good-natured ribbing

In most of my free time, I’ve been working on the mate to my sock. I just finished the last repeat before the heel – should been pretty quick now! Thanks for all the comments on the sock. I can’t wait see it knit by someone else – I’ve been looking at mine for a long time!

In my spare free time…

… I’ve been working on this. I let Ava pick out the fiber from my stash – she picked the white! I guess I have some dying in my future.

You’ll remember that last weekend I bought a honkin’ big skein of merino/bamboo yarn with no gauge info. I thought that it might be appropriate for the Minimalist Cardigan.

So, I worked on a little moss stitch swatch, as the pattern called for. It turns out to be exactly right! What do you think about the colors? Will it look good with this pattern? I think I’m going to go for it.

And, I haven’t had any Fiberlicious ideas lately… until I wound that 1200yd skein:

Enjoy!

I’ve been dying to make this little baby hat since I saw it a few months ago. I decided to make it with my prize yarn from Kristy. I think the Wollmeise worked really well for this hat (tip for anyone trying to figure out what to do with your leftovers!).

This was a pretty quick knit and fun, too. I can see lots of little babies receiving these as gifts! So cute!!

And thanks to everyone for your great comments on the sock pattern. I’m hurrying, I promise. It will be unveiled with another project I’ve been working on soon!

What do you think of these babies?! Even though these are a little fancier than I had pictured, I really love the way they turned out.

It has lace, cables, short row heel and toe, scalloped cuff… And best of all, it is super easy to memorize. I have a few alterations to make in the pattern and the second sock to complete – but it will be ready soon!!

I hope you like it.

Christina and I went to the Michigan Fiber Fest yesterday (2.5 hr ride in the pouring rain with a bored 3 yr old). Although the weather was pretty bad, the rain held off while we were at the festival – pretty much. And although that much yarn is pretty boring for a kid, she behaved herself pretty well (and was mesmerized by the shearing demonstration).

The pictures I took didn’t really turn out but you can look at last year’s. It looked the same. As you could guess, I did bring home some yarn. I decided to stay away from the roving since I have so much stocked up.

This lovely, kettle dyed, semi-solid, superwash sock yarn is from Knitting Notions. They had so many beautiful colors it was hard to pick just one. They also had some organic cotton that was so very soft. I didn’t get any, but I might have to order some for my next baby gift.

Next is… more sock yarn! I couldn’t help myself – it is so soft and the colors are awesome. I’ll have to use a pretty plain sock pattern, I think, but they will be pretty fun socks! This is called Soft Touch Ultra by Shelridge Farm (from Canada!). They have lots and lots of beautiful colors. This would be great yarn for stranded knitting!

I kept feeling like I needed one more thing – something that wasn’t sock yarn. Then I clapped my eyes on this baby and I was done. This hank is 1200 yards of 60% merino/40% bamboo yarn. It doesn’t have gauge info on the tag, but if my estimate is right, this is the right gauge and enough yarn to make the Minimalist Cardigan from IK. I’ll work up a swatch soon to see if I’m right. This lovely yarn is Celebration from Briar Rose Fibers.

And if all that wasn’t enough, Ava had her first Elephant Ear. Mmmmmmmm…. fried dough.

Yay!!! I got my Sockapalooza socks today, too! And I love them! The fit very well and I just love the colors. My pal, Elizabeth from geeyouknit, dyed the yarn herself (she also sells her yarn on Etsy).

This picture is most close to the real-life socks. Sorry about the only-at-home comfy pants.

And this is the what was in my package. The socks (Charade, if you didn’t recognize them), a skein of her sock yarn in green and brown, and a cute hand-drawn card. Ava always snatches cards away from me and she loved this one. She thought the picture was great but after she unfolded the paper, she said “Why didn’t she draw on this side?” I told her she could finish it off!

And her is a nice close up of the toe. I love how the toe looks and it fits very well. Thanks so much, Elizabeth!! These are really special socks and I love them.

