off to the races. Please leave a comment on this post if you're interested. Next Wednesday I'll draw one name and contact that person to arrange posting the lot to them.

Year of Projects: Merike's Gloves

Folk Knitting in Estonia: Aino's Gloves • Anu's Christmas Gloves • Anu's Mittens • Anu's Stockings • Avo's Mittens • Ellen's Stockings • Helgi's Mittens • Hilja's Mittens • Ilmar's Socks • Juta's Stockings • Kalev's Mittens • Kristi's Mittens • Laila's Socks • Landra's Gloves • Liidia's Gloves • Liivi's Stockings • Maarja's Socks • Maimu's Mittens • Marko's Mittens • Meida's Mittens • Merike's Gloves • Rita's Stockings • Sander's Mittens • Tiit's Socks • Ulla's Gloves • Virve's Stockings

On Friday I posted my finished picture for Helgi's Mittens. Despite a false start and new yarn choices, all's well that ends well. There was one more project finished by Friday, but I've saved that post for today. Finally, here are Merike's Gloves finished. I cast these on in mid-September so they've been on the needles for almost two months; that's an awfully long time for me. As you can imagine I'm pretty happy to have them done.

Following the suggestions of other Ravelers in their project notes I thinned each finger by a couple of stitches to make them less "sausage-y". It was the right thing to do because now they fit beautifully. I also lengthened the distance from the end of the cuff to the beginning of the thumb gusset by a handful of rows, which was totally unnecessary. Now my cuff is longer than it needed to be, but that's still okay. I love the way one section of the vikkel stitch patterns travels up each finger and thumb - the pattern is really well thought out!

For yarn I used Loopy Ewe Solid Series. It's okay but the yarn is not as soft and smooth as I'd like and it was quite annoyingly splitty to work with. I'm hoping that the gloves will soften up with a soak in Eucalan. Fingers crossed. The great thing about the Loopy Ewe Solid Series Yarn is the wide range of solid colours but it won't be my first choice otherwise.

At some point in the coming week I'll be casting on for Sander's Mittens. I've picked up some really bright colours of superwash baby wool from my stash, so it'll be a test of my nerves. These colours are really outside my comfort zone, which probably explains why they remain in my stash. Over the next few weeks, though, I do expect that work on my Year of Projects will slow. Christmas is coming and that's a whole different set of priorities.

Finished Object Friday

Pattern: Helgi's Mittens

Yarn: Shepherd Baby Wool 4 ply (Blue) and Sandnes Garn Lanett (Purple)

Modifications: I worked the cuff as K1P1 rib, instead of K1tblP1 rib as written entirely due to inattention. After realizing my mistake on the first mitt I decided to duplicate it on the second. As well, I made my cuff longer than the traditional short Estonian cuff that was directed.

Comments: The colour choices were determined by what was available in my stash; they seemed pretty iffy when I started but now that the mitts are done I'm happy with them. In matching yarns to projects I'm trying to use baby or fingering weight wools without nylon content for mittens and gloves, with a view to leaving the others for socks. 

The baby yarns are beautifully soft making for some very comfy mitts, and the stranding from the all-over colourwork makes them thick and warm. I briefly considered skipping the colourwork on the thumb and working it in solid blue to match the cuff, but then abandoned that idea. Anyone from a cold climate knows that the thumbs are the first to get cold!

It's Friday so check the links at Tami's Amis to see what everyone else has finished. I've got one more finished object waiting in the wings, but you'll have to wait for Sunday for that! To all my American friends, I hope you are enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

learning new tricks

As soon as I knew for sure that I was getting a rigid heddle loom I ordered this book "Weaving Made Easy". My plan was to work through the book project by project in order to learn how to use the loom. Unfortunately due to shipping delays the book didn't arrive until several days after the loom - time enough for me to warp it up and crank something out. And I briefly thought that maybe the book had been a waste of money.

Now that my first project is off the loom I've had a chance to examine it more closely. Can you see the mistakes in the second photo? See those two floats where my weft didn't travel correctly between the warp threads? There are at least a half dozen of these throughout the woven fabric. I was a bit ticked that I hadn't been more careful ... that is, until I found the "Troubleshooting" chapter in the book and the step-by-step instructions on how to fix exactly this. Now it looks like the book was a very wise investment indeed. There are several more tips in this chapter that I'll be putting to good use.

My finished project is 58" x 10.25" after hemstitching each end on the loom and then making a fringe with overhand knots. The fabric is too stiff to make a scarf out of it. And it's a bit narrow for placemats. It could serve as a table runner but I don't have a table that needs a runner. The yarn is a wool/acrylic blend so it's not really suitable for kitchen cloths or pot holders. I am thinking about cutting it into four equal lengths and then practising some hemming techniques. Or maybe cutting pieces and sewing them into bags. Any other suggestions?

Year of Projects: Helgi's Mitts 03

Folk Knitting in Estonia: Aino's Gloves • Anu's Christmas Gloves • Anu's Mittens • Anu's Stockings • Avo's Mittens • Ellen's Stockings • Helgi's Mittens • Hilja's Mittens • Ilmar's Socks • Juta's Stockings • Kalev's Mittens • Kristi's Mittens • Laila's Socks • Landra's Gloves • Liidia's Gloves • Liivi's Stockings • Maarja's Socks • Maimu's Mittens • Marko's Mittens • Meida's Mittens • Merike's Gloves • Rita's Stockings • Sander's Mittens • Tiit's Socks • Ulla's Gloves • Virve's Stockings

Today's the last day of my vacation :( I've done lots over the last seven days but, as usual, my to-do list was longer than I could manage. I had hoped to have Helgi's Mittens done today but I've come up a bit short. I considered delaying this post to finish the top shaping and start a thumb but that seemed a little silly.

I am sure that I will finish the mitts today and then get restarted on Merike's Gloves. After finishing the third of my dishcloth cotton shelf-liners last night, I'm feeling pretty motivated to finish things up. The fact that Christmas is just over a month away is another big motivator. The presents for family in Europe are done - I'll post them this week. The presents for family in Ottawa are also done - I dropped them off last week. Next up? Presents for family in New Brunswick. Looks like the next couple of weeks better be spent on secret Christmas knitting!

How about you? Are you feeling under pressure too?