Socky New Year

Not a resolution, exactly, but when trawling the stash recently, I was fairly appalled at the quantity of sock yarn present for which I have no particular plan. Well. Resolve then formed to dig into it in the coming year and make it into some socks. Socks for me, as few in my family would really appreciate handknit socks or take care of them properly. And I need some new socks.

Here's what I've got so far:

All are from generic sock ideas in my head, aided by Wendy's Socks from the Toe Up, where I learned Judy's Magic Caston and the short row heel.

The blue ones are 2 x 2 rib cuffs, top down, Dream in Color Starry, a color called Midnight DerbyVF480, so old that they may not make it any more. Love the glints from the silver fiber.

The red ones are some anonymous ball that had started out to be a pair of gloves, but I frogged them and made my first pair of toe-up socks with short-row heels.

Then I started toe-up on the gold-black-and-white ones, Opal 187 (probably no longer produced) which in the ball seemed like they would look leopardy. They didn't, but I got a brainstorm about making them match by knitting the second one top-down, so I could start at the same place in the color repeat on #2 where the top of #1 had ended. It sort of worked, at least for the part that will show above the shoe. Then things started to drift, so that the toes are very different, but, still, it was a fun experiment. Oh yeah, and I threw in a few beads at the tops just because I had them and thought they would look cool. They do, don't they?

The pair still in progress are Blue Moon Fibers Socks That Rock Lightweight, in Sweet Pea. Top down with a crazy mess o' beads mingled in with some cables.  The color looks like cream until you big the picture up, at which point they look a little dirty. In person they look stained with a bit of pea soup. It has been interesting knitting these, because I can only see the color in natural daylight, so it's always a surprise to see what last night's knitting looks like after the sun comes up. I'm not at all a fan of this colorway and am very glad to be distracted by the shiny beads.

This is so satisfying and so much fun that it may be hard to get back to making Big Stuff!

Catching Up

It's been a long time, I know. Sorry, sorry, sorry, possums. Christmas knitting has come and gone, scarves and mitts and bottle covers made, given, received, and nary a picture to show for it. Onward and upward with the new year.

One gift I do have to show you was made from this, a skein of sock yarn in a colorway called Ireland:

An entire country in a skein of yarn--green green grass, grey clouds and rain, blue sky and sea. And it was made into a scarf/shawlette for a frequent traveler to that green and blue and grey land, Trillian, finished off with raindrop beads on the edge.

Hello Possums!

That's the friendly greeting used by Dame Edna Everage, Australian superstar.http://youtu.be/YV6Q4Q9u1pU

And the possums she's referring are not the American opossum, but the Australian possum, a marsupial varmint native, as is the Dame, to Australia, but an invasive species introduced to New Zealand that started causing havoc the minute the first one got loose.  In NZ they have no natural enemies, but find the native plants much to their taste.  Eradication attempts had paltry success until the Kiwis found a use for the fur of the wee beasties.  Possum fur yarn!

I've just finished a scarf/shawlette using a possum/merino silk blend, and it's wonderful. Soft, very light, and with a slight fuzzy haze of brown possum fur.  It's cosy and cuddly and warm around the neck like a knit scarf should be.

Pattern is Dolcetto, from KnitCircus. Yarn is Supreme Possum  Merino, a sock-weight blend of possum fur, merino, and a little silk. The golden twinkle you may see if you click and enlarge the photos is a Japanese gold machine embroidery thread that I got at a quilting store and knitted along with the possum et al.  Wish it was a little longer with the same depth, but otherwise it's quite satisfactory, possums.

Look What I Found at the Library!

Browsing on the second floor of the Loussac Library (in the nonfiction where the knitting books are), look what I found!  William Faulkner looking rather dyspeptic despite the beautiful (Noro, if I'm not mistaken) knitted hat.

It's a purposeful yarn bombing in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the library. You can use the Loussac link above to get links to a poster and calendar of events of the whole deal.  The hats will be donated to people who need them after the big wingding is over.  Meanwhile, let's look at some more of the authors in their crowning glories:

 Robert Frost got a rather wild crocheted Peruvian-style chullo.  I don't think it's what he wants to wear down the road not taken, do you?

