Finished Object: Don't tread[mill] on me Socks

I finished my Don't tread[mill] on me socks!

Yarn: 235 yards of Knit Picks Felici Sport Self Striping in the color "Depths". 

Needle: US 2 - 2.75 mm

Pattern: Loosely based on Sock Recipe: A Good, Plain Sock by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee with an afterthought heel.

 

With all the mistakes and craziness of these socks I was thinking they would be shoved in a sock drawer and forgot about when I finished them, but when I tried them both on together I found I actually really liked them! They are cozy and comfortable and even though they are kind of a mess, I am thinking they will be great with jeans this fall/winter.  

 

 

I did some of the ribbing and most of the knitting on the treadmill. I think I figured out at one point I was getting about an inch and a half of knitting done in a session on the treadmill, and I walk fairly slowly, so about three miles of walking for an inch and a half of knitting. 

I am learning more and more about sock knitting and am getting better at picking up the stitches for the afterthought heel. The first sock I did pick up the wrong leg of the knit stitch all the way across the foot. It was really hard knitting and it twisted the stitches across the ankle .

 

And I don't know what I was thinking on those toe decreases, but when I put them on they felt good and they are really comfortable, so I guess all the weirdness is forgiven. I learned a lot about sock construction and what works for me, and got a bunch of miles on my treadmill to boot, so I guess it's a win win!

 

 

My Three Socks

I currently have three pair of socks on the needles all in various states of doneness and all in different yarn weights. So I thought I would post about my progress a little bit.

1. Don't tread[mill] on me

 

These are my Sport Weight socks and I have knit them largely while walking on the tread mill. I knit heels and toes when I am sitting comfortably somewhere with good light and Internet access. I still need directions for the afterthought heel and suspect I always will. I am finished with sock one and am inserting the heel on sock two at this point. It looks a hot mess - but I have a system. Since I cast on the heel before I do the toe, I take the working yarn (on the toe end) and ball it into the sock and hold it there with my working double point. Then I work the heel with a circular needle using magic loop. This works really well for me. So once I finish the heel I will try it on for length, and then knit the few more rows I suspect I will need to do and then I can try and duplicate the very odd toe decrease I did on the first sock. 

2. Socks Appeal

This is knit with fingering weight yarn and, just like the last sock, I had a standard heel in it and ended up ripping back and going with an afterthought heel. When I did the frogging on this sock I ended up keeping the circular needle in it and have been knitting this magic loop ever since. I am getting close to where the toe needs to be placed, so I will need to insert the heel so I can get the toe placement right. I know I need to be about 5½ inches past my life line in order to get the toe right, but I never trust my measurements and prefer to knit to fit (try on try on try on) to be sure. I think partly because I am knitting so many socks in different weights and I am still fairly new to sock knitting. 

This is still sock 1 and I have been knitting this on the treadmill as well. At this point I think I have done all I can on the treadmill with this - so I really need to insert the heel and measure so I can finish it up and move on to sock 2. 

3. Tropical Feet Wave

And this is my worsted weight sock. Singular. As in - one down one to go. I have to say I am super in love with this sock and am anxious to finish these up. This is the first time I have knit socks with a contrast color for the toe/heel/cuff and I really like it. I like the look and I like the yarn I chose. The only bugger was more ends to sew in, but small price to pay. I think these will really keep me warm this winter. 

So that is my sock status. I make progress on one or more every day right now as I am hitting the treadmill every day. I thought I would have plenty of time at time for heel and toe additions, but I am backing up in that department. I am thinking rather seriously about casting on another pair. I am almost done with the blue socks, I have a lot of toe/heel work to do on the green ones, and I am not really keen on knitting the worsted weight socks on the treadmill for some reason. I knit those while couch surfing and while grilling in the yard - so it seems wrong to get them involved with the treadmill for some reason. 

Stay tuned!

Finished Project: Socksocksocksocksock

I finished another pair of socks! YAY! This is the second pair I finished this year. GO ME!

Pattern: Sock Recipe: A Good, Plain Sock by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Project: Socksocksocksocksock
Cast on: June 15, 2014
Bind off: July 30, 2014
Yarn: Knit Picks Felici in Building Blocks (288 yards)
Needle: Size 2 Double Points

Am in love with them. This yarn is great and I love striping socks and I love the colors in these socks. I wish this yarn had not been discontinued! The only bummer about this project is that the second skein of yarn had dye speckles throughout the skein, so there was some sort of heathering/speckled look. Kind of tweedy.

