A few more FO's

Pair #4 of the Baby Ugg Booties:


I whipped up my last pair of DIY suede booties out of the Berroco Suede & Plush I bought at my first trip to Stitches West for a cousin who just had a baby. My sister is in town for a wedding, so she gets to play courier.

The Chevron Scarf is done!

Pattern from Last Minute Knitted Gifts ('cept I wouldn't recommend this as a last minute knit)
Socks That Rock Pisgah & Peacock medium weight from The Fold
size 5 needles

Monkey 2 woke up from her nap before I could finish steam blocking the scarf, so it's still slightly roll-ish.

Twisted Flower sock 1 is tentatively an FO:

I discovered in a thread on the flickr Cookie A Sock Creations group that a couple knitters have had to go up a needle size on the leg portion so that they could get the rest of the sock over their heel. I had planned on knitting my second sock all on size 1 (2.50 mm) KP circs instead of the size 2 (2.75 mm) Susan Bates for the legs and size 1 (2.50 mm) for the rest, but now I'm not so sure. In the meantime, I finished the first sock just to get my FO itch scratched. You can see where I ran out of yarn in the toe and had to switch to the leftover yarn a knitty.com board member graciously swapped to me.

Mitering for Hokies

Apparently after finishing my Grasshoppers, my sock knitting mojo disappeared. I met test sock gauge with my Scout BFL Indie Swag yarn, but when I started knitting the pattern, the cuff looked really tiny. I frogged it and will figure out if I need to go back to JKnits or wait for the yarn being used in the pattern to arrive.

So I decided to practice my mitered squares for the Hokie Healing project. Now I understand why Cara became obsessed. They knit fast, at least the first 6. The last 2 was more of an exercise in how many squares I could get out of 1 skein each of Plymouth Encore. I could probably get at least one more square out of the skeins, but then it felt weird having an odd one, so I'll send the leftover yarn w/the squares in case they can use it to seam the squares up.


The STR Peacock & Pisgah chevron scarf has been moving along more slowly, mainly because I haven't figured out how to knit well and watch a subtitled show (Jumong on AZN tv) at the same time. This show has become addictive. When my mom first got hooked on Korean dramas (well, the more modern soaps), I couldn't understand what the deal was. Now, both DH and I are hooked.


And actually, my sock knitting mojo hasn't disappeared entirely, it's just slowed way down. My April Y4S club sock is moving along and as it does, I'm starting to appreciate the colorway more. My initial view of the skein didn't thrill me, but the color looked better wound up and even more so when I started getting further along on the sock. I do need to finish at least this one sock because...

Y4S sent their June sock club shipment early. Check out the cute pinky goodness. The yarn is Seacoast's Panda yarn (60% merino wool, 30% bamboo, 10% nylon) in Melonballs and the pattern is Anna Bell's (My Fashionable Life) Giotto socks.

For the love of yarn

Since tapmouse outed me on the more yarn shopping at Purlescence (well, it's still sock yarn ;) ), I might as well show the goods:

left: Blue Moon Fiber Arts (BMFA) Seduction in Purple Rain
right: Colinette Jitterbug in Florentine

Can you tell what color mood I was in on Saturday? I have no idea what to make of these 2, but I have no doubt I'll be inspired.

And a lesson for me on the day-to-day change in my tension. I still like how my colors vertically pool at the beginning though.

And apparently, I like to have 3 WIP's. Two projects at one time is not enough it seems, even w/one being a "complex" pattern. Well, the Twisted Flower pattern isn't so much complex as requiring one's full attention.

Casted on my Yarn 4 Socks (Y4S) sock club pattern, Balance Socks by A Designedly, Kristi. The softener smell has diminished enough that I could handle it for long periods of time without fear of getting a headache.

Their 65% lambswool/35% camel down blend is rather inelastic so I'm knitting the medium size. I had initially cast on the large, but it was definitely too large. Lovely pattern though. It comes in 4 sizes (toddler, adult sm, adult med, adult large !), so I could see knitting this pattern again in a different yarn for other members of my family.

Following my lemming urges

After seeing all those STR chevron scarves (pattern in Last Minute Knitted Gifts) on flickr, I finally decided to wind up my Pisgah (Peacock already wound from the aborted Monkey sock attempt) and pull out my size 5 KP interchangeables and cast on.


I'm happy with the way it's turning out:

I also decided that the Ozark Handspun hat I made last year would be no more. I realized I am so not a hat person and I didn't really want to give the hat away, so off it went to the frog pond and came back as a simple scarf. Size 17 dpn's are so quick.

Just a pic of my Twisted Flower sock showing the Willow color better. On row 10(!) of the leg pattern second repeat. The half w/o the twists & cables isn't bad and I can crank through those, but it's the part where I double check if I'm doing a twisted 1R (or 1L) vs a cable 1R (or 1L) that slows me down. And dropping stitches on this is no fun 'cause I get all stressed out making sure I've the stitches back on the right way for each row before I can continue.

And I finally got to see tapmouse yesterday and pester her with questions about Camp and fondle not just my goodies, but hers as well. She didn't just get yarn (I love her Mystic Kelp and Socktopus is cool in that Lorna's Laces Vera way) so I got to check out the patterns she bought and other stuff. My planned buys were one lightweight (Lunasea) and one Seduction (ended up being Typhoon Tina) and when I played with all the goodies, ended up buying one of the mill ends. I think the mill end (none have color names)is one of the chicken themed colorways, but I'll have to check.