The most suitably hatted, in my opinion, were Mark Twain (foreground) in his raffish colorful slouch and Louisa Alcott (background) in the trim and proper lavender bucket.

There still are authors with bare heads!  Room for your contribution to literary grandeur and Alaskans with warmer ears this winter.

The Stash Wants What It Wants

This feels a bit like falling in love with an unsuitable boy. Heaven knows I adore natural fibers, from cashmere, cotton, and bamboo to alpaca, bison, even yak, and, of course, wool, glorious wool.  So breathable, so renewable, and (as we all eventually must) so biodegradable.

But my fancy has been taken by (I can barely utter the word) an acrylic yarn.  Almost can't believe it myself, but the stash wants what it wants, and when I saw this stuff winking at me in a January sale, I was helpless.  Lion Brand Vanna's (yup, the afghan crocheting TV lady) Glamour. Photos don't do it justice, because when I say winking, I mean the gleaming little wink of a metallic thread twisted in with the two other synthetic plies.  In most colorways, the metallic is the same color as the other plies, so the shine and gleam is very subtle, very mobile, very mysterious.  Mysterious?  Acrylic? Told you I was smitten.

So it was on sale and I indulged--in several colors.  First of all, I used the red to make a simple K1P1 reversible scarf for the Red Scarf Project.  (You can, too. They don't start collecting them till September 1 of each year.  Details at link.)

And silvery silver for a Winter Flame scarf destined to be a prize this winter for my water aerobics class.  A few silver beads on the ends for weight and bling.

The biggest thing was this Stephen West Clockwork scarf made with blue (the most mysterious winker of all the colors) and black, weighted with beads in the castoff edge.

Looks a bit like the Millennium Falcon, doesn't it?

But it drapes beautifully with the weight of the beads in the castoff edge

And there was plenty left over for the cutest little baby booties ever, blue and silver.  I may have these booties for quite some time, as it will take an extremely special baby to pry them out of my hands!

But don't worry about me; this acrylic is just a crazy fling.  I've already come to my senses and am rehabbing on pure purple silk.

Noro Hana Silk ribbon with beads for bling.

Report from Knitting Group Retreat

Everything was just ducky!

Small Finished Objects

So to heck with the KCBW.  None of the rest of the blog themes really grabbed me enough to make me put down the knitting and actually blog.  What have I been doing? this stuff:

Finished a beaded net cover for my stainless steel water bottle. Nepali aloo yarn, 6/0 metallic red glass beads.  You saw the start of it when I talked about the yarn.  Behind it are my brave little tomato seedlings.  Every year, they are the evidence of belief in spring, raising their tender little leaves to sunshine that's still reflected off ice and snow.  But I digress.

I started using metal water bottles when the information about leaching plastic started leaching into our awareness.  Only trouble is, I exercise in a warm, humid pool atmosphere and the metal bottle gets sweaty (ewww) and slippery.  "But hey," I said to myself. "I'm a knitter--I can solve this problem!"  So I did, with inelastic yarn, and yo k2tog.  The beads add extra grip, but the bling factor gets it noticed, and I'm hoping it will solve another of my water bottle problems and bring somebody yelling and waving it at me when I leave it behind, as I have done to so many other bottles.

In other news, I actually made a pair of socks out of sock club yarn!  The Harlot may have her own personal alternative sock club, but I am so alternative, I rarely even make socks out of sock yarn.  And then Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test from the Rockin' Sock Club arrived.  My daughter spotted it from across the room  and said, "Oooooooo--that's some beautiful yarn."  "Want some socks?" sez I, and days later, there they were:

Astute sock-watchers among you will notice that these are very plain vanilla socks, and not one of the clever patterns that come with sock club yarns.  That's because the dye job on the yarn so brilliantly mimics a tie-dye t-shirt that I couldn't bear to interfere with it.  The only fancy bit is the picot cast-on, which you can learn, too, from the very same video.  And as usual, there was enough yarn left after the socks to make a pair of baby booties, the fantastic pattern from the Socks Socks Socks book.