The above picture shows what I mean. There was dye splotches through out this skein. Annoying - but I didn't notice it until I was well into the sock and I was NOT going to rip it back at that point!

As much as I love these socks, I am even more in favor of doing an afterthought heel in self-striping yarn. The heels look fine (I did Eye of Partridge), but I really like how an afterthought works with the striping yarn. You don't get the thin stripes around the ankle like you do when you work a more standard heel. But all in love, I consider these a success and am quite pleased!

Don't tread[mill] on me

I am a fan of knitting on the treadmill. And over the last year or so I have become a bit obsessed with knitting socks. You see where this is going don't you???

So I started knitting these socks on the treadmill. I cast on and got the ribbing started, then I hopped on the treadmill and ribbed until I thought it looked like enough ribbing, and then switched to stockinette.

Session 2 was just knit knit knit - walk walk walk. I think I can get one more treadmill session in the ankle before I will start the heel.

I can't see myself making the heel flap and picking up stitches while walking on the tread mill, so I think after the next session I will have to knit the heel when I am couch surfing, and then when I get the heel done I can get a couple more sessions out of these on the treadmill before I make the toe.

Since I have to have the socks out of treadmill rotation while making heels and toes (at least until I become a sock knitting ninja), I think I will try and have a couple pairs of socks going so I will always have something I can work on while walking.

And yes - I have sweat dripping off my elbows while I am knitting. Because my arms are bent, the sweat never hits the socks or yarn. Satisfying to be knitting away and dripping sweat! And I walk longer because I am enjoying the knitting and not as focused on the time or the miles. I am not seeing a downside to this!

Progress report - Socksocksocksocksock

I am trucking along on my "Socksocksocksocksock" socks. I am trying to knit a stripe a night while unwinding before bed. I think I have another stripe or two and then I can make with the toe decreases. Happy to be making progress!

Socksocksocksocksock

 

I have been knitting! YAY! So right now I have three pairs of socks on the needles. I thought I would talk about this pair today. I named the socks "Socksocksocksocksock" because when you cast on a third pair of socks, you know this is the chant running through your head. Obsessed much? Naaaaw.

So the pattern I have been using is Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Sock Recipe: A Good, Plain Sock. 

I love this recipe - it's well written and it's my go to sock pattern for a good, basic sock. 

The yarn: Knit Picks Felici in Building Blocks. Sadly this is discontinued - but it's a great yarn! I stocked up on it when it was clearanced out.  

Needles: US 2 - 2.75 mm double points.

I cast on 64 stitches over two double points held together to give it some room. You don't want a tight cuff! Then I knit 2x2 rib back and forth for two rows before joining in the round. This allows for the join to not get twisted. For some reason I struggle with joining socks in the round. Not sure if it is the ribbing or what? When I am done I just use the tail to join up that little gap.

I knit the 2x2 ribbing for 1½ inches and then knit 3 inches in stockinette before I hit the heel. 

For the heel I am favoring Eye of Partridge, I think it looks nice and I find the stitches are a bit neater to pick up when I use that heel. On this pair I knit 32 stitches before I start the heel stitches on the last 32 stitches remaining. I did this partly because the blue stripe I was knitting when I got to the heel was only two rounds in, and I wanted one more row of that stripe on the sock to make that stripe a little more substantial.

 So this is where I am at. I dropped a stitch when I was working the heel - so the pattern is a little funky, but I am OK with such things. I really love this yarn and I think I am going to love these socks when they are finished.

I was able to knit a little bit of them on the tread mill which I find really exciting as well! I don't think I would try the complicated bits, like picking up stitches or decrease rows on the tread mill, but I had no problem with the ribbing and the stockinette portion while I was walking, so that is happy news. Knowing I can work on portions of my socks while walking may mean an increase in sock production!

