Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Five for five

After 5 RSC packages, I have maintained my goal and I have knit all five kits thus far. The final package was shipped on Monday and I hope to have it by the end of the week.

But, again I am negligent in the blogging of the completed item. The September RSC package was lightweight STR in the Tide Pooling colourway. I love this colour, love it. It's totally me.
Both in the skein


And in the cake.


I cast-on for these as soon as I finished Vintage, they were waiting for me, my reward. Yes, every fourth row was fiddley, but I cabled each and every stich without a cable needles and soon got a pretty good rhythm going. I don't think I'll cable more than one stitch cables without a cable needle but I think it was definitly a time saver on this project. The first sock worked up pretty quickly.



I really love the almost randomness of the colour on the legs, not the typical striping I get with STR. Loved it so much in fact, that I didn't want to rip it out and go down from a 2.5mm to a 2.25 mm needle on the leg for a little bit more negative ease.



I did switch to the smaller needle for the foot though and got the same wonderful little stripes and, the correct gauge.



And there we go. I would have to say the 5th RSC kit is a hit, I like the socks a lot. I'm going to wear them tomorrow in fact. Look at the colours, they're just so pretty!

Cloning Anemome Rib, and that's my shoe, not my third foot

I almost forgot about these. I think she liked the socks.





Saturday, November 1, 2008

Pass the wine please

I did it. It took months and months (including some loooooong breaks), but the Vintage Socks are FINISHED. They were gifted to my MIL along with a bottle of wine that SIL bought, since I never really gave her a chance to knit any of the socks. Sorry Jen.

I learned a new toe-up cast on (Turkish) and how to inlay a tiny little leaf into the toe of a sock.



There was a short row heel, with inverted wine glass detail that I knit 5 times. Once because the whole foot was too short, twice because it was just plain wrong, and the two correct times.



I also learned the valuable skill of embossed grape knitting. The inc4 was a major pain, but the grapes are pretty cool. I also made a lot of leaves, plus one. They were fun, I kept having little contests with myself to see if I could knit them faster. I couldn't. But they were fun.



Overall, I can't really say I enjoyed knitting these socks. From the splitty yarn to the errors in the pattern (written vs chart) to the integrated I-cord bind off that took FOR.EVER. But, they look great and she loves them.

I took some pictures of the socks on her feet with my SIL's little camera, but have forgotten to remind her to email to me. And now that I think about it, I don't think I took a picture of that damn heel from the back. So, here are Halloween pumpkins instead.





Now, I'm working on Green (brown) autumn mittens, Cloning Anenome Rib socks, and a Moderne Baby blanket. I hope to have the socks done by the end of the week, the first went pretty quickly. But this weekend, is for the blanket.