Ok, I guess that’s a can of worms we don’t even want to open, but maybe we can just start with “Why can’t Dharma blog consistently???” Sorry it has been a while. I’ve been all wrapped up in summer and it just seems like there is never enough time to do it all. I got my socks from my sockapalooza pal! They’re awesome! I love the color and they feel great on my feet. In addition my pal sent some other goodies. How sweet is it to get gifts from strangers?! Thanks Pal!

Bringin’ socksey back. ha. ha. ha. Sorry, I had to use the bad knitting word play.

This whole experience has actually made me like knitting socks. This is terrible, but I’m only just today finishing my spoilee’s socks. I’m sure she’s wondering if they’re coming. They are! I will post ‘em before I ship ‘em.

I have broken down and begun knitting with sock yarn and ridiculously small needles. However, I still refuse to produce socks. I’m knitting more fingerless gloves!

I used Louet Gems in Fern Green and the pattern is based on the Springrass Sock pattern from Craftoholic.

I cast on 60 stitches on to size 2 needles. I did some 2×2 rib until I was impatient, then switched to size 1 needles to start the pattern. I inserted a basic thumb gusset between pattern repeats (one round consists of two 30-stitch patterns).

Easy peasy!

These are still in progress, but were so cute I had to post. Plus, Beth showed me how to embed my Flickr photos so I don’t have to worry about uploading too large photos to the blog! YAY!

I finished my Pal’s socks a while ago but since I wasn’t very discrete with my “anonymous” identity, I didn’t show them here. Well, there was a sneak peak when I finished the first sock, but I didn’t mention who they were for. Here is the finished pair:

This is the Mad Color Weave pattern and Claudia Hand Painted sock yarn. Today, my pal blogged about her new socks so I know it is safe to post them now.

In other news, I received a fun package today. No, it wasn’t my socks… it was yarn from Kristy.

She held a contest on her blog a while ago and I didn’t win. Well, I had the right answer, but I was not the randomly chosen winner. Kind Kristy took pity on me, however, and sent the remaining yarn from her Sidewinders.

Those Wollmeise skeins are so huge there is almost enough for another pair of socks (84g).

I seem to be on a small break from knitting right now, however, I don’t think I’ve ever been on a break from shopping. And so I present these adorable handmade knitting needles that I’m considering getting a set (or six) of

From Pertineer on Etsy.

I got my socks! They’re Monkey socks from Catherine, and she also sent me a lovely Lantern Moon silk bag in emerald.

Green is my favorite color! Catherine hand-dyed the yarn, partly with KoolAid and partly with Wilton’s And the yarn is Henry’s Attic Kona Superwash — very soft and light. I didn’t know about this yarn, so it’s a new-to-me yarn. Thank you, Catherine!

My sockapalooza socks, that is. And they are great. They are from Allison L., and made with Socks that Rock yarn, color Midsummer Night. I need to find out what pattern she used — seems like a ribbed basket weave.

I’m impressed with her knitting. She did a perfect short-row heel, perfect on both sides, which mine never are.

It’s hard to take pictures of one’s own feet, so I set the timer for this one. In the 10 seconds it took to go off, Sam decided he wanted his dainty paws in the shot, too.

This made me laugh. Can you imagine the monster whose socks would be blocked on those suckers?!

I have been knitting, but I don’t have anything to show. I’m trying to write a couple sock patterns, so I just keep knitting and re-knitting. Hopefully, I’ll have something lovely to show for it soon.

Over the weekend, I started cleaning out my mom’s sewing/craft room and brought home a bunch of great stuff. I had to tidy up my own sewing/yarn/computer room so that I could put it all away. Everything looked so nice, I decided to take some pictures!

It is just a small room, but I have a lot crammed in there. I didn’t bother taking a picture of the corner with the computer. There is a lot of fun and interesting stuff in there!

And check out this awesome fabric! I didn’t unfold it to see how much is there yet, but there is probably 4 yards. I’m just dying to make something with it! Any ideas?!