Hot Child in the City

 

• Project Name: Hot Child in the City
• Pattern Name: Cabled Hot Water Bottle Cosy by Alexis Layton. 
• {This is a Free pattern on Ravelry found HERE.}
• Yarn:125 yards of  Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Bulky in the color Wine. 
• Needles: Size 10 double point needles and a cable needle 

My Ravelry project page can be found HERE for anyone interested in greater detail.

I have been wanting to knit a hot water bottle cozy for many years. What could be more comforting then a hot water bottle with a hand knit cozy? So I dug through patterns on Ravelry and came across this one. The pattern is written to have a tie at the top to keep the cozy secure on the bottle, but I preferred the ribbed turtle neck look to the tie down look. I also think having no tie is just more practical for us. Nothing to get lost or separated.

 

The pattern calls for 5 repeats of the cable pattern, but I had a smaller hot water bottle than the one in the pattern, so I did the cable pattern 3.5 times which brought me to the top of the bottle's body. Then I did the k2,p2 ribbing until I was to the to the top of the spout of the bottle, did a knit row as a kind of turn row, and then switched my ribbing to p2,k2 so it would lay nice.

 

I kept ribbing until I had the length of the neck/spout area covered and was back to the body of the bottle, then bound off in the ribbing to keep it nice and neat. 

I am really happy with how it turned out. The yarn is a ball of Knit Picks that was was in my stash for years, so I was able to Stash Bust to make this as well - so that felt good too. 

And I think I may be giving my bottle a test run today. It's so cold out that all the schools in the state are shut down and my boss called me last night and told me I could stay home if I wanted too today. (Uh, yeah I want to stay home!) So it's nearly 11:00 and I am still in my jammies playing on the Internet. Not a bad day after all!

Catching up

My goodness - how time gets away from a person! I had no intention of taking an almost 2 month break from my blog, but it appears that is exactly what I did! Since my last post I enrolled in the local community college and will be going for an Associate in Applied Science Information Technology Support Degree. It is a two year degree and I am sincerely hoping it increases my potential in the job market. I start classes next week and will be taking 6 classes this semester while working full time. My head may very well explode, but I am also excited to be moving forward on my life in this way.

So that has been a huge chunk of what I have been doing the last two months. Meeting with the various people in the college, setting up a million different accounts, and enrolling in classes. I have managed to work in a little knitting too! I have finished just one project since I last wrote. Now that I am knitting socks, I find my finished objects are further and further apart.

Project Name: Summer Breeze - Makes me feel fine
Pattern Name: An Anklet a Day.... by Jessica Marks
Yarn: Knit Picks Felici Sport Self Striping and I used 1.05 skeins = 172.2 yards (157.5m)
Needle: US 2 - 2.75 mm
Size: Fits my size US 7½ foot
Love: ♥♥♥♥ out of 5 ♥s

You can find my Ravelry Project Notes HERE.

This is proof that I am a slow knitter as it took me close to a month to finish these guys. And when I was done I thought I wouldn't like them as they are really pretty short, but I find myself loving them and wearing them around the house all the time. We have hard wood floors and I always get cold feet, so they are a pretty perfect summer sock. I think if I made them again I would increase the ribbing (maybe double or triple?) as I like my socks to stay put and I just feel like these want to slop a bit. I also found some errata in the pattern and found that I had to spend some time working things out that an experienced sock knitter probably wouldn't have a hard time figuring out. ("Continue on in this manner..." instructions tend to throw me for a loop!)

But overall I am very pleased with them and they are very wearable!

Rainbow! Rainbow!

Project Name: Rainbow! Rainbow!
Pattern Name: AfterThought Heel Socks by Laura Linneman
Yarn: Knit Picks Felici Sport Self Striping 1.4 skeins = 229.6 yards (209.9m)
Needle: US 2 - 2.75 mm (double points and a circular for the heel and toe)
Size: Knit the smaller size and fits my US 7.5 foot
Love: ♥♥♥♥♥

You can find my Ravelry Project Notes HERE.

I finished my Rainbow! Rainbow! socks in JUST under a month. I love them like crazy!

The pattern was easy enough to follow for a newbie sock knitter to have wonderful success. The video links in the pattern really helped me work through the picking up stitches and the afterthought heel was very easy to do. I love that the stripes don't match. It makes me happy to look down and see a different pattern on each foot.

