Potholders!

We spent Easter with my family in Michigan, and when we got back, I had these beautiful potholders waiting for me! I have to admit that I opened them before we even brought our bags in from the car. I had been waiting all week to get home so I could see what I had received. I couldn't be happier with the potholders I got in the swap, and I'm reinspired to start crocheting more potholders. I see an order of cotton classic in the near future!

As pictured clockwise from top left: Scalloped potholder (no name provided); Potholders by humongouspudding; a granny circle by Jody (no rav id); another version of Potholders by wildwoodflwr and a really neat hexagon by fishtail on rav. Thanks everyone - I love them all! And now I wonder who got my potholders!

Barely!

I barely made it to the post office in time! I'm hoping they arrived safely, and I cannot wait to see what I get in the swap! I'm actually proud of myself - this is the first time since the Bub was born that I made a knitting deadline.

I used the Cool Flames potholder pattern, and am very happy with how they turned out. Both sides are the same pattern, but if I made this again, I would try to figure out how to make a plain, solid crocheted back. I used Lion Cotton because I didn't find out about the swap in time to order anything else. I think next year I'll plan a little better and order a lot of different colors of cotton to do something more interesting. Maybe something like this or this or maybe this!

so...

I really can't believe it has been almost three years since I last posted. I thought about the blog quite a bit. In any event, I have a very important FO to announce . . .

the Bub. Amazingly, I don't have any pictures of him in anything hand-knit. I'll have to work on that while it is still sweater weather! There has been a little bit of knitting, but, because he just recently started napping for more than 20 minutes at a time, there hasn't been much. I've mostly been keeping up with what everyone else is knitting, and making a huge queue on Ravelry.

I am participating in the crocheted potholder swap on Ravelry, and am almost done with my third potholder. It looks like I might actually make the deadline, and I am so excited to see what potholders I receive. All of the pictures of finished potholders on the Ravelry group are amazingly beautiful!

Well, naptime is over, but I'll post pictures of my potholder progress soon!

not so much

I'm not crazy about how this yarn is working with the Monkey sock pattern. My husband says that the striping looks like spinach lasagne. This yarn is headed back to the stash. Maybe it wants to be a chevron scarf paired with a complementary dark color?

How many ways can you screw up a Monkey?

At least two, apparently. I had a rainy day urge to cast on a pair of socks with some STR Farmhouse I had marinating in the stash, and decided to see if the Monkey socks are really as much fun as they look. Well, this pattern is my first attempt to actually knit from a chart. It didn't go well.

First, although I noticed, in theory, that the purl and the knit marks on the chart were different, I failed to consistently notice them while knitting. Some rows were purled, some rows were not. Rip. (Only back to the ribbing. Nothing too horrible.) Back to happily knitting the charted section. As I neared the end of the first repeat, I looked at the inside of the sock and thought that it really looked better from the inside. Hm. It was then that I realized that I had mixed up the knit symbol and the purl symbol, so that I was knitting the purls and purling the knits. So I decided to turn it inside out and keep going. We'll see if that works or if that is, in fact, a third way to screw up the Monkeys.

Done!

Another finished pair to show you!


Pattern: I made it up as I went. Top-down, 64 stitches around, afterthought heel.
Yarn: Duet Sock
Needles: Size 2
Time to complete: about a week


This was my first time using an afterthought heel. It was easier than I thought it was going to be, and I used this tutorial even though I was making them top down. I picked up three stitches at the corners of the heels on the second sock. I only picked up one extra stitch at the corners on the first sock, and wound up with some small holes.


I liked working with the yarn, and have a lot of extra left over. I know a few people having babies soon, so I think I'll use the leftovers to make booties.

Missed it!

I missed the Loopy Ewe sneak up again! (and yes, I know I just finished saying that I really don't need more yarn.) I was hoping to score some self-striping Yarntini. I love the colors and I've never had the chance to knit with it. There is still some left at Wool Girl, but it is all variegated.

I have some finished projects to show you! I am apparently always the last to jump on the bandwagon, but in this case I'm glad I did.

Pattern: Jaywalkers
Yarn: Vesper (nameless. I lost the ballband.)
Needles: Size 1
Time to complete: I didn't keep track. Another reason for the blog. Accountability.
Mods: None

The verdict? I love this yarn and I think this pattern is fantastic for variegated and self striping yarns. I think you will be seeing another pair of these in the future.

In the interest of full disclosure

Just so we all know what we are dealing with here, this is my sock yarn stash. I pulled it out yesterday to photograph it for Ravelry. It may be that I have this delusion that I have more free time than I actually do, but I always think that I will knit mountains of socks and sweaters and purchase accordingly. I know it could be worse, but I have a small house and my stash is threating to take over.

From left to right: Lisa Souza Sock! in Gendarme and Berry Poppins (my husband bought these for Valentine's day and didn't realize that you only need one skein to make socks - he bought two of each. I'm trying to find a pattern to use both skeins), top left - various skeins of Claudia's Handpaint, front left to right - Skinny Duet in Sailor Girl, Yarn Pirate in Wildflowers, Sweet Georgia in Rusted, three skeins of Fearless Fibers, Socks that Rock in Farmhouse, Scottish Highlands and all three (!) sock club yarns (monsoon, grasshopper and firebird). At the back from the middle to the left - Sockotta in black and knitpicks in hunter green and tan.

Since discovering knitting blogs, I have been inspired and informed by the projects and techniques discussed by other knitters. I hope you will join me as I hunt down the ever elusive finished object and find ever more beguiling patterns and yarns to add to my wishlist.