I am sad that this yarn was discontinued. It was a little splity, but overall a joy to work with. Happily I have a stash of this yarn, and I know I get 8 stitches per inch on size 2 needles, so I can work with this stitch knowing my gauge pretty well.

So happy with this project and pleased to have finished a knitting project! It's been too long!

http://tamisamis.blogspot.com/

Afterthought Heel in Progress

It's WIP Wednesday and I am making progress on my 2nd sock. Today I picked up stitches along my waste yarn and then yanked out that waste yarn. It's as close to steeking as I have come and it's kind of thrilling!

I am still hoping to finish these by the 30th - which would have them completed in 1 month. Exciting!

WIP Wednesdays With Tami's Amis

OH We are half way there.....

 

My first afterthought heel sock is off the needles and done! 

WOOT!

I am knitting this with a Knit Picks Felici Sport Self-Striping yarn on size 2 (2.75) needles. Cuff down and double points except for the heel and the toe which I knit magic loop. I think it's ♥!

 

The heel is knit almost exactly the same as the toe. It looks really weird when you are making it, but the fit is really nice actually. I still had the problem of holes where I picked up stitches, but I just wove ends into them. (You can only master so many things at a time, right?)

I am really happy with how my first sock turned out and am anxious to get cranking on sock #2. I tried casting on Magic Loop for sock number 2 already and found my gauge is much different with magic loop - so I will be sticking with double point needles again.

The yarn is really nice. Pity Knit Picks discontinued it, but I got a bunch on clearance super cheap, so I guess it's a win! 

Sock Progress

Knit for hours last night and made some progress on my sock. I am still on the first sock and researching like mad as I knit. I am thinking I will want to place the heel before I get too much further so I can try it on and get the toe just right. Would really like these socks to fit after the hours I have put into them already. ☺

Stay tuned!

Sock ♥

I guess I cannot kid myself anymore. I have become just a little bit bonkers for Sock Knitting. I knew it was just a matter of time before it happened. About two years ago I found myself going to the sock yarn display before any other section of the store. Flirting if you will. Balls started to find there way home with me. No big deal. You can knit sock yarn into things that are not socks. But soon I found myself spending hours on Ravelry looking at sock patterns. Flirty little half-assed attempts at slipper socks on bulky yarn started happening. And then finally, I cast on a pair of beginner socks.

My first attempt left a sinister taste in my mouth and I set them down for over a month after turning my first heel. Then something caused me to finish the first sock and plow through the second. 24 hours later I was casting on these socks. These are the AfterThought Heel Socks by Laura Linneman.  You pretty much knit a tube with some waste yarn in the heel position as a place holder. Then after you finish the sock you go back and pick up stitches on either side of the waste yarn, and add the heel. This makes so much sense to me as it's awfully close to how you make a mitten. 

So I have been working like a crazed squirrel on these socks. Last night I placed my heel  waste yarn and figured out how much further I needed to knit before decreasing for the toe. Knit knit knit!

 

For more details on this project go to my Ravelry project page. I need to go knit!

Color me anything! (3KCBWDAY1)

Today is the kick off of the Third Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week and this will be my first year participating! What that means is that for the next 7 days I will be posting on a set topic that is posted over on Eskimimi's wonderful blog.

Today's Topic:

Colour LoversColour is one of our greatest expressions of ourselves when we choose to knit or crochet, so how do you choose what colours you buy and crochet or knit with. Have a look through your stash and see if there is a predominance of one colour. Do the same with your finished projects - do they match? Do you love a rainbow of bright hues, or more subdued tones. How much attention do you pay to the original colour that a garment is knit in when you see a pattern? Tell readers about your love or confusion over colour.

I found this topic overwhelming. My head swam with ideas. Should I look at my stash? Should I look at the last 6 balls of yarn I purchased in a yarn store and talk about why I was drawn to them? And then it came to me. I would look at my hat collection!

So I took my hat bin out to the deck and dumped it out and started to look at the hats that I had made (and I recently weeded this out of things I don't wear/like so this is the keeper pile!) and started to really look at what I have going on here. My first thought was "I am not afraid of color!" which I already knew so that wasn't all that revelatory. Then I started to separate a little to see what I saw.

The above two hats were made out of Knit Picks Bare yarn that I hand dyed and then knit up. Similar color range - different styles. I had more hats in this pile at one time - but for one reason or another they ended up felted into bowls. (I do that with wool hats that don't make the cut. I have wool bowls all over the place!)

And then I separated all the hats that I combined two or more colors of yarn:

• The skully hat has glow in the dark yarn and I really wanted an authentic pirate feel - so the colors kind of picked themselves on that one.
• The hat next to it I made with Lime as the body and forest green as the ribbing. I had this exact hat in the reverse as well - but I think I made it a size too small and it is now a felted bowl. (I told you I do that a lot!) And this was a stash busting decision.
• The two striped hats in the center are both stash busters as well and I knit both of them largely while away from home. I needed something really simple (which is why I knit so many hats!) that I didn't have to pay much attention to. I was able to knit and talk at a graduation party and the stripes kept me interested enough to not feel like the hat was a burden to knit.
• The orange/green/brown hat is from yarn my co-worker brought me from Scotland. It was one of my earliest color works and I still love this hat. It turned out perfect!
• And the last hat was me just loving the colors together and loving the squish of the Debbie Bliss Como yarn. Wonderful warm squish hat.

On to self striping yarn. Love it! Love the color combinations. Love the boldness. The hat above is knit with Adriafil Knitcol and the hat below is Online Linie 231. I love both of the yarns so much. (Although the Linie gets worn less as I decided to give it ear flaps and it turns out I am just not much for the ear flaps. Live and learn!)

Both of these hats were just such fun to knit as the yarn was changing constantly and I would just knit and knit wanting to see what was around the next corner.

And then you find a pattern you love that helps you REALLY bust through all those single skeins of almost no yardage yarn that you HAD to buy and had no idea what to do with them. The yarns are: Colinette Point 5 (Which is 54 yards a skein), Malabrigo Yarn Aquarella (65 yards) or Malabrigo Gruesa (65 yards). INSTANT gratification projects! And this is actually two different hat patterns. One is the Handspun Beanie by Woolie Wormhead on Ravelry and is currently unavailable while it is being tweaked. The other is The Easy Malabrigo Hat and is available for free on Ravelry. Both wonderful patterns and I admit to running to my local yarn store and buying MORE of these yarns so I could make the hats again and again.

I told myself I might gift some of these hats - but I was a big liar and had to keep them all for my greedy self. I am keeping the patterns handy though for emergency gift knitting.

Sometimes the fiber content will influence my love of the color. Alpaca - I love you so much! When a yarn appeals to your eyes and then you touch it and your hands sink into a cloud of love, you pretty much HAVE to purchase it. This hat looks really busy - but it's heaven when worn and I love it. There is nothing bad about Misti Alpaca yarn. Yes it stretches. Yeah - it's a bit spendy. But it's so warm! And knitting with it is just a pleasure. Nothing makes me happier that I am one of those slow pokes who throws her yarn when I knit quite like Misti. Fabulous!

This is Reynold's Blizzard. Sadly this yarn is now discontinued - but it's another one of those where you think of jumping onto a giant marshmallow. How can that now be awesome to knit with?!?! And for some reason I needed this bold bold pink color. I am not sure why I would look at all the yarn and say - The Pink! The color is a little overwhelming. But I had to have it.

And more Alpaca. I lean toward the blues with Alpaca (with one pink exception...). Not sure if it's how the fiber takes the dye that makes me need to own it? But when I think Alpaca - I GENERALLY think the blue family.

So my study of my hat collection was fun. I don't think it revealed a whole lot - other than that there are a lot of factors that go into the decision I make when I decide to knit something. If I am stash busting, I will compromise my color desire for a project in order to walk the path of the righteous stash buster. If I am specifically purchasing a yarn to make "Project ____" I will look at the yarn options and the finished objects on Ravelry and decide based on what I see and what color makes me REALLY want to knit it.

I love the look of a solid color but hate to knit it. (Yawn.)

I love to knit wild colors and get excited by unusual combinations. The finished object doesn't always live up to my expectations though. Like my cowl I call my "Clown Vomit Cowl". I kinda have to be in the right frame of mind to pull that one off. (read: Drunk.)

 As I put my hats away I looked down and thought how pretty my sock color was against the wood with my beat up jeans. Color inspiration is just everywhere.